Familiar Strangers

Part I

Captain's Log, Stardate 46524.1:

The Enterprise is currently en route to a diplomatic conference on Metraxia. These spacefaring people may be less technologically advanced than the Federation, but their unique resources have greatly piqued interest in a possible trade alliance. Also attending the conference will be representatives of the Klingon and Cardassian Empires and the Ferengi Alliance.

Personal Log, Captain Picard, Stardate 46524.1:

I find myself in an uncomfortable bind regarding the conference on Metraxia. It is vitally important that the Federation open trade relations with them; Metraxia is the only known source for vionen, a chemical extract of their vionara plant, and vionen is the only known cure for the Tellaris plague, the virulent mutagenic weapon developed forty years ago. Since Tellaris is easily transmitted and almost invariably fatal, and since all known humanoid races are susceptible to it, all major factions in this quadrant have been able to agree never to use it in warfare. Now that an antidote has been found, however, that agreement may become obsolete.

In order to succeed at this conference, I must not allow the Metraxans to realize how much their culture disturbs me, but I admit that if it were at all possible to avoid dealing with them, I would gladly take the opportunity. Dealings with a culture that violates sentient rights as blatantly as the Metraxans do damages the Federation's moral position, I believe...and while I'm well aware that political necessities force immoral choices, I very much wish there were another way.

The conference was as bad as Picard had feared it would be.

There were three other species represented at the conference-- the Klingons, the Cardassians and the Ferengi. As usual, the Romulans hadn't deigned to show up, as if to announce that they already had an antidote to the plague, or at least to make everyone think they did. What was more likely was that they'd steal it from whoever got it, but at the moment, that wasn't Picard's problem. He'd let Starfleet Intelligence worry about that possibility.

The Metraxan president, Tonar Ga, was an obnoxious man, tall and grossly fat, who insisted on smoking something far more foul-smelling than, but analogous to, a cigar. With him were his aide, a nervous-looking man named Shenet Pal, and two representatives from the other two Metraxan states, Dommit Fen from a country called Leto and Jorn Kad from the nation of Tal'ka. Apparently Metraxia was not fully unified; these two nations remained semi-autonomous, though seemed willing enough to take direction from the Metraxan global state.

The Metraxans shared a variety of traits Picard found less than pleasant. They all seemed to believe that strength and toughness were important markers of masculinity, a vitally important component of their willingness to treat others as equals. There was a great deal of unnecessary discussion of military strength, conquests the four alien powers had made, and personal ability of the offworld representatives to win at unarmed combat. This might have been difficult enough at any time; the Metraxan culture, at least as expressed in its leadership, seemed to have no points of commonality with Picard. It was far harder now. A mere three months ago, Picard had been a prisoner of war, captive of the Cardassians, and had been tortured and nearly broken. It made it very difficult for him to deal with the Cardassian representatives, and since the Metraxans were encouraging all the representatives to engage in overt one-upmanship, he knew that the slightest sign of weakness on his part would be jumped on, not just by the Cardassians themselves, who knew about his ordeal and seemed to be watching him closely, but by the Ferengi and Klingon representatives as well.

It was utterly exhausting, and he desperately wished he had not had to be here. In fact, originally Starfleet was going to assign another negotiator and another ship-- Picard was one of their best diplomats, but they were compassionate enough to recognize that having him negotiate against Cardassians right now might not be the best of notions. Unfortunately, the first ship assigned to the task had been caught in a spatial anomaly and only extracted itself yesterday, after being classified lost for two months, and the second ship's negotiator had suffered an inexplicable transporter accident merging him with the ship's science officer, leaving the combined entity wholly unable to engage in negotiations while Starfleet attempted to figure out how to separate him into his component people. So it fell to Picard.

Drawing heavily on his first officer, who played overt macho games somewhat better than Picard himself did, Picard made it through the opening rounds of the conference without losing face or alienating his hosts. In fact, he was beginning to feel that he was showing off the Federation's advantages in such a powerful light that even the Metraxans could see them.

Then they brought out the women.

There were a dozen of them. Like all Metraxans, their skins ranged in color from greyish pale to solid white; one had dark hair, the rest had white or blonde. They were of varying builds-- some tall and thin, some short and cuddly-- and, in fact, only had two things in common aside from their species. They were all stunningly beautiful and scantily clad, and they all wore smiles that looked as if they'd been glued on with a protoplaser, no sincere emotion in their blank eyes at all.

Well, except for one. The one with the dark hair was staring directly at him. Her smile was as empty as the others, but her eyes were alive and riveted to him with some unfathomable emotion. Her mouth moved, and Picard almost thought he saw her lips form his name-- but that couldn’t be right. He tore his eyes away from her.

"Take a look at that. Gorgeous, aren't they?" Ga said expansively.

"Is it really appropriate to be bringing these women to our discussion, Mr. President?" Picard asked sharply.

"Oh, I don't know, I think they spice things up," the Ferengi negotiator, DaiMon Nalg, said, leering at them.

"Discussion's over for the night, Picard. It's time for the entertainment," Ga said. He gestured at one of the women. "C'mere, girl." Ga pulled the woman-- really, she wasn't much more than a girl; Picard would have been shocked to learn she was over 24-- onto his lap. "Nice, aren't they?"

"These are professional prostitutes?" the Klingon, Captain Korvas, asked.

"Naah. Traitors, actually. Aren't ya, babe?" He waved his cigar in front of the woman's face. "Tell the fellas what you did."

In a quivering monotone, the young woman said, "I conspired against the rightful government of Metraxia. I was part of a group that sought to overthrow the government by violence."

"You see? Terrorists, every last one of them. Or people who consort with terrorists, and give them aid, which is just as bad." He shoved the woman off his lap and stood up. "Now, you see, we believe in being firm with terrorists out here. I think you'll understand what I mean, Gul Tarket--" nodding to the Cardassian negotiator-- "and also you, Captain Korvas. We don't put up with that kind of crap here on Metraxia. Men who're convicted of terrorism are executed, publicly, as an example. But Metraxia's always had a soft spot for the womenfolk. We don't have the heart to go torturing and killing women. We do need some kind of deterrent for them, though; they're even more dangerous than the men. Stupid and easily led, sure, but let 'em bat those pretty eyelashes at a man and he might just do something stupid. Like let them in to plant bombs."

"So you employ them as whores," Gul Tarket said, his voice suave. "Very ingenious."

"Seems like a great idea to me," DaiMon Nalg said, eyes fixed on one of the women. "Why waste such... talent?"

It would be really, really bad for Starfleet's negotiating position if Picard started throwing up, or storming out of the room, which was actually more likely. He gritted his teeth and worked very, very hard on not voicing his outrage.

"A lot like whores," Ga said, "but there's an important difference you'll appreciate, my friend Nalg. You have to pay whores."

Nalg and his entire entourage giggled like schoolboys. "Oh, that is a distinction I appreciate, Mr. President, believe you me," Nalg said.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Riker whispered sotto voce.

"I may join you," Picard whispered back, aware that with the Ferengi delegates giggling hysterically they were unlikely to be able to hear the Federation men's comments, and none of the other delegates had better-than-human hearing.

Aloud Picard said, "I thank you for the offer, Mr. President, but it's not our custom to indulge in sexual entertainments while on business."

"No, no, I insist. Wet your wicks, enjoy yourselves, friends." He waved at the women, who started walking around the table, sashaying as if they were on display, which they were. Ga's little piggy eyes focused on Picard. "We like to say that the true mark of hospitality is the quality of the girls the host gives his guests."

Or in other words, they would be refusing his hospitality, and therefore insulting him, if Picard didn't take a woman. As Picard searched for a way to explain how very wrong this would be for him in Earth custom, the one who he'd thought had said his name reached him. She leaned down over him, running her hand over his chest in entirely too familiar a fashion. "You seemed to be interested in me," she murmured huskily. "Would you desire me to share your bed this evening? I aim to serve."

Picard caught her hand and removed it from his person. "That won't be necessary," he said firmly.

Rather than being discouraged, she leaned in, as if to lick his ear. He almost flinched away -- but she didn't touch him. Instead, she whispered, "Entre dans mon jeu, Picard, s'il vous plait."

Her accent was perfect. The words were French, in the familiar, for "Play along with me, Picard. Please."

Who was this woman?

President Ga laughed. "You want her, Picard. Admit it! There's no problem, she's yours for the night. Not a bad choice, either -- Yan'net's got quite a body. I've had her a few dozen times myself. She's pretty good." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "She can get a little uppity, though. You might have to slap her around a little if she starts getting above herself. Still, a good leader of men can keep a woman in line, no?"

So now if Picard refused, he was not only refusing Ga's hospitality, but making it look as if he was afraid of being able to keep control of the woman. And he was dying to know how she knew French. The fact that she knew his name was strange, but not impossible -- perhaps the women were coached on the names of the delegates ahead of time. But the fact that she both knew French and knew to use it with him...Even the most cosmopolitan of races rarely bothered to learn Earth's national languages, kept around more for tradition's sake than anything else. And many Frenchmen nowadays didn't know French -- Picard did, out of his father's obsession with tradition, but hadn't used it on a regular basis since he was 18, not even with his family. An experienced student of Earth, one who had actually bothered to learn French, might have figured out that the name "Jean-Luc Picard" was French, but such a student would also have to know that that didn't necessarily mean Picard spoke the language. The fact that she had known that he would understand it seemed to imply that she knew him personally -- and besides, when would a native of this backward planet have had a chance to study Earth in such detail?

"Very well," Picard conceded. "It's against our custom, but I'll take her to my quarters tonight, since you insist." Ga had already made it clear that it would be an insult to his hospitality if the delegations returned to their own ships for the night, rather than staying in the sumptuous suites Ga had provided for them. And Picard wasn't thrilled with that, either, but there wasn't much that could be done.

As the formalities of leave-taking for the night were said, and the delegates left for their suites, Riker murmured to Picard, "What was that all about?"

"I have reason to believe she's not what she seems, Number One. She asked me to play along with her -- in French. And she used my name." As Riker digested this, Picard continued. "I'm positive I've never met her before, but I'm intensely curious as to where she learned French and how she knew I speak it -- as well as what she wanted me to play along with her for. I'm not sure what I've stumbled into here, but I intend to investigate."

The suites for the Enterprise crew were in a private wing and adjoining, connected through a series of doors, but unless there was an emergency Picard had suggested they all use the hallway if they wanted to go to someone else's room. Picard's suite was the most lavish; it was also best protected, with Worf and two of his security people standing guard in front of it. After Worf did a security sweep to find and deactivate any bugs-- he found two, which was about what Picard had expected-- Picard instructed Worf to let the woman in once she arrived. He explained briefly what he'd already told Riker -- not that Worf would have questioned, but Picard felt the need to make it clear that he was not simply taking advantage of the local women -- and began to make preparations to retire for the night.

The door opened, and the woman -- what was her name? Yan'net, Ga had said -- came in. Like most Metraxans, she was extremely humanoid -- Metraxans were visually identical to human, except that their skin pigmentation ranged from gray to white, not brown to pink, giving all of them shockingly pale skin. Unlike most Metraxans, Yan'net's hair was dark like a human's, soft chocolate brown curls that fell to her waist, and her eyes were also unusually dark for a Metraxan, deep brown and intense. She was slim and tall, her head about level with his, with a soft, heart-shaped face and perfectly shaped legs, long in proportion to the rest of her body. What little clothing she wore seemed designed to accentuate her femininity as much as possible: a black, lacy, strapless push-up bra with a silk tie in-between her breasts, a pair of lacy black panties fastened by silk ribbons at the sides, and a black ribbon of some sort around her ankle to accentuate her legs. She came into the room with the slinky walk of a professional prostitute. "Hello, Jean-Luc. Thank you for choosing me; I promise you I can make this night memorable." Her voice was low and pleasant; it seemed firm on the surface, but there was the faint edge of a quaver in it.

"I'm more interested in knowing how you know my name, and why you speak French."

"Have you taken any precautions for your security?" she asked.

Since she had just walked past them, he had to assume she meant something else, and it was fairly obvious what that might be. "If you mean, have I had the listening devices deactivated, the answer is yes. You're safe to speak freely here."

The sexy pose disappeared, just like that. She seemed to fall in on herself, seeming to become smaller, in the space of a single exhalation. "First I have to ask you. You people are here for the vionara extract, aren't you?"

"That's right," Picard said cautiously. It was hardly classified information.

She drew in a deep, almost sobbing breath, and let it out. "Thank you," she whispered, looking up. "Thank you, thank you, are you going to let something go right with my life for once?" Belatedly Picard realized that she wasn't talking to him -- praying, perhaps. She looked back at him, her eyes suspiciously bright. "I know another source for the vionara, Picard. It must be galling your oh-so-moral soul to have to deal with the Metraxans. I know another place you can get it."

