Only Human

Part II: Ketaya

About an hour and a half after they were under way, Q came up from engineering, where he'd spent the entire time since he'd dropped off his bag in his room, onto the bridge. "This is incredible," he said. "Have you any idea what sort of drive you have?"

"One that goes very fast, I'm told," T'Laren said. She found it vaguely amusing that the first thing Q'd done was to examine the engines-- both her father and Soram had been engineers, and it struck her as a particularly male thing to do.

"'One that goes very fast.' Toys in the hands of children." He paced around the bridge. "Your ship has a transwarp engine, my dear. Have you any idea how fast that goes?"

"Lhoviri said it would do warp-equivalent 13. Federation starships can't go higher than 10."

"No one using warp can go higher than 10, T'Laren-- it's a physical impossibility. Do you know what he's done?"

It was somewhat hard to tell whether Q was agitated or excited. "Who? Lhoviri?"

"He's taken a Thetaran drive and jury-rigged it to work in an obsolete Federation luxury yacht, is what he's done. This is just unbelievable!"

"Why is it unbelievable?" T'Laren gave up on trying to keep her eyes on the console, and swiveled to follow Q with her eyes as he paced. "And what's a Thetaran drive?"

"The Thetarans were the dominant spacefaring race of a conglomerate much like your Federation, about... oh, two thousand years ago, I'd say. At least, that was their peak. They lived out in what you call the Beta Quadrant, deep in unexplored space, and they had a highly advanced technology in comparison to the Federation's, though in real terms they weren't actually any more advanced than, say Vulcans. Lhoviri's taken one of their drives and dropped it into this boat, rather like putting a modern antigrav unit into the body of a 20th-century antique automobile. He's jury-rigged the connections so it'll run off dilithium crystals-- have you tried to use the transwarp drive yet?"

"There didn't seem to be a need."

"Well, there's no way it'll sustain any power over time. Dilithium crystals simply can't handle transwarp stresses. If we try to use our superior speed for any length of time, bang, our crystals are gone." He made an explosion gesture. "The Thetarans used six-dimensional helical matrix crystals. Dilithium's only a fourth-dimensional transverse helix. There's no way our dilithium crystals can maintain the transwarp field without subspace resonances tearing them apart. Did I ever mention that Lhoviri's an idiot?"

"Does this mean we can't use the transwarp drive?"

"Without transwarp, dear doctor, this cattle boat can only do 9.6. Not bad, mind you, but not good enough. And yes, we can use transwarp, if we want to risk blowing our crystals-- and he's tied the crystals into the secondary power net, which means we could risk losing all power, drifting in space-- we have any spare dilithium on board?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Get some." He sighed. "I can rig a circuit breaker so the crystals don't blow, at least. They'll shatter under the stress, but that's an improvement over an explosion. I just don't know why he had to do it like this. Why not set up a permanent negative inertial field around the engines and put an ordinary warp core in? It would have been so much simpler."

"Could you do that?" Whatever it was. T'Laren wondered if Q realized quite how far the technobabble was going over her head. What was a fourth-dimensional transverse helix, anyway?

Q laughed unpleasantly. "Not for the past three years," he said. "What I'm talking about is what we in the business technically refer to as throwing the laws of physics out the window."

"If Lhoviri did something that broke the laws of physics, wouldn't he have to expend power-- or at least concentration-- to maintain it?"

"No, no. I'm talking about setting up a mild singularity-- a permanent negative inertial field, decreasing our effective mass, which would conversely increase our potential speed. We'd still hit the warp 10 barrier, but if you can do 9.999, no one in this sector of space will be catching you anytime soon. Or he could have set up a transwarp conduit generation matrix, or-- You're not following any of this, are you?"

"I'm no engineer."

"All right. The take-home lesson, in very simple terms, is that Lhoviri's an idiot and his non-intervention policy could get us both killed, unless either I iron the bugs out of dilithium replication or we stock up somewhere." Q ran out of breath and sank down in a chair, looking suddenly exhausted, and rather surprised. "That was fast."

"Are you all right?"

He frowned, seeming to think about it. "No... I don't think so," he said. "Let's see... how quickly I get my breath back... and I'll tell you."

T'Laren got up and went over to him. "You've been pushing yourself too hard," she said severely. "You know you're not well yet. You should have been resting, not wandering all over our engine room for an hour and a half."

"I'm resting now." He lay his head back against the chair, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths. "I hate this."

"Your weakness, you mean."

"Yes." Q opened his eyes and glared at her. "And no snide comments about how it's all my fault. I'm well aware it's my fault, thank you."

"I'm not in the habit of making snide comments," T'Laren said. She decided to change the subject. "Now that you're here, perhaps we can discuss our itinerary. Where would you like to go?"

