
Prologue

LET ME BACK IN!
  In back me let !
    Beyond the wall, he gibbered. Time meant nothing
to him. An instant was the same as an eternity; both
were merely subjective measures of his isolation and
his madness, which began the moment he was cast out
of creation and had been taking its toll ever since. His
exile had just begun, and it had lasted forever.
    It's not fair, he thought, as he had thought since the
wall came into being. Fair is.fair, there is there, and
here is nowhere, nowhere, no hope. Isn't that so?
    So it is, he answered himself, since he'd had no one
else to talk to for as long as long could possibly be. So,
so, so... so how could they lock me up like this? Why
could they?
    His feverish mind offered an explanation. Fear.
That was their paltry excuse. Mere fear, sheer fear,
that's clear. He cackled at his own cleverness. Fear,
here. Fair, there. Fear is fair.
 No, it is not, he protested angrily. I never did
anything, anything that mattered. Matter isn't any-
thing. No, it isn't, is it?
 Not at all. All is not. Not is now.
 Now. Now. Now.
    Now, for the first time since his bleak, barbaric
banishment began, something new was happening.
There was a weakness in the wall, not enough to allow
him to slide his way through, at least not yet, but a
certain slackening that perhaps foretold an end to his
stubborn struggle to get past the wall. He felt a crack,
an infinitesimal fracture in the infinite, that he
shouted through with all his might.  Me back in let/
    Even if the entirety of his being could not pass
through the tantalizingly, tormentingly small lesion,
he could still send his ceaseless craving back into the
realm from which he had been so unjustly cast out,
crying out to anyone who might hear his desperate
plea.
  Back let me in he demanded.
  And a voice answered back.

Chapter One

Captain's log, stardate 500146.2.

    At Starfleet's request, the Enterprise has ar-
rived at Betazed to take on Lem Faal, a distin-
guished Betazoid scientist, and his two children.
Under Faal's direction, this ship will take part in
a highly classified experiment that, if it is success-
ful, may open up a vast new frontier for explora-
tion.

"ARE YOU QUITE SURE, COUNSELOR, that you do not
wish to visit your family while we are here at Be-
tazed?"
    "No, thank you, Captain," Commander Deanna
Troi replied. "As it happens, my mother and little
brother are off on one of her regular excursions to the
Parallax Colony on Shiralea VI, so there's not much
point in beaming down."
    You didn't have to be an empath to detect an
unmistakable look of relief on Captain Jean-Luc
Picard's face when he learned that Lwaxana Troi was
several dozen light-years away. She knew exactly how
he felt; even though she genuinely loved her mother,
Troi wasn't too disappointed that there would be no
parent-daughter reunion on this particular mission.
Surviving a visit with Lwaxana always required a lot
of energy--and patience. Maybe it will get easier
someday, she thought. And maybe Klingons will be-
come vegetarians, too.
    "That's too bad," Captain Picard said unconvinc-
ingly. "Although I'm sure our guest must be anxious
to get under way." He glanced toward the far end of
the conference room, where a middle-aged Betazoid
male waited patiently, reviewing the data on a padd
that he held at arm's length from himself. Must be
farsighted, Troi guessed, a not uncommon condition
in Betazoids of a certain age. Lem Faal had striking,
dark brown eyes, a receding hairline, and the slightly
distracted air of a born academic. He reminded Troi
of any number of professors she had encountered
during her student days at the university., although, on
closer inspection, she also picked up an impression of
infirmity even though she couldn't spot any obvious
handicap. Wearing a tan-colored civilian suit, he
looked out of place among all the Starfleet uniforms.
Almost instinctively, her empathic senses reached out
to get a reading on the new arrival, only to immedi-
ately come into contact with a telepathic presence far
more powerful than her own. Becoming aware of her
tentative probing, Faal looked up from his data padd
and made eye contact with Troi from across the room.
Hello, he thought to her.
     Er, hello, she thought back. Growing up on Be-
 tazed, she had become accustomed to dealing with
 full telepaths, even though she felt a bit rusty at mind-
 speaking after spending so many years among hu-
 mans and other nontelepathic races. Welcome to the
 Enterprise.
  Thank you, he answered. She sensed, behind his
 verbal responses, feelings of keen anticipation, excite-
 ment, anxiety, and... something else as well, some-
 thing she couldn't quite make out. Curious, she
 stretched out further, deeper until she could almost--
    Excuse me, Faal thought, blocking her. I think the
captain is ready to begin the briefing.
    Troi blinked, momentarily disoriented by the speed
with which she had been shoved out of Faal's mind.
She looked around the conference room of the
Enterprise-E. The other Betazoid's telepathic com-
ment seemed accurate enough; her fellow officers
were already taking their places around the curved,
illuminated conference table. Captain Picard stood at
the head of the table, opposite the blank viewscreen at
the other end of the room, where Faal waited to make
his presentation. Decorative windows along the outer
wall of the conference room offered a eye-catching
view of Betazed's upper hemisphere, an image re-
flected in the glass panes of the display case mounted
to the inner wall. Gold-plated models of great star-
sh!ps of the past hung within the case, including a
mtmature replica of the lost Enterprise-D, her home
for seven years. Troi always winced inside a little
whenever she noticed that model. She'd been at the
helm of that Enterprise when it made its fatal crash
into Veridian III. Even though she knew, intellectu-
ally, that it wasn't her fault, she still couldn't forget
the sense of horror she had felt as the saucer section
dived into the atmosphere of Veridian III, never to
rise again. This new ship was a fine vessel, as she'd
proven during their historic battle with the Borg a few
months ago, but she didn't feel quite like home. Not
yet.
    Preoccupied with thoughts of the past, Troi sat
down at the table between Geordi La Forge and
Beverly Crusher. Will Riker and Data were seated
across from her, their attention on Captain Picard.
Riker's confidence and good humor radiated from
him, helping to dispel her gloomy memories. She
shook her head to clear her mind and listened atten-
tively as the captain began to speak.
    "We are honored to have with us today Lem Faal, a
specialist in applied physics from the University of
Betazed. Professor Faal has previously won awards
from the Daystrom Institute and the Vulcan Science
Academy for his groundbreaking work in energy wave
dynamics."
    "Impressive stuff," Geordi said, obviously familiar
with Faars work. Troi could feel the intensity of his
scientific interest seeping off him. No surprise there;
she'd expect their chief engineer to be fascinated by
"energy wave dynamics" and like matters.
    "Indeed," Data commented. "I have been particu-
larly intrigued by the professor's insights into the
practical applications of transwarp spatial anoma-
lies." The android's sense of anticipation felt just as
acute as Geordi's. He must have activated his emotion
chip, Troi realized. She could always tell, which cer-
tainly demonstrated how genuine Data's on-again,
off-again emotions could be.
    "Starfleet," the captain continued, "has the greatest
of interest in Professor Faal's current line of research,
and the Enterprise has been selected to participate in
an experiment testing certain new theories he has
devised." He gestured toward Faal, who nodded his
head in acknowledgment. "Professor, no doubt you
can explain your intentions better."
     "Well, I can try," the scientist answered. He tapped
 a control on his padd and the viewscreen behind him
 lit up. The image that appeared on the screen was of a
 shimmering ribbon of reddish-purple energy that ap-
 peared to stretch across a wide expanse of interstellar
 space. The Nexus? Troi thought for a second, but, no,
 this glowing band did not look quite the same color as
 the mysterious phenomenon that had obsessed Tolian
 Soran. It looked familiar, though, like something she
 might have seen at an astrophysics lecture back at
Starfleet Academy. Of course, she realized instantly,
the barrier!
    She felt a temporary surge of puzzlement quickly
fade from the room. Obviously, the other officers had
recognized the barrier as well. Faal let his audience
take in the image for a few seconds before beginning
his lecture.
    "For centuries," he began, "the great galactic barri-
er has blocked the Federation's exploration of the
universe beyond our own Milky Way galaxy. It com-
pletely surrounds the perimeter of our galaxy, posing
a serious hazard to any vessel that attempts to venture
to the outer limits of inhabited space. Not only do the
unnatural energies that comprise the barrier batter a
vessel physically, but there is also a psychic compo-
nent to the barrier that causes insanity, brain damage,
and even death to any humanoid that comes into
contact with it."
    Troi winced at the thought. As an empath, she knew
just how fragile a mind could be, and how a height-
ened sensitivity to psychic phenomena sometimes left
one particularly vulnerable to such effects as the
professor described. As a full telepath, Faal had to be
even more wary of powerful psychokinetic forces. She
wondered if his own gifts played any part in his
interest in the barrier.
    Faal pressed another button on his padd and the
picture of the barrier was replaced by a standard map
of the known galaxy, divided into the usual four
sections. A flashing purple line, indicating the galactic
barrier, circled all four quadrants. "The Federation
has always accepted this limitation, as have the Kling-
ons and the Romulans and the other major starfaring
civilizations, because there has always been so much
territory to explore within our own galaxy. After all,
even after centuries of warp travel, both the Gamma
and the Delta quadrants remain largely uncharted.
Furthermore, the distances between galaxies are so
incalculably immense that, even if there were a safe
way to cross the barrier, a voyage to another galaxy
would require a ship to travel for centuries at maxi-
mum warp. And finally, to be totally honest, we have
accepted the barrier because there has been no viable
alternative to doing so.
    "That situation may have changed," Faal an-
nounced with what was to Troi a palpable sense of
pride. Typical, she thought. What scientist is not proud
of his accomplishments? The map of the galaxy flick-
ered, giving way to a photo of a blond-haired woman
whose pale skin was delicately speckled with dark red
markings that ran from her temples down to the sides
of her throat. A Trill, Troi thought, recognizing the
characteristic spotting of that symbiotic life-form.
She felt a fleeting pang of sadness from the woman
seated next to her and sympathized with Beverly, who
was surely recalling her own doomed love affair with
the Trill diplomat Ambassador Odan. Troi wasn't
sure, but she thought she sensed a bit of discomfort
from Will Riker as well. A reasonable reaction, con-
sidering that Will had once "loaned" his own body to
a Trill symbiont. She was relieved to note that both
Will and Beverly swiftly overcame their flashes of
emotion, focusing once more on the present. They
acknowledged their pasts, then moved on, the counsel-
or diagnosed approvingly. Very healthy behavior.
    Worfmarried a Trill, she remembered with only the
slightest twinge of jealousy. Then she took her own
advice and put that reaction behind her. I wish him
only the best, she thought.
    "Some of you may be familiar with the recent work
of Dr. Lenara Kahn, the noted Trill physicist," Faal
went on. Heads nodded around the table and Troi
experienced a twinge of guilt; she tried to keep up to
date on the latest scientific developments, as summa-
rized in Starfleet's never-ending bulletins and posi-
tion papers, but her own interests leaned more toward
psychology and sociology than the hard sciences,
which she sometimes gave only a cursory inspection.
Oh well, she thought, I never intended to transfer to
Engineering. "A few years ago, Dr. Kahn and her
associates conducted a test on Deep Space Nine,
which resulted in the creation of the Federation's first
artificially generated wormhole. The wormhole was
unstable, and collapsed only moments after its cre-
ation, but Kahn's research team has continued to
refine and develop this new technology. They're still
years away from being able to produce an artificial
wormhole that's stable enough to permit reliable
transport to other sectors of the galaxy, but it dawned
on me that the same technique, modified somewhat,
might allow a starship to open a temporary breach in
the galactic barrier, allowing safe passage through to
the other side. As you may have guessed, that's where
the Enterprise comes in."
    A low murmur arose in the conference room as the
assembled officers reacted to Faal's revelation. Data
and Geordi took turns peppering the Betazoid scien-
tist with highly technical questions that quickly left
Troi behind. Just as well, she thought. She was startled
enough by just the basic idea.
    Breaking the barrier.t It was one of those things, like
passing the warp-ten threshold or flying through a
sun, that people talked about sometimes, but you
never really expected to happen in your lifetime.
Searching her memory, she vaguely recalled that the
original Enterprise, Captain Kirk's ship, had passed
through the barrier on a couple of occasions, usually
with spectacularly disastrous consequences. Starfleet
had declared such expeditions off-limits decades ago,
although every few years some crackpot or daredevil
would try to break the barrier in a specially modified
ship. To date, none of these would-be heroes had
survived. She remembered Will Riker once, years ago
on Betazed, describing such dubious endeavors as
"the warp-era equivalent of going over Niagara in a
barrel." Now, apparently, it was time for the
Enterprise-E to take the plunge. She couldn't suppress
a chill at the very thought.
    "I'm curious, Professor," Riker asked. "Where ex-
actly do you plan to make the test?"
    Faal tapped his padd and the map of the galaxy
reappeared on the screen. The image zoomed in on
the Alpha Quadrant and he pointed at a wedge-
shaped area on the map. "Those portions of the
barrier that exist within Federation space have been
thoroughly surveyed by unmanned probes containing
the most advanced sensors available, and they've
made a very intriguing discovery. Over the last year
or so, energy levels within the barrier have fluctuated
significantly, producing what appears to be a distinct
weakening in the barrier at several locations."
    Shaded red areas appeared throughout the flashing
purple curve on the screen. Troi noted that the shaded
sections represented only a small portion of the
barrier. They looked like mere dots scattered along
the length of the line. Like leaks in a dam, she
thought, finding the comparison somewhat unsettling.
     Faal gave her an odd look, as if aware of her
 momentary discomfort. "These... imperfections...
 in the integrity of the barrier are not substantial,
 representing only a fractional diminution in the bar-
 rier's strength, but they are significant enough to
 recommend themselves as the logical sites at which to
 attempt to penetrate the barrier. This particular site,"
 he said, pointing t one of the red spots, which began
 to flash brighter than the rest, "is located in an
 uninhabited and otherwise uninteresting sector of
 space. Since Starfleet would prefer to conduct this
 experiment in secrecy, far from the prying eyes of the
 Romulans or the Cardassians, this site has been
 selected for our trial run. Even as I speak, specialized
 equipment, adapted from the original Trill designs, is
 being transported aboard the Enterprise. I look for-
 ward to working with Mr. La Forge and his engineer-
 ing team on this project."
                10

    "Thanks," Geordi replied. The ocular implants
that served as his eyes glanced from Data to Faal.
"Whatever you need, I'm sure we're up to it. Sounds
like quite a breakthrough, in more ways than one."
    Troi peered at the spot that Faal had indicated on
the map. She didn't recall much about that region, but
she estimated that it was about two to three days away
at warp five. Neither the captain nor Will Riker
radiated any concern about the location Faal had
chosen. She could tell that they anticipated an un-
eventful flight until they arrived at the barrier.
    "Professor," she asked, "how similar is the galactic
barrier to the Great Barrier? Would your new tech-
nique be effective on both?"
    Faal nodded knowingly. "That's a good question.
What is colloquially known as 'the Great Barrier' is a
similar wall of energy that encloses the very center of
our galaxy, as opposed to the outer rim of the galaxy.
More precisely, the Great Barrier is an intragalactic
energy field while our destination is an extragalactic
field." He ran his hand through his thinning gray hair.
"Research conducted over the last hundred years
suggests that both barriers are composed of equiva-
lent, maybe even identical, forms of energy. In theory,
the artificial wormhole process, if it's successful,
could be used to penetrate the Great Barrier as well.
Many theorists believe both barriers stem from the
same root cause."
 "Which is?" she inquired.
    Faal chuckled. "I'm afraid that's more of a theolog-
ical question than a scientific one, and thus rather out
of my field. As far as we can tell, the existence of the
barriers predates the development of sentient life in
our galaxy. Or at least any life-forms we're familiar
with."
    That's odd, Troi mused. She wasn't sure but she
thought she detected a flicker of insincerity behind
the scientist's ingratiating manner, like he was hold-
ing something back. Perhaps he's not as confident
about his theories as he'd like Starfleet to think, she
thought. It was hard to tell; Faal's own telepathic gifts
made him difficult to read.
    Sitting beside Troi, Beverly Crusher spoke up, a
look of concern upon her features. "Has anyone
thought about the potential ecological consequences
of poking a hole in the barrier? If these walls have
been in place for billions of years, maybe they serve
some vital purpose, either to us or to whatever life-
forms exist on the opposite side of the wall. I hate to
throw cold water on a fascinating proposal, but maybe
the barrier shouldn't be breached?"
    There it is again, Troi thought, watching the Beta-
zoid scientist carefully. She sensed some sort of
reaction from Faal in response to Beverly's question.
It flared up immediately, then was quickly snuffed out
before she could clearly identify the emotion. Fear?
Guilt? Annoyance? Maybe he simply doesnt like hav-
ing his experiment challenged, she speculated. Cer-
tainly he wouldn't be the first dedicated scientist to
suffer from tunnel vision where his brainchild was
concerned. Researchers, she knew from experience,
could be as protective of their pet projects as an
enraged sehlat defending its young.
    If he was feeling defensive, he displayed no sign of
it. "Above all else, first do no harm, correct, Doctor?"
he replied to Crusher amiably, paraphrasing the Hip-
pocratic Oath. "I appreciate your concerns, Doctor.
Let me reassure you a bit regarding the scale of our
experiment. The galactic barrier itself is so unfath-
omably vast that our proposed exercise is not unlike
knocking a few bricks out of your own Earth's Great
Wall of China. It's hard to imagine that we could do
much damage to the ecosystem of the entire galaxy,
let alone whatever lies beyond, although the potential
danger is another good reason for conducting this
preliminary test in an unpopulated sector. As far as
we know, there's nothing on the other side except the
vast emptiness between our own galaxy and its neigh-
 bors." He pressed a finger against his padd and the
 screen behind him reverted to the compelling image
 with which he had begun his lecture: the awe-inspiring
 sight of the galactic barrier stretching across countless
 light-years of space, its eerie, incandescent energies
 rippling through the shimmering wall of violet light.
    "Starfleet feels--" he started to say, but a harsh
choking noise interrupted his explanation. He placed
his free hand over his mouth and coughed a few more
times. Troi saw his chest heaving beneath his suit and
winced in sympathy. She was no physician, but she
didn't like the sound of Faal's coughs, which seemed
to come from deep within his lungs. She could tell
that Beverly was concerned as well.
    "Excuse me," Faal gasped, fishing around in the
pockets of his tan suit. He withdrew a compact silver
hypospray, which he pressed against the crook of his
arm. Troi heard a distinctive hiss as the instrument
released its medication into his body. Within a few
seconds, Faal appeared to regain control of his breath-
ing. "I apologize for the interruption, but I'm afraid
my health isn't all it should be."
    Troi recalled her earlier impression of infirmity.
Was this ailment, she wondered, what the professor
was trying so hard to conceal? Even Betazoids, who
generally prided themselves on being at ease with
their own bodies, could feel uncomfortable about
revealing a serious medical condition. She recalled
that Faal had brought his family along on this mis-
sion, despite the possibility of danger, and she won-
dered how his obvious health problems might have
affected his children. Perhaps I shouM prepare for
some family counseling, just in case my assistance is
needed.
    Faal took a few deep breaths to steady himself, then
addressed Beverly. "As ship's medical officer, Dr.
Crusher, you should probably be aware that I have
Iverson's disease."
 The emotional temperature of the room rose to a
heightened level the moment Faal mentioned the
dreaded sickness. Iverson's disease remained one of
the more conspicuous failures of twenty-fourth-
century medicine: a debilitating, degenerative condi-
tion for which there was no known cure. Thankfully
noncontagious, the disorder attacked muscle fiber and
other connective tissues, resulting in the progressive
atrophy of limbs and vital organs; from the sound of
Faal's labored breathing, Troi suspected that Faal's
ailment had targeted his respiratory system. She felt
acute sympathy and embarrassment on the part of her
fellow officers. No doubt all of them were remember-
ing Admiral Mark Jamesonwand the desperate
lengths the disease had driven him to during that
mission to Mordan IV. "I'm very sorry," she said.
    "Please feel free to call on me for whatever care you
may require," Beverly stressed. "Perhaps you should
come by sickbay later so we can discuss your condi-
tion in private."
     "Thank you," he said, "but please don't let my
 condition concern any of you." He held up the
 hypospray. "My doctor has prescribed polyadrenaline
 for my current symptoms. All that matters now is that
 I live long enough to see the completion of my work."
 The hypospray went back into his pocket and Faal
 pointed again to the image of the galactic barrier on
 the screen.
     "At any rate," he continued, "Starfleet Science has
 judged the potential risk of this experiment to be
 acceptable when weighed against the promise of
 opening up a new era of expansion beyond the
 boundaries of this galaxy. Exploring the unknown
 always contains an element of danger. Isn't that so,
 Captain?"
     "Indeed," the captain agreed. "The fundamental
 mission of the Enterprise, as well as that of Star fleet,
 has always been to extend the limits of our knowledge
 of the universe, exploring new and uncharted territo-
 ry." Picard rose from his seat at the head of the table.

'Your experiment, Professor Faal, falls squarely with-
in the proud tradition of this ship. Let us hope for the
best of luck in this exciting new endeavor."
    It's too bad, Troi thought, that the rest of the crew
can't sense Captain Picard's passion and commitment
the same way I can. Then she looked around the
conference table and saw the glow of the captain's
inspiration reflected in the faces of her fellow officers.
Even Beverly, despite her earlier doubts, shared their
commitment to the mission. On second thought, may-
be they can.
    "Thank you, Captain," Lem Faal said warmly. Troi
noticed that he still seemed a bit out of breath. "I am
anxious to begin."
    This time Troi detected nothing but total sincerity
in the man's words.

Chapter Two

"THE MOST DIFFICULT PART," Lem Faal explained, "is
going to be keeping the torpedo intact inside the
barrier until it can send out a magneton pulse."
    "That's more than difficult," Chief Engineer Geordi
La Forge commented. He had been reading up on the
galactic barrier ever since the briefing, so he had a
better idea of what they were up against. "That's close
to impossible."
    The duty engineer's console, adjacent to the chief
engineer's office, had been reassigned to the Betazoid
researcher as a workstation where he could complete
the preparations for his experiment. To accommodate
Faal's shaky health, La Forge had also taken care to
provide a sturdy stool Faal could rest upon while he
worked. Now he and Geordi scrutinized the diagrams
unfolding on a monitor as Faal spelled out the details
of his experiment:
    "Not if we fine-tune the polarity of the shields to
match exactly the amplitude of the barrier at the
point where the quantum torpedo containing the
magneton pulse generator enters the barrier. That
amplitude is constantly shifting, of course, but if we
get it right, then the torpedo should hold together long
enough to emit a magneton pulse that will react with a
subspace tensor matrix generated by the Enterprise to
create an opening in the space-time continuum. Then,
according to my calculations, the artificial wormhole
will disrupt the energy lattice of the barrier, creating a
pathway of normal space through to the other side?
    "Then it's only two million light-years to the next
galaxy, right?" Geordi said with a grin. "I guess we'll
have to build that bridge when we get to it."
    "Precisely," Faal answered. "For myself, I'll leave
that challenge for the starship designers and trans-
warp enthusiasts. Who knows? Maybe a generation
ship is the answer, if you can find enough colonists
who don't mind leaving the landing to their descen-
dants. Or suspended animation, perhaps. But before
we can face the long gulf between the galaxies, first we
must break free from the glimmering cage that has
hemmed us in since time began. We're like baby birds
that finally have to leave the nest and explore the great
blue sky beyond."
    "I never quite thought of it that way," Geordi said.
"After all, the Milky Way is one reck of a big nest."
    "The biggest nest still hems you in, as the largest
cage is still a cage," Faal insisted with a trace of
bitterness in his voice. "Look at me. My mind is free
to explore the fundamental principles of the universe,
but it's trapped inside a fragile, dying body." He
looked up from his schematics to inspect Geordi.
"Excuse me for asking, Commander, but I'm in-
trigued by your eyes. Are those the new ocular im-
plants I've heard about, the ones they just developed
on Earth?"
    The scientist's curiosity did not bother Geordi;
sometimes his new eyes still caught him by surprise,
especially when he looked in a mirror. "These are
them, all right. I didn't know you were interested in
rehabilitative medicine. Or is it the optics?"
    "It's all about evolution," Faal explained. "Tech-
nology has usurped natural selection as the driving
force of evolution, so I'm fascinated by the ways in
which sentient organisms can improve upon their
own flawed biology. Prosthetics are one way, genetic
manipulation is another. So is breaking the barrier,
perhaps. It's about overcoming the inherent frailties
of our weak humanoid bodies, becoming superior
beings, just as you have used the latest in medical
technology to improve yourself."
    Geordi wasn't sure quite how to respond. He didn't
exactly think of himself as "superior," just better
equipped to do his job. "If you say so, Professor," he
said, feeling a little uncomfortable. Lem Faal was
starting to sound a bit too much like a Borg. Maybe it
was only a trick of light, reflecting the glow of the
monitor, but an odd sort of gleam had crept into the
Betazoid's eyes as he spoke. I wonder if I would have
even noticed that a few years ago? Geordi thought. His
VISOR had done a number of things well, from
isolating hairline fractures in metal plating to tracking
neutrinos through a flowing plasma current, but pick-
ing up on subtle nuances of facial expressions hadn't
been one of them.
    "Chief!" Geordi turned around to see Lieutenant
Reginald Barclay approaching the workstation. Bar-
clay was pushing before him an antigray carrier
supporting a device Geordi recognized from Profes-
sor Faal's blueprints. "Mr. DeCandido in Transporter
Room Five said you wanted this immediately."
    The carrier was a black metal platform, hovering
above the floor at about waist level, which Barclay
steered by holding on to a horizontal handlebar in
front of his chest. Faal's invention sat atop the plat-
form, held securely in place by a stasis field. It con-
sisted of a shining steel cylinder, approximately a
meter and a half in height, surrounded by a transpar-
ent plastic sphere with metal connection plates at
both the top and the bottom poles of the globe. It
looked like it might be fairly heavy outside the
influence of the antigrav generator; Geordi automati-
cally estimated the device's mass with an eye toward
figuring out how it would affect the trajectory of a
standard quantum torpedo once it was installed with-
in the torpedo casing. Shouldn't be too hard to insert
the globe into a torpedo, he thought, assuming every-
thing is in working order inside the sphere.
    "Thanks, Reg," he said. "Professor Faal, this is
Lieutenant Reginald Barclay. Reg, this is Professor
Faal."
    "Pleased to meet you," Barclay stammered. "This
is a very daring experiment that I'm proud to be a
part--" He lifted a hand from the handlebar to offer
it to Faal, but then the platform started to tilt and he
hastily put both hands back on the handle. "Oops.
Sorry about that," he muttered.
    Faal eyed Barclay skeptically, and Geordi had to
resist a temptation to roll his ocular implants. Barclay
always managed to make a poor first impression on
people, which was too bad since, at heart, he was a
dedicated and perfectly capable crew member. Unfor-
tunately, his competence fluctuated in direct relation-
ship to his confidence, which often left something to
be desired; the more insecure he got, the more he
tended to screw up, which just rattled him even more.
Geordi had taken Barclay on as a special project some
years back, and the nervous crewman was showing
definite signs of progress, although some days you
wouldn't know it. Just my luck, he thought, this had to
be one of Reg's off days.
    "Please be careful, Lieutenant," Faal stressed to
Barclay. "You're carrying the very heart of my experi-
ment there. Inside that cylinder is a mononuclear
strand of quantum filament suspended in a proto-
matter matrix. Unless the filament is aligned precisely
when the torpedo releases the magneton pulse, there
will be no way to control the force and direction of the
protomatter reaction. We could end up with merely a
transitory subspace fissure that would have no impact
on the barrier at all."
    "Understood, Professor," Barclay assured him.
"You can count on me. I'll guard this component like
a mother Horta guards her eggs. Even better, in fact,
because you won't have to feed me my weight in
silicon bricks." He stared at the Betazoid's increas-
ingly dubious expression. "Er, that was a joke. The
last part, I mean, not the part about guarding the
component, because that was completely serious even
if you didn't like the bit about the Hortas, cause I
understand that not everyone's fond of---"
    "That will be fine," Geordi interrupted, coming to
Barelay's rescue. "Just put the sphere on that table
over there. Professor Faal and I need to make some
adjustments."
    "Got it," Barclay said, avoiding eye contact with
Faal. He pushed the carrier over to an elevated shelf
strewn with delicate instruments. The antigrav plat-
form floated a few centimeters above the ledge of the
shelf. Barday's forehead wrinkled with anxiety as he
looked up and over the carrier to the controls on the
other side.
     "Let me just scoot over there to even this out," he
 said, smiling tightly as he began to walk around the
 carrier to reach the controls.
     As soon as Reg took his first step, time seemed to
 slow down for La Forge. Geordi watched the rise and
 fall of Reg's footsteps, the gangly engineer's legs
 grazing the platform, which he didn't give a wide
 enough berth. La Forge felt his mouth open and heard
 his own voice utter the first word of a warning.
 Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Geordi watched with
 horror as Lieutenant Reginald Barclay's left elbow
 plowed into the corner of the platform. The delicate
 equipment trembled. Reg jumped away. Geordi in-
 stinctively covered his eyes. It was one of the few
times he wished that medical science had not restored
his sight quite so efficiently.
    When he finally gathered the courage to look at the
equipment and assess the damage, La Forge thought
he might faint with relief. The platform had miracu-
lously righted itself. Time sped up to its normal pace
again. He dimly heard Barclay's apologies for the
near-disaster, but was more concerned for the Beta-
zoid scientist.
    He glanced over at Professor Faal. The scientist's
face had gone completely white and his mouth hung
open in dumbfounded horror. Has his disease weak-
ened his heart? he worried. He hoped not, since Lem
Faal looked like he was about to drop dead on the spot.
He was shaking so hard that Geordi was afraid he'd
fall off his stool. I wonder if I should call Dr. Crusher?
    "Urn," Barclay mumbled, staring fixedly at the
floor. "Will that be all, sir?"
    Geordi offered a silent prayer of thanks to the
nameless gods of engineering. He had not been look-
ing forward to telling the captain how his team
managed to completely pulverize the central compo-
nent of the big experiment. He made a mental note to
have Barclay schedule a few extra sessions with Coun-
selor Troi. Some more self-confidence exercises were
definitely in order... as well as a good talking-to.
    "Watch it, Lieutenant," he said, his utter embar-
rassment in front of Faal adding heat to his tone.
"This operation is too important for that kind of
carelessness." He disliked having to criticize one of
his officers in front of a visitor, but Barclay hadn't
given him any other choice. He had to put the fear of
god into Reg, and let Professor Faal know he had the
situation under control.
 At least, that was the plan ....
    "I don't believe it!" Faal exploded, hopping off his
stool to confront Barclay. His equipment might have
survived its near miss, but the professor's temper
clearly had not. Faal's ashen expression gave way to a
look of utter fury. His face darkened and his eyes
narrowed until his large Betazoid irises could barely
be seen. His entire body trembled. "Years of work, of
planning and sacrifice, almost ruined because of
this... this imbecile!"
    Barclay looked absolutely stricken. Yep, Geordi
thought, Deanna is definitely going to have her work
cut out for her. Barclay tried to produce another
apology, but his shattered nerves left him tongue-tied
and inaudible.
    "I'm sure that looked a lot worse than it actually
was," Geordi said, anxious to smooth things over and
calm Faal down before he had some kind of seizure.
"Good thing we planned on rechecking all the instru-
mentation anyway."
    Faal wasn't listening. "If you only knew what was at
stake!" he shouted at Barclay. He drew back his arm
and might have struck Barclay across the face with the
back of his hand had not La Forge hastily stepped
between them.
    "Hey!" Geordi protested. "Let's cool our phasers
here. It was just an accident." Faal lowered his arm
slowly, but still glowered murderously at Barclay.
Geordi decided the best thing to do was to get Reg out
of sight as fast as possible. "Lieutenant, report back to
the transporter room and see if DeCandido needs any
more help. You're off of this experiment as of now.
We'll speak more later."
    With a sheepish nod, the mortified crewman made
a quick escape, leaving Geordi behind to deal with the
agitated Betazoid physicist. Fortunately, his violent
outburst, regrettable as it was, seemed to have dis-
pelled much of his anger. Faal's ruddy face faded a
shade or two and he breathed in and out deeply, like a
man trying to forcibly calm himself and succeeding to
a degree. "My apologies, Mr. La Forge," he said,
coughing into his fist. Now that his initial tantrum
was over, he seemed to be having trouble catching his
breath. He fumbled in his pocket for his hypospray,
then applied it to his arm. "I should not have lost
control like that." A few seconds later, after another
hacking cough, he walked over to the shelf and laid
his hand upon the sphere. "When I saw the equip-
ment begin to tip over... well, it was rather
alarming."
    "I understand perfectly," Geordi answered, decid-
ing not to make an issue of the professor's lapse now
that he seemed to have cooled off. What with his
illness and all, Faal had to be under a lot of stress. "To
be honest, I wasn't feeling too great myself for a few
seconds there. I can just imagine what you must have
been going through."
    "No, Commander," Faal answered gravely, "I don't
think you can."
    Geordi made two more mental notes to himselfi 1)
to keep Barclay safely out of sight until the experi-
ment was completed, and 2) to remember also that
Professor Lem Faal of the University of Betazoid,
winner of some of the highest scientific honors that
the Federation could bestow, was more tightly wound
than he first appeared.
 A lot more.

Interlude

LiKE MOST BETAZOIDS, Milo Faal was acutely aware of
his own emotions, and right now he was feeling bored
and frustrated, verging on resentful. Where was his
father anyway? Probably holed up in some lab, the
eleven-year-old thought, same as usual. He's forgotten
all about us. Again.
    Their guest quarters aboard the Enterprise were
spacious and comfortable enough. The captain had
assigned the Faal family the best VIP suite available,
with three bedchambers, two bathrooms, a personal
replicator, and a spacious living area complete with a
desk, a couch, and several comfortable chairs. Milo
fidgeted restlessly upon the couch, already tired of the
same soothing blue walls he figured he'd be staring at
for the next several days.
    So far, this trip was turning out to be just as boring
as he had anticipated. He had unpacked all their
luggage--with no help from his father, thank you
very muchmand put his little sister Kinya down for a
much-needed nap on one of the Jupiter-sized beds in
the next room. Monitoring her telepathically, he
sensed nothing but fatigue and contentment emanat-
ing from his slumbering sibling. With any luck, she
would sleep for hours, but what was he supposed to
do in the meantime? There probably wasn't another
kid his age around for a couple hundred light-years.
    In the outer wall of the living room, opposite the
couch, a long horizontal window composed of rein-
forced transparent aluminum provided a panoramic
look at the stars zipping by outside the ship. It was a
pretty enough view, Milo granted, but right now it
only served to remind him how far away he was
traveling from his friends and home back on Betazed.
All he had to look forward to, it seemed, was a week
or two of constant babysitting while his father spent
every waking hour at his oh-so-important experi-
ments. These days he often felt more like a parent
than a brother to little Kinya.
    If only Morn were here, he thought, taking care to
block his pitiful plea from his sibling's sleeping mind,
lest it disturb her childish dreams. It was a useless
hope; his mother had died over a year ago in a freak
transporter accident. Which was when everything
started going straight down the gravity well, he thought
bitterly.
    Their father, for sure, had never been the same after
the accident. Where in the name of the Second House
are you, Dad? Milo glared at the dosed door that led
to the corridor outside and from there to the rest of
the ship. Sometimes it felt like they had lost both
parents when his mother died. Between his illness and
his experiments, Dad never seemed to have any time
or thought for them anymore. Even when he was with
them physically, which wasn't very often, his mind
was always somewhere else, somewhere he kept
locked up and out of reach from his own children.
What's so important about your experiments anyway?
You should be here, Dad.
 Especially now, he thought. Milo knew his father
was sick, of course; in a telepathic society, you
couldn't hide something like that, particularly from
your own son. All the more reason why Lem Faal
should be spending as much time as possible with his
family... before something happened to him. If
something happened, Milo corrected himself. He
could not bring himself to accept his father's death as
inevitable, not yet. There was always a chance, he
thought. They still had time to turn things around.
  But how much time?
    Milo flopped sideways onto the couch, his bare feet
resting upon the elevated armrest at the far end. His
large brown eyes began to water and he felt a familiar
soreness at the back of his throat. No, he thought, I'm
notgoing toget all weepy. Not even when there was no
one around to see or hear him. Staring across the
living room at the streaks of starlight racing by
through the darkness of space, he forced his mind to
think more positively.
    Flying across the galaxy in Starfleet's flagship had
its exciting side, he admitted. Every schoolkid in the
Federation had heard about the Enterprise; this was
the ship, or at least the crew, that had repelled the
Borg--twice. This wouldn't be such a bad trip, he
mused, if only Dad took the time to share it with us. He
could easily imagine them making a real vacation of
it, touring the entire ship together, inspecting the
engines, maybe even visiting the bridge. Sure, his
father would have to do a little work along the way,
supervising the most crucial stages of the project, but
surely Starfleet's finest engineers were capable of
handling the majority of the details, at least until they
reached the test site. They didn't need his father
looking over their shoulders all the time.  Of course not.
    The entrance to the guest suite chimed and Milo
jumped off the couch and ran toward the door, half-
convinced that his father would indeed be there,
ready to take him on a personal tour of the bridge
itself. About time, he thought, then pushed any trace
of irritation down deep into the back of his mind,
where his father couldn't possibly hear it. He wasn't
about to let his bruised feelings throw a shadow over
the future, not now that Dad had finally come looking
for him.
    Then the door whished open and his father wasn't
there. Instead Milo saw a stranger in a Starfleet
uniform. An adult human, judging from the sound of
his thought patterns, maybe twenty or thirty years
old. It was hard to tell with grown-ups sometimes,
especially humans. "Hi," he said, glancing down at
the data padd in his hand, "you must be Milo. My
name's Ensign Whitman, but you can call me Percy."
    Milo must have let his disappointment show on his
face, because he felt a pang of sympathy from the
crewman. "I'm afraid your father is quite busy right
now, but Counselor Troi thought you might enjoy a
trip to the holodeck." He stepped inside the guest
quarters and checked his padd again, then glanced
about the room. "Is your sister around?"
    "She's sleeping," Milo explained, trying not to
sound as let down as he felt. Humans aren't very
empathic, he remembered, so I might as well pretend
to be grateful. Just to be polite. "Hang on, I'll go get
her."
    I shouM have known, he thought, as he trudged into
Kinya's bedroom, where he found her already awake.
She must have heard Percy what's-his-name stumble
in, he thought. She started to cry and Milo lifted her
from the sheets and cradled her against his chest,
patting her gently on the back until she quieted. Dad
wouM never interrupt his work for us, he thought
bitterly, taking care to shield the toddler from his hurt
and anger, not when he can just dump us with some
crummy babysitter.
 The holodeck. Big deal. If he wanted to kill time in
a holodeck, he could have just as easily stayed on
Betazed. And it wasn't even his father's idea; it was
the ship's counselor's! Thanks a lot, Dad, he thought
emphatically, hoping that his father could hear him
no matter where he was on this stupid starship.
 Not that he's likely to care if he does ....

