Star Trek: Seventeen Things That Might Have Happened To Q, Pt 11
These pieces continue to be out of order. Follow the "17 things" tag for the rest of them.
This may meander a bit, and sadly, the format of the ultra-short doesn't actually allow me to show what happens *after* Q agrees to Picard's terms to join the crew. So someday I might expand on this. But the idea was, under what circumstances might Picard have actually agreed to Q's offer in "Q Who?" I think that the main reason he'd have rejected Q's offer would have been fear of Q's power corrupting them, and the idea that it was probably a test. But if he thought Q might be serious... "to learn about you is frankly provocative." I went with that, albeit in a non slash-fic way. :-)
ETA: Present tense is REALLY HARD! You wouldn't think so but I keep finding places where my tenses suggest that I was writing the thing in past rather than present.
This is not going the way Q had hoped it would. When he'd offered to join Picard's crew, he had assumed he would be having the conversation with Picard himself. Not Riker, who'd caused him no end of embarrassment by turning him down last time, not Troi, who had practically solved the Farpoint puzzle for Picard and his crew all by herself, and certainly not Guinan. In fact he probably should have checked the ship more carefully, but who would have ever imagined his old nemesis to be here? It almost makes him want to believe in Guinan's concepts of fate and destiny, if a particularly malign destiny and a fate with a sense of humor.
"Join us as what? To do what?" Picard asks. "Would you start as an ordinary crewman -- what task is too menial for an entity?"
It sounds unpleasantly to Q as if Picard is making fun of the idea that Q could even want to join his crew. "Do you mock me?" he asks, dangerously.
"Not at all. That is the last thing I would do," Picard says. He's absolutely right, of course - it would be the last thing he'd do. Q is willing to tolerate a great deal from this human, but there are standards. "You, by definition are part of our charter. Our mission is to go forth -- to seek out new and different life forms, and you certainly qualify as one of the most unique life forms I have ever encountered. To learn more about you is frankly quite provocative, but you are next of kin to chaos."
Well. So far, that doesn't sound like "no", exactly. "Captain, at least allow me to present my argument." Picard says nothing, which isn't "no" either. "After our last encounter, I was asked to leave the Q Continuum. Since then, I have been wandering vaguely -- bored really-- my existence without purpose. Then, I remembered the good times I had with you..."
This, of course, is a vast oversimplification of the situation.
When Picard and Riker had defeated his Farpoint test, Q was thrilled. So few species ever defeated even the first test, and Q was intrigued by anything new and different. He'd had to play at being stern and disappointed, of course, because that was the role, but even as he'd traded lame quips with Picard that were supposed to sound like sour grapes, he'd been bouncing up and down with excitement, deep inside.
Many others in the Continuum were less so. They'd said they'd wanted humanity tested, but what they'd really wanted was humanity slapped down, because they were afraid of the species. So they told Q to go back and give them a harder test this time. Q had been upset with this - why had he spent centuries building a reputation as a really tough tester, if the rest of his fellows were going to call him a cream puff because one species did beat the initial test? So he'd plotted something that, had it worked, would have greatly annoyed the rest of the Continuum, proven Q's judgement of humanity to be accurate, and given him a permanent ally and a higher status as a mentor instead of merely a tester. Actually giving Riker the powers of the Q hadn't been within his mandate, since he wasn't an authorized mentor yet. But it was impossible to argue that it wasn't a hard test, and he'd figured, once Picard lost and Riker joined the Q, it would be a fait accompli that would automatically prove humanity's worthiness, thus justifying their success at his first test and validating his judgement as a tester.
It hadn't happened that way. Picard had won, Riker had refused, and Q had been left holding the bag, forced to explain to the Continuum why, exactly, he was letting a mortal wield Q powers without authorization, without even the boost that having been successful in the endeavor would have been. He was called reckless, dangerous, his judgement was called into serious question, and they told him to take a hike while they debated what to do about him long-term. And since then, he's spent most of his time observing the site of his downfall, watching the Enterprise as Picard goes about exploring the galaxy. He was watching when Picard defeated yet another Power, the Nagilum this time. And now he knows what he wants.
This man has the power to humble Powers - himself, the Nagilum, who knows who else - with nothing more than the power of his words and his thoughts. His inferior mortal thoughts. That can still defeat a Power. Q has to know how he does it. But it's more than that. He's obsessed now. He must show Picard what he'll be up against in the future, see if Picard can defeat the Borg as handily as he defeated Q and the Nagilum. Q rather suspects not. The El-Aurians had also had a fascinating way with language, had also defeated Q - Q remembers that humiliation well, looking at Guinan - and it didn't help against the Borg.
But Q doesn't want humanity destroyed. He's finding them fascinating. They're unpredictable, they can actually pass his tests, hell, they actually beat him in a contest he was seriously playing to win... He wants to guide them. To help them against the Borg, against whatever else they might encounter. To... what? Be friends with them? Relate to them as if they were Q? It's absurd, and yet... he's so lonely. He never cared that much about spending time with his fellow Q until they cut him off, but now that he's not allowed to go home he desperately misses it. If he spends the time of his exile, until they call him back for their final decision, here with these mortals, well, what will the Continuum do about it? When Q and Q took human form and reproduced, they were only told to come home; they weren't punished until they refused. If Q is ordered home, he has no intention of refusing.
So he genuinely wants to be here. But Riker seems to be having a hard time believing him. "The good times!? The first time we met you put us on trial for the "crimes of humanity"..."
"For which you were exonerated," Q points out.
"The next time we saw you, you asked me to join the Q Continuum."
And what about that, Q wonders, makes it hard to believe that he wants to be with these humans? Do they seriously think he would have offered one of them ultimate power, brought them home to show to all his fellows and lived with them for the rest of eternity, if he had no affection for their species? But he can't say that, so he says, "You made a big mistake in not accepting my offer."
"... and now you say you want to join us," Picard says slowly, as if he's thinking it over.
Q leaps in eagerly. "Yes, more and more I realize that here -- here is where I want to be. Think of the advantages. Now, I neither expect nor require any special treatment. If necessary, although I can't imagine why, I will renounce my powers and become as weak and incompetent as all of you."
"No," Picard says.
No. He can't say no. Well, he can say no - Q isn't going to mind control him, that would totally miss the point - but what is Q going to do if he says no? Q has already lowered himself tremendously, humiliated himself in front of the Continuum if any of them are actually looking, by even making this offer. What does Picard want him to do, beg? If he were human, he might have gone pale at the refusal or his desperation might show in his voice, but he's a Q, so he can keep his physical form from showing his emotions to any significant degree. "Oh, come on, Captain, in fairness... let me try, I deserve at least that much."
And then Troi speaks up for the first time. "Captain... I think that before you reject him out of hand, we should discuss it together."
Picard blinks, and looks over at Troi. "Counselor... do you think that is necessary? Q is not trustworthy-"
"No, he's not," Troi agrees. "But if he's offering to give up his power to join us... It was different for Will. He could agree to give up the powers of a god because they were new and he hadn't had them his whole life. But for Q, his power must be a fundamental ability, as much a part of him as my empathy. And I have to say that if I were to offer to give up my empathic powers for something, it would have to be something I wanted desperately."