"I don't know. Where is there?"

"I had a few different places in mind." She called the choices up on the computer, more for his sake as she remembered them perfectly well. "The Federation Archeological Society is having its annual conference in three weeks. This year the conference is on Chatimore Prime in the Eyrie system. One of the main topics of discussion: did the Chatimari evolve from the Eyrians of Eyrie 2, 3 and 5, or did they evolve independently?"

"They evolved independently. Actually they were dumped there by the Preservers. But they're no relation to the Eyrians; they just look that way because of interbreeding."

T'Laren looked at him, trying to determine if he were serious or not. "I don't need to know the answer. I merely wanted to know if you wish to attend the conference."

"It'll probably be mind-numbingly dull. Who'll be there? Is Picard going to-- damn." Q fell silent for a moment. He stared into nothing with a look that might have been anger, or grief. "I keep forgetting."

He showed every sign of becoming lost in introspective pain. T'Laren handed him a datapad with the list of names on it. "Q. Here's a list of the attendees."

Q blinked and took the pad from her, shaking himself out of the incipient depression. "Right." He studied the pad. "Dull, dull, dull. I don't know any of these people. I suppose it might be entertaining to crash the conference and shoot down all their ridiculous theories, but there has to be more to life than that. What else is there?"

"There's the wormhole near Bajor, the one that opens up on the Gamma Quadrant."

"Hmm." Q considered that. "The Gamma Quadrant is an entertaining place, but only if you've got a year or more to spend there, even if your starship can go warp 13. And I'm not sure I want to spend that much time away from civilization."

"The Gamma Quadrant is uncivilized?"

"You know what I mean. It's dangerous for me to be that far away from anyone who would be sympathetic to me. The entire universe of people I once wronged seem to know who I am, but none of the entities I ever helped out apparently remember me."

"Did you ever help anyone out?"

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a suspicious Vulcan," Q said, pressing his hands to his chest in a melodramatic gesture. "You hurt me, T'Laren, you really do. Of course I helped people... not that most of them realized what I was doing at the time. In fact, a large number of the people who want me dead are people I helped. Not everyone has the perspective to understand what's good for them."

T'Laren had her own theories on that, but she let it pass. "The third possibility I'd thought of was the singularity in the Abister system. They're apparently holding an open physics conference regarding it aboard the Yamato-- luminaries from all over have been invited, not just members of the Federation."

"Refresh my memory. What is this singularity?"

"No one knows. The Yamato was stationed there, studying it, for six weeks, and couldn't figure out what's causing it, so Starfleet's decided to host a physics conference. Singularities aren't supposed to simply come into existence for no apparent reason, as I understand it, and it seems that this may pose a threat of some kind."

"Let me see the guest list."

She handed it to him. He scanned it with evident glee. "Daedalus!"

"Who?" There was no 'Daedalus' on the guest list.

"Dr. Peter Markow. I know him. And a Klingon-- ooh, the redoubtable Dr. Morakh. Now this I've got to see." He frowned at the final entry. "Who's this Professor Yalit?"

"It says she's an associate professor at the Makropyrios."

"I am well aware of what it says, T'Laren. I can indeed read most Federation scripts. I thought I knew everyone associated with the Makropyrios-- it's the most prestigious physics institute in the Federation, and a good number of its graduates and professorial staff have ended up on my doorstep." He scrutinized the datapad. "This says associate professor."

"Yes. I can read as well, Q."

"Associate means she doesn't work there, though she might have once and she almost certainly graduated the place. Let's see her bio." He called up the biographical notes. These were painfully brief-- Yalit had graduated the Makropyrios 56 years ago, with honors, worked there as a lecturer for ten years, and then left for parts unknown. A publication list was appended, but with no sourcepoint for her manuscripts. "I don't believe it. They don't even list her species here! What is she, a Romulan?"

"That would be listed. And Yalit isn't a Romulan name."

"I've never heard of this woman. Well." Q put down the datapad. "It seems we're going to the conference on the Yamato, then. What's our ETA?"

T'Laren did some quick calculations. "At warp 6, three weeks."

"Warp 6? This ship can do warp-equivalent 13 and you want to tootle along at 6?"

"You just told me that traveling at transwarp speeds can damage our power supply. Unless it's necessary, I'd prefer not to risk it. The conference doesn't actually begin for 18 days-- and you need the time to recuperate. If spending an hour and a half on your feet exhausts you, you would never make it through a two-week conference."

"I suppose you have a point." He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes again, smiling. "It's difficult to be annoying when one has to sit down and shut up every fifteen minutes or so."

"If I were you, I would find something to take pride in other than my prowess at being annoying."