Chapter Three

THE DOOR TO THE CAPTAIN'S READY ROOM slid open and
Deanna stepped inside. "Thank you for joining us on
such short notice, Counselor," Picard said. He waited
patiently for her to sit down in one of the chairs in
front of his desk, next to Geordi. The door slid shut
behind her, granting the three of them a degree of
privacy. "Mr. La Forge has informed me of an un-
pleasant incident involving Leto Faal and I wanted
your input on the matter."
    Geordi quickly described Faal's confrontation with
Lieutenant Barclay to Troi. "It's probably no big
deal," he concluded, shrugging his shoulders, "but I
thought the captain ought to know about it."
    "Quite right," Picard assured him, feeling more
than a touch of indignation at the Betazoid scientist's
behavior. Granted, Mr. Barclay's awkward manner
could be disconcerting, but Picard was not about to
let Faal abuse any member of his crew, no matter how
prestigious his scientific reputation was. Had Faal
actually struck Barclay, he might well be looking at
the brig now. "I appreciate your effort to keep me
informed," he told La Forge. No doubt Geordi would
rather be attending to matters in Engineering, where
there was surely much to be done to prepare for the
experiment. Picard looked at Deanna. "Counselor,
what impression have you formed of Professor Faal?"
    Troi hesitated, frowning, and Picard felt a twinge of
apprehension. Lem Faal had not struck him as partic-
ularly difficult or worrisome. What could Deanna
have sensed in the man? Some form of instability? If
so, he was concealing it well. "Is there a problem with
Professor Faal?" he pressed her.
    Her flowing black mane rustled as she shook her
head and sighed. "I can't put my finger on anything,
but I keep getting a sense that he's hiding something."
"Hiding what precisely?" Picard asked, concerned.
"That's what, I can't tell. Unfortunately, Faal is a
full telepath, like most Betazoids, which makes him
harder to read. To be honest, sometimes I can half-
convince myself that I'm only imagining things, or
that I'm merely picking up on the normal anxiety any
scientist might feel on the verge of a possible failure."
She watched Picard carefully, intent on making her-
self clear. "Then I get another trace of... well,
something not quite right, something Faal wants to
conceal."
    "Are you sure," Picard asked, "that you're not
simply sensing some deep-rooted anxieties Faal may
have about his medical condition? Iverson's disease is
a terrible affliction. It can't be easy living with a
terminal diagnosis."
    "I've considered that as well," Deanna admitted.
"Certainly, he has to be troubled by his illness and
impending death, but there may be more to what I'm
feeling. When he admitted his condition during the
briefing, I didn't get the impression that he was letting
go of a deeply held secret. He may be concealing
something else, something that has nothing to do with
his condition."
    "What about his family?" Picard asked. He had
been less than pleased to read, in his original mission
briefing, that Professor Faal was to be accompanied
on this voyage by his two children. The devastating
crash of the Enterprise-D, along with the heightened
tensions of the war with the Dominion, had inspired
Starfleet to rethink its policy regarding the presence of
children aboard certain high-profile starships engaged
in risky exploratory and military missions, much to
Picard's satisfaction. His own recommendation had
come as no surprise; although he had grudgingly
adapted to the family-friendly environment of the
previous Enterprise, he had never been entirely com-
fortable with the notion of small children taking up
permanent residence aboard his ship. Or even tempo-
rary residence, for that matter. "How are his children
faring on this voyage?"
    "Professor Faal has children?" Geordi asked,
caught by surprise. "Aboard the Enterprise?"
    "Yes," Troi said, both intrigued and concerned.
"Hasn't he mentioned them to you?"
    "Not a word," Geordi insisted. He scratched his
chin as he mulled the matter over. "Granted, we've
been working awful hard to get the modified torpedo
ready, but he hasn't said a thing about his family."
    A scowl crossed Picard's face. "The professor's
experiment is not without its dangers. To be quite
honest, it hardly strikes me as an ideal time to bring
one's children along."
    "Any time is better than none at all," Troi ex-
plained. "At least that's what the family counselors
back on Betazed thought. According to Professor
Faal's personal file, which I reviewed after our meet-
ing in the conference room, the children's mother was
killed less than six months ago. Some sort of trans-
porter accident."
    "The poor kids," La Forge said, wincing. Picard
recalled that Geordi's own mother had been missing
and presumed dead for only a few years now, ever
since the Hera disappeared along with everyone
aboard; it was none too surprising that the engineer
empathized with the children's loss.
    "Anyway," Troi continued, "it was felt that now
was far too soon to separate them from their father as
well, especially since his time after the experiment is
completed is likely to be so brief."
    "I see," Picard conceded reluctantly. He was no
expert on child psychology, but he granted that Faal's
terminal condition necessitated special consideration
where his children were concerned. "No doubt Faal's
illness, as well as the recent tragedy involving his
wife, imposes a terrible burden on the entire family.
Do you think you might be reacting to whatever
difficulties he might be having with his children?"
    Troi shook her head. "I'm very familiar with
parent-child stresses, including my own," she added
with a rueful smile. Picard tried hard not to let his
own... unflattering... feelings toward Lwaxana
Troi seep over into Deanna's awareness. "Not to
mention helping Worf through all his difficulties with
Alexander ....No, I know what family problems feel
like. This is something different." She frowned again,
clearly wishing she could offer Picard advice more
specific. "All I can say, Captain, is that Faal is more
complicated than he appears, and might behave un-
predictably."
"By attempting, for example, to strike Lieutenant
Barclay?" Picard suggested. To be fair, he admitted
privately, it was Barclay, after all. While he could not
condone near-violence against a crew member, Bar-
clay was something of a special case; there were times
when Picard himself wondered if Reg Barclay might
not be happier in a less stressful environment. The
man had his talents, but perhaps not the correct
temperament for deep-space exploration.
    "For example," Troi agreed. She turned toward La
Forge. "Geordi, you've worked more closely with
Professor Faal than the rest of us. What are your
impressions of him?"
    "Gee, I'm not sure," Geordi waffled. "I mean, yeah,
he gets pretty intense at times--who wouldn't under
the circumstances?--but I don't think he's dangerous
or anything, just determined to get the job done while
his health is still up to the task. He doesn't talk about
it much, but I think his illness weighs on his mind a
lot. He's aware that he hasn't got much time left."
    "I see," Picard nodded, his irritation at the scientist
fading. It was hard not to feel for a man who was
facing death just as his life's work neared completion.
"Perhaps we should make some allowances for dis-
plays of temperament, given the professor's condi-
tion." Picard stood up behind his desk and
straightened his jacket. Time to conclude this meet-
ing, he decided, and get back to the bridge.
    "Faal's reputation is impeccable," he told Troi,
thinking aloud. "At the moment, all we can do is keep
an extra eye on the professor and try to be ready for
any unwelcome surprises." He glanced at the closed
door to the bridge. "Counselor, quietly inform both
Commander Riker and Lieutenant Leyoro of your
misgivings. Mr. La Forge, please keep a careful eye on
Professor Faal from now on. We may be worrying
unnecessarily, but it's always better to be prepared for
any problem that might arise."
 "You can count on me, sir," Geordi promised.
    "I always do," Picard said, stepping out from
behind his desk and gesturing toward the exit. The
door slid open and he strode onto the bridge. He
nodded a greeting to Commander Riker, who rose
from the captain's seat, surrendering it to Picard.
"Thank you, Number One," he said. "How goes the
voyage?"
    "Smooth sailing so far, Captain," Riker reported.
He tipped his head at Deanna as she took her accus-
tomed seat beside Picard. Behind them, Geordi dis-
appeared into the nearest turbolift. Back to Engineer-
ing, Picard assumed.
    He settled into his chair, resting his weight against
the brown vinyl cushions. All around him, the bridge
crew manned their stations; anticipating a straightfor-
ward cruise through safe territory, he had chosen to
give some of the newer crew members opportunities
for valuable bridge experience. On the main viewer at
the front of the bridge, stars zipped by at warp five,
the maximum speed recommended by Starfleet for
non-emergency situations. The familiar hum of ordi-
nary bridge operations soothed his ears. So far, it
appeared, their voyage to the edge of the galaxy held
few surprises. "No Borg, no Romulans, no space-time
anomalies," he commented. "A nice, quiet trip for a
change."
    "Knock on wood," Riker said with a grin. He
glanced around the gleaming metallic bridge. "If you
can find any, that is."
    "A bit on the dull side, if you ask me," Lieutenant
Baeta Leyoro said. The new security officer had
joined the ship at Auckland Station. She had previ-
ously served aboard the Jefferson and the Olympic
and came highly recommended. Picard had reviewed
her file thoroughly before approving her for the post
aboard the Enterprise; the imposing, dark-haired wom-
an had fought in the brutal Tarsian War in her youth,
enduring psychological and biochemical conditioning
to increase her fighting skills, before leaving Angosia
III and joining Starfleet. In theory, the victorious
Angosians had, rather tardily, reconditioned its veter-
ans to peacetime, but how effective that recondition-
ing was remained open to debate; cotfid any treatment
truly undo the hardening effects of years of bloody
conflict? Picard found Leyoro's personality slightly
abrasive, but that was often the case with the best
security officers. Aggressiveness, along with a manage-
able dose of paranoia, seemed to come with the job.
Just look at Worf he thought, or even the late Tasha
Yar.
    "On the Enterprise," he replied to Leyoro, "one
learns to appreciate the occasional dull patch... as
long as they're not too long."
    "If you say so, sir," she said, sounding uncon-
vinced. Her jet black hair was braided into a long
plait that hung halfway down her back. She patted the
type-1 phaser affixed to her hip. "I wouldn't want to
get too rusty."
    "No danger of that, Lieutenant," Riker promised
her.
    Indeed, Picard thought. On this mission alone, the
galactic barrier was nothing to take lightly. The real
danger would not begin until they arrived at their
destination. "Ensign Clarze," he addressed the pilot
at the conn station, a young Deltan officer fresh out of
the Academy. "How much longer to the edge of the
galaxy?"
    Clarze consulted his display panel. Like all Del-
tans', his skull was completely hairless except for a
pair of light blond eyebrows. "Approximately seventy-
five hours," he reported promptly.
    "Very good," Picard remarked. They were making
good time; with any luck, Geordi and Lem Faal
should be about ready to commence the experiment
by the time they arrived at the barrier. Picard contem-
plated the viewscreen before him, upon which the
Federation's outmost stars raced past the prow of the
Enterprise. The galactic barrier was still too far away
to be visible, of course, but he could readily imagine it
waiting for them, marking the outer boundaries of the
Milky Way and standing guard over perhaps the most
infinite horizon of all. He felt like Columbus or
Magellan, prepared to venture beyond the very edge
of explored space. Here there be dragons, he thought.
A sudden flash of white light, appearing without
warning at the front of the bridge, interrupted his
historical ruminations. Oh no, he thought, his heart
sinking. Not now!
    He knew exactly what that brilliant radiance fore-
told, even before it blinked out of existence, leaving
behind a familiar personage in front of the main
viewer. "Q!" Picard blurted. Beside him, Will Riker
jumped to his feet while gasps of surprise and alarm
arose from the bridge crew, many of whom had never
personally encountered the infamous cosmic entity
before.
    Standing stiffly at attention before them all, Q was
costumed even more colorfully than usual. For some
reason that Picard could only hope would become
evident, their unexpected visitor had assumed the
traditional garb of a Royal Guard at Buckingham
Palace, complete with a towering helmet of piled
black fur and a crisp red uniform adorned with golden
buttons and insignia. A white diagonal sash com-
pleted the outfit, along with a sturdy iron pike that he
grasped with both hands. He held the pike crosswise
before his chest, as though barring them from the
stars that streaked by on the screen behind him.
"Who goes there?" he intoned ominously.
    Picard rose from his chair and confronted his
bizarrely attired adversary. "What is it, Q? What are
you up to this time?"
    Q ignored his queries. He kept his expression fixed
and immobile, devoid of his customary smirk, like
one of the guards he emulated. "What is your name?"
he demanded in the same stentorian tone. "What is
your quest?"
    Picard took a deep breath, determined not to let Q
get under his skin the way he invariably did. Even
though he had encountered Q on numerous occasions
m the past, he had never devised a truly satisfactory
strategy for dealing with the aggravating and unpre-
dictable superbeing. The sad fact of the matter, he
admitted silently, was that there was really no way to
cope with Q except to wait for him to tire of his latest
game and go away. No power the Federation pos-
sessed could make Q do anything he didn't want to.
Picard liked to think that he had scored a moral
victory or two against Q over the years, but here Q
was again, ready to try Picard's patience and torment
the Enterprise one more time. It's been over two
standard years since his last escapade, he thought,
remembering the disorienting trip through time that
Q had subjected him to the last time he intruded into
their lives. I should have known our luck was due to
run out.
    "What is your quest?" Q repeated. He spun the
pike upward and rapped the bottom tip of the iron
spear against the duranium flooring, producing an
emphatic clang that hurt Picard's ears.
    "You know full well who we are and why we're
here," he declared. "State your business."
    Q's frozen features relaxed into a look of weary
annoyance. "Some people have no respect for the
classics," he sighed in something closer to his usual
voice. He clicked his tongue and the pike disappeared
in another blinding burst of light. "Really, Jean-Luc,
would it have killed you to play along?"
    "No games, Q," Picard insisted. "What do you
want?"
    Q clutched his hands to his heart, feigning a look of
aghast horror. "No games? Why, mon capitaine, you
might as well ask a sun not to blaze or a tribble not to
multiply." He glanced at ship's first officer, poised
beside his captain. "Oh, do sit down, Riker, you're
not impressing anyone with your manly posing. Ex-
cept maybe the counselor, that is, and even she can
see right through you." He snapped his fingers and
Riker was suddenly back in his chair, without having
moved a muscle himself. He glared at Q with a
ferocity that was nearly Klingon in its intensity, while
Troi looked like she would rather be anywhere else.
  Why me? Picard thought. Q seemed to take peculiar
delight in afflicting him. "You don't need to show off
your powers to us," he said calmly, making what he
knew would be a futile attempt to reason with the
vainglorious demigod. "We are fully aware of your
capabilities." And then some, he added mentally. "I
am quite busy with other matters. For once, can't you
get straight to the point?"
    Q looked back and forth before replying, as if
disinclined to be overheard. "Permit me to fill you in
on a little secret, my impatient friend. When you can
do anything, nothing is more boring than simply
doing it. Getting there isn't half the fun, it's the whole
enchilada." He winked at Picard and a drippy Mexi-
can entr6e appeared in the captain's hand. "Care for
one?"
    Picard handed the enchilada back to Q and wiped
his greasy fingers on his trousers. He could feel his
blood pressure rising at a rate that would surely
distress Dr. Crusher. "No, thank you," he said coldly,
his temper ascending toward its boiling point. No
matter how many times it happened, he could never
get used to being made a fool of in front of his crew.
    "Your loss," Q said with a shrug, taking a bite from
the snack. "Ah, hot and spicy. Reminds me of a
supernova I ignited once." Another thought appar-
ently occurred to him and his looming black hat went
away. He casually scratched a tuft of unruly brown
hair. "Enough of that. It was starting to itch like the
devil."
    The greatest challenge in dealing with Q, Picard
reminded himself, was keeping in mind just how
dangerous he could be. Q's antics could be so ludi-
crous on the surface that it was easy to forget the very
real damage he could cause. Whenever Q appeared,
Picard made a point of remembering that Q's idea of
fun-and-games had already cost the lives of at least
eighteen crew members. Q hadn't killed those men
and women himself, of course, but he had been
perfectly willing to throw the entire ship into the path
 of the Borg merely to make a point to Picard. Never
 again, Picard vowed. He'd be damned if he'd let Q
 sacrifice another human life on the altar of his omnip-
 otent ego.
But how did you impose limits on a god?
Lieutenant Leyoro looked ready to try. She had
drawn her phaser on Q the moment he appeared, but,
to her credit, she had not attempted anything rash. No
doubt she was familiar with Q's history from the
ship's security logs. "Captain," she inquired, never
taking her eyes off Q, "shall I take the intruder into
custody?"
    Picard shook his head. Why endanger Leyoro with
such a pointless exercise? "Thank you, Lieutenant,
but I'm afraid that Q is more like an unwanted guest,
at least for the time being."
    "Your hospitality simply overwhelms me, Jean-
Luc," Q remarked sarcastically before turning his
gaze on Lieutenant Leyoro. "I see there have been
some improvements made." He sniffed the air.
"Could it be I no longer detect the barbaric aroma of
the ever-feral Mr. Woof?."
    "Lieutenant Commander Worf," Picard corrected
him, "has accepted a position on Deep Space Nine."
    "And good riddance, I say," Q said. A scale model
of Deep Space Nine appeared in front of him, floating
at just below eye level. Q stuck the soggy remains of
his enchilada onto one of the miniature docking
pylons. Tabasco sauce dripped onto the habitat ring.
"I visited that dreary place once. What a dump! I
couldn't wait to leave." He waved his hand and both
the station and the discarded meal vanished.
    "That's not the way I heard it," Picard retorted.
Naturally, he had carefully studied all of Q's reported
appearances throughout the Federation. "According
to Captain Sisko's log, he punched you in the jaw and
you never came back." He contemplated his own
knuckles speculatively. "Hmmm, perhaps I should
have simply decked you years ago."
"I'd be happy to take a crack at it," Riker volun-
teered.
    "Oh, please!" Q said, turning his eyes heavenward
but taking a few steps backward. "Really, Picard, with
all of creation within my reach, why would I ever
return to that woebegone sinkhole of a station? They
can't even get rid of the voles."
    Despite a strong temptation to argue the point,
Picard refrained from defending Deep Space Nine. He
couldn't expect so flighty a creature as Q to under-
stand all that Benjamin Sisko and his officers had
accomplished there over the last several years. He felt
a stab of envy, though; Sisko had only the Dominion
and the Cardassians to deal with, not a nattering
narcissist whose delusions of godhood didn't even
have the decency to be delusions. I wonder if Sisko
wouM be willing to trade the Jem'Hadar for {2? he
thought. Picard would take that deal in a Scalosian
second.
    "Still, I must congratulate you, Jean-Luc," Q per-
sisted, "in unloading that Klingon missing link. I'm
sure he'll fit in perfectly, in a depressingly 'honorable'
sort of way, with all the other malcontents and misfits
on that station." In the blink of an eye, he teleported
from the front of the bridge to the tactical station
behind Riker's chair. "Enchantd, mademoiselle," he
cooed at Baeta Leyoro, taking her hand and raising it
to his lips. "No doubt you have heard nothing but the
most extravagant praise of me."
    Leyoro yanked her hand back in a hurry. "Listen,"
she snarled, "I don't care how powerful you're sup-
posed to be. Touch me again and I'll personally send a
quantum torpedo up yourre"
    "Charmed," Q interrupted. He strolled away from
the tactical station, taking the long way around the
starboard side of the bridge. "Reminds me rather of
the late Natasha Yar. Do try to take better care of this
one, Jean-Luc."
  Picard seethed inwardly. How dare Q make light of
Tasha's tragic death? What did an immortal being
even know about the pain and loss associated with
mortality? "That's enough, Q," he began, barely reining
in his anger.
    But Q had already discovered another target. He
cocked his head in Data's direction. "What? Can it be
true? Did I actually detect a pang of genuine grief
from your positronic soul when I mentioned the
unfortunate Lieutenant Yar?" Q wandered over to
Ops and eyed the android quizzically. Data met his
frank curiosity with no visible signs of discomfort.
    "Perhaps you are referring to the proper function-
ing of my emotion chip," he suggested helpfully.
    "Indeed I am," Q affirmed, carefully inspecting
Data's skull. He crouched down and peered into one
of the android's synthetic ears. A beam like a penlight
shot from Q's index finger. For a second, Picard
feared that Q would simply take Data apart to inspect
the chip more closely, but then Q straightened up and
stepped away from Data's station. "So the Tin Man
finally found a heart... of a sort."
    "That's enough, Q," Picard said forcefully, "and
this 'friendly' reunion has gone on long enough. If you
refuse to enlighten us as to the purpose of this
visitation, then I see no choice but to get on with our
business regardless of your presence." He returned to
his chair with every appearance of having dismissed
Q from his consciousness, then decided to check on
the status of Geordi and Lem Faal's efforts to prepare
for the experiment. He tapped his comm badge.
"Picard to Engineerre"
    Q would not be so easily dismissed. Picard's badge
vanished from his chest, reappearing briefly between
Q's thumb and index finger before he popped the
stolen badge into his mouth and swallowed. "Deli-
cious," he remarked. "Not quite as filling as freshly
baked neutronium, but a tasty little morsel nonethe-
less."
    "Q," Picard said ominously as Riker handed Pi-
card his own badge. "You are trying my patience."
    "But, Jean-Luc, I haven't even remarked yet on
your spanking new Enterprise." He sauntered around
the bridge, running a white gloved finger along the
surface of the aft duty stations and checking it for
dust. "Did you think I wouldn't notice that you've
traded up?" He wandered over to the illuminated
schematic of the Enterprise-E on display at the back of
the bridge. "Very snazzy and streamlined, but some-
how it lacks the cozy, lived-in quality the old place
had. Whatever happened to that bucket of bolts
anyway? Don't tell me you actually let Troi take the
helm?"
    Deanna gave Q a withering look, worthy of her
formidable and imperious mother, but otherwise de-
clined to rise to Q's bait. "Very well, Q," Picard said,
"it's obvious you've been keeping tabs on us. Now if
you don't mind, we have an urgent mission to com-
plete." He started to tap his badge once more, won-
dering if Q would let him complete his call to Geordi.
  Of course not.
    "Oh, that's right!" Q said, slapping his forehead.
"Your mission. However could I have forgotten?
That's why I'm here, to tell you to call the whole thing
off."
"What?" Picard hoped he hadn't heard Q correctly.
No such luck. "Your mission," Q repeated. "Your
big experiment. It's a bad idea, Jean-Luc, and, out of
the goodness of my heart, I've come to warn you."
With a flash of light, Q transported himself to directly
in front of the captain's chair. He leaned forward
until his face was only centimeters away from Pi-
card's. He spoke again, and this time his voice
sounded deadly serious. "Read my lips, Captain:
Don't even think about breaking the barrier."
  Then he disappeared.

Interlude

I SMELL Q, he sniffed. Q smell I.
    From behind the wall, across the ether, a familiar
odor tantalized his senses. Singular emanations,
nearly forgotten, impossible to mistake, aroused frag-
mented flashbacks of aeons past... and a personality
unlike any other.
    Q, Q, that's who, he sang, Q is back, right on
cue.t
    Musty memories, broken apart and reassembled
in a thousand kaleidoscopic combinations over the
ages, exploded again within his mind, sparking an
storm of stifled savagery and spite. It was atl Q's
fault after all, he recalled. False, faithless, forsaking
Q.
    He wanted to reach out and wrap his claws around
the odor, wring it until it screamed, but he couldn't.
Not yet. It was still too far away, but getting closer and
closer, too. He flattened himself against the wall,
straining impatiently for each new omen of the apos-
tate's approach. A whiff on the cosmic winds. A ripple
in space-time. A shadow upon the wall. They all
pointed to precisely the same cataclysmic conclusion.
  Q is coming. Coming is Q.
  And he would be waiting ....

Chapter Four

How FAR COULD HE TRUST Q? That was the question,
wasn't it?
    Picard brooded in his ready room, having turned
over the bridge to Riker so that he could wrestle with
the full implications of Q's warning in private. The
music of Carmen, the original French Radio record-
ings, played softly in the background. He sat pensively
at his desk as Escamillo sang his Toreador's Song, the
infectious melody decidingly at odds with his own
somber musings. Picard's weary eyes scanned the
dog-cared, leatherbound volumes that filled his book-
shelves, everything from Shakespeare to Dickens to
the collected poetry of Phineas Tarbolde of Canopus
Prime; precious though they were to him, none of the
books in his library seemed to offer any definitive
solution to the problem of establishing the veracity of
an erratic superbeing. At least, he reflected, Dante
could be confident that Virgil was telling him the
whole truth about the Divine Comedy; the possibility
of deceit was not an issue.
    So could he believe Q when Q told him that
penetrating the barrier was a bad idea? The easy
answer was no. Q was nothing if not a trickster. Mon
Dieu, he had even posed as God Himself once. It was
very possible that Q had forbidden the Enterprise to
breach the barrier for the express reason of tricking
them into doing so; such reverse psychology was
certainly consistent with Q's convoluted ways. Nor
could Picard overlook Q's blatant disregard for the
immeasurable value of each human life. Part of me
will never forgive him for that first meeting with the
Borg.
    On the other hand, Picard conceded a shade reluc-
tantly, Q's motives were not always malign. When he
had briefly lost his powers several years ago, Q had
surprised Picard by proving himself capable of both
gratitude and self-sacrifice. And every so often Q
hinted that he had Picard's best interests at heart.
But, he thought, with a friend like Q who needs
enemies? Picard still didn't entirely know what to
make of their last encounter; what had truly been the
point of that fragmented and disorienting excursion
through time? As was too often the case with Q, he
had seemed to be both thwarting and assisting Picard
simultaneously. The incident frustrated the captain to
this day; the more he turned that journey over in his
head, the less sense it seemed to make. Itg possible, I
suppose, that Q meant well that time around.
    Even Q's most deadly prank, exposing them to the
Borg for the first time, had carried a bitter lesson for
the future; if not for Q, the Collective might have
caught the Federation totally unawares. But who
knew what Q's true purpose had been? He could have
as easily done so in a fit of pique. Or on a whim.
    Whatever his personal feelings toward Q might be,
Picard knew he could not dismiss his advice out of
hand. He could not deny, as much as he would like to,
that Q was a highly advanced being in many respects,
privy to scientific knowledge far beyond the Federa-
tion's. There might well be some merit to his warning
regarding the barrier.
    But was Starfleet willing to let the future of human-
oid exploration be dictated by a being like Q? That, it
seemed to him, was the real crux of the matter. Had
not Q himself once declared that the wonders of the
universe were not for the timid?
    "So I did," Q confirmed, appearing without warn-
ing atop the surface of Picard's desk. "How stun-
ningly astute of you to remember, although, typically,
you've chosen the worst possible occasion to do so."
He shook his head sadly. "Wouldn't you know it? The
one time you choose to recall my words of wisdom,
it's to justify ignoring my most recent advice."
    "I thought such paradoxes were your stock-in-
trade?" Picard said, unable to resist such an obvious
riposte.
    "Touche," Q responded, "or rather I should say,
Old!" In fact, he had traded in his guardsman's
uniform for the more flamboyant costume of a tradi-
tional Spanish matador. A black felt montera rested
upon his scalp, above his glittering "coat of lights."
Golden rhinestones sparkled upon his collar, lapels,
and trousers. A thin green tie was knotted at his
throat, the chartreuse fabric matching the cummer-
bund around his waist. A scarlet cape was draped over
one arm, although Picard was relieved to see that this

would-be bullfighter had left his saber at home.
    A strangely appropriate guise for Q, Picard ob-
served, doubtless inspired by my choice of music.
When he thought about it, Q had much in common
with an old-fashioned toreador. Both delighted in
teasing and provoking a so-called lesser species for
their own sadistic self-glorification. Bullfighting had
been banned on Earth since the latter part of the
twenty-first century, but Picard doubted that Q cared.
"What now?" he demanded. "Why are you here?"
    "Votre toast je peux vous le rendre," Q sang in a
surprisingly strong baritone, "and one of these days
you might seriously think of offering me a drink, but,
anyway, it occurred to me that you might be more
likely to see reason in private, when you don't have to
strut and preen before your subordinates. Fine, I
appreciate your primitive human need to save face in
front of your crew. Now that we're alone, though, be a
good boy and turn this ship around. I have faith in
you, Picard. Who knows why. I'm sure you can think
of a suitably plausible excuse if you put your mind to
it."
    Picard failed to appreciate Q's backhanded flattery.
He listened as patiently as he could, then spoke his
mind. "First, before you accuse anyone else of strut-
ting and preening, perhaps you should look in the
mirror. Second, I have no intention of abandoning my
mission unless you can provide me with a compelling
reason to do so. Third, get off my desk?
    Q glanced down at his black rhinestone slippers,
located only a few centimeters below Picard's chin.
"Picky, picky," he clucked, transporting in a flash to
the floor facing the sturdy desk. "There, are you
happy now?"
    "I am rarely happy when accosted by you," Picard
answered, holding up his hand to fend off another
volley of insults and repartee, "but I am willing to
listen to reason. Why, Q? I'm giving you a chance. Tell
me why we should stay within the barrier?"
    "Well, why shouldn't you?" Q shot back, but his
heart didn't seem to be in it. He chewed on his lower
lip and fumbled awkwardly with the satin cape in his
hands while he appeared to wrestle with some inner
conflict. He opened his mouth, then hesitated, and for
a second Picard had an inkling that Q was actually on
the verge of saying something genuinely sincere and
heartfelt, perhaps ready for the first time to deal with
Picard as one equal to another. Pouring out his soul in
the background, Don Jos6, the tragic soldier of Bizet's
opera, found himself torn between his duty, his heart,
and his pride. Picard leaned forward, anxious to hear
what Q had to say.
    Then the moment passed, and Q retreated to his
usual sarcastic demeanor. "Because I say so," he
added petulantly. "Really, Jean-Luc, for once in your
inconsequential blink of a lifetime, listen to me.
Don't let your bruised human ego blind you to my
superior wisdom."
    "I thought I was about to listen to you," Picard
stated, more in sorrow than in anger, "and I don't
think it was my ego that got in the way." He decided
to tempt fate by pushing Q even harder. "If it's that
important, Q, why not simply send us home with a
wave of your hand? We both know you have the power
to do so."
    "Forgive me, rnon capitaine,"Q groused, "but
perhaps I would prefer not to spend my immortality
standing guard over the barrier. I don't want Starfleet
sneaking back here every time I'm not looking. I
know how blindly stubborn and egomaniacal you
mortals are. You're not going to abandon your misbe-
gotten quest unless you think you have some say in
the matter."
    "Then you must also understand," Picard an-
swered, "humanity's restless urge to explore, to see
beyond the next hill." He gestured toward the model
starships displayed behind glass on one side of the
room, each one a proud reminder of another starship
called Enterprise. "You're right about one thing. You
can turn us back if you want, even destroy this ship if
you deem it necessary, but we mortals, as you term
us, will not give up that easily. The starships will keep
coming, unless you can ccnavince me otherwise."
    Q threw up his hands in mock despair. "You're
impossible, Picard, thoroughly impossible!" Music
soared in the background as the ecstatic citizens of
Seville celebrated the coming bullfight. "Well! I'm not
about to waste my time here while you're being so
pigheaded and primeval, but heed my words, Picard,
or you may not live to regret it." He swept his cape off
his arm and snapped it with a dramatic flourish.
"Ole!"
    Q vanished, leaving Picard alone with his books
and Bizet. The problem with bullfights, he reflected
soberly, is that the bull usually ends up dead.

Chapter Five

DESPITE THE HOUR, the officers' lounge was quite busy.
Geordi La Forge spotted Sonya Gomez, Daniel Sut-
ter, Reg Barclay, and several other members of his
engineering team seated at various tables around the
ship's spacious lounge, trading rumors about Q's
most recent appearance, the upcoming assault on the
galactic barrier, and other hot topics of discussion.
The lights had been dimmed somewhat to give the
room more of a murky nightclub ambience, appropri-
ate to the approach of midnight.
    Actually, it was a little too dark for his tastes,
Geordi decided, so he cybernetically adjusted the
light receptors of his optical implants, heightening the
visual contrast controls as well. Ah, that~ better, he
thought as Data's gleaming visage emerged from the
shadows. Not for the first time, Geordi regretted that
the Enterprise-D had been destroyed before he got his
implants. He would've liked to compare the old Ten-
Forward to this new place, yet the switch from his
VISOR to the implants made that more or less
impossible. The new lounge looked different, all right,
but was that because the ship had changed or because
his vision had? Probably a little bit of both, he guessed.
    "It is quite puzzling," Data commented to Geordi.
"Spot now refuses to eat her cat food from anything
but round plates, even though she has eaten from both
round and square plates ever since she was a kitten."
    "Cats are just like that," Geordi stated. "Where do
you think all those jokes about finicky felines came
from? I remember once Alexi, my old Circassian cat,
decided that he would only eat if I was eating.
Sometimes I'd have to fix myself an extra meal just to
get him to finish his dinner. Gained nearly seven
kilograms that summer. My parents had to buy me a
whole set of clothes for school."
    "But it does not make sense, Geordi," Data per-
sisted. Clearly his pet's latest eccentricity was thor-
oughly baffling his positronic mind. "Why should
square plates suddenly become unacceptable for no
apparent reason? What if tomorrow she randomly
decides that she will only eat from round, blue
plates?"
    Geordi chuckled. "Thank heaven for replicators
then." He felt a yawn coming on and didn't bother to
suppress it, knowing that the android would not be
offended. He and Professor Faal had only finished
their prep work less than an hour ago, and he really
needed to go to bed soon, but Geordi had learned
from experience that, after a day of strenuous mental
effort and technical challenges, his mind always
needed a little time to unwind before he even tried to
fall asleep, which is why he had dropped into the
lounge in the first place. Besides, he had been eager to
pump Data for details on Q's surprise visit to the
bridge.
    He'd invited Lem Faal to join them, but the Beta-
zoid scientist had politely declined, pleading exhaus-
tion. Nothing too suspicious there, he thought, keeping
in mind what Deanna thought she had sensed about
Faal. No doubt the Iverson's had reduced the profes-
sor's stamina to some degree. He wished he had more
to report to the captain, either to confirm or refute the
counselor's suspicions, but, aside from that brief-but-
ugly tantrum after Barclay had almost wrecked his
equipment, Faal had been on his best behavior. Too
bad all big-name Federation scientists aren't so easy to
get along with. In his capacity as chief engineer
aboard the flagship of the fleet, Geordi had worked
alongside many of the most celebrated scientific
minds in the entire quadrant, and some of them, he
knew, could be real prima donnas. Like Paul Man-
heim, Bruce Maddox, or that jerk Kosinski. By com-
parison, Lem Faal struck him as normal enough, at
least for a genius dying of an incurable disease.
  "Another round of drinks, gentlemen?"
    Geordi looked up to see a cheerful, round-faced
Bolian carrying a tray of refreshments. His bright blue
cheeks were the exact color of Romulan ale.
    "Thanks," Geordi answered. "Nothing too strong,
though. I've got a lot of work in the morning."
    Neslo nodded knowingly. "Just as I anticipated.
One hot synthehol eider for you," he said, placing a
steaming translucent mug on the table, "and for Mr.
Data, a fresh glass of silicon lubricant." Complete
with a tiny paper umbrella, Geordi noted with amuse-
ment. I wonder whose idea that was, Neslo s or Data's?
He could never tell what his android friend was going
to come up with next, especially now that Data was
experimenting with genuine emotions.
    The blue-skinned bartender was handing the drink
to Data when a flare of white light caught them all by
surprise. The rest of the drinks tumbled from Neslo's
tray, crashing upon the floor, but no one was watching
his mishap, not even Neslo. Every eye in the lounge
was drawn to the spot by the bar where the flash burst
into existence. Blinking against the sudden glare, and
wishing that he hadn't turned up his optical receptors
after all, Geordi reacted at once, tapping his comm
badge and barking, "La Forge to Security. Q is in the
officers' lounge!"
    Or maybe not. When the light faded, he saw to his
surprise that the figure he had expected, Q in all his
perverse smugness, was not there. Instead he gazed
upon what appeared to be a humanoid woman and a
small child. "Fascinating," he heard Data remark.
    The woman looked to be about thirtyish in age,
slender and tall, with pale skin and a confident air.
She was dressed for a safari, with a pith helmet, khaki
jacket and trousers, and knee-high brown boots. A
veil of mosquito netting hung from the brim of her
helmet and she held on to the child's tiny hand while
her free hand raised an ivory lorgnette before her
eyes. She peered through the mounted lenses and
looked about her, seemingly taking stock of her sur-
roundings. She did not appear either impressed or
intimidated.
    "Well, at least it's a bit more spacious than that
other vessel," she commented to the child, quite
unconcerned about being overheard, "although what
your father sees in these creatures I still can't compre-
hend."
    The toddler, a little boy clad in a spotless white
sailoffs suit with navy-blue trimming, held an orang-
ish ball against his chest as he searched the room with
wide, curious eyes. Geordi, remembering his own
little sister at roughly the same age, estimated that the
boy was no more than two or three years old. "Dad-
dy?" he inquired. "Daddy?"
    Data, as the highest-ranking officer present, ap-
proached the strangers. "Greetings," he declared.
Geordi rose from his chair to follow behind the
android. Bits of glass crunched beneath his feet as he
accidentally stepped into a puddle of spilled synthe-
hol and lubricant gel. Yuck, he thought as the syrupy
mess clung to the soles of his boots.
    The crackle of the shattered glasses attracted the
woman's attention. "Disgraceful," she said, staring
through the lorgnette at the remains of Neslo's metic-
ulously prepared drinks, "leaving sharp edges like
that lying around where any child might find them."
She lowered the lorgnette and there was another flash
of light at Geordi's feet. When he looked down again,
the entire mess, both the spilled liquids and the
fragments of glass, had completely disappeared. The
floor shone as if it had been freshly polished. Uh-oh,
he thought, I think I see where this is heading.
    "Children are not customarily permitted in the
officer's lounge," Data explained evenly. "I am Lieu-
tenant Commander Data of the Federation starship
Enterprise. Whom do I have the privilege of ad-
dressing?"
    Bet I can answer that one, Geordi thought. If the
lady was not in fact Q in disguise, then she had to be a
relation of some sort. That little trick with broken
glass cinched it as far as he was concerned.
    The woman looked skeptically at Data, as though
noticing him for the first time. "A clockwork human-
oid," she observed. "How quaint."
 "Robot? the child chirped happily. "Robot!"
    "I am an android," Data volunteered. "And you
are?"
 "Q," she replied haughtily.
    The double doors at the entrance to the lounge
snapped open, faster than was usual, and Baeta Le-
yoro charged into the lounge, brandishing a type-3
phaser rife. Two more security officers followed hot
on her heels, each armed with an equally impressive
firearm. "Where is he?" she demanded, searching the
room with her eyes.
    The security team's dramatic arrival startled the
little boy. His ball slipped from his hand, landing with
a surprisingly solid thunk and rolling across the floor.
Tears poured from his eyes and he let out an ear-
piercing wail that Geordi guessed could be heard all
over the ship. Lieutenant Leyoro, confronted by a
crying toddler rather than Q as she had expected,
looked a bit surprised as well. The muzzle of her rifle
dipped toward the floor.
    "Now see what you've done," clucked the woman
who called herself Q. She waved her lorgnette like a
magic wand and all three phaser rifles disappeared.
Turning her back on Leyoro and the others, she knelt
to console the child. "There, there, baby. Those
naughty lower life-forms can't hurt you. Mornroy's
here."
    The boy's frightened cries diminished, much to the
relief of Geordi's eardrums, replaced by a few quiet
sniffles and sobs. The woman's lorgnette transformed
instantly into a silk handkerchief and she wiped the
child's runny nose. Leyoro stared in amazement at
her suddenly empty hands, then eyed the woman with
a new wariness. Only Data appeared unfazed by the
most recent turn of events.
    "Lieutenant Commander?" Leyoro asked the an-
droid, keeping her gaze on the woman.
    "Permit me to introduce Q," Data replied, but
Leyoro did not look satisfied with his answer. The
skeptical expression on her face was that of a person
who thought someone else was trying to pull a fast
onewand was going to regret it if she had anything to
do about it.
    "I've met Q," she said. "This doesn't look like
him."
    "I believe," Data elaborated, "that we are encoun-
tering another representative of the Q Continuum."
    "Well, of course," the woman stated. She lifted the
snuffling child and rested his head against her shoul-
der. "Even a bunch of unevolved primates such as
yourselves should be able to figure that out without
the help of a mechanical man." She patted the child
gently on his back while she glared at the crowd of
men and women surrounding her. "I am Q," she
insisted.
    Another Q, Geordi thought in wonder, and a baby Q
as well! He hoped that this woman was less irresponsi-
ble and more congenial than the Q they were accus-
tomed to. So far we don't seem to have gotten off to a
very good start.
    Hoping to salvage this first-contact scenario, he
scurried under a table to retrieve the child's ball. The
orange globe was about the size of a croquet ball and
heavier than he expected, like a ball of a concrete. It
also felt distinctly warm to the touch. Shifting to
infrared mode, he was surprised to discover that the
globe had a core of red-hot, molten ore. Wait a second,
he thought, increasing the magnification on his opti-
cal sensors. A cracked, rocky surface came into view,
with odd-looking craters and outcroppings: hills and
valleys, mesas and canals, riverbeds, plateaus, and
mountain ranges.
    "Er, Data," he said, carrying the ball ever more
gingerly toward the woman and her child. "I'm not
sure, but I think this is a planet."
    Even Data appeared a trifle nonplussed by Geordi's
announcement. He paused only a second before tap-
ping his comm badge. "Captain, I believe we need you
in the officers' lounge immediately."
 "I'm on my way," Picard answered.

Interlude

Swift As IT WAS, the turbolift ride to the guest quarters
felt interminable to Lem Faal. His body was too
anxious to rest in the privacy of his own suite, while
his mind resented the loss of any of his precious time.
He had too much to do, and too little time to do it, to
waste precious seconds simply getting from one place
to another. The restrictions of mere physicality
chafed at him, filling him with bitter anger at the
sheer injustice of the universe. By the Fourth House,
he thought, I can't even depend on my own pathetic
body anymore.
    In fact, his legs ached to shed the burden of
supporting his weight. Every day he felt the effects of
Iverson's more and more. It wasn't only in his lungs
anymore; now the creeping weakness and shortness of
his breath had undermined both his strength and his
stamina, leaving him ever slower to recover after each
new exertion. Working with Chief Engineer La Forge
all day had left him exhausted and badly in need of
rest. His breath wheezed in and out of his heaving
chest, bringing him little in the way of sustaining
oxygen. The experiment has to succeed, he mused as
the turbolift came to a stop. I can't endure this much
longer.
    He staggered out of the lift into the corridor,
grateful that none of the Enterprise crew were present
to witness his debilitated state. The entrance to his
quarters was only a short walk away; Faal felt as
though he'd trudged across the scorched plains of
Vulcan's Forge, through as thin an atmosphere, by the
time he got to his door, which slid open at his
approach, concealed sensors confirming his identity.
Overhead lights came on automatically, illuminating
the chambers beyond.
    Captain Picard had generously provided Faal and
his children with the best accommodations upon the
Enterprise. The generously appointed suite was a
contrast to the cramped Betazoid transports he had
traveled on in his youth, in which open space had
been at quite a premium. There were some advan-
tages, he reflected, to living in the latter part of the
twenty-fourth century. He could only hope that he
would somehow live to see the dawn of the twenty-
fifth, no matter how unlikely that seemed at this
moment.
    Despising his own mortal frailty, he sank onto the
couch, a sigh of relief escaping his lips despite his
determination to defy the ravages of his disease. His
breathing remained labored, and his fingers toyed
with the hypospray in his pocket. He considered
giving himself another dose of medicine, but decided
against it; the polyadrenaline helped his breathing,
true, but it sometimes kept him awake as well. I might
as well sleep, he thought. There's nothing more I can
do until the ship nears the barrier.
    He had faith in his technology, but the unexpected
arrival of this "Q" character troubled him. Although
he had not actually witnessed the mysterious entity's
manifestation upon the bridge, La Forge had in-
formed him of some of the ways Q had previously
harassed the crew of the Enterprise. The engineering
chief had taken care to emphasize that Q was more
mischievous than dangerous, although Faal suspected
La Forge of holding back many of the more alarming
details, but his appearance now, on the very brink of
the most important experiment of Faal's lifetime,
could not bode well. What if Q seriously tried to
obstruct the experiment? How could anyone stop
him? Faal had heard about creatures like Q before;
such supremely powerful energy beings had been
known to Federation science since at least the Or-
ganian Peace Treaty of 2267. And there were other
strange forces at work in the universe, he knew, forces
glimpsed only in prophecies and dreams ....
    Faal felt the hand of destiny upon him. In a way,
Q's intervention only confirmed the ailing scientist's
conviction that he was on the verge of a breakthrough
of apocalyptic proportions. The inexorable tide of
evolution carried him forward and he would let no
one stop him, not even a godlike being like Q. He
shook his fist at the unseen entity, his entire frame
trembling with fervor. Do your worst, he defied Q.
Greater powers than you propel me and they will not be
denied.
    Exhausted by this spontaneous outpouring of emo-
tion, Faal sagged forward, his chin dipping against his
chest. Milo and Kinya were away at the Enterprise's
child-care center, he recalled. He needed to collect
them eventually, of course, but not right away; he
didn't have the strength to cope with two demanding
youngsters, not the way he was currently feeling. The
children were in capable hands. He'd try to sleep a
few hours first.
    It was a mistake bringing the children on this
mission in the first place. He had neither the strength
nor the time to look after youngsters and conduct his
experiment at the same time. He would have left them
behind on Betazed, but the counselors had been too
insistent, in their relentlessly compassionate way, to
resist. Perhaps I shouM have put up more of aright, he
thought. There was no room for the children in what
remained of his life. They would have to learn to get
by without him, one way or another. He had to keep
his mind and priorities focused on the larger picture;
ultimately, mere biological offspring were no substi-
tute for the sort of immortality he sought. Anyone
who thought otherwise had not stared into oblivion as
hard as he had been forced to.
    Shozana would not agree, he suspected, a pang of
guilt going almost unnoticed amid his other constant
aches and pains, but, in a very real sense, it was his
late wife who had brought him to this critical junc-
ture. Her death in that transporter mishap was the
defining moment that taught him the true imperma-
nence of physical existence ....
    There had been no warning at all. Shozana had
stepped lightly onto the transporter pad, then turned
to wave back at him, her russet hair gleaming in the
warm afternoon sunlight that poured through the
clear crystal skylights of the public transport station.
See you soon, she thought to him as a young trans-
operator, who looked like he ought to be in school, not
behind a control panel, prepared to beam her to a
xenobiology conference in the southern hemisphere.
    Enjoy yourself he thought back. We'll be fine. There
had really been no reason why he had accompanied
her to the station that day--it wasn't as if she was
leaving on a starship or something--but he had done
so anyway. It was a ritual of theirs, one that had
always brought them luck before. Love you, they
thought to each other simultaneously.
    Her body evaporated in the golden shimmer of the
transporter effect, and he started to leave--until he
saw the ashen look on the face of the operator. "What
is it? What's happening?" he called out, knowing at
once something was wrong, but the panicky youth
ignored his cries. His face pale and bloodless, the
operator frantically worked the controls while bab-
bling urgently to his counterpart at the other end of
the transmission about a "pulsar surge" and "losing
the pattern." Faal couldn't follow what the young fool
was saying, but the truth hit home with heartbreaking
clarity. Shozana was gone ....
    In the end, there hadn't even been a body to bury.
Her signal lost, her flesh and spirit reduced to an
entropic stream of disordered particles, Shozana Faal
had ceased to exist in the space of a moment. Right
then and there, Leto Faal saw the shape of the future.
Physical existence was not enough; it was too brief
and insubstantial. His own body was disintegrating
much more slowly than Shozana's had, but just as
inevitably. Soon his pattern, too, would be lost.
    An evolutionary breakthrough was required, a tran-
scendent leap to a higher level of being. The old,
onerous limitations of the past had to be overcome
once and for all. Breaking the galactic barrier was
only the first step ....
    Fatigue overwhelmed his fervent ambitions. Un-
able to traverse the terrible gulf between the couch
and his bedroom, he closed his eyes and collapsed
into sleep beneath the bright overhead lights. He
twitched restlessly upon the couch, visions of apothe-
osis filling his dreams.

Chapter Six

ASIDE FROM THE TWO COMMAND OFFICERS, La Forge and
Data, and Lieutenant Leyoro's security team, the
lounge had been largely evacuated by the time Picard
arrived. A wise precaution, he decided. If this new
Q chose to start turning people into frogs right and
left, the fewer warm bodies around the better. He
took comfort in knowing that, should anything hap-
pen to him, Will Riker was safely in charge of the
bridge.
    Data had brought him up to speed while he took
the turbolift from his ready room to the lounge, so he
was not surprised to see the woman and the child
waiting for him. The woman had a distinctly imperi-
ous air about her that reminded Picard far too much
of her infuriating male counterpart; he flattered
himself that he could have identified her as a Q even
if he hadn't been warned in advance. He took note of
her unusual costume as well. No doubt, he realized,
she thinks she's on an expedition among savages. The
child, whose scream he had indeed heard nine decks
away, he spotted sitting crosslegged on a tabletop
nearby, playing with his... planet?
    Picard repressed a shudder at the thought of what
this small boy might be capable of. Dealing with
children of any sort was never one of his favorite
things to do, but an omnipotent child? Wesley was
difficult enough on occasion, and he had merely been
a prodigy.
    Leyoro met him at the door and escorted him to the
woman, who scanned him from head to toe with an
appraising look. "You must be the one he talks about
all the time," she said, mostly to herself. "Luke John,
isn't it?"
    "I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship
Enterprise, "he informed her. He had no doubt whom
the "he" she had mentioned referred to, and couldn't
help wondering what Q might have told her about
him. Nothing very complimentary, I'm sure. "May I
ask what brings you here?"
    She removed her pith helmet and laid it down on an
empty chair. Auburn curls tumbled down to her
shoulders, framing her face. If nothing else, she was a
good deal more attractive than the usual Q. Her face
looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place where
he might have seen her before.
    "I'm looking for my husband," she declared. "Be-
sides, I've always meant to find out why Q finds this
primitive vessel so interesting." She glanced around,
then shrugged her shoulders. "I must admit, I don't
see it yet, but now that we have a family I intend to
share more of his interests, however bizarre and
unappealing."
    "Your husband," Picard repeated, momentarily
flummoxed. The only thing more disturbing than the
idea of Q married was the realization that he had
actually reproduced. Just what the universe needs, he
thought, a chip off the old block. He looked over at the
empty bar, wishing Guinan were there. She knew a lot
more about the Q Continuum than she usually let on.
He generally preferred to respect her privacy regard-
ing her sometimes mysterious past, but he could cer-
tainly have used her advice now. I wonder ifI should
contact Earth and have her put on a shuttle right away?
    Probably a bit drastic, he decided. God knows I've
coped with the other Q on my own more times than I
care to remember.
    "You are correct," he told the woman. "Q was here,
a few hours ago, but he has departed."
    "Nonsense," she said, looking past him. "He's here,
all right. Q," she said firmly, placing her hands on her
hips. "Show yourself."
    "You called, dearest?" an unmistakable voice rang
out, accompanied by a flash of light. Picard spun
around to see Q materialize atop the bar counter,
stretched out on his side like a model posing for a
portrait. He had traded in his anachronistic mata-
dor's garb for an up-to-date Starfleet uniform. "Hon-
ey, I'm home!"
    "This is not your home," Pieard barked automati-
cally. Q disappeared in a flash, then reappeared next
to his alleged spouse. It briefly registered on Picard
that this was the first time he had seen Q in the new
plum-colored uniforms instituted shortly before the
Borg Queen's assault on the Earth. As usual, the sight
of Q in uniform seemed grossly inappropriate and
offensive.
    "Oh, don't be such a sourpuss, Jean-Luc," Q re-
plied. "Allow me to introduce you to my better half,
Q." He teleported over to the adjacent table and
patted the child on the head. "And this, of course, is
little q."
    "Daddy!" the boy said gleefully. In his excitement,
he forgot to hold on to his "ball," which rolled
inexorably toward the edge of the table. With a muted
cry of alarm, Geordi La Forge ran over and caught the
sphere right as it went over the brink. He let out a sigh
of relief and turned toward Picard.
"It doesn't look like an M-class planet," the engi-
neer informed his captain, "but who can be sure?"
    "I can," Q stated flatly, taking back the globe from
Geordi, who hesitated for a heartbeat before surren-
dering it. Q grinned and gently shook his finger at the
child. "How many times have I told you to be more
careful with your toys? Let's put this back into its
solar system where it belongs." The orange sphere
vanished from sight. "That's a good boy."
    This picture of Q as a doting and responsible parent
was almost more than Picard could stomach. He
didn't know whether to laugh or grimace, so he spoke
to the mother instead. "I am happy to meet you," he
said diplomatically. "I was unaware that Q had a
family."
    "Oh, it's a new development," Q explained cheer-
fully. He snapped his fingers and a rain of white rice
descended on the lounge. "We're newlyweds. Isn't it
delightful?" The deluge of grain ceased and Q re-
joined his bride at her side. "Sorry we couldn't invite
you to the ceremony, Jean-Luc, but it was something
of a shotgun wedding." He winked at the female Q, as
if sharing a private joke with her. A generous assort-
ment of fragrant red roses appeared in the woman's
arms. "I'd offer to rethrow the bouquet, but I see that
neither the counselor nor Dr. Crusher is present." He
raised his hand in front of Picard's face and rubbed
his thumb and his index finger together. "Of course, I
can always remedy that situation."
    "Leave Counselor Troi and the doctor where they
are," Picard said more quickly than his pride would
have preferred. He didn't know for sure that either
Beverly or Deanna was sleeping, but he knew that
neither woman would appreciate being yanked from
whatever she was doing merely to serve as the butt of
one of Q's puerile jokes. He angrily brushed the fallen
rice off his uniform while his fellow crew members
did the same. Curiously, not a grain appeared to have
stuck to either Q.
"Spoilsport," Q said with a scowl. He exchanged a
look with his wife. "See what I mean about him?"
    The woman gave Picard another frank appraisal. "I
still don't understand," she admitted. "He doesn't
seem very amusing."
    He gave her an affectionate peck on the cheek.
"That's because, darling, you've forgotten the an-
cient, primeval concept of the straight man."
    Her eyes lit up. "Oh, now I see it." She blushed and
peered at Q through her lashes as if mildly scandal-
ized. "But, Q, that's so... carbon-based of you!"
    "Isn't it just?" he said, preening. They both tittered
slyly at his apparent outrageousness. The child, seeing
his parents laughing, started giggling as well, although
Picard rather suspected the boy didn't get the joke.
He wasn't sure he wanted to either, although he
derived a degree of satisfaction and relief from this
confirmation that Q was considered something of a
reprobate and rascal even among his own kind. The
idea of an entire race of godlike beings just as mis-
chievous and troublesome as Q was enough to fill him
with utter dread. I suppose it's too much to hope, he
thought, that Q will settle down now that he's a
husband and a father.
    As often happened with toddlers, the child's attack
of the giggles escalated to a full-scale bout of hysteri-
cal silliness. He began bouncing up and down on the
tabletop, shrieking at the top of his lungsmwhich
sounded like it was in the upper decibel range. Every-
one except Data and the elder Q's covered their ears
to keep out the deafening peals of laughter. The
android hurried toward the table, evidently con-
cerned that the boy might fall and hurt himself, but
the pint-sized entity Q had christened q slipped from
between Data's arms and hurled himself upward,
ricocheting off the ceiling and bouncing around the
lounge like a rubber ball flung with the force of a
particle accelerator. The child struck the floor only
centimeters from Picard's feet, then took off at an
angle toward Leyoro and the security team. They
yelped in unison and dropped to the floor only an
instant before q zipped by overhead. Chairs and
tables went flying in all directions as q collided with
them, and Geordi and Data took cover behind the
bar. A bottle shattered and the smell of Saurian
brandy filled the lounge, soon joined by the clashing
aromas of Gamzain wine and Trixian bubble juice. Q
and Q beamed at each other as their hyperactive
offspring wreaked havoc throughout the lounge. Pi-
card saw their lips move and, even though he couldn't
hear a thing over the child's wild laughter, felt sure
they were saying something like, "Isn't he adorable?
    Picard knew he had lost control of the situation,
nothing new where any Q was concerned. "Q!" he
shouted, not caring which one heard him. "Stop this
at once!"
    Q conferred with his spouse, who shrugged and
nodded her head. He surveyed the chaos, smiled
proudly, then clapped his hands. The silence was
immediate. Picard noticed the absence of the din a
second before he realized that he was no longer in
the lounge.
    None of them were. Picard looked around in
amazement and discovered that he, Data and Geordi,
the security team, and all three Q's had been instanta-
neously transported to the bridge of the Enterprise. It
was a close call who was the most surprised, the
bridge crew or the new arrivals. Riker leaped from the
captain's chair, his eyes wide and his mouth open.
"Captain!" he exclaimed.
    "At ease, Number One," Picard assured him. He
cocked his head toward the Q family, knowing that
was all the explanation that was required. The baby q
now rested securely within his father's arms, while
Picard found himself standing between the command
area and Ops. Baeta Leyoro rushed over to the
tactical console and stood guard over the weapons
controls.
    Riker got it, untensing his aggressive stance only a
little. A newly replicated comm badge adorned his
chest. "I see," he said, glaring suspiciously at Q. "And
the woman and child?"
    "Q's wife and heir." Riker's jaw dropped again, and
Picard shook his head to discourage any further
inquiries. "Don't ask. I'll explain later, if I can." He
turned and confronted the omnipotent trio. "Q?" he
demanded.
    Q, the usual Q, lowered his child to the floor and
strolled toward Picard with a look of unapologetic
assurance on his face. "I felt it was time for a change
in venue," he said, loudly enough for all to hear. Q
glanced furtively at his mate, who was inspecting the
aft engineering station, and whispered in Picard's ear.
"To be honest, that other place reeked too much of
her."
    "Guinan?" Picard asked aloud. He found it hard to
imagine that Q could truly be honest about anything.
    "Don't say that name!" Q hissed, but it was too
late. The woman glowered at Q the second Picard
mentioned the former hostess of Ten-Forward, then
huftily turned her back on him. She took her son by
the hand and took him on a tour of the bridge.
    "I'm going to pay for that," Q predicted mourn-
fully, "and so will you--someday."
    Picard refused to waste a single brain cell worrying
about Q's domestic tranquillity. Perhaps Q had inad-
vertently done him a favor in returning them all to the
bridge. The best thing he could do now was ignore Q's
attempts to distract him and get on with the business
of running the Enterprise. He took his place in the
captain's chair and swiftly assessed the crew assign-
ments. "Mr. Data, please relieve Ensign Stefano at
Ops. Mr. La Forge, if you could arrange to send a
repair crew to the lounge."
    "You needn't bother, Captain," the female Q com-
mented. "Any and all damage has been undone. Your
tribal watering hole has been restored to its pristine, if
woefully primitive, condition." As an afterthought,
she lifted a hand and retrieved her pith helmet from
the ether.
    "Thank you," Picard said grudgingly. Despite her
condescending attitude, which seemed to go along
with being a Q, he entertained the hope that this new
entity might prove less immature than her mate.
Heaven help us if she s worse, he thought. "Never
mind, Mr. La Forge." He glanced at the chronometer,
which read 0105. "You're relieved from duty if you
wish."
    "If it's all the same to you," Geordi said, crossing
the bridge to the engineering station, "I think I'd
rather stay here and keep an eye on things."
    Picard didn't blame him. How often did they have
three omnipotent beings dropping by for a visit? He
considered summoning Counselor Troi to the bridge,
then rejected the notion; Deanna's empathic powers
had never worked on Q and his ilk.
    "Besides," GeordJ added, "there's still plenty I can
do here to get ready for the experiment." He manipu-
lated the controls at his station. "Data, let's double-
check to see if the parameters for the subspace matrix
have been fully downloaded into the main computer."
    "Yes, Com--" Data began to answer, but Q inter-
rupted, literally freezing the android in midsentence.
He laid his hand on the flight controls and shook his
head sadly.
    "Jean-Luc, I'm very disappointed with you. I can't
help noticing that your little ship is still on course for
what you ignorantly call the galactic barrier." He
sighed loudly and instantly traded places with Ensign
Clarze at the conn. The displaced crewman stood in
front of the main viewer, blinking and befuddled.
"How about a little detour? I hear the Gamma Quad-
rant is lovely this time of year." His fingers danced
over the comm and the distant stars veered away on the
screen. "We could take the scenic route."
    Picard didn't know what indignity to protest first.
Did Q really think he could cancel their mission just
by silencing Data? Riker appeared more worried
about the flight controls. He strode over to the corm
and dropped a heavy hand on Q's shoulder. "Get out
of that seat, Q!"
    "Overdosing on testosterone again, Number One,"
he asked, not budging a centimeter, "or are you
merely picking up the slack now that everyone's
favorite atavism, the redoubtable Worf, is gone?"
    "I'm warning you, Q," Riker said with emphasis.
Picard admired his first officer's nerve. Q had them
hopelessly outmatched in raw power, but maybe
Riker could prevail through sheer force of personality.
Stranger things had happened.
    "Oh, very well," Q grumbled, rising from the chair.
Riker nodded at Ensign Clarze, who gulped once,
then resumed his place at the conn. "I hardly wanted
to steer this pokey hulk for the rest of eternity." He
gave Riker a disgusted look. "I can't believe I ever saw
fit to offer you the powers of a Q."
    That piqued the other Q's interest. "This is the
one?" she asked, her mysterious grudge against Q and
Guinan forgotten for the moment. She walked over
and circled Riker, then placed her hand over her
mouth and tried, not very successfully, to keep from
laughing. The baby q mimicked his mother's merri-
ment. "Well, that would have certainly shaken up the
Continuum. Small wonder they stripped you of your
powers after that."
    "Don't remind me," he said sullenly. Caught up in
their quarrel, neither Q seemed to notice as the
Enterprise returned to its previous heading. Picard
thanked providence for small favors, but his frown
deepened as his gaze fell upon the frozen form of
Data. The android officer remained immobile, his
mouth open in silent reply to his captain's inquiry.
    "Q!" he barked, unwilling to let his first officer take
on all the risks of defying Q.
"Yes?" the two elder Q's replied simultaneously.
Picard felt a headache coming on. "You," he speci-
fied, pointing at his longtime nemesis. "Restore Mr.
Data immediately."
    That Q glanced impatiently at the inert android, as
though Data were a minor annoyance already dis-
missed from his mind. "Priorities please, Jean-Luc.
We still haven't settled this matter of the barrier."
    "Might I remind you, Q," Picard observed, "that
Mr. Data once saved your life, at considerable risk to
his own existence."
    For once, Q looked vaguely taken aback. He gazed
back at the android with a chastened expression. "But
surely," he blustered, "I have repaid that debt many
times over with my invaluable services to this vessel."
    "Reasonable people might dispute that point," Pi-
card said dryly. He lifted his eyes to espy the female Q
and her child. "Your family is here, Q. Is this really
the example you wish to set for them?"
    Q peeked back over his shoulder at the woman and
the boy. His wife raised a curious eyebrow. The child
sucked on his thumb, watching Q with awe and
adoration.
    "Fine!" he said indignantly. He pantomimed a
pistol with his thumb and index finger and pointed it
at Data's head. "Bang."
    "--tenant," Data finished, coming back to life. He
paused and assumed a contemplative expression.
"How unusual. There appears to be a discrepancy
between my internal chronometer and the ship's
computer." He surveyed the bridge until his gaze fell
upon the party of Q's. "May I assume that one of our
visitors is responsible?"
    "Precisely so," Picard confirmed, relieved that
Data appeared to be back to normal. "Now then, Mr.
Data, you were about to inform Mr. La Forge of the
status of a particular computer program."
     "Really, Jean-Luc!" Q complained, storming up to
 the command area. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear
 you were beginning to take me for granted." He shook
 a warning finger at Picard. "You really shouldn't do
 that, you know. You're not the only Starfleet captain I
 can bestow my attentions on, in this or any other
 quadrant."
    What does he mean by that? Picard wondered,
although he was far more concerned with the report
from Data that Q seemed so determined to postpone.
"I'm sure Captain Sisko would welcome a second
round of fisticuffs," he told Q, then turned his atten-
tion back to Data. "Please proceed with your report."
    Data eyed Q curiously, waiting for a second to see if
the impertinent entity would interrupt him a third
time, but Q seemed to have given up for the present.
Q leaned sideways against a nonexistent pillar, look-
ing rather like a gravity-defying mime, and pouted
silently.
    "It appears that the program is showing a degree of
calibration drift," Data stated. "It is possible that an
unknown fraction of the data may have been lost
during the start-up routine."
    Picard paid little attention to the specifics of the
problem, which Data and Geordi were surely capable
of resolving, but found it eminently reassuring to hear
the business of the ship proceeding despite the pres-
ence of their unwanted visitors. Displaying a similar
hope that order had been restored, Riker took his
place at the starboard auxiliary command station.
    "Well," Geordi replied to Data, "that explains the
eight percent falloff in AFR ratios I keep seeing." His
artificial eyes zeroed in on the engineering monitor as
he scratched his head. "There must be a problem in
the diagnostic subroutines. Maybe we need to com-
pletely recalibrate."
    "Captain," Leyoro spoke up, her face grim, "I have
to protest any discussion of a top-secret mission in
front of these unauthorized civilians." She eyed the Q
trio dubiously. "All details of a technological nature
are strictly classified."
    "As if we would have any interest in your pathetic
little scientific secrets," Q said scornfully. "You might
as well try to hide from us the secret of fire. Or maybe
the wheel."
    "Wheel!" the baby q chirped, and began rotating
slowly above the floor until his mother set him
upright again. Thankfully, he was not inspired to
summon fire.
    "Your point is well taken, Lieutenant," Picard said,
sympathizing with Leyoro's concerns; on one level, it
felt more than a little strange to be conducting this
discussion in front of a party of intruders. "But I'm
afraid that Q is correct in this instance. Realistically,
it is doubtful that the Federation possesses any tech-
nological secrets that the Q Continuum could possi-
bly covet." Besides, he admitted silently, there was
little point in concealing their efforts; Q had proved
time and time again that he was supremely capable of
spying on them regardless of the time or place. "You
may proceed with your work, gentlemen."
    "Must they?" Q asked peevishly. "It's all academic
anyway. There isn't going to be an experiment."
    Geordi did his best to ignore Q. "Now I'm getting a
drop-off in the triple-R output," he informed Data.
"We might have a bigger problem than the diagnostic
subroutines."
    "Possibly," Data conceded, "but it could simply be
a transtator failure. That would also be consistent
with calibration errors of this nature."
    "And so on and so on," Q broke in, his voice
dripping with boredom. He righted himself until he
was perpendicular to the floor once more. "Are you
done yet? We have infinitely more important matters
to get back to."
    Q's offspring, Picard noted, no matter how young
he might actually be, seemed to possess a greater
reserve of patience than his egomaniacal father. "Mr.
Data," he said, "I do not pretend to be intimately
acquainted with the finer points of Professor Faal's
computer programs. Do you anticipate any difficulties
working out these problems prior to our arrival at the
barrier?"
    "No, sir," Data said. Fortunately, the android did
not require sleep like the rest of them, although Data
often chose to simulate a dormant state in order to
further his exploration of humanity, so Picard had no
doubt that Data would work through the night if
necessary.
    Q yawned, and not from fatigue. "Are we quite
through with this dreary business?" he inquired. A
nervous-looking Ensign Clarze, who was surely less
than eager to be teleported away from his post again,
kept his eyes determinedly focused on the screen
ahead of him even as Q ambled back to the conn.
"Then can I finally prevail upon you to abandon this
monumentally misguided exercise? Leave the barrier
alone. It is not for the likes of you to tamper with."
    Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was simply that
he had reached his limit, but Picard had suddenly had
enough of Q's perpetual snideness and high-handed
pronouncements. "Get this straight, Q. I take my
orders from Starfleet and the United Federation of
Planets, not from the Q Continuum and most espe-
cially not from you!"
    Q recoiled from Picard's vehemence. "Somebody
woke up on the wrong side of the Borg this morning,"
he sniffed. He raised his eyes unto heaven and struck a
martyred pose. "Forgive him, Q, for he knows not
what he says. I try to enlighten these poor mortals but
their eyes are blind and their ears are deaf to my
abundant wisdom." He shrugged his shoulders,
dropped his arms to his sides, and turned to his mate.
"Honeybunch, you talk to him. Tell him I know what
I'm talking about."
 The female Q was busy wiping her son's nose, but
she looked up long enough to fix her brown eyes on
Picard and say, "He knows what he's talking about,
Captain." She returned to her son and muttered
under her breath, "If only he didn't."
    "Big wall!" the toddler interjected, adding his own
two cents' worth. "Bad! Bad? He stamped his tiny
foot on the floor and the entire bridge lurched to
starboard. Picard grabbed on to his armrests to keep
from being thrown from the chair. Data padds and
other loose instruments clattered to the floor. Riker
stumbled forward, but managed to keep his footing.
Baeta Leyoro swore under her breath and shot a
murderous glare at Q and his family. Yellow alert
lights flashed on automatically all around the bridge.
An alarm sounded.
    "Now, now," the female Q cooed to her son. "Be
gentle with the little spaceship. You don't want to
break it." She patted the child on the head and he
looked down at his feet sheepishly. Picard felt the
Enterprise's flight path stabilize.
    He silenced the alarm and ended the yellow alert by
pressing a control on his armrest. Although the crisis
seemed to have passed, he was unnerved by this
demonstration of the baby's abilities. Suppose the
child threw a real tantrum? Not even the entire fleet
might be able to save them. "Q," he began, addressing
the male of the species, "perhaps there is a more
suitable location for your son? Children do not belong
on the bridge," he said quite sincerely.
    "Really?" Q asked. "You gave that insufferable
Wesley the run of the place as I recall." He stood on
his tiptoes and peered over everyone's heads, as if
expecting to find young Wesley Crusher hidden be-
hind a console. Then he lowered his soles to the floor
and considered his son. Little q held on to his
mother's leg while watching the viewscreen through
droopy eyelids. "Still, you may have a point," Q told
Picard. "He is looking a trifle bored."
  "       ?" he said to his wife in a language that
bore no resemblance to any tongue Picard had ever
heard before, one so inhuman that even the Universal
Translator was stumped.
  "      ," she replied.
An instant later, the baby disappeared. Picard felt
an incalculable sense of danger averted until a new
suspicion entered his mind. "Q," he asked warily,
"where exactly did the child go?"
Q acted surprised by the question. "Why, Jean-Luc,
I understand the Enterprise has excellent child-care
facilities."
He and the other Q vanished from sight.

