I,Q

by John de Lancie

  I turned and saw myself standing next to myself. An infinite number of me’s, a virtual army of Q. And they were all thinning in the hair department.

  But for an instant, I actually took heart. The notion of an army of me’s, rallying to the cause, was quite uplifting. But, alas, it was only an instant, because that was how long it took me to realize that I was simply looking at a mirror. But such a mistake was no reflection on me (ba DUM bum).

  I backed up and noticed that Picard was likewise captivated by an endless array of himself. Data tilted his head slightly and I knew, I just knew, that he was likely counting them. I couldn’t resist: “How many, Data?” I asked.

  “One billion, seven hundred million . . .”

  “Thank you . . .” I said, shutting him up.

  It was like being in a “fun house,” except this wasn’t fun. The hallway twisted and turned ahead of us. The floor was solid black beneath us, mirrors were all around us, and I still had no idea where the light was coming from.

  “The light . . . is from me.”

  I looked around. None of us had spoken. And it was disturbing to have a question answered when it hadn’t been voiced.

  “Come forward. I await you. You may enter my presence.”

  Picard and Data looked at me. “Sound familiar?” asked Picard.

  “Vaguely,” I said, and it did sound vaguely familiar. I couldn’t place it, but I was reasonably sure I had heard it before. “There are several possibilities as to who it might be. The only way we’re going to know for sure is to keep walking.”

  We made our way forward. I watched the mirrors carefully and noticed the images shifting the further we went along. My “army” went from vast to nonexistent, to fat, to thin, to grossly distorted. Each distortion was more horrific than the one before· It wasn’t the simple stretching that one expects from fun house mirrors and such. These mirrors twisted my features in such a way that they made me look positively evil. I looked over to Picard and Data, and their reflections were completely unchanged. Indeed, they were so unremarkable that Data and Picard weren’t even giving them any notice. This was getting ominous.

  The floor beneath our feet began to feel gravelly. We turned a corner, and the mirrors disappeared . . .

  . . . and so did the tent.

  Before us lay a vast plain, craggy and windswept. There was not a hint of vegetation anywhere. In the distance was a small hill, and on that hill . . . there sat someone. It was too far to make him out clearly, but he was seated in a fairly relaxed fashion and appeared to be looking in our direction.

  “Data,” Picard said softly, “are we in another level . . . another place?”

  “If we are following the Kübler-Ross pattern, this would be the land of despair,” Data observed.

  “I don’t feel particularly despairing,” said Picard.

  “Nor do I,” Data said, “although I have far less experience in such matters than you.”

  “No, we’re right where we were when we first arrived at the bazaar,” I said. “We haven’t gone anywhere. Our surroundings have . . . but not us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I still sense my son is around here. Somewhere. Somewhere, he’s . . .”

  And I looked at the figure sitting alone on the darkling plain . . . and I understood.

  “It’s him,” I whispered.

  “What?” Picard didn’t quite understand. “What is him? Who—?” But then he got it. He pointed at the solitary figure and said, “That . . . is your son?”

  I didn’t stop to reply. I was already in motion, running across the plain. I stumbled several times, and once fell flat, tearing my knee badly. I didn’t care; I barely even felt it. I just kept going. Picard lagged behind me. Data naturally pulled up alongside as if he considered it bad form to take the lead.

  The figure never moved. He could have been carved from marble or ivory. But when I drew within range, he finally spoke. His tone was tinged with a hint of condescension as he said, “Slow down, Father. You’ll live longer.”

  I came to a halt at the base of the hill and stared at him. I could scarcely believe it. Picard caught up with me. “Is that . . . ?”

  I nodded.

  “I was under the impression that your son was a child,” he said.

  “So was I,” I told him.

  The confusion were understandable; the being that sat before us was not remotely a child. Yet he was my son, definitely. It was q. I knew that as surely as I knew my own letter. But he was a child no longer.

