Nicholas wiped the sweat from his brow, his ears still ringing from the recent striking to hammer to steel.  It was winter now, but inside the cramped blacksmith shop with the forge roaring it was still too warm.  

Picking up a horseshoe blank with a pair of tongs Nicholas stuffed it onto the glowing coals and pumped the bellows.  As the blackend steel began to glow from a dull cherry red to a bright yellow Nicholas drew the shoe from forge and took it to the anvil where he started punching holes into the shoe for the nails.

“Making more shoes?” Aoife asked standing in the doorway between blows of the hammer. She was wearing a grey dress of homespun wool, and white linen cap ovee her firey locks and a basket  hanging from the crook of her arm

Nicholas looked up from his work and tossed the shoe back into the forge before speaking.  “Yeah, I am.  I can shape these cold if necessary.   Just trying to make life easier when spring planting comes around and I have daft horses to shoe and plow shears to make.”

Aoife dug into her basket and withdrew a glass disk. “Look what I got.  I was hoping you could make the brass part.”

Nicholas took the disk from her in a grimy hand of black  realizing that it was a lense.  Perfectly shaped and polished  lthis had been created by the hand of a master. “You’re wanting a telescope? How much did this cost?”

“I am, and nothing,” she said smugly. “I traded it for a few practical applications of the lense design.  The glass maker I was working with was suffering from a case of myopia.  Just getting him something that allowed him to see was enough to get him to do this for me for free.”

“Captain,  you are interfering with their natural development,” Nicholas admonished. 

She shrugged,  “Maybe, maybe not, but our need for this exceeds the risk. Besides, it’s a lense not a warp drive.”

Nicholas looked at her with a dubious expression,  “Captain it’s over.  We’ve been here for nearly a year.  If Starfleet was going to rescue us they would have. This is our life now. The best we can do is blend in and not change their history.”

“Nick this is NOT Earth and these people are human.  I am not sure the Prime Directive applies here.  Whatever brought these people here and artificially retarded their development is not something the Prime Directive was written for.”

“We don’t know this isn’t Earth,” Nicholas countered, “or even when this is.”

“I know this isn’t Earth,” Aoife countered, “but fair point on the time.  We assume that it’s 2399, but it could be 1399 for all we know.  But, can’t you see?  This telescope can answer definitively where we are. Well, where we aren’t.   I might be able to work some mathematical formulas to get a fix on where we are, but I need to find identifiable stars.”

“Captain,  without computer models or even star charts that’s impossible.  At best you will be able to tell if this is a recognizable solar system. These people live like it’s the 10th Century.   That’s 1,500 years of stellar drift.”

Aoife sighed.   Nicholas was right. She didn’t have the charts necessary to track the stars to get at fix on their position.  Perhaps has one of them possessed an eidetic memory that would have been a different story, or better yet a tricorder.  “You’re right, but am I supposed to just live with this?”

“Yes,” Nicholas said with a finality. “This is our life now, get used to it.”

“I won’t.  This isn’t where we belong.  This isn’t our home… our destiny,” Aoife replied.  “I will fight to get us home to my dying breath.  The crew… they have the artifact.   That’s a start for them.”

Nick pulled the shoe from the forge and sighed.  With a few last blows from the hammer he put the finishing touches into it before dropping it into a wooden bucket of water to quench and cool.  Later he would clean it up further with files and a grider, but for now the forging process was done. “Very well. You are the captain.  I’ll respect your desire to find a way home.  But what if the… whatever it is is one way and we are in the past?”

Aoife sighed and shrugged,  “Then I guess we have wasted our time, but isn’t getting back more important?”

He shrugged,  “I had nothing before.  Just a commission in Starfleet.   A few friends,  but I doubt they would miss me too much. No family.   But here I have a purpose.   This community depends on me.”

“Your ship depends on you. I depend on you.”

Nicholas shrugged,  “I can be replaced as XO, andcto be blunt ma’am we’re stuck in this together.   You want me to build you a telescope? Fine.  I will do it.  Do I think it’s productive? No.”

“Science is always important.”

Nicholas nodded, “Okay, yeah.  You have a point there.” He bent down and tossed a piece of bar stock into the forge to heat up and make another shoe. “I’ll get the brass tomorrow.”

“Thanks Nick. We’ll get home. I promise.”