"You do?" Picard's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

"Here they call me Yan'net."

"And do they call you something else, elsewhere?"

She sighed. "I've had more names than you could possibly imagine...Yan'net will do."

"How did you know my name?"

Yan'net stared at the floor. "I...I'll tell you later, all right? I...can't tell you...now. Not now." She looked up. "Please, believe me. I do know of another source for the vionara plant. I can direct you to it -- if you get me out of here. Please."

Suddenly the firmness seemed like bravado, and Picard realized she was terrified. He felt slightly ashamed, for pressing her on the topic of his name when she'd obviously been so ill-used. "How much do you know about the Federation?" he asked.

"A great deal."

"Then you know that our Prime Directive forbids me to interfere in the internal affairs of a culture," he said, hating himself for having to. "If you could get aboard our ship, you could request asylum -- but I can't kidnap you from the prison your lawful government placed you in."

Yan'net shook her head. “Firstly, this isn't a lawful imprisonment-- I haven't been charged with any crime. And secondly, I’m not Metraxan, Picard. It doesn't apply to me."

She certainly looked Metraxan. "Are you human?"

"No. I'm not a member of any Federation race. But I'm not Metraxan, and I don't belong here."

"That...is a different case, then." The Prime Directive didn't apply to one culture's dealings with an unrelated culture. He would have had a completely clear case if she were a Federation citizen; since she wasn't, things were murkier, but he thought he could justify it. "If they haven't charged you with any crime, why are you here?"

"Isn't it obvious why I'm here? Or did you believe President Ga's spiel about how we're all terrorists? Anyone who disagrees with the regime, anyone who engages in the slightest act of dissidence, or anyone who's unlucky enough to be related to a dissident, ends up a political prisoner. If they're men, they die. If they're women, and they're ugly, they die. If they're women, and they're pretty, they end up wishing they'd died. I... can't go into the details of what I did, not now, maybe later, but I can tell you it wasn't violent, it didn't involve blowing anything up, and no one got killed. You probably wouldn't have approved of it, well, not all of it, but you wouldn't have considered me an evil mustache-twirling terrorist, either."

She seemed desperate to justify herself, to make him think she didn't deserve this punishment. It was irrelevant; she could have murdered millions and still not deserved this punishment. No one could possibly deserve being forced into prostitution and slavery. "How did a non-Metraxan come to be in such a situation, then? And if I may ask, what are you, then?"

"I'll tell you that later, too. And how I know about the vionara source. I just -- I know you can't promise anything, you have to work out with your crew how to do it without breaking any of your laws. I know you won't break your laws for me." There was a slight bitter edge to her voice as she said that. "But please, Picard, I -- if you only knew how I've been degraded, how I've been tortured and humiliated here, I can't bear it anymore..." She choked off, fighting for control, apparently on the edge of tears.

Picard felt suddenly, absurdly protective of this woman. She was obviously intelligent and incredibly strong-willed, to have survived whatever it was that had broken dissidents into mindless sex slaves with this much of an independent will intact. It was also obvious that she was near her breaking point. He wanted to gather her in his arms and comfort her, but feared she might misinterpret the gesture -- someone who had been forced to be a sex slave might find little comfort in a man's embrace, even one intended non-sexually. "I'm sorry," he said. "I promise I'll do everything I can to get you out of here. You're quite right -- a different source for vionen is an enticing thought. What kind of world is this other source? Is it inhabited?"

"It's inhabited by a colony of women from this world. I -- I helped them escape. They won't want to deal with men, but if you let Troi do all the talking you should be all right. I could help you. They'll remember me kindly."

So it wasn't merely him she knew. "Have we met before, you and I?" Picard asked. "I'm surprised you know Counselor Troi."

"I know a lot of things. We have met, but...you won't recognize me. I can't tell you yet, please. Just...assume I know your crew, and you, reasonably well. Please?"

"All right." His curiosity protested in frustration, but he knew it would be unwise to push her. "When will you be able to tell me?"

"After you do something for me."

"You mean get you out?" He shook his head. "I won't be able to manage that for several days, I'm--"

"Not that," she said impatiently. "I know that'll take time. I -- it's something else." She stared at the floor, taking another deep breath. Picard could see that she had started to tremble. As if gathering her courage, she looked up at him and said firmly, "You have to have sex with me."

Picard frowned. "Surely that isn't necessary--"

"Surely it is. They'll check me, tomorrow. If they don't find evidence that we've had sex, they'll torture me." Her hand went involuntarily to the side of her neck. Picard guessed she had some sort of implant for direct neural stimulation of the pain centers -- once a species developed neural torture, it rarely resorted to the cruder, more damaging methods of physical violence. So the fact that she appeared unscarred meant nothing. The torture would have left no physical damage, only marks on her soul.

"Torture you? Suppose I didn't want you?"

"Then that would be my fault. And they'd torture me."

"I see..." Picard had thought he would let Yan'net spend the night, so she could at last have a night to herself, unmolested. It was not that he was incapable -- alien cultures could place some very strange demands on visitors, he knew, and she was quite beautiful. But she was also quite terrified. He could clearly see that she didn't want this, and he knew he couldn't respond under those circumstances. Picard was not capable of committing rape. Even if the woman wanted him to do it because some third party would hurt her if he didn't, it would still feel as if he were raping her, and he simply would not be able to manage.

"I know you don't do this sort of thing," Yan'net said, her voice slightly ragged with desperation and fear. "It's not your style. I know that. But you can't imagine what I'll suffer if you don't...I know my body is beautiful, and I'm told I'm quite skilled..." She was trembling. "It won't be so bad, I can make it good for you, Picard..."

"No." He walked over to her.

"No?" Her face went paler. "Please, Picard... I appeal to your compassion. Please...I beg of you..."

"I didn't mean I wouldn't do it." Picard drew her into an embrace, gently. She was shaking violently now. Picard stroked her back, trying to soothe her, as he guided her over to the bed. It wouldn't have been his first choice, but there was no place else to sit together. He wondered if one day the Metraxans might be willing to benefit from the introduction of Federation couches. "I meant that you are not going to... to perform for me, to 'make it good for me,' as if you were some sort of trained animal.”

They sat down together on the bed, and even as she settled something...changed in Yan'net. Picard watched, puzzled, as her over-bright eyes suddenly went hard and flat even as a small, seductive smile curled her lips.

"I wasn't lying to you, Picard," she said, and her voice had a husky flavor he would have found sensual if it weren't for a certain flatness there as well. "I can make it very good." And then she leaned towards him with determination so different from her earlier show of fear that simple confusion kept him from leaning back before her lips were on his.

The skill in the kiss was exemplary, and proceeded through well-designed steps. Her mouth applied firm yet gentle pressure as she slid her soft, warm body against his. Like an automaton's, her right hand came up and stroked slowly over his head and then down to the back of his neck, pressing him deeper into the kiss. Her other hand went to his shoulder to trail a light touch down his arm. She opened her mouth invitingly and let the tip of her tongue touch his lips.

With a gentle firmness to match her own, Picard leaned away. "Please stop, Yan'net."

Her dark eyes flew open and he could feel the tension she had suppressed snap instantly back into her muscles as she stared at him in concern.

"What -- what's wrong?" she asked.

"You speak of bringing me pleasure, but it could never be pleasurable for me when you feel like this. Look at you, Yan'net. You're obviously very skilled at pretending to feel desire... but you've already shown me that you're convinced this will be unpleasant. Suddenly putting on a pose like this will do nothing to make me think otherwise."

Her eyes widened with fear. "I'm sorry. I wasn't-- I didn't intend to lie to you-- I--"

"It's quite all right," Picard said. "Please, don't be afraid. I'm not offended in the slightest. I understand that you've very likely been trained to behave that way." He took a deep breath. "But what you've asked of me is a very difficult thing for me. I don't think I can manage this if you're putting on an act for me. I must try to make it genuinely pleasurable for you as well, and I can't do that if you're hiding your true feelings behind a facade."

His direct approach succeeded in getting rid of her professional pose, if only for a moment, and her dark eyes flashed with what he suspected was a trace of her genuine self.

"You can't be serious." She wrenched her eyes away, but didn't try to escape his embrace. “Do you seriously think I could enjoy sex? After three years of being raped nearly every night?"

"Yes," he said quietly. "Humanoids are designed to enjoy sex. What you've endured has been a terrible aberration." A horrible thought occurred to him. Her face seemed strangely ageless, the lines of it placed there more by pain than years; but she could be young, he thought. Picard leaned back from her slightly so he could see her face more clearly, lifting his hands from her back and setting them on her shoulders, as she turned her head to face him. Gently he said, "You needn't answer this, if you consider the question too forward...but it will help me know how to proceed with you. Were you a virgin before your captivity here?"

She looked away again, staring into nothingness. "It depends on how you define your terms," she said. "I suppose...if pressed...I must admit...if by that question you mean, 'had I ever had sex with a humanoid male,' I would have to say no."

"You had previously had experience with women, then?"

"I didn't say that," she said sharply. "I'd...fine, then. I'd never had sex with a humanoid at all. Does that qualify as a virgin?"

"I suppose so," Picard said, wondering who or what she had had sex with -- but he wasn't about to pry. "If that's the case, then, you probably have little idea how it's supposed to feel. If both partners are willing, and wish to give one another pleasure, it is one of the most beautiful experiences in life."

"I...I can't see sex that way, Picard. If you're talking about...I just don't think it could ever be that way for me."

"Perhaps not." He began to stroke her hair, trying to relax her with gentle, nonthreatening contact. "But has anyone ever tried to make it pleasant, or even bearable, for you? Has anyone ever tried to be gentle or considerate with you? I don't imagine anyone has, have they?"

"No," she whispered, as if she didn't quite trust her voice. "No...I've been lucky if they just want to use me and be done, without...additional elaborate humiliations." She swallowed, and spoke with a firmer voice. "The moment I saw you, I had some hope I'd get through at least this one night with a minimum of pain. I really didn't want to end up with one of the other delegates." Yan'net shuddered slightly. "Klingons are mindless brutes that love pain, Ferengi are primitive, dirty-minded little trolls, even worse than men here, and Cardassians are bloody-minded butchers who get their jollies from the idea of torturing enemies of the state, even if it's not their state." There was a wealth of rage and dark bitterness in her voice. "Humans have their shortcomings, I'll be the first to admit, but if one has to end up helpless in someone's hands...well, the compassion of modern humans is known throughout the galaxy." She sounded almost as if she were being sarcastic. In her next words, however, the sarcasm was gone, as she looked up into his eyes. "And I know you, Jean-Luc. I know you would never wish to hurt a helpless person...but I don't see how you can avoid it, really. I've learned how to deal with it, how to get through it, but I can't imagine having sex without it hurting. If you're considerate, it probably won't hurt much, and if I don't, I'd be hurt a lot worse tomorrow, so...so I do want you to, but..."

"Why do they check?"

Yan'net sighed. "I've talked men out of having sex with me before. I told one man that I had a virulent disease, and I'd been given to him because President Ga -- who happened to be a political rival, and who's owned me since I came here -- wanted to dispose of him, and that if he didn't want another assassination attempt he should play along and pretend he'd had sex with me." She smiled slightly at that. "I spent the night telling him lies about President Ga instead. That was fun -- until I got caught." The smile vanished.

"I'm surprised you dared it," Picard said. "I doubt I'd have had the courage to try, in your place."

Yan'net shook her head. "Oh, that wasn't courage, Picard. That was stupidity. What you have to understand about me is that defiance is the whole reason I exist. It doesn't matter whether it's the smart thing to do, or whether the consequences when I get caught will be more than I can bear...I do it because I have to, because it's what I am." She looked up at him, some of the defiance she spoke of flaring in her eyes. "They'll never break me completely," she said passionately. "So long as they let me live, I'll defy them every time I think there's a chance I can get away with it."

Then she shifted her gaze to the floor. "But the times when I think I have a chance get fewer and fewer...they whittle me down, and whittle me down, and I wonder sometimes will I even know it when I'm broken? Has it happened already, and I didn't notice?...I used to be so proud, Picard, I could afford to defy anyone and anything...a law unto myself, and now I've fallen to this..."

"I'm sorry."

"It's hardly your fault."