Q's eyes narrow. He reviews his shielding. Did he slip the tiniest bit in front of the empath? He'd almost forgotten she was there, but her psychobabble sounds far, far too much like what he'd actually been feeling for his comfort. "I wouldn't describe myself as desperate, Counselor."
"Well, were you serious about offering to give up your powers, then?" Troi asks him. "Because for me, giving up my empathy would be like willingly putting my own eyes out, and your powers are so much greater than mine, I would have to imagine it would be very painful for you to do without them. Why would you want to join our crew so much that you'd agree to, in essence, blind and cripple yourself, if you're not desperate?"
"Be very careful, Counselor," Guinan says softly. "He's dangerous."
And now Troi has put him in an impossible bind. Because she's right - actually giving up his powers would be a hardship for him. He's never seriously thought about what it would entail, but he knows that Q and Q couldn't manage to do it and they had a baby to distract them. But now he's in a position where he either says that he never really intended to give up his powers - which, to be honest, he never really did because he never thought Picard would actually say he had to - or he has to admit to the desperation he feels. But if he lashes out at her for intuiting (or sensing... he's still not sure his shields didn't slip) the truth, then he lives down to Guinan's expectations of him.
So he laughs. "Oh, come now, do you think that a Q can't live without being omnipotent? You mere mortals do it all the time. I'm a more advanced being; of course I can do without my powers for a short while, if I choose."
"A short while?" Picard asks. "So you saw this... this stint as a member of my crew as a finite thing, then."
"Well, of course it's finite. You're mortal. I can put my powers aside and not use them, if I choose, but I can't make myself able to die; only the Continuum can do that. I could be with your crew until you're a doddering old man and it would still only be a short while, for me."
"Captain, you're not seriously considering his offer," Riker says disbelievingly.
"Well, Number One, Counselor Troi makes a good point. If this is some sort of test of our willingness to abuse Q's power, again, only he's offering to wield the power himself at our behest instead of giving it to one of us directly... then he's either not really going to be willing to go without his powers, or accepting him without his powers ends the test. But if he's serious... then perhaps he deserves serious consideration. We know nothing about his species, and moreover, we know nothing about his kind of species. The galaxy is full of such beings of tremendous power - we recently encountered one, with the Nagilum. Earlier Starfleet crews met gods. There are the Organians, the Melkotians, the Thasians, whatever Trelane of Gothos was... an entire type of sentient life that we have never had any way to study, or even have a reasonable interchange of ideas with, because they are all vastly more powerful than we are and have had no interest in talking to us about themselves.
"But Q is here. He represents a kind of life we know nothing of, and he claims to be willing to live among us as one of us, to be a member of our crew, working beside us. I have no idea whether he's being honest or not, and to be truthful, there is no way any of us can tell that. Originally I thought this was simply a variation of the same test he forced on us last time... and besides, he kidnapped me away from the Enterprise for several hours. That didn't incline me kindly toward anything he'd ask." He glares at Q, who shrugs and grins embarrassedly. "So I had intended to say no. But Counselor Troi does make an excellent point. If Q is sincere, then he wants this a great deal. If he wants this a great deal, he may be inclined to behave himself. And if he behaves himself, his presence here would be incredibly valuable, simply from the insights we could gain about his people and the kind of beings they are."
"I would think this over very carefully before agreeing to anything, Picard," Guinan warns. "Q is the quintessential genie in a bottle. Before you make any wishes of him, you'd better think hard about how you're going to get him back in that bottle, if you can."
"Oh, as if they could," Q sneers. "Guinan, if I wanted to make everyone on this starship dance the mambo out the airlock, I could do it. There is nothing Picard can make me do unless I agree to do it. There are no magical rules I have to operate by, no three wishes and I'm free, no going back to the fifth dimension if I say my name backwards... I do what I choose. Picard should be thinking more about how to get me to agree to whatever terms he wants to give me, and less about how he could, I don't know, somehow contain me, as if he could."
"That's true," Picard says. "We can't make you do anything. If I say no, you're perfectly capable of kidnapping me and holding me hostage until I say yes."
"That's a ridiculous idea. I'm perfectly capable of mind-controlling you until you say yes. But I wouldn't do that either." If he says no, Q will show him why saying no is a very bad idea. But he won't kidnap him to coerce an answer. That would be no better than mind control. When Q changes someone's mind, he does it by forcing new information on them, not by simply making them mouth the words of agreement. Kidnapping Picard in the first place was necessary just to get in the door, but it wasn't an elegant solution and Q wishes he'd been able to come up with a better idea.
"Why not? You kidnapped me and held me hostage to force me to agree to hear you out."
"That was different. As long as you held me to the terms of our agreement, I couldn't even come aboard your ship. You had to let me aboard before I could even make my argument. Otherwise I could have said I wanted to join your crew and you'd have just said that I can't because I'm not allowed on your ship."
"And what prevents you from kidnapping me or doing something else unpleasant to me any time we make an agreement you decide you don't want to abide by? It doesn't mean much that you stand by your word if you're willing to harass me to force me to let you out of any agreement we've made."
Q takes a deep breath, although technically he doesn't need to. "If you're afraid of me doing something like that, then just make me agree not to. It's really simple, Picard."
"I don't think anything about you is simple, Q. Are you saying that you feel honor bound to keep to the letter of your word, so the way to keep you from violating the spirit of it is to construct my request in such a way that there's no way out for you?"
"It works for the Continuum."
"If it works for the Continuum, why'd they have to kick you out?" Riker asks. Q rolls his eyes, but doesn't dignify that with an answer.
"More to the point, Q, you're a highly advanced being with abilities whose full scope I have no grasp of, and probably an intellect that's vastly beyond me. How do I come up with an agreement that will actually bind you, without you being able to find a way around it?"
"Simple. You tell me that anything I want to do to you, your crew, your species, or anyone you care about, I have to get your permission first, or the deal is off and I have to leave the crew."
Picard studies him for a minute. "And if you constructed that because you're aware of a loophole I can't see, how would I ever know?"
"I suppose you wouldn't. But trust has to start somewhere, doesn't it?"
"Are you aware that I actually care a great deal about every sentient species in the galaxy? Including the ones that I haven't met yet?"
Q laughs aloud. "Oh, Picard, you do yourself too little credit. You do know how to play this game." He leans forward. "If it helps any... if I were malicious you'd be dead. I may be, shall we say, more playful than you'd like. But I'm not out to get you. If you slip up and leave me a loophole to do something you wouldn't like... it would have to be something I wanted to do. I wouldn't just do it to make you upset; you honestly don't have that much control over me. I might do what I want, or I might do what I've agreed to do for you, but I'm not going to do something I don't want to do solely because you don't want me to do it."
"Well, that may be helpful, but I haven't a clue of what the parameters of what you don't want to do might be."
