“I said, ready to play, Q?”
0 appeared at the far end of the corridor. Once again, Q was shocked at how radically the castaway’s self-image had mutated since the old days. His torn and shredded clothing testified to millennia of neglect and disregard, while his sallow complexion and disordered hair reflected the chaotic jumble his mind had become. He was like a rabid beast now, with just enough cunning and depraved ingenuity to make him truly dangerous.
Even more alarming were the murderous weapons he brandished in each of his two hands and four tentacles. Primitive implements of death—a dagger, a phaser, a mace, a boomerang, a flintlock pistol, and a Capellan kligat—menaced Q, who had no doubt that 0 had made them real enough, in metaphysical terms, to inflict actual injury upon both mortals and immortals alike.
“Er, what sort of game did you have in mind?” he asked, deciding that it was not entirely prudent to ignore 0’s query much longer. He tried to back away unobtrusively, only to discover that something hampered his steps. Glancing down in surprise, he saw that his legs were shackled together by a sturdy length of chain, about half a meter long. “What’s this?” he asked indignantly. Try as he might, he could neither extricate himself from the shackles nor wish them away. 0’s madness was too strong.
“Just a little something to even the odds. Odd, odder, oddest.” 0 tapped his bad leg with his lower left tentacle. “You wouldn’t want to take advantage of my innocent, illustrious infirmity, or would you?” He scowled beneath his shaggy beard.
“You always had a soft spot for cheaters, a tedious tolerance for treachery. There’ll be no cheating this time, Q, oh no. You’re playing my game now, by my rules. Rue the rules, you will, the rules you’ll rue.”
“What rules?” Q demanded. 0’s addled mind had left him about as coherent as some atrocious Klingon opera. “What game?”
Malicious glee glinted in 0’s pale blue eyes. “Hide-and-seek,” he said. “You hide, I seek. I find, you shriek.” He waved his grisly weapons like a multilimbed savage. “You can go anywhere on this vast, variegated vessel, but nowhere else, nowhere at all. No Continuum, no cosmos, no craven retreat.” His twisting Malay dagger whistled as it sliced through the pressurized atmosphere of the corridor. “Q is for quarry. Run, Q, run!”
“Don’t you think this is something of a childish game for beings of our lofty stature?” Q suggested. He tried to transport himself directly to the Continuum, go in search of much-needed reinforcements. I know I can make the other Q listen, he thought, belying what he had told Picard earlier. Never mind all the distractions of the Reconstruction…. But the accursed irons upon his ankles apparently did more than simply inhibit any ambulatory motions. He was bound to this one particular time and place, for better or for worse. Mostly worse. “Perhaps we should just talk things over over a couple of steaming cups of Thasian ambrosia?”
0 responded by firing a warning shot with his flintlock that left a flattened lead pellet embedded in the ceiling above Q’s head. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air. “No more talk!” he snarled. “Talk no more. I’ll count until ten. Take your head start or I’ll take your head.”
A vivid picture of The One’s disembodied cranium popped out of Q’s memory like a monotheistic jack-in-the-box. He quickly pushed it back down again. No more of that, he ordered his omniscient unconscious. The future looks bleak enough without dragging the past in as well.
“One,” 0 counted aloud, “thirteen, seven, eighty-four, pi, one hundred and eight…”
Who knows when he’ll actually hit ten, Q thought. I’d best put some distance between me and that walking arsenal. Hide-and-seek, was it? Very well, there were lots of places to hide aboard a Sovereign-class starship, and Q knew them all.
He hobbled down the empty corridor, 0’s lunatic countdown ringing in his ears.
“…thirty-two, five, the square root of infinity…”
“What I don’t understand,” Riker said, “is why this 0 can’t just blink himself over the galactic core on his own? Why does he need the Enterprise?”
The first officer had maintained his post at the conn, for all the good it had done them. The ship remained on course for the Great Barrier at the center of the galaxy, and nothing they had attempted so far had managed to override the coordinates that 0 had fed into the helm controls through the late Ensign Clarze’s lifeless fingers. The Enterprise was on automatic pilot, and Picard didn’t like it one bit. Few things were more frustrating than to lose control of his ship at such a crucial juncture.