Chapter Seven

ALTHOUGH ENTIRE FAMILIES no longer lived perma-
nently on the Starship Enterprise, Holodeck B could
be converted into a children's center to accommodate
the offspring of the various diplomats, delegations,
and refugees who often traveled aboard the ship.
During such times, the holographic center was kept
open twenty-four hours a day, to handle the varying
circadian rhythms of each alien race as well as to
allow for emergency situations. Since alien encoun-
ters and other crises could hardly be expected to occur
only during school hours, there had to be some place
where any mothers and fathers aboard the ship could
safely stow their children during, say, a surprise
Romulan attack. The last thing anyone wanted was
visiting scientists or ambassadors who were unable to
assist in an emergency because they couldn't find a
babysitter.
    Ensign Percy Whitman, age twenty-five, didn't
mind working the graveyard shift at the children's
center. The Faal children were still living on Betazed
time, according to which it was roughly the middle of
the afternoon, but they seemed well behaved and
remarkably quiet. That ~ the nice thing about telepath-
ic kids, he thought. They can talk among themselves
without disturbing anyone else. All of which gave him
more time to compose his work-in-progress, a holo-
novel about a sensitive young artist who works nights
at a kindergarten for nocturnal Heptarians until he is
recruited by Starfleet Intelligence to infiltrate the
Klingon High Command.
    Tonight the writing was going unusually well. He
was already up to Chapter Seven, where the hero,
Whip Parsi, fights a duel to the death with the
treacherous heir to a hopelessly corrupt Klingon
household. "His mighty bat'leth sliced through the
sultry night air, keening a song of vengeance, as Whip
struck back with all the skill and fury of one born to
battle," he keyed into the padd on his desk. Yeah, he
thought, transfixed by his own output, that's great
stuff. He'd work out the holographic animation later.
    A squeal of high-pitched laughter yanked him away
from his gripping saga. He looked up from the padd to
check on his charges. Everything seemed in order: the
two smaller children, roughly two years old in human
terms, played happily on the carpeted floor, stacking
sturdy durafoam blocks into lopsided piles that inevi-
tably toppled over, while their eleven-year-old brother
played a computer game in one of the cubicles at the
back of the room. Childish watercolor paintings of
stars and planets decorated the walls.
    Another meter-high tower of multicolored blocks
collapsed into rubble and the toddlers squealed once
more. Nothing to be alarmed about here, Whitman
thought. He started to go back to his masterpiece-in-
the-making, then paused and scratched his head. Say,
hadn't there been only one little tyke before?
    He put aside his personal padd and checked the
attendance display on the center's terminal. Let's
see... Kinya and Milo Faal. That was one all right, a
little Betazoid girl and her older brother. He stood up
behind the desk and checked out the smaller children
again.
    The girl was easy to identify. Her blond curls and
striking Betazoid eyes distinguished her from the
other gleeful youngster. But where had that child, a
brown-haired boy in a white sailor's costume, come
from? Had someone dropped off another kid without
him noticing? He wasn't aware of any other children
visiting the ship, but he was only an ensign; no one
told him anything.
    Could this be some sort of test or surprise inspec-
tion? Maybe the new kid wasn't really here at all but
was just a holographic image that had appeared from
nowhere while he wasn't looking. He checked out the
holographic control display embedded into his desk,
but found nothing out of the ordinary.
    "Milo?" he called out. Perhaps the eleven-year-old
had noticed something. "Did you see anybody come
by in the last half hour or so?"
    "Uh-uh," Milo grunted rather sullenly, never look-
ing away from his computer game. Whitman sus-
pected that Milo thought he was much too old for the
children's center and was taking it out on the baby-
sitter.
    "Are you sure?" Whitman asked. It just didn't
make any sense. How could there be an extra kid?
    "Uh-huh," Milo said, extremely uninterested in
anything any grown-up had to say. On the terminal
before him, several invading Tholian warships bit the
dust in a computer-generated blaze of glory.
    Whitman closed his eyes and massaged his temples,
growing increasingly agitated by this uncrackable
dilemma. The way he saw it, there was no way he
could ask anyone for an explanation without looking
like a careless and incompetent idiot. His stomach
began to churn unhappily. Maybe if I just keep my
eyes shut, he thought desperately, and count to ten,
everything will go back to normal and I'll have the
right number of kids again.
    It was a ridiculous, pathetic fantasy, but it made as
much sense as what had already happened so far. He
squeezed his eyes shut and counted slowly under his
breath. He swallowed hard, then opened his eyes.
    Only one toddler sat on the carpet, staring up at the
ceiling with unrestrained wonder. Whitman couldn't
believe his luck, until he noticed the wobbly stack of
blocks rising up in front of him. He craned his neck
back and followed the tower of blocks to its top--
where he saw the other child, the one in the sailor suit,
teetering at the top of an impossibly tall block pile
that reached above Whitman's head. The boy's un-
ruly brown hair brushed the ceiling and he giggled
happily, completely unfrightened by his precarious
perch. The other child clapped her tiny hands togeth-
er, cheering him on.
    "Oh... my... god," Whitman gasped, unable to
believe his eyes. Then he clapped his hands over his
mouth, afraid to exhale for fear of bringing down the
tower of brightly colored blocks. Across the room,
Milo, intent on his one-man war against the Tholian
marauders, was oblivious of the miracle.
    The baby reached out his hand and two more
blocks lifted off the floor and drifted upward into his
waiting fingers. Whitman rubbed his eyes and strug-
gled to figure out what was happening. Could some-
thing have gone wrong with the artificial gravity?
Could this be some bizarre holographic malfunction?
Stranger things had been known to happen; he'd
heard a few horror stories about near-fatal accidents
within the old Enterprise's holodecks, like that time a
holographic Moriarty had almost taken over the ship.
Or when Counselor Troi was nearly gunned down
during a Western scenario.
    Whitman picked up his padd and dropped it over
the desk. The padd fell straight down, just like it was
supposed to, so the gravity was working fine. But how
then had the little boy managed to erect such a
ridiculous structure?
    He cautiously snuck out from behind the desk,
arms outstretched to catch the teetering toddler if and
when he plummeted to the floor. He had to fall soon,
Whitman told himself. The ramshackle pile of blocks
looked like an avalanche waiting to happen. It could
collapse at any second. When it did, would he be able
to grab the kid before he crashed to the ground? What
would Whip Parsi do at a time like this? He hit the
medical emergency alert button, summoning help in
advance of the ghastly plunge that was sure to come.
    The child continued to stack his blocks. Having run
out of room between himself and the roof, the boy
blithely turned himself upside down and crawled out
onto the ceiling. He began lining up his new blocks in
a row across the length of the ceiling while he hung
there effortlessly like a fly upon a wall. "Choo-choo!"
he burbled.
    Whitman suddenly felt very silly holding his arms
out. A gravity screwup, he thought. It has to be. Never
mind that he still didn't know how this kid got here in
the first place. He was about to contact Engineering
when the door whished open and Counselor Troi
rushed in. Her hair was disheveled and she looked like
she'd come straight from bed, pausing only to throw
on a fresh uniform.
    "Gee, you're fast," Whitman said, remembering his
medical alert from mere moments ago.
  "The captain sent me," she explained.
"No security team?" Baeta Leyoro asked, sounding
both incredulous and offended.
    "That is correct, Lieutenant," Picard confirmed. "I
believe that Counselor Troi is better suited to handle
this situation." If the infant q had indeed been
deposited in the holographic children's center, then
Deanna's empathic skills and training were more
likely to keep the child under control than a squadron
of phaser-wielding security officers, assuming that any
of them had even a prayer of stopping q ~,om wreak-
ing havoc aboard the ship. This is all Q s fault, he
thought angrily. He simply can't resist making my life
di~cult.
    Leyoro fumed visibly. The dark-haired security
chief abandoned her station at tactical and marched
into the command area to face Picard. "Permission to
speak frankly, sir?" she requested. Her eyes blazed
like a warp-core explosion.
    "Go ahead, Lieutenant," he said. With Q and his
mate absent for the time being, there might be no
better time to hear what Leyoro had to say. Will Riker
paid close attention to the irate officer as well, while
the rest of the crew carried on with their work, no
doubt listening attentively.
    She stood stiffly in front of him, her hands clasped
behind her back. "With all due respect, sir, I cannot
do my job effectively if you keep countermanding my
recommendations. If you have no faith in me as your
head of security, then perhaps you should find some-
one else."
    Just for a second, Picard wished that Worf had
never accepted that post at Deep Space Nine. "Your
service record is exemplary," he told her, "and I have
a great deal of confidence in you. However, dealing
with Q, any Q, is a unique situation that calls for
unorthodox approaches, like sending a counselor in
place of a security team."
    "I believe I am accustomed to coping with unex-
pected circumstances," she maintained. "In the past,
I have smuggled defectors across the Neutral Zone in
an uncloaked ship, rescued political prisoners from a
maximum-security TarsJan slave labor camp, and
even repelled a Maquis raid with nothing more than a
single shuttlecraft and a malfunctioning photon tor-
pedo."
 Having thoroughly examined Leyoro's file before
granting her the post of security chief, Picard knew
that she was not exaggerating in the slightest. If
anything, she was understating her somewhat colorful
I/and faintly notorious) history. Not to mention rebel-
ng against her own government when the Angosian
soldiers escaped from that lunar prison colony, he
thought.  Still.
    "Despite your varied accomplishments," he in-
sisted, "a Q is unlike any threat that you could have
encountered before. Force and shows of force can
accomplish nothing where a Q is concerned." He
hoped Leyoro would understand what he was saying
and not take the matter personally. "This is not about
you or your capabilities, but about what a Q can do.
Namely, anything."
    Leyoro appeared mollified. She relaxed her stance
and stopped radiating anger. The furnace in her eyes
cooled to a smolder. "So," she asked, "how do you
deal with an entity like Q?"
    "Lieutenant," he answered, "I've been trying to
figure that out for a good ten years now."
    Beverly Crusher arrived at Holodeck B only min-
utes after Troi. Not that any of them really needed to
have hurried. The baby q looked quite content to play
with his blocks up on the ceiling. Watching him was a
disorienting, vaguely vertiginous experience. Troi
kept glancing down at the floor to make sure that she
wasn't simply looking at a reflection in a mirrored
ceiling.
 She wasn't.
    "Now what do we do?" she asked aloud. "Send a
shuttle up there to fetch him?"
    "I may have a better idea," Beverly answered, "but
first let's get the rest of these kids out of here." At the
doctor's suggestion, Percy Whitman began corralling
the little Faal girl and herding her toward the door.
Troi felt sorry for the poor ensign; she could sense his
anxiety and confusion. She had attempted to explain
to him quickly about Q and Q and q, but he remained
as rattled as before.
    "Percy," she whispered as he passed by. "Feel free
to drop by my office later if you want to talk about
this."
    He nodded weakly and gave the tiny Betazoid girl a
pat on the back to keep her moving. Enthralled by the
astounding spectacle of her peer's visit to the ceiling,
the other toddler was not very eager to leave. She
started crying, but Percy ssshed her effectively and led
her out the door. Sitting upside down above every-
one's heads, merrily stringing his blocks across the
ceiling, q did not notice his playmate being escorted
away. Troi breathed a little easier when the youngest
of Professor Faal's children disappeared into the
corridor. She had summoned Faal himself to the
holodeck, but the scientist could just as easily claim
the children outside the chamber, safely away from
the baby q's unpredictable activities.
    That left only the eleven-year-old at the computer
terminal. Milo, she recalled from Lem Faal's personal
files. She began to inch her way along the edge of
the chamber, hoping to sneak the older boy out with-
out attracting q's attention. "Milo," she called in a
hushed tone. "Milo?"
    Caught up in his game, he had not yet observed any
of the oddities taking place nearby, nor did he hear
her call his name. Troi admired the intensity of his
focus even as she wished that he would lift up his head
from the screen for just one moment. She had no idea
what the baby q might do to another child if pro-
voked, but she didn't want to find out.
    The door to the holodeck was sliding shut behind
Ensign Whitman when Lem Faal stormed into the
simulated child-care center. His thinning hair was
disordered and a heavy Betazoid robe, made of thick,
quilted beige fabric, was belted at his waist. "What's
this all about?" he said irritably, sounding as if he had
been unpleasantly roused from sleep. "What's going
on with my children? First, I got an urgent call, then
that strange young man out there"--he gestured
toward the corridor--"said something about an
upside-down baby?" Beverly tried to shush Faal,
fearing he'd startle q, but the scientist spotted the
child upon the ceiling first. "By the Sacred Chalice,"
he whispered, taken aback. His red-rimmed eyes
widened. His mouth fell open and he gasped for
breath.
    The situation was getting more complicated by the
moment, Troi realized. She had to get both Faal and
the remaining child out of here. "Milo?" she thought
urgently, hoping to reach the Betazoid child on a
telepathic level.
    "Ha!" the boy shouted in triumph, leaning back in
his chair and pumping his fist in the air. "Eat hot
plasma, Tholian scum!"
    His cry of victory startled q, who evidently forgot
about canceling gravity. Durafoam blocks rained
upon the floor while the surprised baby dropped like a
rock. "Oh no!" Beverly shouted.
    Without thinking about it, Troi ran to the center of
the room and threw out her arms. Will had always
teased her about her total inability to play the ancient
Terran game of baseball, but now she relied on every
hour she had ever spent practicing in the holodeck to
wipe the grin from his face. Her heart pounded. Her
breath caught in her throat. Nothing else mattered.
There was only the falling baby and the hard metal
floor beneath the orange carpeting.
    Ten kilograms of quite corporeal child landed in
her arms and she breathed once more. She hugged the
boy against her chest, taking care not to press her
comm badge by mistake. For the spawn of two
transcendental, highly evolved beings, little q felt
surprisingly substantial. Tears sprung from his eyes as
Troi shifted her load to make him more comfortable.
Memories of her own infant, Ian Andrew, and of
holding him much like this, came back to her with
unexpected force.
    Beverly Crusher rushed to her side, a medical
tricorder in her hand.
    "Is he all right?" Troi asked her urgently. It felt very
strange--and scarymnot to be able to sense the
baby's emotions. "Was he hurt by the fall?"
    "I don't even know if it's possible for him to be
hurt," Beverly answered. She began to scan the child
with the peripheral unit of her tricorder, then re-
membered impatiently that conventional sensors
were useless where a Q was concerned. She put the
tricorder away and examined the boy with her hands.
"No swelling or broken bones," she announced af-
ter a moment. "I think he's more scared than in-
jured."
    The baby's descent, and Troi's spectacular catch,
had seized the attention of both Professor Faal and
his son.
    "Dad?" Milo said, spotting his father from across
the room. "What's happening? Where did that baby
come from?" Another thought occurred to him and
he looked around the simulated child-care facility.
"Hey, where's Kinya?"
    But Faal was too intent upon the miraculous,
gravity-defying infant to answer his son's queries, or
even look away from the bawling child in Troi's arms.
"I don't understand," he protested, his gaze shifting
from q to the ceiling and back again. "Was that some
sort of trick?"
    "It's a baby Q," Troi volunteered, trying to put a
little distance between Faal and Beverly so that the
doctor would have more room to work in.
    "Q," he whispered, awestruck. Troi didn't like the
sound of his breathing, which was wet and labored.
She felt glad that Beverly was close by, and not only
for the baby's sake. "But it looks so... ordinary?"
    Milo left his computer game behind and hurried to
join his father. He looked completely baffled, but Troi
sensed his happiness at his father's arrival. "Q?" he
asked. "What's a Q?"
    "An advanced life-form," Faal intoned, more to
himself than to the boy. He remained intent on the
baby Q. "A higher stage of evolution, transcending
mere corporeal existence."
    "That?" Milo said, incredulous. Troi detected a
spark of jealousy within him, no doubt ignited by his
father's absorption with the superhuman infant. "It's
just a stupid baby."
    Did little q understand him? For whatever reason,
the baby started crying louder, approaching the ear-
splitting wail that had earlier resounded throughout
the entire ship. "Hush," Troi murmured, rocking him
gently, but the child kept crying.
    "Hang on," Beverly said, "I bet I have a prescrip-
tion for that." She reached into the pocket of her blue
lab coat and pulled out a cherry-red lollipop. "Here,
try this."
    The child's cries fell silent the moment he saw the
bright red sweet. His pudgy fingers wrapped around
the stick and he began sucking enthusiastically on the
candy. Troi didn't require any special gifts to sense q's
improved spirits.
    "The oldest trick in pediatric medicine," Beverly
explained with a smile. "I never come to a children's
center, holographic or otherwise, without one. Once I
got here, I had planned to use it to lure him down off
the ceiling." She approached Troi to inspect the baby.
"You know, he actually looks a little like Q."
    "Try not to hold that against him," Troi said. The
sucker had calmed q for a time, but she wondered
how long that could last. She didn't mind holding the
child for a while, even though she realized that wasn't
much of a long-term solution. He looks so angelic
now, it's easy to forget how dangerous he might be.
 Troi hoped the doctor had brought some extra
lollipops for later. "You say his mother is much like
Q?" Crusher asked.
    "So I'm told," Troi answered. She had to admit that
she was curious to meet Q's mate. I guess there really
is someone for everyone, she thought. "At least her ego
is supposed to be just as immense."
    Professor Faal's interest in the child remained more
scientific. He scrutinized the baby like it was a speci-
men on a petri dish, squinting at the child the closer
he got to Troi and the baby Q. Troi was struck by the
intensity of his fascination with the child. Then again,
she recalled, maybe I've simply become too accus-
tomed to Q and his kind. She imagined that any
scientist would find a Q an irresistible puzzle. "Doc-
tor," Faal said to Crusher, noticing the equipment she
was carrying, "might I borrow your tricorder at
once."
    "It won't do you any good," she warned him, but
handed him the instrument. He began scanning q
with the tricorder, then scowled in frustration at the
(non) readings it displayed. "Dammit, it's not work-
ing." At his side, Milo tried to see what his father was
reacting to, standing on his tiptoes to peer past his
father's arm. Frankly, Troi wished she could somehow
persuade Faal to return with Milo to his own quarters,
leaving them alone to deal with q, but she suspected it
would take wild horses to drag the scientist away from
such a unique specimen of advanced alien life.
    Beverly considered the child thoughtfully. "It's
funny," she said eventually. "I'm kind of surprised
that his mother would be willing to leave him alone in
the care of a primitive species like us."
    "Unless maybe she thought we couldn't possibly do
him any harm?" Deanna suggested. "Even if we tried,
that is."
    "If he's like any other toddler," Beverly said, "then
he's perfectly capable of hurting himself by accident."
She frowned, disturbed by her own chain of reason-
ing. Troi could sense her concern growing. "It just
doesn't make sense. Why leave a precious child like
this with people who completely lack the ability to
look after him properly?"
    A unexpected burst of light caught them all off
guard. "If you must know," said the woman who
suddenly appeared in their midst, "I had my eye on
him the whole time."
    This had to be the female Q, Troi realized. She
looked much as the captain had described her, except
that now she had assumed the attire of a twentieth-
century American tourist on a summer vacation:
sandals, pink plastic sunglasses, a large-brimmed hat,
and a light cotton sundress with a Hawaiian print
design. She held a paper fan in one hand and a
flyswatter in the other, both rather gratuitous in the
controlled environment of the Enterprise. Where does
she think she is, Troi wondered, the Amazon rain
forest? She recognized a bit of baby q in his mother's
features, finding this evidence of a family resem-
blance vaguely reassuring in its similarity to a com-
mon, everyday aspect of humanoid parentage.
    The woman noticed Troi inspecting her. "Well,"
she asked acidly, "is my ego as large as you antici-
pated?"
    Troi blushed, recalling her remarks of a few mo-
ments ago. She hoped that the woman was equipped
with a sense of humor to go with her extraordinary
abilities; otherwise Troi might be in serious trouble.
"My apologies. I had no idea you were listening."
    "Oh, never mind," the Q stated wearily, as if the
matter were far too trivial to waste her time upon. "I
suppose divinity must resemble egotism to evolution~
arily disadvantaged creatures such as yourself." She
swept the children's center with a withering stare. To
Troi's surprise, Professor Faal stepped backward ap-
prehensively. The Betazoid scientist remained hard to
read, but he almost seemed frightened of the female
Q. I guess a harmless baby is one thing, Troi thought,
but a full-grown Q in her prime is a good deal more
intimidating, even for one of the Federation's finest
minds. She reminded herself that Faal, not to mention
Milo, were nowhere near as used to encountering the
unknown as the crew of a starship. Especially when
she just appears out of nowhere.
    Having surveyed her surroundings, the female Q
focused once more on Deanna. "Which one are you?"
she asked. "The headshrinker or the witch doctor?"
    Any lingering embarrassment Troi might have felt
for inadvertently insulting this Q evaporated abrupt-
ly. "I am the ship's counselor, Lieutenant Com-
mander Deanna Troi," she declared, "and this is Dr.
Beverly Crusher."
    "Whatever," Q replied, sounding faintly bored, but
her patrician manner softened a bit when her gaze fell
upon the child in Troi's arms. The fan and the
flyswatter popped out of existence, and she patted his
tiny nose with her finger. "Hello, little fellow, have
you been having fun among the silly primitives?"
    The boy, who was obviously accustomed to his
mother appearing from out of nowhere, smiled and
showed her his lollipop. "Mama!" he gurgled, and
waved the half-eaten sucker in her face. "Yum-yum!"
    Troi hoped that his mother approved of giving
candy to babies. "That's very yummy, I'm sure," Q
said to her child and lifted him from Troi's grasp. The
Betazoid counselor willingly surrendered q, her tired
arms grateful for the break. She had forgotten how
heavy babies could get after a while. Q gave q a tender
hug, then looked at the other two women with a
marginally more charitable expression on her face. "I
suppose I should thank you for tending to my baby as
diligently as you were able, not that you can be
expected to fully understand the unique needs of such
a special and profoundly gifted child, who is, after all,
the literal embodiment of the ultimate potential of
the Q."
    "I wouldn't be so sure of that," Beverly challenged
her, understandably annoyed by the woman's atti-
tude. Troi both sensed and shared Beverly's irritation,
although Lem Faal, despite his anxiety, seemed to
hang on her every word. He couldn't take his eyes off
the female Q and her child. "My own son, Wesley, is
quite gifted."
    "Well, by humanoid standards, perhaps," Q said,
distinctly less than impressed.
    "Not necessarily," Beverly pointed out. "An entity
much like yourself, who called himself the Traveler,
judged Wesley worthy of his attention and tutelage."
    "The Traveler?" Q asked, sounding intrigued de-
spite herself. She clearly recognized the name. "The
Traveler chose your son?"
    "Exactly," Beverly informed her. Troi could feel
her friend's pride in her son, as well as the pain of
Wesley's long absence from the Enterprise. "I have
every reason to believe that he may be on the thresh-
old of entering a higher level of existence."
    "For that matter," Troi added, unable to resist
joining this game of maternal one-upmanship, "my
own son, Ian Andrew, grew up to be a noncorporeal
life-form exploring the cosmos."
    In fact, the full story was more complicated than
that; her son had been an alien entity who had
impregnated her with himself in order to learn more
about humanoid existence, but she saw no reason to
explain all that to this particular Q, who could
obviously use being taken down a peg or two. For her
own good, of course, Troi thought.
    The female Q could not believe her ears. Professor
Faal looked equally surprised. "Your son," she ech-
oed, "transcending the inherent limitations of matter-
based biology? You must be joking."
    "Not a bit," Troi stated. "If you doubt either me or
Dr. Crusher, you can always consult the ship's logs."
    Her son's head resting contentedly on her shoulder,
Q subjected Troi and Crusher to more intensive
scrutiny than before. "Hmmm," she murmured,
mostly to herself, "I think I may be starting to see
what Q finds so compelling about you funny little
creatures. You may not be as primitive as you ap-
pear."
    Mother and child both disappeared, leaving the
two women, along with Faal and his son, alone in the
holographic children's center at roughly three in the
morning. Both the holodeck and the ship had sur-
vived the visitation intact, although Faal looked as
though he had just undergone a religious experience.
"I can't believe it. How amazing," he murmured,
oblivious of Milo, who tugged on his father's arm but
failed to distract the older man from his preoccupa-
tion. "Pure energy and power in humanoid form,"
Faal rhapsodized. "The manifestation--and repro-
duction--of noncorporeal existence. Animate, an-
thropomorphized thought!" His breath was ragged,
but he didn't seem to notice. He stared inward,
poring over his memories for the secrets of the Q's
existence. "What did she mean," he asked, "that the
child was the embodiment of the Q's potential? Do
you think she was implying an even further develop-
ment in their evolution? Why, the implications are
astounding... !"
    "I think it's getting very late," Troi said simply,
uncertain how to respond. Despite all the wondrous
events of the last hour, she found she could not ignore
the wounded look on Milo's face as his father theo-
rized about the scientific importance of the infant Q.
When the other parents, human and otherwise,
boasted of their children, she recalled, Faal had not
even mentioned his own. Troi could feel the boy's
pain. Why couldn't Faal? Is he unable to sense it
somehow, she wondered, or does he simply not care?

Chapter Eight

  Captain's log, supplemental

      As we approach the outer boundaries of the
  galaxy, neither Q nor any member of his family
  has been heard from for several hours. If nothing
  else, this welcome respite has given both myself
  and my officers a chance to get some much-
  needed rest. I anticipate the commencement of
  Professor Faal's ambitious experiment with re-
  newed optimism and vigor, even as I remain
  convinced that we have not heard the last of Q.

THE GALACTIC BARRIER shimmered on the viewscreen.
Red and purple energies coursed along its length,
charging the barrier with enough power to threaten
even a Sovereign-class starship. On this side of that
incandescent ribbon of light, the Milky Way galaxy as
they knew it, home to the Federation and the Domin-
ion and the Borg and millions of worlds and races as
yet unknown. On the other side, a vast and inconceiv-
able emptiness holding countless more galaxies as
large or larger than their own. This is truly the final
frontier, Picard mused, contemplating the galactic
barrier from his chair on the bridge, one boundless
enough to be explored forever.
    "An awesome sight," he commented to Lem Faal.
The Betazoid physicist and Geordi La Forge had
joined them on the bridge to witness the barrier as it
came within visual range of their sensors. Faal stood
behind Data's station at Ops, regarding the radiant
barrier with open wonder. "I imagine you must be
eager to be under way with your experiment," Picard
said.
    "More than you could ever comprehend," Faal
answered. His pale face held a mixture of reverence
and ill-disguised rapacity, like King Midas beholding
his hoard of gold. "Did you know that the energy that
composes the barrier is unlike anything we've ever
encountered, aside from the Great Barrier at the
galactic core? Why, at first it didn't even register on
any of the primitive sensors of the previous century."
    "So I gathered," Picard said. He had taken the time
to review Starfleet's past encounters with the barrier,
particularly the daring voyages of Captain James T.
Kirk of the original Enterprise, who had braved the
barrier in his flimsy ship not once but three times.
Kirk had mentioned in his log that the barrier had
originally been invisible to every sensor except visual,
emitting no conventional forms of radiation nor
producing any measurable gravimetric effects. Picard
smiled sadly at the thought of Jim Kirk; meeting Kirk
himself in the Nexus remained one of the high points
of his career. Too bad he didn't live to see this day. This
was exactly the kind of pioneering expedition he loved
most.
    "How soon until we're within firing range?" Faal
asked. A modified quantum torpedo, holding his
crucial apparatus, waited within one of the forward
torpedo launchers. Faced with the barrier in all its
immensity and enigmatic splendor, Picard found it
hard to visualize how any man-made object, no
matter how specialized, could hope to make a dent in
that heavenly wall. Then again, why would Q warn
them to leave the barrier alone unless he actually
thought Faal might succeed?
    "Approximately three hours, forty-seven minutes,
and twelve seconds," Data answered helpfully. He
increased the magnification on the main viewer and
the image of the barrier expanded to fill the screen.
    "Wow," Geordi said, from his seat at the engineer-
ing station. "That is impressive." Picard wondered
how the barrier appeared to Geordi's optical im-
plants.
    "You can say that again," added Riker, who was
seated at the starboard auxiliary command station.
The first officer was as wide-eyed as the rest of them.
"I have to admit, Professor, I don't see any sign of
those weak spots you mentioned before."
    Faal chuckled at Riker's remark. "Everything's
relative, Commander. The fractures are there, you
can be certain of it, but even the weakest point in the
barrier appears impregnable to the naked eye." He
never looked away from the screen, enraptured by the
magnified vision of the barrier in all its glory. "Three
hours, you say. Captain, could we possibly go a little
faster?"
    "Only in an emergency," Picard stated. He sympa-
thized with the scientist's impatience, but he failed to
see a need to exceed Starfleet's recommended cruising
speed of warp five, imposed when it was discovered
that higher warp speeds caused ecological damage to
the very structure of space. "I'm sorry, Professor, but
we should be within range soon enough."
    "I understand, Captain," Faal said, accepting the
verdict. His fingers toyed with his ever-present hypo-
spray. "I've waited years for this opportunity. I sup-
pose I can wait a few hours more."
    Picard was grateful that the scientist did not press
the issue. Overall, Lem Faal had been fairly easy to
work with so far; could Deanna have been mistaken
when she detected some hidden dark side to the
man's temperament? He glanced to the left and was
reassured to see that the counselor was watching the
barrier and not Faal; he assumed this meant that the
.professor was not radiating any particularly disturb-
mg emotions at present. Let us hope that she misread
Faal initially, the captain thought. Q and his family
were enough of a headache for any voyage. He hardly
needed further problems.
    "Captain," Data reported, "our external sensors
are detecting unusual tachyon emissions."
    Picard leaned forward in his chair, responding to
Data's unexpected announcement. "From the bar-
rier?"
    The golden-skinned android turned to face Picard.
"Negative, Captain. I was monitoring radiation levels
outside the ship when I noted an intriguing phenome-
non. In theory, the ambient radiation should decrease
steadily the farther we travel away from the galactic
center. However, peripheral sensors on the ship's hull
are recording a steadily rising number of subatomic
tachyon collisions, and not exclusively from the direc-
tion of the barrier."
    "I see," Picard answered. He exchanged a quizzical
look with Riker. The captain had learned to rely on
Data's scientific expertise when dealing with unex-
pected interstellar phenomena; if the android thought
these microscopic collisions with faster-than-light
particles were worth mentioning, then they deserved
his full attention. "Do the tachyon emissions pose a
threat to the ship or the crew?"
    "No, sir," Data stated. "The tachyon particles are
passing through our deflector shields, but the number
of particles would need to increase by approximately
1000.45 orders of magnitude before they constituted
a hazard to either organic or cybernetic systems. I was
merely calling to your attention an unexpected statis-
tical pattern."
    Data didn't sound particularly concerned, Picard
noted, but the on-again, off-again nature of the an-
droid's emotions often made it hard to gauge his
reaction to any given development. When he wanted
to be, Data could be as unflappable as a Vulcan high
priest, no matter how dire the circumstances. Picard
didn't think this was one of those times, though; Data
was also capable of conveying a sense of urgency as
well, and Picard was not getting that impression from
the android officer.
    "Is there anything that could account for all this
heightened tachyon activity?" Riker asked Data.
    "There are only two possible explanations," the
android stated. His golden eyes carefully monitored
the readouts at the Ops console. "An unusual natural
phenomenon, such as a wormhole or quantum singu-
larity, or an artificial tachyon bombardment engi-
neered by parties unknown." "Artificial?" Leyoro asked.
    Data elaborated calmly. "I cannot rule out the
possibility that the emissions are being deliberately
directed at the Enterprise."
    "To what purpose?" Picard asked. He didn't like
the sound of this. In theory, only Starfleet Command
was aware of the Enterprise's present location.
    "That I cannot yet determine," Data responded.
"Shall I devote more of the sensor array's resources
toward identifying the source of the emissions?"
    Picard nodded gravely. "Make it so, and continue
to monitor the impact of the tachyons upon the ship."
He turned to address Geordi. "Mr. La Forge, is this
tachyon surge likely to interfere with your plans for
the experiment?"
    "We may need to recalibrate our instruments,"
Geordi answered. "Some of the equipment is pretty
delicate." Professor Faal nodded in agreement, and
Geordi considered the barrier upon the screen. "Be-
fore we release the torpedo containing the magneton
generator, I want to launch a class-2 sensor probe into
the barrier first, just to see what kind of readings we
can get before the probe is destroyed. Then we can
fine-tune the settings in the torpedo before we send it
into the barrier."
    "Professor Faal, is this acceptable to you?" Picard
asked.
    The scientist sighed impatiently, but nodded his
head. "Yes, Captain," he said. "Naturally, I would
prefer to go straight to creating the wormhole, but,
under the circumstances, sending in a probe first
would be a wise precaution. The more accurate our
data on the barrier is, the better chance for success."
    "Very well," Picard said. "Prepare to launch the
probe as soon as we're within range of the barrier."
    Confident that Geordi could cope with this new
development, he considered Data's suggestion that
the tachyons were being purposely directed at the
ship. Could they constitute a signal of some sort?
"Mr. Data, is there any pattern to the emissions that
might suggest an attempt to communicate with us?"
    "Negative, sir," the android replied. "I have, in
fact, run a statistical record of the tachyon emissions
through the Universal Translator without success. The
only discernible pattern is one of steady growth,
suggesting that the source of the emissions is either
growing in intensity and/or drawing nearer to the
ship."
    "In other words," Riker said, "it could be growing
stronger and getting closer." He scowled through his
beard. "That could be trouble."
    Lieutenant Leyoro seemed to feel likewise. "Per-
haps we should modify the deflector shields to keep
the tachyons out," she suggested. "Maybe by adding
more power to the subspace field distortion ampli-
fiers."
 "That seems a bit premature," Picard decided after
a moment's consideration. Increasing the power of
the shields tended to reduce the effectiveness of their
scanners. "This doesn't feel like an attack and if it is,
it's a singularly ineffective one." He mulled over the
possibilities, his arms crossed atop his chest. "Coun-
selor," he asked Troi. "Do you sense anything un-
usual?"
    "No, Captain," she answered. "Nothing from out-
side the ship. Of course, there are plenty of life-forms
out there who don't register on my radar, so to speak.
Luke the Ferengi, for instance."
    "This can't be the Ferengi," Riker quipped. "There
hasn't been a price tag attached."
    Picard smiled at Riker's joke. "Thank you, Coun-
selor," he said to Deanna. "I appreciate your efforts."
He leaned back into his chair and contemplated the
viewscreen. Could this have something to do with our
mission? he wondered. Is someone trying to sabotage
the experiment even before we come within range of
the galactic barrier? But why such a subtle approach,
employing carefully minute emissions, unless the sup-
posed saboteurs are truly determined to avoid detec-
tion? It seemed unlikely that the Cardassians or their
Jem'Hadar allies could get this far into Federation
space without someone raising the alarm, but either
the Klingons or the Romulans could have slipped a
cloaked ship past the borders. Granted, the Klingons
were supposedly the Federation's allies once more,
but Picard knew better than to trust Gowron too far,
especially when there was revolutionary new technol-
ogy at stake.
    And then there were always the more unpredictable
factors, like the Tholians or the Gorns. They had been
keeping a fairly low profile for the last few decades,
but who knew what might draw them out of their
isolationist policies?
 And, of course, there was Q ....
    "Captain," Leyoro persisted, "with all due respect,
we have to assume hostile intention until we can
prove otherwise. Request permission to modulate the
shield harmonics to repel the tachyons."
    Picard weighed the matter carefully before reaching
his decision. "No, Lieutenant, if we start to assume a
hostile intent behind every unusual phenomenon we
encounter, then our charter to explore the unknown
will be severely compromised. For all we know, these
harmless emissions may be the first overtures of an
entirely new species of being, or evidence of a previ-
ously unknown natural phenomenon, and we would
do ourselves and our mission a grave disservice if we
prematurely cut ourselves off from that evidence out
of fear and distrust."
    Besides, he thought, sometimes a statistical blip
was just that. The universe was all about probabili-
ties, according to standard quantum theory, and if
there was one thing he had learned during his long
career in Starfleet, it was that the galaxy was big
enough and old enough that even the most unlikely
probabilities came to pass occasionally.
    As if to prove the point, Q appeared upon the
bridge. "Scans. Probes. Deflectors," he mimicked.
"Don't you ever get fed up with those tired old
tricks?" He posed between the captain and Troi,
resting his left elbow on the back of the counselor's
chair. His standard-issue Starfleet uniform made him
almost inconspicuous upon the bridge. "I have an
idea. Why don't you simply turn around and go
home? That would sure catch those pesky tachyons by
surprise."
    "Go home?" Lem Faal asked anxiously. "Captain,
you can't listen to this... being!" Picard assumed
that Q required no introduction, but noted that Faal
appeared more disturbed by Q's opposition to the
experiment than by Q's startling entrance. The Beta-
zoid was flushed and trembling at the prospect of
watching his plans unravel. Picard heard his weak-
ened lungs laboring strenuously. "You can't cancel the
experiment now!"
    "I don't intend to," Picard informed the scientist
while looking Q firmly in the eye, "not unless our
visitor can provide me with a compelling and indis-
putable reason to do so."
    "A reason... from this creature?" Faal exclaimed,
clearly aghast at the very notion of giving Q a say in
the matter. "You can't be serious, Picard. Are you out
of your mind?"
    "I've often wondered the same thing," Q com-
mented. "You really should consider an insanity
defense, Jean-Luc, the next time humanity's on trial."
    "This is ridiculous," Faal protested, scurrying to-
ward Picard, but Troi rose and placed a gentle but
restraining hand upon the scientist's arm, leaving the
captain to deal with the insouciant intruder.
    A thought came to Picard and he stared at Q
through narrowed eyes. "Do either you or your fam-
ily, Q, have anything to do with the surge in tachyon
collisions we're experiencing?"
    "Moi?" The interloper in the Starfleet uniform was
the very picture of astonished innocence.
    "Vous," Picard insisted, making himself perfectly
clear. "Are you responsible for the excess tachyons?"
    "Please," Q said, dismissing the notion with a wave
of his hand, "I haven't played with tachyons since I
was smaller than dear httle q. They're far too slow-
moving to occupy a mature Q's attention."
    "I think you protest a bit too much," Picard said.
He remained unconvinced by Q's denials. He knew
from experience just how devious Q could be. Why,
this very creature had once tried to convince him that
Guinan was a deadly threat to the Enterprise. What
was that name again that Vash had told him that Q
had acquired in the Gamma Quadrant? Oh yes, "The
God of Lies." A more than suitable description, he
thought.
    Q pursed his lips in mock amazement. "Ooh, a
graceful allusion to the mawkish scribblings of a
preindustrial mammal. Was that supposed to impress
me?" He stared balefully at the captain with a trace of
genuine menace in his tone. "Cross my heart, Picard,
neither me nor mine have sicced these zippy little
particles on you and your ship. You'll have to look
elsewhere for the answer to that particular conun-
drum."
    Q vacated the bridge as abruptly as he had arrived,
leaving Picard with the unsettling realization that, for
once, he actually believed Q was telling the truth.
 About the tachyons, at least.