"Okay." Q gestures with both hands. "I don't believe in killing mortals directly. It's not funny, it's tasteless and overdone. So if you accidentally say something like, say, 'If only we didn't have to deal with the Romulans anymore,' I am not going to go kill all the Romulans or disappear them or turn them into chartreuse wombats and then come back and pretend I thought you ordered me to do it. Well, I might turn them into chartreuse wombats, but probably only for a day or so, and then I'd probably make them all forget I did it."
"You weren't overly concerned with our people suffering and dying last time."
Q shrugs. "I didn't say I cared if mortals die. I'd just be a giant bleeding heart if I did, given how often you people do that. But I won't be the one to kill them."
"You've never killed anybody?" Riker says. "I find that hard to believe. Your animal creatures ran Wesley through with a bayonet!"
"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist healing him."
"What if I did? Resist? Or I didn't realize how to do it?"
"Well, since the idea that was paramount in your mind was stopping my little scenario and saving Wesley's life, if you actually hadn't used the powers I lent you to do it, I'd have done it for you and then convinced you that it was your subconscious mind that did it." He claps a hand to his mouth theatrically. "Oh, dear me, here I am giving away trade secrets and we don't even have a deal yet!" He looks at Picard. "Do we have a deal, mon capitaine? Or am I wasting my time here?"
"What do you really want, Q?"
"I thought I'd made it clear what I really wanted."
"No, you haven't. You say you want to join our crew. That you're willing to give up your powers, if you must, but you hardly sound enthused with the prospect. But I was quite serious when I asked you, at first, do you want to be an ordinary crewman? Writing reports, adjusting outputs, climbing around in the Jeffries tubes and reconnecting wires? Much of the work that's done aboard a starship is very menial and tedious, and I have an even harder time imagining you choosing tedious, repetitive work than I can imagine you giving up your power."
"Well..." Q hasn't ever actually thought about that. "Yes. I'm very easily bored, I'm afraid. I didn't come here hoping to get a job doing paperwork, no. Although, if I had to, I'm sure I could manage."
"Then what job were you hoping to get, Q? 'The crew' includes a very wide range of duties. What kind of work were you hoping I would give you, if I accepted your offer?"
"I want to be your guide," Q says promptly. And then wonders if he's said too much.
"Our guide? In what way?"
"Listen, Picard." Q hoists himself up onto the bar and sits on it, looking down on Picard. "The universe is full of dangers you can't even imagine. And wonders you would weep to behold. And many of them, you're going to run into whether I'm there or not. But I want to be there when you see them. And if they're something that will crush you like a bug - and there is no shortage of dangers in this universe that can do that, no matter how advanced and prepared you think you are - I want to give you the advice you need to avoid them or escape them or defeat them. And if there are things that would amaze you to know or to see, but you'll never see them because they're halfway across the universe, I want to take you there and show them to you. All of you. Because you're explorers. Because you're here to see the wonders of the universe. Because you'll appreciate them. Because you can still feel amazement when you see something you've never seen before."
"And you can't?" Troi says softly.
Q smiles wryly, bitterly. His shield is leaking. He's pretty sure of it. Time away from the Continuum has weakened him already. She's reading him too well. But there's no sense denying it. "I would love nothing more than to see something I've never seen before, Counselor. But I've seen everything. And everyone I know well has also seen it all. There's nothing new to see, and no one to show what I already know to. Is it so hard for you to imagine I might actually enjoy showing you lesser beings around the galaxy? Since I've got nothing better to do at the moment, anyway?"
"Hmm." Picard considers. "If that is the role you want to play... you'd need your powers for that, certainly."
"Well, yes. But like I said, I was going to take what I can get. Even without my powers I can still advise you to a certain extent. I still have millions of years of knowledge on my own, even without powers."
"Then I will consider your application, provisionally. If you can agree to terms."
He hops off the bar. "Terms? Hit me. What've you got?"
"Agree that you will not use your powers unless two senior staff members - myself and Mr. Data, myself and Commander Riker, Commander Riker and Mr. Data if I am incapacitated, or other senior staff based on the chain of command if something should happen to us - agree to permit it."
"What about passive powers? I can't tell there's a meteorite heading right for us unless I'm looking."
"All right, you may use any sense you have that does not intrude on the privacy of sentient beings. You may not spy on crew members in their private quarters, you may not spy on other sentient beings in any situation in which they expect privacy, and you may not read anyone's mind without permission."
"Troi doesn't ask for permission."
"Counselor Troi is only an empath. Telepaths in Starfleet, or civilian telepaths working with Starfleet crews, have specific regulations they must follow that empaths aren't covered by."
"Okay. And what about using my powers to avoid, say, having to eat?"
"Would you have to eat without your powers?"
"This is a human body. Gotta fuel it somehow."
"You may also use your powers on yourself, for your personal comfort. You may use your powers in any way that would essentially duplicate the functions of the replicator in circumstances where the replicator is used - creating clothes for yourself, decorating your quarters, etc. You will, however, be expected to abide by the dress code for civilian advisors, which means you would not be permitted to dress as a Starfleet captain anymore."
"All right. I can accept that."
"As a civilian, you are outside the chain of command, but as a passenger on this vessel, you are obligated to take orders from myself, Commander Riker or Mr. Data. Or Dr. Crusher if they pertain to a medical issue that you have, although I can't imagine that will come up in your case. You must also obey any instructions you're given by a department head in their department, unless those instructions involve using your powers to do anything other than leave the department."
"Like what? If I go into engineering and your Mr. LaForge asks me to put a pot on my head and dance around the room-"
"Now you're being ridiculous. Our department heads are professionals. No one will tell you to do anything unless it is necessary. If you feel you're being harassed, you have the same recourse any other civilian employee does - you may tell Counselor Troi, who is the head of the Personnel Relations department, or myself, or Commanders Riker or Data."
"So you'd consider me a civilian employee, then?" Q grins. "Do I get paid?"
"Q, if you've done half the research on our Federation that you claim, you should know we no longer use money. And since you don't have Federation citizenship or an identity within our system, it would be rather hard to create an account for you to receive credits... and rather pointless, since most of the services people use credits for are things you can do for yourself."
"So you don't want to pay me."
"Not particularly, no. Is that a difficulty?"
He has to rein it in. He would love to tease Picard some more - the whole contradiction between the Federation's stance that they don't have money, and the fact that they obviously do, is hilarious - but he doesn't want Picard to balk at having him at the last second. "I suppose it isn't, no." A thought occurs to him. "What if the ship is about to be destroyed within the next nanosecond and I don't have time to ask you for permission to use my powers? Am I supposed to let you get blown up?"
Riker said, "You can stop time, Q. Can't you?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact I can. Locally, anyway."
"Then just stop time before we get blown up, and ask for permission. That's not so hard for you, is it?"
"You want me to stop time to ask permission to save you from being destroyed. What, were you ever expecting a situation where you'd say no?"
"Commander Riker is right, Q," Picard said. "The issue isn't whether or not we wouldn't grant permission. The issue is whether or not you would arbitrarily do something and then claim you had to do it because otherwise the ship would have blown up. We need to establish an iron-clad principle that before using your powers on anyone but yourself, you need to ask permission every single time, without exception."
