SOON, HE CACKLED. SOONER. SOONEST.
    Behind the wall, he watched with keen anticipa-
tion as lesser life-forms, no more than a bug or a
wisp of smoke to him, buzzed about on the other
side. Only the wall, the wretched wall that had kept
him out for longer than his muddled memory
could even begin to encompass, kept him from
reaching forth and swatting both bug and smoke
away. Tendrils of his contorted consciousness ca-
pered spiderlike against the edge of the wail, scrap-
ing away at the boundaries of his banishment. He
couldn't touch the other side just yet, but he could
watch and wait and wonder about what he would
do when the wall, the wicked and wearying wall,
finally came down.
  Very soon, he singsonged, soon soon soon. 
The wall would crumble. The voice had promised him
so, that teensy-tiny voice from the other side. It
was difficult to conceive how such a paltry piece of
protoplasm could possibly undo that which had
held him back for so long, but he had hope and
reason to believe. Already he sensed that the wall
was weaker than before, minute faults and fissures
undermining its primal, protracted permanence.
All it needed was one good push from the other
side and a gap would be formed, the gap he needed
to break through. And then... and then what time
has done to the galaxy will be nothing compared to
what I'll do to all those stars and planets and people.
He flexed his tendrils in his eagerness to be free
once more. Yes, that's right, all the things I'll do . . .
to Q and Q and Q.
    There was only one thing that worried him.
What if someone silenced the other voice before it
fulfilled its promise? And not just anyone someone,
but Q. That Q, the quisling Q, the Q who could
never, ever be trusted. I can smell you, Q. His
stench was all over the shiny silver bug on the other
side. It stank and perhaps could sting. Stink, stank,
sting, bee, he chanted to himself. You can't stop me.
Q can't escape me.
 Soon could not come soon enough ....

Chapter One

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

    Captain Picard is missing, abducted by the
capricious entity known as Q. We can only
pray that Q will return the captain unharmed,
although time has taught us that Q is nothing
if not unpredictable.
    The captain's disappearance cannot have
come at a worse time, as the Enterprise is
under attack by the gaseous life-forms whom
Q calls the Calamarain. Although Lieutenant
Commander Data has succeeded in adapting
our Universal Translator to the Calamarain's
inhuman language, allowing us a degree of
communication with them, we have thus far
failed to win their trust. They have rendered
our warp engines inactive and will not permit
us to retreat, so we must persuade them other-
wise. Speed is imperative, as our time is run-
ning out.
     To complicate matters, we have a number of
potentially disruptive guests aboard the ship.
Chief among them are a mysterious woman
and boy who claim to be Q's mate and child.
Like Q himself, these individuals treat the ship
and its crew as mere toys for their amusement.
Furthermore, they appear unwilling or unable
to inform us where Q has taken Captain
Picard.
    Equally uncooperative is Professor Lem
Faal, a distinguished Betazoid physicist,
whose ambitious attempt to breach the im-
mense energy barrier surrounding our galaxy
has been interrupted by the unexpected arri-
vals of both the Q family and the Calamarain.
Dying of an incurable disease, and obsessed
with completing his work in the time remain-
ing to him, Faal has vigorously challenged my
decision to abort the experiment in light of
the unanticipated dangers we now face. While
I sympathize with the man's plight, I cannot
allow his single-minded determination to en-
danger the ship further.
    Indeed, according to what we have gathered
from the Calamarain, our first effort to dare
the barrier was the very event that provoked
the Calamarain's wrath, thus threatening us
all with destruction ....

THE STORM RAGED AROUND THEM. From the bridge of
the Enterprise-E, Commander William Riker could
see the fury of the Calamarain on the forward
viewscreen. The massive plasma cloud that com-
prised the foe, and that now enclosed the entire
Sovereign-class starship, had grown increasingly
turbulent over the last few hours. The sentient,
ionized gases outside the ship churned and bil-
lowed upon the screen; it was like being trapped in
the center of the galaxy's biggest thunderhead.
Huge sonic explosions literally shook the floor
beneath his feet, while brilliant arcs of electrical
energy flashed throughout the roiling cloud, inter-
secting violently with their own diminished
shields. The distinctive blue flare of Cerenkov
radiation discharged whenever the shield repelled
another bolt of lightning from the Calamarain,
which was happening far too often for Riker's
peace of mind.
    With the captain absent, his present where-
abouts unknown, Riker was in command, and light-
ing a losing battle against alien entities determined
to destroy them. Not this time, he vowed silently,
determined not to lose another Enterprise while
Jean-Luc Picard was away. Once, in that cataclys-
mic crash into Veridian III, was enough for one
lifetime. Never again, he thought, remembering the
sick sensation he had felt when that grand old ship
had slammed into its final port. Not on my watch.
    Their present circumstances were precarious,
though. Warp engines down, shields fading, and no
sign yet that the Calamarain were willing to aban-
don their ferocious attack on the ship, despite his
sincere offer to abandon the experiment and retreat
from the galactic barrier--on impulse if necessary.
Diplomacy was proving as useless as their phasers,
even though Riker remained convinced that this
entire conflict was based solely on suspicion and
misunderstanding. Nothing’s more tragic than a
senseless battle, he thought.
    "Shields down to twenty percent," Lieutenant
Baeta Leyoro reported. The Angosian security
chief was getting a real baptism by fire on her first
mission aboard the Enterprise. So far she had
performed superlatively, even if Riker still occa-
sionally expected to see Worf at the tactical station.
"For a glorified blast of bad breath, they pack a hell
of a punch."
    Riker tapped his combadge to initiate a link to
Geordi in Engineering. "Mr. La Forge," he barked,
"we need to reinforce our shields, pronto."
    Geordi La Forge's voice responded immediately.
"We're doing what we can, Commander, but this
tachyon barrage just keeps increasing in intensity."
Riker could hear the frustration in the chief engi-
neer's voice; Geordi had been working nonstop for
hours. "It's eaten up most of our power to keep the
ship intact this long. I've still got a few more tricks
I can try, but we can't hold out indefinitely."
    "Understood," Riker acknowledged, scratching
his beard as he hastily considered the problem. The
thunder and lightning of the storm, as spectacular
as they looked and sounded, were only the most
visible manifestations of the Calamarain's untem-
pered wrath. The real danger was the tachyon
emissions that the cloud creatures were somehow
able to generate and direct against the Enterprise.
Ironically, it was precisely those faster-than-light
particles that prevented the ship from achieving
warp speed. "What about adjusting the field har-
monies?" he asked Geordi, searching for some way
to shore up their defenses. "That worked before."
    "Yeah," Geordi agreed, "but the Calamarain
seem to have learned how to compensate for that.
At best it can only buy us a little more time."
    "I'll take whatever I can get," Riker said grimly.
Every moment the deflectors remained in place
gave them one more chance to find a way out. "Go
to it, Mr. La Forge. Riker out."
    He sniffed the air, detecting the harsh odor of
burned circuitry and melted plastic. A few systems
had already been fried by the relentless force of the
aliens' assault, although nothing the auxiliary back-
ups hadn't been able to pick up. The Calamarain
had drawn first blood nonetheless, while the star-
ship crew's own phasers had done little more than
anger the enraged cloud of plasma even further,
much to the annoyance of Baeta Leyoro, who took
the failure of their weapons personally.
     This is all Q~ fault, Riker thought. Captain
Picard had shielded Q from the Calamarain several
years ago, and apparently they had neither forgot-
ten nor forgiven that decision. It was the Enter-
prise's past association with Q, he believed, that
made the Calamarain so unwilling to trust Riker
now when he promised to abort Professor Faal's
wormhole experiment. Tarred by Q's bad reputa-
tion... talk about adding insult to (possibly mor-
tal) injury!
    For all we know, he mused, the Calamarain
might have sound reasons for objecting to the exper-
iment. If only they could be reasoned with somehow!
He glanced over at Counselor Deanna Troi, seated
to his left at her own command station. "What are
you picking up from our stormy friends out there?"
he asked her. The seriousness in his eyes belied the
flippancy of his words. "Any chance they might be
calming down?"
    Troi closed her eyes as she reached out with her
empathic senses to probe the emotions of the
seething vapors that had enveloped the ship. Her
slender hands gently massaged her temples as her
breathing slowed. No matter how many times
Riker had seen Deanna employ her special sensi-
tivity, it never failed to impress him. He prayed
that Deanna would sense some room for compro-
mise with the Calamarain. All he needed was to
carve one chink in the other species' paranoia and
he was sure he could find a peaceful solution to this
needless conflict.
    Blast you, Q, he thought bitterly. He had no idea
what Q had done God-knows-when to infuriate the
Calamarain so, but he was positive it was some-
thing stupid, infantile, and typically Q-like. Why
should he have treated them any differently than
he's ever treated us?
    Riker's gaze swung inexorably to the right, where
an imperious-looking auburn-haired woman rested
comfortably in his own accustomed seat, a wide-
eyed toddler bouncing on her knee while she ob-
served the ongoing battle against the Calamarain
with an air of refined boredom. Mother and child
wore matching, if entirely unearned, Starfleet uni-
forms, with the woman bearing enough pips upon
her collar to outrank Riker if they possessed any
legitimacy which they most definitely did not.
The first officer shook his head quietly; he still
found it hard to accept that this woman and her
infant were actually Q's wife and son. Frankly, he
had a rough time believing that any being, highly
evolved or otherwise, would willingly enter into
any sort of union with Q.
    Then again, the female Q, if that's what she truly
was, had enough regal attitude and ego to be one of
Q's relations. A match made in the Continuum, he
thought. She seemed content to treat the imminent
annihilation of the ship and everyone aboard as no
more important than a day at the zoo, which was
probably just how she regarded the Enterprise. At
least the little boy, whom she called q, appeared to
be enjoying the show. He gaped wide-eyed at the
screen, clapping his pudgy little hands at each
spectacular display of pyrotechnics.
     I'm glad somebody ~ having a good time, Riker
thought ruefully. I suppose I should be thankful that
I don't have to worry about the kid’s safety. The two
Qs were probably the only people aboard the
Enterprise who weren't facing mortal danger. Who
knows? he wondered. They may even be at the heart
of the problem. Could the Calamarain tell that Q's
family were on the ship? That couldn't possibly
reflect well on the Enterprise.
    "I'm sorry, Will," Troi said, reopening her eyes
and lowering her hands to her lap. "All I can sense
is anger and fear, just like before." She stared
quizzically at the iridescent plasma surging across
the viewer. "They're dreadfully afraid of us for
some reason, and determined to stop us from
interfering with the barrier."
    The barrier, Riker thought. It all came back to
the galactic barrier. He could no longer see the
shimmering radiance of the barrier on the forward
viewer, but he knew that the great, glowing curtain
was only a fraction of a light-year away. For genera-
tions, ever since James Kirk first braved the galac-
tic barrier in the original Enterprise, no vessel had
ventured into it without suffering massive casual-
ties and structural damage. Professor Faal had
insisted that his wormhole experiment would have
no harmful effect on the barrier as a whole, but the
Calamarain definitely seemed to feel otherwise.
They referred to the barrier as the "moat" and had
made it abundantly and forcefully clear that they
would obliterate the Enterprise before they would
permit the starship to tamper with it. I need to find
some way to convince them that we mean no harm.
    That might be easier accomplished without any
Qs around to cloud the issue, he decided. "Excuse
me," he said to the woman seated to his right
ignoring for the moment the sound of the Cala-
marain pounding against the shields. He was un-
sure how to address her; although she claimed her
name was Q as well, he still thought of her as a Q
rather than the Q. "I'm afraid that the presence of
you and your child upon the Enterprise may be
provoking the Calamarain, complicating an al
ready tense situation. As the acting commander of
this vessel, I have to ask you to leave this ship
immediately."
    She peered down her nose at him as she might at
a yapping dog whose pedigree left something to be
desired. One eyebrow arched skeptically. For a
second or two, Riker feared that she wasn't even
going to acknowledge his request at all, but eventu-
ally she heaved a weary sigh. "Nonsense," she said,
in a tone that reminded him rather too much of
Lwaxana Troi at her most overbearing. "The Ct, la-
marain wouldn't dare threaten a Q. This is entirely
between you and that noxious little species out
there."
  Riker rose from the captain's chair and looked
down on the seated woman, utilizing every possible
psychological advantage at his disposal. She didn't
look too impressed, and Riker recalled that, stand-
ing, the woman was nearly as tall as he was. "That
may be so," he insisted, "but I can't afford to take
that risk." He tried another tack. "Surely, in all the
universe, there is someplace else you'd rather be."
     "Several trillion," she informed him haughtily,
 "but dear q is amused by your little skirmish." She
 patted the boy's tousled head indulgently.
    Don't think of her as godlike super-being, Riker
thought as a new approach occurred to him. Think
of her as a doting more. His own mother had
tragically died when he was very young, but Riker
thought he understood the type. "Are you certain
it's not too violent for him?" he asked, trying to
sound as concerned and sympathetic as possible.
"Things are likely to get messy soon, especially
once our shields break down. It's not going to be
pretty."
    The woman's brow furrowed at his words. It
appeared the potential grisliness of the crew's prob-
able demise had not crossed her mind before. She
glanced around her, checking out the various frag-
ile humanoids populating the bridge. Outside, the
tempest bellowed its intention to destroy the Enter-
prise and all aboard her. As if to make Riker's
point, the ship pitched forward, slamming Lieuten-
ant Leyoro into her tactical console. Her grunt of
pain, followed by a look of stoic endurance, did not
escape the female Q's notice.
    Riker felt encouraged by her hesitant silence.
This might actually work, he thought. "You know,"
he added, "I cried my eyes out the first time I read
Old Yeller."
    The woman gave him a blank look; apparently
her omniscience did not extend to classic chil-
dren's fiction of the human species. Still, the basic
idea seemed to get across. She cast a worried look
at her son. "Perhaps you have a point," she con-
ceded. Resignation settled onto her patrician fea-
tures. "Too much mindless entertainment cannot
be good for little q... even if his father can't get
enough of your primitive antics."
    With that, both mother and child vanished in a
flash of white light that left Riker blinking. He
breathed a sigh of relief, settling back into the
captain's chair, until q reappeared upon his own
knee. "Stay!" he yelped boisterously. For a superior
being from a higher plane of reality, q felt solid
enough and, if Riker could trust his own nostrils, in
need of a fresh diaper beneath his miniature Star-
fleet uniform.
    Riker groaned aloud. Good thing the captain's
still missing, he thought, for the first and only time
since Picard's abduction. The captain, it was well-
known, had even less patience with small children
than his first officer. Now what do I do with this kid?
he wondered, looking rather desperately at Deanna
for assistance. Despite their otherwise dire circum-
stances, the counselor could not resist a smile at
Riker's sudden predicament.
     Mercifully, the female Q materialized in front of
 Riker and lifted the toddler from his knee. "Come
 along, young q," she scolded gently. "I mean it."
 She tapped her foot impatiently upon the floor,
 giving Riker just enough warning to avert his eyes
 before the pair disappeared in another blinding
 flash of light.
    He waited apprehensively for several seconds
thereafter, holding his breath against the likelihood
of another surprise reappearance. Had Q and q
really left for the time being? He did not delude
himself that the Enterprise had seen the last of
either of them, let alone their mischievous relation,
but he'd gladly settle for a temporary respite if it
gave him enough time to settle matters with the
Calamarain. Just what we needed, he thought sar-
castically. Three Qs to worry about from now on
    Deanna broke the silence. "I think they're gone,
Will."
    "Thank heaven for small favors," he said. Now,
if only the Calamarain could be disposed of so
easily! "Mr. Data, activate your modified transla-
tion system. Now that our visitors have departed,
let's try talking to the Calamarain one more time."
    "Understood, Commander." The gold-skinned
android manipulated the controls at Ops. After
much effort, Data had devised a program by which
humanoid language could be translated into the
shortwave tachyon bursts the Calamarain used to
communicate, and vice versa. "The translator is
on-line. You may speak normally."
    Riker leaned against the back of the captain's
chair and took a deep breath. "This is Commander
Riker of the U.S.S. Enterprise, addressing the Cala-
marain." In truth, he wasn't exactly sure whom he
was speaking to. Give me a face I can talk to any
day, he thought. "I'm asking you to call off your
hostile actions toward our vessel. Speaking on
behalf of this ship, and the United Federation of
Planets, we are more than willing to discuss your
concerns regarding the... moat. Let us return to
our own space now, and perhaps our two peoples
can communicate further in the future."
    I can't get more direct than that, Riker thought.
He could only hope that the Calamarain would
realize how reasonable his offer was. If not, our only
remaining option may be to find a way to destroy
the Calamarain before they destroy us, he realized.
A grim outcome to this mission, even assuming
their foe could be extinguished somehow.
    "They've heard you," Troi reported, sensing the
Calamarain's reaction. "I think they're going to
respond."
    "Incoming transmission via tachyon emission,"
Data confirmed. He consulted his monitor and
made a few quick adjustments to the translation
program.
    An eerie voice, devoid of gender or human
inflections, echoed throughout the bridge. Riker
decided he preferred the computer's ordinary
tones, or even the harsh cadence of spoken
Klingon.
     "We/singular remain/endure the Calamarain," it
 intoned. "Moat is sacred/essential. No release/No
 escape. Chaos waits/threatens. Enterprise brings/
 succors chaos. Evaporation/sublimation is manda-
 tory/preferable."
    Riker scowled at the awkward and downright
cryptic phrasing of the Calamarain's message. Un-
fortunately, Data didn't have nearly enough time
to get all the bugs worked out of the new transla-
tion program. It will have to do, he resolved.
Throughout human history, explorers and peace-
makers had coped without any foolproof, high-tech
translating devices. Could the crew of the Enter-
prise do any less?
    When the Calamarain talked of "chaos," he
guessed, they referred to Q and his kind. Frankly,
he couldn't blame the Calamarain for mistrusting
anyone associated with Q; that devilish trouble-
maker wasn't exactly the most sterling character
witness. As for "evaporation/sublimation," he feared
that term was simply the cloud creatures' way of
describing the forthcoming destruction of the En-
terprise, sublimation being the chemical process by
which solid matter was reduced to a gaseous state.
Who knows? he thought. Maybe the Calamarain
think they're doing us a favor by liberating our
respective molecules From the constraints of solid
existence.
    He didn't exactly see things their way. "Listen to
me," he told the Calamarain, hoping that his own
words weren't getting as badly garbled as theirs. He
strove to keep his syntax as simple as possible.
"The beings known as the Q Continuum are not
our allies. We do not serve the Q."
    In fact, he recalled, Q had also warned Captain
Picard to stay away from the galactic barrier
    "Chaos within/without," the Calamarain stated
mysteriously. "Chaos then/now/to come. No/not
be/not again. Excess risk/dread. No Enterprise/no
be."
    That doesn't sound good, Riker thought, whatev-
er it means. He refused to give up, boiling his
intended message down to its basics. "Please be-
lieve me. We will not harm you. Let us go." Even
our shaky translator can't mangle that, he prayed.
    The Calamarain responded not with words but
with a roar of thunder that rocked the bridge. Riker
felt his breath knocked out of him as the floor
suddenly lurched to starboard, nearly toppling him
from the captain's chair. Troi gasped nearby and
fierce bolts of electrical fire arced across the view-
screen. At the corm, Ensign Clarze struggled to
stabilize their flight path; sweat beaded on his
smooth, hairless skull. Behind Riker, Lieutenant
Leyoro held on to the tactical podium for dear life
while the rest of the bridge staff fought to remain at
their stations. Only Data looked unfazed by the
abrupt jolt. "The Calamarain are not replying to
your last transmission, Commander," he reported.
The android inspected the raging tempest on the
screen. "At least not verbally."
 Troi released her grip on her chair's armrests as
the floor leveled. The din of the Calamarain's
attack persisted, though, like a ringing in Riker's
ears and a constant vibration through his bones. "I
sense great impatience," she informed him.
"They're through with talking, Will."
    "I got that impression," he said. He looked
around the bridge at the tense and wary faces of the
men and women depending on his leadership.
Wherever you are, Captain, he thought, I hope
you're faring better than us.

Chapter Two

"Now WHERE ARE WE?" he asked. "And when?"
    Captain Jean-Luc Picard, late of the Starship
Enterprise, looked around as he found himself
drifting in deep space. An astounding abundance
of stars surrounded him on all sides, more than he
had ever seen from a single location before. Just by
twisting his neck from side to side, he could spot an
astonishing variety of stellar phenomena: giant
pillars of dust and gas rising up into the starry
void, great globular clusters filled with millions of
shining blue suns, supernovas spewing light and
matter in their violent death throes, nebulas, qua-
sars, pulsars, and more. Craning his head back, he
saw above him what looked like the awesome
spectacle of two enormous clouds of stars colliding;
huge glowing spirals, streaked with shades of blue
and scarlet and bedecked with countless specks of
white-hot fire, merged into an amorphous mass
of luminescence large enough, Picard guessed, to
hold--or destroy--several million solar systems.
Were any of those worlds inhabited? he wondered,
hoping despite all appearances that some form of
sentient life could survive the tremendous cosmic
cataclysm transpiring overhead. Then Q drifted
between Picard and the fusing stellar clusters,
completely spoiling the view.
    "Quite a show, isn't it?" Q remarked, floating on
his back with his interlocked hands cradling the
back of his head, his elbows extended toward the
sky. Like Picard, he wore only a standard Starfleet
uniform, his omniscience protecting them both
from the vacuum. "You should have seen it the first
time."
    Impressive, yes, Picard agreed silently, but where
exactly, in space and time were they now? As he
floated in the void, he considered all that he saw
around him. Judging from the sheer density of stars
in sight, he theorized that he and Q were either
very close to the galactic core of the Milky Way or
else sometime very distant in the past, when the
expanding universe was much smaller, and the
interstellar distances much shorter, than they were
in his own time. Or both, he realized.
    "When is this?" he asked Q again. At the preced-
ing stop on Q's tour, Picard had found himself
millions of years in the past. He could only specu-
late what era Q had brought him to now, just as he
 could only ponder what devious reason Q had for
 abducting him in the first place. Besides Q's own
 perverse amusement, that is. "I demand an expla-
 nation."
     "One would think you would have learned by
 now, mon capitain," Q replied, "that your de-
 mands and desires are quite irrelevant where I am
 concerned." He assumed a standing posture a few
 meters away from Picard. "For what it's worth,
 though, we are presently a mere one million years
 before your home sweet home in the twenty-fourth
 century." A polished bronze pocketwatch materia-
 lized in Q's palm and he squinted at its face.
 "Hmmm. We seem to be a few minutes early."
    "Early for what?" Picard asked. At every previ-
ous stop, they had observed the activities of Q's
younger self. Yet they appeared to be very much
alone at the present, with only a surplus of stars to
keep them company. A million years ago, he
thought, both amazed and aghast. Even if I knew
where Earth was among those distant stars, the first
human beings will not stand erect for another five
hundred thousand years. Here and now, I am the
only living Homo sapiens in the entire universe. It
was a terrifying thought.
    "For them," Q answered as a sudden flash of
white light attracted Picard's eyes. The light flared
and died in an instant, leaving behind two human-
oid figures striding across the empty void as though
they were walking upon a level pathway. They
approached him and Q at a brisk pace, coming
 within ten or fifteen meters of where Picard floated
 beside Q. Paradoxically, he thought he heard foot-
 steps, despite the utter absurdity of any sound
 existing in the vacuum. Then again, he thought,
 with Q, nothing is impossible.
    He recognized both figures from earlier points in
Q's past. One of them was Q himself, albeit a
million years younger than the self-centered and
thoroughly irritating individual who had kid-
napped him only hours before. This was a more
youthful Q, he had learned, one at the very onset of
his mischievous career Would that the Continuum
had curbed him way back here, Picard thought,
knowing better than most just how insufferable Q
would become in the many millennia ahead. I don't
know what's scarier, he mused, a more juvenile Q or
a one closer to the Q I know.
    The other figure made Picard even more uneasy.
He called himself 0, as in nil, and he claimed to be
an explorer from a far-off dimension unknown
even to the Continuum. Picard, who considered
himself a quick judge of character, found 0 quite
a shady customer. Back on the Enterprise, he
thought, I wouldn't trust him within a light-year of
my starship. Picard was quick to remember that
everything he now saw had been "translated" by Q
into terms his human mind and senses could
comprehend. That being the case, Picard had
to wonder what more-than-human characteristics
were represented by O's weathered features and
stout frame, and how much the older Q's memories
may have colored his anthropomorphized portrait
of the roguish stranger. From what preternatural
first impression came the devilish gleam in the
man's azure eyes, the cocksure set of his toothy
grin, or the swagger in his stride? Picard could tell
0 was trouble at first glance; so why couldn't the Q
of this era? Just who or what was 07 Falstaff to the
young Q's Prince Hal, Picard speculated, falling
back as ever on his beloved Shakespeare, or some-
thing a good deal more sinister? If nothing else, I'm
accumulating valuable insights into the early days
of the Q Continuum. He just hoped that he would
someday be able to return to his own ship and era
so that he could report all he had learned back to
Starfleet, where the Q were justly regarded as one
of the universe's most intriguing mysteries--and
potential threats.
    As before, neither 0 nor the younger Q were
aware of Q and Picard's presence. Much like
Scrooge and his ghostly visitors, Picard thought,
when they spied on the likes of Bob Cratchit or
Fezziwig.
    0 sang boisterously as he trod with spaceways
with Q:

"There was a young lad whose bony virility,
brought him some pains in a court of civility."

    The attire of the new arrivals, Picard noted, had
changed significantly since O's first appearance in
this universe. This came as no surprise; throughout
Picard's trek through time, the clothing of those he
observed had evolved more or less along Earth's
historical lines. An artistic conceit, according to Q,
intended to convey a sense of antiquity, as well as
the gradual passage of time, to the likes of Picard,
who had to wonder whether the concept of clothing
even applied to the Q in their true form. How much
of this is real, he mused, and how much simply
stage dressing on the part of Q?
  He might never know.

"On posh settees with pinky out,
He found not much to chat about."

    At present, 0 and the young Q affected the
fashions of eighteenth century Europe, some one
hundred thousand millennia before the real thing.
Both figures wore stylish velvet suits, O's a rich
olive green, while Q preferred periwinkle blue.
Their long coats were open in front to expose rosy
damask vests from which ruffled shirt tops peeked.
Black silk cravats were tied around their necks and
each man wore a short brown wig, tied in the back,
atop his head. Polished black shoes with gleaming
metal buckles clicked impossibly against the emp-
tiness of space, beneath white wool stockings that
were held up by ribbons tied above the knee. They
might have been two fine gentlemen out for a night
on the town, Picard observed, except that, in this
instance, that town was the known universe of a
million years ago.
    O's singing voice was as gravelly as ever, and
more enthusiastic than melodious:

"But on darkened nights, 'hind tavern gates,
He discovered he had lots of mates/"