"Like what?" Q opened his eyes. "My good looks? My charm? My usefulness to the universe? Let's face it, T'Laren, I'm a luxury. I'm sure the Federation would like to keep me around, but they don't need me. No one needs me. No one's needed me since the Borg were defeated. Which leaves me exactly two things that I'm good at: I'm very smart, and I'm very annoying." He shrugged. "One needs to make the most of one's assets."

"Making the most of one's deficits, however, is not generally a useful policy."

"There you go again, expecting me to be logical. Of course it's not a useful policy. Very little of what I've done for the past three years has been useful."

He was trying to provoke a pointless argument. "Why don't I walk you back to your room?" T'Laren asked. "I can show you around Ketaya on the way."

"Did you ever notice how often you change the subject when you're talking to me?" Q asked.

"Did you ever notice how often you continue to discuss a subject after you have nothing more to say?" T'Laren replied.

Q's eyebrows went up. "Oh, good. Very good," he said, nodding slowly. "Very well, T'Laren. Let's go exploring." He stood up and headed for the back of the bridge. "What's behind this door?"

"My quarters," T'Laren said, as the door swooshed open and he entered.

She followed close behind. Q was standing in the middle of her study/living room, looking around. "The privileges of command," he said. "This is certainly bigger than my quarters."

"The captain's quarters is the largest living suite on the ship," she said. "Then come the passenger suites, where you are, and then the crew suites, which are rather tiny, comparatively."

He wandered into her bedroom. T'Laren considered telling him that that was extremely rude, and decided against it. In his current mood, that was no doubt the effect he was aiming for. "How long have you been living here?" he asked.

"Four months."

"No decorations, no pictures of the folks back home... Not even an obscure Vulcan musical instrument to liven up the decor. Are all the rooms you've lived in this devoid of personality, or is it something new you're experimenting with?"

That hit a nerve. T'Laren remembered telling Anderson that Q could not offend her unless she chose to be offended, and concentrated on the disciplines. "They've all been this way," she said dryly. "It's a Vulcan meditative discipline."

"Really." He stepped out of the bedroom. "I think you're attempting humor."

"If I told you that I found your behavior immensely offensive and demanded that you stop, would that satisfy you?" T'Laren asked calmly. "Would you stop probing for weaknesses and behave like a rational human being? Or will you insist on playing these games for a few more hours?"

Q blinked at her. "Do you always do that?"

"What?"

"Ask questions based on a conversation's meta-structure. Normal people don't do that. I think you've been a psychologist too long."

"Occasionally it helps," she said.

"Do you find my behavior immensely offensive and want to demand that I stop?"

"Undoubtedly if I said 'yes', you would say 'good', and continue as you've been doing."

"I take it that means 'yes, but I'm not going to tell you so.'"

"You would take it incorrectly. I am aware that your intention is that I be offended. For the sake of teaching you to stop behaving offensively, I had considered explaining to you why your behavior is unacceptable. I think you know why your behavior is unacceptable, however, and right now perhaps it would be more valuable to teach you that you cannot offend me."

"Will you stop doing that!" Q exploded. "Every time I say something you answer as if you're writing a paper on the behavior of Q! Stop analyzing me!"

T'Laren raised an eyebrow in an almost-smiling gesture. "It seems I've found something that offends you first," she said.

"What, is this a contest?"

"That's your decision. Do you want this to be a contest?"

He took a deep breath. "No-I-do-not-want-this-to-be-a-contest," he snapped back at her on one exhalation, and ran out of air, gasping at the end. "All right. You win. You can do the metalevels thing as well as I can, you can treat me like an object for study well enough to really get on my nerves, I concede. You can beat me in a conversational battle anytime I'm depressed, exhausted and half-dead. I bow to my better. What do you want me to do?"

She doubted the games were over-- games were far too integral a part of the way Q dealt with people-- but the fact that she'd gotten him to admit they were there and agree to stop them was a good first step. "I would like for you to let me walk you back to your room, as you're tired and irritable and could use a rest. On the way I could show you around the ship, or we can wait for another time."

"Fine. Show me around the ship. Whatever."

T'Laren had heard more enthusiastic reactions in her time, but at least he was cooperating.