"But stopping time does use my powers."
"And we are pre-emptively granting you permission to use that power in order to have time to ask permission. For one thing, if you simply take it under your own judgement to do whatever you think you need to do to save the ship, there may be consequences that don't matter to you, but would matter to us. You need to ask permission because we may need to tell you to do something different to the specific thing you had planned to do. For example, teleporting a quantum mine away from the Enterprise might still leave it in the path of other ships, so we might want to advise you to disintegrate it instead."
"I'm not stupid, Picard. I could think of disintegrating it instead of teleporting it myself."
"But I don't know what your values are. I am sure you can think of any number of things, but are they the things we in Starfleet would prefer that you do? This won't work if you do whatever you want and then claim you had to. For that matter, I am also going to say that if you propose an intervention with your powers, or we ask you to do something, you need to make any and all possible consequences clear to us before we make a decision. Since we don't have your powers, we can't know as well as you might what impact a particular action could have."
"Oh, for the love of... you want me to write you an impact analysis before I do anything. I might as well still be in the Continuum, submitting reports in triplicate!"
Picard merely looks at him. "You're free to refuse the deal and go anywhere else in the universe you'd like if I give you terms you feel you can't or don't want to meet."
Q sighs, making sure everyone knows how put-upon this makes him feel. "Fine. I will give you the impact analysis. Happy?"
"Does the Continuum actually make you submit reports in triplicate?" Riker asks, in a "you're putting us on" voice. "Seriously?"
"Seriously... they aren't in triplicate. Otherwise, no, I'm not making this up. Any action you want to take, you've gotta research what the possible consequences could be, and report it to the rest of the Continuum. Although I can't see how I could write the same kind of report for you... your tiny little brains couldn't handle it. I mean, I can't very well give you a report with the memory of running a 4,000 year simulation attached to it."
"No, I imagine that the format the Q can accept information in would be very different than the formats we can work with. But you have proven to be a creative entity. I think you can manage," Picard says.
"Yeah, I suppose it's easier. The most you could handle is the equivalent of three lines of the top level summary, so I guess it's a lot less work to tell you what something might do than to tell the Continuum. Although I'll have to do a lot more spelling things out and hand-holding."
"Well, you wanted the role of our guide. You'll simply have to deal with the fact that we're less intelligent than your comrades if you want to show us anything."
"Yeah, I guess I can't complain that humans are utter morons when I'm volunteering my services to help you become just an infinitesimal fraction less moronic in the first place."
"Well, then. My last condition is that you agree to obey all the relevant laws and regulations that govern the conduct of civilian employees of Starfleet aboard starships, so long as you are part of this crew. Any violation of those rules or laws will immediately end this contract."
"Done." Q puts out his hand. "Shake on it?"
"I don't think that's necessary," Picard says.
"I think you're making a mistake, Picard," Guinan says softly. "You really can't trust Q at all."
"I understand your point, Guinan. But anything he could do to me in 3 months of close proximity, he could do to me right now... he doesn't actually need to gain our trust to destroy us. I'm sure you're familiar with the Earth saying, 'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.' If Q does wish to be an enemy... better to keep him close where we have some vague idea what he's up to, rather than off at a distance where he can still do whatever he wants and we have no hope of seeing it coming."
"There are dangers other than death and destruction, though. Some dangers... are more personal."
Q can't be silent about that any more. "Oh, yes, such as the danger that I might actually trust them and end up betrayed? I suppose you'd know nothing about that, would you?"
"Yes, you, the omnipotent immortal, are the one who was betrayed. Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounds?"
"It only sounds ridiculous because you're twisting it around to sound ridiculous."
"Q, Guinan." Picard's voice is sharp. "Unless either of you would like to explain, in detail, exactly what happened between the two of you two hundred years ago, I will ask you to stop sniping at each other. Without knowing what happened between the two of you, I have no way of knowing whose assessment of the situation is more accurate... though I will say, Q, that your description of Guinan doesn't seem to bear any reality to the person I know. In fact your description of Guinan sounds suspiciously like a description of you."
"Oh, you know her so well, Picard. You met her what, thirty years ago? Forty, tops? I've seen a side of her you're never going to see, because she's much better at pulling the wool over mortals' eyes."
"Or, because Captain Picard is a good and decent man, and I won't be forced to protect myself from him the way I had to do with you," Guinan shot back.
"Protect yourself from what? I never did anything to you!"
"That's an interesting definition of 'anything' you've got there."
"I said, both of you, stop sniping at each other!" Picard snapped. "Do either of you actually want to tell me all the details of your dealings with one another?"
Q folds his arms and looks down at the ground angrily. "No," he says sulkily.
"I'm sorry, Picard, but... it's actually not any of your business," Guinan says gently.
"Then stop making it my business. I do not want the two of you fighting with each other in public, making coy allusions to your shared history without ever explaining what you're actually talking about to anyone else. If you must fight, do it in privacy and on your own time. And Q, it should go without saying that if you go out of your way to start fights with Guinan or harass her, our deal is off. That behavior would be out of bounds for a civilian employee."
"Oh, believe me, I'm hardly going to seek her out."
"Very well, then. Counselor Troi, can you make sure Q is assigned some sort of private quarters, so he doesn't go manufacturing his own room?"
"You said I can decorate my quarters whatever way I want, right?"
Picard sighs. "Don't do anything to gravity. It'll throw off our inertial dampeners."
Q grins. "Oh, don't worry. Nothing I'm planning to do to my quarters will affect the rest of the ship at all." He leans forward. "As soon I get through whatever tedious hazing ritual of paperwork you're going to make Troi put me through, I need to talk to you. I've got something specific you need to know about, and the sooner the better."
"Fine. Meet me in my ready room once you're settled in." Picard turns to Riker. "Shall we return to the bridge, Number One?"
"Sure. Let's go, sir." Riker and Picard head for the door.
"It's not really a hazing ritual, Q. I just have to make sure you're assigned a room in the computer, that's all," Troi says.
As Q walks off with Troi, he hears Riker asking Picard, as soon as they're out of human earshot of him, "Sir... what the hell were you thinking?" and grins. This really does promise to be marvelously entertaining.
He starts plotting out how he'll demonstrate the threat of the Borg to them without violating their laws, making Picard angry with him, or tipping off the Borg. Maybe some out-of-phase time travel so they can observe a world being destroyed by the Borg without being able to affect the past... oh. Oh, yes. His grin gets bigger. Use the El-Aurian homeworld. The fact that Picard knows an El-Aurian personally will make the emotional impact stronger, and the case he'll then make to Starfleet stronger, without having to threaten Picard himself. And it'll twist the knife in Guinan's wounds, and she won't be able to do a thing about it, because the only kind of time travel her people would ever approve of is passive observation without the possibility of interference... she'll be there, in position to see her world destroyed again, and be unable even to ask for the power to intercede because it would violate every belief she has. Oh, that'll work beautifully.