    Wrapping up his raucous ditty, he laughed and
slapped young Q on the back. "Boldness!" 0 de-
clared. "That's the ticket. Follow your instincts and
never mind what the fainthearted say." His raspy
voice held a trace of an accent that Picard couldn't
place; certainly it was nothing resembling the cap-
tain's native French. O's crippled left leg dragged
behind him as he hiked beside Q, expounding on a
topic he had mentioned before. "Take the fine art
of testing, say. Determining the ultimate limits and
potential of lesser species under controlled condi-
tions. That's a fine and fitting vocation for beings
like us. Who better than we to invent curious and
creative challenges for our brutish brethren?"
    "It sounds fascinating," young Q admitted. "I've
always been intrigued by primitive life-forms, espe-
cially those with a crude approximation of sen-
tience, but it never occurred to me to intervene in
their humble existence’s. I've simply observed them
in their natural environments."
    "That's fine for a start," 0 said, "but you can't
really understand a species unless you've seen how
they respond to completely unexpected circum-
stances-of the sort that only we can provide. It's
an engrossing pastime for us, entertaining as well
 as educational, while providing a valuable service
 to the multiverse. Only by testing baser breeds can
 they be forced to transcend their wretched routines
 and advance to the next level of existence." 0 lifted
 his gaze heavenward as he extolled this lofty agen-
 da. "Or not," he added with a shrug.
     "But doesn't meddling with their petty lives
 interfere with their natural evolution?" Q asked.
 Picard's jaw nearly dropped at the sight of Q
 making the case for the Prime Directive. Now I've
 seen everything, he thought.
    "Nature is overrated," 0 insisted. "We can do
better." A gold-framed mirror appeared out of
nowhere and 0 held it out in front of him so that it
captured the reflection of both him and Q. "Take
you and me, say. Do you think our far-seeing
forebears would have ever evolved to this exalted
state if they'd worried about what nature intended?
Of course not! We've overcome our base, bestial
origins, so it's only fitting that we help other breeds
do the same--if they're able."
  "And if they're not?" Q asked.
    0 dispatched the mirror to oblivion, then
shrugged. "Well, that's regrettable when it hap-
pens, but you can't groom a garden without doing a
little pruning now and then. Extinction's part of
the evolutionary agenda, natural or not. Some
portion of those beneath us are going to flunk
the survival test whether we help them along or
not. We're just applying a little creativity to the
process."
    Picard recalled the older Q's periodic attempts
to judge humanity and felt a chill run down his
spine. Was this where Q acquired his fondness for
draconian threats? If so, he thought, then 0 had a
lot to answer for.
    "That's true enough, ! suppose," the young Q
said, listening attentively and occasionally nodding
in agreement. To Picard's dismay, O's lessons ap-
peared to be sinking in. "I take it you've done this
before?"
    "Here and there," 0 admitted with what Picard
regarded as characteristic vagueness. "But you
don't need to take my word for it, not when you
can experience for yourself the rich and restorative
rewards of such pursuits. And there's no time like
this moment to begin," he enthused, giving Q a
hearty slap on the back while simultaneously,
Picard noted, changing the subject from his past to
the present. "Now, where are these peculiar people
you were telling me about?"
    Young Q pointed at the colliding star dusters
overhead. Lace cuffs protruded from the deep,
turned-back sleeves of his velvet coat. "Look!" he
urged 0, and Picard was surprised by the infectious
good humor in the youth's tone, so different from
the sour sarcasm of his older self. "Here they
come."
    Picard looked where indicated. At first he saw
nothing but the same breathtaking panorama he
had viewed before, the luminous swirls of stars and
radiant gas coming together into one resplendent
 pageant of light and color, but as he gazed further a
 portion of the colossal spectacle seemed to detach
 itself from the whole, growing ever larger in com-
 parison as it hurled across the void toward the
 assembled immortals, plus Picard. The strange
 phenomenon devoured the incalculable distance
 between them, coming closer and closer until he
 recognized the incandescent cloud of seething
 plasma.
     "The Calamarain," Picard breathed in astonish-
 ment, never mind the lack of any visible atmo-
 sphere. And one million years in the past, no less!
 He never would have imagined that the Calamar-
 ain were so old. Were these the very same entities
 who had been approaching the Enterprise before,
 at the very moment that Q had snatched him away,
 or were these merely their remote ancestors? Either
 way, who could have guessed that their kind dated
 back to so distant an era?
    Then again, he reflected, the late Professor Ga-
len's archaeological studies had revealed, with a
little help from the captain himself, that humanoid
life existed in the Milky Way galaxy as far back as
four billion years ago, and Picard had recently seen
with his own eyes humanoid beings on Tagus III
two billion years before his own time, so why
should he be surprised that gaseous life-forms were
at least one million years old? Picard shook his
head numbly; the tremendous spans of time en-
compassed by his journey were almost too huge to
conceive of, let alone keep track of. It's too much,
he thought, trying to roll with the conceptual
punches Q kept dishing out. How can one mortal
mind cope with time on this scale?
    The massive cloud that was the Calamarain,
larger and wider across than even a Sovereign-class
starship, passed within several kilometers of Pi-
card, 0, and the two Qs. Iridescent patterns dazzled
along the length and breadth of the cloud, produc-
ing a kaleidoscopic array of surging hues and
shades. "So these are them?" 0 said, the wrinkles
around his eyes deepening as he peered at the huge
accumulation of vapors. "Well, they're sparkly
enough, I'll give them that." His nostrils flared as
he sniffed the vacuum. "They smell like a swamp,
though." He limped nearer to the border of the
cloud. "What say we start the testing with them,
see how adaptable they are?"
    "Er, I'm not sure that's a good idea," young Q
answered, lagging behind. One of his high stock-
ings came loose and he tugged haplessly at its neck.
Next to Picard, his older self sighed and shook his
head sadly. "The Coulalakritous are fairly ad-
vanced in their own right, only a few levels below
the Continuum, and they aren't exactly the most
sociable of creatures."
    "Coulalakritous?" Picard whispered to his own
Q, lowering his voice out of habit even though
neither 0 nor the young Q could hear him.
 "The name changed later," he said, shrugging his
 shoulders. "Be reasonable, Jean-Luc. It's been
 umpteen thousand years, after all. How often do
 you think of your precious France as Gaul?"
     Picard decided not to argue the point, choosing
 instead to concentrate on the scenario unfolding
 before him. So this was indeed where Q first
 acquired his insidious inclination for "testing"
 humanity and other species. Many thanks, O, he
 thought bitterly; if the mysterious entity did noth-
 ing else, this alone was enough to condemn him in
 Picard's eyes.
     "Wait," young Q called out, hurrying to catch up
 with his companion as 0 continued to advance
 toward the sentient plasma cloud. "I told you, they
 don't approve of visitors."
    "And you're going to let that stop you?" 0
challenged. He chuckled and stirred the outside of
the cloud with a meaty finger. Thin blue tracings of
bioelectrical energy ran up his arm, but he only
cackled louder. "All the more reason to shake up
their insular existence and see how they react.
You'll never learn anything if you worry about
what the subject of your experiment wants. Let the
tested dictate the terms of the test and you defeat
the whole point of the exercise."
    "I don't know," young Q said, hesitating. Picard
thought he saw restraint and good sense warring
with temptation and unchecked curiosity on the
callow godling's face. I know which side I'm betting
on, he thought, calling upon over ten years of
personal experience with the older Q.
     "Come on, friend," 0 egged him on. "Surely we
 didn't come all this way just to gawk at these
 cumulus critters from out here. Where's your sense
 of adventure, not to mention scientific inquiry?"
    Restraint and good sense went down in flames as
the young Q's pride asserted itself. "Right here!"
he crowed, thumbing his chest. "Who are these
puffed-up piles of hot air to decide where a Q
should come and go? To blazes with their privacy!"
    "There's the Q I know!" 0 said proudly, and
Picard, looking on silently, had to agree. 0 jabbed
his prot6g6 in the ribs with his elbow. "For a
second there I thought you might be one of those
stuffed shirts from the Continuum." His face as-
sumed a mock-serious expression that endured for
only an instant before collapsing into a mischie-
vous grin. "Between you and me, friend, you're the
only one of your lot with any fire or fission at all,
not to mention a sense of humor."
    "Don't I know it!" young Q said indignantly. He
backed up to take a running leap into the glowing
cloudmass. "Last one into the Coulalakritous is
a--"
    0 grabbed Q's collar as he ran by, only moments
before the impetuous super-being dived headlong
into the sentient plasma. "Not so fast," he coun-
seled Q, confusing his duly appointed guardian.
"No reason to go barging in there, especially if this
phosphorescent fog is as inhospitable as you give
me to believe." A crafty smile creased his face. "I
say we infiltrate them first. The testing is always
 more accurate if the tester's hand remains con-
 cealed, especially at the beginning."
     Showing his true colors, Picard thought. Alas,
 the starstruck young Q failed to make the connec-
 tion between O's plan to deceive the Coulalakritous
 and the way 0 had already inveigled his way into
 Q's trust--and, through him, the Continuum.
    "Just follow my lead, young Q, and keep your
wits about you." Like a genie returning to his
bottle, 0 dissolved into a pocket of phosphorescent
mist indistinguishable from that which composed
the Coulalakritous. He/it hovered for a second
outside the immense cloud, then flowed tailfirst
into the billowing vapors as though sucked in by
some powerful pumping mechanism. The young Q
gulped nervously, looking back over his shoulder as
if contemplating a hasty retreat, but soon under-
went the same transformation and followed his
would-be mentor into the mass of plasma. Picard
made an attempt to keep track of the two new
streams of gas, but it was like trying to discern an
individual splash of liquid within a restless ocean.
From where Picard was floating, 0 and young Q
were completely lost within the Coulalalcritous.
Their metamorphosis surprised him at first, but the
logic behind it was readily apparent. lf Q assumes
human form when he tests humanity, I suppose it
only follows that he and 0 would disguise themselves
as gases before testing the Coulalakritous.
 "Hard to imagine I was ever so suggestible," the
 older Q commented, but Picard felt more appre-
 hensive than nostalgic. His heart sank as he
 guessed what was coming next.
    "We're going after them, aren't we?" he asked,
resigned to yet another bizarre and disorienting
experience. At least I might learn something that
couM help the Enterprise in my own time, he
consoled himself, assuming his ship had indeed
encountered the Calamarain in his absence. It
dawned on him that he had no idea how much time
might have passed upon the Enterprise while he
was away. Had the Calamarain threatened the ship
once more? What was happening to Riker and the
others?
    "You know me so well, Jean-Luc," Q said. He
snapped his fingers and a sudden hot flush rushed
over Picard as, before his eyes, the very atoms of
his body sped up and drifted farther apart, their
molecular bonds dissolving at Q's direction. He
held his hand up before his face just in time to see
the hand become insubstantial and semitranspar-
ent, like a ghost in some holodeck fantasy. His
fingers fluttered like smoke rising from a five-year-
old's birthday cake, merging and coalescing into a
single continuous stream of radiant mist. His arm
quickly went the way of his digits and, before he
knew it, Picard saw within his field of vision only
the outer limits of the man-sized accumulation of
gas he had become.
 How can I see without eyes? he marveled. How
can I think without a brain? But the Calamarain, or
the Coulalakritous, or whatever they were called at
this place and time, proved that consciousness
could exist in this form, so he could, too, it seemed.
The galaxy looked the same as it had before, the
overflowing cornucopia of stars around him shin-
ing just as brightly. He felt a strange energy suffus-
ing his being, though, like the tingle of static
electricity before it was discharged. Strange new
senses, feeling like a cross between hearing and
touch, detected waves of power radiating from the
Coulalakritous. The charge of the larger cloud
tugged on him like gravity, drawing him toward the
seething sea of vapor. Picard surrendered to the
pull, uncertain how he could have fled even if he
had wanted to. Despite his resignation, a sudden
sense of misgiving increased as the great cloud
filled the horizon. He felt a surge of panic welling
from somewhere deep inside him, and realized that
it stemmed from his memories of being immersed
in the group-mind of the Borg Collective. If he had
still possessed a physical body, he would have
trembled at the prospect of losing his individuality
once again.
    Another shimmering cloudlet drifted a few me-
ters away, on a parallel course toward the Coulalak-
ritous. Lacking a mouth or any other features, it
nonetheless addressed him in Q's voice. "Be of
stout heart, Picard. You're going where no va-
porized human has ever gone before."
    Then the stars were gone and all Picard could see
or hear or feel was the overwhelming presence of
the cosmic cloud all around him. It was a mael-
strom of surging currents and eddies, carrying him
along in their wake. A million voices hummed
around him, yet, to his vast relief, he discovered he
could still isolate his own thoughts from the din.
Snatches of conversation, too many to count, beat
upon his new inhuman senses, almost deafening
him:
    ... the Principal Intent of Gravitational Fixities
are to perpetuate Substance along Graduated Hier-
archies... until fuller Thou art, tarry and ask
Myself again . . . to the Inverse, the Singular Attri-
butes of Transuranic Essentials plainly denote...
Solitary Pygmy Suns forever desired before Paired
Twins... no, Thou mistakes My Supposition gross-
ly... ever should the Whole of Thoughtful Souls
arrive at Concord and Harmony... much does
Myself long to behold Such... never in Tenfold
Demi-Spans shall That come to pass... Should
Thou refuse to merge Thy Vitality with Thy Fellows,
Thou cannot rightly anticipate that They shall
merge Thine with Thou... Our Hours were Exem-
plary in the Time Before... was a Unique In-
stance, not a Tendency of Import or Duration... I
dreamed I was a Fluid... wherefore do We jour-
ney?... entreat Succor for Myself, My Ions lose
Their Galvanism... Thou ever avers Such!... the
Pursuit of Grace takes precedence over Mere
 Beauty... do Thou fancy that Quasars have
 Spirits?... I dispute That resolutely... no, pray
 regard the Evidence ....
    Mon Dieu, Picard thought, spellbound by the
unending torrent of communication, which struck
him as being somewhere halfway between a Vulcan
mind-meld and late-night debates at Starfleet
Academy. As far as he could tell, the Coulalak-
ritous did not possess a single unified conscious-
ness like the Borg, but rather were engaged in
incessant dialogue with each other. Could it be, he
speculated, that this sentient cloudmass repre-
sented some form of absolute democracy? Or per-
haps they had a more academic orientation, like an
incorporeal university or seminar. He wondered
how this incredible forum compared with the
Great Link of the Changelings, as described in
Odo's intelligence reports from Deep Space Nine.
The so-called Founders were liquid while the Coula-
lakritous were gaseous, but how different did that
make the two species? From the point of view of a
former solid, he mused, both seem equally amor-
phous... and astounding. He could only hope
that someday he would have the opportunity to
compare the experiences with Odo himself. No
doubt Worf or Miles O'Brien would be happy to
introduce them.
    "Annoying, aren't they?" Q's voice piped up
from somewhere nearby. "They never shut up and
they never tire of debating each other. Small won-
der they don't want to communicate with any other
intelligence’s; they're too busy arguing with them-
selves."
    Picard looked for Q, but all he saw was the
ceaseless motion of the Coulalakritous. It seemed a
minor miracle that he could hear Q at all over the
cacophonous buzz of the cloud creatures' conversa-
tion. These aren't really sound waves at all, he
considered, recalling a Starfleet theory that the
Calamarain communicated by means of tachyon
emissions. Am I actually "hearing" tachyons now?
    The ambient heat within the cloud was intense,
but his new form did not find it uncomfortable. Of
course, he realized. The Coulalakritous would have
to generate their own internal heat, and in massive
quantities, to avoid freezing solid in the cold of
space. Some sort of metabolic chemical reaction,
he wondered, or controlled nuclear fusion? Either
way, he suspected that his ordinary human body
would be incinerated instantly by the volcanic
temperature within the cloud. Instead, the ionized
gases merely felt like a sauna or hot spring. Re-
markable, Picard thought, savoring the experience
despite other, more pressing concerns. The more
he listened, the more he thought he could isolate
individual voices by their tone or timbre. There
were diverse personalities alive within the collec-
tive boundaries of the plasma cloud: long-winded
bores, excited explorers, passionate visionaries,
skeptics, cranks, poets, philosophers, fussbudgets,
free thinkers, reactionaries, radicals, and scientists.
He could hear them all, and the only thing they all
 seemed to have in common was that they savored
 debate and discussion. There's so much we could
 learn from these beings, Picard thought.
     Q sounded substantially less awestruck. "If I live
 to be another eternity, I'll never understand why I
 found this nattering miasma so interesting in the
 first place." Picard could hear the impatience in his
 tone. "If you're quite through with your adolescent
 sense of wonder, perhaps you'd care to pay atten-
 tion to the carefree antics of my younger self and
 his dubious acquaintance. That is why we're here,
 you know."
     "Where are they?" Picard asked, genuinely at a
 loss.
     "Can't you hear them?" Q responded. "Why,
 they're right over there."
    Not only could Picard not distinguish 0 and the
other Q from the rest of the maelstrom, he couldn't
even see Q. No doubt the Coulalakritous could tell
each other apart visually, he thought, but he could
barely make sense of what he was hearing, let alone
seeing. Even though he was beginning to distin-
guish one voice from another, he could hardly
pinpoint two specific individuals in this gaseous
Tower of Babel. The sights and sensations re-
mained far too alien. "Over there? Pay attention?"
he said, incredulous. "I don't even know what I am
anymore."
    "Complain, complain. Is that all you can do,
Jean-Luc?" Q said. "I knew I should have brought
along Data instead. At least he can listen to more
than one sound at once and still comprehend what
he's hearing." He sounded sorely ill-used. "Very
well, I suppose I have to do everything around
here."
    All at once, the overpowering rustle of impas-
sioned discussion surrounding him receded further
into the background, to the extent that he could
now isolate the distinctive voices of both 0 and the
younger Q. The two counterfeit Coulalakritous
became visible as well, acquiring a silvery metallic
glow that set them apart from the other sentient
gases swirling through the vast gaseous communi-
ty. Shapeless and inhuman, they reminded Picard
of globules of liquid mercury. He assumed that the
silver tinting was for his benefit alone; presumably
both the Coulalakritous and the trespassing im-
mortals were unaware of the change. The argent
glow had to be out of phase, too, lest he and the
older Q's presence be exposed. To Picard's slight
annoyance, he observed that his obnoxious travel-
ing companion had not bothered to make himself
visible as well. It's just like Q, he fumed, to put
others at a disadvantage, especially me.
    "Happy now?" the indistinguishable Q asked.
He might have been anywhere around Picard. "Do
try to concentrate, Jean-Luc. I don't want to have
to relive this a third time just for your sake."
    Conveniently, the silver puffs of vapor were not
far away, although Picard found it hard to estimate
precise distances within such an atypical environ-
ment. They were certainly within listening range.
 He felt slightly uncomfortable eavesdropping this
 way, even on a Q, but he had to concede that it was
 preferable to having to deal with 0 and the other Q
 directly. Every Starfleet captain knew a little espio-
 nage was necessary now and then.
     "Is this all they do?" 0 inquired out loud. His
 cloud, Picard noted, was larger than the younger
 Q's, and streaked with dark metallic shadings that
 were almost black in places. "Why, they're nothing
 but talk! Rancid and rubbish, all of them." He
 clearly did not approve.
     "Well, they're said to have traveled extensively
 throughout the galaxy," his companion offered. At
 the moment, the youthful Q resembled a glistening
 dust devil, whirling madly with speed and energy
 to burn. "And they never forget anything, or so I'm
 told."
    "Tell me about it," the older Q said dryly,
possibly recalling the Calamarain's undying ven-
detta against him.
    "Can they travel faster than a ray of sunlight?" 0
asked, and Picard could readily imagine the calcu-
lating expression on the old rogue's face. If 0 still
had a humanoid face, that is.
    "Why, sure! How else would they get around?" Q
said cheerily, then remembered O's inability to
travel at warp speed except through the Continu-
um. "Er, nothing personal, I mean. I forgot about
your... well, there's more to godhood than zip-
ping from here to there in a hurry." The spinning
cloud turned pink with embarrassment at his faux
pas. "Why rush when you have all of eternity,
right?"
    This really was a long time ago, Picard realized.
It was hard to imagine the Q of the twenty-fourth
century being embarrassed by anything, let alone a
tactless remark. More’s the pity, he thought.
    "Calm down, friend. No offense taken," 0 in-
sisted. "This old wanderer's well aware of his
present limitations. It's hardly your fault, Q." An
edge of bitterness colored his words and Picard
recalled the crippled leg 0 possessed in his human
guise. "Blame instead those meddling miscreants
who banished me here in the first place. Contempt-
ible curs?'
    "But I thought you came here of your own
choosing," the Q-cloud said, taken aback by the
sudden malevolence in O's tone, the spin of its
miniature eddies slowing anxiously.
    "So I did?' 0 asserted, regaining his usual robust
air. "Who says otherwise?"
    "But, I mean, you..." Q stammered. Picard
had to admit to himself that he found this Q's
discomfort rather satisfying; it was good to see Q
off balance for once, even if Picard had been forced
to travel countless centuries in the past to witness
the occasion.
    "Yesterday's news," 0 insisted. "Moldy memo-
ries better off forgotten." The silver mist that was 0
cruised along the perimeter of the plasma cloud.
Picard found he could follow him by focusing his
attention in that direction. "Let's get on with the
 business of testing this talkative tempest. Here's an
 idea: Suppose we try to herd this cloud in one
 direction or another. Put some wind in our sails, so
 to speak."
 "Er, what exactly would that prove?" Q asked.
 "Why, nothing less than whether the Coulalak-
 ritous are capable--and worthy--of controlling
 their own destiny. If the likes of you and I have the
 power to change their course at will, then plainly
 they're not as highly evolved as they should be."
 He emitted the tachyon equivalent of a low chuck-
 le. "And, as an added bonus, I acquire my own
 personal porters. What do you say, Q? Do you
 think we can do it?"
    Mon Dieu, Picard thought, shocked by the cold-
blooded ruthlessness of O's suggestion. He~ think-
ing of enslaving the Coulalakritous, to harness them
as means offaster-than-light transportation for him-
selfi It was a blatant violation of the Prime Direc-
tive, not to mention basic morality. The voices
around him belonged to a sentient people, not
beasts of burden. Did the young Q comprehend the
full horror of what his companion was advocating?
Picard wondered. Was this the telltale moment that
would lift the scales from his (metaphorical) eyes?
    Apparently not. "I don't know," young Q said.
"I've never really considered the matter before."
    "Of course not," 0 said readily. "Why should
you, a healthy young Q like yourself?." The silver
mist, with its darker undertones, oozed sinuously
around the glowing pocket of gas that now embod-
ied the young Q. "For us that have a wee bit of
trouble getting around, though, this notion merits a
closer look. After all, much as I enjoy your compa-
ny, you don't want to have to chauffeur me around
the cosmos indefinitely, do you?"
    "That's what I promised the Continuum," Q
said, sounding as if the full implications of that
commitment were just now sinking in.
    "So you did," 0 assented, "and for sure you
meant it at the time." The volume of the dark
silver gas began to increase dramatically, spreading
out in all directions around the outer surface of the
entire cloud. "Still, it can't hurt to explore other
options now. You wanted to test another species,
right? Trust me, this is as good a way as any."
    "Wait. What are you doing?" The Q-mist started
to churn anxiously within the confines of the elder
entity's substance but found itself hemmed in,
unable to move. "Stop it!"
    "Just blasting two planets with one asteroid,
that's all," 0 stated as his dark silver stain perme-
ated the nebulous borders of the Coulalakritous,
enclosing the cloud within his own gaseous grip.
"Nothing to be alarmed about, at least not for you
and me. The cloud, on the other hand... well,
they might have cause for concern."
    This is monstrous, Picard thought, sickened by
O's shameless attempt to place an entire communi-
ty of intelligent beings under his control. If he
understood the situation correctly, 0 meant to turn
the Coulalakritous into the interstellar equivalent
 of galley slaves, yoked into transporting 0 through-
 out the galaxy at warp speed. He had to remind
 himself that, whatever happened next, everything
 he was witnessing now had already taken place
 from the perspective of his own era, was incredibly
 ancient history in fact, predating the very birth of
 humanity, none of which made it any easier to
 watch. "Why didn't you do something?" he chal-
 lenged the older Q, wherever he was.
    "It was too new," Q apologized from somewhere
behind Picard. '7 was too new. 0 sounded like he
knew what he was doing. How was I supposed to
know whether it was a reasonable experiment or
not?"
    "How could you not have?" Picard answered
angrily. Humanity had already learned that such
exploitation of another intelligent species was un-
conscionable, and human history was only a nano-
second in the lifetime of Q if his most grandiose
claims were to believed. "What's so hard to under-
stand about slavery?"
    "Ever ridden a horse, Picard?" Q retorted. "Ever
bred bees for honey? Believe me, you're a lot closer
to a horse or a bug than I was to the Coulalakritous,
even back then. Don't be so quick to judge me."
    "These are not horses!" the captain said. Indig-
nation deepened his voice. "And they are most
certainly not insects. I've heard them, felt them,
experienced at least a fragment of their existence--
and so have you."
 "I've listened to you, too, Picard," Q said, ma-
terializing before Picard in his usual guise. He
pinched the fabric of his uniform. "Contrary to my
appearance, that doesn't make me human, or even
a humanitarian."
    Picard would have shaken his head in disgust
had he still possessed humanoid form. I don't know
why I shouM be so surprised, he thought. Q has
never shown any consideration for "lesser" species
before, and it seems he was always that way.
    By now the taint of 0 had spread all over the
exterior of the cloud community. It thickened and
solidified, enclosing the Coulalakritous within a
thin, silvery membrane that began to squeeze in-
ward, forcing the assembled gases (including Pi-
card) to flow only in the direction 0 had chosen.
But his efforts to take the reins of the cloud did not
go unnoticed.
    The perpetual buzz of a million voices fell silent
for an instant, thousands upon thousands of dis-
cussions interrupted simultaneously, before the
dialogue started up again with a new and more
urgent tone:
    what is This?... What Now transpires?...
Make It cease!... Fearful am I... I cannot touch
the Outside.t. .. Nor I... Nor I... hurts My-
self... crushing... so CoM. . . losing Vital-
ity... cannot move... cease... cease NOW. t. . .
    It was hideous. Within seconds, 0 had reduced
an ageless, living symposium to panic. Picard
heard the shock and dismay in the cries of the
entire assemblage. He longed for the Enterprise,
 whose powerful phasers might be able to surgically
 peel 0 away from the Coulalakritous, but his ship
 was many millennia away. If only I could do some-
 thing to help these people!
     0 laughed boisterously, drowning out Picard's
 frustrated craving to stop him. The membrane
 squeezed harder and Picard felt the compressed
 gases press in on him from all sides but one,
 propelling him forward against his will. "Wait," he
 protested, not understanding why he should be
 feeling any pressure at all. "I thought we were out
 of phase with this moment in time."
     "Poetic license," Q explained, his humanoid
 shape unaffected by the pressure. "I want you to get
 the full experience."
     In other words, Picard realized, Q was generat-
 ing the sensation himself, to simulate conditions
 within the besieged cloud of plasma. Picard was
 less than grateful. I could have easily done without
 this much verisimilitude.
     The Coulalakritous fought back. Overcoming
 their initial consternation, the voices began to
 come together with a single purpose:
    ... cease... halt the Adversary . . . Our Volition
is Our Own... Our Will is United... cease crush-
ing Us... hurts... disregard the Torment...
shall not yield... persevere, do not cease stirring,
All of We... Halt the CoM... do not be Fear-
ful... Ours is the Heat of Many is... must be
Free... persevere... Together We can break
free... Together We... togethe?. . . Flashes of
lightning sparked along the inner skin of the mem-
brane 0 had become ....Togetherú.. Together...
Together...
    "Are you maeeo. 0 mocked them, his voice
emerging from the membrane so that he seemed to
be speaking from all directions at once. "All una-
nimity aside, I believe I have the upper hand at the
moment," he said, demonstrating his point by
constricting the enclosed gases further. Picard lost
sight of the Q-mist as, poetic license or not, he felt
his substance stretched and prodded by the pres-
sure being exerted on the cloud community. Be-
cause his senses were distorted by his unlikely new
form, it felt like a scream and sounded like heavy
gravity. Claustrophobia gripped him now that he
could no longer flow freely through the great cloud,
and he marveled at how quickly he had grown
accustomed to his gaseous state. At least he was
used to being contained within a skin of flesh; he
could only imagine how unbearable this captivity
must be to the Coulalakritous. If only I could do
something, he thought, but I'm not even really
here... I think.
    The cloud-beings did not submit readily to O's
will. The atmosphere surrounding Picard warmed
dramatically, transforming into a cauldron of su-
perheated gases, as they expanded outward against
the pressure of the membrane. The swirling mael-
strom of sentient vapors increased in fury, gaining
strength and intensity by the moment. Picard had a
sudden mental image of being in the middle of---
 no, being part of--an old-fashioned steam engine
 of colossal proportions. Perhaps, he thought hope-
 fully, 0 has underestimated the Coulalakritous.
 After all, they surely hadn't endured into the
 twenty-fourth century, eventually evolving into the
 Calamarain, by being defenseless. He cheered on
 their efforts, wishing he could add his own determi-
 nation, out of phase as he was, to the struggle.
     ... Together... break    free... Together...
 break free... Together... break free... To-
 gether... break free... Together...
    Slowly, the tide appeared to turn. The cloud
swelled against the membrane, spreading it ever
thinner around an expanding volume of ionized
and agitated gas. "Beasts! Brutes! Upstarts!" 0
cursed them, but his voice faded in volume as his
width approached infinitesimal. Within the cloud,
fierce currents tossed Picard around like a cork
upon the waves. "Blast you," 0 raged, barely audi-
ble now. "Give up, why don't you? Surrender!"
    Then, like an overinflated balloon, the mem-
brane that was 0 came apart and the victorious
Coulalakritous rushed through the gap to freedom.
"Time to switch seats for a better view," the older
Q commented, and Picard abruptly found himself
outside the cloud, looking on from a distance. The
gigantic fog, even larger and more diffuse than
before, loomed ahead of him, so attenuated that
Picard could glimpse stars and nebulae through it.
The Coulalakritous wasted no time contracting
back to their original proportions, growing opaque
once more. A second later, a stream of silver mist
was forcibly ejected from the vaporous communi-
ty. "Not my most dignified exit," Q commented,
watching his younger self spew forth from the
interior of the Coulalakritous, "but I like to think
I've improved since. You must concede that I've
always managed to depart the Enterprise with more
than a modicum of style."
    "I have always savored your exits," Picard
couldn't resist replying, "more than any other
aspect of your visits." Now that they had left the
plasma cloud behind, they had both resumed hu-
man form. Picard was relieved to look down and
see his body once more. Given a choice, he discov-
ered he preferred floating adrift in space to squeez-
ing in among the Coulalakritous.
    "Ho, ho, Jean-Luc," Q said darkly, hanging
upside down in relation to Picard. "Very droll. It
would be too much to expect, I suppose, any sign of
gratitude for showing you glimpses of a higher
reality."
    "Not when your motive has always seemed to be
more about your own self-aggrandizement than my
enlightenment," Picard answered.
    "My self can't possibly be more aggrandized," Q
stated, "as I thought you would have understood by
now." He looked away from Picard at what re-
mained of 0, hovering about a dozen meters away.
"Watch closely, rnon capitaine. Here's where things
get really interesting."
 Reduced to a severed string of silver-black film, 0
 rapidly reconstituted himself, assuming the same
 human form he had affected before. His craggy face
 was flushed with anger and his once-fine clothes
 were charred and seared around their edges. Smoke
 rose symbolically from the anomalous male figure
 suspended in the vacuum of space; Picard could
 not tell whether the fumes emanated from O's
 garments or his person. Beyond a doubt, 0 looked
 irritated enough to spontaneously combust at any
 moment.
    His companion and guardian, the young Q,
metamorphosized from mist to humanoid appear-
ance, then strolled across the void toward 0. His
attire was less battle-scarred than the other's, Pi-
card noted, perhaps because Q had not attempted
to subdue the Coulalakritous. Nervously eyeing his
cohort's affronted demeanor, he seemed inclined
to laugh the whole business off as an inconsequen-
tial lark. "Well, it appears we've worn out our
welcome, and then some," he remarked flippantly.
"Their loss, then. It's hardly the first time a lesser
species has failed to appreciate a superior life
form."
    "Nor would it be the last," his older self added,
with a pointed look at Picard.
    "On that you and I can agree," Picard shot back,
feeling singularly unappreciative at the moment.
    The young Q's attempt at levity failed to assuage
O's ire. "They can't do this!" he snarled, his previ-
ously jovial mask slipping away to expose a visage
of unmistakable indignation. "I won't be banished
again, not by their sort." His pale blue eyes glit-
tered like icy gems, reflecting the luminous shim-
mer of the Coulalakritous. "Never again," he
swore. "Never, I say!"
    Taken aback by 0's pique, young Q squirmed
uncomfortably, uncertain how to deal with his
friend's temper. "But didn't they pass your test?"
he asked. "You tried to harness them. They
wouldn't let you. I thought that was the whole
point of the endeavor."
    "They cheated!" 0 barked. "Just like the others.
And if there's one thing that I never abide, it's a
cheater. Remember that, Q, if you remember noth-
ing else. Never allow cheaters to make a travesty of
your tests."
    "Cheated how?" Q asked, looking genuinely
puzzled. "Did I miss something? As I much as I
loathe admitting my ignorance, I am rather new at
this, so I suppose it's possible I missed a subtlety or
two. Perhaps you can explain what precisely they
did wrong?"
    If 0 was listening at all to Q's prattle, he gave no
sign of it. He glared at the incandescent majesty of
the Coulalakritous with undisguised hostility. He
took a deep breath, inhaling some manner of
sustenance from the ether, and appeared to be
drawing on a hidden reserve of strength. The
smoky gray fumes rising from his scorched gar-
ments entwined about each other and, from Pi-
card's vantage point nearby, O's human facade
appeared to flicker slightly, giving Picard brief,
almost subliminal glimpses of another, more inhu-
man form. He received an impression of something
dark and coiled, surrounded by a blurry aura of
excess limbs or tendrils. Or was that only an
illusion created by the twisting spirals of smoke?
The more he watched, the more Picard became
convinced that what he saw was no mere trick of
smoke and starlight, but a genuine glimpse of
another aspect of the enigmatic stranger. Picard's
Starfleet training, along with years of experience in
dealing with diverse life-forms, had taught him not
to judge other beings by their appearance; nonethe-
less, he could not repress a shudder at this transito-
ry look behind O's customary persona. Indeed, he
reflected, it was the very indistinctness of the
images he perceived that made them far more eerie
and unsettling than a clear and distinct depiction
of the alien would have been. Picard found his
imagination all too eager to fill in the blanks in this
fractional, impressionistic portrait of O's true na-
ture. I knew there was more to him than met the
eye, he thought. Why couldn't Q see that?
    Power radiated from 0 like a gust of chilling
wind. Picard felt the passage of the energy upon his
face, stinging his cheeks, yet the power was not
directed at him but at the imposing presence of the
Coulalakritous. What could 0 do to such magnifi-
cent entities? Picard wondered. Had not the Coula-
lakritous already demonstrated their ability to
defend themselves?
 Yet, to his horror, he beheld the huge plasma
cloud begin to shrink beneath O's assault, its expan-
sive volume diminishing by the second. The bil-
lowing gases slowed and thickened, the swirling
eddies coming to a halt. Picard was only mildly
surprised to discover that he could still hear the
varied voices of the Coulalakritous crying out in
distress, their words slurred and winding down like
a malfunctioning recording:
    no... nooo. . . noooo . . . not... anewwww. . .
ceasssse. . . sooooo. . . cooooold. . . stopppppp.. .
traaaaaap... noooooo... essssscaaaaaape...
ceasssssse... at... onccccccce... ceasssssse...
freeeeeezzzing. . . helpœppppp. . .
    "Yes, stop?' young Q seconded anxiously. "You
don't need to do this, 0. Whatever they did, they're
not worth our attention, let alone your peace of
mind." His gaze darted back and forth between 0
and his imploding target. "Er, you can stop any-
time now, anytime at all .... "
    The enraged immortal paid no heed to either Q
or the Coulalakritous. His hate-filled eyes pro-
truded from their sockets while phantom tentacles
wavered in and out of reality around him. A trickle
of saliva dripped from the comer of his mouth as
he ground his broad white teeth together. All his
effort and concentration were aimed without ex-
ception at the intangible community that had pos-
sessed the audacity to elude his control. 0 raised his
arms, an action echoed by a blur of black exten-
sions, and coruseating scarlet energy flashed about
his extended fingertips.
     The cloud of plasma had already contracted to at
 least one-third its original size. It no longer looked
 truly gaseous in nature, but more like a mass of
 steaming, semiliquid slushú Then the slush con-
 gealed further, sucking in the last retreating wisps
 of vapor and turning a dull, ugly brown in hue.
 Picard had a horrifying mental image of an op-
 pressed prisoner being crammed into a box far too
 small for him, as he watched, helpless to intervene,
 while 0 forced the entire awesome accumulation of
 gas-beings ever closer to a solid state.
    ú.. Weeeeeee willllllll notttttttt forrrrrgetttttttt. . .
the Coulalakritous vowed, their separate voices
finally merging into one before falling silent en-
tirely. Where only moments before had existed an
incandescent cloud of blazing plasma, there now
remained only a dense, frozen snowball, indistin-
guishable from any of a billion comets traversing
the dark between the stars. If they registered on the
Enterprise ~ sensors in this state, Picard guessed, we
wouldn't give them a moment~ thoughtú Were the
Coulalakritous still conscious and aware of their
utter paralysis? Part of Picard prayed that they
were not.
    Yet 0 was not satisfiedú His beefy hands curled
into grasping claws, he brought them closer togeth-
er above his head, as if literally squeezing the
onetime cloud between his palms instead of merely
empty space. His phantasmal other self, superim-
posed upon his humanoid shell, shadowed his
every move. Less than a kilometer away from O, the
inert chunk of ice that was the Coulalakritous kept
on being compressed by invisible forces, its crystal-
line surface cracking and collapsing inward be-
neath the crushing power exerted by the vengeful
immortal. How far did 0 intend to take this? Picard
wondered, aghast. Until the very atoms that com-
posed the Coulalakritous fused together, igniting a
miniature supernova? Or was 0 able and willing to
compress his victims' mass to so great a density
that the Coulalakritous would be reduced to a
microscopic black hole, a pinprick in reality from
which they could never escape? Was such a horren-
dous feat even possible?
    Young Q appeared to fear something along those
lines. "I think that's enough, 0," he announced
with unexpected firmness. With a burst of pure
energy, he placed himself between 0 and his prey,
grunting involuntarily as he felt the force of 0's
unchecked ire. The flesh upon his face rippled and
grew distorted, like that of an old-time astronaut
enduring tremendous G-forces, and his bones
crunched together noisily as he shrunk into a
slightly squatter, more compact Q, losing at least a
centimeter of heightú He held his ground, though,
and O's attack rebounded upon its source, stagger-
ing the older entity and sending him stumbling
backward through empty space. Q to the rescue?
Picard marveled, more than a little startled by this
atypical display of altruism. I mean, of all peo-
ple... Q?
  "What?" 0 was as taken aback by Q's actions as
 Picard. "Are you out of your all-knowing mind?"
 he bellowed, visibly dismayed by the young Q's
 defiance. His ruddy face grew even more crimson.
 A vein along his left temple throbbed rhythmically
 like a pulsar. "Get out of my way, or I swear I'll...
 I'll..."
    Q flinched in anticipation of the other's wrath,
but no explosion, verbal or literal, followed. Per-
haps caught off guard by his own angry words, 0
faltered, falling mute even as the flailing, insub-
stantial tendrils that enshrouded him withdrew
into some private hiding place deep within his
person. He turned his back on Q and the two
invisible onlookers while he struggled to regain his
composure. "07" the young Q inquired anxiously.
    When the stranger, his clothes still smoldering
from his first battle with the Coulalakritous, faced
them again, no trace of animosity could be found
in his expression. He looked contrite and abashed,
not to mention exhausted by his exertions. Perspi-
ration plastered his damp curls to his skull. "For-
give me, friend, for losing my temper that way. I
shouldn't have raised my voice to you, no matter
how vexed that malodorous miasma made me."
    "Never mind me," Q responded, stretching his
body until he regained his usual dimensions. He
looked back over his shoulder at the solidified
chunk of Coulalakritous tumbling through the
void, its momentum carrying the frigid comet
slowly toward them. "What in the name of the
Continuum have you done to them?"
    0 paused to catch his breath before replying.
Freezing the gas-beings had obvious taken a lot out
of him. All the blood had drained from his face,
leaving him drawn and pale. Lungs heaving, he
bent forward, hands on his knees, and stared at his
shoes until his color returned. "That?" he inquired,
short of breath. "A mere bit of thermodynamic
sleight-of-hand, and nothing those cantankerous
clouds didn't have coming to them." He limped
across the vacuum until he hovered only a few
meters away from his fretful prot6g~. "You have to
understand, Q, that in any tests there must be
penalties for failure, and for deliberate cheating, or
else there's no inducement to excel. It looks harsh,
I know, but it's the only way. Lesser lights are not
going to submit to our tests out of the goodness of
their hearts. They seldom comprehend, you see,
the honor and the opportunity being bestowed
upon them. You need to motivate them, and some-
times that means having the gumption to apply a
sharp poke when necessary."
    "But the Coulalakritous?" Q asked, sounding
baffled. "What exactly did they--"
    "Things didn't go off quite as I planned there," 0
interrupted, striking a conciliatory tone. "To be
honest, I underestimated how out of practice I am,
and how inexperienced you are." He saw Q bristle
at the remark and held up his hand to fend off
the younger being's objections. "No criticism in-
tended, friend, merely a statement of fact. I'm the
one at fault for dropping us both into the deep end
 before we were ready. Perhaps we should round up
 some able assistance before trying again." He
 scratched his chin thoughtfully as the approaching
 ball of ice, roughly the size of a Starfleet shuttle-
 craft, barreled helplessly toward the location where
 he and Q just happened to be standing. "Yes, extra
 hands, that's the ticket. And I know just the right
 reinforcements to enlist in our cause .... "
     "Reinforcements?" Q asked, seconds before the
 frozen Coulalakritous would have collided with the
 two humanoid figures. Neither seemed particularly
 concerned about the oncoming comet. "Who do
 you mean?"
    "Wait and see," 0 promised. With a casual wave
of his hand, he deflected the course of the tumbling
mass of petrified plasma and sent it hurling off at a
forty-five-degree angle from him and his compan-
ion. "Follow me, Q. You won't be disappointed."
He vacated the scene in a flash, taking the young Q
with him. Left behind, Picard watched as the
victimized Coulalakritous receded into the dis-
tance. The closest star, the nearest possible source
of warmth, was countless light-years away.
    "It took them a couple millennia to thaw out
again," Q whispered in his ear. He glanced down at
the bronze pocketwatch in his hand. "Not that they
learned anything from the experience. They're still
just as ill-mannered as before."
    Picard was appalled. Small wonder the Cala-
marain had been eager to exact their revenge on Q
back in the twenty-fourth century. "That's all you
have to say about it?" Picard demanded, offended
by Q's cavalier tone. "An entire species frozen into
suspended animation for heaven knows how long,
and you have the audacity to complain about their
manners? Didn't this atrocity teach you anything?
How could you not have realized how dangerous
this 0 creature was?"
    "Oh, don't overdramatize, Jean-Luc," Q replied,
a tad more defensively than usual. "Perhaps I was a
trifle blind, in an omniscient sort of way, but
ultimately it was a mere prank, nothing more. A
trifle mean-spirited, I concede, but there was no
real harm done, not permanently. In the grand
cosmic scheme of things, our ionized friends were
merely inconvenienced, not actually injured in any
way that need concern us here." He shrugged his
shoulders. "Can I help it if the Calamarain didn't
see the funny side of it?"
    "If what I witnessed just now was nothing more
than a prank," Picard declared indignantly, "then I
shudder to think what you would consider genuine
maliciousness."
    Q gave Picard a smile that chilled the captain's
blood. "You should," he said.

