The Q Continuum_ Q-Space Part 10

"Commander," Leyoro spoke up, echoing his own thoughts, "we can't wait any longer."

"Agreed," Riker said, hitting the alert switch on the command console. He regretted that yet another first-contact situation had to lead to a show of force, but the Calamarain hadn't given them any other choice except retreat. Let's see what happens when we bite back, he thought. "All crew to battle stations."

Baeta Leyoro, for one, was raring to go. Her white teeth gleamed wolfishly as she leaned over the tactical controls. "All weapons systems primed and ready," she announced. "Awaiting your command."

"Start with a midrange phaser burst," he ordered. "Maximum possible dispersal." The wide beams would weaken the burst's total force, but Riker saw no obvious alternative. How the h.e.l.l, he thought, do you target a cloud?

"Yes, sir!" Leyoro said, pressing down on the controls. Phaser arrays mounted all along the ship's surface fired at once, emitting a unified pulse that spread out from the Enterprise in every possible direction. On the screen, Riker saw the pulse emerge as a wave of scarlet energy that disappeared into the billowing, churning ma.s.s of the Calamarain. He wasn't sure, but he thought the turbulent cloud became even more agitated when and where it intersected with the phaser burst. The roiling gases swirled furiously, throwing off electrical discharges that crackled against the Enterprise's shields. A clap of thunder rattled Riker all the way through to his bones.

"I sure felt that," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the din. "The question is: did they feel us?" He peered over at Deanna, who had taken her seat beside him the minute he sounded the battle alert. "Any response from out there?"

Deanna shook her head. "I'm not sure. I don't think so. They're already so upset, it's hard to tell."

He nodded. In for a penny, he thought, in for a pound. "Another burst. Increase phaser intensity to the next level." There was no turning back now. He hoped he could avoid actually killing one or more of the Calamarain, but their alien nature made it impossible to gauge the ultimate effect of the phaser beams. He had no intention of going to maximum strength before he had to, but, one way or another, he was going to make these strange, bodiless beings think twice about attacking this ship.

"Here goes nothing," Leyoro muttered as she fired again. A second burst of directed energy, even more dazzling than before, met the fury of the Calamarain. Once again, it was absorbed into the acc.u.mulated plasma almost instantaneously.

The cloud's reaction was just as immediate.

With a howl even louder than any Riker or the others had heard before, the Calamarain shook the Enterprise savagely. Riker held on tightly to the armrests of the captain's chair while keeping his jaw firmly set to avoid biting down on his tongue. All about the bridge, crew members bounced in their seats, their minds and bodies jangled by the brutal quaking. Even Data appeared distracted by the disturbance; he looked up from his console with an impatient expression upon his golden face, as if he were anxious for the shaking to cease so he could continue with his work. Riker knew just how he felt.

Mercifully, the worst of the battering subsided after a few moments, although the sentient tempest still raged upon the screen and the thunder reverberated ominously behind every buzz and beep from the bridge apparatus. Riker felt his temples begin to pound in concert with every resounding peal. He searched the bridge to make sure that no one had been injured seriously, then looked back at Deanna. The counselor's face was pale, her eyes wide with alarm.

"They felt that," she gasped. Obviously, she had shared at least a part of the Calamarain's pain.

"I got that impression," he said.

Barclay had hoped that Mr. La Forge would be alone when he reached Engineering, but no such luck. The first thing Barclay saw as soon as he got off the turbolift was the chief engrossed in a heated discussion with Lem Faal, who was the last person Barclay wanted to run into right now. The red alert signals flashing all around the engineering section only added to his trepidation, as did all the busy Starfleet officers hard at work in response to the alert.

Engineering was abuzz with activity, much more so than usual. Every duty station was manned, sometimes by more than one individual. His fellow engineers shouted instructions and queries back and forth to each other as they hastily adjusted and/or monitored illuminated instrumentation panels all along Engineering. Yellow warning signals blinked upon the tabletop master systems display, indicating problems with at least half a dozen vital ship systems, while a whole team of crew members, led by Sonya Gomez, cl.u.s.tered around the towering warp engine core, carefully manipulating the enclosed matter/antimatter reaction. Ordinarily, Barclay could have expected a friendly greeting upon entering Engineering, but at the moment his colleagues were too intent upon their a.s.signed tasks to take note of his arrival. Even Lem Faal seemed too busy with Chief La Forge to spare Barclay another dirty look.

