Prologue



LEr THE ENDING BEGIN. Begin the end of eternity .... It was finally
happening. After endless, empty aeons of exile, his liberation was
at hand. Balls were rolling. Gears were turning. A shiny, silver
key had inserted itself into the eternal lock and now awaited only
a flick of the wrist to open wide the gate and let him back into
that vast array of suns and planets and moons and swirling nebulae
from which he had so long been barred.



Turn the key. Set me free. Free me, me, me!



Time, too much time, had taken its toll on the orderly procession
of his thoughts, but not his infamous ingenuity and enthusiasm. He
could scarcely wait to make his mark on the galaxy once more, teach
it the true meaning of terror and torment. He'd pick

up right where he left off-before Q spoiled everything.

All due to Q, and Q and Q, too.

Already a tiny portion of himself, the merest sliver of his soul,
had slipped into a crack in the wall, merging with one of the crude
and contemptible creatures there, peering out through its obsolete
ocular apparatus, while the rest of him snapped and scratched
impatiently at the primordial partition that had defied him for
longer than his scattered mind could begin to encompass, but not
for very much longer. He is the key. The key is me. The key to set
me free. He had seen things through the primitive eyes of his
avatar within the wall, seen the child of Q and Q, the child of the
future.

My future. Mine! he roared at the silent wall, while spider legs of
extended thought capered and clawed and craved release. Hear me Q?
Hear me here . . . and now. He probed for further cracks in the
wall, shouted into the flickering fissures.

Now the end has begun. Begin the end of Q . . . .
Chapter One

Ship's log, stardate 500146.3, First Officer William T. Riker
reporting.



Captain Picard remains missing, transported away by Q, who alone
knows when and if the captain will return to the Enterprise. In his
absence, I have barely managed to preserve both the ship and the
crew, despite the best efforts of the gaseous life-form known as
the Calamarain.

Our situation remains grave. To escape the Calamarain, we have
taken refuge within the outer fringes of the galactic barrier.
Although our shields, modified to absorb psychokinetic energy from
the barrier itself, protect us from the worst of its efects, we
cannot remain immune to the

destructive force of the barrier indefinitely. Al

ready the more telepathically sensitive members

of the crew are experiencing discomfort and even

pain rom the excess of psychic energy composing

the barrier and now surrounding the ship.



Due to damage inflicted by both the Calamarain and the barrier, our
warp engines are inoperative, and we have lost artificial gravity
in large portions of the saucer section, including the bridge. I
can only hope that we can complete the most needed repairs before
we are forced to exit the barrier and reenter our galaxy, perhaps
to face the Calamarain again.



LIEUTENANT BAETA LEYoRo's pain-racked cry echoed throughout the
bridge. If not for the lack of gravity, she would have surely
collapsed to the hard duranium floor; instead the stricken security
officer levitated in midair, her body doubled over in agony as the
psychic flux of the barrier set her synapses on fire. A plait of
black hair rose from her scalp, swaying like a cobra about to
strike. A heart-wrenching whimper escaped her lips, squeezing out
from between tightly clenched teeth.



Riker blamed himself. I should have sent her to sickbay
immediately, the moment I realized that her augmented nervous
system made her uniquely vulnerable to the barrier. Instead he had
waited until it was too late, with the result that she had
succumbed to her seizure halfway between her post and the
turbolift. But now was no time to second-guess himself. "Beam her
directly to sickbay," he ordered, then slapped the comm badge on
his chest. "Riker to Dr. Crusher. Lieutenant Leyoro requires
emergency care. Expect her at once."



Even as he warned Beverly of the incoming patient, a shimmering
silver glow enveloped the floating, fetal form of Leyoro. Thank
heavens the transporters are still working, Riker thought, relieved
that Leyoro could benefit from that technology at least, even if
their jury-rigged deflectors, experimentally altered by Lieutenant
Barclay and Data, had not been enough to protect her. The
scintillating twinkle of the transporter effect shone even brighter
amid the dimly lit bridge, where only flashing redalert signals
provided any illumination at all. Even the blue tracking lights
that routinely ran along the floor of the bridge had been snuffed
out by the abuse the Enterprise had sustained over the last several
hours.



Riker's own head throbbed in sympathy with Leyoro; he suspected
that his long-standing telepathic bond with Deanna had increased
his sensitivity as well, weakening his brain's defenses against the
psychic barrage. Swollen veins pounded beneath his temples and
brow, although the ache was not yet fierce enough to make him
abandon his post. My drain will have to explode first, he vowed
defiantly, his ,yaw set squarely beneath his black beard. He nodded
grimly as Leyoro vanished in a cascade of sparks that swiftly
evaporated before his eyes.



"Got her," Beverly's voice confirmed via his comm badge. "Crusher
out."

C cnvinced that Leyoro's fate now rested in the able hands of the
ship's medical officer, Riker leaned forward in the captain's chair
and turned his attention to other pressing matters. A brilliant
violet glow emanated from the forward viewscreen, catching his eye.
Overloaded by the immeasurable radiance of the galactic barrier,
the screen had initially gone dead upon their entry into the
mysterious wall of energy. Now the screen flared back to life, but
only to show a brighter form of blankness, filled from top to
bottom by an undifferentiated display of pure luminosity. The glare
from the screen pierced his eyes. "Someone dim the main viewer," he
instructed gruffly.



"Affirmative, Commander," Data responded. Seated at Ops, the gold-
skinned android manipulated the controls at his station. Scorch
marks along the console's polished metal casing testified to the
rigors of their recent battle against the Calamarain, as did
numerous other scars all around the bridge. A fragment of torn
polyduranide sheeting drifted past Riker's face, free from the
downward pull of gravity, and he batted it away with a wave of his
hand. On the screen, the phosphorescent effulgence of the galactic
barrier faded to a more subdued but equally uninformative gleam.
"Is that acceptable, Commander?" Data inquired calmly.



"That will do, Mr. Data," Riker said. The sooner they put the
barrier behind them, the better. He tapped his comm badge again.
"Riker to La Forge. What's our warp status?"



Geordi's voice answered him from Engineering, sounding more than a
little harried. "We've patched up the plasma-injection system, but
the warp-field coils in the starboard nacelle still need a lot of
work. We're talking another hour at least."



"Understood," Riker acknowledged. There was no need to urge La
Forge to hurry; the engineering chief knew full well how shaky
their shields were compared with the awesome power of the barrier.
The devil of it as, Riker thought, we don't even know why the
Calamarain attacked us in the first place, even though it obviously
had something to do with the barrier. Were the gaseous entities
still waiting for the Enterprise outside the wall? Riker didn't
want to find out until he knew the ship could make a quick escape
at warp



. With any luck, the Calamarain will have given ;Ls up for dead the
moment we flew into the barrier.



-I certainly hope you're not planning to sit here forever," said a
voice to his left, belonging to a tall, auburn-haired woman who had
usurped Deanna's seat in the command area. Her tone could be
described as patronizing at best, contemptuous at worst.



impressive and mystifying as our surroundings must appear to
creatures of your ilk, I'm afraid I grew BL-customed to such
spectacles several millennia ago." She raised an impeccably
manicured hand to her mouth in an only partially successful attempt
to stifle a yawn. "Can't you do something just to liven things up a
bit?"



The woman in question, balancing a sleepy toddler upon her knee,
was reportedly Q's wife and the mother of his child, two
propositions that frankly

boggled Riker's mind whenever he cared to think of them, which
definitely wasn't now. "If we're not sufficiently entertaining for
you, you're more than welcome to leave," he informed her. Ever
since she had refused to use her Q-like omnipotence to rescue the
Enterprise from its current predicament, let alone enlighten him as
to what Q had done with Captain Picard, he had resolved not to let
either her or her child distract him from his duty.



"Don't be ridiculous," she said haughtily. The pips on the collar
of her fake Starfleet uniform identified her (inaccurately) as a
five-star admiral. Typical, Riker thought; from what he had seen so
far, the female Q's ego was easily a match for her husband's. "I
told you before, I intend to find out what precisely my esteemed
spouse and partner finds so intriguing about this primitive vessel,
no matter how excruciatingly tedious that task proves to be.
Besides," she added, smiling indulgently at her small son, clad in
equally counterfeit Starfleet attire, "little q enjoys your
aboriginal antics."



"Ant-ticks!" q burbled happily. He waved a pudgy little hand, and a
parade of tiny insects suddenly appeared on the floor of the
command area, marching single file past the elevated captain's
chair and across the top of Riker's gravity boots. Despite his
determination to ignore Q's visiting relations as much as possible,
the first officer had to suppress a shudder at this reminder of the
seemingly harmless infant's abilities. Such amazing power in the
hands of a child was enough to send a chill down a Vulcan's spine.
Like the original Q isn't immature enough, he thought.



Naturally, q's mother was charmed by her offspring's naive
misunderstanding. "Oh, isn't that adorable?" she said. Propelled by
the motion of their miniature limbs, the insects began to lift off
from the floor adding to the ash and debris in the air.
Fortunately, the female Q scooped up the floating bugs with a net
she materialized from nowhere, then consigned both the net and its
chittering contents to oblivion. -I'm sorry, dearest," she
explained to the child, patting him on the head, "but our present
surround,^s are barbaric enough without any additional
infesations."



Baby q objected strenuously to the sudden disappearance of his
playthings. He scrunched up his face and let out an earsplitting
squall while simultaneously kicking his little legs. His tantrum
shook the entire bridge, which lurched from side to side, nearly
throwing Riker out of his chair. Behind him, he heard Ensign Sondra
Berglund, who had replaced Leyoro at tactical, stumble awkwardly in
her heavy magnetic boots. "That's enough," he barked at the female
Q. 'He's your child. Do something about him."



To his surprise, the woman actually looked abashed, as if she
feared the child's behavior reflected poorly on her parenting
skills. "Now, now," she cooed to q in a soothing tone, "you can
play with your funny arthropods another time." Accompanied by a
brief flash of white light, an enticing jumja treat

appeared in q's balled-up fist. Not surprisingly, the delectable
glop-on-a stick successfully distracted q, who abandoned his uproar
in favor of sucking energetically on the sugary confection.
"There," his mother said approvingly. "Isn't that better?"



Although the candy calmed the child, it also made something of a
mess. Riker already spotted sticky handprints all over Troi's
customary seat. Deanna herself was currently in sickbay, under the
care of Dr. Crusher. He allowed himself a moment of concern
regarding Deanna's safety, praying that the doctor's efforts had
protected Deanna, with her empathic sensitivity, from the barrier.
Be well, imzadi, he thought.



Deanna's Betazoid gifts rendered her unusually susceptible to the
concentrated psionic energy surrounding the ship, as were their
civilian passengers: Professor Lem Faal of Betazed, and his two
children. As full telepaths, the Faal family were probably more at
risk than anyone else aboard the Enterprise. For that reason, he
had ordered all three Betazoids, along with Deanna, to sickbay
before they even entered the barrier. He'd hoped that precaution
would be enough to keep their guests safe, but, insanely, Faal had
caused a disturbance in sickbay, attacking Deanna and escaping with
his son. Even now, security was searching for the missing patients.



I knew Faal was upset about his experiment being called off due to
the unexpected attack of the Calamarain, but I never expected him
to resort to violence. Thank heavens, Deanna wasn't seriously
harmed, Riker thought, or I'd be tempted to beam him to the
Calamarain myself.



At tactical, Ensign Berglund had regained her footing. "Shield
strength is fluctuating, Commander," she reported, "by variances of
twenty percent and more." Her eyes never left the display panel.
"I'm doing my best to stabilize the deflectors, but it's not
working."



Riker glanced quickly at Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, now
positioned at the secondary aft science station. It had been
Barclay's idea to divert telekinetic energy from the barrier to the
ship's shields by way of the organic bio-neural gel packs in the
Enterprise's computer system, a hastily improvised tactic that had
proven successful . . . so far.



"The gel packs are still absorbing energy from the barrier,"
Barclay assured Riker, gulping nervously, "but it's hard to
quantify. I had to reroute the monitoring program to science two
after the engineering station exploded." He cast a wary look at the
charred remains of the main engineering console, only a few
stations away. "The gel packs were never intended to serve as
batteries for psychic energy, so there are no established
parameters to judge their efficiency."



"This is correct, Commander," Data confirmed. He had carefully
evaluated Barclay's preliminary findings earlier, as had Geordi La
Forge. "Prolonged exposure to the barrier is causing a significant
percentage of bio-neural circuitry to incinerate. At present,
energy absorption exceeds extinction by a rate of approximately
forty-seven-pointthree-four percent, averaged over the duration of
our stay in the barrier, but at any given moment the quantity of
energy available to the deflector array can vary dramatically, just
as Ensign Berglund reports."



Riker nodded. "Let me know the instant the scale tips the other
way. Ensign Clarze," he instructed the young Deltan crewman at the
conn, "set a course that takes us straight out of the barrier in
the shortest possible time. When we go, I want to leave here in a
hurry-"



"Yes, sir," Clarze said. Riker had been impressed by the way the
inexperienced ensign had kept his cool during this crisis, coping
with both the hostile activities of the Calamarain as well as the
always unsettling caprices of Q and his kin. He resolved to make a
note of this the next time he and Deanna completed their personnel
evaluation reports, assuming any of them came out of this alive.
Hegazed at the lambent glow of the main viewer. Somewhere beyond
that incandescent haze, the Milky Way waited for them, as did,
perhaps, an angry and homicidal mass of sentient plasma.



Where are the Calamarain? Riker brooded. And, just as importantly,
where is Captain Picard?

Chapter Two
Six hundred thousand years ago:
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

The booming voice came without warning, reverberating through
space-time and startling five celestial figures, in addition to two
more who looked on anonymously from a slightly different phase of
reality. Jean-Luc Picard, late of the Starship Enterprise, stood
amid the starry vastness of space, accompanied by Q, his self-
appointed guide on this forced excursion through galactic
prehistory, and watched, as through a one-way mirror, as Q's
younger self faced the consequences of his fateful alliance with
the malicious cosmic entity who called himself 0, as well as with
0's trio of malevolent cronies.



Like 0 and the others, Picard presently existed on a sublimely
magnified scale, such that stars and planets

were no more than ball-sized spheres of matter and burning gas in
comparison. His gaze encompassed parsecs of open space, and yet
that stern and unforgiving voice seemed even larger than himself.
Picard cast a speculative glance at Q, then lifted his eyes
heavenward. "The Q Continuum, I presume?"



"Just so," Q affirmed. Clad in the latest Startleet uniform, he
gestured toward his younger self, standing a few lightyears away.
More than a hint of melancholy tinged his ordinarily sarcastic
voice. "In truth, I wasn't too surprised, even then. I could hardly
expect the Continuum to overlook the small matter of a premature
supernova, not to mention the total destruction of a major
spacefaring civilization."



Still saddened by the tragedy, Picard looked back over his shoulder
at the lifeless void that was all that remained of the mighty Tkon
Empire, destroyed by 0 in a fit of pique after his underlings
failed to subvert its civilization. Where once a sophisticated and
admirable people, numbering in the trillions, had spread their
culture throughout their solar system and beyond, achieving heights
of technological wizardry exceeding those of the Federation, the
detonation of their sun, brought on abruptly by 0's supernatural
puissance, had extinguished nearly every trace of their existence,
leaving only a few scattered ruins on distant outposts to mark
their passing. Picard could still feel the relentless tug of the
black hole the Tkon's sun had become. Invisible to his naked eye,
even in this transfigured state, the dense gravitational vortex
pulled on him like an undertow, so that Picard found



himself leaning forward to counter its attractive force. What was
done to the Tkon he mused, was a crime of interplanetary
proportions.



Now, it seemed, as detective Dixon Hill might put it, the time had
come to face the music ....



"I'm s-sorry," the younger Q stammered, staring up at the source of
the bodiless voice. His fine attire, which had resembled that of an
eighteenth-century European dandy, several hundred millennia ahead
of its time, transformed at once into a coarse and uncomfortable
sackcloth robe. "I never meant for this to happen."



In fact, Picard recalled, the young Q had played little part in the
annihilation of the Tkon, had even attempted to stop 0 once he
realized what the other was up to, but to no avail. At worst, he
had been only an unwilling accessory to genocide, not that this
seemed to have spared Q's conscience much. After all, if not for
Q's recklessness and gullibility, 0 and his unholy associates would
have never gained entry to this reality in the first place. Q had
promised to take responsibility for 0 when he rescued the
mysterious wayfarer from some extradimensional wasteland. 0 in turn
had welcomed three lesser entities into Q's reality, making Q
responsible by extension for the depredations of these sinister
beings, who now faced judgment beside Q and their ruthless sponsor.
Picard wondered how much the other Q would hold the young Q to his
original promise.



"WHAT HAS BEEN DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE."

Young Q flinched beneath every syllable, just as his older
counterpart winced in sympathy. The mature Q was clearly troubled
by this peek at his ignominious youth, but made no effort to
intervene in what transpired. Even the Q, Picard observed with a
certain relief, drew the line when it came to tampering with the
past; not even the gods could erase yesterday, no matter how much
they might want to: Q obviously survived this occasion, he
inferred, or else he would have never been able to torment me in
the future. He shook his head. Lucky me.

"It all started out as a game," young Q tried to explain, pleading
for understanding with outstretched hands, "a simple test of their
resourcefulness . . . ."

"That's enough, boy," 0 interrupted harshly. Unlike Q, he saw no
need to discard his anachronistic finery. His stylish velvet suit,
olive green in hue, looked even more elegant and ostentatious next
to Q's penitent gray robe. The buckles on his polished black shoes
shone like silver, while one ruffled sleeve, Picard noted, was
scorched from when he had thrust his merciless hand into the heart
of the Tkon's murdered sun. "We've no need to justify ourselves to
their sort."

"But it's the Continuum," Q pointed out, while his older self
mouthed the very same words. This incident was obviously imprinted
deeply in the later Q's memory. "They've come for us. They know
what we've done."

"Stiffen your spine, I say, and shut your mouth." 0 limped across
the vacuum and rested a meaty hand upon Q's shoulder. His three
henchmen, whom Q



knew as Gorgan, (*), and The One, clustered behind him, letting
their leader face the judgment of the Continuum. "We're all in this
together, Q. There's no backing out now."

"YOU," the stentorian voice targeted 0, sounding not unlike
Picard's own resonant timbre. "YOU AND YOUR FAMILIARS DO NOT BELONG
HERE. YOU MUST BE CAST OUT FOR ALL TIME."

"I've heard that before," 0 said with a chuckle, then glared at the
sky with icy blue eyes. He placed his hands on his hips and thrust
out his wide chin. His raspy voice held not a note of regret or
repentance. "How dare you judge any of us, you pontificating pests?
What do you know of the noble art of testing developing species,
forcing them to prove their potential and worthiness to survive? Of
the guile and glory of pushing lesser life-forms to their ultimate
limits and beyond? What have you ever done that can match what we
have accomplished, you cautious Continuum? We're better than the
lot of you!"

"0!" young Q whispered frantically to his former role model and
mentor. Once 0's insolent disregard for the authority of the
Continuum had thrilled and delighted the callow superbeing, but
that was before 0 had gotten him into real trouble. Before Tkon.
Picard could only imagine how tempted the elder Q must have been to
warn his younger self of impending events.

"Don't hide behind these sonorous sound effects,"

0 challenged the bodiless voice. "Face us in person, preternatural
deity to preternatural deity, if you've got the guts and gumption."

"YOU ARE NOT WORTHY TO LOOK UPON THE Q. YOU SHALL BE BANISHED FROM
THIS REALM."

"Do your worst," 0 dared the Continuum. Taking a deep breath, he
seemed to call upon his full strength, just as he had when he froze
the Coulalakritous into a solid mass. A flickering aura formed
around his humanoid guise, along with a vague impression of
another, less substantial form superimposed upon his
anthropomorphic persona.

Once before, another half a million years in the past, Picard had
beheld this shadowy other aspect of 0. As then, the images were
indistinct and almost subliminal in nature, and all the more
ominous for their tantalizing and suggestive elusiveness. Try
though he did to discern the actual shape of 0's alter ego, Picard
caught only transitory glimpses of whipping tendrils that extended
beyond the boundaries of 0's human form like the unfurled wings of
some alien raptor. That which is only half-seen is all the more
troubling to the imagination, he reflected; although Picard had
often conversed comfortably with alien beings who varied
dramatically from the humanoid model, what he spied of 0's other
form sent a chill through his body. Or maybe it is just the
implication of deliberate deception that is so unnerving. What
other secrets might 0 be hiding?

Whatever his shape or origins, 0 remained a force

to be reckoned with. Even separated from the scene by one degree of
existence, Picard felt the power radiating from 0, stinging his
exposed face and hands like a freezing wind. "Stand fast," he
called out to Q and the others, his gravelly voice rising to a
thunderous roar. "These censorious charlatans don't know whom
they're dealing with! If we stick together, we can withstand any
foe."

But the cumulative force of the Continuum struck like disruptor
fire from a Romulan warbird, dispersing 0's ectoplasmic tentacles
and sending him staggering backward into Gorgan and The One.
Gorgan's voluminous robes and flowing white locks, suffused as ever
by a faint greenish aura, flapped like hung laundry in a hurricane
while The One's gleaming metal armor protected him only slightly
better. His stern and bearded visage blinked in the face of the
attack, the flesh of his face pulled tightly against the skull
beneath. Hovering above their heads, the glowing crimson sphere
that was (*) was stretched into a faint, translucent oval by the
concussive force directed against them. "Do your worst!" 0
bellowed, ribbons of smoke rising from his seared garments. "I'll
not surrender, never again!" Pressing forward, dragging his lame
left leg behind him, he clenched his fasts and hurled blasts of
pyrotechnic energy at his unseen foes. Blazing fireballs arced like
meteors across the heavens, exploding into scarlet bursts of light
and heat so bright that Picard was forced to look away.

"Here," the Q beside him said, thrusting a tinted

eyepiece, similar in style to Geordi La Forge's old VISOR, into
Picard's open hand. "I wouldn't want you to miss anything."

Picard took the lenses without comment. Not for the first time, he
wondered what Q's purpose was in showing all this to him. What have
these fantastically ancient events to do with my own life and
times?

If 0's fiery assault had any effect on the Continuum, Picard saw no
sign of it. 0 was powerful, no doubt, but he was only one where the
Continuum represented the collective might of who knew how many. Of
his lackeys, only The One rose to his defense. "Bow not to false
gods!" He declared, flinging one thunderbolt after another after
0's fireballs. His austere, patriarchal features could've been
carved from the hardest Cardassian granite; even His long,
forbidding beard was stiff and unyielding. "Feel the sting of My
Righteous Fury."

Despite the aid of The One, 0 began to lose ground. Battered by the
irresistible force of the Continuum, the murderer of the Tkon
Empire was forced to retreat once more, spewing a trail of blinding
conflagrations behind him. Young Q felt the wrath of the Continuum
as well. He tumbled head over heels, nearly rolling away from 0 and
the others before 0 reached out and grabbed on to Q's forearm,
digging his fingers into Q's metaphysical flesh. "I'll never yield,
never I say," the stranger gasped, squinting his eyes against the
impact of the Continuum's offensive, "but even the most courageous
combatant knows



when to retreat. Time to flee to fight again, Q. Get us away from
here!"

"What?" The beleaguered young godling looked uncertain. Wringing
his hands nervously, he looked back and forth between 0 and the
direction from which the Q's attack emerged. Can he see his fellow
Q? Picard wondered. Does he know too well how angry they must be?
The Continuum had punished Q before, he recalled, for follies far
less consequential than this. "I don't know what to do," the youth
said. "I'm not sure."

"Don't run, you fool," the later Q whispered to his young self,
who, alas, could not hear the voice of experience speaking. "You're
only making it worse."

"Run!" 0 urged him. He tossed away his stylish brown wig, exposing
his own reddish hair, tied in the back. His black silk cravat had
come undone, dangling loosely around his neck. "We have to flee, Q,
now. Or are you prepared to take the blame for what happened to the
late, lamented Tkon Empire?" His crippled leg dragged behind him,
reminding Picard that 0 was unable to travel faster than light
without Q's assistance. "Are you ready to pay for my crimes?"

"But it wasn't my fault," Q whimpered. His face was contorted by
fear and distress. Tears leaked from his eyes. "Not all of it, not
really."

"Are you so sure of that?" 0 asked, showing him no mercy. "Are you
certain that the high-and-mighty Q Continuum will see things the
same way? From what I've seen so far, they're not the forgiving
type." A

devilish grin stretched across his broad, ruddy face. "They'll deal
with you most harshly of all, I'll wager."



"YOU CANNOT OVERCOME US," the voice of the Continuum intoned.
"SUBMIT TO BANISHMENT OR RISK DESTRUCTION."



"Don't do it," the older Q said, shaking his head mournfully.



"Now's the time," 0 spat through clenched teeth. "I can't hold them
off any longer."



He's going to panic, Picard realized, only a heartbeat before the
young Q let out an inarticulate howl and swept he, 0, and the rest
of their infamous party away in a flash of white light. Picard
found himself alone in deep space except for the continuing
presence of the Q he was accustomed to. The rest of the Continuum
remained invisible to his senses.



"You don't need to say anything, Picard," his companion said. "I
know when I've made an ass of myself."



"Got a fine young maid,

Her dowry's paid,
My fortunes made,
My plans are laid,
Ill sit awhile in shade. .

Young Q shook his head in disbelief. 0 sounded altogether too
pleased with himself for someone who had called down the judgment
of the Continuum upon them all. How could he sing at a time like
this?



I'm a fugitive, he realized, and an immortal one. My life is over
and it won't ever end.



Dejected, he sat upon the ground, his knees drawn up beneath his
chin. The ground itself consisted of solid dilithium, its
crystalline surface worn smooth by the ceaseless passage of the
dense metallic liquid that enveloped Q and his partners in crime.
The metallic sea, which covered the entire surface of the polished,
planetsized mass of dilithium, extended for hundreds of thousands
of kilometers overhead before eventually segueing into an even
vaster expanse of swirling helium and hydrogen vapors blown by
hurricane-force winds exceeding five hundred kilometers an hour.
The buried core of this gas giant, upon which they now resided,
located in what would someday be called the Detrian system, had
been one of his favorite hiding places when he was a child; it was
like being on the yolk of an enormous eye, shielded from prying
eyes by several layers of liquid and gaseous shell. He had told no
one about it, not even 0, but never had he dreamed that he would
someday use it to hide out from justice. This isn't the way it was
supposed to happen, he grieved.



"Maybe we should turn ourselves in," he suggested, looking up from
the polished surface of the core. He could no longer bear to stare
at his own guilty reflection. "Perhaps the Continuum will show
mercy if we surrender freely."



0 did not respond to his suggestion, but instead kept on skating
and singing, missing only a beat or two in the melody, as the
lyrics took a peculiar turn:

"Woe to those who are afraid,



I've never looked kindly upon being betrayed . . . . "



Why is he looking at me? Q thought nervously. 0 was just singing,
that's all. "You don't know the Continuum like I do," he insisted.
"They can actually be quite reasonable on occasion. I'm sure if we
explain ourselves, show them how matters simply got out of hand, we
could expect some leniency."



"I venture I'd be quite dismayed . . . . "



Several meters away, skating blithely over the slick crystal plane,
0 laughed out loud at the end of his song. He retied his unfurled
cravat as he coasted over the solid dilithium. "You've a lot to
learn about being a rebel, my naive young friend. Rule Number One:
Never surrender. Isn't that right, fellows?"



The other entities clustered nearby. The One had formed Himself an
impressive-looking dilithium throne in which He sat rather too
regally, Q thought, for One who had so recently been forced to flee
for His liberty. Gorgan looked significantly more agitated, pacing
back and forth behind The One's throne, the hem of his amethyst
robe brushing the ground. His immaterial form shimmered, looking
slightly less solid than a hologram. Silent as ever, (*) hovered in
the flowing currents of the metal sea, casting a bloodred radiance
over the entire scene.



"Isn't that right?" 0 repeated loudly, a dangerous edge in his
voice. Bubbles streamed from his lips,



ascending toward the gaseous atmosphere far, far above.



"Oh yes, certainly," Gorgan piped up unctuously. As always, his
voice had a peculiarly unnatural echo, as if it was generated
artificially by a being whose lips and lungs were merely simulcra
of the real things. "No surrender at all," he insisted.



The One sat immobile upon His throne, His upper limbs resting upon
sculpted armrests. His golden plate armor, medieval in style,
showed no sign of rust or corrosion, despite the liquid nature of
this undersea hiding place. "The final battle is not yet fought. My
Might will endure unto the last."



"That's more like it," 0 said gruffly, sliding toward fl. "An
occasional reversal is to be expected when you're living boldly. I
warned you there'd be danger, Q. That's the price you pay for
taking chances."



They were not entirely alone. Eyeless, segmented, cylindrical life-
forms, evolved to survive the incredible pressure of the gas
giant's lower depths, swam through the molten dilithium,
instinctively giving 0 and the others a wide berth. They're smarter
than I was, Q thought, envying the primitive creatures. "Is that
what we're doing?" he asked. "Living boldly? Being rebels?" He
stared glumly at the horizon, where the solid dilithium met the
aqueous sky, refusing to look at 0. "So why do I feel like some
wretched criminal on the run?"



0 glared down at him. "All right then, let's have this out here and
now. What are you so morose about? The Tkon? Ephemeral creatures
whom the universe

will never miss. A million years from now? They'll be completely
forgotten, while we go on forever. They should be thankful they
attracted our attention. At least we'll remember the fine sport
they provided. That's a better legacy than most such mortals can
expect."



"Sport?" Q jumped to his feet, practically shouting in 0's face.
Blind eels, their sinuous bodies covered by iridescent scales, swam
away in alarm. "They didn't stand a chance. It wasn't fair."



"What does fair have to do with it?" 0 held his ground. "Of course
the outcome is always the same. They're just animals after all.
Crude, corporeal creations fit only to provide us with a bit of
diversion. It's the style with which such savage species are
dispatched that matters, Q. You have to learn to appreciate the
elegance of extinction, the deft and delicate dance of
destruction."



"You blew up their sun! You call that delicate?" The angry words
came gushing out of him in a flood of bubbles. He couldn't have
held the accusations back if he wanted to. "I saw you, 0. I was
there. You weren't concerned with style. You were just angry at the
Tkon because they beat Gorgan and the others at their own morbid
little games. They beat you-and you killed them for it."



"They were creatures!" 0 spat angrily. "Why can't you understand
that? Creatures like that can't beat beings like us. It's
impossible by definition." He sneered scornfully at Q. "Don't waste
my time crying over the poor, unfortunate Tkon. I know what your



real problem is. You're afraid. For the first time in your puerile,
immature existence, you've stepped outside the boundaries set by
that hidebound Continuum of yours, and now you want to go scurrying
back in search of forgiveness." He made a clucking sound with his
tongue. "I thought you were braver than that, but maybe you're just
another timid little Q after all."



"That's not true," Q shot back, but with less certainty than with
which he had spoken for the Tkon.



"Isn't it?" 0 asked. "Where's the Q who pulled me through the
Guardian of Forever, and the devil with the consequences? I thought
you wanted to be different from your conservative brethren. I
thought you wanted to make your mark on the multiverse, maybe even
give the rest of the Continuum a much-needed jolt or two. I thought
you wanted adventure and excitement and glory."



"I did. I do. I . . . I . . ." He didn't know what he wanted
anymore.



"That's not what it looks like to me. One little scolding from the
other Q and suddenly all your revolutionary zeal and ambition
collapses like a chronal wave in a transtemporal field." Without
warning, 0 shoved Q hard enough to knock the younger entity off his
feet. Q landed with a bump onto the ground, his flailing limbs
churning up the viscous mid surrounding him, creating short-lived
eddies in the flowing dilithium. "See," his assailant taunted, "a
little pressure and you fall right over. You can't even stand up
for your own convictions."

Is that true? Q wondered, sprawled upon the glossy surface of the
core. Am I merely afraid of getting caught? He was afraid of what
the Continuum might do certainly, and with good reason, but was
that all he felt at this moment? Maybe 0 was right and wrong at the
same time, at least where Q was concerned. This is absurd, he
thought angrily, too disgusted by himself and this entire situation
to even bother climbing to his feet again. I'm a Q. I, know all
there is to know. So how come I can't even figure myself out?



"What I didn't realize, in the greenness of my youth," the later Q
said from a few meters (and one plane of reality) away, "was that I
had far more options than simply 0 or the Continuum. There were an
infinite number of ways I could amuse myself, and scandalize my
fellow Q, without throwing my lot in with 0 and his motley band." A
deepdwelling eel, taking a long detour around the five fugitives,
passed through the older Q's torso as though he wasn't there. "As
you must have noticed, mon capitaine, I've hardly required
assistance to make your humdrum life more interesting."



Picard decided to let that remark pass. He'd exchanged enough
repartee with Q to last him a lifetime. He was rather more
interested in finding out what happened next to the younger version
of Q, who seemed to be digging himself a deeper and deeper hole
with each new development. Although there was little love lost
between himself and the usual Q, Picard could not help sympathizing
with the star



crossed youth at 0's feet. He knew too well how easily an
inexperienced, impetuous novice could get in over his head, wincing
inwardly as he recalled that long ago incident at the Academy when
his headstrong folly had nearly cost him his Starfleet career
before it had truly begun. Too bad there's no Boothby to counsel
young Q at this crucial crossroads, he reflected, only 0 and his
unsavory compatriots.



"You're looking unusually pensive, Jean-Luc, even for you." Q
plucked a couple of unsuspecting eels from the adjacent reality and
began tying them into knots, much like a traditional children's
performer turning balloons into animals. An instant later, he
presented Picard with a tangle of alien organisms twisted into a
miniature replica of the Enterprise. "Hit a nerve, have we?"



Picard scowled, unhappy to be reminded that his ship was facing
danger without him. The Calamarain had only just come within range
of Data's sensors when Q snatched him away from the bridge.
Although he had complete confidence in Will Riker to command the
Enterprise in his absence, he found it deeply disturbing not to
know how his ship was faring several hundred thousand years from
now. "Are you quite sure that you are the more mature Q?" he said
acidly as he took the quivering memento from his guide. As gently
as possible, Picard tried to extricate the abused eels from their
forced contortions. It was like trying to untangle a plate of
writhing gagh.



"Touche, Jean-Luc," Q said, looking pleased to have provoked a
response from Picard, "but do not

confuse adult whimsy and irreverence with juvenile misbehavior." He
gestured toward his younger incarnation, awash in difficulties and
confusion. "I would never get into such an embarrassing fix."



"Except you did," Picard pointed out. Successfully liberating the
knotted eels from each other, he released them to swim away as
quickly as their long, segmented bodies could carry them. He
wondered if they would ever find their way to back to their own
phase of existence. "That troubled boy is you."



"Please!" Q rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Is an oak tree the
same as an acorn? Is a silicon nodule no different than a Mother
Horta? He is then. I am now." He shrugged his shoulders. "Granted,
at the moment now is then, but that's another matter altogether."



Picard endured a familiar frustration. Why do I even try conversing
with him? He contemplated the younger Q once more. If anything, Q
had gotten even more vexing and impossible to deal with over the
intervening aeons.



Intent upon their own ongoing drama, neither young Q, nor the bad
company into which he had fallen, had noticed the abrupt
disappearance of two eels from the murky ocean enclosing the
planet's solid core. Instead 0 focused all his formidable
personality upon the fallen form of Q. "Well?" he demanded. "What's
it going to be? Are you going sit there, stewing in childish self-
pity and remorse, or are you ready to take on the Continuum and
anyone else who tries to stop you from fulfilling your true
potential?



Think carefully, Q. Your destiny depends on what you do next."



Before the young entity could answer, an intense white flare
illuminated the metal sea, overpowering ( * )'s incarnadine glow.
For an instant, the nocturnal depths of the gas giant were suffused
with the brightness of a sunny afternoon. "It's the Continuum!" Q
shouted, his voice torn between alarm and relief. "They've found
us!"

Chapter -Three



THE READINGS ON HER Medical, TRICORDER shocked Dr. Beverly Crusher.
As she scanned Lieutenant Leyoro's brain with the handheld
peripheral sensor, the display screen on the tricorder reported
alarming levels of bioneural energy. The stricken security
officer's cerebral cortex was being drowned in neurotransmitters,
accelerating her synaptic activity at a dangerous rate. She can't
survive much more of this, Crusher realized.



Leyoro's unconscious body had been beamed directly onto the primary
biobed from the bridge. A surgical support frame was clamped over
her torso to provide cardiovascular support and even emergency
defibrillation if necessary. Crusher kept a close eye on her
patient's vital signs and basic metabolic functions, as reported on
the monitor mounted above the



bed. To her distress, the heightened electrical activity within
Leyoro's brain was causing inflammation and spasms all along her
artificially augmented nervous system. Leyoro's limbs twitched
uncontrollably until Crusher programmed the SSF to provide a steady
intravenous infusion of benzocyatzine to inhibit the muscular
contractions. Thankfully, the. equipment did not require gravity to
function effectively. The muscular relaxant merely took care of one
symptom, though; treating the root cause of her condition was going
to be a lot trickier.



I'm dealing with too many unknowns here, Crusher thought,
frustrated. There was little reliable documentation on the
telepathic shock sometimes induced by the galactic barrier,
primarily because all attempts to cross the barrier had been
explicitly banned for close to a century because of that very
danger. Furthermore, there was too much she didn't know about the
specific neurological modifications the Angosian military
scientists had performed on Leyoro during the Tarsian War. Leyoro's
medical records were on file, as were the examinations Crusher had
performed years ago on Roga Danar, another victim of Angosian
biochemical tampering, but that hardly prepared her to treat this
unexpected interaction between the barrier's psychic energies and
Leyoro's heightened neurology. This was a one-of-a-kind medical
emergency.



Fortunately, sickbay had calmed some now that the battle with the
Calamarain was over for the time being. Most of the casualties from
that conflict had been treated and discharged already, except for a
few

of the more serious cases which were currently under the watchful
care of the EMH. Crusher shook her head in disbelief; she never
thought she'd be grateful for having that supercilious hologram
around. Maybe he had his uses after all, even if his bedside manner
still left a lot to be desired. Too bad; though, that Selar had
transferred to the Excalibur. Vulcans were supposed to be immune to
the barrier's effects.



She glanced over quickly at the adjacent biobed, where Deanna Troi
rested in an artificially induced coma, a set of cortical
stimulators blinking upon the Betazoid officer's forehead. Crusher
had placed Troi in a coma herself, lowering her brain activity, in
hopes of protecting the empathic counselor from the same telepathic
overload that was killing Leyoro. So far, judging from the display
above Troi's biobed, it seemed to be working; Deanna's synaptic
levels were well within the acceptable range for an adult Betazoid
of her age and telepathic ability, even though her metabolism was
only gradually recovering from the overdose of polyadrenaline she
;had received from Lem Faal's hypospray.



I'm still shocked by what he did, she thought, remembering the
scientist's startling attack on Deanna. I knew he was agitated
about his experiment, not to mention his terminal disease, but I
never thought he'd go so far as to assault a crew member rather
than abandon his project. She had not seen Faal since he fled the
sickbay after injecting Troi with the polyadrenaline, nor did she
know what had happened to



Faal's young son, Milo, who had taken off after his father. As
Betazoids and full telepaths, both Faal and the boy were also in
severe danger from the psychic effects of the barrier. She had sent
a security officer in search of them, and informed the bridge of
the disturbance, but so far security had not returned either Lem
Faal or Milo. For all I know, they could be worse of than Leyoro
right now.