"I'm sorry nonetheless. Whatever act of defiance brought you here, it was not deserving of this." He began to stroke her hair and back again, suddenly certain that she was young. Young, and from a background where this sort of situation would be unthinkable -- either a more civilized race, or a high-status caste. A young woman from a society where acts of defiance almost never brought painful consequences, who'd never learned the moderation that came with age or bitter experiences. He wondered how she'd ended up here, and once again how she knew him. "But I assure you. I can indeed be gentle enough that you won't be hurt. I cannot promise you pleasure, no -- I can do my best to bring it to you, though whether you're capable of accepting pleasure in sex or not is not under my control. But I can promise you that at the very least, it will not hurt you."

"You have no idea how much I want to believe you," she whispered. "But I'm...not a trusting person, Picard. And I'm most suspicious of what I want to believe." She looked up at him. "I trust you -- I believe that you believe it -- but..."

"Will you give me a chance, then?" he murmured. "Don't make up your mind ahead of time that it's going to hurt. Try to relax --relax -- really relax, don't just shove your tension down and pretend it isn't there. You say you trust me, then try to think about who I am. If anything hurts you, let me know immediately so I can help you. I can't read minds, and I want very much not to hurt you."

"I'll try to relax," Yan'net said. She smiled weakly. "At least no one's going to hurt me deliberately tonight."

"No one's going to hurt you at all." He released her. This really wasn't something he'd had formal training on. But he tried to think what he would want in her position, amused at his own hubris. What could he know of how she felt? At least his torture at the hands of the Cardassians hadn't included making him a sexual party favor.

"I'd like you to lie down on your stomach," he said finally, settling on the safest bet. "I'm going to give you a massage."

"Should I take off my clothes?"

"Only if you'd prefer," he said.

She considered. "They made me learn how to give massages. The men who ask for it usually take their clothes off -- though most of the time, it's because they want sex right after."

Picard worked hard to keep from cringing at her glib discussion of her own suffering. "It might be physically more comfortable for you if you were nude -- especially since what you're wearing looks rather constricting." Push-up bras, Picard had been informed by a lover years ago, were generally quite uncomfortable. "But psychologically it may be more comforting for you to keep them on."

"Thank you, Dr. Psyche." She considered another moment, then lay down on her stomach with a nervous laugh. "You know, before I came here I had no sense of body modesty at all. Isn't it funny, how being forced to strip on a regular basis makes one uncomfortable being naked?"

He didn't think it was funny at all. He thought it was tragic, but he wouldn't say so. "Let me know if anything I do hurts you," he said, as he pressed his fingers into her back, just under the neck and on either side of her spine. Again he had to keep from reacting. He knew under her calm posturing she was tense -- knew she had to be tense -- but she was a much better actress than he had guessed. Her muscles and tendons were stretched so tight and hard she seemed made of gnarled wood. Carefully, gently, he began to work at her, watching for any sign that he was hurting her.

She sighed. "Oh, this is incredible -- where did you learn to do this? Surely you were never trained as a masseur."

"It's a common practice at Starfleet Academy for friends and classmates to give one another backrubs. One can build up a great deal of tension under such a harsh curriculum."

"I imagine so...ohh. Oh, yes, right there. Oh." She turned her head to look toward him. "This is the first time in three years that anything's felt good, let alone someone touching me. Oh, this is simply unbelievable. If you ever leave Starfleet, you have a brilliant future as a masseur."

"I'm glad you enjoy it." He lifted his hands and moved them up to her neck, pressing strong single fingers into the flesh around her spine. She moaned as he reached the base of her skull. "Hurts?"

"No, I mean yes, that area hurts. I've had headaches and backaches for so long I barely notice them any more...oh, this is wonderful, you could do this to me all night."

"I'm afraid my fingers would get tired before then," he said, smiling. This had suddenly become quite enjoyable, giving her such obvious pleasure from something so simple, though he was sad to think of what her life was usually like judging by how surprised she seemed. "Does that feel any better?"

"Much...ohh...ohh yess..." He had started working his way down her back again, and was massaging her entire shoulder with a full hand each, pressing thumbs into the muscle on either side of her shoulderblades.

Yan'net moaned in complete abandon as Picard worked his way down her back again, paying special attention this time to the small and the area just above her tailbone. He'd been informed that the rooms were soundproof, and he'd had Worf sweep the room for bugs ahead of time; he was grateful for that now. If this was what she sounded like during a backrub, he'd hate for her to be overheard if he actually did manage to make sex good for her. It struck him as incredible that they would have trained her as a masseuse without ever actually letting her experience a massage herself -- hardly an efficient method of training, and he said so.

"No one ever said these people were efficient, Picard," she sighed. "They told us what the pressure points were and had us practice on paid volunteers. They did the same thing with sex."

"Paid volunteers?"

"Yes. It's pleasant work for them some of the time; but because the training methods leave so much to be desired, I think most of the practice volunteers don't get very much out of it." She tensed slightly, and her voice grew dark. "And then, of course, there's the risk that some trainee will decide that she's had enough, and turn homicidal."

"I take it that happened?"

"Oh, yes. Once. And once only." She shuddered, and he felt the tension in her attempt to return to its previous level.

"Don't think about it," he instructed her. "Don't think about anything but pleasurable things." Surely she had known pleasurable things in her life. He shifted his position on the bed so he could reach her feet.

"What are you--"

"I'm going to massage your feet and legs. Did you think your back was the only part of you that deserved it?" he teased slightly.

"Ah." She sounded resigned rather than pleased, and again he got the sensation of suppressed tension instead of the relaxation she had seemed a moment ago to be genuinely feeling. Picard released her foot.

"Yan'net. Is something wrong?" He leaned forward slightly, trying to see her face. "Would you rather I stopped?"

"I -- it's nothing. Keep on with what you were doing. Please."

"Not until you tell me what's wrong."

She rolled over and sat up and he noted that the way she moved had changed just slightly. She was no longer quite so controlled, and her voice had taken on a note of rusty sincerity. He wondered how long it had been since someone had actually wanted to know how she felt. "It's just-- it's just a reaction. I know you won’t hurt me, but... no one ever touches my back. Sometimes they stroke my legs, though. Or grab them. You touching me there just reminds me of... other, less pleasant occasions.”

“I’m sorry. Would you rather I stopped?”

The professional returned. The same seductive smile. The same husky tone. And beneath the facade, he could see her stiffen ever so slightly, the tiniest of imperfections in her performance. "So you just want to get down to it now, then?, then? Is that what you're asking?"

Picard sighed. "Yan'net, I don't wish to cause you any discomfort. What exactly do they check for? Perhaps there's a way we can fake it."

Yan'net seemed thrown at his reaction, and the sincerity hesitantly returned as she shook her head. "There isn't. They're sophisticated enough to look for DNA traces from skin flakes as well as the presence of semen. For you to penetrate me deeply enough to deposit enough skin flakes and semen -- even if you used your fingers, it would hurt. And they might figure it out anyway." She lay back down on her stomach. "Please, Picard. I -- I'm sure I'll enjoy what you were going to do, once you get started. I just -- I'm a bit nervous."

"Understandably so," he said. "All right. But please, tell me if you're uncomfortable. I'll warn you before I move to a different part of your body."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. She sounded nervous but genuinely curious at the same time.

"I am going to give you a full-body massage. I won't touch your genitals or your breasts at all, and if you'd prefer me not to go near your buttocks or your thighs, let me know. Otherwise I am going to massage every part of your body. Only when you are completely relaxed will we even think about any sexual possibilities."

"That...sounds promising."

Yes, he could definitely hear it that time: she found the idea at least somewhat attractive. "This is entirely for your pleasure," he reassured her as he lifted her foot again and began to rub the balls of it. "If anything I do makes you the slightest bit uncomfortable, let me know."

"I'll be sure to keep it in mind."

"Does this room have a replicator?"

"Not as such. The slot in the wall -- over there -- has a menu attached to it. You can order anything on the menu, and it will be transported to the slot, but they don't manufacture it right in the room the way a replicator does."

"Would massage oils be on the menu?"

"Oh yes. I'll get them for you." She pulled free of him, got up before he could stop her, and went to the stores slot. Picard watched her movements -- they were hurried and nervous, and yet this seemed an improvement on the strictly controlled motions from earlier. As she was feeling more comfortable -- he hoped -- she was behaving more naturally. He even thought he could see haste in her actions that wasn't just nervousness. It was terribly hard to read her, not when she threw off contradictory signals, shifting wildly between the pose of a seductress, the distance of calm and control, and the probable truth of overwhelming fear, but he thought perhaps she wanted him to continue.

Once Picard had the bottle of massage oil-- it smelled rather like coconut-- and Yan'net had stretched herself out with some alacrity, he placed a sparing amount of it on his hands and then began to rub it into her feet and the backs of her legs, using powerful fingers and the palms of his hands on the recalcitrant muscles. He untied the ribbon around her ankle and tossed it on the floor, rubbing

the area where it had been.

Yan'net sighed as he moved up her legs slowly. "You...can do my thighs and backside...if you want. I won't...won't mind...Oh. Oh, this is...this is..."

She had apparently run out of adjectives, he thought. Concentrating so fiercely on her, he noticed that there was something vaguely familiar about Yan'net's theatrical speech patterns-- perhaps he did, indeed, remember her dimly after all.

"This is marvelous, Picard," she finally said. "I can't believe how good that feels."

Of course she couldn't. She'd felt nothing pleasant at all in three years, certainly nothing aimed at her pleasure. Picard began to feel hopeful that he could make it good for her after all -- if she was so starved for pleasant sensation that she reacted like this to a massage, a skilled and considerate lover ought to be able to drive her wild. "Jean-Luc," he said, moving up to her hips. The panties were cut high enough that he could work the oil into her buttocks, or part of them at any rate, without removing the panties or moving his hands under them.

"Pardon?"

"You called me Jean-Luc before. I'd like you to do it again, if you don't mind."

"Oh... Jean-Luc...Yes. I'd almost forgotten, when I first saw you." She sighed

as he went back over her back with the massage oils. "I'm sorry... I've forgotten so much..."

He almost asked her to elaborate, but realized that she would undoubtedly just tense up and tell him that she couldn't answer now. Instead, he put the question of her identity out of his head and put all his effort into what he was doing. As she relaxed further it became easy to tell what she liked. With a lessening in the knots of tension in her body, her moans were not as loud or powerful, but her breathing changed audibly every time he found a spot she liked. That also boded well for later.

When he turned her over, her eyes glittered with surprise and confusion. "What..."

"I told you -- a full body massage. That includes the front of your body as well."

This time she made no sound of resignation, and the half-smile on her lips looked real. She tugged a pillow into place to support her head and watched him as he worked, her dark eyes boring into his body, tracking his every movement. He thought of suggesting to her that she close her eyes and relax... but no, she seemed to be

enjoying what she was doing. And Picard had to admit that the

intense scrutiny was very erotic.

He realized that in a very short time Yan'net was becoming not only a beautiful woman with a forced sexual need, but an actual object of his desire. He felt uncomfortable with that. His own discipline and self-image rebelled at the idea that he would really enjoy making love with Yan'net beyond simply being glad to help her. But he also knew that stomping on his own lust would not help the situation one bit. Circumstances were forcing him to embrace his own more primitive drives, and even as his mental discomfort increased, he could feel himself getting aroused.

Indeed, he had always found a partner's pleasure to be incredibly arousing; even though this contact was deliberately non-sexual, the prospect of sex in the offing made this an erotic scenario, and her loud and overt pleasure in the massage was thoroughly exciting. He was still fully clothed, which was just as well, he thought. The response of his body, clearly displayed, might be something of an impediment to Yan'net's relaxation at this time. He wanted her to feel actual desire before he was naked.

He worked his way slowly up her body, skipping over her groin and working around her breasts, but otherwise being quite thorough. By the time he reached her head, she had closed her eyes. He positioned himself behind her, taking the place of her pillow, and massaged her temples and the back of her head as she leaned back against him, making soft sounds of pleasure.

When he was done, he laid her head down gently. She had gone boneless, sprawled out on the bed in complete relaxation. He was amazed at the difference between this and her seductive posing. Slowly she opened her eyes.

"Is that better?" he asked.

Yan'net's eyes changed from a dreamy glaze to complete, intense focus on his face. "Jean-Luc," she whispered hoarsely. "I think...I think perhaps it wouldn't hurt, now."

"Perhaps not," he agreed, running a gentle hand along the side of her neck. "But I think it can be much more for you than simply not painful." She shivered slightly as he ran his finger over her ear. "Would it disturb you if I tried to make it pleasurable for you?"

"That's a really stupid question," Yan'net informed him bluntly. Picard smiled.

"Excellent." He ran a single finger over her face, stroking the sensitive places around her eyes, her cheeks, lightly brushing across her lips. Her eyes were fixed on his, burning into him, and Picard controlled a shiver of his own. Those eyes, the intensity of their scrutiny, were terribly stimulating. But he wanted to do this slowly, slowly, to draw foreplay out until they were both near-mindless with desire.

