Troi hoped that his mother approved of giving candy to babies. "That's very yummy, I'm sure," Q said to her child and lifted him from Troi's grasp. The Betazoid counselor willingly surrendered q, her tired arms grateful for the break. She had forgotten how heavy babies could get after a while. Q gave q a tender hug, then looked at the other two women with a marginally more charitable expression on her face. "I suppose I should thank you for tending to my baby as diligently as you were able, not that you can be expected to fully understand the unique needs of such a special and profoundly gifted child, who is, after all, the literal embodiment of the ultimate potential of the Q."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Beverly challenged her, understandably annoyed by the woman's att.i.tude. Troi both sensed and shared Beverly's irritation, although Lem Faal, despite his anxiety, seemed to hang on her every word. He couldn't take his eyes off the female Q and her child. "My own son, Wesley, is quite gifted."

"Well, by humanoid standards, perhaps," Q said, distinctly less than impressed.

"Not necessarily," Beverly pointed out. "An ent.i.ty much like yourself, who called himself the Traveler, judged Wesley worthy of his attention and tutelage."

"The Traveler?" Q asked, sounding intrigued despite herself. She clearly recognized the name. "The Traveler chose your son?"

"Exactly," Beverly informed her. Troi could feel her friend's pride in her son, as well as the pain of Wesley's long absence from the Enterprise. "I have every reason to believe that he may be on the threshold of entering a higher level of existence."

"For that matter," Troi added, unable to resist joining this game of maternal one-upmanship, "my own son, Ian Andrew, grew up to be a noncorporeal life-form exploring the cosmos."

In fact, the full story was more complicated than that; her son had been an alien ent.i.ty who had impregnated her with himself in order to learn more about humanoid existence, but she saw no reason to explain all that to this particular Q, who could obviously use being taken down a peg or two. For her own good, of course, Troi thought.

The female Q could not believe her ears. Professor Faal looked equally surprised. "Your son," she echoed, "transcending the inherent limitations of matter-based biology? You must be joking."

"Not a bit," Troi stated. "If you doubt either me or Dr. Crusher, you can always consult the ship's logs."

Her son's head resting contentedly on her shoulder, Q subjected Troi and Crusher to more intensive scrutiny than before. "Hmmm," she murmured, mostly to herself, "I think I may be starting to see what Q finds so compelling about you funny little creatures. You may not be as primitive as you appear."

Mother and child both disappeared, leaving the two women, along with Faal and his son, alone in the holographic children's center at roughly three in the morning. Both the holodeck and the ship had survived the visitation intact, although Faal looked as though he had just undergone a religious experience. "I can't believe it. How amazing," he murmured, oblivious of Milo, who tugged on his father's arm but failed to distract the older man from his preoccupation. "Pure energy and power in humanoid form," Faal rhapsodized. "The manifestation-and reproduction-of noncorporeal existence. Animate, anthropomorphized thought!" His breath was ragged, but he didn't seem to notice. He stared inward, poring over his memories for the secrets of the Q's existence. "What did she mean," he asked, "that the child was the embodiment of the Q's potential? Do you think she was implying an even further development in their evolution? Why, the implications are astounding...!"

"I think it's getting very late," Troi said simply, uncertain how to respond. Despite all the wondrous events of the last hour, she found she could not ignore the wounded look on Milo's face as his father theorized about the scientific importance of the infant Q. When the other parents, human and otherwise, boasted of their children, she recalled, Faal had not even mentioned his own. Troi could feel the boy's pain. Why couldn't Faal? Is he unable to sense it somehow, she wondered, or does he simply not care?

Eight.

Captain's log, supplemental: As we approach the outer boundaries of the galaxy, neither Q nor any member of his family has been heard from for several hours. If nothing else, this welcome respite has given both myself and my officers a chance to get some much-needed rest. I antic.i.p.ate the commencement of Professor Faal's ambitious experiment with renewed optimism and vigor, even as I remain convinced that we have not heard the last of Q.

The galactic barrier shimmered on the viewscreen. Red and purple energies coursed along its length, charging the barrier with enough power to threaten even a Sovereign-cla.s.s starship. On this side of that incandescent ribbon of light, the Milky Way Galaxy as they knew it, home to the Federation and the Dominion and the Borg and millions of worlds and races as yet unknown. On the other side, a vast and inconceivable emptiness holding countless more galaxies as large or larger than their own. This is truly the final frontier, Picard mused, contemplating the galactic barrier from his chair on the bridge, one boundless enough to be explored forever.

