I,Q

by John de Lancie

  The thought of breaking down and begging for help from some supreme, all-seeing, all knowing deity is nothing but absurd. After all, if you follow the logic, the alleged being allowed the predicament to occur in the first place. And it is from this same being you are asking for salvation. I just don’t get it.

  So, no. No prayers for me. If I were going to be introspective—it underscores the dichotomy of my existence. When I first encountered Picard, I presented myself as Q the questioner. And so I am: I probe, I dissect, I seek knowledge by testing lesser beings (of which there are a staggering number). But if I am truly omniscient, then what need is there for such interrogations? The results should be preordained and known to me, involving no more mystery than, say, an “experiment” involving an ice cube tossed on a skillet. My oh my, what will the poor ice cube’s fate be, we wonder? Of course we don’t wonder: the stupid thing is going to melt. What else is there to say?

  Except . . . will it skid this way or that way on the skillet? Will it take five seconds to melt or six or seven? Will it scream? No ice cube in the entire history of the universe has let out a cry at such an ignominious fate, but . . . what if this is the first? Wouldn’t that be interesting to witness?

  You see what I’m getting at.

  It’s the equivalent of the human art form of pointillism. Omniscience enables you to see the big picture in ways that no one else can. But even if you are omniscient, you still have to squint to see the individual dots that make up the picture, the same as everyone else. So I spend my days studying dots, to see which color this or that one is, and how it fits in its particular place. In examining the minutiae, I find a way to spend eternity without going mad.

  Sometimes . . .

  Sometimes I wonder if I have truly succeeded.

  How would I know if I were mad? Truly? There are mad creatures who believe that they have the power of the gods, or of the Q, if you will. Certainly their perceptions are as real to them as mine are to me. Q spoke to Picard earlier of how, if all units of measurement were shrinking proportionately, we could determine if the universe itself were shrinking. Well . . . if I were indeed insane . . . how would I know? I would have nothing to measure it against, particularly since my best anchors of reality—my mate and my son—were yanked so cruelly from me.

  As I hung on the wall of the abyss, my hands tightly gripping the holes Data had created in the rock face, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had indeed been seized by a sort of dementia. What if everyone else in the Q Continuum was right and proper and sane . . . and I had simply lost my mind, engaging in a crazy endeavor that any sane Q would have known to turn away from? Perhaps my abilities had been taken from me as a sort of fail-safe because I was on the verge of becoming a mad god.

  To whom do mad gods pray? Englishmen?

  I forced such thoughts from my mind, for that way lay . . . well . . . even more madness than I was dealing with already. I lowered myself down the rock face, grabbing cautiously onto each new handhold Data had carved. I heard the thudding beneath me as Data punched each new handhold, and as I listened, I began to realize what the problem was. It was, in fact, the big picture.

  Remember, the big picture was routinely open and clear to me. But not this time. This time, I couldn’t see the picture for the points. I was exploring completely uncharted territory, with no clue as to where I was going or what was going to occur when I got there. In a way, I sorely envied Picard. This was something to which he was quite accustomed. He ran headlong into things all the time without the slightest clue as to how it was going to turn out. I hated to admit it, but it was nice to have someone along who had no trouble boldly going where no one in his right mind had gone before.

  And Data was along for comic relief.

  “Data,” came Picard’s voice, distracting me from my reverie. “Data!” There was an urgency to his tone.

  Immediately I realized why. Data’s chipping away down the rock face had been steady, almost rhythmic. The holes he had been creating had been perfectly consistent in their depth and frequency. Naturally one tended to expect machinelike precision when dealing with a machine. But the sound of his chipping had stopped with no warning. And if the sound had stopped, one didn’t need to be omniscient to know that there weren’t going to be any more toeholds.

  I could see the rock wall because my face was right up against it, but otherwise it was as dark as a suicide’s heart. I could not see Picard below me, and I certainly couldn’t see Data. “Picard, what’s going on with Data?” I called. “You’re closer to him. Can you see him?”

  “Not at all,” Picard shouted back up to me. I wasn’t sure why he was shouting. It was so quiet around us, the silence so absolute, that a whisper would have sounded like a cannon shot.

  “Any thoughts as to our next move, mon capitain?” I asked.

  And then I waited.

  And waited.

  “Picard, you’re not remotely amusing,” I told him, but I already knew that he wasn’t there to hear it. “Picard,” I said once more, and when still no reply came, I murmured, “Well, what a fine pickle this has turned out to be!”

  That was when I heard the scream.

  It was long, high-pitched, and distinctly female, and for a moment, just a moment, I was absolutely positive that it was my mate. I called out to her, trying to make myself heard over the howling . . .

  . . . and suddenly the holes weren’t there. I don’t mean that my hands slipped out of them or that they closed up around my fingers. I mean that one moment I had a grip on the rock wall, and the next . . . nothing. And I hadn’t even moved!

  I slid down the wall, pinwheeling my arms helplessly.

  The universe is dying, the words echoed in my head, and I refuse . . . I refuse . . . to believe that it cannot be stopped. . . .

  And with the high-pitched scream cutting into my very soul, like the cry of a banshee ushering in the dead, I plunged into the depths.

