Star Trek: The Q Continuum (33 page)

Moments later, as Q reckoned time, (*)’s influence caused a bloody mutiny to erupt aboard the ship, leading ultimately to a helix drive explosion that blossomed into a firefly flash of blue-green before dimming into nothingness. (*) glowed a little brighter afterward, savoring its snack.

It had happened so quickly, from this celestial point of reference, that Picard could scarcely keep up with all that was happening, let alone grasp its meaning. “That ship,” he murmured. “All those lives…”

“A matter of no importance,” Q insisted, “a tiny teardrop of tragedy before the deluge. You mustn’t let yourself be distracted by such marginalia. The fate of an empire, and more, is at stake.”

Picard nodded grimly, unable to speak. He knew full well what was coming, and Q was right: The destruction of a single starship was next to nothing compared to the apocalypse ahead.

“You have to admit,” 0 said to the young Q, the tiny starship already forgotten, “the Tkon still have a long way to go before they’re remotely comparable to us, or even that fetid fog we first ran into.”

“I don’t know,” Q responded, the bright tiny spark that had been a spacecraft still imprinted on his metaphysical retinas. Intellectually, he liked the idea of helping lesser life-forms evolve; it certainly beat the unending boredom the Continuum provided in such dispiriting quantities. Primitive species had often proved more unpredictable, and therefore more entertaining, than his fellow Q…with the possible exception of Q herself. On the other hand, when it came to actually visiting trials and tribulations on a harmless little species like the Tkon, who had worked so hard to achieve their own modest triumphs…well, he found it seemed vaguely unsporting. “They seem to be doing fairly well on their own,” he observed.

“Fairly well?” 0 echoed. He laughed so loud that Q found himself blushing without really knowing why. “They’re nowhere close to transcending fourth-dimensional existence, let alone achieving true cosmic consciousness. Why, they still require a massive infrastructure and social hierarchy just to satisfy their crude physical needs.” He rolled his eyes and raised his hands in amazement. “You can’t let yourself get sentimental about your subjects, no matter how cute and comical they are. Face the facts, Q. At this rate, it will take them a couple of eternities to catch up with us, if they even last that long, which I sincerely doubt. They’ve gotten smug, complacent, convinced that they’re sitting at the top of the evolutionary ladder. They have no more incentive to evolve further, which means they’re just short of total stagnation. They need to be reminded that there are bigger forces in the universe, sublime mysteries they haven’t even begun to unravel.”

“So be it,” The One seconded, nodding His bearded head ponderously. His golden armor clanked as He crossed His arms atop His chest, the metallic ringing resounding across five dimensional planes and creating unaccountable subspace vibrations that caused technicians to scratch their heads in confusion throughout the entire empire. “Let it be written.”

“If testing these beings is indeed on the agenda,” Gorgan pointed out, “we should do so swiftly.” He gestured toward the flaming thermonuclear globe at the center of the Tkon’s solar system. “That old sun is clearly on its last legs.”

Q glanced at the orb in question, seeing at once that Gorgan was correct. The sun of Tkon, a standard yellow star of no particular distinction aside from its usefulness to the Tkon, had almost depleted its store of hydrogen atoms. Soon enough, the helium in its core would begin fusing into carbon, eventually causing the star to swell into a bloated red caricature of its former self, and, from the look of things, swallow up all of the inner planets, including Tkon. “Seems to me,” he suggested, “that the Tkon have challenges enough without us adding to their difficulties.”

“Which is why this is exactly the right time to test them,” 0 insisted, looming over the endangered world like a constellation. “Now is the defining moment of their existence. Can they remain focused on the big picture despite their trivial everyday concerns, not to mention whatever ingenious obstacles we place before them? Will they perish with their star, abandon their homes for distant shores, or achieve the impossible in the face of impediments both natural and supernatural?” He rubbed his palms together eagerly. “It should be a fascinating experiment!”

“Er, what kind of impediments did you have in mind?” Q found himself looking backward over his shoulder, half-expecting to find the entire Continuum looking on in disapproval.
If they had any idea what 0 has in mind…!
To his surprise, he discovered that the danger of incurring his peers’ censure only made 0’s plans all the more irresistible. There was an undeniable, if vaguely illicit, thrill in defying propriety this way. If only there was some way to scandalize the Q and the others without inconveniencing the Tkon too much.