Chapter Three

"REG?" DEANNA ASKED BETWEEN tWO claps of thun-
der. "Are you feeling all right?"
    Riker glanced over his shoulder at Barclay, who
was manning the primary aft science station. The
nervous lieutenant was looking a bit green, possi-
bly from the constant shaking caused by the assault
of the Calamarain. Despite the best efforts of the
Enterprise's inertial dampers, the bridge continued
to lurch from side to side, a far cry from the usual
smooth ride. The rocking sensation reminded
Riker of an Alaskan fishing vessel he'd served on as
a teen, but surely it wasn't bad enough to make
anyone nauseous, was it?
    Barclay started to reply, then clapped both hands
over his mouth. Riker rolled his eyes and hoped the
queasy crewman would not have to bolt for the
crew head. Barclay was a good man, but sometimes
Riker wondered how he ever got through the Star-
fleet screening process. Behind the command area,
Baeta Leyoro snorted disdainfully.
    "That will be enough, Lieutenant," Riker in-
structed her. Maintaining morale under such ardu-
ous conditions was hard enough without the crew
sniping at each other, even if he half sympathized
with the security chief's response. "How are our
shields holding up?"
    "Sixteen percent and sinking," Leyoro re-
sponded. She glared at the tempest upon the view-
screen.
    Riker nodded grimly. They needed to find some
way to retaliate. He would have preferred a more
peaceful resolution to this conflict, but they were
rapidly running out of options. Unfortunately,
conventional weapons had thus far proven ineffec-
tive against their attacker; phasers had not discour-
aged the Calamarain, whose close quarters to the
Enterprise precluded the use of quantum torpe-
does. Maybe, he mused, the Calamarain required a
more specialized deterrent.
    Lightning flashed across the viewscreen, and an
unusually violent shock wave rocked the bridge,
interrupting Riker's thoughts and slamming him
into the back of the captain's chair. His jaw snapped
shut so suddenly he narrowly avoided biting off the
tip of his tongue. To his left, he heard Deanna gasp
in alarm, but whether she was reacting to the
sudden impact or the Calamarain's inflamed emo-
 tions he couldn't begin to guess. At the conn,
 Ensign Clarze stabbed at his controls in a desperate
 effort to stabilize their flight but met with only
 mixed results. The floor beneath Riker's feet
 pitched and yawed like a shuttle going through an
 unstable wormhole. Even Data had to strain to
 keep his balance, digging his fingertips into the
 armrests of his chair. We can't take much more of
 this, he thought.
    As if to prove the point, Riker felt his stomach
turn over abruptly. Oh, no, he thought. He identi-
fied the sensation at once, even before he spotted a
puddle of spilled coolant, released during an earlier
impact, lifting off from the floor and floating
through the air, forming an oily globule only a few
meters away. "We have lost gravity generation
throughout decks one through fourteen of the
saucer section," Data confirmed.
    At least we didn't lose the entire network, Riker
thought. The ship's internal gravitation system was
divided into five overlapping regions; from the
sound of it, they had lost gravity in about half of
the saucer. In theory, the entire battle section of the
ship, including engineering, still had gravity, but
for how much longer? This latest technical mishap
provided an eloquent testament to the Calamar-
ain's offensive capabilities. It took a lot to take out
the gravity generators; even with a total power loss,
the superconducting stators that were the heart of
the graviton generators were supposed to keep
spinning for up to six hours. He couldn't remember
the last time he had experienced zero gravity
anywhere aboard the Enterprise, except in the
holodecks, where reduced gravity was sometimes
employed for recreational purposes.
    Starfleet training included zero-G exercises, of
course, but Riker could only hope that the rest of
the crew didn't feel as rusty as he did. The last time
he'd actually done without gravity had been during
his short-lived flight on Zefram Cochrane's Phoe-
nix, and that had hardly been a combat situation,
at least from his perspective. Even the most primi-
tive shuttle had come equipped with its own gravi-
ty for the last hundred years or so. We're not used to
this anymore, he worried, wishing he'd scheduled
more zero-G drills before now.
    Still, the bridge crew did their best to adjust to
the new conditions. Keeping a watchful eye on the
drifting coolant, Clarze ducked his haitiess dome
out of its way. Deanna's hair, already shaken loose
by the previous jolts, snaked Medusa-like about her
face, obscuring her vision, until she neatly tucked
the errant strands back into place. Behind and
above the command area, a scowling Baeta Leyoro
had lost contact with the floor and begun floating
toward the ceiling. Executing an impressive back-
ward somersault, she grabbed the top of the tactical
podium with both hands, then pulled her body
downward until she was once more correctly ori-
ented above the floor. "Get me some gravity
boots," she snapped at the nearest security officer,
who rushed to fulfill the command.
    Following standard procedure, Riker clicked his
chair's emergency restraining belt into place, and
heard Deanna doing the same. The hovering blob
of spilled coolant wafted dangerously near Data's
face, and Riker anticipated a gooey mess, but the
air purification system caught hold of it and sucked
the viscous mess into an intake valve mounted in
the ceiling, just as similar valves cleared the atmo-
sphere of the ashes and bits of debris produced by
the battle. Thank goodness something's still work-
ing right, Riker thought. "Ensign Berglund," he
addressed the young officer at the aft engineering
station, "any chance we can get the gravity back on
line?"
    "It doesn't look good," she reported, holding on
tightly to a vertical station divider with her free
hand. "I'm reading a systemic failure all through
the alpha network." She perused the readouts at
her console avidly. "Maybe if they try reinitializing
the entire system from main engineering?"
    Riker shook his head. He didn't want Geordi
and his people concentrating on anything except
keeping the shields up and running. "Gravity is a
luxury we'll just have to do without for a while."
Easier said than done, he realized. Humanoid
bodies were simply not designed to function with-
out gravity, especially so suddenly; pretty soon,
Barclay wouldn't be the only bridge member sea-
sick. He tapped his combadge. "Riker to Crusher.
I need a medical officer with a hypospray full of
librocalozene right away."
    "Affirmative," Beverly replied. She didn't ask for
an explanation; Riker realized sickbay must have
lost gravity as well. "Ogawa is on her way."
    By foot or by flight? Riker wondered, grateful
that the turbolifts did not require gravity to operate
properly. "Thank you, Doctor." Glancing around
the bridge, he saw that Leyoro's security team
was already distributing magnetic boots from the
emergency storage lockers to every crew member
on the bridge, starting with those standing at the
aft and perimeter stations. The Angosian lieuten-
ant stomped her own boots loudly on the floor as
she regained her footing. "Good work," he told her
tersely, indicating her team's rapid deployment.
    "Standard procedure," she replied, shrugging. "I
figure we're better off facing these stupid BOVs
with our feet firmly on the ground."
    "BOVs?" Riker asked. He didn't recognize the
term, presumably a bit of slang from the Tarsian
War.
    Leyoro flashed him a wolfish grin. "Better Off
Vaporized," she said.
    That might be a bit redundant in this case, he
thought, considering the gaseous nature of their
foes. He appreciated the sentiment, though; he was
getting pretty tired of being knocked around him-
self. But what could you do to an enemy who had
already been reduced to plasma? That was the real
problem, when you got down to it. Explosions and
projectiles weren't much good against an undiffer-
entiated pile of gases. The Calamarain had al-
ready blown themselves to atoms, and it hadn't
hurt them one bit.
    A partial retreat was also an option, he recalled.
True, they couldn't outrun the Calamarain on
impulse alone--that much he knew already--but
maybe they could find a nebula or an asteroid belt
that might provide them with some shelter from
the storm, interfere with the Calamarain's on-
slaught. "Mr. Clarze," he barked, raising his voice
to be heard above the thunder vibrating through
the walls of the starship. "Is there anything nearby
that we could hide behind or within?" Such a
sanctuary, he knew, would have to be within im-
pulse range as long as their warp engines were
down.
    The Deltan helmsman quickly consulted the
readouts on his monitor. "Nothing, sir," he re-
ported glumly, "except the barrier, of course."
    The barrier, Riker thought, sitting bolt upright in
the chair. Now, there's an ideal
    The gravity was out, his little sister was crying,
and Milo Faal didn't know what to do. Ordinarily
weightlessness might have been kind of fun, but not
at the moment. All the loud noises and shaking had
upset Kinya, and none of his usual tricks for
calming her were working at all. His eyes searched
the family's quarters aboard the Enterprise in
search of something he might use to reassure the
toddler or distract her, but nothing presented itself;
Kinya had already rejected every toy he had repli-
cated, even the Wind Dancer hand puppet with the
wiggly ears. The discarded playthings floated like
miniature dirigibles throughout the living room,
propelled by the force with which Kinya hurled
each of them away. Not even this miraculous sight
was enough to end her tantrum. "C'mon, Kinya,"
the eleven-year-old boy urged the little Betazoid
girl hovering in front of him, a couple centimeters
above the floor. Milo himself sat cross-legged atop
a durable Starfleet-issue couch, being careful not to
make any sudden movements while the gravity was
gone; as long as he remained at rest he hoped to
stay at rest. "Don't you want to sing a song?" He
launched into the first few verses of "The Laughing
Vulcan and His Dog'--usually the toddler's favor-
itembut she refused to take the bait, instead cater-
wauling at the top of her lungs. Even worse than the
ear-piercing vocalizations, though, were the waves
of emotional distress pouring out of her, flooding
Milo's empathic senses with his sisters's fear and
unhappiness.
    An experienced Betazoid babysitter, Milo was
adept at tuning out the uncontrolled emanations of
small children, but this was almost more than he
could take. "Please, Kinya," he entreated the tod-
dler, "show me what a big girl you can be."
    Such appeals were usually effective, but not this
time. She kicked her tiny feet against the carpet,
lifting her several centimeters above the floor. Milo
leaned forward carefully and tapped her on the
head to halt the momentum carrying her upward.
 Kinya howled so loudly that Milo was surprised the
 bridge wasn't calling to complain about the noise.
 Not that Kinya was just misbehaving; Milo could
 feel how frightened his sister was, and he didn't
 blame her one bit. To be honest, Milo was getting
 pretty apprehensive himself. This trip aboard the
 Enterprise was turning out to be a lot more intimi-
 dating than he had expected.
    Since their father was missing, like always, and
no one else would tell them what was going on,
Milo had eavesdropped telepathically on the crew
and found out that the Enterprise was engaged in
battle with a dangerous alien life-form. And I
thought this trip would be dull, Milo recalled,
shaking his head. He could use a dose of healthy
boredom right now.
    A thick plane of transparent aluminum, mounted
in the outer wall of the living room, had previously
offered an eye-catching view of the stars zipping
by. Now the rectangular window revealed only the
ominous sight of swollen thunderclouds churning
violently outside the ship. He wasn't sure, but,
judging from what he had picked up from the
occasional stray thoughts, it sounded like the
clouds actually were the aliens, no matter how
creepy that was to think about. The billowing
vapors reminded Milo of an electrical tornado that
had once frightened Milo when he was very young,
during a temporary breakdown of Betazed's envi-
ronmental controls. His baby sister was too small
to remember that incident, but the thunder was
loud and scary enough to make her cry even louder
each time the clouds crashed together.
    Please be quiet, he thought at the toddler. His
throat was sore from emotion, so he spoke to her
mind-to-mind. Everything will be okay, he prom-
ised, hoping he was thinking the truth. There, there.
Ssssh!
    Kinya listened a little. Her insistent bawling
faded to sniffles, and Milo wiped his sister's nose
with a freshly replicated handkerchief. The little
girl was still scared; Milo could sense her acute
anxiety, like a nagging toothache that wouldn't go
away, but Kinya became semi-convinced that her
big brother could protect her. Milo was both
touched and terrified by the child's faith in him. It
was a big responsibility, maybe bigger than he
could handle.
    If only Morn were here, he thought for maybe the
millionth time, taking care to block his pitiful plea
from the other child. But his mother was dead and
nothing would ever change that, no matter how
hard he wished otherwise. And his father might as
well be dead, at least as far as his children were
concerned.
    Despite his best efforts, Kinya must have sensed
his frustration. Tears streamed from a pair of large
brown eyes, gliding away into the air faster than
Milo could wipe them, while her face turned as red
as Klingon disruptors. His sister hovered about the
carpet, surrounded by all the drifting toys and
treats. Kinya grabbed a model Enterprise by its
starboard warp nacelle and began hammering the
air with it, frustrated that she could no longer reach
the floor with it. Tossing the toy ship aside, she
snatched the Wind Dancer puppet as it came
within her grasp and twisted its ears mercilessly.
Kinya managed to abuse the toys without missing a
note in her tearful ululations. Milo wanted to
borrow two cushions from the couch to cover his
own ears, but even that wouldn't have been enough
to block out her outpouring of emotion. It's not
fair, he thought angrily. I shouldn't have to deal
with all this on my own. I'm only eleven/
    Then, to his surprise and relief, he sensed his
father approaching, feeling his presence in his
mind only seconds before he heard his voice in the
corridor outside. His father was very irate, Milo
could tell, and seemed to be arguing with someone,
speaking loudly enough to be heard through the
closed steel door of the guest suite. Now what? he
wondered.
    "This is intolerable!" Lem Faal insisted as the
door slid open. He was a slender, middle-aged man
with receding brown hair, wearing a pale blue lab
coat over a tan suit. "Starfleet Science will hear
about this, I promise you that. I have colleagues on
the Executive Council, including the head of the
Daystrom Institute. You tell your Commander
Riker that. He'll be lucky to command a garbage
scow after I'm through with him!"
 Milo was amazed. Ever since Mom died, his
father had been distant, distracted, and, okay,
irritable sometimes, but Milo had never heard him
go all Klingon at another adult like this. What
could have happened to upset him like this? Look-
ing beyond his father, he spotted a security officer
standing outside the doorway, holding on to his
father's arm. Both men wore standard-issue gravity
boots, and Milo wondered if the gravity had gone
out all over the Enterprise. "I'm sorry, Professor,"
the Earthman said, "but, for your own safety, the
commander thinks it best that you remain in your
quarters for the time being." Milo sensed a degree
of impatience within the officer, as if he had
already explained his position several times before.
    "But my work," Faal protested as the officer
firmly but gently guided him into the living quar-
ters. Milo hopped off the couch and launched
himself toward his father for a closer look at what
was going on. "You have to let me go to Engineer-
ing. It's vital that I complete the preparations for
my experiment. All my research depends on it. My
life's work!"
    Because of his illness, Faal looked much frailer
than his years would suggest. His whole body
trembled as he railed against the unfortunate
guard. Nearing the doorway, Milo slowed his flight
by bouncing back and forth between facing walls.
He winced every time he heard his father wheeze;
each breath squeaked out of his disease-ravaged
lungs.
     "Maybe later," the officer hedged, although Milo
 could tell, as his father surely could, that it wasn't
 going to happen. The guard let go of Faal's arm and
 stepped back into the corridor. "There are extra
 boots in the emergency cupboards," he said, nod-
 ding in Milo's direction. "I'11 be out here if you
 need anything," he said. "Computer, seal doorway.
 Security protocol gamma-one."
    "So I'm under house arrest, is that it?" Faal
challenged him. He grabbed the edge of the door
and tried to stop it from sliding shut. "You dim-
witted Pakled clone, don't you understand what is
at stake? I'm on the verge of the greatest break-
through since the beginning of warp travel, an
evolutionary leap that will open up whole new
horizons and possibilities for humanoids. And
your idiotic Commander Riker is willing to sacri-
fice all that just because some quasi-intelligent gas
cloud is making a fuss. It's insane, don't you see
that?"
    "I'm sorry, sir," the officer said once more,
maintaining a neutral expression. "I have my or-
ders." Faal tried to keep the door open, but his
enfeebled fingers were no match against the inex-
orable progress of the steel door. His hands fell
away as the door slid shut, shielding the unfortu-
nate officer from further scorn.
    Gasping for breath, the scientist leaned against
the closed doorway, his chest heaving. His fruitless
tirade had obviously cost him dearly. His face was
flushed. His large brown eyes were bloodshot. He
ran his hand anxiously through his hair, leaving
stringy brown tufts jutting out in many different
directions. Milo could feel his father's exhaustion
radiating from him. Even with no gravity to fight
against, it wore Milo out just watching him. "Are
you all right, Dad?" he asked, even though they
both knew he wasn't. "Dad?"
    In a telepathic society, there was no way Milo's
father could conceal his illness from his children,
but he had never really spoken to them about it,
either. Milo had been forced to ask the school
computer about "Iverson's disease" on his own. A
lot of the medical terminology had been too ad-
vanced for him, but he had understood what "in-
curable" meant, not to mention "terminal."
    His father reached into the pocket of his lab coat
and produced a loaded hypospray. With a shaky
hand, he pressed the instrument against his shoul-
der. Milo heard a low hiss, then watched as his
father's breathing grew more regular, if not terribly
stronger. None of this came as a surprise to the
boy; he had asked the computer about "polyadren-
aline," too. He knew it only offered temporary
relief from his father's symptoms.
    Sometimes he wished his father had died in that
accident instead of his mother, especially since
Dad was dying anyway. This private thought, kept
carefully locked away where no one could hear,
always brought a pang of guilt, but it was too strong
to be denied entirely. It~ just so unfair/Morn couM
have lived for years ....
     At the moment, though, he was simply glad to
 have his father back at all. "Where have you been,
 Dad?" he asked. He grabbed the doorframe and
 pulled himself downward until his feet were once
 more planted on the carpet. "The ship keeps get-
 ting knocked around and everything started float-
 ing and Kinya won't stop crying and I hear the ship
 is being attacked by aliens and we might get blown
 to pieces. Do you know what the aliens want? Did
 anyone tell you what's going on?"
     "What's that?" his father replied, noticing Milo
 for the first time. He breathed in deeply, the air
 whistling in and out of his congested chest, and
 steadied himself. "What are you talking about?"
    "The aliens!" Milo repeated. Fortunately, their
father's arrival had momentarily silenced the tod-
dler, who teetered on tiny legs before lifting off
from the floor entirely. "I know it's not polite to
listen in on the humans' thoughts, but the alarms
were going off and the floor kept rocking and I
could hear explosions or whatever going off outside
and you were nowhere around and I just had to
know what was happening. Have you seen the
battle, Dad? Is Captain Picard winning?"
    "Picard is gone," Faal said brusquely. A plush
toy kitten drifted in front of his face and he
irritably batted it away. "Some insignificant moron
named Riker is in charge now, someone with no
understanding or respect for the importance of my
work." He seemed to be talking to himself more
than to Milo. "How dare he try to stop me like this!
He's nothing more than a footnote in history. A
flea. A speck."
    This was not the kind of reassurance Milo hoped
for and needed from his father. He~ worried more
about his stupid experiment than us, he realized,
same as always. He tried to remember that his
father was very sick, that he wasn't himself these
days, but he couldn't help feeling resentful again.
"What happened to the captain?" he asked anx-
iously. "Did the aliens kill him?"
    "Please," his father said impatiently, dismissing
Milo's questions with a wave of his hand before
creeping slowly toward his own bedroom. "I can't
deal with this right now," he muttered. "I need to
think. There has to be something I can do, some
way I can convince them. My work is too impor-
tant. Everything depends on it .... "
    Milo stared at this father's back in disbelief. He
didn't even try to conceal his shock and sense of
betrayal. How could Father just ignore him at a
time like this? Never mind me, he thought, what
about my sister? He looked over his shoulder at
Kinya, who was watching her father's departure
with wide, confused eyes. "Daddy?" she asked
plaintively.
    Lightning flashed right outside the living room,
followed by a boom that sounded like it was
coming from the very walls of the guest suite. The
overhead lights flickered briefly, and Milo saw the
force field reinforcing the window sparkle on and
off like a toy Borg shield whose batteries were
 running low. The momentary darkness panicked
 the toddler. Tears streaming from her eyes and
 trailing behind her like the tail of a comet, Kinya
 bounced after her father, arms outstretched and
 beseeching. I know how she feels, Milo thought,
 breathing a sigh of relief as Faal grudgingly plucked
 the tearful girl from the air. "About time," Milo
 murmured, not caring whether his father heard
 him or not.
    But instead of clasping Kinya to his chest, the
scientist kept the whimpering child at arm's length
as he handed Kinya over to Milo, who was momen-
tarily surprised by how weightless she felt. "By the
Chalice," his father wheezed in an exasperated
tone, "can't you handle this?" The model Enter-
prise cruised past his head, provoking a disgusted
scowl. "And do something about these blasted
toys. This is ridiculous." He glanced over Milo at
the tempest beyond the transparent window.
"They're just clouds. How can clouds ruin all my
plans?" he mumbled to himself before disappear-
ing into his private bedchamber. An interior door-
way slid shut, cutting him off from his children
    The total absence of gravity did nothing to
diminish the anger and disillusionment that
crashed down on Milo in the wake of his father's
retreat. Without warning, he found himself stuck
with a semi-hysterical sibling and a murderous rage
he could scarcely contain. No, he thought emphati-
cally. You can't do this. I won't let you.
 Summoning up as much psychic energy as he
could muster, he willed his thoughts through the
closed door and straight into his father's skull.
Help us, please, he demanded, determined to break
through the man's detachment. You can't ignore us
anymore.
    For one brief instant, Milo sensed a tremor of
remorse and regret within Lem Faal's mind; then,
so quickly that it was over even before Milo
realized what had happened, an overpowering
burst of psychic force shoved him roughly out of
his father's consciousness. Mental walls, more im-
pervious than the duranium door sealing Faal's
bedroom, thudded into place between Milo and his
father, shutting him out completely.
    Unable to comprehend what had just occurred,
Kinya blubbered against her brother's chest while,
biting down on his lower lip, Milo fought back
tears of his own. I hate you, he thought at his
father, heedless of who else might hear him. I don't
care if you're dying, I hate you forever.
    On the bridge, six levels away, Deanna Troi felt a
sudden chill, and an unaccountable certainty that
something very precious had just broken beyond
repair.

    Still looking slightly green, Lieutenant Barclay
nevertheless stood by his post at the science sta-
tion. His long face pale and clammy, he awkwardly
clambered into the magnetic boots he found wait-
ing there. Judging from his miserable expression,
the only good thing about the total absence of
 gravity upon the bridge was that it couldn't possi-
 bly make him any sicker.
     Riker barely noticed Barday's distress, his atten-
 tion consumed by the daring but risky stratagem
 that had just presented itself to his imagination.
 "Mr. Data," he asked urgently, "if we did enter the
 galactic barrier, what are the odds the Calamarain
 would follow us?"
     "Will!" Deanna whispered to him, alarmed.
 "Surely you're not thinking..." Her words trailed
 off as she spotted the resolute look on Riker's face
 and the daredevil gleam in his eyes. "Are you sure
 this is wise?"
    Maybe not wise, but necessary, he thought. The
Calamarain were literally shaking the Enterprise
apart; the failure of the gravity generators was only
the latest symptom of the beating they had been
taking ever since the cloud-creatures first attacked.
Even if Data managed to invent some ingenious
new way of fighting back against the Calamarain,
they would never be able to implement it without
some sort of respite. At that very moment, an ear-
shattering crash of thunder buffeted the ship, toss-
ing the bridge from side to side with whiplash
intensity. Duranium flooring buckled and a foun-
tain of white-hot sparks erupted only a few centi-
meters from Riker's boots. Feeling the heat upon
his legs, he drew back his feet instinctively even
as a security officer, Caitlin Plummer, hurried
to douse the blaze with a handheld extinguisher.
Startled cries and exclamations reached Riker's
ears as similar fires broke out around the bridge.
With only one foot securely embedded in his
gravity boots, Barclay hopped backward as his
science console spewed a cascade of orange and
golden sparks. His shoulder bumped into Lieuten-
ant Leyoro, who drove him away with a fierce stare
that seemed to frighten him even more than the
flames. "E-excuse me," he stammered. "I'll just
stand over here if you don't mind .... "
    Despite the tumult, Data promptly responded to
Riker's query. "Without a better understanding of
the Calamarain's psychology, I cannot accurately
predict their behavior should we penetrate the
barrier."
    Of course, Riker reprimanded himself, I should
have guessed as much. "What about us? How long
could we last in there?"
    Data replied so calmly that Riker would have bet
a stack of gold-pressed latinurn that the android
had deactivated his emotion chip for the duration
of the crisis. "With our shields already failing, I
cannot guarantee that the ship would survive at all
once we passed beyond the event horizon of the
barrier. Furthermore, even if the Enterprise with-
stood the physical pressures of the barrier, the
overwhelming psychic energies at work within it
would surely pose a hazard to the entire crew."
    "What about Professor Faal's plan?" he asked,
grasping at straws. "Can we try opening up an
 artificial wormhole through the barrier, maybe use
 that as an escape route?" It would be ironic, Riker
 thought, if Faal's experiment, the very thing that
 had ignited this crisis, proved to be their ultimate
 salvation. Still, he was more than willing to let Faal
 have the last laugh if it meant preserving the
 Enterprise. Lord knows he didn't have any better
 ideas.
    Data dashed his hopes, meager as they were.
"The professor's theory and technology remain
untested," he reminded Riker. "Furthermore, to
initiate the wormhole it would be necessary to
launch the modified torpedo containing the profes-
sor's magneton pulse emitter into the barrier, but
there is a ninety-eight-point-six-four percent prob-
ability that the Calamarain would destroy any
torpedo we launch before it could reach the barri-
er." Data cocked his head as he gave the matter
further thought. "In any event, even if we could
successfully implement the experiment, there is no
logical reason why the Calamarain could not sim-
ply follow the Enterprise through the wormhole."
    Damn, Riker thought, discouraged by Data's
cold assessment of his desperate scheme. The first
officer was willing to gamble with the ship's safety
if necessary, but there was no point in committing
suicide, which seemed to be what Data thought of
Riker's plan. Never mind the wormhole, he railed
inwardly, I should have tried entering the barrier
earlier, when our shields were in better shape. But
how could he have known just how bad things
would get? Why wouldn't the Calamarain listen to
reason?
    Turbolift doors slid open and Alyssa Ogawa
rushed onto the bridge, a full medkit trailing
behind her like a balloon on a leash. Gravity boots
kept her rooted to the floor. "Reporting as ordered,
sir," she said to Riker.
    "Thank you, Nurse," he answered. "Please give
everyone on the bridge, except Mr. Data, of course,
a dose of librocalozene to head off any zero-G
sickness." He glanced behind him where Barclay
was still keeping a safe distance from both the
smoking science console and Lieutenant Leyoro.
"You can start with Mr. Barclay."
    "Ummm, I'm allergic to librocalozene," Barclay
whimpered, clutching his stomach. "Do you have
isomethozine instead?
Ogawa nodded and adjusted the hypospray.
Riker repressed a groan. He didn't have time to
deal with this. "Do Ensign Clarze next," he ad-
vised Ogawa. The last thing he needed was a
queasy navigator. As the nurse went to work, he
returned his attention to Data.
    "One further consideration regarding the barri-
er," the android added. "Starfleet records indicate
that the danger posed by the barrier's psychic
component increases proportionally to the tele-
pathic abilities of certain humanoid species." He
looked pointedly at Troi. "Please forgive me,
 Counselor. I do not mean to alarm you, but it is
 important that Commander Riker fully compre-
 hend what is at risk."
     "I understand, Data," she said, not entirely
 concealing the anxiety in her voice.
     So do I, Riker thought. If he did dare to brave to
 barrier, Deanna would almost surely be the first
 casualty. Not to mention Professor Faal and his
 children, he realized. They were from Betazed, too,
 and, being fully Betazoid, even more telepathically
 gifted than Deanna. Flying into the barrier would
 surely doom the children. Could he actually give
 that command, even to save the rest of the crew?
    "Do whatever you have to, Will," Deanna urged
him. "Don't worry about me."
    How can I not? he asked her silently, already
dreading the pain of her loss. But Deanna was a
Starfleet officer. In theory, she risked her life every
time they encountered a new life-form or phenom-
enon. He couldn't let his personal feelings influ-
ence his decision. If only I could switch off my own
emotion chip, he thought.
    "Shields down to twelve percent," Leyoro an-
nounced. She didn't remind Riker that time was
running out. She didn't need to. Working briskly
and efficiently, Ogawa pressed her hypospray
against Leyoro's upper arm, then moved on to
Deanna. Riker hoped she wasn't wasting her time;
if their shields collapsed entirely, they'd all have a
lot more to worry about than a touch of space
sickness. Too bad we can't inoculate the crew
against a tachyon barrage.
    Frustration gnawed at his guts. "Blast it," he
cursed. "We can't stay here and we can't risk the
barrier. So what in blazes are we supposed to do?"
    To his surprise, a tremulous voice piped up.
"Excuse me, Commander," Barclay said, "but I
may have an idea."
"I DON'T UNDERSTAND," THE YOUNG Q SAID. "What
are we doing back here? I mean, it's a fascinating
site, but I thought you'd seen enough of it."
    Looking on, quite unseen, Picard wondered the
same. He found himself once more facing the legen-
dary alien artifact known as the Guardian of For-
ever, as did 0 and young Q. The immeasurably
ancient stone portal looked exactly as it had the first
time Q had brought him here: a rough-hewn torus,
standing five meters high at its peak and surrounded
by crumbling ruins of vaguely Grecian design. It
was through this portal, he recalled, that the young
Q had first drawn 0 into reality as Picard knew it.

"Never again my plans gone astray,
Never again my life locked away,

Never again to die,
Never again, say L..."

    0 sang softly to himself in a voice little more
than a whisper; the song seemed to have special
meaning to him. Could it refer, Picard wondered,
to the recent debacle with the Coulalakritous? The
stranger's archaic garments, he observed, no longer
bore the scars of that confrontation. 0 limped
across the rubble-strewn wasteland until he was
directly in front of the Guardian. "Listen to me,
you decrepit doorway," he addressed it, placing
his hands upon his hips and striking a defiant
pose. The shifting winds blew swirls of gritty
powder around his ankles. "I'm not fond of you
and I know you don't approve of me, but you're in
no position to be picky about whom you choose to
serve. I'm stronger now than when last we met,
and getting more like my old self with every tick of
the clock." He bent over and lifted a fist-sized
chunk of dusty marble from the ground, then held
it out before him. The solid marble burst into
flames upon his palm, but 0 did not flinch from
the fiery display, continuing to hold the burning
marble until it was completely incinerated. When
nothing was left but a handful of smoking ashes,
he flung the smoldering residue onto the ground
between him and the portal. "I trust we under-
stand each other."
 "I COMPREHEND YOUR MEANING," the
 Guardian said, its stentorian voice echoing off the
 fallen marble columns and shattered temples
 around it. "WHAT AND WHERE DO YOU DE-
 SIRE TO BEHOLD?"
    0 glanced back at the young Q, who sat upon a
set of cracked granite steps several meters behind
his companion, looking confused but intrigued. "I
knew I could make this antiquated archway see
reason," he told Q with a conspiratorial wink, "and
the question's not where, but whom." Turning back
toward the portal, he opened his mouth again, but
what next emerged from his lips bore no resem-
blance to any language Picard had ever heard, with
or without access to a Universal Translator. In-
deed, he didn't seem to hear the words so much as
he felt them seeping into his skin, burrowing
directly into some primordial back chamber of his
brain. He looked away from 0, back at Q's earlier
self, and saw that the youth appeared just as baffled
as Picard.
    "What sort of language is that?" Picard asked
the older Q standing beside him. He placed his
hands over his ears, but the sounds--or whatever
they were--still penetrated his mind. "What is he
saying?"
    Q shrugged. "I didn't know then," he said in a
fatalistic tone, "and I don't know now. A call to
arms, I imagine, or maybe just a list of names and
addresses." He leaned against a tilted marble col-
umn and shook his head sadly. "What's important
is, they heard him."
    "Who?" Picard demanded, shouting in hopes of
drowning out the unsettling effect of O's inhuman
ululation. It didn't work, but Q managed to hear
him anyway.
    "Them," he said venomously. He pointed past
the imperious figure of 0 to the open portal itself.
As before, a thick white mist began to stream from
the top of the archway, spilling over onto the arid
ground at O's feet. Peering through the haze, Picard
saw a procession of historical images rushing be-
fore his eyes like a holonovel on fast-forward. The
races and cultures depicted were unfamiliar to him,
and Picard was extraordinarily well versed in the
history of much of the Alpha Quadrant, but, as one
image gave way to another at frightening speed, he
thought he could begin to discern a recurring
theme:
    Larval invertebrates emerge from silken cocoons
and proceed to devour their insectile parents. Ado-
lescent humanoids, covered in downy chartreuse
feathers, riot in the streets of an elegant and
sophisticated metropolis, toppling avian idols and
putting ancient aeries to the torch. A lunar colony
declares its independence, unleashing a devastating
salvo of nuclear missiles against its homeworld.
    Generational conflict, Picard realized, seizing on
the common thread. The new violently destroying
the old.
    0 stretched out his hand toward the portal,
beckoning with his fingers, and a figure emerged
 from the haze, stepping out from the parade of
 matricidal and patricidal horrors to assume form
 and definition outside the portal. He was a silver-
 haired humanoid of angelic demeanor, resplendent
 in shimmering amethyst robes that billowed about
 him from the neck down. A sea-green aura sur-
 rounded him, blurring his features somewhat, and,
 despite his humanoid mien, he failed to achieve
 any true solidity, resembling a glimmering mirage
 more than an actual being of flesh and blood. He
 did not look particularly dangerous, but Picard
 suspected that first impressions might be decep-
 tive, especially where any confederate of O's was
 concerned.
     "Gorgan, my old friend," 0 greeted him, lapsing
 into conventional speech. "It's been too long."
    "Longer for you, I suspect, than for any other."
Gorgan's deep voice echoed strangely among the
barren ruins, sounding artificially amplified. He
tipped his head deferentially, revealing an immac-
ulate silver mane that swept back and away from
his broad, expansive brow. Beneath the greenish
glow, his face seemed pinkish in hue. "I am at your
service, my liege."
    0 accepted the other's expression of fealty with-
out question. "We have plenty to discuss, but stand
aside now while I round up more of our comrades
from departed days."
    Gorgan stepped away from the portal, seemingly
content to await O's convenience, but the young Q
was incapable of such patience. "Wait just one
nanosecond," he called out, springing up from the
battered stone steps. "I'm not so sure about this. I
agreed to accept responsibility for you, not...
whoever this is." He gestured toward Gorgan, who
regarded him with what looked like wry amuse-
ment. The newcomer's apparent lack of concern
about Q's identity and objections only rankled the
youth further. "I insist you tell me what in the
Continuum you think you're doing."
    "I'm not thinking anything," 0 said brusquely.
"I'm doing it, and never mind the Continuum." He
reached out once more for the portal and there was
a momentary flicker within its aperture as the
Guardian appeared to shift its focus. A flustered Q,
having clearly lost control of the situation, stum-
bled hesitantly toward 0. Despite his evident un-
ease, he also appeared consumed by curiosity.
"Don't worry so much," 0 reassured him. "I prom-
ise you won't be bored."
    "You can say that again," the older Q remarked
gloomily.
    Visions from the past or future cascaded beneath
the arch of the Guardian, capturing the attention of
both the young Q and Picard. Although Gorgan's
face remained benignly serene, an avid gleam crept
into his eyes as he watched the historical vistas
unfold:
    Tribes of fur-clad savages hurl rocks and sharp-
ened bones at each other amid a primeval forest.
Mighty armies clash on battlegrounds awash in
turquoise blood, the ring of metal against metal
echoing alongside the cries of the wounded and the
dying. A fleet of sailing ships sinks beneath the
waves of an alien sea, their wooden masts and hulls
torn asunder by blazing fireballs flung by catapults
upon the shore. Mechanized steel dreadnoughts
roll through the blasted rubble of an embattled city
while bombs fall like poisonous spores from the
smoke-choked sky, blooming into flowery displays
of red-orange conflagration. In the hazardous
confines of a teeming asteroid belt, daring star
pilots flying sleek one-man vessels wage a nerve-
wracking, hyperkinetic, deep-space dogfight, exe-
cuting impossible turns as they fire coruscating
blasts of pure destructive energy at enemy space-
craft performing equally risky maneuvers; the eter-
nal night of space lights up like the dawn for a
fraction of a second every time a sizzling beam
strikes home or a brazenly fragile ship collides with
an asteroid that got too close.
    Picard had no difficulty identifying the theme of
this grisly pageant. War, he realized, appalled by
the sheer bloody waste of it all even as he was
struck by the foolhardy courage of the combatants.
War, pure and simple.
    Called forth from the billowing fog, another
entity emerged from the time portal. Even more so
than Gorgan, however, this being lacked (or per-
haps declined) human form, manifesting as a flick-
ering sphere of crimson energy spinning fiercely
about two meters above the ground, casting a faint
red radiance on the dust and debris below. No
sound emerged from the sphere, nor did its passage
produce so much as a breeze to rustle the gritty
powder it glided over. Whatever this entity was, it
seemed even more immaterial than the gaseous
Coulalakritous, consisting like Gorgan of undi-
luted energy, not matter at all. Much like the energy
being who impregnated Deanna Troi several years
ago, Picard recalled, or perhaps the entity who
possessed me during the Antican-Selay peace nego-
tiations. Indeed, Starfleet had discovered so many
noncorporeal life-forms over the last couple cen-
turies that Picard sometimes wondered if sentient
energy was actually as common throughout the
galaxy as organic life had proven to be. Judging
from their appearance, both Gorgan and this new
entity provided support for such a supposition.
    "Hello again, (*)," 0 said to the shimmering
sphere, and Picard hoped he would never need to
pronounce that name himself, if that was in fact
what the energy creature was called. "Welcome to a
whole new arena, billions upon billions of new
worlds, all waiting for us."
    If(*) responded to 0, it did not do so in any form
Picard could hear. Instead it simply spun silently in
the air, undisturbed by the errant gusts of wind
that blew perpetually throughout the ruins. Mov-
ing away from the Guardian, it passed straight
 through a solid marble column, emerging un-
 changed from the other side of the truncated
 masonry. Perhaps at O's direction, it joined Gorgan
 at the sidelines, hovering a few centimeters above
 the robed man's head. The crimson glow of (*)
 overlapped with the other's greenish aura, yielding
 a zone of brown shadows between them.
     Stalled halfway between the steps and 0, the
 young Q inspected the rotating sphere with inter-
 est, then remembered his doubts about this entire
 procedure. "See here, 0, I can't just stand by while
 you conduct all this... unauthorized immigra-
 tion. I don't know a thing about these entities
 you're so blithely importing into my multiverse."
 He strode forward and laid a restraining hand upon
 O's shoulder. "Can't you at least tell me what this is
 all about?"
    "All in good time," 0 said gruffly. Looking back
over his shoulder, he glowered at Q with enough
menace to make the younger being withdraw his
hand and step backward involuntarily. Q gulped
nervously, his eyes wide and uncertain. His gaze
fixed on his would-be mentor, he failed to notice
Gorgan and (*) advancing on him with deliberate,
predatory intent. A cruel smile appeared on the
humanoid's lips while the glowing sphere rotated
faster in anticipation. Gorgan's features shifted
behind his luminous aura, growing subtly more
bestial. The threat of violence, metaphysical or
otherwise, hung over the scene, although Picard
could not tell how much the young Q was aware of
his present jeopardy. All his anxious wariness
seemed directed at 0 and what he might do next.
Picard found himself in the odd position of sympa-
thizing with Q, even though, intellectually, he
recognized that the young Q could not possibly
suffer irreparable harm at this point in history
since he had to survive long enough to afflict Picard
in the future. Unless, he reluctantly acknowledged,
Q is about to throw another blasted time paradox
at me.
    To Picard's surprise, and the young Q's relief, 0
abruptly switched modes, adopting a more conge-
nial attitude. His eyes no longer intimidated and
his voice grew more ingratiating. Temporarily
turning his back on the Guardian, he strove to
allay Q's reservations while, unseen by Q, Gorgan
and (*) quietly retreated to their earlier posts.
"Unauthorized immigration? Really, Q, that
doesn't sound like you. You weren't so cautious
and conservative when you rescued me from that
loathsome limbo, or when you so eloquently ar-
gued my case before the Continuum. As I recall,
you stated pretty boldly that the Continuum could
use some fresh blood and new ideas. Well, here
they are," he said, an arm sweeping out to indicate
(*) and Gorgan. "Don't tell me you've changed
your mind now."
    "Well, no. Not exactly," Q replied. He glanced
over at Gorgan, who graced him with a beatific
smile entirely unlike the one he had affected while
 stalking Q from behind. "It's just that this is
 somewhat more than I had in mind."
     "You wanted the unknown," 0 reminded him.
 "You wanted to have an impact on the universe,
 bring about something new."
     "Yes, but..." Q stammered. "These beings...
 who are they exactly? What do they want?"
    "To help us, of course," 0 asserted, "in our grand
and glorious campaign to elevate the standards of
sentient life throughout this galaxy. What else?"
He beamed at the specter and the sphere lurking on
the periphery of the discussion. "I know these
faithful fellows from days gone by and can vouch
for them wholeheartedly. That must be good
enough to overcome any dismal doubts you might
have? After all, you vouched for me."
    "I suppose," Q said dubiously. He looked from 0
to the mysterious pair and back again, perhaps
realizing for the first time that he was distinctly
outnumbered. He sighed and squinted at the fog
streaming out of the time portal. "But how much
new blood exactly were you planning to extract
from that thing?"
    "Just one more old acquaintance," 0 promised,
grinning at Q's gradual acquiescence. "Then, trust
me, we'll have all the support we need to embark
on any crusade we choose... for the good of this
entire reality, naturally." He called upon the new-
comers to back up his claim. "Isn't that so, fellows?
You're with us through thick and thin, aren't you?"
"Absolutely," Gorgan purred. Something about
his manner brought an old phrase to Picard's
mind: First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. "I
look forward to continuing our work in this brave
new dimension, as I also anticipate getting to know
this fine young entity."
    His bodiless cohort merely hung in the air, its
crimson radiance pulsing like a heartbeat. Picard
found it hurt his eyes to stare at (*) for too long.
That's enough to give one a headache, he thought.
Not a pleasant prospect, this far from sickbay.
    "You know," the older Q commented. "I never
did warm to those two, especially that sanguinary
fellow spinning like a pinwheel over there. No
sense of subtlety whatsoever. You should have seen
what a slaughterhouse he made of Cheron later
on."
    Cheron? Picard vaguely remembered an ancient
civilization that was supposed to have destroyed
itself via racial warfare some fifty thousand years
before his own century. Was Q implying that this
extradimensional visitor would eventually be re-
sponsible for the extinction of an entire species?
    "Of course, I still run into them now and again,"
Q continued. "Now, that's awkward, I must tell
you. Of course, they usually have the sense to go
scurrying off into some miserable, insignificant
comer of the cosmos whenever they sense me
drawing near. And good riddance, I say."
    "What are you saying, Q?" Picard asked, dis-
turbed by the implications of Q's remarks. "That
these beings still exist in our own era?"
     "Your own era," Q corrected him archly. "I
 refuse to be tied down to any specific time or place,
 present attire notwithstanding." He tugged on the
 gray jacket of his imitation Starfleet uniform,
 straightening its lines. "Besides, let's not get too far
 ahead of ourselves, shall we? We can handle the
 historical footnotes later. There is still more to be
 seen here," he instructed Picard. "Behold."
     Now flanked by Gorgan and (*), Q's younger self
 stood by helplessly, torn between anxiety and an-
 ticipation, as 0 advanced on the Guardian for what
 he had vowed would be the last time. Once more
 that eldritch keening flowed from O's mouth, in-
 voking another cavalcade of frightful images with-
 in the open maw of the portal:
    An untamed tornado ravages a cultivated land-
scape, destroying vast orchards of alien fruit and
tossing dome-shaped farms and storage facilities
into the fevered sky along with the graceful reptiles
who tended to the land. An earthquake rips
through the heart of a populous community, the
tremors opening up gaping chasms that swallow up
entire parks and buildings. A majestic chain of
volcanos erupts after centuries of dormancy, spew-
ing ash and fire into the heavens and spilling
torrents of plutonic lava onto half a continent,
instantly reducing a thriving nation, thick with
citizenry, into a smoking wasteland. Oceans of
water pour from enormous clouds as a flood of
biblical proportions sweeps over one unfortunate
world; the deluge swiftly drowns every living thing
that walked or crawled or slithered upon the sur-
face, the evolution of millennia lost beneath the
swelling sea.
    These were no mere rebellions or self-inflicted
wars, Picard recognized, not simply conflicts be-
tween sentient and sentient, but unequal struggles
pitting mortal beings against the awesome power of
nature at its most destructive. Unprovoked catas-
trophes: what ancient historians and jurists once
labeled "acts of God."
    With eerie appropriateness, what came next
through the portal was nothing less than a veritable
pillar of fire. Composed entirely of dancing scarlet
flames, it snaked horizontally through the steaming
gateway, then rose upward like a rearing serpent to
achieve a height of over fifty meters above the
desolate ruins. Picard felt the heat of the blazing
column upon his face and he had to tilt his head
back to spy the apex of the looming inferno, which
he estimated to be at least two meters in diameter.
Was this colossal torch truly an intelligent entity
like the others Q had drawn from the portal? he
wondered. It was hard to see it as anything other
than an incredible thermal phenomenon, but Pi-
card guessed that was not the case.
    "As you have summoned Me, so have I come,"
the tower of flame proclaimed, confirming the
captain's assumption. Its voice was nearly as so-
norous as the Guardian's, although a touch more
 human in tone, having a firm yet paternal quality.
 "Let worlds without number prepare for My Judg-
 ment and tremble at My Wrath."
     0 laughed out loud at the flaming column's
 words. "You don't need to put on such lofty airs on
 my account. I've known you too long for that." He
 strolled casually around the circumference of the
 pillar, heedless of the blistering heat radiating from
 it, clucking at its awesome dimensions. "Maybe
 you could see your way clear to taking on a
 more... approachable appearance." He shook his
 head wearily. "It's like talking to a bloody forest
 fire."
     "Let it be as you request," the tower answered,
 sounding slightly miffed. "Many are My Faces. As
 numerous as the stars are the manifestations of My
 Glory."
    "Someone thinks highly of himself," the older Q
said snidely. "Or should that be Himself?."
    Picard was too engrossed by the fiery pillar's
sudden transformation to acknowledge Q's re-
mark. Before his gaping eyes, the huge column of
swirling flame contracted into the shape of a man,
then rapidly cooled to the consistency of human
flesh. The newborn figure stood a few centimeters
taller than 0 and was sheathed in gleaming armor
of solid gold. His stern features were adorned by a
flowing, snow-white beard; Picard found himself
reminded of face of Michelangelo's famous por-
trait of Moses, and was momentarily disappointed
 that He wasn't actually carrying two inscribed
 stone tablets. The thought occurred to him that
 such Old Testament imagery, including the pillar
 of fire itself, still lay countless aeons in the future.
 "Q--" he began.
    The elder Q held up his palm. "Before you
ask... no, this is not how I, as a Q, perceived O's
motley band of recruits. Instead this is how they
would appearmand will appear--to humanoids
such as yourself, according to your own rudimenta-
ry senses."
    I suspected as much, Picard thought. As the
young Q approached the forbidding new arrival,
the captain wished he could fully understand how
this latest visitor appeared to Q's earlier self. If
only I couM see through Q~ metaphors to what is
actually happening.
    "Excuse me," young Q said to the armor-clad
stranger. "Who are you?"
    "I am The One," He replied, His arms crossed
stiffly atop His chest.
"The One?" inquired Q, who was after all only a
Q.
    "He invented monotheism," 0 explained with a
shrug. "Indulge Him." He raised his voice to
address the entire gathering. "Old friends and
comrades, call me 0 now, for I've put the pitfalls
and purgatory of the past behind me. I offer you an
opportunity to do the same. There are dazzling
days ahead, I promise you!" Throwing an arm over
 Q's shoulder, he spun the youth around so hard
 that the toes of Q's boots were dragged through the
 dust and debris. "Now let me introduce to you our
 proud patron, as well as our native guide to these
 parts, my good friend and rescuer... Q."
    The three from the portal spread out around Q
and 0, then drew in closer, surrounding the young
Q, who, from where Picard was standing, seemed
to be not so much basking in the attention as trying
with visible effort to maintain a cocky and confi-
dent air despite the fact that, O's flattery notwith-
standing, he had rather quickly gone from being O's
all-knowing host and chaperon to ending up as the
newest and junior member of a well-established
group where everyone knew each other, and their
actual agenda, much better than he did. "So," he
said breezily, ducking out from under O's arm
while trying to slip unobtrusively out between
Gotgan and The One, "how long have you fellows
known 07"
    "Long enough," Gorgan asserted, pressing in
upon Q and blocking his escape. The more Picard
listened to it, the more Gorgan's voice seemed to
be generated artificially rather than through the
normal action of lungs and vocal cords. The shim-
mering stranger was only simulating humanity,
and not entirely successfully. "Long enough to
know where our best interests lie. And yours."
    "Be strong in My Ways," The One added, "and
you will shall surely prosper. Falter, and your days
shall be filled with sorrow." He laid his hand upon
Q's shoulder, and the young godling flinched in-
stinctively, stumbling backward into the hovering
presence of (*). His body fell through the glowing
sphere, receiving what looked like some manner of
jolt or chill. Emerging behind (*), Q gasped and
continued to fall until he landed in a sitting posi-
tion upon the ground, his limbs trembling and his
eyes and mouth wide open. The palpitations
quickly subsided, but Q's expression remained
dazed.
    "Watch yourself," 0 warned him. He took Q by
the hand and helped him to his feet. His associates
kept their distance this time, granting the jittery Q
a bit more personal space. "There's nothing to be
skittish about. We're all on the same side here."
The deep lines carved into O's weathered visage
stretched to accommodate his toothy grin. "Stick
with us, Q, and we'll have a fine time, you'll see.
This great, gorgeous galaxy will never be the
same."
    "Skittish? Me?" Q said loudly, pulling together a
semblance of self-assurance. "I'm nothing of the
sort." He brushed the clingy dust from his trousers
with elaborate indifference. "I'm simply unaccus-
tomed to so much like-minded company. I've al-
ways been something of a lone wolf within the
Continuum."
    "And a black sheep, too, I think," 0 surmised.
"No use denying it; it's as obvious as the smug
 somnambulism of the other Q. Well, you're not
 alone anymore, my friend. Rest assured, you're one
 of us now."
     "Lucky me," the older Q observed from within
 the shadow of a tilted Doric column.
     "Fallen in with a bad crowd, have we?" Picard
 said. He shook his head, feeling a tad disillusioned
 that the errors of Q's youth would prove to be so
 mundane. "It's an old story, Q."
     "Older than you know," Q stated, "and more
 serious than you can possibly imagine."
    How so? Picard wondered. Examining the scene,
he noted that, beyond the congregation of super-
beings, the Guardian of Forever had fallen still and
silent. The last thin ribbons of mist dissipated into
the atmosphere of the lonely setting while the
empty aperture at the center of the Guardian
offered only a view of the fallen temples on the
other side of the portal. It appeared that whatever
intelligence inhabited the Guardian had taken 0 at
his word that there would be no further corridors
opened between this reality and whatever distant
realm 0 and his cohorts originated from. Just as
well, Picard concluded. Judging from the older Q's
ominous remarks, these four would prove danger-
ous enough.
    He peered at the new arrivals. Something about
them, particularly Gorgan, struck a chord in his
memory, but one he couldn't quite place. He felt
certain that he had never personally encountered
any of these entities before, but perhaps he had
reviewed some record of their existence. The bur-
ied memory teased him, and he wished he had
immediate access to the Enterprise's memory
banks. Perhaps something from Starfleet records,
maybe even from the logs of one or more of the
earlier Starships Enterprise. "Gorgan," he mut-
tered. "Where have I heard that name before?"
    "Stardate 5029.5," Q volunteered helpfully. "In
and around the planet Triacus. Before your time, of
course, but I believe one of your predecessors had
an unpleasant encounter with the ever-insinuating
Gorgan. One James T. Kirk, to be exact." Q rested
his chin upon the knuckles of one hand, striking a
meditative pose. "Speaking of which, one of these
days I really should go back a generation or so
before your birth and see if Starfleet captains were
always as humorless as you are."
    Don't even think about it, Picard thought vehe-
mently. Kirk and his crew had run into enough
challenges during their long careers without the
added aggravation of coping with Q. Meanwhile,
he searched his memory for details regarding the
original Enterprise's contact with Gorgan. He
dimly recalled several incidents in which Kirk's
crew faced powerful beings along the lines of Q and
0. Was Gorgan the one who hijacked the Enterprise
using some brainwashed children, or the one who
turned out to be Jack the Ripper? Given the
rampant generational strife in the images preced-
ing Gorgan's entrance, he guessed the former.
 "What about that one?" Picard asked, pointing
 to the spinning globe of crimson light. He asked
 partly out of curiosity, partly to distract Q from his
 alarming notion of visiting the twenty-third cen-
 tury.
     "I believe your Starfleet database refers to it as
 the 'Beta XII-A entity,' named for the rather for-
 gettable world where your kind first made its
 acquaintance." Q scowled at the shining energy
 creature. "A deceptively innocuous name, in my
 opinion, for so bloody-minded a presence."
    Beta XII-A, Picard memorized dutifully. That,
too, sounded familiar, although Starfleet had
charted too many planets for him to pinpoint its
location and history immediately, not without
Data's total recall. He resolved to research the
matter thoroughly if and when Q deigned to return
him to the Enterprise. "And what of the final
entity?" he asked Q. "The one who calls himself
The One?"
    Q rolled his eyes. "What do I look like, an
information booth? All will become clear in time,
Jean-Luc. Rather than subject me to this plodding
interrogation, you would do better to observe what
transpires now." He diverted Picard's attention
back to the curious assemblage several meters
away.
    0 had just finished recounting his and Q's recent
altercation with the Coulalakritous to Gorgan and
the others. "Looking back," he admitted, "we
should have started off with a more underdevel-
oped breed of subjects, the sort less capable of
violating the spirit of the test." He paced back and
forth through the broken masonry, dragging his
bad leg behind him. "Yes, that's the idea. We need
to be more selective next time. Choose just the
right specimens. Advanced enough to be interest-
ing, naturally, but not evolved enough to skew the
learning curve." He stopped in front of the young
Q and eyed his designated host and guardian
expectantly. "This is your neck of the woods, my
boy. Any likely candidates come to mind?"
    Q looked grateful to occupy center stage again.
The one advantage he had over the others was his
superior knowledge of this particular reality. "Let
me think," he said, scrunching up his face in
concentration. His foot tapped impatiently in the
dusty gravel as he looked inward for the answer. A
second later, his face lighted up as an idea occurred
to him; Picard half expected a lightbulb to literally
materialize over the young Q's head, but, to his
relief, no such absurdity occurred. "There's always
the Tkon Empire," he suggested.
    Picard could not have been more startled if the
young Q had suddenly proposed a three-week
debauch on Risa. The Tkon Empire, he thought
numbly, transfixed by shock and a growing sense of
horror. Oh, my God....