Ketaya's body was that of a Tamlin-class luxury yacht, a small ship designed for 2-6 crewmembers and with the ability to carry up to four passengers, more if they roomed together. Tamlin-class ships could be privately owned by wealthy people as their personal transportation, or could be used by a small crew for ferrying passengers on pleasure cruises. As a result, it was slightly schizoid, trying in different locations to be either cozy or luxurious. The observation deck definitely fell on the luxurious side. T'Laren guided Q back onto the bridge and out the door in the front, leading onto the balcony for the forward dining room/observation room. This room spanned three of Ketaya's four decks, occupying almost all of the forward bow, with a curved transparent plasteel surface forming the ceiling and three of the walls, exposing the stars. Right now they were in warp, so the computer-imaging function was in effect, turning the bizarre spacescape of subspace into a normal-looking sea of rapidly moving stars. "This is the main dining room and lounge," T'Laren said. "We're on the Deck 1 balcony." She gestured downward. Below, on Deck 2, were six tables, and the pit on Deck 3 contained a fountain, currently deactivated. "This room is primarily intended for guests aboard a space yacht; I doubt we'll be using it much."

"Oh, I agree." Q scowled at the starscape. "This is horrendously overdone."

She stepped back onto the bridge and walked around its perimeter. "This is our transport platform, and down this way, as you've already discovered, is engineering." T'Laren stepped on the turbo-platform down to engineering. After a moment, Q joined her.

They descended past engineering on Deck 2 down to Deck 3. "Sickbay's up on Deck 2, along with the crew's quarters, and on Deck 4, on either side of the airlocks, we keep maintenance equipment and supply closets." T'Laren stepped off the platform as it stopped on Deck 3, and Q followed. "This is the passenger level, so most of the facilities are here. Down that way3/4" she pointed toward the back of the ship-- "is the swimming pool, the sauna, and the gym. Right here is the kitchen."

"What's the point to having a kitchen aboard a starship?" Q asked. "Don't tell me you can cook."

T'Laren shrugged. "If you insist," she said. "You've already dumped your bags in your room, so I presume you know where it is. If you'd rather have any of the other rooms for some reason, they're all along this corridor."

"Who created this monstrosity?" Q stopped in the middle of the corridor. "I mean, yes, obviously Lhoviri created it, but was the internal design plan his idea? Or did you make this up?"

"It's a Tamlin-class yacht, with some slight modifications that I assume are to accommodate the drive. I suggested that he use this type of plan-- when I was young, my parents took me on a trip to Vulcan, and we traveled in a Tamlin-class ship. Why?"

"Because it looks like what would happen if you crossed a starfaring home with a pleasure liner, an unaesthetic combination at best. And who designed the decor, and what is their fetish for the color green?"

"I did. I like green. If you would prefer a different decor, by all means design one." She walked to the door of his room and touched the "open" panel, gesturing for him to go into his room.

Q went in and collapsed on his bed. "It is unbelievable how quickly I get tired," he murmured. "I can't even seem to sustain a conversation."

What he meant, T'Laren thought, was that he couldn't seem to sustain a pointless argument, though he was certainly trying his best. "If you want to take a nap, it'll be a few hours before we're having dinner."

"I can't take a nap. I can't sleep without a sedative." He rolled over and stared at her. "What do you mean by a few hours before dinner? Is there some set time during which the replicators produce food, and at no other time can we get a meal?"

"I would like you to eat with me, in the kitchen."

"Why?"

"Eating together is an important social connector for humans."

"It's meaningless to me and you're a Vulcan, so why bother?"

"You're missing the point," T'Laren said sharply. "I'm here to teach you how to make social connections with your own species, not Vulcans. What is meaningless to you is meaningful to others and costs you very little. So you are going to develop the habit of eating with other people."

"And if I refuse?"

"You will get very hungry."

Q sat up. "You'd lock me out of the replicator system?"

"I already have," T'Laren said. "You can't use a replicator without my supervision." At Q's look of outrage, she tilted her head slightly. "Consider, Q. Would I be sensible to let a known suicide risk use a replicator freely?"

Q's eyes narrowed. "Am I confined to my quarters without your supervision too?"

"No."

"But that would be sensible, too. Why would you let a known suicide risk walk around freely? I could find my way back to the airlocks and space myself. Or drown myself in the swimming pool."

"You could," T'Laren said, nodding. Actually he couldn't. There were safety interlocks on the airlocks so they couldn't be opened with a person inside, and the swimming pool would rapidly drain itself if its biosensors sensed a person in danger of drowning in it. But she saw no need to tell him that-- he would interpret it as a challenge and work to get around it, even if he didn't actually plan to kill himself. "I don't think you will, though."

"Then why aren't you letting me use the replicators?" He stood up and walked over to her. "This is some kind of power trip, isn't it. You're as bad as Anderson. You simply want to control my life." Q loomed over T'Laren. "Isn't that it?"

T'Laren craned her head up to look at him and made no move from her position. Her unshakable calm would make him look paranoid, automatically defusing his argument. It was a useful technique. "You have twice attempted to kill yourself on what appeared to be a momentary impulse. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if your first two suicide attempts were not planned in advance. At some moment, it suddenly struck you that your life was unbearable, and you took the first opportunity at hand to correct the situation. Am I right?"