“Why, whatever we feel like,” 0 stated readily. Q envied his reckless, carefree attitude. “You don’t want to plan these things too much beforehand. You need to leave yourself room to improvise, to invent and elaborate. It’s as much an art as a science.” He gestured toward the solar system at their feet. “Go ahead,” he urged Q. “It was your idea. It’s only fitting you take the first shot. Indulge yourself. Employ that extraordinary imagination of yours. Give their tiny, terrestrial, time-bound minds something to really think about.”

Q gathered his power together, feeling the creative energies crackle in his hands.
This is it,
he thought.
This is my chance.
A peculiar sense of…suspense? tension?…percolated within him. It was a strange, but not altogether unpleasant sensation. After all this time, after countless aeons spent waiting for the opportunity to show what he could do, what if he couldn’t think of anything? What if he made a mistake or, worse yet, committed some ghastly cliché that just made 0 and the rest think less of him? He felt the pressure of the others’ expectant gaze, savored an unprecedented fear of failure, then took a deep if figurative breath, absorbing inspiration from the ether. “Suppose,” he said tentatively, not quite committing himself, “I miraculously extended the life span of their sun by another four billion years?” Easy enough, he thought; all that was required was a fresh infusion of elemental hydrogen into the star’s core. “That would come as a real stunner to them, wouldn’t it? What do you think they will do with all that extra time? How will their society and institutions react? It should make for an informative experiment, don’t you think?”

0 sighed and rubbed his brow wearily. Gorgan and The One shook their heads and stepped backward, placing a bit more distance between them and Q, who could tell at once that his suggestion had not been well received.
Hey, don’t blame me,
he thought indignantly.
It was my first try, after all.

“You’re missing the point,” 0 explained. “That’s no test; that’s a
gift.”
He spit out the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “Four billion extra years? What’s that going to teach them—or us, for that matter? Progress, even survival itself, must be earned. Challenges are to be overcome. Benevolence is for babies.”

Q’s ears burned. Was 0 calling him a baby? Why, he was almost seven billion years old! “Can’t the unexpected come in positive forms as well as negative?” he argued. “Isn’t a species’ reaction to miraculous good fortune as significant, as educational and edifying, as the way they cope with adversity?”

“On some abstract, intellectual level perhaps,” 0 said grudgingly, “but take it from me, Q, it’s a lot more boring, for the tested and tester alike. What would you rather do, watch the Tkon cope with the ultimate issues of life or death, or simply feed them a few cosmological crumbs now and then, watching from afar as they scurry around in gratitude?” He yawned theatrically. “Frankly, I have better things to do than watch you dote on an undeserving warren of underdeveloped, overpopulated vermin. Where’s the sport in that?” He paced back and forth across the sector, his footsteps creating deep impressions in the fabric of space-time that would someday be charted by the first Verathan explorers, five hundred thousand years later. “Come on, Q. Surely you can do better than that. What’s it going to be?”

“I don’t know,” Q blurted, feeling both embarrassed and resentful. “I’m not sure.” Why was 0 making this so hard?
It’s not fair,
he thought.
The Continuum is forever badgering me about going too far; now 0 is unhappy because I won’t go far enough.
He wanted to
do
something, but not necessarily
to
anyone.

“Listen to me, Q,” 0 entreated. “This is what you’ve always wanted, a chance to use your innate abilities the way they were always meant to be used. Don’t censor yourself before you even begin. Don’t hold back. Show the Tkon, and the rest of the multiverse, what you’re really made of. Put the fear of Q into them!”

Well, not fear exactly,
Q thought. Still, 0 had a point. Realistically, there was no way to make an impact on the universe without affecting the Tkon or some species like them. He couldn’t balk now, not if he was really serious about joining 0 in his campaign. Despite his qualms, he felt a tingle of excitement, a sneaky thrill that was only heightened by the sense that he was getting away with something he shouldn’t. “All right,” he declared, “let’s start with something silly and see where we go from there.”