Maybe this isn't the best time, Barclay thought, his previous enthusiasm cooling in the face of the irate Betazoid scientist. He wanted to talk to Mr. La Forge about his discovery in Transporter Room Five, but the chief looked like he had his hands full with the red alert, not to mention Professor Faal. The visiting scientist was obviously upset. He held on to a duranium pylon for support while he argued with La Forge. "I don't understand," he said. "We can't cancel the experiment now. It's ridiculous."

"We're under attack," La Forge pointed out, looking past Faal at the cutaway diagram of the Enterprise on the master situation monitor, his attention clearly divided between Faal and the ongoing crisis. "It's a shame, but I'm sure Commander Riker knows what he's doing." He started to turn away from the irate physicist. "Now, you'll have to excuse me while I see what's the matter with our warp engines. You should go back to your quarters."

"This is more than a shame," Faal objected, a faint whistle escaping his throat with every breath. La Forge had discreetly briefed the engineering team on the physicist's medical problems, and Barclay felt sorry for the man despite the bad blood between them. Iverson's disease, like all manner of illnesses and medical threats, terrified Barclay. Even though he knew Iverson's disease was caused by a genetic disorder and was by no means contagious, listening to Faal's tortured breathing still gave him the creeps.

"I've devoted years to this project. It's my last hope for...well, I suppose you'd call it immortality." His knuckles whitened as he held on to the pylon with what looked like all his strength. "Your Commander Riker has no right to make this decision. I'm in charge of this experiment. Starfleet specifically told your captain to cooperate with my experiment!"

La Forge shrugged impatiently. "I don't know much more than you do, but I know we can't pull this off in the middle of a combat situation, especially with the captain missing." He hurried over to the master systems display, where Ensign Daniel Sutter stepped aside to permit La Forge access to the primary workstation. La Forge continued to speak to Faal as he simultaneously ran a diagnostic on the graviton polarity generators. "Maybe the Calamarain will go somewhere else and we can try again. Or maybe you'll have to try another section of the barrier."

"No," Faal said, following closely behind La Forge. He sounded ever more sick and distraught. "This is the ideal location. All our sensor readings and calculations prove that. We have to break through the barrier now. I might not get another chance. I don't have much time left...."

Barclay was getting tense just listening to this conversation. He seriously considered turning around and coming back later. But what if the way the bio-gel packs in the probe absorbed some of the barrier's energy turns out to be important? He'd never forgive himself if the Enterprise got destroyed and it was all his fault; it was bad enough that he'd infected the entire crew with that mutagenic virus a couple of years ago. Don't live in the past, Counselor Troi always told him. Show people what you're capable of.

Mustering up all his courage, Barclay stepped closer to the chief and Faal. The Betazoid genius spotted him approaching and gave him a murderous look; clearly, he hadn't forgotten the incident with the pulse generator. Or forgiven.

"Excuse me, sir," Barclay said to La Forge. He could feel Lem Faal's baleful glare burning into the back of his neck. "But when you've got a moment, I'd like to talk to you about something I found in that probe you asked me to look at."

La Forge sighed, as if the rescued probe was just one more thing for him to worry about. Barclay immediately regretted bringing it up. "Can this wait, Reg?" he asked with a slight edge of irritation in his tone. "There's an emergency with the warp engines and the deflectors."

"Yes. No," he answered. "I mean, I don't know."

Professor Faal lost his patience entirely. "What are you doing, wasting time with this idiot?" Saliva sprayed from his mouth as he gasped out the words. "This is intolerable! I want to speak to Commander Riker!"

Before La Forge could respond, a tremendous clap of thunder echoed through Engineering, drowning out even the constant thrum of the warp core. The floor swayed beneath Barclay's feet and he found himself stumbling down a sudden incline that hadn't existed an instant before, b.u.mping awkwardly into no less than Professor Faal himself. Just kill me now, he thought.