The security chiefs neurotransmitters continued to rise. An
agonized moan escaped her lips. Crusher knew .she had to try
something--anything-before Leyoro suffered permanent brain damage
or worse.. It was too late to use a cortical stimulator to induce a
coma the way she had with Deanna; Leyoro's condition had to be
stabilized before Crusher could even attempt to shut her brain down
in that fashion. Tapping on the touch-sensitive controls of the
surgical clamshell, she added four hundred milligrams of
triclenidil to the intravenous infusion. It was a dangerous ploy;
the triclenidil would enhance Leyoro's natural defenses, but might
also enhance the psionic sensitivity that had rendered her
vulnerable in the first place. She wished she could risk an
analgesic as well, maybe hyrocortilene or metacetamine. The poor
woman sounded like she was in agony, but Crusher couldn't take the
chance that further medication might produce a dangerous
counterreaction to the chemicals she had already administered to
Leyoro.



Thank goodness the little girl is safe at least. Alyssa



Ogawa was watching over Lem Faal's youngest child,

Kinya, over in the emergency pediatric unit, where the Betazoid
child slept in a coma similar to Deanna's. Crusher knew the nurse
would call her instantly if Kinya showed any symptoms at all of
neurological distress.



Crusher's gripped the steel supports of the SSF as she watched for
the slightest improvement in Leyoro's brain chemistry. Come on,
Baeta, she silently urged her patient. Help me here. Overhead the
sensor cluster hummed quietly as it scanned Leyoro with a full
array of diagnostic tools. Crusher's heart leaped as she saw the
production of neurotransmitters within Leyoro's cerebral cortex
begin to level off. "Yes!" she whispered. The triclenidil was
working! Leyoro was a long ways from out of the woods yet, but at
least she- had a chance. Crusher cautiously administered another
hundred milligrams and crossed. her fingers.



The entrance to sickbay slid open and three more crew members
rushed in, carrying the unconscious bodies of Lem and Milo Faal.
She recognized Ensign Daniels, the security officer she sent in
search of the missing patients, along with Ensign Gomez from
Engineering and Lieutenant Sumi Lee from Science. "Dr. Crusher,
over here," the EMH called out. The holographic MD was already
helping Ensign Daniels get Lem Faal's limp body onto the nearest
empty biobed. For once, Crusher was thankful that the gravity was
out; it had to make transporting the two bodies easier.



"Keep an eye on Lieutenant Leyoro at Bed One," she instructed the
EMH, racing toward the new arrivals. The heavy magnetic boots made
her feel slow and clumsy. "Let me know if her brain activity
increases by any factor."



"Understood," he said, without any of his usual sarcasm or
grousing. Apparently even a hologram knew when there was no time
for a bad attitude: He headed. straight for Leyoro, his image
flickering only for a second during a brief but worrisome power
fluctuation. The lack of gravity did not slow him at all.



"I found him by a turbolift, sprawled on the floor;" Ensign Daniels
informed Crusher as she checked Lem Faal's vital sips. He was still
alive; thank heavens, but unresponsive. He seemed to be whispering,
having a feverish conversation with himself, but she strained to
make out what he was saying.



"The wall . . . the wormhole . . . must bring down the wall . . .
."



To her slight surprise, his breathing sounded fine; the last time -
she had seen Faal he had been gasping for breath, his weakened
lungs succumbing to the wasting effects of Iverson's disease.



"The boy was with me," Ensign Gomez explained as Crusher shifted
her attention to the supine elevenyear-old form of Milo Faal, whom
Gomez and Lee had lowered onto the next biobed. "He had gotten lost
somehow, and I was escorting him lack to sickbay when he suddenly
clutched his head and collapsed."

The memory brought on a shudder. "It was very strange. There was
some sort of bizarre optical effect; maybe an X-ray discharge. For
just a second, he looked like a photonegative version of himself
then, in a flash, he looked normal again. I tried to wake him, but
he was out cold. Then Lieutenant Lee found us.



The science officer nodded. '-Lieutenant Commander Data had sent me
to investigate a pocket of concentrated psionic energy he had
detected from the bridge."



Crusher didn't like the sound of that. "Did you find the source of
that energy?"



"Yes." Lee waved a standard tricorder in the direction of both Lem
Faal and his son. "It's them."



"What do you mean' Crusher asked. Milo's vital signs were
encouraging, too. Neither of the Betazoids appeared to have been
affected as severely, or in precisely the same way, as Baeta
Leyoro.



Lee hesitated before answering, double-checking the display on her
tricorder. "I can't be sure. Ensign Breslin is still scanning the
corridors for any residual traces, but it seems like these two
people have each absorbed a portion of the barrier's energy."



Is that even possible? Crusher wondered And what sort of efect
could it have on them? This was different from what had happened to
Leyoro; that had been a severe neurological shock, potentially
fatal, but still subject to medical understanding and treatment.
But this . . . science couldn't even explain what the barri



er was, let alone how that mysterious energy could sustain itself
within an ordinary humanoid brain. She initiated - a full
diagnostic scan of both patients' brains, while placing Professor
Faal under restraint; just in case he awoke on his own. She didn't
want another violent episode like before.



The results of the scans were puzzling. The monitors above both
father and son reported accelerated brain activity, but without the
adverse side effects that had endangered Leyoro, It was as if their
respective cerebellums were rapidly evolving and adapting to
accommodate the greater demands being placed on them by the
explosion of synaptic activity. The very structures of their brains
were being reconfigured before her eyes. Even stranger, the sensors
recorded two distinct sets of brain waves coexisting within Lem
Faal's mind, as though one personality had been superimposed upon
another. Like during a Vulcan mind-meld, she thought, remembering a
similar dual pattern in a recent study from the Vulcan Science
Academy.



Some form of psychic possession? Crusher speculated. She'd seen
stranger things during her years aboard the Enterprise, and it
might explain a lot about the scientist's increasingly erratic
behavior. But who or what could be possessing Faal? The Calamarain
or something else entirely? There was always Q, of course, but
somehow this didn't feel like his style.



Taking a more hands-on approach to the examination, she gently
reached out and raised one of Lem

Faal's eyelids, wanting to check on his pupils. She let out a gasp,
startling the three other crew members, as she was met by an
unexpected sight. Faal's oncebrown eye now glowed with an eerie
white light that stared up her, suffused with what had to be the
energy of the galactic barrier itself.

"4h my God," she whispered.

THE BRIGHTNESS FADED and the fugitives as well as Picard and the
elder Q, were surrounded by four new individuals, clad in the
intimidating armor of Roman legionnaires. Picard recognized the
female Q, significantly younger than she had appeared upon the
Enterprise, not to mention a stern-looking humanoid who bore an
uncomfortable resemblance to himself. One of Q's little jokes,
Picard theorized, recalling that the true appearances of the Q had
been translated into images his human mind could comprehend. Should
1 be flattered or insulted that Q keeps casting me as the heavy
hand of authority? He suspected the latter.



The remaining new arrivals were unfamiliar to him. One was a pale-
skinned male, holding his crested

bronze helmet against his breastplate, who looked about the same
age as the young Q, with straight blond hair combed back away from
his brow. He appeared nervous, looking back and forth among his
fellow Q for support. The fourth newcomer, somewhat older than the
others, had sad eyes, accented by mournful pouches, and a
philosophic manner. "Good old Quinn," the original Q said beside
Picard. "May he rest in peace."



The Q quartet raised their arms at their sides and coruscating
beams of blue-white energy leaped from their fingertips, connecting
with the outstretched hands of their associates to form an
incandescent fence around 0 and the other malefactors, or, more
accurately, a living quincunx with the young Q at its center. The
brilliant beams crackled with unleashed power. Picard could not
help feeling trapped, even though he knew that the hunters were not
even aware of his presence.



The archaic armor donned by the Q only made them look more
formidable. The scintillation of their discharged energy reflected
off polished bronze helmets, cuirasses, and greaves. Crescent-
shaped plumes of thick horsehair crested the Corinthian-style
helmets that partially obscured their deceptively human features.
Short, doubleedged swords hung on their right hips, held on by a
leather belt or baldric. While realizing that the historical
costuming was largely an illusion created by Q, Picard had to admit
that the ancient armor seemed more appropriate to this pri



meval conflict than, say, the plum-colored Starfteet uniforms he
and Q now wore.



"You cannot hide from the Continuum," said the Q who could have
been the captain's twin. Picard recognized his double's voice as
that which had boomed from the heavens earlier. Apparently the
spokesman for the Continuum had deigned to make a personal
appearance after all. "Do not resist our judgment."



No, Picard thought, rethinking the matter. Not .a spokesman, but a
judge. A imperial Roman judge. A quaestor.



"Yes, Q," his future mate urged, resembling an Amazon in her
martial regalia, "give up this lunacy before it's too late. You've
gone too far this time."



"It's for the best, Q," said Quinn, more in sorrow than in anger.
"I know you meant well."



"That's right," the blond Q added, attempting a not terribly
convincing smile. Picard guessed he was a friend and contemporary
of Q's. "Hey, I misplaced the entire Deltived Asteroid Belt once,
but it all turned out okay in the end."



Unlike the rest of the tribunal, who seemed to have Q's best
interests at heart, the quaestor had no patience with the erring
youth and his dubious aquaintances. His Picardian expression was
deadly serious. "Q is our problem and will be dealt with
accordingly. The rest must be banished forthwith."



Penned in by the power of his peers, young Q rose to his feet. His
simulated Adam's apple bobbed

sheepishly as he opened his mouth to speak. What course will he
take now? Picard wondered. Would he surrender without a fight?

0 made the decision for him. "Never!'.' . he cried,
firing a blast of searing energy from his hands at the
immense dilithium crystal beneath them and trigger
ing a matter-antimatter explosion that flung them all,
through countless layers of liquid and vapor, out of
the gas giant's majestic atmosphere into the icy vacu
um of space. Picard felt himself being propelled at
incredible spas, like a quantum torpedo fresh from
its launcher tube. Agonizing g -forces yanked the flesh
of his face tightly against his skull as he achieved
escape velocity from the gravitational sway of the
Brobdingnagian planet. He was unable to halt or even
control his headlong flight through the Detrian sys
tem. Blast you, Q he cursed as he rocketed helplessly.
You could have warned me.

Finally, after several endless moments, some sort of metaphysical
friction, or perhaps the cushioning e& fed of numerous quantum
filaments, curbed his momentum and brought him to a stop somewhere
outside the. solar system he had just been forcibly expelled from.
To his annoyance, he found Q waiting for him, looking none the
worse for wear. "My, I had forgotten how exhilarating that was," he
observed. "Hope you enjoyed the ride, JeanLuc."



Picard gave Q a withering look. "Never mind me," he said darkly.
"What happened to 0 and the others?"



"Look behind you." Q shook his head glumly and



affected a pained expression. "I'm afraid it's turned into
something of a free-for-all."



The battle was fought on a cosmic scale. As Picard looked on from
what he prayed was a safe distance, colossal figures strode the
stars, hurling entire planets and suns at each other. Millennia
passed in what felt lice seconds as the war against 0 wreaked havoc
on what Starfleet would later name the Alpha Quadrant. Picard tried
to take it all in, but it was impossible to do more than glimpse
fragmentary snapshots of the unthinkable devastation:



The gleaming plate armor of The One, more appropriate to the Age of
Chivalry, clashes anachronistically with the Roman war gear of the
blond Q, who has reluctantly hidden his face behind his plumed
helmet. Determined to resist capture, He saps the energy of a
nearby star, turning it against His foe. On the third planet
orbiting that sun, the days grow ever colder, forcing an
unsuspecting people to cope with the incidental consequences of a
conflict beyond their understanding . . . .



The android Ruk stood upon a snow-covered hilltop on Exo III,
watching as massive drilling machines carved a cavern -into the.
face of a granite cliff: Many such caverns were being dug these
days, as his Creators sought to escape the freezing conditions upon
the surface by seeking shelter deep beneath the planet's crust. He
and his fellow androids would join

the Creators underground, serving the Creators -as they always had.
There would be many changes in the days to come, as both androids
and the Creators adapted to their new subterranean existence, but
Ruk was confident that he would continue to function effectively
regardless of any unexpected alterations in the parameters of his
existence. Had not the Creators programmed him to adapt and
survive?



An icy wind blew Sakes of frozen moisture against the angular
planes of his face. His dermal sensors recorded that the external
temperature was several units below the freezing point, but he did
not feel the cold as a Creator might. His massive body was immune
to pain or discomfort. His heavy feet sank deep into packed layers
of snow and permafrost that would never ever thaw.



No one knew; not even the finest minds among the creators, why the
sun had grown steadily colder year after year. None knew how to
reverse the process. All the Creators could do was burrow toward
the planet's core in search of the, warmth they needed to survive.
Ruk admired their resolute determination to outlive the fading sun.
The Creators were teaching him an important lesson.



Nothing was more important than survival.



(*) thrives on war, so war it incites, feeding on the chaos it
created to find the strength it needed to fend of the scholarly Q
with the sad eyes, whose metaphorical spears rain on (*) without
cease. On yet another world caught unbeknownst in the midst of the
celestial war, it



discovers a people whose mental gifts, and towering ambitions,
leave them ideally suited to its purposes . . . .



"But, Sargon, are you absolutely sure this is necessary?" Thalassa
asked. "Isn't there some other way?"



Sargon considered his wife's plaintive entreaty. It was indeed a
lot he was asking of her, of all of them, but they had no choice.
His eyes swept over the austere lines of the hastily constructed
vault. Row upon row of steel niches ran along the opposite,
stretching the entire length of the futuristic catacomb, each niche
holding a single translucent globe. All but two of the spheres
glowed from within, holding the psychic essences of valiant
comrades. One of the remaining globes awaited Thalassa.



"It is the only solution," he said solemnly. "According to my
calculations, the forces unleashed by the war will soon rip away
the entire atmosphere, rendering our world uninhabitable. Only by
storing our minds in these receptacles can we hope to preserve some
vestige of our population and culture."



"But to live without bodies of our own? And for low long?" She
stared in anguish at her own hands, memorizing the fragile
complexity of the flesh and bone she soon must sacrifice forever.
"It's horrible:"



Sargon nodded. "Perhaps it is price we must pay for cur terrible
arrogance." The coming cataclysm is no awe's fault but our own, he
thought. We dared to think of ourselves as gods and look what has
become of us.



"Speak for yourself, Sargon," a sardonic voice



quested. Henoch strolled toward the elderly scien

tist and his wife, smiling. The representative from the Northern
Coalition smiled more than any man Sargon had ever met; it was one
of the reasons he distrusted him. "I take no responsibility for the
precarious position we now find ourselves in. Perhaps you should
have said as much to your own generals, before they challenged our
claim to the borderlands."



Sargon frowned, resisting the temptation to strike out at the
foreigner with the power of his mind. "You are here as a gesture of
peace," he reminded Henoch, "in hopes of future harmony among our
people. Do not abuse our generosity by baiting me with your
selfserving propaganda."



Henoch shrugged. "I suppose it is rather too late to argue politics
at this point. If I did not think the war unwinnable by either
side, I would not have joined you here today." He scratched his
chin speculatively. "Funny, though, how quickly the conflict
escalated, almost as if powers beyond our ken were somehow pulling
our strings, setting us against each other."



You seek to blame anyone but yourself, Sargon thought, wondering
once more whether it was wise to include Henoch and a handful of
his followers among those whose consciousness would be stored in
the receptacles, against the far-off day when they might live
again;. He did not care for Henoch, whose affable charm barely
concealed a scheming nature, but he and his people were part of the
society Sargon had worked so hard to preserve. To exclude them from
this final chance for salvation would be an act of



selfishness and paranoia comparable to those that had doomed their
world: For better or for worse, he is one of us.



An explosion upon the surface, several miles overhead, shook the
vault despite its reinforced steel walls. The war was drawing
nearer and growing more intense. "It is time, my love;" he told his
wife.



"I am ready," she said bravely and approached one of the dormant
spheres; securely tucked away in its recess. For the last time,
save in memory, Sargon gazed upon the physical form of his lifelong
mate and partner, savoring the elegant -arch of her eyebrows; the
delicate tips of her pointed ears. Then she laid her palms upon the
curved shell of the receptacle and closed her eyes in
concentration. "Until we live again," she said.



A bluish glow flared within the sphere only an instant before a
bright red nimbus spread over her body. Sargon wanted to look away,
but could not, standing by passively as the scarlet energy consumed
every trace of Thalassa's corporeal remains, leaving not an atom
behind. Only when her body had been completely disintegrated, her
life force transferred to the interior of the globe, did he lower
his face into his hands and sob.



From a technical standpoint, it was not necessary to destroy the
body while transferring the mind, but practically there was no
better alternative, lest the underground vault become a charnel
house. Judging from the sound of the battle being waged above,,
soon

there would be no one left to dispose of the bodies of those whose
thoughts and memories now resided within the receptacles. Forgive
me, he thought to the glowing globe that held his wife's spirit.
Forgive us all.



"So you actually went through with it," Henoch observed, inspecting
Thalassa's receptacle before wandering over to the last empty
sphere visible within the catacomb. "I insisted upon being the last
to go, just in case there was trickery afoot, but seeing that you
were genuinely willing to sacrifice your own wife to this far-
fetched scheme, I suppose I might as well trust you one crucial
step further." He ran a finger over the empty globe, inspecting it
for dust. "So how long do you expect we will wait in this
underground mausoleum before some wayfaring space travelers drop by
to say hello?"



Sargon wished he knew. "Perhaps only a few hundred years. Perhaps
forever. The receptacles will preserve our essences for half a
million years, maybe longer. Time enough, I hope, for
interplanetary explorers to stumble onto the ruins of our
civilization, perhaps providing us with new bodies with which to
greet tomorrow." If only there had been time to construct android
bodies for their dispossessed souls, to provide them with mobility
after the turmoil on the surface died out, but the war had come
upon them too quickly. Indeed, it was a small miracle that he had
succeeded in preparing this vault and these few receptacles before
the inevitable catastrophe rendered organic life impossible on this
planet for all time to come. "It seems probable that other species
will



explore the stars, just as our own ancestors did. We can only pray
that our alien successors will possess the curiosity and the
compassion to free us from our long imprisonment."



"You pray, old man," Henoch responded. "fir myself, I just hope
that our future bodies, if any, won't be too unappealing in
appearance." He laid his hands upon the final dormant sphere, then
glanced back over his shoulder, a mocking smile upon his face as
always. "Let me guess, -it won't hurt a bit."

A moment later, nothing was left of Henoch except
a constant glow at the center of his chosen orb. Saigon
could not say he missed him. If I don't hear his voice
again for hay "a million years, then that might be a
blessing of sorts.

Now it was his turn. With a mental command, he extinguished the
lights in the catacomb, so that only the collected life force of
his fellow refugees illuminated the chamber as he left it behind
and entered an adjacent compartment only half the size of the
depository he had departed. There a solitary globe, as yet
unlighted, rested atop a central- podium linked to the most
advanced sensor apparatus Sargon could assemble in the face of the
mounting hostilities above. Here was where his consciousness would
wait out eternity, searching the heavens for the instruments of
their deliverance. Unlike Henoch and Thalassa and the rest, whose
minds would dwell in dreamless slumber until they were awakened
once more, a portion of his psyche would remain aware throughout
the centuries, probing the empty corridors of space and sending out

an urgent plea for assistance to whatever enterprising beings might
someday pass this way.



As he placed his palms against the cool, inanimate surface of the
receptacle, and felt his mind flowing out of his body and into the
motionless sphere, he wondered how long he would truly have to
wait.

?'he female Q has Gorgan on the run. His seraphic
features melt into a hideous mask of bestial fury only
partially obscured by his verdant aura, as he snarls
back at his relentless pursuer. Sensing a convenient
wormhole, he dives toward that tantalizing means of
egress, but some unknown presence within the worm
hole blocks his entrance long enough for the Q to catch
up with him. She cuts of his retreat with a searing blast
of fifth-dimensional fire and he retaliates in kind . . . .

Brightly colored lights streaked the night sky above the western
hemisphere of Bajor. Upon a balmy at the top of highest tower in
the temple, the kai watched a burst of chartreuse flame erupt in
the heavens, then sputter and die as it traced its way above the
horizon. More eruptions filled the sky in its wake, obscuring
ancient constellations and outshining the stars. It was as though
the Celestial Temple itself was on fire.



"What is it, Holiness?" asked Vedek Kuros fearfully, tugging on the
kai's silken sleeve to draw her attention down from the
inexplicable stellar pyrotechnics. "Is it the Reckoning?"



The kai shook her head thoughtfully, causing the ornate silver
chain dangling from her ear to sway back and forth. "I think not,"
she said. "The Sacred Texts



are very clear that the Reckoning shall not occur until after the
Coming of the Emissary." She gave him a playful smile. "You
haven't, by any chance,- neglected to inform me of the Emissary's
arrival, have you?"



"Oh no, Holiness!" the vedek insisted. "How could I"' I wouldn't
dream of it."



"Calm yourself, Kuros, I was only joking." She reached out to cup
his ear and sensed that his pagh was deeply troubled by the curious
lights in the sky. '"The Reckoning is not yet upon us. This is
something far different, I think."



The vedek was -not alone in his fears, she knew. From her lofty
perch high above the sacred city of B'hala, she could see the
people gathered in the great square below, their eyes turned upward
in .awe and terror. Hundreds of Bajorans, from every clan and
D'jarra, surrounded the monumental stone bantaca in the center of
the city, perplexed and unnerved by the violent heavenly display,
but unable to look away. The vivid colors of the celestial
explosions cast a shifting spectrum of shadows upon the faces and
rooftops beneath her. It was as beautiful as it was mysterious.



I must issue some manner of statement, the kai realized, knowing it
was her duty to comfort her people in this time of turmoil, but
what can 1 tell ahem? Nothing in the Sacred Texts spoke of such
tumult amid the firmament nor hinted when the unnatural phenomenon
might cease. In her heart of hearts, she knew that the dazzling
portents lighting up the night were not the work of the Prophets,
nor even the unholy mischief of the dreaded Pah-wraiths. Those
powerful beings, both the good and the wicked, were of Bajor. These
disturbances, she sensed deep within her own pagh, were something
different, something alien to them all, but no less dangerous to
all who lived.



The strange lights shone on for a- thousand days ....



The furious struggle between the. Q and the forces of 0 attract the
interest of other transcendent beings. Some such entities come to
investigate . . . .



"Q," Picard asked. "Who are those beings over there?" He gestured
toward a quartet of humanoid figures standing silently at the
perimeter of the war, looking on with pained expressions upon their
faces. Unlike the combatants, they had not assumed the garb of
Earth's ancient warriors, wearing instead simple Grecian chitons
made of what looked like common wool. Their faces were youthful and
unmarked by time. They clasped their hands- together before their
chests in a meditative pose: Picard was struck by the aura of peace
and dignity the beings projected, which reminded him somewhat of
the sadly departed Sarak of Vulcan.



"Oh, them, " Q said disdainfully. "Those are the Organians.
Relative youngsters compared to the Continuum, but still reasonably
evolved at this point in galactic history."



The Organians, Picard thought, wide-eyed and astounded. They were
semi-mythical beings in his own



time, legendary for their historic role in averting a bloody war
between the Federation and the Klingon Empire decades before
Picard's birth. The Organians had largely kept to themselves since
then; Picard had never thought that he might actually see one in
person



Q was considerably less awestruck. "A bunch of upstart, idealistic
kids, really. Slackers and layabouts, all of them. Compared to
their childish doctrine of pacifism and noninterference, your Prime
Directive is practically an incitement to riot."



Picard took Q's assessment of the early. Organians with a grain of
salt; small wonder Q dismissed a people who practiced the-virtues
of forbearance and restraint. The Federation of his own time owed a
lot to the reluctant peacemaking of these people or their
descendants. Still, he could not deny that the Organians of this
era seemed content to stay on the sidelines during the Continuum's
heated struggle to subdue 0. As he-watched the cosmic battle
develop, his doppelganger among the Q plucked a steel=tipped lance
from the ether and hurled it at 0 himself, who materialized a disk-
shaped shield just in time to block the spear. Defected, the weapon
ricocheted toward acre assembled Organians, who merely shook= their
lads sadly at its -approach. The spear vanished only seconds before
it would have struck the placid specta tors, followed a -heartbeat
later by the Organians themselves. The four figures dissolved into
the emptiness of space, having apparently seen enough of the
barbaric melee.

"And good riddance," Q commented derisively. "You know what they
say, Jean-Luc, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of
the whole godawful mess.



"Is that so?" Picard asked. "Your younger self doesn't appear to be
contributing much to the situation, one way or another."



It was true. The young Q cowered in a desolate corner of space,
apart from the others, looking distinctly miserable and conflict.
He squatted in the vacuum, rocking back and forth on his heels, as
he peered at the furious hostilities through his fingers as he held
both hands over his face. It was a far cry from the preening
arrogance Q would display in the future. "It's all my fault," he
whispered, although no one but Picard and his older self was
listening. "What have I done?"



"Q!" 0 cried, besieged by the leader of the Q, who seemed to have
an inexhaustible supply of spears. "Cease your babbling and help
me, friend. We're under attack here!"



"Don't listen to him, Q." Always a tall woman, the female Q was
nothing short of imposing in her armor. She thrust at Gorgan with
her short sword while shouting at Q. The deceptively angelic entity
pounded his fists atop each other, invoking his power, but the
sword kept cutting closer and closer to his emerald aura. "He's not
your friend. You don't owe him



"She's just jealous," 0 insisted, parrying another



assault from his grim opponent. His iron shield transformed into a
rubber trampoline that bounced the other Q's spear back at him. The
quaestor ducked promptly, but the rebounding lance sliced the crest
off his helmet. A gigantic crescent of horsehair flew off into a
nearby nebula where it would later confound generations of Iconian
explorers. "They're all jealous. They envy our vitality, our
courage and freedom. They can't stand that we actually have the
guts to enjoy our omnipotence as we see fit, that we want to shake
things thing up instead of simply maintaining the status quo. They
want to destroy us because we prove how weak and impotent the rest
of them really are." Seizing the offensive, he fired at his foe
with a crossbow that hadn't existed a second before. "Do you want
to be destroyed, Q?"



"No one will be destroyed," the quaestor promised, "if you
surrender now." The bolt from the crossbow spontaneously combusted
before it could strike home. The young Q looked up hopefully at the
quaestor's words, a reaction that did not go unnoticed by 0.



"You might as well annihilate us all," he bellowed as he loaded
another quarrel . into .the crossbow. "What's the alternative?
Submitting to the will of the Continuum, condemned to an eternal
half-life of dull conformity and anonymity? No, I'd rather take my
chances here, and if you're smart, Q, you'll do the same!"



The young Q reacted by throwing his hands over his ears to keep the
sound of the debate away from

him. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a mournful howl that
could be heard even above the clang of armor and weaponry. Not the
most mature response, Picard noted, but strangely in character.
Only Q could think that the universe and all its dilemmas would go
away if he lust ignored them.

"I didn't know what to do," the later Q recalled. "I felt like
unbridgeable chasms had cut me off from both 0 and the Continuum,
but that neither side would let me alone. I was lost and alone in
the middle of a war."

Like I was, Picard thought with a start, after Locutus was captured
from the Borg, but before Beverly restored my humanity. He had been
isolated, too, neither of humanity nor of the Collective, but an
exile from each. That was not at all the same thing, he reminded
himself hastily; unlike Q, he had not brought that hellish limbo
upon himself: Still, he found hilf identifying with the young Q
more than he liked.

"Where are the other QT" he asked, eager to change the subject. It
dawned on him that he had no idea how many individuals comprised
the entire Continuum. Were these four pseudo-legionnaires- the sole
extent of Q's peers? That seemed unlikely; he had always gotten
'the impression that the Q's population was as infinite as their
abilities.

"Putting out fires, mostly," Q answered. "In case you haven't
noticed, this particular donnybrook is producing no end of
collateral damage on various planes of existence. A battle between
beings of our



exalted nature does more than break a few windows, Jean-Luc; why,
during a recent civil war among the Q, in your own far-off century,
there were supernovas going off all over the Delta Quadrant." He
shuddered at the memory: "To be honest, those fractures in the
galactic barrier, the ones that your Federation scientists are so
keen on, are actually a regrettable aftereffect of that nasty
little war."

Now he tells me, Picard thought; although he still wasn't sure
what. the barrier had to do with 0 and this hard-fought conflict in
the distant past. Why am I here?

"Anyway," Q continued, "the majority of the Continuum are occupied
with patching up the most grievous wounds in the fabric of reality;
leaving a few close friends and associates to deal with me
personally. In their own inimitable fashion; of course."'

Q's explanation sounded plausible enough. Now that he knew to look
for them, Picard thought he glimpsed phantom figures scurrying
about in the background. They were like shadows, insubstantial
silhouettes moving almost too fast to be seen, going about their
mysterious errands like stagehands at work behind the scenes of
some massive theatrical production. Are they always there, Picard
mused, spying them only out of the corner of his eye, or only
Arcing a crisis of this magnitude? Despite all he had witnessed,
there was still so much he did not understand about the
metaphysical realm the Q inhabited.

"So I see," he said, turning his thoughts to less

ineffable matters. "And just how long did this personal matter go
on, Q? Strange as this may seem to you, I am anxious to return to
my own life at some point."



"If you must know," Q said, "this ugly altercation lasted a mere
one hundred thousand years-as you reckon time." He nodded toward
the celestial battlefield. "Look, the tide is already starting to
turn."



His face a twisted mass of lumpen flesh his shimmering robes
reduced to smoking, blackened rags, Gorgan was the first to abandon
the fight. His insubstantial form wavered in the void like a mirage
.above the desert. Tuning his back on the female Q and her slashing
sword, he fled through space with the armored woman in hot pursuit.
Desperate to escape her, he raced back to the very site of the Tkon
Empire's destruction, diving into the gaping black hole that had
once been their sun, apparently choosing to risk the unknown perils
beyond the event horizon rather than face the wrath of the Q.
"Coward!" the female Q called out. "Don't let me see you showing
your hideous face in this multiverse again."



Emboldened -by its comrade's escape, (*) retreated from the fray as
well. Quinn lowered his sword arm, showing little interest in
chasing after the evil entity now that it had been routed. He
heaved a heavy sigh, gratefully removing his helmet, as (*) disap



down the black hole after Gorgan. The hungry gravitational vortex
swallowed up every last flicker of (*)'s bloodthirsty light.

"They're just letting them get away?" Picard asked

He knew that neither entity had truly been destroyed. If Q was to
be believed, both Gorgan and (*) would later bedevil James T. Kirk
in the twenty-third century.



"Without 0, they're petty nuisances at best," Q said with a shrug-
"From now on, they'll be forced to lurk furtively in the most
obscure recesses of the galaxy, preying like highwaymen on the
occasional unwary starship. Nothing the Q need worry about, in
other words."



"Your concern for the rest of us is overwhelming," Picard pointed
out dryly.



"It's all a matter of scale, Jean-Luc. Haven't you figured that out
yet?" Q grabbed Picard by the shoulders and forcibly turned his
view away from the insatiable black hole and back toward the sector
of space where 0 and The One continued to contend against the
Continuum with every weapon at their disposal, apparently undaunted
by the desertion of two of their allies. "Now, that pair posed
rather more of a problem."



Disdaining symbolic weaponry, The One unleashed lightning bolts
from his fingertips. The scent of ozone wafted through the vacuum
as the electrical barrage held Q's friend at bay. "Heathen!
Infidel!" The One raged, the luster of his golden armor undimmed.
Overlapping metal plates covered The One's entire body from the
neck down; only his forbidding visage remained uncovered. "Feel the
power of My Holy :finger. Quake in terror, O foolish one, as My
Mighty Hand strikes you down."

"That remains to be seen," the Q shot back, his blond locks
concealed beneath his helmet. His superior tone resembled. Q's,
although not quite as scathing in its sarcasm. "The Q do not
quake."



He ducked his head beneath the upper edge of a bronze, rectangular
shield. His cautious - stance, crouched behind his protective
shield, testified to the intensity of The One's thunderbolts.
Although Q had said that the battle was turning against 0 and his
allies, Picard saw no sign of imminent defeat where The One was
concerned; if anything, the monotheistic monster had the advantage
against the opposing Q. Even His burnished plate armor, worthy of a
medieval knight, appeared superior to the primitive Bronze Age gear
of the Q warriors.



"Curb thy mocking tongue," He declared, advancing on the Q, His
fulsome beard framing His stern features like the mane of a roaring
lion. "The time of thy chastisement is at hand."



"Not if I have anything to say about it," the Q retorted from
behind his shield, whose gleaming surface was now dented and
scorched in places. He backed away from The One, holding up his
shield all the while. Sparks flew from the battered shield as The
One's relentless pace consumed the distance between Himself and His
intended victim. "Q! Oh, Q!" the overwhelmed Q called out to his
compatriots. "Help me out over here! Better sooner than later!"



Picard had no way of knowing exactly which Q the imperiled entity
was addressing, but his cry for help

62

drew both the female Q and Quinn to his side. The sadeyed Quinn
came back to the fracas reluctantly, his expression not unlike the
Organians', but his Amazonian companion was all too eager to take
on another foe. "There's a black hole waiting for you, too," she
taunted The One, placing herself between the oncoming deity and her
endangered associate. Her shield blocked bolt after bolt from The
One, and she retaliated with an energy blast of her own that
stopped The One in His heavenly tracks. Quinn followed her lead,
protecting the third Q with his shield while firing a beam of
sizzling heat from his free hand.



"strumpet!" The One cursed, halting where He stood. "Witch!" He
beat one gauntleted hand against the molded steel of His
breastplate, producing a resounding clang that sounded even in the
silent depths of interstellar space. The female Q's attack bounced
harmlessly off His chest, while Quinn's heat ray merely caused the
fringes of His beard to smoke and smolder. Even with the odds now
three against one, He refused to give up, proving Himself a more
dangerous and determined adversary than either Gorgan or (*). "Be
thou false gods as plentiful as sands upon a beach, yet The One
shall vanquish you all. None there is who can stand against The
One. Great is My Glory, inescapable is My Severe and Final
Judgment."



"Please," the female Q said, rolling her eyes. "Only a Q has the
right to be so insufferably full of herself."

She glared at Him through narrowed eyes, her classically sculpted
jaw set firmly. "Q, Q," she addressed her brothers-in-arms, "let's
show this tiresome pretender what ail-powerful really means."



Together, the three Q rose from behind their tique shields, uniting
their wills against the comma foe. The One clenched His metal
gauntlets and hurled lightning from His eyes, but the jagged
thunderbolts crashed uselessly against an invisible wall that left
the row -of grimfaced Q untouched by the tumultuous attack. Picard
heard a deep, resonant hum rising from where the three Q stood side
by side. Even from a distance, he could feel the power swelling
between them, growing ever more indomitable as their respective
energies came into synch. There was a tension building in the
nonexistent atmosphere, like the hush that precedes a storm. The
vacuum hummed like the engine room of the Enterprise right before
it went into warp.



At last, even The One appeared daunted by the trinity of Q. He took
an uncertain step backward, retreating from the light, while doubt
blurred the rigid imperturbability of his features. "I am My Own
Deliverance," he chanted, but his voice lacked the Old Testament
certainty of before, "I shall not quaver in My Resolve. I am The
Onet"



"Oh, lighten up," the female Q said in return.



A dazzling aura enveloped the three figures, uniting them within a
single shimmering nimbus of energy. The light was so bright that
Picard had to look away, the unexpected blaze leaving dancing blue
spots be



fore his sight. He raised a hand before his face to protect his
suddenly watery eyes from the glare.



"Pure; raw Q Power," Q told Picard. "Lacking in style somewhat, but
effective.



An instant later, The One's -right leg disappeared. There was no
beam or weapon employed, no projectile force or matter penetrated
the armor and amputated the limb; it -simply ceased to exist,
erased bloodlessly from the Q's level of reality. The One stared
down in shock of the space His leg had occupied. "No," He murmured,
his vainglorious selfworship shaken, "this cannot be." But even as
He spoke, His remaining leg vanished, followed by His right arm.
His truncated body, encased in the remains of his armor, floated
awkwardly in space: "Stop it!" He commanded. "I am The One. I am
eternal!"



The Q systematically dismembered Him. They bloodlessly erased His
solitary arm, then His armored torso and throat, until all that
remained was His bearded head,. floating disembodied in space as It
screamed obscenities at the heavens.



The severed head, looking. like a bust of some forgotten prophet,
drifted away from the battlefield, while the cosmos. echoed with
the sound of His bellicose vows of vengeance. "Perhaps we should
delete His tongue as well," the female Q suggested, the light about
the trio dimming gradually.



"Let's not be savages,'.' Quinn advised her. "Even the damned
deserve to give voice to their torment."



"If you say so," she said, sounding none too con

vinced. "I think He's a frightful boor who deserves everything He
gets."



"Let's just call it a win," the third Q urged; his shoulders
sagging forward: "I don't know about you two, but I'm positively
tapped out. A mere stellar breeze could blow me away:"



He had a point. By now the luminous halo surrounding the trio had
faded enough that Picard could once more look upon them directly.
He wiped salty tears from his eyes as his vision cleared. All three
Q were breathing hard and looked exhausted, although the female Q
was doing her best to maintain her customary hauteur. Q's
contemporary and chum removed his helmet and Picard saw that his
blond hair was pasted to his skull by perspiration. "That was more
difficult than I expected," he said. "How ever do lesser species
manage to fight wars all the time?"



"I know what you mean," Quinn agreed, leaning forward with his
hands upon his knees. Even in the absence of gravity, he acted like
he could barely support his own weight. His helmet disappeared in a
blink, horsehair crest and all. The bags beneath his eyes looked
deeper than before. "Just wait until you're my age.



"This isn't over yet," the female Q chided them, despite her own
evident fatigue. The last glimmer of their amplified aura quietly
expired, and she strode away from them toward her future husband,
still crouching amid infinity, unable to tear his aghast gaze away
from the endless clash between 0 and the authoritative Q who so
resembled Picard. Both par



ties in the duel paused barely an instant .to acknowledge the
brutal defeat of The One.



"You are alone now," the spokesman for the Q intoned. "Your foul
creatures fled or undone:" Spears and crossbow had given way to
crossed swords. © and the Q fought with silver blades as everyone
from Picard to the miserable young Q looked on. The ring of steel
against steel rang paradoxically through the vacuum as the
unforgiving Q. sought to subdue his foe. An avid fencer himself,
Picard saw no flaw in his doppelganger's technique, although 0
fought back with an undeniably effective mixture of calculation and
ferocity. "Abandon this irrational resistance," he demanded.
"Surrender to the judgment of the Continuum."



"Never!" 0 swung his scimitar at his opponent's head, only to be
blocked by an upward parry of the Q's shining saber. "And I'm not
alone. Young Q will come to my aid yet, you'll see!"



Surely the strangest aspect of this cosmic swordfight, Picard
observed at once, was that the precise nature of the duelists'
blades kept changing from second to second. As Picard studied the
fight, critiquing every feint and party, 0's curved scimitar became
a cutlass, then a broadsword, then a Klingon Bat'leth. Likewise,
the Q's weapon of choice transformed soquentially into an elegant
epee, a rapier, a Scottish claymore, and a Romulan gladius.
Regardless of their shape, all the blades apes - constructed of the
same indestructible material; although sparks flew when the protean
swords met each other, neither

blade broke beneath its adversary, no matter how overmatched one
might seem when compared to the size or weight of the other. Both
blades, after all, were not really made of tempered steel, but were
in fact tangible extensions of the duelists' preternatural powers
of concentration. I wander what this actually looks like, Picard,
mused, from a perspective of a Q.



"Take that, you draconian dictator!" 0 said, laughing exuberantly.
He thrust the point of an Italian cinquedea at the Q, barely
missing the other's hip. "I defy your despotic Continuum and its
suffocating sobriety. Q is the only one of you with any spark of
talent or initiative in him. He'll see that, too, after I've
destroyed the lot of you!"



