by Greg Cox
“She’s been through a rough time,” the doctor told Deanna. Although Leyoro’s brain was no longer in danger of burning itself out, the Angosian woman remained unconscious, her face immobile. “I can’t say yet when or if she will recover.”
Troi rested her hands gently upon the surgical support frame enclosing the stricken woman’s torso. The EMH stepped aside to give her a little more room. “I can barely sense her consciousness,” she said softly, “it’s so faint. But she’s in pain, terrible pain.”
Trusting the counselor’s empathic abilities implicitly, Crusher adjusted the dosage of analgesic being administered to Leyoro by the infusion system in the SSF. “That’s better,” Deanna reported a few moments later. She gazed at Leyoro’s comatose face. “I’ve barely had a chance to get to know her, and now this. It’s so tragic.”
“She might well pull through,” Crusher assured her. “I don’t approve of how the Angosian military tampered with her biology, but their goal was to produce extraordinarily strong and resilient individuals. Survivors.” She glanced up at the biobed display, glad to see that the patient’s neurotransmitter levels were practically back to normal. She made a mental note to access the medical archives of the Angosian veterans facility on Lunar V as soon as possible, although she doubted that anything in their records bore a close resemblance to what effect the galactic barrier could have on a humanoid brain. “We shouldn’t underestimate her innate stamina and recuperative powers.”
“Not to mention the considerable talents and medical expertise of certain attending physicians,” the EMH pointed out, leading Crusher to wonder briefly whether it was technically possible to turn down the volume on the hologram’s self-esteem. He was just a little too much like the real Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, whom she’d had the dubious pleasure of meeting a few years back when she’d temporarily taken charge of Starfleet Medical; his ego had required excess stroking as well, she recalled. I’ll have to ask Data or Geordi about how to adjust the program.
“What about Milo?” she asked Deanna. “Were you able to sense anything?” Milo Faal had not stirred since his unconscious body had been brought to sickbay by Sonya Gomez and the others, although the psionic-energy readings in his youthful brain were scarily similar to those recorded in his father before Lem Faal fled sickbay amid a flurry of telekinetic violence.
Troi shook her head. “I’m very familiar with the ordinary telepathic abilities of full Betazoids—you’ve met my mother—but this is something new. I’ve never sensed anything like it. It’s like white noise. I can’t even sense his emotions anymore.”
Crusher frowned. This didn’t sound good. She had to worry if Milo would wake with the same astonishing—and dangerous—powers his father had displayed. Just one more thing to agonize about, she thought; it didn’t help that the eleven-year-old boy invariably reminded her of Wesley at that age.
How do I treat something like this? she wondered. I could accidentally do more harm than good. She was starting to wish she had never heard of the galactic barrier.
“At least his younger sister is fine,” Crusher reflected. Little Kinya had come out of her artificial coma with no apparent side effects and was now napping quietly in the pediatric unit. Beverly wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain to the toddler what had happened to her father and brother. Part of her was still astounded that Lem Faal could just abandon his children like this, no matter what the barrier had done to his mind. In a way, she thought, that’s even more unbelievable than his amazing new mental powers.
“Why don’t I check on little Kinya?” Deanna volunteered. Crusher recalled that the counselor had a Betazoid baby brother about the same age as Kinya Faal. “You have enough to keep an eye on here.”
“Thank you,” Crusher said, grateful for Troi’s assistance during this crisis. Both children were going to need plenty of counseling now that their father had apparently lost his mind. “That would be very helpful.”
Giving Leyoro one last look, Troi headed toward the emergency pediatric unit attached to the primary care ward. She had only been gone a few minutes, however, when a startled cry from Deanna electrified Crusher’s senses and sent her adrenaline rushing. Crusher raced into the children’s ward, Ogawa close behind her, to find Troi backed against a row of empty, child-sized biobeds, her hand over her heart. “I’m sorry, Beverly,” she stammered quickly, her face flushed, “but he appeared so quickly he caught me by surprise.”