He moved down the line of her neck, sliding his body down to lie next to hers. Gently he pushed aside her hair and kissed her neck, moving down and around it until he had reached the hollow of her throat. When he raised his head, Yan'net was still watching him intently.

Picard leaned in to kiss her on the lips. She pressed back and opened her mouth invitingly before her tongue moved out to touch the tip of his own. Her hands had come up and were stroking his sides, and under his own hands he felt her force each muscle to relax.

He broke the kiss and sat up.

"Yan'net. What just happened?"

Now her eyes had gone wide. She looked for all the world like a child caught in a lie, and yet he could see hatred sparkling in those dark orbs, though it wasn't hatred for him. "Nothing. Nothing happened."

"Don't tell me nothing happened. Something I did bothered you.

You don't like to be kissed?"

She spoke reluctantly, overriding her training with obvious effort. "It was all right when it was just on my skin... but when you went inside my mouth, I..."

Picard sighed. "If it bothered you, I would much preferred having you say so."

"Don't be angry, Jean-Luc..."

Damn. He hadn't been angry, but he had almost forgotten how vulnerable she was. "I'm not angry, Yan'net. I'm concerned." He sighed again, feeling battered by his sorrow for her and his painful discomfort with the entire situation. "It would help me, though, to know why you responded to me when you didn't like what I was doing. I'm not a telepath-- I can't keep from hurting you if you don't let me know what you don't want."

She swallowed. "It was... reflex. They used to hit me or...or turn on the box, if I wouldn't kiss them. I learned...I had to learn just how they wanted me to do it. I suppose it's become automatic."

"Turn on the box?"

"I've got a neural implant." Yan'net touched the area of her neck that he'd just been kissing. "Under here somewhere, hooked into my spinal cord. When I’d disobey-- they have a box that controls the implant. They'd just turn it on."

And feed direct neural stimulus to the pain centers of the brain. Picard knew more than he wanted to about such things, and considered for a moment telling her so. But that wouldn't help her. "That's barbaric," he said instead, meaning it more deeply than he let show.

"You're telling me?"

Picard lay back down next to her. "Yan'net, I understand that you have these ingrained responses. If you can't control them, then I'll have to accept that. But I think you must still be able to respond genuinely to me, because you were doing so before. You don't know how horrible the thought of hurting you, even inadvertently, is to me."

"All right." She took a deep breath. "I'll try to warn you instead of just letting it happen."

Now she was tense again. Picard returned to massaging, working on her temples and the back of her neck until he felt her yielding, then went back to his slow, gentle stroking over her body. Occasional kisses on her neck or eyelids punctuated his gradual movements, until he had worked his way down to her breasts. He gave them no more than a light caress, suspecting she wasn't ready for anything more than that. Her intense dark eyes, her slightly ragged breathing, told him she was aroused, but for her to accept explicitly sexual caresses without fear to drive her back into her training, Picard thought, she needed to be actively desirous. And he judged that she wasn't quite there yet. Instead he stroked her sides and belly, kissing the hollow of her throat and moving down from there, caressing the line of her collarbone with his mouth. His hands teased her, stroking nearer and nearer to the groin without ever touching her there, then bypassing it entirely to run light fingers along her legs. By this time he had kissed his way down to the silk tie between her breasts, fastening her bra closed, and her breathing had grown distinctly ragged.

With his mouth, Picard undid the tie, and pushed the cups of the bra out of the way with his tongue. Yan'net moaned softly. He reached one hand up and stroked her arm, running a finger along the sensitive underside, as his other hand stroked its way up her thighs and his tongue drew circles around her nipple.

Her breast was beautiful, icy pale and perfectly shaped, with a tiny, hard pink nipple and curiously colorless aureoles. He explored its surface thoroughly with his tongue, finding all the different textures of her skin there. When he licked at the nipple itself, it was brief, teasing. Her body shifted under his, her back arching slightly, pressing the breast up into his caresses. Picard took that as an invitation and finally fastened his mouth on the nipple, suckling at it, probing it with his tongue. This time her moans were not soft at all; her hands clenched in the bedsheet and she shifted under him again, her body pressing into his. The scent of her was intoxicating, the sounds she made thrilling. His own need had grown, and he was finding his Starfleet uniform increasingly confining.

He released her breast, sitting up to pull off his shirt and boots. Mentally he debated with himself whether or not to remove the pants -- he didn't want to frighten her, but they were becoming uncomfortable. Picard compromised, removing the pants but leaving his undershorts in place for now. Yan'net watched as he undressed, her eyes exploring his naked torso.

He saw a slow smile spread across her face. "You see something that pleases you?" he asked, smiling himself.

"All these Metraxan men with their macho posturing, their notions of strength and dominance -- and you, a compassionate man from a peace-loving government, are so much closer to the ideal masculine humanoid body than any government official here."

"Really." It was to be expected, of course -- groundhogs of any race were rarely as fit as Starfleet officers -- but he found it terribly flattering that she'd bothered to tell him so. "I'm glad you approve."

She reached a hand tentatively up to stroke his chest. "You have pleasant skin," she finally said, letting her arm fall to her side. "It's pleasing to touch."

"You may touch it as much as you like, Yan'net. I certainly don't mind."

"I...I've been taught how to touch men, but I've never liked it very much." She reached out to him again as she said it, running her hand down his chest and along his stomach. "This is so different. I don't know why, but I suddenly want to touch you."

"It's instinct to want to reciprocate pleasure," Picard said, shivering a bit with her touches as he lay down beside her again. He leaned over her body, lying across it, enjoying the feel of her skin against his, and proceeded to explore her other breast as thoroughly as he had the first. She gasped as his mouth fastened on her nipple, suckling, and her hands moved over his back, tracing haphazard designs on the skin there.

In the meantime Picard had begun again his exploration of her legs with his hands. As he kissed her breasts, he renewed his acquaintance with her inner thighs, and finally, lightly, caressed her groin. She gasped again, her fingers tightening into his back, then releasing.

"What -- what was that?"

"What was what?" He lifted his head from her breast.

"That -- that feeling. When you touched me. Your hand -- your hand -- what did you do?"

"This?" He stroked her lightly again.

"Yes, yes! That -- feeling -- that incredible feeling. What's causing that? I've never felt that..."

Her panties were light and scanty enough that he could trace the entire anatomy of her groin area through them. "I'll do it slowly. Tell me when the feeling starts," he said, and ran his hand slowly up from between her buttocks to the pubic mound. As he'd expected, he'd reached her clitoris when she moaned.

"There! It's the whole thing, but it's most intense right there."

He stroked it again through her panties, making her moan again. "You've never been touched there before?" he asked, surprised.

"I try to think about that whole region of my body as little as possible," she said matter-of-factly. "There's a spot down there that really, really hurts when they dig their fingernails into it. Is it the same thing?"

How could she possibly not know what her own clitoris was? Unless she'd grown up in a terribly repressive society, the fact that she'd been a virgin didn't explain her ignorance -- Picard has always been led to believe that every woman had discovered her own clitoris by the time she was 17, at least. And Yan'net might be young, but she was assuredly older than that. "Yes, almost certainly. The most sensitive places on your body are both the most attuned to pleasure and the easiest to hurt. This--" he stroked it again -- "is your clitoris."

"Oh yes. Of course. It would have to be." She sighed. "That feels inexpressibly delightful."

Picard smiled to himself. "If you like that, then I have quite a treat for you." He returned to his explorations, kissing his way down her belly until he reached the line of her panties, then kissing her all across the panty line until he reached the silk tie at one of her hips. With his mouth he undid the tie, pushed the panty front out of the way and licked at the junction of thigh and pelvis. Someone kept her depilated -- her pubic hair was a short, soft, confined triangle directly above her genitals, with no spillover out of the panties. She seemed to have some idea of what he was about to do, or at least knew she wanted it -- her breathing was ragged, her scent had changed, and her legs seemed to spread themselves by instinct, without her conscious volition. Picard kissed his way over to the other tie, and repeated his ministrations. Then, when both ties were undone, he caught the bottom of the panties in his teeth and tugged them off her, as his hands stroked her belly and breasts.

At last his mouth reached the hot, taut flesh of her clitoris. Yan'net cried out as he licked and suckled at her. Her hands reached to his head, but couldn't seem to get a grip -- it was one of the things he liked about his lack of hair, women couldn't pull it when he went down on them anymore. As his left hand slid down her side, she caught it with her right, clenching it rhythmically as she moved her hips.

He explored her entire vaginal area with his mouth, tasting and scenting her. She was moist but not grossly drenched, her taste light and womanly, enticing without being overpowering. Gently he probed between her labia with his tongue, into the vagina. Her muscles felt relaxed and accepting, and his desire became suddenly overwhelming.

With one hand, Picard worked his briefs off, trying not to disrupt the rhythm of what he was doing. This was difficult and frustrating, but better that he be frustrated than Yan'net. He resumed suckling at her clitoris, flicking his tongue at the tip as she panted and clenched at his hand, almost tightly enough to hurt. At last he got the briefs all the way off him. Picard released Yan'net, extricated his hand, and knelt between her legs, positioning himself at the entrance to her body.

As he began to penetrate her, her eyes snapped open and her whole body tensed, her expression turning to one of fear.

Oh hell.

Picard withdrew-- he hadn't far to go, since he'd been going in slowly-- and sat back on his feet, trying to ignore the protests from his frustrated groin. “Yan’net? Are you all right?”

Her eyes now brightened with tears. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding miserably embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Jean-Luc. I can control it-- usually I can make them think I want it-- but you didn't want that, and I couldn't-- I'm sorry. Just don't worry about me. I'll get it under control."

"Of course I'll worry about you. I don't want you to pretend with me-- you did absolutely the right thing by letting me see how you really felt. You let me know we were going too quickly for you. That's very important for me to know."

"I'm sorry," she whispered miserably.

"It's not your fault! It's not your fault at all, it's mine. I took things too quickly." God, more than anything, even more urgently than the need to ease his painful erection, he wished he could just stop this. But she was pleading with him now all along her silently eloquent body. Smiling for her slightly, he lightly stroked the inside of her thigh. The intensity of her gaze returned as she tensed slightly, the good tension of desire once again.

"I won't penetrate you now," his deep voice assured her. "Would you like me to go back to what I was doing before?"

Yan'net licked her dry lips and murmured, "Well, yes, but perhaps you should just get inside me then do what you were doing?" Her eyes fell on his groin with a concern of her own. "That must be painful for you."

"Not nearly as painful as being taken unready would be for you. Don't worry about me, Yan'net. Tonight is for you." He shook his head. "Besides, when it finally comes time for that, I have no intention of 'getting it over with.' I want it to feel wonderful for the both of us."

She opened and closed her mouth without comment, except to move slightly with the continued caressed of his hands.

He stretched himself out and lay between her legs again, exploring belly and thighs with his tongue, teasing her a bit before he reached the center of her pleasure again. In short order, as she continued to move with his touches, she was moaning again. Picard decided to bring her to orgasm this way. After that, it would be easy to get her to remain aroused as he moved into her.

And there was something else he could try. As her moans grew in volume, he stroked her thighs with his hand, then explored her labia and the area between them with a single finger, gently. Slowly he circled around the entrance to her vagina, and slowly, carefully, penetrated her, making her gasp. Her body tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, in a natural rhythmic pattern that spoke of true pleasure. With controlled, gradual motions Picard probed deeper, then withdrew, then pushed his finger into her again, repeating the sensation of penetration over and over to get her used to it. Yan'net began to gasp in total abandon, writhing, her hips pressing her pelvis upward, into his mouth and probing finger. As his finger explored her deeper and deeper, his mouth suckled ferociously, tonguing her clitoris hard, until finally she cried out and her body jerked violently, her entire groin pulsing with orgasmic waves. Picard thrust his finger into her hard as she came, a few brief plunges, and withdrew as the spasms shuddered to an end.

She stroked the top of his head. Picard sat up, leaving his arm out by the side of her so she could stroke it instead. "That seemed pleasant," he said.

"Pleasant?" Her eyes opened wide. "Your gift for understatement has grown over the years, Jean-Luc. That was...astonishing." A smile spread across her face, as if of its own volition. "Is it always supposed to be like that?"

"It's supposed to be even better," he told her, and watched her eyes grow intent with interest.

"That sounds distinctly promising." She reached out and ran a hand down the side of his hips. "Well. Shall we take care of you now?"

"Not until I'm quite done taking care of you," he murmured, leaning across her body to kiss her neck. "Feel up to a second round?"

"I could do that again?" she asked, astounded, and then shook her head. "Foolish of me. Of course I could. If men can, so can I, right?"