There had to be a reason 0 cowed The One and the others, Picard
guessed; he had to be the most puissant of them all. The captain
wished he knew more about where 0 had come from originally, before
Q found him in that interdimensional wasteland. What manner of
being was he really? All Picard knew was that 0 was something
darker and far more dangerous than the charming rogue he
occasionally feigned being. That congenial facade was rapidly
slipping away as he hacked and slashed at the Q with a long katana.
"See, Q," he hollered to his hesitant protege, "you've no need to
fear the likes of these sourfaced spoilsports. Never fear! Never
again!"



The female Q had a different idea. Still panting from the exertion
required to dismantle The One, she reached Q's side and yanked his
hands away from his ears. "Look at me!" she pleaded, throwing away
her



helmet so she could confront him face to face. "Look at them." She
compelled him to open his eyes and behold his fellows. "You're one
of us, Q, and you always will be."



Hearing her impassioned declaration, 0 scowled and risked glancing
away from his intricate duel with the lead Q. If looks could kill,
which in 0's case was a distinct possibility, the female Q would.
have been incinerated instantly. Since that didn't occur, he was
forced to resort to other measures. A stray asteroid, consisting of
several million tons of solid iridium, passed within his field of
vision and, without missing a stroke of his swordplay, he snatched
up the asteroid with his free hand, imbuing it with a lethal
quantity of energy, and sent it hurling toward the female Q like an
assassin's bullet.



"Watch this, Picard," the Later Q advised "You may find it of
interest."



Caught up in her efforts to bring the young Q to his senses, the
female Q did not notice the deadly asteroid rocketing toward her
unshielded head at nearly warp speed Her future husband spotted it,
though. '`Look out!" he shouted, pushing her out of the line of
firewhich. left- the accelerated asteroid zooming toward him.



Reacting faster than light, Q ripped open the fabric of space-time,
creating a gash in creation between himself and the speeding
projectile. -The asteroid flew into the fissure, where it traveled
.backward in time and space until it emerged back into reality on a
collision course with the third planet of an obscure

solar system countless light-years, and millions of years, away
from the heart of the battle. With Q's power enhancing his
perceptions, Picard had no problem recognized the blue-green orb
that the asteroid slammed into with breathtaking force. "Mon dieu,"
he gasped. "'That's Earth!"



"So much for the dinosaurs," Q said, shrugging.



Picard was staggered by the implications of what he had just- seen,
watching in horror -as a cloud of dust and ash enshrouded the
entire planet, cutting it off from the warmth of the um. "You can't
be serious," he gasped. "Surely, you don't mean-"



"No use crying overspilled iridium," Q said curtly. He clapped his
hands and the catastrophic collision receded from view. "As
fascinating as that little sideshow must be, given your provincial
mots, we mustn't neglect the main event, especially since my
younger self is finally emerging from his morass of confusion, and
after a mere one hundred millennia."



Numb with shock, Picard let his eyes wander back to the pitched
combat between 0 and the quaestor . . . .



He almost killed Q, the young Q thought in amazement. He could ply
imagine such a thing, let alone witness it with his own all-seeing
eyes. Obliterating the Tkon was one thing; tasteless and excessive
and even sadistic, true, but still only affecting one mortal
population. But to threaten the immortality of a Q ..!



And 0 appeared perfectly willing to do so again. At



this very moment, he menaced another Q with a sword in each hand,
assailing the Continuum's implacable quaestor with a bayonet
clenched in one and a kukri dagger in the other. The savage
intensity of his onslaught was slowly but surely winning out over
the meticulous fencing skills of the Q, who clearly lacked 0's
gleeful hunger for the kill. The Q fought defensively, wielding a
darting -saber, but he was beaten backward by 0's vicious blows.
The stranger's shape. shifting sword rang against the other's metal
cuirass and greaves as he repeatedly slipped past the Q's desperate
parries. "See," 0 called to the young Q, "the Continuum doesn't
stand a chance. And it's all thanks to you!"



He's right, Q realized. Q can never forgive me what I've done, none
of them can.



But maybe that wasn't the point. He had never really wanted the
Continuum's approval anyway. Far from it, in fact. All he ever
truly craved was the courage to follow his own instincts; no matter
where they led.



Driven back by the simultaneous thrusts of a Vi= king broadsword
and an Apache - tomahawk, the quaestor tripped over a
constellation. He tumbled through space, momentarily out of
control,-while his weapon slipped from his fingers, evaporating
into the ether. 0 pounced on the opportunity; by the time the
quaestor righted himself, the point of a sharpened leg bone was at
this throat. "Pay close attention," fl instructed Q, "and you'll
see how to deal- with opposition. This pallid entity"-he pressed
the tip of his

prehistoric pigsticker hard enough to spill a drop of luminous
silver ichor-"will never dampen our fire again. Never!"



Q glanced about him in a panic. The other Q stood by helplessly,
even his formidable girlfriend: He could sense that they were all
too depleted to rescue their leader, even if they knew how to
extricate him from his perilous situation. "Wait!" he asked 0
desperately, stalling for time while he tried to figure out what to
do.



"What for?" 0 demanded, brandishing the primitive poniard beneath
the other Q's chin. "Admit it, Q. You'vewanted to do this a hundred
times before."



True enough, he conceded. There had been times when he would have
liked. nothing better than to run the Continuum through with an
ectoplasmic skewer. He recalled all those occasions in his
turbulent childhood and early youth when this particular Q had
disciplined and restrained him, imposing odious limits on the young
Q's freewheeling imagination. All he needed to do now, Q
recognized, was stand aside and let 0 deliver a killing blow that
might scare off the rest of the Continuum for an eternity or two.
Total freedom, unlimited anarchy, beckoned. He could do whatever he
pleased. He could become just like 0 . . . .



"I have a better idea," he said.



In a fraction of a second, the young Q traded places with the Q who
resembled Picard. Suddenly, the tip of 0's weapon was poised at Q's
throat instead, with the quaestor safely out of the way.



Now it was 0's turn to be disoriented: He blinked in



disbelief as his mouth fell open. The point of the sharpened bone
wobbled in his grip. "I don't understand," he began. "What are you
do-"



Q grabbed on to the bone with both hands and sent a powerful
galvanic current rushing down the length of the filed tibia into
0's manifested form. The Stranger twitched spasmodically as the
shock coursed through him, and, for an instant, Q caught a glimpse
of subliminal tentacles writhing in pain. His shoes blew off his
feet while the rued sleeves of 0's linen shirt burst into flames. 0
stared at Q with a look of anguished betrayal in his bulging blue
eyes. "How could you?" he gasped before his bad leg gave out and he
collapsed face-first toward the empty abyss of space.



In a strange, uncomfortable sort of way, Q felt as if he had struck
down a part of himself.

`Handle with care the spider's net,
You can't be sure that a trap's not set . . . . "

THE YOUNG Q STOOD IN DOCK before the high tribunal of the
Continuum, along with 0 and, disturbingly, the disembodied head of
The One. Chained and manacled, 0 crooned to himself, his mind
seemingly undone by this latest defeat. He rattled his chains in
time with his demented ditty and refused to look at Q.



Only a few paces away, with neither arms nor legs to fetter, nor
even a torso on which to slither snakelike upon the floor, the
severed head of The One had been confined within a sturdy metal
cage resting on the floor of the courtroom. His angry eyes,
impossibly



alive, glared through the bars of the cage while he ground his
teeth together impotently, reminding Picard of those rare occasions
on which Data's head had been detached from his body. But Data had
never looked so enraged and vengeful.



"Is this it?" Picard asked. "The end of the war?"



"Almost," Q promised. "All that remains is the disposition of the
prisoners, including myself."



The female Q, still armored Amazonian-style, stood guard n the two
outsiders and the young Q, ready to defend Q should either .of the.
alien entities attempt to exact revenge on Q for his betrayal. Her
hand rested on the sword at her side. The two other Q sat in the
jury box, looking on with solemn expressions. They had retained
their armor, but removed their plumed helmets out of respect for
the court.



Picard's doppelganger stared down at the prisoners from an elevated
seat behind a high black bench. He had exchanged his armor for a
Roman toga, and a crown of laurel leaves rested upon his hairless
dome. Recalling the memorable instances in which the later Q had
placed Picard (and the rest of humanity) on trial, the real JeanLuc
found it oddly satisfying to see the roles reversed for once.



No walls or ceiling enclosed the courtroom of the Continuum.
Tipping back his head, Picard could see tie entire Milky Way Galaxy
spread out overhead. To Mink, he mused, that that shimmering spiral
of stars and solar systems, a hundred thousand light-years in
diameter, contained the whole of the Alpha; Beta,

Delta, and Gamma Quadrants, holding every species and civilization
from the Borg to the Dominion to countless new life-forms as yet
unknown. Even in his own time, Starfleet had explored only a
fraction of the galaxy above. It was a humbling thought.



The quaestor brought down his gavel, calling the court to
attention. "Enemies of the Q Continuum," he addressed 0 and The One
in as stern a voice as Picard had ever heard. "You have been
accused of malicious mischief and conduct unbecoming that of highly
advanced entities."



"I reject your authority," 0 protested, breaking off from. his song
and shaking his adamantine chains. "You have no jurisdiction over
me."



The One seconded the motion, the jaws. of the disembodied head
speaking loudly despite the absence of lungs or anything else below
them. "All commandments flow from My Wisdom. Thou shalt have no
higher laws than Mine."



The quaestor was unimpressed by the prisoners' arguments. "Your
access to this plane was done at the sufferance of the Continuum,
and at the instigation of one of our lea prudent constituents." The
magistrate fixed a cold eye upon the young Q, who gulped nervously.
Having exchanged his sackcloth robe for prison stripes, Q looked as
guilty as he doubtless felt. "This renders the Continuum
responsible for your future activities, just as it renders you both
subject to our considered rulings."



For better or for worse, Picard reflected, he and the usual Q
seemed to have arrived at the -tail end of the



trial. Just as well, he thought; as much as he enjoyed seeing Q
among the accused, he was eager for this odyssey to reach some
conclusion. The sooner Q returned him to the Enterprise, the less
anxious he would feel.



The magistrate rapped his gavel again. "The entity who quite
presumptuously calls Himself The One shall be confined to the
center of this galaxy until the heat death of the universe or His
sincere repentance, whichever comes first. This sentence is
effective immediately."



"No!" The One screamed as a glowing blue forcefield surrounded His
cage, lifting it from the floor and sending it rushing upward
toward the very center of the sprawling starscape above. The living
head rocked back and forth within His cage, smashing His forbidding
visage against the bars. "Mine is the Power and the Glory and the
Will. You cannot lock Me away!" His strident denials faded rapidly
in volume as the cage ascended into the sky. Picard watched it rise
until its tiny blue glow was lost amidst the dazzling panoply of
the galactic core.



Of course, he thought, realizing at last who and what this entity
truly was. James T. Kirk had reported encountering just such a
malevolent force, trapped behind an energy barrier at the center of
the Milky Way, during one of the historic early voyages of the
Enterprise-A. In theory, The One was imprisoned within the core
still, even in the twenty-fourth centu ry. Remind me to leave that
particular barrier alone,

he thought, trring yet another revelation in his mind.



Now the toga-clad magistrate turned his attention to 0 himself.
Arrogant and unrepentant, the prisoner waited defiantly in the
dock, singing off-key to music only he could hear. His fancy velvet
coat, damask vest, and fashionable breeches were soiled and
disheveled. -His orange-red tresses; once neatly tied, were loose
and in disarray, thatches of frizzy hair jutting wildly in all
directions. Having lost his buckled shoes in his moment of defeat,
he stood barefoot upon a simulated marble floor, his scarred and
twisted left foot exposed to view.



"A young babe lay asleep in bed,



When a shadow passed his silken head . . . . "



"The entity known only as 0," the quaestor went on, ignoring 0's
self-absorbed singing, "is banished from this galaxy, on every
dimensional plane, without hope of pardon or parole."



"You bundled him in, and kissed him goodnight,



Trusting that all 'twould be well in the night . . . . "



"A barricade shall be erected around the galaxy to prevent your
return, thus protecting lesser life-forms from your depraved
amusements until they are advanced enough to defend themselves
against you and your, kind."

"But ever present, always there,

Too common t'matter, too small for a care



Heedless of what might befall



You neglect the spider on the wall . . . . "



It all made sense now, Picard thought, nodding. The galactic
barrier did not exist to hold humanity or anyone else within the
galaxy; it was intended to keep 0 out. A galactic quarantine, in
effect, with a capital Q.



And a quarantine that Lem Faal's artificial worm



hole could undo in a few moments, exposing the

Federation and the rest of the galaxy to 0 once

more ....



0 spat upon the courtroom floor, his spittle eating away at the
marble tiles like acid. "You can't be rid of me so readily," he
vowed, interrupting his sinister ditty to threaten the court
directly. "I'll be back if I have to wait a million years, just
wait and see." His head snapped around to glower at the young Q.
The female Q started to draw her sword, but 0 only flung words at
his onetime protégé. "I won't be forgetting you, Q. We'll meet
again, count on it." His angry gaze swept the courtroom; Picard
felt a chill pass over him as 0 looked his way, even though he knew
the vengeful prisoner could not see either he or the older Q. "I
hope you like games, young Q, because I know whom I'm testing next.
You, Q, you." He fixed his baleful gaze on Q as he resumed his
song:

"While the lad is tucked in snug,
It crawls along across the rug . . . ."

"Enough. The sentence had been pronounced." He rapped his gavel
decisively. "Make it so."

"Deep in slumber, young dreams sweet,
It works its way beneath the sheet . . . . "

As with The One, an irresistible force seized 0 and propelled him
upward at unimaginable speed, but this time the force aimed the
prisoner at the outer limits of the galaxy. "I'll be back, Q," he
shouted down at them as his raspy voice grew too fainter and
fainter. "Oh, the games we'll play, games of life and death and
death and death . . . ! How well can a Q die, I wonder. There's a
test for you!"

"Its legs caressing dimpled chin,
It swiftly pierces tender skin . . . . "

Cast out of known space, 0 shrank to invisibility somewhere outside
the galaxy, in the black abyss between galaxies. Even after he
disappeared from sight, Picard could still hear 0 singing madly.

"When the spider aims his deadly spikes,
No one spies him till he strikes,

Be mindful of this when you kiss yours goodnight,

Beware of the danger that lies in plain sight . . . ."

Then something new and different appeared. Picard watched in wonder
as a thin violet cord, neon bright in intensity, stretched around
the perimeter of the Milky Way, outlining the entire galaxy like a
forcefield . . . or a moat.

Thus is born the galactic barrier, he realized, awestruck at the
enormity of what the Q had done. That glowing cordon, the same
immense wall of energy that had confronted daring starfarers since
time immemorial, was the first line of defense for over one hundred
billion stars, and all the planets and civilizations that orbited
those stars, from Earth to the Delta Quadrant and beyond. Although
it looked like the merest shimmering ribbon from his current
perspective, he knew that this same barrier enclosed a spiral cloud
of stars more than one hundred thousand light-years in diameter. It
was a cosmic feat of engineering that made the Great Wall of China
seem like a fraction of a fraction of a subatomic speck in
comparison. Astonishing, he thought. Just to be present at this
epochal moment was almost worth all the aggravation Q had inflicted
on him over the years.

0 had been more than simply exiled, Picard also understood, as the
full implications of the Continuum's decree sank in. Given the
crippled 0's inabil ity to travel at faster-than-light speeds,
except via the Continuum, he had been effectively marooned to tic
space, over two million years from the nearest alternative galaxy;
in essence, he'd been set adrift in a. very large ocean with the
only shore in sight barred from him forever. Even if 0 set out
immedi-

ately for the Andromeda Galaxy, he was still going to be alone for
a long, long time. Picard almost felt sorry for him; the
Continuum's judgment had been unforgiving indeed.



But what of the young Q? Picard had to admit he was curious to see
how his own people would deal with the errant Q. Obviously, he
thought, whatever they -do, it won't be enough to curb his appetite
for disorder and chaos. Picard and his crew could testify to that.



"Q;" the quaestor addressed the youth. His oh-sofamiliar fate
frowned in disapproval.



"Yes, Your Honor," Q said, stepping forward: Unlike the departed
defendants, no chains or cage restrained him. He was here of his
own free will, proving that he had gained a little in maturity
since his panicky flight from justice several millennia earlier.
Picard admired the youth's willingness to face the consequences of
his misdeeds.



"Would that we could dispose of you," the quaestor said mournfully,
his expression growing more dour by the moment, "as swiftly and
efficiently as the Continuum dealt with your unsavory associates."
He sighed and shook his head. "Alas, you are a member of the
Continuum and so we are obliged to undertake the daunting, and most
likely unachievable, task of your rehabilitation." He nodded at the
female Q, standing behind Q in the dock. "Will the bailiff please
present Exhibit Forty-two B."



"Certainly," she agreed. Holding out her hands in front of her, she
produced a spinning blue-green globe



that lifted off from her open palms to take a position between the
defendant and the quaestor, floating serenely in midair. "Do you
recognize this world?" she asked Q.



He peered at the globe, then shook his head. "Should I?"



"The planet before you," the quaestor informed him, scowling, "is
one of several that were damaged during the conflict required to
apprehend you and your associates. This world, in particular, was
injured by your careless attempt at self-defense near the end of
that regrettable altercation."



Picard recalled, if the young Q did not, the diverted asteroid
smashing into the Earth many million years in the past, causing
death and destruction on planetary scale. 1 still refuse to accept
that was really Q's doing, he thought. That an asteroid had struck
Earth in the distant past, causing mass extinctions all over the
globe, was a matter of archaeological record. That Q himself had
caused the disaster, in a single careless moment, Picard found
harder to accept. That, .at ,least, must be some twisted joke on
Q's part. Or so he



"Oops?" Q said weakly, wincing at the fierce glare his feeble
defence elicited from the quaestor.



"The biosphere of this unfortunate world has been grievously
harmed," the magistrate announced. "Your penance is to personally
oversee the reconstruction of is environment and any life-forms
that may develop therein Perhaps the rehabilitation of this
unassuming world can serve as a model for your own redemption."

He regarded Q dubiously. "Probably a lost cause, but who knows?"



Q did not take the quaestor's ruling as well as perhaps he should
have. "You want me to baby-sit some insignificant little planet way
off in the middle of nowhere? What sort of punishment is that? It's
a complete waste of my abilities and talents. Can't you come up
with a penance that's more; well, impressive? Twelve impossible
labors maybe, or a hazardous quest that no one else would dare?" He
grimaced at the floating orb, his nose wrinkling in disdain.
"Nothing so tedious and mundane as . . . that."



That's more tike the Q 1 know, Picard thought. Supremely self-
important even in defeat.

"Do not question the judgment of this tribunal,"
the magistrate warned him, raising his gavel. "Be
thankful that you were not stripped of all your
Q-given -powers and privileges, although I would not
be at all surprised if it comes to that someday." The Q
who looked like Picard rose from behind the impos
ing height of the bench and removed his laurel crown.
"Don't let me see you here again, young Q."

Picard half-expected to see Q escorted out of the courtroom now
that the proceedings seemed to have concluded. Instead the whole
courtroom, and everyone in it, disappeared abruptly in a flash of
white light, leaving the young Q alone with his new charge. His
posture sagged gloomily as he inspected the spinning globe with a
sour expression upon his face. Continents drifted beneath his gaze,
and, from several meters away, Picard thought he spotted a landmass



that might someday be France. The arctic icecap crept slowly
downward, locking Earth in its glacial grip, then receded northward
once more. "What a dump," Q groaned.



"Oh, that's enough!" Picard spun around to confront the older Q. He
had seen all he wanted to see. "This is too much, Q. Do you truly
expect me to believe that you were placed in charge of humanityas a
punishment?"

"What can I say, Jean Luc?" Q replied, throwing up
his hands. "It was a dirty job, but someone had to do
it." He took Picard by the arm and led him away from
the young Q and an even younger Earth. The captain
glanced back over his shoulder, watching the birth
place of humanity spin beneath the sullen gaze of the
young Q, but that unsettling primordial scene was
soon lost in a dense, white fog that seemed to form
out of nowhere, soon growing opaque enough to
conceal all the stars that had surrounded the cosmic
courtroom. Picard looked about quickly and realized
teat he and Q had returned to the same ghostly limbo
from which their long journey had begun. He decided
to take this as an encouraging sign that their odyssey
nearing its end:

"In any event," Q continued, "you mustn't dwell ma that amusing
little epilogue, no matter how in intriguing I trust that, by now,
you have deduced the real reason why I have taken you on this
cheery stroll down memory lane."



Picard nodded soberly. "Professor Faal's experiment . His plan to
pierce the galactic barrier with an

artificial wormhole." Knowing what he now did, it wasn't hard to
grasp the dangers involved. "We could accidentally let 0 back into
the galaxy."



"Oh, almost certainly," Q confirmed. "He's surely still out there,
no doubt humming one of his obnoxious ditties while he waits for a
chance to sneak back into your precious Milky Way." He looked
sincerely concerned by the prospect. "I can't imagine several
hundred millennia of isolation have improved his personality much."



Picard resisted the temptation -to remark about blackened pots
versus kettles. From what he had viewed, a legitimate case could be
made that 0 was more of a threat than Q; Q had only threatened
humanity with extinction on occasion, but 0 had actually carried
out his genocidal plan to destroy the Tkon Empire. "Why didn't you
just tell me the truth in the first place?" he asked. "You had any
number of opportunities to explain why you wanted us to leave the
barrier alone."



"Would you have believed me?" Q asked in return.



Probably not, Picard conceded. He'd be extremely reluctant to
accept anything, even the time of day, on Q's word alone. Still, he
suspected there was more to Q's earlier reticence than the
conceited superbeing was now willing to admit. The affaire de 0 was
hardly one of Q's finest hours; no wonder he'd been unwilling to
provide Picard with the full story until it became obvious that
there was no other way to convince the captain to call off the
experiment. Given a choice, Picard thought, I'm sure Q would have



preferred to explore my own follies and frailties rather than admit
to any imperfections of his own.



"But wouldn't the Continuum intervene again if 0 broke through?"
Picard asked. The swirling white mist was growing thicker and
thicker. He could barely see his own hands when he held them up
before his face. "Surely the combined might of all the Q would be
enough to banish him once more."

"Eventually," Q agreed, "but how soon is the question. Over the
aeons, the Continuum has grown more detached and aloof from mortal
affairs . . . and preoccupied with its own concerns." He guided
Picard through the dense fog, although how he knew which way to go,
if directions meant anything at all in this formless shadowland,
Picard couldn't begin to imagine. "I alluded earlier to a civil war
that recently divided the Continuum. Although peace .was eventually
restored, in no small part due to my own heroic efforts, rest
assured that, this has been a time of considerable turmoil and
change for the Q Continuum, which now has other things on its
collective mind than an interdimensional vandal we disposed of
countless centuries ago. Still- coping with the aftermath of our
epochal civil war, the rest of the Q would also be decidedly
unwilling to initiate another armed conflict so soon after our own
internecine struggle."



Picard found the whole notion of a Q civil war intriguing and more
than a little alarming. He recalled At it was this very war which
supposedly caused the mine fractures in the galactic barrier that
had first attracted Lem Faal's attention. Although Q hadn't

said as much, Picard would have been willing to wager a Ferengi's
ransom in gold-pressed latinum that Q had been responsible for
starting the war in the first place.



"To be sure," Q continued, "the Continuum would take note of 0's
new depredations in a century or two, but who knows how much havoc
0 could inflict on an unsuspecting galaxy before the other Q took
action? It's unlikely your vaunted Federation would still be around
to see 0 get his just desserts."



"What do you care?" Picard asked suspiciously.



Q did -.not take offensive at the question, nor at Picard's
skeptical tone. "Fatherhood has given me a greater investment in
the future of the cosmos. I don't want my son to grow up in a
galaxy contaminated by 0."



A valid point, Picard thought. As disruptive as the infant Q had
been to the daily routines of the Enterprise, the captain could not
begrudge Q his concern for his son. "Is that all you're concerned
with?" Picard accused. "It seemed to me that 0 was dead-set on
revenge against you in particular. Are you sure you're not more
worried about your own safety?"



"Enlightened self-interest is one. of the crucial hallmarks of a
truly advanced intelligence," Q said defensively.



"Regardless of your motives," Picard stated, "you've made your
point about the peril of violating the -barrier. I have no
intention of proceeding with the experiment at this time." He
gestured at the featureless= miasma that had engulfed them. "I
trust this



means we can return to the my ship with all deliberate .»



"If you say so."



Abruptly, without any tangible sense of transition, Picard was back
on the bridge of the Enterprise. To his farther surprise, he found
himself drifting in front of the main viewer, a few meters above
the blue steel floor. "What the devil?" he exclaimed.



"Captain!" Will Riker said, lunging from the captain's chair to his
feet.



It didn't take Picard long to realize that there was no gravity
upon the bridge. Year of experience in Starfleet alerted him to the
unique physical sensations of zero g right away; still, after
spending what felt like hours in the abstract realm of the Q, where
entities casually occupied deep space with a nary a care in the
world, it felt strange to be subjected to such elemental principles
as gravity, or rather the lack of the same, once more. Which
probably means I've returned to reality none too soon, he
reflected. "Q," he said, pointing in an irritated manner at the
floor, "if you don't mind. . ."



"What" Q said. Over by Ops, Q was enjoying a reunion with his
family. Little q came to a landing within his father's waiting
arms. A half-eaten glopsicie bobbed perilously near Q's ruffled
brown hair. "Oh, I see what - you mean."



Q snapped his fingers and gravity was restored to the bridge,
dragging Picard swiftly toward the floor below. Bits and pieces of
broken technology also plummeted abruptly, clattering onto the
duranium

floor. The captain himself landed on both-feet with as much dignity
as he could muster, then quickly took stock of his new
surroundings.



He didn't like what he saw. Even in the alarmingly dim lighting, it
was clear that the bridge of his starship had been through a costly
battle. Besides the temporary absence of gravity-and Picard noticed
now that Riker and the other crew members present, with the notable
exception of Q and his family, were also equipped with magnetic
boots--ominous signs of damage and violent destruction were evident
in nearly every-direction he looked. The overhead fighting had
obviously gone out, so his eyes had to adjust to the resulting
gloom as he glanced about the bridge. Flashing alert signals and
the glowing viewscreen cast deep scarlet and magenta shadows over
the scene. The aft engineering station looked completely devastated
by some sort of electrical fire, while bits of ash and lightweight
debris polluted the ordinarily pristine atmosphere of the bridge,
gradually drifting toward the floor. "The Calamarain, I take it,"
he said to Riker, who approached the captain with a worried look
upon his face. How long have 1 been away, Picard wondered, and what
has become of the ship in my absence?



"You called it," Riker confirmed. His voice was tighter than usual,
as if he was in some pain. He gave Q a dirty look. "Good to have
you back, Captain."



"Trust me, you are- no more pleased than I am, Number One," Picard
said wholeheartedly. He turned around to inspect the main viewer.
To his



concern and puzzlement, the screen showed nothing but a constant
purple glow. "Where are we?" he asked Riker, fearing he already
knew the answer.



"Inside the barrier," the first officer informed him. "It was the
only way to escape the Calamarain. At present, we are waiting for
La Forge to complete repairs on the warp engines before attempting
to leave this sector."



Picard nodded. He could get a full report later on; for now, it
appeared that, while the ship was definitely in difficult straits,
Commander Riker had the situation in hand. "And the wormhole
experiment?" he asked with some apprehension.



"Aborted," Riker said bluntly, "after we ran into trouble with the
Calamarain." He stepped aside and let Picard take his place in the
captain's chair. "Protecting the ship took priority."



"You made the right choice, Number One," Picard assured him, "and a
better one than you could even realize." Riker gave him a quizzical
look so Picard elaborated, tipping his head toward Q. "I'll give
you a complete briefing later, but let's just say that I've learned
more than enough about the true nature and purpose of the barrier.
Hopefully, that will be enough lo satisfy Professor Faal and
Starfeet Science."



Settling into his chair, Picard noted that the female Q had
apparently commandeered Deanna Troi's seat; it was a bit odd to
realize that this was the same woman whom he and Q had just
observed several hundred thousand years in the past. He scowled
when be saw that the baby Q had left sticky handprints all

over the armrest of the counselor's chair, although, from the look
of the rest of the bridge, he decided he should be thankful that
the command area was intact at all. Taking a quick mental
inventory-of the bridge crew, he was surprised to see Lieutenant
Barclay stationed at the secondary science station and that young
Canadian officer, Ensign Berglund, manning the tactical podium.
"Where is Lieutenant Leyoro?" he asked. "And Counselor Troi?"



Riker's. face warned him there was worse to come. "Sickbay," he
began. "The news isn't good ....

"

BRING DOWN THE WALL The wall is all . . . .



Gravity returned to sickbay without warning, but Lem Faal failed to
notice. His mind ablaze with new concepts and sensations, he awoke
suddenly, his transformed eyes snapping open, to find Beverly
Crusher leaning over him, a worried frown upon her face. Surprised
by his unexpected return to consciousness, she gasped and stepped
backward involuntarily, 'fringing a hand to her chest.



Faal was disoriented by the familiar surroundings.



y? How had he returned to sickbay? What had happened to him? The
last thing he remembered was ceding by a turbolift, trying to get
to Engineering. My experement . . . my work . . . my destiny . . .
Then the power of the barrier had invaded his mind, bringing

with it . . . something else. A renewed sense of purpose, along
with the strength and the focus to overcome the endless limitations
of his decaying body, or so he had thought until he woke here. I
must have collapsed, he realized, overcome by the power of the
barrier . . . and the voice on the other side. The voice had spoken
to him for months, promising him immortality and infinite
knowledge, enough to transcend the disease that was killing him, to
overcome mortality entirely. Come to me, free me, be me. Faal had
followed that voice to the very edge of the galaxy, all the while
concealing his true purpose from Starfleet.



Closer now. Close, closer, closest . . . .



"Professor?" the human doctor asked urgently. "Can you hear me? How
do you feel?"



He felt like a new being, but saw no reason to explain anything to
the doctor. He had evolved beyond her, beyond everyone on this
starship. They must have brought me here, he realized, just as
Picard's crew had interfered with and delayed his mission ever
since he first stepped aboard. They can't see what I see, hear what
1 hear. No matter. The ship was still within the barrier, Faal
could sense its power all around him. He knew where he needed to
be: Engineering, where the equipment necessary to his experiment
waited. My work . . . my destiny. It was time for the final step,
to remove the barrier between himself and the voice.



Bring down the wall...



"Professor Faal," the doctor repeated. She glanced



anxiously from his face to the biobed monitor and back again. "Can
you understand me? Do you know where you are?"



Engineering, Faal thought. I have to go to Engineering. He tried to
sit up, but something restrained him. Lifting his head a few
centimeters from the bed, he saw that translucent straps held his
wrists and ankles to the bed. A longer strap stretched across his
chest, further limiting his movement. Why have they con fined me?
he wondered. Don't they realize how close 1 am? Close, closer,
closest. He had vague memories of an altercation with the doctor,
and with Counselor Troi, but that felt like it had occurred ages
ago, to another person, one very different from the being he had
become.



Come. Hurry. He could still hear the voice, but now it seemed like
the voice was his, almost indistinguishable from his own thoughts.
Bring down the wall. Break through.



Dr. Crusher saw him inspecting the restraints. "I'm sorry, but it
was for the best. I'm not sure you're fully responsible for your
actions. It's just a precaution."



He ignored her babbling. The barrier was all that mattered, and the
voice. The voice that was both inside him and waiting on the other
side of the great wail. Come. Hurry. Now. He had to leave this
place. Iffier he nor the voice, if there was truly any Wince left
between them, could not wait any longer Hurry, it pleaded and
commanded. Fast, faster harm.



His shining eyes stared at the band across his

chest, concentrating his will upon the crude impediment, which
began to undo itself as though posses of a will of its own. Simple
telekinesis, he observed. Mind over matter. All that matters is
mind. Crusher made a surprised sound and grabbed for the strap,
trying to pull it back into place; but the band resisted her. The
straps holding down his wrists and ankles also came free. He didn't
even need to touch them; just thinking at the straps was enough.
Release me. Release the voice. He started to sit up and the
doctor's hands pressed down upon his chest, struggling to keep him
from rising. "Daniel& Lee," she called desperately. "Help me. He's
getting free."



Faal dimly recognized the security officer who had originally
escorted him to sickbay, what seemed like decades ago. He didn't
know who the other officer was; he had never seen her before. So
many people on this starship, he thought. Too many. He didn't need
any of them anymore. All he needed was the voice, just as the voice
needed him.

Come. Hurry. Bring down the wall Release the
All ....

They tried to help Crusher restrain him, but there was nothing they
could do against the newfound power in his mind. With a casual
glance, he sent both officers flying away from him. They were
propelled backward, limbs flailing, until they crashed into the
nearest obstacle. Daniels slammed into a sealed doorway, while the
other crew member collided with a metal cart holding a tray covered
with medical instruments. Both cart and officer fell over, sending
hypo



sprays and exoscalpels sliding across -the floor. On nearby
biobeds, injured crew members sat up in alarm, the most able
jumping onto their feet= and rushing to assist the stunned
officers.



"Stay away from him," Crusher warned them all, backing away from
Faal as he swung his legs off the bed and onto the floor. He
wondered for a second why he was wearing such cumbersome boots when
the ship's artificial gravity was very obviously functioning again.
He stared at the boots and they transformed instantly into more
conventional footwear. That's better, he thought. Better, best,
bestow. The voice had bestowed this power on him, the better to
bring down the wall.



"Oh no," Crusher whispered, observing the seemingly magical
metamorphosis. He could sense that she was confused and wary: Best,
better, beware. No fool, she kept her distance as he stood still
for a moment, savoring the restored strength and vitality in his
limbs. The voice sang within him, filling with power and purpose.
Mind over matter. My mind renews my matter. He -had not felt so
robust, so capable, in months, not since the Iverson's had begun
eating away at his physical stamina. He felt the power of the voice
rushing through his body, eradicating every last trace of disease.
I have defeated death, he exulted: I will never cease to be.



The doctor reached for her comm badge, intending to alert Riker and
the others, but Faal heard her thoughts before she had even
finished thinking them. The shiny golden badge disappeared,
transformed

into nothingness with just a moment's thought. He glanced around
the ward and, just for good measure, removed the rest of the comm
badges as well. No more interference, he vowed. No more small-
minded rules and procedures. The head nurse, Ogawa, came running in
from another ward, no doubt attracted by the clamor of Startleet
personnel slamming into doors and objects, and he consigned her
badge to oblivion. No more delays. The wall is all . . . .



He started toward the exit; then an apprehensive thought in the
doctor's mind caught his attention. He looked past her to where his
son lay unconscious upon a biobed.



Milo, he thought. The sight of the motionless boy gave him pause,
although he wasn't sure why. He had attained true immortality at
last; physical reproduction had become irrelevant. But my family .
. . ? Peering deeper into the doctor's thoughts, he discovered that
Kinya was also here in sickbay, resting quietly in the pediatric
unit, her childish mind temporarily deactivated by the doctor's
technology.



Milo. Kinya. He stood frozen between the insensate boy and the exit
from sickbay. My children. Images from the past raced through his
memory, coming from someplace other than the voice. The birth of
each child, their first words and telepathic outpourings. He saw
their entire family together, his wife, Shozana, still alive to
share each precious moment. Milo opening a talking gift box on his
tenth birthday, the sculpted face upon the ornate container urging
him on. The whole family sharing a picnic lunch



alongside Lake Cataria, the afternoon sun shining down on them.
Little Milo, a few years younger than he was now, lifting up his
baby sister for the first time while Shozana looked on, radiantly
proud and happy . . . .



For a moment, his purpose wavered. Hurry, the voice demanded, but
Faal was transfixed by his son's plight. What will become of him?
Probing the boy's mind, he discovered a power not unlike his own
growing within the sleeping child's brain. Perhaps Milo had
followed him across the evolutionary threshold, attaining the same
paranormal capabilities? Faal found himself both pleased and
disturbed by the prospect. This had not been part of his plan; he
had resolved to leave such mortal ties behind him forever. Flesh
does not matter. Matter does riot matter. The sunny recollections
welling up inside him gave way to the searing image of Shozana as
she disintegrated forever upon that malfunctioning transporter pad,
demonstrating irrevocably the fundamental frailty and impermanence
of humanoid relationships. He could never allow himself to be hurt
that way again.



Milo has been gifted, too. He doen't need a father anymore. Mind is
all that matters. Faal turned away from the boy's bed, confident
that he was making the right decision. Milo could look after Kinya,
too. He lead always been good at that, especially since their
mother died. Besides, there was another child that concerned him
now, concerned the voice. An image came to his mind of an infant, a
mere toddler, with

incredible powers and an even more astounding heri tage. The child
of Q and Q, the next step in the evolution of the mind. The child
of the future. His future. . . .



Goodbye, he thought to both of his children, the children of the
past, and left sickbay. No one tried to stop him.



Come. Hurry. Now.



The corridors outside were blessedly free of people. All crew
members were at their posts, he assumed. Red-alert signals,
horizontal in orientation, still flashed upon the walls. Faal
walked at an ever increasing pace toward the nearest turbolift. The
last time he had trod these halls, intent on the same destination,
he had been near the end of his tether, scarcely able to force his
debilitated body to take another step; now he raced effortlessly
upon legs that no longer ached with every movement. The closer he
came to his destiny, the stronger he felt. By the time he reached
the turbolift entrance, he was literally running. He waited
impatiently for the door to slide open.



Close, closer, closest.



"The turbolifts are not currently available to unauthorized
personnel;" an automated voice informed him. "Civilian passengers
should report to either sickbay or their quarters."



Of course, he remembered. The blasted red alert. The officious
computer and its meaningless protocols had halted him before, but
this time he would not be denied. "Open," he ordered the door, his
enhanced mind adding force to his command: No more obstacles. The
bright red door slid open obligingly and he stepped inside.
"Engineering," he said, receiving no further argument from the
computer. The turbolift carried him nearer to his destiny. Soon, he
promised the voice. Soon, sooner, soonest.



The trip to Engineering took less than a minute. Exiting the
turbolift, he entered a beehive of activity. Moving with the
efficiency and coordination of s finely calibrated isolinear relay,
Starfleet personnel scurried about the massive multilevel
engineering center, performing diagnostics and needed repairs on a
variety systems. Mere specks, he dismissed them. Specks inside a
shiny, silver bug. The bulk of their efforts appeared centered
around the warp-engine controls, but the crew was also focused on
systems as diverse as the subspace field distortion amplifiers and
the structural integrity field power conduits. The master situation
monitor, featuring a cutaway schematic of the Enterprise,
highlighted malfunctions throughout the entire vessel, although one
by one items seemed to be slowly coming back on-line.



None of this maters, only the wall. The wall is all.



So intent on their repairs were the crew that no one Faal's arrival
at first. He went straight to the chief engineer's office, where La
Forge had earlier delegated an auxiliary -workstation to Faal. To
his no one was utilizing the station as he approached although -
Ensign Sutter was hard at work nearby using a handheld laser
wielder to seal the ruptured casing of a waveguide conduit
junction. He logged into the computer terminal and called up the

parameters for the subspace tensor matrix necessary to create his
artificial wormhole. He was surprised and pleased by how easily he
could read the complicated display screens; he wasn't even
farsighted anymore. Mind over matter. The mind sees what mere
matter cannot. Providentially, proving the unstoppable
inevitability of his quest, the data was still intact, despite all
the damage caused by the senseless attack of the Calamarain. The
quantum torpedo containing the specialized magneton pulse generator
was unharmed as well, and ready to be launched into the barrier as
soon as he took over the tactical controls.



