Star Trek: The Q Continuum (4 page)

“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. Except 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 Mexican entrée 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 apparently 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 ludicrous 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 omnipotent 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 volunteered.

“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 understand 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 would be willing to trade the Jem’Hadar for Q?
he thought. Picard would take that deal in a Scalosian second.

“Still, I must congratulate you, Jean-Luc,” Q persisted, “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.

“Enchanté, 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 supposed to be. Touch me again and I’ll personally send a quantum torpedo up your—”

“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 functioning 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 combadge. “Picard to Engineer—”

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. “Delicious,” he remarked. “Not quite as filling as freshly baked neutronium, but a tasty little morsel nonetheless.”

“Q,” Picard said ominously as Riker handed Picard 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 somehow 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 declined 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 complete.” He started to tap his badge once more, wondering 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 Picard’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.

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 fragmented flashbacks of aeons past…and a personality unlike any other.

Q, Q, that’s who,
he sang.
Q is back, right on cue!

Musty memories, broken apart and reassembled in a thousand kaleidoscopic combinations over the ages, exploded again within his mind, sparking a storm of stifled savagery and spite.
It was all 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 apostate’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….

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 recordings, 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-eared, leatherbound volumes that filled his bookshelves, 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 reluctantly, 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.
It’s 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 Federation’s. There might well be some merit to his warning regarding the barrier.

But was Starfleet willing to let the future of humanoid 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 warning atop the surface of Picard’s desk. “How stunningly 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.

“Touché,”
Q responded, “or rather I should say,
Olé!”
In fact, he had traded in his guardsman’s uniform for the more flamboyant costume of a traditional 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 observed,
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 strutting 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 José, 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,
mon 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 misbegotten quest unless you think you have some say in the matter.”

“Then you must also understand,” Picard answered, “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 convince 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.
“Olé!”

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.