“I’m not sure I can explain, Number One, at least not fully.” He had done his best to concisely update Riker and the rest of the surviving bridge crew on the nature of the foe they now face. “For reasons I don’t entirely understand, no doubt relating to 0’s true nature as an advanced energy being, he cannot travel past lightspeed on his own power. In the past, he used the Q Continuum as a shortcut through space, or tried to harness the early Calamarain for his personal transport. Even though he is no longer physically manifest upon the bridge, I can only deduce from our current course that he is somehow still using the Enterprise as a means to traverse the considerable distance between the edge of the galaxy and the core.”
Riker scowled as he inspected the readout at the navigational controls. “Well, he’s getting there as fast as our warp engines will take him. I don’t know what he did to our engines, but we’re approaching warp nine.”
Data confirmed his analysis. “To be precise, we are currently traveling at warp factor eight point eight nine nine nine and climbing.”
That was not encouraging news. The sooner they came within range of the Great Barrier, the sooner 0 could use Professor Faal’s revolutionary technology to liberate The One from his age-old prison. We can’t allow that to happen, Picard resolved. He had seen with his own eyes the devastation that The One and 0 could inflict on a planetary, and even a stellar, scale. Perhaps Starfleet Command could assemble a blockade to stop the Enterprise from reaching the Great Barrier, even though that would surely deplete Starfleet’s resources at a time when the Dominion and the Borg already had the Federation’s defenses stretched far too thinly. That has to be a last resort, he decided.
“What if we separated the saucer from the stardrive section?” Lieutenant Barclay suggested. Picard was impressed by the sometimes nervous crewman’s initiative; Counselor Troi’s therapy sessions seemed to have borne some fruit.
“That might work,” Picard agreed, “if we could positively determine that 0 was only aboard the saucer section, and that he couldn’t simply transport himself onto the stardrive section when we attempted the separation.” Besides, he considered, the bulk of the crew resided in the saucer section, not to mention Professor Faal and his children, and Picard was not inclined to leave all those souls to the tender mercies of 0, even if he thought it was at all possible to strand the insane superbeing upon the saucer. “I think we should consider other options as well,” he said diplomatically, not wanting to quash Barclay’s morale at a time when it was showing genuine improvement.
“First, we need to locate 0 as precisely as possible. If he is physically present on the Enterprise, as our heading suggests, I want to know where he is and what he’s doing.” Picard settled back into his chair, uneasy with all the vital questions that remained unanswered. “I wouldn’t mind knowing where Q is, too.”
His combadge beeped, heralding a message from an unlikely but familiar voice. “Q to Picard. I hope you’re listening, Jean-Luc, because this mess you’ve gotten us into is getting worse every minute.”
The mess I got us into? That was a singularly Q-like take on their situation, Picard thought, but now was no time to debate who was really to blame for 0’s past and present abuses of power. “Where are you, Q?” he asked crisply.
“In one of your cramped and uncomfortable Jefferies tubes, if you must know,” Q said. “Who designed these things? A Horta?” A weary sigh escaped the combadge. “Never mind that. The important thing is that
I’m keeping 0 occupied so you can devise one of your typically heroic solutions to the problem at hand. But you have to hurry.” Q’s voice was hushed, as if he were trying hard not to be heard.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can keep away from him—I mean, keep him distracted.”
Picard had to wonder just how willingly Q had consented to play decoy. Was he voluntarily luring 0 away from the bridge, or was he merely putting a self-serving face on circumstances he was helpless to prevent? “What do you mean?” Picard asked. “What do you need us to do?”
“How should I know?” Q said impatiently. “You’re the ones who specialize in triumphing against overwhelming odds. Have Data whip up some technobabble. Tell Counselor Troi to get in touch with her feelings. Let Riker punch someone.” Exasperation gave way to desperation in his voice. “Do something, Jean-Luc. Don’t you understand? He’s going to kill me. Probably more than once.”