Chapter Five

"COME AGAIN.?" RIKER ASKED.
    "It's true," Barclay insisted. "I examined the
probe that we sent toward the galactic barrier, the
one we transported back to the ship after the Cal-
amarain attacked, and I discovered that the bio-gel
paks in the probe had absorbed some psychokinet-
ic energy from the barrier itself, partially protecting
them from the Calamarain's tachyon bursts." He
waved a tricorder in Riker's face, a little too close
for comfort. "It's all here. I was going to report back
to Mr. La Forge about what I found, but then
Professor Faal insisted on coming to the bridge,
and I had to follow him, and then you assigned me
to the science station after Ensign Schultz was
injured--"
 Riker held up a hand to halt the uncontrolled
flood of words pouring from Barclay's mouth.
Sometimes, in his own way, the hapless officer
could be just as long-winded as Data used to be,
and as slow to come to the point. Riker took the
tricorder from Barclay and handed it off to Data
for analysis. "Slow down," he ordered. "How can
this help us now?"
    He wasn't just being impatient; with the Cala-
marain pounding on the ship and their shields in
danger of collapsing, Riker couldn't afford to waste
a moment. To be honest, he had completely forgot-
ten about that probe until Barclay mentioned it,
and he still wasn't sure what relevance it had to
their present circumstances. As far as he was con-
cerned, their entire mission concerning the galactic
barrier had already been scrapped. His only goal
now was to keep both the ship and the crew intact
for a few more hours.
    "The Enterprise-E has the new bio-gel paks,
too," Barclay explained, "running through the en-
tire computer processing system, which is directly
linked to the tactical deflector system." He leaned
against the back of the captain's chair and closed
his eyes for a moment. Riker guessed that the lack
of gravity upon the bridge was not helping Bar-
day's shaky stomach any.
    "Sit down," he suggested, indicating the empty
seat where the first officer usually sat when he
wasn't filling in for the captain. Barclay sank grate-
fully into the chair, his magnetic boots clanging
against the floor as he moved. "All this bio-organic
 technology is still pretty new to me," Riker admit-
 ted. The first Starfleet vessel to employ the new
 organic computer systems, he recalled, had been
 the ill-fated U.S.S. Voyager, now stranded some-
 where in the Delta Quadrant. Hardly the most
 promising of pedigrees, even though its bio-gel
 paks were hardly responsible for Voyager's predica-
 ment. "What does this have to do with current
 situation?"
    "Oh, the bio-gel is wonderful stuff," Barclay
declared, scientific enthusiasm overcoming nausea
for the moment, "several orders of magnitude
faster than the old synthetic subprocessors, and
easier to replace." Riker sensed a lecture coming
on, but Barclay caught himself in time and cut to
the chase. "Anyway, if the ship's bio-gel paks
absorb enough psychokinetic energy from the bar-
rier, maybe we can divert that energy to the deflec-
tors to protect us from barrier itself. In effect, we
could use part of the galactic barrier's own power
to maintain our shields. Like a fire wall, sort of. It's
the perfect solution!"
    "Maybe," Riker said, not yet convinced. The
Enterprise was a lot bigger and more complicated
than a simple probe. Besides, if any crew member
was going to pull a high-tech rabbit out of his or her
hat, Riker would have frankly preferred someone
besides Reginald Barclay. No offense, he thought,
but where cutting-edge science is concerned I have a
lot more faith in Data or Geordi. He turned toward
Data. "Is this doable?" he asked the android.
    "The data Lieutenant Barclay has recorded is
quite provocative," Data reported. "There are too
many variables to guarantee success, but it is a
workable hypothesis."
    "Excuse me, Commander," Alyssa Ogawa said
as she came up beside him. Riker felt the press of a
hypospray against his forearm, followed by the
distinctive tingle of medicinal infusion. Even
though he had not suffered any negative effects
from the zero gravity yet, he derived a twinge of
relief from the procedure. One less thing to worry
about, he thought.
    "Shields down to ten percent," Baeta Leyoro
stated, continuing her countdown toward doom. A
rumble of thunder and a flash of electrical fire
accented her warning. The jolt shook the tricorder
free from Data's grip and the instrument began to
float toward the ceiling. Data reached for the
tricorder, but its momentum had already carried
the tricorder beyond his reach. "Hang on," Leyoro
said, plucking her combadge from her chest. She
hurled the badge like a discus and it spun through
the air until it collided with the airborne tricorder.
The force of the collision sent both objects rico-
cheting backward toward their respective points of
origin. Leyoro snatched the badge out of the air
even as the tricorder soared back toward Data's
waiting fingers. "Just a little trick I picked up on
Lunar V," she said, referring to the penal colony
where she and the other Angosian veterans had
once been incarcerated.
     Remind me not to play racquetball with her,
 Riker thought. Or a game of dom-jot, for that
 matter.
     "Sir, we're sitting ducks here," she said. "We
 have to do something, and fast."
     Riker made his decision. "Let's risk it," he
 declared, rising from the captain's chair. "Data,
 you and Barclay do whatever's necessary to set up
 the power feed between the bio-gel paks and the
 deflectors. Contact Geordi; I want his input, too.
 See what he can do from Engineering. His control
 panels may be in better shape than ours. Ensign
 Clarze, set course for the galactic barrier."
    "Yes, sir!" the young crewman affirmed, sound-
ing eager to try anything that might liberate them
from the Calamarain. I know how you feel Riker
thought.
    He cast an anxious look at Troi, seated to his left.
"Deanna, I want you and every other telepath
aboard under medical supervision before we get
too near the barrier. Report to sickbay immedi-
ately and remind Dr. Crusher of the potential
psychic hazards of the barrier. Nurse Ogawa, you
can accompany her." He tapped his cornbadge.
"Riker to Security, escort Professor Faal and his
entire family to sickbay at once." He almost added
"red alert," then remembered that the ship had
been on red alert status ever since the Calamarain
first appeared on their sensors. Too bad we don't
have an even higher level of emergency readiness, he
thought, specifically for those occasions when we
jump from the frying pan into the fire.
    Riker's eyes met Deanna's just as she and Ogawa
entered the turbolift. For an instant, he almost
thought he could hear her voice in his mind,
through the special bond they had always shared.
Take care, her eyes entreated, then the turbolift
doors slid shut and she was gone.
    Good enough, he thought, turning his attention
back to the task before him. There had never been
any need for grand farewells between them. Each of
them already knew that should anything happen to
either one, the other would always remember what
had existed between them. They were imzadi, after
all.
    On the viewscreen, Riker caught a glimpse of
starlight as the prow of the Enterprise pierced the
outer boundaries of the Calamarain. He felt sur-
prisingly heartened by the sight of ordinary space
after long hours spent in the opaque and angry fog.
Then the front of the gigantic plasma cloud over-
took them, snatching away that peek at the stars.
"The Calamarain are pursuing us," Leyoro stated.
"Can we shake them?" he asked.
    "Not at this rate," Clarze called back from the
conn. "I'm at full impulse already."
    No surprise there, Riker observed. We already
knew they were fast. "Very well, then," he said
defiantly, determined to bolster the crew's morale.
"Let them come along with us. I want to know just
how far they're willing to take this."
    With any luck, he thought mordantly, they're not
half as crazy as we are. With all eyes glued to
viewscreen, watching for the first light of the barri-
er as the starship zoomed head on for the absolute
edge of the galaxy, Riker inconspicuously crossed
his fingers and hoped for the best. I can't believe
I'm really staking the Enterprise on some far-
fetched scheme from Reg Barclay, of all people.t This
was not one of Barclay's holodeck fantasies, this
was real life, about as real as it gets.
  And, possibly, real death as well.
"But this isn't the way to Engineering!" Lem
Faal gasped.
    "I told you, sir, you and your family have been
ordered to sickbay." The security officer, Ensign
Daniels, kept a firm grip on the scientist's arm as
he herded Faal and the children through the corri-
dors of the starship. Milo clomped down the
weightless halls in magnetic boots several sizes too
large for him, cradling Kinya in his arms. He
sensed that the large human crewman was rapidly
losing patience with the boy's father. "Please hur-
ry, sir. Commander Riker's orders."
    Milo hurried after the two adults. His father
struggled to free his arm from Daniels's grip as,
wheezing with every breath, he tried to convince
the crewman to let him go to Engineering instead.
What was he planning to do with us, Milo won-
dered bitterly, just dump us on the poor ensign or
drag us along to his shipboard laboratory? Probably
the former, he guessed. Two children would just be
in the way in Engineering, the same as they always
seemed to be in the way where their father was
concerned. Resentment seethed in the pit of his
stomach. Concern for their future, and anxiety
over their safety, only slightly diluted the bile that
bubbled and boiled within him every time he
thought of his father's gross abandonment of them.
Even now, he brooded sullenly, heg more worried
about his precious apparatus than us.
    Red-alert lights flashed at every intersection,
emphasizing the urgency of their fast-paced march
through the Enterprise. Ensign Daniels didn't
know or wouldn't explain why they had to go to
sickbay in such a rush, but obviously it was some
sort of emergency. Are they expecting us to get sick?
,,Ire the aliens winning thefight?Are we going to die?
Milo gulped loudly, imagining the worst, but tried
not to look afraid in front of his little sister. He had
to act brave now, for her sake, even though his
whole body trembled as he visualized a dozen
different ways for the cloud-monsters to kill him.
What if we have to evacuate the ship? The galactic
barrier, he knew, was a long way away from the
nearest Federation colony. Will the clouds let us
escape in peace?
    At least Kinya was weightless, too. Even still, his
arms were getting tired from holding Kinya this
whole hike and his legs weren't feeling much better.
 It still takes effort to move this much mass, he
 realized. "Are we almost there?" he asked Ensign
 Daniels. His voice only cracked a little.
     "Almost," the security officer promised. They
 rounded a corner and Milo saw a pair of double
 doors on the left side of hall. A limping crewman, a
 Tellarite from the look of him, staggered toward
 the doors from the other end of the corridor,
 clutching a wounded arm against his chest. Blood
 leaked from a cut on his forehead and scorch marks
 blackened the sleeves of his uniform. One tusk was
 chipped, and his hoof-shaped boots clicked at an
 irregular pace against the steel floor. A rush of pain
 from the injured officer hit Milo before he had a
 chance to block it. His hands stung vicariously
 from the man's burns. He felt a phantom ache
 where his tusk would have been had he been a
 Tellarite. He closed his eyes and pushed the sting-
 ing sensations away.
    Kinya, who had been sobbing and squirming as
Milo carried her, fell still at the sight of the
wounded crewman. She tightened her grip on his
shoulders. The Tellarite really looked like he'd been
through a war. Even Milo's father was quieted,
at least for the moment, by this open evidence of
the battle being waged, his indignant remarks to
Ensign Daniels trailing off in mid-insult. Seeing his
father act so subdued and reasonable, Milo had to
wonder how long it would last. Not long enough, he
guessed.
 The double doors opened automatically at the
TeUarite's approach, offering Milo his first look at
sickbay. His instant impression was one of
crowded, constant activity. Between the wounded
and those treating them, there had to be over a
dozen people in the medical facility, many of them
strapped onto biobeds whose monitor screens re-
ported on the vital signs of each patient. Despite
the packed conditions, however, everything seemed
to be under control. The activity was fast, but not
frenzied; health workers in magnetic boots shouted
queries and instructions to each other, but nobody
was panicking. Sickbay worked like a machine,
with a dozen moving pieces working in perfect
coordination with each other. Polished steel instru-
ments flew from hand to waiting hand. Ensigns
with handheld suction devices efficiently cleared
the atmosphere of floating fluids, ash, and frag-
ments of cloth. Was it always so busy, he wondered,
or only during emergencies?
    The doors stayed open for Milo and his party.
Ensign Daniels led the way and gestured for the
rest of them to follow. Remembering the pain he
had absorbed from the TeUarite, Milo clamped his
mental shields down hard before stepping inside.
    The air had a medicinal odor that he had learned
to associate with sterilization fields, and the over-
head lights were brighter than elsewhere on the
ship. They made their way carefully into a hive of
ceaseless motion that adjusted to their presence
and flowed around them as easily as a mountain
stream circumvents the rocks and other obstacles
 in its path. A levitating stretcher bumped into
 Milo's shoulders and he caught an alarming
 glimpse of a severed antennae taped to the stretcher
 next to the unconscious body of a wounded Andor-
 Jan crew member. Can they reattach that? he won-
 dered, turning around quickly so that his sister
 wouldn't see the grisly sight. He heard a frightened
 whimper from the little girl.
    The doctor attending to the Andorian, a tall man
with a bald dome, glanced down at the children
and rolled his eyes. "Marvelous," he muttered
sarcastically. "Children, no less. We'll be getting
cats and dogs next." Curiously, Milo did not detect
irritation from the man, or any other emotion; it
was almost like he wasn't really there.
    Looking around, Ensign Daniels spotted Dr.
Crusher deeper inside the facility, directing her
medical team like a general on a battlefield. "Doc-
tor!" he called out, weaving through the throng. "I
have Professor Faal and his family."
    A nurse rushed up and handed Dr. Crusher a
padd. A report on one of the patients, Milo as-
sumed. She glanced at it quickly, tapped in a few
modifications, then handed it back to the nurse,
who hurried away to see to the doctor's instruc-
tions. Dr. Crusher took a deep breath before focus-
ing on the security officer and his charges. "Good,"
she said. "I've been expecting them." She nodded
at Milo's father. "Give me just a second, Professor,
then follow me." Her sea-green eyes surveyed the
room. "Alyssa, take over triage until I get back.
Make sure the EMH looks at those radiation blis-
ters on Lieutenant Goldschlager, and tell Counsel-
or Troi to join me as soon as she finishes up with
Cadet Arwen." She took custody of Faal's arm
from the security officer. "Thank you, Ensign. If
you're not needed elsewhere, we can really use an
extra pair of hands. Contact Supply and tell them
to beam another load of zero-G plasma infusion
units directly to sickbay. We can't replicate them
fast enough."
"Yes, Doctor," Daniels promised. "First thing."
"Come with me, Professor," the doctor said,
leading them away from the main crush of the
medical emergency ward to an adjacent facility,
where they found a row of child-sized biobeds as
well as what looked like a high-tech incubator unit.
The pediatric ward, Milo realized unhappily. He
felt like a patient already and he hadn't even been
injured yet. "Here, let me help you with her," Dr.
Crusher said to him, bending over to lift Kinya
from his grateful arm, which he stretched until its
circulation returned. Kinya squalled at first, but
the doctor patted her on the back until she got used
to her new address. "That's a good girl," she cooed,
then wiped her own forehead with her free hand.
"Thank you for coming, Professor. We're in a crisis
situation here, obviously, but I want to make sure
you and your family are properly cared for."
    "Never mind that," Faal said. His face looked
flushed and feverish. The effects of weightless-
ness, Milo wondered, or something more serious?
 "What's this all about, Doctor? I demand an expla-
 nation."
     Dr. Crusher glanced down at Milo, then decided
 to choose her words carefully. "To elude the Cala-
 marain, Commander Riker has decided to take the
 Enterprise into the outer fringe of the barrier. He
 believes that our engineers have devised a way to
 provide us with some protection from the barrier,
 but it seemed wisest to place all telepaths under
 direct medical observation." She nodded toward
 the listening children. "I don't think I need to
 explain why."
    She didn't need to. Milo knew how dangerous
the galactic barrier could be, especially to anyone
with a high psionic potential; just because he
resented his father's work didn't mean he hadn't
paid attention to what his parents had hoped to
accomplish. Even humans, who were barely tele-
pathic at all by Betazoid standards, sometimes had
their brains fried by the barrier, and now the
Enterprise was taking them right into it! Milo
shuddered at the thought. The battle with the
clouds--with the Calamarain, he corrected him-
self--had to be going badly if Commander Riker
was desperate enough to fly into the barrier in-
stead. We should have never left Betazed, he
thought. We're all going to diet
    His father sounded just as upset by this turn of
events, although for different reasons. "But he
can't," he exclaimed, "not without my wormhole."
His chest heaving, he leaned against the central
incubator and groped for his hypospray. "That's
the whole point. That's why we're here."
    "Right now Commander Riker is primarily con-
cerned with the safety of the ship," another voice
intruded. Milo sensed Counselor Troi's arrival
even before he saw her framed in the entrance to
the kid's ward. She walked toward the other two
adults, taking care to step around Milo. "I can
assure you, Professor, that the commander has
considered every possibility, including your worm-
hole theory, and he truly believes that he is acting
in the best interests of everyone aboard, including
your children."
    "But he's not a scientist," Faal wheezed. The
hypospray hissed as it delivered a fresh dose of
polyadrenaline to his weakened body. "What does
he know about the barrier and the preternatural
energies that sustain it?"
    The counselor tried her best to calm him. "Com-
mander Riker may not have specialized in the hard
sciences, and certainly not to the extent you have,
but he's consulted with some of our best people,
including Commander La Forge, and he and Lieu-
tenant Commander Data and Lieutenant Barclay
feel tha--"
    "Barclay?" Faal exploded, his voice sounding
perceptibly stronger than seconds ago, and Milo
felt Troi's heart sink. He didn't know who Barclay
was, but the counselor instantly realized that she
had made a mistake in mentioning his name. "Do
you mean to tell me that my own extensive re-
 search into the barrier and its effects is being
 trumped by the scientific expertise of that clownish
 incompetent? By the Holy Rings, I've never heard
 such lunacy."
     "Please, Professor," Dr. Crusher said firmly.
 "There is no time to debate this. The decision has
 been made and I need to prepare you and your
 family before it's too late." She gestured toward
 one of the kid-sized biobeds. "What I'd like to do is
 set our cortical stimulators on a negative frequency
 in order to lower the brain activity of you and the
 children to a more or less comatose state during the
 period in which we are exposed to the psionic
 energy of the barrier. The same for you, Deanna,"
 she added. "Along with the extra shielding devised
 by... Data and Geordi... that should be enough
 to protect all of you from any telepathic side
 effects."
    She sounded very certain, but Milo could tell she
wasn't nearly as confident as she pretended to be.
Didn't she know she couldn't fool a Betazoid?
Maybe the doctor and the counselor should actu-
ally listen to his father. Despite his failings as a
parent, Milo figured his father probably knew more
about the barrier than anyone in the Federation.
    Lem Faal sure thought so. "This is so ridiculous I
can't even begin to describe how insane it is," he
insisted, returning his hypospray to the inner pock-
et of his jacket. "It was bad enough when Rikerjust
wanted to retreat from the barrier, but to go
forward into it without even attempting my experi-
ment. "
    "Perhaps you should worry less about your ex-
periment and more about your children," the doc-
tor said heatedly. Milo sensed her anger at his
father's skewed priorities. She lowered Kinya onto
one of the miniature biobeds. His sister sat side-
ways on the bed, her small legs dangling over the
edge. "According to Starfleet conventions, I don't
require your consent to protect your family during
a red alert, but I do expect your cooperation.
Deanna, please escort the professor back to the
adult ward. Have Nurse Ogawa find biobeds for
both you and Professor Faal. I'll be with you in a
few minutes, after I've prepared the children."
    Counselor Troi laid her hand on the man's arm,
but Milo's father had exhausted his patience as
well. He reached out unexpectedly and snatched
Dr. Crusher's combadge off her lab jacket. "Mr.
La Forge," he barked, speaking into the shiny
reflective badge, "this is Lem Faal. Generate the
tensor matrix at once and prepare to launch the
magneton generator. This is our last chance!"
    Geordi's voice emerged from the badge, sounding
understandably confused. "Professor Faal? What
are you doing on the comm? Has Commander
Riker authorized this?"
    "Geordi, don't listen to him!" Dr. Crusher tried
to grab the badge back from Faal, but the obsessed
scientist batted her hand away impatiently.
     "Forget about Commander Riker," he shouted,
 the badge only centimeters away from his face.
 Saliva sprayed from his lips.
     "We're so close, we have to try it. Anything else
 would be insane."
     "You're out of line, Professor," Geordi told him
 emphatically, "and I'm busy. La Forge out."
     "No!" he shouted into the badge, even though
 the connection had already been broken off. "Fire
 the torpedo, blast you. You have to fire the tor-
 pedo!"
    A hypospray hissed as Dr. Crusher applied the
instrument to his left shoulder. "Dad!" Milo cried
out as his father stiflened in surprise. His face went
slack as his eyelids drooped and he sagged back-
ward into the doctor's waiting arms.
    "Don't worry," she assured Milo. "I just pre-
scribed him an emergency tranquilizer. He'll be
fine later." With the counselor's help, she guided
his father's limp body out of the pediatric ward
into primary facility. An Octonoid crewman with
both his lower arms in slings hopped offa biobed to
make room for Faal.
    Despite the narcotic, the scientist's anxiety did
not abate entirely. Although his eyes remained
shut, his lips kept moving, driven by a powerful
sense of urgency that not even the tranquilizer
could quell. Standing next to the biobed, his ears
turned toward the unconscious man, Milo could
barely make out his father's delirious whispers.
"Help me... we're so close... you can't let them
stop me... please help me."
    Who is he talking to? Milo wondered. Me? "I
don't know how to help you, Dad. I don't know
what I can do."
    "You mustn't blame yourself for any of this,
Milo," Counselor Troi told him, placing a comfort-
ing hand upon his shoulder. He could sense her
sincerity and concern, as well as an underlying
apprehension concerning Lem Faal. "Your father
has simply been under a lot of stress lately."
    That's one way of putting it, he thought, some of
his resentment seeping through. He wondered if
the counselor, who was only half Betazoid, could
tell how angry he got at his father sometimes.
    "We should hurry," Dr. Crusher said, interrupt-
ing his moment with the counselor. She glanced at
Lem Faal's sleeping form and breathed a sigh of
relief. "I want to get the children put under first,"
she explained to Troi, "then I can look after you
and Professor Faal."
    Unsure what else to do, Milo followed the two
women back into the pediatric ward, where he
watched Dr. Crusher tend to Kinya. His little sister
squirmed and cried at first--watching her father
collapse had upset her once again--but the doctor
put her to sleep with a sedative, then stretched the
toddler out on the biobed. Retrieving a pair of
compact metallic objects from a pocket in her lab
coat, she affixed the shiny gadgets to Kinya's small
 forehead. "These are only cortical stimulators,"
 she told Milo while simultaneously checking the
 readings on the display panel mounted above the
 bed. Milo didn't know what she was looking for,
 but she appeared satisfied with the readings. "They
 won't hurt her, I promise."
     "I know," Milo said. "I believe you." In some
 ways, Dr. Crusher reminded him of his mother.
 They both always seemed to know what they were
 doing, and they didn't talk down to him. He
 appreciated that.
    "Too bad Selar transferred to the Excalibur, "she
commented to Troi as she made a final adjustment
to the devices attached to Kinya's head. "Vulcans
are supposed to be resistant to the barrier's effects,
despite their telepathic gifts. No one really knows
why, although there are any number of theories."
    Milo was too worried about everything else to
get interested in how Vulcan brains worked. At the
doctor's direction, he climbed onto the empty bed
across from Kinya's. From where he was sitting, he
could see his father sleeping in the next ward over.
To his surprise, he saw his father's face twitching,
the fingers of his hand flexing spasmodically. Lem
Faal looked like he was waking from a nightmare.
How long is that tranquilizer supposed to keep him
down anyway, Milo wondered, and shouM I alert
the doctor and the others?
    Counselor Troi must have sensed his uncertainty
because she turned and followed his gaze to where
his father rested fitfully. Her eyes widened as Faal's
entire body convulsed, then sat up suddenly. Run-
ning his hand through his disordered hair, he shot
darting glances around the sickbay like a hunted
animal searching desperately for an escape route.
His bloodshot eyes were haunted and a thin string
of saliva dribbled from his lower lip. Milo scarcely
recognized his father.
    "Beverly!" Troi called out, attracting the doctor's
attention. The counselor rushed toward the open
doorway between her and the adult ward. "Please,
Professor, you have to stay where you are. We're
getting closer to the harrier. The doctor has to
prepare you."
    At her mention of the barrier, Faal's wild eyes
filled with purpose. Gasping for breath, he lowered
himself off the bed and started to stagger across
the crowded sickbay toward the exit. Caught up
in their own emergencies, the various nurses
and patients paid little attention to the gaunt,
determined-looking Betazoid making his way
through the maze of bodies and medical equip-
ment. Milo hopped off his own bed and hurried
after Troi, watching her pursue his father. "Milo,
wait!" Dr. Crusher called to him, but he didn't
listen to her.
    Younger and healthier than the dying scientist,
Counselor Troi quickly caught up with Faal and
grabbed his elbow from behind. "You have to stay
here," she repeated urgently. "You're not safe."
     Faal spun around with a snarl, a glint of silver
 metal flashing between his fingers. Milo recognized
 the object immediately: his father's ubiquitous
 hypospray, loaded with polyadrenaline.
No, Milo thought, disbelieving. He wouldn't!
But he did. Amid all the noise and activity, he
couldn't hear the hypospray hiss when his father
pressed it against her throat, but he saw her mouth
open wide in surprise, watched her face go pale. It
happened so fast there was nothing anyone could
do to stop him. She clutched her neck instinctively,
releasing her hold on Faal, and swayed dizzily from
side to side, her gravity boots still glued to the
duranium floor. She started hyperventilating as the
polyadrenaline hit her system, huffing rapidly in
short, ragged breaths. Her eyes glazed over and the
veins in her throat throbbed at a frightening pace.
Milo guessed that her heart, her lungs, and her
entire metabolism had gone into overdrive, burn-
ing themselves out. She was swaying so wildly that
she surely would have hit the floor if not for the
absence of gravity.
    "Deanna!" Dr. Crusher shouted. To Milo's re-
lief, the doctor shoved her way past him to attend
to her friend. Taking Troi's pulse with one hand,
she immediately administered some sort of coun-
teragent via her own hypospray. The antidote took
effect almost instantly; Milo was glad to see Troi's
breathing begin to slow. She looked like she was
stabilizing now, thanks to Dr. Crusher's prompt
response. Praise the Holy Rings, Milo thought,
grateful that his father had not actually killed the
counselor.
    Lem Faal had not lingered to view the conse-
quences of his actions, or to wait for a security
officer to show up. Peering through the bustle of
sickbay, Milo spotted his father disappearing
through the double doors that led to the corridor
outside. Milo chased after him, his oversized boots
slowing him down more than he liked. Still occu-
pied with the stricken counselor, Dr. Crusher did
nothing to stop him from threading his way toward
the exit. The doors swished open in front of him
and he was free of sickbay when an unexpected
hand grabbed onto his collar, dragging him back
into the ward. "And where do you think you are
going, young man?" a voice said sternly.
    It was the bald-headed doctor, the one who
didn't register on Milo's empathic senses. He eyed
Milo dubiously, keeping a firm hold on the boy's
collar. "I'm afraid no one is released from sickbay
until they've been given a clean bill of health by a
qualified health care professional."
    "But my father!" Milo said, looking frantically at
the exit as the doors slid shut again.
    "First things first," the doctor insisted. "We'll
deal with your father's appalling breach of protocol
later. First we need to return you to the pediatric
ward."
     Milo had a vision of cortical stimulators being
 applied to his forehead and tried to free himself
 from the doctor's grip. What's going to happen to
 my dad if I'm out coM? All the doctors and nurses
 were too busy to bring his father back to sickbay
 before the ship entered the barrier. It's up to me to
 save Dad, Milo thought. "Let me go!" he yelled, but
 the bald doctor only tightened his grip. He was
 surprisingly strong.
     "No!" Dr. Crusher ordered the other physician.
 With one arm wrapped around Counselor Troi to
 steady her, the ship's chief medical officer had
 clearly taken notice of Milo's near escape. "Don't
 let him get away," she instructed her colleague.
    "I wouldn't dream of it," he replied archly,
"even if my behavioral parameters included
dreaming." Milo wasn't sure what he meant by
that, but the doctor sure wasn't letting go of him
anytime soon. He was about to give up when the
whole sickbay shook like a malfunctioning turbo-
lift. The cloud monsters, Milo guessed. They must
be trying to stop the Enterprise from going into the
barrier.
    "Crusher to Security," the doctor said, tapping
the badge on her chest. Obviously, she intended to
send Security after Milo's father. The badge emit-
ted a high-pitched whine, however, which was
clearly not what Dr. Crusher had expected. "What
the devil? There's something wrong with the comm
system."
    The overhead lights flickered and, to Milo's
surprise, so did the doctor holding his collar. He's a
rologram, the boy realized, taking advantage of the
doctor's momentary instability to break free and
run for the exit. "Stop!" the hologram cried, and
tried to seize Milo again, but his immaterial fingers
passed uselessly through the fleeing child. "You
haven't been discharged yet!" He glanced back at
Dr. Crusher, then shrugged helplessly. "Don't look
at me. I'm not responsible for unexpected power
fluctuations. This is all Engineering's fault."
    Milo barely heard the holo-doctor's excuses. As
the sickbay doors whished shut behind him, he
found himself confronted with a three-way inter-
section--and no sign of his father. He can't have
gone far, he thought, silently blaming the hologram
for slowing him down, but which way did he go?
Milo searched telepathically for his father, but
cotfid not sense his presence anywhere. He must be
blocking me out, he realized. Frustrated, he tried to
guess where his father would want to go next.
    Engineering, of course, and his equipment.
Hadn't he tried to convince Ensign Daniels to take
him to Engineering in the first place? Milo scanned
the adjacent corridors for the nearest turbolift
entrance, then raced down the left-hand hallway.
Maybe he could still catch his father before...
what? Milo had no idea what exactly he hoped to
accomplish. He only knew that he had to do
something before his father did anything terrible to
himself.
  Or someone else.