"An awesome sight," he commented to Lem Faal. The Betazoid physicist and Geordi La Forge had joined them on the bridge to witness the barrier as it came within visual range of their sensors. Faal stood behind Data's station at Ops, regarding the radiant barrier with open wonder. "I imagine you must be eager to be under way with your experiment," Picard said.

"More than you could ever comprehend," Faal answered. His pale face held a mixture of reverence and ill-disguised rapacity, like King Midas beholding his h.o.a.rd of gold. "Did you know that the energy that composes the barrier is unlike anything we've ever encountered, aside from the Great Barrier at the galactic core? Why, at first it didn't even register on any of the primitive sensors of the previous century."

"So I gathered," Picard said. He had taken the time to review Starfleet's past encounters with the barrier, particularly the daring voyages of Captain James T. Kirk of that era's Enterprise, who had braved the barrier in his flimsy ship not once but three times. Kirk had mentioned in his log that the barrier had originally been invisible to every sensor except visual, emitting no conventional forms of radiation nor producing any measurable gravimetric effects. Picard smiled sadly at the thought of Jim Kirk; meeting Kirk himself in the Nexus remained one of the high points of his career. Too bad he didn't live to see this day. This was exactly the kind of pioneering expedition he loved most.

"How soon until we're within firing range?" Faal asked. A modified quantum torpedo, holding his crucial apparatus, waited within one of the forward torpedo launchers. Faced with the barrier in all its immensity and enigmatic splendor, Picard found it hard to visualize how any man-made object, no matter how specialized, could hope to make a dent in that heavenly wall. Then again, why would Q warn them to leave the barrier alone unless he actually thought Faal might succeed?

"Approximately three hours, forty-seven minutes, and twelve seconds," Data answered helpfully. He increased the magnification on the main viewer and the image of the barrier expanded to fill the screen.

"Wow," Geordi said, from his seat at the engineering station. "That is impressive." Picard wondered how the barrier appeared to Geordi's optical implants.

"You can say that again," added Riker, who was seated at the starboard auxiliary command station. The first officer was as wide-eyed as the rest of them. "I have to admit, Professor, I don't see any sign of those weak spots you mentioned before."

Faal chuckled at Riker's remark. "Everything's relative, Commander. The fractures are there, you can be certain of it, but even the weakest point in the barrier appears impregnable to the naked eye." He never looked away from the screen, enraptured by the magnified vision of the barrier in all its glory. "Three hours, you say. Captain, could we possibly go a little faster?"

"Only in an emergency," Picard stated. He sympathized with the scientist's impatience, but he failed to see a need to exceed Starfleet's recommended cruising speed of warp five, imposed when it was discovered that higher warp speeds caused ecological damage to the very structure of s.p.a.ce. "I'm sorry, Professor, but we should be within range soon enough."

"I understand, Captain," Faal said, accepting the verdict. His fingers toyed with his ever-present hypospray. "I've waited years for this opportunity. I suppose I can wait a few hours more."

Picard was grateful that the scientist did not press the issue. Overall, Lem Faal had been fairly easy to work with so far; could Deanna have been mistaken when she detected some hidden dark side to the man's temperament? He glanced to the left and was rea.s.sured to see that the counselor was watching the barrier and not Faal; he a.s.sumed this meant that the professor was not radiating any particularly disturbing emotions at present. Let us hope that she misread Faal initially, the captain thought. Q and his family were enough of a headache for any voyage. He hardly needed further problems.

"Captain," Data reported, "our external sensors are detecting unusual tachyon emissions."

Picard leaned forward in his chair, responding to Data's unexpected announcement. "From the barrier?"

The golden-skinned android turned to face Picard. "Negative, Captain. I was monitoring radiation levels outside the ship when I noted an intriguing phenomenon. In theory, the ambient radiation should decrease steadily the farther we travel away from the galactic center. However, peripheral sensors on the ship's hull are recording a steadily rising number of subatomic tachyon collisions, and not exclusively from the direction of the barrier."

"I see," Picard answered. He exchanged a quizzical look with Riker. The captain had learned to rely on Data's scientific expertise when dealing with unexpected interstellar phenomena; if the android thought these microscopic collisions with faster-than-light particles were worth mentioning, then they deserved his full attention. "Do the tachyon emissions pose a threat to the ship or the crew?"

"No, sir," Data stated. "The tachyon particles are pa.s.sing through our deflector shields, but the number of particles would need to increase by approximately 1000.45 orders of magnitude before they const.i.tuted a hazard to either organic or cybernetic systems. I was merely calling to your attention an unexpected statistical pattern."