  His features were a perfect synthesis of his mother’s and mine. His black hair came to about his shoulders; his eyes were dark, smoldering with intensity. His lips looked cruel and harsh and when he spoke, his voice was deep and had a biting edge.

  “Welcome to my home. I regret I haven’t done much with it.”

  I could scarcely believe it. Since this odyssey began, it had been my overwhelming desire to find my wife and my son. It was for their sake, even more than the sake of the rest of the universe, that I had driven myself so. Yet now that I was here, that he was here . . . I didn’t know what to say. It was like looking into the face of a stranger.

  No. No, worse than that. It was like looking at someone who . . . who despised you.

  “Well?” he said, not moving from his spot. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”

  I could barely trust myself to speak. “Hello, q,” I managed to get out.

  He shook his head. “Not anymore. I’m Q now. I’d appreciate it if you would address me in that manner.”

  So cold he was. So flat. Parents often say how it seems as if just yesterday their child was a bundle of energy, a loving creature who looked at them with adoration.

  But for me, it really was just yesterday.

  “All right . . . Q . . .” I said. “Son . . . it’s . . . it’s good to see you.”

  Understand . . . I am not a touchy-feely being. I don’t hug or kiss or drape an arm around one’s shoulder in a friendly, “Hi how are ya?” fashion. But even I, the distant and remote individual that I am, I still felt an urge to step forward, my arms wide, to embrace him.

  “That’s far enough,” he said. I froze in place.

  “Son, what’s happened to you? How did you come here? Don’t you know I’ve been . . . we’ve been . . . looking for you?”

  “And looking ever so hard, Father.” Slowly he rose to his feet and looked down at us as if we were bugs. “What’s the old joke? That something is always in the last place you look . . . except where’s the sense in that, because who keeps looking after they’ve found something?”

  “Scientists keep looking; it is their nature,” Data said without hesitation.

  My son took one look at Data, and Data exploded into a thousand pieces.

  The move was so quick, so staggering, that I didn’t see it coming. Picard was stunned. Where Data had been, there was now a scorched hole in the ground. Pieces of the android rained down, but bits so small as to be unidentifiable. The only thing remaining were Data’s boots, both standing upright and smoking. Then the boots fell over.

  “It was a rhetorical question,” Q said to the space that had been occupied by Data moments before.

  “What have you done?” demanded Picard, finding his voice at last.

  My son stared malevolently at Picard and replied, “The very same thing I can do to you . . . if you annoy me.”

  Picard took a step forward. “Your father,” he said, “has moved heaven and earth to find you. Why are you acting in this manner?”

  “And how many other things did he find to occupy his time while he did it?” replied Q. He was addressing Picard, but he was looking right at me. “I arrived here as a child, nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Completely on my own, and powerless. And I waited for you to come and find me . . . waited and waited and waited, but in vain.”

  “In vain? What do you mean, in vain? I’m here, aren’t I? All I’ve thought about was finding you, and your mother.
With the universe on the edge of destruction, my priority was you and your mother.”

  “The universe can go hang. You can, too, for all I care,” he added. “I didn’t need a universe. Just you. You and mother. You have no idea how long I waited for you. An eternity. And you were nowhere to be found. And now here you are, gallivanting about with humans . . . well, human. Picard! It would be Picard. Face it, Father,” and his voice dropped to such an angry whisper that I could barely hear him, “they were always more important to you than I was.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I told him. “Don’t you see that there are time distortions of all manner here? To me, you disappeared a short time ago, but for you, a great deal of time has passed, I’m sorry about that. But I’m not responsible for this perception, I’m—”

  But Q wasn’t listening. Instead he had descended from his hill and was walking back and forth in front of us. “I found someone else. When I waited and waited and you didn’t come, another did. God came to me, Father. God.”

  “Nonsense!”

  He stabbed a finger at the charred place where Data had been standing. “You call that nonsense, Father? I don’t see you flashing your powers about! Go ahead! Display your might for me, I dare you!”