"The third time was planned. I planned that for a month."

T'Laren nodded. "The third time was also far more serious. I think you gave a lot of thought to your decision, and tried to find some other solution. It was less that you wanted to die than that you thought death was the only alternative to your pain. I have presented you with another possible alternative, and I believe you want to try to make this work. You would rather be happy than dead, am I correct?"

Q stepped back from her with a snort of contempt. "Of course I'd rather be happy than dead. Anyone would. What kind of a stupid question is that?"

"And you are an intelligent man, and aware that if this solution is to work, it'll take some time to take effect. You will give me at least a month or two to prove that you can be happy before deciding that this is hopeless and the best solution is still death. Yes?"

"Thank you for putting words in my mouth."

"Am I right?"

Q glared. "Yes, yes. You're right, you're perfectly correct, you're practically omniscient, now get to the point!"

"I don't need to protect you from planned suicides, Q. For a while, at least, you won't plan your own death-- you'll give me some leeway to try to help you. What I need to protect you from is a sudden overwhelming surge of despair that drowns out your reason. I am afraid that if you had a close, convenient, painless method of suicide at hand-- as you would, if you had access to the replicators-- you might be possessed by a sudden desperate desire for oblivion and act on it. If it took a few minutes to arrange your own death, you would have time to reconsider and let your reason reassert itself." She walked over to him, took his hand, and guided him gently over to his bed. "And whether you want to admit it or not, you're glad I took the precaution. You know you cannot entirely trust yourself, and you're glad that someone is thinking of how to catch you if you falter."

He looked as if he would argue with her for a moment. Then he sat down on the bed, resigned and exhausted-looking. "I suppose you're right," he whispered, almost silently-- it might have been inaudible to a human. He looked up at her. "You win. Call me when you want to have dinner-- I'll be unpacking, or resting, or something."

"You should sleep. You look exhausted."

"I am exhausted, but that doesn't mean I'd be able to sleep. My mind isn't tired, just this feeble shell it's trapped in. I'll be all right if I simply rest for an hour or two."

"All right then." She suspected he'd fall asleep anyway, but it wasn't worth pressing the point. "I'll get you for dinner in a few hours."

To her surprise, he was not asleep when she came to get him. He was sitting on the floor with the replicator partially disassembled around him, scowling intently at it. "Excuse me," T'Laren said. "What are you doing?"

Q looked up at her and grinned embarrassedly. "Oh, hello, T'Laren."

"Am I to take it that you're doing something I would disapprove of?"

"I don't believe you ever said I couldn't try to bypass your security lock," he said, the picture of innocence.

T'Laren shook her head slightly. "How long will it take you to put that back together?"

"Two minutes if I give up on the bypass. This is cleverly done. Did Lhoviri set up this security system for you?"

"No. I put it in myself."

"I thought you said you weren't an engineer." He started to replace the pieces he'd removed.

"I'm not. But I used to--" She hesitated, thinking how to phrase this. "On my old ship, the chief engineer was a fellow Vulcan, and at one point he placed a software security lock on the replicator in my quarters. I had a friend bypass it for me. So he put in a hardware lock. In order to get access to my replicator, I studied replicator technology and asked another of the engineers to teach me how to disassemble the lock. In the process, I learned how to assemble one as well, as well as a good deal of other mostly useless information about replicators."

"Why did the chief engineer do that?"

She shrugged slightly. "Probably for the same reason I put the lock on your replicator. He... was aware that I was unwell, though he could not quite identify how. Are you finished?"

"More or less." He stood up. "I really need access to the replicators, T'Laren. You can make up some kind of list of dangerous items you don't want me to have-- you can download the list from Starbase 56 if you want to-- but I've got to have access to the replicators."

"I'll consider it," T'Laren said. "Come on."

She had thought about cooking a meal for them both, but it seemed like a great deal of effort to go to for someone who was not yet capable of appreciating the gesture, so they both ordered from the kitchen replicator. The kitchen was a small, cozy thing with a table big enough to seat six, two replicators, a full set of cooking equipment, and staples in a stasis cabinet. The supply of staples was low-- T'Laren kept meaning to replicate replacements, and never got around to it. She had three sayings in Vulcan hanging on scrolls in various locations in the kitchen, imitating her mother's habit of putting up homey mottoes without the incredible sappiness of the mottoes her mother had used.

"What's that say?" Q asked, pointing at one.

"Mmm." T'Laren studied it, trying to think how to render it. "It's a poem from a children's story-- a work by T'Neer, the Vulcan equivalent of Lewis Carroll."

"There is a Vulcan equivalent of Lewis Carroll?"