La Forge frowned as the floor gradually leveled out again. "This isn't good," he said. Circuit patterns rotated in his ocular implants as he concentrated on the tabletop display, taking stock of the situation. "I can't waste any more time with this. Reg, make sure the professor gets back to his quarters okay, then head back here. We'll talk about the probe later." Without a backward glance, he stalked across Engineering toward the warp core, issuing orders as he went. "Sutter, divert impulse power to the subs.p.a.ce field amplifiers. Ortega, keep an eye on the EPS flow...."

Why me? Barclay thought, left alone with Lem Faal. Couldn't someone else-anyone else-escort Faal? He already hates me enough. But La Forge was in charge; he had to keep his eyes on the big picture. "Yes, sir," Barclay said dutifully, if less than enthusiastically. "Please come with me."

Faal ignored him entirely, chasing after Geordi. "You can't do this, La Forge," he said, his wheezing voice no more than a whisper. "The barrier is bigger than some pointless military exercise. We can't lose sight of that. The experiment is all that matters!"

But La Forge, determined to inspect the warp engine power transfer conduits, would not be distracted. "Reg," he called out, exasperated, "if you could take care of this?"

I can't let Mr. La Forge down, Reg thought, taking Faal gently but firmly by the arm. "Please come along, Professor." Part of him felt guilty about bullying a sick man; another part was greatly relieved that Faal wouldn't be able to put up much resistance.

Physically, that is. The scientist's vocal indignation showed no sign of abating. "Let go of me, you incompetent cretin! I insist on seeing Commander Riker."

Barclay had no idea where Riker was. On the bridge, he a.s.sumed, coping with the latest ghastly emergency. There you go again, he chastised himself, leaping to the worst possible conclusion. But he couldn't help it. The flashing red alert signals and blaring sirens ate away at his nerves like Tarca.s.sian piranha. A dozen nightmarish scenarios, ranging from an uncontrolled plasma leak to a full-scale Q invasion, raced through his mind. He tried to dismiss his fears as irrational and unfounded, but with only partial success. An angry Q could do anything, he thought, anything at all. Still, he somehow managed to get the professor away from La Forge and into the turbolift. Let me just get Faal stowed away safely. Then I can report my findings on the probe. "Which deck are your quarters on?" he asked.

"Seven," Faal said grudgingly, still visibly incensed. Unable to stand upright on his own, he had to lean back against the wall of the lift. Something wet and clotted gurgled in his lungs. Barclay tried not to stare at the silver hypospray Faal removed from his pocket. It's not contagious, he kept reminding himself. It's not.

The turbolift came to a stop and the doors whooshed open, revealing an empty corridor leading to the ship's deluxe guest quarters, the ones reserved for visiting admirals and amba.s.sadors. Nothing but the best for the winner of the Daystrom Prize, Barclay thought, wondering how much larger the suite was than his own quarters on Level Eleven. "Here we are," he announced, grateful that Faal had not raised more of a fuss once they left Engineering. I'll just drop him off, then hurry back to Mr. La Forge. He still needed to tell the chief about the psionic energy the probe had picked up.

"Just give me a minute, Lieutenant," Faal said. His hypospray hissed for an instant, and the debilitated scientist grabbed on to the handrail for support. His chest rose and fell slowly as he choked back a rasping cough. Barclay looked away so as not to embarra.s.s the professor.

The next thing he knew a pair of hands shoved him out of the lift compartment into the hall. Surprised and befuddled, he spun around in time to see the doors sliding shut in front of his face. For one brief instant, he glimpsed Faal through the disappearing gap in the door. The Betazoid grinned maliciously at him. The doors came together and the lift was on its way.

Oh no! he thought. He immediately called for another lift, which arrived seconds later, and he jumped inside. I can't believe I let him do that. I can't even keep track of one sickly Betazoid. He didn't know how he was ever going to look Geordi La Forge in the eyes again. Just when I thought I was really on to something, what with the probe and all, I have to go and do something like this!