"Assuredly." He licked at her earlobe. She shivered.

"Are you going to try -- to--"

"Only if you're willing," he said.

"Is it--" She hesitated. "When you used your finger -- inside me -- that didn't hurt at all. It felt quite wonderful, actually. You know more than I do about humanoid sexuality -- is it the size of a male penis that hurts me? Or is it just that they're practically battering me with it? I'm trying to figure out if it would hurt if I did it with you..."

He kissed her lightly on the lips, without any attempt to go between them, partly to shut her up. "Don't think so much about it," he murmured. "Sex isn't something to be calculated in advance." He began kissing her neck, moving down.

"Ohhh....but I have to know, I...yess, right there...ohhh...I'm not going to be able to...mmm...to relax and enjoy it if I think it'll...oh, yes...hurt. Mmmm...."

By now he had kissed his way down to her breasts again, and his need had become positively painful. Her moans of pleasure were not helping him any in that regard; it was difficult to maintain control; he seemed to have had this erection forever. "If you are relaxed and enjoying yourself, it won't hurt," he said. "It's the fact that you are tense and unready that hurts you; that, and probably they are unnecessarily brutal. But women are capable of enjoying even rough, violent sex if they're sufficiently aroused." His hand caressed her groin, as if to emphasize his point; she groaned, and shifted her hips as he slipped a finger inside her. "Now I have no intention of being rough with you," he said hoarsely. "And I'm going to wait until you're sufficiently aroused again before entering you at all." He lay next to her on her right, on his side, partially supported by his elbow. With the supporting arm's hand, he cupped her breast and gently squeezed it; the other hand played with her groin, stroking the inside of her, then slipping out to caress her clitoris with her own moisture. She was very well lubricated by now; his fingers slid over the textures of her inner labia effortlessly. "If you don't enjoy it, I'll stop, but I'm positive you will enjoy it."

"Yes...yes, I...oh...oh, there, please..."

"Let me know when you think you're ready," he said, and knew he'd truly reached her when she didn't automatically tell him to proceed.

"Oh, I...ohhh...I don't know...if you get on top of me you won't be able to do that with your finger anymore, will you?" He had two fingers on her clitoris, and was rubbing in a gentle, liquid, circular motion.

"Well, then. I won't get on top of you." He felt uncomfortable with his own urgency, but he really could not wait any longer. He curled his body around Yan'net's, putting one arm under her neck and sliding his legs under hers, at a diagonal angle. His erection pressed against her legs; its first contact with her skin since the aborted attempt earlier sent electric thrills through it and up Picard's spine. His bottom leg, the left one, slid all the way under both her legs, lifting her up slightly. For a moment, he took his hand from her groin, stroked her right leg, and then lifted it over his right. Yan'net, evidently used to a variety of positions but not one designed to her actual needs, took a moment to get the idea, then snuggled her pelvis in closer to him.

Now Yan'net was lying on her back, and Picard on his side next to her, but with their legs intertwined and their lower bodies touching. His penis pressed against the silken entrance to her body, demanding to be let in. Picard adjusted his hips slightly, finding the entrance and slowly pushing in, as his free hand continued to rub her clitoris.

Yan'net moaned. "Are you all right?" Picard whispered hoarsely, praying that she was. He would stop if she needed him to, but damn it would be frustrating.

"I'm fine...better than fine...oh...oh, Jean-Luc, that feels so....unbelievable..."

This position was not the best one for him -- there wasn't enough contact between their bodies, and he couldn't get in deeply enough, but that was good. Right now, after so much frustration, his own pleasure was his enemy. He had to bring her to climax before he could allow it for himself. So he moved within her, slowly at first. Enter, push forward a bit, then retreat. Enter again, push further next time.

His own controlled, measured thrusts were driving him insane with pleasure and need; he wanted to push all the way in, to take her passionately, but Picard was nothing if not disciplined. And discipline brought pleasure. The longer he prolonged this, the more maddened with pleasure he became before he lost control, the sweeter the final release would be. He didn't regret this particular kind of discipline; he would do this for any of his lovers.

Yan'net reached down and grasped his right leg, the one pinned between hers, and pulled it closer to her body as she moved against him, taking him in more deeply. Picard gasped hoarsely. He was going to lose control. He was going to lose it, before she'd had her pleasure, like an ignorant schoolboy -- No! He concentrated on something else. Concentrate on the mechanics of what he was doing. On Ferengi. On very old, very ugly admirals. Anything but the unbearable pleasure he was feeling as Yan'net's body thrust against his, and her warmth encircled him, and her sweet small body lay against him and she moaned in abandon as his hand fondled her groin and his body thrust into hers...And then she was crying out, her back arched, thrusting against him wildly, and a warm wave washed over him as he knew he could allow himself release. He folded himself over her as much as his position allowed, holding her tightly, wrapping his arms around her small frame, and thrust hard, gasping, crying out as her vagina spasmed around him and triggered his own climax. Yan'net's arms had gone around him, pulling him tightly against her, embracing him completely. She surrounded and enveloped him and there was nothing but the sweet hot fire of release.

They both sank down onto the bed, Picard lying entangled with her. He withdrew himself just enough to be sure that he wasn't crushing her, and stroked her body lightly. Yan'net lay panting for a while, overwhelmed by what she'd just experienced. After a while, she glanced over at him, a wry smile on her face.

"My professor of humanities," she murmured softly. "You were right. Does it ever get annoying to be right so much of the time?"

"Not in this case," Picard replied, smiling almost smugly, and she laughed.

"No, I suppose not...I remember I used to be right all the time. I seem to recall it being fun, actually." She sighed but seemed to fight off her threatened melancholy. "Well. That was rather incredible."

"I found it rather enjoyable myself," Picard said, smiling. "Well. Would you like to get some sleep?"

"Not a chance, Picard," Yan'net said. She levered herself up on an elbow and tipped over on top of him, knocking him back against the bed, dark eyes intent on his. "Tomorrow and every day and night until you can get me out of here I go back to being a toy for whoever comes along. I'm not going to give up a man who makes sex that wonderful for me until morning comes or one of us keels over from exhaustion, whichever comes first."

Picard laughed. "An admirable intention," he said. "I felt that way myself, when I first discovered the pleasures of lovemaking. But I'm not as young as I was, Yan'net, and that was quite thoroughly satisfying. I doubt I have it in me for another round."

"Are you admitting you're old, Picard?" she taunted. "Can't keep up with the younger generation? I assure you, I'm older than you, and I feel fine."

"Older than me?" he asked skeptically. "Don't tell me -- you'll explain that later as well. Or is later now?"

"No, later is later," she said. "This is now."

She kissed him, deeply and aggressively, surprising him. He'd thought she didn't like that. Perhaps she liked it fine from a man she actually wanted, or perhaps it was better for her when she was the initiator. Or both. Whichever, he was hardly complaining; as aggressive as the kiss was, it had none of the trained performance quality of her earlier embrace. Her lips were sweet as well as skilled now, and the fervent way she pressed herself against him convinced him that perhaps he was not, after all, as old as he thought he was.

He slid his hands down her side, running them over her body and around to her back. She reached back and caught his wrists, lifting them off her and pinning them to the bed. Yan'net was hardly strong enough to pin Picard's hands against his will, but he let her do as she wished, wondering what she had planned. She kissed him again, still holding his wrists.

"This is for you," she murmured in his ear, licking at the lobe gently. "I don't want you to do anything but lie there and let me please you."

"Why?" he asked. "Yan'net, you don't have to--"

"I want to," she said, pressing a finger against his mouth to shush him. "Do you understand, Jean-Luc? I want to. I have been forced to learn how to give pleasure to men I truly despise, I've been used against my will a thousand times by creatures who are not worth a single hair follicle on my body -- this time I want to give pleasure. Do you see?"

He saw that it would give her a sense of power to be the one who chose this, and acquiesced, nodding. "Do as you wish," he murmured, somewhat unnerved by the situation -- Picard much preferred being the one in control -- but willing to go along if it made her feel better. And also because, truth be known, he found the concept rather exciting.

She propped herself up on her elbows. "Reach back, Jean-Luc," she said. "I want you to hold onto the bars of the headboard."

Picard raised his eyebrows at that, but did as she asked. "Now keep them there," she said firmly, and proceeded to bury her face in the side of his neck, sucking on him in delightfully aggressive kisses, while her hands stroked his hips and wandered around to the inside of his thighs. He gasped in pleasure, feeling his erection stir back to life without any hesitation whatsoever. Definitely not as old as I thought, he smiled to himself.

Yan'net paid no attention to his reawakened groin, however; instead, she began slowly kissing her way down his body, as he had done for her. Picard could not hold back a moan. Part of the reason he did that to women was that he liked it very much when done to himself. Yan'net seemed to instinctively know -- or perhaps she had merely followed his lead, doing to him what he had done to her -- that he enjoyed drawing out foreplay, having every part of his body throb with pleasure and hunger before allowing himself to quench the need. She teased him, tracing circles on the inside of his thigh, allowing a knuckle to lightly brush against his erect penis, then up across his lower abdomen and down to his other thigh. As the heat roared through his body, her cool torso lay along his side, her leg crossed over both of his at a level lower than his groin, so she had access to him without touching his erection. When her mouth reached his nipple and began sucking at it, it became a terrible effort to hold onto the headboard. He cried out helplessly, thrashing with pleasure, desperately needing to be inside her. "Now, please, now, Yan'net..."

She lifted her head, smiling triumphantly. "Don't beg, Picard," she told him. "It doesn't become you." Quite ruthlessly she fastened her mouth on the other nipple, tormenting him with a near-unbearable pleasure, as her fingers lightly caressed his balls. His hips jerked, thrusting into sterile air. He needed her, her skin, her warmth. For a moment he almost released the headboard and pulled her onto himself -- but no, he would maintain discipline, he would restrain himself against the ecstasy and let it continue to build. There was a certain freedom in this. The fact that he was not touching her, that he was restrained by her request, left him free to concentrate only on his own sensations. And while normally he would never allow himself to do that while making love, it was obviously what she wanted, and the fact that she was not touching his groin meant that even as the pleasure built and built he was in no danger of coming too quickly.

As she reached his stomach she shifted position, so she was lying on top of him, licking circles around his navel. Quite suddenly her skin was in contact with his penis, warm weight pressing it down against his groin and abdomen as her soft breasts pressed into his thighs. Picard moaned, thrusting. Yan'net grasped his hips and pushed down, holding him still.

He knew where she was going. The sensations he was actually feeling were incredible; the anticipation of what he would feel when she reached the endpoint of her descent was overpowering. Picard arched his back and clung to the headboard, squeezing the bars in a rhythmic pattern. Wonderful, terrible frustration built, and he could not entirely restrain a plea. "Yan'net, please..."

She gave a final lick to the soft abdomen just above his groin and lifted her head. "Oh, Jean-Luc, you disappoint me," she said hoarsely. "So controlled. So disciplined. I thought you hated to beg."

What game was she playing? "Yan'net!" he cried out. "Please, I need..."

Her face softened. "Anything for you, mon cher," she whispered -- and devoured him.

Picard screamed in ecstasy as the warm mouth enveloped him, sucking, and began licking him fiercely. She held down his hips so his thrusts wouldn't choke her, and drew him almost all the way into her mouth, moving her head back and forth as she took total possession of him. Her captors had trained her well. It was quite probably the best head he'd ever had. He fought to keep from coming. "Yan'net," he panted. "Yan'net, I don't -- ever -- want you to stop -- but if you don't -- I'm not going to be -- good for much else -- very much longer. If -- you want me -- inside you -- you'd better take me now..."

She didn't stop. He had to assume that meant she wanted to make him come this way. Once he realized that, a burden was lifted from him. He didn't need to worry about being ready for her again, only about the sensations she obviously wanted him to feel. A surging warmth enveloped him, radiating outward from his groin to his entire body, and he knew he was about to be released.

Yan'net pressed a finger against him, a spot between his scrotum and his anus, hard. Orgasm surged through him, making him writhe and cry out, and yet the burning release of ejaculation was absent. He had come, but he was still hard. No fluids had left his body.

Yan'net released him and sat up with a triumphant smile. Picard stared at her. "What did you do?" he asked. "I -- I felt as if I had come, but obviously I haven't."

"No, you have," she told him. "You just didn't ejaculate. It's an intriguing little trick, don't you think? The Tantric practitioners of your own India developed that, so it's hardly alien to your people -- though I must confess I learned the practical applications of it here." Her eyes turned sultry, and she leaned forward, lightly stroking his still-hard penis. "Want some more?"

