For better or for worse, Picard reflected, he and the usual Q seemed to have arrived at the tail end of the trial. Just as well, he thought; as much as he enjoyed seeing Q among the accused, he was eager for this odyssey to reach some conclusion. The sooner Q returned him to the Enterprise, the less anxious he would feel.
The magistrate rapped his gavel again. “The entity who quite presumptuously calls Himself The One shall be confined to the center of this galaxy until the heat death of the universe or His sincere repentance, whichever comes first. This sentence is effective immediately.”
“No!” The One screamed as a glowing blue forcefield surrounded His cage, lifting it from the floor and sending it rushing upward toward the very center of the sprawling starscape above. The living head rocked back and forth within His cage, smashing His forbidding visage against the bars. “Mine is the Power and the Glory and the Will. You cannot lock Me away!” His strident denials faded rapidly in volume as the cage ascended into the sky. Picard watched it rise until its tiny blue glow was lost amid the dazzling panoply of the galactic core.
Of course, he thought, realizing at last who and what this entity truly was. James T. Kirk had reported encountering just such a malevolent force, trapped behind an energy barrier at the center of the Milky Way, during one of the historic early voyages of the Enterprise-A. In theory, The One was imprisoned within the core still, even in the twenty-fourth century. Remind me to leave that particular barrier alone, he thought, triggering yet another revelation in his mind.
Now the toga-clad magistrate turned his attention to 0 himself. Arrogant and unrepentant, the prisoner waited defiantly in the dock, singing off-key to music only he could hear. His fancy velvet coat, damask vest, and fashionable breeches were soiled and disheveled. His orange-red tresses, once neatly tied, were loose and in disarray, thatches of frizzy hair jutting wildly in all directions. Having lost his buckled shoes in his moment of defeat, he stood barefoot upon a simulated marble floor, his scarred and twisted left foot exposed to view.
“A young babe lay asleep in bed,
When a shadow passed his silken head….”
“The entity known only as 0,” the quaestor went on, ignoring 0’s self-absorbed singing, “is banished from this galaxy, on every dimensional plane, without hope of pardon or parole.”
“You bundled him in, and kissed him goodnight,
Trusting that all ’twould be well in the night….”
“A barricade shall be erected around the galaxy to prevent your return, thus protecting lesser life-forms from your depraved amusements until they are advanced enough to defend themselves against you and your kind.”
“But ever present, always there,
Too common t’matter, too small for a care—
Heedless of what might befall—
You neglect the spider on the wall….”
It all made sense now, Picard thought, nodding. The galactic barrier did not exist to hold humanity or anyone else within the galaxy; it was intended to keep 0 out. A galactic quarantine, in effect, with a capital Q.
And a quarantine that Lem Faal’s artificial wormhole could undo in a few moments, exposing the Federation and the rest of the galaxy to 0 once more….
0 spat upon the courtroom floor, his spittle eating away at the marble tiles like acid. “You can’t be rid of me so readily,” he vowed, interrupting his sinister ditty to threaten the court directly. “I’ll be back if I have to wait a million years, just wait and see.” His head snapped around to glower at the young Q. The female Q started to draw her sword, but 0 only flung words at his onetime protégé. “I won’t be forgetting you, Q. We’ll meet again, count on it.” His angry gaze swept the courtroom; Picard felt a chill pass over him as 0 looked his way, even though he knew the vengeful prisoner could not see either he or the older Q. “I hope you like games, young Q, because I know whom I’m testing next. You, Q, you.” He fixed his baleful gaze on Q as he resumed his song:
“While the lad is tucked in snug,
It crawls along across the rug….”
“Enough. The sentence has been pronounced.” He rapped his gavel decisively. “Make it so.”
“Deep in slumber, young dreams sweet,
It works its way beneath the sheet….”