Without warning, thousands upon thousands of plump, juicy red
vovelles,
a Tkon fruit not unlike a tomato, poured from the sky above the great city of Ozari-thul. The succulent deluge pelted the streets and rooftops of the capital, leaving a wet, pulpy mess wherever the falling fruits came to rest. The fruits exploded upon impact with masonry or flesh, spraying everyone and everything with sloppy red debris. The people of the city, the great and the lowly alike, ran for shelter, then stared in awe and amazement at the inexplicable phenomenon. Slitted golden eyes blinked in disbelief while psionic announcements urged the citizens to remain calm. “Not bad,” 0 pronounced. “A bit adolescent, but okay for a start.”

Q was delighted by the results of his opening move. He laughed out loud as a ceremonial parade down the heart of the city was reduced to pandemonium by the unnatural downpour, sending both marchers and onlookers scrambling, already dripping with raw seed and juice, slipping and sliding in the gory remains of thousands of skydiving fruits. The high priestess of the Temple of Ozari, her immaculate white robes and headdress splattered with pulp, tried futilely to finish the Ritual of Ascension until an overripe
vovelle
cut her off in the midprayer. But not everyone found the bizarre fruitfall an ordeal or an offense; small children, exhilarated by the marvelously messy miracle, ran squealing through the streets, scooping up handfuls of pulverized fruit innards to hurl at each other, giggling deliriously as the gooey redness ran through their hair and down their faces.

Q was just as gratified and amused. All that tremendous chaos, and all because of him! Whyever had he waited so long to play this game? One whimsical notion, and he had affected the lives of millions, maybe even billions, of other beings. This was a day that neither he nor the Tkon Empire would ever forget, and he was just getting warmed up. Why, he could do anything now, anything at all. A million outrageous possibilities popped into his mind. He could bring the colorful gods and monsters of Tkon mythology to life, or make their entire history flow backward. He could imbue an ordinary Tkon with a fraction of Q-power and see what happened next, or turn himself into a Tkon for a time. He could make them speak exclusively in limericks or sign language or Ionian pentameter. He might even change the value of
pi
throughout the entire empire or lower the speed of light; just imagine the divine confusion and merriment that would ensue! The possibilities were as infinite as his imagination. He could hardly wait to get started.

But suppose he got carried away? The thought materialized within his mind as unexpectedly as the fruits bombarding Ozari-thul, surfacing from some surprising core of responsibility at the locus of his being. The possibilities at hand were almost too unlimited. For the first time, Q was frightened by his own omnipotence.

The rain of
vovelles
halted abruptly, leaving a puzzled population to gaze quizzically at the now-empty sky. They peeked out nervously from beneath arch-ways and covered pavilions, half-expecting the fruits to return in greater numbers, perhaps accompanied by icemelons and
susu
as well. Automated sanitation systems began clearing away the slippery debris. Awe and wonder gave way to feverish speculation and debate as news of the bizarre incident immediately spread to every corner of the empire. Despite a full imperial investigation, however, including the subatomic and electromagnetic scrutiny of over five thousand barrels of
vovelle
pulp, plus countless hours of careful analysis and ontological theorizing, no satisfactory explanation was ever provided, nor did the empress and her people come close to guessing the truth—until much later.

“What’s the matter, Q?” 0 asked. “Why have you stopped?” He must have known from the look on Q’s face that the young godling was not merely gearing up for some newer and greater escapade. “Is there a problem?”

“It’s nothing,” Q said, unable to meet the other’s eyes; he didn’t want to admit to any second thoughts. What kind of rebel was he if he got squeamish about a mere harmless jest? They’d think he was a coward, afraid of upsetting the Continuum. “I was simply concerned about the long-term ecological impact of all those plummeting succulents.” The excuse sounded feeble even to his own ears. “It’s just that I want to pace myself, not use up all my creativity on the first evolving life-form that catches my eye.”

“But you were only getting warmed up,” 0 told him. “That was nothing but a schoolboy prank. Not that I don’t like a good joke as much as the next all-powerful life-form, but don’t you want to try something, well, more serious?”