Picard let go of the headboard abruptly and sat up, catching Yan'net in his arms. He kissed her neck fiercely, the way she'd kissed him, making her moan. "That was wonderful," he murmured in her ear. "But I think this time will be for both of us."

"No argument..." Her fingers traced his ear, her hand feverishly stroked along his side, as he buried his mouth in her breast and she moaned. No more long, languid foreplay -- he wanted her hard and now, and as best he could tell she wanted the same without reservations. His fingers explored her groin as she pulled the fingers of his other hand to her mouth and sucked on his middle finger, imitating what she'd done to his penis a few minutes ago. Overcome by sensation, he pulled her to him, trying to fit inside her as they both sat up. She pushed him back against the bed and lowered herself onto him, and he embraced her fiercely, pulling her down against him and kissing the top of her forehead. She was so wet, so hot inside, her muscles tightening around him, embracing and enveloping him. Pleasure ran like liquid fire from the junction of their bodies into his veins.

"I wanted you," she whispered, gasping. "Even before, I wanted you. I didn't know what it was I wanted but I know now. Even then--" She broke off with a cry of pleasure, and began gasping, riding him harder, grinding her body against his. One of Picard's hands was entirely occupied with embracing her; the other he turned at an awkward angle and slid it between their tightly-pressed bodies, reaching downward. Dear God but she was wonderful. His fingers reached the junction of their bodies and began to press against her clitoris, fondling, the grinding of her hips forcing his fingers against her and she screamed, her body bucking and jerking in his embrace as her muscles tightened around him in climax, tipping him over the edge. The liquid fire burst forth, racing through his veins and out his body. Every muscle strained as he pulled her against him so tightly his hand was crushed by her pelvic bone and thrust hard, deep, mindless with shattering pleasure and overwhelming release.

Spent, he fell back against the bed, exhausted, feeling her slight warm weight resting on his body. He was still mostly inside her, and the aftershocks of her orgasm were sending little thrills through him every time her internal muscles spasmed. For a few minutes the two of them just lay there, enjoying the afterglow.

Eventually, wordlessly, Yan'net slid off him, got up and disappeared into the bathroom. Picard smiled ironically. So much for romance. He had rather thought they would drift off to sleep in each other's arms, or something like that. He curled onto his side, evading the wet spot, and considered letting himself fall asleep. He had a busy day tomorrow, and that had been rather exhausting.

Yan'net came back out of the bathroom, went over to the slot in the wall, and ordered a set of sheets. This woke Picard up a bit. He raised his head on his hand. "Sheets? What for?"

"I'm going to change the bed," she said, her voice starting firm but growing more uncertain with each word. "You'll let me change the sheets...won't you?"

Picard sighed and put on a smile. "Of course, Yan'net. Change the sheets if you like." He pulled himself out of bed by force of will and headed for the bathroom. Since

he had to get up anyway...

When he returned, Yan'net had gotten the bottom sheet changed, but hadn't put on any of the blankets yet. "Do you need help with that?"

She looked at him, startled. "When have you made beds? I always got the impression beds in Starfleet made themselves."

"I've made my share of beds." He picked up a blanket and tossed it on. "Father was always something of a traditionalist."

"Explains that Old World charm of yours," she said, and he was surprised by the ease of her playful teasing.

He also found something amazing about her desire to change the sheets -- a self-centeredness he would never have expected from a person who had been so long in her situation. It spoke volumes about her trust in him, that she was willing to ask for something to improve her comfort. He was less surprised at his pleasure in being able to improve her comfort. He wished he could do more, but at least she seemed to have enjoyed herself, and would be safe from punishment for a time.

They finished the bed, and Picard got in, shivering slightly at the coolness of the sheets on his sweaty body. He had washed himself off a bit, but the contrast was still a little unpleasant. When Yan'net climbed in, he tentatively placed an arm behind her neck. "Would you rather I held you, or left you alone?" he asked gently.

Yan'net stared at the ceiling for several seconds. Finally she said, softly, "If you wanted to hold me, I wouldn't mind."

An annoyingly ambiguous statement -- she might mean she wanted him to hold her and didn't want to admit it openly. Or she might mean she didn't want him to, and she was being polite. He thought about it, and decided it was the former. She hadn't pulled away from his touch, and he had the definite feeling that Yan'net didn't like admitting to any more emotional needs than she had to. He was certain if he'd allowed her to she would have played no other role tonight than the professional prostitute, secretly feeling nothing but pain and humiliation.

Picard slid himself closer to her, and was pleased to feel her press against him spoon-fashion, holding his arm against her belly with both of hers curled around it.

It had been too long since he'd done this -- had a woman's warm body snuggled up next to him, relaxed and sleepy. He had been under more tension lately than he knew. The circumstances could have been a hell of a lot better, but he found he could not regret personally what had happened. He hoped she felt the same.

As he drifted toward sleep, he heard her voice -- "Jean-Luc?"

"Yes?" he murmured.

Hesitation, then, "Nothing."

He was too tired to try to pry it out of her. "Good night, Yan'net."

"Good night," she whispered back. "And -- thank you."

Shortly afterward he was asleep.

From a great distance, he grew aware of a woman's voice, weeping. Slowly the sound brought him to consciousness. He became aware that it was coming from next to him and remembered with a shock where he was.

Yan'net was lying face down, head pressed into the pillow. Her sobs were quiet, barely audible in fact, and Picard realized it had been more the trembling of her body that had awakened him than the actual noise. Gently, wordlessly, he reached out to stroke her back and offer comfort.

She jerked, her head whipping sideways to peer at him over the curve of the pillow. In the dim artificial moonlight streaming through the artificial window, the tears on her face looked like one or two tiny bright spots, reflecting the light, instead of the smeary tracks they probably were. "You're awake?" she asked in a low voice, with only the faintest hint in it that she'd been crying.

"Are you all right?"

"I woke you up, didn't I." Her eyes closed, and she turned away. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I try to be considerate, but it just doesn't seem possible for me...I'm incredibly selfish."

Picard raised his head, startled. "Selfish? I hardly think so. You have every right to cry."

"You need your sleep," she murmured.

"That's true, but you hardly intended to wake me. I'm a light sleeper. You can't help that." He stroked her back again, gently. "You're hardly a monster of selfishness, Yan'net."

She turned her head toward him again. "Can I hold you to that?"

The idea that a woman who had been enslaved and tortured believed herself to be monstrously selfish because she allowed herself to weep was deeply disturbing. Yan'net had not managed to hold onto all of her self-esteem, it would seem. "Why were you crying?" he asked.

She shrugged. "No reason. The usual reasons. I'm not used to being treated kindly." Yan'net put her face back in the pillow. "It's all right, Jean-Luc. Go to sleep."

He kept stroking her back. After a few moments she began to tremble again; and a few minutes after that, stopped, relaxing at last. When her breathing changed and indicated that she was asleep, Picard allowed himself to drift off again, downward toward disturbing dreams.

He was in a courtroom. Beautiful, vapid-eyed women dressed in rags howled at him, chanting, shrieking for his demise.

"SILENCE!" the judge shouted. Picard recognized the voice.

"Q." He turned to face the entity, who was wearing the judge's robes from their first encounter. "I thought the Calamarain had killed you."

"I won't even dignify that with a reply," Q sneered. "Do you plead guilty?"

"Guilty to what? I don't even know the charge," Picard protested. "You can't make me plead guilty if I don't know what I'm guilty of!"

"But you do. Don't tell me you don't," Q said. He leaned forward. "You're morally bankrupt, mon capitaine. Your posturing and declarations of high moral purpose fall apart the moment the Federation needs something. Isn't that true?"

"If we don't get the vionen, and the Cardassians do, they'll be free to use Tellaris mutagens against our people," Picard protested. "Sometimes the moral thing to do isn't the correct thing to do."

"Well, now. That rather ruins your pretense at moral superiority, doesn't it?" They were standing over the bed where Yan'net lay sleeping. "You claim to be so reluctant, claim to place such value on free will and free choice. But you enjoyed taking advantage of her, didn't you? A victim of an oppressive society. You should have held out a helping hand to her, should have rescued her from the muck of this existence. Instead you raped her."

"I did not! She begged me--"

Q grinned at him, dark eyes flashing cruelly. "She was asking for it, you mean?"

"That is not --" He stared at the woman in confusion. Had he taken advantage of a helpless victim? It was true that he had enjoyed making love to her -- was that wrong?

"Of course it's wrong. To take, to demand, to give nothing in return --"

"I gave her --"

"You gave her what? The pleasure of your company? Did it ever occur to you that maybe she faked it? She's not what she seems, but you know that." The world was whiting out. "The trouble with you, Picard, is that at heart you're just like them. You take. You're a user."

"I'm not!" Picard screamed, wondering why he couldn't muster a better retort than that. Surely he didn't use people. Surely he was not like -- not like --

We are the Borg. We will add your biological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.

They had taken him, against his will, against his desire, and changed him so he was of them, wanted to be of them, could no longer imagine another life -- Locutus was still a part buried in his soul, the part that took, with no thought to the desires of others, winning free--

"Jean-Luc!"

Someone was shaking him. Picard opened his eyes, heart slamming. He looked up. "Yan'net...?"

"I didn't know you had nightmares, too," she said. "It seemed like a bad one."

"It was." Picard slipped his arm around her, needing comfort himself. Given morning, time to rebuild his defenses, he would never have confessed this, but it was late at night and he needed something to help dispel the nightmare. Yan'net was there, to talk to. And she was certain to be no stranger to nightmares herself. "Are you familiar with the Borg?"

"One might say that," she said darkly.

He drew in a deep breath. "A bit over two years ago, the Federation encountered the Borg. Though we were successful in repelling them, thousands of lives were lost. In part, this happened because the Borg kidnapped me, and... made me one of them."

Her face crumpled. "Oh..."

"They used me against people who trusted me, people I had sworn all my life to aid and protect." The cold encroached as he remembered. "I dreamed..." He wouldn't bother her with the unnecessary details of the dream, the association of what he'd done to her with what the Borg had done to him. It wasn't true, anyway. And while one couldn't be certain where Q was involved, the disjointed illogic in the conversation made him certain that it had, in fact, been only a dream. "I dreamed that I was becoming one of them again. Or that on some level, at heart, I always had been."

"No...you're not. You never were." She shook her head. "The Borg are the ultimate user. And you are more allergic to using than any being I've ever met..." For a moment it looked as if she would cry again. She buried her face in his chest and he felt his protectiveness of her return in a wave. "I never meant for things to get that far, I never meant for that to happen...I'm sorry, Jean-Luc, I'm so sorry..."

His instinctive reaction was to comfort her distress, reassure her with lying platitudes about it not having been so bad. But then the meaning of the words sunk in. He moved back from her slightly, lifting her by the shoulders. "You never meant? What does that mean?"

She blinked at him, as if she hadn't realized the implications of what she'd just said. "I -- I meant--" Abruptly she lay back down and turned her head toward the ceiling. "Does it really matter?"

"Of course it matters!" The question was the stupidest he'd heard in a while -- and he suspected she'd known that, that she was stalling for time. A thought occurred to him. "Yan'net. You told me that if I made love to you, you would tell me how you know me. I think now would be a good time."

She glanced sidelong at him. There was a curious expression on her face -- part embarrassment, part amusement, part anxiety. "You don't miss much, do you, Jean-Luc?" she murmured. "I shouldn't have said anything...You know, I'm far too good at dancing around my secrets for this.. I don't believe how much I've given away by accident... somehow I must really want you to know. Either that or I've fallen even further than I thought."

"Yan'net. Who are you?"

She opened her mouth as if to tell him, and then shut it, looking away. "I'd hoped you'd forget about asking," she said in a studiedly neutral voice. "It was...pleasant to pretend, for a little while, that someone actually cared about my suffering...a weakness, I suppose, but then, I'm allowed them. I'm only mortal, after all." A soft, self-mocking laugh stretched out the words. "But I suppose you deserve to know...and as talented a liar as I am, I still prefer some modicum of honesty with those whose opinion I respect at least slightly..."

He sat up and looked down at her. "Stop stalling," he snapped. "Who are you?".

"I'm surprised you haven't guessed by now...mon capitaine."

Picard stared, a cold feeling in his stomach. She knew French. She could simply mean "my captain"...but no. If she expected that to identify her, there was only one being she could be.

"Q," he whispered, feeling humiliated and violated. What game was the creature playing this time?

Abruptly she rolled over and sat up, looking away from him, her face profiled in the dimness. She folded her arms tightly over her breasts. "I suppose," she said, "if I were a noble, ethical being, I would have told you from the very being. Granted you the information you needed to make a free, informed choice about whether to help me or not, instead of this...this finely crafted web of deceptive truths." She punctuated her words with occasional gestures from one arm, never moving it too far from its folded position. "But...we all know I'm not a noble, ethical being. And I feared that your free, informed choice would be to say 'no.'" She glanced at him. "It's reflexive with you. You say no to me without even thinking about it. And the stakes were too high this time."