"Not quite, but close. Her work is considered either absurd or disturbing, and usually said to be unsuitable for children, despite which children read all of her books."

"What's it say, though?"

"I'm trying to translate... I'll have to render it in prose, I'm no poet. '"But don't you like my gift?" Lhoviri asked. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? Why, I distinctly recall you asking for this in particular. Don't tell me you don't want it now!" And no one did tell him that. Because there was no one there who could speak anymore.'"

"Oh." Q nodded, grinning. "Your benefactor must find that one vastly entertaining."

"I wouldn't know. He never mentioned it."

"What about that one?" He pointed at another.

"It's a witticism. I'm not sure it would translate well into English."

"Try."

"'Those who spend all their time examining their own logic really ought to have their logic examined.'" At Q's look, she explained, "It's funny in Vulcan."

"I'm sure," Q said blandly.

T'Laren bent over her meal, focused on eating. A minute passed in silence. Finally Q said, "What do people talk about at these things?"

"Generally one avoids talking about anything unpleasant. Aside from that, however, any topic is acceptable." She looked up. "For instance, we could discuss the fact that you are about 20% underweight, have no muscle tone to speak of, and desperately need to build up your strength, and yet you are eating nothing but a small bowl of linguine in butter sauce and a sugary chocolate drink."

Q shrugged. "I wasn't that hungry. Does the replicator know about the supplement I need? Li says I won't be able to digest properly on my own for a few months, I have to have a supplement in my food to help digest it."

"Yes. Do you realize you have no vegetables, no meat, no dairy products-- nothing but starch and sugar and a smattering of fats in the butter sauce? There's not a vitamin to be found in what you're eating."

"I'm sure there's one or two."

"Q, you're badly underweight. You were thin before you destroyed your entire intestinal tract and needed to be placed on life-support for two weeks, and you're close to skeletal now. Eat some meat. Vegetables. Something. That meal would not satisfy me, and my ideal weight is half yours."

Q sighed. "I told you, I'm not that hungry. Besides, I thought starch was supposed to be good for gaining weight."

"I thought so too, until I met a man who eats nothing but carbohydrates and looks like he's starving to death." T'Laren's eyes narrowed. "I think this is another of your subconscious self-destruct attempts. Tomorrow you're going on a diet and exercise regimen."

"You want me to exercise? In my condition?" Q stared at her as if she'd just told him to breathe water. "T'Laren, I can't stay on my feet for half an hour without getting winded and you think I should exercise?"

"How do you expect to get into better shape?"

"Let my body heal itself. It's good at that. That's what it's evolved for."

"You need to build up muscle and stamina. Your body can't heal itself if you don't give it raw materials to build with, and it'll heal faster if you use it." She shook her head. "That is not a young body, Q. It's by no means an old one, but it's physiologically at least in its 30's. It can't take this kind of abuse."

"It is so a young body. It was in perfect health three years ago. Well, except for a tendency toward a bad back, but aside from that it was in perfect health, and it's only three years old chronologically."

"That doesn't matter. Physiologically it was past its peak when you got it. Why did you choose to be in your 30's? Why not pick, say, 18?"

Q picked at his food. ""If they'd given me time to think, I certainly would have asked for it younger. And with no bad back. And no tendency to hair loss. And while I was at it, I'd have given it an ESP rating considerably higher than human average, built up its muscular structure and increased its senses to human maximum. If I'd had time, I might even have chosen a completely different body. I might have chosen to be female. Women get a lot more sympathy than men, I've noticed." He looked up. "But they didn't give me time.

"I'd taken this body originally for a completely different purpose. I wanted a form specifically designed to be intimidating and challenging on an intellectual and authoritarian level, and I was aiming it at Picard. I chose a male body, younger than Picard but old enough to have some authority, taller and stronger-looking than Picard, because human men instinctively respond to strange human males as potential threats, especially stronger, taller ones closer to their physical peak. This is a subconscious thing, mind you-- most men aren't aware they do it, but they do. They also learn equally subconscious techniques for defusing the threat that they themselves present to other men. Unfortunately, I never bothered to study those techniques when I was a Q, and now I'm stuck. While the body of a challenger is ideal when one intends a challenge, it is a very bad idea when one wants sympathy. As a human, I'd have done a lot better in a weaker-looking body-- as I said, perhaps a female one, perhaps an adolescent one, though adolescents don't get much sympathy either. Alternately, I'd have done better if this body actually was the specimen of physical perfection that it was when I was omnipotent. I didn't check for genetic booby traps back when it was irrelevant to me, and when I said I wanted to be human, they automatically put me in the human form I'd most often manifested in, without giving me time to fix it up."

"Where did you get this form?"