Beverly didn’t have to ask whom she referred to. The source of the counselor’s startlement was readily apparent atop the counter beneath the pediatric supplies cupboard, his pint-sized legs dangling over the edge of the sleek metal counter. Little q was back, doubtless in search of yet another of Crusher’s prescription lollipops. His cherubic face looked more anxious than she had ever seen it before.
“Scared,” he confessed sheepishly, although of what the doctor couldn’t guess. A pudgy little hand reached out to her. “Yum-yum?”
Then the floor tilted forward violently….
At last, Faal thought. Long-range sensors reported the birth and almost immediate collapse of the wormhole he had created. The transitory nature of its existence did not disturb him; he had not expected his wormhole to last any longer than the ones previously generated by Dr. Kahn and her colleagues. However short-lived, the quantum fluctuation had lasted long enough to serve its purpose—to break through the galactic barrier to the other side. I did it, he thought triumphantly. It I did. After endless months of planning and striving, after what felt like half a million years, he had succeeded at last.
Now he could turn his expanded mind to even loftier matters. For so long, he had been forced by the limitations of his treacherous flesh to fixate exclusively on one goal, compelled to achieve genuine immortality before death by disease claimed him forever. He had seldom been able to spare one precious moment contemplating what he could do once he attained that immortality. Now, all at once, he had the freedom to find a new purpose in existence, to expand his work to a whole new level of scientific inquiry. I have evolved beyond mere physical matter. Now my mind can explore the full potential of mind itself….
The frightened mortals surrounding him, chattering anxiously and cluttering up Engineering, could not appreciate his triumph. They were too caught up in the anxiety and adrenaline generated by his takeover of Engineering, not to mention their foolish Starfleet rigmarole. Even now, Lieutenant La Forge sought to take control of the situation, despite the true blindness into which Faal had plunged him. “La Forge to bridge,” he reported, holding on to the tabletop display to keep himself oriented in the dark. “We need more security. Faal is free and dangerous.” He shouted a command to his engineering crew, as well as to the first security officers on the scene, whose phasers had proved useless against Faal’s inexplicable new powers. “Everyone else, stay away from Professor Faal. Keep at your posts. We still have a job to do!”
Daniel Sutter, a merely competent engineer in Faal’s opinion, tried to guide La Forge away. “Sir, you should be in sickbay.”
“No,” La Forge said passionately. “I’m not leaving Engineering in the hands of that menace. I don’t need my eyes to do my duty.”
Faal shook his head in bemusement. Specks. They were nothing but specks. Even now, the sightless engineer could not see past the petty responsibilities of his post, beyond some routine mechanical repairs. Scanning La Forge’s mind in an instant, Faal saw the entire infrastructure of the Enterprise laid out before him, from the replicator system to the warp engines themselves. Despite Faal’s historic triumph over the barrier, part of La Forge’s mind was still worrying about repairing a series of sundered thermal isolation struts, and the difficulties of realigning the off-axis field controller. Faal could have done so in an instant, simply by thinking of it, but why should he bother? He had transcended such mundane chores, even if La Forge and his equally shortsighted servitors had not. The mind is all that matters now. My mind and the mind of one special child….
> Yes, the child, a voice echoed at the back of his mind, so persuasively that he could scarcely distinguish whether it was his own thought or another’s. The child of Q and Q. The next stage in evolution, beyond the Q, beyond you….
“Beyond,” he breathed softly, recalling the miraculous infant he had briefly observed in the Enterprise’s holographic child-care facility. Had not the female Q boasted that her offspring represented a potential advance beyond even the considerable evolutionary development of the Q Continuum? What more suitable subject could he choose for his experiments now that he had transcended his own mortality, achieving a state of being that perhaps rivaled that of the Q themselves? Only he and he alone had the predestined combination of preternatural power and bold scientific imagination to correctly study the unique phenomenon that was the Q child under controlled and rigorous experimental conditions. He had the intellect. He had the ability.
Now all he needed was the child.