Yes, he thought. Mind was all that mattered, but he still needed
these machines, at least for this one last task. The voice told him
so. The barrier was made of mind as well, and so could not be
undone by mind alone. The minds of the Q had made it so. Curse the
Q, curse them all! Only his wormhole, born of mortal science, could
bring down the wall. Machine against mind. . .



First, though, he was going to need extra power to generate the
subspace matrix via the Enterprise's main deflector dish. With that
in view, he began rerouting the preignition plasma from the impulse
deck to the auxiliary intake. He and La Forge had already worked
out the procedure, back before Captain Picard disappeared and his
fainthearted crew lost their enthusiasm for the experiment. Fine,
he thought, diverting the plasma as planned. Fine, finer, finest.
This would only take a moment or two.



His efforts did not go unnoticed. Geordi La Forge came running from
matter-antimatter reaction chamber, darting around the tabletop
master systems display. "What the devil is going on with the plasma
injectors?" he asked loudly, then slowed to a stop as his optical
implants spotted the Betazoid scientist at the auxiliary station.
"Professor Faal? What are you doing here?" He looked more carefully
at Faal. What's happened-to your eyes?"



Says the blind man, Faal thought ungraciously. Not long ago, but
before Faals apotheosis, La Forge had banished him from main
engineering after Faal tried to overrule Commander Riker's order to
abort the experiment. Despite all that happened to him since, Faal
had neither forgotten nor forgiven. They are all against me. The
crew, the Q, all of them. "I'rm doing what I came here to do," he
said icily. "What Starfteet Command ordered you all to assist."



What the voice calls out for . . . .



La Forge smacked his palm against his comm age. "Security to
Engineering, pronto!" Then he wasted his breath trying to deter
Faal by his words alone "But we can't create the wormhole now," he
said, badgering Faal with his timid, trivial objections, ""`mot
while the Enterprise is still in the barrier, too. We're too close
to ground zero to initiate the wormhole even if we still wanted
to."



The voice will protect me, he thought, knowing La Forge could never
understand 1 am beyond physical "That's not my concern," he said,
turning his

back on the cowardly engineer. The mind is all. "Computer, prepare
to launch modified torpedo, designation Faal-alpha-one."



Ordinarily, a quantum torpedo, modified or otherwise, could not be
launched without authorization from the captain or the tactical
officer, but control of this particular torpedo, containing the
experimental magneton pulse generator, had already been diverted to
Faal's personal controls. so that he and La Forge could supervise
every step of the experiment. Not that any common computer could
stand against my will now, Faal thought. Arty mind is mightier than
any mere machine. The preapproved launch authority only made his
task easier.



"Acknowledged," the computer reported. "Torpedo Faalalpha-one
loaded and ready to launch on command."



"Sutter, stop him!" La Forge called out.



Caught by surprise, along with everyone else in earshot, Sutter,
improvised, aiming his laser wielder at Faal's exposed back like a
phaser. "Step away from the controls, Professor. I don't want to
use this weapon."



He never had a chance. The metal instrument vanished instantly,
leaving him staring in amazement at his empty hand. La Forge was
also stunned by this demonstration of Faal's new powers; the
circular lenses in his state-of-theart optical implants refocused
on his fingers as he struggled to process this unexpected visual
stimulus. Faal' sensed the chief engineer's shocked surprise, along
with a heightened



sense of caution and concern. Now do you under stand? he wondered.
Now do you comprehend the magnitude of what is at stake?



To his credit, La Forge did not panic when confronted with the
miraculous. "Professor Faal. Lem," he began, stepping toward the
scientist slowly while making another futile try at dissuading Faal
from his destiny. "Be reasonable. I know how important your work is
to you, but--"



"You can't possibly dream how important this is," Faal declared,
affronted by the human's presumption. "You never could." He watched
in satisfaction as the monitor reported the power transfer
complete. "I've been reasonable long enough, while Riker and Q and
the rest of you did everything you could to obstruct my plans, keep
me from my ultimate triumph and transfiguration." His impatience
and irritation swelled when he recalled how Riker had ordered him
physically removed from the bridge, taking advantage of his former
infirmity and weakness. "No more," he vowed. Never again, say 1.
"Computer, initiate subspace tensor matrix."



A pair of security officers rushed into Engineering, phasers ready.
"Stop him," La Forge instructed, pointing at Faal, "but be careful.
He's more dangerous than he looks."



Nodding, both officers aimed their weapons at Faal and fired. Twin
beams of crimson energy intersected between the Betazoid
physicist's shoulder blades, only to be blocked by the invisible
forcefield Faal willed into being. The crimson rays ricocheted off
the

protective shield and bounced back through Engineering, eliciting
cries of alarm. The deflected beams triggered explosions of sparks
and haze where they met with vulnerable conduits and circuitry.



Fools, Faal thought contemptuously. Insignificant specks.



The security team switched off the phasers to prevent further
damage, then rushed ahead to subdue Faal physically, but his self-
generated forcefield repelled the two officers as well. Psychic
energy crackled noisily as their outstretched hands came into with
his protective field. They yanked back their hands as if burned,
then looked at each, other in confusion. "Sir?" one of them asked,
turning to La Forge for guidance.



Faal couldn't care less about the guards' dilemma. He watched the
display panel avidly, his luminous eyes widening in anticipation as
the Enterprise pro jected a stream of precisely modulated verteron
particles into the densest region of the barrier, producing a
subspace tensor matrix of exactly the, correct configuration and
intensity. Faal spared a moment to give silent thanks to Dr. Lenara
Kahn, the Trill researcher whose pioneering work had laid the
groundwork for what he was now about to do, the mind behind the
machine. Only a Trill, he reflected, blessed with the accumulated
knowledge of an immortal symbiont, could begin to understand his
profound- and transforming communion with the voice behind the
wall, that voice that was now inside him. "Computer, launch
modified torpedo. Vector 32-60-45"



"No!" La Forge shouted. He dashed to the master systems table,
where he tried to manually override the launch command. His efforts
showed up on Faal's monitor and he glared at La Forge in
irritation. How long was he expected to endure such small-minded
interference? You have never understood, La Forge. You could never
truly see my vision. With a thought, he deactivated the implants
within La Forge's eye sockets, casting the treacherous meddler into
darkness. "My eyes! What have you done! I can't see!" A horrified
gasp echoed through Engineering as the Starfleet officer groped for
the controls with tentative hands, now as blind in reality as he
had always been to the true importance of the work. A fitting fate,
Faal thought, for so limited and fainthearted an imagination. You
never saw what I see.



Smiling with cruel satisfaction, Faal tracked the trajectory of the
torpedo. Soon, he thought. Soon, sooner, soonest.



Now.

Chapter Seven



WATCHING CAPTAIN Picard keep a .wary eye on Q and his family, Riker
experienced a distinct sense of deja vu. As he sat beside the
captain on the bridge, gratefully removing his gravity boots, he
had a sudden vague recollection of meeting Q under very different
circumstances, on a different ship with a different captain.
Captain Janeway. Voyager. Some kind of trial .... He tried to
dredge the details up from his unconscious, make the fragmentary
impressions cohere, but it was as nebulous and hard to grasp as a
half-remembered dream. That's probably all it is, he thought, or
more like a nightmare if Q was involved He kept his mouth shut, not
about to give Q the satisfaction of knowing that he had invaded
Riker's dreams.



Excited by his father's return, little q demanded attention. He
bounced up and down in Q's arms, waving his halfeaten glop-on-a-
stick like a magic wand.



"Good morning to you, little man," Q said sunnily, beaming at his
child. Riker felt a peculiar twinge of jealously; for all his
irresponsible ways, Q was obviously a more doting and affectionate
father than Kyle Riker had ever been. "Or is it good evening?" Q
glanced at Picard. "For the eternal life of me, I never have been
able to figure out just how you people manage to tell the time of
day in this stultifyingly artificial environment of yours."



"We muddle through somehow," Picard said dryly, unamused by the Q's
touching family reunion. No doubt he was concerned about Baeta
Leyoro and the other crew members now in sickbay; Riker had brought
Picard up to speed on Leyoro's shocking collapse, wishing he could
have spared the captain that news. Picard had enough problems to
worry about, especially with three Q's aboard and the warp drive
still down.



"You're going to spoil him," the female Q scolded, rising from
Deanna's seat and stepping around the accompanying computer
console. She crossed the debrisstrewn bridge to where Q and q
cavorted. She wiped her son's messy mouth with a monogrammed
handkerchief (inscribed with a stylish "Q") that she drew from thin
air. "Look, he's got organic residue and sucrose contaminants all
over his face."



Gathered together, engrossed with each other, the

Q family presented a surprisingly ordinary portrait of domestic
life. Who'd have thought that Q would turn out to be such a family
man? Riker thought, not quite believing his eyes.

"Nonsense!" Q asserted. "There's no such thing as a spoiled Q."
Riker saw the captain raise a skeptical eyebrow at that remark and
look like he was tempted to dispute the claim. The first officer
knew just how Picard felt. The real question is, he mused, has
there ever been a Q that wasn't spoiled by too much power and not
enough accountability? He was inclined to doubt it. "But why is it
so dark in here?" Q asked, seeming to notice the faint lighting for
the first time. "Trying to saving a few credits on the power bill,
Riker?" He shook his head. "No, this just won't do. The place looks
like a crypt."

As if on cue, the overhead lights came back on, dispelling the
brooding shadows from the bridge. Faint blue tracking lights also
reignited along the floor. Thank heavens for small favors, Riker
thought, refusing to thank Q either verbally or mentally. His
command console had previously informed him that gravity had been
restored not just on the bridge, but throughout the entire saucer
section. Maybe we're finally starting to get things back under
control.

"Captain!" Ensign Berglund exclaimed at tactical. "According to the
control panel, we've just fired a torpedo into the barrier!"

"What?" Picard blurted, spinning around in his chair to face the
tactical podium. Riker was caught equally off guard, and even Q
looked up in surprise



from the babbling toddler in his arms, a puzzled expression on his
face.

"It wasn't me," Berglund explained hastily, her pale face whiter
than usual. "From the looks of it, the torpedo was launched from
Engineering."

Faal, Riker realized intuitively. The experiment. Almost
simultaneously, Geordi's voice came over the first officer's
combadge. "Commander. We have a problem. Lem Faal has just launched
the retooled torpedo. He's going to create the wormhole!"

What the devil? Riker thought. Faal had fled sickbay earlier, but
security had returned both him and his son to Dr. Crusher in an
unconscious state. They were supposed to be out cold, like Leyoro.

"Sickbay confirms that Professor Faal left sickbay after attacking
several officers," Ensign Berglund reported. "They say he is armed
with . . . telekinetic powers?"

"Faal can do things; Commander. Like a Q," La Forge said,
unintentionally seconding Berglund's report. His voice sounded
shaken; but under control. Riker guessed that the engineer was only
giving him the most pertinent details; something else had happened
in Engineering, something bad. Had the obsessed scientist harmed or
killed a crew member? First Deanna, now this. One way or another,
Riker intended to see that he was put away for a very long time,
winner of the Daystrom Prize or not. First things first, however.
"Riker to sickbay," he said via his combadge. "Casualties in
Engineering."

"Faal has to-be stopped," the captain declared, his

voice and expression grave. Riker could tell from the captain's
manner that there was more at stake than just the safety of the
Enterprise. "We cannot let the wormhole form, Number One: That is
vitally important to safety of the entire galaxy." He jumped to his
feet and strode toward the Q's family tableau. "Q!" he demanded
harshly. "Do something. Quickly!"



Still distracted by his squirming, squealing son, Q glanced over
his shoulder at the featureless glow on the main viewer. Can he see
something that the rest of us can't? Riker wondered. "Yes, of
course," Q stammered, awkwardly attempting to hand off q to his
mother. The child was determined to stay where he was, though,
clinging to Q's neck with jumja-stained arms while his happy hellos
turned into an earsplitting wail of protest. "Just give me a second
. . . ."



"Captain," Data reported from Ops. "I am detecting a subspace
tensor matrix identical to the one required -by Professor Faal's
calculations. It is being generated by the Enterprise as we speak."



"Shut it down," Picard ordered. The wails of the fussing child
added an extra, unwanted level of chaos to an already tense
situation. "Do whatever you have to in order to terminate the
matrix."



"I am trying, Captain," the android stated, "but the controls are
not responding."



"Fire phasers," Picard directed Berglund. "Target that torpedo." If
they were lucky, Riker realized, they might - be able to destroy
the specialized torpedo before it emitted the magneton pulse that
would create the wormhole. But what if they failed?



"Captain;" he pointed out, "if that wormhole does start to form, -
we don't want to be nearby. The gravitational flux alone could
finish us. Perhaps we should put some distance between us and the
torpedo, just in case."



Picard shook his head. "If we don't stop Faal from tearing a hole-
in the barrier, Number One, it may be too late for the entire Alpha
Quadrant." He gave Riker a solemn look, letting the first officer
see some of his anxiety. "There's a being on the other side of the
barrier, Will. A being that we cannot allow into our galaxy again."



A being? Riker reacted. Like Q? While the first officer digested
that chilling revelation, Ensign Berg fund called out from
tactical, her voice cracking. "The phasers aren't doing any good,
sir. Something's protecting the torpedo. A forcefield maybe, or the
barrier itself. The sensor readings are strange." She wiped the
perspiration from her brow. "I've never seen anything like them."



How was Faal doing this? Why aren't Geordi and the others able to
stop him? Riker wished now that he had confined the fanatical
scientist to the brig the first time he raised an uproar. It was
too late now; they were rapidly running-out of options: Calling up
the missile's trajectory on his own command- console; he saw that
the torpedo was only seconds from the perimeter of the barrier.



"Q," Picard exhorted his old nemesis. "You have to do something!"

Successfully prying q off his harried father, the female Q carried
the crying child to the starboard side of the bridge, stroking and
cooing q in hopes of quieting his tantrum. Free from his son's
clutches, if not from the nerve-jangling noise of his shrieks and
sobs, Q spun around and faced the shimmering viewscreen. He
stretched out his hands before him; as if reaching for the unseen
torpedo. His brow knitted in concentration. His fingers flexed as a
grunt of exertion slipped past his lips.



"What is it, Q?" Picard asked apprehensively. ..wt's happening?"



"Something is blocking me," Q admitted. Riker was surprised by the
evident strain in the all-powerful being's voice, not to mention a
note of genuine fear. "It's him, Picard. He's here."



"Where?" Picard asked desperately. Riker ground his teeth together;
wishing he knew more about what was happening. What sort of being
could spook both the Captain and Q?



"Here on your ship," Q said, the muscles beneath his face twitching
as he sought to exert his considerable powers upon the intractable
torpedo, "at least in part. And behind the barrier as well. He's
all around us, Picard, flanking me at every turn . . . ."



Perhaps frightened by his father's obvious anxiety, or simply
determined to escape his mother's confining embrace, little q
teleported away in a twinkling of light. The female Q gaped at her
now-empty arms with a look of distress. "Oh no!" she exclaimed and



disappeared herself, doubtless in pursuit of her elusive child.
Riker was not saddened to see them go, not if it meant two fewer
distractions for all concerned, including Q, who seemed to have his
hands full at the moment, as impossible as that sounded.



"Captain," Data announced with inhuman calm, "the magneton pulse
generator within the torpedo has been activated. The pulse is
reacting with the subspace matrix, exactly as Professor Faal's
theory predicted." He studied the sensor readings displayed at his
console. "I am detecting elevated neutrino levels, indicative of
wormhole formation."



"What if we used phase conjugate graviton beams to disrupt the
wormhole's spatial matrix?" Riker suggested, remembering that
Starfleet had tried just such a tactic to permanently close the
Bajoran wormhole near Deep Space Nine. That effort had failed, but
only because of Changeling sabotage.



"You might as well throw rocks at it," Q said scornfully,
dismissing Ricer's plan. His shoulders sagged as his arms dropped
to his sides. "It's too late, Picard. We've lost." His voice took
on a doleful tone as he exchanged a worried look with Picard. "He's
coming through."



"Um, who is he exactly?" Barclay asked nervously, voicing the
unspoken question in the minds of everyone except the captain- and
the Q's. Rankly, I wouldn't mind learning that myself, Riker
thought, but first there was the little matter of a wormhole to
deal with.

Picard had reached the same conclusion. "Ensign Clarze," he
addressed the conn, "get us out of the barrier now. Maximum
impulse."



"Yes, sir!" the young Deltan said. There was no change upon the
overloaded viewscreen, but Riker felt the thrum of the impulse
drive beneath his feet as the Enterprise headed back toward the
galaxy it came from. But even at maximum impulse, could they
possibly escape the barrier before the birth of the artificial
wormhole wrenched apart the very fabric of space-time?



"A massive quantum fluctuation is forming directly behind us," Data
reported. "The subspace shock wave, registering 715.360
millicochranes, will strike the ship in approximately 2.008
seconds."



Riker couldn't vouch for the precise accuracy of the android's
prediction, but he felt the shock wave almost immediately. The
subspace tremor buffeted the Enterprise, nearly shaking the first
officer from his seat. Thank heaven for Barclay's psionically
enhanced deflectors. He'd have to commend the hapless engineer for
his creativity during a crisis, if the ship didn't come apart
first. "Shields buckling!" Ensign Berglund called out, holding on
to the tactical podium for dear life.



More shocks jolted Riker as the intense vibrations rattled every
bone in his body. His aching head felt like a warpcore breach.
Sparks flared at the conn station, nearly burning Ensign Clarze,
who shielded his face with his arm. Riker glanced quickly at
Picard, who grabbed on to the back of Deanna's chair to keep



from falling. The entire ship was quivering like a Vulcan gong
right after it had been struck. Has the captain returned to the
Enterprise, Riker wondered, just in time to perish with the rest of
us?



"Captain! Commander Riker!" Ensign Clarze shouted over the quaking
of the bridge. "The warp engines have come back on-line."



Thank you, Geardi, Riker thought. And just in time. "Go to warp,
mister. Now!"

Fee fie fo fum, l smell freedom. Here 1 come. . . .

The scent of freshly liberated neutrinos wafted across the great
wall, bringing with it the promise of rescue after oh so many
aeons. His pawn within the shiny silver bug, abetted by a piece of
his own splendiferous spirit, had done its part at last. He sensed
the forbidding fire of the great wall, the same damnable dynamism
that had held him back for so long, crumbling beneath the ingenious
assault of the clever little beings inhabiting the silver bug. A
window was opening, a window through which he would finally be able
to slip over to the other side, where an infinity of -diversions
awaited him, not to mention revenge on the perfidious Q.



Q is for quisling, he chanted impatiently. Q is for quarry. He'd
hunt Q, he would, enjoying every frenzied heartbeat of the chase,
and, at the end of the game, he'd show just as much mercy and
understanding as Q had showed him at the moment of bleakest,
blackest betrayal. Q is for quitter; whose questionable quibbles
and querulous qualms quashed my quintes

sential gist and quickened my quiddity to queer and quiescent
quarantine.



Within the barrier, reality twisted and contorted itself, creating
a gap that had never before existed. So intent was he on the window
that was being carved out of the unforgiving unity of the wall that
he barely noticed the tiny silver insect fleeing frantically from
the maelstrom it had engendered. Retracting his tendrils,
compacting his entire being into a single infinitesimal point of
consciousness, he watched and waited until the window opened all
the way through to the other side. He felt exotic solar winds,
exhaled by a billion distant suns, blow against his provoked
perceptions, inciting him onward.



With nary a nanosecond of doubt or hesitation, he hurled himself
into the voracious vortex, diving for deliverance from an eternity
of exile and isolation. The empty void of the window was like an
ice-cold pond compared with the blazing furnace of cosmic energies
that composed the wall. The shock was enough to stop his breath,
assuming he felt the need to breathe, but he barreled on
nonetheless, eager to reeach the other side-where Q would be
waiting.

Once before, he recalled, his scattered memory
racing backward in time even as the totality of his
being rushed back into the galaxy, he had flung himself
through another window, the so-called Guardian of
Forever. : Then, too, Q had been waiting, but to help
him, not hinder, not yet. Oh, those were the days, he
rhapsodized, days of fire and fun and furor. He flew

past the pierced substance of the wall, the wall that could no
longer deny him. Those days will come again.



But the window was a fragile one, doomed to dissolve within a
heartbeat. Already it was shrinking, squeezing him tightly. The gap
was narrowing, the accursed wall encroaching on his escape route at
a redoubtable rate. Again he recalled that earlier window, whose
graven Guardian had strived so relentlessly to keep him from
emerging into the new reality on the other side. For a time, he had
been trapped in the window, held fast halfway between one realm and
another. Then only Q had been there to pull him through, only Q had
saved him, only to betray him when it mattered most.

Q is for quisling. Q is for quitter.

Now he was nearly trapped again, the window narrowing so quickly
that he feared he would not be able to squeeze his way through to
the other side, no matter how small he made himself, no matter how
swiftly he soared nor how furiously he fought against the wall
pressing in on him. Now, as .before, it was Q that gave him the
strength to continue, his hatred of Q and his desire for vengeance
that propelled him onward despite the noxious narrowing of the
window.



I'm coming for you, he howled into the star-strewn galaxy ahead.
Coming for Q and Q and Q1



The distant stars were closer now, but the scope of his view was
diminishing rapidly, shrinking inward like the pupil of a cyclopean
eye dilating in reverse. So close! Close, closer, closest. He
summoned the remain

der of his resources, all that he had not already entrusted to his
surrogate beyond the wall; for one final spasm of speed to bring
him beyond the bounda ry forever arid ever. The wall tried to deter
him, the frictional forces fighting him every inch of the way.
Then, all at once, he was free of both wail and window, among the
stars he had spied upon from afar. He had made it! Made it he had!



The window snapped shut behind him, shrinking into nothingness, the
eternal wall regaining its seamless and sacred solidity, but he did
not look back. There was nothing for him there, there never had
been, only endless and immeasurable exile. His future, boundless
and infinite enticing, lay ahead, like this gorgeous galaxy and its
trillions upon trillions of waiting worlds. And Q, of course.



Q is for quarry, quoth 1. Q will quake and quiver and quail . . . .



"Go to warp, mister. Now!



In an instant, the Enterprise was accelerated at warp speed out of
the barrier and away from the wormhole: The bone-rattling shaking
subsided and the eerie glow of the galactic barrier, which had
filled the viewscreen since Picard's return to his ship, gave way
to the reassuring sight of stars streaking past the prow at what
looked like warp factor eight or more, faster than the subspace
shock wave that had nearly destroyed the Enterprise. They'd had a
narrow escape, but had they fled swiftly enough to escape 0
himself?

"Captain," Data reported, "according to the longrange sensors, the
artificial wormhole has already collapsed. The total duration of
its existence was no longer than 1.004 seconds."
"Long enough," Q said glumly, with uncharacteristic directness.
"He's here. On the Enterprise. "
Chapter Eight
"Little soldiers in a row,
One big puff and down you go,
Bodies, bodies, on the floor,
Sadly you will play no more . . . . "

THE OMINOUS DITTY came from on high, echoing all over the bridge.
Startled, Riker and the others looked up at the ceiling, searching
in vain for the source of the inexplicable crooning. Picard
recognized the raspy voice, as did Q, who could not repress a
genuine shudder. "I never did like his singing," he said in a
transparent attempt to maintain a brave front. For a moment, he
reminded Picard inescapably of the inover-his-head youth Q had once
been. He could not possibly be looking forward to this reunion, not
after



playing such a deciding role in 0's downfall so many ages ago. 1
almost feel sorry for him, Picard thought.



He sat down in his chair and held his breath expectantly. He could
not begin to imagine how 0 would manifest himself. Had the immortal
entity changed at all over the last five hundred thousand years?
What might all those thousands of centuries of banishment have done
to him? "Be on your guard, Number One," he said tersely. "This
entity is not to be trusted."



But could Q? The thought fleetingly passed through Picard's mind
that maybe what he had witnessed in the distant past had been
nothing more than an elaborate fiction, an illusion created by Q's
vast and limitless power. No, he concluded, that does not ring
true. Although he conceded that Q could certainly create just such
a shadowplay if he so chose, Picard knew in his gut that all he had
seen had truly happened. 0's crimes had been real, and so was the
present danger.



A Q-like flash of light at the prow of the bridge heralded 0's
arrival. He appeared in front of the viewscreen, facing Data and
Ensign Clarze. The helmsman lurched back in his seat involuntarily
while the android merely cocked his head in contemplation of the
stranger's miraculous entrance and striking appearance.



"Do you still like to play games, Q?"



Picard barely recognized 0. He looked like a refuge or disaster
victim, freshly rescued from some barren asteroid or moon, who had
-long since abandoned any concern over his appearance. His foppish
finery had been reduced to rags and tatters, his shredded green
velvet coat hanging like streamers from bony shoulders now a few
sizes too small for his garments: Oily, uncombed orange hair,
streaked with geriatric shocks of white, spilled over those same
shoulders, joining a thick, matted beard through which cracked,
yellow teeth bared a skull's unsettling grin. Callused toes, the
nails curled and overgrown, protruded from beneath the overlapping
strips of fraying damask wrapped around his feet, the left of which
remained twisted and distorted: Ancient scars climbed up his
deformed ankle, disappearing beneath the torn cuffs of his antique
trousers.



The emaciated figure before Picard bore little resemblance to the
charismatic ne'er-do-well who had so captivated the younger Q. The
present Q stared aghast at what 0 had become. `By the Continuum!"
he whispered hoarsely.



The interdimensional exile appeared to have -fallen on hard times
indeed. Perhaps, Picard hoped, he is no longer as powerful as once
he was. Certainly there was a glint of utter insanity in the
figure's gleeful blue eyes that Picard did not recall seeing there
before. The wild eyes searched the bridge hungrily, taking in every
detail before settling on Q. A string of saliva drooled from one
corner of 0's mouth.



"Q!" he proclaimed. "And not just any Q, but my Q, the Q of all
Q's!" His manic grin stretched even further, more than Picard would
have thought was



even possible. Was it just his imagination, or were 0's very
features more fluid and mutable than he remembered, as if the
crippled castaway could no longer be bothered to maintain a
consistent appearance? The bones and musculature beneath his beard
and sallow skin seemed to shift subtly from moment to moment. "I
told you I'd be back, I did: Are you ready for our game? I know I
am."



"What game is that?" Q said warily, keeping his distance. He slowly
raised his palms toward 0, just as he had once attempted to fend
off Guinan the first time they encountered each other upon the
Enter prise. He looked ready to defend himself if necessary.



Glancing back at tactical, Picard saw Ensign Berglund reach for her
phaser. Catching her eye, he shook his head to discourage whatever
she had in mind; he was not about to risk any crew member's life on
a futile attempt to take the omnipotent intruder into custody.
Let's see what happens between him and Q before we try anything
rash.



"Why, the only game that matters, Q old Q. The game of life and
death, remember?" He pointed a curling yellow fingernail, at least
three centimeters in length, at Q, who flinched instinctively even
though no lightning bolt or metaphysical death ray leaped from the
extended digit. "I'm game if you are."



"More gamy than game, I think," Q said, unable to resist the
insult. He wrinkled his nose at 0's wretched and debased
appearance.



"Don't put on airs with me, Q!" 0 barked, so

vehemently that Q stepped back in alarm. "I knew you when, don't
forget." A bolt of energy leaped from his open hand, smashing
through Q's defenses as if they didn't exist and knocking Q off his
feet. The impact of the blast was enough to make the whole strip
lurched downward, throwing everyone forward. Picard grabbed on to
his armrails to keep from falling onto the floor of the command
area. The inertial dampers restabilized their orientation after a
moment, but it was a terrifying demonstration of the power that
remained within 0's degraded shell. Picard wanted desperately to
intervene, to take a stand against 0's callous disregard for the
ship and the crew, but he knew better than to provoke 0 to no
purpose. This is Q's game for now. Let him play the first cards.



0 paced back and forth before the viewscreen, dragging his mangled
foot behind him. "Are your wits as sharp as your tongue, Q? I
wonder. You'll need all your wits to play my game. It's time to be
tested!" He fired another bolt that sent Q tumbling backward.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."



"I could have waited a good deal longer," Q said weakly, climbing
awkwardly to his feet. The look on his face deeply concerned
Picard; Q looked genuinely surprised. But is he shocked by 0's
actions or his power? Picard wondered. He could only hope it was
the former, given that Q was their best defense against the
dangerous entity. Surely Q can put up a better fight than this?



"No more waiting! Wait no more!" 0 cackled. "I had to wait for this
shiny silver bug," 0 said, spinning



around on his good leg to take in the entire bridge. "I had to wait
a very long time. Long, longer, longest."



He's lost his mind altogether, Picard realized, a chill running
down his spine. What was more _ to be dreaded, a cool and
calculating 0 or a lunatic with the power of the gods? At least the
intruder seemed focused exclusively on Q so far, he had yet to even
acknowledge the presence of Picard and the others. We're too far
beneath him, I suppose.



"What a fine, fast bug this is, too," 0 declared. Something
wriggled beneath the tattered fabric of his oversized coat. What in
the world? Picard thought. Peering more closely at the raving
superbeing, he took note of various mysterious moving objects
coiling sinuously over 0's shoulders and beneath his arms, making
their way underneath his ragged clothing. With a start, Picard
recalled the spectral tentacles he had sometimes glimpsed
flickering about 0's human form during moments of great stress or
exertion. He got the distinct impression that the consistency of
that human guise had suffered as much as the rest of his
appearance. He was almost afraid to guess what was lurking and
flexing beneath 0's coat.



"I can use this bug, when I'm through with you, Q. I have places to
go, people to free." The quivering tip of some luminous, phantasmal
appendage poked from beneath 0's collar and through the unkempt
cascade of hair flowing over his shoulder. It wagged back and forth
next to where 0's neck presumably was, as if sampling the
atmosphere of the bridge, then withdrew back into the concealing
layers of hair and fabric.

From the startled gasp and nervous gulp behind him, Picard guess
that both Berglund and Barclay had spotted the tendril as well.



"Careful," Q-chided him, tugging at the neck of his Starfleet
uniform. " You seem to have a bad case of writhing around- the
collar."



Was that an attempt at courage, Picard wondered, or was Q simply
unable to overlook an opportunity to be snide? Knowing Q, he feared
the latter.



"Don't worry, Q, I won't forget you." 0 limped across the prow of
the bridge until he stood directly. in front of the conn. "Just
thinking ahead a bit. Remembering a Head I have to go get." He eyed
the navigational controls with keen and avaricious interest:
"Right," he stuttered into his beard. "Ready the rudder. Ready and
-roaring."



He poked at the controls with a gnarled nail, keying in new
coordinates with the speed and assurance of a veteran pilot,
treating cutting-edge Starfleet technology like a children's toy.
Picard was appalled at how quickly the deranged entity had mastered
the intricacies of starship navigation.



"Wait! What are you doing?" Ensign Clarze protested as the ship
began to pitch and yaw. Without thinking, he reached out and seized
0 by the wrist.



It was the last thing he ever did. Before anyone even grasped what
was happening, a glowing tentacle burst from 0's chest; ripping his
soiled shirt front asunder and wrapping itself-around the young
Deltan's throat. : . .

"DR: CRUSHER, COME QUICKLY!"

The holographic physician's entreaty drew Beverly Crusher instantly
to the biobed -where Lieutenant Leyoro's body rested within the
protective embrace of the surgical support frame. She left Deanna
Troi, freshly wakened from -her cortically induced coma now that
the Enterprise had left the barrier behind, to watch over the
unconscious form of Milo Faaal, while Nurse Ogawa supervised
straightening up the disarray caused by Lem Faal during his
telekinetic rampage: Thank heaven no one was hurt seriously, she
thought, although the crazed and mutated scientist remained at
large, and capable of most anything, or so it seemed. It must have
been the barrier, she realized; somehow the awesome psionic energy
of the galactic

barrier had amplified the Betazoid's already formidable mental
gifts. Was this what he was planning all along? No wonder he
resisted all my efforts to protect him from the barrier.



Crusher pushed such speculations aside to concentrate on the
patient at hand. "What is it?" she asked the EMH. Had Leyoro taken
a turn for the worse? At a glance, her condition appeared
unchanged.



"Look," the hologram said, pointing at the monitor above the bead.
"Her neurotransmitter levels are dropping dramatically."



He was right. The activity within the unconscious officer's brain
was rapidly returning to normal. It was too early to predict what
sort of neurological damage, if any, had already been done by her
overstimulated synapses, but this was a very hopeful sign. "Did you
do anything?" she asked the computer-generated doctor.



"I wish I could take the credit," he admitted, "but I'm afraid not:
I was--simply monitoring her condition as you instructed:" He
glanced past her at the ward beyond; where Alyssa Ogawa was
retrieving the last of the fallen exoscalpels from the floor. Like
everyone else in. sickbay, Ogawa had removed her magnetic boots now
that gravity had been restored. Ante nurse was handing out newly
replicated comm badges. "What in the name of Starfleet medical
protocols went on over-there?" the EMH inquired, referring to
Professor Faal's spectacular escape. "My programming did not begin
to prepare me for any events of that nature."



"Join the club," Crusher murmured, preferring to focus on Leyoro's
surprising recovery. What could have triggered this turnaround? The
triclenidil, she wondered, or something else? Another thought
occurred to her: Perhaps it was simply that the Enterprise had
finally exited the galactic barrier? The removal of the barrier's
direct - influence upon Leyoro's artificially enhanced nervous
system might account for the sudden diminishment of her symptoms.



"How is she doing, Beverly?" Deanna asked; joining her at Leyoro's
side: Crusher noted that Ogawa had taken over the watch on Milo.
Good, she thought. She wanted to know the minute the boy showed
signs of consciousness.



"She's been through a rough time; ' the doctor told Deanna.
Although Leyoro's brain was no longer in danger of burning itself
out, the Angosian woman remained unconscious, her face immobile. "I
can't say yet when or if she will recover."



Troi rested her hands gently upon the surgical support frame
enclosing the: stricken woman's torso. The EMH stepped aside to
give her a little more room. "I can barely sense her
consciousness," she said softly, "it's so faint. But she's in pain,
terrible pain."



Trusting the counselor's empathic abilities implicitly, Crusher
adjusted the dosage of analgesic being administered to Leyoro by
infusion system in the SSF. "That's better," Deanna reported a few
moments later. She gazed at Leyoro's comatose face.

"I've barely had a chance to get to know her, and now this. It's so
tragic."



"She might well pull through," Crusher assured her. "I don't
approve of how the Angosian military tampered with her biology, but
their goal was to produce extraordinarily strong and resilient
individuals. Survivors." She glanced up at the biobed display, glad
to see that the patient's neurotransmitter levels were practically
back to normal. She made a mental note to access the medical
archives of the Angosian veterans facility on Lunar V as soon as
possible, although she doubted that anything in their records bore
a close-rsemblance to what effect the galactic barrier could have
on a humanoid brain. "We shouldn't underestimate her innate stamina
and recuperative powers."



"Not to mention -the considerable talents and medical expertise of
certain attending physicians," the EMH pointed out, leading Crusher
to wonder briefly whether it was technically possible to turn down
the volume on the hologram's self-esteem. He was just a little too
much like the real Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, whom she'd had the dubious
pleasure of meeting a few years back when she'd temporarily taken
charge of Starfleet Medical; his ego had required excess stroking
as well, she recalled. I'll have to ask Data or Geordi about how to
adjust the program.



"What about Milo?" she asked Deanna. "Were you able to sense
anything?" Milo Faal had not stirred since his unconscious body had
been brought to



sickbay by Sonya Gomez and the others, although the psionic-energy
readings in his youthful brain were scarily similar to those
recorded in his father before Lem Faal fled sickbay amid a flurry
of telekinetic violence.



Troi shook her head. "I'm very familiar with the ordinary
telepathic abilities of full Betazoidsyou've met my motherbut this
is something new. I've never sensed anything like it. It's like
white noise. I can't even sense his emotions anymore."



Crusher frowned. This didn't sound good. She had to worry if Milo
would wake with the same astonishing-and. dangerous-powers his
father had- displayed. Just one more thing to agonize about, she
thought; it didn't help that the eleven-year-old boy invariably
reminded her of Wesley at that age.



Flow do 1 treat something like this? she wondered: l could -
accidentally do more harm than good. She was starting to wish she
had never heard of the galactic barrier.



"At least his younger sister is fine," Crusher reflected. Little
Kinya had come out of her artificial coma with no apparent side
effects and was now napping quietly in the pediatric unit. Beverly
wasn't looking forward to trying to explain to the toddler what had
happened to her father and brother. Part of her was still astounded
that Lem Faalcould just abandon his children like this, no matter
what the barrier had done to his mind. In a way, she thought,
that's even more unbelievable than his amazing new mental powers.



"Why don't I check on little Kinya?" Deanna volun

teered. Crusher recalled that the counselor had a Betazoid baby
brother about the same age as Kinya Faal. "You have enough to keep
an eye on here."



"Thank you," Crusher said, grateful for Troi's assistance during
this crisis. Both children were going to need plenty of counseling
now that their father had apparently lost his mind. "That would be
very helpful."



Giving Leyoro one last look, Troi headed toward the emergency
pediatric unit attached to the primary care ward. She had only been
gone a few minutes, however, when a startled cry from Deanna
electrified Crusher's senses and sent her adrenaline rushing.
Crusher raced into the children's ward, Ogawa dose behind her, to
find Troi backed against a row of empty, child-sized biobeds, her
hand over her-heart. "I'm sorry, Beverly," she stammered quickly,
her face flushed, "but he appeared so quickly he caught me by
surprise."



Beverly didn't have to ask whom she referred to. The source of the
counselor's startlement was readily apparent atop the counter
beneath the pediatric supplies cupboard, his pint-sized legs
dangling over the edge of the sleek metal counter. Little q was
back, doubtless in search of yet another of Crusher's- prescription
lollipops. His cherubic face looked more anxious than she had ever
seen it before.



"Scared," he confessed sheepishly, although of what the doctor
couldn't guess. A pudgy little hand reached out to her. "Yum-yum?"



Then the floor tilted forward violently . . . .



At last, Faal thought. Long-range sensors reported the birth and
almost immediate collapse of the wormhole he had created. The
transitory nature of its existence did not disturb him; he had not
expected his wormhole to last any longer than the ones previously
generated by Dr. Kahn and her colleagues. However short-lived, the
quantum fluctuation had lasted long enough to serve its purpose-to
break through - the galactic barrier to the other side. I did it,
he thought triumphantly. It I dud After endless months of planning
and striving, after what felt like half- a million years, he had
succeeded at last.



Now he could turn his expanded mind to even loftier matters. For so
long, he had been forced by the limitations of his treacherous
flesh to fixate exclusively on one goal, compelled to achieve
genuine immortality before death by disease claimed him forever. He
had seldom been able to spare one precious moment contemplating
what he could do once he attained that immortality. Now, all at
once, he had the freedom to find a new. purpose in existence, to
expand his work to a whole new level of scientific inquiry. I have
evolved beyond mere physical matter: Now my mind can explore the
full potential of mind itself . . . .



The frightened mortals surrounding him, chattering anxiously and
cluttering up Engineering, could not appreciate his triumph. They
were too caught up in anxiety and adrenaline generated by his
takeover of Engineering, not to mention their foolish Starfleet
rigmarole. Even now, Lieutenant La Forge-sought to

take control of the situation, despite the true blindness into
which Faal had plunged him. "La Forge to bridge," he reported,
holding on to the tabletop display to keep himself oriented in the
dark. "We need more security. Faal is free and dangerous." He
shouted a command to his engineering crew, as well as to the first
security officers on the scene, whose phasers had proved useless
against Faal's inexplicable new powers. "Everyone else, stay away
from Professor Faal. Keep at your posts. We still have a job to
do!"