"Destination?" the turbolift inquired when Barclay didn't say anything at first. The prompt jogged his mind. Where could Professor Faal have run off to? Back to Engineering? Boy, was Chief La Forge going to be annoyed when Faal showed up to pester him again. "Engineering," he blurted, and the lift began to descend. Maybe I can still stop him before he gets to Mr. La Forge.

But, wait, he recalled. Hadn't Faal kept demanding to see Commander Riker? Suddenly, he knew what the professor's destination had to be.

The bridge.

"Stop. Cancel previous order. Take me to the bridge. Nonstop."

Please let me get there before Faal can bother the commander too much.

"Fire phasers again," Commander Riker ordered. "Take us up another notch, Lieutenant."

"With pleasure, sir," Leyoro said. A burst of high-intensity phaser beams leaped from the emitter arrays to sting the alien cloud-creatures enclosing the Enterprise. As before, the Calamarain reacted with a thunderous roar that caused the starship to rock like an old-fashioned sailing vessel adrift on a stormy sea.

The floor of the command area rolled beneath Riker's feet as yet another tremor jarred the bridge, reminding him forcibly of the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 2349. Back on Earth, he thought, that would have been at least a five-point-two. Thank heavens the Enterprise-E had been constructed as soundly as it had; otherwise, he'd be expecting the roof to cave in at any moment.

His mind swiftly reviewed the situation. They had hurt the Calamarain with that last phaser burst, but not enough, apparently, to make the vaporous aliens let go of the ship; frothing, luminescent fog still filled the screen of the main viewer. So far, it seemed, all they had done was make the Calamarain even more angry. That's progress, I guess, he thought, wondering briefly what Jean-Luc Picard would do in these circ.u.mstances before pushing that thought out of his mind. The captain was gone. Riker had to rely on his judgment and experience, as he had many times before. "Tactical status?" he inquired.

"Shields at forty-six percent," Leyoro briefed him. "Phasers armed and ready. Quantum torpedoes locked and loaded."

Riker acknowledged her report with a nod. He wasn't sure what good the torpedoes would do against a living cloud of plasma, especially one located at such close quarters to the Enterprise, but it might be worth finding out. "Ensign Berglund," he ordered the officer at the primary aft science station, "locate the area of maximum density within the Calamarain cloud formation."

Ordinarily, he'd a.s.sign Data a task like that, but he didn't want to divert the android's concentration from his work with the Universal Translator. Sondra Berglund, a blond Canadian officer with a specialty in advanced stellar spectroscopy, could handle the job just as well with the sensors a.s.signed to her science console. If we're going to target anywhere, he decided, we might as well aim for the highest concentration of Calamarain.

"Um, I'm afraid that would be us," she reported after a few seconds. "The plasma is most dense around the Enterprise and diminishes in volume and intensity the farther the distance from the ship."

That was no good then, Riker realized. He had a vivid mental image of hundreds, if not thousands, of gaseous Calamarain swarming over and around the Sovereign-cla.s.s starship. They're ganging up on us, all right, he thought, and pounding on the walls. There was no way he could detonate a quantum torpedo against the Calamarain while the ship remained at the heart of the cloud; they'd be caught within the blast-hazard radius. For all they knew, the matter-antimatter reaction set off by a standard torpedo could harm the Enterprise more than the Calamarain. He'd have to hold back on the torpedoes until he put some distance between the ship and its noncorporeal adversaries.

On the main viewer, riotous swells of ionized gas convulsed between the ship and open s.p.a.ce. Riker didn't remember the cloud looking anywhere near this stirred up the first time the Enterprise encountered the Calamarain several years ago. He still didn't understand what they had done to agitate the amorphous ent.i.ties. Q wasn't even aboard anymore!

His temples throbbed in time with the thunder outside. His gaze darted over to Deanna, who looked like she was having an even harder time. Her eyes were shut, her face wan and drawn. He a.s.sumed she was still in touch with the Calamarains' pain and anger, and it tore at his heart to see her under such strain. Between the tumult on the bridge and the damage they had inflicted back on their foes, Deanna was getting lambasted from both sides.

Hold on, imzadi, he thought. No matter what happens next, this can't go on much longer.