Interlude

"PLEASE STATE THE NATURE of the medical emergency."
    Beverly Crusher was working in her orifice, checking
the crew manifest against the annual vaccination
schedule for Rigelian fever while half-listening to the
musical score of the new Centauran production of
West Side Story, when she heard the holographic
doctor's voice. Who the devil turned that thing on? she
wondered. Although she liked to think of herself as
open to new ideas and equipment, she still had her
doubts about this particular innovation. While the
program's medical expertise seemed competent
enough, its bedside manner left a lot to be desired.
    She found the hologram standing in Ward One,
beside a row of empty biobeds. She had given Nurse
Ogawa the day off, barring further emergencies.
Thankfully, there were currently no casualties recu-
perating in sickbay. "I'm sorry," he said, more snip-
pishly than Beverly liked, "please rephrase your
request."
 At first, she couldn't see who he was speaking to.
Then she stepped to one side and lowered her gaze.
"Yum-yum?" asked the baby q, to the utter baffle-
ment of the emergency medical program. Beverly
couldn't help wondering how the child had managed
to activate the program in the first place.
    "I'm sorry," he replied, "but I am afraid I am not
programmed to dispense... yum-yums."
    "End program," Beverly said with a smirk, feeling
more than a little reassured regarding her job security.
The hologram vanished as quickly as a Q, and she
knelt down to look the child in the face. He wore a
miniature version of the Starfleet uniform his father
often adopted. "Hello there," she said warmly.
"Come for another treat, have we?"
    "Yum-yum," he repeated, his current vocabulary
less infinite than his potential. He held out a small,
pudgy hand.
    "Come on," she said, standing up and taking him
by the hand. "I think I can take care of this." She led
him around the comer to the ship's pediatric unit,
which featured a row of smaller biobeds as well as a
state-of-the-art intensive care incubator in the center
of the facility, beneath an overhead sensor cluster.
The room was as deserted as the adult ward. Although
no children resided permanently on the Enterprise-E,
as they had on the previous ship, the pediatric unit
was kept ready for any injured youngsters brought
aboard during rescue and evacuation efforts; only a
few weeks ago, the facility had been filled with the
pint-sized survivors of a deadly radiation storm on
Arcadia VI. Thankfully, Beverly recalled, all those
children had been safely delivered to relatives on
Deep Space Seven. The small q did not appear par-
ticularly dangerous, but she was glad she didn't have
to worry about any underage bystanders during this
encounter.
    She kept a supply of replicated lollipops in a
container in one of the equipment cupboards. Fishing
a bright blue sucker from her depleted stock, she
offered it to q. "How's this?" she asked. "Do you like
uttaberry?"
    "Yum!" he said gleefully, popping the candy into
his mouth. It occurred to Beverly that q could proba-
bly wish his own lollipops into existence, in whatever
flavor and quantity he desired, but who knew how the
mind of a baby superbeing worked? Probably just as
well that he associates me with sweets, she thought,
and not castor oil.
    She looked q over; had he been truly as human as
he appeared, she would have guessed that he was
eighteen to twenty-four months old, but how did one
estimate the age of a Q? For all she knew, this
harmless-looking toddler could be as old as the pyra-
mids. "So how old are you?" she asked aloud. "One
century? Two?"
    "Actually, he's only been alive for a couple of your
standard years," a voice volunteered from behind her.
    Beverly jumped forward and clutched her chest,
then spun around to face the female Q, who had just
appeared in the nursery.
    Something to remember, she told herself. When the
chiM is present, the mother is never very far away. The
Q's outfit was identical to the doctor's, right down to
an exact duplicate of Beverly's favorite blue lab coat.
When in Rome, I guess, Beverly thought. She waited
for a second to steady her breathing, then addressed
the woman. "You have to give people a little more
warning before popping in like that," she advised.
"It's not good for our hearts."
    "Really?" the woman said. "I seem to have im-
proved your circulation."
    In the best interests of diplomacy, Beverly refrained
from comment. "Can I help you?" Beverly asked the
female Q. She found it hard to think of her as just Q,
although it was probably technically correct to do so;
that "name" was all too vividly linked in her mind to
another face. Why couldn't this female entity just
make life easier for them all and pick another letter in
the alphabet?
    The Q did not answer her immediately, preferring
to stroll around the nursery, running a languid hand
over the contours of the small beds and occasionally
peeking into the cupboards. The child trailed after
her, sucking away at his uttaberry lollipop. "You
appear to have a distinct talent for handling small
children," she commented to Beverly. The incubator
caught her attention and she contemplated it for
several seconds, looking quite lost in thought. "Are
there many children aboard this vessel?" she asked
finally.
    "Not at present," Beverly answered. She rather
missed the children who had helped populate the old
Enterprise; it had been a point of pride that she'd
known all of them by name.
    The female Q drew the little boy nearer and patted
him lovingly on his tousled head. "My own son is
quite unique: the first child born to the Continuum
since we transcended physicality untold aeons ago."
    Beverly thought that over for a moment. "What
about Amanda Rogers?" she asked, recalling the
young Star fleet officer who had discovered that she
was actually a Q. "She was born on Earth only a few
decades back."
    The woman sniffed disdainfully. "That creature
was conceived in a primitive, strictly humanoid fash-
ion." She shuddered at the very thought.
    Don't knock it if you haven't tried it, Beverly
thought, but kept her remark to herself. Still, the Q
gave her a peculiar look, as if well aware of Beverly's
unspoken sentiments.
    If she was, however, she chose to ignore them. "I've
observed the individual you mentioned," the Q con-
ceded. "It's a wonder she has any gifts at all, given her
atrocious origins. I suppose, however, that the poor
creature should not be blamed for the sordid activities
of her notorious progenitors. She's more to be pitied,
really. It was quite magnanimous of Q to take her
under his wing the way he did."
    He threatened to kill her, Beverly recalled, wonder-
ing if the Q could read that in her mind as well.
Maybe it would be best to change the subject. "Your
son's quite charming," Beverly said. "You must be
very proud of him." That certainly seemed like safe
ground, she judged. Q or not, few mothers could
object to praise of their child.
    "He is the future of the Continuum," the female Q
stated matter-of-factly. "The first of an entirely new
generation of immortals. A true mingling of two
divine essences, a future messiah, quite unlike that
ignorant urchin you called Amanda Rogers."
    Better not let Professor Faal hear you talking like
that, Beverly thought. The Betazoid scientist had
seemed all too fascinated by the Q child to begin with.
She could readily imagine his interest in a genuine
"future messiah." He'd probably want to ship the
baby straight to his lab on Betazed. Somehow I don't
think his mother would approve of that kind of atten-
tion.
    The female Q gazed down at the child, who was
content to suck quietly on his treat by his mother's
side. Her eyes narrowed and she chewed upon her
lower lip as if troubled. "I confess I find the, responsi-
bility ot motherhood rather... daunting.'
    A-ha, Beverly thought. Now I get it. Faced with the
ancient concept of parenting, which no Q has reckoned
with for millions of years, why not come to us humble
primitives for our crude but simple wisdom? She
wondered whose idea it really was to drop in on
sickbay, the child's or the mother's?
    "Don't we all," she confided sympathetically. She
couldn't blame the Q for her worries. Every new
mother had doubts about her ability to cope with
raising a child; how much harder it must be when
you're the first of your kind to face that prospect since
the dawn of time. Beverly had trouble imagining the
devious Q as an innocent Adam--he struck her as
more the serpent type--but her heart went out to this
nervous new Eve.
    She circled around the incubator and took the Q by
the hand. The woman flinched at the intimacy, but
did not draw away. "You seem to be doing fine,"
Beverly said. "I know it's scary, but millions of
mothers have faced the same challenges and survived.
The trick is learning when to say no and when to let
them learn from their own mistakes."
    "Exactly!" the Q responded, acting amazed and
grateful that another living creature understood what
she was going through. "Little q has all the power of a
Q, but he doesn't know how to use it responsibly."
Like father, like son, Beverly thought. "I know he
needs to explore his potential, but I'm afraid to let
him out of my sight for a fraction of a nanosecond."
    "You'll get by somehow," she promised. "Just
remember to enjoy this time while you have it. I'll tell
you the honest truth: the hardest part of having
children is letting them go when they're grown. Of
course, for all I know, you might not have to worry
about that for millions of years."
    "Only millions?" the Q said, apparently sincerely.
She tugged q nearer to her, sounding both sad and
surprisingly human.
    "You'll be amazed how fast the time will fly,"
Beverly cautioned. Part of her still thought of Wesley
as the fragile, acutely vulnerable infant she and Jack
had brought home so many years ago. "Don't let this
time slip by you without taking a moment every now
and then to savor the experience. You might tell his
father the same thing," she added, feeling generous
toward Q for possibly the first time in her life.
Imagine having Q for a dad, she thought. The poor
kid.
  She hoped he'd take after his mother instead.
  "Thank you for your time," the woman said. Bey-
erly tried to remember whether the other Q had ever
thanked anyone for anything. The Q squeezed her
hand once, then released it. "You know, my darling
q's godmother is one of your kind."
    A Q with a human godmother? Beverly was in-
trigued. "And who would that be?"
    "Let me see," the woman began, her gaze turning
inward as she combed her memory for this apparently
insignificant piece of trivia, "I think her name was..."

Chapter Nine

Two HOURS, FORTY MINUTES, and only Data knew how
many seconds after the Enterprise came within sight
of the galaxy's edge, Professor Faal and Geordi pre-
pared to launch the sensor probe into the barrier.
Although Data had reduced the magnification on the
main viewer by several orders of magnitude, the
energy barrier filled the screen, bathing everyone on
the bridge in its ineffable radiance. There's something
almost mystical about it, thought Picard, who usually
resisted superstitious impulses. He felt much as Mo-
ses must have felt when he first beheld the burning
bush, or when Kahless drew the original bat'leth from
the lake of fire.
    "Are we far enough away for safety's sake?" he
asked. The barrier looked as if it could sweep over
them in a matter of minutes, like the largest tsunami
in the galaxy.
    "I believe so, Captain," Data reported. "As pre-
dicted, the barrier yields no harmful radiation or
gravitational disturbances. The surrounding space is
not affected by the barrier at this distance."
    "No evidence of hostile action," Leyoro conceded,
looking only a trifle disappointed. "Deflectors at min-
imum strength."
    "No unusual stresses on the hull," Geordi con-
eluded. He looked up in amazement from the engi-
neering monitors to confirm that there actually was a
glowing barrier looming before them. "It's like the
crazy thing isn't really there."
    "Oh, it's most definitely there," Faal whispered
avidly, "and more real than any of us has ever been."
Turning away from Geordi's monitors, he looked over
at Picard, his eyes aglow with anticipation. Picard
noticed that he was breathing heavily. "Don't worry,
Captain, my artificial wormhole will carve us a safe
passage through the barrier, have no fear."
    His voice had a fervid tinge that worried Picard.
The captain regarded Deanna Troi, who was watching
Faal carefully with an apprehensive eye. Faars out-
burst during Q's recent visit had given new life to her
earlier concerns about the dying scientist's emotional
state. Pieard frowned, uneasy even though everything
seemed to be under control. "How are we doing, Mr.
La Forge?" he asked.
    "As well as can be expected," Geordi said, his
.fingers tapping upon the remote controls. Faal, stand-
ing behind Geordi, inspected his every move. "The
probe should give us the most up-to-date information
possible on wave amplitudes within the barrier so we
can adjust the shields on the torpedo appropriately. If
everything checks out, we should be able to launch the
torpedo itself within a few hours." He paused to wipe
the sweat from his forehead. "Those tachyon emis-
sions aren't making anything easier, but I think we
can work around them."
    "There is no question," Faal emphasized, his voice
hoarse and strained. Picard was not surprised to see
Faal resort to his hypospray once more. Was it only
his imagination or was Faal requiring his medication
ever more often? "We will make it work," Faal
wheezed, "no matter what."
    Geordi wandered over to the primary aft science
stations, consulting the displays there. "La Forge to
Engineering," he said, tapping his comm badge. "Be-
gin rerouting the pre-ignition plasma from the im-
pulse deck to the auxiliary intake. We're going to need
that extra power to generate the subspace matrix later
on." He placed his hands on the control panel.
"Permission to launch the probe, Captain?"
    Picard held up his hand to delay Geordi. "Just a
minute, Mr. La Forge," he said. A nagging concern
preyed on his mind. "Mr. Data, has the tachyon
barrage continued to accelerate?"
 "Slowly but surely," the android affirmed.
    "Have you formed any theory concerning the
source of the emissions?" Picard asked. The inexpli-
cable nature of the tachyon surge troubled him to a
degree. Launching a simple probe was hardly a risky
matter, but he disliked doing so while any scientific
irregularities remained unaccounted for.
    "Some intriguing possibilities have presented
themselves," Data stated, "but I am reluctant to
venture a hypothesis on such minimal evidence."
    "Do so anyway, Mr. Data," Picard instructed,
hoping that the resourceful android could east some
light on the mystery. A tenuous explanation was
better than none at all. "Which of your working
theories present a cause for concern?"
    "An interesting question, sir." Data cocked his
head as he considered the issue. "You may find one
hypothesis particularly intriguing, although I must
emphasize that the evidence supports approximately
75.823 other interpretations."
    "Your caveats are duly noted," Pieard said. "Go on,
Mr. Data."
    "Very well, Captain." He manipulated the controls
beneath his fingers at superhuman speed, summoning
up the relevant information. "Although profoundly
weaker in intensity, these persistent emissions are
gradually coming to resemble the tachyon probe used
by the Calamarain to scan the Enterprise on stardate
43539.1."
    "The Calamarain?" Riker said, echoing Picard's
own reaction as he reealled a cloud of energetic
plasma, as large as the Enterprise-D or bigger, that
had seemed to house a community of gaseous beings
possessed of remarkable power. The Enterprise had
barel.y survived its first meeting with the Cala-
maram; if these mounting tachyon emissions had
anything to do with those enigmatic beings, then the
situation might be more serious than they had first
thought.
    "Excuse me, Captain," Lem Faal asked, under-
standably concerned about the effect of Data's theory
on his experiment, "but who or what are the Cala-
marain?"
    "An unusual life-form," Picard told him, "that we
encountered many years ago. They exist as swirls of
ionized gas within a huge cloud of plasma traveling
through open space. The Calamarain took hostile
action against the Enterprise, but their real target was
Q himself, who, at that point in time, had lost his
powers and taken refuge aboard the ship. Apparently,
Q made an enemy of the Calamarain sometime in the
past, and they intended to take advantage of his
temporary weakness to get their revenge once and for
all."
    "Can hardly blame them for that," Riker com-
mented. Like most anyone who spent any length of
time with Q, the first officer had no great love for the
vexatious entity. Picard wondered if the female Q
ever felt the same way.
    "Agreed, Number One," he said. "Ultimately, Q
regained his powers and repelled the Calamarain, and
that's the last we had heard of them until now."
Picard leaned forward in his chair as he considered all
the possibilities. "Data, how likely is it that this is the
work of the Calamarain?"
    Data analyzed the readings on his console. "That is
difficult to say, Captain. Their initial scans in our
previous encounter consisted of very broad-based
emissions, registering seventy-five rems on the Berth-
old scale." Picard nodded, remembering vividly the
intensity of the alien scan they had experienced years
ago: a brilliant deluge of light that had seemed to blot
out everything in sight. The Calamarain's first few
scans had actually blinded everyone on board mo-
mentarily. "These new emissions are far less intense,
by several orders of magnitude, but it is a difference of
degree, not kind. They may simply be observing us in
a more subtle and surreptitious manner." Data swiv-
eled in his chair to address Picard directly. "On the
other hand, the tachyon surge could also be caused by
any number of unusual natural conditions. It may be
that the barrier itself has effects on the surrounding
space that we are unable to detect at present."
    "Last time the Calamarain attacked us because Q
was aboard," Riker pointed out. "If the Calamarain
are spying on us, and I realize that's a fairly big 'if,' I
think we can safely assume that Q is involved
somehow."
"That is a plausible assumption," Data agreed.
"What I don't understand," Geordi said, "is why
would the Calamarain be interested in us now? This is
hardly the first time we've hosted Q since that time he
lost his powers."
    Would that it were so, Picard thought privately. He
could've done without that vision of his future self
suffering from the effects of Irumodic syndrome.
    "They've never come after us the last several times
Q showed up," Geordi continued, "and it sure
doesn't look like he's been turned into a mortal
again."
    "Far from it," Baeta Leyoro added with obvious
regret. Picard suspected that she would love to get her
hands on a powerless and vulnerable Q. She could
probably sell tickets, he thought.
    "We should not jump to assumptions," he stated
firmly. "The Calamarain have not been observed in
Federation space for over a decade, and our previous
encounter with them was several hundred light-years
from this vicinity." Picard rose from his chair and
looked over Data's shoulder at the readings on the
Ops console; a rising line charted the growth of the
tachyon effect as it approached a level established by
the Calamarain so many years ago. "Still, we should
be prepared for any possibility." He turned toward
the science station. "Mr. La Forge, when the Cala-
marain attacked us before, you managed to adjust the
harmonics of our deflector shields to provide us with
a measure of protection against their tachyon blasts.
Please program the ship's computer to do so again
should the need arise."
"Yes, sir," Geordi said. "I'll get on that right away."
Picard exchanged a look with Lieutenant Leyoro at
tactical. Her eyes gleamed and the corners of her lips
tipped upward in a look of much-delayed gratifica-
tion, but she resisted, with admirable restraint, what-
ever temptation she might have felt to say, "I told you
SO."
    "Captain Picard," Faal said, "this is all very inter-
esting, but perhaps we should proceed with launching
the probe?" He fingered his hypospray anxiously. "I
cannot stress how eager I am to attempt the experi-
ment."
    "Mr. La Forge?" Picard asked. "Do you require any
more time to reprogram the deflectors?"
    "No, sir," Geordi reported with admirable efficien-
cy. "The adjusted settings are on call." Excellent,
Picard thought, glad that they were ready for even the
most unlikely of scenarios. Now it was simply a
matter of continuing with their mission before Qmor
the Calamarain, if they were truly close at hand--
could intervene. "You may launch the probe as
planned, Mr. La Forge," he stated.
    Geordi reached for the launch controls, only to be
caught off guard by a blinding flash directly in front of
him. For a second, Picard feared that the science
station had exploded; then he realized what the flash
really entailed. Blast, he thought. Not again!
    Q was back, sitting upon the launch controls, clad
in the unearned honors of a Starfleet uniform. Geordi
stepped backward involuntarily, and Q peered at him
with interest. He took a closer look at Geordi. "Are
those new eyes, Mr. Engineer? I can't say they're very
flattering, although I suppose it beats wearing a
chrome fender in front of your face."
    He looked past Geordi and cast a dour eye on the
shimmering barrier upon the main viewer. "You
disappoint me so, Jean-Luc. I never thought suicide
missions were exactly your style." He hopped nimbly
off the science console and strolled toward Picard.
"Leave the galaxy? Why, you foolhardy humans
couldn't put one foot into the Gamma Quadrant
without starting a war with the Dominion. What
makes you think the rest of the universe is going to be
any better?"
    "That's enough," Riker said. "The captain has
better things to do with his time than listen to you."
    Q paid the first officer no heed. "Tell me, Jean-Luc,
I know you have a childish fondness for hard-boiled
detective yarns." He held out a palm on which a single
white egg now balanced upon its end. A caricature of
Picard's scowling face was painted on the shell of the
presumably hard-boiled egg. "Bit of a resemblance,
isn't there?" Q commented. He blew on his hand and
the egg wafted away like a mirage. "But haven't you
ever paid attention to some of your species' old
monster movies?" His voice dropped several octaves,
taking on a sepulchral tone. "There are some things
that insignificant, short-lived mortals are meant to
 leave alone." He gave Picard what seemed, for Q, a
 remarkably sober look, and when he spoke again his
 voice sounded notably free of irony or sarcasm. "The
 barrier is one of them, Picard. Trust me on this."
    Trust? Q? Of the many surprising and exceptional
developments in this highly eventful mission, this
suggestion struck Picard as the most unlikely of all.
He wasn't sure Q could be direct and honest if his
own immortal existence depended on it. "That's not
enough," Picard told him. "You need to tell me more
than that."
    "It's none of your business!" he said petulantly,
apparently unable to maintain a sincere appearance
for more than a moment or two. "You try to offer a
few helpful tips to an inferior organism, but do they
appreciate it? Of course not!" He paced back and
forth in front of the viewscreen, looking exasperated
beyond all measure. "Why can't you simply admit
that we Q are older and wiser than you are?"
    "Older, certainly," Picard said, "but not necessar-
ily wiser. If you are at all typical of your kind, then the
fabled Q Continuum is not above mere pettiness and
spite." He rose from his chair and confronted Q. Let's
have this out here and now, he determined. "As you
might imagine, I've given the matter a great deal of
thought, and I've come to the conclusion that the
Continuum is more fallible and prone to error than
you care to admit. Let's look at what we mere mortals
have learned about their behavior," he said, ticking
his points off on his fingers.
    "They put lesser life-forms on trial for the mere
crime of not rising to their exalted level, all the while
ignoring most of the conventions of due process
recognized by supposedly inferior societies. They
strip you of all your powers, placing you in mortal
jeopardy, after having failed to keep your mischie-
vous excesses under control. Then they reverse their
decision and let you run amok through the galaxy
again." Q harrumphed indignantly, but Picard showed
him no mercy. "According to your own admission, the
Continuum summarily executed Amanda Rogers's
parents for choosing to live as human beings, left the
orphaned child--one of their own--to be raised
among we so-called primitive humans, then had the
audacity to return years later and threaten Amanda
herself with death unless she relinquished her own
humanity." He shook his head slowly. "Banishment.
Executions. Threats of genocide against less gifted
races. These don't strike me as the actions of an
advanced and enlightened society. Indeed, I could
argue that the Klingons or the Cardassians have a
higher claim to social progress."
    Q snorted in derision. "Now you're just being
ridiculous as well as insulting."
    "Am I?" Picard asked, refusing to give any ground.
"At least the harsher aspects of their cultures arose
from, respectively, a demanding environment and
severe economic hardships." He recalled Gul Mad-
red's self-justifying evocations of the famine and
poverty that first brought the Cardassian military
regime to power generations ago. "Nor are those the
only comparisons I could make," he continued,
warming to his theme. "The tyranny of the Founders
is said to be a response to centuries of Changeling
persecution in the Gamma Quadrant, while the mili-
taristic Romulan Empire of the present evolved from
an arduous diaspora from ancient Vulcan millennia
ago. And who knows what terrible, inexorable forces
drove the Borg to first form their Collective?
    "But even with the powers of the gods at your
disposal, having conquered all the material challenges
that trouble humanoid civilizations, the Q Continu-
um consistently behave in an arbitrary and draconian
manner, one better suited to Dark Age despots than
the evolved life-forms you claim to be." Picard re-
turned to his chair and faced the viewscreen, his
expression stony and resolute. The more he thought
about it, the more certain he became that he could not
permit Q to deter them from their mission.
    "When you say to stay away from the barrier, you
are saying that the rest of the universe is not for us.
I'm sorry, but with all due respect to your self-
proclaimed omniscience, that's not your decision to
make." He nodded at Geordi, and when he spoke
again his voice was steely in its conviction. "Mr. La
Forge, launch the probe at once."
    "Yes, sir!" Geordi responded. Keeping one eye on
Q, he reached out and pressed the launch controls.
Picard looked on as the class-2 probe, looking some-
thing like a duranium ice-cream cone, arced away
from the Enterprise, its trajectory carrying it toward
the nearest segment of the galactic barrier. He antici-
pated that the probe would pass into the barrier in
less than ten minutes, beaming back a full spectrum
of EM and subspace readings right up to the instant of
its destruction, which would probably occur within
nanoseconds of its initial contact with the barrier. He
heard Lem Faal inhale sharply in anticipation.
    "Captain!" Data said emphatically. "Tachyon lev-
els are multiplying at a vastly accelerated rate." He
turned to face Picard. "It is the Calamarain, sir, and
they are approaching rapidly."
    "Oh, them again," Q said without much enthusi-
asm. He had not been nearly so bias6, Picard recalled,
when he faced the wrath of the Calamarain without
his godlike powers. "Hail, hail, the gang's all here."
    Lem Faal eyed Q with alarm, but Picard did his
best to ignore Q's inappropriate attempt at humor. Q
or no Q, he would not allow the Enterprise to be taken
by surprise by the Calamarain. "Red alert!" he
barked. "Shields up." Crimson warning lights flared
to life around the bridge. Lieutenant Leyoro kept her
hands poised above the weapons controls, while Riker
looked ready to tackle Q if he so much as tried to
interfere with Picard's ability to command the ship
during this moment of crisis.
    Q couldn't have cared less. "Oh dear," he said
soufly, "I fear we're going to have to do this the hard
way." He stepped between Picard and the viewscreen.
"I'm sorry, Jean-Luc, but I can't allow you to be
distracted by this minor complication. Too much is at
stake, more than you can possibly imagine."
    "Blast it, Q," Picard exploded, provoked beyond all
patience. This had gone on long enough, and, as far as
he was concerned, Q was the unwanted distraction
from more pressing matters. "Explain yourself once
and for allrathe whole truth and nothing butmor get
out of my way!"
    "Fine!" Q replied indignantly, sounding almost as
if he were the injured party. "Just remember, you
asked for it."
    What does he mean by that? Picard worried in-
stantly, his worst fears confirmed when a burst of light
erupted from Q, sweeping over Picard and carrying
him away. Blank whiteness filled his vision. His chair
seemed to dissolve beneath him. "Captain!" he heard
Troi call out, but it was too late.
 Deanna and the Enterprise were gone.

Interlude

"I THINK HER NAME WAS..."
    The red alert siren sounded, interrupting the fe.
male Q just as she was about to divulge the name of
baby q's human godmother. Beverly Crusher in-
stantly went into crisis mode. "Excuse me," she said
to her visitor as Beverly tapped her comm badge.
"Crusher to the bridge. What's happening?"
    I was afraid of this, she thought instantly. After
their initial briefing on Professor Faal's project, Bev-
erly had reviewed the reports on the original experi-
ments at Deep Space Nine, and discovered that in one
of the early trials, the artificial wormhole had col-
lapsed prematurely and produced a massive graviton
wave. A plasma fire had broken out aboard the
Deftant and three people had nearly been killed. In
theory, the cause of the collapsewsome sort of unex-
pected reaction between the tetrion field and the
shielding on a probewhad been isolated and reme-
died since that near-disaster, but what if something
similar had happened again?
    Dire possibilities raced through her mind in the
split second it took for the bridge to respond to her
page. "The captain has been abducted by Q," Lieu-
tenant Leyoro informed her succinctly; Beverly
guessed that Commander Riker was otherwise occu-
pied. "And the ship is about to engage the Cala-
marain."
    "What!" Beverly was shocked by the news. The
Calamarain? But they hadn't been heard from in
years! Where had they come from all of a sudden?
This was the last thing she had expected to hear. And
Jean-Luc missing?
    "I would prepare for casualties," Leyoro advised.
"Do you require any further information or assis-
tance, Doctor?"
    Beverly contemplated the female Q and her child.
Unlike the doctor, Q's mate evinced no reaction to
the startling news. She occupied herself while Beverly
was busy by wiping a smear of blue uttaberry flavor-
ing off q's face with the sleeve of her imitation lab
coat. "No, I don't think so," Beverly told Leyoro. It
sounded like Will and the others had a lot on their
hands at the moment; she decided she could handle
the Q on her own. "Crusher out."
    Her hand fell away from the badge and she con-
fronted the other woman. "Well?" she demanded.
    "Well?" the Q echoed, blithe disregard upon her
features. She sopped up the last dab of blue from
around the child's lips, then lifted him into her arms.
    So much for female bonding, Beverly thought.
Whatever warm feelings she might have harbored for
the Q were washed away by concern for Jean-Luc.
"You know what I mean. What has Q, the other Q,
done with the captain? Where has he taken him?"
    "Am I my Q's keeper?" She gave Beverly what the
doctor supposed was intended to be a reassuring
smile. "Really, there's no need to be concerned, I'm
certain that wherever Q has taken your captain, he
has done so for a very good reason."
    Beverly didn't find that terribly comforting. "But
we need the captain here now. We're on an important
mission, and we've just encountered an alien, possibly
hostile life-form." She tried a personal appeal. "As
one mother to another, can't you do something?"
    "Why should I have to do anything?" the woman
answered. She took a moment to inspect her reflection
in the shining, silver surface of a sealed cupboard,
then tucked a few stray curls back into place. "My
child is perfectly safe."
    "I'm glad to hear it," Beverly shot back, shouting to
be heard over the blaring alarm, "but how about the
rest of us?"
    The female Q shrugged. "The way Q talks, you
people live this way every day. If it's not the Domin-
ion or the Borg, it's a temporal anomaly. If it's not an
anomaly, it's a warp-core breach or a separated sau-
cer." She smiled indulgently. "I wouldn't want to
interfere with your quaint and colorful way of life. It's
far more educational for q to see you in your natural
environment."
    "This is not a field trip!" Beverly protested, despite
a growing sense of futility. The original Q had never
taken human lives seriously, so why should his mate
be any different?
    "I beg to differ," the Q said, then she and her
beaming baby boy disappeared without so much as a
goodbye.
    Beverly feared she knew where the omnipotent pair
were heading. Where else would they find a better
view of the developing crisis? Before she silenced the
alarm and summoned Ogawa and the rest of her
emergency personnel, she paused long enough to tap
her comm badge. "Crusher to the bridge. Expect
company."

Chapter Ten

WILLIAM RIKER SUDDENLY FOUND himself in command.
Before he could react, before he could even rise from
his seat, Q vanished from the bridge, taking Captain
Picard with him. "Captain!" Deanna called out, but
the captain's chair was empty.
    For a fleeting second, Riker worried about what
might be happening to Captain Picard, but there was
nothing he could do for the captain now. The safety of
the crew and the ship had to be his number-one
priority. This isn t the first time Q has snatched the
captain, he recalled, and Q s always brought him back
before. He could only pray that this time would be no
exception.
    "Scan for any nearby concentrations of ionized
plasma," Riker ordered Data. "I want to know the
instant the Calamarain come within sensor range."
He stood and walked to the center of the command
area, quickly considering the problem posed by the
Calamarain. They didn't know for sure that the alien
ciouo-creatures posed a threat to the ship, but he
didn't intend to be caught napping.
    "Commander," Data stated. "The Calamarain are
coming into visual range now."
    A great cloud of incandescent plasma drifted be-
tween the Enterprise and the barrier, obscuring
Riker's view of the shimmering wall of energy. The
lambent cloud had a prismatic effect, emitting a
rainbow's range of colors as it swirled slowly through
the vacuum of space. Although the gaseous phenome-
non, several times larger than the Sovereign-class
starship, bore little resemblance to sentient life as
Riker was accustomed to it, looking more like a
lifeless accumulation of chemical vapors, he knew
that this was the Calamarain all right, an entity or
collection of entities capable of inflicting serious
harm upon humanoid life if they chose to do so. Riker
had no way of knowing if these were precisely the
same beings who had menaced them before, but they
were clearly of the same breed. "Mr. La Forge," he
asked, "how are our shields?"
    "They should stand up to them, Commander,"
Geordi reported. "I've set the shield harmonics to the
same settings that worked last time." He double-
checked the readouts at the engineering station and
nodded at Lieutenant Leyoro, who monitored the
shields from her own station at tactical. "Let's just
hope the Calamarain haven't changed their own pa-
rameters over the last few years."
    "I don't understand," Leto Faal wheezed, slowly
coming to grips with a radically altered situation
upon the bridge. "Where is Captain Picard?" His
bloodshot gaze swung from the captain's empty chair
to the bizarre alien apparition upon the main viewer.
"Commander Riker!" he exclaimed, seizing upon the
first officer as his only hope. "You have to stop that
entity, drive it away. The probe... they could ruin
everything!"
 "Mr. Mack," Riker barked to a young ensign sta-
tioned near the starboard aft turbolift. "Escort Pro-
fessor Faal to his quarters." He sympathized with the
unfortunate scientist, but the bridge was no place for
a civilian during a potential combat situation, and
Riker didn't need the distraction.
    "Commander, you can't do this? Faal objected,
hacking painfully between every word. He looked
back at the screen as the young ensign took him by the
arm and led him toward the nearest turbolift en-
trance. "I have to know what's happening. My experi-
ment!"
    Ensign Mack, an imposing Samoan officer, stood a
head above the stricken Betazoid researcher, and had
the advantages of youth and superior health besides,
so Riker had every confidence that the ensign would
be able to carry out his orders. Soon enough Faal's
gasping protests were carried away by the turbolift,
and Riker turned his attention to more critical mat-
ters: namely, the Calamarain.
    He stared at the breathtaking spectacle of the
immense, luminescent cloud; under other circum-
stances he would have been thrilled to encounter such
an astounding life-form. If only there was a way to
communicate with them, he mused, knowing that
Captain Picard always preferred to exhaust every
diplomatic effort before resorting to force. Unfortu-
nately, the Universal Translator had proven useless
the last time they confronted the Calamarain, whose
unique nature was apparently too alien for even the
advanced and versatile language algorithms pro-
grammed into the Translator. "Counselor," he asked
Troi, "can you sense anything at all?"
    "Aside from Professor Faal's distress?" She closed
her eyes to concentrate on the impressions she was
receiving. "The Calamarain are more difficult to read.
All I'm picking up from them is a sense of rigid
determination, a fixity of purpose and conviction.
Whatever they are about, they are committed to it
without doubt or hesitation."
    He didn't like the sound of that. In his experience,
an utterly fixed viewpoint could be the hardest to
achieve a mutual understanding with. Fanatics were
seldom easy to accommodate. He could only hope
that the goal the Calamarain were so set upon did not
involve the Enterprise.
  We shouM be so lucky, he thought doubtfully.
    "Commander," Leyoro called out, "the Cala-
marain are pursuing the probe."
    It was true. The scintillating cloud receded into the
distance as it abandoned the Enterprise in favor of
chasing the much smaller projectile. The speed and
accuracy of its flight belied any lingering doubts about
the cloud's sentience. Through the prismatic ripples
of the cloud, he saw the glitter of discharged energy
outlining the probe as its protective forcefield strug-
gled to shield it from the attack of the Calamarain.
Why are they doing this? Riker wondered. The probe
poses no threat to them.
    "The readings from the probe are going berserk,"
Geordi said. "A massive overload of tachyon emis-
sions." He studied the output at the science station.
"Commander, if we could retrieve the probe at this
point, examine its hull, we might be able to learn a lot
more about the offensive capabilities of the Cala-
marain."
    That may be for the best, Riker thought, taking his
place in the captain's chair. It was obvious that the
probe was not going to fulfill its original mission
within the barrier. "Bring us within transporter
range," he ordered. "Mr. La Forge, prepare to lock on
to the probe."
    "Commander!" Lieutenant Leyoro exclaimed.
"That will mean lowering our shields. In my opinion,
sir, the probe's not worth risking the ship for."
    "If we don't learn more about the Calamarain, we
may pay for it later on," he pointed out. "They don't
seem interested in us at the moment, only the probe."
Why is that, he wondered. The probe came nowhere
near them. Why did they go after it?
    The starship soared toward the amorphous, living
fog that now held the probe in its grasp. Puzzled,
Riker witnessed the coruscating shield around the
probe growing weaker and less effective before his
eyes. The flaring bursts of power came ever more
sporadically while the targeted projectile rocked back
and forth beneath the force of the cloud's assault.
How much longer could the probe withstand the fury
of the Calamarain?
"Shields down," Leyoro reported unhappily.
"I'm trying to lock on to the probe," Geordi said,
having transferred the transporter controls to his
science station, "but the Calamarain are interfering."
  "Deliberately?" Riker asked.
    "Hard to say," Geordi answered. "All I know is
those tachyon emissions are making it hard to get a
solid lock on the probe."
    "Do what you can," Riker instructed, "but be
prepared to abort the procedure at my command."
Leyoro was right to a degree; if the Calamarain
showed any interest in coming after the ship itself,
they would have to sacrifice the probe and its data.
    His comm badge beeped, and he heard Dr.
Crusher's voice, but before he could respond a white
light flared at the comer of his eye. For a second Riker
hoped that maybe Q and the captain had returned,
then he spotted the female Q and her child sitting
behind him on a set of wooden bleachers that had
materialized at the aft section of the bridge, blocking
the entrances to both of the rear turbolifts. The child
now wore an antiquated Little League uniform and
baseball cap instead of the sailor suit that had clothed
him earlier. His mother wore a matching orange cap
and jersey, with a large capital Q printed in block type
upon the front of her uniform, as opposed to the
lower-case q upon the little boy's jersey. "See," she
told q, pointing toward the main viewer, "this is what
they call an emergency situation. Isn't it funny?"
    The boy laughed merrily and pointed like his moth-
er. "'Mergencee!" he squealed, bouncing up and
down upon the bleachers so forcefully that the tim-
bers creaked.
    Riker seldom resorted to profanity on the bridge,
but he bit down a pungent Anglo-Saxon expression as
he tore his gaze away from the grossly inappropriate
tableau that now occupied the bridge. He'd have to
deal with the two sightseeing Q's later; right now his
attention belonged on the sight of the endangered
probe, its shields flashing within the vaporous depths
of the Calamarain. Still, he felt less like the command-
er of a mighty starship than like the ringmaster of a
three-ring circus.
    "Now, pay attention," the female Q instructed her
child. "This is supposed to be educational as well as
entertaining." She plucked a pair of red and black
pennants from out of the air and handed one flag to
little q, keeping the other one for herself as she sat
upon the bleachers. The pennants were made of stiff
red fabric with the word "Humanoids" embossed on
one side. "While your father is occupied elsewhere,
let's make an outing of it, assuming the funny human-
oids can keep their ship in one piece for that long."
  "Pieces!" little q chirped. "Pieces!"
    On the screen, a flash of crimson flame erupted
from the side of the probe as its hull crumpled
beneath the stresses exerted by the Calamarain. "Mr.
La Forge?" Riker asked, guessing that soon there
would be nothing left of the probe to salvage.
 "I think I've got it," Geordi called out. "Energizing
now."
    The golden flicker of the transporter effect raced
over the surface of the probe, supplanting the futile
sparking of its failing forcefield. The probe faded
away completely, leaving behind only the spectacular
sight of the Calamarain floating 'twixt the Enterprise
and the galactic barrier.
    "One point to the lowly humans," the female Q
announced, writing a neon-yellow Arabic number one
in the air with her index finger. The fiery numeral
hung suspended above the floor for a breath before
evaporating. A silver whistle appeared on a cord
around her neck. She blew on it enthusiastically,
hurting Riker's ears with the shrill sound, before
declaring, "Game on!"
    The great cloud that was the Calamarain drifted in
place for a moment, perhaps unaware at first that its
prey had escaped, but then it raced toward the screen,
growing larger by the instant. Smoky tendrils reached
out for the Enterprise. "It's coming after us," Leyoro
said.
    "Estimate interception in one minute, thirty-two
seconds," Data stated.
    Riker heard Troi gasp beside him. He wondered if
she was feeling the Calamarains' hostile emotions,
but there was no time to find out. "Mr. La Forge," he
called out. "Is the transport complete?"
    "We have it, Commander," Geordi assured him.
"It was close, but we beamed it into Transporter
Room Five."
    "Raise shields," he ordered Leyoro. The incandes-
cent cloud filled the screen before him. Unknown
vapors churned angrily, stirring up ripples of ionized
gas. He tried to distinguish individuals within the
mass of radiant fog, but it was impossible to single out
one strand of plasma among the whole. It's possible,
he thought, that each Calamarain does not exist as a
single entity the way we do. They may be closer to a
hive-mind mentality, like the Borg.
That comparison did nothing to reassure him.
"Already on it," Leyoro said promptly, with a fierce
gleam in her cold gray eyes. Riker suspected she was
never truly happy except when fighting for survival. A
dangerous attitude in the more civilized and peace-
able regions of the Federation, but possibly a valuable
trait on a starship probing the boundaries of known
space. You can take an Angosian out of the war, he
thought, but you can't always take the war of out an
Angosian. Not unlike a certain Lieutenant Command-
er Worf....
    The plasma cloud surged over and around the
Enterprise. Riker felt the floor vibrate beneath his
boots as their deflectors absorbed and dispersed some
variety of powerful force. A low, steady hum joined
the background noise of the bridge, buzzing at the
back of his mind like a laser drill digging into solid
tritanium. He could practically feel the grating sound
chafing away at his nerve endings. That's going to get
real old real fast, he thought.
    "Permission to open fire?" Leyoro asked, eager to
return fire. Her survival instincts could not be faulted,
Riker knew. They had kept her alive during both the
war and the veterans' revolt that came afterward.
    He shook his head. "Not yet. Let's not rush into
battle before we even know what we're fighting
about." Their shields had fended off the Calamarain
before. He was confident that they would buy them a
little breathing space now.
    A jolt shook the bridge, which rocked the floor from
starboard to port and back again before stabilizing a
moment later. Everyone on the bridge caught their
breath, except for the female Q, who cheerily turned
to her child and said, "Come to think of it, I believe
we may be rooting for the wrong team." The stiff cloth
pennants the pair clutched in their hands switched
from red fabric to something slick and, in its shifting
spectrum of colors, reminiscent of the Calamarain.
Riker noted that the lettering on the miniature flags
now read "Nonhuman life-forms."
    "One point to the Calamarain," she said, blowing
sharply on her referee's whistle, "and the score is
tied."
    Riker refused to be baited, not while his ship was
under attack. "Report," he instructed his crew.
"What caused that shock?"
    "Really, Commander Riker," the female Q chided,
"who do you think caused it? The Calamarain, of
course. Do you see any other threatening aliens in the
vicinity?"
    "Just you," Riker said curtly. "Mr. Data, please
define the nature of the attack."
    "Yes, Commander," Data said, scanning the read-
outs at Ops. From the captain's chair, Riker could see
a string of numerals rushing across Data's console
faster than a human eye could follow. "The tachyon
barrage emitted by the Calamarain has increased by
several hundred orders of magnitude. The intensity of
the tachyon collisions is now more than sufficient to
fatally damage both the ship and its inhabitants if not
for the protection afforded by our deflectors."
    "I see," Riker said, none too surprised. The Cala-
marain had demonstrated the potency of their offen-
sive capabilities the last time they ran afoul of the
Enterprise. "Mr. La Forge, are our shields holding?"
    "For now," Geordi affirmed, "but we can't main-
tain the deflectors at this level forever."
    "How long can we keep them up?" Riker asked. He
watched the luminous plasma coursing across the
screen, the iridescent hues swirling like a kaleido-
scope. It's strangely beautiful, Riker reflected, regret-
ting once more that humanity and the Calamarain
had to meet as adversaries.
    "Exactly?" Geordi said. "That depends on what
they throw at us." The circuit patterns upon his
implants rotated as he focused on his engineering
display. "If they keep up the pressure at this intensity,
the shields should be able to withstand it for about
five hours. Four, if you want to play it safe."
    Good, Riker thought. At least they had time to get
their bearings and decide on a strategy. He didn't
intend to stay a sitting duck much longer, but it might
be in this instance that a judicious retreat was the
better part of valor. There was too much unknown
about both the Calamarains' motives and their abili-
ties for him to feel comfortable committing the Enter-
prise to an all-out armed conflict. And as for their
mission, and Professor Faal's experiment... well,
that was looking more unlikely by the moment.
    "I can do more from Engineering," Geordi offered.
"Permission to leave the bridge?"
    "Go to it, Mr. La Forge," Riker said crisply as
Geordi headed for the turbolift. He looked at Troi and
saw that the counselor still had her eyes closed, a look
of intense, almost trancelike concentration upon her
face. "Deanna?" he asked quietly, not wanting to jar
her from her heightened state of sensitivity.
    "They're all around us," Troi answered, slowly
opening her eyes. "Surrounding us, containing us,
confining us. I'm sensing great anger and frustration
from every direction, but that's not all. Beneath
everything, behind the rage, is a terrible fear. They're
desperately afraid of something I can't even begin to
guess at."
    "How typically vague and ominous," the female Q
said from the bleachers, rolling her eyes, to the
amusement of her offspring. "Perhaps, young lady,
you'd get better results with tea leaves."
    "Never mind her," Riker said to Troi. "Thank you,
Deanna." He tried to interpret her impressions, but
too much remained unknown. How could such pow-
erful entities, capable of thriving in the deadly vacu-
um of space, possibly be afraid of the Enterprise? The
very idea seemed laughable, especially when a much
more probable suspect sat only a few meters away.
    He spun his chair around to confront the anachro-
nistic wooden bleachers and the incongruous duo
resting upon them. Riker inspected the female Q. She
was an attractive woman, he noted, more so than Q
deserved, in his opinion. Remarkably tall, too; it
wasn't often Riker met women who were the same
height as he, but the individual standing in front of
him met his gaze at near eye-level. She looks almost as
imposing as a Klingon woman, he thought. Although I
guess an omnipotent being can be as tall as she wants.
    "You," he accused. "Are you at the heart of this
business? Are the Calamarain afraid of you?"
    "Me?" the woman asked. She added ketchup to a
hot dog that had not existed a heartbeat before.
Neither had the ketchup, for that matter.
    "Yes," Riker answered. "The Calamarain tried to
kill your husband before. Is it you they fear?"
    "They should," she said darkly, then assumed a
more chipper expression, "but I'm in a forgiving
mood today. No, First Officer, that's not it; the
Calamarain have far more to worry about than me
and little q these days."
    "What do you mean?" Riker demanded. He didn't
get the impression the woman was dissembling, un-
like the original Q, who always came off as about as
sincere as a Ferengi used-shuttle salesman, but who
could tell with a Q? As he understood it, this wasn't
even her true appearance. "Explain yourself."
    The little q reached for his mother's hat, so the
female Q amused him by trading their headwear with
a snap of her fingers. The oversized hat looked ridic-
ulous on the child's small head, but q giggled happily,
his face all but concealed by the drooping brim of the
hat.
    "About the Calamarain," Riker prompted firmly.
Even with their shields defending them from the
Calamarain's lethal tachyons, he had no desire to
linger in their grasp any longer than necessary. This Q
could play the doting mother on her own time. "I'm
still waiting for an explanation."
    "Such a one-track mind," the Q sighed. "Q is right.
You creatures really do need to learn how to stop and
smell the nebulas now and again." She tapped the
child-sized baseball cap upon her head and it ex-
panded to fit more comfortably. "I'm sure if my
 husband wanted you to understand about the Cala-
 marain and their selfish grievances, he would have
 explained it all to you. Mind you, I don't blame him
 for keeping mum where this whole business is con-
 cerned. Kind of an embarrassing anecdote, especially
 since it was all his fault in the first place."
    What in blazes does she mean by that? Riker briefly
wished that he had hung on to the supernatural
powers Q had granted him years ago, just so he could
threaten to kick this other Q off the ship if she didn't
start giving him straight answers. "Embarrassing?" he
said with deeply felt indignation. "Your husband
kidnapped our captain. For all I know, he sicced the
Calamarain on us, too. I call that more than 'embar-
rassing' and I want to know what you intend to do
about it, starting with telling us just where Q has
taken Captain Picard."
    The female Q peered down her nose at Riker. "I'm
not sure I approve of your tone," she said icily,
placing her hands over baby q's ears. The child,
curious, grew a new pair of velvety silver bunny ears
out of the top of his scalp, foiling his mother's well-
intentioned efforts.
    "I don't want your approval," Riker said. The hum
of the Calamarain buzzed in his ears, reminding him
that he had more important things to do than waste
his breath trying to reason with a Q. "I want you to
lend a hand, answer my questions, or get off the
bridge."
    His harsh tone got through to little q, whose child-
ish grin crumpled into tears and sobs. The mother
fixed a chilly stare on Riker, who felt his life expectan-
cy shrinking at a geometrical rate. "Well, if that's how
you're going to be," she huffed. Without another
word, she disappeared from the bridge, taking little q
and the bleachers with her.
    Well, that's something, he thought, thankful that
members of the Q Continuum tended to leave as
unexpectedly as they arrived. For indestructible, im-
mortal beings, they sure seem pretty thin-skinned. He
swiveled his chair around to face the prow of the
bridge. On the main viewer, he saw a portion of the
Calamarain, its iridescent substance drifting past
the window like some lifeless chemical vapor. The
roiling gases outside the ship looked more agitated
than before. The rainbow colors darkened, the sepa-
rate fumes clumping together in heavy, swollen ac-
cumulations that promised an approaching storm.
Flickers of bright electricity leaped from billow to
billow, sparking like bursts of lightning through the
all-encompassing cloud. Riker felt like they were
trapped inside the galaxy's biggest thunderhead. "De-
flectors?" he asked, wanting a status report.
    "Shields holding," Leyoro informed him, "al-
though I'm detecting an increase in harmful tachyon
radiation."
    "That is correct," Data confirmed from Ops. "The
Calamarain have rapidly raised the intensity of the
emissions directed against the ship, possibly in an
attempt to penetrate our defenses." He peered in-
tently at the display at his console. "By placing
further pressure upon our shields, the amplified na-
ture of the Calamarain's attack reduces our safety
factor by 1.5 31 hours."
    "Understood," Riker said, "but we're not going to
stick around that long." The captain was missing. The
ship was under attack. A prudent departure was
definitely in order, he judged. He knew he did not
need to worry about leaving the captain behind; Q
could find the Enterprise anywhere in the universe if
he felt so inclined. It seemed a shame to turn tail and
run when all they had managed to do so far was
misplace Jean-Luc Picard, but there was no compel-
ling reason to continue the experiment in the face of
an enemy; it was a pure research assignment after all.
The barrier had been around for billions of years. It
could wait a little longer. "Mr. Clarze, prepare to go
to warp."
    "Commander," Lieutenant Leyoro pointed out,
"we haven't even tried to strike back at the Cala-
marain yet. Perhaps we can drive them away with our
phasers?"
    Riker shook his head. "There's no reason to get into
a shooting war, not if we can simply turn around. For
all we know, the Calamarain may have legitimate
interests in this region of space." He saw Deanna nod
in agreement. "Take us out of here, Mr. Clarze."
    "Yes, sir," the young DeRan said from the conn,
entering the appropriate coordinates into the helm
controls. Riker noted a light sheen of perspiration
upon the pilot's domed skull; he'd probably never
been caught inside a sentient cloud before. CouM be
worse, Riker thought. According to the history tapes,
Kirk's Enterprise had once been swallowed by a giant
space amoeba. "Heading?" Clarze asked.
    "The nearest starbase," Riker said, "to report our
findings." Too bad we never got the chance to take on
the galactic barrier, he thought. Still, no experiment
was worth risking the Enterprise, especially with
civilians and children aboard. Starfleet would have to
challenge the barrier another day, with or without
Professor Faal. It was tragic that the dying scientist
had to be thwarted this close to the completion of his
final experiment, but the Calamarain had given them
no other choice. Who knows? Maybe someday they
might even get another chance to establish genuine
contact with the Calamarain.
    At the moment, though, he found himself more
worried about the fact that the viewscreen still held
the image of the Calamarain despite his order to go to
warp. "Mr. Clarze?"
    "I'm trying, Commander!" Clarze blurted, jabbing
at the control panel with his fingers. "But something's
wrong with the warp engines. I can't get them to
engage."
    "What?" Riker reacted. If the warp engines were
down, the Enterprise was in serious trouble. He knew
from experience that they could not outrun the Cala-
marain on impulse alone. He glanced over his shoul-
der at the crew member manning the aft science
station. "Mr. Schultz, what's our engine status?"
    "I'm not sure, sir," Ensign Robert Schultz said,
peering anxiously at the monitors and display panels
at the aft engineering station. "The warp core is still
on-line and the plasma injectors seem to be function-
ing properly, but somehow the warp field coils are not
generating the necessary propulsive effect. I can't
figure out why."
    "That's not good enough," Riker said. Hoping that
Geordi had already made it back to Engineering, he
tapped his corem badge. "Geordi, this is Riker. What
the devil is going on down there?"
    "I wish I could tell you," the chief engineer's voice
answered, confirming the speed and efficacy of the
ship's turbolifts. "We can initiate the pulse frequency
in the plasma, no problem, but something's damping
the warp field layers, keeping our energy levels below
eight hundred millicochranes, tops. We need at least a
thousand to surpass lightspeed."
    "Understood," Riker acknowledged, remembering
basic warp theory. He glanced at Data, wondering if
he should pull the android off Ops and send him to
assist Geordi in Engineering. Not unless I absolutely
have to, he decided. "What about the impulse drive?"
    "That's still up and running," Geordi stated, "at
least for now."
    That's something, I suppose, Riker thought, al-
though what he really needed was warp capacity.
"Anything you can do to fix the field coils in a hurry?"
    "I can run a systems-wide diagnostic," Geordi
suggested, "but that's going to take a while. Plus, I've
already got half my teams working overtime to main-
tain the deflectors."
    In the meantime, we're stuck here, Riker thought,
with our shields failing and the Calamarain at the
door. "Do what you can, Mr. La Forge." He clenched
his fists angrily, frustrated by this latest turn of affairs.
It seemed retreat was no longer an option, at least not
at present. They might have to fight their way out after
all. A strategic notion occurred to him, and he re-
opened the line to La Forge. "Geordi, have an engi-
neering officer look at the remains of the probe the
Calamarain attacked. I want to find out as much as we
can about their modes of attack."
    "You got it," Geordi promised. 'III put Barclay on
it right away."
    Riker experienced a momentary qualm when Reg
Barclay's name was mentioned. Deanna insisted that
Barclay was making substantial progress, and cer-
tainly the man had come in useful when they had to
repair Zefram Cochrane's primitive warp vessel back
m 2063, but even still... Then again, it dawned on
him, analyzing the probe was probably less stressful
under the circumstances than working on the shields
or engines, so the probe and Barclay made a good fit. I
shouM never have doubted Geordi ~ work assignments,
he thought. He knows exactly what his people are
capable of
    Just as Riker knew what a certain android officer
could do when the chips were down. "Mr. Data, since
we can't get away from the Calamarain, we need to
find out what they want. I want you to give top
priority to establishing communication with the Cala-
marain. Perhaps our sensor readings can give you
what you need to bring the Universal Translator up to
speed. Work with Counselor Troi, if you think she can
help. Maybe her nonverbal impressions can provide
you with the clue you need to crack their language."
    "Yes, Commander," the android replied. He
sounded like he was looking forward to tackling the
problem. "A most intriguing challenge." He studied
the displays at Ops, swiftly switching from one sensor
mode to another until he found something. "Counsel-
or Troi," he said after a few moments, "I am detecting
a directed transmission from the entity on a narrower
wavelength than their tachyon barrage. It may be an
attempt at communication. Can you sense its
meaning?"
    Riker could not see Deanna's face from his chair,
but he could well imagine the look of concentration
on her face. Even after all these years, her empathic
abilities still impressed him, although he could recall
more than a few instances when he'd wished that she
had not been able to see through him quite so easily.
Like that time on Risa, he thought.
    Deanna Troi shut her eyes, doing her best to filter
out the emotions of the crew members present in the
conference room as well as, more faintly, throughout
the ship. Speak to me, she thought to the gaseous mass
outside the ship. Let me know what you're feeling.
    Suddenly, an unexpected "voice" intruded into her
thoughts. You have to talk to the commander, it urged
her silently. Make him understand. I have to go on
with my work. It's vitally important.
    She recognized the telepathic voice immediately.
Lem Faal. How desperate was he, she worried, that he
would take advantage of her sensitivity like this?
Please, she told him. Not now. Please leave me alone.
She needed to have all her faculties focused on the
task of reading the Calamarain.
    But my work/he persisted. His telepathic voice, she
noted, lacked the hoarseness and shortness of breath
that weakened his physical voice. It was firm and
emphatic, unravaged by disease.
    Fortunately, years of dealing with her mother had
given her plenty of experience at dispelling an un-
wanted telepathic presence from her mind. No/Faal
protested as he felt her squeeze him out of her
consciousness. Wait/I need your help/
    "Leave me alone," she repeated, before banishing
him entirely.
    "Deanna?" Will Riker asked. Her eyes snapped
open and she saw him watching her with a confused,
anxious expression. So were Data and Lieutenant
Leyoro and the others on the bridge. She hadn't
realized she had spoken aloud.
 "I'm sorry," she said. "I was... distracted."
    "By the Calamarain?" the commander asked. She
could feel his concern for her well-being,
    "No," she answered, shaking her head. She would
have to speak to the commander about Faal later;
there was something frightening about the scientist's
obsession with his experiment, beyond simple deter-
mination to see his work completed before death
claimed him. First, though, there were still the Cala-
marain. "Let me try again," she said, closing her eyes
once more.
    This time Faal did not interfere. Perhaps he had
finally gotten the message to keep out of her head.
Screening out all other distractions, she opened her-
self up to the alien emotions seeping into the ship
from outside.
    They tasted strange to her mental receptors, like some
exotic spice or flavor she couldn't quite place. Was that
anger/fear or fear/anger or something else altogether?
She felt queer impressions suffusing the air around her,
like the steady drone of the humming she had heard in
the background ever since the cloud had surrounded the
ship. They were relentlessly consistent, never quavering
or varying in tone or intensity. She couldn't name the
feeling, but it was a constant, unchanging, a firm and
unshakable conviction/resolution/determination to do
what must be done, whatever that might be. She
probed as hard as she was able, but the feeling never
changed. That was all she could sense, the same
inflexible purpose surrounding the Enterprise on all
sides.
    Convinced that she'd heard enough, she opened her
eyes slowly, took a few deep breaths, and let the alien
emotions recede into the background. "I'm picking
up an increased sense of urgency, of alarm mixed with
fury," she stated. "There's a feeling of danger, wheth-
er to us or from us I can't say." She hesitated for a
second, reaching out across the gulf of space with her
empathic senses. "I think it's a warning... or a
threat."
    That's a big difference, Riker thought, listening
carefully to Deanna's report. Do the Calamarain want
to help us or hurt us? Judging from the way they'd
knocked the probe about earlier, he'd bet on the
latter.
    "Thank you, Counselor," Data said, comparing
Deanna's impressions against his readings and enter-
ing the results into his console. "That was quite
helpful. I now have several promising avenues to
explore."
    Could Data really use Deanna's empathic skills as a
Rosetta Stone to crack the Calamarain's language?
Riker could only wonder how the android was manag-
ing to translate Deanna's subjective emotional read-
ings into the mathematical algorithms used by the
Universal Translator. Then again, he remembered,
Data had knowledge of hundreds, if not thousands, of
languages stored in his positronic brain, making him
something of an artificial translator himself. If anybody
can do it, he thought.
    "Excuse me, Commander," Leyoro said, "but what's
that old human expression again? The one about the
best offense... ?"
    Riker permitted himself a wry smile. "Point taken,
Lieutenant. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten our
phasers."
    Given a choice, he'd rather talk than shoot, but the
time for talking was swiftly running out.