Chapter Six

GLEVI UT SoY, EMPRESS OF TKON, awoke one morn-
ing in the second year of her reign, during the latter
days of the Age of Xora, with a feeling of unac-
countable unease. There was a wrongness afoot, if
not with her, then with the empire she hoped to
rule wisely and well for many decades to come.
Rising to a sitting position upon the coach,
propped up by numerous soft cushions, each em-
broidered with the sacred emblem of the Endless
Flame, she listened carefully to the silence of the
early morning. Had any alarm or summons dis-
turbed her dreams, calling her to cope with one
emergency or another? No, the quiet of her private
chambers was quite unbroken. Nothing had roused
her except her own premonitions.
 Hooves pawing the ground.... A fragment of a
dream flashed through her memory. Curved horns
stabbing at the sky. For an instant she could almost
recall the entire dream, but then the memory
slipped away, banished from her consciousness by
the dawn of waking. What had she been dreaming
again?
    She rubbed her golden eyes with the back of her
hand, wiping away the dried residue of slumber,
stretched luxuriously, and deftly lowered her bare
feet into a pair of fur-lined slippers resting on the
floor. She could have commanded any number of
attendants to help her rise and prepare for her
duties, but she preferred to look after herself. Soon
enough today, affairs of state would demand her
attention for the remainder of her waking hours;
for now, the beginning of each day remained her
own.
    The subdued night glow of the opaque crystal
walls faded automatically as elegant chandeliers
flooded the chambers with light, highlighting the
intricate colored patterns of the antique Taguan
carpet upon the floor. The empress paid little
attention to the ornate designs of the rug, which
had been in her family since her great-grand-
father's time. Her shadow preceded her as she
stepped away from the coach, the hem of her silk
gown trailing upon the carpet. A translucent
screen, upon which was printed a copper represen-
tation of the flame emblem, descended silently
from the ceiling, sealing off the imperial bedcham-
ber from the forefront of her quarters. Her desk,
 carved from the finest D'Arsay teak, awaited her, as
 did her favorite chair.
     The outer rooms felt chilly this morning.
 "Warmer," she stated simply, "by, oh, seven and a
 half grades." Her technologists assured her that
 someday soon it would no longer be necessary to
 actually speak aloud to their homes and offices; the
 new psi-sensitive technology now being developed
 in labs throughout the empire would allow one to
 direct any and all instrumentality by thought
 alone. She frowned at the notion, not entirely sure
 she liked the idea of her palace knowing what she
 was thinking.
    Yawning, she sat down in her chair. The room
was already feeling warmer and more comfortable,
but, despite the reassuring tranquillity of her
chambers, she could not shake the ominous mood
with which she had woken. She searched her mem-
ory, trying to bring to light any disturbing dream
that might have left her spirit troubled, yet no such
nightmare came to mind. As far as she recalled, her
sleep had been soothing and unruffled until the
very moment she came awake.
    From where, then, had come this persistent sense
of impending danger? "Show me the city," she said
to the smooth, crystalline wall facing her and, like a
window opening upon the world outside the pal-
ace, a panoramic view of a sprawling metropolis
appeared on the wall, providing the empress with a
live image of Ozari-thul, capital city of the great
world Tkon, center of the Empire of the Endless
Flame.
    Resting her chin in her palm, she gazed out upon
the city, her city, seeing nothing that would ac-
count for her anxious presentiments. Ozari-thul at
dawn looked nearly as placid as her chambers, the
vast majority of the city's twelve million inhabi-
tants not yet stirring from their homes. Graceful
towers, winding like crystal corkscrews, pierced the
morning sky, while ribbons of interlocking road-
ways guided a few scattered vehicles on postnoctur-
nal errands throughout the city. The blazing sun
rose to the south, and she could not help noticing
how much larger and redder it seemed now than it
had in the not-so-long-ago days of childhood. That
so swollen a sun should actually be cooler than it
had once been struck her as paradoxical, but her
scientists assured her that was indeed the case, and
certainly the changing weather patterns of the last
few years had borne their theories out.
    Is that it? she wondered. Was her knowledge of
the geriatric sun's eventual fate coloring her per-
ceptions of the morning? That seemed unlikely.
She had known about the long-term threat posed
by their sun for years now, since even before she
assumed the throne after her mother's death. Be-
sides, the empire's finest scientists all agreed that
the expansion of the sun, as that familiar yellow
orb evolved into what the physicists called a red
goliath, would not engulf the homeworld, as well as
 the rest of the inner planets, for several centuries.
 More than time enough for the Great Endeavor to
 come to their rescue--or was it?
     She felt a stab of hunger, prompting her to ask
 for her breakfast, which instantly materialized on
 her desk: a beaker of hot tea and a plate of toasted
 biscuits, with susu jam and just a dab of imported
 Bajoran honey. Frankly, she would have liked more
 honey, but it wasn't worth the scolding she would
 receive from the court nutritionists, who fretted
 about the foreign sweeteners in the delicious amber
 spread. It was her duty, after all, to keep her mind
 and body fit, although she sometimes wondered
 what was the good of being empress if she couldn't
 even have an extra dollop of honey now and then.
    A tinted crystal disk was embedded in the top of
the teak desk. Washing down a tiny bite of biscuit
with a sip of moderately spiced tea, she gazed at the
disk and called up the most recent report on the
progress of the Great Endeavor. Dates and figures
scrolled past her eyes; as always, she was impressed
by the sheer, unprecedented scale of the project, as
well as the enormous expense. To literally move the
sun itself out of the solar system, then to replace it
with a younger star taken from an uninhabited
system light-years away... had any other species
anywhere ever attempted such a feat? Only to
preserve Tkon itself, the sacred birthplace of their
people, would she even dream of undertaking so
colossal an enterprise. Small wonder her nerves
were jittery.
    And yet... according to this report, the En-
deavor was proceeding on schedule and only
slightly over budget. If necessary, she would bank-
rupt the imperial treasury to save the planet, but
that drastic a sacrifice did not seem to be called for
at present. Work was continuing apace on the solar
transporter stations, their prospective new sun had
not yet displayed any serious irregularities, and
everything appeared to be in order. If all went
according to plan, they would be ready to attempt
the substitution within her lifetime. The Endeavor
was no more risky today than it had been the day
before, so why did she feel so perturbed?
    With a word or two, she cleared the crystal
viewing disk and called for her first minister. The
image of an older man, seen from the waist up,
appeared at once within the crystal. From the look
of him, Rhosan arOx had already been at work for
an hour or so. A ceremonial cloak of office was
draped over his shoulders and his graying hair was
neatly groomed. His cheeks had a healthy violet
hue, which reassured her more than she wanted to
admit. He looks like he can manage affairs for
many more years, the empress thought, just as he
did for Mother. "Good morning, Most Elevated,"
he said. "How can I help you?"
    "Nothing too urgent," she replied, reluctant to
burden him with her indistinct worries. "I was
merely interested in... well, the state of the em-
pire."
  The vertical slits of his pupils widened their
golden irises. "If I may take the liberty of asking, is
something troubling you, Most Elevated?"
    He's still as perceptive as he ever was, she
thought. "It is most likely nothing," she assured
him. "I feel... fretful... this morning, for no
apparent reason. The foolish fancies of an inexperi-
enced empress, most likely."
    "I doubt that," he said promptly, "but I will be
happy to allay your cares by informing you what I
know." His gaze dropped to the surface of his own
desk; over the last several months, he had taken
over an increasingly larger share of her executive
duties, freeing her to concentrate on the Great
Endeavor. "Let's see. Labor negotiations with the
Diffractors' Guild are dragging on, the United Sons
and Daughters of Bastu are protesting the latest
interplanetary tariffs, the Organians turned back
our envoy again, and some fool politician on one of
the outer worlds--Rzom, I believe--is refusing to
pay his taxes, claiming the Great Endeavor is,
quote, 'a sham and a hoax,' end quote, making him
redundant as well as a damn idiot." Rhosan looked
up from his data display. "Just the usual head-
aches, in other words. Nothing that should cause
you excess concern."
    "I see," the empress said, her tea and biscuits
getting cold. "Thank you for your concise summa-
ry of the issues at hand. I don't believe any of the
matters you mentioned could be the source of my
thus far baseless apprehensions. Please forgive me

136

for disturbing your work with such a nebulous
complaint."
    "It was no trouble," he insisted. "I hope I was
able to put your mind to rest."
    "Perhaps," she said diplomatically. "In any
event, you may return to your numerous other
responsibilities." Governing an empire of seven
trillion inhabitants was no small task, as she well
knew. "I shall see you later today, at the Fathoming
Ceremony."
    "Until then," the first minister acknowledged,
dipping his head as she closed the connection. The
crystal disk went blank. If only I could dismiss my
qualms so easily, she mused. None of the routine
difficulties Rhosan had alluded to justified the
sense of dread that cast an inauspicious cloud over
each passing moment. She raised her teacup to her
lips, hoping the warmth of the tea would dispel the
chill from her soul, but knowing in her heart that
there was no easy balm for the doubts and fears
that afflicted her.
    A design etched onto both cup and plate caught
her eye. The Endless Flame, ancient symbol of the
empire since time immemorial. In olden days, she
recalled, now lost in the haze of myth and legend,
her primal ancestors were said to have been proph-
ets, mystics, and seers. Their visions, according to
archaic lore, had proven instrumental in the found-
ing of the dynasty. Those distant days were long
departed now, and subsequent rulers had required

no such oracular prowess to guide the empire, but
she couldn't help wondering, amid the miraculous
technology of their modem age, if the blood of
seers still flowed through her veins. Would her
eldest forebears have recognized this seemingly
inexplicable anxiety, this puzzling tremor in her
psyche and spirit?
    A single shard of memory lodged in her mind,
less than a heartbeat in duration. A barely recalled
sliver of a dream about... hooves?
    Something terrible was coming, of that she was
convinced.

    "Comfortable, confident, trapped by tradition,
enamored of their own hallowed history, and
drunk with delusions of destiny," 0 sneered at the
mighty Tkon Empire. "They're perfect, Q! I
couldn't have chosen any better."
    Five attentive entities, plus two more whose
presence was unknown to the others, watched the
planet Tkon spin beneath them, no larger than a
toy globe compared to the scale on which Q and the
others currently manifested themselves. From their
lofty vantage point, several million kilometers
above the world where the young empress dwelt,
they could see a swarm of satellites, artificial and
otherwise, orbiting the central planet. Tkon was the
fourth planet in its system, and its influence spread
outward in an expanding sphere of imperial he-
gemony that encompassed colonies on both the

inner and outer worlds of its own solar system as
well as distant outposts lit by the glow of alien
stars. Tkon's defenses, based on those same satel-
lites, colonies, and outposts, were formidable
enough to discourage aggression from the barbari-
an races who lurked beyond the outermost reaches
of the empire. 0 and his cohorts, on the other hand,
couldn't have cared less about Tkon's vast military
resources.
    "Actually," the young Q said, "I've always con-
sidered the Tkon a civilizing factor in this region of
the galaxy." He was starting to regret suggesting the
Tkon Empire in the first place. What kind of
testing did 0 have in mind? Nothing too severe, he
hoped. "Their accomplishments in the arts and
sciences, although aboriginal by our standards,
naturally, are laudable enough on their own terms.
I'm particularly fond of the satirical profile-poems
of the late Cimi erare"
    "Q, Q, Q," 0 interrupted, shaking his head.
"You're missing the point. It's these creatures'
primitive progress that makes them the ideal test
subjects for our experiments. Where's the sport in
testing some backward species that can barely split
an atom, let alone synthesize antimatter? That
would be a total waste of our time and abilities."
He scowled at the thought before turning his mind
toward brighter prospects. "These Tkon, on the
other hand, are just perfect. Not too primitive, not
too powerful. They're hovering at the cusp of true

138                                                                139

greatness, waiting for someone like us to come
along to push them to next level... if they're
able."
    "Precisely," Gorgan agreed. He licked his lips in
anticipation. "I can already see some intriguing
possibilities for them."
      "In them," Q corrected, assuming the other was
referring to the Tkon's potential as a species.
  Gorgan shrugged. "As you prefer."
    "They have grown overproud and must be hum-
bled," The One pronounced. "They must drink
bitter waters before they face My Judgment."
    (*) merely flashed through pulsating shades of
crimson, awaiting O's command. A Tkon starship,
en route to the eleventh planet in the home system
with a crew complement of one thousand two
hundred and five, approached the gathered immor-
tals. Although traveling over twenty times the
speed of light, it seemed to Q to be crawling toward
them, and not much larger than an Organian
dovebeetle. Despite, or perhaps because of, the
difference in scale between the gleaming vessel and
the immaterial onlookers, the ship remained un-
aware of Q and the others even as it came within
their proximity. It glided between Q and 0, who
nonchalantly reached out and swatted the minia-
ture spacecraft away, sending it tumbling through
space and into the hard red radiance of (*).
    Moments later, as Q reckoned time, (*)'s influ-
ence caused a bloody mutiny to erupt aboard the
ship, leading ultimately to a helix drive explosion

that blossomed into a firefly flash of blue-green
before dimming into nothingness. (*) glowed a
little brighter afterward, savoring its snack.

    It had happened so quickly, from this celestial
point of reference, that Picard could scarcely keep
up with all that was happening, let alone grasp its
meaning. "That ship," he murmured. "All those
lives..."
    "A matter of no importance," Q insisted, "a tiny
teardrop of tragedy before the deluge. You mustn't
let yourself be distracted by such marginalia. The
fate of an empire, and more, is at stake."
    Picard nodded grimly, unable to speak. He knew
full well what was coming, and Q was right: The
destruction of a single starship was next to nothing
compared to the apocalypse ahead.

"You have to admit," 0 said to the young Q, the
tiny starship already forgotten, "the Tkon still have
a long way to go before they're remotely compara-
ble to us, or even that fetid fog we first ran into."
"I don't know," Q responded, the bright tiny
spark that had been a spacecraft still imprinted on
his metaphysical retinas. Intellectually, he liked the
idea of helping lesser life-forms evolve; it certain-
ly beat the unending boredom the Continuum
provided in such dispiriting quantities. Primitive
species had often proved more unpredictable, and
therefore more entertaining, than his fellow Q...
with the possible exception of Q herself. On the

140                                                                141

other hand, when it came to actually visiting trials
and tribulations on a harmless little species like the
Tkon, who had worked so hard to achieve their
own modest triumphs... well, he found it seemed
vaguely unsporting. "They seem to be doing fairly
well on their own," he observed.
    "Fairly well?" 0 echoed. He laughed so loud that
Q found himself blushing without really knowing
why. "They're nowhere close to transcending
fourth-dimensional existence, let alone achieving
true cosmic consciousness. Why, they still require
a massive infrastructure and social hierarchy just
to satisfy their crude physical needs." He rolled his
eyes and raised his hands in amazement. "You
can't let yourself get sentimental about your sub-
jects, no matter how cute and comical they are.
Face the facts, Q. At this rate, it will take them a
couple of eternities to catch up with us, if they even
last that long, which I sincerely doubt. They've
gotten smug, complacent, convinced that they're
sitting at the top of the evolutionary ladder. They
have no more incentive to evolve further, which
means they're just short of total stagnation. They
need to be reminded that there are bigger forces in
the universe, sublime mysteries they haven't even
begun to unravel."
    "So be it," The One seconded, nodding His
bearded head ponderously. His golden armor
clanked as He crossed His arms atop His chest, the
metallic ringing resounding across five dimension-

al planes and creating unaccountable subspace
vibrations that caused technicians to scratch their
heads in confusion throughout the entire empire.
"Let it be written."
    "If testing these beings is indeed on the agenda,"
Gorgan pointed out, "we should do so swiftly." He
gestured toward the flaming thermonuclear globe
at the center of the Tkon's solar system. "That old
sun is clearly on its last legs."
    Q glanced at the orb in question, seeing at once
that Gorgan was correct. The sun of Tkon, a
standard yellow star of no particular distinction
aside from its usefulness to the Tkon, had almost
depleted its store of hydrogen atoms. Soon enough,
the helium in its core would begin fusing into
carbon, eventually causing the star to swell into a
bloated red caricature of its former self, and, from
the look of things, swallow up all of the inner
planets, including Tkon. "Seems to me," he sug-
gested, "that the Tkon have challenges enough
without us adding to their difficulties."
    "Which is why this is exactly the right time to
test them," 0 insisted, looming over the endan-
gered world like a constellation. "Now is the defin-
ing moment of their existence. Can they remain
focused on the big picture despite their trivial
everyday concerns, not to mention whatever ingen-
ious obstacles we place before them? Will they
perish with their star, abandon their homes for
distant shores, or achieve the impossible in the face

143

of impediments both natural and supernatural?"
He rubbed his palms together eagerly. "It should be
a fascinating experiment?'
    "Er, what kind of impediments did you have in
mind?" Q found himself looking backward over
his shoulder, half expecting to find the entire
Continuum looking on in disapproval. If they had
any idea what 0 has in mind....t To his surprise,
he discovered that the danger of incurring his
peers' censure only made O's plans all the more
irresistible. There was an undeniable, if vaguely
illicit, thrill in defying propriety this way. If only
there was some way to scandalize the Q and the
others without inconveniencing the Tkon too
much.
    "Why, whatever we feel like," 0 stated readily. Q
envied his reckless, carefree attitude. "You don't
want to plan these things too much beforehand.
You need to leave yourself room to improvise, to
invent and elaborate. It's as much an art as a
science." He gestured toward the solar system at
their feet. "Go ahead," he urged Q. "It was your
idea. It's only fitting you take the first shot. Indulge
yourself. Employ that extraordinary imagination
of yours. Give their tiny, terrestrial, time-bound
minds something to really think about."
    Q gathered his power together, feeling the cre-
ative energies crackle in his hands. This is it, he
thought. This is my chance. A peculiar sense of...
suspense? tension?... percolated within him. It

was a strange, but not altogether unpleasant sensa-
tion. After all this time, after countless aeons spent
waiting for the opportunity to show what he could
do, what if he couldn't think of anything? What if
he made a mistake or, worse yet, committed some
ghastly clich6 that just made 0 and the rest think
less of him? He felt the pressure of the others'
expectant gaze, savored an unprecedented fear of
failure, then took a deep if figurative breath, ab-
sorbing inspiration from the ether. "Suppose," he
said tentatively, not quite committing himself, "I
miraculously extended the life span of their sun by
another four billion years?" Easy enough, he
thought; all that was required was a fresh infusion
of elemental hydrogen into the star's core. "That
would come as a real stunner to them, wouldn't it?
What do you think they will do with all that extra
time? How will their society and institutions react?
It should make for an informative experiment,
don't you think?"
    0 sighed and rubbed his brow wearily. Gorgan
and The One shook their heads and stepped back-
ward, placing a bit more distance between them
and Q, who could tell at once that his suggestion
had not been well received. Hey, don't blame me,
he thought indignantly. It was my first try, after all.
    "You're missing the point," 0 explained. "That's
no test; that's a gift." He spit out the word as if it
left a bad taste in his mouth. "Four billion extra
years? What's that going to teach them--or us, for

145

that matter? Progress, even survival itself, must be
earned. Challenges are to be overcome. Benevo-
lence is for babies."
    Q's ears burned. Was 0 calling him a baby? Why,
he was almost seven billion years old! "Can't the
unexpected come in positive forms as well as
negative?" he argued. "Isn't a species' reaction to
miraculous good fortune as significant, as educa-
tional and edifying, as the way they cope with
adversity?"
    "On some abstract, intellectual level perhaps," 0
said grudgingly, "but take it from me, Q, it's a lot
more boring, for the tested and tester alike. What
would you rather do, watch the Tkon cope with the
ultimate issues of life or death, or simply feed them
a few cosmological crumbs now and then, watching
from afar as they scurry around in gratitude?" He
yawned theatrically. "Frankly, I have better things
to do than watch you dote on an undeserving
warren of underdeveloped, overpopulated vermin.
Where's the sport in that?" He paced back and
forth across the sector, his footsteps creating deep
impressions in the fabric of space-time that would
someday be charted by the first Verathan explorers,
five hundred thousand years later. "Come on, Q.
Surely you can do better than that. What's it going
to be?"
    "I don't know," Q blurted, feeling both embar-
rassed and resentful. "I'm not sure." Why was 0
making this so hard? It's not fair, he thought. The
Continuum is forever badgering me about going too

far,' now 0 is unhappy because I won't go far enough.
He wanted to do something, but not necessarily to
anyone.
    "Listen to me, Q," 0 entreated. "This is what
you've always wanted, a chance to use your innate
abilities the way they were always meant to be
used. Don't censor yourself before you even begin.
Don't hold back. Show the Tkon, and the rest of
the multiverse, what you're really made of. Put the
fear of Q into them!"
    Well, not fear exactly, Q thought. Still, 0 had a
point. Realistically, there was no way to make an
impact on the universe without affecting the Tkon
or some species like them. He couldn't balk now,
not if he was really serious about joining 0 in his
campaign. Despite his qualms, he felt a tingle of
excitement, a sneaky thrill that was only height-
ened by the sense that he was getting away with
something he shouldn't. "All right," he declared,
"let's start with something silly and see where we
go from there."
    Without warning, thousands upon thousands of
plump, juicy red yorelies, a Tkon fruit not unlike a
tomato, poured from the sky above the great city of
Ozari-thul. The succulent deluge pelted the streets
and rooftops of the capital, leaving a wet, pulpy
mess wherever the falling fruits came to rest. The
fruits exploded upon impact with masonry or flesh,
spraying everyone and everything with sloppy red
debris. The people of the city, the great and the
lowly alike, ran for shelter, then stared in awe and

amazement at the inexplicable phenomenon. Slit-
ted golden eyes blinked in disbelief while psionic
announcements urged the citizens to remain calm.
"Not bad," 0 pronounced. "A bit adolescent, but
okay for a start."
    Q was delighted by the results of his opening
move. He laughed out loud as a ceremonial parade
down the heart of the city was reduced to pande-
monium by the unnatural downpour, sending both
marchers and onlookers scrambling, already drip-
ping with raw seed and juice, slipping and sliding
in the gory remains of thousands of skydiving
fruits. The high priestess of the Temple of Ozari,
her immaculate white robes and headdress splat-
tered with pulp, tried futilely to finish the Ritual of
Ascension until an overripe vovelle cut her off in
the midprayer. But not everyone found the bizarre
fruitfall an ordeal or an offense; small children,
exhilarated by the marvelously messy miracle, ran
squealing through the streets, scooping up hand-
fuls of pulverized fruit innards to hurl at each
other, giggling deliriously as the gooey redness ran
through their hair and down their faces.
    Q was just as gratified and amused. All that
tremendous chaos, and all because of him! Why-
ever had he waited so long to play this game? One
whimsical notion, and he had affected the lives of
millions, maybe even billions, of other beings. This
was a day that neither he nor the Tkon Empire
would ever forget, and he was just getting warmed
up. Why, he could do anything now, anything at all.

148

A million outrageous possibilities popped into his
mind. He could bring the colorful gods and mon-
sters of Tkon mythology to life, or make their
entire history flow backward. He could imbue an
ordinary Tkon with a fraction of Q-power and see
what happened next, or turn himself into a Tkon
for a time. He could make them speak exclusively
in limericks or sign language or Ionian pentameter.
He might even change the value of pi throughout
the entire empire or lower the speed of light;
just imagine the divine confusion and merriment
that would ensue! The possibilities were as infi-
nite as his imagination. He could hardly wait to get
started.
    But suppose he got carried away? The thought
materialized within his mind as unexpectedly as
the fruits bombarding Ozari-thul, surfacing from
some surprising core of responsibility at the locus
of being. The possibilities at hand were almost too
unlimited. For the first time, Q was frightened by
his own omnipotence.
    The rain of yorelies halted abruptly, leaving a
puzzled population to gaze quizzically at the now-
empty sky. They peeked out nervously from beneath
archways and covered pavilions, half expecting the
fruits to return in greater numbers, perhaps ac-
companied by icemelons and susu as well. Auto-
mated sanitation systems began clearing away the
slippery debris. Awe and wonder gave way to
feverish speculation and debate as news of the
bizarre incident immediately spread to every cor-

ner of the empire. Despite a full imperial investiga-
tion, however, including the subatomic and elec-
tromagnetic scrutiny of over five thousand barrels
of vovelle pulp, plus countless hours of careful
analysis and ontological theorizing, no satisfactory
explanation was ever provided, nor did the em-
press and her people come close to guessing the
truthmuntil much later.
    "What's the matter, Q?" 0 asked. "Why have you
stopped?" He must have known from the look on
Q's face that the young godling was not merely
gearing up for some newer and greater escapade.
"Is there a problem?"
    "It's nothing," Q said, unable to meet the other's
eyes; he didn't want to admit to any second
thoughts. What kind of rebel was he if he got
squeamish about a mere harmless jest? They'd
think he was a coward, afraid of upsetting the
Continuum. "I was simply concerned about the
long-term ecological impact of all those plummet-
ing succulents." The excuse sounded feeble even to
his own ears. "It's just that I want to pace myself,
not use up all my creativity on the first evolving
life-form that catches my eye."
    "But you were only getting warmed up," 0 told
him. "That was nothing but a schoolboy prank.
Not that I don't like a good joke as much the next
all-powerful life-form, but don't you want to try
something, well, more serious?"
    "Maybe later," Q said. It was tempting to play
with the Tkon again, try out some of his new ideas,

but he didn't want to be pushed into anything he
was uncomfortable with by simple peer pressure
alone. If I wanted to just go along with the crowd, I
could have stuck with the Continuum. I'm only
going to do what I want to do--just as soon as I
figure out what that is.
    "I see," 0 answered. He looked disappointed in
Q, but refrained from any further criticism. "Well,
why don't you sit this one out while Gorgan and
the others show you how it's done." He nodded at
his companions, who began to descend and dis-
perse to the far-flung borders of the Tkon Empire,
their very substance shrinking and growing more
compact as they accommodated themselves to the
mortal plane of their respective targets. Soon they
appeared to be no larger than the individual deni-
zens of the worlds they had each selected, but
appearances, in this case, were extremely deceiv-
ing. "They'll just soften them up for us," 0 told Q.
"You and I, maybe we can deliver the coup de grace
later on, after our friends have had their fun." He
strolled over to Q and rested his celestial frame
upon an invisible chair. "You'll like that, Q. The
final test. The exam to end all exams. That's what
makes it all worthwhile, you'll see."
    "Really?" Q asked, too keyed up to sit. He
watched the receding forms of Gorgan, (*), and
The One with mixed emotions. Part of him, the
part that had thoroughly enjoyed raining overripe
fruit upon the palaces of Ozari-thul, wished he was
going with them. Another part, from which his

150                                                                  151

trepidations had emerged, waited nervously to see
what sort of stunts Q's old acquaintances were
intent on. "What kind of final test?" he asked.
    "Later," 0 promised. "For now, just sit back and
enjoy the show."
    I'll try, Q thought, settling back into a comfort-
able curvature of space-time, adjusting the gravity
until it fit just right and resting his head against a
patch of condensed dark matter. He had to admit,
in spite of his occasional reservations, there was
something exceptionally stimulating about not
knowing what was going to happen next.

152

Chapter Seven

GALACTIC BARRIER, HERE WE COME, Riker thought as
the Enterprise came within sight of the perilous
wall of energy. He wasn't looking forward to justi-
fying this decision to Captain Picard, in the un-
likely event that they ever met again. Two empty
chairs flanked the captain's seat; with Picard away
and Deanna off in sickbay, the command area felt
even lonelier than usual.
    "There it is," Ensign Clarze called out unneces-
sarily. Even through the stormy chaos of the Cala-
marain, the luminous presence of the barrier could
be perceived, shining through the temperamental
clouds like a searchlight through the mist and
throwing a reddish purple radiance over the scene
upon the viewer. Let's hope that it's not luring us on
to our destruction, Riker thought. At maximum

 impulse, they would be within the barrier in a
 matter of moments.
    "Steady as she goes, Mr. Clarze," he instructed.
A loose isolinear chip, its casing charred by the
explosion that had liberated it from a broken
control panel, drifted between Riker and the view-
screen, pointedly reminding him that the gravity
had gone the way of most of their shields. Thank
heaven we still have life-support, he thought, after
the beating we've taken. He suspected that the old
Enterprise-D, as durable as she was, would have
already succumbed to the Calamarain's assault. We
upgraded just in time.
    "Shields at eight percent," Leyoro reported.
Small wonder that the ship felt like it was shaking
itself apart. The Calamarain, perhaps becoming
aware of Riker's desperate strategy, threw them-
selves against the hull and what remained of the
deflectors with the same relentless ferocity they
had displayed for hours now. Don't they ever get
tired, he thought, or is that just something we solids
have to put up with?
    "Data. Barclay. Where's that extra energy?" He
smacked his fist against the arm of the chair. "We
need those shields."
    "Scanning for it," Barclay said from the aft
engineering station. Now that the pressure was on,
the nervous crewman seemed to find a hidden
reserve of professionalism, or maybe he was just
too busy to be frightened. This had better work,

Riker thought, drawing comfort from the fact that
Geordi had looked over Barclay's findings and
seconded Data's technical evaluation of the plan.
That's as much as I can ask for, given our lousy
situation. "Yes," Barclay reported, "I think I'm
reading something now. The bio-gel pales are being
energized by the proximity of the barrier. I'm
picking up definite traces of psionic particles."
    Lightning crashed across the prow of the saucer
section, and sparks spewed from the engineering
station, the electrical spray gushing toward the
ceiling instead of raining upon the floor as they
would have under ordinary gravitational condi-
tions. It looked like a geyser of fire. Barclay had no
choice but to step back from the sparking console
while he waited for the emergency circuits to shut
down the geyser. "Commander," he said, cha-
grined, "I can't monitor the bio-gel paks anymore."
    Terrific, Riker thought bitterly. "Data, take over
from your station. Divert whatever energy we've
absorbed to the shields immediately." It will have
to be enough.
    "Yes, Commander," Data acknowledged, his
synthetic fingers flying over the control panel faster
than any human eye could follow. "Initiating ener-
gy transfer now."
    Here goes nothing, Riker thought. Everything
depended on Barclay's wild scheme.
    "Shields back up to seventy percent," Leyoro
reported in surprise; Riker didn't think she was the

154                                                               155

sort to believe in miracles. "The readings are very
peculiar. These aren't like any deflectors I know,
but they're holding."
    And just in time, Riker thought as the ship
plunged into the barrier. He braced for the impact,
wondering briefly if it was even possible for the
ship to be knocked about more than the Calama-
rain had done. The light radiating from the viewer
grew brighter and for an instant he believed he saw
the Calamarain flash strangely, their vibrant colors
reversed like a photographic negative. Then the
whole screen whited out, overloaded by the incred-
ible luminosity of the barrier. The hum of the
Calamarain, and the thunder of their aggression,
vanished abruptly, replaced by a sudden silence
that was almost as unnerving. It was like going
from a battlefield to a morgue in a single breath,
and creepy as could be.
    "Commander," Leyoro exulted, "the Calama-
rain have withdrawn. They can't stand the barri-
er!" She let out a high-pitched whoop that Riker
assumed was some sort of Angosian victory cry. A
breach of bridge protocol, but forgivable under the
circumstances. He felt like cheering himself, de-
spite the eerie quiet.
    But, having shed the Calamarain at last, could
they survive the barrier? He hoped that their
adversaries, in choosing the better part of valor,
had not proven wiser than the Enterprise. "Mr.
Clarze," he commanded, "come to a full stop." He
didn't want to go any deeper into the barrier than

156

they had to, let alone face whatever dangers might
be waiting on the other side, with the ship in the
shape that it was. "Leyoro, how are our new and
improved shields holding up?"
    The deathly hush of the barrier had already
spread to the ship; the lights of the bridge dimmed,
then went out entirely, leaving only the red emer-
gency lights and the glow from the surviving con-
soles to illuminate the stations around him. The
familiar buzz of the bridge faded as lighted control
panels flickered before falling dead. The forward
viewer was useless, the screen blank. They were
flying blind, more or less.
    "Sufficiently, I think," Leyoro allowed. "The
readings are difficult to interpret; the psychic ener-
gy bombarding the ship is the same energy that is
maintaining our shields, which makes them hard to
distinguish from each other."
    "How much longer can we stay here?" he asked,
cutting straight to the crux of the matter. He felt a
dull ache beneath his forehead, and recalled that
Kirk had lost close to a dozen crew members on his
trip through the barrier, their brains burned out by
some sort of telepathic shock. He suddenly won-
dered if his decade-long psychic bond with Deanna
could have left him peculiarly vulnerable to the
telepathic danger of the psychic energy now sur-
rounding the ship. Lord only knows what its doing
to my frontal lobes, he thought, even through our
shields.
 Leyoro shook her head, unable to answer his

question. Her glee over eluding the Calamarain
had given way to concern over their present status.
He saw her grimace in pain, then massage her
forehead with her fingers. Never mind my brain, he
thought, what about Leyoro's? It had not occurred
to him before that her modified nervous system,
permanently altered by the Angosians to increase
her combat readiness, might put her at risk as well.
    He looked to Barclay and Data instead. "How
long?" he asked again, wondering if the real ques-
tion wasn't how long they could stay within the
barrier, but how long they dared to.
    "It is impossible to state with certainty," the
android informed him. "As long as the bio-gel paks
continue to draw psychic power from the barrier,
we should be safe, but we must allow for the
possibility that these unusual energies, which the
bio-gel paks were never designed to accommodate,
may burn out the paks at any moment, in which
case our situation would become significantly more
hazardous."
    "Urn, what he said," Barclay confirmed, twitch-
ing nervously. Paradoxically, his self-conscious
mannerisms had returned as soon as the immedi-
ate danger passed. He works best under pressure,
Riker guessed. The less time he has to fret about
things, the better he copes.
    "Understood," he said. "Good work, both of
you. Contact Commander La Forge and tell him to
start repairing the damage done by the Calama-
rain. Top priority on the shields; with any luck, we

can get our conventional deflectors up and running
before these new bio-gel paks burn themselves
out."
    "What about the gravity, sir?" Barclay asked.
Despite the anti-nausea treatment from Nurse
Ogawa, he still looked a little green around the
gills. Simple spacesickness, or was Barclay's cere-
brum also taking a beating from the barrier? Riker
recalled that the engineer's brain had been artifi-
cially enhanced once before, when the Cytherians
temporarily increased his intelligence. Barclay's
IQ had returned to normal eventually, but it was
conceivable that he could have picked up a little
heightened telepathic sensitivity in the process.
Data may be the only crew member aboard who is
entirely immune to the effect of the barrier, Riker
realized.
    Riker shook his head in response to Barclay's
query. "Shields first, then the warp drive. We'll just
have to put up with weightlessness a little longer."
To keep up morale, he allowed himself an amused
grin. "Think of it as a vacation from gravity."
    "Now that we're free of the Calamarain's damp-
ing influence," Leyoro pointed out, "the warp
engines may be operative again."
    That~ right, Riker thought, immediately tapping
his cornbadge. "Geordi, we're inside the outer
fringes of the barrier, but the Calamarain have
retreated. What's the status of the warp engines?"
    "Not good, Commander," Geordi's voice stated,
exerting its own damping influence on Riker's

hopes. "I don't know if it was the Calamarain or
the barrier or both, but the warp nacelles have
taken an awful lot of damage. It's going to take
several hours to fix them."
    Blast, Riker thought, not too surprised. As he
recalled, the barrier had knocked out Kirk's warp
engines, too, the first time he dared the barrier.
Plus, when you considered all the pounding they
had received from the Calamarain's thunderbolts,
and with minimal shields there at the end, he
figured he should be thankful that at least the
corem system was working. "Go to it, Mr. La
Forge. Riker out."
    "It may be just as well, Commander," Data
commented. "It is impossible to predict the conse-
quences of going to warp within the barrier itself. I
would be highly reluctant to attempt such an
experiment without further analysis of the un-
known energies that comprise the barrier."
    Except that that may be a risk we have to take,
Riker thought, especially if the Calamarain are
waiting for us right outside the barrier. "What
about those angry clouds we just got rid of?." he
asked Leyoro. It was possible that the Calamarain,
assuming the Enterprise destroyed by the barrier,
may have left for greener pastures. "Any sign
they're still hanging around out there?"
    "I don't know, sir," Leyoro said unhappily; it
was obvious that the security chief did not like
having to keep disappointing her commander. Just
as obviously, her head was still bothering her. She

rubbed her right temple mechanically, while a
muscle beside her left eye twitched every few
seconds. "The barrier is so intense its overwhelm-
ing our sensors. They can't detect anything past it."
    So we're blind, deaf, and numb, Riker concluded.
The big question then was what was more danger-
ous, staying inside the barrier or facing the Cala-
marain? We already know we can't beat the
Calamarain as is, he thought, so our best bet is to
stay put until Geordi can get the warp drive working
again, then try to make a quick escape. He surveyed
the bridge, inspecting the faces of his crew, and was
glad to see that all of them, including Barclay,
seemed fit enough for action. He considered send-
ing Leyoro to sickbay for a checkup, but there was a
host of people aboard, all of them in danger', he
couldn't afford to start relieving oflScers just be-
cause they might have a suspicious headache. His
own head was throbbing now, but none of his
people looked like they were ready to keel over.
 Yet.

Chapter Eight

DURING THE FIFTH YEAR OF THE REIGN of the em-
press, on an unusually chilly summer night in the
largest city on Rzom, the eleventh planet in the
primary solar system of the Tkon Empire, a young
man stood on the wide crystal steps leading to the
front entrance of the imperial governor's mansion
and exhorted the crowd that had gathered in the
spacious and well-lit plaza to hear him speak. A
life-sized statue of the empress, carved from the
purest Rzom marble and posed heroically atop an
elegant pedestal at the center of the plaza, looked
on in silence.
    "Why," he asked the onlookers rhetorically,
"should we pay exorbitant taxes, wasting the re-
sources of a lifetime, just to preserve an over-

crowded old world millions of miles from here,
whose time has come?"
    About a third of the crowd, most the same age as
the speaker, cheered his words enthusiastically,
while others muttered among themselves or cast
angry yellow stares at the youth upon the steps.
A contingent of five safeties, clad in matching
turquoise uniforms, flanked the crowd, watching
carefully for the early signifiers of a brewing distur-
bance. The faces of the safeties were fixed and
expressionless, displaying no response to the young
man's fervent oratory. Pacification rings waited
patiently on the fingers of each safety's hand,
linked to sophisticated neutralization equipment
embedded in the very walls and pavement of the
city. So far, there had been no cause to employ the
rings, but the safeties remained alert and ready.
Nervous faces, perhaps even the governor's, peered
through the curtained windows of the palace, view-
ing the drama from behind the safety of reinforced
crystal walls.
    "That world is our birthplace," a woman shouted
indignantly from the forefront of the crowd. From
the looks of her, she was a governmental function-
ary of approximately the sixth echelon, whose
reddish hair was already turning silver. A disk-
shaped emblem melded to the collar of her insulated
winter mantle proclaimed that she had voluntarily
donated more than her allotted share to the Great
Endeavor.

    The young man's partisans among the crowd,
students mostly, greeted the woman's passionate
outburst with jeers and laughter. Emboldened by
their support, the speaker on the steps hooted as
well. "I wasn't born there and neither were you,"
he shot back, winning another round of cheers
from his contemporaries. Despite the chill of the
evening, on a world little known for its warmth, his
vermilion cloak was open to the wind and flapping
above his shoulder as he spoke. His ebony locks
were knotted in the latest style. "I'm proud to say
that I was born here on Rzommand to Hades with
decrepit Tkon!"
    Many of the older spectators clucked disapprov-
ingly and shook their heads. "You should be
ashamed of yourself," the aging functionary said.
"You don't deserve the blessings of the empire!"
    One crystal step above and behind the youthful
firebrand, unobserved by either his supporters or
detractors, nor by the watchful eyes of the vigilant
safeties, Gorgan watched with pleasure as the pub-
lic debate grew more heated. It ~ always so easy,
he thought, pitting the young against the old. This
new plane is no different than any other realm.
    The graying woman's admonition was seconded
by others in the audience. This time those rallying
around her matched the volume of the young
people's catcalls and derisive glee. "That's right,"
another man yelled. He looked like an archivist or
invested myth reader. "Go live among the barbari-

164

ans if that's what you want. Real Tkon know that
the homeworld is worth any sacrifice."
    The open show of opposition seemed to rattle
the leader of the dissidents, who stepped backward
involuntarily, passing effortlessly through the im-
material form of Gorgan, who casually eased to
one side for a bit more personal space. The proud
young Rzom faltered, momentarily at a loss for
words, but Gorgan came to his rescue, whispering
into the youth's ear in a voice only his unconscious
mind could hear.
    "Blessings? What blessings?" the speaker de-
manded, partoting the words that flowed so easily
from Gorgan's lips. "Over fifteen percent of the
empire's adult laborers are devoted to the em-
press's misguided Endeavor, and over twenty-
seven percent of the entire imperial budget! All to
keep the inner planets from meeting their natural
fate. Can you imagine what else could have been
done with all that time and treasure, the advances
we could have achieved in art, science, medicine,
exploration, and social betterment? The finest
minds of a generation are being squandered on a
grandiose exercise in sentimentality and nostal-
gia." His voice grew bolder and more confident as
Gorgan fed him subliminal cues. "Our ancestors
had the courage to physically leave Tkon genera-
tions ago; we should have the courage to let go of it
spiritually at long last. Let's work together to
enhance the future, not preserve the past!"