Picard frowned. Now that it had been pointed out, he could see her identity in her body language, in the way she gestured, in the cadences of her speech. Except for her dark eyes and hair, she bore no physical resemblance to Q, or at least not to the body Q had traditionally worn...but a resemblance was there. And yet...

When she had first revealed herself with those two words, he had expected a mocking smile, obnoxiously suave laughter, some discussion of what a pathetic creature he himself was or how soft he was. None of that had happened. She was still playing the game, implying that everything she had said had been true, that she had deceived only in what she didn't say -- for that matter, he had known she was not what she seemed. In fact, the dream version of Q had warned him so. Had his subconscious known?

Was it, in fact, a game? Could she be telling the truth?

"We had believed you dead," he said carefully, studying her.

She laughed bitterly. "You mean I'm not?" She turned toward Picard, eyes glittering. Had this been anyone else, Picard would have said the glitter was from unshed tears. "I died three years ago, when the Continuum threw me out," she said. "And I died again when I was brought here. And I have died every day of my existence on this miserable barbaric planet. I knew mortality entailed death, Picard, but I'd always been led to believe that mortals only die once."

"I'm quite serious," Picard said, still frowning. "We saw the shuttlecraft explode. How did you survive?"

"Divine intervention," she said. "Or retribution, as the case may be." She sighed. "Oh, it's a tale of woe and pain to set the whole house a-weeping, Picard. Are you sure you want to hear it? Once you get me started on a self-pity kick, I may not get off it for hours."

"I'll take my chances."

"I did warn you." She stood up, off the bed, and began to pace. "After I took the shuttlecraft out to meet the Calamarain, I received a...visitation from one of my fellow Q, with whom I had had a...strained...relationship of late. One might say there had been, mm, bad blood between us."

"A rival, of sorts?"

"In... a sense, yes. We had been friends once, but... well. Ancient history.” She shook her head. "So I was naturally rather anxious at his appearance. And as it turned out, I had every reason to be." Her hands clenched into fists, fingernails digging into palms, and her voice was taut, rigidly controlled. Picard recognized the woman who had walked into this room earlier tonight, controlling herself calmly to accept being raped. If this were a performance on top of a performance...it was getting beyond his ability to perceive where honesty ended and deception truly began.

"He informed me," she went on, "that, for my admittedly less than exemplary behavior, the Continuum had seen fit to... grant him leave with me."

"Grant him leave?"

"To do as he wished, provided that he personally cause me no harm. The Continuum would find it hard to ignore it if he attacked me directly; for one Q to attack another is one of the greatest crimes we have, and one of the least committed. But arranging matters so that someone else can hurt me...while that's not strictly approved of, it seems that for various reasons the Continuum were willing to look the other way this time." She sat down on the edge of the bed, tapping her fingers up and down on the bedspread and staring at the motion of her own fingers. "He had let the Calamarain know where I was -- did it ever strike you as strange that they found me so readily, despite the fact that I should have been indistinguishable from any other human?"

"I'd assumed that the Calamarain have access to some perceptions we don't that permitted them to recognize you -- that perhaps they used telepathy, for instance, or detected some energy emissions that we could not."

"I suppose, given your limited knowledge of the Calamarain, that those are reasonable hypotheses," she conceded grudgingly. "But they're wrong. The Calamarain should have been as little able to detect me in my new form as you -- and since, unlike the situation with you, I wasn't wearing the same shape as I'd worn when I dealt with the Calamarain, the only way they could have recognized me...is if someone told them what to look for." She looked at her feet. "I'd suspected something of the sort might be the case, aboard the Enterprise, but it was still a considerable shock to have it confirmed."

"I can imagine."

"Can you?" She glanced up at him. "Can you really? You can't imagine the degree of closeness within the Continuum, the almost incestuous degree to which we live in one another's heads. For one Q to betray another is...impossible under most circumstances, and therefore unthinkable. Even I -- I've seen the sorts of things that can happen -- I've experienced the concept of betrayal, Q against Q -- and it still seemed unthinkable. That the Continuum allows this -- We're supposed to be superior. We're not supposed to -- to stab one another when we're down like this..."

It was the first time Picard had heard Q say anything remotely critical of the Continuum, anything implying that its much-vaunted superiority might not be so vast after all. And oddly, it was that more than anything else that awakened the greatest sense of pity in him. Picard knew what it was like to have idols destroyed, to have the faith of a lifetime shattered. In his younger days, he had uncovered evidence of corrupt members of Starfleet, and been terribly disillusioned. It had taken time to realize that Starfleet, like any human creation, was flawed like its creators; the reason Starfleet was such a great and glorious endeavor was not because it was perfect, but because it strove so hard to be.

He had also helped religious friends through devastating crises of faith, in his young days -- the young were particularly susceptible to that sort of disillusionment. Picard remembered his earlier intuition that Yan'net was young; knowing her to be Q didn't contradict that. As ancient as Q might be in years, Picard had long suspected that the entity was young for a member of the Q species. And having been a creature of power and privilege for who knew how many years, and possessing all those additional perceptions and access to a vast body of knowledge, Q had probably rarely had to deal with disillusionment. When someone spent their life getting what they wanted, the resultant crash when the bubble burst was far harder. Q had not only lost her powers and her freedom, if Picard's intuition was correct. When she was betrayed by one of her own and her people allowed it, she had lost her faith as well. And for one who was used to having all the answers, that might even be the hardest burden to bear.

He stood up and walked around the bed, to where she sat. "It's always hard to have the faith of a lifetime shattered," he said.

She frowned at his choice of words and shook her head. "Oh, it isn't faith," she said. "Believe it or not, I'm well aware of the flaws in the Continuum. It's my -- was my job, to be aware."

The question, "then why did you always act as if you were perfect?" occurred to him, but it was unnecessary, out of place here, and besides, he could think of two good answers off the top of his head. "Nonetheless, it must have been very hard for you." He sat down next to her, wanting to reach out but uncertain how to proceed. When she had simply been an abused and desperate dissident, he had been able to hug her, to stroke her and comfort her, without any self-consciousness. But this was Q, dammit...

...who was, apparently, also an abused and desperate dissident.

The hell with it. He put his arm around her. If she didn't like it, the worst she would do would be to say something sarcastic and scathing. He had dealt with that before.

He felt her trembling slightly, but the expected scathing remark did not come. Apparently she was too emotionally wrung out to turn down a comforting touch, even if it meant a tacit admission that she needed one.

"In any case," she said. "He told me he was responsible for the Calamarain's appearance, which was upsetting enough. But he said then that, as I approached the end of my existence, he felt it wasn't enough. If I merely died at the hands of the Calamarain, so quickly after becoming mortal, I wouldn't suffer sufficiently for his tastes. He wanted to see me totally broken, humiliated, degraded to a fragment of my former self. He wanted to see me brought lower than I imagined possible. Actually, he was quite vitriolic about it."

Having been on the wrong end of Q powers himself, Picard could sympathize. The notion of a vitriolic Q awakened a cold fear in the pit of his stomach. The worst this Q had ever been was piqued, and that had been bad enough. "I was...not aware your people were capable of such...vitriol," he said, meaning that in a sane universe people with that kind of power should not be.

She smiled wryly, with a mocking edge. "Oh, we're capable of anything, Picard. It's in the definition of 'omnipotent,' I believe. But you needn't worry -- as a general rule, we are not so, and almost never to mortals. We reserve that kind of hatred for those who hurt us personally -- and few of us let ourselves be hurt by mortals."

"So how did you hurt your nemesis, then?"

Her eyes hardened. "In the first place, I didn't. I hurt a mutual acquaintance. And in the second place, it's none of your business, Picard."

That seemed such a "Q" thing to say, and Picard felt ready to object when he realized that in fairness it was really just curiosity which had prompted the unnecessary question. "I'm sorry."

She nodded almost absently, her eyes focused again on her inner visions. "So. I could easily believe that the Continuum would let him arrange my death, but to do this...to completely destroy my will, my pride...I could not believe they would allow this. And I thought he...well, he has a tendency to make outrageous threats that he really has no intention of necessarily carrying out." She smiled thinly. "Rather like some other Q I could mention." The smile disappeared. "I thought that he was there to humiliate me, yes, but if I pacified him by abasing myself sufficiently, perhaps he would leave me be -- rescue me from the Calamarain or at least let me die in peace. So I begged." Her voice grew harsh. "I went to my knees and pleaded for mercy, I groveled, abased myself in every way I knew how, then, and when I was done, he told me... he had considered my request for mercy. And the answer was 'no.'" She swallowed. "He transformed me into the shape you see before you, and brought me here. He then... informed President Ga... that I was powerless..." Her voice broke, and she stopped, breathing with the choked quality of a person desperately fighting sobs.

Despite a powerful desire not to think about it, Picard found himself imagining what must have happened then, all too easily. His stomach clenched in nauseated sympathy.

He remembered how helpless and terrified Q had been about the Enterprise, how he had been frightened of things perfectly normal for humans, unable to adjust to his lowered status, and completely incompetent at reaching out for the emotional connections that he had -- Picard could see now, in retrospect, though he hadn't seen it then -- so desperately needed. At the time Picard had vacillated between considering it divine justice and a deliberate attempt on Q's part to make Picard's life miserable. Now, he would still call the loss of the powers itself divine justice -- but taking an entity that terrified and helpless and subjecting her to the sort of treatment she'd undoubtedly received here went far beyond justice, into the realm of obscenity.

Frankly, Picard was surprised and more than a little impressed that Q had retained sanity and self-determination, much less the will for defiance -- the higher one was, the harder one fell, and Q had fallen harder and farther than any being Picard had ever known. There was apparently a great deal more to her than snide arrogance, as such conceit alone could never have saved her -- it would, in fact, have hurt.

"Shh," he murmured. "Don't think about it right now. Not now." She was sitting rigidly tense, head bowed, arms folded so tightly he was sure she must be hurting herself. Picard understood the pressure inside her too well, the need to release an unbearable emotion versus the need to appear in control, and wished he could hand her over to someone else-- Troi, perhaps -- someone she would be more willing to relax her guard in front of. He felt deep and genuine compassion for Q, and he felt no discomfort now in expressing it, but he suspected she would rather not have it from him, now that she'd confessed her identity.

He tried a question to distract her. "Why here? Why bring you here?"

"The punishment has to be fitting," she said. She looked up. "Simply dumping me as...oh, a Bajoran laborer in a Cardassian camp, or something... that might bring an outcry from the Continuum. That would not be fair, you see. I have a past history with these people, and while they haven't formally charged me with anything more specific than sedition, they are punishing me in accordance with the laws of their people. By the Continuum's standards, that's fair."

“So you are, in fact, a political prisoner."

"A very political prisoner."

"Yan'net, I think it will help me to know...in trying to get you out of here: what did you do?"

She surprised him with a sardonic look. "Trying to figure out if the punishment is warranted?"

"It is not," Picard said with sudden fierceness. She stared in surprise as he took her shoulders in his hands and gazed into her eyes. "I know what you're capable of. And I could believe that the loss of your powers was justified. Considering that I once stood in your post-apocalyptic courtroom and feared for the future of humanity, I could even imagine you having done something that I would consider worth a penalty of death. But nothing you or any other being in the universe could possibly do would warrant this sort of torture and dehumanization."

"Well, that's good to know," she murmured. She managed to make casual comments like that sound sardonic, belittling, but by now he recognized that as her defense. He found himself thinking of many other things Q had said to him in the past in quite a new light.

Picard released her shoulders but did not move away. "I need to know what you did because it'll help me in devising a strategy to get you out of here. That's all."

"I see," she said. "Well, I'm not ashamed of it." She lifted her head defiantly, as if he had contradicted her. "I've done things to be ashamed of, yes, I admit it, but this was not one of them. In fact, the only thing that I regret is that I didn't let it go on long enough. They learned nothing. I should have left them that way."

"Yes, but what did you do?" Picard asked, slightly impatient.

She stood up. "You must admit that this culture is quite disgusting, Picard," she said, pacing and gesturing freely. "Even you, with your oh-so-tolerant Prime Directive, are nauseated. But if it had merely been a bunch of disgusting primitives abusing one another, I could have ignored it. The Ferengi and the Cardassians are in their own ways as bad or worse, and I very rarely concern myself with them." She faced him. "Unfortunately, this species has potential. And that makes it infinitely worse."

"Indeed. How do you define potential?"