Interlude

BUG.
    It was buzzing over there, just out of reach..4 shiny,
silver bug. He could see it now, the image refracted
through the lens of the wall, deformed and distorted,
true, but definitely there. Itty-bitty little bug, buzzing
about on the other side, doing teeny-weeny, buggy little
things.
    Busy bug, he crooned. How fast can you fly? How
quick can you die?
    He couldn't wait to swat it with his hungry hand.
No, not swat it, he corrected himself. He'd play with it
first, teach it tricks, then pull off its wings. Soon, he
promised, soon to its ruin.
    Then the bug wasn't alone anymore. A wisp of
smoke drifted over to where the bugs flitted. Bug and
smoke, he cursed, his mood darkening. He remem-
bered that smoke, oh yes he did, and remembering,
hated..4 joke on the smoke, ever so long ago. Choke on
the smoke. Smoking, choking... choking the bug!
Through the fractured glass of the wall, he watched as
the thin, insubstantial wisp of vapor surrounded the
bug. Not You can't have it/he raved. It's mine, mine to
find, mine to grind!
    Impatiently, he reached out for the bug and the
smoke, unable to wait any longer, forgetting for the
moment all that lay between him and his prizes. But
his will collided against the perpetual presence of the
wall and rebounded back in pain and fury. He drew
inward on himself, nursing his injured pride, while
the bug and the smoke circled each other just beyond
his grasp. Not now, he recalled, not how. But when,
when, WHEN... ?
    He howled in frustrationmand a voice answered.
The same voice that had greeted his cries not very
long ago. It was a small, barely audible voice, but it
sounded faintly louder than it had before, like it was
coming from some place not nearly so far away.
 (I m here,) the voice said, (I'm almost with you).
    WHEN? he pleaded, his own voice sounding like an
explosion compared to the other. WHEN?
    (Soon. There are a few obstacles to overcome, but
soon. I give you my word.)
    What did it mean by that? The message was too
vague, too indefinite, to curb his constant craving to
defeat the wall. The bug and the smoke tormented
him, teasing him with their pretended proximity. He
needed an answer now.
    Let me in, he said. Let you out. Away, away, no
more decay. Let me in, again and again.
    (Yes/) the voice affirmed. (I will make it happen, no
matter what.)
    The voice droned on, but he grew bored and
stopped listening. The bug captured his attention
once more, so small and fragile, but not yet undone by
the suffocating smoke. Buzz, buzz, little bug, he whis-
pered. Flitter J~ee while you can. He assumed the
shape of an immense arachnid, stretching out his will
in all directions like eight clutching limbs.
 A spider is coming to gobble you up ....

Chapter Eleven

HE WAS NO Longer on the bridge. A cool white mist
surrounded Picard on all sides, obscuring his vision,
but the familiar sounds and smells of the bridge were
gone, informing him unequivocally that he had left
the Enterprise. He looked around him quickly and
saw only the same featureless fog everywhere he
glanced. The Calamarain? he wondered briefly, but,
no, this empty mist was utterly unlike the luminescent
swirls of the living plasma cloud. This place, odorless,
soundless, textureless, was more like... limbo. He
stamped his feet upon whatever surface was support-
ing him, but the mist absorbed both the force and the
sound of his boots striking the ground so that not an
echo escaped to confirm the physicality of his own
existence. He was lost in a void, a sensation that he
remembered all too well.
    I've been here before, he thought. That time ! almost
died in sickbay and Q offered me a chance to relive my
past. The memory did nothing to ease his concerns.
That incident had been a profoundly disturbing, if
ultimately illuminating, experience, one that he was
m no great hurry to endure again. More important,
what about the Enterprise? Only seconds before, or so
it seemed to him, he had placed the ship on red alert
in response to the approach of the Calamarain.
"Dammit," he cursed, punching a fist into his palm in
frustration. This was no time to be away from his ship!
    "Q!" he shouted into the mist, unafraid of who or
what might hear him. "Show yourselfi"
    "You needn't bellow, Jean-Luc," Q answered, step-
ping out of the fog less than two meters away from
Picard. His Starfleet uniform, proper in every respect,
hardly suited his sardonic tone. "Although I wish you
could have simply listened to me in the first place.
You have no idea how strenuously I regret that you
forced me to go to such lamentable lengths to con-
vince you."
    "I forced you?" Picard responded indignantly.
"This is intolerable, Q. I demand that you return me
to the Enterprise at once."
    Q tapped his foot impatiently. "Spare me, Picard.
Time is scarce. Just this once, can't we skip the
obligatory angry protestations and get on with busi-
ness?"
    "Your business, you mean," Picard said. "My busi-
ness is on my ship!"
    "That's what you think," Q replied. He crossed his
arms upon his chest, looking quite sure of himself.
"Take my word for this, Jean-Luc. You're not going
back to the Enterprise--E,F, or G--until we are
finished, one way or another. Or don't you trust Riker
to keep the ship in one piece that long?"
    That's not the point, he thought, but part of him was
forced to concede the futility of talking Q out of
anything. If there was one thing he had learned since
their first meeting in Q's "courtroom" over a decade
ago, it was that attempting to reason with or intimi-
date Q was a waste of time. Perhaps the best and only
option was to let the charade play out as quickly as
possible, and hope that he could get back to his life
and duties soon enough. Not a very appealing strategy,
he thought, but there it is.
    He took stock of their surroundings, ready to take
on Q's latest game. The empty mist offered no clue as
to what was yet to come. "What is this place, Q," he
asked, "and don't tell me it's the afterlife."
    "Like you'd know it if you saw it," Q said. "You
wouldn't recognize the Pearly Gates if you had your
pathetic phasers locked on them." He paused and
scratched his chin reflectively. "Actually, they aren't
so much peafly as opalescent... but I digress. This
shapeless locale," he said, sweeping out his arms to
embrace the entire foggy landscape, "is merely a
starting point, a place between time, where time has
no sway."
    "Between time?" Picard repeated, concentrating on
every word Q said. This duplicitous gamester played
by his own arcane rules, he knew, and sometimes
doled out a genuine hint or clue in his self-
aggrandizing blather. The trick was to extract that
nugget of truth from the rest of Q's folderol. "I
thought you said earlier that time was scarce."
    "By the Continuum, you can be dim, Jean-Luc,"
Q groaned, wiping some imaginary sweat from his
brow. "Sometimes I feel like I'm teaching remedial
metaphysics to developmentally stunted primates.
Here, let me demonstrate."
    Q grabbed hold of the drifting fog with both hands
and pulled it aside as though it were a heavy velvet
curtain. Picard glimpsed two figures through the gap
in the mist, standing several meters away. One was a
tall, balding man in a red-and-black Starfleet uniform
that was a few years out of style. A lethal-looking
scorch mark marred the front of his uniform, above
his heart. The other figure was clad in angelic white
robes that seemed composed of the very mist that
framed the scene. A heavenly light illuminated the
second figure from behind, casting a sublime radiance
that outlined the robed figure with a shimmering halo.
Looking on this tableau, one could be forgiven for
assuming that this auroral figure was a veritable
emissary from Heaven, if not the Almighty Himself.
    Picard knew better. He recognized the figures, and
the occasion, instantly. They were himself and Q,
posed as they had been when he first confronted Q in
this very same mist, shortly after he "died" from a
malfunction in his artificial heart. Caught up in their
own fateful encounter, the other Picard and Q paid no
heed to the onlookers now witnessing themselves at
an earlier time. Picard could not hear what his
younger self was saying to the younger Q, but he
remembered the exchange well enough. There had
been a time, after he woke up in sickbay under
Beverly Crusher's ministrations, when he had half-
convinced himself that he had merely experienced an
unusually vivid and perceptive dream, but, in his
heart of hearts, which bore no relation to the steel and
plastic mechanism lodged in his chest, he had always
known that the entire episode had really happened.
Even still, it gave him a chill to watch the bizarre
occurrence unfold once more.
    He was tempted to shout out a warning to his
earlier self, but what could he say? "Whatever you do,
don't let Q tempt you into changing your past"? No,
that would only defeat the entire purpose of that
unique, autobiographical odyssey and deprive his
other self of the hard-earned insights he had so
painfully achieved over the course of that unforgetta-
ble journey. He couldn't bring himself to say a word.
    "Seen enough?" Q asked. He withdrew his hands
and the fog fell back into place, sealing away the
vision from the past. "I must say, I seemed particu-
larly celestial there. Divinity looks good on me."
    "So you think," Picard retorted, but his heart was
not in the war of words. That flashback to his old,
near-death experience shook him more than he
wanted to admit. "Why show me that?" he asked. "I
have not forgotten what happened then."
    "You still don't understand," Q said. "That didn't
happen before. It's happening now. Here, everything
happens now. But when we return to the boring,
linear reality you know, the clock hands will resume
their dogged, dreary rounds." He held his hands up in
front of his face. "Excuse me while I watch my
fingernails grow. Let me know when you're through
with your futile efforts to comprehend the ineffable."
    Picard ignored Q's taunts. Figuring out the rules of
this game was the only way he was going to find his
way back to the Enterprise. "Is that what this is all
about? The same routine as before, you're going to
make me face up to another chapter of my past?" He
couldn't help trying to guess what heartrending trage-
dy he might be forced to relive. The death of Jack
Crusher? That nasty business back at the Academy?
His torture at the hands of Gul Madred? Dear god, he
prayed, don't let it be my time among the Borg. I
couldn't bear to be Locutus once again. He cast off his
fears, however, and faced his opponent defiantly.
"You must be getting old, Q," he said. "You're
starting to repeat yourself."
    To his surprise, Q began to look more uncomfort-
able than Picard, as though the relentless puppeteer
was genuinely reluctant to proceed now that the
moment of departure had arrived. "Oh, Picard," he
sighed, "how I wish we were merely sightseeing in
your own insignificant existence, but I'm afraid it's
not your disreputable past we must examine, mon
capitaine, but my own." He took a deep breath,
quelling whatever trepidations he possessed, then
gave Picard a devil-may-care grin. "Starting now."
    The mist converged on Picard, swallowing him up.
For what could have been an instant or an eternity he
found himself trapped in a realm of total, blank
sensory deprivation--until the universe returned.
Sort of.
Where am I? Picard wondered. What am I?
There was something wrong with his eyes, or, if not
wrong precisely, then different. He could see from
three distinct perspectives simultaneously, the dispa-
rate views blending to grant him a curiously all-
inclusive image that made ordinary binocular vision
seem flat by comparison. He searched his surround-
ings, finding himself seemingly adrift amid the black-
ness of space. An asteroid drifted by, its surface pitted
with craters and shadows, and he glimpsed a blazing
yellow sun in the distance, partially eclipsed by an
orbiting planet. I don't understand, he thought. How
can I be surviving in a vacuum? Am I wearing a
pressure suit, or did Q not bother with that? It was hard
to tell; he couldn't feel his arms or his legs. He tried to
look down at his body, but all he could see was a
bright white glare. What had Q done to him?
    "Q!" he shouted, but what emerged from his throat
was a long, sibilant hiss. Make that throats, for, to his
utter shock, he felt the vibrato of the hiss in no less
than three separate throats. This is insane, he thought,
struggling not to panic. Over the years, he had almost
grown accustomed to being miraculously transported
here and there throughout the universe by Q's capri-
cious whims, but he had never been transported out
of his own body beforemand into something inhu-
man and strange. "Q?" he hissed again, desperate for
some sort of answer.
    "Right behind you, Jean-Luc," Q answered. Picard
had never been so relieved to hear that voice in his
entire life. Somehow, merely by thinking about it, he
managed to turn around and was greeted by an
astounding yet oddly familiar sight:
    A three-headed Aldebaran serpent floated in the
void only a few meters away. A trio of hooded,
serpentine bodies rose from a glowing silver sphere
about which smaller balls of light ceaselessly orbited.
The heads, which each resembled Earth's king cobra,
faced Picard. Strips of glittering emerald and crimson
scales alternated along all three of the snakelike
bodies. Three pairs of cold, reptilian eyes fixed Picard
with their mesmerizing stare. A threesome of forked
tongues flicked from the serpentine faces. "Wel-
come," the snakes said in Q's voice, "to the begin-
ning."
    Of course, Picard thought. Not only did he recog-
nize the triple serpent, an ancient mythological sym-
bol dating back to well before the onset of human
civilization, but he recalled how Q had once assumed
this form before, at the onset of his second visit to the
Enterprise. But this time, it seemed, Q had done more
than merely transform himself into the fantastical,
hydra-headed creature; he had somehow mutated
Picard as well. Straining the unfamiliar muscles of his
outermost necks, Picard turned his eyes on himself.
Even though he had already guessed what he would
find, it still came as a terrible shock when he saw,
from two opposing points of view, two more serpen-
tine heads rising from the radiant globe that was now
his body. For a second, each of his outer heads looked
past the central serpent so that Picard found himself
staring directly into his own eyes--and back again.
The jolt was too much for his altered nervous system
to endure and he quickly looked away to see the other
hydra, Q, hovering nearby. "So what do you think of
your new body, Captain?" he asked. "Tell me, are
three heads truly better than one?"
    "Good Lord, Q," Picard exclaimed, trying his best
to ignore the peculiar sensation of speaking through
three sets of jaws, "what have you done?" He had to
pray that his unearthly transformation was only a
temporary joke of Q's, or else he would surely go mad.
Good god, did he now have three separate brains,
three different minds to lose?
 "Merely trying to inject a note of historical verisi-
militude into our scenic tour of my past," Q stated.
"Relatively speaking, that is. Understand this, Picard:
there is no way your primitive consciousness can truly
comprehend what it means to be part of the Q
Continuum, so everything I show you from here on
has been translated into a form that can be perceived
by your rudimentary five senses. It's a crude, vastly
inadequate approximation of my reality, but it is the
best your mind can cope with." Q drifted closer to
Picard, until the transformed starship captain could
see the individual scales overlapping each other along
the lengths of each extended throat. The flared hoods
behind each head puffed up even larger. "Anyway," Q
went on, "it seemed more appropriate, and more
accurate, to take these shapes during this stage of our
excursion, given that the evolution of the humanoid
form is still at least a billion years away at this point.
In fact, this was one of my favorite guises way back in
the good old days, before you overreaching human-
oids came down from the trees and started spreading
your DNA all over the galaxy."
    "Billions of years?" Picard echoed, too stunned at
Q's revelations to even register the usual insults and
patronizing tone. "Where... when... are we?"
    "Roughly five billion years ago, give or take a few
dozen millennia." Q's leftmost head nipped playfully
at the head next to it. "Ouch. You know, sometimes I
surprise even myself." The central head snapped back
while the head on the right continued speaking. "Tell
me the truth, Jean-Luc, don't you get tired of Data's
painfully precise measurements? How refreshing it
must be to deal with someone--like myself, say--
who is quite comfortable rounding things off to the
nearest million or so."
    Picard watched his own heads nervously, unsure
when or how he might start turning on himselfi There
was something horribly claustrophobic about being
trapped in this inhuman form, deprived of his limbs
and hands and all the normal physical sensations he
was accustomed to after sixty-plus years of existence
as a human being. He felt a silent scream bubbling
just beneath the thin surface of his sanity. "Q, I find
this new form... very distracting."
    It was possibly the greatest single understatement
in his life.
    "Oh, Jean-Luc," Q sighed, sounding disappointed,
"I had hoped you were more flexible than that. After
all, you coped with being a Borg for a week or two. Is a
tri-headed serpent god all that much harder?"
    "Q," Picard pleaded, too far from his own time and
his own reality to worry about his pride. "Please."
    "If you insist," Q grumbled. "I have important
things to show you and I suppose it wouldn't do to
have you fretting about your trivial human body the
whole time. You might miss something." The triple
necks of the Q-serpent wrapped themselves around
each other until the three heads seemed to sprout from
a single coiled stalk. Picard was briefly reminded of
Quetzalcoatl, the serpent deity of the ancient Aztecs.
Quetzalcoatl. . . Q? Could there be a connection?
  He might never know.
    "Pity," the triune entity continued, "you hadn't
begun to scratch the possibilities of this identity." A
flash of light illuminated the darkness for a fraction of
a second, and then Q appeared before Picard in his
usual form, garbed in what looked like a simple Greek
chiton fastened over his left shoulder. A circlet of
laurel leaves adorned his brow. Simple leather sandals
rested upon nothing but empty space.
    Picard's trifocal vision coalesced into a single point
of view. Gratefully, he looked down to see his human
body restored to him. So relieved was he to have arms
and legs again, he barely noted at first that he was now
attired in an ancient costume similar to the one Q
now wore. He remained floating in space, of course,
protected from the deadly vacuum only by Q's re-
markable powers, but that was a level of surreality
that he felt he could cope with. Just permit me to be
myself, he thought, and I'm ready for whatever Q has
up his sleeves.
    "Happy now?" Q pouted. He wiggled his fingers in
front of his face and scowled at the sight. "I hope you
realize what a dreadful anachronism this is. Be it on
your head, and you a professed archaeologist!"
    "I feel much better, thank you," Picard answered,
regaining his composure even while conversing in
open space. He glanced down at his own sandaled feet
and saw nothing but a gaping abyss extending beneath
him for as far as his eyes could see. He was not
experiencing a null-gravity state, though; he knew
what that felt like and this was quite different. Q was
somehow generating the sensation of gravity, so that
he felt squarely oriented despite his surroundings. Up
was up and down was down, at least for the moment.
He fingered the hem of his linen garment, noting the
delicate embroidering along the border of the cloth.
God is in the details, he thought, recalling an ancient
aphorism, or was that the devil? "What is this?" he
asked, indicating the chiton. "Another anachro-
nism?"
    "A conceit," Q said with a shrug, "to give a feel of
antiquity. As I explained before, and I hope you were
paying close attention, this is nothing like what I
really looked like at this point in the galaxy's history,
but simply a concession to your limited human un-
derstanding."
    "And the Aldebaran serpent?" Picard pressed.
"Was that your true form?"
    Q shook his head, almost dislodging his crown of
leaves. "Merely another guise, one better suited to a
time before you mammals began putting on airs."
    "If anyone can be accused of putting on airs,"
Picard replied, "it's you. You've done little but flaunt
your alleged superiority since the time we first en-
countered you. Frankly, I'm not convinced."
    "Yes, I recall your little speech right before we
departed the bridge," Q said. "Would you be sur-
prised to know that I share some of your opinions
about the more... shall we say, heavy-handed...
tendencies of the Continuum?"
    "I know that you've been on the outs with your own
kind at least once," Picard answered, "which gives me
some hope that the Continuum itself might be rather
more mature and responsible." It dawned on him, not
for the first time, that almost everything he knew
about the rest of the Q Continuum had come from
Q's own testimony, hardly the most reliable of
sources. He resolved to question Guinan more deeply
on the subject, if and when he ever had the opportuni-
ty. "Well?" he asked, surveying this desolate section
of space. On the horizon, the eclipsing planet no
longer passed between himself and the nearest sun,
permitting him an unobstructed view of the seething
golden orb, which he registered as a typical G-2 dwarf
star, much like Earth's own sun. It was a breathtaking
sight, especially viewed directly from space, but he
was not about to thank Q for letting him see it. "Why
are we here?" he demanded. "What is it you wish to
show me?"
    "The beginning, as I said," Q stated. With a wave of
his arm, he and Picard began to soar through the void
toward the immense yellow sun. The hot solar wind
blew in his face as the star grew larger and larger in his
sight. It was a thrilling and not entirely unpleasant
experience, Picard admitted to himself. He felt like
some sort of interstellar Peter Pan, held aloft by
joyous spirits and a sprinkling of pixie dust.
    "Picture yourself in my place," Q urged, "a young
and eager Q, newly born to my full powers and cosmic
awareness, exploring a shiny new galaxy for the first
time. Oh, Picard, those were the days! I felt like I
could do anything. And you know what? I was right?'
    At that, they plunged into the heart of the roaring
sun. Picard flinched automatically, expecting to be
burnt to a crisp, but, as he should have known, Q's
omnipotence protected them from the unimaginable
heat and brilliance. He gaped in awe as they de-
scended first through the star's outer corona as it
hurled massive tongues of flame at the surrounding
void, not to mention, Picard knew, fatal amounts of
ultraviolet light and X-rays. Listening to the constant
crackle and sizzle of the flames, he could not help
recalling how the Enterprise had nearly been de-
stroyed when Beverly, in command while he and the
others were being held captive by Lore, had flown the
ship into another star's corona in a daring and ulti-
mately successful attempt to escape the Borg. Yet here
he was, without even the hull of a starship to shield
him against the unleashed fury of the sun's outer
atmosphere.
    Next came the chromosphere, a thin layer of fiery
red plasma that washed over Picard like a sea of hot
blood, followed by the photosphere, the visible sur-
face of the sun. Picard had thoroughly studied the
structure of G-2 stars at the Academy, of course, and
subjected hundreds of stars to every variety of ad-
vanced sensor probe, but none of that had prepared
him for the reality of actually witnessing the surface
of a sun firsthand; he gawked in amazement at churn-
ing energies that should have been enough to inciner-
ate him a million times over. Not even the legendary
lake of fire within the Klingon homeworld's famed
Kri'stak Volcano compared to the raging inferno that
seemed to consume everything in sight except him
and Q.
    Despite Q's protective aura, Picard felt as if he were
standing naked in a Vulcan desert at high noon. Sweat
dripped from his forehead while rivers of perspiration
ran down his back, soaking the simple linen garment
he wore. Humidity on the surface of a sun? It was
flagrantly impossible; he had to assume that Q had
inflicted this discomfort on him purely for the sake of
illusion. Picard was none too surprised to note that Q
himself looked perfectly cool and comfortable. "I get
the idea, Q," he said, wiping more sweat from his
brow and flinging it toward his companion. Tiny
droplets evaporated instantly before reaching their
target. "It's very hot here. Do you have anything less
obvious to teach me?"
    "Patience," Q advised. "We've barely begun." He
dabbed his toe in the boiling gases beneath their feet
and Picard felt whatever was supporting him slip
away. He began to sink even deeper into the bright
yellow starstuff. A mental image of himself being
dipped into hot, melted butter leaped irresistibly to
the forefront of his consciousness. Reacting instinc-
tively, he held his breath as his head sank beneath the
turbulent plasma, but he needn't have bothered;
thanks to Q, oxygen found him even as he drowned in
the sun.
    They dropped through the photosphere until they
were well within the convection zone beneath the
surface of the sun. Here rivers of ionized gas, not
unlike those that composed the Calamarain, surged
throughout the outer third of the sun's interior. Pi-
card knew the ambient temperature around him had
to be at least one million degrees Kelvin. They dived
headfirst into one of the solar rivers and let the
ferocious current carry them ever deeper until at last,
like salmon leaping from white water, they broke
through into the very heart of the star.
    Now he found himself approaching the very center
of a stellar furnace that beggared description. Here
untold amounts of burning hydrogen atoms, trans-
formed into helium by a process of nuclear fusion,
produced a temperature of more than fifteen million
degrees Kelvin. Not even the warp core aboard the
Enterprise was capable of generating that much heat
and raw energy. The visual impression Picard re-
ceived was that of standing in the midst of a single
white-hot flame, and the heat he actually felt was
nearly unbearable. Every inch of exposed skin felt raw
and dry and sunburnt. Acrid chemical fumes stung
his eyes, nose, and throat. The crackle of the spurting
flames far above him gave way to a constant pounding
roar. Overall, the intense gravitation and radiation at
the solar core were so tremendous that they practi-
cally overwhelmed his senses, and yet somehow he
was still able to see Q, who looked rather bored until
his eyes lit on something really interesting. "Look,
there I am," he announced.
    Brushing tears away from his eyes, Picard stared
where Q was pointing, but all he could see was a faint
black speck in the distance, almost imperceptible
against the dazzling spectacle of the core. They flew
closer to the point of darkness and soon he discerned
an individual figure sitting cross-legged in the middle
of the gigantic fusion reaction. He seemed to be
toying with a handful of burning plasma, letting the
ionized gas stream out between his fingers. "Another
golden afternoon," Q sighed nostalgically, seemingly
oblivious of Picard's intense discomfort. "How young
and inexperienced I was."
    Picard coughed harshly, barely able to breathe
owing to the caustic fumes and searing heat. The
choking sounds jarred Q from his reminiscing and he
peered at Picard dubiously. "Hmm," he pronounced
eventually, "perhaps there is such a thing as too much
verisimilitude." He snapped his fingers, and Picard
felt the awful heat recede from him. He gulped down
several lungfuls of cool, untainted air. It still felt
warm all around him, but more like a sunny day at the
beach than the fires of perdition. "I hope you appreci-
ate the air-conditioning," Q said, "although it does
rather spoil the effect."
    The effect be damned, Picard thought. He was here
as an abductee, not a tourist. He gave himself a
moment to recover from the debilitating effects of his
ordeal, then focused on the individual Q had appar-
ently brought him here to see. Jl young and inexperi-
enced Q? This he had to see.
    Picard flew close enough to discover that the figure
did indeed resemble a more youthful version of Q,
one not yet emerged from adolescence. To his sur-
prise, something about the teen reminded Picard of
Wesley Crusher, another wide-eyed young prodigy,
although this boy already had a more mischievous
twinkle in his eye than Wesley had ever possessed.
"Portrait of the artist as a young Q," Picard's com-
panion whispered with a diabolical chuckle. "Be-
ware." As he and Picard looked on, the young man,
dressed as they were in the garb of ancient Greece,
isolated a ribbon of luminous plasma, stretching it
like taffy before imbuing it with his own supernatural
energies so that it shimmered with an eldfitch radi-
ance that transcended conventional physics. He
pulled his new creation taut, then flung it free. The
fiery ribbon shot like a rubber band toward the ceiling
of the core and soon passed out of sight. "I had
forgotten about that!" Q marveled. "I wonder what-
ever happened to that little energy band?"
    With a start, Picard remembered the inexplicable
cosmic phenomenon that had driven Tolian Soran to
madnessmand, in more ways than one, claimed the
life of James T. Kirk. Surely Q couldn't be claiming to
have created it during an idle moment in his boyhood,
could he? "Q," he began, shocked and appalled at the
implications of what he suspected, "about this energy
band?"
    "Oh, never mind that, Jean-Luc," Q said, dismiss-
ing the question with a wave of his hand. "Do try not
to get caught up in mere trivia."
    Only Q could be so blas6, Picard thought, about the
genesis of a dangerous space-time anomaly, and so
negligent as to the possible consequences of his ac-
tions. He opened his mouth, prepared to read Q the
riot act, when the boy came up with a new trick that
rendered Picard momentarily speechless. Miniature
mushroom clouds sprouted from the teen Q's fingers
and he hurled them about with abandon, paying no
heed to either Picard or the older Q. A toy-sized
nuclear blast whizzed by Picard, missing his head by a
hair. "Can he see us?" Picard asked, ducking yet
another fireball.
    "If he wanted to, of course," Q answered. A nuclear
spitwad passed through him harmlessly. "But he has
no reason to even suspect we are here, so he doesn't."
    I suppose that makes sense, Picard thought. He
could readily accept that the older Q was more adept
at stealth and subterfuge than his youthful counter-
part. He wondered if Q felt the least bit uncomfort-
able about peeking in on his past like this. "Aren't you
at all tempted," Picard asked, "to speak to him? To
offer some timely advice, perhaps, in hopes of chang-
ing your own past?"
    "If only I could," Q said in a surprisingly melan-
choly tone. Picard was disturbed to see what appeared
to be a genuine look of sorrow upon his captor/
companion's face. What kind oJ regrets, Picard
mused, can plague such as Q?
    The moment passed, and Q regained his character-
istic smugness. "You're not the only species, Jean-
Luc, that worries incessantly about preserving the
sanctity of the timeline. If changing one human life
can start a historical chain reaction beyond any
mortal's powers to predict, imagine the sheer univer-
    chaos that could be spawned by tampering with a
Q s lifetime." He shuddered, more for effect than
because of any actual chill. "Remind me to tell you
sometime about how your own Commander Riker
owes his very existence to a momentary act of charity
by one of my contemporaries. It's quite a story,
although completely irrelevant to our present pur-
poses."
    Picard hoped that Q was exaggerating where Will
Riker was concerned, but he saw Q's point. Various
ancient theologians throughout the galaxy, he re-
called, had argued that even God could not undo the
past. It was comforting to know that Q recognized the
same limitation, at least where his own yesterdays
were concerned. Picard took a closer look at the
adolescent figure not too far away. "What is he...
you... doing now?"
    Before their eyes, the teen Q rose to his feet, dusted
some stray solar matter from his bare knees, and
stretched out his arms. Suddenly he began to grow at
a catastrophic rate, expanding his slender frame until
he towered like a behemoth above his older self and
Picard. He seemed to grow immaterial as well, so that
his gargantuan form caused nary a ripple in the
ongoing thermonuclear processes of the star. Soon he
eclipsed the great golden sun itself, so that its blazing
corona crowned his head like a halo. His outstretched
hands grazed the orbits of distant solar systems.
    "I don't understand," Picard said. "How can we be
seeing this? What is our frame of reference?" The
gigantic youth loomed over them, yet he was able to
witness the whole impossible scene in its entirety. He
tore his gaze away from the colossal figure to orient
himself, but all he could see was the sparkle of stars
glittering many light-years away. Somehow they had
departed from the sun completely without him even
noticing. "What is this place? Where are we now?"
    "Shhh," Q said, raising a finger before his lips.
"You must be quite a pain at a concert or play, Picard.
Do you always insist on examining the stage and the
curtains and the lighting before taking in the show?"
He quietly applauded the boy's grandiose dimen-
sions. "Just go with it. That which is essential will
become clear."
    I hope so, Picard thought, feeling more awestruck
than enlightened. There must be some point to this,
aside from demonstrating that Q was as flamboyant
and egotistic in his youth as he is in my own time.
    The boy Q inspected his own star-spanning propor-
tions and laughed in delight. It was an exuberant
laugh, Picard noted, but not a particularly malevolent
one. Picard was reminded of the optimistic, idealistic,
young giants in H. G. Wells's The Food of the Gods, a
novel he had read several times in his own boyhood.
Most unexpectedly, he found himself liking the young
Q. Pity he had to grow into such a conceited pain-in-
the-backside.
  "I was adorable, wasn't I?" Q commented.
    Is that what he wants me to know? Picard thought.
Merely that he was once this carefree boy? "Even
Kodos the Executioner was once a child," he observed
dryly. "Colonel Green is said to have been a Boy
Scout."
    "And Jean-Luc Picard built ships in bottles and
flew kites over the vineyards," Q shot back. *'Evi-
dence suggests that he may have briefly understood
the concept of fun, although some future historians
dispute this."
    Picard bristled at Q's sarcasm. "If this is some
misguided attempt to reawaken my sense of fun," he
said indignantly, "might I suggest that your timing
could not be worse. Snatching me away while my ship
is in jeopardy is hardly conducive to an increased
appreciation of recreation. Perhaps you should post-
pone this little pantomime until my next scheduled
shore leave?"
    Q rolled his eyes. "Don't be such a solipsist, Jean-
Luc. I told you before, this isn't about you. It's about
me." His head tilted back and he stared upward at the
Brobdinguagian figure of his younger self. "Look!" he
exclaimed. "Watch what I'm doing now!"
    Without any other warning except Q's excited
outburst, the teen Q began to shrink as swiftly as he
had grown only moments before. His substance con-
tracted and soon he was even smaller than he had
been originally, less than half the height of either
Picard or the older Q. But his process of diminution
did not halt there, and he quickly became no larger
than a doll. Within seconds, Picard had to get down
on his knees, kneeling upon seemingly empty space,
and strain his eyes to see him. The boy Q was a speck
again, as he had been when Picard had first spied him
across the immeasurably long radius of the solar core.
A heartbeat later, he vanished from sight. Picard
looked up at the other Q, who had a devious smile on
his face. "Well?" Picard asked, frustrated by all this
pointless legerdemain. "He's gone."
    "Au contraire, mon capitaine," Q said, waving a
finger at the puzzled human. "To Q, there is no zero,"
he added cryptically. "Let's go see."
    In a blink, Pieard was somewhere else. It was a
strangely colorless realm, a shapeless world of stark
black and white without any shading in between. The
utter darkness of space had been supplanted by an
eerie white emptiness that seemed to extend forever,
holding nothing but flying black particles that zipped
about ceaselessly, tracing intricate patterns in the
nothingness. A slow-moving particle arced toward
Picard and he reached out to pluck it from its flight.
The black object streaked right through his out-
stretched hand, however, leaving not a mark or a
tingle behind, leaving Picard to wonder whether it
was he or the particle that was truly intangible.
    He hoped it was the particle. Certainly, he thought,
patting himself for confirmation, he felt substantial
enough. He could hear his own breathing, feel his
heart beating in his chest. He felt as tangible, as real,
as he had ever been.
 But where in all the universe was he now?
    Total silence oppressed him. There were no sounds
to hear and no odors to smell. Not even the limbo
where Q had first transported him, with its swirling
white mists, had seemed quite this, well, vacant. For
as far as his eyes could see, there were only three
objects that seemed to possess any color or solidity:
himself, Q, and a now-familiar young man cavorting
among the orbiting particles. Picard watched as the
adolescent Q did what he had not been able to do and
caught on to one of the swooping particles with his
bare hands. Compared with the youth, it looked about
the size of a type-I phaser and completely two-
dimensional. It dangled like a limp piece of film from
his fingertips.
    Picard looked impatiently at the Q he knew. "What
are you waiting for? Explain all this, or do you simply
enjoy seeing me confused and uncertain?"
    "There is nothing simple about that joy at all, Jean-
Luc, but I suppose I do have to edify you eventually.
This," he said grandly, "is the domain of the infinites-
imal. What you see buzzing about you, smaller than
the very notion of sound or hue, are quarks, roesons,
gluons, and all manner of exotic subatomic beasties.
Or rather, to be more exact, they are the possibilities
of micro-micro-matter, discrete units of mathemati-
cal probabilities following along the courses of their
most likely speeds and directions. Whether they actu-
ally exist at any one specific time or place is open to
interpretation."
    "Spare me the lecture on quantum theory," Picard
said, doing his best not to sound impressed. He hated
to give Q the satisfaction of watching him play the
dumbstruck mortal, but, if Q was in fact telling the
truth about their present location, if they were actu-
ally existing on a subatomic level, then it was hard not
to marvel at the sights presented to him. "Is that
really a quark?" he asked, pointing to the young Q's
immaterial plaything. The boy was peering into the
thin black object as if he saw something even smaller
inside it.
    "Cross my heart," his older self said, "a honest-to-
goodness quark, not to be confused with that grasping
barkeep on you-know-where."
    Picard had no idea whom Q was referring to, and
he didn't really care. Perhaps the greatest challenge
posed by Q, he reflected, was to see past his snideness
to the occasional tidbits of actual revelation. Picard
took a moment just to bask in the wonder of this
uncanny new environment, one never before
glimpsed by human eyes. It was sobering to think
that, ultimately, everything in existence was com-
posed of these phantom particles and their intricate
ballet.
    "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
the solemn temples, the great globe itself," he recited,
recalling his precious Shakespeare. "Yea, all which it
inherit, shall dissolve; and like this insubstantial
pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such
stuff as dreams are made on."
    "My goodness, Picard," Q remarked, "are you
moved to poetry?"
    "Sometimes poetry is the only suitable response to
what the universe holds for us," Picard answered. The
essential building blocks of matter darted around him
like flocks of birds on the wing. "This is fascinating, I
admit, but I fail to see the relevance to your earlier
warnings and prohibitions. What has this to do with
my mission to the galactic barrier?"
    "More than you know," Q stated. An hourglass
materialized in his hands and he tipped it over, letting
the sands of time pour down inexorably. "Keep
watching. Here's where things start to get messy."
    The boy Q held the quark up in front of him, like a
scrap of paper, then thrust his arm into the quark up
to his elbow. His hand and lower arm disappeared as
if into a pocket-sized wormhole. He dug around
inside the quark for a moment, the tip of his tongue
poking out of the corner of his mouth in his concen-
tration, until he seized hold of something and yanked
it back toward his body. It looked to Picard like he
was turning the quark inside-out.
    Instantly, the entire submicroscopic realm changed
around them all, becoming a sort of photo-negative
version of its prior self; Picard looked about him to
see a dimension of total blackness, lightened only by
flying white particles. Black was white and white was
black and the young Q gazed goggle-eyed at what he
had wrought. "I don't understand," Picard said.
"What's happening?"
    "Quiet," Q shushed him, his gaze fixed on his
younger self, who was whooping and hollering in
triumph. He appeared very pleased with himself,
unlike the curiously somber Q standing next to Pi-
card. Clearly, this memory held no joy for Q, al-
though Picard could not tell why that should be so.
Am I missing something? Picard wondered.
    "Q!" a booming Voice exploded out of the dark-
ness, startling both Picard and the adolescent Q, but
not, conspicuously, the Q Picard was most accus-
tomed to. He knew exactly what was coming.
    "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" the Voice boomed
again.
    The boy glanced about guiltily, dropping the now
snow-white quark like a hot potato. He struck Picard
as the very portrait of a child caught with his hand in
the proverbial cookie jar. The inverted quark flopped
like a dead thing at the boy's feet, and he tried to kick
it away casually, but it stuck to the sole of his sandal.
"Um, nothing in particular," he replied to the Voice,
trying unsuccessfully to shake the quark from his foot.
"Why do you ask?"
    "YOU KNOW WHY. YOU ARE TOO YOUNG
TO TRIFLE WITH ANTIMATTER. WHY HAVE
YOU DEFIED THE EDICTS OF THE CON-
TINUUM?"
    The Voice sounded familiar to Picard, although its
excessive volume made it hard to identify. Where
have I heard it before? he thought. And what was that
about antimatter? He surveyed his surroundings an-
other time; was all of this actually antimatter? He was
used to conceiving of antimatter as a fairly abstract
concept, something tucked away at the heart of warp
engines, safely swaddled behind layers of magnetic
constriction. It was difficult to accept that antimatter
was all around him, and that, contrary to the funda-
mental principles of physics, no explosive reaction
had resulted from his contact with this realm. Anti-
matter, in any form, was intrinsically dangerous.
Small wonder the rest of the Continuum frowned on
the young Q's impulsive experiments.
    Sheepishness gave way to defiance as the teen Q
realized there was no way to escape the blame. "It's
not fair!" he declared. "I know what I'm doing. Look
at this? He snatched the telltale quark from his foot
and waved it like a flag. "Look all around! I did thism
me!aand nothing got hurt. Nothing important,
anyway."
    "THE WILL OF THE CONTINUUM CANNOT
BE FLOUTED."
    Without any fanfare, the quantum realm reversed
itself, returning to its original monochromatic sche-
ma. Once again, inky particles glided throughout a
blank and silent void. "I liked it better the other way,"
the boy Q muttered to himself. Picard glanced at his
companion and saw that the older Q was quietly
mouthing the same words.
    "YOU MUST BE DISCIPLINED. YOU ARE RE-
QUIRED TO SPEND THE NEXT TEN MILLION
CYCLES IN SOLITARY MEDITATION."
    "Ten million!" the boy protested. "You have to be
joking. That's practically forever!" He flashed an
ingratiating smile, attempting to charm his way out of
hot water. "Look, there's no harm done. How about I
just promise not to do it again?"
    "THE JUDGMENT OF THE CONTINUUM
CANNOT BE QUESTIONED. TEN MILLION CY-
CLES."
  "But I'll be ancient by then!" the young Q said.
  "Ouch? his future self responded.
    MAKE IT SO, the Voice declared, and Picard
suddenly realized whom the Voice reminded him of.
Me. The Voice sounds like me. Was that why Q had
always delighted in provoking him, he speculated, or
was the similarity merely an unusually subtle joke on
Q's part? Either way, it appeared obvious that Q had
developed a grudge against authority figures at a very
early age.
    "Just you wait," the boy vowed bitterly, more to
himself than to his oppressor. "One of these days I'll
show you what I can really do, you wait and see."
    "THE TEN MILLION CYCLES BEGIN NOW,"
the Voice stated, apparently unimpressed by the
youth's rebellious attitude. Do I really sound that
pompous? Picard had to wonder. Surely not.
    Staring sullenly at his feet, the young Q vanished in
a twinkle of light. Picard could not tell if he had
transported himself willingly or if he had been yanked
away by the Continuum. He supposed it didn't matter
much.
    "Believe me, Jean-Luc," Q said, gazing mournfully
at the spot his earlier self had occupied, "when I was
that young, ten million cycles really did feel like an
eternity."
    Picard found it hard to sympathize, especially
when he was being held against his will while the
Enterprise faced unknown dangers. "Was this ex-
tended flashback.really necessary?" he asked. "It
comes as no surprise to learn that you started out as a
juvenile delinquent."
    "Says the man who was nearly expelled from Star-
fleet Academymtwice," Q replied. "And we're not
done yet." He flipped over the hourglass once more,
reversing the flow of sand. "This was only the begin-
ning."
    Therek more? Picard thought. How much longer
did Q intend to keep him away from his ship? "No
more," he began to protest, but his angry words were
swallowed up by another flash of supernatural light,
leaving the quarks to continue alone their endless and
invisible pavanes.
 He was on his way againinto only Q knew where.