Yes, this adventure aboard Picard's ship could well be the most fun he's had in millennia.
This may meander a bit, and sadly, the format of the ultra-short doesn't actually allow me to show what happens *after* Q agrees to Picard's terms to join the crew. So someday I might expand on this. But the idea was, under what circumstances might Picard have actually agreed to Q's offer in "Q Who?" I think that the main reason he'd have rejected Q's offer would have been fear of Q's power corrupting them, and the idea that it was probably a test. But if he thought Q might be serious... "to learn about you is frankly provocative." I went with that, albeit in a non slash-fic way. :-)
ETA: Present tense is REALLY HARD! You wouldn't think so but I keep finding places where my tenses suggest that I was writing the thing in past rather than present.
This is not going the way Q had hoped it would. When he'd offered to join Picard's crew, he had assumed he would be having the conversation with Picard himself. Not Riker, who'd caused him no end of embarrassment by turning him down last time, not Troi, who had practically solved the Farpoint puzzle for Picard and his crew all by herself, and certainly not Guinan. In fact he probably should have checked the ship more carefully, but who would have ever imagined his old nemesis to be here? It almost makes him want to believe in Guinan's concepts of fate and destiny, if a particularly malign destiny and a fate with a sense of humor.
"Join us as what? To do what?" Picard asks. "Would you start as an ordinary crewman -- what task is too menial for an entity?"
It sounds unpleasantly to Q as if Picard is making fun of the idea that Q could even want to join his crew. "Do you mock me?" he asks, dangerously.
"Not at all. That is the last thing I would do," Picard says. He's absolutely right, of course - it would be the last thing he'd do. Q is willing to tolerate a great deal from this human, but there are standards. "You, by definition are part of our charter. Our mission is to go forth -- to seek out new and different life forms, and you certainly qualify as one of the most unique life forms I have ever encountered. To learn more about you is frankly quite provocative, but you are next of kin to chaos."
Well. So far, that doesn't sound like "no", exactly. "Captain, at least allow me to present my argument." Picard says nothing, which isn't "no" either. "After our last encounter, I was asked to leave the Q Continuum. Since then, I have been wandering vaguely -- bored really-- my existence without purpose. Then, I remembered the good times I had with you..."
This, of course, is a vast oversimplification of the situation.
When Picard and Riker had defeated his Farpoint test, Q was thrilled. So few species ever defeated even the first test, and Q was intrigued by anything new and different. He'd had to play at being stern and disappointed, of course, because that was the role, but even as he'd traded lame quips with Picard that were supposed to sound like sour grapes, he'd been bouncing up and down with excitement, deep inside.
Many others in the Continuum were less so. They'd said they'd wanted humanity tested, but what they'd really wanted was humanity slapped down, because they were afraid of the species. So they told Q to go back and give them a harder test this time. Q had been upset with this - why had he spent centuries building a reputation as a really tough tester, if the rest of his fellows were going to call him a cream puff because one species did beat the initial test? So he'd plotted something that, had it worked, would have greatly annoyed the rest of the Continuum, proven Q's judgement of humanity to be accurate, and given him a permanent ally and a higher status as a mentor instead of merely a tester. Actually giving Riker the powers of the Q hadn't been within his mandate, since he wasn't an authorized mentor yet. But it was impossible to argue that it wasn't a hard test, and he'd figured, once Picard lost and Riker joined the Q, it would be a fait accompli that would automatically prove humanity's worthiness, thus justifying their success at his first test and validating his judgement as a tester.
It hadn't happened that way. Picard had won, Riker had refused, and Q had been left holding the bag, forced to explain to the Continuum why, exactly, he was letting a mortal wield Q powers without authorization, without even the boost that having been successful in the endeavor would have been. He was called reckless, dangerous, his judgement was called into serious question, and they told him to take a hike while they debated what to do about him long-term. And since then, he's spent most of his time observing the site of his downfall, watching the Enterprise as Picard goes about exploring the galaxy. He was watching when Picard defeated yet another Power, the Nagilum this time. And now he knows what he wants.
This man has the power to humble Powers - himself, the Nagilum, who knows who else - with nothing more than the power of his words and his thoughts. His inferior mortal thoughts. That can still defeat a Power. Q has to know how he does it. But it's more than that. He's obsessed now. He must show Picard what he'll be up against in the future, see if Picard can defeat the Borg as handily as he defeated Q and the Nagilum. Q rather suspects not. The El-Aurians had also had a fascinating way with language, had also defeated Q - Q remembers that humiliation well, looking at Guinan - and it didn't help against the Borg.
But Q doesn't want humanity destroyed. He's finding them fascinating. They're unpredictable, they can actually pass his tests, hell, they actually beat him in a contest he was seriously playing to win... He wants to guide them. To help them against the Borg, against whatever else they might encounter. To... what? Be friends with them? Relate to them as if they were Q? It's absurd, and yet... he's so lonely. He never cared that much about spending time with his fellow Q until they cut him off, but now that he's not allowed to go home he desperately misses it. If he spends the time of his exile, until they call him back for their final decision, here with these mortals, well, what will the Continuum do about it? When Q and Q took human form and reproduced, they were only told to come home; they weren't punished until they refused. If Q is ordered home, he has no intention of refusing.
So he genuinely wants to be here. But Riker seems to be having a hard time believing him. "The good times!? The first time we met you put us on trial for the "crimes of humanity"..."
"For which you were exonerated," Q points out.
"The next time we saw you, you asked me to join the Q Continuum."
And what about that, Q wonders, makes it hard to believe that he wants to be with these humans? Do they seriously think he would have offered one of them ultimate power, brought them home to show to all his fellows and lived with them for the rest of eternity, if he had no affection for their species? But he can't say that, so he says, "You made a big mistake in not accepting my offer."
"... and now you say you want to join us," Picard says slowly, as if he's thinking it over.
Q leaps in eagerly. "Yes, more and more I realize that here -- here is where I want to be. Think of the advantages. Now, I neither expect nor require any special treatment. If necessary, although I can't imagine why, I will renounce my powers and become as weak and incompetent as all of you."
"No," Picard says.
No. He can't say no. Well, he can say no - Q isn't going to mind control him, that would totally miss the point - but what is Q going to do if he says no? Q has already lowered himself tremendously, humiliated himself in front of the Continuum if any of them are actually looking, by even making this offer. What does Picard want him to do, beg? If he were human, he might have gone pale at the refusal or his desperation might show in his voice, but he's a Q, so he can keep his physical form from showing his emotions to any significant degree. "Oh, come on, Captain, in fairness... let me try, I deserve at least that much."
And then Troi speaks up for the first time. "Captain... I think that before you reject him out of hand, we should discuss it together."
Picard blinks, and looks over at Troi. "Counselor... do you think that is necessary? Q is not trustworthy-"
"No, he's not," Troi agrees. "But if he's offering to give up his power to join us... It was different for Will. He could agree to give up the powers of a god because they were new and he hadn't had them his whole life. But for Q, his power must be a fundamental ability, as much a part of him as my empathy. And I have to say that if I were to offer to give up my empathic powers for something, it would have to be something I wanted desperately."