He reached out with his mind, searching the entire ship for any sign of the supremely talented toddler. Where is the child? The child of the mind. Somehow he knew, perhaps via that voice whispering constantly at the back of his mind, that Q and his family remained aboard the vessel, pursuing their own enigmatic agendas. The cursed Q, the meddling Q. All that power and knowledge, he thought rancorously, wasted on frivolous antics and diversions; Q was an embarrassment to immortals everywhere. Faal was surprised at the intensity of the animosity he now felt toward Q. The bitter resentment seemed to course through his soul as surely as the metaphysical might he had absorbed within the barrier. Damn you, Q, he cursed, railing against an entity he had scarcely encountered before. You don’t deserve that child.
His natural telepathy amplified more than he could have ever possibly imagined, he scoured the ship from deck to deck without stirring from his workstation in Engineering. As La Forge and his fellow mortals watched him warily from what they hoped was a safe distance, he located his target in sickbay of all places. Where Milo and Kinya are, he recalled, feeling a momentary pang before forcibly shoving the thought away. Never mind those children. Mind over matter. The child of the mind was all that mattered. Funny, how his path kept returning to sickbay. What other proof did he require that his destiny was following some mysterious preordained pattern? It was his scientific duty to take custody of the Q child, no matter who might try to oppose him.
That’s right, the voice seconded his resolve. Test the tot. Test him to the breaking point, then probe and peruse the pieces. Test him till there’s nothing left of Q and Q….
The Betazoid scientist strode decisively, on strong and tireless legs, toward the exit. His work in Engineering was done. Now the future, in the unlikely form of a child, awaited him in sickbay.
He didn’t even notice when the floor of the corridor pitched forward beneath his feet.
Instinctively, Beverly Crusher reached for q the instant she felt the pediatric unit dip toward the bow of the ship. Granted, the toddler was probably infinitely more indestructible than she was, but years of experience as both a doctor and a mother brought with them protective impulses too compelling to be denied. She snatched the child off the metal counter, holding on to him tightly until the floor leveled out again.
“What was that?” Troi gasped, gripping a biobed to steady herself. Standing in the doorway, Alyssa Ogawa looked equally startled. Beverly assumed that the EMH and the other nurses were monitoring Leyoro and Milo.
“I wish I knew,” Crusher said. Was the Enterprise under attack again? And if so, from whom? The Calamarain? The barrier? Professor Faal? Q? Something else altogether? There were too many possibilities, she thought grimly, at a time when sickbay was too full already.
Carrying q with her, she peered through a transparent aluminum porthole, seeing no sign of either of the luminescent cloud-beings that had besieged the Enterprise earlier, nor any trace of the distinctive glow of the galactic barrier. Judging from the way the stars were streaking past, though, she saw that the ship had gone into warp at some point. That has to be a good sign, she thought. I hope.
She tapped her brand-new combadge. “Crusher to bridge. Is there an emergency?”
Lieutenant Barclay responded to her hail, indicating that both the captain and Commander Riker, not to mention ops and security, were too busy coping with the latest crisis. At least Jean-Luc is back, she thought, the bridge having alerted her to the captain’s return. That’s something.
“There’s an intruder on the bridge,” Barclay stammered, sounding badly rattled. “Another Q, I think, or something like him. I really don’t know much more.” She could hear him gulp even over the com line. “Prepare for casualties, Doctor. Barclay out.”
Casualties? Another Q? Crusher craved more information, however bad, but knew better than to distract the bridge crew during a battle. This wouldn’t be the first time she had found herself holding the fort in sickbay while praying that Jean-Luc and the others would save them all from the Borg or the Romulans or whomever, but that didn’t make the waiting any easier.
Not surprisingly, the turbulence and activity had roused Kinya Faal from her nap. The little girl sat up in one of the pediatric biobeds and started crying. Crusher didn’t blame her one bit for being frightened. She was feeling more than a little apprehensive herself.