    "Hear, hear!" cried a young woman, barely past
adolescence, her emerald tresses knotted so tightly
that not a single strand blew freely in the wind.
"Tell them, Jenole!"
    The man beside her, wearing the indigo crest of a
licensed commerce artist, gave her a contemptuous
sneer. "Spoiled whelp," he muttered, loud enough
for her to hear. Throughout the assembled throng,
individuals eyed their neighbors skeptically and
began clustering into hostile pockets of two or
more, placing physical as well as ideological dis-
tance between themselves and those who disagreed
with them. Soon the crowd had parted into two
hostile camps, glaring at each other and shouting
slogans and insults at their fellow citizens. Even the
acutely disciplined safeties began to let their masks
of neutrality slip, betraying their inclinations and
allegiances with a slightly downturned lip here, an
arched eyebrow or furrowed brow there.
    Marvelous, Gorgan thought, delighted to see the
people turning on themselves, splitting apart along
generational lines. Just marvelous. It was his curse
and his glory that he could only achieve and wield
power through the manipulation of others, but that
restriction was of little import when such creatures
as these proved so easy to beguile.
    "And what of the trillions of inhabitants of the
inner worlds?" the older woman challenged the
youth. "Are you prepared to cope with the count-
less refugees the dying sun will send stampeding in
our direction? Not to mention the loss of our

166

history, the end of all archaeological research into
the distant past, the utter destruction of sites and
natural wonders hallowed by millions of years of
striving and civilization?" She paused for breath,
then turned around to face the divided assemblage.
"Don't future generations deserve a chance to gaze
upon the sacred shore of Azzapa? Or walk in the
footsteps of Llaxem or Yson?" She held out her
hands to the crowd, pleading for their understand-
ing. "Don't you see? If we let Tkon and the other
worlds be destroyed, then we're cutting out the
very heart of the culture we all share."
    Gorgan was disturbed to see uncertainty upon
the faces of some of the younger members of the
audience. He scowled at the aging bureaucrat
whose words appeared to be striking a nerve in
listeners both young and old. She's making too
much sense, he brooded. Something has to be done.
    Leaving the leader of the dissidents to his own
devices, Gorgan glided down the steps toward the
woman, the hem of his voluminous gown leaving
no trail upon the polished surface of the steps. He
crept silently to her side until his face was only a
finger away from her ear. You don't stand a chance,
he whispered. You're too old. Your time has passed.
    Higher upon the crystal steps, the youth called
Jenole attempted to regain the mob's attention,
along with the loyalty of his followers. "Tkon's no
heart. It's just a planet, a big rock in the endless
null... like a hundred million other worlds." He
thumped a fist against his chest, raising his voice to

167

 heighten the impact of his impassioned declara-
 tion. "The real heart of the empire is right here! On
 Rzom, and inside us all!"
    His fellow students cheered in unison, some of
them a bit less robustly than before, drawing mur-
derous looks from the opposing camp. The narrow
gazes of the safeties arced back and forth between
the students and their critics, watching both sides
carefully. The silicon rings on their fingers glinted
beneath the elevated lights of the plaza, which cast
a gentle, faintly violet radiance over all that tran-
spired.
    "But that doesn't mean anything," the function-
ary protested, responding to Jenole's shouted claim
to the heart of the empire. She tried to match his
fiery intensity, but found her will and energy
fading. It's no use, a voice at the back of her mind
whispered, sounding very much like her own.
There's no point, you've already lost. Despite sever-
al layers of insulated fabric to protect her from the
winter, she felt a chill work its way into the marrow
of her bones. Tkon is doomed. Nobody cares. The
sun is dying and so are you ....
    Still, she tried to rally her spirits, fighting against
the despair and hopelessness that descended over
her like a suffocating fog. "No, you don't under-
stand. We have a choice." She could barely hear her
own words over the insidious voice inside her skull
(It's a lost cause), but she struggled to force her
argument out through her lips. "We can either run

168

from the disaster or prevent it. Diaspora or deliver-
ance."
    "What's that?" her opponent seemed to bellow
at her. "Speak up. We can't hear you."
    Sadness shrouded her like a heavy net, dragging
her down. "What do you want?" she murmured.
There is no hope. Her chin sagged against her chest
as her gaze dropped to the uncaring steps below.
They'll never learn. "Why won't you listen? We
have a choice. It doesn't have to happen .... "
    She receded back into the crowd, as if drawn by
some inexorable gravitational force, leaving Got-
gan alone and triumphant upon the lower steps.
Despair is a powerful weapon, he gloated, especially
for those already feeling the tug of entropy upon
their bodies and souls. He contemplated the victor
of the debate, standing tall before the imposing
edifice behind him, blithely incognizant of the
alien influences that had driven his critic from the
field. Arrogance, too, has its uses. With both tools at
my disposal, I can sever any bond, tear asunder any
union, and work my will on the scraps that remain.
    One of those scraps, clad in a cloak as florid as
his oratory, trumpeted his cause to the entire plaza.
"You see, the rightness of our position cannot be
denied! Down with the musty memory of Tkon.
The future belongs to the new age of Rzom!"
    His peers took up his cry, but at the fringes of the
crowd people began to drift away. The older citi-
zens in particular, having lost their most vocal

169

advocate, seemed to lose interest in the confronta-
tion. One by one, they turned away, shrugging
dismissively. It was cold out, after all, and they had
better things to do. Beneath their crisp, spotless
uniforms, the coiled muscles of the safeties geared
down to an only slightly lessened state of readiness.
    Gorgan noticed the difference and, noticing,
frowned. The situation had plateaued too soon and
now ran the risk of inspiring nothing more than
empty rhetoric. He could not settle for mere words,
no matter how inflammatory. It was time to up the
stakes, accelerate the conflict to the next level. He
eyed the safeties, so self-assured in their authority,
and smirked in anticipation of what was to come.
You have no idea what awaits you.
    He did not need to draw any nearer to the
cocksure youth standing astride the top steps to
project his new suggestions into such a willing
mind. He rode the momentum he had already
brought about to egg the self-infatuated student
leader on to greater heights of rebellion.
    "Friends, allies, brothers and sisters in arms,"
Jenole called out, the regal facade of the governor's
palace looming behind him. "Listen to me. We
need to send a message to everyone who has tried
to force down our throats their Great Endeavor."
He spat out the name as if it were an obscenity. "To
the governor, to the selfish cowards back on Tkon,
and even to the empress herself."
    Leaping onto the uppermost step, beneath the
carved crystal archway of the grand entrance, he

aimed an accusing finger at the statue of the empress
upon her pedestal. "There she is," he hollered, "the
architect of this entire insane enterprise."

    Not far away, but separated from this moment
and place by a phase or two of reality, a time-lost
starship captain flinched at the word "enterprise" as
he heard it translated into his own tongue. The
name reminded him of dangers and responsibilities
he was not being allowed to face. "Q," he began.
    "Sssh," Q hushed him, watching 0 and his
younger self watching Gorgan watching the Rzom.
"Pay attention, Jean-Luc. You may find the modus
operandi quite instructive. I certainly did."

    "Let's show the galaxy that we mean what we
say," the Rzom youth continued, "that we refuse to
blindly worship the past. Down with that monu-
ment to folly. Down with the empress?
    Incited by their spokesman, the mob of students
rushed the statue, climbing onto the pedestal and
throwing their weight against the marble figure.
Horrified by this attempt at vandalism, a few of the
older citizens tried to intervene, placing themselves
between the statue and the next wave of demon-
strators, but they were quickly shoved aside by the
overexcited students. Fists were raised and angry
words exchanged, prompting the safeties to take
action at last. "Attention," the senior safety an-
nounced, her voice artificially amplified by a mech-
anism planted against the base of her throat. "Step

170                                                                171

away from the statue at once. This gathering is
declared a threat to public order and is hereby
terminated. All citizens are directed to refrain
from further debate and to exit the plaza in an
orderly fashion."
    The safety's instructions chastened a fraction of
those assembled, who froze sheepishly in their
tracks, then began to slink away; lawlessness did
not come easily to people who had known decades
of peace and stability. But the majority of the
students, whose memories were shorter and whose
law-abiding habits were less deeply ingrained, ig-
nored the safety, continuing to clamber over the
marble monument like Belzoidian fleas swarming
over an unguarded piece of cake, while shouting
and cheering uproariously. They appeared to be
having the time of their lives, much to the delight
of Gorgan. Tools that enjoyed their work always
performed better than those who had to be grudg-
ingly forced to their tasks. He nodded approvingly
as a jubilant young Rzom started swinging back
and forth from the outstretched arm of the
sculpted empress.
    The senior safety, on the other hand, scowled
grimly at the sight. She had been afraid of this; the
disturbance had already escalated too far, too fast.
Choosing not to waste time with any further warn-
ings, she sent a silent electronic signal to her fellow
safeties, then aimed the ring on her left forefinger
at the youth hanging from the statue's arm.
 A beam of directed energy, fluorescently orange,

172

leaped from the ring, targeting the would-be van-
dal, who instantly disappeared from sight. The
safety smiled in satisfaction, knowing that the
reckless youth had been painlessly transferred to a
holding facility at headquarters several city blocks
away. Not for the first time, she wondered how
safeties had ever managed before transference
technology became so convenient; she could just
imagine the incredible nuisance of having to physi-
cally subdue and transport each offender before
placing them into a cell.
    Around the plaza, each of the five safeties used
their rings to thin out the crowd of students attack-
ing the monument. As expected, the mere sight of
their friends being deleted from the scene was
enough to discourage several of the students, who
backed away from the statue and each other, clearly
unwilling to spend the night in a pacification cell,
and probably not too eager to explain to their
parents and tutors exactly how they ended up
there. The senior safety permitted herself a sigh of
relief; for a few seconds there, she had worried that
she'd waited too long before attempting to dispel
the agitated crowd. Now, though, the situation
seemed to be coming under control.
    But the student leader, not to mention Gorgan,
would not surrender so easily. Urged on by his
anonymous muse, Jenole entreated his followers to
carry on their crusade in the face of the safeties's
resistance. "Don't give up!" he cried out. "This is
our moment, our chance to demonstrate once and

173

for all that we will not be herded into submission,
that we can take control of our destiny no matter
who stands against us!"
    His words had an impact on his peers, who kept
storming the statue even as their fellow rebels
disappeared left and right. Cracks formed in the
marble surface of the monument, branching out
from each other like twigs on a tree branch. An
ominous scraping noise emerged from the base of
the stature, where the empress's sculpted feet met
the pedestal below. Beams of light picked off the
demonstrators as they climbed out onto the arms
and shoulders of the statue, but new bodies re-
placed those that vanished almost as quickly as
their predecessors were transferred away. "That's
right!" Jenole encouraged them from the top of the
steps. "Don't let them break our spirits with their
cowardly ploys. Show them that the future belongs
to us!"
    "Doesn't he ever run out of breath?" the senior
safety muttered to herself. Turning away from the
besieged monument, she directed both her ring and
her attention at the students' ringleader, who
presented quite an inviting target as he posed
before the palace, his garish red cloak flapping in
the wind. With any luck, deleting that loud-
mouthed boy would suck the wildfire out of the rest
of the protestors.
    No, Gotgan thought, shaking his head slowly. He
would not allow the furor he had created to be so
readily extinguished. As the safety took aim at

174

Jenole, Gorgan summoned his power by clenching
his fists and pantomiming a pounding motion with
his hands, tapping one fist upon the other with a
steady, deliberate rhythm. Without even realizing
he was doing it, Jenole mimicked the gesture,
pounding his own fists together in time with his
unseen mentor just as the transference beam
locked on to him.
 Nothing happened.
    To the safety's astonishment, Jenole remained
where he stood, defying her attempt to relocate
him. She blinked and tried again, with equally
nonexistent results. The safety did not understand,
and Jenole looked a bit bewildered as well; neither
of them had ever known a safety's equipment to
malfunction before. Only Gorgan, his upper hand
silently hammering the fist below, greeted this new
complication with aplomb. The surprises are only
beginning, he promised.
    The confused safety wagged her hand from the
wrist up, hoping she could somehow shake her ring
back into life. When that proved futile, she sent a
private audio transmission to the two nearest safe-
ties. A lighted visual display sewn into her right
sleeve instantly informed her of their ranks and
identity numbers. "One-one-two-eight, six-seven-
four, target subject at top of steps immediately.
Priority $kr'zta."
    Responding without hesitation, two uniformed
figures, previously facing the endangered statue,
swiveled at the waist and directed beams of cadmi-

um light at Jenole. Either ray, the senior safety
knew, would communicate his coordinates to the
central processor, initiating the transference. The
outspoken student gulped visibly as the twin beams
intersected upon his chest right above his heart,
but he continued to make that peculiar pounding
gesture, for reasons neither he nor the safeties truly
understood.
    Whatever he was doing was obviously working.
The other safeties exchanged baffled looks as Je-
hole persisted in striking a dramatic pose overlook-
ing the plaza, despite the best efforts of three
safeties--and advanced Tkon technology--to re-
move him. Now it was the senior safety's turn to
swallow nervously, flinching involuntarily as one
of the empress's marble arms broke away from her
body, plummeting onto the tiled floor of the plaza
to shatter into two pieces. With her pacification
ring rendered unaccountably impotent, the safety
felt like she had lost her own arm as well. "Get the
safeties," Jenole instructed the other dissidents.
"Their rings are useless now. Don't let them stop
US!"
    That those last two statements were mutually
contradictory did not bother any of the students,
who divided their efforts between toppling the
now-mutilated statue and assailing the safeties,
who suddenly found themselves outnumbered and
unarmed. No safety had carried any physical weap-
ons for years; why bother when any implement that
might be needed could be summoned instantane-

ously by means of their rings? All at once, the
senior safety found herself longing for an old-
fashioned roeson rifle--or even a big stick.
    She tried to summon reinforcements, only to
discover that the communicator at her throat had
gone as dead as the silicon ring on her finger.
Gritting her teeth, she tried to will the ring back
into operation, but the accursed thing couldn't
even produce a faint orange glow anymore. Its
failure--impossible, inexplicable--left her with
no hope of quelling the disturbance, let alone
protecting herself. A tide of shrieking students,
intoxicated with the heady bouquet of insurrec-
tion, flooded over her. She felt frenzied hands
grabbing her, tugging at her ring, nearly breaking
her finger in the process. The ring slipped free,
scraping her knuckles red, and the crowd tossed
her aside. She went stumbling across the floor of
the plaza, falling onto her knees and barely throw-
ing her hands out in time to stop her face from
hitting the hard ceramic tiles.
    A moment later, there was a ghastly wrenching
noise, as the statue was torn from its pedestal and
its heavy weight crashed to the ground, shaking the
tiles beneath her palms and knees. A marble head
bearing a marble crown rolled across the plaza
until it came to a rest only a few arm's lengths away
from the shaken safety. Its features, once beautiful
and serene, were now chipped and gouged, looking
up at the night sky with only the scarred vestiges of
its former grace.

  The empress had fallen.
    "Yes!" Jenole crowed to the students below him,
Gorgan perching behind him like a shadow. "No
one in the empire can ignore us now!" His victori-
ous compatriots hooted and howled in jubilation,
letting the battered safeties creep away to safety. A
blond-haired girl danced atop the empty pedestal
while her friends in the crowd tossed fragments of
the shattered statue among themselves, claiming
pieces as souvenirs.
    "That's right, celebrate!" Someone tossed Jenole
the head of the empress, which he held aloft
triumphantly, his golden eyes aglow, his cheeks
flushed with excitement. "We've won. The night is
ours." His gaze swept over the throng of ecstatic
students, making certain he had their full atten-
tion. "But this is just the beginning." Gorgan's lips
moved soundlessly and the words emerged from
Jenole's throat, his voice alive with passion and
commitment. "But this is just the beginning.
There's an industrial transfer station only a few
blocks from here, down by the River Hessari,
where thousands of cauldrons of pure tmirsh are
marked for delivery to the Great Expenditure. Raw
material, torn from our planet and our people,
never to return!"
    The rioters booed and shouted profanities. Gor-
gan felt his power grow with the crowd's intensity.
This was just like the old days, before O's downfall.
This time it will be different, he vowed. No one can
hinder us.

    "Those cauldrons belong to us," Jenole declared,
"and I say they're not going anywhere. Now is the
time for us to take back our destiny." He dropped
the defaced marble head and let it roll awkwardly
down the steps into the crowd, eliciting a full-
throated hurrah from his peers. "Those cauldrons
are waiting for us," he asserted, pointing past the
plaza toward the riverfront. "Are you with me?"
    The crowd's response was both overwhelming
and inevitable. Any possible opposition had either
fled in retreat or succumbed to the revolutionary
fever. Unwilling or unable to defy the mob, the
governor remained locked inside his mansion,
while fresh safeties, summoned no doubt by ob-
servers within the palace, cordoned off the plaza,
reluctant to engage the demonstrators until the
mystery of their equipment's failure could be ade-
quately explained.
    But there was no time for answers. Running
down the steps, taking them two at a time, Jenole
set off a stampede of eager and unthinking young
men and women streaming toward the far end of
the plaza--and the line of turquoise figures who
waited to halt their progress. Seen from above, as
Gorgon levitated above the fray, the rampaging
students resembled a surging sea, their knotted
tresses bobbing like waves driven by a storm.
    The newly arrived safeties never stood a chance.
A deluge of amok Rzom youth crashed against
them, meeting only inactive technology, and broke
through their ranks, pouring into the city streets

and shattering the quiet of the evening with their
chants and cries and uninhibited laughter. The
gates of the transfer station presented even less
resistance than the cordon around the plaza. The
night shift stepped back, frightened and uncompre-
hending as their sons and daughters tore through
the unguarded facility, wreaking havoc on data files
and delicate apparatus, shoving fragile exports off
transporter platforms and stasis units alike, then
converging on the preservation dome where mate-
rials allocated for the Great Endeavor were kept
until needed.
    The pillar of steam that rose from the River
Hessari as countless units of molten tmirsh were
dumped into its rushing amethyst currents could
be seen from one end of the city to another. Some
said, and they were correct, that the gigantic plume
of heated vapor was even witnessed by imperial
satellites in orbit around Rzom, who transmitted
the image instantaneously to the empress herself.
    Gorgan basked in the satisfaction of a job well
done. He had planted the seed. Now it was up to
his allies to nurture and cultivate the crop.
 Until it was time for the harvest.

Chapter Nine

In the tenth year in the reign of the empress:

THE IMPERIAL FLEET WAITED just past the asteroid
belt that divided the inner worlds of the Tkon
Empire, including Tkon itself, from their rebellious
siblings beyond the belt. At the prime-control of
the scout ship Bastu, at the forward tip of the
formation, Null Pilot Lapu Ordaln stayed attuned
to his long-distance surveyors and wondered if he
could ever possibly be ready for what was to come.
    A battle such as was about to take place had not
been fought since the Age of Xora, innumerable
generations ago. Indeed, it was practically unheard-
of to have this many vessels in the void at one time;
safe and effective travel by transference had largely
rendered nullcraft obsolete, except for exploration
and warfare. The average citizen had not needed to
ride a rocket from one planet to another since

his grandfather's time, at least until recently,
when the present crisis brought commerce and
contact between the empire and the rebel worlds
to a halt. "Hell-wings," he cursed aloud. Why
couldn't Rzom and the other outer planets simply
go along with the Great Endeavor like the rest of
the empire? What in Makto's name had driven
them to mount this insane rebellion, putting
everyone at risk? Rend it all, he had friends on
Rzom, even a cousin or two. Why, then, this
senseless war?
    To be fair, sages and opinionators still argued
about who had truly started the war, the empire
trying to quell uprisings on the outer worlds, or the
rebels encroaching on imperial space to sabotage
the Great Endeavor. Never mind who began it, he
told himself, trying to ready his spirits for the
confrontation ahead. Our job now is to end it, one
way or another.
    He glanced around the habitation bulb of Bastu,
exchanging a glance with his subpilot, Nasua
Ztrahs, strapped into her own control less than an
arm's length away. Aside from them, no other
living creature breathed within the bulb; all of the
vital functions of the vessel, including attack and
defense modes, were operated by the ship itself,
with its organic pilots ready to override the think-
ing chips only in the event of some genuinely
unforeseen circumstance. One pilot was practically
superfluous; a subpilot to take over if the prime was
disabled was an extra level of redundancy, dictated

182

as much by tradition as by cautious calculation.
Besides, Ordaln thought bitterly, if there wasn't
some flesh and blood at stake, how could you call it
a war?
    There. Here they come. The ship's surveyors
detected the approach of the enemy armada, alert-
ing the null pilot at the speed of thought. Funny, it
still felt wrong to think of Rzom as the enemy.
Defensive systems came to life all around the bulb
as the cerebral imager projected three-dimensional
graphics of the oncoming ships directly into his
mind. He heard Ztrahs suck in her breath and
knew that she had received the same input. Testing
the imager compulsively, as if every component of
Bastu had not already been checked out by imperi-
al shipwrights, he confirmed that he could switch
back and forth at will between a subjective ship's-
eye view of the battle to an objective, omniscient
overview of the entire conflict. He was relieved to
note that, just as their informants had reported, the
imperial ships outnumbered their rebel counter-
parts at least three to one. We'll make short work of
them, he thought, no matter how bloody a business
it proves to be.
    "For Tkon and the empress," he said, loud
enough for Ztrahs to hear. It was a null pilot's job
to maintain proper morale, even for a crew of two.
    "For Tkon and the empress," she answered back,
her voice tense but controlled. It dawned on Or-
daln that she probably had friends and relations on
the other side, too.

    Then the first of the enemy vessels was upon
them ....

    Almost, (*) thought hungrily. The clash it had
been waiting for was only instants away. At the
moment, it sensed more dread than anger among
the participants, more apprehension than aggres-
sion, but that would change once the fighting
started. Hate would come to the fore, and then (*)
would feed.
 And feed well.
    Holding the enemy within their sights, monitor-
ing each other's advance to the tiniest degree,
neither side took notice of a flickering sphere of
crimson energy spinning fiercely less than a light-
year away, emitting a faint red radiance that failed
to register on either imperial or rebel sensors. (*)
also observed the disparity in strength between the
two forces, and resolved to address that problem
soon enough. It held no favorites in the coming
contest, only a determination that both victory and
defeat be forestalled for as long as possible. Only
the war itself mattered; the fury and strife were
their own reward.
    The imperial fleet fanned out in three dimen-
sions, assuming a pyramid formation with its point
aimed straight at the heart of the rebel armada,
which responded by angling outward and away
from their center, forming a sideways funnel whose
open mouth expanded as if to swallow the advan-
cing pyramid. For a brief moment, as the forward

184

end of the armada spread out like concentric
ripples upon the surface of a pond, it looked like
the larger, imperial fleet might pass through the
opposing forces without even engaging the enemy,
but the imperial pyramid flattened out abruptly as
the warships that comprised its base raced to
intersect the circumference of the gigantic, empty
loop the invading armada had become. All along
the periphery of both fleets, imperial and rebel
ships rushed headlong at each other, unable to
evade direct confrontation any longer.
    Not even (*) could tell which side fired first. As
swiftly and nigh simultaneously as if a switch had
been activated, bursts of incandescent energy
jumped from ship to ship to ship, linking hundreds
of nullcraft in an intricate and ever-shifting lattice
of red and purple beams of light that knitted the
edges of both fleets to each other, locking them into
a taut, violently twisting tapestry that only total
defeat or victory could rip apart. Projectile weap-
ons, powered by their own destructive energies,
carried the battle deeper into the masses of the
opposing forces, arcing through the void to hurl
themselves at inhabited vessels several hundred
times larger than the unmanned missiles that per-
ished in sacrificial blazes against the hulls of their
targets. The narrowing space between the contend-
ing fleets filled with fire and debris.
    Despite heavy shielding on the part of both
adversaries, the furious exchange of armaments
claimed its first casualties within minutes. Un-

185

scratched, untested void fighters, subjected to doz-
ens of assaults from above and below, succumbed
to destruction and/or decompression. Transitory
flashes of unfettered plasma strobed the battle
lines, sparking anguish and desire for revenge
among the surviving combatants. Abstract political
differences suddenly became deadly personal as
pilots on both sides dived and ducked amid the
chaos, striking back with every tactic and weapon
at their command. More ships fell before the
inferno, leaving the remaining ships ever more
intent on exacting retribution.
    (*) savored the unleashed hate and fury of the
volatile humanoids within their metallic convey-
ances. Its only fear was that the hostilities would
terminate too soon, before it had drained every last
drop of sustenance from the unsuspecting mortals.
Avidly, it examined the ongoing encounter, sub-
jecting the entire battle to its keen and far too
experienced analysis. How best, it meditated, to
prolong the conflict?
    Ironically, the ships, large and small, that com-
prised both fleets were virtually identical in design,
not surprising considering that not long ago they
had indeed composed a single unified force, before
time and trouble outpaced their common ancestry.
Only carefully guarded roeson signatures kept
allied vessels from firing upon each other in
confusion. (*) rotated thoughtfully, seeing all the
possibilities.

~ vs

186

     For the first few minutes, Lapu Ordaln found
 himself at the still, silent center of the storm. The
 Rzom nullcraft had all darted away to the perime-
 ter, leaving behind an empty hole at the core of
 their formation. He experienced a moment of
 private relief at this momentary respite, even
 though he knew he couldn't allow the rebels to
 evade him this easily. If fortune was with Tkon, his
 comrades behind him would halt the enemy's ad-
 vance long enough for Bastu to reverse course and
 catch up with the fight.
    "Let's go get them," he stated decisively, while
psionically urging his ship to switch to pursuit
mode. Bastu executed a flawless crescent turn that
sent them speeding toward the action, which, as
the imager showed him, had already begun. In his
mind's eye, he saw the fighting flare up at the
outskirts of the rebel armada, then work its way
inward, zigzagging through the rapidly intermesh-
ing fleets like spidery cracks fragmenting a sheet of
ice. The meson tracking system functioned per-
fectly, tracing imperial ships in blue and rebel
vessels in red. To his dismay, he watched as, one at
a time, graphics both blue and red vanished neatly
from the display.
    We couM be next, he realized, feeling a bitter
resentment toward the Rzom lunatics who had
brought them all to this sorry pass. He wanted to
look away, but the cerebral imager made that
impossible. The more he squeezed his eyelids shut,
the more clearly he saw the deadly conflagration

that was drawing him closer by the second, like a
charged particle to a blazing atomic core. He
braced his back against the gravity cushion and
tugged on the straps of his harness to make certain
they were secure. Bastu was coming within range of
its weapons capacity, not to mention close enough
to draw fire from the enemy. Time to kill or be
killed. Thank Ozari that the ship actually did the
targeting, sparing him and Ztrahs that awful re-
sponsibility.
    Without warning, the red and blue outlines
marking each nullcraft disappeared from the dis-
play. His eyes opened wide in surprise, but the
image remained the same. Suddenly there was no
way to distinguish imperial ships from the rebels,
friend from foe. Bastu's attack systems froze even
as the ship plunged into the melee, the thinking
chips paralyzed by this unexpected loss of crucial
data.
    "Lapu?" his subpilot asked, confusion evident in
her tone. Obviously she was receiving the same
inadequate display from the imager.
    "Reinitialize the entire system," he replied. "Do
whatever you can to get the accursed thing up and
running again. Quickly." In the meantime, he
realized with a start, he would have to take over
control of the weapons from the ship. He was
fighting this war for real.
    But what good could he do? Bastu weaved effec-
tively through the crowded nun-space, avoiding

188

collisions with the other warships, but Ordain did
not know what else could be done. He couldn't just
fire blindly; given the relative size of the fleets, he
was more likely to hit one of his own ships than a
rebel. "Lapu--I mean, Pilot Ordalnl" Ztrahs re-
ported within moments, visibly aghast. "It's not
just us. It's everyone, us and the enemy both.
Nobody's markers are working."
    How was that possible? A solar flare? A transreal
anomaly? Ordain didn't even try to figure it out; he
was a pilot, not a techner. Instead his mind in-
stantly grasped the strategic implications of what
had happened; all at once, the empire's numerical
superiority had become a liability. Without the
meson tags, the rebels had better odds of hitting
their enemies than he did.
    "They did it on purpose!" he blurted, blood
pounding in his temples as the truth struck him
with the force of orbital acceleration. What manner
of crazed, reckless ploy was this? Fighting in the
dark like this might get them all killed. Didn't so
many lives, Tkon or Rzom, mean anything to
them? "They're insane, all of them! Fanatics!"
 But he wouldn't let them get away with it ....

    Yes, (*) approved, basking in the renewed waves
of enmity suffusing the sector. The warriors of the
inner planets would not overcome those of the
outer worlds so easily now. Their frustration fed
their animosity, feeding (*), just as the desperation

of all concerned only heightened the intensity of
their violent passions. This was more than mere
nourishment now; it was an exquisite delicacy.
    (*) spun silently in the depths of space, lapping
up the hate that spilled like blood. Best of all, it had
not yet approached the very peak of its feeding
cycle. The more the organic specimens hated, the
stronger (*) grew, and the stronger it became, the
better it could fan the flames of the conflict, toying
with the minds and matter below it to yield ever
greater rewards.
 As it did now.

 Rzom trash. It was all their fault.
    Another shudder shook the habitation bulb as
Bastu came under attack again. Ordaln unleashed a
volley of concentrated plasma bolts at the nearest
vessel, not caring terribly whether it hailed from
Tkon or Rzom or any of the other worlds that had
been dragged into this stinking bloodbath. They
had attacked him, that was enough, so he emptied
his arsenal at them, then waited for the pulse
cannons to recharge.
    Tkon can still win, he realized, even with every-
one shooting randomly. We can triumph by attri-
tion, when the last rebel craft has been reduced to
null-dust. He just had to stay alive until then, and
the best way to do that was to fire at anything that
came within range of his weapons. "Blast them all,
and let Ozari take Their pick," he growled, his
throat bubbling over with bile. He launched a brace

of cobalt missiles at a suspicious-looking scout ship
at sixty degrees, and was gratified to see it spiral
away in flames. "Isn't that right, Nasua?"
    The subpilot was dead, killed by a jagged piece
of silicon crystal that had broken through the
habitation bubble during the last missile strike.
Ordain wasn't worried. She wouldn't be dead
much longer. Already both pilot and bulb were
repairing themselves, the crystal shard retracting
back into Bastu's internal mechanisms, the pierced
plasteel shell of the bulb knitting itself shut miracu-
lously. Time almost seemed to be running in re-
verse as the gaping wound in Ztrahs's throat
closed, leaving not even a scar behind. Ordain
watched, unsurprised, at the way the color came
back into her expression. Her lifeless golden eyes
blinked, then looked back at him. "They killed me
again?" she asked, sounding more annoyed than
distressed.
    "Yes," he replied curtly. It was nothing new; they
had each been killed a couple times already. But
Ozari would not let them die, it seemed, as long as
the fight continued. Their wounds healed magi-
cally, their ship kept repaired, their weapons per-
petually replenished... what more proof did they
need that the fates were on their side? This had
become a holy war, and Ordain was more than
happy to wipe the rebel dirt from existence, no
matter how many times he had to die. He'd had
friends among the Rzom, sure, and family, too, but
they were nothing to him now, not anymore. All

that mattered was winning the war, which meant
destroying the enemy once and for all.
    He launched more missiles, one in every direc-
tion, confident that no matter how many he fired,
there would always be more. He was glad that he
had taken control of the weapons himself. It was
more satisfying this way. "Die, rebels, die!" he
chanted, and Ztrahs joined in, laughing mania-
cally. "Death to the Rzom!"
 And the battle went on and on ....

Chapter Ten

In the fiftieth year of the reign of the empress:

FAR FROM THE STRESSES OF WORK OR WAR, a photon
wave engineer named Kelica udHosn stretched
out upon a leased solo lifter and went fishing for
birds. Elsewhere in the empire, there was strife
and nullfleets were clashing, but not here on Wsor,
deep in the heart of the inner worlds, between
sacred Tkon and the dying sun. Kelica's shallow
float drifted several lengths below a billowing
bank of swollen tangerine clouds. A thin line of
polynitrated filament stretched upward from the
reel in her left hand to somewhere deep within
the cloud directly overhead. A minus-gray hook,
baited with a piece of raw ewone, waited for any
unwary avians who might be lured by the glisten-
ing magenta pulp.
 To be completely up-front about it, Kelica didn't

care if she caught a plump galebird or not. This was
the first vacation she'd had from the Great Endeav-
or in what felt like a radioactive half-life and it was
enough simply to waft through the sky on the
gentle wind currents, the clouds above her, the
rolling umber hills of the Maelisteen countryside
far beneath. Yes, this was exactly what she needed
after seven months of balancing and rebalancing
the light index ratios for the proposed solar trans-
ference. For Ozari's sake, the tired old sun wasn't
going to flare out anytime this week. The Great
Endeavor could do without her for a few days.
    She rolled onto her side and took a sip of the
spicy nectar in the juiceskin beside her. An ele-
vated calciate ridge, about a hand's breadth high,
ran along the perimeter of her oblong lifter, pre-
venting her from tumbling off its padded surface
carelessly, even though she kept her emergency
floater belt on just in case. She gazed out at the
breathtaking scenery available to her from her lofty
vantage point; aside from another float on the
horizon, she had the whole sky to herself. That was
the great thing about Wsor: As one of the inner-
most planets, the war with the outer worlds had
barely touched it so far. Peeking over the edge of
the safety ridge, she saw Proutu Mountain rising to
the southeast, its snowcapped peak reflected in the
glassy surface of Lake Vailos. A few small pleasure
rafts, looking like discarded wood shavings from
this high up, nestled atop the lake, prompting her
to wonder why anyone would still go fishing the

old-fashioned way when they could go trolling
through the clouds instead.
    Lazy minutes passed without a single tug on her
line, and Kelica began to feel just the tiniest bit
bored. Closing her eyes and activating the implant
at the base of her brain, she tapped into the psi-
network, her mind scanning the local emanations
for something interesting.
    People of Wsor, turn away from your sin and
arrogance. Pay heed to The One who stands in
judgment above you all. The days of your folly are
numbered. Great is The One who comes from be-
yond....
    What was this, some kind of crazy religious
wavecast? Might be good for a giggle or two, she
decided as she adjusted her sun-warmed limbs
against the cushions and took another sip of the
nectar. The float coasted south toward the moun-
tain, blown along by a cooling breeze.
    ... unto you and yours shall the overweening
pride of your ancestors be held to account, even unto
the end of days. Repent of your wayward paths, for
The One will brook no impiety nor disrespect. Yea,
even if no more than one soul shall turn away from
The One, then all shall be punished. Many will fall
before His Wrath, and those that live through the
first chastisement will surely long for the sweet
release of death ....
    Okay, okay, Kelica thought. She got the message,
which was exhausting its novelty value at amazing
speed. Who would actually want to listen to this

blather? She searched for something else on the
adjacent psi-bands.
    ú.. and the signs of His Judgment shall be writ-
ten among the elements. Fire and water shall be His
Rod and His Scourge, just as the rocks below and
sky above ....
    Huh? How did she get this again? She tried
another neural frequency.
    ú.. and there shall be neither peace nor mercy,
neither pardon nor deliverance ....
    For the first time, she began to feel slightly
nervous. The demented rantings seemed to all over
the psi-scape, supplanting even the imperial news
and weather wavecasts. She even tried accessing
some of the more popular erotic transmissions, but
to no avail. The apocalyptic warnings were every-
where, and expressly where they didn't belong.
    Fall upon your knees and pray for salvation, but it
shah not be forthcoming. The time for redemption
has passed. Now comes The One and His Anger is
great....
    It must be a psychological propaganda offensive,
she realized, but how had the Rzom insurrection-
ists succeeded in hijacking the entire psionic net-
work? And did they really expect modern-minded
Tkon to fall for all this pompous mumbo-jumbo?
    A yank upon her hand reminded her of her
fishing line, which she had completely forgotten.
Automatically she began reeling the taut filament
in, too preoccupied by the unsettling wavecast to
even wonder what she had caught. She was only

planning to let the bird go anyway. She liked
snaring the pretty birds, but saw no point in letting
them suffer afterward. That was just pointless
cruelty.
    A deafening boom came without warning, the
shock wave rocking the small lifter and tossing her
backward against the cushions. Her elbow collided
with the juiceskin, squirting nectar onto her side.
Grabbing the safety ridge with her free hand, she
pulled herself up to a sitting position and looked
with amazement to the south.
    The top of Proutu Mountain wasn't there any-
more. Instead of the white-frosted peak she had
admired only minutes before, a tremendous explo-
sion of smoke and ash as large as the mountain
itself gushed from an open crater, spewing flame
and red-hot magma. Rivers of glowing lava poured
over the jagged rim of the crater, racing the swiftly
melting snow down the side of the mountain--no,
the volcano!--and flooding into the wide-open
reservoir of the lake, where a gigantic wall of steam
rose into the air, obscuring her view of the moun-
tain itself. The once-placid surface of the lake
churned and bubbled, turning into an enormous
cauldron of boiling mud and water.
    Proutu had erupted. But that was impossible; the
mountain had been extinct for aeons. All the travel
data said so. And there hadn't been any signs or
indications. No preliminary tremors, no geother-
mal disturbances. No warning at all, except:
 Behold His Justice, and tremble. Look upon the

retribution of The One and know that the harrowing
has just begun ....
    "Sacred Ozari," she whispered. This couldn't be
happening, but it was. Her ears still ached from
that first cataclysmic detonation. A noxious odor,
like sulfur or macrum, teased her nostrils. Ignoring
the sticky wetness of the nectar spilling onto the
floor of the float, she retained the presence of mind
to press down with her thumb upon the release
switch of her fishing reel, slicing through the fila-
ment and setting the unseen avian free. Then she
looked back down at the frothing lake beneath her.
None of the tourist rafts had overturned yet, but
dead fish were floating to surface by the hundreds,
turning the murky waters into a grotesque, colossal
bouillabaisse.
    ú.. nothing shall be spared, neither the beasts of
the field, nor the swimmers in the deep ....
    Fortunately, the initial shock wave had sent her
gliding away from the volcano. Thank... some-
one... that she hadn't been any closer to the
mountain when it blew. She started to activate the
auto-recall on the lifter, intending to get back to
the launch center as quickly as possible, when she
remembered the other float she had glimpsed earli-
er. Could that poor individual possibly have sur-
vived?
    Holding the float in place by mental control, she
peered back into the roiling fog of smoke and
steamú The acrid smell was getting stronger by the
moment; she could feel it stinging at the back of her

throat. "Hello?' she called out hoarsely. "Is there
anybody there?" There was no point scanning for a
psychic cry for assistance; that malevolent sermon,
which sounded like pure gloating now, was still
raving across every psi-band, swamping everything
else. She could hear that harsh, unforgiving voice
bellowing inside her skull, no matter how hard she
tried to shut it out. She shut down her implant
entirely, but somehow the voice still came through.
    ... d~om the lower regions shall His Vengeance
come. As blazing as an inferno is the sting of His
Whip....
    Cupping her palm over her nose and mouth in a
fruitless attempt to keep out the increasingly corro-
sive fumes, she squinted with teary eyes into the
opaque black smoke. I can't wait any longer, she
thought. I have to turn back. Then she heard it.
    "Help me!" a strident voice cried out from
behind the curtain of fog. It was a man's voice,
steeped in terror. "Somebody help me!"
    Kelica hesitated, unwilling to steer her own float
into that lightless, tenebrous murk, but unable to
abandon the desperate stranger lost in the dark.
"Help, help me, please!" he screamed again, cough-
ing loudly afterward. He sounded like he was
choking.
    To her relief, the prow of the other lifter poked
from the sooty depths of the spreading smoke,
pulling the rest of the craft behind it. That surge of
hope was quickly replaced by fear when she saw

that the unlucky air-fisher was no longer safely
inside his craft, but was instead dangling by his
fingertips from the edge of the floatú "Don't panic,"
she whispered to herself, remembering the multiple
safety measures built into the floater belt around
his waist. He couldn't fall to his death if he tried. It
was scientifically impossible. Of course, that was
what they had said about Proutu erupting, too.
    As the stalks fall before the scythe, so shall the
unrighteous fall before The One. Nemesis is He, the
leveler of nations, the purifier of worlds ....
    Both man and floater were blackened with ash.
Sooty tears ran like rivulets down his cheeks,
streaking his face. "Just let go," Kelica called out,
worried about colliding with the other lifterú They
probably wouldn't hit hard enough to do any
damage, but she didn't feel like taking chances.
"Activate the minus-grav switch, and I'll come by
and pick you up."
    He tried to reply, but all that escaped his throat
was a raspy cough. He nodded, though, and closed
his eyes, mentally willing the belt into readiness.
His straining fingers let go of the float--and he fell
like a stone.
    What! She couldn't believe it. The belt should
have held him aloft. Why hadn't it worked? Her
mouth hung open, too shocked to even breathe,
while she watched the shrinking figure drop toward
the boiling lake. It's still all right, she remembered.
The emergency transfer will kick in any second now,
the moment he hits trigger velocity, transporting

him back to the center and canceling his downward
momentum. She waited anxiously for the falling
man to disintegrate into quantum particles.
    It never happened. She stared in horror as he
plummeted into the lake, the splash of his impact
lost amid the churning chaos of the reservoir.
Kelica gasped, sucking in air at last, only to choke
on the caustic smoke. Panic set in, spreading
through her like a fever. She had to get out of here
now! Back, she ordered the lifter, grateful that she
didn't have to breathe the word aloud. The fumes
were getting worse, making her sick.
    ú.. and the kingdom of the air shall crumble, and
the waters of life made into slaying venom ....
    "Shut up, shut up," she snapped, pressing her
hands against her ears. This was a nightmare. It
couldn't be real. "Stop it. I don't want to hear it."
    ú.. and the orchards will be as deserts, and the
skies as lifeless as the void....
    Something rough and feathery smacked against
her head, then rebounded onto the sticky floor of
the float. It was an adult galebird, its eyes glassy
and immobile, its beak locked open in silent pro-
test. She didn't need to feel for its hearts to know it
was dead. The fumes, she realized. The gases from
the volcano were killing the birds.
    ú.. aqom the meager to the mighty, from the lowly
to the lords of the spheres, none shall escape The
One....
    More downy bodies struck the lifter. They were
falling by the dozens now. She held up her hands to

200                                                                  201

shield her head as the shallow float teetered be-
neath the force of the avian downpour. The strick-
en birds began to pile up all around her, some of
them still alive, their crimson wings weakly flap-
ping, and a new fear struck her: What if the weight
of the birds overloaded the capacity of the float?
This was only a solo lifter!
    Frantically, she started bailing out the bottom of
the float, throwing the dead and dying birds over
the side as fast as she could manage, heedless of
the new feathered bodies slamming into her head
and shoulders, buffering the tiny craft while she
wheezed for breath amid the suffocating smoke.
But despite her frenzied efforts, the front of the
float tipped downward alarmingly, throwing her
forward onto her hands and knees among the grisly
carpet of dead birds, their tiny bones crunching
beneath her weight.
    ú.. for the greatest of the great is but a mote of
foulness in the sight of The One, as the most flawless
of gems is but a rough and coarsened stone in the
face of His Glory....
    She wanted to flee the lifter, jump free of the
float, but fright kept her frozen in place. What if
her belt didn't work, either? She tried to activate
either the minus-grav or the transfer alert, thinking
at the belt so hard that her brain hurt, but nothing
happened. She remained tethered by gravity to the
foundering lifter, even as it began to spiral irresisti-
bly toward the scalding water below, picking up

speed as it carried her inexorably toward annihila-
tion.
    ú.. thus shall perish the heretics and apostates,
the blasphemers and nonbelievers, for I am The
One, the alpha and omega, your beginning and your
end....
    The last thing she saw, before the terrifying
acceleration rendered her mercifully unconscious,
was something almost too incredible to believe,
even in the middle of a waking nightmare. It was
the bottom half of the mountain where, impossi-
bly, insanely, the flowing lava had carved a single
word into the granite side of the mountain, like an
artist aftaxing his signature to his latest master-
piece.
 It was the ancient Tkon symbol for the number
one.