Q's eyes narrow. He reviews his shielding. Did he slip the tiniest bit in front of the empath? He'd almost forgotten she was there, but her psychobabble sounds far, far too much like what he'd actually been feeling for his comfort. "I wouldn't describe myself as desperate, Counselor."
"Well, were you serious about offering to give up your powers, then?" Troi asks him. "Because for me, giving up my empathy would be like willingly putting my own eyes out, and your powers are so much greater than mine, I would have to imagine it would be very painful for you to do without them. Why would you want to join our crew so much that you'd agree to, in essence, blind and cripple yourself, if you're not desperate?"
"Be very careful, Counselor," Guinan says softly. "He's dangerous."
And now Troi has put him in an impossible bind. Because she's right - actually giving up his powers would be a hardship for him. He's never seriously thought about what it would entail, but he knows that Q and Q couldn't manage to do it and they had a baby to distract them. But now he's in a position where he either says that he never really intended to give up his powers - which, to be honest, he never really did because he never thought Picard would actually say he had to - or he has to admit to the desperation he feels. But if he lashes out at her for intuiting (or sensing... he's still not sure his shields didn't slip) the truth, then he lives down to Guinan's expectations of him.
So he laughs. "Oh, come now, do you think that a Q can't live without being omnipotent? You mere mortals do it all the time. I'm a more advanced being; of course I can do without my powers for a short while, if I choose."
"A short while?" Picard asks. "So you saw this... this stint as a member of my crew as a finite thing, then."
"Well, of course it's finite. You're mortal. I can put my powers aside and not use them, if I choose, but I can't make myself able to die; only the Continuum can do that. I could be with your crew until you're a doddering old man and it would still only be a short while, for me."
"Captain, you're not seriously considering his offer," Riker says disbelievingly.
"Well, Number One, Counselor Troi makes a good point. If this is some sort of test of our willingness to abuse Q's power, again, only he's offering to wield the power himself at our behest instead of giving it to one of us directly... then he's either not really going to be willing to go without his powers, or accepting him without his powers ends the test. But if he's serious... then perhaps he deserves serious consideration. We know nothing about his species, and moreover, we know nothing about his kind of species. The galaxy is full of such beings of tremendous power - we recently encountered one, with the Nagilum. Earlier Starfleet crews met gods. There are the Organians, the Melkotians, the Thasians, whatever Trelane of Gothos was... an entire type of sentient life that we have never had any way to study, or even have a reasonable interchange of ideas with, because they are all vastly more powerful than we are and have had no interest in talking to us about themselves.
"But Q is here. He represents a kind of life we know nothing of, and he claims to be willing to live among us as one of us, to be a member of our crew, working beside us. I have no idea whether he's being honest or not, and to be truthful, there is no way any of us can tell that. Originally I thought this was simply a variation of the same test he forced on us last time... and besides, he kidnapped me away from the Enterprise for several hours. That didn't incline me kindly toward anything he'd ask." He glares at Q, who shrugs and grins embarrassedly. "So I had intended to say no. But Counselor Troi does make an excellent point. If Q is sincere, then he wants this a great deal. If he wants this a great deal, he may be inclined to behave himself. And if he behaves himself, his presence here would be incredibly valuable, simply from the insights we could gain about his people and the kind of beings they are."
"I would think this over very carefully before agreeing to anything, Picard," Guinan warns. "Q is the quintessential genie in a bottle. Before you make any wishes of him, you'd better think hard about how you're going to get him back in that bottle, if you can."
"Oh, as if they could," Q sneers. "Guinan, if I wanted to make everyone on this starship dance the mambo out the airlock, I could do it. There is nothing Picard can make me do unless I agree to do it. There are no magical rules I have to operate by, no three wishes and I'm free, no going back to the fifth dimension if I say my name backwards... I do what I choose. Picard should be thinking more about how to get me to agree to whatever terms he wants to give me, and less about how he could, I don't know, somehow contain me, as if he could."
"That's true," Picard says. "We can't make you do anything. If I say no, you're perfectly capable of kidnapping me and holding me hostage until I say yes."
"That's a ridiculous idea. I'm perfectly capable of mind-controlling you until you say yes. But I wouldn't do that either." If he says no, Q will show him why saying no is a very bad idea. But he won't kidnap him to coerce an answer. That would be no better than mind control. When Q changes someone's mind, he does it by forcing new information on them, not by simply making them mouth the words of agreement. Kidnapping Picard in the first place was necessary just to get in the door, but it wasn't an elegant solution and Q wishes he'd been able to come up with a better idea.
"Why not? You kidnapped me and held me hostage to force me to agree to hear you out."
"That was different. As long as you held me to the terms of our agreement, I couldn't even come aboard your ship. You had to let me aboard before I could even make my argument. Otherwise I could have said I wanted to join your crew and you'd have just said that I can't because I'm not allowed on your ship."
"And what prevents you from kidnapping me or doing something else unpleasant to me any time we make an agreement you decide you don't want to abide by? It doesn't mean much that you stand by your word if you're willing to harass me to force me to let you out of any agreement we've made."
Q takes a deep breath, although technically he doesn't need to. "If you're afraid of me doing something like that, then just make me agree not to. It's really simple, Picard."
"I don't think anything about you is simple, Q. Are you saying that you feel honor bound to keep to the letter of your word, so the way to keep you from violating the spirit of it is to construct my request in such a way that there's no way out for you?"
"It works for the Continuum."
"If it works for the Continuum, why'd they have to kick you out?" Riker asks. Q rolls his eyes, but doesn't dignify that with an answer.
"More to the point, Q, you're a highly advanced being with abilities whose full scope I have no grasp of, and probably an intellect that's vastly beyond me. How do I come up with an agreement that will actually bind you, without you being able to find a way around it?"
"Simple. You tell me that anything I want to do to you, your crew, your species, or anyone you care about, I have to get your permission first, or the deal is off and I have to leave the crew."
Picard studies him for a minute. "And if you constructed that because you're aware of a loophole I can't see, how would I ever know?"
"I suppose you wouldn't. But trust has to start somewhere, doesn't it?"
"Are you aware that I actually care a great deal about every sentient species in the galaxy? Including the ones that I haven't met yet?"
Q laughs aloud. "Oh, Picard, you do yourself too little credit. You do know how to play this game." He leans forward. "If it helps any... if I were malicious you'd be dead. I may be, shall we say, more playful than you'd like. But I'm not out to get you. If you slip up and leave me a loophole to do something you wouldn't like... it would have to be something I wanted to do. I wouldn't just do it to make you upset; you honestly don't have that much control over me. I might do what I want, or I might do what I've agreed to do for you, but I'm not going to do something I don't want to do solely because you don't want me to do it."
"Well, that may be helpful, but I haven't a clue of what the parameters of what you don't want to do might be."