She tried to hand Q’s son over to Deanna, intending to calm Kinya personally, but he started to squirm and fuss. “Okay, okay,” Crusher assured him. The last thing she needed was two crying kids; Kinya would have to wait a few more moments. “I know what you want.” She nodded at Troi. “Deanna, can you get me one of those replicated lollipops from the storage locker? I think he likes the uttaberry ones.”
“Actually, his favorite flavor is Baldoxic vinegar,” the female Q said, appearing without warning between Crusher and Troi, “but I don’t suppose you’re familiar with that particular taste treat.”
Crusher had never heard of it before and frankly she didn’t care. How in the world was she supposed to get used to people just popping in like that? Her heart went out to Jean-Luc when she realized how many times the original Q must have startled him that way; it was a miracle that the captain’s blood pressure was as consistently low as it was. “I thought we had a little talk about these surprise appearances,” she reminded the female Q a bit testily.
“My apologies,” the Q replied with surprisingly little argument. “Darling q just keeps me hopping, you know.” She reached out for her child. “Forgive me if I don’t linger to chat, but I’m afraid there’s been some unpleasantness on the bridge, and I would just as soon see q safely elsewhere.”
“What sort of unpleasantness?” Crusher asked quickly, desperate to learn more of what was happening on the bridge. She held on to q in hopes of delaying the female Q’s departure for just a few moments. “Who is that intruder?”
“Well, it’s a rather long story,” the Q replied, a pained expression upon her patrician features. In her Starfleet uniform, she stood several centimeters taller than either Crusher or Ogawa. “A few billion years long, in fact.” She paused for a second, placing an elegant finger beneath her chin as she considered how best to summarize the tale. “Let’s just say,” she said finally, “that an unsavory acquaintance of my husband has made a most unwelcome return.”
What exactly did that mean? Beverly wondered. Had the Enterprise ended up stuck in the middle of some petty Q feud? Stranger things had happened, especially where Q was concerned. “What sort of acquaint—” she began.
A cry from the primary ward cut off her next question. That sounded like the EMH, she thought, anxiously wondering what had caused the disturbance and whether it had anything to do with the “unsavory acquaintance” the female Q had just mentioned. Or maybe Milo had woken up much like his father? Ogawa hurried toward the cry, but Beverly hesitated, reluctant to leave either child alone before she knew what sort of danger might have arrived. More shouts came from outside the children’s ward and Troi ran to the doorway to investigate,
only to back up immediately when she saw what was coming.
An instant later, Lem Faal appeared framed in the doorway, his eyes glowing with the energy of the galactic barrier, his lean face as cold and expressionless as a Vulcan’s. Crusher knew in an instant that he had not returned to sickbay to check on his dormant children.
Faal’s icy composure faltered perceptibly when he spotted the female Q standing behind Crusher. “You,” he said in evident displeasure. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” the female Q said stiffly. If she remembered Faal at all from their fleeting encounter in the holodeck a few evenings ago, she gave no evidence of it.
Faal eyed her like he might a specimen on a slide. “You don’t matter anymore,” he told her. “You’re no longer the forefront of evolution. You’ve been rendered obsolete.” His luminous gaze shifted from the female Q to the child in Crusher’s arms. “It’s the child I’m after. The child of the future.”
“What?” Before any of the women could react to Faal’s astonishing declaration, Crusher felt a powerful force rip baby q from her arms. She struggled to hold on to the child, but it was like trying to hang on to a loose padd during explosive decompression, something Beverly had personal experience of. The toddler was gone, and clutched under Faal’s arm, before she even knew what was happening. Snatched from Crusher, q started to cry, but Faal placed his free hand against q’s unprotected neck. There was a flash of discharged energy and q’s body drooped limply within Faal’s grasp, his tiny arms and head sagging toward the floor below.
A sense of horror rushed over Crusher, and she could only imagine what the baby’s mother must be feeling. Had Faal just killed q? Was that even possible? At a glance, she couldn’t tell if the child was still breathing, if that meant anything at all where a Q was concerned. “What have you done?” she gasped. “What did you do to him?”