As with The One, an irresistible force seized 0 and propelled him upward at unimaginable speed, but this time the force aimed the prisoner at the outer limits of the galaxy. “I’ll be back, Q,” he shouted down at them as his raspy voice grew fainter and fainter. “Oh, the games we’ll play, games of life and death and death and death…! How well can a Q die, I wonder. There’s a test for you!”
“Its legs caressing dimpled chin,
It swiftly pierces tender skin….”
Cast out of known space, 0 shrank to invisibility somewhere outside the galaxy, in the black abyss between galaxies. Even after he disappeared from sight, Picard could still hear 0 singing madly.
“When the spider aims his deadly spikes,
No one spies him till he strikes,
Be mindful of this when you kiss yours goodnight,
Beware of the danger that lies in plain sight….”
Then something new and different appeared. Picard watched in wonder as a thin violet cord, neon bright in intensity, stretched around the perimeter of the Milky Way, outlining the entire galaxy like a forcefield…or a moat.
Thus is born the galactic barrier, he realized, awestruck at the enormity of what the Q had done. That glowing cordon, the same immense wall of energy that had confronted daring starfarers since time immemorial, was the first line of defense for over one hundred billion stars, and all the planets and civilizations that orbited those stars, from Earth to the Delta Quadrant and beyond. Although it looked like the merest shimmering ribbon from his current perspective, he knew that this same barrier enclosed a spiral cloud of stars more than one hundred thousand light-years in diameter. It was a cosmic feat of engineering that made the Great Wall of China seem like a fraction of a fraction of a subatomic speck in comparison. Astonishing, he thought. Just to be present at this epochal moment was almost worth all the aggravation Q had inflicted on him over the years.
0 had been more than simply exiled, Picard also understood, as the full implications of the Continuum’s decree sank in. Given the crippled 0’s inability to travel at faster-than-light speeds, except via the Continuum, he had been effectively marooned in extragalactic space, over two million years from the nearest alternative galaxy; in essence, he’d been set adrift in a very large ocean with the only shore in sight barred from him forever. Even if 0 set out immediately for the Andromeda Galaxy, he was still going to be alone for a long, long time. Picard almost felt sorry for him; the Continuum’s judgment had been unforgiving indeed.
But what of the young Q? Picard had to admit he was curious to see how his own people would deal with the errant Q. Obviously, he thought, whatever they do, it won’t be enough to curb his appetite for disorder and chaos. Picard and his crew could testify to that.
“Q,” the quaestor addressed the youth. His oh-so-familiar face frowned in disapproval.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Q said, stepping forward. Unlike the departed defendants, no chains or cage restrained him. He was here of his own free will, proving that he had gained a little in maturity since his panicky flight from justice several millennia earlier. Picard admired the youth’s willingness to face the consequences of his misdeeds.
“Would that we could dispose of you,” the quaestor said mournfully, his expression growing more dour by the moment, “as swiftly and efficiently as the Continuum dealt with your unsavory associates.” He sighed and shook his head. “Alas, you are a member of the Continuum and so we are obliged to undertake the daunting, and most likely unachievable, task of your rehabilitation.” He nodded at the female Q, standing behind Q in the dock. “Will the bailiff please present Exhibit Forty-two B.”
“Certainly,” she agreed. Holding out her hands in front of her, she
produced a spinning blue-green globe that lifted off from her open palms to take a position between the defendant and the quaestor, floating serenely in midair. “Do you recognize this world?” she asked Q.
He peered at the globe, then shook his head. “Should I?”
“The planet before you,” the quaestor informed him, scowling, “is one of several that were damaged during the conflict required to apprehend you and your associates. This world, in particular, was injured by your careless attempt at self-defense near the end of that regrettable altercation.”
Picard recalled, if the young Q did not, the diverted asteroid smashing into the Earth many million years in the past, causing death and destruction on a planetary scale. I still refuse to accept that was really Q’s doing, he thought. That an asteroid had struck Earth in the distant past, causing mass extinctions all over the globe, was a matter of archaeological record. That Q himself had caused the disaster, in a single careless moment, Picard found harder to accept. That, at least, must be some twisted joke on Q’s part. Or so he hoped.