Daniel Setter, a merely competent engineer in Faal's opinion, tried
to guide La Forge away. "Sir, you should be in sickbay."



"No," La Forge said passionately. "I'm not leaving Engineering in
the hands of that menace. I don't need my eyes to do my duty."



Faal shook his head in bemusement. Specks. They were nothing but
specks. Even now, the sightless engineer could not see past the
petty responsibilities of his post, beyond some routine mechanical
repairs. Scanning La Forge's mind in an instant, Faal saw the
entire infrastructure of the Enterprise laid out before him, from
the replicator system to the warp engines themselves. Despite
Faal's historic triumph over the barrier, part of La Forge's mind
was still worrying about repairing a series of sundered thermal
isolation struts, and the difficulties of realigning the off axis
field controller. Faal could have. done so in an instant, simply by
thinking of it, but why should he bother? He had transcended such
mundane chores, even if La



Forge and his equally shortsighted servitors had not. The mind is
all that matters now. My mind and the mind of one special child . .
. .



Yes, the child, a voice echoed at the back of his mind, so
persuasively that he could scarcely distinguish whether it was his
own thought or another's. The child of Q and Q. The next stage in
evolution, beyond the Q, beyond you ....



"Beyond," he breathed softly, recalling the miraculous infant he
had briefly observed in the Enterprise's holographic child-care
facility. Had not the female Q boasted that her offspring
represented a potential advance beyond even the considerable
evolutionary development of the Q Continuum? What more suitable
subject could he choose for his experiments now that he had
transcended his own mortality, achieving a state of being that
perhaps rivaled that of the Q themselves? Only he and he alone had
the predestined combination of preternatural power and bold
scientific imagination to correctly study the unique phenomenon
that was the Q child under controlled and rigorous experimental
conditions. He had the intellect. He had the ability.



Now all he needed was the child.



He reached out with his mind, searching the entire ship for any
sign of the supremely talented toddler. Where is the child? The
child of the mind. Somehow he knew, perhaps via that voice
whispering constantly at the back of his mind, that Q and his
family remained aboard the vessel, pursuing their own enigmatic
agendas. The cursed Q, the meddling Q. All that power and

knowledge; he thought rancorously, wasted on frivolous antics and
diversions; Q was an embarrassment to immortals everywhere. Faal
was surprised at the intensity of the animosity he now felt toward
Q. The bitter resentment seemed to course through his soul as
surely as the metaphysical might he had absorbed within the
barrier. Damn you, a he curd, railing against an entity he had
scarcely encountered before. You don't deserve that child.



His natural telepathy amplified more than he could have ever
possibly imagined; he scoured the ship from deck to deck without
stirring from his workstation in Engineering. As La Forge and his
fellow mortals watched him warily from what they hoped was a safe
distance, he located his target in sickbay of all places. Where
Milo and Kinya are, he recalled, fling a momentary pang before
forcibly shoving the thought away. Never mind those children. Mind
over matter. The child of the mind was all that mattered. Funny,
how his path kept .returning to sickbay. What other proof did he
require that his destiny was following some mysterious preordained
pattern? It was his scientific duty to take custody of the Q child,
no matter who might try to oppose him.



That's right, the voice seconded his resolve. Test the



tot. Test him to the breaking point, then probe and

peruse the pieces. Test him till there's nothing left of Q

and Q ....



The Betazoid scientist strode decisively, on strong and tireless
legs, toward the exit. His work in



Engineering was done. Now the future, in the unlikely form of
child, awaited him in sickbay.



He didn't even notice when the floor of the corridor pitched
forward beneath his feet.



Instinctively, Beverly Crusher reached for q the instant she felt
the pediatric unit dip toward the bow of the ship. Granted, the
toddler was probably infinitely more indestructible than she was,
but years of experience as both a doctor and a mother brought with
them protective impulses too compelling to be denied. She snatched
the child off the metal counter, holding on to him tightly until
the floor leveled out



"What was that?" Troi gasped, gripping a biobed to steady herself.
Standing in the doorway, Alyssa Ogawa looked equally startled:
Beverly assumed that the EMH and the other nurses were monitoring
Leyoro and Milo.



"I. wish I knew," Crusher said. Was the Enterprise under attack
again? And if so, from whom? The Calamarain? The barrier? Professor
Faal? Q? Something else altogether? There were too many
possibilities, she thought grimly, at a time when sickbay was too
full already. ,



Carrying q with her, she peered through a transparent aluminum
porthole, seeing no sign of either of the luminescent cloud-beings
that had besieged the Enter prise earlier, nor any trace of the
distinctive glow of the galactic barrier. Judging from the way the
stars were streaking past, though, she saw that the ship had

gone into warp at some point. That has to be a good sign, she
thought. l hope.



She tapped her brand-new comm badge. "Crusher to bridge. Is there
an emergency?"



Lieutenant Barclay responded to her hail, indicating that both the
captain and Commander Riker, not to mention ops and security, were
too busy coping with the latest crisis. At least Jean-Luc is back,
she thought, the bridge having alerted her to the captain's return.
That's something.



"There's an intruder on the bridge," Barclay stammered, sounding
badly rattled. "Another Q, I think, or something like him. I really
don't know much more." She could hear him gulp even over the comm
line. "Prepare for casualties, Doctor. Barclay out."



Casualties? Another Q? Crusher craved more information, however
bad, but knew better than to distract the bridge crew during a
battle. This wouldn't be the first time she had found herself
holding the fort in sickbay while praying that Jean-Luc and the
others would save them all from the Borg or the Romulans or
whomever; but that didn't make the waiting any easier.



Not surprisingly, the turbulence. and activity had roused Kinya
Faal from her nap. The little girl sat up in one of the pediatric
biobeds and started crying. Crusher didn't blame her one bit for
being frightened. She was feeling more than a .little apprehensive
herself.



She tried to hand Q's son over to Deanna, intending to calm Kinya
personally, but he started to squirm



and fuss. "Okay, okay," Crusher assured him. The last thing she
needed was two crying kids; Kinya would have to wait a few more
moments. "I know what you want." She nodded at Troi. "Deanna, can
you get me one of those replicated lollipops from the storage
locker? I think he likes the uttaberry ones."



"Actually, his favorite flavor is Baldoxic vinegar," the female Q
said, appearing without warning between Crusher and Troi, "but I
don't suppose you're familiar with that particular taste treat."



Crusher had never heard of it before and frankly she didn't care.
How in the world was she supposed to get used to people just
popping in like that? Her heart went out to Jean-Luc when she
realized how many times the original Q must have startled him that
way; it was a miracle that the captain's blood pressure was as
consistently low as it was. "I thought we had a little talk about
these surprise appearances," she reminded the female Q a bit
testily.



"My apologies," the Q replied with surprisingly little argument.
"Darling q just keeps me hopping, you know." She reached out for
her child. "Forgive me if I don't linger to chat, but I'm afraid
there's been some unpleasantness on the bridge, and I would just as
soon see q safely elsewhere."



"What sort of unpleasantness?" Crusher asked quickly, desperate to
learn more of what was happening on the bridge. She held on to q-
in hopes of delaying the female Q's departure for just a few
moments. "Who is that intruder?"



"Well, it's a rather long story," the Q replied, a

pained expression upon her patrician features. In her Starfleet
uniform, she stood several centimeters taller than either Crusher
or Ogawa. "A few billion years long, in fact." She paused for a
second, placing an elegant finger beneath her chin as she
considered how best to summarize the tale. "Let's just say," she
said finally, -"that an unsavory acquaintance of my husband has
made a most unwelcome return."



What exactly did that mean? Beverly wondered. Had the Enterprise
ended up stuck in the middle of some petty Q feud? Stranger things
had happened, especially where Q was concerned. "What sort of
acquaint--" she began.



A cry from the primary ward cut off her next question. That sounded
like the EMH, she thought, anxiously wondering what had caused the
disturbance and whether it had anything to do with the "unsavory
acquaintance" the female Q had just mentioned. Or maybe Milo had
woken up much like his father? Ogawa hurried toward the cry, but
Beverly hesitated, reluctant to leave either child alone before she
knew what sort of danger might have arrived. More shouts came from
outside the children's ward and Troi ran to the doorway to
investigate; only to back up immediately when she saw what was
coming.



An instant later, Lem Faal appeared- framed in the doorway, his
eyes glowing with the energy of the galactic barrier, his lean face
as cold and expressionless as a Vulcan's. Crusher knew in an
instant that he had not returned to sickbay to check on his dormant
children.



Faal's icy composure faltered perceptibly when he spotted the
female Q standing behind Crusher. "You," he said in evident
displeasure. "What are you doing here?" ,



"I don't believe we've been introduced," the female Q said stiffly.
If she remembered Faal at all from their fleeting encounter in the
holodeck a few evenings ago, she gave no evidence of it.

Faal eyed her like he might a specimen on a slide. "You don't
matter anymore," he told her. "You're no longer the forefront of
evolution. You've been rendered obsolete." His luminous gaze
shifted from the female Q to the child in Crusher's arms. "It's the
child I'm after. The child of the future."



"What?" Before any of the women could react to Faal's astonishing
declaration, Crusher felt a powerful force rip baby q from her
arms. She struggled to hold on to the child, but it was like trying
to hang on to a loose padd during explosive decompression,
something Beverly had personal experience of. The toddler was gone,
and clutched under Faal's arm; before she even- knew what was
happening. Snatched from Crusher, q started to cry, but Faal placed
his free hand against q's unprotected neck. There was a flash of
discharged energy and q's body drooped limply within Faal's grasp,
his tiny arms and head sagging toward the floor below.



A sense of horror rushed over Crusher, and she could only imagine
what the baby's mother must be feeling. Had Faal just killed q? Was
that even possible? At a glance, she couldn't tell if the child was
still

breathing, if that meant anything at all where a Q was concerned.
"What have you done?" she gasped. "What did you do to him?"

"Anesthetized the subject," he clarified, "to prepare it for
further testing."

Further testing? Crusher still couldn't believe what she was
hearing and seeing. Even with his unearthly new powers, how could
Faal -knock out a baby Q? What in heaven's name has happened to
him? she wondered, shocked as much by his psychotic behavior as his
unexpected new abilities. What had changed a noted physicist and
father into- a crazed stealer of children?

For the first time in Crusher's experience, the female Q's arch and
haughty manner gave way to a very human emotional outburst. "My
baby!" she cried out in anguish. "q!" Her eyes flashed with
murderous hatred. "Give me back my son this instant!"

Faal late, remarkably unconcerned by the female Q's maternal fury.
"That might have terrified me before, when I was a powerless
corporeal being like the rest of them." He sneered in Beverly's
direction. "But I'm stronger now, a transcendent being like
yourself. Strong, stronger, strongest."

He keeps- getting more and more disturbed and irrational, Crusher
thought, remembering the softspoken Betazoid scientist she had met
at the onset of their mission. He had seemed so sane, so normal,
then. It's like there's been a different person growing inside him.
How else to explain those dual brain



patterns, as well as his increasingly criminal behavior?

The female Q was not interested in explanations. All she wanted was
her child, and to strike out at the being who had harmed him.
"Die!" she spat. "Die and disappear!"

She flung-out her fingers-and nothing happened. Faal remained as
humanoid as before, the anesthetized baby Q still tucked under one
arm, his innocuous-looking hypospray held out before him like a
weapon. Then he did the last thing Crusher expected him to do. He
started to sing.



"Sweet little baby,



Peaceful you lie,



We'll play some games,



And then you will die . . . . "



"Oh no," the female Q whispered, her confidence and anger replaced
by an unmistakable look of alarm. Beverly could tell that more than
just the sinister lyrics of the lullaby had disturbed her. She just
wished she knew why.

Chapter Ten



ENSIGN CLARZE GRABBED ON To the twisting appendage with both hands,
trying to pull it away from his throat, but the inhuman limb was
too strong, seeming composed of equal parts matter and energy. He
opened his mouth, either to breathe or to scream, but could succeed
at neither. He was being strangled to death upon the bridge of the
Enterprise, before the horrified eyes of Jean-Luc Picard.



"Q!" the captain shouted at the other immortal, who stood
dumbfounded next to ops. "Save him, blast you!"



Although more solid than the spectral limbs Picard had
intermittently spied in the past, this tentacle was not made of
flesh as the captain knew it. Lambent veins of azure light, the
same hue as 0's wild eyes,



coursed along the length of the monstrous extension. It was like a
limb of pure phaser fire, or a small child's first crude attempt at
a hologram, but clearly no less tangible for all that.



Q blinked in surprise, as if the importance of rescuing one
insignificant crewman had not occurred to him before. "As you
wish," he said, apparently too unnerved by 0's return to want to
debate the issue. Ignoring the radiant tentacle, he extended an
open palm at 0 himself: A blinding beam of white light fell upon 0,
throwing his raagged shadow upon the viewscreen behind him.



"Ha!" 0 barked loudly. He staggered, but did not fall, before Q's
broadside. The white light washed over him, bleaching his image
beneath its brilliancy, yet the manic grin on his face did not
change. "Not bad at all, not at all bad. Picked up a grain more
gumption over the ages, I see."

"I'd hoped to disintegrate you," Q replied, lowering
his hand in disappointment. The white light seeped
into the folds and crevices of 0's scarecrow like form,
leaving him conspicuously unharmed. "No such luck,
alas."

Data, with his superhuman reflexes, reacted next. Springing from
his seat at ops, he dug his golden fingers deeply into the shining
tentacle and struggled to pry it loose from Clarze's throat.
Amused, 0 stepped back to let the android work, stretching the
tentacle taut between his chest and the endangered ensign. No
symptom of exertion showed upon Data's impassive features, but
Picard knew that Data had to

be using every kilogram of strength he possessed. Placed under
tremendous strain, concealed servomotors within Data's arms and
shoulders whirred audibly. Horribly, that didn't seem to be enough.
The tentacle resisted Data's strenuous efforts while it continued
to choke its victim, even as Riker hurried to assist Data.



"Security!" Picard ordered. "Phasers on full." Racing around the
starboard side of the bridge, Sondra Berglund positioned herself so
that Data was out of the line of fire, then unleashed her phaser
upon the tentacle where it stretched between 0 and Clime. A young
security officer, Caitlin Plummer, joined Berglund, adding her own
phaser to the assault. Parallel beams of crimson energy struck the
tentacle, producing a crackling cascade of white-hot sparks, but .
the luciferous tendril did not come apart. 0 cackled raucously,
insanely indifferent to whatever pain the three-pronged attack on
his extremity inflicted on him. Smaller tentacles erupted from his
shoulders, flailing about alongside his head.



Clime's eyes bulged from their sockets, his tongue protruded from
his wide-open mouth. "Keep firing!" Picard commanded, consumed by
fury and frustration. Couldn't anything stop this monster? "Q!" he
demanded. "You can't let him kill again!"



Q shook his head mournfully. "I'm sorry, Jean-Luc. I tried."



"Then try again, damn you!" Picard refused to give up, even as 0
laughed off the heroic efforts of four



Starfleet officers to rescue their comrade from 0's homicidal
grasp. He couldn't accept that he had to sit by helplessly again
while 0 murdered with impunity. The destruction of the Tkon, as
tragic and horrible as it was, had been a chapter out of ancient
history, long known to Picard. This was happening now.



"What's the matter, QT' O mocked him. "Not up to your game these
days? Playing the impotent bystander again? Take a good look, Q.
You're next!"



Intent on Q now; 0 released Clame and retracted his ectoplasmic
tentacle back into his torso. The Deltan ensign dropped from his
seat at the conn, his limp body crumpling to the floor. Berglund
and Plummer switched off their phasers immediately, but, moving
even faster, Data had already knelt to check the young man's
condition. Picard held his breath, hoping for the best, while the
android's fingers felt Clime's throat.



Data rose without ceremony, letting Clime's skull lie where it
fell. "His neck is broken;" he announced gravely. "I regret to say
he is dead."



Picard stared in horror at the young helmsman's body, at the deep
bruises mottling his exposed neck, the blue cyanotic tint of his
lifeless face. He remembered, with bitter irony, that he had
assigned the inexperienced crewman to the conn because the captain
had anticipated smooth sailing on this mission and it had seemed
like a valuable opportunity to give new personnel like Clime a
taste of bridge duty. Now the Deltan youth's Starfleet career had
been cut

prematurely short, along with any other dreams or ambitions he
might have harbored. Ail thanks to 0.



This one death should not shock me, Picard thought numbly. After
all, he had already seen 0 murder trillions, when the sadistic
entity condemned the entire Tkon Empire to extinction;
intellectually, Clarze's brutal slaying was just one more casualty
to add to 0's age-old list of crimes. But it didn't feel that way.
"How dare you?" he said, his voice choked with feeling. He rose
from his chair to look 0 in the eye. "He was only a boy."



"Bye-bye, boy," 0 sang giddily. "Boy oh boy." He snapped his
fingers and Clarze's body stirred unexpectedly. Picard experienced
a moment surge of hope. Could Data have been mistaken? That was
practically impossible, but there was Clarze moving again, clumsily
climbing off the floor. Riker reached out to help the young man
rise, then yanked back his hand abruptly, eyes wide with shock and
disgust. Picard understood why when the figure's dead blue face
turned toward him for a moment and he saw the emptiness in the
fixed, blank eyes. Suddenly, he realized the full horror of what
was occurring. Ensign Clarze was quite dead, in fact, but 0 had
revived his lifeless body.



With awkward, jerky motions, the animated corpse of the Starfleet
officer retook his former seat at the conn. Dead fingers
mechanically tapped the helm controls. "There," 0 said smugly, "the
boy is back where he belongs. Take us bye-bye, boy."



Even Q looked appalled by 0's latest atrocity. He



released another burst of light against his former mentor, this
time to even less effect. "By the Continuum," he whispered in
hushed tones, "what have you become?"



"And you!" Picard said furiously, turning on Q. "Why couldn't you
stop him?"



Looking puzzled and somewhat disturbed, Q contemplated his own
empty hand, then peered suspiciously at 0. " I'm not sure," he said
finally, three words that Picard had never expected to hear from Q.
"He's . . . different now. He's found some new source of power."



"I don't like the sound of that," Riker said, leaving the empty
conn and joining Picard. He signaled Berglund and Plummer to back
away from 0 slowly before they attracted his attention. Picard
didn't like the idea of leaving 0's zombie at the conn, but was not
willing to sacrifice another crew member by assigning one to that
post.



"Captain;" Barclay shouted from science II. "The warp drive is
accelerating." Proving him completely accurate in his assessment,
the rushing streaks of white upon the viewscreen stretched even
thinner, approaching invisibility as the Enterprise's velocity
increased by several orders of magnitude. "Warp factor eight point
five," Barclay reported.



Is this 0's doing as well? Picard confronted Q again. "What's
wrong, Q? You stopped him five hundred thousand years ago. How can
he be more powerful now? Explain." Before he could attempt any
strategy against 0, he needed to know what was- happening.

"I don't understand," Q murmured, more to himself than Picard.
"Unless--" An unwanted realization rushed over his features,
chilling Picard as he was forced to wonder what dire possibility Q
could have possibly failed to anticipate, arid whether Q would even
attempt to explain. "Oh no."



Before Q could share his fears, 0 turned his back on the conn and
strolled counterclockwise around the bridge to where Q waited
apprehensively. "The rudder is readied," he declared, "our course
is corrected. Ready to play, Q?" The smirk on his face could not
conceal the ancient enmity in his eyes. "Quisling. Quitter.
Quarry."



Q flinched with each epithet 0 spat at him. "I didn't have any
choice," he began, "not after what you did. You went too fair, or
farther than I wanted to go at least." His faced darkened as he
remembered all that happened millennia past, all that he had just
relived with Picard. "Besides, the Tkon won! They beat you fair and
square."



0's cocky grin devolved into a grimace. "Quell your quibbles, Q, or
I'll quash you -like the quivering, quarrelsome quadruped you are."



"I should never have let you into this multiverse in the first
place," Q said defiantly. "I should =have left you to freeze in
that arctic limbo where I found you. Which reminds me, I never got
a chance to ask: Just how many realities have you been kicked out
of anyway?"



"Quack! Quadroon!" 0 clenched his fists above his



bead and, spiderlike, matching pairs of energized tentacles sprung
from his sides, granting him eight limbs in all. Four incandescent
-extremities leap forth to ensnare Q within their grasp. Q seemed
to welcome the clash, which had been so many aeons in the making;
with uncharacteristic violence, he grabbed for 0's scrawny neck
with his bare hands and began to throttle his onetime mentor and
role model. Picard had never seen Q act so savagely.



For less than a moment, they grappled upon the bridge, 0's glowing
tentacles wrapping around Q like coruscating cables, Q's fingers
digging into 0's metaphorical flesh, each of them quite intent on
squeezing the life out of the other. Then, in a burst of light that
left Picard blinking, both figures disappeared from the bridge.



Where did they go? the captain wondered, staring at the empty space
that two superbeings had occupied only a heartbeat before. Had that
flash been Q's doing or 0's? They could be anywhere in time or
space right now, he realized, battling for who knows how long. Was
it possible that the dueling entities could keep each other
occupied for all eternity, or at least a mortal lifetime or two?
There were worse outcomes to imagine, even though he wasn't sure
that even Q deserved to be locked in combat with his first and
worst enemy until the end of time.



But what if 0 succeeded in destroying Q, as he clearly seemed to
have the potential to do? Then every species and civilization could
be facing mortal

jeopardy: Picard found himself in the peculiar position of rooting
for Q.. Better an mischievous imp like Q than the devil himself, he
thought.



In the meantime, he needed to prepare for the eventuality that
either Q or 0 or both could return at any moment. He surveyed the
bridge, his gaze quickly falling on the abominable sight of the
murdered ensign's resurrected body still manning his former post,
soulless fingers making minute course corrections to the
Enterprise's trajectory even as Picard watched.



No, he thought. Not one minute more. Until this instance, he had
always thought- that nothing worse could happen to a sentient being
than to be assimilated by the Borg, but this obscene desecration
might have disgusted even the Borg Queen. Picard could only pray
that no trace of Ensign Clarze's consciousness remained within the
undead revenant he had become. "Ensign Berglund," he said coldly.
"Give me your phaser."



Taking the type-1 phaser from the young Canadian officer, he
clicked the weapon to its highest setting, then fired it directly
at all that remained of Ensign Clarze. For a split second, an
intense red glow outlined the reanimated body; then the phased
energy broke down the atomic bonds holding -the flesh and bone and
blood together, vaporizing them until not a single molecule
remained intact. Picard lowered the weapon to his side, feeling his
heart pound within his chest. 0 will pay for this, he vowed.



"You did the right thing, Captain," Riker said,



standing stiffly at his side. "Request permission to take over at
the conn."



"Make it so;" Picard said hoarsely, grateful for Riker's offer to
take the helm under such grisly circumstances.



Riker sat down at the cone, occupying the space so recently filled
by Clarze's animated cadaver. "Let's hope Q and that other creature
are gone for a long time." His fingertips rested atop the helm
controls. "Shall I set course for Starbase 146?"



"Most definitely," Picard agreed. From the looks of it, the
Enterprise was badly in need of maintenance. Furthermore, he wanted
to warn Starfteet of the threat posed by 0 as soon as possible.
Returning the phaser to Ensign Berglund, who had resumed her
station at tactical, he resolved to contact Engineering next, to
get a complete status report on the ship's primary systems from
Geordi La Forge. Q had obligingly restored the lights and gravity
upon the bridge, but what about the rest of the Enterprise? His
hand hovered above his comm badge.



"Captain," Riker addressed him crisply. The urgent tone of the
first officer's voice alerted Picard at once that there was more
trouble afoot. "The conn is not responding to my commands."



Blast, Picard thought. This was 0's work, no doubt. "Switch to
auxiliary controls," he suggested



Riker shook his head. "I tried that. I'm completely locked out."
His hands marched over the controls decisively, but the hairbreadth
streaks rushing past them on the viewscreen revealed that the
Enterprise

was still heading straight along the course set by 0 and his zombie
helmsman.



An ominous suspicion stirred within Picard's mind. "What is our
heading?" he demand. "Can you deduce our ultimate destination?"



Riker consulted the navigational display at his console. "As nearly
as I can tell, Captain, we're headed directly toward the very
center of the galaxy."

I feared as much, Picard mused: "People to free," 0
had said in his ranting, rambling way. 0 almost
certainly intended to use the Enterprise to liberate
The One from his eternal confinement behind the
Great Barrier, which surely meant that, unless Q
succeeding in exterminating his ancient adversary, he
and his crew had not seen the last of 0. Picard realized
that he could not possibly let 0 unleash another
genocidal superbeing on the cosmos, even if it meant
destroying the Enterprise-E and everyone aboard. Let
us hope ft doesn't come to that, and that 0 cannot
immobilize our self-destruct procedure as easily as he
took control of the conn.

There was much he needed to explain to Riker and the others, but
first Picard glanced once more at the spot where both 0 and Q had
vanished from sight. Where are you, Q, he wondered, and how can we
stop the greatest mistake of your. youth from wreaking havoc on the
future of all who live?



Chapter Eleven

..GAME, Q! Rev To PLAY?"

The corridors of the Enterprise-E were as streamlined and
antiseptic as Q had come to-expect from Starfleet. To be perfectly
honest, he had always been a trifle disappointed by the
Federation's sense of design, and this new flagship of Picard's was
no exception. He would have gone for something a good deal more
baroque or rococo; not as gothic as that dreary Deep Space Nine,
but certainly something with a bit more flash and style.



Picard would hate it; of course.



But how had he ended up in this hall in the first place, and where
was 0's voice coming from? Only a nanosecond ago, he'd been locked
in mortal combat with the deranged entity, their respective powers

pitted against each on a dozen different levels simultaneously. He
could only assume his involuntary transportation to this
unremarkable locale meant that he had lost the first round of their
contest.



How terribly galling and unexpected. Q had hoped that the age and
experience he'd gained since he last clashed with 0, over half a
million years ago, would have given him considerably more of an
edge this time around, but, no, he had failed to anticipate how
greatly 0's insanity had progressed during his long exile. His
madness gives him the advantage, he realized, allowing 0 to distort
and transform reality, even transcendental reality, in ways that Q
could equal only if he was willing to sacrifice his own sanity. He
wasn't quite willing to go that far . . . yet.



"I said, ready to play, Q?"



0 appeared at the far end of the corridor. Once again, Q was
shocked at how radically the castaway's self-image had mutated
since the old days. His torn and shredded clothing testified to
millennia of neglect and disregard, while his sallow complexion and
disordered hair reflected the chaotic jumble his mind had become.
He was like a rabid beast now, with just enough cunning and
depraved ingenuity to make him truly dangerous.



Even more alarming were the murderous weapons he brandished in each
of his two hands and four tentacles. Primitive implements of death-
a dagger, a phaser, a mace, a boomerang, a flintlock pistol, and. a
Capellan ktigatmenaced Q, who had no doubt that 0 had made, them
real enough, in metaphysical terms,



to inflict actual injury upon both mortals and immortals alike.



"Er, what sort of game did you have in mind?" he asked, deciding
that it was- not entirely prudent to ignore 0's query much longer.
He tried to back away unobtrusively, only to discover that
something hampered his steps. Glancing down in surprise, he saw
that his legs were shackled together by a sturdy length of chain,
about half a meter long. "What's this?" he asked indignantly. Try
as he might, he could neither extricate himself from the shackles
nor wish them away. 0's madness was too strong.



"Just a little something to even the odds. Odd, odder, oddest." 0
tapped his bad leg with his lower left tentacle. "You wouldn't want
take advantage of my innocent, illustrious infirmity, or would
you?" He scowled beneath his shay beard. "You always had a soft
spot for cheaters, a tedious tolerance for treachery. There'll be
no cheating this time, Q, oh no. You're playing my game now, by my
rules. Rue the rules, you will, the rules you'll rue."



"What rules?" Q demanded. 0's addled mind had left him about as
coherent as some atrocious Klingon opera. "What game?"



Malicious glee glinted in 0's pale blue eyes. "Hideandseek," he
said. "You hide, I seek. I find, you shriek." He waved his grisly
weapons like a multi limbed savage. "You can go anywhere on this
vast, variegated vessel, but nowhere else, nowhere at all. No
Continuum, no cosmos, no craven retreat." His twisting Malay dagger
whistled as it sliced through the

pressurized atmosphere of the corridor. "Q is -for quarry. Run, Q,
run!"



"Don't you think this is something of a childish game for beings of
our lofty stature?" Q suggested. He tried to transport himself
directly to the -Continuum, go in search of much-needed
reinforcements. l know 1 can make the other Q listen, he thought,-
belying what he had told Picard earlier. Never mind all the
distractions of the Reconstruction .... But the accursed irons upon
his ankles apparently did more than simply inhibit any ambulatory
motions. He was bound to this one particular time and place, for
better or for worse. Mostly worse. "Perhaps we should just talk
things over over a couple of steaming cups of Thasian ambrosia?"



0 responded by firing a warning shot with his flintlock that left a
flattened lead pellet embedded in the ceiling above Q's head. The
acrid smell of gunpowder filled the - air. "No more talk!" he
snarled. "Talk no :more. I'll count until ten: Take your head start
or I'll take your head."



A vivid picture of The One's-disembodied cranium popped out of Q's
memory like a monotheistic jackin-thebox. He quickly pushed it back
down again. No more of that, he ordered his omniscient unconscious.
The future looks bleak enough without dragging the past in as well.



"One," 0 counted aloud, "thirteen, seven, eighty four, pi, one
hundred and eight . . ."



Who. knows when he'll actually hit ten, Q thought. 1'd best met
some distance between me and that



walking arsenal: Hide-and-seek, was it? Very well, there were lots
of places to hide aboard a Sovereignclass starship, and Q knew
them-all:



He hobbled down the empty corridor, 0's lunatic countdown ringing
in his ears.



". . . thirty=two, five, the square root of infinity. . ."



"What I don't understand," Riker said, "is why this 0 can't just
blink himself over the galactic core on his own? Why does he need
the Enterprise?"



The first officer had -maintained his post at the conn, for all the
good it had done them. The ship remained on course for the Great
Barrier at the center of the galaxy, - and nothing they had
attempted so far had managed to override the coordinates that 0 had
fed into the helm controls through the late Ensign's Clarze's
lifeless fingers: The Enterprise was on automatic pilot, and Picard
didn't like it. one bit. Few things were more frustrating than to
lose control of his ship at such a crucial juncture.



"I'm not sure I can explain, Number One, at least not fully." He
had done his best to concisely update Riker and the rest of the
surviving bridge crew on the nature of the foe they now face. "For
reasons I don't entirely understand, no doubt relating to 0's true
nature as an advanced energy being, he cannot travel past
lightspeed on his own power. In the past, he used the Q Continuum
as a shortcut through space, or tried to harness the early
Calamarain for his personal transport. Even though he is no longer
physically manifest upon the bridge, I can only deduce from our

current course that he is somehow still using the Enterprise as a
means to traverse the considerable distance between the edge of the
galaxy and the core."



Riker scowled as he inspected the readout at the navigational
controls. "Well, he's getting there as fast as our warp engines
will take him. I don't know what he did to our engines, but we're
approaching warp nine."



Data confirmed his analysis.. "To be precise, we are currently
traveling at warp factor eight point eight nine nine nine and
climbing."



That was not encouraging news. The sooner they came within range of
the Great Barrier, the sooner 0 could use Professor Faal's
revolutionary technology to liberate The One from his age-old
prison. We can't allow that to happen, Picard resolved. He had seen
with his own eyes the devastation that The One and 0 could inflict
on a planetary, and even a stellar, scale. Perhaps Starfteet
Command could assemble a blockade to stop the Enterprise from
reaching the Great Barrier, even though that would surely deplete
Starfleet's resources at a time when the Dominion and the Borg
already had the Federation's defenses stretched far too thinly.
That has to be a last resort, he decided.



"What if we separated the saucer from the stardrive section?"
Lieutenant Barclay suggested. Picard was impressed by the sometimes
nervous crewman's initiative; Counselor Troi's therapy sessions
seemed to have borne some fruit.



"That might work," Picard agreed, "if we could



positively determine that 0 was only aboard the saucer section, and
that he couldn't simply transport himself onto the stardrive
section when we attempted the separation." Besides, he considered,
the bulk of the crew resided in the saucer section, not to mention
Professor Faal :and his children, and Picard was not inclined to
leave all those souls to the tender mercies of 0, even if he
thought it was at all possible to strand the insane superbeing upon
the saucer. "I think we should consider other options as well," he
said diplomatically, not wanting to quash Barclays morale at a time
when it was showing genuine improvement.



"First, we need to locate 0 as precisely as possible. If he is
physically present on the Enterprise, as our heading suggests, I
want to know where he is and what he's doing." Picard settled back
into his. chair, uneasy with all the vital questions that remained
unanswered. "I wouldn't mind knowing where Q is, too.



His comm badge beeped, heralding a message from a unlikely but
familiar voice. "Q to Picard. I hope you're listening, Jean-Luc,
because this mess you've gotten us into is getting worse every
minute."



The mess I got us into? That was a singularly Q-like take on their
situation; Picard thought, but now was no time to debate who was
really to blame for 0's past and present abuses of power. "Where
are you, Q?" he asked crisply.



"In one of your cramped and uncomfortable Jefferies tubes, if you
must know," Q said. "Who designed these things? A Horta?" A weary
sigh escaped

the comm badge. "Never mind that. The important thing is that I'm
keeping 0 occupied so you can devise one of your typically heroic
solutions to the problem at hand: But you have to hurry." Q's voice
was hushed; as if he was trying hard not to be heard. "I'm not sure
how much longer I can keep away from him-I mean, keep him
distracted."



Picard had to wonder just how willingly Q had consented to play
decoy. Was he voluntarily luring 0 away from the bridge, or was he
merely putting a self serving face on - circumstances he was
helpless to prevent? "What do you mean?" Picard asked. "What do you
need us to do?"



"How should I know?" Q said impatiently: "You're the ones who
specialize in triumphing against overwhelming odds. Have Data whip
up some technobabble. Tell Counselor -Troi to get in touch with her
feelings. Let Riker punch someone." Exasperation gave way to
desperation in his voice. "Do something, Jean-Luc. Don't you
understand? He's going to kill me. Probably more than once."



"But why can't stop 0 yourself?" Picard wanted to know. At the
coon, Riker heard enough of Q's tirade to give the golden comm
badge a dirty look. "You subdued 0 before, when you were younger."



Another frustrated sigh. Picard could practically see Q roll his
eyes condescendingly. "Let me try to explain this in terms your
primitive intellect can grasp. He's. crazy. Even the Q recognize a
common consensual reality, a certain metaphysical bedrock or
foundation that transcends even our own infinite



command over time and space, energy and matter. The alternative is
utter chaos, and we all understand chat. So do the Organians and
the Metrons and the Douwd and all of the other truly advanced
intelligences But not 0, not anymore. He's different now. He
doesn't recognize any reality at all, on any level, except his own
twisted perceptions, which means he's free to distort the
fundamental underpinnings of the multiverse to an absolutely
unthinkable degree: The observer affects the observed, Picard. Even
your own quantum physicists know that. So 0's insanity grants him
an insane amount of power. Does this make any sense at all to you,
mon capitaine?`



61I'll take your word for it," Picard said. To tell the truth, he
wasn't sure how much any human could truly understand the
subtleties of existence as Q and 0 knew it. So one omnipotent being
was more allpowerful than another omnipotent being? Fine, Pi card
thought. It wasn't intuitively obvious, but he could accept it if
that was the case, which apparently it was. I'm sure all humanoids
seem equally inscrutable and unstoppable to an ant. "Can't you
offer any suggestions?" he prompted. "What about your wife."



"She has problems of her own at the moment," Q explained; not
divulging the source of his information. "Protecting little q takes
priority over everything else, even my own-wait, what was that?"
Picard thought he heard footsteps in the background, plus a
distinctive singsong chanting.- The Jeferies tubes have excellent
acoustics, he recalled. "I have to go, Picard. He's found me
somehow. He's getting closer." Q

sounded dose to panic. "The ball is in your court, Picard. I'm
counting on you."



"Q? Q?" Picard tapped his badge, but the transmission was over. Q
was -on the run presumably,



where within the labyrinthine network of access crawlways that ran
throughout the entire ship. He could 8e anywhere, Picard realized.



He felt a stab of anger at Q. How dare he place the responsibility
for defeating 0 on him? Not that he could have turned his back on
this crisis even if Q had commanded him' to, but it was typical of
Q to make him feel as uncomfortable as possible. "Well, Number
One," he said grimly, "it seems both 0 and Q are indeed still
aboard the Enterprise. "



"Lucky us," Riker commented. His hands continued to manipulate the
helm controls, stubbornly searching for a way to regain control of
the conn. "Too bad our ship's sensors have never been able to get a
handle on Q. Might make it easier to keep track of him."



"Maybe there's another way," Picard said, a thoughtful look coming
over his face. "Data, I want you to carefully monitor energy
demands throughout the ship. Let me know if you detect any unusual
activity that might provide us with a clue as to our guests'
whereabouts."



"Understood, Captain," the android acknowledged. He cocked his head
in a quizzical manner. "Sir, would this constitute `whipping up
some technobabble'?"



Picard gave Data a wry smile. "I would not put too



tech credence, Lieutenant Commander, in any of Q's more acerbic
remarks."



"I see, captain. Thank you." Data returned his attention to the
console before him. Suddenly, he assumed a more alert posture.
"Captain. Commander Racer. I am detecting a dramatic surge in
tachyon collisions against the ship's hull."



Tachyons! Picard knew exactly what that foretold, and his fears
were confirmed when an iridescent cloud of vapor washed across the
screen of the main viewer, accompanied by a thunderous roar that
set the entire ship vibrating. The gaseous mass, so very like the
conglomeration of vaporous entities Picard had encountered one
hundred million years in the past, blotted out the streaking stars
upon the screen, even as Picard felt the Enterprise drop out of
warp.



"It's the Calamarain," Riker stated, speaking aloud what they all
understood. "They're back"

Chapter Twelve



POLLEN TICKLED THE NOSTRILS of his humanoid guise and Q fought
against a compelling urge to- sneeze, convinced that 0 would hear
any nasal outburst from a dozen decks away. Perhaps the hydroponics
bay was not such an ingenious hiding place after all.



Flora from all over the Alpha Quadrant and beyond filled the
spacious nursery, growing from trays filled with a moist inert
medium whose organic content Q preferred not to think about. The
shallow trays were stacked one atop the other in parallel rows that
permitted an individual to wander, if he was so inclined, between
lush assortments of greenery that positively reeked of chlorophyll.
It was Q's hope that the sheer abundance of life force would help
mask his own energies from 0. He had briefly considered the



ship's arboretum instead, but hiding in the woods struck him as
just a little too obvious.



Q crouched behind a tray of venomous foliage ranging from the
mildly toxic Borgia plant to the lethal cove palm of Ogus III; he
found the deadly nature of these particular sprouts uniquely
soothing and reassuring. Behind him, samples of Cyprion cactus grew
beside a Folner jewel plant and a spray of blooming orange and
yellow crystilia. The air was thick with the aroma of flowering
vegetation:



His nose tickled again and Q was tempted to materialize a silk
handkerchief, but he was afraid that even the most inconsequential
use of his powers would register on 0's otherworldly senses. One
more thing to thank. 0 for, he thought resentfully; why, he had
even been forced to go to the enormous physical inconvenience of
actually traveling through the Jefferies tubes to the hydroponics
bay, located quite unhelpfully on Deck 11, instead of simply
willing himself there. Even though he sensed that he could still
teleport within the confines of the ship, despite the burdensome
fetters about his legs, there was no way he could he bypass three-
dimensional distances without producing subspace ripples that would
call down 0 upon him like a Vulcan sehlat.