Interlude

LIEUTENANT Reginald Barkely did his best to ignore
the ceaseless hum of the Calamarain as he inspected
the battered probe, but that was easier said than done.
He was all too aware that the steady drone in the
background emanated from the same entities, called
the Calamarain according to Chief La Forge, that had
inflicted the damage he was now evaluating. If they
could do this to the molded duranium-tritanium
casing, what could they do to ordinary human flesh-
and-blood?
    Barclay shuddered, glad that no one was present to
witness his attack of nerves. Sometimes his imagina-
tion was just a little too vivid for his own peace of
mind, even if Counselor Troi tried occasionally to
convince him that his rich imagination could be a
source of strength rather than a liability, provided he
managed to control it rather than the other way
around. Unfortunately, that was about the only even-
tuality he couldn't imagine.
 And who wouldn't be worried, now that the captain
was missing, too? Abducted by Q, from what ChiefLa
Forge said. Barclay had a great deal of faith in
Captain Picard's ability to keep the ship intact despite
the numerous--too numerous, as far as Barclay was
concerned--hazards encountered in deep space, but
how could the captain extricate them from this crisis
if he wasn't even aboard? It was enough to make even
a Klingon nervous... maybe.
    The probe, plucked from the Calamarain's grasp
moments before its imminent destruction, rested on
the floor of Transporter Room Five. Approximately
four meters in length, it was a conical, metallic object
with a bulbous, multifaceted head constructed of
triple-layered transparent aluminum. The matte black
finish of the probe was scorched and dented while the
once trans.parent head, resembling the eye of an
enormous insect, appeared to have been partially
melted by whatever forces had assailed the probe. The
formerly clear sensor windows had clouded over,
turning opaque and milky. A fissure along the right
side of the cone revealed a silver of charred circuitry
beneath the ruptured hull.
    A full-color, three-dimensional picture of a similar
crevice opening up along the length of the Enterprise
itself forced its way into Barclay's mind, but he
pushed it away as fast as he could. That~ the way, he
told himself. Just focus on the job. He scanned the
probe with his tricorder, detecting no significant
residual radiation, before gingerly laying his hands on
the blasted surface of the mechanism. To his surprise,
it felt slightly warm to the touch, despite having been
beamed in straight from the cold of interstellar space.
He consulted his tricorder again and observed that
the metals composing the hull remained agitated at an
atomic level, although the degree of ionic activity was
swiftly falling off as the disrupted matter restabilized.
He recorded the data into the memory of the tricorder
and charted its progress for several seconds. The
forced acceleration of the atoms within the alloy,
along with the resulting stresses of its molecular
bonds, were consistent with the sort of tachyon over-
load La Forge had suggested he look out for. Tachyons
definitely seemed to be the Calamarain's weapons of
choice, but what kind of harm could they impose on
Federation technology, not to mention innocent Star-
fleet officers?
    Convinced that he had learned as much as he could
from the torn and toasted exterior of the probe, he
proceeded to the next stage of the autopsy, wincing
slightly at the more alarming connotations of that
term. First, he confirmed that the deuterium micro-
fusion propulsion unit at the rear of the probe was
indeed deactivated; fortunately, class-2 sensor probes
were not equipped with warp capacity, so he didn't
have to worry about any loose particles of antimatter
poking a hole into reality as he knew it. Next, using a
delicate phaser scalpel, he peeled off a section of the
burnt outer casing, exposing the intricate navigational
and sensory apparatuses within.
    The probe's innards did not look much better than
its supposedly protective sheath. Most of the circuitry
was fused and useless now. Still, he chipped the
carbon scoring away from one of the output ports and
plugged a palm-sized data-retrieval unit into the
central memory processor in hope of rescuing what-
ever scraps of information might have survived the
tachyon barrage. There's probably not much left, he
thought glumly, but here goes nothing.
    Unexpectedly, the retrieval unit whirred to life at
once and began humming almost as loudly as the
Calamarain themselves. "Hey!" he said out loud to
the empty transporter room. Maybe the internal dam-
age wasn't as bad as it looked.
    He waited until the unit had recorded all available
data onto an isolinear chip, then began dissecting the
entire mechanism, methodically extracting the copro-
cessors one at a time, scanning every component with
his tricorder to record the extent of the damage (if
any), then moving on to the next one. It was slow,
laborious work and Barclay soon found himself wish-
ing that Chief La Forge had been able to spare another
engineer to assist him at the task.
    Not that he was all too eager to return to Engineer-
ing, not while there was still a chance he might run
into Leto Faal again. That distinguished and ever-so-
intimidating scientist still gave him dirty looks every
time Barclay had to come by Faal's temporary work-
station to check with Mr. La Forge about something
or another. I can't believe I almost wrecked the pulse
generator, he thought, reliving those awful, endless
seconds for the one thousandth time. His cheek still
burned where Faal almost hit him. Barclay knew that
he had completely thrown away any chance he had of
taking part in the historic experiment, even assuming
the Calamarain let the operation proceed as planned.
Another wasted opportunity, he thought, the latest in a
long string of self-administered wounds to his Star-
fleet aspirations. Counselor Troi insisted that his
reputation among his peers wasn't nearly as bad as he
feared, but sometimes he wondered if she was just
being nice.
    At times like this, he thought, his mind wandering
somewhat, it was very tempting to sneak away to the
nearest holodeck and escape from the stress and
humiliations of the real world. Perhaps he could relive
some of his greatest holovictories, like defeating Bar-
on Diabolis in Chapter Twenty-Three of The Quest for
the Golden Throne or outwitting Commander Kruge
before the Genesis Planet completely self-destructed.
The latter was one of his proudest moments; after
seventy-three tries, he'd actually managed to save
Spock without sacrificing the original Enterprise,
which was even better than the real Kirk had been
able to do. Perhaps next time he could save David
Marcus, too ....
 No, he thought, shaking his head to clear his mind
of past and future fantasies. He had worked too hard
to get a handle on his holodiction problem to back-
slide now, especially when Chief La Forge and the
others were depending on him. He refocussed all his
concentration on job at hand, using the phaser scalpel
to separate two fused coprocessors, then gently pulled
a melted chip out of its slot.
    A glint of blue flame peeked out from beneath the
slot and Barclay scooted backward on his knees, half-
expecting the entire probe to explode in his face like a
defective torpedo. When nothing of the sort occurred,
he crept back toward the probe, his trioorder out-
stretched before him. Funny, he noted; the tricotder
wasn't reporting any excess heat or energy.
    There was definitely something there, though: an
incandescent blue glow that seemed to come from
somewhere deeper within the inner workings of the
perhaps-not-totally lifeless probe. Not entirely trust-
ing his instruments, Barclay held up his open palm in
front of the mysterious radiance. His skin didn't
detect any heat either, but he thought he felt a
peculiar tingling along his nerve endings. He might be
imagining the sensations, he reminded himself, pain-
fully aware of his own tendency toward hypochon-
dria. He still remembered, with excruciating accu-
.racy, that time last month when he paged Dr. Crusher
m the middle of the graveyard shift, thoroughly
convinced that he was dying from an accidental
overdose of genetronic radiation and in immediate
need of massive hyronalyn treatments, only to discov-
er that there was nothing wrong with him except a
slight case of heartburn. Maybe it was best, he con-
cluded, to reserve judgment on the whole question of
whether he was really feeling something or not.
    But what was causing that glow? It wasn't very
intense, more like the bioluminescent gleam of a
Rigelian firefly, but he couldn't account for what
might be producing the light. Wait a sec, he thought, a
hypothesis forming in his mind. Maybe biolumines-
cenee was precisely what he was looking at. Excite-
ment overcoming his trepidations, he reached down
with both hands and pried out an entire shelf of
singed isolinear coprocessors, then looked back ea-
gerly into the cavity he had exposed. There, beneath
the discarded rows of coprocessors, was the souwe of
the lambent blue sheen: the newfangled bio-gel packs
that were rapidly becoming the next generation of
Starfleet data-processing technology. The organic
memory cells, designed to accelerate the transfer and
storage of information from the probe's sensors,
looked surprisingly undamaged compared with the
rest of the probe's entrails; they were laid out in a
sequence of finger-sized sacs connected by semiper-
meable silicate membranes that appeared to have
remained intact despite the pummeling endured by
the probe. Now that the preceding layer of circuitry
had been removed, he could see that all of the gel
packs were imbued with the same strange, unaccount-
able incandescence that had first attracted his atten-
tion.
    Even though the bio-organic technology was rela-
tively new, having been introduced on the ill-fated
U.S.S. Voyager before that ship ended up in the Delta
Quadrant, Barclay knew the packs didn't ordinarily
glow this way; they were intended to store informa-
tion, not energy. Something must have happened to
them during the probe's interrupted voyage to the
barrier. You know, he thought, the light from the packs
kind of looks like the glow of the galactic barrier.
    Inspiration struck him like the blast of a holograph-
ic disruptor beam (set well within conventional safety
parameters). He quickly scanned the gel-filled sacs to
confirm that the curious glow was not an aftereffect of
a tachyon overload. This had nothing to do with the
Calamarain then, and perhaps everything to do with
the probe's brief proximity to the barrier itself.
    According to the latest scientific theories, which
Barclay had studiously reviewed before getting kicked
off the wormhole project, the energies that composed
the galactic barrier were largely psychokinetic in
nature. He had not programmed his tricorder to scan
for any psionic traces before, but now he recalibrated
the sensor assemblies to detect emanations along the
known psychic frequencies and checked out the probe
again.
    Voillt, he thought, feeling much as he had when he
found the (holographic) lost Orb of the Prophets;
there they were, distinct pockets of psionic energy
contained within the shining gel packs. Obviously, the
bio-neural material within the packs had somehow
absorbed small quantities of psionic energy from the
barrier. Is that why the Calamarain attacked the
probe, he wondered. It was even possible that the
borrowed psionic power had helped protect the or-
ganic components of the probe from the Calamarain's
tachyon bombardment.
    This is amazing, he thought. Who knew what the
full implications of his discovery might be? He
couldn't wait to tell Mr. La Forge. Even the thought of
facing Professor Faal again didn't seem as daunting as
before, at least in the abstract. He double-checked his
tricotder readings one more time, then headed for the
exit. "Wow," he murmured to himself, proud of his
accomplishment and wondering if this heady feeling
was what Mr. La Forge or Commander Data felt
whenever they made some startling scientific break-
through. Reality, he discovered, could be even more
satisfying than a holodeck.
 Who would have thought it?

Chapter Twelve

THE STORM WAS WELL and truly upon them.
    The wrath of the Calamarain could be felt all over
the bridge, much more viscerally than before. The
unremitting hum of the plasma cloud had grown into
the rumble of angry thunder that battered the ears of
everyone aboard. On the main viewer, lightning arced
across the prow of the saucer section, striking vio-
lently against the forward deflector shields. Riker
gritted his teeth as the impact slammed him back into
his seat. Sparks flew from the tactical station behind
him, singeing the back of his neck, and he spun his
chair around in time to see Leyoro snuff out the
flames with her bare hands. "Shields down to fifty-one
PnerCent," she reported, rerouting the deflector read-
 gs through the auxiliary circuitry even as she extin-
guished the last white-hot spark beneath the heel of
her palm.
    Riker scowled at the news, the smell of burning
circuitry irritating his nostrils. Their defenses were
almost halfway down already, and they hadn't even
begun to fight back. Hell, they still didn't know why
they were under attack. "What in blazes did we do to
provoke this?" he asked out loud.
    "I am afraid I cannot yet determine that, Com-
mander," Data answered from his station at Ops,
"although I believe I am making progress in adapting
the Universal Translator to the transmissions from
the Calamarain." Deanna stood at the android's side,
between Ops and the conn, her hands cupped over her
ears in a futile attempt to screen out the roar of the
thunder. How could she be expected to sense any-
thing, Riker thought, in the middle of a tempest like
this? "The counselor's impressions are proving quite
informative," Data stated nonetheless.
    "How much more time do you need?" Riker asked.
Given a choice, he'd rather talk with the Calamarain
than engage them in battle, but the Enterprise
couldn't take this pummeling much longer. There was
only so long he was willing to turn the other cheek.
    "That is difficult to estimate," Data confessed.
"The intensity of the barrage is now such that it is
extremely problematic to filter out what might be an
attempt at communication, much like trying to listen
to a whistled melody in the midst of a hurricane."
  "Give me your best guess," Riker instructed.
  Data cocked his head to one side as he pondered
  the problem. "Approximately one-point-three-seven
  hours," Data concluded after only a few seconds of
  contemplation. "As a best guess," he added.
    "Thank you, Mr. Data," Riker said, although he
would have preferred a significantly smaller figure. At
the rate the storm outside was eating away at their
shields, the Enterprise might not last another hour,
unless they started giving as good as they got. Who
knows? he thought. Maybe the Calamarain are like the
Klingons, and only respect aliens who fight back.
 Then again, he reminded himself, it took the Feder-
ation close to a hundred years to come to terms with
the Klingon Empire ....
    A new thunderbolt rocked the ship, tilting the
bridge starboard. Next to Data, Deanna staggered
and grabbed on to the conn station to maintain her
balance. Riker felt a shudder run along the length of
the bridge, and possibly the entire starship, before
their orientation stabilized. "We have damage to the
starboard warp nacelle," Ensign Schultz reported
from the aft engineering station.
    "Casualties reported on Decks Twelve through
Fourteen," another officer, Lieutenant Jim Yang,
called out from the environmental station. "No fatali-
ties, though."
 Not yet, Riker thought grimly.
    "Commander," Leyoro spoke up, echoing his own
thoughts, "we can't wait any longer."
    "Agreed," Riker said, hitting the alert switch on the
command console. He regretted that yet another first-
contact situation had to lead to a show of force, but
the Calamarain hadn't given them any other choice
except retreat. Let's see what happens when we bite
back, he thought. "All crew to battle stations."
    Baeta Leyoro, for one, was rating to go. Her white
teeth gleamed wolfishly as she leaned over the tactical
controls. "All weapons systems primed and ready,"
she announced. "Awaiting your command."
    "Start with a midrange phaser burst," he ordered.
"Maximum possible dispersal." The wide beams
would weaken the burst's total force, but Riker saw no
obvious alternative. How the hell, he thought, do you
target a cloud?
    "Yes, sir!" Leyoro said, pressing down on the
controls. Phaser arrays mounted all along the ship's
surface fired at once, emitting a unified pulse that
spread out from the Enterprise in every possible
direction. On the screen, Riker saw the pulse emerge
as a wave of scarlet energy that disappeared into the
billowing, churning mass of the Calamarain. He
wasn't sure, but he thought the turbulent cloud be-
came even more agitated when and where it inter-
sected with the phaser burst. The roiling gases swirled
furiously, throwing off electrical discharges that
crackled against the Enterprise's shields. A clap of
thunder rattled Riker all the way through to his bones.
    "I sure felt that," he said, raising his voice to be
heard over the din. "The question is: did they feel
us?" He peered over at Deanna, who had taken her
seat beside him the minute he sounded the battle
alert. "Any response from out there?"
    Deanna shook her head. "I'm not sure. I don't
think so. They're already so upset, it's hard to tell."
    He nodded. In for a penny, he thought, in for a
pound. "Another burst. Increase phaser intensity to
the next level." There was no turning back now. He
hoped he could avoid actually killing one or more of
the Calamarain, but their alien nature made it impos-
sible to gauge the ultimate effect of the phaser beams.
He had no intention of going to maximum strength
before he had to, but, one way or another, he was
going to make these strange, bodiless beings think
twice about attacking this ship.
    "Here goes nothing," Leyoro muttered as she fired
again. A second burst of directed energy, even more
dazzling than before, met the fury of the Calamarain.
Once again, it was absorbed into the accumulated
plasma almost instantaneously.
 The cloud's reaction was just as immediate.
    With a howl even louder than any Riker or the
others had heard before, the Calamarain shook the
Enterprise savagely. Riker held on tightly to the ann-
rests of the captain's chair while keeping his jaw
firmly set to avoid biting down on his tongue. All
about the bridge, crew members bounced in their
seats, their minds and bodies jangled by the brutal
quaking. Even Data appeared distracted by the dis-
turbance; he looked up from his console with an
impatient expression upon his golden face, as if he
was anxious for the shaking to cease so he could
continue with his work. Riker knew just how he felt.
    Mercifully, the worst of the battering subsided after
a few moments, although the sentient tempest still
raged upon the screen and the thunder reverberated
ominously behind every buzz and beep from the
bridge apparatus. Riker felt his temples begin to
pound in concert with every resounding peal. He
searched the bridge to make sure that no one had been
injured seriously, then looked back at Deanna. The
counselor's face was pale, her eyes wide with alarm.
    "They felt that," she gasped. Obviously, she had
shared at least a part of the Calamarain's pain.
 "I got that impression," he said.
    Barclay had hoped that Mr. La Forge would be
alone when he reached Engineering, but no such luck.
The first thing Barclay saw as soon as he got off the
turbolift was the chief engrossed in a heated discus-
sion with Lem Faal, who was the last person Barclay
wanted to run into right now. The red alert signals
flashing all around the engineering section only added
to his trepidation, as did the all busy Starfleet officers
hard at work in response to the alert.
    Engineering was abuzz with activity, much more so
than usual. Every duty station was manned, some-
times by more than one individual. His fellow engi-
neers shouted instructions and queries back and forth
to each other as they hastily adjusted and/or moni-
tored illuminated instrumentation panels all along
engineering. Yellow warning signals blinked upon the
tabletop master systems display, indicating problems
with at least half a dozen vital ship systems, while a
whole team of crew members, led by Sonya Gomez,
clustered around the towering warp engine core, care-
fully manipulating the enclosed matter/antimatter
reaction. Ordinarily, Barclay could have expected a
friendly greeting upon entering Engineering, but at
the moment his colleagues were too intent upon their
assigned tasks to take note of his arrival. Even Leto
Faal seemed too busy with Chief La Forge to spare
Barclay another dirty look.
    Maybe this isn't the best time, Barclay thought, his
previous enthusiasm cooling in the face of the irate
Betazoid scientist. He wanted to talk to Mr. La Forge
about his discovery in Transporter Room Five, but
the chief looked like he had his hands full with the red
alert, not to mention Professor Faal. The visiting
scientist was obviously upset. He held on to a dura-
nium pylon for support while he argued with La
Forge. "I don't understand," he said. "We can't cancel
the experiment now. It's ridiculous."
    "We're under attack," La Forge pointed out, look-
ing past Faal at the cutaway diagram of the Enterprise
on the master situation monitor, his attention clearly
divided between Faal and the ongoing crisis. "It's a
shame, but I'm sure Commander Riker knows what
he's doing." He started to turn away from the irate
physicist. "Now, you'll have to excuse me while I see
what's the matter with our warp engines. You should
go back to your quarters."
    "This is more than a shame," Faal objected, a faint
whistle escaping his throat with every breath. La
Forge had discreetly briefed the engineering team on
the physicist's medical problems, and Barclay felt
sorry for the man despite the bad blood between
them. Iverson's disease, like all manner of illnesses
and medical threats, terrified Barclay. Even though he
knew Iverson's disease was caused by a genetic disor-
der and was by no means contagious, listening to
Faal's tortured breathing still gave him the creeps.
    "I've devoted years to this project. It's my last hope
for... well, I suppose you'd call it immortality." His
knuckles whitened as he held on to the pylon with
what looked like all his strength. "Your Commander
Riker has no right to make this decision. I'm in charge
of this experiment. Starfleet specifically told your
captain to cooperate with my experiment!"
    La Forge shrugged impatiently. "I don't know
much more than you do, but I know we can't pull this
off in the middle of a combat situation, especially
with the captain missing." He hurried over to the
master systems display, where Ensign Daniel Sutter
stepped aside to permit La Forge access to the pri-
mary workstation. La Forge continued to speak to
Faal as he simultaneously ran a diagnostic on the
graviton polarity generators. "Maybe the Calamarain
will go somewhere else and we can try again. Or
maybe you'll have to try another section of the
barrier."
    "No," Faal said, following closely behind La Forge.
He sounded ever more sick and distraught. "This is
the ideal location. All our sensor readings and calcula-
tions prove that. We have to break through the barrier
now. I might not get another chance. I don't have
much time left .... "
    Barclay was getting tense just listening to this
conversation. He seriously considered turning around
and coming back later. But what if the way the bio-gel
packs in the probe absorbed some of the barrier's
energy turns out to be important? He'd never forgive
himself if the Enterprise got destroyed and it was all
his fault; it was bad enough that he'd infected the
entire crew with that mutagenic virus a couple years
ago. Don't live in the past, Counselor Troi always told
him. Show people what you're capable of.
    Mustering up all his courage, Barclay stepped closer
to the chief and Faal. The Betazoid genius spotted
him approaching and gave him a murderous look;
clearly, he hadn't forgotten the incident with pulse
generator. Or forgiven.
  "Excuse me, sir," Barclay said to La Forge. He
could feel Lem Faal's baleful glare burning into the
back of his neck. "But when you've got a moment, I'd
like to talk to you about something I found in that
probe you asked me to look at."
    La Forge sighed, as if the rescued probe was just one
more thing for him to worry about. Barclay immedi-
ately regretted bringing it up. "Can this wait, Reg?"
he asked with a slight edge of irritation in his tone.
"There's an emergency with the warp engines and the
deflectors."
"Yes. No," he answered. "I mean, I don't know."
Professor Faal lost his patience entirely. "What are
you doing, wasting time with this idiot?" Saliva
sprayed from his mouth as he gasped out the words.
"This is intolerable! I want to speak to Commander
Riker!"
    Before La Forge could respond, a tremendous clap
of thunder echoed through Engineering, drowning out
even the constant thrum of the warp core. The floor
swayed beneath Barelay's feet and he found himself
stumbling down a sudden incline that hadn't existed
an instant before, bumping awkwardly into no less
than Professor Faal himself. Just kill me now, he
thought.
    La Forge frowned as the floor gradually leveled out
again. "This isn't good," he said. Circuit patterns
rotated in his ocular implants as he concentrated on
the tabletop display, taking stock of the situation. "I
can't waste any more time with this. Reg, make sure
the professor gets back to his quarters okay, then head
back here. We'll talk about the probe later." Without
a backward glance, he stalked across Engineering
toward the warp core, issuing orders as he went.
"Sutter, divert impulse power to the subspace field
amplifiers. Ortega, keep an eye on the EPS flow .... "
    Why me? Barclay thought, left alone with Lem Faal.
Couldn't someone else--anyone else--escort Faal? He
already hates me enough. But La Forge was in charge;
he had to keep his eyes on the big picture. "Yes, sir,"
Barclay said dutifully, if less than enthusiastically.
"Please come with me."
    Faal ignored him entirely, chasing after Geordi.
"You can't do this, La Forge," he said, his wheezing
voice no more than a whisper. "The barrier is bigger
than some pointless military exercise. We can't lose
sight of that. The experiment is all that matters!"
    But La Forge, determined to inspect the warp
engine power transfer conduits, would not be dis-
tracted. "Reg," he called out, exasperated, "if you
could take care of this?"
    I can't let Mr. La Forge down, Reg thought, taking
Faal gently but firmly by the arm. "Please come along,
Professor." Part of him felt guilty about bullying a
sick man; another part was greatly relieved that Faal
wouldn't be able to put up much resistance.
    Physically, that is. The scientist's vocal indignation
showed no sign of abating. "Let go of me, you
incompetent cretin! I insist on seeing Commander
Riker."
    Barclay had no idea where Riker was. On the
bridge, he assumed, coping with the latest ghastly
emergency. There you go again, he chastised himself,
leaping to the worst possible conclusion. But he
couldn't help it. The flashing red alert signals and
blaring sirens ate away at his nerves like Tarcassian
piranha. A dozen nightmarish scenarios, ranging
from an uncontrolled plasma leak to a full-scale Q
invasion, raced through his mind. He tried to dismiss
his fears as irrational and unfounded, but with only
partial success. An angry Q couM do anything, he
thought, anything at all. Still, he somehow managed
to get the professor away from La Forge and into the
turbolift. Let me just get Faal stowed away safely.
Then ! can report my findings on the probe. "Which
deck are your quarters on?" he asked.
    "Seven," Faal said grudgingly, still visibly in-
censed. Unable to stand upright on his own, he had to
lean back against the wall of the lift. Something wet
and clotted gurgled in his lungs. Barclay tried not to
stare at the silver hypospray Faal removed from his
pocket. It's not contagious, he kept reminding himself.
It's not.
    The turbolift came to a stop and the doors
whooshed open, revealing an empty corridor leading
to the ship's deluxe guest quarters, the ones reserved
for visiting admirals and ambassadors. Nothing but
the best for the winner of the Daystrom Prize, Barclay
thought, wondering how much larger the suite was
than his own quarters on Level Eleven. "Here we
are," he announced, grateful that Faal had not raised
more of a fuss once they left Engineering. I'll just drop
him off, then hurry back to Mr. La Forge. He still
needed to tell the chief about the psionic energy the
probe had picked up.
    "Just give me a minute, Lieutenant," Faal said. His
hypospray hissed for an instant, and the debilitated
scientist grabbed on to the handrail for support. His
chest rose and fell slowly as he choked back a rasping
cough. Barclay looked away so as not to embarrass the
professor.
    The next thing he knew a pair of hands shoved him
out of the lift compartment into the hall. Surprised
and befuddled, he spun around in time to see the
doors sliding shut in front of his face. For one brief
instant, he glimpsed Faal through the disappearing
gap in the door. The Betazoid grinned maliciously at
him. The doors came together and the lift was on its
way.
    Oh no! he thought. He immediately called for
another lift, which arrived seconds later, and he
jumped inside. I can't believe I let him do that. I can't
even keep track of one sickly Betazoid. He didn't know
how he was ever going to look Geordi La Forge in the
eyes again. Just when I thought I was really on to
something, what with the probe and all, I have to go
and do something like this/
  "Destination?" the turbolift inquired when Barclay
didn't say anything at first. The prompt jogged his
mind. Where could Professor Faal have run off to?
Back to Engineering? Boy, was Chief La Forge going
to be annoyed when Faal showed up to pester him
again. "Engineering," he blurted, and the lift began to
descend. Maybe I can still stop him before he gets to
Mr. La Forge.
    But, wait, he recalled. Hadn't Faal kept demanding
to see Commander Riker? Suddenly, he knew what
the professor's destination had to be. The bridge.
    "Stop. Cancel previous order. Take me to the
bridge. Nonstop."
    Please let me get there before Faal can bother the
commander too much.
"Fire phasers again," Commander Riker ordered.
"Take us up another notch, Lieutenant."
    "With pleasure, sir," Leyoro said. A burst of high-
intensity phaser beams leaped from the emitter arrays
to sting the alien cloud-creatures enclosing the Enter-
prise. As before, the Calamarain reacted with a thun-
derous roar that caused the starship to rock like an
old-fashioned sailing vessel adrift on a stormy sea.
    The floor of the command area rolled beneath
Riker's feet as yet another tremor jarred the bridge,
reminding him forcibly of the Great Alaskan Earth-
quake of 2349. Back on Earth, he thought, that wouM
ave been at least a five-point-two. Thank heavens the
Enterprise-E had been constructed as soundly as it
had; otherwise, he'd be expecting the roof to cave in at
any moment.
    His mind swiftly reviewed the situation. They had
hurt the Calamarain with that last phaser burst, but
not enough, apparently, to make the vaporous aliens
let go of the ship; frothing, luminescent fog still filled
the screen of the main viewer. So far, it seemed, all
they had done was make the Calamarain even more
angry. That's progress, I guess, he thought, wondering
briefly what Jean-Luc Picard would do in these cir-
cumstances before pushing that thought out of his
mind. The captain was gone. Riker had to rely on his
judgment and experience, as he had many times
before. "Tactical status?" he inquired.
    "Shields at forty-six percent," Leyoro briefed him.
"Phasers armed and ready. Quantum torpedoes
locked and loaded."
    Riker acknowledged her report with a nod. He
wasn't sure what good the torpedoes would do against
a living cloud of plasma, especially one located at
such close quarters to the Enterprise, but it might be
worth finding out. "Ensign Berglund," he ordered the
officer at the primary aft science station, "locate the
area of maximum density within the Calamarain
cloud formation."
    Ordinarily, he'd assign Data a task like that, but he
didn't want to divert the android's concentration
from his work with the Universal Translator. Sondra
Berglund, a blond Canadian officer with a specialty in
advanced stellar spectroscopy, could handle the job
just as well with the sensors assigned to her science
console. If we're going to target anywhere, he decided,
we might as well aim for the highest concentration of
Calamarain.
    "Urn, I'm afraid that would be us," she reported
after a few seconds. "The plasma is most dense
around the Enterprise and diminishes in volume and
intensity the farther the distance from the ship."
    That was no good then, Riker realized. He had a
vivid mental image of hundreds, if not thousands,
of gaseous Calamarain swarming over and around the
Sovereign-class starship. They're ganging up on us, all
right, he thought, and pounding on the walls. There
was no way he could detonate a quantum torpedo
against the Calamarain while the ship remained at
the heart of the cloud; they'd be caught within the
blast-hazard radius. For all they knew, the matter/
antimatter reaction set off by a standard torpedo
could harm the Enterprise more than the Calamarain.
He'd have to hold back on the torpedoes until he put
some distance between the ship and its noncorporeal
adversaries.
    On the main viewer, riotous swells of ionized gas
convulsed between the ship and open space. Riker
didn't remember the cloud looking anywhere near
this stirred up the first time the Enterprise encoun-
tered the Calamarain several years ago. He still didn't
understand what they had done to agitate the amor-
phous entities. Q wasn't even aboard anymore!
    His temples throbbed in time with the thunder
outside. His gaze darted over to Deanna, who looked
like she was having an even harder time. Her eyes
were shut, her face wan and drawn. He assumed she
was still in touch with the Calamarains' pain and
anger, and it tore at his heart to see her under such
strain. Between the tumult on the bridge and the
damage they had inflicted back on their foes, Deanna
was getting lambasted from both sides.
    Hold on, imzadi, he thought. No matter what hap-
pens next, this can't go on much longer.
    Her lids flickered upward and she met his eyes. A
thin smile lifted her lips. Riker knew that even if his
actual words hadn't gotten across to her, his message
definitely had. There was a Klingon term, he recalled,
for such an instance of wordless communication in
the midst of battle, but what exactly was the word
again? Tova'dok. That was it, he recalled. He and
Deanna were sharing a moment of Tova'dok.
    Their private communion did not last long. With
renewed ferocity, the unleashed power of the Cala-
marain slammed into the ship, causing the bridge to
lurch to port. Behind him, at the engineering station,
Ensign Schultz lost his balance and tumbled to the
left, smacking his head into the archway over a
turbolift entrance. Berglund hurried to assist him.
    "Everyone okay back there?" Riker called out over
the crashing thunder.
"I think so," Schultz answered. Riker glanced back
over his shoulder to see a nasty cut on the young
man's scalp. A trickle of blood leaked through his
fingers as he held his hand to his head. Undaunted,
Schultz headed back to his post. Riker admired his
spirit, but saw no reason to risk the ensign unneces-
sarily.
    "Report to sickbay, mister," Riker ordered. "Berg-
lurid, take over at engineering." The overhead lights
dimmed momentarily, more evidence of the duress
imposed on the ship by the Calamarain; Ensign
Schultz wasn't the only resource on the Enterprise
that had been knocked out of commission.
    "Shields at forty-one," Leyoro updated him as
Schultz took the turbolift from the bridge. Riker
wished he could have sent someone with the wounded
ensign to insure that he got to sickbay, but he couldn't
spare anyone from the bridge while they remained
besieged by the Calamarain.
    "Understood," he said. No warp engines. Minimal
shields. And, so far, no significant damage to the
Calamarain. Their situation was getting worse by the
moment. "Data, how are you doing on that trans-
lator?"
    Data looked up from his computations. "Signifi-
cant headway has been made; in fact, I believe I have
identified a specific wave pattern that translates to
something close to an expression of pain." His voice
acquired a regretful tone. "Unfortunately, I estimate
that I still require as much as one-point-two-zero
hours before I can reliably guarantee actual commu-
nication with the Calamarain."
That might not be good enough, Riker thought.
Before he could open his mouth, though, he heard
the turbolift whish open behind him. At first, he
thought it might be Robert Schultz, stubbornly refus-
ing to abandon his post, but then he heard the
impassioned voice of Professor Faal. "What's hap-
pening?" he asked frantically. "What are you doing?"
    Damn, Riker thought. This was the last thing he
needed. Deanna looked distressed as well by the
Betazoid scientist's unexpected arrival. He peeked at
Deanna, recalling her concerns about the doctor's
stability and motives. She raised one hand before her
face, as if to fend off the disruptive emotions emanat-
ing from Faal. No surprise there, Riker thought. He
imagined that the professor was throwing off plenty of
negative feelings.
    A moment later, the turbolift doors opened again,
revealing an abashed Reg Barclay. "I'm s-sorry, Com-
mander," he stammered, his Adam's apple bobbing
nervously, "but the professor insisted, sort of." His
eyes bulged and his jaw fell open as his gaze fell upon
the frothing plasma storm upon the main viewer.
    "Yes," Faal seconded. His face was flushed, his wild
brown eyes crazed with anxiety. "I have to talk to you,
Commander. It's more important than you can possi-
bly realize."
    "Commander?" Leyoro asked, still determined to
engage the enemy despite the lack of any tangible
results. The nonstop reverberations of the Cala-
marain rolled over the bridge like a series of sonic
booms. The red alert signals flashed like beacons in
the night.
    Riker decided to get the confrontation over with;
Faal wasn't going to like what he had to say, but
perhaps he could be made to see reason. He rose from
the captain's chair to face the celebrated physicist.
Faal's body was trembling so hard that Riker feared
for his health. The man's breathing was shallow and
rapid, and he seemed to be having trouble standing;
Faal tottered unsteadily on shaky feet. Riker's hand
drifted over his comm badge, ready to summon Dr.
Crusher if necessary.
    "I regret to inform you, Professor, that I've made
the decision to abandon the experiment due to hostile
activity on the part of the Calamarain." He saw no
reason to alarm the doctor by detailing the full
particulars of their danger; instead, he reached out to
brace up the ailing scientist. "I'm sorry, but that's the
only prudent choice under the circumstances."
    Faal batted Riker's arm away. "You can't do that!"
he snapped. "It's completely unacceptable. I won't
hear of it. The captain's orders came straight from
Starfleet Command." A fit of coughing attacked Faal,
bending him all the way over. Faal dosed himself with
his ubiquitous hypospray, then staggered over to the
empty chair Riker usually occupied and collapsed
down onto it. "The barrier," he gasped. "That's all
that matters."
    The floor beneath Riker's boots tilted sharply,
nearly knocking him off balance. Lightning flashed
through the storming plasma cloud upon the main
viewer, the glare of the thunderbolt so bright that it
overloaded the safety filters on the screen and made
him squint. "The Calamarain seem to disagree."
    "Then destroy them!" Faal urged from the chair,
squinting at the control panel in front of him as if he
was determined to launch a volley of photo torpedoes
himself. Wet, mucous noises escaped from his lungs.
"Disintegrate them totally. This is a Federation star-
ship. You must be able to dispose of a pile of stinking
gases!"
    Riker was shocked by the man's bloodthirsty rav-
ings. "That's not what we're here for," he said force-
fully, "and that's not what this ship is about." He
pitied Faal for his failing health and frustrated ambi-
tions, but that didn't condone advocating genocide.
"Mr. Barclay, return Professor Faal to his quarters."
    "No!" Faal wheezed. He tried to stand up, but his
legs wouldn't support him. Barclay hurried around to
Faal's side, but Faal just glared at him before shouting
at Riker again. "I won't go! I demand to be heard!"
    "Shields down to thirty-four percent," Leyoro in-
tempted. "Shall I call Security to remove the pro-
fessor?"
    "Do it," Riker ordered. Lieutenant Barclay, wring-
ing his hands together, looked like he wanted to sink
through the floor. Riker turned his back on both the
irate scientist and the embarrassed crewman. He had
more important things to deal with.
 Like saving the Enterprise.

Chapter Thirteen

COOL NIGHT AIR BLEW against Picard, chilling him. Far
beneath him, moonlight from no less than two orbit-
ing satellites reflected off the shimmering surface of a
great expanse of water. Where am I? he thought,
trying to orient himself.
    He and Q were no longer in the subatomic realm
they had exited only a heartbeat before, that much
was certain. Without even knowing where he truly
was, he could tell that this was more like reality as he
knew it. The coolness of the breeze, the taste of the
air, the comforting tug of gravity at his feet, all these
sensations assured him that he was back in the real
world once more. But where and, perhaps more
important, when?
    He quickly took stock of his surroundings. He,
along with Q, appeared to be standing on some sort of
balcony overlooking a precipitous cliff face that
dropped what looked like a kilometer or so to the still
black waters of an enormous lake or lagoon. The
balcony itself, as green and lustrous as polished jade,
seemed carved out of the very substance of the cliff.
As Picard leaned out over the edge of a waist-high
jade railing, intricately adorned with elaborate fili-
gree, he saw that similar outcroppings dotted the face
of the precipice, each one packed with humanoid
figures, some looking out over the edge as he was,
others dining comfortably at small tables as though at
some fashionable outdoor caf6. A sense of excitement
and anticipation, conveyed by the hubbub of a hun-
dred murmuring voices, permeated the atmosphere.
Picard got the distinct impression that he and Q had
arrived just in time for some special occasion.
    Jade cliffs. Two moons. A gathering of hundreds in
caves dug out of the face of a great, green cliff The
pieces came together in his mind, forming a picture
whose implications left him reeling. "Mon dieu!" he
gasped. "This is Tagus III. The sacred ruins of the
ancient cliff dwellers!"
    "Well, they're not exactly ruins at the moment,
Jean-Luc," Q said casually, "nor are they really all
that ancient." Picard's self-appointed tour guide sat a
few meters behind him at a circular table set for two.
Q sipped a bubbling orange liquid from a translucent
crystal goblet and gestured toward the empty seat
across from him. A second goblet rested on the jade-
inlaid tabletop, next to a large copper plate on which
were displayed strips of raw meat, swimming in a
shallow pool of blue liquid that could have been sauce
or gravy or blood for all Picard knew. He didn't
recognize the delicacy, nor did he expect to if this
alien time and place was truly what it appeared to be.
    The jade pueblos of Tagus III, he marveled, as they
must have been nearly two billion years ago. He had
studied them for years, even delivered the keynote
speech at an archaeological conference devoted to the
topic, but he had never expected to witness them in
person, let alone in their original condition. The
Taguans of his own time had strictly forbidden any
outsiders to visit the ruins, keeping them off-limits to
archaeologists and other visitors ever since the Vul-
cans conducted their own ill-fated dig on the site over
a decade before. The ban had frustrated a generation
of scholars and historians, including Picard himself,
for whom the celebrated ruins remained one of the
foremost archaeological mysteries in the Alpha Quad-
rant. Possibly the oldest evidence of humanoid civili-
zation in the galaxy, at least prior to the ground-
breaking and still controversial work of the late
Professor Richard Galen, the ruins on Tagus III had
provoked literally millennia of debate and specula-
tion. Before the Taguans decided to deny the site to
offworlders, there had been at least 947 known exca-
vations, the first one dating back to 22,000 years ago,
almost 18,000 years before the rise of human civiliza-
tion on Earth. The legacy of the ancient beings who
first made their mark on this very cliff had puzzled
and intrigued the galaxy since before human history
began.
    And here he was, visiting in the flesh a wonder of
immeasurable age that he had read about ever since
he was a small child in Labarre. Picard recalled that
once before Q had offered to show him the secrets of
Tagus III, the night before Picard was to speak at that
prestigious archaeological conference. Seldom had he
ever been so tempted by one of Q's insidious proposi-
tions, although he had ultimately found the strength
to reject Q's offer, both out of respect for the Taguans'
deeply held convictions and his own habitual suspi-
cions as to Q's true motives. He'd be lying to himself,
however, if he didn't admit just how enticing the
prospect of actually setting foot on the site had been.
    Now that he really was here, he could not resist
trying to absorb as many sights and sounds as he was
able. No matter the circumstances of his arrival, and
despite his compelling desire to return to his ship as
expeditiously as possible, the archaeologist in him
could have no more turned away from this once-in-a-
lifetime opportunity than the starship captain could
have accepted a desk job at the bottom of a gravity
well. He had to witness all there was to see.
    Besides, he rationalized, the Taguans' twenty-
fourth-century mandate against visiting aliens would
not go into effect for a couple of billion years or
SO ....
    He took a closer look at the people crowding the
balconies beside and below him. Whether the Tag-
uans of his own time were actually descended from
those who had left their presence marked upon these
cliffs, as they steadfastly maintained, or whether they
represented a subsequent stage of immigration oI
evolution, as suggested by the findings of the Vulcan
expedition of 2351, was a question greatly debated in
the archaeological community. Indeed, it was this
very issue that had inspired the modern Taguans to
close off the ruins to outsiders, in an attempt to
protect their vaunted heritage from the "lies and
fallacies" of non-Taguan researchers.
    Judging from what he saw now, it appeared that the
Vulcans were correct after all. The Taguans he knew
were characterized by turquoise skin and a heavy
layer of downy white fur. In contrast, the figures
populating this historical vista, clad in revealing silk
garments of diverse hues, looked quite hairless, with
smooth, uncovered flesh whose skin tones ranged
from a pale yellow to a deep, ruddy red. Their faces
were remarkably undifferentiated from each other,
bearing only the essential basics of humanoid fea-
tures, without much in the way of distinguishing
details. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth, a vague suggestion
of lips and ears. The vague, generalized visages looked
familiar to Picard, but it took him a moment to place
them.
    Of course, he realized after a quick search through
his memory. The inhabitants of ancient Tagus bore a
distinct resemblance to the unnamed humanoids who
had first spread their genetic material throughout the
galaxy some four billion years before his own era. He
well remembered the holographic image of the origi-
nal, ur-humanoid who had grated him at the comple-
tion of his quest to finish the work of Professor Galen.
Could it be that the people of the jade cliffs were the
direct descendants of those ancient beings who had
indirectly contributed to the eventual evolution of the
human race, the Klingons, the Vulcans, the Cardas-
sians, and every other known form of humanoid life?
If so, then the ruins on modern-day Tagus were even
more important than he had ever believed.
    A thought occurred to him, and he turned from the
railing tO address Q, who took another sip from his
goblet. "Why aren't they noticing us?" Picard asked.
He explored his own very human features with his
hand. They felt unchanged. Looking down, he felt
relieved to see that his Grecian garments had been
replaced by his familiar Starfleet uniform. "We must
stand out in the crowd. In theory, Homo sapiens has
not even evolved yet."
    "To their eyes, we look as they do," Q explained.
He drained the last of his drink, then refilled the cup
Simply by looking at it. "Given your own limited
ability to adapt to new forms, I'm letting you stick
with the persona you're accustomed to. I hope you
appreciate my consideration."
    "But this is what the ancient Taguans looked like?"
Picard asked, gesturing at the crowds swarming over
the cliff face.
    "Actually, they called themselves the Imotru," Q
stated, "but, yes, this is no illusion or metaphor.
Aside from you and I, you're seeing things exactly as
they were." Q's face retooldeal itseft until he looked
like another Imotru. Only the mischievous glint in his
eyes remained the same. "See what I mean?" He
blinked, and his customary features returned.
    The peal of an enormous gong rang across the night,
and a hush fell over the scene as the buzz of countless
conversations fell silent. Picard could feel a sense of
acute expectation come over the scene, drawing him
back to the rafting overlooking the great lake. Some-
thing was obviously about to happen; the teeming
throng of Imotru assembled along the cliff were
waiting eagerly for whatever was to come.
    A spark of light way down upon the surface of the
lagoon caught his attention. Picard heard a hundred
mouths gasp in anticipation. A moment later, a string
of torches ignited above the black, moonlit water,
their flames reflected in a series of mirrors arranged
around the torches, which formed a hexagonal pat-
tern, cordoning off an open stretch of water, about
seventy meters across, in the direct center of the dark
lake. The polished mirrors reflected the light inward
so that this single swatch of rippling water was
illuminated as if by the afternoon sun, while the rest
of the lagoon remained cast in shadow. A single
swimmer, holding aloft the glowing brand she must
have used to light the torches, floated amid the
brightly lit pool she had created. With a dramatic
flourish, she doused the brand to a smattering of
cheers and stamping feet.
    Was that it? Picard thought, peering down at the
lighted hexagon demarcated by the torches and mir-
rors. Based on the crowd's reaction, he suspected not.
There was still that keen sense of anticipation in the
air, an almost palpable atmosphere of mounting ex-
citement. Somehow he knew that what he had just
witnessed was merely a prelude, not the main event.
    Most of the assembled Imotru, he observed, were
now looking upward, eagerly searching the moonlit
sky for... what? An image from an ancient jade bas-
relief, meticulously reproduced in the Federation
database, popped into his head just as a thrilling
possibility presented itself. No, he thought, disbeliev-
ing his own good fortune, surely we couldn't have
arrived in time for that!
 A roar rose from the crowd. Dozens of seated
Imotru leaped to their feet, including Q, who joined
Picard by the railing. "Look up, Jean-Luc," he whis-
pered. "Here they come."
    Picard needed no urging. He strained his eyes to
spot the sight that had electrified the assemblage, the
sight whose true nature he could scarcely bring him-
selfto believe. It must be them, he thought. It couldn't
be anything else, not here in this place and time.
    Sure enough, his eyes soon discerned a flock of
winged figures on the horizon, soaring toward them.
The Imotru cheered and stomped their feet so heavily
that Picard feared for the safety of the jade balconies,
even though he knew that some of them had endured
even into the twenty-fourth century. He found him-
self stamping his own boots, caught up in the fervor of
the crowd. The winged figures drew ever nearer, much
to the delight of the onlookers upon the cliff. "They've
been gliding for two full days," Q commented, "since
taking flight from the peak of Mount T'kwll."
    Picard no longer doubted what he was about to be-
hold. He could only marvel at the amazing twist of
fate that had granted him this unparalleled chance to
see a timeworn legend made flesh. "The fabled Sky
Divers of Tagus III," he whispered, his voice hushed.
If this was no mere trick of Q's, then he was about to
make the most astounding archaeological discovery
since Benjamin Sisko found the lost city of B'hala on
Bajor.
    Within moments, the fliers were near enough that
he could see that, as he had hoped, they were in fact
dozens of youthful Imotru men and women, borne
aloft by artificial wings strapped to their outstretched
arms. Silver and gold metallic streamers trailed from
their wrists and ankles, sparkling in the moonlight.
Were the wings made of some unusual gravity-
resistant substance, Picard wondered, or were the
Imotru lighter than they appeared, perhaps gifted
with hollow bones like birds? Either way, they
presented a spectacular sight, silhouetted against the
twin moons or glittering in the night like humanoid
kites.
    The Sky Divers soared overhead, swooping and
gliding in complex feats of aerial choreography. Each
flier, he saw, gripped a shining blade in one hand, just
as they did on the fragmentary bas-relief Picard now
recalled so well. Despite the graceful ballet taking
place above, his gaze was invariably drawn back to the
dark waters at the base of the cliff--and the lighted
regions within the radiance of the torches and mir-
rors. He felt his heart pounding, knowing what had to
come next. His eyes probed the rippling surface of the
lake, hunting for some sign of what lurked beneath.
Perhaps that part of the legend is just a myth, he
thought, unsure whether to feel disappointed or re-
lieved. Professor Galen, he recalled, had theorized
that the Sky Divers were no more than a symbolic
representation of cultural growth and entropy.
    Then it began. A single flier, chosen through some
process Picard could only guess at, used his silver
blade to sever the straps binding him to his wings
while the crowd below bellowed its approval. The
shed wings drifted away aimlessly, slowly spiraling
down like falling leaves, as the young Imotru plunged
toward the water below with frightening speed.
    Trailing golden ribbons behind him, the diver
splashed headfirst into the lake below, landing
squarely within the brightly lit boundaries of the
hexagon. On a hundred balconies, Imotru whooped
and stamped wildly. Things had clearly gotten off to a
good start as far the crowd was concerned. Down in
the hexagon, the triumphant diver kicked to the
surface and impulsively embraced the lone swimmer
who had waited there. His joy and exuberance were
obvious to Picard even from more than a kilometer
away.
    One by one, following some prearranged signal or
sequence, more gliders fell from the sky. The second
diver used her arms and legs to guide her descent, also
landing safely within the torch-lit target zone. The
audience cheered again, although slightly less whole-
heartedly than they had before. Still, the woman
joined the other two Imotru in their celebration,
splashing happily within the golden glow of reflected
light.
    The third diver looked less fortunate, his downward
trajectory carrying him away from the charmed hexa-
gon. Too late, he threw out his arms and legs, striving
to alter his course, but his efforts were in vain. The
entire crowd held its breath, and, for a second or two,
Picard feared the young man would be scorched by
the dancing flames of the torches.
    Before he came within reach of the flames, howev-
er, an enormous serpentine head broke the surface of
the black waters and snapped at the falling youth.
Water streamed off its scaly hide and a slitted yellow
eye fixed on the falling youth. A forked, sinuous
tongue, larger than a man's arm, flicked at the sky.
Ivory fangs flashed in the moonlight and Picard saw a
splash of azure blood burst from the diver before both
predator and prey disappeared beneath the waves
churned up by the creature's shocking appearance.
    Just like on the jade artifact, Picard thought, sad-
dened but not too surprised by what had transpired.
Apparently the myth of the Sky Divers was all too
true, up to and including the Teeth of the Depths. So
much for mere symbolic interpretations, he thought.
    And still the gliders cut their wings free, undeterred
by the grisly fate of their cohort. Toward the waiting
lake they dropped like Icarus, some attempting to
steer their falls, others simply trusting to fate. Look-
ing carefully, Picard saw more reptilian heads rising
from the murky waters outside the protective torches,
drawn no doubt by the scent of blood and the splash-
ing of the defenseless bodies. Only within the illumi-
nated hexagon did the divers appear to be safe. Those
who hit the water within its confines floated merrily,
crowing and cavorting as only those who have barely
escaped death can rejoice. Those who plummeted
beyond the light of the torches were quickly dragged
under by the voracious predators.
    "The trick," Q said casually, as though discussing
some minor athletic competition, "is to miss the
flames and the snapping jaws. The faster the fall, the
greater the riskmand the glory." He applauded softly,
whether for the divers or the serpents Picard was
afraid to guess. "Like I told you a few years back, they
really knew how to have fun here back in the good old
days." Wandering back toward the table, Q plucked a
strip of raw meat from the copper plate and tossed it
over the edge of the balcony. As Picard watched
aghast, similar scraps flew from balconies all around
him, so it looked like it was raining blue, bleeding
strips of meat. "The treats are to distract the snakes
from the divers," Q explained, "or to incite the snakes
to an even greater frenzy. I can't remember which."
    Rather than watch the fierce serpents claim their
prey, Picard focused on the jubilant survivors within
the hexagon. "They're safe now," he said, "but how
will they escape from the lake?"
    "Oh, the snakes are strictly nocturnal," Q told him.
"They'll be able to swim to shore in the morning,
after what will undoubtedly be the greatest night of
their lives."
    Picard was unable to tear his gaze away from the
barbaric spectacle. Before his eyes, what seemed like
an unending string of young people gambled with
their lives, some joining the riotous celebration with-
in the six-sided sanctuary, others torn asunder by the
hungry serpents. To cope with the awful and awe-
inspiring pageant, he forced himself to think like an
archaeologist. "What is this?" he asked. "A religious
sacrifice? An initiation rite? A means of population
control?" Turning away from the rail, he confronted
Q. "What in heaven's name is the purpose of this
appalling display?"
 "Don't be so stuffy, Jean-Luc," Q said, offering
Picard a strip of meat dripping with blue gore. Picard
refused to even look at the edible. With a sigh, Q
tossed it off the balcony himselfi "They do it for the
thrill. For the sheer excitement. It's all in fun."
    Picard tried to grasp the notion. "You're saying this
is simply some form of sports or theater? A type of
public entertainment?"
    "Now you're getting closer," Q confirmed. "Think
of the matadors or bull dancers of your own meager
history. Or the 'Iwghargh rituals of the Klingons.
With a slightly higher body count, of course."
    It was almost too much to digest. Deep in thought,
Picard pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Q.
"This is fascinating, I admit, and, you're right, no
worse than various bloodthirsty chapters of early
human history. The gladiatorial violence of the Ro-
man coliseums, say, or the human sacrifices of the
ancient Aztecs. I can't say I regret having viewed this
event. Still, seeing it in person, it's hard not to be
appalled by the profligate waste of life."
    "But you short-lived mortals have always taken the
most extraordinary and foolish risks to your brief
existences," Q said. "Diving off cliffs, performing
trapeze acts without a net, flying fragile starships into
the galactic barrier..."
    Q's coy reference to the Enterprise jolted Picard,
yanking the status of his ship back into the forefront
of his consciousness. Never mind this time-lost sce-
nario, what was happening to Riker and his crew back
in his own era, and how soon was this game of Q's
likely to end? "Is that why we're here?" he asked,
thinking that perhaps he had seen through Q's current
agenda. "It seems rather a roundabout way to make
your point."
    "If only it were that easy," Q replied, "but that
diverting little entertainment out there is far from the
most important event transpiring at this particular
moment in time. Permit me to call your attention to
that individual dining on that balcony over there." Q
pointed past Picard at a jade outcropping located
several meters to the left, where he saw a solitary
Imotru watch in fascination as the Sky Divers
tempted fate with their death-defying descents. "Rec-
ognize him?"
    What? Q's question puzzled Picard. How could he
be expected to recognize a being who had died
billions of years before he was born? "He's Imotru,
obviously, but beyond that I don't see anything famil-
iar about him."
    Q looked exasperated. "Really, Picard, you can be
astonishingly dim sometimes." He rolled up his
sleeves and extended both hands toward the figure on
the other balcony. He wiggled his fingers as if casting a
spell. "Perhaps this will make things easier."
    Wavy brown hair sprouted from the Imotru's shin-
ing skull, but he appeared not to notice. His features
remolded themselves, becoming more human in ap-
pearance, even as he continued to observe the divers
as if nothing were happening. His eyebrows darkened,
his lips grew more pronounced, until Picard found
himself staring at a very familiar acquaintance,
albeit one still clad in Imotru garb. "It's you," he
said to Q. "You were disguised as an Imotru."
    "I'm disguised every time we meet," Q pointed out.
"Surely, you understand that my true form no more
resembles a human being than it does an Imotru."
    So we're still exploring Q~ own past, Picard real-
ized. Examining the scene, he saw that the other Q
looked noticeably younger than the Q who had
brought him here, although not nearly as youthful as
the boyish Q who had toyed with antimatter in the
micro-universe. This Q had left adolescence behind
and seemed in the first full flush of adulthood, how-
ever those terms applied to entities such as Q. He
appeared utterly riveted by the grisly extravaganza
put on by the Imotru, lifting a scrap of blue meat from
his plate and nibbling on it experimentally while his
eyes tracked each and every plunge. The expression
on his face, Picard discerned, looked wistful and
faintly envious.
    "This was the first time I had ever seen anything
like this," the older Q said, "but not the last. I came
every year for millennia, until their civilization crum-
bled, the Imotrn gradually succumbed to extinction,
and the Sky Divers became nothing more than a half-
forgotten myth." He watched himself watching the
divers. "But it was never quite the same."
    "Did you always come alone?" Picard asked. It
occurred to him how seldom the young Q seemed to
interact with others of his kind. When I was his age,
relatively speaking, he thought, I thrived on the com-
pany of my friends: Marta, Conin, Jenice, Jack
Crusher...
    "Funny you should mention that, Jean-Luc," Q
responded, throwing their last shred of blue meat to
the serpents. He snapped his fingers and both he and
Picard were gone before the bloody scrap even
reached the water.