"There are a number of ways. They're very like you humans, actually -- the growth of their technology and the changes in their social system are occurring with great rapidity. Since about the 15th century, you humans have advanced more rapidly -- socially, technologically, mentally, even evolutionarily -- than most other species in this area of the galaxy. Look at the Klingons. Interstellar travel, and yet they cling desperately to a medieval mindset. Look at the Vulcans. Oh, they've progressed further than you, no doubt, but what have they done lately? Their culture is stagnant, stagnant, stagnant. We take an interest in species who show rapid progress -- and this, unfortunately, is one. Though you wouldn't know it from the thugs running the government."

Picard blinked. "Q. If you took an interest in us in the first place because of our 'rapid progress', why did you accuse us of being savages?"

"One can progress and still be savage, Picard. And besides. When you were in the Academy, you were on the debate team, weren't you?"

He hid how startled he was as best he could. "For a year. Yes."

"I seem to recall you making a very eloquent argument that the Prime Directive should be abolished, because the topic had been assigned in a debate. Did you believe it?"

"No..."

"Did you win the case?"

"...no."

"Didn't the whole thing seem rather like some sort of dramatization, put on to convince people that the Prime Directive was a good thing? Didn't you justify arguing for something you didn't believe in because you felt that if you had made a good case against, then when your opponent defeated you it would provide an even better case for?"

"How much do you know about my past?"

"Not that much." He got a distinct impression of evasiveness. "But that incident stayed with me -- it was of especial interest to me, because it was one of the few times in your life that showed me you had an understanding of what I had made my life work."

"So you didn't truly believe that humans are savages?"

"Why would I have handed myself over helpless to savages?"

"Because you had been convinced otherwise, I thought...but now you're implying you never believed us savages at all."

"I never believed a lot of the points I've argued in my life, Picard. I'm a professional devil's advocate." Some of the animation left her, and she slumped. "Or was, at least."

Picard knew this placed Q's actions, historically, in a completely different light -- unless she were bending the truth now in a desperate need for his sympathy. There was no way to know which, but he was surprised to discover that he wanted to believe her. Still, he needed his question answered. "Well and good, Q, but after you 'took an interest' in these people, what did you do?"

"Right." She leaned her arm along a wall some feet away and faced him. "I came to these people eight years ago, calling myself Yan'net and wearing the form you see before you...a little better dressed, though." She smiled. Considering that she was still nude, that wouldn't have been difficult -- although, that being said, her nudity was a better dress than many people's expensive clothes would be. Picard dragged his thoughts away from that with a fierce interior frown.

"To be precise," she went on, "I appeared to President Ga and about half a dozen other heads of various states, while they were at some sort of tedious conference. I informed them that I was disgusted with them and the things that they permitted in their nations, and announced that I was going to mete out punishment." An irrepressible grin stole across her face. "Then I turned them all into women and dumped them into state-run brothels in their own countries."

"You what?"

"You heard me." The grin grew broader. "They never dared actually place me on trial here. In order to prove I'd committed sedition, even in their kangaroo courts, they would have to explain exactly what I did -- and they most certainly would not want to admit what happened." Her expression darkened. "I've sure you disapprove, Picard. But I don't care. The only thing I'd have done differently would have been to let it go on longer."

Picard sighed and found to his horror that he was having to resist an actual bout of sniggering. "I can't say I do approve, but I must confess that if I'd had the sort of power you did, the temptation to do something like that would indeed have been overwhelming." He didn't bother to point out that he would have overcome the temptation -- Q probably knew that.

"You have this notion that you can somehow make a hard and fast rule -- Thou Shalt Not Interfere -- and apply it to everything," she said. "Power exists to be used. I consider it far more morally bankrupt to possess the power to aid the development of a promising species, and instead do nothing." She sighed. "Unfortunately, most of my compatriots agree with you."

"And is that part of the reason why you're here?"

For several seconds she was silent. "I don't -- ever -- want to talk about why I'm here," she whispered harshly. "It's in the past, even for a Q, and there's nothing to be done about it. Suffice it to say...the Continuum had their reasons. I...could have borne this more easily if they were doing it directly, if it was at their will alone that I suffered...but it shouldn't have been these people that were given the right to punish me." Picard knew his words had been a misstep; she was trembling violently again. "The people I transformed were in their rightful places within a month -- I've been here nearly three years--"

Her voice cracked, and she spun to face the wall, leaning on it with outstretched arms and bowed head, as she fought to control the oncoming tears. Picard stood up, uncertain what to do -- he suspected that a comforting touch at this point would push her over the edge, and yet she had spent a great deal of time on that edge since he'd learned her identity, and a great deal of energy in constantly pulling herself back from it. Perhaps she would be better off if she simply let herself go. Better than most, Picard empathized with her need to stay in control, but there were times when one had to be released, and times when it would be safe to, and he knew, even if she didn't, that now was one of those times.

He came up behind her and placed gentle arms on her shoulders. "Shh," he murmured.

As he'd suspected, that was all it took. "I can't even hate him!" she wailed, and broke into hysterical sobs. Picard gathered her in his arms, turning her to face him, and she buried her face in his chest and wailed. These were not pretty, soft sobs, like the ones before when he'd woken in the night next to her. She was crying loudly, uncontrollably, with sniffles and desperate gulps as she tried to stop herself. Every so often she would choke, doubling over unbreathing, the pressure strangling the air out of her, until an anguished sob would force its way out, sounding more like a scream by then.

"It's all right," he murmured, stroking her. "It's all right. Don't fight yourself so hard. You can cry if you need to."

She lifted her head, her face twisted by malice and pain, and fixed him with a poisonous tear-blurred glare. "I th-thought better of you, Picard," she choked out viciously.

"Thought better of me? How so?"

"When I t-turned to you for compassion on the En -- on the Enterprise, y-you said I'd brought noth-ing but p-pain and suf-fering to your crew. Why am -- am I n-now suddenly w-worthy of comfort? Does my sex m-matter that much? Does the s-sight of a heaving fe-female breast in-spire your masculine soul to p-pity in a way my m-male form could not?" She was tripping over her words, choking, forcing the vitriol out against the terrible pressure of her sobs. "Or is it b-baser even th-than that? D-did I earn your com-compassion by s-sleeping with you?"

"You do know me better than that," he said, face stern but still stroking her back soothingly. “There are a number of reasons why I feel more compassion for you now than then, and none of them have to do with your sex."

"Oh, r-really? Enlighten me, Pi-card."

He guided her to the bed, sitting her down on it, as he continued to stroke her. "In the first place, I simply didn't believe you last time, not until the very end. Part of me was convinced you were playing some sort of elaborate joke, and I refused to play along. In the second place -- and I realize this is hardly a very attractive reason, but I think it's more legitimate than the question of your sex...you must realize that it's hard to have sympathy for someone who has been reduced to one's own level. To my point of view, you were -- if you were in fact human, and not playing some game -- whining about hardships that to me were a natural part of life. You thought you were dying when you fell asleep, you sent for emergency care when your back cramped up, you had no consideration whatsoever for the many people facing death on Bre'el IV and instead were wrapped up entirely in what seemed to me like very petty concerns. Plus, you had no idea how to adjust to your human status. You begged for aid and guidance on the one hand, and then insulted people on the other. When you were trying to persuade us to save your life, you called our compassion a genetic weakness! So I was not overly inclined to feel sympathetic toward you."

"And I'm a pa-paragon of vir-tue now?"

"In comparison to the sneering sadist you seemed then, yes, you are. But that's only a small part of it." He looked away. "When you were reduced to human level, it was difficult for me to comprehend how hard that must have been for you. Intellectually I understood that you'd lost a tremendous amount, but emotionally it was hard for me to think of my own state -- being a normal human being -- as such a terrible hardship. That is a limitation on my part, I admit it. It's much easier for me to comprehend that this situation is hurting you, how much you've lost by being sent here. So it's easier for me to feel compassion for you."

"Pity, you mean," she snarled.

"Yes, pity. I'm sorry if you would rather not be pitied, but it's hard for me to see what other reaction I could possibly have. I don't belittle you, you know. The fact that you've kept your will and at least some of your pride intact is tremendously impressive. I wouldn't have thought you could, to be honest, Q. You had such a hard time adjusting to merely being human, I can't imagine how you adapted to being a slave. Considering your actions with the Calamarain, I would have thought you would have killed yourself by now."

She laughed bitterly, tears streaming down her face, though her sobbing had eased somewhat. "Not for lack of trying, mon capitaine," she said. "Don't credit me with any great drive toward survival."

"Still. You're alive nonetheless." He stroked her hair lightly. "There's also another reason I feel compassion for you now. When I told you that you had brought nothing but pain and suffering to my crew, I hadn't yet seen you die for them."

She looked up at him sharply, startled. Picard went on. "I thought you completely selfish. When you came to me and told me you felt ashamed, I thought you were being self-indulgent and self-pitying, looking for reassurance and comfort without having done anything to deserve them. It never occurred to me that you meant it seriously -- that you truly felt ashamed and unworthy -- until you took the shuttlecraft out to lure the Calamarain away from the ship. And that was when I realized I'd been wrong about you, when I started to view you in a completely different light. What I'd seen was not evil, it was thoughtlessness. The spoiled reaction of a person who's never been faced with adversity, never needed to grow up. And now that you realized that your actions could hurt others, now that you recognized your own responsibilities, you were capable of sacrificing everything to make amends, to undo the damage you'd done. I knew then that I didn't want you to die, that I'd seen a potential in you worth protecting, despite my personal dislike of you. I tried to have you beamed back into the ship, but the controls wouldn't respond."

"I know. He told me," she whispered.

"We thought the Calamarain had done it somehow -- it never occurred to us that your own people had betrayed you. But be that as it may. I haven't forgotten the things you've done, Q -- the humiliating things, the lives you threatened, the people who died in the first attack by the Borg -- but nor have I forgotten that the first time in your life you were called on to make a sacrifice, you did it. You expected to die, didn't you? It never occurred to you that someone would intervene."

"No. Not for a moment." She stared into space. "It would have been a lot more pleasant if I had..."

"Perhaps. But as long as you live, you can hope for something better. I will get you out of here, Q. Nothing I've learned changes that." He released her and stood up. "Tell me about these colonists of yours -- the ones with the alternate source of vionara."

"Not much to tell." She shrugged. "When I was here, I found one of the prisoners...intriguing. Here was a woman who had been trained all her life to believe that she was inferior, and that she should spend her life serving the state, who had not only managed to become a dissident, she was still stirring up trouble. A revolution was brewing in the women's prison, and she was behind it." Q smiled. "I have something of a taste for dissidence, myself. So I decided to test this revolutionary, see if her convictions really were all that powerful. I offered her one wish, to do with as she liked." She looked at the floor, cupping her chin in her hand. "To be honest, I expected her to say something like 'kill the bastards.' To be brutally honest, in fact," -- she looked straight at him -- "right now that's what I would likely say, as long as getting my powers back was not an option. But she didn't. And she didn't do the other thing I expected, which was to take her family and flee. Instead, she asked that all the women enslaved in the brothels -- including but by no means limited to herself -- be transported somewhere else, somewhere that they could make a new life, without men to interfere. She had these utopian notions that a society of women would be inherently peaceful and joyous. I knew better, of course, but it seemed an intriguing experiment -- and I was amazed at her selflessness and really her nerve in asking for something so broad.

"You know, most people, when you offer them the services of an omnipotent being, they think of something silly, like 'I wish I were rich' or 'I wish I were younger.' Even the ones who wish for something like world peace don't have any idea how to go about it. This woman had a fairly clear notion of her agenda, and...it amused me to see if she could fulfill it."

"So you saved her because it amused you to do so." Yes, Picard felt he was beginning to see through Q rather clearly now. He thought once again of the Borg. Yes, eighteen people dead...and humanity eventually saved.

"More or less. I never said I was a paragon of moral virtue. That's your job. But in any case, I transported all the female political prisoners -- most of whom were suffering because of the misdeeds of a husband or brother, not for any great acts of revolutionary courage of their own -- to a copy of Metraxia, which I set in orbit around a virtually identical star some hundred light-years away. The planet is identical, except that it has a natural cloaking field around it -- I didn't want anyone upsetting my little experiment until I was ready. I gave them no technology to speak of, since none of them had any technical training and I didn't want them depending on technology that they had no idea how to repair. But I modified their bodies so that they can reproduce parthenogenetically -- in a hundred years or so I planned to reintroduce men -- and left them to their own devices, eight years ago." She leaned forward. "The planet is an exact physical copy of Metraxia, with all plant and all animal life except for the Metraxans themselves brought over. Vionara exists there as surely as it does here, and while the people are technologically backward, t