  “You’re telling me,” I said slowly, trying to grasp what he was saying, “that you derive your power . . . from this ‘god.’ From the ‘creator of the universe.’ From the ‘almighty.’ ”

  He nodded. “That is correct. All that I am . . . comes from Him.”

  “Where is He now?” I asked. “I’d like to speak with ‘Him.’ ”

  “He does not wish to speak with you.”

  “Perhaps ‘He’s’ too afraid to,” I said.

  “Perhaps He does not care what you think,” replied my son, but his eyes flashed in warning. Clearly he did not like having his new mentor spoken of in such a disrespectful fashion.

  “Where is ‘He,’ then?”

  “He is here,” my son said and spread wide his arms to take in the entire firmament. “He is in the ground . . . and the skies. His power is everywhere . . . and I only feel sorry for you that you cannot feel Him.”

  “And ‘He’ speaks directly to you,” I said.

  “And I to Him.”

  This was sickening to me. I had seen this before. This, “I am the prophet of the Lord, bow before me, scrape before me, give me your money, your trust, your life in HIS service.” It made my teeth hurt. There had to be a way to reach him.

  I draped my hands behind my back. “All right,” I said after a moment’s thought. “You tell this god of yours . . .”

  “He’s yours as well.”

  “. . . your ‘god,’ ”I continued, “that I am not leaving without my son. So He might as well let you go right now, because I have gone through too much to leave without you. Furthermore, tell Him that I haven’t given up . . . that I am going to save the universe. I don’t care about entropy, or the grand, divine scheme. He’s no mysterious, unknowable entity to me. I will stop Him, somehow, no matter who or what He is.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I will. And you will, too, because you’re going to come with me.”

  “I’m going nowhere, Father. I’m needed here.”

  I reached out, grabbed him by the wrist. “Why? Why are you needed? What does a god need with a deluded young boy?”

  “I’m neither a boy nor young, and the only one deluded here is you!” he snapped at me and yanked his hand away. “I am here to rejoice in His power. I’m here to worship Him. . . .”

  “Worship!” I threw my hands up in disgust. “What sort of superior being has a need for inferior creatures to worship Him?”

  “What sort? How about yourself, Father? How about a being who is not content to simply reside with his fellow superior beings, but instead has to seek out new lives and new civilizations so that they might worship his presence.”

  “I seek knowledge, not worshipers.”

  “Delude yourself if you must, Father, but do not for a moment seek to delude me! Admit it! You cannot be truly content unless there are poor, powerless beings who are terrified by your presence. That’s why you’ve found such creatures as Picard and Janeway so irresistible. They stand up to you. And you keep coming back to them, time after time, not out of curiosity, not out of a need to explore, but because you keep hoping that sooner or later you’re going to be able to batter them into submission and force them to worship at your altar.”

  Picard stepped forward and said, “No. You are wrong. I hardly would consider your father an exemplary instance of the proper use of power. But he has more genuine human emotion within him than you credit him for. Than I think he would credit himself.”

  “I’m not sure you’re helping here, Picard,” I said under my breath.

  “And,” continued Picard, “being worshiped is not what your father is about.”

  Q turned away and looked to the skies. “I made a bargain with Him, Father. A most excellent bargain. I promised to serve Him, to worship Him . . . and in return, He not only gave me power . . . but He promised that He would never, ever leave me alone. You can sense Him, Father, if you try. That much, I think, you are capable of. Sense Him. Feel Him. Let Him into you, and you too will understand, or at least begin to.”

  He was right. I did sense another presence there. Free-floating, powerful . . .

  . . . and malevolent. A malignant, festering thing. If it had a name, it would be a name that would be called out in terror, not blessed with reverence· And I sensed its power as well. . . .

  “No,” I said softly.

  “No what, Father?” Q regarded me with mild curiosity.

  Picard turned to me and said, “Are you . . . perceiving something?”

  I nodded. “There is something there, all right . . . but the power it exudes . . . it’s not . . .”

  “Not what?”

  “Not . . . its own.”