Interlude

THE ALERT ALARMS did not go off in the guest
quarters, so as not to panic unnecessarily any civilian
passengers, but Milo Faal did not need to see any
flashing colored lights to know that something was
happening. He could sense the tension in the minds of
the crew, as he could see the raging plasma storm
outside his window and feel the tremors every time
the thunder boomed around them.
    Milo did his best not to look or think afraid in front
of his little sister. Kinya was too young to understand
all that was occurring. The little girl stood on her
tiptoes, her nose and palms glued to the transparent
window, captivated by the spectacular show of light
and sound. Milo couldn't look away from the storm,
either. He stood behind Kinya with one hand on the
arm of a chair and the other one on his sister's
shoulder, just in case she lost her balance, while he
tried to figure out what was going on.
    Most of the crew members whose thoughts he
latched on to did not know much more than he did
about the churning cloud outside, but he got the idea
from some of them that the cloud was actually alive.
Did that mean the storm was shaking them around on
purpose? He could not repress a shudder at the
thought, which transferred itself empathically to
Kinya's tiny frame, which begin to tremble on its
own, even if the little girl was not consciously aware of
the source of the anxiety. "Milo," she asked, looking
back over her shoulder, "what's wrong?"
    "Nothing," he fibbed, but another sudden lurch
said otherwise. A half-completed jigsaw puzzle, fea-
turing a striking illustration of a Klingon bird-of-prey,
slid off a nearby end table, the plastic pieces spilling
onto the carpet. Milo had spent close to an hour
working on the puzzle, but he barely noticed the
undoing of his efforts. He had more important things
to worry about.
    Where are you, Dad? he called out telepathically.
Lightning flashed on the other side of the window,
throwing a harsh glare over the living room. Dad? he
called again, but his father might as Well have been
back on Betazed for all the good it did.
    Taking Kinya by the hand, and stretching his other
arm out in front of him to break any falls, he led her
across the living room toward the suite's only exit. If
his father would not come to them, he thought, then
he was getting pretty tempted to go find their dad. The
Enterprise was a huge ship, he knew, but it couldn't be
too hard to locate Engineering, could it? Anything was
better than just sitting around in the quaking guest
quarters, wondering what to do next.
    He and Kinya approached the double doors leading
outside, but the heavy metal sheets refused to slide
apart. "Warning," the voice of the ship's computer
said. "Passengers are requested to stay within their
quarters until further notice. In the event of an
emergency, you will be notified where to proceed."
    Milo stared in disbelief at the frozen doors. In the
event of an emergency... ? He glanced back at the
seething mass of destructive plasma pounding against
the hull. If this wasn't an emergency, then what in the
name of the Sacred Chalice was it? And how come
Dad wasn't stuck here, too?
    "Dad?" Kinya picked up on his thoughts. "Where's
Daddy, Milo?"
 I wish I knew, he thought.

Chapter Fourteen

IT TOOK PICARD A SECOND or two to realize that he and
Q had relocated once again, although none too far.
The jade cliffs remained intact. The Sky Divers con-
tinued their daring plunges to salvation or doom.
Even the cool of the evening breeze felt much the
same as before. Then he observed that their vantage
point had shifted by several degrees; they now occu-
pied another balcony, one perched about ten or eleven
meters above their previous locale. "I don't under-
stand," he told Q. "Why have we moved? What else is
there to see here?"
    "Ignore the floor show," Q advised, "and look at
the audience." He lifted an empty saucer from the
table and set it glowing like a beacon in the night,
using it as a spotlight to call Picard's attention to one
specific balcony below them. There Picard saw once
more the solitary figure of the youthful Q, enraptured
by the life-and-death drama of the ancient Imotru
ritual. Before Picard could protest that he had already
witnessed this particular episode in Q's life, the beam
shifted to another balcony, where Picard was stunned
to see both himself and the older Q watching the
younger Q intently. "Look familiar?" his companion
asked. Speechless, Picard could now only nod
numbly. What is it about Q, he lamented silently, that
he so delights in twisting time into knots?
    But Q was not finished yet. The spotlight moved
once again, darting over the face of the cliff until it fell
upon a young Imotru couple dining on a balcony
several meters to the right of Picard and Q's new
whereabouts. Or at least they looked like Imotru; the
harsh white glare of the searching beam penetrated
their attempt at camouflage, exposing them to be
none other than the young Q one more time, as well as
a female companion of similarly human appearance.
"It's you," Picard gasped, "and that woman." Al-
though noticeably younger than Picard recalled, the
other Q's companion was manifestly the same indi-
vidual who had recently visited the Enterprise, two
billion years in the future.
    Picard's mind struggled to encompass all he was
confronted with. Counting the smirking being seated
across from him, there were, what, four different
versions of Q present at this same moment in time?
Not to mention at least two Picards. He kneaded his
brow with his fingers; as captain of the Enterprise, he
had coped with similar paradoxes before, including
that time he had to stop himself from destroying the
ship, but that didn't make them any easier to deal
with. The human mind, he was convinced, was never
designed with time travel in mind.
    Still, he had no choice but to make the best of it.
"What are you and she doing over there?" he asked,
contemplating the couple highlighted by the glow of
the spotlight.
    "If you're referring to my future wife," the Q at his
table said, "her name is Q." He beamed at the
oblivious couple. "As for what is transpiring, can't
you recognize a romantic evening when you see one?"
    "I'm not sure I'm prepared to cope with the concept
of you dating, Q," Picard said dryly. "Why are we
here? Is it absolutely imperative that I share this
moment with you?"
    "Trust me, Jean-Luc," Q assured him, "all will
become clear in time." Another goblet of liquid
refreshment occupied the center of the table. Q fin-
ished off a cup of orange elixir, then placed the crystal
goblet on the tabletop between him and Picard. He
tapped the rim of the cup, producing a ringing tone.
"Let's listen in, shall we?"
    A pair of voices rose from the cup, as though the
goblet had somehow become some sort of audio
receiver. The voice of the younger Q was unmistaka-
ble, although surprisingly sincere in tone. Picard
heard none of the self-satisfied smugness he associ-
ated with the Q of his own time.
    He (eagerly): "Isn't it amazing? Didn't I tell you
how wondrous this is? Primitive, corporeal life, risk-
ing everything for one infinitesimal moment of glory.
Look, the snakes got another one! Bravo, bravo."
    She (faintly scandalized): "But it's so very aborigi-
nal. You should be ashamed of yourself, Q. Some-
times I wonder why I associate with you at all."
    He (disappointed): "Oh. I was sure you, of all Q's,
would understand. Don't you see, it's their very
primitiveness that makes it so moving? They're just
sentient enough to make their own choices, decide
their own destinies." He stared gloomily into his own
cup. "At least they know what they want to do with
their lives. Nothing's restraining them except their
own limitations as a species."
    She (conciliatory): "Well, maybe it's not entirely
dismal. I like the way the moonlight sparkles on the
reptiles, especially when their jaws snap." She placed
a hand over his. "What's really bothering you, Q?
You're young, immortal, all-powerful... a touch un-
disciplined, but still a member of the Continuum, the
pinnacle of physical and psychic evolution. What
could be better?"
    He (wistful): "It's just that... well, I feel so frus-
trated sometimes. What's the good of having all this
power, if I don't know what to do with it? Merely
maintaining the fundamental stability of the multi-
verse isn't enough for me. I want to do something
bold, something magnificent, maybe even something
a little bit dangerous. Like those foolish, fearless
humanolds out there, throwing themselves into grav-
ity's clutches. But ewery time I try anything the least
bit creative, the Continuum comes down on me like a
ton of dark matter. 'No, no, Q, you mustn't do that.
It's not proper. It's not seemly. It violates the Central
Canons of the Continuum ....' Sometimes the whole
thing makes me sick."
    For a second, Picard experienced a twinge of guilt
over eavesdropping on the young Q's this way. It felt
more than a little improper. Then he remembered
how little Q had respected his own privacy over the
years, even spying on his romantic encounters with
Vash, and his compunctions dissolved at a remark-
able rate.
    She (consoling, but uncertain): "Every Q feels that
way at times." A long pause. "Well, no, they don't
actually, but I'm sure you do." She made an effort to
cheer the other Q up, looking out at the plummeting
Imotru. "Look, two reptiles are fighting over that
skinny specimen over there." She shuddered and
averted her eyes. "Their table manners are utterly
atrocious!"
    He (appreciative, aiming to lighten the mood):
"You know, I don't think you're half as shocked as
you make yourself out to be. You've got an unevolved
streak as well, which is why like you."
    She (huffily): "There's no reason to be insulting."
She spun her chair around and refused to look at him.
    He (hastily): "No, I didn't mean it that way!"
Materializing a pair of wineglasses out of thin air,
along with a bottle of some exotic violet liqueur, he
poured the woman a libation and held it out to her.
Glancing back over her shoulder, her slim back still
turned on Q, she inspected the gift dubiously. Q
plucked a bouquet of incandescent yellow tulips from
the ether. "Really, Q, you know how much I respect
and admire you."
    She (ominously, like one withdrawing a hidden
weapon): "Just me?"
    He (uncomfortably): "Urn, whatever do you
mean?"
    She (going in for the kill): "I mean that cheeky little
demi-goddess out by Antares. Don't think I didn't
hear about you and her cornmingling on the ninth
astral plane. I am omniscient, you know. I wasn't
going to mention it, presuming I was above such petty
behavior, but since you think I'm so unevolved... !"
    He (defensive): "What would I be doing on the
ninth astral plane? This has to be a case of mistaken
cosmology. It wasn't me, it was Q. Why, I barely
know that deity."
    She (unconvinced): "And a fertility spirit, no less!
Really, Q, I thought you had better taste than that."
    He (desperate): "I do, I do, I promise. I was only
trying to broaden my horizons a bit, explore another
point of view .... "He offered her a strip of succulent
meat. "Here, why don't you try feeding the serpents?"
  She (chillingly): "I think I want to go home."
  Picard laughed out loud. It was almost worth travel-
  ing back in time to hear Q put on the spot like this.
  "That reminds me," he said to the Q sitting across
  from him, "back during that business in Sherwood
  Forest, you gave me quite a bad time about my
  feelings for Vash. You described love as a weakness,
  and berated me constantly about being 'brought down
  by a woman,' as I believe you put it." He cocked his
  head toward the quarreling couple on the next balco-
  ny. "I must confess I find your own domestic situa-
tion, both here and back on the Enterprise, more than
a little ironic."
    "Don't be ridiculous," the older Q retorted. "You
can't possibly compare your farcical mammalian liai-
sons with the communion, or lack thereof, between
two highly advanced intelligences. They're entirely
different situations."
    "I see," Picard said skeptically, contemplating the
scene on the adjacent balcony, where the female Q
had just conspicuously turned her back on her com-
panion. "As we ridiculous mammals like to say, tell
me another one."
    The voices from the goblet argued on, lending more
credence to Picard's position. He savored the sound
of the younger Q losing ground by the moment.
He: "Fine, go back to the Continuum. See ifI care!"
She: "You'd like that, wouldn't you? More time to
spend with that pantheistic strumpet of yours. No, on
second thought, I'm not going anywhere. And neither
are you."
 He: "Try and stop me."
 She: "Don't you dare!"
    Picard eyed Q across the jade tabletop. "Advanced
intelligences, you said? I am positively awestruck by
your spiritual and intellectual communion. You were
quite correct, Q. This excursion is proving more
illuminating that I ever dreamed."
    "I knew this was a bad idea," Q muttered, a
saturnine expression on his face. "I could hardly
expect you to sympathize with the perfectly excusable
follies of my youth."
    Picard showed him no mercy. "I have to ask: what
did your ladyfriend over there think of your short-
lived partnership with ?ash?"
    "That?" Q said dismissively. "That lasted a mere
blink of an eye by our standards. It was nothing. Less
than nothing even." He shrugged his shoulders, re-
membering. "She was livid."
    More livid than she sounds now? Picard wondered.
That was hard to imagine.
    He: "I should have known you wouldn't appreciate
any of this. None of you can."
    She: "Maybe that's because the rest of us are
perfectly happy being Q. But if that's not good enough
for you, then I don't belong here either."
    With an emphatic flash, the female Q vanished
from the scene, leaving the young Q just as alone as
his even younger counterpart a few balconies below.
"Our first fight," an older Q explained, "but far from
our last."
    The abandoned Q looked so dejected that, despite
Picard's well-earned animosity toward the being sit-
ting opposite him, he felt a touch of sympathy for the
unhappy young Q. "No one understands," he mut-
tered into his cup, completely unaware that his pri-
vate heartbreak was being transmitted straight to
Picard's table. "Just once, why can't I meet someone
who understands me?"
    His older self looked on with pity and regret. "I
believe you mortals have a saying or two," he ob-
served, "about the danger of getting what you wished
for." He sighed and pushed the talking goblet away
from him. "Too bad you wouldn't coin those little
words of wisdom for another billion years or so."
 A moment later, the balcony was empty.

Chapter Fifteen

LEM FnnL WAS NOT ABOUT to leave the bridge quietly.
"I'm warning you, Commander Riker, you'll regret
interfering with this operation. My work is my life,
and I'm not going to let that go to waste because of a
coward who doesn't have guts enough to fight for our
one chance to break through the barrier."
    "Perhaps," Riker answered, losing patience with
the Betazoid physicist despite his tragic illness, "you
should worry more about the safety of your children
and less about your sacred experiment."
    Summoned by Lieutenant Leyoro, a pair of security
officers flanked Faal, but the scientist kept protesting
even as they forcibly led him toward a turbolift. Claps
of thunder from the Calamarain punctuated his
words. "Don't lecture me about my children, Riker.
Sometimes evolution is more important than mere
propagation."
    What exactly does he mean by that, Riker won-
dered. Surely he couldn't be saying what Riker
thought he was implying? Faal's starting to make my
dad sound like father of the year. Even Kyle Riker,
hardly the most attentive of parents, never seemed
quite so eager to sacrifice his children's well-being on
the altar of his overweening ambition. Riker refused
to waste any further breath debating the man. If it
weren't for the failure of the warp engines, they would
have already been long gone by now, whether Faal
liked it or not.
    The turbolift doors slid shut on Faal and his grim-
faced escorts. Riker breathed a sigh of relief. "Mr.
Barclay, please take over at the engineering station."
Riker wasn't sure what precisely Barclay had to do
with Faal's unexpected arrival on the bridge, but now
that Barclay was here he might as well replace the
injured Schultz.
    Faal had no sooner left, however, when a blinding
flare at the prow of the bridge augured the sudden
return of the baby q. A second flare, instants later,
brought the child's mother as well. "Sir?" Barclay
asked uncertainly.
    "You have your orders, Lieutenant," Riker said,
aggravated by yet more unwanted visitors. When had
the bridge of the Enterprise turned into the main
terminal at Spacedock? "Can I help you?" he asked
the woman in ,none too hospitable a tone. Blast it, I
was hoping we d seen the last of these two.
    The toddler stared wide-eyed at the swirling colors
of the Calamarain as they were displayed on the main
viewer. "Frankly, I was in no hurry to revisit this
ramshackle conveyance," the woman said disdain-
fully, "but little q insisted. He simply adores fire-
works. Perhaps you could fire your energy weapons
again?"
    "Our phasers are not here to entertain you!" Le-
yoro snapped, offended by the suggestion. She took
her weapons very seriously.
    Riker didn't blame her. This was no laughing
matter, although he hardly expected a Q to appreciate
that. Things kept getting worse, no matter what they
tried. A crackle of lightning etched its way across the
screen, throwing off discharges of bright blue Ceren-
kov radiation wherever the electrical bursts inter-
sected with the ship's deflector shields. The rattle of
thunder was near-constant now; it almost seemed to
Riker that the persistent vibrations had been with
them forever. His determined gaze fell upon the
female Q and her child. Hmmm, he thought. Both
Barclay and Geordi seemed to find the malfunction in
the warp nacelles pretty inexplicable. Well, he could
think of few things more inexplicable than a Q.
    He rose from his chair and strode toward the
woman. "There wouldn't be any fireworks at all if we
weren't dead in the water," he accused. "Is this your
doing?"
    "You mean your petty mechanical problems?" she
replied. "Please, why would I want to go mucking
about with the nuts and bolts of this primitive con-
trivance?" A Calamarain-generated earthquake shook
the bridge, and q squealed merrily. "We're simply
here as spectators."
    Riker considered the female Q. Since her previous
visit to the bridge, she had discarded her antique
sports attire for a standard Starfleet uniform, as had
the little boy. He wondered briefly what they had
done in the interim. Did infant Q's require naps?
More important, why would this Q want to prevent
the Enterprise from leaving? The other Q had done
nothing but encourage them to turn back.
    "Maybe so," he conceded. It was entirely possible
that the Calamarain were responsible for the failure of
the Enterprise's warp drive, in which case it was even
more urgent that they find a way to communicate with
the cloud-beings. "But you must know something
about Captain Picard. What has your husband done
with him?"
    "Oh, not that again!" she said in a voice filled with
exasperation. "First the doctor, now you. Really,
can't you silly humanolds do without your precious
captain for more than an interval or two? You'd think
that none of you had ever flown a starship on your
own."
    "We don't want to do without the captain," Riker
insisted, ignoring the woman's ridicule. She was
sounding more like her mate every minute. "Wher-
ever Q has taken him, he belongs here, on this ship at
this moment."
    The woman made a point of scanning the entire
bridge, as if looking for some sign of Captain Picard's
presence, then returned her attention to Riker. "That
doesn't seem to be the case," she said with a smirk.
    "Shields down to twenty-seven percent," Leyoro
reported. A few meters away from Leyoro, a small
electrical fire erupted at the aft science station. Ensign
Berglund jumped back from the console just as the
automatic fire-suppression system activated. A ceiling-
mounted deflector cluster projected a discrete force-
field around the flickering blaze, simultaneously
protecting the surrounding systems from the flames
and cutting off the fire's oxygen supply. Within sec-
onds, the red and yellow flames were snuffed out and
Berglund cautiously inspected the damage.
    At least something's working right, Riker thought,
grateful that the fire had been taken care of so
efficiently. Now if he could only get the warp nacelles
functioning again... ! Maybe if we shoot our way out
of here, he thought, without holding anything back?
"Lieutenant Leyoro, target the phaser beam directly
in front of us, maximum intensity." He had held back
long enough; the Calamarain needed to learn that
they could not threaten a Starfleet vessel without
risking serious repercussions. "If you can disengage
from contact with the enemy, Counselor, now would
be the time to do it."
    She nodded back at him, acknowledging his warn-
ing. "Just give me a second," she said, closing her eyes
for a heartbeat or two, then opening them once more.
"Okay, I'm as prepared as I'll ever be."
    "Fire when ready, Lieutenant," Riker ordered. He
glared at the turbulent vapors upon the viewer. "I
want to see the stars again."
    "My feelings exactly," Leyoro agreed. A neon-red
phaser beam ploughed through the seething chaos of
the Calamarain, cutting an open swath through the
iridescent vapors. Riker winced inwardly, hoping he
was not burning through scores of Calamarain indi-
viduals. Am I killing separate entities, or merely
diminishing the mass of the whole? He would have to
ask Deanna later; right now he didn't want to know.
Beside him, Troi bit down on her lower lip as the
beam seared past swollen clouds filled with angry
lightning, and gripped her armrests until her knuckles
whitened; obviously, she had not been able to cut
herself off entirely from the emotions of the Cala-
marain.
    "Ooh!" q exclaimed, pointing enthusiastically at
the screen. He stuck out his index fingers like gun
muzzles, as little boys have done since the invention
of firearms across the universe, and red-hot beams
leaped from his fingertips to sear two burning holes in
the visual display panel. Riker jumped out of his seat
to protest, terrified that the playful child would create
a hull breach beyond the screen. Blast it, he thought.
This is the last thing I need right now.
    Thankfully the female Q was on top of things. With
a snap of her fingers, she squelched the child's imita-
tive phaser beams and repaired the damage to the
main viewer. "Now, now, darling," she cooed to the
boy, "what have I told you about pointing?" Thus
chastened, q meekly hid his tiny hands behind his
back.
    Blast it, Riker thought angrily. The last thing he
needed right now were the two Q's and their antics,
even though he seemed to be stuck with them. He
sank back into the captain's chair and concentrated
on the Enterprise's efforts to carve out an escape
route. As he had requested, Riker soon saw the
welcoming darkness of open space at the far end of
the tunnel the phasers had cut through the Cala-
maraim Now ttlere's a sight for sore sensors, he
thought. "Straight ahead, Mr. Clarze. Full impulse."
    "Yes, sir!" the pilot complied, sounding more than
anxious to leave the sentient thunderstorm behind.
Riker was gratified to see the distant stars grow
brighter as the unscratched viewscreen transmitted
images from the ship's forward optical scanners. Here
goes nothing, he thought, crossing his fingers. Once
they were clear of the clouds, perhaps their warp
engines would function again.
    "Riker to Engineering," he barked, patting his
comm badge. "Prepare to engage the warp drive at my
signal."
    "Acknowledged," Geordi responded. "We're ready
and willing."
    But the Calamarain would not release them so
easily. Thick, viscous vapors flowed over and ahead of
the ship's saucer section, encroaching on the channel
before them. Lightning speared their shields repeat-
edly, giving them a rough and bumpy ride. To his
dismay, Riker saw their escape route narrowing
ahead, the gathering cloud front eating away at that
tantalizing glimpse of starlight. "Keep firing!" he
urged Leyoro, despite an almost inaudible whimper
of pain from Deanna. Hang on, he told her word-
lessly, lending her whatever support his own thoughts
could provide. We're almost out.
    A single scarlet beam shot from the saucer's upper
dorsal array. Two hundred and fifty linked phaser
emitter segments contributed to the awesome force of
the beam, striking out at the enveloping throng of the
Calamarain. On the screen, heavy accumulations of
ionized plasma steamed away beneath the withering
heat of the phaser barrage.
    And still the furious cloud kept coming. Despite the
unchecked power of the Enterprise's phasers, a roiling
flood of incandescent gas poured over them as fast as
Leyoro could boil it off with her phasers, if not faster.
Riker couldn't help being amazed by the sheer im-
mensity and/or quantity of the creature(s) pursuing
them; even on full impulse, it was taking several
moments to fly clear of them. He felt like he was
trying to outrace an animated nebula.
    The choppiness of their headlong flight increased
every second. Riker was thrown from one side of the
chair to the other as he struggled to ride out the
violent squall. There was no way he could have
shouted out any additional orders even if he had
wanted to; it would have been like trying to converse
during the downward plunge of a roller coaster. His
stomach rushed up into his throat as the Enterprise
executed a full 360-degree barrel before stabilizing,
more or less, on an even keel.
    Additional fires broke out around the bridge, more
than the automated system could cope with. Smoke
and the smell of burning plastic tickled Riker's nose.
At the operations console, Data dealt with a small
blaze swiftly and effectively by opening a flap in his
wrist and spraying the flames with some of his own
internal coolant. Other crew members followed his
example, more or less, by resorting to the handheld
fire extinguishers stored beneath each console. Riker
took pride in the bridge crew's performance; they had
coped with the outbreak of electrical fires without
even a single command from him. You can't beat
Starfleet training, he thought.
    Through it all, the baby q appeared to be having the
time of his life. He squealed happily as the Enterprise
careered through the gap in the Calamarain at close to
the speed of light. Defying gravity, the boy turned
somersaults in the air, occasionally blocking Riker's
view of the screen. Enjoy this ride while you can, he
thought, because we're not doing this again.
    The child's mother just shook her head in obvious
disdain. "Barbaric," she muttered. "Utterly bar-
baric."
    Sorry we couldn't provide a smoother trip, Riker
thought sarcastically. Frankly, the female Q's low
opinion of the ship was the least of his concerns.
    Instead, his attention was focused on the rapidly
shrinking opening ahead of them. He could barely see
the stars now, only a small black hole in the substance
of the Calamarain that looked scarcely large enough
for the Sovereign-class starship to squeeze through.
C'mon, he thought, faster, faster, spurring the Enter-
prise on with his mind even though he knew that they
could not possibly accelerate any further without
their warp capacity. Would they make it through the
gap before it closed entirely? It was going to be close.
    Ultimately, the ship tore through the advancing
edges of the tunnel, leaving frayed tendrils of glowing
mist behind it. Staring at the main viewer, Riker saw a
vast expanse of interstellar space, bisected briefly by
their own crimson phaser beam before Leyoro ceased
fire. For the first time in hours, he could no longer
hear the discordant thunder of the Calamarain, al-
though that blessed silence would not last long unless
they left their gaseous foes far behind them. Riker
didn't need to see the input from the rear sensors to
know that the Calamarain had to be hot on their
heels.
    "Riker to La Forge," he ordered, hoping that the
damping effect on their warp engines did not extend
beyond the boundaries of the Calamarain. "Give me
everything you've got."

Chapter Sixteen

YEARS OF SEaMtSO to and from the Enterprise had
accustomed Picard to instantaneous travel. Even so,
the ease and speed with which Q switched settings
remained disconcerting.
    The jade cliffs were gone, replaced by crumbling
gray ruins that seemed to stretch to the horizon.
Toppled stone columns, cracked and fractured, leaned
against massive granite blocks that might once have
composed walls. Dry gray powder covered the
ground, intermixed with chips of broken glass or
crystal. Gusts of wind blew the powder about, tossing
it against the desolate landscape, while the breeze
keened mournfully, perhaps longing for the bygone
days when the ancient structures had stood tall and
proud. No sign of life, not even vermin, disturbed the
sere and lonely ruins.
    What is this place? Picard wondered. That which he
saw about him reminded him of what was left of the
Greek Parthenon after the Eugenics Wars, except on a
vastly larger scale. Piles of stone debris blocked his
view in most every direction, but he could tell that the
original structure or structures had been huge indeed.
The ruins seemed to extend for kilometers. He looked
upward at an overcast sky, through which a cool,
twilight radiance faltered. If ever a ceiling had en-
closed any part of the ruins, no trace of it remained,
except perhaps in the hundreds of tiny crystal shards
that sparkled amid the dust.
    Picard blinked against the wind as it cast the sand
into his face, and he stepped behind the shattered
stump of a colossal stone column for shelter from the
gritty powder. The climate felt different from Tagus
III: the air more dry, the temperature cooler, the
gravity slightly lighter. He suspected he wasn't even
on the same planet anymore, although his and Q's
latest destination seemed M-class at least. "Where are
we now?" he asked Q, who stood a few meters away,
heedless of the windblown powder. He was getting
damned tired of asking that question, but there
seemed to be no way around it. He was merely a
passenger on this tour, without even the benefit of a
printed itinerary. "And when?"
    "Don't you recognize this place?" Q challenged
him. He kicked the gray powder at his feet, adding to
the airborne particulates. "Surely, a Starfleet officer of
your stature has been informed of its existence? We're
still a couple million years in the past, to be fair, but
this particular locale looks much the same in your
own tiny sliver of history."
    Intrigued despite himself, Picard inspected his sur-
roundings, searching for some clue to his present
whereabouts. The sky above was no help; the heavy
cloud cover concealed whatever constellations might
have been visible from the surface. He contemplated
the truncated column before him, running his hand
over its classic Ionic contours and leaving a trail of
handprints in the dust. The wandering aliens who had
once posed as gods to the ancient Greeks had left
similar structures throughout the Alpha Quadrant;
this could be one of any of a dozen such sites
discovered since Kirk first encountered "Apollo"
close to a century ago, or another site as yet uncharted
by Starfleet. Was Q about to claim kinship to those
ancient Olympians who had visited Earth in the
distant past? Picard prayed that wasn't the case. The
last thing he wanted to do was give Q credit for any of
the foundations of human civilization. IfI had to pick
Q out of the Greco-Roman pantheon, though, he
thought, I'd bet a Ferengi's ransom that he was Bac-
chus or maybe Pan.
    None of which gave him a clue where in the galaxy
he was.
    "Stumped?" Q asked, savoring the mortal's per-
plexity. "Do let me know if this is too difficult a
puzzle for your limited human mind."
    Picard opened his mouth to protest, to ask for more
time, then realized he had fallen into playing Q's
game. The fewer minutes we waste, the sooner I'll
return to my ship. "Yes, Q," he admitted freely. "I'm
at a complete loss. Why don't you illuminate me?"
And with all deliberate speed, he added silently.
    Q scowled, as if irked by Picard's ready surrender,
but he wasn't ready to abandon the game just yet.
"Perhaps a slight alteration in perspective will refresh
your memory."
    Picard felt an abrupt sense of dislocation. His
surroundings seemed to rush past him and, in the
space of a single heartbeat, he found himself standing
elsewhere within the same ruins. He staggered for-
ward, dizzy from the rush, and braced himself against
a fragment of a fallen wall. I think I like Q's usual
teleportation trick better, he thought, steadying him-
self until the vertigo passed. He lifted his gaze from
the gravel at his feet--and spotted it at once.
    What from the side had appeared to be just more
jutting granite rubble was now revealed to be a
lopsided stone torus about three meters in diameter.
Its asymmetrical design looked out of place among
the scattered evidence of ancient architecture. Green
patches of corrosion mottled its brownish gray sur-
face, although the torus appeared more or less intact.
Q waved at him through the oblong opening at the
center of the torus, but Picard was too stunned to
respond. Suddenly, he knew exactly where he was.
    "The Guardian," he breathed in awe. He had never
seen it in person, but, Q was correct, he was of course
familiar with its history. More precisely known as
"the Guardian of Forever," it was the oldest known
artifact in the universe, believed to date back at least
six billion years. Since its discovery by the crew of the
original Enterprise, the Guardian had been subject of
intensive study by Starfleet yet had remained largely
an enigma. Picard glanced about him at the dilapi-
dated stone ruins that surrounded the Guardian;
archaeological surveys conducted in his own century
had proven conclusively that the crumbling masonry
was little more than a million years old. The Guardi-
an predated the other ruins by countless aeons, hav-
ing already been incalculably ancient before the
temples or fortresses that rose up around it were even
conceived. Here, he thought, was antiquity enough to
daunt even Q. . . perhaps.
    But its age was not its only claim to fame. The
Guardian, he recalled, was more than merely an
inanimate relic of the primordial past. Although it
appeared inactive now, it was supposedly capable of
opening up a doorway to any time in history, past or
future. Picard briefly wondered if he could use the
portal to return to his own era without Q's coopera-
tion, but, no, that was probably too risky. More likely
he would simply strand himself upon an unknown
shoal of time with no more appealing prospect than to
hope for rescue at Q's hands. Better to stay put for the
time being, he concluded. Matters had not grown that
desperate yet.
    Brushing the clingy powder from his palms, Picard
shielded his eyes with one hand while he scanned the
vicinity. He and Q appeared to be the only beings
alive in the ruins, excluding the Guardian, which was
said to possess at least a pseudo-life of its own.
"Shouldn't we be expecting your younger self any
time now?" he asked Q. At this point, Picard felt he
had a fairly good idea of the nature, if not the
purpose, of their extended trek through time. "That is
why we're here, I assume."
    "A brilliant deduction, Jean-Luc," Q said, his sar-
castic tone belying his words. "Even Wesley could
have figured that out by now." He strutted across the
rubble-strewn plain toward Picard, skirting around
the Guardian. "But I'm afraid you're mistaken. My
irrepressible earlier incarnation is not coming. He's
already here. He's been here all along, only not in any
form you can perceive." He pointed at a solitary
cornerstone that had survived beyond the edifice it
had once supported. "Cast your eyes over there while
I adjust the picture for the metaphysically impaired."
    In a blink, another Q, looking not much older than
the one who had been so taken by the bloody specta-
cle at the jade cliffs, appeared, sitting cross-legged
atop the great granite block. His chin rested upon the
knuckles of his clasped hands as he stared moodily
into the empty space within the Guardian. Clad in a
stark black sackcloth robe that struck Picard as osten-
tatiously severe, he presented an almost archetypal
portrait of disaffected youth, trapped on the cusp
between adolescence and maturity. "A rebel without a
cosmos," the older Q recalled, climbing marble steps
that no longer led to anything recognizable. He swept
the top step free of dust and sat down a few meters
away from Picard. I really had no idea what to do
with myself back then."
    Some of us still don't know what to do with you,
Picard thought, refraining from saying so aloud lest
he initiate another pointless war of words. The light-
ing itself had changed when the young Q became
visible, throwing deep red and purple shadows upon
the angst-ridden youth and his barren backdrop.
Tilting his head back, Pieard saw that the sky was now
filled with an astonishing display of surging colors
that put Earth's own aurora borealis to shame.
Flashes of vibrant red and violet burst like phaser fire
through what only moments before had been a dull
and lifeless canopy. The dazzling pyrotechnics re-
minded Picard of the legendary firefalls of Gal
Gath'thong on Romulus, but the pulsating, vivid hues
above him were, if anything, even more luminous.
"What's happening?" he asked Q. "Where did...
that... come from?"
    "Now you're seeing as a Q sees," the other ex-
plained. "What you call the Guardian produces rip-
ples in space-time that extend far beyond this planet's
atmosphere. Think of them as fourth-dimensional
fireworks," he suggested breezily.
    The young Q seemed unimpressed by the unparal-
leled light show unfolding overhead. His gaze fixed
straight ahead, he yawned loudly. A listless forefinger
traced the outline of the Guardian in the air, and a
miniature replica of the stone torus materialized out
of nothingness, hovering before his face. Q examined
his creation without much enthusiasm. "At least our
ancestors made things," he muttered sulkily.
    Atop the immense cornerstone, young Q twirled his
index finger and the model Guardian rotated for his
inspection. He thrust the single digit into the tiny
orifice of his toy and watched sullenly as it disap-
peared up to the bottom knuckle. Apparently unsatis-
fied by this diversion, he retrieved his finger, then
dispatched the replica back into the ether with a wave
of his hand. Leaping impatiently to his feet, his
simple sandals kicking up a flurry of dust, he con-
fronted the genuine Guardian. "Show me some-
thing!" he demanded.
    "WHAT DO YOU WISH TO BEHOLD?" the
Guardian asked, hundreds of centuries before it ever
spoke to Kirk or Spock, its sonorous voice echoing off
the accumulated wreckage of its former housing. An
inner light flashed with each syllable of its query,
rendering the weathered surface of the portal momen-
tarily translucent. Scientists still debated, Picard re-
called, whether the Guardian actually possessed
sentience or merely a highly sophisticated form of
interactive programming. Was it more or less alive, he
wondered, than his ship's computer, the fictional
characters that came to life in a holodeck, or even
Data? That was a question better suited to philoso-
phers, he decided, than a timelost Starfleet captain.
    "Anything!" the young Q cried out in boredom.
"Show me anything. I don't care."
    "AS YOU WISH," the Guardian replied. A pristine
white mist began to descend from the upper arch of
the great torus, filling the vortex at its center. Through
the falling vapor, Picard glimpsed images appearing,
rushing swiftly by like a holonovel on fast-forward.
Visions of the past, Picard wondered, or of untold
ages to come? Despite the haze produced by the mist,
the procession of images summoned up by the Guard-
ian looked more real and tangible than any he had
ever seen on a conventional viewscreen. Picard felt he
could reach out and touch the people and places
pictured therein, then remembered that he probably
could. Gaping in amazement, he tried to capture each
new vision as it played out before him:
    A tremendous explosion cast immeasurable quanti-
ties of matter and energy throughout creation; vast
clouds of gas collapsed until they ignited into nuclear
fire; drifting elemental particles clumped together,
forming moons and planets, asteroids and comets;
single-celled organisms swam through seas of unimag-
inable breadth and purity; limbless creatures flopped
onto the land and almost instantly (or so it appeared
to Picard) evolved into a bewildering variety of
shapes and sizes; humanoids appeared, and non-
humanoids, too, creatures with tentacles and feelers
and antennae and wings and fins, covered with fur
and feathers and scales and slime. Civilizations rose
up and collapsed in a matter of seconds; for an
instant, Picard thought he spotted the ancient
D'Arsay in their ceremonial masks and rites, and then
the cascade of history rushed on, leaving them be-
hind. Machines were born, sometimes surpassing
their makers, and fragile life-forms dared the void
between worlds in vessels of every description, leav-
ing their tracks on a thousand systems before shed-
ding their physical forms entirely to become
numinous beings of pure thought. There were the
Organians, Picard realized, and the Metrons and the
Thasians and the Zalkonians and the Douwd...
    "No, no," Q exclaimed, not content with the on-
going panorama of life and the universe. "I've seen all
this before! I want to see something else. I want to be
somewhere else."
    "WHERE DO YOU WISH TO JOURNEY?" The
Guardian flashed its willingness to convey Q wher-
ever he desired.
    The black-garbed youth stamped his foot impa-
tiently, sending yet another fissure through the mas-
sive block beneath him. "If I knew that, I wouldn't be
here in the first place, you pretentious doorframe."
He hopped off the stone, raising a cloud of gray
powder where he landed, and approached the Guardi-
an. "Show me more," he commanded. "Show me
what's new, what's different!"
    "Here we go," his older self sighed. He rose to his
feet and took Picard by the elbow, leading him over to
just behind where young Q now stood. "Get ready,"
he warned Picard, his words unheard by the youth
only a few centimeters away, who quivered with
unfocused energy.
    Again? Picard thought, readying himself for anoth-
er change of venue. He'd been on whirlwind tours of
the Klingon Empire that had moved at a more lei-
surely pace.
  Within the Guardian, images zipped past so speed-
ily that he could barely keep up with them. He caught
only quick, almost subliminal fragments of random
events, of which only the smallest fraction could he
even begin to identify: a mighty sailing ship sinking
beneath the waves, a glistening Changeling dissolving
into a golden pool, a dozen Borg cubes converging on
a defenseless world, a shuttlecraft crashing into a
shimmering wall of light...
    "What now?" Picard asked, unable to look away
from the rapid-fire parade of images. "What does he
intend to do?"
    "Stick a pin in a map," his companion stated.
"Entrust his future to the fickle whims of chance." He
shrugged apologetically. "It seemed like the only
thing to do at the time."
    The young Q glanced back over his shoulder, and,
for a second, Picard thought they had been exposed.
But the youth was merely giving the lifeless ruins one
last look before taking a deep breath, closing his eyes,
crossing his fingers, and hurling himself forward into
the mist-draped opening of the time portal. Picard
had only an instant to register the young Q's disap-
pearance before the other Q's hands shoved him
roughly from behind, propelling him straight into the
waiting maw of the Guardian of Forever.