How ever did Picard and his sort ever cope with the tedious nity of
physically transporting themselves from place to place? The sheer
monotony of it, Q thought, would surely drive him to suicide within
days.



Breaking off a ten-centimeter spine from the cactus

behind him, Q tried to use it to jimmy the lock on his leg irons.
Unfortunately, he was an all-powerful superbeing, not a
safecracker, and it seemed hardly likely that there were any
veteran criminals aboard the Enterprise to whom he could turn for
tips. What had been the name of that cutpurse and sneak thief with
whom he had consorted three or four millennia ago? The one who
stole all those cattle from Sisyphus? Now, there had been a rogue
after Q's own heart; too bad he couldn't risk plucking him out of
history for a quick refresher course in lock=picking.



At least he had succeeded in contacting Picard via the ship's
primitive communications technology. Now it was up to the captain
and his dauntless crew to snatch victory from the gaping maw of
obliteration as they had so many times before. Q had tremendous
faith in Picard; after all, hadn't the somewhat dour humanoid
managed to surmount some of Q's most inventive puzzles? Q did feel
a tad bit guilty about dumping 0 . in Picard's lap, though. Despite
what he had implied to Jean-Luc a few minutes before, he had to
admit to some small responsibility for the present contretemps. In
retrospect, he probably should have leveled with Picard earlier
about the true. purpose of the barrier, but he could hardly be
expected to willingly divulge the imperfections of his youth,
especially to so judgmental and self-righteous a lesser life=form
as Jean-Luc Picard.



The tip of the cactus spine broke off in the lock, and Q tossed the
remainder of the spine away in disgust.



That was no good; he would have to think of something

else. What would Jean Luc do in a fix like this?

be wondered, slightly embarrassed to have to resort to

such a demeaning comparison. How the almighty

hr fallen, he brooded, indulging in a few moments

of richly deserved self-pity.



A machete slicing through stalks of Draebidium calimus interrupted
his introspection, raining violet petals upon his head. Q scooted
back on his rear, impaling his dorsal region upon the sharp spines
of the cactus. He let out a shocked and indignant yowl of pain
before: mentally expelling the stinging barbs from his back.



"Tag, you're dead!" 0 leered at him over the decapitated flower
stems in the upper tray. "Dead you are." He took aim with his
phaser, which was almost certainly set to kill. "I always suspected
you were nothing more than a hothouse flower, Q, unable to cope
with cold, cruel choices outside the Continuum." He laughed
maniacally, exposing chipped and corroded teeth. "Prepare to be
pruned, petunia!"



Exposed and unarmed, Q grabbed a nearby hypoatomizer and squirted 0
in the face with concentrated bacillus spray. The madman rubbed
frantically at his eyes with his upper tentacles while firing
wildly with his phaser. The crimson beam went astray,
disintegrating a garlanic seedling and setting a patch of Diomedian
scarlet moss ablaze. Then the beam swung in an arc, incinerating
some bristly mutok cuttings from Lwaxana Troi's private garden on

Betazed before barely missing the top of Q's head. He felt the
searing heat of the beam radiate down through his scalp. :



With nothing more to lose, Q teleported away from the hydroponics
bay, arriving in a flash in a half-filled cargo bay on Deck 21.
Molybdenum storage bins were stacked four high along the opposite
wall. Clear and meticulous labeling identified their contents as,
respectively, thermoconcrete, inertial dampers, driver coil
assemblies, and self-sealing stem bolts. Nothing he could possibly
have any use for, in other words.



He hurried toward the wide exit doors as quickly as his shackles
would permit. He could not afford to linger at this site much
longer, that bacillus spray was not going to detain 0 for more than
a second or two, and he would surely be able to follow Q's
fifthdimensional trail to the cargo bay. Q loped down the corridor
-outside, scanning his new surroundings for the best ,possible
escape route or hiding place. As he ran, he cursed the fateful
moment he first heard 0's ingratiating voice singing through the
snow of that frozen limbo outside reality. His close call with the
phaser and the machete had shaken him more than he wanted to admit,
even to himself.



Must get away, he thought, taking a sharp left at the next
intersection. He passed a pair of Starfleet technicians at work
repairing a power conduit behind a displaceable wall panel; they
stared wide-eyed at his shackled state, but he did not waste a
single breath to respond to their shouted inquiries and offers of
assistance. There was nothing they could do to help him,



am against 0. He had no doubt that 0 had created the bersome
fetters to be phaser-proof.



Find someplace to hide, he urged himself, somewhere 0 will never
suspect. At any moment, he expected w hear the sound of limping
footsteps behind him. He trembled just imagining it. The sensation
of genuine fear was not something he had ever had the opportunity
to become accustomed to; he hadn't felt so vulnerable and at risk
since that time the Calamarain had hunted him after he lost his Q-
ish abilities. How was he supposed to concentrate on outwitting 0
when he had to fret about being murdered at the same time? It ,gust
wasn't fair!



His self-made comm badge beeped, and for a moment Q expected to
hear Picard explaining the details of some cunning, Starfleet-style
plan. Instead his immortal ichor went cold as 0's raspy, singsong
voice came over the communications device:



"Say, Q, O Q, whatever happened to that fine, fancy filly you were
fianceed to, once upon a time? She wouldn't happen to be aboard
this sleek, shiny ship, would she? Perhaps looking out for some
wondrous whelp or another?"



Q, he thought in alarm, and little q, too . . , ! What could this
unscrupulous monster want with them? -4side from revenge on me,
that is. This was absolutely intolerable; he couldn't allow 0 to
turn his perverse attentions to Q's family, no mattered what was
required.



"Don't tell me you've stooped to picking on women

and children, 0?" Q squeezed all the scorn and

sarcasm he could muster, which was quite a consider

able amount, into every syllable he uttered. "What's

the . fir; mon ami? Hide-and-seek - proving too

much to handle? Finally find an opponent you can't

cheat or bully into submission?" He tsk tsked into the

badge. "What a disappointment. Here I was looking

forward. to a good, challenging game, but I guess that's

not to be. Pity. Why, even these insignificant human

oids have given me better competition-than this."



"Run, Q, run!" 0 barked via the badge. Q prayed to the highest
power he knew, himself, that his barbs had indeed hit a nerve
within 0's chaotic consciousness, enough to make the insane
expatriate forget all about Q and q. "You can't fool me," 0
insisted, dashing Q's hopes. "You're as transparent as Time, Q, as
obvious as ozone. You think if I go chasing you-Q-you, this wily
old wanderer will leave your tart and your tyke alone." A bone-
chilling cackle emerged from badge. "But you're wrong, Q, wrong as
Reason. I have them already, or part of me does . . . ."



0 appeared in a flash, only five meters away. The threesided kligat
whizzed past Q's ear, lopping off a lock of his hair. "Hide, Q,
hide!" he hollered, his husky voice echoing down the corridor.
"This game's not over until I say so, unless I kill you by
mistake!"



Chapter Thirteen



THE STANDOFF BETWEEN LEM FAAL and the female Q !sad drawn a crowd.
Nurse Ogawa lingered in the doorway to the pediatric unit, flanked
by two security errs summoned to the scene. Their phasers were
raised and ready,. although they held their fire for fear of
hitting the hostage q. Behind them, the EMH stood on his toes,
trying to peek over the shoulders of the security personnel. "This
is highly irregular," he protested. "Why won't anyone listen to
me?"

This is my fault, Crusher thought, staring helplessly
at the tranquilized child under Faal's arms. I should
have given q to leis mother the moment she appear
but instead I stalled her in hopes of finding out more
about some trouble on the bridge. Now she still didn't
know much more about what was happening else

where on the ship, but an innocent child had been taken captive by
an insane and potentially dangerous individual who had somehow
attained enough power to keep q from his mother.



"I know you," the female Q said cryptically, glaring at Faal with
anger and contempt in her eyes. "At least I recognize the part
that's pulling the strings behind this pathetic puppet show. The
Continuum should have annihilated you, and all your loathsome
comrades, when we had the chance. Eternal exile was too good for
you."



Crusher had no idea what she was talking about, nor, from the looks
of him, did Lem Faal. "You're just trying to confuse me," he
accused. Beverly shuddered at his eerie white eyes. "I have a duty
to science to study this child, to record his development, test his
abilities to the utmost."



Even as-he ranted like a mad scientist from some gothic holodeck
program, Faal's telekinetic abilities began to reshape the
pediatric unit into a laboratory of sorts. The supply cupboards
turned into visual display monitors, charting the Q equivalent of
brain waves and metabolic functions. The elevated incubator at the
center of the ward morphed into a transparent dome about .a meter
high and another meter in diameter. Did he intend to cage q inside
there? Crusher wondered. For how long? Faal was acting like he
intended to experiment upon the Q child for as long as q lived;,
which was probably forever. Her heart ached at the prospect of an
innocent child, immortal or otherwise, -.treated like a guinea pig,
while his



mother watches helplessly. There must be someway to amp Faal
without endangering q; but how?



-Deanna," she whispered to the counselor, who had retreated to the
back of chamber, "take Kinya and go. I don't think he'll stop you."
Crusher refused tar leave the pediatric unit while the Q child was
in jeopardy-this was her sickbay, after all-but there was no reason
to risk either Troi or the, sobbing little girl She took care not
to refer to Kinya by her full mime, lest the female Q get the idea
to retaliate against Faal by taking his own daughter hostage. 1
trope she's not reading my mind right now, Crusher thought.
Fortunately, the mother Q -only had eyes for her child while Troi
scooped up the frightened girl and edged toward the exit
cautiously, watching Faal with wary eyes.



As Crusher had anticipated, the scientist couldn't have cared less
about Troi or even his daughter, paying no attention as the
security officers stepped aside to let them pass. She exhaled a
sigh of relief. That was two fewer individuals she had to worry
about, at least in the short term.



Then, just to make matters worse, the ship underwent another
tremendous jolt. Crusher hoped for an instant that the unexpected
turbulence would cause Faal to lose his grip on baby q, but he held
on to the sedated child as if that was all that mattered to him.
Beverly herself had to grab for the incubator to keep from falling,
only to yank her hands back: as she felt the solid transparent
aluminum move - beneath her palms like a living thing.

Stepping back from the shapeshifting incubator, while keeping dose
to the female Q to offer whatever moral support she could provide,
Crusher saw one of the security officers speaking hurriedly into
his comm badge. Good, she thought: No doubt he was updating the
bridge on the ongoing hostage crisis in sickbay. Crusher wasn't
sure what Jean-Luc or Data could do that the female Q couldn't, but
she didn't feel quite as trapped and alone anymore:



Then, to her surprise, she heard the unmistakable voice of Captain
Picard responding personally to the officer's report. That was good
news, no matter how dire things were here,. since it suggested that
the crisis on the bridge had calmed down for the moment. Had the
mysterious intruder been dealt with, perhaps by Q? Beverly was
surprised to find herself counting on Q of all people, but she
couldn't imagine that Q would permit his own son to be threatened
much longer: Between the two of them, surely Q and his mate could
overpower Lem Faal, despite whatever uncanny attributes he had
mysteriously acquired. Where are you, Q? she thought silently. Do
you even know what's happening to your child?



"Under- attack by the Calamarain," Picard's voice explained
tersely, "plus an alien intruder of incredible power is loose
aboard the ship. Keep on your guard, and do whatever is necessary
to protect the children. Commander Riker is en route to take charge
of the situation. Picard out."



Then the intruder has left the bridge and could be anywhere,
Crusher realized. She knew that Jean-Luc could not possibly be
referring to Lem Faal, whose identity was well known, so that meant
there were now two highly dangerous individuals at large aboard the
Enterprise. She couldn't imagine that was a con Plus the Calamarain
had returned as well? Her spirits sank, taken aback by all the
threats facing them Only her faith in Jean-Luc Picard and her
fellow crew members kept her hopeful that they would come through
these multiplying hazards as they always had before. We beat the
Borg twice, she remembered.



The incubator had completed its evolution into a hightech cage.
Faal nodded approvingly and his eyes fared even more brightly for
an instant. Suddenly, q was no longer under Faal's arm but
deposited within the transparent dome. The female Q rushed to free
him, arms outstretched, but flashes of crackling purile energy
repelled her eager fingers as scorn as they clime within a
centimeter of the dome. The enclosure was obviously protected by a
forcefield, Crusher realised, one capable of withstanding the
female Q's mmaternal might. She pounded on the forcefield with her
bare hands, determined to shatter the obstacles between her and her
son. Her fists smashed against the forcefield, sparking more
flashes of energy, whose violet hue reminded Beverly of the
galactic barrier itself yet both forcefield and dome remained
intact. "My q!" the distraught mother cried out. "Give me back my
child!"



Faal ignored her heart-tugging plea. "Initiate experimental log,"
he coolly instructed the surrounding

equipment. "File: Faai/hyperevolution. Title: Preliminary Notes on
the Onset of Trans-Transcendental Consciousness in the Offspring of
Advanced, Multidimensional Life-Forms . . . ."



No longer shielded by the proximity of the unconscious child, he
presented a tempting target to the two security officers, who
immediately fired their phasers at the seemingly defenseless
scientist. 'Twin beams converged on Faal, who just kept dictating
his notes.



". . . subject remains under sedation in observation chamber. In
appearance, resembles humanoid infant of Terran ancestry,
approximately two years in age. Observation: The population of
Starship Enterprise is predominately of Terran descent, suggesting
that subject's current appearance is a direct response to his
recent environment, perhaps even a form of protective coloration .
. . ."



The crimson rays bounced off Faal, rebounding back to their points
of origin. Phaser beams struck the security team .squarely in
their. chests, dropping them to-the floor. Crusher thanked standard
Starfleet procedure that weapons had been set on stun; in theory,
the downed officers had not been permanently injured. Showing
laudable initiative, the EMH began to drag the inert bodies out of
the doorway into the primary ward, assisted by Ogawa. She knew she
could count on the nurse and the hologram to tend to the fallen
crew members as much as was necessary.



Faal appeared oblivious of the incident and its aftermath. ". . .
exact chronological age of the subject has yet to be determined,"
he continued. "Further



study is required . . . ." The biobeds along the port



wall of the children's ward started reassembling themselves into an
array of scanners and probes use precise functions Crusher couldn't
begin to guess at. What kind of tests could you perform on a baby
god? And could any of them actually harm little



Metal and synthetic polymers flowed like liquid mercury while
sophisticated electronic circuitry established new links and
configurations.



The pounding and the phaser fire combined to muse the toddler from
his drugged slumber. He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes; then
looked around wildly as 1e became aware of his surroundings. The
density of the transparent dome- muffled his high-pitched wails,
bat there was no mistaking the panic in his eyes as he pounded at
the interior of the cage with tiny fists. -Out!" he shouted. "Out!
Out!"



"It's all right, sweetie," his mother tried to comfort him, placing
her face so close to the forcefield that purple traceries flickered
along her profile. "Mommy is here. Mommy's not=going to leave you."



Claustrophobia must be especially terrifying to a child who is
accustomed to teleporting wherever he wishes, Crusher thought. Her
heart went out to the mother as well, their past differences
forgotten. Beverly vividly remembered how anguished she'd felt when
Wesley had been taken captive on Rubicun III. How could she not
sympathize with what the female Q had to be going through?



Baby q spotted Lem Faal and drew back in fear. Somehow he; seemed
to know that the Betazoid

scientist, with his luminous eyes and unfeeling expression, was
responsible for his captivity. As small children have done
throughout galactic history, q covered his eyes with his hands,
evidently hoping that if he couldn't see Faal, then Faal couldn't
find him. Wesley used to do the same thing, Crusher remembered.



The childish ploy appeared to touch some vestige of mortality
within Faal. Ibis expression softened, as if recalling similar
behavior on the part of his own children. Beverly hoped desperately
for a change of heart as abrupt and comprehensive as the
alterations he was imposing upon the pediatric unit. But her hopes
for a peaceful resolution to the crisis faded as Faal's lean face
froze back into the impassive mask of a detached observer.
"Subject's infantile attempt at concealment reveals perceptual
errors arising from the immature nature of the developing
supereonsciousness. Confusion between objective/subjective criteria
resembles comparable phenomena in the development of preadolescent
primates and equivalent species."



That's one way of putting it, Crusher thought bitterly, both
disturbed and offended by Foal's clinical description of a child in
distress. Unable to watch q's torment any further, she glanced
around the chamber, barely recognizing what had only -minutes ago
been a state-of-the-art medical facility. The mutated pediatric
unit now bore little resemblance to its former self, as transformed
in form and function as so much of the ship had been during the
Borg occupation several



months ago. Illuminated screens presented close-ups of q taken from
every possible angle and in a wide



tier of formats. Newlycreated scanners, reminisent of the docking
pylons at Deep Space Nine, loomed over the domed observation
chamber like vultures intent on some dying prey. At the center of
this intimidating array of technology, the trembling end in his
miniature Starfleet uniform looked both apt of place and
vulnerable.



"Future areas of research," Faal droned on, completely unaware of
how horrific the situation looked, 'include physiological and
behavioral responses to changes in environmental stimuli, including
extremes of heat and cold, as well as conditions of absolute
vacuum. Also to be explored: the long-term psychological impact of
sleep and/or sensory deprivation . . . . "



Beverly couldn't believe what she was hearing. This was like some
sort of inhuman medical experiment from the age of Khan Noomen
Singh. Less than a meter away, the female Q looked like she wanted
to personally dissect Faal himself. Crusher didn't: blame Ira one
bit.



"Dad? What are you doing?"



The voice caught them all off guard, even halting Fad's compulsive
dictation. Crusher looked to the open doorway, where young Milo
Faal stood unsteadily, holding on to the doorframe for support.
"Dad?"



His eyes glowed just like his father's.

Interlude

SICKBAY? How IN &Am did I get to sickbay?

Lieutenant Baeta Leyoro-awoke groggily upon a biobed, a surgical
support frame pinning her down. Her head felt as if a Tarsian
dreadnought had landed on it and her eyes throbbed like a photon
grenade. She just hoped whoever zapped her felt a whole lot worse.



The last thing she remembered was being on the bridge. Her head had
hurt then, because of that plasma-sucking barrier, but not as badly
as it did now. Commander Riker had just ordered her to sickbay,
over her vehement objections, and she had been making her way
toward the turbolift about as slowly as she could without courting
charges of insubordination. Then a white-hot light had exploded
behind her eyes . . . and here she was, flat on her back like a
damn fatality.



And this was supposed to be a peaceful scientific mission she
recalled. Hall If there was one thing she had learned from a
lifetime spent fighting, first for Angosia and then for Starfleet,
it was that danger aced strike at any moment. The rehabilitative
counselors back at Lunar V would call that paranoia, she suspected
and tell her that she needed to overcome each "antisocial"
tendencies, but what did any of them know about the life of a
soldier? None of them ever had to worry about a Tarsian sneak
attack, or be responsible for the security of a starship at the
literal edge of the galaxy.



A sickeningly recognizable clap of thunder shook &e sickbay,
causing miniature warp-core breaches ride her aching skull. The
Calamarain, she realized, feeling a savage sense of vindication
through the pain, which now seemed to extend all the way down to
her goes. I knew we hadn't seen. the last of those BOYS, she
*ought, using a bit of Angosian army slang. Better Off Vaporized,
it meant, - although that had proved maddeningly redundant where
the gaseous Calamarain were concerned. Still, barrier or no
barrier, it was obvious the Enterprise was under attack once more.



I need to get back to. the bridge. Never mind the eosin, she wasn't
about to slack off in a med ward while the ship was under enemy
fire. Duty called, and she had a responsibility to defend the
Enterprise to

the best of her abilities. Now, if 1 can just sit up without my
skull exploding . . .



Her first try went badly. She had barely lifted her head from the
padded won of the biobed when a sharp, jabbing pain stabbed through
the back of her head like a Nausicaan bayonet. Gasping, she let her
skull drop back onto the cushion, shutting her eyes against the
too-bright lighting overhead. She considered calling. for a doctor
or nurse, but knew that any medical personnel would just try to
talk .her into staying put. Probably just as well that nobody
seemed to have noticed her return to consciousness yet; she hoped
that didn't mean that Dr. Crusher and her staff with too many other
casualties to pay attention.to her.



Let's try this again, she thought, gritting her teeth. She began to
shove the surgical support frame off her, noticing for the first
time that she no longer had any feeling in her fingertips. 1 don't
even want to know what that means. The exertion caused her head to
throb faster and harder, but she eventually succeeded in sliding
the SSF up and away from her body: Then came the hard part: sitting
up and putting her feet on the floor. The imaginary bayonet jabbed
her again, but this time she was ready for it, letting the pain
course through her even as she willed her muscles to keep on moving
regardless.



Easy does it, she told herself as she slipped off the bed and onto
the floor. At fast; sickbay swirled around -her like a -
gravitational vortex and she felt her stomach roll over queasily.
The dizziness passed, though, and she took a moment to orient
herself.



Where are all the medics? she wondered as no one rushed to her
side. There seemed to be something @Ding on at the other end of the
ward, perhaps in the pediatric unit, but her eyes were too blurry
to make cm the details. Doesn't matter, she thought. The bridge was
where she was needed most, directing the fight against the
Calamarain.



Despite the disruptor blasts behind her eyes, and the creeping
numbness in her limbs, a familiar exhilaration crept over her,
giving her the strength to keep one foot marching in front of the
other, right through the door out of sickbay. Forget what all those
pill pushers and headshrinkers back on Angosia said. Reintegration
into civilized society". . . hah! This was where she belonged, on
the front lines again, doing what she knew best. Fighting to
survive.



These Calamarain were a different kind of adversary, to be sure,
but they must have their weaknesses, points of vulnerability that
the crew could discover and take advantage of. Another thing she'd
learned over the course of her career: No enemy was unbeatable. The
trick was staying alive long enough to see your victory.



Once she thought she heard a voice calling after her urging her to
return to sickbay, but she didn't nook back. She just kept walking.



Easy does it. . . .

Chapter Fourteen

"Tag!"

0 appeared sans fanfare atop the bar, kicking aside a row of
freshly replicated glass goblets. They crashed onto the carpeted
floor of the officer's lounge, shattering to pieces and showering Q
with tiny glass slivers that might have stung him inordinately had
he not had the wit and the wherewithal to transform them into
harmless bits of softcooked rice first.



With the ship on alert status, the lounge was deserted except for a
single Bolian bartender, who was currently hiding at the far end of
the bar. The skyblue upper hemisphere of his round head peeked over
the rim of a bin of fresh ice, gawking wide-eyed at the ragged,
scarecrow-like figure who had just materialized upon the bar. 1
suppose it really is too much to



I hope Q thought, that such a timorous specimen will e the
fortitude to enforce the dress code around hem



"Where's this?" 0 asked exuberantly, looking around the empty
lounge: "This is where?" He hopped off the bar, his remnant-wrapped
feet scattering the grains of rice further. Q could not resist
staring in morbid fascination at the scarred and ruined remains of
the madman's mangled left foot. "A well-stocked watering hole for
wayward wanderers? An excellent choice, Q. I could do with a
swallow of spirits. Hunting a heinous hound like yourself is
thirsty work, or my name isn't-" He hesitated, his eyes glazing
over as if he couldn't quite place his own appellation. "Faal? Q?"
He smacked the side of his head and Q thought lie heard neurons
rattling. His madness would have been amusing if it weren't so
unnerving. "0! Now I remember. You're Q and I'm 0 and you have to
die. Devils and demiurges, do I need a drink!"



His upper right tentacle. snatched a clear, cylindrical decanter
from the bar counter. From the bilious green hue of the beverage
sloshing within, Q identified it, with a revolted grimace, as
Sluggo Cola, the most popular soft drink throughout the Ferengi
Alliance. 0 pried open the bottle with his yellow teeth and spit
the cap onto the floor. Q watched in amazement as 0 drained off
half the bottle. l thought only Ferengi could drink that dreck, he
thought, or would want to. -Ah, that hits the spot it hits." He
thrust the bottle at Q. The viscous green brew fizzed when exposed
to the

air, sending a spray of tiny bubbles out the open neck. "Here, have
a quaff on me, Q. Make it last because that's what it is, your
last."



"Er, no thanks," Q demurred. If he absolutely had to choose a last
drink, he'd prefer something more along the lines of a fine Saurian
brandy, vintage 224?, say. "It's all yours," he insisted, pulling
back his hands to reject the vile libation. Out of the corner of
his eye; he glimpsed the Bolian bartender creep out the closest
exit. That's it, Q thought, piqued by the mixologist's cowardly
desertion. He's definitely- not getting a tip.



"Drink!" 0 demanded, pointing both a phaser and an antique
derringer at Q's head. "You weren't too proud to share a bottle of
elixir the first time we met, or so I recall. Drink, Q, drink."



If you'd been drinking this loathsome concoction then, Q thought,
reluctantly accepting the bottle, 1 might have left you where I
found you. He discreetly wiped the neck of the bottle on his
sleeve, eyed the spurning contents doubtfully, then closed his eyes
and took a hasty gulp.

It was even worse than he had imagined, both slimy
and sickeningly oversweet; he couldn't decide what
was most unappetizing, the texture or the taste. Taken
together, they made Klingon bloodwine taste like
Chateau Picard in comparison. It took all his omnipo
tence not to gag on the repellent slop. Instead he
forced himself to finish off the bottle. If ever I had any
doubts that 0 was a total sadist at heart, this clinches it.

At least that insufferable Guinan creature was not



amend to witness his humiliation. Praise the Continuum small
favors! He wondered if Picard had finnaly had the good sense to
dispense with her dubious services and, more important, if he would
live long enough to congratulate Jean-Luc on his great good fortune
if this were indeed the case.



Despite the truly awful nature of the Ferengi soda, he dragged out
the last swallow for as long as he could, certain what 0 would do
once this celebratory drink was concluded. He peered down the
length of the bottle at the- firearms poised to extinguish his
immortal existence. Could he blink away faster than 0 could spray
him with phaser fire and/or hot lead? Probably, but he didn't want
to chance it: I need a foolproof distraction, he mused.



"Fast, faster, fastest," 0 ordered impatiently. His r lateral
tentacles yanked the bottle out of Q's hands so quickly that a
mouthful of Sluggo Cola spilled onto the pristine carpet beneath
their feet. "That's enough," he said, cocking the derringer and
upping the setting on the phaser. "Say goodbye, Q. Don't worry,
I'll take good cane of that talented tot of fours, see if I don't."



"watch out!" Q shouted desperately, pointing at the bar. "Behind
you!"



0 frowned, giving Q a look of utter contempt. "Oh, now I'm
disappointed; Q. Doubly and duly disappointed. That trick was old,
old, old before I ever set foot in this great, glittering galaxy."
He shook his farad while keeping his guns aimed steadily at his
onetime protege. "A bad note to bow out on, boy oh

boy. Good thing there was no one to see it but you and me."



Just then, the Calamarain returned with a vengeance. A dense,
scintillating fog spread past the wide, panoramic windows of the
lounge while a violent shudder shook the hijacked starship from -
prow to stern. "Smoke!" 0 exclaimed in surprise, taking his eyes
off Q for only a fraction of a second: "That stinking, sulphurous,
sanctimonious smoke!"



A split second was all Q needed. Humorless and vindictive the
Calamarain might be, and sanctimonious, too, but he certainly
couldn't fault their timing. By the time, 0 looked back at his
quarry, Q was already somewhere else. Transporter Room Three, to be
exact.



A single crewman was stationed at the transporter controls. A
Caldonian, from the look of his bony forehead. "Halt! Who are you?"
he demanded, with admirable presence of mind, when Q materialized
without warning upon the transporter platform. He reached for his
phaser, but Q had no time to waste with Starfleet security
procedure so he simply relocated the Caldonian recruit to the first
place that came to mind, namely the bridge. Maybe Jean-Luc can use
an extra pair of hands, he thought.



Racing the clock, knowing that 0 would be follow ing close behind
him, Q hastily reset the transporter controls from about two meters
away, programming the console to erase the-coordinates as soon as
it completed the transfer. With any luck, using the Enterprise's
own primitive mattertransmission technology would throw 0 off the
trail for a time; at least long enough to give Q a chance to
regroup and reevaluate the situation.



But where exactly to beam to? Q hesitated, momentarily



stumped. He had already tried the hydroponics bay. the
environmental science lab, stellar cartography, a shuttlebay, a
torpedo tube, an empty escape pod. Picard's privatequarters, the
matter=antimatter action chamber, the gymnasium, the lounge, and
inside Data's cat, but 0 had found him every time and ire was
running out of ideas. The Enterprise-E was

r than the last one, but it wasn't that much

'.



Where next? The arboretum? Sickbay? The deflector dish? Suddenly,
the perfect hiding place popped into his mind. And none too soon;
even as he programmed the appropriate coordinates into the
transporter controls, 0 appeared upon the platform less ton a meter
away, brandishing his bloodthirsty arsenL "There you are there!" he
cackled. "And no thanks to that fulminating fog that saved you the
last time Smoke and mirrors, that's all it is. Smoke and mirrors, I
say!"



They're no friends of mine, Q thought, having no



doubt that the Calamarain would be perfectly happy w see both him
and 0 destroyed forever; after all, hadn't the gaseous beings been
nursing the same



e for over a million years? Granted, Q was fwd to concede, there
was something nauseatingly appropriate about their appearance on
this occasion. Tire Calamarain, back when they'd been the Coula

lakritous, had been there at the beginning of his escapades with 0,
and they had never forgiven him for his own small part in that
unfortunate episode, so it was only fitting (in a thuddingly
hamhanded and moralistic kind of way) that they be here at the end
. . . if the end this be. That their unexpected return had actually
worked to his benefit at first he chalked up to pure coincidence,
possibly the only force in the universe that was beyond even the
control of the-Q.



He did not explain any of this to 0. Why bother? Instead he said
three little words that Picard and his predecessors had practically
worn out over the last century or so. "Beam me up."



Q dissolved into a pillar of silver sparks ....



Chapter fifteen



`.Arm THOU ALL-SHAKING THUNDER strike flat the thick roundity of
the world!"



Lear's immortal words came back to Picard as the Calamarain
subjected the Enterprise to their tumultmous animosity. The ship
pitched and yawed beneath their assault. He gripped the armrests of
his chair tightly even as his spine slammed into the lion padding
the back of the seat. Coruscating hots of lightning arced across
the viewscreen, igniting gashes of sky-blue Cerenkov radiation
wherever the electrical bursts intersected with the ship's defector
shields.



""Shields down to forty-four percent," Ensign Berg= lied reported
from tactical. Given the destructive barrage directed at the
Enterprise, Picard thought it

was a minor miracle that the shields were holding up as well as
they were.



"The extra energy we absorbed from the galactic barrier, and
diverted to the deflectors, is fading the farther we get from the
barrier, Captain," Lieutenant Barclay confirmed from his own
station. "And the standard field generators were badly damaged
earlier. Engineering is still conducting repairs."



"I see," Picard said gravely. According to Riker, before he left
the bridge to cope with the crisis in sickbay, the Enterprise had
already endured several hours of such abuse while Picard was away,
before the first officer took the ship into the barrier to elude
the Calamarain. What's worse, Riker also reported that none of the
Enterprise's offensive capabilities had demonstrated any lasting
effect upon the living plasma storm, making retaliation all but
impossible.



Perhaps that's a blessing in disguise. Knowing what he now did,
Picard could hardly blame the Calamarain for their fury against 0
and Q and anyone else who might seem to be associated with them.
When last he saw the Calamarain-mere hours ago by his reckoning, a
million years past by the rest . of the universe's-the sentient
cloud of ionized plasma, or perhaps only their ancestors, had been
frozen into an inert block of solid matter by 0's unearthly powers,
with Q as his unwilling accomplice. The older Q had told him that
0's victims had remained frozen so for thousands. of years. If the
Calamarain of the present truly believed that the Enterprise had -
deliberately liberated 0, as it must have appeared to them, small



no wonder that they were so determined to exact revenge. Guilt by
association, he thought, the hardest kind to refute.



Riker had attempted diplomacy as well; and to no ate, but Picard
believed it had to be worth another try. No matter how damning the
evidence against diem., which had only grown worse thanks to Lem
Fag's unsanctioned breach of the barrier, he had to convince the
Calamarain that they shared a mutual doe in 0. That we protected Q
from their wrath years ago cannot help our case, he acknowledged
reluctantly. "Data," he instructed, "initiate a tachyon
transmission to the Calamarain."



The Calamarain communicated via faster-than-light particles, not
speech as humanoids knew it.



'"hen last Picard had encountered them, Q's special tend of magic
had permitted him to comprehend their inhuman language. Now, in the
absence of Q ad his miraculous abilities, he was forced to rely on
a translation program newly wised by Lieutenant Commander Data, . a
program that Riker had warned WE had some rough edges. It will have
to do, he resolved.



Before he could began to formulate his address, fever, he was
surprised by the unheralded appear== of a shockedlooking crew
member, who appeared suddenly in front of the main viewer. Picard
recognized Lieutenant Royel, a junior-grade officer assigned to
transporter operations. "Captain? Lieutanant Commander Data?" The
Caldonian crewman glanced around the bridge, clearly befuddled by
his

abrupt arrival. "I don't understand. I was just in Transporter Room
Three a second ago, then this strange man appeared out of nowhere.
He had a Starfteet uniform, but I didn't recognize him."



"Understood," Picard said, suspecting that he had a better idea of
what had occurred than the displaced lieutenant. Picard took this
as confirmation that 0 had not yet caught up with Q, and thus an
encouraging sign. "I believe you =ran afoul of the entity called
Q." Royel's eyes widened in recognition of the name; Picard envied
the lieutenant his prior lack of personal contact with Q, who had
doubtless moved on by now. "You may return to your post."



"Yes, sir." Royel still looked a bit dazed, but ready and willing
to do his duty. He headed briskly toward the starboard turbolift.

What did Q want with the transporters ? Picard had
to wonder. He felt like he was fighting a war on three
fronts. The Calamarain without, 0 within, and Lem
Faal raising havoc in sickbay as well. The Calamarain
presented the most immediate threat to the overall
safety of the ship, he decided, so that took priority at
the moment. Q would have to keep 0 occupied for the
time being while Riker dealt with the problem of
Lem Faal. "Is the translation program still on-liner'
he asked Data.

"Affirmative, Captain. You may speak normally."



Picard took a moment to survey the bridge. With the priceless
exception of Data, the bridge was uncomfortably devoid of senior
officers. Leyoro, Troi, La Forge, Riker . . . all were injured or
occupied



where on the ship. At the captain's direction, Lieutenant Jim Yang
had taken on the rather thankless job of manning the frozen corn,
leaving Ensign



d at tactical. Picard had total faith in the young officers, who
had all graduated at the top of Am classes at the Academy, but,
deep down inside; ire lead to admit to being slightly troubled by
the fact due the most experienced officer on the bridge, aside A=n
he and Data, was none other than Reginald Barclay. At times like
this, Picard thought, I rather aim that both Worf and Chief O'Brien
transferred to



Still_ there was nothing to be done about it now. 'Attention,
people of the Calamarain. This is Captain JeanLuc Picard of the
Starship Enterprise. Please call off your attack on this vessel.
Like yourself, we seek to contain the entity known as 0, whom we
recognize dirt you have a legitimate grievance with. Let us alms
this problem and arrive at a solution of benefit as us all."



The storm continued to rage outsides and Picard feared that the
Calamaram would not deign to respond to his diplomatic overture.
Then, coming over Ike comm system, an inhuman voice, flat and
genderless spoke for the bus life-forms laying siege to die
Enterprise.



-'%Wsingular am/are the Calamarain. Woe/vengance to Enterprise for
bridging moat/restoring chaos. Woe/tragedy to vastness/life entire.
madness. Shall not forget/forgive Enterprise.
Dissipate/scatter/extinguish

Riker had not overstated matters, Picard noted, when he said that
Data's translation pram still had some bugs to be worked out. This
cryptic and expres. sionless communication bore little resemblance
to the passionate discussions and debate -that Picard had
eavesdropped - upon when he and Q observed the Calamarain in the
distant past. Then the Calamarain bad struck him as an immense
symposium or-university, devoted to the life of the mind and
engrossed -in an endless exploration of the cosmos, values quite in
keeping with the highest ideals of Starfleet and the Federation. He
heard little such common ground in the cold-- and somewhat garbled
vocalizations emerging from the computer.



Still, the gist of the message was clear enough. The Calamarain
blamed the Enterprise for releasing 0 back into the galaxy and were
determined to exact revenge. How could he convince them otherwise,
especially since the accusation was more or less true? He needed to
persuade them that defeating 0 here and now was more important than
assigning blame for the mistakes of the past. But how to do so,
after Riker had done his best and yet failed at the same task?



I have an advantage Bill did not, Picard realized. I know who the
Calamarain are and where they came from. "Hear me," he said. "I
speak not of the Calamarain; _ but of the Coulalakritous. I
remember their suffering and understand their-anger."



There was a pause, longer than before. Then the artificial voice
spoke again, -sounding as though it was coming from very far away:



"Who/how calls we/singular by oldest/sacred/hidden name?
Who/how/why/where? Explain/illuminate

10m.

W1, at least I got their attention, Picard mused The tricky part
was going to be using this minor breakthrough to turn their
attitude around before they did irreparable harm to the Enterprise
and all aboard. "I have traveled to the past," he began, deciding
that it might be more politic not to mention Q's involvement in
that expedition, at least for now, -acid I saw with my own eyes
what 0 did to the Coulalakritous. It was an appalling crime and he
served to be punished. But it is even more important that not he
not be allowed to commit further crimes. Save your strength for the
true enemy. Help us against 0 now."



Was it just wishful thinking, or had the thunder and lightning
outside subsided to a degree over the last few minutes? Perhaps he
was getting through to the Calamarain after all. He prayed that was
so.



"Shields down to thirty-seven percent," Berglund updated him,
adding yet more urgency to the Picard's efforts.



"Why bridge moat/succor chaos?" the Calamarain asked atonally.
"Enterprise rescue/restore chaos then Wlerefore/how fear chaos
now?"



That the Calamarain were seeking to understand the Enterprise at
all, no matter how suspiciously, Picard took as a very positive
development. He only wished he had a better answer. "We were
deceived," he said simply. In truth, even now he did not fully

understand what connection might exist between Faal and 0, although
the Betazoid scientist's bizarre behavior and inexplicable new
powers strongly suggested that Lem Faal must have had a secret
agenda all along. Deanna warned me; he recalled, that there was
something not quite right about Faal. But who could have guessed-
he was working to let loose an ancient evil from the dawn of time?



"No/negative. Enterprise cannot be believed/ trusted. Chaos-haven
yesterday/today/tomorrow: Well singular cannot be misled/deterred."



The Calamarain punctuated their unambiguous refutation of Picard's
claims with a resounding clap of thunder that set the captain's
ears ringing and shook the bridge like a raft-adrift upon a surging
sea. "Captain," Data stated with admirable -composure, "external
sensors report increased tachyon radiation against our deflector
shields, approximately 59.584 rems along the berthold scale and
rising."



"Thank you, Mr. Data," Picard acknowledged, scowling. The
Calamarain did not emit tachyons solely to communicate, he knew;
they employed the faster-thanlight particles as weapons as well,
effective against both organic and inorganic matter. Only the
ship's crumbling shields- protected the crew and the Enterprise
from the deadly emissions, but for how much longer?



He glanced back over his shoulder at the lighted schematic of the
Enterprise-E mounted on the wall directly behind him: Blinking
amber lights indicated malfunctions on practically every one -of
the ship's



-flour decks. If only the cutaway diagram could show him where Q
and 0 were . . .



Orange and yellow sparks cascaded from the secondary aft science
station. "Not again!" Barclay yelped, backing off from the console
in a hurry. He cast a glance at the engineering station a few posts
away, its surface already charred and melted from a previous
conflagration. "Science Two inopera dm" he reported dutifully.