202                                                                  203

Chapter Eleven

"All, I LOW 'mE LUSTER OF LAVA atop lesser life-
forms," 0 rhapsodized. "Between you and me, Q,
The One can be a bit overbearing at times, not to
mention utterly humorless, but you have to admit
that He puts His All into His Work."
    '7 spied a lush morsel on a banquet so vast," he
chanted in his customary singsong fashion,

"That I wanted my fill as 'twere my last,
Among this spread that was all I couM wish,
Never before had I seen such a dish,
Oh, never before had I seen such a dish."

    The length and breadth of the Tkon Empire was
spread out between them like a colossal game
board. At the moment, the planet Wsor occupied

the spotlight of O's attention, which passed through
the spinning globe and projected onto an adjacent
plane of reality a magnified view of the volcanic
devastation currently demolishing the southern
continent, much as a lesser entity might use a
holographic monitor. Rivers of molten lava, ren-
dered several quadrillion times larger than life,
oozed across the intangible screen, casting a crim-
son glow upon O's grinning features as he levitated
above the game board, being careful to keep the
soles of his buckled shoes off the solar system
below. Superimposed upon the magma, like a
ghostly double image, were the stern and unforgiv-
ing features of The One. "Didn't I tell you this only
got better?" 0 asked.
    "It's certainly dramatic enough, I suppose," Q
answered. He hung upside down on the reverse side
of the board, his knees wrapped around a stretch of
sturdy quantum filaments while his head dangled
only a light-year or so above (or below, depending
on your orientation) the diverse worlds of the
empire. To be honest, he was starting to get dis-
tinctly disgusted, but it struck him as impolite to
say so. O's confederates had been at work for some
time, at least half a century by Tkon standards, and
yet all their games, no matter how creatively con-
ceived, seemed to arrive at the same conclusion:
lots of death and devastation and screaming.
Which had a certain crude shock appeal at first,
granted, until it became unpleasant and monoto-
nous. Frankly, he thought, I'd appreciate a little

204                                                                  205

comic relief at this point, maybe even a nice roman-
tic interlude. He avoided O's gaze as he let his mind
wander. I wonder what Q is doing right now?
    "About time you thought of me," his sometime
girlfriend and future wife replied indignantly,
flashing onto the scene. She stood just out of reach,
oriented along the same axis as Q, so that he found
himself staring directly into her kneecaps. "I was
starting to wonder if I was going to cross your mind
anytime before the heat death of the universe."
    Q somersaulted off his invisible trapeze, landing
on his feet in front of Q. Arms crossed atop her
chest, she fixed a pair of dubious eyes upon him.
Her auburn tresses fell across her shoulders, less
elegantly coifed than they would be aboard the
Enterprise-E six hundred millennia from now, but
the arch of her eyebrow was no less haughty.
    Despite her forbidding expression and body lan-
guage, Q was glad to see her. Where was the fun of
embarking on a bold new adventure if there was no
one around to show off for? 0 and his pals didn't
count; they were part of the experiment, and too
experienced in this kind of thing to be either
impressed or shocked by Q's role in the proceed-
ings. I need an audience, he decided, and he
couldn't think of anyone better than Q.
    "Well?" she demanded, her face as frozen as
absolute zero.
    Apologies were only embarrassing, he decided.
Better to simply brazen this one out. "Q! Great to
see you! Come to join the fun?"

2O6

"Hardly," she said scornfully, shaking her head.
"Say, who have we here?" 0 called out. In a
blink, he joined them on the opposite side of the
game board. The projected scenes of volcanic hav-
oc disappeared from view. "Aren't you going to
introduce me to your fine female friend, Q?"
    "Oh, right," Q muttered, slightly discomfited by
the reality of having to deal with both 0 and Q at
the same time. They each came from completely
different slices of his existence, engaged separate
aspects of his personality. It was like trying to be
two different people at once. "0, this is Q. Q, this is
O. He's not from around here."
    "So I hear," she said icily, regarding the stranger
with all the warmth and affection she might lavish
on a Markoffian sea lizard before turning her back
on him. "I need to talk to you, Q... alone."
    O's face darkened ominously at the female Q's
not terribly subtle snub, reminding Q a little too
much of how he had looked right before he flash-
freezed the Coulalakritous. Then 0 saw Q watching
him, and his expression lightened, assuming a
more amiable mien. "Of course," he agreed read-
ily. "Far be it from me to intrude upon such a
charming young couple. The last thing you two
need is a crusty old chaperon such as myself. If
you'll excuse me, m'dear, I'll be stepping out for a
while." Tipping his head at the female, he opened a
doorway into another continuum, then stepped
halfway through. "Don't be all day, Q," he warned,
lingering for a moment between dimensions. He

east a glance at the expanse of the Tkon Empire as
it waited beneath their feet. "The best is still to
come. Mark my words, you haven't seen anything
yet."
    The doorway closed behind him, disappearing
along with O. I wonder what he has in mincl, Q
thought, intrigued by his new friend's cryptic
promises. More apocalyptic destruction, or some-
thing more interesting? He looked forward to find-
ing out.
    His significant other didn't seem curious at all.
"Finally," she huffed. "I thought he'd never leave."
She surveyed the game board skeptically, as if she
half expected to find O's muddy footprints all over
the unsuspecting empire. "All right, Q, what's this
all about?"
    "Er, what do you think it's all about?" Not the
most brilliant retort he had ever come up with, but
perhaps it might buy him enough time to think of
something more clever. How best to present the
situation to her anyway, and precisely what sort of
reaction did he hope to elicit? It was hard to say,
especially when he had mixed feelings himself
about what The One and his associates were doing
to the Tkon.
    "Don't get coy with me, Q," she warned. "The Q
told me all about the disreputable gypsy vagabonds
you've been hanging around with. Really, Q, I
thought you had better taste than to fraternize with
entities so... parvenu."
 Ordinarily, he found her impeccable snobbish-

208

ness delightfully high-handed, but not when it was
turned against him. Who was she to pick out his
friends for him, as if he lacked the judgment and
maturity to choose his own company? It was insult-
ing, really. "You don't know anything about
them," he said defensively, "and neither do the Q.
I'll have you know that 0 and the others bring a
fresh new perspective to this part of the multiverse.
I may not agree with everything they're about, but I
would certainly never dismiss their ideas out of
hand simply because they're not part of our own
boring little clique. I have an open mind, unlike
other certain other Qs I might name."
    A pair of ivory opera glasses appeared in her
hand, and she glanced down at the sprawling
interstellar empire beneath them. As she inspected
the goings-on there, she shared what she saw with
Q. A montage of moving images unfurled before
his eyes, all taken from the daily lives of the present
generation of Tkon: battle-weary soldiers crawling
through the trenches of some Q-forsaken tropical
swamp, a hungry child wandering lost amid the
rubble of an obliterated city, angry rioters shouting
through a hastily erected force field at uniformed
troops, priceless manuscripts and ancient tapes-
tries hurled onto a bonfire by chanting zealots, a
spy on trial for her life before a military tribunal,
even an assassination attempt on the life of the
empress.
    "Is this what you call a fresh perspective, a bold
new idea: making life miserable for a tribe of in-

significant bipeds?" She snapped the lorgnette shut
with a flick of her wrist, terminating the pic-
ture show. "It's as tedious as it is tragic. Why don't
you just peel the scales off an Aldebaran serpent
while you're at it? Or pull the membrane off an
amoeba?"
    "At least they're doing something," Q pointed
out, not entirely sure how he ended up defending
O's mysterious agenda, but too irritated to care.
"They take an interest in matters outside the
rarefied atmosphere of your precious Continuum.
True, this sort of hands-on approach can get a bit
messy, but it's no worse than the ghastly foolish-
ness that developing species always inflict on them-
selves anyway. Remember those divers throwing
themselves into the jaws of monsters back on
Tagus? They turned themselves into fish food vol-
untarily, just for the sake of a primitive ritual, so
what's wrong with sacrificing a few million more to
a good end? Their tiny lives are measured in micro-
nano-aeons, after all."
    "Is that so?" she answered. "Who are you trying
to convince, me or yourself7."
    Good question, he thought, although he wasn't
about to admit it. "I don't need to convince you of
anything. I'm perfectly capable of making my own
decisions."
    "Particularly when they're the wrong ones ....
Oh, don't make that face at me. This is more
important than your wounded male ego." Her
expression softened a tad as she tried one more

time to get through to him. "Listen to me, Q. We've
known each other ever since we've been able to
manipulate matter and recite the pledge of omni-
science at the same time. We learned how to parse
the lesser atomic force together. Trust me when I
say that I'm only looking out for your best interests
here. Forget about this 0 character and his low-life
confederates. I promise I won't think any less of
you if you come away with me now."
    "And then what?" Q asked, less heatedly than
before. Although touched by her concern, he wasn't
ready to surrender just because she had started
firing roses instead of ammo. "Am I supposed to
just creep back to the Continuum with my hypo-
thetical tail between my legs, to sit back meekly
with folded hands while the great big universe goes
by?" He struggled to make her understand. "Don't
you see, I can't give up now. This is the first time
I've ever taken a risk, done something with my
immortality. I'm not a kid anymore. It's high time
I hold to my guns, stand by my mark, draw a line in
the ether, and all that decisive stuff. Right or
wrong, I have to see this through to the end, no
matter what. It's the only way I'll ever find out who
I really am."
    "But this isn't about you," she protested. "It's
about 0 and his crazy games. He's just using you."
    "Maybe so," Q agreed, "but he can't take advan-
tage of me without my cooperation. That's my
choice to make, so, you see, it really does come
back to me."

    She sighed and shook her head sadly. "If you
don't know who you truly are, then you're the only
intelligence in the Continuum who doesn't. You're
stubborn and unpredictable, Q. A volatile catalyst
in the never-ending chemical reaction that is cre-
ation, the spice in the primordial soup. You have
all the verve and vitality of the cosmos and not one
iota of common sense." She dropped her opera
glasses into the glowing red sun at the center of the
Tkon Empire and watched as they bubbled and
melted away. "And I suppose that's why I'm never
going to be able to convince you to do the sane and
rational thing and listen to me for once."
    "No," Q confirmed, "although you wouldn't be
you if you didn't keep trying now and then."
Beyond that, he wasn't sure how to respond to her
spontaneous description of him. I kind of like that
bit about the spice, he thought, more than a little
flattered, although I could have done without the
commentary on my common sense, or lack thereof.
"Thanks a lot, I guess."
    "Good-bye, Q," she said before transporting
away. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
    Why should I, he reflected, when I know you71
always be there to remind me?

    Young Q gazed ruefully at the empty space that
his highly significant other had occupied only milli-
seconds before, seemingly saddened by her depar-
ture. Theirs had been a bittersweet parting, at best.
"Just wait," he promised the starry blackness be-

side him. "We'll look back at this and laugh some-
day."
    "Not to worry, lad," a bombastic voice assured
him. 0 materialized in the space the female had
vacated. He looked much happier now that the
distaff Q was gone. "She'll come around eventu-
ally, see if she doesn't." He threw back his head
and chuckled heartily. "Women! They're the same
in every reality. Why, the stories I could tell you!"
He gave Q a solid punch in the shoulder that sent
him stumbling sideways. "But I don't need to teach
a strapping young rooster like you about the fairer
sex, do I? I imagine you've got a girl in every solar
system or my name isn't 0!"
    Several meters away, unseen and unheard by
either participant in this one-sided discussion,
Jean-Luc Picard groaned aloud. "I can't believe
you actually fell for all this phony masculine cama-
raderie," he told the Q standing beside him.
    "Cut me some slack, mon capitaine," he said. "I
was barely seven billion years old. What did I know
about the ways of extra-dimensional executioners?"
"Executioner?"
    "Just watch the show, Jean-Luc," Q advised
sourly, "before I regret bringing you here in the
first place."

Chapter Twelve

LEM FAnL FELT u~ AN OLLAFISH fighting its way
upstream. As he staggered down the seemingly
endless corridors of the Enterprise in search of
Engineering, pockets of uniformed crew members
kept streaming past him on the way to sickbay,
getting in his way. Idiots, he cursed. Didn't they
realize he had more important things to do than let
them pass by in their pointless attempts to preserve
their own insignificant existences? Immortality
was within his grasp, but these blinkered Starfleet
buffoons were doing their best to obstruct him,
especially that pigheaded fool Commander Riker.
    Wheezing painfully, he slowed long enough to
brace himself against a sturdy duranium wall. He
could feel the constant hum of the Calamarain
vibrate through the metal. His lungs felt like they

were wrapped in barbed wire, and the corridor
seemed to swim before his bloodshot eyes. He
reached for his hypospray, then remembered that
he had emptied its contents into Counselor Troi,
feeling a flicker of guilt at having treated a fellow
Betazoid so badly. I had no choice, he rebuked his
conscience. They were going to put me in stasis,
shut down my brain just when I need it most. There
was nothing else I couM do. I had to get away.
    The barrier was all that mattered, and the voice
in his mind beckoning to him from beyond the
great wall. That voice had promised him life, plus
knowledge and power beyond mortal understand-
ing. Come soon, the voice whispered even now.
Soon, sooner, soonest. Soon, come soon. Closer to
me, closer to you, closer...
    All he had to do was create the wormhole, break
through the barrier to the other side. Then he
would be saved, would be spared from his own
terrifying mortality. He would never stop, never
cease to be, as Shozana had when she had disap-
peared before his very eyes.
    Your eyes are my eyes are yours. View you, view
I...

    He closed his eyes, seeking relief in the darkness
for just a second. Odd... he could barely remem-
ber his wife's face now; all he could see was the
column of energized atoms she had become when
the transporter malfunctioned. I shall become pure
energy, too, he thought, but in a different, more
transcendent way.

  "Sir, are you all right? Can I help you?"
  Coming closer, closer coming, closer...
    He opened his eyes and saw the concerned face
of a minor Starfleet officer, a Benzite from the
looks of him. Puffs of essential gases escaped from
the respiratory device positioned beneath his nos-
trils. Faal noted a large orange bruise upon his
bluish green forehead. "What?" the scientist asked.
He could barely hear the officer's words over the
voice calling out to him, growing stronger and
louder the nearer they came to the barrier.
    The wail divides us, the wall is nigh... deny the
wall, and hopes are high... heigh, heigh, heigh/
    The more clearly he heard the voice, the more
enigmatic its words became. It spoke in riddles, as
sacred oracles have always done, but Faal had
deciphered its message from the beginning. Eternal
life and enlightenment waited beyond the galactic
barrier.
    The wall is nigh, the wall deny... heigh, high
hope, heigh.
    "You don't look well, sir," the Benzite said. "I'm
on my way to sickbay." He held a sleeve that was
stained with whatever Benzites used for blood.
Tiny droplets peeled off the torn fabric and floated
in the weightless corridor. "Can I help you there?"
    "No," Faal wheezed. He shook his head, then
regretted it; the motion caused the floor to spin
beneath his feet even faster than before. It took all
his concentration to make his tongue move the way

it had to, say the words the Benzite needed to hear.
"The wall is... I mean, I have to get to engineer-
ing. Mr. La Forge needs me," he lied.
  Closer to the wall, closer to the All...
    The Benzite looked dubious. He assessed Faal's
heaving chest and trembling limbs. "Are you sure,
sir? No offense, but I don't think you're in any
shape to assist anyone."
    Why won't he leave me alone? Faal thought
desperately. Every moment he was kept away from
his goal was a torture. Closing on the wall, or is the
wail closing on you, closing the door... ? He
wanted to hurl the overly solicitous officer away,
consign him to oblivion, but instead he had to
waste precious moments allaying the concerns of
this nonentity. Close, closing, closer... "I'm all
right," Faal assured him, forcing himself to smile
reassuringly. "I'm not injured, just a little clo-
ser... that is, just a little ill. It must be the
weightlessness."
    "Oh, right." The Benzite nodded his head. "I
wouldn't know. Benzites don't get nauseous."
    "You're very fortunate, then," Faal gasped.
Come closer to me closer to you, soon, sooner,
soonest. "But I'll be close... fine... if I can just
make it to a turbolift."
    "We're at red alert, sir," the Benzite pointed out
helpfully. "The turbolifts are only for emergency
USe."
    "This is an emergency, you dolt!" He couldn't
hide his impatience any longer. The ship was

216                                                                     217

approaching the wormhole. He had to get to engi-
neering, launch the torpedo containing the magne-
ton generator, force La Forge to initiate the
subspace matrix, create the artificial wormhole,
liberate the voice .... There was so much to do in
so little time, and this blue-skinned, gas-snit/ing
cretin would simply not let him be. "The voice is
calling me. I have to go!"
Soon, sooner. Come to the wall, come soon...
Lurching forward, away from the duranium
bulkhead, he grabbed the Benzite's wounded arm
and shoved it roughly. The crewman's blood felt
slick and greasy against his palm, but the Benzite
emitted an inarticulate croak and crouched over in
pain, gasping so hard that the fumes wafting from
his respirator dissipated before reaching his nos-
trils. Serves you right, Faal thought vindictively.
    More Starfleet personnel came around the corner
ahead, a man and two women, in scorched gray
uniforms. Faal breathed a sigh of relief that they
had not arrived in time to see him accost the
Benzite. "He's hurt badly," he blurted hastily,
pointing back at the breathless Benzite. "Hurry.
Please help him." He pushed his way past them,
urging them onward, then hurried around the
corner until they were out of sight. Hurry, hurry,
hurry... come soon come. If fortune was with
him, the Benzite wouldn't be able to speak clearly
for a few more moments, giving him time to get
away.

    The time is nigh, the wall is high, defy the nigh
high wall... try.t
    The barbed wire tore at his lungs with every
breath and his heart was pounding alarmingly, but
he refused to let his debilitated physical state slow
him down. He was more than this decaying shell of
crude flesh and bone. His mind could overrule the
limitations of his treacherous body and soon would
be able to do far more than that. I'm coming, his
mind called to the voice beyond the way, the voice
that had summoned him all the way from Betazed,
enticed him away from his children and his death-
bed. Do not forsake me. I will bring down the wall. I
will, I swear it.
 Closer to the wall, closer... closer...
    He was tempted to shed the cumbersome gravity
boots and simply soar down the hall, but, more
realistically, he feared losing control of his momen-
tum, at worst ending up becalmed in the air out of
reach of any convenient wall or ceiling. What did
he know about maneuvering in zero-G? He was a
scientist, not an athlete. No, it was safer just to
walk on his own two feet, no matter how weary
they were.
 Feel you closer, closer you feel me closer...
    A turbolift entrance beckoned to him from the
end of the corridor. Shallow breaths whistling from
his diseased lungs, he propelled himself down the
last few meters until his hands smacked against the
sliding metal doors--which refused to open. "Let

218                                                                   219

me in!" he demanded, pounding on the doors with
his fists. The blood of the Benzite left a sticky stain
on the painted surface of the door.
    A dismayingly calm voice, which he had come to
know as the ship's computer's, responded promptly,
"The turbolifts are not currently available to unau-
thorized personnel. Civilian passengers should re-
port to either sickbay or their quarters."
    He let out a moan of despair. It was just as the
Benzite had foretold. Intellectually, he understood
the reasoning: Starfleet didn't want people to be-
come trapped in the turbolifts while the ship was
under attack. But what did that matter when his
very future was at stake? It was all the Calama-
rain's fault, he realized. You shouM have warned me
about them, he accused the voice.
    Smoke, it answered obscurely. Nothing but
smoke to choke and choke.
    Faal didn't understand. If not for the lack of
gravity, he would have slumped to the floor. In-
stead he let his magnetic boots anchor him to the
floor as his exhausted frame swayed from left to
right. He listened to the thunder of the Calamarain
booming against the ship, and cursed the day he
ever heard the name Enterprise. He would sooner
have stayed on Betazeal, helpless and dying, than
endure the infinite frustration of coming so close to
salvation, only to be stopped in his tracks by a
balky turbolift.
 No smoke in the wall, none at all, none at all...

220

     Then, as the voice foretold, the thunder fell
 silent. The metal doors beneath his palm ceased to
 vibrate in unison with the alien hum. The Cala-
 marain, he realized instantly, they're gone. Which
 meant, he deduced almost as quickly, that the
Enterprise must have just entered the barrier.
  Into the wall, closer to the All...
    A sense of awe, mixed with dread and anticipa-
tion, passed through him only a heartbeat before
his entire body was jolted by an intense psychic
shock that raced through his nervous system, elec-
trifying him. His spine and limbs stiflened, his
arms stretched out at his sides. Tiny traceries of
white energy linked his splayed fingers like web-
bing. His muscles jerked spasmodically and his
eyes glowed with silver fire. Although no one was
around to see it, the scientist flickered in and out of
reality, transforming into a photonegative version
of himself and back again. The pain in his lungs,
the aching exhaustion in his joints vanished at
once, driven out of his awareness by the supernat-
ural vitality coursing through his body. It's the
power of the barrier, he realized, filling me, trans-
forming me.
    But more than just mindless energy was pouring
into his brain, expanding his mind. He sensed a
personality as well, or at a least a fragment of one,
the same personality that had called to him for so
long, promised him so much. Yes... feelyou closer,
so close so closer... yes. The voice brushed his
soul, like the delicate touch of a spider's leg, and

221

another identity, older and vastly more powerful,
met and melded with his own. For one brief
millisecond, Faal's self reeled with fear, protective
of his unique individuality, but then it was sub-
merged beneath the alien memories and sensations
that seemed inextricable from the power he now
possessed, the voice that was possessing him. You
are I are you, view I, view you...
    The face of that strange, meddling entity, Q,
appeared in his memory, now bringing with it a
sense of anger, of long-simmering hatred, that he
had not previously known. Q~ cursed Q, treacherous
Q. . . what will we do, to Q and Q and Q. . . ?
    Frantic to hang on to some trace of what he was,
Faal tried again to visualize his wife's face, but
instead all he could see was that other Q, the
female one with the astounding child, the child of
the Q. The power of the barrier, and the voice
beyond, flooded his synapses, setting off a cascade
of memories that the power seemed to sort through
at will, picking and choosing according to its own
unfathomable agenda. Yes, yes, he thought, no
longer capable of distinguishing his own desires
from those of the voice, the chiM is the future, the
child is our future, in the future the child....
    Unable to cope any further with the forces at
work within, Faal blacked out, his sagging limbs
floating limply above the floor while dreams of
apotheosis brought themselves to life.
  Close, so close....

    Where is he? Milo wondered. He was lost and
couldn't find his father anywhere. He had tried to
take a turbolift, hoping to catch up with his dad at
Engineering, only to discover that they had all shut
down during the emergency. In theory, that meant
his father was stuck on this level, too, but this ship
was so huge, with so many corridors and intersec-
tions to choose from. To be honest, Milo wasn't
sure he could find his way back to sickbay if he
tried. Dad! he called out with his mind. Come back/
    He couldn't sense his father's thoughts any-
where, no matter how hard he concentrated. It was
like his father had cut himself off completely from
the rest of the world, or at least from his son. I don't
even know who he is anymore, Milo thought. The
father he knew, the one he remembered from
before, never would have attacked the counselor
like that.
    Milo stomped down another hallway, feeling
clumsy in his oversized magnetic boots. Maybe he
shouM try to find sickbay; Dr. Crusher and Coun-
selor Troi had been very insistent about using the
cortical stimulator on him before the ship entered
the galactic barrier. Thank the Sacred Chalice that
Kinya was safe at least, even if he and Father were
in danger. His throat tightening, he wondered who
would take care of her if... something hap-
pened... to his father and him. Aunt Mwarana
wouM take care of her, I guess.
    A crew member, rushing down the corridor
toward him, spotted Milo and slowed to a stop.

222                                                                    223

"Hello?" she said. "What are you doing wandering
around at a time like this?"
    "Urn, I'm looking for my father," he mumbled.
How could he begin to explain how crazy his father
had become, what he had done to poor Counselor
Troi? "I think he was going to Engineering, but I'm
not sure if he got there."
    The woman hesitated, chewing on her bottom
lip, torn between her own urgent errand and the
plight of the boy. He could sense her indecision
and concern. She reached a decision quickly,
though, just like a Starfleet officer. "My name is
Sonya Gomez, and I was on my way back to
Engineering from sickbay anyway." Milo noticed a
foam cast around her left wrist and sensed some
residual soreness from the injury. "Why don't you
come along with me and we'll see if your father is
there? If not, I'm sure we can spare someone to see
you back to your quarters."
    "Okay," Milo said. He sure couldn't think of a
better plan. Gomez held out her hand, and Milo
accepted it gratefully. She began to lead them down
the corridor in the same direction he had just come
when she suddenly stopped and cocked her head. A
quizzical expression came over her face. Milo felt a
surge of optimism within her heart.
    "Hey, listen to that," she said. "The thunder's
stopped."
    She’s right, Milo thought. He would have said so,
except for the blazing fire that ignited inside his
skull. His small frame convulsed unexpectedly, like

he was being electrocuted. He heard Sonya Gomez
shouting in alarm from somewhere very far away.
She shook his shoulders, but he couldn't feel it, not
like he could feel the fire as it poured from his brain
into the rest of his body, causing his entire body to
tingle and twitch.
    His eyes rolled upward and he lost conscious-
ness, but instead of falling into blackness, all he
found waiting for him was a brilliant purple light.

225

Chapter Thirteen

GLEVl UT Sov, DOWAGER EMPRESS OF TKON, awoke
early one morning during the dawning of the Age of
Makto, in the eightieth year of her reign, troubled
by the shadows of unremembered dreams. She no
longer slept as well as she once had. A symptom of
her advanced age, she wondered, or of the increas-
ing precariousness of the times? Her reign had been
a turbulent one, marked by civil war and catastro-
phe, although she remained steadfast in her convic-
tion that the Great Endeavor was worth any
sacrifice she and the empire had endured. Only my
conscience does not plague me, she thought.
    Unlike her decrepit body, her private chambers
had changed little over the decades. Skilled arti-
sans had successfully concealed any evidence of the
damage inflicted by the earthquake of seven years

 ago, or by the bomb that had failed to assassinate
 her only a few months before. She permitted her-
 self a defiant smile; sometimes her stubborn ability
 to survive impressed even her. They'll not get rid of
 me that easily, she vowed, not for the first time.
     She kneaded her weary eyes with skeletal knuck-
 les, wishing she could clear her mind as readily.
 What had that dream been about anyway? The
 memory lurked at the back of her awareness, just
 beyond her reach, but the feeling remained, a sense
 of alarm mixed with inspiration, as if she had
 finally isolated the root cause of all that disturbed
 her suffering empire. There was a root cause, of
 that much she felt certain; over the last several
 decades, as she had assiduously studied reports
 from all over the empire, she had grown convinced
 that there was a reason for the numerous, often
 seemingly unrelated adversities that had rocked the
 foundations of their society for all these many
 years, a reason that sometimes seemed to lurk just
 beyond the awareness of her consciousness. Per-
 haps this latest dream held the key to an answer she
 already knew deep within her soul.
    She knew better than to chase the memory,
however. Dreams were like fish: The harder you
tried to hold on to them, the more slippery they
seemed to be. If it was important, it would come
back to her in time. After all, she wasn't planning
to die right away, at least not today.
    Doing her best to ignore the creaking noises that,
perversely, her hearing remained keen enough to

226                                                                   227

detect, she carefully lowered her feet into the well
worn slippers on the floor. Despite the incessant
appeals of her attendants, she still refused to let
anyone help her aged bones rise. As long as she
could stand, however shakily, on her own two feet,
so, she was convinced, would the empire. It was a
silly superstition, but she held to it nonetheless.
    The chambers lighted slowly, as was her prefer-
ence these days. She took a moment to steady
herself, then reached out and grasped the sturdy
walking stick propped against the wall by her
couch. A polished quartz rendition of the Endless
Flame emblem topped the stick. Her shadow, now
much thinner than she might like, waited patiently
for her to begin their daily trek to her venerable
desk. With a sigh, she obliged the shadow by
putting one foot before the other. The soles of her
slippers squeaked as she shuffled across the floor.
    As ever, the outer rooms felt too cold for com-
fort, so she gave the chamber a mental command to
increase the temperature by at least ten grades.
That she could effect such a change merely by
thinking it still amazed her; out of habit, she often
spoke aloud to her palace, much to the whispered
amusement of the younger members of her court.
    A finger unconsciously stroked the base of her
skull where, beneath her snow-white hair and deli-
cate skin, her personal psi-transmitter had been
implanted. All her physicians and technologists
swore to her that she couldn't possibly feel any-
thing from the implant. You won't even know it's

228

there, all the brilliant young geniuses insisted;
everybody has one these days. No doubt they knew
what they were talking about, but she was positive
she felt an itching at the back of neck sometimes,
not to mention a faint buzzing in her ears. Maybe
I'm just imagining it, she thought, just like I
imagined whatever I dreamed last night.
    Placing her stick against the side of the desk, she
sat down in her chair, grateful for the extra heat
that was already flooding the chamber. She sup-
posed she could just keep the heat going continu-
ously, so that the chambers would always be warm
right from the start, but that struck her as extrava-
gantly wasteful, especially during wartime. Given
all the sacrifices she had demanded of her people
over the years, all the resources poured into the
Great Endeavor despite every crisis that had
threatened to derail it, the least she could do was
cope with a bit of chill upon waking, especially
when she suspected that a good part of the cold was
simply her aging metabolism taking its time to
come up to speed each morn.
    She directed a thought at the freshly restored
wall across from her and the city presented itself to
her once more, lifting her spirits. Ozari-thul still
rose proudly beneath the ruddy glow of dawn.
True, many towers were under repair while wary
imperial fliers patrolled the skies above them, but
the heart of Tkon still beat as soundly as her own,
the people going about their business even in the
face of terrorism and sabotage, The scarlet sun

229

confessed its mortality every day, yet the time was
swiftly approaching when the slow death of that
ancient orb would no longer endanger the worlds
and people now within its radiance. I cannot betray
their confidence in me, she thought. The Great
Endeavor must be completed.
    A twinge of hunger interrupted her musings and,
in response, her breakfast appeared atop the desk.
The biscuits and jam were tempting, and to blazes
with what her doctors said about the honey, but she
pushed the tray aside for the moment. Something,
perhaps the lingering influence of that elusive
dream, compelled her to check on her empire first.
    Gazing down upon the tinted crystal disk, newly
replaced after the bombing, she retrieved the latest
bulletins. As usual, it made for depressing reading.
New fighting along the intermediate orbits. Two
more ships lost and a nebular mining station fallen
to the rebels. Demonstrations and work stoppages
throughout the inner worlds, even rumors that the
governor of Wsor was secretly trying to negotiate a
separate peace with Rzom in exchange for neutrali-
ty in the war. A devastating jungle fire on the
fourth moon. Mass suicides among the commerce
artists. A blight on this season's crop of tamazi,
plus an outbreak of melting fever in the provinces
of Closono-thul. Intelligence reports on a new
millennial cult calling for the preordained destruc-
tion of Tkon. Flooding along the canals on Dupuc.
A massacre on the second moon of a planet she had
never heard of before.

    On and on it went. Disasters. Combat. Epidem-
ics. Accidents. Atrocities. Raids. Carnage. Fatali-
ties. Revolts. Armed incursions... bad news from
every corner of the empire, loyal or otherwise. The
only consolation was that the rebels seemed to be
hurting just as much, which was cold comfort
indeed; despite close to a generation of internecine
conflict, she still thought of the outer planets as
under her protection, even if she had to fight to
save them from themselves. The war itself had
turned into one long, bloody stalemate in which
neither side could gain any lasting advantage over
the other. Was that the fault of her generals, she
wondered, or were there other factors at work?
    A piece of her dream flashed across her con-
sciousness, almost too quickly to identify. Some-
thing about a captive beast... and spears? She
reached for it, but it slipped away as quickly as it
came. Patience, she counseled herself. Let it come
at its own speed. She had learned to trust her
dreams over the course of her lifetime, much as her
visionary ancestors must have. Don't force it. Wait.
    The image felt oddly familiar, though, as if she
had dreamed it before, perhaps many times be-
fore, without ever remembering it. Until now, she
thought, to some degree.
    Turning her attention away from ephemeral frag-
ments of the night before, she lifted a biscuit,
generously drenched in honey, to her lips, then put
it down again. "Too late," she sighed. The endless
litany of dire news reports had killed her appetite.

230                                                                   231

    She stared again into the disk, looking for some
sign of a pattern, of a common thread linking all
the disparate hardships tormenting her people.
There was a link, she suddenly felt convinced. Her
dream had told her so, even if she couldn't yet
recall how it went. Perhaps the answer lay, she
thought, in those other reports, the ones that didn't
appear to make sense at all, that hinted in fact at
the supernatural.
    These strange, unexplainable incidents had been
part of the bulletins for years, although often
hidden in the margins or between the lines. Usually
described as "apocryphal" or "unconfirmed," they
had remained eerily consistent over the decades:
accounts of dead soldiers rising up to fight again, of
carefully maintained technology failing without
cause, of storms and hurricanes birthed without
warning out of clear skies and tranquil seas, of all
manner of impossible occurrences taking place
despite every precept of logic and science, just like
that rain of vovelles that had fallen upon the city so
many years ago, when she was barely more than a
child. I haven't thought of that for ages, but I
suppose that's when it all started to go wrong. A
vision of swollen, overripe spheres of fruit pelting
themselves against her windowpane, making wet,
smacking noises while their juices ran like rivulets
of blood down the transparent glass, surfaced from
the dusty recesses of her memory. It's almost as if
some higher power were playing with us, testing

us...,

    At once, her dream came back to her, more vivid
than before. She saw a great horned animal at bay,
its hooves pawing the ground, its curved ivory
horns stabbing the air above its massive head. Its
fur was dark and matted, except for a white patch
upon its brow in the shape of a flame. Three
masked figures, and two more farther back in the
shadows, had the beast cornered, prodding it with
long sharp sticks that drew blood wherever they
pierced the animal's shaggy hide, but never enough
to inflict serious injury on the beast. The wounds
were like pinpricks, intended not to kill but only to
torture and enrage. Maddened, the poor creature
frothed at the mouth and blew steam from its
snout, roaring its helpless fury even as the bloody
spears came at it again and again.
    Then, finally, when the beast could offer no
further resistance, the masked tormentors laid
down their spears and stepped aside, making way
for the fourth figure to advance toward the van-
quished animal, a shining silver blade resting in his
grip. This fourth figure, to whom the others seemed
to defer, wore no mask, but she could not discern
his features no matter how hard she tried. All she
could see was the light reflecting off the burnished
sheen of the blade as he raised it high above the
beast's drooping head. The fifth figure came for-
ward finally, reaching out as if to stop the bearer of
the sword, but he had waited too long. There was
no more time, and the blade came sharply down--
The empress came back to her chambers with a

232                                                                   233

start, one hand jerking forward and knocking the
breakfast tray over the edge of the desk. Crystalline
plates and teacup crashed onto the carpet, splinter-
ing into dozens of tiny shards and soiling the
Taguan carpet with a mixture of tea, crumbs, and
honey. She gave the mess only an instant's thought,
disintegrating the broken meal and transferring it
away, before clearing the disk and contacting her
new first minister. The head and shoulders of a
middle-aged Tkon came into focus. He looks more
like his father every day, the empress thought,
recalling another trusted first minister from many
years ago. "Most Elevated," he addressed her. "I'm
delighted to hear from you. I have excellent news
regarding the Great Endeavor. I believe we may be
ready to commence the solar transference in a
matter of weeks."
    His words cheered her spirits, momentarily dis-
pelling the pall cast by her premonitions. Never
mind the dark wonders alluded to in the reports,
the true miracle was that the Great Endeavor had
proceeded toward completion despite all the ca-
lamities of the last seventy-odd years. It had re-
quired constant pressure from the throne to keep
the massive project on track, but perhaps soon her
persistence would be rewarded and the empire
preserved. I will die happy, she thought, even if we
can accomplish no more than that.
    She could not allow such hopeful musings, how-
ever, to distract her from her current purpose.
"Those are fine tidings indeed," she told him, "but

let us speak of another matter. I want you to
arrange an imperial address to be sent out simulta-
neously across the entire empire, including those
regions currently in revolt. I assume we have the
capacity to transmit my words into even Rzom and
the other outer planets?"
    Fendor arOx looked uncomfortable. "Well, yes,
actually, although we've taken pains not to let the
rebels know that we still had the means to do so. It's
a hidden advantage we've been holding in reserve."
    "A wise decision," she assured him. He~ as
prudent as his father, too. "But the time has come
to employ that advantage. I wish to speak to my
fellow Tkon, all of them. And as soon as possible."
The memory of her dream, of that spectral blade
slashing down, chilled her in a way no heated
chamber could hope to overcome. She knew now
that this very nightmare had been haunting her
sleeping hours for more years than she cared to
estimate, only now escaping into the clear light of
day. "I feel very strongly that the future of the
empire is at stake."