Chapter Seventeen

ACCORDING TO STANDARD Starfleet guidelines, it took
zero-point-three-five seconds to go from impulse
flight to warp travel. According to Riker's chronome-
ter on the bridge, Geordi and his engineering crew did
it in zero-point-two.
 It wasn't nearly fast enough.
    Riker felt a momentary surge of acceleration that
trailed off almost immediately as the Calamarain hit
them from behind like the front of a hurricane. The
ship's inertial dampers were tested to the limit as its
propulsive warp field collapsed instantaneously, caus-
ing the vessel to skid to a halt through friction with
the cloud's billowing mass. The storm enveloped
them at once, much to the delight of little q, who
clapped his tiny hands in synch with the thunder.
    Riker was considerably less amused. Dammir, he
thought. It's not fair/ He was no Betazoid, but he
could practically feel the distress and disappointment
permeating the bridge. Baeta Leyoro swore and
slammed a fist into her open palm. Lieutenant Bar-
clay poked at the engineering controls rather franti-
cally, as if hoping to reverse their readings. Only Data
appeared unaffected by the dashing of their hopes of
escape, looking preoccupied with his repairs to the
operations console. "Let me guess," Riker said bit-
terly. "No more warp drive."
    Barclay swallowed nervously before confirming the
awful truth. "I'm afraid not, Commander. Some-
thing's interfering with the field coils again."
    "If this is typical of your expeditions," the female Q
sniffed, "it's a wonder that you humans ever got out
of your own backwoods solar system."
  If We'd known the likes of you were wattmg for us,
Riker mused, we might have had second thoughts.
Outwardly, he disregarded the Q's needling, prefer-
ring to address the problem of the Calamarain, who at
least refrained from waspish gibes. He was starting to
wonder, though, whether this was truly a new entity at
all, or if the original Q had simply had a sex change.
Granted, he had already seen both Q and his alleged
mate at the same time, but somehow he suspected
that materializing in two places simultaneously was
not beyond Q's powers.
"Shall I go to impulse, sir?" Ensign Clarze asked.
Riker gave the matter a moment's thought. Was
there any way they could outrace the Calamarain?
Given that they had previously encountered the
cloud-creatures in an entirely different sector several
years ago, he could only deduce that the Calamarain
were capable of faster-than-light travel on their own,
assuming that these were indeed the very same enti-
ties that had attacked Q aboard the Enterprise during
the third year of their ongoing mission. Certainly, the
storm had managed to keep pace with them at im-
pulse speed.
    "No, Mr. Clarze," Riker declared evenly. They
were running low on options, but he was determined
to maintain a confident air for the sake of the crew's
morale. "Well, Mr. Data?" Riker asked, addressing
the android. "It's looking like you're our best hope at
the moment."
    If all else failed, he thought, he would have to order
a saucer-separation maneuver, dividing the Enterprise
into two independent vessels. The Calamarain ap-
peared to clump together as one cohesive mass; possi-
bly they could not pursue two ships at the same time.
In theory, he could distract the sentient cloud with
the battle section while the majority of the crew
escaped in the saucer module. Naturally, he would
remain aboard the battle bridge until the bitter endm
and hope that Captain Picard eventually returned to
command the saucer.
    Apparently tired of standing upon the bridge, the
female Q and her little boy had, without even think-
ing of asking anyone's permission, occupied Riker's
own accustomed seat, to the right of the captain's
chair. The child sat on his mother's lap, sucking his
thumb and watching the main viewer as if it were the
latest educational holotape from the Federated Chil-
dren's Workshop. Riker didn't waste any breath ob-
jecting to the woman's brazen disregard of bridge
etiquette and protocol. Why bother arguing decent
manners with a Q? I wonder how long they'll choose to
stick around if I have to separate the saucer, he
wondered. Would they transfer to the battle bridge as
well, and stay all the way to the ship's final annihila-
tion?
    Before he sacrificed one half of the Enterprise,
however, along with the lives of the bridge and
engineering crew, Riker intended to exhaust every
other alternative, which was where Data came in.
  And the Universal Translator.
    "I believe I have," Data stated, "successfully devel-
oped a set of algorithms that may translate the Cala-
marain's tachyon emissions into verbal communi-
cation and vice versa, although the initial results may
be crude and rudimentary at best."
  "We don't want to recite poetry to them," Riker
said, "just call a truce." He stared grimly at the
luminescent fog stretching across the main viewer.
Jagged bolts of electricity and incessant peals of
thunder rocked the ship. "Say hello, Mr. Data."
    The android's fingers manipulated the controls at
Ops faster than Riker's eye could follow them. "I am
diverting power to the primary deflector dish," he
explained, "in order to produce a narrow wavelength
tachyon stream similar to those the Calamarain ap-
pear to use to communicate. If my calculations are
correct, our tachyon beam should translate as a sim-
ple greeting."
    "I hope you're right, Data," Riker said. "It would
be a shame if we accidentally insulted them by
mistake."
    "Indeed," Data replied, cocking his head as if the
possibility had not previously occurred to him, "al-
though it is difficult to imagine how we could conceiv-
ably make them more hostile than they already
appear to be."
    You've got a point there, Riker admitted, given that
the Calamarain had spent the last several hours dead
set on shaking the Enterprise apart. The sharp decline
in the strength of the ship's deflector shields testified
to the force and severity of the Calamarain's assault.
Perhaps now we can finally learn why they attacked us
in the first place.
    "Greeting transmitted," Data reported. The tach-
yon emission was invisible to the naked eye, yet Riker
peered at the viewer regardless, looking for some sign
that the Calamarain had received their message. All
he saw, though, were the same churning mists and
flashes of discharged energy that had besieged the
Enterprise since before the captain disappeared.
 Troi abruptly sat up straight in her chair. "They
h r    "
 ead us, she confirmed, her empathm senses once
more linked to the Calamarain. "I feel surprise...
and confusion. They're not sure what to do."
 "Good work, Mr. Data," Riker said, hope surging
inside him for the first time in nearly an hour, "and
you too, Deanna." Was he just deluding himself or
had the oppressive thunder actually subsided a degree
or two in the last few moments? They weren't out of
the woods yet, but maybe the Calamarain had
stopped hammering them long enough to contem-
plate Data's greeting. Go ahead, he thought to his
amorphous foes. Think it over some. Give us another
chance to make contact!
    "Commander," Data alerted him, "short-range
sensors detect an incoming transmission from the
Calamarain, using the same narrow wavelength they
applied earlier."
    Hope flared in Riker. Thanks to Data, they still had
a prayer of turning this thing around. Too bad Captain
Picard isn't here to speak with the Calamarain. He s
probably the best diplomat in Starfleet. "Put them
through, Mr. Data."
    "Yes, Commander," Data said. "Our modified
translator is interpreting the transmission now."
    A genderless, inhuman voice emerged from the
bridge's concealed loudspeakers. The voice lacked
any recognizable inflections and sounded as though it
were coming from someplace deep underwater.
"We/singular am/are the Calamarain," it stated.
    "I apologize for the atonal quality of the transla-
tion," Data commented, "as well as any irregularities
in syntax or grammar. Insufficient time was available
to provide for nuance or aesthetics."
    "This will be fine," Riker assured him. "Can the
computer translate what I say into terms the Cala-
marain can understand?"
    "Affirmative, Commander," Data said. "You may
speak normally."
    Riker nodded, then took a deep breath before
speaking. "This is Commander William T. Riker of
the Starship Enterprise, representing the United Feder-
ation of Planets." He resisted an urge to straighten his
uniform; the Calamarain were not likely to appre-
ciate any adjustment in his attire, even if they could
see him, which was unlikely. Their senses were surely
very different from his own. "Do I have the honor of
addressing the leader of the Calamarain?"
    There was a lag of no more than a second while
Data's program translated his words into a series of
tachyon beams; then that chilling voice spoke again.
'.'We/singular speak from/for the Calamarain," it said
in its muffled, watery tones.
    What precisely did it mean by that? Was more than
one individual addressing him at once, Riker won-
dered, or was it merely a verbal conceit, like the royal
"we" once employed by Earth's ancient monarchs?
Or could it be that the Calamarain genuinely pos-
sessed a collective consciousness like the Borg? He
repressed a shudder. Anything that reminded him of
the Borg was not good news. Riker decided to take the
speaker at its word, whoever it or they might be.
    "We come in peace," he declared, going straight to
the heart of the matter. "Why have you attacked us?"
    After another brief pause, the eerie voice returned.
"Mote abates/attenuates. No assistance/release per-
mitted. Stop/eliminate."
    What? Riker gave Data a quizzical look, but the
android could do nothing but shrug. "I am sorry,
Commander, but that is the closest translation," he
said.
    "Deanna?" Riker whispered, hoping she could de-
cipher the Calamarain's cryptic explanation.
    "I sense no deception," she said. "They are quite
sincere, very much so. Whatever they're trying to tell
us, it's very important to them." She bowed her head
and massaged her brow with both hands, clearly
striving to achieve an even greater communion with
the enigmatic aliens. "Beneath their words, I'm pick-
ing up that same mixture of fear and anger."
    Why wouM the Calamarain be afraid of us? Riker
couldn't figure it out. If the events of the last hour or
so had proved anything, it was that the Enterprise
could not inflict any lasting harm on the Calamarain.
If only I knew what they meant, he thought. "I don't
understand," he said, raising his voice. "What do you
want of us?"
    "Preserve/defend mote," the Calamarain insisted
obscurely.

Interlude

WHAT IS THAT? the spider asked. That is what?
    Something was there, on the other side, that he
could not quite identify, something at the center of it
all. The smoke surrounded the bug, and bug sur-
rounded It, but what was It, glowing within the
entraplped insect like a candle in a skull? Sparking like
a quark in the dark?
    There was something Q-ish about it, but different,
too. Not the Q, nor a Q, but flavored much the same.
It is new, the spider realized with a shock. Newer than
new. Q-er than Q.
    New... For the first time it occurred to the
spider to wonder how much might have changed,
there on the other side. But that would depend on
how long he'd been outside, wouldn't it, and that
would be... ? No/Not/No/His mind scuttled away
from the question, unable to face the answer that
loomed just past his awareness.
    Change, change, he chanted, calming himself.
Change on the range into something quite strange.
Change could be good, especially his own. He could
make changes, too, and he would, yes indeed, just as
soon as he could.
 Everything changes, and will change even more ....

Chapter Eighteen

SOMEONE WAS SINGING in the snow.
    Picard had little time to orient himself. An in-
stant ago he had inhabited the arid ruins encircl-
ing the Guardian of Forever. Now he seemed to
be located amid a frozen wasteland, his boots
sinking into the icy crust, cold and distant stars
shining in the dark sky far above him. The rime-
covered plain stretched about him in all directions.
Like Cocytus, he thought, the ninth and lowest
level of hell. His breath misted before him, but he
did not feel in any danger of freezing to death.
Q's work, no doubt. The cold, dry air felt chill
against Picard's body, nothing more. Very well
then, he thought, disinclined to question his lack of
hypothermia. He had more important mysteries to
solve, like where was that infernal singing coming
from?
    The voice, rich and resonant, carried through the
glacial cold:

"She was a kind-hearted girl, a lissome fair daughter,
Who always declined the gifts that I brought her .... "

    Still unaware of his two humanoid observers, the
young Q looked similarly intrigued by the robust
voice crooning through the frigid air. Deterred not at
all by the forbidding landscape, he trudged across the
frosty tundra in search of the source of the melody.
Picard and the older Q followed closely behind him,
sometimes stepping in his sunken footprints. Starlight
trickled down through the endless night, but not
enough to truly light their way. Defying logic and
conventional means of combustion, Q whipped up a
torch, which he held out in front of him. Lambent red
flames flickered above his fist, casting an eerie crim-
son glow upon their frozen path. The sleeves of Q's
charcoal robe flapped slowly in the biting winter
wind, and Picard found himself wishing that Starfleet
uniforms came complete with gloves and a scarf.
Although no new snow fell from the cloudless sky, the
breeze tossed loosely packed white flakes into the air,
making vision difficult. The icy bits pelted his face,
melting against his reddened cheeks and brow.

"But pity's the thing, so I begged for cool water,
And then led her away like a lamb to a slaughter...."

    They marched for several minutes, during which
time Picard observed the utter absence of any signs of
animation. Nothing moved upon or above the ice
except the windblown particles of snow. Picard won-
dered if any form of life existed beneath the perma-
frost, such as that found in Antarctica. Perhaps, if he
could place this planet by means of the constellations
overhead, it might be worth bringing the Enterprise
by to check? Then he recalled that all of this was
taking place millions of years in the past. Any life-
forms that might exist here and now would most
likely be long extinct when he returned to his own
time. For all I know, this entire planet and star system
may not even exist in the twenty-fourth century.
    The soles of his boots crunched through the snow.
No, he knew instinctively, there was no life here. This
was a dead place, devoid of vitality, empty of possibil-
ity. Save for the singing voice, and the soft hiss of the
burning torch, the icy plain was locked in silence.
Much like the old Klingon penal colony on Rura
Penthe, he mused, known to history as the "aliens'
graveyard." Surely, that icebound planetoid could
have been no more bleak and inhospitable than this.

"Like a lamb to slaughter, yes, like a lamb to the
  slaughter...."

    The echoing refrain grew louder as they neared its
origin. Soon Picard spied the figure of a man, human
in appearance, sitting upon a granite boulder covered
by a thick veneer of frost. He appeared larger than
either Q, and his stout frame was draped in heavy
clothing that looked as though it had seen better days
yet nonetheless retained a semblance of faded glory.
His heavy fur coat was frayed around its sleeves and
along its hem while his high black boots were scuffed
and the heels worn down to the sole. Rags were
wrapped around his hands and boots to hold on to his
heat, and a ratty velvet scarf protected his throat. A
wide-brimmed hat, drooping over his brow, and tat-
tered trousers completed his outfit, giving him an
archaic and faintly dispossessed air.
    "Who is this?" Picard asked. "I don't recognize
him."
    "Of course not," Q retorted impatiently. "Your
ancestors weren't even a gleam in creation's eye yet."
    It wasn't that foolish an observation, Picard
thought, considering the timelessness of Q and his
ilk. "Is this what he genuinely looked like," he asked
his guide, wanting to fully understand what he was
witnessing, "or are we dealing in metaphor again?"
    "More or less," Q admitted. "In fact, he resembled
a being not unlike a Q, whose true form would be
patently incomprehensible to your limited human
senses."
    So this is your interpretation of how he first appeared
to you, Picard thought. He must have made quite an
impression. Although worn and ragged, the stranger
presented an intriguing and evocative figure. Singing
to himself, he was engaged in what looked like a game
of three-dimensional solitaire. Oversized playing
cards were spread out on the snow before him, or
floated in fixed positions above the mud-slick ground,
arranged in a variety of horizontal, vertical, and
diagonal patterns. He looked engrossed in his game,
meticulously shifting cards from one position to an-
other, until the flickering, phosphorescent light of Q's
torch fell upon the outermost row of cards. He looked
up abruptly, fixing gleaming azure eyes on the young
Q, his face that of a human male in his mid-forties,
with weathered features and heavy, crinkly lines
around his eyes and mouth. "Say, who goes there?" he
said, sounding intrigued rather than alarmed.
    Q faltered before the stranger's forthright gaze,
taking a few steps backward involuntarily. "I might
ask you the same," he retorted, his brash manner
failing to conceal a touch of obvious apprehension.
He thrust out his chest and chin to strike a less
nervous pose.
    "You must understand," his older self whispered in
Picard's ear, "this was the first time since the dawn of
my omniscience that I had encountered anything I
didn't understand. A little healthy trepidation was
only natural under the circumstances."
    Picard was too entranced by the unfolding scene to
respond to Q's excuses. "Well said!" the stranger
laughed lustily. "And you're more than welcome, too.
I was starting to think I was the only preternatural
deity stuck in the middle of this irksome Ice Age."
    "W-who are you?" Q stammered. Fog streamed
from his lips; another artistic touch, Picard guessed,
courtesy of the other Q. "What are you?"
    "Call me 0," he said, doffing his hat to reveal unruly
orange hair streaked with silver. "As to where I'm
from, it's no place you've ever heard of, I promise you
that."
    "That's impossible," young Q said indignantly, his
pride stung. "I'm Q. I know everything and have been
everywhere."
"Then where are you now?" the stranger asked.
The simple question threw Q for a loop. He glanced
around, feigning nonchalance (badly), and seemed to
be searching his memory. Taking his own inventory
of their surroundings, Picard noted a trail of deep,
irregularly paced footprints stretching away in the
opposite direction from the way they had come. As far
as he could see, the tracks extended all the way to the
horizon. How long, he wondered, how the stranger
been wandering through this wintry Siberian waste-
land?
    "Er, I'm not sure," Q confessed finally, "but I'm
quite certain it's no place worth remembering. Other-
wise, I would recognize it at once, as I would your
own plane of origin."
    The individual who called himself 0 did not take
offense at this challenge to his veracity. He simply
chuckled to himself and shook his head incredu-
lously. "But there's always someplace else, no matter
how far you've been. Some unknown territory beyond
the horizon, across the gulf, or hidden beneath a
hundred familiar layers of what's real and everyday.
There has to someplace Other or why else do we
roam? We might as well just plant ourselves in one
cozy cosmos or another and never budge." He
clapped his gloved, rag-swaddled hands together, and
a curved glass bottle, filled with an unknown liquid of
pinkish tint, appeared in his grasp. He wrenched the
stopper from the spout and spit it onto the hoarfrost
at his feet. Roseate fumes poured from the mouth of
the bottle.
    "For myself," he said, after taking a swig from the
carafe, "I don't much care whether you believe me or
not, but if I'm not from the parts you know, then
where did this come from? Answer that."
    He offered the bottle to Q, who looked uncertain
what to do. "How do I know you aren't trying to
poison me?" he said, striving for a light, jokey tone.
    0 grinned back at him. "You don't. That's the fun of
it." He shoved the bottle at Q. "Come now, eternity's
too short not to take a chance now and then. Caution
is for cowards, and for those who lack the gaze and
the guts to try something new."
    "You really think so?" Q asked. Despite his earlier
misgivings, he was clearly curious about the rakish
stranger. It struck Picard that O's professed philoso-
phy was a far cry from the conservative limits im-
posed on the young Q by the Continuum.
    "I know so," 0 declared. He wagged the bottle in
front of Q's face, then started to withdraw it. "But
maybe you don't agree. Perhaps you're one of those
timid, tentative types who never do anything
unexpected .... "
    Impulsively, Q grabbed the carafe by its curved
spout and gulped down a sizable portion of the
bottle's contents. His eyes bugged out as the drink hit
his system like a quantum torpedo. He bent over
coughing and gasping. "By the Continuum!" he
swore. "Where did you find that stuff?."
    0 slapped Q on the back while deftly retrieving the
bottle from Q's shaking hand. "Well, I'd tell you,
friend," he said, "but then you don't believe in places
you've never laid eyes on."
    Next to Picard, across the ice from the young Q and
his new acquaintance, an older-but-arguably-wiser Q
confided in the starship captain. "It's true, you
know," he said, a wistful melancholy tingeing his
voice, "I've never tasted anything like it ever again.
I've even tried re-creating it from scratch, but the
flavor is never quite right."
    Only Q, Picard thought, couM get nostalgic about
something that happened millions of years in the past.
Still, he thought he could identify with some of what
Q was experiencing. He felt much the same way about
the Stargazer, not to mention the Enterprise-D.
    By now, the young Q had recovered from the effects
of the exotic concoction. "That was fantastic? he
blurted. "It was so... different." He said that last
word with a tone of total disbelief, then regarded the
stranger with new appreciation. "I don't understand.
How did you get here, wherever here is? And are there
others like you?"
    0 held up his hand to quiet Q's unleashed curiosity.
"Whoa there, friend. I'm glad you liked the brew, but
it seems to me you have the advantage on me. Where
are you from, exactly?" His icy blue eyes narrowed as
he looked Q over. "And what's this Continuum you
mentioned a couple moments ago?"
    "But surely you must have heard of the Q Continu-
um?" Q said, all his misgivings forgotten. "We're only
the apex of sentience throughout the entire... I
mean, the known... multiverse."
    "You forget, I'm not from around your usual
haunts," 0 said. "Nor have I always been camped out
in this polar purgatory." He swept his arm to encom-
pass his Arctic domain. "A bit of a wrong turn there, I
admit, but that's what happens sometimes when you
strike out for parts unknown. You have to accept the
risks as well as the rewards." He regarded Q with a
calculating expression, brazenly assessing the juvenile
superbeing. Picard didn't like the avid gleam in the
stranger's eyes; 0 seemed more than simply curious
about Q. "Perhaps you'd care to show me just how
you got here?"
    His game abandoned, 0 began to sweep his playing
cards together, combining them into a single stack.
Picard peeked at the exposed faces of the cards, and
was shocked to see what looked like living figures
moving about in the two-dimensional plane of the
cards. The suits and characters were unfamiliar to
him, bearing little resemblance to the cards used in
Enterprise's weekly poker games, but they were defi-
nitely animated. He spotted soldiers and sailors,
balladeers and falconers and dancing bears among the
many archetypes represented upon the metal cards,
and apparently crying out in fear as 0 shuffled them
together. Although no sounds escaped the deck, the
figures shared a common terror and state of alarm,
their eyes and mouths open wide, their arms reaching
out in panic. "What in heaven's name," Picard
started to ask Q, but 0 patted the cards into place,
then dispatched the deck to oblivion before Picard
could finish his question. Snow-flecked air rushed in
to fill the empty void the stack of cards had formerly
occupied.
    Had the young Q noticed the unsettling nature of
the cards? Picard could not tell for certain, but he
thought he discerned a new wariness entering into the
immature Q's face and manner. Or maybe, he specu-
lated, 0 simply seemed a shade too eager to uncover
Q's secrets.
    "How I got here?" young Q repeated slowly, dis-
playing some of his later selfs cunning and evasive-
ness. "Well, that's a terribly long and complicated
story."
    "I've got time," 0 insisted. He clapped his hands
and another ice-coated boulder appeared next to his
own. He gestured for Q to take a seat there. "And
there's nothing I like better than a good yarn, particu-
larly if there's a trace of danger in it." He looked Q
over from head to toe. "Do you like danger, Q?"
    "Actually, I think I should be going," Q stated,
taking a few steps backward. "I have an appointment
out by Antares Prime, you see? Q is expecting me, as
well as Q and Q."
    His retreat was short-lived, for 0 simply rose from
his polished stone resting-place and advanced on Q,
dragging his left leg behind him. His infirmity caught
the young Q by surprise, freezing him in his tracks
upon the tundra; Picard guessed he'd never seen a
crippled god before. "Not so fast, friend," 0 said, his
voice holding just a trace of menace, a hint of a threat.
"As you can plainly see, I can't get around as quickly
as I used to." He leaned forward until his face was less
than a finger's length from Q, his hot breath fogging
the air between them. "Don't suppose you know an
easy exit out of this oversized ice cube, do you, boy?"
    Picard struggled to translate what he was witness-
ing into its actual cosmic context. "His leg," he asked
Q. "What is the lameness a metaphor for?"
    "Just what he said," Q answered impatiently, un-
heard by the figures they observed. "Must you be so
bloody analytical all the time? Can't you accept this
gripping drama at face value?"
    "From you, never," Picard stated. He refused to
accept that an entity such as 0 appeared to be would
actually limp, at least not in a literal human sense.
    Q resigned himself to Picard's queries. "If you must
know, he could no longer travel at what you would
consider superluminal speeds, at least in the sort of
normal space-time reality you're familiar with." He
directed Picard's gaze back to the long-ago meeting
upon the boreal plain. "Not that I fully understood all
that at the time."
    "Can't you leave on your own?" the young Q asked,
apparently reluctant to divulge the existence of the
Guardian to the stranger. Picard admired his discre-
tion, even if he doubted it would last. He knew Q too
well.
    "Sort of a personal question, isn't it?" 0 shot back
indignantly. "You're not making light of my handi-
cap, are you? I'll have you know I'm proud of every
scrape and scar I've picked up over the course of my
travels. I earned every one of them by taking my
chances and running by my own rules. I'd hate to
think you were the kind to think less of an entity
because he's a little worse for wear."
    "Of course not. Not at all!" Q replied and his older
self groaned audibly. His perennial adversary, Picard
observed, was not enjoying this scene at all. He shook
his head and averted his eyes as his earlier incarnation
apologized to 0. "I meant no offense, not one bit."
    "That's better," 0 said, his harsh tone softening
into something more amiable. "Then you won't mind
if I hitch a ride with you back to your corner of the
cosmos?" He flashed Q a toothy grin. "When do we
leave?"
    "You want to come with me?" the young Q echoed,
uncertain. Events seemed to be proceeding far too
fast for him. "Er, I'm not sure that's wise. I don't
know anything about--I mean, you don't know any-
thing about where I come from?"
    "True, but I'm looking to learn," 0 said. He tapped
the large rock behind him with the heel of his boot
and both boulders disappeared, leaving the frozen
plain devoid of any distinguishing features. "Trust
me, there's nothing more to be seen around here. We
might as well move on."
    When did they become "we," Picard wondered,
and the young Q might have been asking himself the
same question. "I don't know," he murmured, lower-
ing his torch to create a little more space between him
and 0. "I hadn't really thought--"
    "Nonsense," 0 retorted. His robust laughter pro-
duced a flurry of mist that wreathed his face like a
smoking beard. He threw his arm around Q's shoul-
ders, heedless of the youth's blazing torch. "Don't tell
me you're actually afraid of poor old me?"
    "Of course not!" Q insisted, perhaps too quickly.
Picard recognized the tone immediately; it was the
same one the older Q used whenever Picard ques-
tioned his superiority. "Why should I be?"
    Next to Picard, the older Q glowered at his past.
"You fool," he hissed. "Don't listen to him."
    But his words fell upon literally deaf ears. Breaking
away from 0, the younger Q snuffed out his torch in
the snow; then, displaying the same supreme high-
handedness that Picard had come to associate with Q,
he traced in silver the oddly shaped outline of the
time portal. "Behold," he said grandly, as if deter-
mined to impress 0 with his accomplishment, "the
Guardian of Forever."
    0 stared greedily at the beckoning aperture, and
Picard did not require any commentary from the
older Q to know that the younger was on the verge of
making a serious mistake. Picard had not reached his
advanced rank in Starfleet without learning to be a
quick judge of character, and this 0 character struck
him as a bold, and distinctly evasive, opportunist at
the very least. In fact, Picard realized, 0 reminded
him of no one so much as the older Q at his most
devious. "You should have trusted your own in-
stincts," he told his companion.
 "Now you tell me," Q grumped.

Chapter Nineteen

PRESERVE THE MOTE? What the blazes did that mean?
    Riker's fists clenched in frustration. This was like
trying to communicate with the Tamarians, before
Captain Picard figured out that their language was
based entirely on mythological allusions. We rely too
damn much on our almighty Universal Translator, he
thought, so we get thrown for a loop when it runs into
problems. He signaled Data to switch off the transla-
tion program while he conferred with the others.
"'Preserve/defend mote,'" he echoed aloud. "What
mote are they talking about? A speck of spacedust? A
solitary atom?" Could this refer to some primal
metaphor, such as the Tamarians employed? What
was that old quote about "a mote in your eye" or
something?
    Or, looking at it from a different angle, couldn't
"mote" also be used as a verb? Yes, he recalled, an
archaic form of the word "might," as in "So mote it
be." Preserve might? Preserve possibilities? Riker's
spirit sagged as he considered all the diverse interpre-
tations that came to mind.
    "Maybe they don't mean mote," Leyoro suggested,
"but moat, as in a circle of water protecting a for-
tress."
    Spoken like a security officer, Riker thought, but
maybe Leyoro was on to something here. A moat, a
ring of defense... Of course, he realized. "The barri-
er. The Calamarain don't think in terms of solids, like
walls or fences. To them, the galactic barrier is a big
moat, circling the entire Milky Way!"
    "That is a most logical conclusion," Data observed.
"As you will recall, they first attacked when the probe
attempted to enter the barrier."
    "'Moat abates/attenuates,'" Troi said, repeating
the Calamarain's original pronouncement. "Perhaps
they're referring to the weaknesses in the barrier that
Professor Faal detected."
    "That makes sense," Riker declared, convinced
they had found the answer. He would have to remem-
ber to commend Lieutenant Leyoro in his report,
assuming they all came out of this alive. "They're
protecting the barrier from us. 'No assistance/release
permitted.' Maybe that means they don't want us to
escape--or be 'released' from--the galaxy."
    That sounds just presumptuous enough to be right,
he thought. Lord knows this wouldn't be the first time
some arrogant, "more advanced" life-form had tried
to enforce limits on Starfleet's exploration of the
universe. Just look at Q himself, for instance. It was
starting to seem like the Calamarain had a lot in
common with the Q Continuum. He glanced sideways
at the strange woman and child seated at his own
auxiliary command station. She appeared to be flip-
ping through a magazine titled simply Q, materialized
from who-knows-where, while q watched the tempest
visible on the viewscreen. The other Q, he recalled,
had warned the captain not to cross the barrier. Could
it be that Q and the Calamarain had been on the same
side all along?
    "This might not be the most judicious occasion to
argue the point," Data stated with characteristic
understatement.
    "Shields down to twenty-one percent," Leyoro con-
firmed.
    Riker saw the wisdom in what they were saying. As
much as he resented being dictated to by a glorified
cloud of hot gas, he was perfectly willing to withdraw
from the field of battle this time, provided that the
Calamarain could be persuaded to release the Enter-
prise long enough to let them go home. "Put me
through to them again," he instructed Data.
    "This is Commander Riker to the Calamarain," he
said in a firm and dignified manner. "We respect your
concerns regarding the... moat... and will not
tamper with the moat at this time. Please permit us to
return to our own space."
    The entire bridge, he knew, waited anxiously for
the aliens' response. With any luck at all, they would
soon be able to abort their mission with no fatalities
and only minimal damage to the ship. That's good
enough for me, he thought. Any first-contact situation
where you could walk away without starting a war was
at least a partial success in his book. Besides, for all
they knew, the Calamarain had a legitimate interest
in the sanctity of the galactic barrier. That was
something for the scientists and the diplomats to
work out in the months to come, if the Calamarain
proved willing to negotiate.
    Right now, he mused, I just want to bury the hatchet
so we can concentrate on finding the captain.
    Then the voice of the Calamarain spoke again,
crushing all his hopes: "Enterprise is/was chaos-
haven. Deceit/disorder. No permit trust/mercy/es-
cape. Must preserve/enforce moat. Enterprise is/to
be dissipated."
    "I do not think they believed you, Commander,"
Data said.
    "I got that impression, Data," RAker affirmed.
There was no audible menace in that uninflected
voice, but the essence of its message was clear. The
Calamarain did not trust them enough to let the ship
go free. "Guilt by association," he realized. "All they
know about us is that we've harbored Q in the past,
shielding him from their retribution. That's what they
mean by 'chaos-haven.' They think we're accom-
plices."
    Now, there's a bitter twist of fate, he thought. Will
the Enterprise end up paying the price for Q's crimes?
    "I don't get it," Ensign Clarze said, scratching his
hairless dome. "What do they mean, dissipated?"
    Baeta Leyoro translated for the younger, less exper-
ienced crewman. "Destroyed," she said flatly. "They
intend to destroy the entire ship."
    "Touchy creatures," the female Q remarked, sound-
ing quite unconcerned about the starship's imminent
obliteration. "I never much cared for them."
 Riker was inclined to agree.

Chapter Twenty

THE OBLONG PORTAL SHIMMERED beneath the ice-cold
sky. Young Q had not summoned the entire stone
framework of the Guardian to O's Arctic realm, but
merely the aperture itself, which hovered above the
frozen tundra like a mirage. The same white mist
began to seep from the portal, turning to frost as it
came into contact with the surface of the snow-
covered plain; through the fog, Picard glimpsed the
dusty ruins from which they had entered this glacial
waste.
    "Come along, Picard," Q instructed, heading for
the spuming portal. "What transpires next is best
witnessed from the other side."
    Picard followed without argument. In truth, he
would be happy to leave the barren ice behind; even
with Q's powers to protect him from the cold, he
found this frigid emptiness as desolate and dispiriting
as Dante must have found the frozen lake of sinners at
the bottom of the Inferno. Still, he had to wonder
what was yet to occur. Was the young Q actually going
to introduce 0 to Picard's own universe even with
everything they didn't know about the mysterious
entity? Picard, for one, would have liked to know a lot
more about what precisely 0 was--and how he came
to be stranded amid the drifting snow.
    'Sipres vous," the older Q said to Picard, indicating
the frothing aperture. Holding his breath involuntar-
ily, Picard rushed through the fog, and found himself
back among the dusty wreckage of the ancient ruins
surrounding the Guardian of Forever, beneath a sky
transformed by luminous time ripples. Moments lat-
er, his all-powerful guide emerged from the gateway
as well. He joined Picard a few meters away from the
Guardian. Their uniforms, Picard noted with both
surprise and relief, were totally warm and dry despite
their recent exposure to snow and ice. "Now what?"
the captain asked.
    "Now," Q said glumly, "you get a firsthand view of
one of my more dubious achievements."
    "One of many, I imagine," Picard could not resist
remarking.
    "Don't be ill-mannered, Jean-Luc," Q scolded.
"I'm reliving this for your benefit, don't forget."
    So you say, Picard thought, although he had yet to
deduce what exactly Q's youthful exploits, millions of
years in the past, had to do with himself or the
Enterprise, unless 0 or his heirs somehow posed a
threat in his own time. That seemed unlikely given the
enormous stretches of time involved, but where Q
and his sort were concerned, anything was possible.
    "Here I come," Q stated, as his younger self indeed
leaped out of the mist. The callow godling spun
around on his heels and looked back the way he had
come. Picard was unable to interpret the apprehen-
sive expression on his face. Was the young Q worried
that 0 would not be able to follow him through the
portal--or that he would?
    "Couldn't you have simply closed the door behind
you?" Picard asked the other Q.
    "Why, Captain," Q answered, looking aghast at the
very suggestion, "I'm shocked that you would even
propose such a cowardly ploy. That would have
hardly been honorable of me, and, as you should
know by now, I always play fair."
    That's debatable, Picard thought, but saw no reason
to press that point right now. Peering past both Q's,
he spotted the silhouette of O's stocky frame appear-
ing within the foggy gateway. He held his breath,
anticipating the stranger's arrival, but then something
seemed to go wrong. Travel through the Guardian had
always been instantaneous before, but not for 0 appar-
ently. He strained against the opening as though held
back by some invisible membrane. Reality itself
seemed to resist his entrance. "Help me," he called
out to Q, a single arm stretching beyond the bound-
aries of the portal. "For mercy's sake, help me!"
    The older Q shook his head dolefully, but his earlier
incarnation wavered uncertainly. He stepped forward
to grip O's outstretched hand, then hesitated, chewing
his lower lip and wringing his hands together. "I don't
know," he said aloud.
    Perhaps responding to his indecision, the Guardian
itself weighed in with its own opinion. "CAUTION,"
it declared, "FOREIGN ENTITY DOES NOT CON-
FORM TO ESTABLISHED PARAMETERS FOR
THIS PLANE."
    "Q?' 0 cried, his face pressed furiously against the
membrane, his voice distorted by the strain. "Help
me through, will you? I can't do it without you."
    "CAUTION," the Guardian intoned. "THE ENTI-
TY DOES NOT BELONG. YOU CANNOT INTER-
FERE."
    "Don't listen to it, Q," 0 urged. His words came
through the portal even if his physical form could not.
"You can make your own rules, take your own
chances. You and me, we're not the kind to play it
safe. What's the good of living forever if you never
take a risk?"
    For a second, Picard entertained the hope that 0
would not be able to break through the unseen forces
that held him back. Unfortunately, the Guardian's
solemn warnings had exactly the opposite effect on
the young Q as intended. "No one tells me what to
do," the youthful Q muttered, and in his defiant tone
Picard heard uncounted centuries of resentment and
stifled enthusiasm, "not Q, not the Continuum, and
especially not some moldering keyhole with delusions
of grandeur."
    Leaving all his doubts behind, he leapt forward and
grasped O's wrist with both hands. "Hold on!" he
shouted. "Just give me a second!"
    "ENTRY IS DENIED," the Guardian proclaimed.
"INTERFERENCE IS NOT PERMITTED."
    "Oh, be quiet," 0 urged him, eliciting a bark of
laughter from his young, would-be liberator. His face
flattened against the invisible barrier that barred his
way, 0 kept pushing forward, gaining a millimeter or
two. "You can do it, Q. I know you can!"
    "You're quite right," Q said, grunting with effort. "I
can do anything. And I will." Digging his heels into
the dusty ground, he pulled on O's arm with all his
might. Perspiration speckled his brow and the veins
on his hands stood out like plasma conduits. Picard
tried to imagine the cosmic forces at work behind this
faqade of human exertion. Despite his better judg-
ment, he had to admire the young being's tenacity and
determination. Too bad they weren't being applied to
a less questionable purpose ....
    Smoke poured from the Guardian as it sought to
restrain the stranger from beyond, defying the com-
bined strength of both Q and 0. For a few fleeting
instants, Picard could actually see the membrane,
stretched over O's thrusting head and shoulders like a
layer of adhesive glue and glowing with white-hot
energy so intense it made his eyes water. A network of
spidery black cracks spread rapidly over the lumines-
cent surface of the membrane and then, with a crash
that sounded like a thousand stained-glass windows
collapsing into broken shards, the barrier winked out
of existence and 0 came tumbling onto the rubble-
strewn ground, knocking Q onto his back.
    "What was I thinking of?." the older Q said, looking
on mournfully. "Would you have ever guessed I could
be arrogant, so rash and presumptuous?"
    Picard refrained from comment, more interested in
observing the ongoing saga than in engaging in more
fruitless banter with Q.
    The young Q, exhilarated by his triumph, leaped to
his feet, the back of his robe thoroughly dusted with
gray powder. He looked no more frosted than Picard
or his older counterpart. "Let's hear it for Q," he
gloated, shaking his fist at the defeated Guardian,
"especially this Q."
    0 rose more slowly. Panting and pale, he clambered
onto shaky legs and inspected his new surroundings,
scowling somewhat at the obvious evidence of age
and decay. "Looks like this locality has seen better
days," he said darkly. "Please tell me this seedy
cemetery is not the celebrated Q Continuum."
    "What, this old place?" Q replied. He appeared
much more confident now that he was back on
familiar ground. "The Continuum exists on a much
higher level than this simple material level." He
laughed at the other's error. "You have a lot to learn
about this reality, old fellow."
    "No doubt you'll be happy to show me around," 0
said slyly. He stretched his limbs experimentally,
looking mostly recovered from the duress of his
transition. His bones cracked like tommyguns in a
Dixon Hill mystery. "Ah, but it's good to breathe
warm air again, and see something beside that end-
less, infernal ice." He limped over to Q. "Where to
next, young man?"
    "Next?" Q scratched his head. His plans had obvi-
ously not proceeded that far. Now that 0 had arrived
safely, Q looked uncertain what to do with him.
"Well, um, there's kind of an interesting spatial
anomaly a few systems away. Some entities find it
amusing." He pointed toward a distant patch of
turbulent, rippling sky. "See, over by those quasars
there, just past the nebula." He tugged on the fabric of
his robe to shake off some of the dust. "Race you
there?" he proposed.
    "Sounds good to me," 0 agreed, "but I'm afraid it's
been a long time since I moved faster than a sunbeam,
at least through plain, ordinary space." He gave his
bad leg a rueful pat. "I don't suppose a bright young
blade like you knows any convenient shortcuts in this
vicinity?"
    "A shortcut?" Q mulled the matter over while 0
looked on expectantly, far too keenly for Picard's
liking. Bad enough that Q had let this unknown
quantity into reality as he knew it, he didn't want
young Q to give 0 free rein throughout the physical
universe. Alas, inspiration struck Q, much to Picard's
dismay. "The Continuum itself is the ultimate short-
cut, linking every time and place in a state of con-
stant, ineffable unity. I'll bet you could use the
Continuum to go anywhere you pleased."
    "There's an idea!" 0 crowed, slapping Q on the
back. "That's positively brilliant. I knew I could
count on you." Beneath the silent gaze of the Guardi-
an, 0 circled the young and relatively inexperienced Q
like a lion that had just separated an antelope from
the herd. "Now then," he said in an insinuating
manner, "about this Continuum? I can hardly wait to
lay my eyes on such an auspicious establishment." He
limped across the arid landscape, conspicuously fa-
voring his weaker leg. "If you don't mind giving me a
lift, that is."
    "I suppose," Q answered absently, "although I
could as easily transport us straight to the anomaly."
    "Time enough for that later," 0 assured him, an
edge in his voice belying the courteous phrasing. Was
the young Q aware, Picard wondered, of just how
intent the stranger was on his goal? O's single-
mindedness was obvious enough to Picard, even if his
full motives remained obscure. "The Continuum first,
I think."
    "Oh yeah, right," Q mumbled, looking around the
forlorn ruins. "I suppose there's no reason to stick
around here anymore." He cast a guilty, sidelong
glance at the brooding edifice of the Guardian, per-
haps only now wondering if he really should have
heeded the ancient artifact's warnings. "Unless you'd
like to look around here some more? There's a nearly
intact temple over on the southern continent that was
built by some of my direct organic precursors."
    "The Continuum will do just fine," 0 insisted. He
stopped limping around the other being and lowered
his head to look Q directly in the eye. "Now if you
please."
    Q shrugged, apparently deciding not to cry over
spilled interdimensional membranes. "Why not?" he
declared, and Picard felt an unaccountable chill run
down his spine even though he knew that all of these
events had transpired millions of years before his own
time. "Get ready to feast your senses on possibly the
pinnacle of existence, a plane of reality never before
glimpsed by anyone but Q." He summoned an expec-
tant drumroll from the ether. "Q Continuum, here we
come!"
    Picard saw a wily smile creep over O's weather-
beaten visage an instant before both Q and his new
friend departed the abandoned ruins in a single burst
of celestial light. He and the older Q were left alone
amid the crumbling pillars and shattered stones.
"Now what?" Picard asked his self-appointed travel
director, although he suspected he knew what was
coming next.
    Q shrugged. "Whither they goest, we goest." He
smirked at Picard. "I'd tell you to hold on to your hat,
but I guess Starfleet doesn't go in for snappy head-
gear." He subjected Picard's new uniform to a wither-
ing appraisal. "Pity. One should never underestimate
the effectiveness of a stylish chapeau."
    "Enough, Q," Picard barked. "You may be immor-
tal, but I am not. Let's get on with this, unless you're
afraid to show me just how big a fool you made of
yourself."
    Q glared at him murderously, and for one or two
long moments Picard feared that perhaps he'd finally
pushed Q too far. His body tensed up, half-expecting
to be hurled into a supernova or transformed into
some particularly slimy bit of protoplasm. Just so long
as he leaves the Enterprise alone, Picard resolved,
prepared to meet his fate with whatever dignity he
could muster.
    Then, to his surprise, the choler faded from Q's
face, replaced by what looked amazingly like a mo-
ment of sincere reflection. "Perhaps you're right," he
admitted after a time, "and I am stalling unnecessar-
ily." He shook his head sadly. "I'm not particularly
enjoying this trip down memory lane."
    Picard almost sympathized with Q. With atypical
gentleness, at least where Q was concerned, he sug-
gested they continue their journey through the past.
"It's a truism with humanity that those who do not
learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps,
in your case, reliving your history is the only way we
can both learn from it."
    "Oh, that's profound, Picard," Q said, regaining
some of his usual hauteur. "Very well, let's be on our
way, if only to spare me any more of your pedantic
cliches."
    Why do I even try to treat him like a sane and
reasonable being? Picard asked himself silently, but
his justifiable irritation could not derail his mixed
excitement and alarm at the prospect of actually
visiting the Q Continuum for the first time. What
could it possibly be like? He couldn't begin to imagine
it. Even translated into human analogues, as it would
surely have to be, he envisioned a wondrous, tran-
scendent realm surpassing the Xanadu of Kublai
Khan or fabled Sha Ka Ree of Vulcan myth and
legend. As Q swept them away from the decaying
rums with a wave of his hand, Picard closed his eyes
and braced himself for the awesome glory to come.
    The reality was not what he expected. He opened
his eyes and looked upon... a customs station? He
and Q stood on a stretch of dusty blacktop that led
up to a simple gate consisting of a horizontal beam
that blocked further passage on the roadway. A rick-
ety wooden booth, apparently staffed by a single
guard, had been erected to the right side of the gate. A
barbed-wire fence extended to both the east and the
west, discouraging any unauthorized attempts to
evade the gate. A sign was mounted beneath the open
window of the booth, printed in heavy block lettering:
YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE Q CONTINUUM. NO PEDDLERS,
VAGRANTS, OR ORGANIANS ALLOWED.
    A golden sun was shining brightly overhead, al-
though it seemed to be reserving its warmest beams
for the other side of the fence. Picard lifted a hand to
shield his eyes from the glare and peered past the
barbed wire. As nearly as he could tell, the Q Contin-
uum looked like an enormous multi-lane freeway with
more loops, exits, and on-ramps than seemed physi-
cally possible. Elevated roadways doubled back on
each other, then branched off at dozens of incompati-
ble angles. Mass transit as designed by M. C. Escher,
Picard thought, astounded by the sight.
    "What were you expecting, Shangri-La?" Q asked,
enjoying Picard's gawk-eyed befuddlement.
    "Something like that," he admitted. I suppose this
imagery makes a certain amount of sense, given the
younger Q's description of the Continuum as a short-
cut that spanned the known universe. He could readily
believe that this stupendous tangle of thoroughfares
connected any conceivable location with everywhere
else.
 Assuming you got past the gate, of course.
    That appeared to be the challenge facing 0 and Q's
previous self at this moment. Not far away from
where Picard and Q now resided, the young Q and his
newfound acquaintance stood before the barricade as
the customs official emerged from his booth, clip-
board in hand. He was a stern, officious-looking
individual wearing a large copper badge upon his
khaki-colored uniform. A sturdy truncheon dangled
from his belt. Picard was irked but not too surprised
to note that this functionary bore a marked resem-
blance to himself. Come off it, Q, Picard thought.
Surely I don't look that humorless?
    The guard scrutinized 0 with a scowl upon his face.
"You're not Q," he stated flatly.
    "You can say that again," 0 proclaimed, unabashed,
"but I'd be grateful if you'd let me trod your fine road.
Young Q here tells me it's the swiftest way around
these whereabouts."
    He clapped Q on the back, sending Q staggering
forward toward the guard. Looking on from less than
five meters away, Picard noted that the youth had
traded his monkish black robe for something closer to
what 0 wore, minus the rags and tatters, naturally. He
now wore boots, breeches, and a heavy fur coat. Just
what Q needed, Picard thought sarcastically, a disrep-
utable role model.
    The guard gave Q a disapproving glance, then
inspected his clipboard. "State your name, species
identification, planet or plane of origin, and the
nature of your business in the Continuum."
    0 rolled his eyes, seemingly unimpressed by this
display of authority. "Are you sure you don't want my
great-great-grandmother's genetic code as well?" he
asked dryly. Sighing theatrically, he launched into his
recitation. "O's the name, my species is special, my
origin is elsewhere, and my business is none of yours.
Is that good enough, or would you care to arm-wrestle
for it?" He shook off his shaggy greatcoat and rolled
up his sleeve. Right behind him, the young Q placed a
hand over his mouth to muffle an attack of giggles.
    The guard looked considerably less amused by O's
flippancy. His scowl deepened and he lowered his
clipboard to his side. "Where are you from," he
asked, and Picard somehow sensed he was speaking
for the whole of the Q, "and why should we permit
you access to the Continuum?"
    0 retrieved his coat from the pavement and threw it
over his shoulder. "Well, the where of it is a long story
that depends a lot on who's telling it. Let's just say I
was once quite a mover and shaker a good ways from
here, but I'm afraid that my able accomplishments
were not always appreciated by those that should have
known better, so it came to pass that the time was
right for me to set off for greener pastures." He leaned
forward and brushed some of the dust from his boots
before straightening his spine, adjusting his hat, and
addressing the guard. "As for why you should allow
me safe passage through your local stomping grounds,
aside from basic hospitality, that is... why, this
peerless young paragon will vouch for me."
    "Is this true?" the guard demanded of Q. He didn't
seem to regard the young entity as much of a paragon.
    Q gulped nervously, wilting under the guard's cen-
sorious stare. He looked to 0 for support and was
greeted by a conspiratorial wink. The newcomer's
boldness rubbed off on Q, who squared his shoulders
and glared back at the guard defiantly. "Certainly!"
he announced. "O's word is good enough for me.
What's with this siege mentality anyway? We could do
a lot worse than open our borders to new ideas and
exotic visitors from foreign lands."
    0 beamed at him. "That's telling 'era, friend." He
poked the guard's badge with his finger. "You should
listen to this young fellow if you've got any sense
under that shiny, shorn scalp of yours."
  That was uncalled for, Picard thought.
    "So be it," the guard decreed. "This entity is
permitted within the Continuum--on the under-
standing that you, Q, take responsibility for him."
    "They expected you to be the responsible one?"
Picard remarked, arching an ironic eyebrow. "Why
do I get the impression this was a horrendous mis-
take?"
    The older Q averted his eyes from the scene before
them. "For a lower life-form, you can annoyingly
prophetic sometimes."
    Caught up in his newfound bravado, the young Q
didn't hesitate a bit. "Agreed," he said grandly.
"Raise up the gate, my good man."
    "Well done," 0 whispered. He doffed his wide-
brimmed hat and plopped it onto Q's head. Grabbing
his erstwhile sponsor by the elbow, he dragged his bad
leg toward the barricade and the vast interdimen-
sional highway beyond. Picard looked on as the guard
retreated to his booth. Moments later, the horizontal
beam tilted upward until it was perpendicular to the
road, and the newly united fellow travelers strode into
the future, embarking on the endless highway for
destinations unknown.
    "So tell me, Q," 0 asked as his voice receded into
the distance, "have you ever considered the funda-
mental importance of testing lesser species... ?"

Interlude

WHERE IS Q, the spider hissed. Q is where?
    His stench was all over the bug over there, but not
Q himself. Beneath the smelly smoke, it reeked of Q.
Q had been with it, or would be, or should be. What
did it matter when? Not at all, not for Q. Never for Q.
    Damn you Q, you damn me, damn Q, damn met He
remembered it all now. Q was to blame, Q and all
those other Q, parading their pompous, prejudiced,
pitiless power throughout perpetuity. There were too
many Q to count, far too many to be allowed to exist,
but that could be remedied, given the chance. Hew the
Q. Hew Q too. Rue, Q rue! Your day is through!
    The scent of Q set the spider salivating. Its avari-
cious arms scraped at the wall, greedy to grab, keen to
consume. Where are you now, Q, my oM Q. What have
you been doing all this time? What has time done to
you and to me and to we. Have you ever thought of me?
You shouM have, yes, you should.
    The time was coming. The voice had promised.
Soon.

    Q will pay. All the Q will pay. Q and Q and Q and Q
and Q and Q and Q and Q and Q and Q and O and Q
and Q and Q and Q and Q and Q and Q and O and Q

TO BE CONTINUED