“Oops?” Q said weakly, wincing at the fierce glare his feeble defense elicited from the quaestor.
“The biosphere of this unfortunate world has been grievously harmed,” the magistrate announced. “Your penance is to personally oversee the reconstruction of its environment and any life-forms that may develop therein. Perhaps the rehabilitation of this unassuming world can serve as a model for your own redemption.” He regarded Q dubiously. “Probably a lost cause, but who knows?”
Q did not take the quaestor’s ruling as well as perhaps he should have. “You want me to babysit some insignificant little planet way off in the middle of nowhere? What sort of punishment is that? It’s a complete waste of my abilities and talents. Can’t you come up with a penance that’s more, well, impressive? Twelve impossible labors maybe, or a hazardous quest that no one else would dare?” He grimaced at the floating orb, his nose wrinkling in disdain. “Nothing so tedious and mundane as…that.”
That’s more like the Q I know, Picard thought. Supremely self-important even in defeat.
“Do not question the judgment of this tribunal,” the magistrate warned him, raising his gavel. “Be thankful that you were not stripped of all your Q-given powers and privileges, although I would not be at all surprised if it comes to that someday.” The Q who looked like Picard rose from behind the imposing height of the bench and removed his laurel crown. “Don’t let me see you here again, young Q.”
Picard half-expected to see Q escorted out of the courtroom now that the proceedings seemed to have concluded. Instead the whole courtroom, and everyone in it, disappeared abruptly in a flash of white light, leaving the young Q alone with his new charge. His posture sagged gloomily as he inspected the spinning globe with a sour expression upon his face. Continents drifted beneath his gaze, and, from several meters away, Picard thought he spotted a landmass that might someday be France. The arctic icecap crept slowly downward, locking Earth in its glacial grip, then receded northward once more. “What a dump,” Q groaned.
“Oh, that’s enough!” Picard spun around to confront the older Q. He had seen all he wanted to see. “This is too much, Q. Do you truly expect me to believe that you were placed in charge of humanity—as a punishment?”
“What can I say, Jean-Luc?” Q replied, throwing up his hands. “It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.” He took Picard by the arm and led him away from the young Q and an even younger Earth. The captain glanced back over his shoulder, watching the birthplace of humanity spin beneath the sullen gaze of the young Q, but that unsettling primordial scene was soon lost in a dense, white fog that seemed to form out of nowhere, soon growing opaque enough to conceal all the stars that had surrounded the cosmic courtroom. Picard looked about quickly and realized that he and Q had returned to the same ghostly limbo from which their long journey had begun. He decided to take this as an encouraging sign that their odyssey was nearing its end.
“In any event,” Q continued, “you mustn’t dwell on that amusing little epilogue, no matter how intriguing. I trust that, by now, you have deduced the real reason why I have taken you on this cheery stroll down memory lane.”
Picard nodded soberly. “Professor Faal’s experiment. His plan to pierce the galactic barrier with an artificial wormhole.” Knowing what he now did, it wasn’t hard to grasp the dangers involved. “We could accidentally let 0 back into the galaxy.”
“Oh, almost certainly,” Q confirmed. “He’s surely still out there, no doubt humming one of his obnoxious ditties while he waits for a chance to sneak back into your precious Milky Way.” He looked sincerely concerned by the prospect. “I can’t imagine several hundred millennia of isolation have improved his personality much.”
Picard resisted the temptation to remark about blackened pots versus kettles. From what he had viewed, a legitimate case could be made that 0 was more of a threat than Q; Q had only threatened humanity with extinction on occasion, but 0 had actually carried out his genocidal plan to destroy the Tkon Empire. “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth in the first place?” he asked. “You had any number of opportunities to explain why you wanted us to leave the barrier alone.”