Her lids flickered upward and she met his eyes. A thin smile lifted her lips. Riker knew that even if his actual words hadn't gotten across to her, his message definitely had. There was a Klingon term, he recalled, for such an instance of wordless communication in the midst of battle, but what exactly was the word again? Tova'dok. That was it, he recalled. He and Deanna were sharing a moment of Tova'dok.

Their private communion did not last long. With renewed ferocity, the unleashed power of the Calamarain slammed into the ship, causing the bridge to lurch to port. Behind him, at the engineering station, Ensign Schultz lost his balance and tumbled to the left, smacking his head into the archway over a turbolift entrance. Berglund hurried to a.s.sist him.

"Everyone okay back there?" Riker called out over the crashing thunder.

"I think so," Schultz answered. Riker glanced back over his shoulder to see a nasty cut on the young man's scalp. A trickle of blood leaked through his fingers as he held his hand to his head. Undaunted, Schultz headed back to his post. Riker admired his spirit, but saw no reason to risk the ensign unnecessarily.

"Report to sickbay, mister," Riker ordered. "Berglund, take over at engineering." The overhead lights dimmed momentarily, more evidence of the duress imposed on the ship by the Calamarain; Ensign Schultz wasn't the only resource on the Enterprise that had been knocked out of commission.

"Shields at forty-one," Leyoro updated him as Schultz took the turbolift from the bridge. Riker wished he could have sent someone with the wounded ensign to ensure that he got to sickbay, but he couldn't spare anyone from the bridge while they remained besieged by the Calamarain.

"Understood," he said. No warp engines. Minimal shields. And, so far, no significant damage to the Calamarain. Their situation was getting worse by the moment. "Data, how are you doing on that translator?"

Data looked up from his computations. "Significant headway has been made; in fact, I believe I have identified a specific wave pattern that translates to something close to an expression of pain." His voice acquired a regretful tone. "Unfortunately, I estimate that I still require as much as one-point-two-zero hours before I can reliably guarantee actual communication with the Calamarain."

That might not be good enough, Riker thought.

Before he could open his mouth, though, he heard the turbolift whish open behind him. At first, he thought it might be Robert Schultz, stubbornly refusing to abandon his post, but then he heard the impa.s.sioned voice of Professor Faal. "What's happening?" he asked frantically. "What are you doing?"

d.a.m.n, Riker thought. This was the last thing he needed. Deanna looked distressed as well by the Betazoid scientist's unexpected arrival. He peeked at Deanna, recalling her concerns about the doctor's stability and motives. She raised one hand before her face, as if to fend off the disruptive emotions emanating from Faal. No surprise there, Riker thought. He imagined that the professor was throwing off plenty of negative feelings.

A moment later, the turbolift doors opened again, revealing an abashed Reg Barclay. "I'm s-sorry, Commander," he stammered, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously, "but the professor insisted, sort of." His eyes bulged and his jaw fell open as his gaze fell upon the frothing plasma storm upon the main viewer.

"Yes," Faal seconded. His face was flushed, his wild brown eyes crazed with anxiety. "I have to talk to you, Commander. It's more important than you can possibly realize."

"Commander?" Leyoro asked, still determined to engage the enemy despite the lack of any tangible results. The nonstop reverberations of the Calamarain rolled over the bridge like a series of sonic booms. The red alert signals flashed like beacons in the night.

Riker decided to get the confrontation over with; Faal wasn't going to like what he had to say, but perhaps he could be made to see reason. He rose from the captain's chair to face the celebrated physicist. Faal's body was trembling so hard that Riker feared for his health. The man's breathing was shallow and rapid, and he seemed to be having trouble standing; Faal tottered unsteadily on shaky feet. Riker's hand drifted over his combadge, ready to summon Dr. Crusher if necessary.

"I regret to inform you, Professor, that I've made the decision to abandon the experiment due to hostile activity on the part of the Calamarain." He saw no reason to alarm the doctor by detailing the full particulars of their danger; instead, he reached out to brace up the ailing scientist. "I'm sorry, but that's the only prudent choice under the circ.u.mstances."