  Dark clouds were starting to gather, and I heard a distant rumbling. I did not like the sound of it, not one bit.

  “What are you talking about, Father?” There was cold derision in his tone.

  “What I’m talking about,” I said, “is that there is a being here, yes . . . some sort of entity. But, son . . . you don’t need it.”

  “Of course I do. He—”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It needs you. You don’t understand what’s happening. You don’t comprehend because you were too young when you first arrived in this place, but I fathom it.”

  “Fathom what?” He was clearly becoming impatient and a little addled. “What are you going on about—?”

  “The longer you stayed here . . . the more comfortable you became with it . . . the greater your powers became. And the creature that lives here . . . it’s drawing that power from you. The only power it has is its ability to derive strength from that which worships it. When you sense power, all you sense is a reflection of yourself.”

  Lightning cracked overhead.

  “That’s a lie, Father!” Q shouted, his finger trembling as he pointed at me accusingly. “That’s all you know . . . lies! You promised! You promised you would never leave me alone! But you did! You did! And now you’ll pay for it! Beg me, Father! Beg me for your life! Make your best offer, and maybe I’ll take you up on it and maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just leave you alone, like you left me—”

  I should have been compassionate, I suppose. Sympathetic. I should have spoken warm words to him, letting him know how much he meant to me.

  Instead I said sharply, “Stop it! Stop that bleating. Mewling like a child . . . it’s unbecoming! You’re a Q now! Stand up straight! Stop whining!”

  His face whitened. I’m not surprised that it did. I had never raised my voice to him, not ever. The lightning overhead was deafening now, and I shouted above it.

  “Have I taught you nothing? Have you no pride in who and what you are? You are Q! You are of the Continuum, with all the responsibility and pride that accompanies that!
You are better than this—better than He is,” and I gestured to the sky. “And you are certainly better than this whining brat I see before me! And what if I don’t beg and bargain, what then? You’ll kill me? Go ahead! I’d rather be wiped from existence—I’d rather never have existed at all—than know that I wound up fathering a pathetic creature like you! Well? Come on.” I gestured impatiently. “Annihilate me!” He seemed frozen, unable to put together a coherent thought. “Come on, then! Get on with it! Destroy your father! That’s what that thing up there wants you to do! But remember, it also wants you to worship it, and in so doing it saps your strength and sucks from you the very ‘you’ that makes you ‘you’! I fought all this way to you to keep my promise, to not leave you alone, and I did it with no powers and I wasn’t daunted, and you know why? Because I held you and your mother’s love in my heart, and that is what got me through! If that’s not good enough for you and the divine ‘monkey on your back,’ then fine. I wash my hands of you! Stay here with your god and both of you be damned! Come along, Picard!” And with that, I turned on my heel and started back in the direction I’d come. After only a moment’s hesitation, Picard was at my side.

  “Stop! Stop!” The rage of my son was beyond measure, and lightning bolts crashed to the ground all around us. The smell of ozone was suffocating. I ignored it and kept walking. Picard, for once, followed my lead without comment. We kept moving. . . .

  And then I didn’t know what happened. One moment I was walking, the next I was hurtling through the air, unable to hear anything, and it was only just before I landed that I realized I’d been struck by lightning. When I hit the ground everything went black.

  It might have remained so if I hadn’t been startled back to consciousness by the slamming of a fist against my chest. I looked up, and there was Picard leaning over me, and he struck my chest again. I coughed then, and he saw that my eyes were open. He looked at me, a mute query as to my health, and I forced a nod. I sat up, every joint in my body aching. I reached up and felt my hair. It was standing on end. And one of my eyebrows had been seared off. There was a smoldering hole in my shirt from where the lightning had hit. I ignored it and forced myself to stand. I wouldn’t have made it if Picard hadn’t helped me to my feet. The weather was still incredibly foul, the sky almost solid black, lightning cascading about. My son hadn’t moved from where he’d been standing. There was an expression on his face that was an odd combination of defiance and fear.