"Okay." Q gestures with both hands. "I don't believe in killing mortals directly. It's not funny, it's tasteless and overdone. So if you accidentally say something like, say, 'If only we didn't have to deal with the Romulans anymore,' I am not going to go kill all the Romulans or disappear them or turn them into chartreuse wombats and then come back and pretend I thought you ordered me to do it. Well, I might turn them into chartreuse wombats, but probably only for a day or so, and then I'd probably make them all forget I did it."
"You weren't overly concerned with our people suffering and dying last time."
Q shrugs. "I didn't say I cared if mortals die. I'd just be a giant bleeding heart if I did, given how often you people do that. But I won't be the one to kill them."
"You've never killed anybody?" Riker says. "I find that hard to believe. Your animal creatures ran Wesley through with a bayonet!"
"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist healing him."
"What if I did? Resist? Or I didn't realize how to do it?"
"Well, since the idea that was paramount in your mind was stopping my little scenario and saving Wesley's life, if you actually hadn't used the powers I lent you to do it, I'd have done it for you and then convinced you that it was your subconscious mind that did it." He claps a hand to his mouth theatrically. "Oh, dear me, here I am giving away trade secrets and we don't even have a deal yet!" He looks at Picard. "Do we have a deal, mon capitaine? Or am I wasting my time here?"
"What do you really want, Q?"
"I thought I'd made it clear what I really wanted."
"No, you haven't. You say you want to join our crew. That you're willing to give up your powers, if you must, but you hardly sound enthused with the prospect. But I was quite serious when I asked you, at first, do you want to be an ordinary crewman? Writing reports, adjusting outputs, climbing around in the Jeffries tubes and reconnecting wires? Much of the work that's done aboard a starship is very menial and tedious, and I have an even harder time imagining you choosing tedious, repetitive work than I can imagine you giving up your power."
"Well..." Q hasn't ever actually thought about that. "Yes. I'm very easily bored, I'm afraid. I didn't come here hoping to get a job doing paperwork, no. Although, if I had to, I'm sure I could manage."
"Then what job were you hoping to get, Q? 'The crew' includes a very wide range of duties. What kind of work were you hoping I would give you, if I accepted your offer?"
"I want to be your guide," Q says promptly. And then wonders if he's said too much.
"Our guide? In what way?"
"Listen, Picard." Q hoists himself up onto the bar and sits on it, looking down on Picard. "The universe is full of dangers you can't even imagine. And wonders you would weep to behold. And many of them, you're going to run into whether I'm there or not. But I want to be there when you see them. And if they're something that will crush you like a bug - and there is no shortage of dangers in this universe that can do that, no matter how advanced and prepared you think you are - I want to give you the advice you need to avoid them or escape them or defeat them. And if there are things that would amaze you to know or to see, but you'll never see them because they're halfway across the universe, I want to take you there and show them to you. All of you. Because you're explorers. Because you're here to see the wonders of the universe. Because you'll appreciate them. Because you can still feel amazement when you see something you've never seen before."
"And you can't?" Troi says softly.
Q smiles wryly, bitterly. His shield is leaking. He's pretty sure of it. Time away from the Continuum has weakened him already. She's reading him too well. But there's no sense denying it. "I would love nothing more than to see something I've never seen before, Counselor. But I've seen everything. And everyone I know well has also seen it all. There's nothing new to see, and no one to show what I already know to. Is it so hard for you to imagine I might actually enjoy showing you lesser beings around the galaxy? Since I've got nothing better to do at the moment, anyway?"
"Hmm." Picard considers. "If that is the role you want to play... you'd need your powers for that, certainly."
"Well, yes. But like I said, I was going to take what I can get. Even without my powers I can still advise you to a certain extent. I still have millions of years of knowledge on my own, even without powers."
"Then I will consider your application, provisionally. If you can agree to terms."
He hops off the bar. "Terms? Hit me. What've you got?"
"Agree that you will not use your powers unless two senior staff members - myself and Mr. Data, myself and Commander Riker, Commander Riker and Mr. Data if I am incapacitated, or other senior staff based on the chain of command if something should happen to us - agree to permit it."
"What about passive powers? I can't tell there's a meteorite heading right for us unless I'm looking."
"All right, you may use any sense you have that does not intrude on the privacy of sentient beings. You may not spy on crew members in their private quarters, you may not spy on other sentient beings in any situation in which they expect privacy, and you may not read anyone's mind without permission."
"Troi doesn't ask for permission."
"Counselor Troi is only an empath. Telepaths in Starfleet, or civilian telepaths working with Starfleet crews, have specific regulations they must follow that empaths aren't covered by."
"Okay. And what about using my powers to avoid, say, having to eat?"
"Would you have to eat without your powers?"
"This is a human body. Gotta fuel it somehow."
"You may also use your powers on yourself, for your personal comfort. You may use your powers in any way that would essentially duplicate the functions of the replicator in circumstances where the replicator is used - creating clothes for yourself, decorating your quarters, etc. You will, however, be expected to abide by the dress code for civilian advisors, which means you would not be permitted to dress as a Starfleet captain anymore."
"All right. I can accept that."
"As a civilian, you are outside the chain of command, but as a passenger on this vessel, you are obligated to take orders from myself, Commander Riker or Mr. Data. Or Dr. Crusher if they pertain to a medical issue that you have, although I can't imagine that will come up in your case. You must also obey any instructions you're given by a department head in their department, unless those instructions involve using your powers to do anything other than leave the department."
"Like what? If I go into engineering and your Mr. LaForge asks me to put a pot on my head and dance around the room-"
"Now you're being ridiculous. Our department heads are professionals. No one will tell you to do anything unless it is necessary. If you feel you're being harassed, you have the same recourse any other civilian employee does - you may tell Counselor Troi, who is the head of the Personnel Relations department, or myself, or Commanders Riker or Data."
"So you'd consider me a civilian employee, then?" Q grins. "Do I get paid?"
"Q, if you've done half the research on our Federation that you claim, you should know we no longer use money. And since you don't have Federation citizenship or an identity within our system, it would be rather hard to create an account for you to receive credits... and rather pointless, since most of the services people use credits for are things you can do for yourself."
"So you don't want to pay me."
"Not particularly, no. Is that a difficulty?"
He has to rein it in. He would love to tease Picard some more - the whole contradiction between the Federation's stance that they don't have money, and the fact that they obviously do, is hilarious - but he doesn't want Picard to balk at having him at the last second. "I suppose it isn't, no." A thought occurs to him. "What if the ship is about to be destroyed within the next nanosecond and I don't have time to ask you for permission to use my powers? Am I supposed to let you get blown up?"
Riker said, "You can stop time, Q. Can't you?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact I can. Locally, anyway."
"Then just stop time before we get blown up, and ask for permission. That's not so hard for you, is it?"
"You want me to stop time to ask permission to save you from being destroyed. What, were you ever expecting a situation where you'd say no?"
"Commander Riker is right, Q," Picard said. "The issue isn't whether or not we wouldn't grant permission. The issue is whether or not you would arbitrarily do something and then claim you had to do it because otherwise the ship would have blown up. We need to establish an iron-clad principle that before using your powers on anyone but yourself, you need to ask permission every single time, without exception."