Data didn't sound particularly concerned, Picard noted, but the on-again, off-again nature of the android's emotions often made it hard to gauge his reaction to any given development. When he wanted to be, Data could be as unflappable as a Vulcan high priest, no matter how dire the circ.u.mstances. Picard didn't think this was one of those times, though; Data was also capable of conveying a sense of urgency as well, and Picard was not getting that impression from the android officer.

"Is there anything that could account for all this heightened tachyon activity?" Riker asked Data.

"There are only two possible explanations," the android stated. His golden eyes carefully monitored the readouts at the Ops console. "An unusual natural phenomenon, such as a wormhole or quantum singularity, or an artificial tachyon bombardment engineered by parties unknown."

"Artificial?" Leyoro asked.

Data elaborated calmly. "I cannot rule out the possibility that the emissions are being deliberately directed at the Enterprise."

"To what purpose?" Picard asked. He didn't like the sound of this. In theory, only Starfleet Command was aware of the Enterprise's present location.

"That I cannot yet determine," Data responded. "Shall I devote more of the sensor array's resources toward identifying the source of the emissions?"

Picard nodded gravely. "Make it so, and continue to monitor the impact of the tachyons upon the ship." He turned to address Geordi. "Mr. La Forge, is this tachyon surge likely to interfere with your plans for the experiment?"

"We may need to recalibrate our instruments," Geordi answered. "Some of the equipment is pretty delicate." Professor Faal nodded in agreement, and Geordi considered the barrier upon the screen. "Before we release the torpedo containing the magneton generator, I want to launch a cla.s.s-2 sensor probe into the barrier first, just to see what kind of readings we can get before the probe is destroyed. Then we can fine-tune the settings in the torpedo before we send it into the barrier."

"Professor Faal, is this acceptable to you?" Picard asked.

The scientist sighed impatiently, but nodded his head. "Yes, Captain," he said. "Naturally, I would prefer to go straight to creating the wormhole, but, under the circ.u.mstances, sending in a probe first would be a wise precaution. The more accurate our data on the barrier is, the better chance for success."

"Very well," Picard said. "Prepare to launch the probe as soon as we're within range of the barrier."

Confident that Geordi could cope with this new development, he considered Data's suggestion that the tachyons were being purposely directed at the ship. Could they const.i.tute a signal of some sort? "Mr. Data, is there any pattern to the emissions that might suggest an attempt to communicate with us?"

"Negative, sir," the android replied. "I have, in fact, run a statistical record of the tachyon emissions through the Universal Translator without success. The only discernible pattern is one of steady growth, suggesting that the source of the emissions is either growing in intensity and/or drawing nearer to the ship."

"In other words," Riker said, "it could be growing stronger and getting closer." He scowled through his beard. "That could be trouble."

Lieutenant Leyoro seemed to feel likewise. "Perhaps we should modify the deflector shields to keep the tachyons out," she suggested. "Maybe by adding more power to the subs.p.a.ce field distortion amplifiers."

"That seems a bit premature," Picard decided after a moment's consideration. Increasing the power of the shields tended to reduce the effectiveness of their scanners. "This doesn't feel like an attack and if it is, it's a singularly ineffective one." He mulled over the possibilities, his arms crossed atop his chest. "Counselor," he asked Troi. "Do you sense anything unusual?"

"No, Captain," she answered. "Nothing from outside the ship. Of course, there are plenty of life-forms out there who don't register on my radar, so to speak. Like the Ferengi, for instance."

"This can't be the Ferengi," Riker quipped. "There hasn't been a price tag attached."

Picard smiled at Riker's joke. "Thank you, Counselor," he said to Deanna. "I appreciate your efforts." He leaned back into his chair and contemplated the viewscreen. Could this have something to do with our mission? he wondered. Is someone trying to sabotage the experiment even before we come within range of the galactic barrier? But why such a subtle approach, employing carefully minute emissions, unless the supposed saboteurs are truly determined to avoid detection? It seemed unlikely that the Carda.s.sians or their Jem'Hadar allies could get this far into Federation s.p.a.ce without someone raising the alarm, but either the Klingons or the Romulans could have slipped a cloaked ship past the borders. Granted, the Klingons were supposedly the Federation's allies once more, but Picard knew better than to trust Gowron too far, especially when there was revolutionary new technology at stake.

And then there were always the more unpredictable factors, like the Tholians or the Gorns. They had been keeping a fairly low profile for the last few decades, but who knew what might draw them out of their isolationist policies?

And, of course, there was Q....

"Captain," Leyoro persisted, "with all due respect, we have to a.s.sume hostile intention until we can prove otherwise. Request permission to modulate the shield harmonics to repel the tachyons."