“But why can’t you stop 0 yourself?” Picard wanted to know. At the conn, Riker heard enough of Q’s tirade to give the golden combadge a dirty look. “You subdued 0 before, when you were younger.”
Another frustrated sigh. Picard could practically see Q roll his eyes condescendingly. “Let me try to explain this in terms your primitive intellect can grasp. He’s crazy. Even the Q recognize a common consensual reality, a certain metaphysical bedrock or foundation that transcends even our own infinite command over time and space, energy and matter. The alternative is utter chaos, and we all understand that. So do the Organians and the Metrons and the Douwd and all of the other truly advanced intelligences. But not 0, not anymore. He’s different now. He doesn’t recognize any reality at all, on any level, except his own twisted perceptions, which means he’s free to distort the fundamental underpinnings of the multiverse to an absolutely unthinkable degree. The observer affects the observed, Picard. Even your own quantum physicists know that. So 0’s insanity grants him an insane amount of power. Does this make any sense at all to you, mon capitaine?”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Picard said. To tell the truth, he wasn’t sure how much any human could truly understand the subtleties of existence as Q and 0 knew it. So one omnipotent being was more all-powerful than another omnipotent being? Fine, Picard thought. It wasn’t intuitively obvious, but he could accept it if that was the case, which apparently it was. I’m sure all humanoids seem equally inscrutable and unstoppable to an ant. “Can’t you offer any suggestions?” he prompted. “What about your wife.”
“She has problems of her own at the moment,” Q explained, not divulging the source of his information. “Protecting little q takes priority over everything else, even my own—wait, what was that?” Picard thought he heard footsteps in the background, plus a distinctive singsong chanting. The Jefferies tubes have excellent acoustics, he recalled. “I have to go, Picard. He’s found me somehow. He’s getting closer.” Q sounded close to panic. “The ball is in your court, Picard. I’m counting on you.”
“Q? Q?” Picard tapped his badge, but the transmission was over. Q was on the run presumably, somewhere within the labyrinthine network of access crawl ways that ran throughout the entire ship. He could be anywhere, Picard realized.
He felt a stab of anger at Q. How dare he place the responsibility for defeating 0 on him? Not that he could have turned his back on this crisis even if Q had commanded him to, but it was typical of Q to make him feel as uncomfortable as possible. “Well, Number One,” he said grimly, “it seems both 0 and Q are indeed still aboard the Enterprise.”
“Lucky us,” Riker commented. His hands continued to manipulate the helm controls, stubbornly searching for a way to regain control of the conn. “Too bad our ship’s sensors have never been able to get a handle on Q. Might make it easier to keep track of him.”
“Maybe there’s another way,” Picard said, a thoughtful look coming over his face. “Data, I want you to carefully monitor energy demands throughout the ship. Let me know if you detect any unusual activity that might provide us with a clue as to our guests’ whereabouts.”
“Understood, Captain,” the android acknowledged. He cocked his head in a quizzical manner. “Sir, would this constitute ‘whipping up some technobabble’?”
Picard gave Data a wry smile. “I would not put too much credence, Lieutenant Commander, in any of Q’s more acerbic remarks.”
“I see, Captain. Thank you.” Data returned his attention to the console before him. Suddenly, he assumed a more alert posture. “Captain. Commander Riker. I am detecting a dramatic surge in tachyon collisions against the ship’s hull.”
Tachyons! Picard knew exactly what that foretold, and his fears were confirmed when an iridescent cloud of vapor washed across the screen of the main viewer, accompanied by a thunderous roar that set the entire ship vibrating. The gaseous mass, so very like the conglomeration of vaporous entities Picard had encountered one hundred million years in the past, blotted out the streaking stars upon the screen, even as Picard felt the Enterprise drop out of warp.
“It’s the Calamarain,” Riker stated, speaking aloud what they all understood.
“They’re back.”
Twelve
Pollen tickled the nostrils of his humanoid guise and Q fought against a compelling urge to sneeze, convinced that 0 would hear any nasal outburst from a dozen decks away. Perhaps the hydroponics bay was not such an ingenious hiding place after all.