"Stole it. I picked this one up about a hundred years ago. There's a story behind it, but not one I much feel like telling. Suffice it to say that with minor modifications it's genetically identical to a man who died more or less a century ago."

"I thought your first contact with humanity was six years ago."

Q smiled thinly. "I have rather given that impression, haven't I."

"Time travel?"

"Or outright lies. Take your pick. I prefer to be mysterious and secretive, myself." He leaned forward, widening his eyes slightly. "And I don't appear to be alone. Every time you've told me anything about your own background, you've phrased it in as vague terms as possible. Believe me, as a master of vagueness myself, it's an impressive performance. But it does lead me to wonder what you're hiding."

T'Laren frowned. "Hiding? It's less that I'm hiding something than that my life is simply uninteresting."

"Oh, come now. A Vulcan raised in Texas, working as a psychologist, drummed out of Starfleet for mental illness, and you say your background is uninteresting? How can it be anything but interesting?"

Perhaps it was a good thing that he was showing an interest in other people's histories-- it usually did indicate that a person was becoming less self-centered. T'Laren did wish, however, that it wasn't her history in particular that he was interested in. "What do you want to know?"

"To begin with, why Texas? Were your parents diplomats or teachers of some sort? What were they doing on Earth, and more importantly, what were they doing in Texas?"

"They lived there," T'Laren said dryly. "My parents were humans."

Q stared at her for several seconds with a disbelieving expression before the light dawned. "Ah. Adoptive parents. I see."

"Yes. I was adopted by a human couple."

"Why?"

This story was harmless enough, and if she could keep him at the table a while longer, perhaps he would finish his food. T'Laren turned to the replicator, called up rolls and dessert pastries, and put them on the table, hoping that Q would take one to snack on. She then leaned back and began the story.

"My natural mother, T'Lal, was a Starfleet officer. At the appointed time, she took leave on Vulcan--"

"The appointed time?" Q interrupted, picking up a cheese pastry.

"The time of marriage. Most Vulcans are bonded to their mates in childhood, and at the appointed time, they come together on Vulcan. She went to Vulcan and married my biological father, but... something happened, and he died during their first week together."

Q interrupted again with his mouth full. "By hedging about and saying 'something happened', do you mean you don't want to tell me what happened or you don't know?"

"I don't know. My parents didn't know, because T'Lal never told them, and my Vulcan family wouldn't talk about it. It was undoubtedly something too shameful to discuss with a child or with outsiders. This sort of thing occasionally happens in Vulcan marriages; there are a number of possible causes. In any case, she returned to her ship, pregnant with me. At that time, it was Starfleet policy to allow children under five, if the Starfleet parent was custodial or if both parents were in Starfleet. Civilian adult spouses were permitted aboard only if they could perform some useful function, for instance scientists. T'Lal had a close platonic friendship with my father, the chief engineer, and with his wife, a civilian geologist. Starfleet required-- and still does-- that custodial Starfleet parents declare a guardian for their child in the event of their death. Since my natural mother's family was scattered throughout space, and she had no contact with the family of her mate, she asked my father to be my guardian, and he agreed.

"When I was four years old, T'Lal died on an away mission. The Dorsets took me in, and when I turned five my adoptive mother moved to Earth with me, back to the family's estate in Texas. When I was eight, my father was promoted to an administrative job on Earth, supervising the design of new starships. So they raised me together until I was sixteen, at which point my natural father's family tracked me down. They asked for custody of me, on the grounds that I could not possibly be fully exposed to my Vulcan heritage if raised on Earth by human parents, and my parents saw... the logic in that. So I went to Vulcan."

Q frowned. "Wait a minute. You were sixteen? I admit to knowing little about human childhoods, or Vulcan for that matter, but I would think the damage would have been done by that time." It was, T'Laren thought, but didn't say. Q continued, "Did you have any say in this? Did they just hand you over, just like that?"

"No. I..." Emotions rose to the surface, emotions she'd long thought she'd eliminated. "You cannot understand what it's like to grow up an alien. To be raised surrounded by people who on a very fundamental level are not like you. I loved my adoptive parents, and I had friends on Earth, and I was happy there. But... Vulcan was my homeworld. I had dreamed about it all my life. I wanted desperately to be a proper Vulcan, to learn the disciplines fully, to be like I imagined my dead mother to be. When my father's cousin Sepat came to claim me, I went with him quite willingly."

"You sound as if you think it was a bad idea."

T'Laren hesitated, studying her hands. "Perhaps it was."

Q leaned forward. "I asked Sekal about the Vulcan disciplines once. He told me that while humans can't learn the disciplines at all, even Vulcans need to start very young, or the attempt to control their emotions leads to instability and insanity." He met her eyes and held them. "Is that what happened to you?"