  The scream was . . .

  The scream was earsplitting. After what seemed an awfully long time I began to realize it was not the shriek of a woman. It took me a moment to identify the sound as something I hadn’t heard in ages. A train whistle? Yes, a train whistle!

  At that same instant, someone kicked me in the stomach.

  I shouldn’t have felt anything. I should have been impervious to all pain. Instead it knocked the wind out of me. It also prompted me to open my eyes, which was a good thing because a foot was coming down on my face. I sat up quickly and the foot barely missed my head. The owner of the foot, a tall and somewhat panicked-looking man, hurried past without even the slightest acknowledgment that he had nearly left his footprint on my face, the face of a being who, if angered, could turn him into a flyspeck!

  Except . . . given the present circumstances, I wasn’t really sure if that were possible anymore, which prompted me to do a quick self-assessment. Was I bereft of my powers, as had happened once before? Thankfully, I quickly discovered that such was not the case. My powers and abilities were all intact; I could sense them. But there was a restraint, an impediment upon me, preventing me from utilizing them. In the final analysis, I suppose, it amounted to the same thing—I was powerless . . . The timing of such a loss could not have been more catastrophic. What was it about this crevice, this abyss, that robbed me of Me?

  I looked around to get my bearings.

  I was standing on the platform of an old train station. The wooden planking of the platform was rotted in places and generally covered with grime. There was a train in the station, and it let out another whistle. It sounded forlorn, like a child crying for its mother.

  By this time my awareness of things was growing in stages, as if an artist somewhere were assembling a picture around me, layer upon layer, each layer becoming clear only after it was in place. It now occurred to me that I was also hearing, over the shrieking of the train whistle, voices . . . voices crying, pleading, shouting, begging—a cacophony of misery. Names were being called out, profanities hu
rled, but one sentiment was loudest of all, expressed over and over again: “This can’t be happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. We’re all going to be fine, yessiree Bob.” In spite of the fact that they were all being pushed and shoved and prodded like cattle, they held on to that sentiment as a drowning man holds on to a life preserver.

  As for me, I was still occupied with keeping myself from being stepped on. It was a very unusual and disconcerting experience, having people crowd in on me. You have to understand: I am Q. I know I’ve said that, but it’s comforting to repeat it. When people see me coming, they tend to keep their distance. Masses of people part like great waves when I arrive. I am quite accustomed, thank you very much, to having a sphere of untouchability around me. I like it that way—who wouldn’t? It serves to remind others of who they are and who I am and the great expanse between us.

  Do not begrudge me this, and certainly do not think me unique. After all, every god demands worshipers. No god is an island. Beings who are supposedly all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful nonetheless have an insatiable need to have worshipers reiterate their status, every day and twice on Sundays. Now me, I am no god, and I happen to know that no such beings exist; but even I like to have my fancy tickled every now and then. Hear me, fear me, steer clear of me, for I am Q, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. It has a certain ring to it. A certain “Je ne sais quoi!”

  So you can understand that being trampled didn’t sit well with me at all. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a damned thing I could do about it.

  It was then I spotted Data.

  He was simply standing there, not moving at all. He was bolt still, which was somewhat entertaining to watch. It meant that if people bumped into him, they just bounced off. The irresistible force meets the immovable object, and this time the immovable object was winning hands down. What amused me was that Data kept apologizing. “I am sorry. Pardon me. Excuse me. I am most sorry.” Over and over again, a steady stream of it. It was amazing!

  I made my way toward him. He saw me coming and gave me that rather pathetic wave that only androids can muster—you know the one I mean . . . out of body, out of mind. I waved back, not wanting to disappoint him.

  The station was teeming with all kinds of races. But no matter what their color or creed, be they blue, green, neon-yellow, aquamarine, or pink with purple polka dots, they all had the same expression on their faces: a look of incredulity that permeated every fiber of their being and rolled off them like blasts of heat from a desert dune; this can’t be happening to me! This can’t be happening to me!

  Suddenly the mob parted, and I saw Data coming toward me. He was pushing people aside with a steady rhythm—so much for manners. His was a fairly studied pattern: shove, push, apologize, shove, push, apologize, all the way from one side of the platform to the other. Since he was doing such a good job of it, I decided to stay in place and have a look around till he arrived.

  Aside from the train and the platform, there were no signs to indicate where we were or what was expected of us. There was a sky overhead, which I could not even begin to comprehend. If we were in some sort of crevice, could there possibly be a sky? But there it was, in all its glory, a most amazing shade of violet with a sun just descending below the horizon, the last rays filtering up into the night.

  The train on the edge of the platform was . . . interesting . . . very interesting. A powerful steam locomotive with quite a number of cars attached—actually, they looked as though they stretched off into infinity. And they were not what would normally be considered passenger cars. They seemed more like cattle cars, designed for carrying freight or animals—not sentient beings.

  But people were being herded into these boxcars by overseers who clearly were in charge and enjoying their job. I was not surprised to see that most of these overseers were from the more aggressive races. The Jem’Hadar, the Cardassians, the Kreel, on and on. The most warlike, the most predatory, and they were behaving in exactly the same way they always behaved.