Faal batted Riker's arm away. "You can't do that!" he snapped. "It's completely unacceptable. I won't hear of it. The captain's orders came straight from Starfleet Command." A fit of coughing attacked Faal, bending him all the way over. Faal dosed himself with his ubiquitous hypospray, then staggered over to the empty chair Riker usually occupied and collapsed down onto it. "The barrier," he gasped. "That's all that matters."

The floor beneath Riker's boots tilted sharply, nearly knocking him off balance. Lightning flashed through the storming plasma cloud upon the main viewer, the glare of the thunderbolt so bright that it overloaded the safety filters on the screen and made him squint. "The Calamarain seem to disagree."

"Then destroy them!" Faal urged from the chair, squinting at the control panel in front of him as if he were determined to launch a volley of photo torpedoes himself. Wet, mucous noises escaped from his lungs. "Disintegrate them totally. This is a Federation starship. You must be able to dispose of a pile of stinking gases!"

Riker was shocked by the man's bloodthirsty ravings. "That's not what we're here for," he said forcefully, "and that's not what this ship is about." He pitied Faal for his failing health and frustrated ambitions, but that didn't condone advocating genocide. "Mr. Barclay, return Professor Faal to his quarters."

"No!" Faal wheezed. He tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn't support him. Barclay hurried around to Faal's side, but Faal just glared at him before shouting at Riker again. "I won't go! I demand to be heard!"

"Shields down to thirty-four percent," Leyoro interrupted. "Shall I call Security to remove the professor?"

"Do it," Riker ordered. Lieutenant Barclay, wringing his hands together, looked like he wanted to sink through the floor. Riker turned his back on both the irate scientist and the embarra.s.sed crewman. He had more important things to deal with.

Like saving the Enterprise.

Thirteen.

Cool night air blew against Picard, chilling him. Far beneath him, moonlight from no less than two orbiting satellites reflected off the shimmering surface of a great expanse of water. Where am I? he thought, trying to orient himself.

He and Q were no longer in the subatomic realm they had exited only a heartbeat before, that much was certain. Without even knowing where he truly was, he could tell that this was more like reality as he knew it. The coolness of the breeze, the taste of the air, the comforting tug of gravity at his feet, all these sensations a.s.sured him that he was back in the real world once more. But where and, perhaps more important, when?

He quickly took stock of his surroundings. He, along with Q, appeared to be standing on some sort of balcony overlooking a precipitous cliff face that dropped what looked like a kilometer or so to the still black waters of an enormous lake or lagoon. The balcony itself, as green and l.u.s.trous as polished jade, seemed carved out of the very substance of the cliff. As Picard leaned out over the edge of a waist-high jade railing, intricately adorned with elaborate filigree, he saw that similar outcroppings dotted the face of the precipice, each one packed with humanoid figures, some looking out over the edge as he was, others dining comfortably at small tables as though at some fashionable outdoor cafe. A sense of excitement and antic.i.p.ation, conveyed by the hubbub of a hundred murmuring voices, permeated the atmosphere. Picard got the distinct impression that he and Q had arrived just in time for some special occasion.

Jade cliffs. Two moons. A gathering of hundreds in caves dug out of the face of a great, green cliff. The pieces came together in his mind, forming a picture whose implications left him reeling. "Mon dieu!" he gasped. "This is Tagus III. The sacred ruins of the ancient cliff dwellers!"

"Well, they're not exactly ruins at the moment, Jean-Luc," Q said casually, "nor are they really all that ancient." Picard's self-appointed tour guide sat a few meters behind him at a circular table set for two. Q sipped a bubbling orange liquid from a translucent crystal goblet and gestured toward the empty seat across from him. A second goblet rested on the jade-inlaid tabletop, next to a large copper plate on which were displayed strips of raw meat, swimming in a shallow pool of blue liquid that could have been sauce or gravy or blood for all Picard knew. He didn't recognize the delicacy, nor did he expect to if this alien time and place was truly what it appeared to be.