"But stopping time does use my powers."
"And we are pre-emptively granting you permission to use that power in order to have time to ask permission. For one thing, if you simply take it under your own judgement to do whatever you think you need to do to save the ship, there may be consequences that don't matter to you, but would matter to us. You need to ask permission because we may need to tell you to do something different to the specific thing you had planned to do. For example, teleporting a quantum mine away from the Enterprise might still leave it in the path of other ships, so we might want to advise you to disintegrate it instead."
"I'm not stupid, Picard. I could think of disintegrating it instead of teleporting it myself."
"But I don't know what your values are. I am sure you can think of any number of things, but are they the things we in Starfleet would prefer that you do? This won't work if you do whatever you want and then claim you had to. For that matter, I am also going to say that if you propose an intervention with your powers, or we ask you to do something, you need to make any and all possible consequences clear to us before we make a decision. Since we don't have your powers, we can't know as well as you might what impact a particular action could have."
"Oh, for the love of... you want me to write you an impact analysis before I do anything. I might as well still be in the Continuum, submitting reports in triplicate!"
Picard merely looks at him. "You're free to refuse the deal and go anywhere else in the universe you'd like if I give you terms you feel you can't or don't want to meet."
Q sighs, making sure everyone knows how put-upon this makes him feel. "Fine. I will give you the impact analysis. Happy?"
"Does the Continuum actually make you submit reports in triplicate?" Riker asks, in a "you're putting us on" voice. "Seriously?"
"Seriously... they aren't in triplicate. Otherwise, no, I'm not making this up. Any action you want to take, you've gotta research what the possible consequences could be, and report it to the rest of the Continuum. Although I can't see how I could write the same kind of report for you... your tiny little brains couldn't handle it. I mean, I can't very well give you a report with the memory of running a 4,000 year simulation attached to it."
"No, I imagine that the format the Q can accept information in would be very different than the formats we can work with. But you have proven to be a creative entity. I think you can manage," Picard says.
"Yeah, I suppose it's easier. The most you could handle is the equivalent of three lines of the top level summary, so I guess it's a lot less work to tell you what something might do than to tell the Continuum. Although I'll have to do a lot more spelling things out and hand-holding."
"Well, you wanted the role of our guide. You'll simply have to deal with the fact that we're less intelligent than your comrades if you want to show us anything."
"Yeah, I guess I can't complain that humans are utter morons when I'm volunteering my services to help you become just an infinitesimal fraction less moronic in the first place."
"Well, then. My last condition is that you agree to obey all the relevant laws and regulations that govern the conduct of civilian employees of Starfleet aboard starships, so long as you are part of this crew. Any violation of those rules or laws will immediately end this contract."
"Done." Q puts out his hand. "Shake on it?"
"I don't think that's necessary," Picard says.
"I think you're making a mistake, Picard," Guinan says softly. "You really can't trust Q at all."
"I understand your point, Guinan. But anything he could do to me in 3 months of close proximity, he could do to me right now... he doesn't actually need to gain our trust to destroy us. I'm sure you're familiar with the Earth saying, 'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.' If Q does wish to be an enemy... better to keep him close where we have some vague idea what he's up to, rather than off at a distance where he can still do whatever he wants and we have no hope of seeing it coming."
"There are dangers other than death and destruction, though. Some dangers... are more personal."
Q can't be silent about that any more. "Oh, yes, such as the danger that I might actually trust them and end up betrayed? I suppose you'd know nothing about that, would you?"
"Yes, you, the omnipotent immortal, are the one who was betrayed. Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounds?"
"It only sounds ridiculous because you're twisting it around to sound ridiculous."
"Q, Guinan." Picard's voice is sharp. "Unless either of you would like to explain, in detail, exactly what happened between the two of you two hundred years ago, I will ask you to stop sniping at each other. Without knowing what happened between the two of you, I have no way of knowing whose assessment of the situation is more accurate... though I will say, Q, that your description of Guinan doesn't seem to bear any reality to the person I know. In fact your description of Guinan sounds suspiciously like a description of you."
"Oh, you know her so well, Picard. You met her what, thirty years ago? Forty, tops? I've seen a side of her you're never going to see, because she's much better at pulling the wool over mortals' eyes."
"Or, because Captain Picard is a good and decent man, and I won't be forced to protect myself from him the way I had to do with you," Guinan shot back.
"Protect yourself from what? I never did anything to you!"
"That's an interesting definition of 'anything' you've got there."
"I said, both of you, stop sniping at each other!" Picard snapped. "Do either of you actually want to tell me all the details of your dealings with one another?"
Q folds his arms and looks down at the ground angrily. "No," he says sulkily.
"I'm sorry, Picard, but... it's actually not any of your business," Guinan says gently.
"Then stop making it my business. I do not want the two of you fighting with each other in public, making coy allusions to your shared history without ever explaining what you're actually talking about to anyone else. If you must fight, do it in privacy and on your own time. And Q, it should go without saying that if you go out of your way to start fights with Guinan or harass her, our deal is off. That behavior would be out of bounds for a civilian employee."
"Oh, believe me, I'm hardly going to seek her out."
"Very well, then. Counselor Troi, can you make sure Q is assigned some sort of private quarters, so he doesn't go manufacturing his own room?"
"You said I can decorate my quarters whatever way I want, right?"
Picard sighs. "Don't do anything to gravity. It'll throw off our inertial dampeners."
Q grins. "Oh, don't worry. Nothing I'm planning to do to my quarters will affect the rest of the ship at all." He leans forward. "As soon I get through whatever tedious hazing ritual of paperwork you're going to make Troi put me through, I need to talk to you. I've got something specific you need to know about, and the sooner the better."
"Fine. Meet me in my ready room once you're settled in." Picard turns to Riker. "Shall we return to the bridge, Number One?"
"Sure. Let's go, sir." Riker and Picard head for the door.
"It's not really a hazing ritual, Q. I just have to make sure you're assigned a room in the computer, that's all," Troi says.
As Q walks off with Troi, he hears Riker asking Picard, as soon as they're out of human earshot of him, "Sir... what the hell were you thinking?" and grins. This really does promise to be marvelously entertaining.
He starts plotting out how he'll demonstrate the threat of the Borg to them without violating their laws, making Picard angry with him, or tipping off the Borg. Maybe some out-of-phase time travel so they can observe a world being destroyed by the Borg without being able to affect the past... oh. Oh, yes. His grin gets bigger. Use the El-Aurian homeworld. The fact that Picard knows an El-Aurian personally will make the emotional impact stronger, and the case he'll then make to Starfleet stronger, without having to threaten Picard himself. And it'll twist the knife in Guinan's wounds, and she won't be able to do a thing about it, because the only kind of time travel her people would ever approve of is passive observation without the possibility of interference... she'll be there, in position to see her world destroyed again, and be unable even to ask for the power to intercede because it would violate every belief she has. Oh, that'll work beautifully.
Yes, this adventure aboard Picard's ship could well be the most fun he's had in millennia.