"Take over at environment," Picard instructed briskly, filling the
position left want when Lieutenant Yang took the conn. Obviously,
he needed to end this pointless conflict with the Calamarain soon,
while there was a bridge left from which to run the Enterprise.



It's that old business with Q, Picard realized, silently



paling Data to deactivate the translator for a moment. The
Calamarain don't believe us because we appeared to take Q's side
when they came after him nearly a decade ago. He didn't regret
saving Q from a summary execution on that oocasion-at least not
Direly-but it didn't make winning the cloud beings' trust any
easier. Some kind of gesture of good faith is required, Picard
thought. The burden of proof is upon the Enterprise. We need to
trust them before



y can trust us.



"Ensign Berglund, prepare to lower shields at my command."



-Lower?" Her face blanched, but she quickly composed herself. "I
mean, yes, sir."



"Captain," Data inquired evenly. Years of service

under Picard made him more comfortable addressing Picard than the
ensign was. "Are you sure that is wise, sir?"



"It may be our only chance, Mr. Data" Picard said. Out of habit, he
tugged his jacket into place before signaling Data to resume the
transmission. "Captain Picard to the Calamarain, in memory of the
Coulalakritous." The ancient name had made an impact upon the
Calamarain before; it couldn't hurt to invoke it again. "To prove
that we mean you no harm, and that we sincerely seek peaceful
cooperation with your people during the present crisis, I am
prepared to lower our defenses. Please accept this gesture in the
spirit in which it is intended, and refrain from taking violent
action against us until we have had the opportunity to speak
further."



Do the Calamarain even comprehend the concept of a truce? The
Coulalakritous that Picard observed in the past had impressed him
as a peaceful people, not a warlike or predatory species, although
who knew how much their culture and psychology might have changed
over the course of a million years? 1 guess we're about to find
out, he thought. "Ensign Berglund, lower shields."



"Yes, sir," she said with a gulp. For a moment; he was almost
relieved that Lieutenant Leyoro was confined to sickbay. The
Angosian security chief would have surely objected strenuously to
this particular tactic. And she might well have been right, he
conceded.



Picard held his breath, his body as tense as an



d warp coil, as Berglund carried out his command. The first
evidence of its effects came when the giant blue flashes of the
stressed shields vanished from the turbulent display of churning
clouds and jagged thunderbolts upon the main viewer. He braced
himself for everything from a catastrophic hull breach %D the
searing pairs of radiation burns, but all that



1 his expectant senses was the muted rumbling of the storm as it
seemed to hold back the full force of as fury. Yes, he thought,
elated. The Calamarain were honoring the truce!



"Captain, look!" Ensign Berglund called out. She pointed at the
ceiling above the command area, where a glowing mist was phasing
through the solid duramium over Picard's head. He rose from his
chair, his me& craned back, watching in wonder as what appeared to
be an actual portion of the Calamarain entered the confines of the
bridge. "Er, is this what you were expecting, Captain?" Berglund
asked.



`Not exactly," Picard admitted, although this phys ical
manifestation was not entirely without precedent. Ten years ago,
during their previous encounter with the Calamarain, a segment of
the gaseous mass had gated the Enterprise in search of Q. Welcome
award he thought wryly.



The shimmering cloud, roughly the size of an adult Horta, descended
from the ceiling and began to elate around the bridge, inspecting
its surroundings with evident purpose and curiosity. Lieutenant
Barclay and the-other officers were quick to make way liar the
traveling cloud, being careful to give it a wide berth, although
the security officer stationed between the port and starboard
turbolifts, Ensign Plummer, looked to Picard for guidance. "Shall I
attempt to apprehend the intruder, Captain?"



Picard shook his head. He wasn't even sure how to approach the
amorphous entity, let alone take it prisoner. "I believe we should
think of this as more of an envoy than an intruder," he declared.
The cloud completed its circuit of the bridge, then began to hover
over the mangled engineering station, emitting a steady hum that
reminded Picard of the honeybees in his father's vineyards. "Data,
can we communicate with the entity at this proximity?"



"Just a moment, Captain," the android replied. His fingers moved
across the operations panel faster than Picard's eyes could follow.
"There," he announced less than five seconds later. "The revised
algorithms, along with a directive to detect and produce
lowintensity tachyon bursts via the inertial dampers, has been
downloaded into the primary translation system linked to your comm
badge. That should suffice, sir, within a 94.659 percent range of
accuracy." He shrugged sheepishly. "My apologies, Captain. It was
the best I could accomplish under such rigorous time constraints."



Give Data a couple more hours, Picard, and he could probably
compose sonnets in Calamarain. "This will do, Mr. Data. Thank you."
He approached the iridescent cloud, being careful not to make any
movements, sudden or otherwise, that might be construed as hostile.
He felt a tingling sensation, like static electric



ity, upon his hands and face as he neared the representative from
the Calamarain. Do they have individual names, he wondered, or even
a singular noun?



"Greetings," he said. "Welcome to the Enterprise. I am Captain
Jean-Luc Picard." Ordinarily, he would offer a hand in friendship
but that hardly seemed appropriate given the complete absence of
anything resembling an appendage. The vaporous substance of the
entity appeared completely undifferentiated; he couldn't begin to
tell where its head was, if that term had any meaning at all to the
Calamarain. Hard to imagine, he thought, that Q and I actually
assumed the form of the Coulalakritous during our voyage through
the past. Already, the experience seemed like a half-remembered
dream; his human brain had never been meant to retain the
experience of existing as an intelligent gas.



"I am/are of the Calamarain." The voice emerged from Picard's comm
badge, sounding identical to the inflectionless tones the
Calamarain as a whole had employed. "State/propose your
intentions/desires."



Small talk was not on the itinerary, it seemed. "The entity called
0, who injured the Coulalakritous in the past, is aboard this
vessel," Picard explained. "Can you help us subdue him before he
does more harm?"



The cloud hummed to itself for several seconds before replying:
"Negative/never. Chaos is too ascendant/hazardous.
Condemned/congealed the Coulalakritous. I/we cannot oppose
again/ever."



Picard thought he was starting to get a feel for the

Calamarain's bizarre syntax, but he didn't like what he believed he
was hearing. Although perfectly willing to defend the galactic
barrier or punish the Enterprise for its perceived transgressions,
it appeared the cloud entities were not willing to confront 0
directly. Were they merely made fearful by ancestral memories of
their defeat and persecution in the distant past, or was 0 truly
that much more powerful than the Calamarain? If so, then all their
struggles might be in vain.



"Captain," Data spoke up. "Forgive me for interrupting, but I
believe I may have located a clue to the location of either Q or
0."



"Yes?" Picard asked. He recalled that he had asked Data to monitor
power consumption throughout the ship in hopes of keeping track of
0's pursuit of Q. He considered deactivating the Universal
Translator for this discussion, but reconsidered. Let the
Calamarain see and hear what we are doing to cope with the danger.
Perhaps it would inspire them to action of their own. I might even
settle for a useful suggestion or two, he thought.



"The EPS power grid indicates that Holodeck Seven is in use," Data
reported. He turned from his display console to face Picard. "I
find this unusual during a state of red alert."



So did Picard. That must be Q and 0, he felt convinced. Who else
would be playing games in a holodeck in the middle of a galactic
emergency? "Excellent work, Mr. Data. I think you may be on to
something." He spun around to face the envoy from the Calamarain, a
strategy for survival coming togeth



er in his mind. It would take all his diplomatic skills to pull it
off, but maybe there was a way to put 0 back in the bottle again,
before he could enlist The One to his cause once more.



"Listen to me," he told the swirling cloud of ionized plasma,
standing so close to the radiant entity that the minuscule hairs on
the back of his hands stood at attention. "I know that 0 hurt you
badly long ago, but maybe you don't have to fight him alone . . .
."

Chapter Sixteen
"DAD?"

Milo hoped that he was dreaming, that he hadn't really woken up
yet, but knew in his heart that this nightmare was all too real.
That really was his father, his eyes glowing like a Tholian,
getting ready to perform some kind of experiment on a baby in a
transparent bubble. Looking more closely, he recognized the baby as
that weird Q kid who had popped into the holodeck during their
first night aboard the Enterprise. A barely healed scab on his soul
tore open again as he remembered how impressed his father had been
by the Q baby, even as he ignored both him and Kinya. Figures, he
thought. Even with all that had happened-cloud monsters and the
barrier and



everything-that hadn't changed. Their father still cared about
everything except his own children.



"Milo, please come away from there," a voice said behind him. "It's
not safe." Counselor Troi placed her hands gently upon his
shoulders and tried to pull him away from the doorway. He was very
relieved to see that his father hadn't killed her after all, but he
didn't want to be shuffled off to some holographic daycare center
again. His father had gone crazy, it looked like, and Milo had to
find out what was going to happen next, no matter what. "Please,
Milo." The counselor tugged insistently. "Come with me."



"No," he said emphatically and, to his surprise, her hands sprang
away from him as if burned. Did I do that? he thought, astounded.
It sort of felt like he did; right when she let go of him he sensed
something flow out of him. Like telepathy, but stronger. He pushed
her away, using a muscle in his head he hadn't even known was there
before.



Funny thing, though. Counselor Troi didn't look half as surprised
as he was. Scared, yes, worried, sure, but not surprised. He looked
into her mind to find out why and, sure enough, there it was. The
barrier. The galactic barrier had given him amazing new powers,
just like it had his father.



Does this mean Dad's not dying anymore? he wondered. He didn't like
the image of himself he saw in the counselor's thoughts, with the
creepy glowing eyes and all, but maybe it would be okay if this
meant that his father had been cured of Iverson's disease. Maybe
their family could finally get back to normal, sort of.

The way his father was acting, though, that didn't seem likely. He
had glanced in Milo's direction when he first showed up, and for a
second Milo had thought he saw a trace of real live interest, and
maybe even a glint of approval, in his father's spooky new eyes,
but then he went right back to staring at the Q baby like it was
the Sacred Chalice of Rixx or something. "Beginning environmental
testing," he droned aloud, more boring science stuff like always.
"Introducing concentrated zenite gas into observation chamber . . .
."



Zenite? Milo didn't get it. That stuff caused brain damage, didn't
it? He watched in horrified fascination as a gray mist began to
fill the transparent dome containing the Q baby. What was the point
of this? Milo had read all his father's scientific treatises, about
the barrier and wormholes and such, and he didn't remember anything
about testing zenite gas on alien babies. He felt faintly sick to
his stomach.



The baby's mother, whom Milo spotted on the other side of the dome,
looked more than nauseated; she looked positively crazed with fear.
Tears ran down her cheeks and her eyes were wild. From out of
nowhere, she somehow produced the largest phaser rifle Milo had
ever seen and fired it directly at his father.



"No!" Milo cried out, but his father just looked annoyed. With a
wave of his hand, he created a vortex in the air that absorbed the
phaser beam before it reached him. Milo's panicked shout attracted
his father's attention, though. He looked away from the Q



baby to peer at his own son with new eyes. In more ways than one,
Milo thought.



Meanwhile, the gray fumes reached the baby's nostrils. He wrinkled
his nose and made a face. Then he stomped his feet and the toxic
smoke turned into a miniature rainbow that dissolved into a hundred
prismatic floating crystals before vanishing entirely. "Oh, good
boy, q!" his mother gasped in relief, while stubbornly trying to
shoot past the vortex protecting Milo's father. She fired high and
low and even attempted a ricochet or two, but his father managed to
keep the vortex between himself and the business end of the crimson
phaser beam. "That's a very good boy!,



"Interesting," his father noted, talking to himself. "Subject
responds to negative environmental stimuli through metamorphic
substitution. To compensate for subject's paranormal behavioral
strategies, future tests must-" The oncoming phaser beam attempted
to bypass Faal's vortex by branching into two separate streams.
Faal barely managed to summon a second vortex in time, blocking
both forks of the phaser attack, but the effort broke his train of
thought. He glared at the mother Q with a look that Milo knew too
well: the leave-me-aloneI'm-working look.



"Milo," he called out unexpectedly. "I need your help, son. Use
your new powers to keep that interfering woman away from me. Use
your mind. Mind is all -teat matters."



Milo was stunned and excited. His father needed

him? For the first time in months, since his mother died really,
Dad was paying attention to him again, including him in his life.
And all it took was these strange new powers. This was almost too
good to be true.



"No, Milo!" Counselor Troi urged him. "You have to get away from
here. Your father's . . . not well."



But he's still my father, Milo thought, shoving the counselor away
more forcefully, all the way out into the adult ward. The more he
used his new powers, the more natural they felt. I can't let him
down now, not when we finally have a chance to be together again.



"Leave my father alone!" he shouted at the baby's mother. He felt
kind of bad about it, since she just seemed to want her baby back,
but his father knew what he was doing, didn't he? Maybe the baby
wasn't really a baby, but some sort of the shapechanging alien in
disguise. Like a Changeling or an allasomorph.



Whatever she really was, the distraught woman paid no attention to
Milo, but just kept firing wildly at his father. By now the single
beam had diverged into over a dozen separate forks, attacking his
father from every conceivable direction. His father had been forced
to transform his defensive vortex into a protective bubble that
covered him from head to toe. "Please, Milo," he called. "I can't
work under these conditions."



There had been a time, Milo recalled, before everything went wrong,
that his father had sometimes taken Milo into his lab and let him
help out with the



experiments. Dad had given him simple tasks to perform, like
replicating fresh isolinear chips or entering gravitational
statistics into the wormhole simula tions, and called him his "best
lab assistant." Milo felt an ache at the back of his throat; he
hadn't realized until now how much he'd missed that.



The ruby-red phaser beams hemming his father in, crisscrossing each
other in their attempts to sneak past his defenses, reminded Milo
of the Tholian webs in his favorite computer game, the same one
he'd been playing the night he first met the baby Q and his mother.
Well, two can play at that game, he thought.



With a thought, a pair of miniature Tholian warships popped into
existence and flew straight for the woman (if that's what she
really was) firing at his father. The diamond-shaped, prismatic
ships began to enclose the woman within an intricate energy field
consisting of overlapping rays of red-gold light.



At first, the woman looked more irritated than concerned by the
web, sweeping the first few strands ;away from with the muzzle of
her rifle, but Milo closed his eyes and concentrated harder. To his
surprise, he discovered he could still see the entire room even
with his eyes shut. He clenched his fists and the severed strands
snapped back into place.



Behind him, Counselor Troi pounded uselessly on the soundproof
forcefield he had erected in the door way of the children's ward.
Commander Riker stood !wide her, scanning the door with a tricorder
and wing his head. The invisible wall swallowed her words, but he
could still hear her thoughts in his

mind. Stop it, Milo. This is wrong. Your father is wrong. You'll
just make things worse.



"Please, Milo, don't do this," Dr. Crusher pleaded, echoing the
counselor. He had barely noticed the doctor before, standing behind
the baby's mother, safely out of the line of fire. Now she eased
away from the other woman, seeking safety from the glittering
Tholian vessels. "You're making a mistake."



No, he thought desperately. Tears stung his eyes. You're wrong. You
have to be. Both the doctor and the counselor had argued with his
father before. They had insisted that the barrier would harm Milo
and his father, might even kill them, but it hadn't hurt them after
all; it had made them stronger instead, maybe even cured his father
of the Iverson's, which everyone said was impossible. His father
had been right then. He had to be right now, too.



Didn't he?



Moving as fast as Milo's racing thoughts, the tiny Tholian ships
completed the web around the mother Q, enclosing her completely
within a lattice of gold and red strands. "Very good, Milo," his
father approved. Milo couldn't remember the last time his dad had
actually praised him for anything. "I'm proud of you, son. Proud,
prouder, proudest."



Lem Faal added his own strength to the web, so that Milo could feel
his father's thoughts pulsing alongside his as they worked
together, father and son united at last. There was a strange sort
of shadowy tinge to his father's thoughts, like a tone in his voice
that Milo



never heard before, but he didn't care, not as long as they were a
family again.



The web contracted swiftly, limiting the woman's rage of motion.
She tried to sweep the strands away again, yet only succeeded in
tangling the muzzle of her weapon in the unyielding strings of
energy. She dally managed to yank the rifle free, only there was no
longer any room to point it anywhere but straight up. The phaser
beam shot through a gap in the lattice, ricocheting off the ceiling
to continue its Hydra-like assault on Milo's father. "What is this
. . . ?" she snarled, frustrated and angry.



Come with me, Counselor Troi begged him telepathically. Your sister
is safe. Let me take you to her. She needs you, Milo.



Milo's eyes snapped open. That's no fair! Milo thought. How could
she ask him to choose between his sister and his father? It's
wasn't fair at all! He looked over his shoulder at the exit to the
children's ward. Where was Kinya anyway? And how would she fit in,
now that he and his father had been brought tether by the magic of
the barrier? They couldn't just leave her alone. They were all she
had, and she yeas just a little girl.



"It's all right, baby," the woman sobbed to her child, her fingers
reaching out through the gaps in the web. The anguish on her face
tore at Milo's conscience. "Mommy won't leave you."



Milo couldn't help thinking that the baby's mother seemed more
worried about her little boy than his

Father was about Kinya. Or about me, he admitted, before I got
these powers.



"Good work, Milo," his father encouraged him as the web continued
to contract upon the hostile woman. She could scarcely poke her
weapon through the constricting strands anymore. The multiheaded
beam emanating from the phaser rifle dwindled to a single narrow
beam as she had to concentrate more of her energy to keep the
netting away from her face and body. "Crush her son. Mind over
mother. Crush Crusher, too. Crush her. Crusher."



What? Milo blinked in confusion. He saw a look of fear appear on
Dr. Crusher's face as she heard what his father said. Milo didn't
understand. What had the doctor done, except try to help them?
She's wasn't a shapechanging alien monster or anything. Why hurt
her?



"Son?" the mother Q said. For the first time, the ensnared woman
looked away from Faal and her baby to truly focus on Milo. He was
suddenly very scared by the cold intensity of her regard. Nobody
(except his father maybe) had ever stared at him with so little
feeling or compassion. His mouth went dry and he started to
tremble, especially after a crafty smile lifted the corners of the
woman's lips. Please, Dad, he thought. Don't let her do anything to
me.



Too late. In a flash, he suddenly found himself inside the web,
held tight against the woman, whose right hand was clenched around
his neck like a magnetic vise. Her phaser rifle had vanished, and
she had her other arm around his waist, even as his own



web held him fast as well, the glowing strands of -nergy digging
into his skin like taut optical fibers. How did this happen? he
wondered in despair. Nobody W -4d me she could do this!



"You!" she snapped at his father. "You and the creature inside you.
I have a painfully simple proposition for you. You have my son. I
have yours. Give me back my baby or I will exterminate your
unfortunate offspring posthaste."



To make her point clear, she squeezed Milo's neck until he
whimpered. Help me, Dad, he thought. He wanted to be brave, but his
heart was pounding in his ,chest and his skin had gone cold all
over. He tried to push her away with his mind, the way he had
Counselor Troi, but she was too strong for that. Between the
netting and her iron grip, he couldn't move a millimeter. Don't let
her hurt me, Dad, he pleaded.



"No!" Dr. Crusher exclaimed, hurrying up to the woman as close as
the patrolling Tholian vessels would allow. "I know you want to get
your baby back, but you can't hurt this boy. He's not to blame for
his father's madness. He's just a child."



"Don't tell me that," the woman said sharply. She sounded furious
enough to kill entire worlds if necessary. "Tell his father. It's
his choice to make. A child for a child. A son for a son."



Milo bit down on his lower lip, trying not to cry.



Please, Dad, give her want she wants. Give her back her baby. Maybe
the woman would go away then. He and his father could start all
over again, and Kinya, too. He still wasn't sure what his father
wanted with the Q

baby in the first place, but he didn't want to die for it.



We don't have any choice, Dad. Let her have the baby!



To his dismay, his father had to think about it. "Milo?" he
murmured, and for a second he sounded like the father Milo
remembered, even with the weird white eyes. "My son?" Then all the
emotion drained from his face and, his neck turning stiffly like a
badly programmed hologram, he looked down at the baby in the bubble
instead. "No," he said mechanically. "This is the child. The child
of Q and Q. The child of the future of the evolution of the mind .
. . ." A padd materialized in his hand, and he began tapping out
notes, as if neither Milo nor the baby's mother were even there
anymore. "Appendix: Some Thoughts on the Relationship Between
Advanced Consciousness and Corporeal Manifestation. To be completed
following eventual dissection of subject. Compare and contrast to
Vulcan concept of katra and synaptic pattern displacement in
postsomatic organisms . . . ."



Milo's jaw dropped open as a pain as large as Betazed itself
crushed his heart. This was the ultimate betrayal. Just when it
looked like his father had finally started caring about him again,
just when Milo had let himself hope that the bad times and the
loneliness were over, Lem Faal chose the Q baby-and some stupid
experiment-over the life of his own son! Milo slumped against the
woman behind him, held up by the Tholian webbing stretched tightly
against him. As he gave up on his father, the web Milo had created,
with the help and encouragement of that same false father, began to
fade away, as did the two tiny Tholian



gyps. Despite the absence of the web, Milo didn't -zven try to
break away from the woman's grip. Go :.head and kill me, he thought
bitterly. I don't care anymore.



Instead she shoved him away without a second's :nought. "Go," she
said brusquely, like she had no more use for him. Milo stumbled
across the floor, dazed and uncertain. His legs felt hollow and
limp, and he had to grab on to the edge of a tripod-mounted scanner
several centimeters taller than he was. Dr. Crusher hurried around
the back of the laboratory to throw an arm around him and guide him
toward the door. The doctor's efforts barely registered on him;
Milo was too numb to notice. Now what do I do? he thought, hurt and
relieved and bewildered all at the same time.



The baby's mother had no answers from him. Freed from the scale-
model Tholian web, she had gone straight to the transparent dome
imprisoning her son. "Hang on, little q," she cooed, trying to
reassure the anxious toddler. Her voice cracked as she spoke.
"Everything will be okay. Mommy will get you out of there somehow."



"Come along, Milo," Dr. Crusher whispered in his ear. "You don't
have to stay here any longer."



Milo dragged his feet, unable to look away from the heartbreaking
spectacle going on only a few steps away.



The Q baby bounced up and down inside the bubble, reaching out for
his mother, his tiny hands pressed against the inner surface of the
dome. He

looked confused and frightened, mystified by the unyielding barrier
between his and his mother. "Mommy?" he cried. "Mommy?"



A new pang stabbed Milo's battered emotions. At least the Q baby,
whatever it was and why ever his father wanted it, knew that his
parent loved him and wanted to protect him, which was more than
Milo could say. He couldn't bear to watch them anymore. I don't
care if they're not what they appear, he decided. A baby deserves a
mother who cares about him.



"I'll help you," he blurted.



The doctor tugged on his arm gently. "Milo, I don't think this is a
good idea. Just come with me."



Milo wasn't listening. Shaking off her arm, he ran up to the woman
who had, only moments ago, threatened to kill him. "Let me help
you. You and me. Two against one. Against him." The aching pain in
his chest turned into anger and determination. He couldn't let his
dad wreck another family. "Let's get your baby out of there."



The woman looked down at him, anxiety and fear giving way to hope
in her eyes. She scrutinized Milo from top to bottom, weighing his
sincerity, then nodded her head. "Yes," she said hoarsely. "I'll
try anything."



His father was still tapping notes onto his padd, muttering to
himself in what Milo's mother used to call "academese." He
inspected the readout on one of the mounted display screens, then
keyed the data into his notes. "The subspace dimensions of the
subject are highly variable, with little apparent correlation to
dimensions of humanoid manifestation. Disparate suggests further
lines of inquiry along fourth-dimensional



--Stop it, Dad!" Milo shouted as loud as he could, using his mouth
as well as his mind. No matter what happened next, he was going to
let his father ignore him anymore. "It's over now. All of it."



Lem Faal looked up in surprise from his padd. "Milo?" He spotted
the baby's mother standing beside Milo. "What is that irrelevant Q
doing free main? I thought I told you to keep her under control."



Don't tell me what to do, Milo thought. You don't gave the right.
The anger poured out of Milo then. He couldn't have held it back if
he tried. Months of pain and resentment and crushed feelings hit
Lem Faal like the cloud monsters had hit the Enterprise before,
over and over again. Lem Faal staggered backward, the padd with his
ever-so-important notes crashing to the floor. The mother Q added
her anger to Milo's, and it felt cleaner, purer than his father's
contaminated thoughts had been. Between the mother's relentless
need to rescue her child, and Milo's own resolve to end his
father's madness, the power they wielded had become an irresistible
force. Lem Faal tried to defend himself, vortexes and forcefields
and flickering energy pulses springing into existence only to be
blown away like cobwebs in a hurricane. He was driven back into a
wall of monitors, the manifestations of his power evaporating like
mirages. "Mind over matter," he babbled incoherently. "Mind over .
. . Milo?"



All at once, the alien glow in his father's eyes was

gone. He looked confused and disoriented, clutching his chest as he
gasped for breath, which whistled plaintively through lungs that
sounded weak and clotted. "Where is your mother, Milo?" he asked.
"Where's Shozana?"



He sagged to his knees, then collapsed face-first onto the floor.
"About time," the mother Q said without a trace of compassion.,
"although I doubt that was all of him. That was just a little piece
of 0 that found a bit of power to nest in." She spun around and
reached out for the transparent dome. This time no forcefield
deterred her and the dome crumbled to dust at her slightest touch.
Within a second, she had her baby clutched to her chest, stroking
his head while she cooed in its ear. "My poor little q! My poor,
brave little q!"



Now that it was over, his father crumpled upon the floor, Milo felt
thoroughly drained. At least it's finally over, he thought. At
last. He felt like he had lost his real father months ago, the same
time he lost his mother. The rest was just a bad emptiness that
went on much too long. A little piece of zero, like the mother Q
said. A living, breathing hole where a father should have been. He
dissolved the forcefield over the entrance and Commander Riker and
Counselor Troi rushed into the children's ward. Phaser in hand, the
commander knelt to check on his father while Counselor Troi
squeezed Milo's hand in hers. "Let's go see your sister, Milo," she
said softly, and this time he didn't push her away.



"You really scared me there for a moment or two," Crusher said to
the female Q, who continued to stroke and comfort her child. The
doctor felt thankful things had turned out as well as they had,
thanks to young Milo. "When you threatened to kill Faal's son, I
wasn't sure you were bluffing. Remind me not to invite you to our
weekly poker game."



"Actually, I prefer contract bridge," the female Q replied,
regaining some of her previous hauteur now that the worse was over.
She beamed at her smiling child, wiping away the tearstains on his
cheeks. Crusher thought q looked none the worse for his captivity.
Never underestimate the natural resilience of children, she
thought. Especially a Q child. "Forgive me if I don't stay to tidy
up," the Q continued, looking around at the biomedical chamber of
horrors that Faal had transformed the pediatric unit into, "but I
have a rather important errand to run."



"What about him?" Riker asked grufy, calling the Q's attention to
the prone figure upon the floor. "Are you quite sure he's powerless
now?"



"A good point," the Q conceded. Her eyes narrowed as she gave the
problem of Faal a moment's thought. Then a very Q-like smirk
appeared on her face, preceding a white flash that lit up the ward
for a single heartbeat.



When the light faded, the containment chamber had been restored,
but now it was Lem Faal, curled into a fetal position, who was
confined within the clear dome. "That should hold him for the time
being," the female Q declared. "Do feel free to run

any tests you choose on him. The more painful the better."



And then both she and q were gone, leaving Riker and Crusher alone
in the pediatric unit. Beverly hoped that Jean-Luc and the other
were faring as well with the Calamarain and that unknown intruder.
One more thing puzzled her as well.



What kind of errand does the female Q have in mind?

Chapter Seventeen
"UGH. WHAT A REVOLTING SENSATION."

Q's skin still itched from his emergency beam-out; he'd forgotten
just how crudely tactile primitive matter transporters could be.
Still, it beat working up a sweat, he supposed. If he never saw
another starship corridor or Jefferies tube for another hundred
million years, it would still be too soon.



Nevertheless, here he was. Holodeck 7. Hundreds of alternative
environments, and potential hiding places, available at his
command. The next thing best thing to using his Q powers. Quite
ingenious, he congratulated himself. 0 may have forced Q into this
deadly game, but Q wasn't about to make it easy for him.



At the moment, of course, the holodeck was just a

big, empty room waiting to be filled with threedimensional
illusions. A stark yellow grid pattern was laid out on the walls,
floor, and ceiling, which were a singularly uninteresting shade of
black. A pair of red double doors, surrounded by a streamlined
archway that looked evocatively like a theatrical proscenium,
marked the entrance of the holodeck for those who actually cared to
enter via their feet. Easier said than done, Q thought ruefully,
contemplating the unwieldy shackles about his ankle. He had hoped
the transporter would leave the leg irons behind, but 0 had made
them more stubborn than that. I should have expected as much, but
who'd expect a lunatic to pay such attention to detail?



In its bare simplicity, the default version of the holodeck was
about the least promising hiding place one could imagine. But just
give a few moments at those controls, Q gloated, and it will be a
different story.



"All right then," he addressed the archway, "show me the
specialties of the house."



The holodeck controls, which had been programmed to respond to a
wide variety of verbal commands, complied by displaying a menu of
available programs on a lighted monitor embedded in right side of
the proscenium. He scrolled through the various options, not quite
certain what he was looking for, but confident that he would know
it when he saw it.



Aikido. Too strenuous, he decided.



Altonian Brain Teaser. Meditation was not exactly what he had in
mind.



Ancient West. Too rustic, not to mention conducive to shoot-outs.



Ballroom Dancing. Crusher's favorite, no doubt.



Bat'leth Practice. Left behind by the redoubtable Worp



Barclay 1-75. Too numerous to choose from.



Bridge Officer Examination. Please!



Champs Elysees. Too French.



Camp Khitomer. Too Klingon.



Christmas Carol, A. He'd spent quite enough time haunting the
shadows of the past, thank you very much!



Q scrolled through the menu faster, glancing nervously over his
shoulder. As brilliant as it was, his transporter trick wasn't
going to throw 0 off the trail indefinitely. He might be crazy as a
chronal conundrum, but his former mentor had an undeniable talent
for showing up precisely where he was least wanted. He raced
through the vast array of selections at a feverish clip, examining
and discarding options as fast as the display could produce them.
Denubian Alps. No. Fly Fishing. No. Henry V. No. Klingon
Calisthenics. God, no. Lake Cataria. . . .



What about that delightfully seedy waterfront dive? he wondered.
With all that cheap hired muscle to throw at 0? No, wait, that was
on Janeway's ship. Would he ever have a chance to drop by Voyager
again? Only if Picard came through, as was devoutly to be wished.

Moonlight on the Beach. No. Orient Express. No. Rock Climbing. No.
Romulan Firefalls. No. Tactical Simulation. No.

Q was running out of time and hope when finally, near the end of
the alphabetical listing, he spotted something that might suit his
present purposes.

The Tempest. From Picard's beloved Bard, no less. Magic, trickery,
and deferred revenge, plus an entire enchanted isle on which to
elude 0. It was as close to perfect as he was going to find,
particularly under the circumstances. Now if he could just call up
the -program before 0 arrived on the scene . . . !

The sound of a heavy object whistling through the air alerted Q
only seconds before a spiked mace would have collided with his
skull. Ducking just in time, he pivoted around to see 0 just a few
paces away, his archaic pistol aimed at Q once more. "You can't
trick a trickster, Q. Tricky, trickier, trickiest. A trick in a
nick gives a bit of a kick."

His maniacal blue eyes searched their surroundings. "What's this,
Q? This is what? Some kind of aboriginal game room? Very fitting.
Fit, fitter, fittest. Good of you to get into the spirit of the
thing; too bad the game's almost gone." He grabbed Q's arm to keep
him from teleporting away, then cocked his revolver. Fingernails as
long as knives dug into Q's wrist. "Any last words, Q? Better make
them good ones."

"Yes," Q answered. "Begin program. Act One, Scene One."

The quiet of the holodeck became at once a scene of

utter chaos. Q and 0 stood upon the rolling deck of a ship at sea,
caught in the fury of a sudden squall. Sheets of cold rain pelted
both ship and passenger alike. Sailors and civilians, the latter
clad in drenched royal finery, ran about the deck in a frenzy of
activity, shouting commands and warnings and heated imprecations at
each other. The sky was dark with stormy clouds, not unlike the
Calamarain, and the crash of white-capped waves competed with the
howl of the wind and the rumble of thunder to drown out pages'
worth of theatrical dialogue. Jagged tines of lightning stabbed at
the mast and mainsails, threatening to set the tempest-tossed
vessel ablaze. "Hang, cur!" a villainous-looking boatswain managed
to bellow above the din, directing his tirade at one of the
bedraggled noblemen. "Hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!"

1 couldn't have put it better myself, Q thought. As anticipated,
the abrupt change in venue, not to mention the general tumult,
distracted 0 sufficiently that Q was able to yank his arm free from
an ectoplasmic tentacle and rush across the pitching, rain-soaked
deck to put a sturdy holographic mast between himself and 0's
primed firearm. Thank you, Willie, he thought, for an efectively
over-the-top opening. Searching the horizon in every direction,
using the electrical glare of a thunderbolt to dispel the worst of
the gloom, Q spotted, right on schedule, a verdant island less than
a kilometer away, its leafy greenery offering both sanctu ary and,
more importantly, seclusion. From 0, as opposed to the storm.

"Q! Tricky, tricky Q!" 0 limped after Q, his mangled foot equitably
slowing the vengeful madman as much as Q's fetters impeded his
escape. He fired his revolver, taking a chip out of the wooden rail
beside Q. "Take your tricks to a watery grave, Q!"



Exit, stage right, Q decided, tossing himself over the rail into
the surging, frothing sea. For a simulacrum created by shaped
forcefields and holographic images, the water was convincingly cold
and wet. Almost too convincing, in fact; Q swallowed several
mouthfuls of holographic brine before he managed to kick his way to
the surface, his head emerging amid a flurry of waves and wind. His
heavy leg irons hardly helped him keep afloat, but he trusted that
Prospero's magic (and the dictates of the plot) would carry him
safely to shore.



Another gunshot, splashing into the water only centimeters from his
head, convinced him to give the program a hand by striking out for
the island as quickly as a modified breast stroke would carry him.
He was sorely tempted to turn himself into a dolphin or a
Markoffian sea lizard, but he might just as well fire off signal
flares announcing his precise location to his pursuer. There was
nothing to be done except paddle along in a humanoid form rendered
unfit for this pseudo-environment by several million years of
terrestrial evolution. I tried to tell them that leaving the ocean
for the land was a huge mistake, but dad they listen to me? Of
course not.



It took longer than he would have preferred, and his arms would
have ached had he been genuinely mortal,



but time and tide eventually deposited him on a sandy beach
unmarred by any trace of human habitation. Climbing to his feet, he
brushed the wet sand from the front of his soggy uniform, while a
chill slurry of sand and seawater streamed from his hair, running
down the back of his neck. Brrr! Looking out over the sea, he saw
the last vestiges of the squall driving the abandoned ship to a
waiting harbor; in theory, the rest of the dramatis personae would
be washing ashore anytime now.



Best to get going, he realized. Having not instructed the computer
to cast him in any particular role, he remained an extraneous
element in this Tempest, unobliged to take part in the actual
narrative. Still, there was no reason 0 couldn't race ahead of the
plot as well, once his scattered mind came to grips with the
radically revised playing field. Q wanted to be safely lost in the
jungle before 0 set foot on the island.



Facing the sea, across a perilously exposed expanse of sand, the
jungle awaited. A thick growth of towering mangrove and banyan
trees offered shelter and shadows in which to hide, preceded by
hedges of high grass and leafy ferns. He bolted for the overgrown
foliage, wishing there were time to erase the sandy footprints he
was inevitably leaving in his wake. 1 could really use a bushy tail
right now, he thought.



"Q!" a demented voice cried out behind him. "All ashore who's dying
ashore!" Q peeked back over his shoulder to see 0 striding out of
the surf, his stringy hair plastered to his skull. He looked as
though he had walked across the sea bottom all the way from the

stormswept brigantine. Why didn't I think of that? Q thought,
snapping his fingers. Because it didn't follow the logic of the
play?

Another instance where 0's lunacy, and propensity for cheating,
gave him the advantage. I'm going to have to think a lot crazier if
I'm going to beat him at his own game.

A flag upon a golden pole materialized at the end of 0's upper
right tentacle, which jabbed the bottom of the pole into the sand.
"I claim this isle in the name of 0 the First!" he proclaimed
grandly. The emblem on the flag was a numeral zero that looked like
it had been scrawled in crayon, or maybe blood, by either a
hyperactive three-year-old or a fugitive from an asylum. Q leaned
strongly toward the latter.

"What shall I name this serene and sandy shore?" Q asked aloud.
"Q's End? Q-Fall? Q's Just Deserts?" He laughed raucously. "Too bad
this isn't a deserts island!"

I still have a chance, Q thought. The outer fringe of the jungle
was only a few meters away. With little to lose, he used his power
to add wings to his feet. Literally. Two pairs of feathered
pinions, chafing slightly at edges of his shackles, propelled him
into the sylvan sanctuary at hummingbird speed. A razoredged
boomerang chased him into the trees, slicing off the tip of an
emerald frond before returning to 0's waiting tentacle. "Cheater!"
0 shouted angrily. "Cheat and charlatan! Cheat, cheating, cheater!"

Now there's the singularity calling the neutron star black, Q
thought as he lost himself in the beckoning



wilderness. He leaped over gnarled roots and trickling streams,
heading ever deeper into the lush holographic scenery. He couldn't
slow down to get some bearings because he could hear 0 crashing
through the underbrush behind him, hacking at hanging vines and
branches with machete in each hand and swinging tentacle. "Run, Q,
run!" he hollered. "Rotting bones in the jungle are as good as a
burial at sea any day. Any day!"

Not exactly Shakespeare, Q thought critically, but the intent was
clear enough.

The atmosphere within the tropical forest was hot, humid, and
redolent of jungle violets. A dense, green canopy stretched
overhead, letting through only shreds of artificial sunlight.
Banyan and mangrove, mahogany and teak formed an arboreal maze
through which Q ducked and weaved, changing course at random while
trying to avoid running into any lowhanging boughs. Thankfully,
this unnatural simulation of nature had been designed for
relatively easy navigation by culture-seeking Starfteet drones
already wrestling with the pitfalls and perplexities of iambic
pentameter, so it was not nearly as clotted with underbrush and
difficult to traverse as a real jungle would be. Thus, Q was able
to make fairly good time, even hobbled by his increasingly
aggravating leg irons; alas, the same applied to 0, although Q
hoped that the deranged entity was having so much fun hacking and
slashing his way through defenseless foliage that he might not
realize such strenuous exertions were not entirely necessary. This
is a fantastical

romance, he thought caustically, deriving some small pleasure from
his opponent's inferior knowledge of earthly literature, not a
quest for King Solomon's Mines!



They were not entirely alone within this fictional forest. Monkeys
chattered in the treetops while small animals of undetermined
nature rustled through knee-deep ferns and creepers. Sometimes he
heard the whispered conversation of unseen fairies and spirits, or
ran to the lilting music of invisible pipes and drums. "The isle is
full of noises, " indeed, Q thought. Once he even glimpsed a
misshapen humanoid figure, shaggy of hide and webbed of hand and
foot, who loped sullenly through the jungle, muttering to himself
in verse. Caught up in his own predestined plotline, Caliban
remained unaware of Q's uncanonical presence.



It was rather charming, in a lowbrow human sort of way. Q found it
encouraging that Jean-Luc Picard, he of the somber disposition and
rigid decorum, could find value in something so thoroughly
fanciful, and regretted that he was too busy fleeing for his life
to fully soak up the atmosphere. Maybe some other time.