    "By Q, I think she's got it," Q rejoiced, encour-
aged by what he saw transpiring in a private
chamber in the imperial palace on the homeworld
of the empire. He felt certain that the Tkon, as
embodied by their elderly empress, were rising to
the challenge posed by O's colleagues. "I have to
admit, I was getting a bit nervous there," he
informed 0, "but it looks like they're going to pass

234                                                                   235

our test after all, and with flying colors no less." He
smiled paternally, pleased with himself for having
the selected the Tkon in the first place. "I always
knew they had it in them."
    0 frowned, looking curiously dissatisfied with the
hopeful omens so prized by the younger entity.
"We'll see about that," he muttered.

    "My friends and neighbors," the empress began,
"I speak to you today not as a ruler to her subjects,
nor as a conqueror to her foes, but as one mortal
being to another."
    Eschewing the grandeur of her illuminated
throne, she sat behind her old wooden desk, clad in
a simple but elegant white robe. With what she
prayed was unmistakable symbolism, she lifted her
saxdonyx scepter before her, crowned by the sacred
emblem of the Endless Flame, and deliberately
placed it aside. Her well-lined face, serene in its
composure, faced the glowing crystal screen that
the first minister assured her would transit her
voice and image to every planet, moon, null sta-
tion, and vessel that had ever sheltered the far-
flung children of Tkon.
    "I have put the trappings of power and authority
away because the issue that faces us now is far
greater than any political differences, no matter
how serious or legitimate. Believe me when I tell
you that I have come to the astounding but certain
conclusion that our entire species is being tested by

236

awesomely powerful alien beings crueler and more
merciless than any god or demon imagined by our
common ancestors. No other explanation can ac-
count for the ceaseless array of troubles, both
natural and preternatural, that have we have all
been subjected to for as long as a generation."
    She paused to give her listeners time to absorb all
she had told them, growing all the more convinced
that she was doing the right thing. Now that she
was finally giving voice to the nameless fears that
had haunted her dreams, she felt that the tide was
turning in her favor at last. Recognizing their true
enemy, the secret genesis of all their woes, was the
essential first step toward restoring the safety and
happiness the empire had once provided to all its
citizens, great and small.
    "A startling proposition? That it is, yet I am
confident that if you will examine our recent histo-
ry with this understanding in mind, you will realize
I speak the truth. We have all been provoked and
tormented almost beyond the level of endurance,
and must now rise above these hardships to prove
that the better part of our natures, that which truly
makes us a people, can withstand any test and
emerge triumphant in the end, deserving of and
ready for an even more glorious future."
    So far, so good, she thought, buoyed by the
conviction and sincerity behind everything she had
shared with her people. Now came the tricky part,
as she moved from abstract generalities to tangible

237

reality. She took a deep breath, praying that minds
throughout the empire would not slam shut when
they heard what she said next.
    "I do not think it was a coincidence that this
testing came upon us at the same time that the sun
which has brought warmth and light to our worlds
now nears its end. Was there ever a time when our
people faced a greater challenge, a more elemental
test of our worthiness to grow and go on?" Placing
her hands beneath the surface of her desk, she
cupped her fingers in a traditional solicitation of
good fortune. "Many of you have opposed the
Great Endeavor, questioned its practicality and
expense. I respect your opinions on this subject,
and admire the courage and determination with
which you have defended your beliefs. But I say to
you now that the time for fighting is over. For
better or for worse, all preparations for the Great
Endeavor have been completed. The work has been
done, the riches have been spent, the time and
trouble have become a fixed part of our history; all
that remains is to reap the rewards of decades of
striving.
    "This, I believe, is the ultimate test of our species
and our sanity. Let us not permit the hostilities
that have divided us to blind us to opportunity
before us. Whether or not you have opposed the
Great Endeavor, surely there is no reason we
should hesitate to spare our solar system from the
sun's inevitable expansion now that we have the

238

means to do so. A new sun, brought here to replace
our dying star, can only benefit us all."
    She leaned forward, placing the hopes of a life-
time into her voice. "I now call for an immediate
cessation of all hostilities throughout both the
Tkon Empire and the Rzom Alliance. As proof of
my sincerity, I vow in the name of Ozari to
abdicate my throne and grant independence to
each of the outer worlds upon the successful com-
pletion of the Great Endeavor." There, she
thought. I said it. She could just imagine Fendor
and the rest of her ministers gasping in surprise. I
hope their hearts will survive the shock.
    "Now is our moment, our one great chance to
put the conflicts and tragedies of the past behind us
and prove to whatever beings have engineered our
misfortunes that the children of Tkon cannot be
defeated. I ask you all, as one who wants only the
best for friend and foe alike, to consider my words
and look deeply into your souls for all that is wise
and caring, for, as surely as our sun is fading but
our people shall endure, they are watching us."

239

Chapter Fourteen

"I MUST SAY, YOU'VE LASTED LONGER than I expected
you to."
    Preceded by a flash of white light that briefly
dispelled the shadows from the dimly lit bridge, the
female Q materialized in Deanna's accustomed
seat. Baby q was draped over her shoulder as she
gently patted his back.
    As if I didn't already have a headache, Riker
thought, repressing a temptation to groan. "Can I
help you?" he said harshly, hoping that she'd take a
hint and leave, but knowing in his heart that the
universe couldn't be that generous.
    Q ignored the sarcasm, not to mention Riker's
hostile glare. "Yes. Hold on to q... carefully, of
course." Without waiting for Riker's consent, she
lifted the infant off her shoulder and handed him to

Riker, who held the baby at arm's length, uncertain
what to do about him. Even with the gravity off
line, it went against his instincts to simply let go of
the seemingly fragile youngster. "That's better,"
she said, taking a moment to stand up and adjust
her ersatz Starfleet uniform. "Even the most de-
voted of mothers, which I am, needs a break every
now and then."
    I do not have time for this, Riker thought, as q,
unhappy with his new location, began to squirm in
the first officer's grip. The Enterprise remained
becalmed within the uncertain shelter of the galac-
tic barrier, hiding out from the Calamarain, while
Geordi and his crew raced against time to get the
warp engines repaired before their psionically am-
plified shields failed. Or before the psychic energy
of the barrier, despite the shields, started frying
their brains more than it already had. "The Enter-
prise is not a daycare center," he said indignantly,
rising to his feet and thrusting the baby back at his
mother, who gave him a dirty look before she
accepted the child. To his relief, q quieted as he
nestled back into his mother's arms; the last thing
Riker needed was an omnipotent temper tantrum.
"Why are you here and what do you want?" he
demanded of the female Q.
    "You needn't be so ill-mannered," she said huff-
ily. Riker noticed that, despite the conspicuous
absence of anything resembling gravity boots upon
the woman's feet, she had no difficulty navigating
within the weightless environment. Data observed

240                                                                 241

her with curiosity, Lieutenant Leyoro glowered,
and Barclay gulped, while the remainder of the
bridge crew took pains to get out of her way as she
strolled effortlessly, casually inspecting the charred
remains of the mission ops monitor station and
ducking her head to avoid a floating piece of torn
polyduranide sheeting. "My, you have managed to
make a mess of things, haven't you?"
    "Sir?" Leyoro asked. She patted the phaser on
her hip as she eyed the intruder; she no doubt
realized that firing on the female Q would be a
futile effort, but felt compelled by duty to make the
offer. Riker shook his head, noticing again how
tense and under strain Leyoro looked. Her face was
pale, her jaw clenched tightly shut. Her free hand
held on to the tactical platform so tightly that her
knuckles were as white as her face. Her left eye
twitched periodically. More than the rest of them,
she seemed to be suffering from the telepathic flux
of the barrier. Too bad the Angosian doctors who
revved up her nervous system, he thought, never
considered the long-term consequences of their tin-
kering.
    "Stand down, Lieutenant," he told her, "and
report to sickbay." He hoped Doctor Crusher
could do something for her, even if it meant
putting her into a coma like Deanna.
    "What?" she said, succeeding in sounding in-
credulous despite a slight quaver in her voice.
"Commander, I can't abandon my post at a time
like this."

242

     "We're not fighting anyone now," he said firmly.
 "This is an engineering crisis. Besides, you're no
 good to me as a casualty." He glanced around the
 bridge for a workable replacement, briefly consid-
 ering Data before deciding that the android was
 more valuable at ops. "Ensign Berglund, take over
 at tactical, and keep an eye on those shields."
     "Yes, sir," the young Canadian woman said,
 stepping away from the auxiliary engineering sta-
 tion. Riker recalled that she had held her own
 during that phaser battle on Erigone VI. Leyoro let
 Berglurid take tactical, but lingered nearby, looking
 like she might want to argue the point with Riker.
 He hoped she wouldn't.
    "Do you always reshuffie your subordinates like
this?" the female Q asked, completing her circuit of
the bridge and returning to the command area. "Or
are you simply taking advantage of the captain's
absence to put your own stamp on things?"
    Riker refused to be baited. "Why have you come
back?" he asked.
    "Dear little q was getting bored waiting for his
father to return from his errand with your Captain
Picard," she explained, "and matters didn't seem
quite as... tumultuous... as before."
    In other words, Riker thought, we're more likely
to drop dead quietly, thanks to the psychic radiation
from the barrier, than be blown to bloody pieces by
the Calamarain. Apparently the former was more
appropriate for family viewing.
  "Besides," she continued, "I admit to some mild

curiosity as to how this little outing of yours will
turn out. Q always said I should take more of an
interest in the affairs of inferior life-forms, and
now that we're a family I want to make a point of
sharing his hobbies."
    Is that all there is to it? Riker scratched his beard,
wondering. Another J~ivolous whim by a typically
irresponsible Q, or is there more to her reappear-
ance, maybe some hidden agenda at work? The
other Q, the usual Q, had been very vocal in his
objections to the idea of the Enterprise having
anything to do with the galactic barrier, in fact, it
had been Captain Picard's determination to carry
out Lem Faal's experiment that had apparently
provoked Q to abduct Picard. Now that the Enter-
prise had actually entered the barrier, perhaps Q's
mate really wanted to keep a closer eye on them.
    She needn't have bothered, he thought. He had
no intention of implementing Professor Faal's
wormhole experiment except as an extremely last
resort; there were too many dangers and unfore-
seen factors involved. His only priority now was to
save their passengers, the crew, and the ship, in
that order. But maybe, it occurred to him, there's
another way to do that.
    "Since you have nothing better to do," he said to
Q, "perhaps you can lend us a hand?"
    "Oh?" she replied, one eyebrow raised skepti-
cally.
    Riker took a deep breath before elaborating
upon his suggestion. To be honest, he felt very

uneasy about dealing with a Q, let alone becoming
indebted to one, but he couldn't ignore the fact that
the capricious entity standing before him, blithely
burping her baby, had the ability to return the
entire ship to the safety of the nearest Starbase--or
anywhere else, for that matter--in less than a
heartbeat. He would be derelict in his duty to the
crew if he didn't at least try to turn that fact to their
advantage.
    "Excuse me, Commander," Data interrupted,
"but you should be aware that I am detecting
pockets of concentrated psionic energy within the
ship. Level twelve of the saucer section."
    "Sickbay?" Riker asked at once. Are Deanna and
the others in danger? He remembered that Faal and
his family had also been sent to sickbay.
    Data consulted his readings. "I do not believe so,
Commander, but nearby."
    "Send a science team to investigate," he in-
structed, then turned back toward the female Q.
Data's report had only increased his resolution to
find a safe way out of the barrier and past the
Calamarain, even if it meant asking a favor of Q's
spouse.
    According to some of the preliminary reports
coming out of the Gamma Quadrant, Voyager had
run into a Q or two; he wondered if Captain
Janeway had ever tried to persuade Q into return-
ing her ship to the Alpha Quadrant, and if so, why
she had failed?

245

    "Look," he said, flashing his most ingratiating
smile, the one that had charmed ladies from one
quadrant to the other, "you and I both know that
this ship is in trouble. We also know that you can
change that in an instant." He watched her expres-
sion carefully, but could discern nothing more than
a certain bemused curiosity on her part. "For old
times' 'sake, and out of respect for this ship's long
friendship with Q"--I can't believe I'm saying this,
he thought--"why don't you relocate the Enter-
prise to a more congenial environment, where we'll
be in a better position to offer you the full hospital-
ity of the ship? I promise you, at the moment
you're not seeing us at our best."
    She smiled mercilessly. "Please don't take of-
fense, Commander, but a mud hut with room
service is not significantly more attractive than a
mud hut without such amenities." She shifted the
baby to her other shoulder as she considered Ri-
ker's proposition. A tiny mouthful of milk or
formula oozed from the child's lips to hang messily
in midair. "Upon reflection, I think I am content to
remain where we are. Do feel free, though, to pilot
your little vessel as you see fit... under your own
power, of course."
    Thanks a lot, he thought sarcastically, not yet
willing to take no for an answer. "Our options are
somewhat limited at present, but why stay here? If
you want to understand Q's interest in humanity,
why not return us to the heart of the Federation?

Or even Earth itself?." A reasonable question, Riker
thought, but their visitor seemed to feel otherwise.
    "I am hardly obliged to justify my decisions to
you," she declared, elevating her chin to a more
aristocratic angle. "My reasons are my own, and
none of your concern."
    Not when they may be the only thing standing
between this crew and obliteration, he mused, un-
swayed by her imperious attitude. The only ques-
tion was, how best to overcome her objections,
whatever they might be? Why would she want to
stay here in the first place?
    A sudden suspicion struck him, flaring to life
through the slow, steady ache that threatened to
muddy his thinking: Could it be that this entire
episode, with the Calamarain and the barrier and
Picard's disappearance, was simply another one of
Q's convoluted "tests," with the female Q in on the
scam? Certainly it wouldn't be the first time that Q
threw them into a life-threatening predicament
without even bothering to explain the rules of the
game.
    Then again, he warned himself, trying to figure
out Q's ultimate motives was a good way to drive
yourself insane. Maybe he had no choice but to
accept the female Q's protests at face value. He
opened his mouth to respectfully but emphatically
press his point when a high-pitched scream of pain
caught him by surprise.
 He spun around as fast as his magnetic boots

246                                                                 247

would permit to see Baeta Leyoro doubled over,
halfway between the tactical station and the nearest
turbolift, clutching her head in her hands. Only the
total absence of gravity kept her from collapsing to
the floor in a heap.
    Her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth hanging
open, she groaned like she was dying.

Interlude

SooN. SOONER. NOW.
    Everything was happening at last. Time, which
had been an endless moment for more than an
eternity, was now rushing by like an unchecked
flood, bringing new surprises and changes washing
past him from the other side.
    The smoke had blown away, at least for now, and
the shiny, sliver bug had burrowed into the wall,
like a pest eating away at its persistent, perpetual,
punishing permanence. Not enough to let him back
into the galaxy just yet, not quite, but that long-
awaited hour was getting sooner and closer.
    Close, closer, closest. The wall is high, but the
time is nigh.
    Already a tiny portion of his being, a mere
fragment of his fearless and fathomless fabulous-

248                                                                 249

ness, had merged with the little voice from the
other side, the voice that now resided within the
silver bug within the wall. He was part of the voice
now, as the voice was part of him, and together
they would tear a hole in the wall large to enough to
let the rest of him, in all his splendor and ingenui-
ty, back into the realm that the Q had denied him.
  Damn you, Q. Damn Q, you.
    Only Q remained unaccounted for. His stench
lingered about the shiny bug, but his essence was
elsewhere. But wherever Q was, Q was up to no
good, for no good ever came from Q, only coward-
ice and betrayal. Good for nothing, that was Q.
    Except, perhaps, for the child. Q was not within
the bug, but his mate was and their spawn. The
voice, that infinitesimal voice from beyond, had
shown him the child, the child of Q. The child was
something different, a merging of Q and Q into
something quite new, something that had not ex-
isted when last he trod that glittering galaxy. The
child was the future.
 And, wait and see, the future belongs to me....

Chapter Fifteen

THE SMOLDERING RED SUN OF TKON was ready to
move. Surrounding the cooling orb was the largest
matter-transference array ever constructed in the
memory of the universe, a spherical lattice of
sophisticated technology several times greater in
diameter than the star itself, painstakingly con-
structed by the finest minds in the Tkon Empire
over the course of a century. It was a staggering feat
of engineering so immense that it impressed even
Q, especially when he considered that this stun-
ningly audacious project had been conceived of
and executed by mere mortal beings immeasurably
less gifted than either he or 0.
    "Look at that," he crowed, pointing out the
massive structure that surrounded the crimson sun
like a glittering mesh cage. "Can you believe they

250                                                                 251

actually pulled it off, despite everything that Gor-
gan and the others did to disrupt their little civili-
zation? I don't know about you, but I think they
deserve a round of enthusiastic applause."
    "They haven't done it yet," 0 said darkly. His
heavy brows bunched downward toward the bridge
of his nose as he glowered at the caged sun. His
beefy fists clenched at his sides.
    Funny, Q thought. You'd think he wouM be proud
of how well this test turned out, especially after that
embarrassment with the Coulalakritous. But he was
too elated to fret overmuch over his companion's
unexpectedly sour mood. Perhaps this is simply a
case of post-testing melancholia, perfectly under-
standable under the circumstances. "Oh, but
they're almost finished. The empress even got that
cease-fire she was asking for. See, there's a delega-
tion from Rzom at the palace at this very moment,
on hand to witness the historic event along with
representatives from the entire sector. Even as we
speak, that sparkly gadget of theirs is mapping the
star, absorbing all the facts and figures they'll need
to convert it into data, then beam it to that empty
patch over there." He pointed to a singularly
lifeless section of space beyond the borders of the
empire: a perfect dumping ground for obsolete
stars. "And see," he enthused further, stepping
across the sector, crossing light-years with each
stride before coming to a halt a couple of paces
short of an incandescent yellow sun encased in a
vast transference lattice identical to the one con-

taining Tkon's dying sun, "here's the bright and
shiny new star, good for another five billion years or
so, that they're going to put in the old one's place."
He took a few steps backward to take a longer view,
scratching his jaw contemplatively. "Hmmm. I sup-
pose relocating that star does spoil the aesthetic
design a bit, but I guess I can get used to it."
    He strolled back toward 0, chatting all the way.
"And the timing! Think of it. They're going to have
to beam the new sun into place less than a nanosec-
ond after the old one disappears, just to minimize
the gravitational effects on the whole system. A
pretty tricky operation for a species still mired in
linear time, don't you think?"
    One of these aeons, he decided, I'm going to have
to bring Q back to this moment so she can see it for
herself. And she thought this was going to turn out
badly!
    "Oh, they're cunning little creatures, there's no
question of that," 0 agreed, his eyes fixed on the
caged red fireball around which the Tkon Empire
still orbited, at least for a few more moments.
"Cunning and crafty, in a crude, corporeal kind of
way." A cross between a sneer and a smirk twisted
the comers of his lips. "For all the good it will do
them."
    Q blinked in surprise. "What do you mean by
that?" he asked. "They won, fair and square."
    "Don't be naive, Q," 0 said impatiently. "This
isn't over yet." He clapped his hands together,
producing a metaphysical boom that set cosmic

252                                                                  253

 strings quivering as far a dozen parsecs away. In
 response, three spectral figures emerged from the
ú celestial game board that was the Tkon Empire.
 They started out as mere specks, almost as infini-
 tesimal as the empress and her peers, but rapidly
 gaining size and substance as they rejoined 0 and Q
 on a higher plane. "My liege," Gotgan addressed 0
 somewhat apologetically, "is it time already? I feel
 there is so much more we could do. In truth, I was
 just warming up."
     "They are a stiff-necked people," The One con-
 firmed, the worlds of the empire reflected in the
 gleaming golden plates of His armor, "slow to
 repent, deeply wed to their infamy."
     (*) said nothing, spinning silently above their
 heads, resembling nothing less than the swollen red
 sun of Tkon. Q wasn't sure, but he thought the
 glowing sphere looked fuller and brighter, more
 sated, than before. Or perhaps it was simply more
 hungry than ever.
     "I was thinking maybe a children's crusade,"
 Gorgan suggested, "starting with the youngest of
 their race .... "
     0 shook his head. "You've done enough, all of
 you, although hardly as much as I might expect."
 Gotgan drew back, dipping his head sheepishly; his
 angelic features seemed to melt beneath the flicker-
 ing light of (*), growing coarser and more lumpish
 in response to O's implied criticism. Even The One
 appeared slightly abashed. The radiant halo fram-
 ing his bearded, patriarchal features dimmed until

it was barely visible. "You've bled the beast," 0
admitted grudgingly. "Now it's time for me to
administer the final stroke."
    He knelt above the fenced-in star, then thrust his
open hand into the very core of the sun, his wrist
passing immaterially through the steel and crystal
framework the Tkon had so laboriously erected
around the star. "Wait!" Q shouted. "What are you
doing?" The young super-being rushed forward,
determined to stop 0 from doing whatever the
older entity had in mind. This isn't fair, he thought.
Not to the Tkon, and not to me.
    0 glanced over his shoulder, undaunted by the
sight of the agitated Q running toward him. "Grab
him," he said brusquely, and Gorgan and The One
obeyed without hesitation. Q felt four hands take
hold of him from behind, pulling his arms back
and pinning them against his spine. His feet kicked
uselessly at the space beneath him, unable to
propel him onward as long as the others main-
tained their grip.
    "Pardon me, boy," Gorgan with exaggerated
politeness. He twisted Q's wrist until the captive
winced in pain. "I'm afraid we can't allow you to
interfere at this particular juncture."
    "That which must be, must be," The One agreed,
holding on tightly to Q's right arm and shoulder.
"Such is it written in the scriptures of the stars."
    "No!" Q yelled. "You have to let me go. I said I'd
be responsible for him. I'm responsible for all of
this!" He tried to free himself by changing his

254                                                               255

shape, his personal boundaries blurring as his form
flowed from one configuration to another so
quickly that an observer would have glimpsed only
fleeting impressions of a three-headed serpent,
coiled and twisting, whose triune bodies merged
into that of a salt vampire, wrinkled and hideous,
the suckers on his fingers and toes leeching the
substance from his captors before they withdrew
into the fiat, leathery body of a neural parasite,
flapping toward the empty space overhead, his
stinger lashing at the others even as it became the
ivory horn of a shaggy white mugato, who flexed
his primitive primate muscles against his re-
straints, which resisted even the corrosive hide of a
Horta, capable of boring through the hardest
rock--but not through the metaphysical clutches
of the others.
    "Stop it! Let me go," he shouted, now a poison-
ous scarlet moss, a thorny vine, a drop of liquid
protomatter, a neutron star .... "This isn't what I
wanted." He jumped from tomorrow to yesterday,
backward and forward in time, by a minute, by a
day, by a century. He shifted from energy to matter
and back again, multiplied himself infinitely,
turned his essence inside out, and twisted sideways
through subspace. Yet whatever he did, no matter
how protean his metamorphoses, how unlikely and
ingenious his contortions, his captors kept up with
him, holding him tighter than an atom clung to its
protons. They can't do this to me, he fumed, tears

of rage and frustration leaking from his eyes when-
ever he had eyes. I'm a Q, for Q's sake!
    But Gorgan and The One were formidable enti-
ties in their own rights. Together, and assisted
perhaps by the unholy energies of (*), they were
enough to drag the struggling Q safely distant from
where 0 now toyed with the Tkon's sun. "Sorry
about this, friend," 0 said, watching Q's futile
efforts to liberate himself with open amusement.
"It's for your own good. Obviously, you still have a
lot to learn about the finer nuances of testing. Most
importantly, you must never let vain little vermin
like these get the better of you; it only means that
you didn't make the standards stringent enough to
begin with. Remember this, Q," he said, shaking a
finger on his free hand pedantically. "If the test
isn't hard enough, make it harder. That's the only
way to ensure the right results."
    He's insane, Q realized suddenly, wondering
how he had missed it before. I was so blind.
Defeated, he reassumed his original form, sagging
limply between Gorgon and The One, only their
constant restraint holding him upright. "What are
you doing?" he whispered, fearful of the answer.
    0 shrugged. "Nothing much. Just speeding things
up a mite. Take a look."
    All around the star, the metallic lattice began to
glow with carefully controlled energy. The Tkon
were beginning the transference. In the throne
room of the imperial palace, beneath a majestic
stained-glass dome commemorating a thousand

256                                                                 257

generations of the Sov dynasty, the aged empress,
no more than a fragile wisp of her former self, but
with eyes still bright and alert, gratefully accepted a
tiny goblet of honey wine from her faithful first
minister as they gazed in rapture at the culmina-
tion of the Great Endeavor to which she had
devoted her life and her empire. Throughout the
solar system and beyond, trillions of golden eyes
watched viewscreens large and small, and the citi-
zens held their breath in anticipation of the miracle
to come.
    But within the heart of the dying sun, a darker
miracle was taking place. The last of the star's
diminishing supply of hydrogen fused rapidly into
helium, which fused just as quickly into carbon,
which fused in turn into heavier elements such as
oxygen and neon, chemical processes that should
have taken millions of years occurring in the space
of a heartbeat. The heavy elements continued to
fuse at an unnatural rate, producing atoms of
sodium and magnesium, s'dicon, nickel, and so on,
unt'd the star began to fill with pure, elemental iron.
The dense iron atoms resisted fusion for an instant,
but 0 exerted his will and forced the very electrons
orbiting the nucleus of the iron atoms to crash
down into the nucleus, initiating a fatal chain
reaction that should not have taken place for
several million more years.
    "Stop," Q whispered hoarsely, knowing what
was to come. The star was stfil at the center of the
empire/

2.58

    On null-stations positioned around the lattice,
and in control rooms manned by expert technolo-
gists, jubilant anticipation turned into panic as
painstakingly calibrated instruments, tested and
refined for decades, began delivering data too im-
possible to believe, Thestar was changing bofore
their eyes, aging millions of years in a matter Of
seconds, turning into a ticldng time bomb with an
extraordinarily short fuse. "What is it? What's
happening?" asked the empress in herthrone room
as the countdown to the planned solar transference
suddenly came to a halt, and puzzled ambassadors
and governors and wavecasters and war tenors and
sages exchanged baffled and anxious looks. "I don't
understand," she began, putting down her goblet,
"Has something gone wrong?"
    Her primary scientific adviser, psionically linked
to the project's control center, blanched, his face
turning as white as milk, "The sun ..." he gasped,
too shocked to even think of lowering his voice,
"it's fluxing too fast, Much too fast. It's going to
destroy us all."
    "Why?" the empress demanded, leaning forward
on her throne. "Was it something we did? Did the
Endeavor cause this?" She grasped for some solu-
tion, the proper course of action. "What if we halt
the procedure?"
    "No," the trembling adviser said, shaking his
head. "You don't understand. We couldn't do this,
Nothing could do this, It's impossible, I tell you.
This can't he happening."

    It's him, she realized. Thefigure from my dream.
The executioner with the sword. His wicked game is
coming to its end. After all their struggles, all the
glory of their ancient past and the hardships of her
own generation, could their entire future be extin-
guished so abruptly and with so little compassion?
It seemed unthinkable, and immeasurably unjust,
but somehow it was so. How could they contend
against a vicious god?
    "We did our best," she whispered to her people
in their final moments. A single tear ran down her
cheek. "Let that always be remem--"
    She never finished that sentence. The red sun,
rushing through its death throes at O's instigation,
expanded in size, swallowing and incinerating all
the inner planets of the system, including fabled
Tkon. 0 jumped back from the ballooning star,
scrambling away like a man who has just lit a
firecracker. Gorgan, The One, and (*) retreated as
well, dragging Q with them. All of them knew that
the sudden expansion was only the beginning,.
    An instant later, the star collapsed upon itseft, its
entire mass imploding, raining back upon the stel-
lar core, which then exploded again in a spectacu-
lar release of light and heat and force that dwarfed,
by countless orders of magnitude, all the energy it
had previously emitted over all the billions of years
of its long existence. For one brief cosmic second, it
shone brighter than the rest of the Milky Way
galaxy put together, including what would someday
be called the Alpha Quadrant. The flare could be

260

seen beyond the galactic barrier itself, glowing like
the Star of Bethlehem in the skies of distant worlds
too far away to be reached even at transwarp speed.
    Thanks to O, the Tkon's sun had become a
supernova, only moments before they hoped to say
farewell to it forever.

Chapter Sixteen

JEn~-Luc PICARD WATCHED in hushed silence as the
entire Tkon Empire was destroyed for all time. He
was horrified, but not surprised. After the Enter-
prise's encounter with the ancient Tkon portal on
Delphi Ardu, Picard had reviewed the archaeologi-
cal literature on the Tkon Empire, so he knew all
about the supernova that eventually annihilated
their civilization. He had never guessed, however,
that Q had played any part in that disaster. I've
always wondered, he thought, how a culture capable
of moving stars and planets at will couM be de-
stroyed by a predictable stellar phenomenon. Now I
know.
    It was one thing, though, to read about the
extinction of a people in a dry historical treatise; it
was something else altogether to witness the trage-

dy with his own eyes, share the lives of some of the
individuals involved. His throat tightened with
emotion. He blinked back tears. Trillions of fatali-
ties were just a statistic, he reflected, until you were
forced to realize that every one of those trillions
was a sentient being with dreams and aspirations
much like your own.
    He had to wonder what humanity would do, four
billion years hence, when Earth's own sun faced its
end. Will we display the prescience and the resolve
that the Tkon achieved in the face of their greatest
challenge? Will we seize the chance for survival that
was so cruelly snatched away j?om the Tkon at the
last minute? He prayed that generations of men and
women yet unborn would succeed where the Tkon
so nobly failed, and thanked heaven that a similar
crisis would not face the Federation in his lifetime.
    Or would it? The Tkon's sun had ultimately
detonated millions of years before its appointed
time, thanks to the preternatural influence of be-
ings like Q. What was to stop such creatures from
doing the same to Earth's sun, or any other star in
the Alpha Quadrant? He glanced at the familiar
entity beside him, presently honoring the death of
the Tkon with an uncharacteristic moment of si-
lence, and was newly chilled by the terrifying
potential of Q's abilities. Q has threatened humani-
ty with total obliteration so many times, he thought,
that I suppose I should not be too shocked to
discover that he has been involved in carrying out

262                                                                  263

just such an atrocity, no matter how indirectly. It
was easy to think of Q as simply a prankster and a
nuisance. The supernova blazing before them bore
awful testament to just how dangerous Q and his
kind really were.
    "It's not a total loss, you know," Q said finally.
"Supernovae such as that one are the only place in
the universe where elements heavier than iron are
created. Ultimately, the raw materials of your
reality, even the very atoms that make up your
physical bodies, were born in the heart of an
awesome stellar conflagration such we now behold.
Who knows? There may be a little bit of Tkon in
you, Jean-Luc."
    "Small comfort to the trillions who perished,
Q," Picard responded. The face of the Tkon em-
press, both as a lovely young woman and as the fine
old lady she became, was still fresh in his memory.
She came so close to saving her people.
    "Try to take the long view, Picard." Q squinted
at the luminous ball of light that had consumed the
Tkon Empire; it was like staring straight into a
matter/antimatter reaction. "All civilizations col-
lapse eventually. Besides, there are still traces of
the Tkon floating around the galaxy, even in your
time. Artifacts and relics that attest to their place
in history."
    "Like the ruins on Delphi Ardu," Picard sug-
gested. He wished now that he had visited the site
himself, instead of sending an away team. Riker

had been quite impressed by what he had seen of
the Tkon's technology and culture.
    "Just to name one example," Q said. "Then
there's this little toy." He wandered away from the
nova, past what had been the Tkon's home system,
until he came upon a golden star, about the size of
a large tribble, encased within what looked like a
wire framework. A few lighted crystal chips, strung
like beads upon the wire lattice, blinked on and off
sporadically. Of course, Picard recalled, the sun the
Ticon had intended to beam into their system, and
the gigantic transporter array they constructed to do
so. "It's still there," Q stated, "forgotten and never
used. If I were you, Picard, I'd find it before the
Borg or the Dominion do." He gave the relic a
cursory glance. "Not that this has anything to do
with why we're here, mind you."
    Picard saw an opportunity to press Q on his
motives. "Very well, then. If the destruction is so
very insignificant, on a cosmic scale, they why are
we here? What's the point?"
    "Isn't it obvious?" Q asked, sounding exasper-
ated. He turned and spoke to Picard very dis-
tinctly, pronouncing each word with patronizing
slowness and clarity. "This isn't about the Tkon.
It's about him."

    The blinding flash of the supernova dazzled Q
right before the shock wave knocked him off his
feet. He tumbled backward, the force of the explo-

264                                                                 265

sion wrenching him free of Gorgan and The One,
who were equally staggered by the blast. Q scram-
bled to his feet, several light-years away from
the nova, then stared slack-jawed at what 0 had
wrought. The light and the impact may have hit
him already, but the psychological and emotional
effect of what had happened was still sinking in.
    A series of lesser shock waves followed the initial
explosion, shaking the space-time continuum like
the lingering aftershocks of a major earthquake. Q
tottered upon his heels, striving to maintain his
balance, while some detached component of intel-
lect wondered absently how much of the star's
mass remained after the detonation; depending on
the mass of the stellar remnant, Tkon's sun could
now devolve into either a neutron star or a black
hole. He watched in a state of shock as, in the wake
of the supernova, the collapsing star shed a huge
gaseous nebula composed of glowing radioactive
elements. The gases were expelled rapidly by the
stellar remnant, expanding past Q and the others
like a gust of hot steam that left Q gasping and
choking. Cooling elemental debris clung to his face
and hands like perspiration. "Ugh," he said, gri-
macing. He'd forgotten how dreadful a supernova
smelled.
    The radioactive nebula expanded past Q, leaving
him a clear view of all that remained of the huge
red orb that had once lighted an empire. The stellar
remnant had imploded even further while he was

blinded by the noxious gases, achieving its ultimate
destiny. He couldn't actually see it, of course, since
there was literally nothing there except a profound
absence, but he knew a black hole when he saw one.
He could feel its gravitational pull from where he
was standing, pulling at his feet like an undertow.
Was this void, this empty black cavity, all that was
left of the Tkon empress and all her people?
    It's all my fault, he thought. This wasn't supposed
to happen.
    He turned on 0 in a rage. "How could you do
that? They were winning your stupid game, then
you changed the rules! A supernova, without any
warning? How in creation could they possibly
survive that?"
    His henchmen, no longer jarred by the explosion
of moments before, began to converge on Q once
more, but 0 waved them away. Now that the deed
was done, he appeared more than willing to face
the young Q's anger. He wiped the stellar plasma
from his hands, then straightened his jacket before
addressing Q's objections. "Now, now, Q. Let's not
get too worked up over this. You clearly missed the
point of this exercise. I was simply testing their
ability to cope with the completely unexpected,
and isn't that really the only test that truly matters?
Any simple species can cope with civil disorder or
minor natural disasters. That's no guarantee of
greatness. We have to be more strict than that,
more stringent in our standards." He tilted his

266                                                                  267

head toward the black hole a few parsecs away,
assuming a philosophical expression. "Face facts,
Q. If your little Tkon couldn't handle something
as routine as an ordinary supernova, then they
wouldn't have amounted to much anyway."

"He sounds just like you," Picard observed.
"You must be joking." Q looked genuinely of-
fended by the suggestion, although thankfully more
appalled than annoyed. "Even so dim a specimen
as yourself must be able to see the fundamental
difference between me and that... megaloma-
niacal sadist and his obsequious underlings."
    "Which is?" Picard asked, pushing his luck. In
truth, he had a vague idea of where Q was going
with this, but he wanted to hear it from Q's own
lips.
    "I play fair, Jean-Luc." He held out the palms of
his hands, beseeching Picard to understand.
"There's nothing wrong, necessarily, with tests and
games, but you have to play fair. Surely you'll
concede, despite whatever petty inconveniences I
may have imposed on you in the past, that I have
always scrupulously held fast to the rules of what-
ever game we were playing, even if I sometimes
found myself wishing otherwise."
    "Perhaps," Picard granted. He could quibble
over Q's idea of fairness, particularly when com-
peting against unwilling beings of vastly lesser
abilities, but allowed that, with varying degrees of
good sportsmanship, Q had let Picard win on

occasion. At least that's something, he thought,
feeling slightly less apprehensive than he had mere
moments ago. "And 07" he prompted. "And the
Tkon?"
    Q made a contemptuous face. "That was no test,
that was a blood sport."

    His younger self could not yet articulate his
feelings so dearly. Distraught and disoriented, he
wavered in the face of 0's snow of words. 0 sounded
so calm, so reasonable now. "But you killed them
all," he blurted. "What's the good of testing them if
they all end up dead?"
    "An occupational hazard of mortality," 0
pointed out quite matter-of-factly. "You can't let it
get to you, Q. I know it's hard at first. Little
helpless creatures can be very appealing some-
times. But trust me on this, the testing gets easier
the more you do it. Isn't that right, comrades?"
The other entities murmured their assent, except
for (*), who maintained his silence. "Pretty soon,
Q, it won't bother you at all."
    Q thought that over. The idea of feeling better
later was attractive, offering the promise of a balm
for his stinging conscience, but maybe you were
supposed to feel a little bad after you blew up some
poor species' sun. Is this what I want to do with my
immortality? he wondered. Is 0 who I really want to
be?
    "Let me ask you something," he said at last,
looking 0 squarely in the eye. He knew now what

268                                                                   269

he needed to know. "Aside from the Coulalak-
ritous, has any species--anywhere--ever survived
one of your tests?"
    0 didn't even bother to lie. The predatory gleam
in his eyes and the smirk that crossed his face were
all the answer Q required.

It was the beginning of the first Q war ....

TO BE CONTINUED