Flora from all over the Alpha Quadrant and beyond filled the spacious nursery, growing from trays filled with a moist inert medium whose organic content Q preferred not to think about. The shallow trays were stacked one atop the other in parallel rows that permitted an individual to wander, if he was so inclined, between lush assortments of greenery that positively reeked of chlorophyll. It was Q’s hope that the sheer abundance of life force would help mask his own energies from 0. He had briefly considered the ship’s arboretum instead, but hiding in the woods struck him as just a little too obvious.
Q crouched behind a tray of venomous foliage ranging from the mildly toxic Borgia plant to the lethal cove palm of Ogus III; he found the deadly nature of these particular sprouts uniquely soothing and reassuring. Behind him, samples of Cyprion cactus grew beside a Folner jewel plant and a spray of blooming orange and yellow crystilia. The air was thick with the aroma of flowering vegetation.
His nose tickled again and Q was tempted to materialize a silk handkerchief, but he was afraid that even the most inconsequential use of his powers would register on 0’s otherworldly senses. One more thing to thank 0 for, he thought resentfully; why, he had even been forced to go to the enormous physical inconvenience of actually traveling through the Jefferies tubes to the hydroponics bay, located quite unhelpfully on Deck 11, instead of simply willing himself there. Even though he sensed that he could still teleport within the confines of the ship, despite the burdensome fetters about his legs, there was no way he could bypass three-dimensional distances without producing subspace ripples that would call down 0 upon him like a Vulcan sehlat.
How ever did Picard and his sort ever cope with the tedious necessity of physically transporting themselves from place to place? The sheer monotony of it, Q thought, would surely drive him to suicide within days.
Breaking off a ten-centimeter spine from the cactus behind him, Q tried to use it to jimmy the lock on his leg irons. Unfortunately, he was an all-powerful superbeing, not a safecracker, and it seemed hardly likely that there were any veteran criminals aboard the Enterprise to whom he could turn for tips. What had been the name of that cutpurse and sneak thief with whom he had consorted three or four millennia ago? The one who stole all those cattle from Sisyphus? Now, there had been a rogue after Q’s own heart; too bad he couldn’t risk plucking him out of history for a quick refresher course in lock-picking.
At least he had succeeded in contacting Picard via the ship’s primitive communications technology. Now it was up to the captain and his dauntless crew to snatch victory from the gaping maw of obliteratio
n as they had so many times before. Q had tremendous faith in Picard; after all, hadn’t the somewhat dour humanoid managed to surmount some of Q’s most inventive puzzles? Q did feel a tad bit guilty about dumping 0 in Picard’s lap, though. Despite what he had implied to Jean-Luc a few minutes before, he had to admit to some small responsibility for the present contretemps. In retrospect, he probably should have leveled with Picard earlier about the true purpose of the barrier, but he could hardly be expected to willingly divulge the imperfections of his youth, especially to so judgmental and self-righteous a lesser life-form as Jean-Luc Picard.
The tip of the cactus spine broke off in the lock, and Q tossed the remainder of the spine away in disgust. That was no good; he would have to think of something else. What would Jean-Luc do in a fix like this? he wondered, slightly embarrassed to have to resort to such a demeaning comparison. How the almighty have fallen, he brooded, indulging in a few moments of richly deserved self-pity.
A machete slicing through stalks of Draebidium calimus interrupted his introspection, raining violet petals upon his head. Q scooted back on his rear, impaling his dorsal region upon the sharp spines of the cactus. He let out a shocked and indignant yowl of pain before mentally expelling the stinging barbs from his back.
“Tag, you’re dead!” 0 leered at him over the decapitated flower stems in the upper tray. “Dead you are.” He took aim with his phaser, which was almost certainly set to kill. “I always suspected you were nothing more than a hothouse flower, Q, unable to cope with cold, cruel choices outside the Continuum.” He laughed maniacally, exposing chipped and corroded teeth. “Prepare to be pruned, petunia!”