Picard weighed the matter carefully before reaching his decision. "No, Lieutenant, if we start to a.s.sume a hostile intent behind every unusual phenomenon we encounter, then our charter to explore the unknown will be severely compromised. For all we know, these harmless emissions may be the first overtures of an entirely new species of being, or evidence of a previously unknown natural phenomenon, and we would do ourselves and our mission a grave disservice if we prematurely cut ourselves off from that evidence out of fear and distrust."

Besides, he thought, sometimes a statistical blip was just that. The universe was all about probabilities, according to standard quantum theory, and if there was one thing he had learned during his long career in Starfleet, it was that the galaxy was big enough and old enough that even the most unlikely probabilities came to pa.s.s occasionally.

As if to prove the point, Q appeared upon the bridge. "Scans. Probes. Deflectors," he mimicked. "Don't you ever get fed up with those tired old tricks?" He posed between the captain and Troi, resting his left elbow on the back of the counselor's chair. His standard-issue Starfleet uniform made him almost inconspicuous upon the bridge. "I have an idea. Why don't you simply turn around and go home? That would sure catch those pesky tachyons by surprise."

"Go home?" Lem Faal asked anxiously. "Captain, you can't listen to this...being!" Picard a.s.sumed that Q required no introduction, but noted that Faal appeared more disturbed by Q's opposition to the experiment than by Q's startling entrance. The Betazoid was flushed and trembling at the prospect of watching his plans unravel. Picard heard his weakened lungs laboring strenuously. "You can't cancel the experiment now!"

"I don't intend to," Picard informed the scientist while looking Q firmly in the eye, "not unless our visitor can provide me with a compelling and indisputable reason to do so."

"A reason...from this creature?" Faal exclaimed, clearly aghast at the very notion of giving Q a say in the matter. "You can't be serious, Picard. Are you out of your mind?"

"I've often wondered the same thing," Q commented. "You really should consider an insanity defense, Jean-Luc, the next time humanity's on trial."

"This is ridiculous," Faal protested, scurrying toward Picard, but Troi rose and placed a gentle but restraining hand upon the scientist's arm, leaving the captain to deal with the insouciant intruder.

A thought came to Picard and he stared at Q through narrowed eyes. "Do either you or your family, Q, have anything to do with the surge in tachyon collisions we're experiencing?"

"Moi?" The interloper in the Starfleet uniform was the very picture of astonished innocence.

"Vous," Picard insisted, making himself perfectly clear. "Are you responsible for the excess tachyons?"

"Please," Q said, dismissing the notion with a wave of his hand, "I haven't played with tachyons since I was smaller than dear little q. They're far too slow-moving to occupy a mature Q's attention."

"I think you protest a bit too much," Picard said. He remained unconvinced by Q's denials. He knew from experience just how devious Q could be. Why, this very creature had once tried to convince him that Guinan was a deadly threat to the Enterprise. What was that name again that Vash had told him that Q had acquired in the Gamma Quadrant? Oh yes, "The G.o.d of Lies." A more than suitable description, he thought.

Q pursed his lips in mock amazement. "Ooh, a graceful allusion to the mawkish scribblings of a preindustrial mammal. Was that supposed to impress me?" He stared balefully at the captain with a trace of genuine menace in his tone. "Cross my heart, Picard, neither me nor mine have sicced these zippy little particles on you and your ship. You'll have to look elsewhere for the answer to that particular conundrum."

Q vacated the bridge as abruptly as he had arrived, leaving Picard with the unsettling realization that, for once, he actually believed Q was telling the truth.

About the tachyons, at least.

Interlude

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

Beverly Crusher was working in her office, checking the crew manifest against the annual vaccination schedule for Rigelian fever while half-listening to the musical score of the new Centauran production of West Side Story, when she heard the holographic doctor's voice. Who the devil turned that thing on? she wondered. Although she liked to think of herself as open to new ideas and equipment, she still had her doubts about this particular innovation. While the program's medical expertise seemed competent enough, its bedside manner left a lot to be desired.

She found the hologram standing in Ward One, beside a row of empty biobeds. She had given Nurse Ogawa the day off, barring further emergencies. Thankfully, there were currently no casualties recuperating in sickbay. "I'm sorry," he said, more snippishly than Beverly liked, "please rephrase your request."

At first, she couldn't see who he was speaking to. Then she stepped to one side and lowered her gaze. "Yum-yum?" asked the baby q, to the utter bafflement of the emergency medical program. Beverly couldn't help wondering how the child had managed to activate the program in the first place.