The jade pueblos of Tagus III, he marveled, as they must have been nearly two billion years ago. He had studied them for years, even delivered the keynote speech at an archaeological conference devoted to the topic, but he had never expected to witness them in person, let alone in their original condition. The Taguans of his own time had strictly forbidden any outsiders to visit the ruins, keeping them off-limits to archaeologists and other visitors ever since the Vulcans conducted their own ill-fated dig on the site over a decade before. The ban had frustrated a generation of scholars and historians, including Picard himself, for whom the celebrated ruins remained one of the foremost archaeological mysteries in the Alpha Quadrant. Possibly the oldest evidence of humanoid civilization in the galaxy, at least prior to the groundbreaking and still controversial work of the late Professor Richard Galen, the ruins on Tagus III had provoked literally millennia of debate and speculation. Before the Taguans decided to deny the site to offworlders, there had been at least 947 known excavations, the first one dating back to 22,000 years ago, almost 18,000 years before the rise of human civilization on Earth. The legacy of the ancient beings who first made their mark on this very cliff had puzzled and intrigued the galaxy since before human history began.

And here he was, visiting in the flesh a wonder of immeasurable age that he had read about ever since he was a small child in Labarre. Picard recalled that once before Q had offered to show him the secrets of Tagus III, the night before Picard was to speak at that prestigious archaeological conference. Seldom had he ever been so tempted by one of Q's insidious propositions, although he had ultimately found the strength to reject Q's offer, both out of respect for the Taguans' deeply held convictions and his own habitual suspicions as to Q's true motives. He'd be lying to himself, however, if he didn't admit just how enticing the prospect of actually setting foot on the site had been.

Now that he really was here, he could not resist trying to absorb as many sights and sounds as he was able. No matter the circ.u.mstances of his arrival, and despite his compelling desire to return to his ship as expeditiously as possible, the archaeologist in him could have no more turned away from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity than the starship captain could have accepted a desk job at the bottom of a gravity well. He had to witness all there was to see.

Besides, he rationalized, the Taguans' twenty-fourth-century mandate against visiting aliens would not go into effect for a couple of billion years or so....

He took a closer look at the people crowding the balconies beside and below him. Whether the Taguans of his own time were actually descended from those who had left their presence marked upon these cliffs, as they steadfastly maintained, or whether they represented a subsequent stage of immigration or evolution, as suggested by the findings of the Vulcan expedition of 2351, was a question greatly debated in the archaeological community. Indeed, it was this very issue that had inspired the modern Taguans to close off the ruins to outsiders, in an attempt to protect their vaunted heritage from the "lies and fallacies" of non-Taguan researchers.

Judging from what he saw now, it appeared that the Vulcans were correct after all. The Taguans he knew were characterized by turquoise skin and a heavy layer of downy white fur. In contrast, the figures populating this historical vista, clad in revealing silk garments of diverse hues, looked quite hairless, with smooth, uncovered flesh whose skin tones ranged from a pale yellow to a deep, ruddy red. Their faces were remarkably undifferentiated from each other, bearing only the essential basics of humanoid features, without much in the way of distinguishing details. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth, a vague suggestion of lips and ears. The vague, generalized visages looked familiar to Picard, but it took him a moment to place them.

Of course, he realized after a quick search through his memory. The inhabitants of ancient Tagus bore a distinct resemblance to the unnamed humanoids who had first spread their genetic material throughout the galaxy some four billion years before his own era. He well remembered the holographic image of the original, urhumanoid who had greeted him at the completion of his quest to finish the work of Professor Galen. Could it be that the people of the jade cliffs were the direct descendants of those ancient beings who had indirectly contributed to the eventual evolution of the human race, the Klingons, the Vulcans, the Carda.s.sians, and every other known form of humanoid life? If so, then the ruins on modern-day Tagus were even more important than he had ever believed.

A thought occurred to him, and he turned from the railing to address Q, who took another sip from his goblet. "Why aren't they noticing us?" Picard asked. He explored his own very human features with his hand. They felt unchanged. Looking down, he felt relieved to see that his Grecian garments had been replaced by his familiar Starfleet uniform. "We must stand out in the crowd. In theory, h.o.m.o sapiens has not even evolved yet."

"To their eyes, we look as they do," Q explained. He drained the last of his drink, then refilled the cup simply by looking at it. "Given your own limited ability to adapt to new forms, I'm letting you stick with the persona you're accustomed to. I hope you appreciate my consideration."