The Q Continuum

by Greg Cox

  “Perhaps you should worry less about your experiment and more about your children,” the doctor said heatedly. Milo sensed her anger at his father’s skewed priorities. She lowered Kinya onto one of the miniature biobeds. His sister sat sideways 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 com? 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 torpedo!”

  A hypospray hissed as Dr. Crusher applied the instrument to his left shoulder. “Dad!” Milo cried out as his father stiffened in surprise. His face went slack as his eyelids drooped and he sagged backward into the doctor’s waiting arms.

  “Don’t worry,” she assured Milo. “I just prescribed 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 the primary facility. An Octonoid crewman with both his lower arms in slings hopped off a 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 comforting 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, interrupting 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 should 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. Running 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 barrier. 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 equipment. 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, burning 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 relief, 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 counteragent 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. Pra
ise the Holy Rings, Milo thought, grateful that his father had not actually killed the counselor.

  Lem Faal had not lingered to view the consequences 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 occupied 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 cold? 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 turbolift. 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 emitted a high-pitched whine, however, which was clearly not what Dr. Crusher had expected. “What the devil? There’s something wrong with the com system.”

  The overhead lights flickered and, to Milo’s surprise, so did the doctor holding his collar. He’s a hologram, 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 intersection—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 could 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.

  Six

  Glevi ut Sov, Empress of Tkon, awoke one morning in the second year of her reign, during the latter days of the Age of Xora, with a feeling of unaccountable 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 couch, propped up by numerous soft cushions, each embroidered with the sacred emblem of the Endless Flame, she listened carefully to the silence of the early morning. Had any alarm or summons disturbed 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-grandfather’s time. Her shadow preceded her as she stepped away from the couch, the hem of her silk gown trailing upon the carpet. A translucent screen, upon which was printed a copper representation of the flame emblem, descended silently from the ceiling, sealing off the imperial bedchamber 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 psisensitive 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 memory, 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 palace, 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 account for her anxious presentiments. Ozari-thul at dawn looked nearly as placid as her chambers, the vast majority of the city’s twelve million inhabitants not yet stirring from their homes. Graceful towers, winding like crystal corkscrews, pierced the morning sky, while ribbons of interlocking roadways guided a few scattered vehicles on postnocturnal 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 co
oler 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 perceptions 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. Besides, 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.