  They had whips and bludgeons; they had cattle prods; they had all the typical devices of torment that one associates with these events. And they used them with all the relish the average sadist typically employs.

  I stopped one woman who stumbled past me, and I said, “Why are you all going along with this?”

  “With what?” She was old, terribly old. Every difficulty she’d ever encountered, every year of her life, was etched into the wrinkles of her face. Her hair was white and stringy, and her eyes were empty. “What do you mean?”

  “With this! Why are you going along with this?” I gestured to the herders who were shoving more and more bodies into the cars. “There are many more of you than there are of them. You could put a stop to it. Just resist.”

  “Resist what? Everything is going to be just fine.”

  “But . . .”

  She then walked away or, more exactly, was swept away. Data arrived just at that moment. “Are you all right?” he inquired.

  “Well, my powers aren’t functioning, and I’m surrounded by zombielike oddballs who seem to have no grasp of what’s happening to them. Other than that, I’m fine; how about a quick hand of pinochle?”

  “These people do not seem to be thinking clearly. I have been listening to the conversations and the passing comments, and they appear not to believe that any of this is actually occurring.”

  “That’s my impression too . . . excuse me!” I’d gotten an elbow in the face from a passing, shell-shocked Zendarian. “What do you think is happening, Data?”

  “It is difficult to say. They do not seem inclined to discuss their opinions . . .”

  Then we heard a familiar voice . . . the voice of Picard . . . from behind me. “Why are you standing there?” he said.

  Data reacted with as close to open astonishment as he ever came. I turned to see what he was looking at, unsure why the android would be so stunned by the simple sight of his commanding officer.

  Immediately, I understood.

  It was Picard, all right . . . but he was clothed entirely in black. His left hand had been replaced by a conical blaster device. His face was deathly pale, and half of it was obscured by an elaborate visual mechanism that doubled as a means of tracking and regulating his every thought. He was, in short, no longer human. He was something rather frightening and very familiar. It was, however, most urgent that I keep in mind the amount of damage he could do us. Although my power was currently being denied me, this new version of Picard was very likely functioning at full, lethal capacity.

  “We stand here,” I said, carefully addressing this enhanced Picard, “because we don’t wish to surrender to the herd instinct.”

  “Your wishes,” said the being known as Locutus of Borg, “are irrelevant. You will enter the car.”

  “It is our desire,” began Data, “to prevent the End of the universe. We are attempting—”

  “Your attempts are irrelevant. Your desires are irrelevant.” Locutus held up his weapon arm. “You . . . are irrelevant. Enter the train now . . . or you will be permanently irrelevant. . . .”

  I made a move to walk past him, when Locutus of Borg swung his armored hand and struck me squarely across the face. I went down to one knee and felt blood welling up between my lips. I put my hand to my mouth, then looked at the blood in astonishment, hardly able to believe that it was mine. Locutus extended his arm. Data grabbed him by the wrist, twisting it and aiming the weapon straight up so that it discharged harmlessly into the air. For a long moment, Data and Locutus were face to face, almost nose to nose. Then Locutus said, quite calmly, “Data . . . do as I say. Now.”

  Data appeared to consider the situation a moment, and then he said to me, “Q . . . perhaps we should cooperate.”

  I didn’t move except to touch my bleeding mouth. My thoughts were dark, very dark. “Cooperate with that . . . thing. That French canned ham? I’d rather die.”

  “You can be accommodated,” Locutus infor
med me. And there was just enough of Picard in there to let me know that he’d enjoy it.

  Data stepped closer to me, and said softly, “If you are dead, you will not be able to help your family. Furthermore, if your family is in fact on board the train, you will not be able to find them if you are here on the platform when it leaves.”

  I looked at him, feeling resigned to the inevitable. “Are you saying that resistance is futile?”

  “I am afraid so, yes.”

  Slowly we moved toward the train. Locutus paced us, never wavering, never taking his attention from us. It was as if he were expecting us to pull some stunt, make some last-minute break for freedom. That concept became an impossibility as we were swept up in the crush of people around us. Even if we had wanted to resist, we would have been helpless to do so. The one benefit of the encounter with Locutus was that it had taken place in front of the train, and so by chance we were now being herded into the first boxcar. If I were going to make a car-to-car search, I would certainly want to start from one end and work my way to the other, although I had no idea yet how I would go about it. It was a most disconcerting feeling, not knowing things. Omniscient beings don’t do well with improvising.

  At that moment, I heard Picard’s voice. “Data!” he shouted, but this time it was coming from a totally different direction. It had been my assumption until now that somehow, in this bizarre pit into which we had dropped, Picard had simply been transformed into his erstwhile Borg identity. Now, though, I realized that such was not the case. For there, big as life, was Jean-Luc Picard—the real one. He looked a bit the worse for wear, with some scratches and bruises, but otherwise he was hale, hardy, and as annoying as ever. He was caught up in a crush of people plowing in from the other direction, waving their arms over their heads as if they were swatting so many flies. Picard had spotted us and was shouting as loudly as he could, “Data! Q! I’m here!”