“Would you have believed me?” Q asked in return.
Probably not, Picard conceded. He’d be extremely reluctant to accept anything, even the time of day, on Q’s word alone. Still, he suspected there was more to Q’s earlier reticence than the conceited superbeing was now willing to admit. The affaire de 0 was hardly one of Q’s finest hours; no wonder he’d been unwilling to provide Picard with the full story until it became obvious that there was no other way to convince the captain to call off the experiment. Given a choice, Picard thought, I’m sure Q would have preferred to explore my own follies and frailties rather than admit to any imperfections of his own.
“But wouldn’t the Continuum intervene again if 0 broke through?” Picard asked. The swirling white mist was growing thicker and thicker. He could barely see his own hands when he held them up before his face. “Surely the combined might of all the Q would be enough to banish him once more.”
“Eventually,” Q agreed, “but how soon is the question. Over the aeons, the Continuum has grown more detached and aloof from mortal affairs…and preoccupied with its own concerns.” He guided Picard through the dense fog, although how he knew which way to go, if directions meant anything at all in this formless shadowland, Picard couldn’t begin to imagine. “I alluded earlier to a civil war that recently divided the Continuum. Although peace was eventually restored, in no small part due to my own heroic efforts, rest assured that this has been a time of considerable turmoil and change for the Q Continuum, which now has other things on its collective mind than an interdimensional vandal we disposed of countless centuries ago. Still coping with the aftermath of our epochal civil war, the rest of the Q would also be decidedly unwilling to initiate another armed conflict so soon after our own internecine struggle.”
Picard found the whole notion of a Q civil war intriguing and more than a little alarming. He recalled that it was this very war that supposedly caused the hairline fractures in the galactic barrier that had first attracted Lem Faal’s attention. Although Q hadn’t said as much, Picard would have been willing to wager a Ferengi’s ransom in gold-pressed latinum that Q had been responsible for starting the war in the first place.
“To be sure,” Q continued, “the Continuum would take note of 0’s new depredations in a century or two, but who knows how much havoc 0 could inflict on an unsuspecting galaxy before the other Q took action? It’s unlikely your vaunted Federation would still be around to see 0 get his just desserts.”
“What do you care?” Picard asked suspiciously.
Q did not take offense at the question, nor at Picard’s skeptical tone. “Fatherhood has given me a greater investment in the future of the cosmos. I don’t want my son to grow up in a galaxy contaminated by 0.”
A valid point, Picard thought. As disr
uptive as the infant Q had been to the daily routines of the Enterprise, the captain could not begrudge Q his concern for his son. “Is that all you’re concerned with?” Picard accused. “It seemed to me that 0 was dead-set on revenge against you in particular. Are you sure you’re not more worried about your own safety?”
“Enlightened self-interest is one of the crucial hallmarks of a truly advanced intelligence,” Q said defensively.
“Regardless of your motives,” Picard stated, “you’ve made your point about the peril of violating the barrier. I have no intention of proceeding with the experiment at this time.” He gestured at the featureless miasma that had engulfed them. “I trust this means we can return to my ship with all deliberate speed.”
“If you say so.”
Abruptly, without any tangible sense of transition, Picard was back on the bridge of the Enterprise. To his further surprise, he found himself drifting in front of the main viewer, a few meters above the blue steel floor. “What the devil?” he exclaimed.
“Captain!” Will Riker said, lunging from the captain’s chair to his feet.
It didn’t take Picard long to realize that there was no gravity upon the bridge. Years of experience in Starfleet alerted him to the unique physical sensations of zero G right away; still, after spending what felt like hours in the abstract realm of the Q, where entities casually occupied deep space with a nary a care in the world, it felt strange to be subjected to such elemental principles as gravity, or rather the lack of the same, once more. Which probably means I’ve returned to reality none too soon, he reflected. “Q,” he said, pointing in an irritated manner at the floor, “if you don’t mind…”