"I'm sorry," he replied, "but I am afraid I am not programmed to dispense...yum-yums."

"End program," Beverly said with a smirk, feeling more than a little rea.s.sured regarding her job security. The hologram vanished as quickly as a Q, and she knelt down to look the child in the face. He wore a miniature version of the Starfleet uniform his father often adopted. "h.e.l.lo there," she said warmly. "Come for another treat, have we?"

"Yum-yum," he repeated, his current vocabulary less infinite than his potential. He held out a small, pudgy hand.

"Come on," she said, standing up and taking him by the hand. "I think I can take care of this." She led him around the corner to the ship's pediatric unit, which featured a row of smaller biobeds as well as a state-of-the-art intensive care incubator in the center of the facility, beneath an overhead sensor cl.u.s.ter. The room was as deserted as the adult ward. Although no children resided permanently on the Enterprise-E, as they had on the previous ship, the pediatric unit was kept ready for any injured youngsters brought aboard during rescue and evacuation efforts; only a few weeks ago, the facility had been filled with the pint-sized survivors of a deadly radiation storm on Arcadia VI. Thankfully, Beverly recalled, all those children had been safely delivered to relatives on Deep s.p.a.ce Seven. The small q did not appear particularly dangerous, but she was glad she didn't have to worry about any underage bystanders during this encounter.

She kept a supply of replicated lollipops in a container in one of the equipment cupboards. Fishing a bright blue sucker from her depleted stock, she offered it toq. "How's this?" she asked. "Do you like uttaberry?"

"Yum!" he said gleefully, popping the candy into his mouth. It occurred to Beverly that q could probably wish his own lollipops into existence, in whatever flavor and quant.i.ty he desired, but who knew how the mind of a baby superbeing worked? Probably just as well that he a.s.sociates me with sweets, she thought, and not castor oil.

She looked q over; had he been truly as human as he appeared, she would have guessed that he was eighteen to twenty-four months old, but how did one estimate the age of a Q? For all she knew, this harmless-looking toddler could be as old as the pyramids. "So how old are you?" she asked aloud. "One century? Two?"

"Actually, he's only been alive for a couple of your standard years," a voice volunteered from behind her.

Beverly jumped forward and clutched her chest, then spun around to face the female Q, who had just appeared in the nursery.

Something to remember, she told herself. When the child is present, the mother is never very far away. The Q's outfit was identical to the doctor's, right down to an exact duplicate of Beverly's favorite blue lab coat. When in Rome, I guess, Beverly thought. She waited for a second to steady her breathing, then addressed the woman. "You have to give people a little more warning before popping in like that," she advised. "It's not good for our hearts."

"Really?" the woman said. "I seem to have improved your circulation."

In the best interests of diplomacy, Beverly refrained from comment. "Can I help you?" Beverly asked the female Q. She found it hard to think of her as just Q, although it was probably technically correct to do so; that "name" was all too vividly linked in her mind to another face. Why couldn't this female ent.i.ty just make life easier for them all and pick another letter in the alphabet?

The Q did not answer her immediately, preferring to stroll around the nursery, running a languid hand over the contours of the small beds and occasionally peeking into the cupboards. The child trailed after her, sucking away at his uttaberry lollipop. "You appear to have a distinct talent for handling small children," she commented to Beverly. The incubator caught her attention and she contemplated it for several seconds, looking quite lost in thought. "Are there many children aboard this vessel?" she asked finally.

"Not at present," Beverly answered. She rather missed the children who had helped populate the old Enterprise; it had been a point of pride that she'd known all of them by name.

The female Q drew the little boy nearer and patted him lovingly on his tousled head. "My own son is quite unique: the first child born to the Continuum since we transcended physicality untold aeons ago."

Beverly thought that over for a moment. "What about Amanda Rogers?" she asked, recalling the young Starfleet officer who had discovered that she was actually a Q. "She was born on Earth only a few decades back."

The woman sniffed disdainfully. "That creature was conceived in a primitive, strictly humanoid fashion." She shuddered at the very thought.

Don't knock it if you haven't tried it, Beverly thought, but kept her remark to herself. Still, the Q gave her a peculiar look, as if well aware of Beverly's unspoken sentiments.

If she was, however, she chose to ignore them. "I've observed the individual you mentioned," the Q conceded. "It's a wonder she has any gifts at all, given her atrocious origins. I suppose, however, that the poor creature should not be blamed for the sordid activities of her notorious progenitors. She's more to be pitied, really. It was quite magnanimous of Q to take her under his wing the way he did."