"I can smell you!" 0 cried gleefully. To Q's distress, he sounded
much closer than before. "Smell you I can!" Footsteps behind him
silenced the chittering pixies. The ethereal melody wafting through
the trees took on a more ominous tone, the rhythm of the drumming
keeping pace with the narrowing distance between Q and his foe. As
if his singsong chanting wasn't bad enough, Q groused silently, now
he has his



own musical score! "Here we go a-Q'ing, a-Q'ing we will go!"



Maybe The Tempest wasn't so ideal a setting after all. What he had
hoped would be a refuge had turned into a hunting ground, with
himself as the live game. It's these infernal fetters, he
complained silently, chagrined at the cosmic injustice of it all.
How could he, the epitome of the unexpected, whose expansive
imagination and everrestless energy had carried him to every corner
and cubbyhole in creation, be reduced to shambling through a
computer-generated facsimile of a nonexistent fairyland tucked into
a single compartment of a dust mote of a starship light-years away
from anything resembling true civilization. This is no way for a Q
to die!



"I can see you, Q!" 0 sounded so close now that Q was afraid to
turn around for fear of spying the deranged, multilimbed monster
practically on top of him. "See, seen, saw . . . saw you in half, I
will! See if I don't!"



With the sickening force of an inescapable cliche, Q saw his life
pass before his eyes. Not the whole thing, of course-0 would be
able to kill him a hundred times over and still have time to have
the Federation for dessert before Q could relive his entire
immortal existence-but faces and places from his wild and wayward
past flashed upon the viewscreen of his memory, like a
kaleidoscopic slide show from the life and times of Q:



The antimatter universe. The heart of a sun. The cliffs of Tagus
III. The Guardian of Forever. The

Coulalakritous. Gorgan, (*), and The One. The Tkon Empress. The
War. The barrier. The dawn of the New Era. Guinan. Farpoint
Station. Picard. The Borg. The Calamarain. Sherwood Forest. Vash.
Amanda Rogers. Deep Space Nine. Sisko. Voyager. Quinn. Janeway. The
Civil War. Q. Little q. . . .

The only face he didn't see, the one face he couldn't bring himself
to look upon, even in his mind's eye, was the face following close
on his winged heels. The face of his greatest folly.

The face that, in a flash, suddenly appeared in his path. A smile
like a skull's stretched across 0's weathered features. His ice-
blue eyes shone as bright as the supernova that destroyed the Tkon.
Snakelike veins wriggled beneath the sallow flesh of his brow,
threatening to erupt at any minute. Holographic seawater still
dripped from his beard. "Surprise!" he crowed in manic delight.
"Now you don't see me, now you do!"

Q's headlong momentum was such that he almost ran straight into 0's
outflung tentacles. At the last second he threw himself backward,
tripping over the knotted root of a sky-high mangrove. He tried to
scuttle away, crablike, only to find that the chain linking his
legs iron was caught on that very same root, which wasn't even a
real root at all, but a confounded concoction of forcefields and
projected images. Hung up on a holograph, of all things! Talk about
adding insult to (mortal) injury.

"A good game, Q," 0 congratulated him. "Was it good for you?" He
turned a machete into an iron spike, which he used to pin the chain
to the exposed



root, effectively nailing Q to the spot. "But after the best of
tests, you end up like the rest. No matter the game, the end's
always the same." He yanked a reddish hair from his own bristly
beard, then sliced it down the middle with a long silver blade.
"But you know that already, don't you? You figured that out a long
time ago. Long, longer, longest."

No, Q thought defiantly. For once, one of your cruel,
childish games is not going end the way you planned.
I'm changing the rules even if it kills me. With his
shackles pinned in place, Q could not blink away, so
he did the one thing he could do. "Computer, restart
program."

They were back on the boat. Thunder pealed in the heavens as the
outmatched brigantine yawed hard to port, tossing 0 to one side.
His bad left leg could not support the sudden shift in weight, and
he fell to the deck like a scarecrow knocked down by the wind.
"Hang, cur!" the boatswain cursed the impertinent Sebastian. "Hang,
you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!"

With the intrusive root dispatched to the same computer bank as the
rest of Prospero's island, the iron spike was wedged into nothing
at all. The spike toppled over and rolled away down the deck,
freeing Q, who leaped to his feet. He savored the sight of 0,
unable to regain his footing, floundering upon the storm-soaked
deck, while holographic sailors and noblemen stepped over and on
top of him. "Give it up, 0," he gloated, looking down at his
sprawling adversary. "You must see by now that I'm hardly the

naive young Q you so easily misled before. That was a half a
million years ago, and while you've grown crazier, I've grown
craftier. A lot craftier. You might as well quit now."

"Quit?" 0 sputtered angrily. He crawled across the deck on his
hands and knee and tentacles, dragging his twisted leg behind him
like a serpent's tail. "Q is for quitting, not 0. Never 0!" His
mask of jubilant insanity slipped away, revealing the millennia-old
hatred and bitterness underneath. The sheer intensity of his
malignant fervor was enough to silence any thought Q might have had
of gloating further. He had not seen 0 so angry since the stranger,
an exile from realms unknown even to the Q, had stood against the
collective judgment of the Continuum. "Enough," 0 spat. "Enough!
Enough! Enough!" He slammed his fist down on the wet, wooden deck,
so hard that the timbers cracked. "No more tricks!"

In a heartbeat, they went from Tempest to tundra. The simulated
storm at sea vanished, taking with it all the theatrical noise and
tumult that had twice thrown 0 off balance. Nor was there even an
enchanted island on the horizon, let alone a sea to swim to safety
in. Instead he was alone with 0 in the center of a desolate, frozen
wasteland that seemed to stretch on forever.

"How's your memory, Q?" 0 challenged, his breath misting before
him. Now that the surface beneath him-once a wooden deck, now a
sheet of snowcovered ice-had ceased to roll upon frenzied waves, he
levitated off the ice in defiance of gravity, then



landed on both feet opposite Q. "This ring a bell? Ring-a-ding,
ring-a-ding?"

"How could I forget?" Q replied. A biting winter wind blew flecks
of snow against his face while his regulation Starfleet footwear
sank into the icy crust. Cold and distant stars shone in the dark
sky far above the endless, rime-covered plain, providing only the
faintest of starlight. A single burning torch, held aloft in 0's
right hand, yielded most of what illumination there was, casting
lambent scarlet shadows upon the frosty tundra. Q needed no
prompting to recall the bleak, inhospitable icescape where he had
first encountered the being who introduced himself as 0. He knew
instinctively that this was no hologram. 0 himself had created this
arctic limbo from his own obsessed and spiteful remembrances.

Just the same, he couldn't resist trying again. "Computer, restart
Tempest program. Act One, Scene One."

Nothing changed. The wintry Siberian wasteland remained,
appropriately, frozen in place. I thought as much, Q admitted with
a sigh. Picard's clever little toy had been superseded by a creator
of far more dangerous games and amusements: 0.

Q shivered involuntarily. Just from the temperature, of course. He
was unquestionably underdressed for this irksome Ice Age
environment. That 0 could just stand there, enduring the frigid
conditions while wearing nothing more than tatters and rags, was
yet more proof of his insanity. As if any more were

needed. Q indulged himself by summoning a little extra insulation
from the ether. There, he thought, as the fabric draped upon his
frame thickened. That's better.

A profound impatience with 0's sadistic notion of fun and games
swept over him, dispelling most of his sense of self-preservation,
never one of his strongest suits to begin with. Wasn't it 0 who
taught him that there was more to immortality to playing it safe?
He wouldn't run again. At least not yet.

"No more hide-and-seek," Q said. "How far are you going to go, 0?
What form of insane restitution do you require?"

"Listen to you!" 0 snarled. "You sound just like that haughty,
humorless Continuum that used to make your life miserable." He spat
upon the hoarfrost, which sizzled as energetically as had the
metaphorical marble tiles in the courtroom of the Continuum. "I
should have known you'd turn out to be just another cowardly,
craven, cringing conformist after all. Q is for quitter," he
chanted. "Quitter is you,



A harpoon appeared within his free hand and, ranting all the while,
he hurled it at Q. It struck home with brutal force, spearing Q in
the leg. His left leg, naturally, now as useless as 0's.

After dodging missile after missile since 0's return, evading blade
after boomerang after bullet by the slimmest of margins, Q had been
just a nanosecond too slow this time. He dropped, overcome by shock
and agony, onto the cold, boreal plain, his falling



body carving a deep trench into the snow. Serves me right, he
thought, clutching his impaled leg and rocking in pain. A stream of
his immortal essence leaked out of the wound onto the frozen crust.
It looked strikingly like blood. The big problem with omnipotence
is that it leads so easily to overconfidence . . . .

He felt sure that Picard would agree.

"Always a spear to spare. Never spare the spear, say I." Limping
closer to his wounded prey, 0 chuckled and leaned over Q until his
smirking face was less than a finger's length from Q, his hot
breath fogging the air between them. "Game's over, Q," he said with
surprising lucidity. "You lose."

Chapter Eighteen



"LIEUTENANT LEYORO, REPORTING for duty, Commander."

The Angosian security officer stepped out of the turbolift onto the
bridge. Her eyes widened as she spotted Picard standing in front of
a dense cloud of radiant plasma, hovering about a meter above the
floor. Picard saw Leyoro reach for her phaser, only to discover it
was missing from her side. It was hard to say, he thought, what had
surprised her more: his return to the Enterprise or the presence of
the alien entity upon the bridge.

"At ease, Lieutenant," he assured her. "We've reached an
understanding with the Calamarain, whose representative this is.
Unfortunately, the real challenge lies ahead. At the moment, the
true threat is



engaged with Q in Holodeck Seven. I was just about to beam directly
there, along with the Calamarain."

"Permission to accompany you, sir?"

Picard considered her request. Some manner of security presence was
in order, yet he was reluctant to introduce too many potential
casualties to the conflict ahead. Ultimately, if his plan
succeeded, the decisive role would be played by Q; there was only
so much mere mortals could do to turn the tide in a battle between
gods. But that's just what I'm attempting to do, he acknowledged
privately.

"Excuse me, Captain," Ensign Berglund reported from tactical,
"Commander Riker reports that the crisis in sickbay has been
resolved with only one casualty: Professor Faal." She looked
sheepishly at Leyoro, whose post she had assumed. "The Commander
also reports that Lieutenant Leyoro has, um, gone missing."

Picard nodded. "Tell the commander and Dr. Crusher that we've
located their missing patient." He gave the security chief a
concerned inspection. Although hardly at death's door, as she'd
been reported to be, she looked distinctly worse for wear. Dark
circles hung beneath her eyes, which were shot with streaks of red.
"Are you quite sure you're up to this, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, Captain," she said crisply. She walked over to the tactical
podium and commandeered Ensign Berglund's phaser. "As head of
security, it is my duty to see this conflict through to the end,
sir."

Picard recalled the extraordinary physical feats that her fellow
Angosian veteran Roga Danar had performed during his stay on the
Enterprise-D. The man had actually broken free from a transporter
beam, a feat Picard had never seen duplicated, before or since.

"Very well, Lieutenant," he said. "I commend your devotion to
duty." He quickly brought Leyoro up to speed on his plan, then
turned toward Ops. "Mr. Data, is the holodeck still in use?"

The android stared at his console with a quizzical expression on
his face. "I believe so, Captain, although present readings are
unusual." He sounded as though he could not entirely accept what he
was reporting. "As nearly as I can tell, it is snowing in the
holodeck."

If that doesn't prove that Q is on hand, nothing does. Picard
decided to move promptly before either Q or 0 could relocate. "Mr.
Data, you have the bridge. Three to beam to Holodeck Seven."

"Yes, Captain," Data affirmed, directing transporter operations
from Ops. "Good luck, sir."

We're going to need it, he thought, as the transporter effect
washed over him, enveloping Leyoro and the Calamarain as well,
since even if my admittedly improvised plan can be put into efect,
the outcome is by no means certain. There were too many unknown
factors, including the daunting question of whether he, or anyone,
could get Q to put aside his ego and behave rationally. That would
be a first, Picard thought dubiously.

He recognized what the holodeck had become the

moment his molecules reintegrated at the site. The windblown snow.
The endless glacial emptiness. Even the faint gray stars high
above. This was a flawless recreation of that same polar purgatory
where the young Q had been unlucky enough to make the acquaintance
of 0. The cold, dry air stung his face and hands. A few steps away,
her phaser drawn, Leyoro felt the cold, too, the icy wind turning
her cheeks red. "Snow, all right," she said tersely, fog issuing
from her lips. "Must be the place."

The Calamarain seemed unaffected by the cold. Picard recalled that
the vaporous entities had to generate their own internal heat, and
in significant quantities, in order to remain gaseous in the
extreme cold of deep space. If anything, this environment was
probably much warmer than the vacuum-dwelling life-form was
accustomed to. Perhaps someday, he mused, if and when the menace of
0 is contained, the Calamarain will permit themselves to be studied
by Starfleet. There was so much that could be learned from so
unique a species, just as the Calamarain might benefit from being
exposed to the mysteries of humanoid existence.

"Captain," Leyoro said, pointing to the eastern horizon of vast
icefield, "over there."

Obviously, the Angosian government had augmented her eyesight along
with everything else. Picard peered into the distance, blinking
against the gusts of ice crystals in the air, but all he could
discern was perhaps a faint red ember. "What do you see?"

"Two figures," she reported, "humanoid in appearance. They could be
Q and that other entity you spoke of. They're confronting each
other .... Captain, I think we'd better hurry."

Picard paused only long enough to make certain that the Calamarain
understood his intentions. "We believe your enemy is nearby, with
the other of his kind. Are you with us?"

The voice of the Calamarain, nearly as cold and lifeless as their
current setting, spoke via his comm badge. "We/singular
comprehend/corroborate. Chaos/ plural imminent.
Approach/caution/imperative."

Was that a warning, Picard wondered, or a statement of intent? It
troubled him that the entity still declined to draw a distinction
between 0 and Q, apparently referring to both as "chaos." That
spoke poorly for the only strategy he could devise that might have
a chance of succeeding against 0. I'll have to cross that bridge
when I come to it, which shouldn't be much longer. "Let's go," he
said.

Distances could be deceptive in a holodeck, where a generous
panoply of illusory techniques were employed to create the
appearance of entire worlds within a single chamber. Picard found
it difficult to estimate how much ground they had to cover or even
how far they had gone. The lack of any landmarks, not to mention
the inherent difficulty of trudging through the deeply packed snow,
frustrated him. He had to hope that any sort of contest between two



ageless immortals would not reach its climax before they had a
chance to arrive on the scene.

The Calamarain, who presumably could travel faster through the air
than he and Leyoro could on foot, lagged behind them instead.
Perhaps that's what it meant by "approach/caution/imperative,"
Picard speculated. It was becoming increasingly clear that the
Calamarain, collectively and individually, did not intend to lead
any charge against the forces of chaos, but preferred to let Picard
present the first target to their foe. Rather like negotiating with
the Romulans, he concluded. Look how long it took their empire to
enter the war against the Dominion. He just prayed it wouldn't take
a martyr or two to bring humanity and the Calamarain together.

As they fought their way through the snow and wind, Leyoro took
stock of the simulation in which they were immersed. "Rura Penthe?"
she guessed, citing the infamous frozen prison asteroid where the
Klingons once exiled their political prisoners.

"Same idea, different dimension," he informed her, reminded, as he
had been the first time he beheld this forlorn wasteland, of
Cocytus, the ninth and final circle of Dante's Inferno, where the
greatest traitors in history were buried in ice forever. That's
undoubtedly where 0 considers that Q belongs ....

Soon, no more than ten minutes at most, the red glow that he could
now identify as a handheld torch exposed both Q and 0, facing each
other amid the arctic desolation, just as they had over a million
years

ago, but in far less convivial a fashion. Picard watched in
disbelief as the debased and demented tatterdemalion that 0 had
become flung what looked like a harpoon into Q's upper leg,
physically injuring Q in a way that Picard would not have thought
possible only days before. Yanking the spear free of Q's
metaphysical flesh, 0 raised it high above the wounded superbeing's
chest, preparing to deliver the killing blow, as he had to the
dying sun of the Tkon Empire. "Stop him!" Picard ordered, his voice
carrying through the frigid air.

Leyoro fired her phaser at the harpoon, which stubbornly refused to
disintegrate. The energy beam caught 0's attention, though, halting
him in midstroke.

"Eh?" 0 contemplated the new arrivals with bemused indifference.
"Specks and smoke. Smoke and specks." His gaze swung from the
humans to the Calamarain and back again. "Come to pay your last
respects?"

"I'm not dead yet, you rhyming monstrosity," Q protested, wincing
as he spoke. He looked past Picard and his pained expression turned
into one of shock and bewilderment as he spied the Calamarain,
following Picard and Leyoro's sunken footprints across the snow.
"Have you gone insane, Picard?" he accused, aghast. "One revenge-
crazed arch-foe wasn't enough for me, you had to invite in this
unforgiving fog as well? Have you forgotten that they want to kill
me?"

"Take a number. Stand in line," 0 chanted, his

fingers wrapped around the shaft of the harpoon, "nobody kills Q
until I get mine." He let go of the spear and stepped back, but the
weapon remained suspended in the air, poised to impale Q. He winked
at Picard and the others. "Want to watch? Watch to want? Watch
away!"

The point of the spear descended inexorably toward where Q's heart
would be if he had mimicked human anatomy as meticulously as he had
created his counterfeit uniform. Sweat broke out on his brow as he
used his remaining strength to telekinetically hold back the
harpoon, which hung like the Sword of Damocles over Q's chest.
Picard saw the weapon vibrate from the force of two conflicting
wills, but knew that Q, injured as he was, could not hold out
against 0's madness indefinitely.

"What is it, Picard?" Q cried out in righteous indignation, while
his eyes stared at the harpoon as if it would cost him his life to
look away for an instant. His voice held enormous reservoirs of
self-pity. "You couldn't turn down a chance to get rid of me once
and for all, now matter the cost to creation? Thrown in your lot
with the Calamarain and 0 and all the rest who want me dead and
buried? I never dreamed you could be so petty. Et tu, Jean-Luc?"

"Shut up and listen to me, Q!" Picard barked. "You have to join
your forces with the Calamarain. It's our only choice. Neither of
you has the raw power to oppose 0 individually, but together you
might be able to subdue him. You have to try!"

Q laughed bitterly as the spear inched closer to his breastbone.
"Always searching for the diplomatic solution . . . you're
consistent, I'll give you that, Picard. But you're as stark raving
mad as he is if you think that the Calamarain and I can make peace
after a million years of vaporous vendetta. Have you forgotten what
I did to them? What they tried to do to me?»

"Chaos/plural/not singular," the Calamarain stated flatly.
"Indistinguishable/unacceptable. Cannot forget/forgive." The
iridescent cloud ascended to the ceiling concealed by the illusion
of an open sky. "Retreat/preserve/remember."

Grunting with effort, Q managed to press back the spearpoint for a
centimeter or two, but what small respite he gained began to slip
away within seconds, millimeter by millimeter. "See, Picard," he
chided, seizing the chance for one last I-told-you-so, "the
Calamarain can't even be bothered to tell 0 and I apart."

Picard felt his hopes soar away with the departing Calamarain.
Nonetheless, he grabbed on to the spearshaft with both hands and
added his own human strength to the telekinetic dual between 0 and
Q. The iron harpoon was freezing to the touch, and his fingers had
already gone numb from the cold, but he struggled against what felt
like twice standard gravity. His arms were aching after only a
moment. His palms and the pads of his fingers felt like they were
welded to the freezing metal. He couldn't pull them away now if he



tried. And the worst part was, he didn't even know if he was making
the slightest difference.

"You might as well spare yourself a dislocated arm or two," Q
suggested, spitting out the words from a face contorted by the
herculean mental effort required to keep the spear a bay. "0's both
gifted and truly insane. An unbeatable combination."

"Sounds like someone I know," Picard grunted. The iron javelin
slipped downward suddenly, tearing at the skin of his palms. He
held on despite the stinging pain, renewing his hold on the shaft.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, mon captaine. "The harpoon's point
dug into the padded insulation of Q's modified Starfleet uniform.
"I'm not nearly unhinged enough to derail his maniacal momentum.
That would take real craziness!"

"And what could be crazier," Picard persisted, "than you and the
Calamarain, of all people, saving the Enterprise?" Certainly, the
entire venture, his last hope for saving the galaxy from the
ravages of both 0 and The One, was looking more like a lunatic's
fancy with each passing heartbeat. Who is more insane? he wondered.
0, or me, for thinking 1 could stop him?

0 paid no attention to the insignificant efforts of Picard,
distracted by the ascension of the Calamarain. "Smoke and snow.
Snow and smoke. Choke, smoke, choke!" His cracked lips curled
downward as he recalled, possibly, the way the Coulalakritous had
forcibly expelled him from their collective being a million years
ago. He clenched his fist at the fleeing

Calamarain, then began to squeeze. "Smoke into snow. . ."



Baeta Leyoro had seen a lot of ugly things in her career, but this
0 character took the grand prize. He looked like a half-mad Tarsian
POW crossed with a bioluminescent squid from the pitch-black bottom
of some alien sea. This was the creature that had killed poor
Ensign Clarze, and brought the hostile Calamarain down upon the
ship? She was willing to believe it.

But what was he doing now?

His fist was clenched so tightly that his elongated fingernails
were digging mercilessly into his own flesh. It was as if he
already had the Calamarain in his grasp and were squeezing them
into submission.

And maybe he was. The plasma cloud's airborne retreat slowed, then
began to reverse itself. The Calamarain dropped toward the snow-
blanketed plain, losing altitude dramatically. The cloud appeared
smaller, too, and more densely opaque. He's com pressing it, she
realized, hitting on the truth intuitively; somehow 0 was
concentrating the free-floating plasma into a smaller and smaller
space. She wondered urgently how much longer the Calamarain would
be able to maintain a gaseous state under that crushing pressure.

Not long at all, as it turned out. Before her biochemically
enhanced eyes, the Calamarain liquefied in midair, raining down
upon the icescape like phosphorescent sleet. Leyoro ran to get out
from beneath



the bizarre precipitation, then twisted around to watch the shower
of living liquid crash to earth less than four meters away. But
were the Calamarain still alive, she wondered. Could they survive
in such a fundamentally different state?

0 was not taking any chances. "Hah!" he hooted, enjoying his
triumph. "Smoke to slush! Crush the slush! Crush!" Greenish blood
leaked out between his clenched fingers as he continued to squeeze
whatever remained of the Calamarain.

Leyoro raced to where the transformed cloud came to ground. She
found the Calamarain pooled in a shallow depression in the icy
crust. Prismatic reflections on the surface of the puddle made it
resemble an oil slick upon the snow, seeping slowly into the frost
below. But 0 wasn't finished with the Calamarain yet; as Leyoro
watched, the glowing liquid grew thicker and more viscous. Its
innate radiance slowly faded as it began to crystalize, freezing
solid in a matter of seconds. Its amorphous boundaries congealed,
becoming fixed and immobile. Leyoro didn't know a lot about the
nature and needs of the Calamarain, but she had to assume that the
once-gaseous entity had been locked into a state of suspended
animation at the very least, which pretty much sent Captain
Picard's longshot plan straight down the gravity well.

"Smoke to slush to solid," 0 gloated. "Atmosphere to ichor to ice.
The smoke never learns. Never learns does the smoke!"

Leyoro got the distinct impression that the ranting monster had
done this to the Calamarain before,

which might mean that the frozen life-form could still be revived.
An idea occurred to her: Once, during the war back home, after her
scoutship had been shot down over the south pole of Tarsus, she had
used her disruptor to melt the permafrost into drinking water. She
had even warmed herself over the steam. Maybe that was the way to
go.

She fired her phaser at the Calamarain, not to hurt, but to heal.
At first it didn't seem to do any good, but then the hard
crystalline edges of the cloud creature's remains began to
deliquesce. The paralyzed alien seemed to absorb the heat from her
phaser as fast as she could fire the energy into it. Her weapon,
which was no longer a weapon, broke down the crystal lattice into
which the Calamarain had been crammed. The solid sheet of plasma
residue spread out as it melted, beginning to shine once more with
a radiance of its own.

Her rescue efforts did not go unnoticed. 0 glared at her
murderously, flinging his torch away in disgust. It landed upon the
snow several paces away, sputtering fitfully. "Cheat!" he accused
her. "Cheaters, all of you! Cheat, cheated, cheating!"

He didn't charge at her. He didn't need to. Without warning or
cause, the phaser in her hand emitted a high-pitched whine that
stabbed at Leyoro's ears and filled her heart with dread. It's
overloading, she realized. He's doing it somehow. From the sound of
it, she had less than a minute before the phaser exploded in her
hand.



She stared desperately at the Calamarain. It had melted almost
entirely now, but had not yet attained its original gaseous state.
The simmering, shimmering puddle was just starting to come to a
boil, barely beginning to evaporate. I can't stop now, she thought,
urging the process on with the intensity of her gaze. It still
needs a few more seconds. Bubbles churned upon the reflective
surface of the ionized liquid that was the Calamarain, coming to a
froth as the heat of the phaser sped up the molecules composing the
fluid, sending them further and further apart. Incandescent fumes
rose from the shallow pool, encouraging Leyoro even as the ear-
piercing shriek of the malfunctioning phaser forced her to cover
one ear with her free hand. Almost there, she thought, so close to
success that nothing short of a quantum torpedo could make her stop
now; if there was one thing she had learned about the Calamarain
over the last several hours, it was that they really were Better
Off Vaporized ....

The keening phaser erupted in a deafening explosion of searing heat
and concussive force that sent her flying backward, landing flat on
her back in a snowdrift several meters away from the Calamarain.
Embedded in the ice, her face and front scorched and smoking, she
felt like she was burning and freezing to death at the same time.
The pain was excruciating; it was a wonder that she could even see
it all after the blinding flash. Let's hear it for Angosian medical
-now-how, she thought, coughing up blood.

She didn't need a medical tricorder to know how extensive her
injuries were. She didn't have a chance. Funny, she thought, as her
vision blurred and began to go black, l always thought I couldn't
live without an enemy. Never thought I'd end up dying to save one.

The last thing she saw was the reborn Calamarain rising like a
immaterial phoenix from the ice, glittering with all the colors of
the rainbow ....

`Handle with care the spider's net,
You can't be sure that a trap's not set . . . . "

While 0 sang exuberantly, mocking Q's approaching demise, the
harpoon seemed to have a life and strength of its own, pressing
toward Q's heart and dragging Picard's frostbitten hands with it.
The exhausted captain felt the strain of resisting the spear in his
back and shoulders and, most painfully, his arms. It's ironic, he
thought. After all the byzantine puzzles and brain-twisting trials
that Q has put me through over the years, I end up standing in the
snow, breaking my back to keep him from dying at the point of a
primitive spear.

Even the light seemed to be fading with his hopes, as 0's burning
brand sputtered and died somewhere upon the barren plain. The
miserly stars provided scant illumination, so that the perpetual
night leached all the color from the scene, reducing the world to
shades of black and gray. Would he even be able to see when the
sharpened tip of the harpoon penetrated Q's ribs, or would he hear
Q cry out first?



"Heedless of what might befall



You neglect the spider on the wall . . . . "



Then a light broke through the darkness, shining down on he and Q
from directly above. He looked up in surprise and saw the
Calamarain, scintillating against the bleak arctic sky like the
aurora borealis. But had the cloud entity come to aid them at last,
or to witness the long-awaited demise of the hated Q?

"Sacrifice/deliverance. Testimony/trust/gratitude.
Sacrifice/obligation."

Sacrifice? Picard heard but did not understand. What did the
Calamarain mean? That Q must be sacrificed to win their trust and
gratitude? "No," he stated firmly. "We do not make bargains in the
blood of others. I will not be party to Q's death."

The Calamarain cast their resplendent light, quite unlike the
blood-red glow of 0's torch, upon Picard's upturned face.
"Misunderstanding/confusion. We/ plural grateful/obliged.
Sacrifice/deliverance."

"I don't understand," Picard pleaded. He felt that he and Q and the
Calamarain were on the verge of a breakthrough that could save them
all, if only he could find a better way to communicate. What did
the Calamarain want? Who was obliged to whom? What was the
sacrifice?

Or who?

Perhaps in answer, the cloud of living plasma plunged toward Q's
anguished face, oozing its way past his flaring nostrils and
clenched white teeth,

disappearing into his agonized body like a genie returning to a
bottle. Q fought against the invasive vapor, twisting his head back
and forth in a fruitless attempt to evade the iridescent mist that
flowed into him against his will. Then his eyes seemed to widen in
understanding and he stopped resisting and took a deep breath. As
Picard watched, perplexed and anx ious, Q inhaled the substance of
the Calamarain, absorbing the alien entity entirely into himself.
The whites of his eyes took on the opalescent luster of the living
plasma.



"When the spider aims his deadly spikes, No one sees him till he
stri--



0's insidious chorus was cut off in midverse when the possessed
harpoon suddenly when spinning off through the air, coming to rest
in a bank of snow far from Q, who sprang to his feet, his wound
healed, his vitality restored. 0 gawked at him, dumbfounded,
understanding little more than Picard. "What the devil?" he asked.

"We/plural/Q are ready/prepared for another
game/contest/competition," the revived figure declared. The syntax
resembled that of the Calamarain, the voice and the inflections
were pure Q. "Do you/singular still like/enjoy
games/contests/competitions?"

This was more than Picard had imagined when he first suggested that
Q and the Calamarain join forces.



Taking him literally, they had merged into a single being, with the
power and potential of both. Even 0, crazed as he was, appeared
intimidated by the prospect. "No," he muttered into his scraggly
beard, "one is two is one is two is one . . . ."

All the colors of the Calamarain glistened in Q's eyes as he raised
his hand and released a bolt of lightning from his fingertips that
crashed into the snow and ice in front of 0's rag-wrapped feet.
"Tag/gotcha/checkmate!"

Unable to face what Q and the Calamarain had become, 0 tried to
escape, taking off across the snow away from Picard and the
Q/Calamarain. At first, he ran on two human legs, but when his
crippled foot slowed him down, he fell forward onto his four
lateral tentacles and scuttled over the packed snow like a spider.
Picard stared in wonder and disgust, until his eyes fell upon a
charred and motionless body lying askew upon the ice not ten meters
away.

Dear God, no, he thought, feeling a chill that had nothing to do
with the wind or the weather. The sacrifice . . . .

Unlike Picard, the Q/Calamarain did not pause to grieve. His/their
lightning chased after 0, halting his frantic flight with a white-
hot thunderbolt that left him sprawled upon the ground. More
lightning rained down on him, and as 0 shuddered spasmodically
beneath their impact, Picard heard an awe-inducing rumble of
thunder that came from outside the holodeck, perhaps even outside
the hull of the Enterprise,

penetrating the created world of 0's polar limbo with its
inescapable reality. The rest of the Calamarain, he guessed,
surrounding the ship. Could it be that the fragment of the
Calamarain now residing within Q was channeling the collective
might of the entire gaseous community, adding the full strength of
all the Calamarain to the power of Q?

It was hard to imagine, but how else to explain the undeniable
shift in the balance of power that had occurred when the Calamarain
merged with Q? As he had hoped, the sum of two infinite powers had
indeed proved more infinite than infinity. Conventional mathematics
said otherwise, but, as Picard knew full well, there was nothing
conventional about the Cala marain or, especially, Q.

Beneath the barrage of transcendental thunderbolts, 0's human guise
began to slip away once and for all. Flesh and hair and teeth and
eyes crumpled away like powder, until all Picard could see was a
writhing mass of otherworldly tentacles that flailed about in
agony, churning the packed ice and snow into a swirling haze that
thankfully obscured the horrific vision. Then the besieged
extradimensional entity began to physically shrink in size, its
tendrils retracting and diminishing until all that was left was a
tiny wriggling creature about the size of a small jellyfish.

Or a spider.

The Q/Calamarain strode across the tundra, leaving deep tracks in
the snow, until it towered over the pathetic specimen. The little
multilegged monster tried to scurry away, but it could not outrun
the



shadow of the Q/Calamarain's upraised foot. The sole of his/their
boot hovered over the creature for one ominous moment, and Picard
thought he heard an almost inaudible squeal of fear. Then the shoe
descended, squashing 0 flat. A single thin tendril, no larger than
a hair, stuck out from beneath the shoe, quivering weakly. The
Q/Calamarain smiled with obvious satisfaction.

"Game/competition over. We/plural/Q win."

Chapter Nineteen



"WELL, rr'S A NASTY CASE of frostbite, but nothing modern medicine
can't take care of."

Beverly finished wrapping Picard's frozen fingers in thermal
conduction strips, then stepped aside to allow him to stand up and
step away from the biobed. His fingertips still felt slightly numb
but the doctor's treatment had gone a long way toward restoring
their circulation. If only Lieutenant Leyoro and Ensign Clarze
could be restored as well, he mused sadly. No matter how many times
he lost one of his crew, the pain never got easier. He could only
note in his log that they had perished in the performance of their
duty; he could think of no better epitaph.

Geordi La Forge approached him from the other side of the primary
ward, where Nurse Ogawa had



just finished a test on his optical implants. "Well, Captain," he
said, "I must say you're a sight for sore eyes." Picard was glad to
hear that Geordi's implants had not been permanently damaged by Lem
Faal's telekinetic rampage. In the end, he reflected, Lem Faal's
most lasting victim may well have been himself.

A broken man, his frightening powers long gone, the celebrated
Betazoid scientist, and apparent pawn of 0, now occupied his own
biobed not far away. He sat upright, his spine supported by
Starfleet cushions, as he stared vacantly before him with eyes that
no longer held the lustrous gleam of the galactic barrier.
Listening to the man's labored breathing, and observing the feeble
life signs reported on the overhead monitor, Picard could not
imagine that Faal had much longer to live. A tragedy, the captain
thought, but not nearly as terrible as the consequences of his
misguided pursuit of immortality.

Young Milo Faal sat beside the bed, holding his father's trembling
hand and speaking to him softly. "It will be all right, Dad. We're
going home now, where we belong. You don't need to worry. I'll take
care of you."

A curious role reversal, Picard observed. The boy had indeed become
more of parent to his father than a son. He admired the youth's
maturity and compassion, especially after all he had heard of the
shameful way Faal had neglected and abused his children. Picard
could not help holding Faal's various crimes against him; still,
given the sorry state to which the scientist had been reduced, he
felt certain the man

had been punished enough. He's a lucky man to have a son like Milo.

Perhaps aware of Picard's thoughts, the Betazoid boy turned to look
in the captain's direction. A chill ran through Picard when he saw
those unearthly white eyes directed at him. There's a problem 1
wish 1 had a solution for. The boy had not deigned to use his new
powers since subduing his father in the pediatric ward, but
Counselor Troi had confirmed that some residue of the barrier's
unnatural power, derived from the Q themselves, still dwelt within
the mind of this child. How can 1 be sure that those powers will
not pose a danger to Milo or others?

A flash of light burst between Picard and Milo, and, for one tense
moment, Picard feared that the youth's amazing abilities had been
heard from again. Instead, he was surprised and relieved (and
surprised to be relieved) that the light had merely heralded the
arrival of the entire Q family, all three of them. Who would have
ever thought, he wondered, bemused, that 1 would ever greet the
appearance of Q with anything less than dismay?

As it was, he did experience a degree of apprehension. "What brings
you here, Q?"

"Oh, nothing much," Q replied brightly. He patted the head of baby
q, happily draped over his mother's shoulder, and strolled over to
Picard. "Odds and ends, really. For instance, I thought you might
be interested to know that my good wife here has called the recent
contretemps to the attention of the Continuum and persuaded them,
fractious as they are these



days, to undertake an immediate project to shore up both barriers
and repair all those worrisome fractures, which have proven to be
just too tempting to impetuous and irresponsible species such as
yourself."

We're irresponsible? Picard thought, not sure whether to be amused
or appalled by Q's gall. Still, if Q wanted to shift the blame for
the 0 crisis to humanity, Picard had neither the energy nor the
inclination to argue the point. At the moment, that is. "And what
of 0?" he asked, addressing the only point that truly mattered.

"Back where he belongs," Q assured him. "If I were you, Picard, I'd
persuade your superiors at Starfleet to leave the barrier alone
from now on. Even putting aside the problem of 0, the Federation,
as well as your assorted allies and rivals, are simply not ready to
venture out of the galaxy just yet."

"We may surprise you," Picard said, unwilling to impose an absolute
limit on the future of space exploration. That was Starfleet's
decision, not the Continuum's. On that point, at least, he remained
steadfast. "Still, it is always best to be fully aware of the
dangers involved."

"Oh, there are dangers you haven't even conceived of yet," Q
promised, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Perhap I'll introduce
you to them someday."

Don't trouble yourself on my account, Picard thought. He watched
with growing uneasiness as the female Q, babe in arms, wandered
away. Although Q did not seem to up to any particular deviltry on
this

occasion, he saw no reason to encourage their stay. "Is that all?"
he asked.

"Actually, there is one more little matter," the female Q said,
although she seemed less interested in Picard than in young Milo
Faal. She joined the boy at his father's bedside, and spoke to him
with unexpected gentleness. "Milo, I think you know you still have
a piece of the Q inside. I'm afraid I have to ask for it back."

"That's all right," Milo said. He looked sadly at the wreckage of
his father, perhaps considered all the anxiety and unhappiness that
Lem Faal had caused in his thirst for that same power. "I don't
want it."

The female Q smiled approvingly and laid her hand upon Milo's
inattentively combed hair. Picard saw a soft purple glow sparkle
between the woman's outstretched fingers before fading away. More
important, he also watched with relief as the eerie white sheen in
Milo's eyes faded as well, leaving behind eyes as big and brown and
recognizably Betazoid as Deanna Troi's. "Thank you," the woman
said. "You're a very well behaved boy. For a mortal."

And with that, she vanished without further ado, taking her own
preternaturally precocious child with her. "Well, I suppose I'll be
heading on, too," Q commented. "I'm overdue for an rendezvous in
the Delta Quadrant."

"Before you go," Picard delayed him, knowing he would probably
regret it, but discovering there was one final question that he
could not resist posing. "After all we've been through these last
few days, both



in the past and the present, could it be that, perhaps, you have
finally learned your lesson about the evils of testing other
sentient beings?"

Q smiled impishly, looking altogether incorrigible and unrepentant.
"But, Jean-Luc, how do you know that this entire odyssey hasn't
been a particularly ingenious test?"

And then he was gone, leaving Picard with even more questions than
before. Questions with a capital Q.

Epilogue

BEGIN AGAIN. Again, begin and begin ....

Behind the wall once more, he howled in frustration. For one brief
interval, not more than a tormenting twinkling in the endless
expanse of eternity, the galaxy had been his again. Worlds without
end had awaited his wicked wiles and wild, wayward will. But then Q
had taken it all away. Q!

Ever again. Forever again.

He scratched and clawed and snapped at the wall, which refused to
yield to his frenzied need to strike back at Q. The wall was as
permanent and punishing as it had ever been, any minute cracks and
crevices healed and sealed, leaving him not even a sliver of a
window into the great, glittering galaxy he might

never see again. A galaxy of smoke and specks and Q and Q and Q . .
. .

Forever and ever. Ever and forever. Forever and never.

The voice on the other side, the voice that had come at his call,
bringing with it a fleeting fraction of freedom, had gone silent,
leaving him alone in the dark and the cold and the eternal
emptiness. Had he ever really been free at all? He couldn't be sure
anymore. His mind rebelled at the very thought of what had
occurred-and what lay ahead. Space was vast and time was long, and
all he had now was space and time, forever and ever and ever. It
was enough to drive him sane.

A new beginning had ended. His new ending had only begun ....