After a moment T'Laren dropped her gaze again. "I don't know." She looked up. "I wasn't completely undisciplined when I went to Vulcan. Since I was five, I'd been going to a Vulcan tutor every week. He lived in Dallas, about half an hour by maglev from my home, and he taught me the fundamentals. But... Vulcan discipline isn't something you can pick up in two-hour lessons once a week. It's something you have to live. It's reinforced by everyone around you. And in my case, it wasn't."

She picked up one of the rolls and bit into it, continuing as she ate. "My parents wanted to be very supportive. They paid for my lessons, they told me that if I wanted to be Vulcan they were happy with my choice, they got me books on Vulcan and even took me on a few vacations there. But on Vulcan, if a little girl spontaneously throws her arms around her father and hugs him, she is gently reproved for her emotionality. When I did it, my father smiled indulgently and hugged me back. Intellectually they understood that I should achieve emotional control, but... they were only human. When I was properly controlled, they perceived me as being cold to them, and it hurt them. And my friends were far worse. They didn't even make an attempt to make allowances for my being Vulcan-- if I wanted to play with them, I had to act like a human being. So I studied the disciplines, but I didn't use them to master my emotions. I couldn't. There was too much pressure on me to be emotional. Instead, I learned how to hide my emotions if I chose, and how to project different emotions than what I felt. I studied human behavior constantly, obsessively, and I learned to pretend and to lie, to wear a thousand different masks. That isn't Vulcan behavior."

"And trying to imitate real Vulcan behavior drove you nuts?"

"It wasn't that simple."

"T'Laren-- if it was that hard for you to be a Vulcan, why did you even bother? Why didn't you just quit trying?"

That approached territory she definitely did not want to discuss or talk about. "I was under... pressures that you cannot possibly understand. I had to be Vulcan. It was immensely important to me." She thought of how it had been, stretched so thin between Soram's demands that she be a proper Vulcan and her own desperate emotional needs. Her Vulcan act had always been flawed, because it was emotion that drove her to such an act, an emotion so violent and consuming that it had snapped her in the end. If not for Lhoviri, it would have destroyed her.

Actually, it had destroyed her. When Lhoviri had found her, she had been dead.

"T'Laren? Are you all right?"

She came back to the present. "Fine. Just... remembering." She shook her head. "I would really rather discuss something else, Q."

"I think... I can understand how you felt," he said. "Which would be a first, I admit. I don't normally understand anything anyone feels. But... I do know a little bit about what that's like."

"Do you?" she asked. "Did you grow up an alien? Do you know what it's like to finally be part of your own kind, and discover that they are more alien to you than the aliens you were raised among?"

"I didn't grow up an alien," he said. "I grew up as part of something that later decided I was inferior, unsuitable, and threw me out to live among aliens. The situation's not identical, I know. But I can sympathize." He smiled ironically. "In terms of the Q lifespan and our stages of development, I am approximately at the same stage you were when you went to Vulcan. You, at least, chose to go."

"You're sixteen? Approximately?"

Q shrugged. "There's no exact analogy. We measure development by maturity itself, not an artificial indicator like chronological age. And those at my stage of development are considered adults, in the sense that our children don't participate in the Continuum overmind and I do. Did. But as I understand it, the closest human equivalent to my stage of development would be the stage of adolescence, yes. The stage in which one makes the transition from child to mature adult, attempts to find one's place in one's society... and runs the greatest risk of self-destructing, one way or another. That's adolescence, right?"

"Yes."

"Then that's me." He looked down. "I should say, 'was me'. I don't know what I am in human terms, but what I am in Q society, right now, is a failure, an outcast, a lesser being. The great experiment that was me failed. Back to the drawing board."

"The great experiment? Were you-- in some sense designed differently than your fellows?"

"Oh, no, no, no. That's not what I meant." He leaned forward. "Every infant Q created is an experiment. We don't reproduce to replace ourselves-- only our adolescents can possibly die, and that only if the rest of the Q weeds them out. We produce new Q to provide different points of view, new perspectives, to add to the range that the Continuum covers. And if a particular perspective turns out to be not worth the trouble it causes, it gets weeded out in adolescence. Failed experiments, time and effort down the drain. Either a flawed design, or something in the errant entity's life experience, has caused it to become useless or dangerous to the Continuum. So we kill it, or reabsorb it..." He stared down at the table. "Or make it mortal and let it die of natural causes. I'm not the first this has happened to." His voice had a wavering edge to it, and a heavy dose of bitter pain.

"Have any of the others ever been taken back?" T'Laren asked gently.

Q looked up at her, eyes bright with unshed tears. "Not that I can remember," he said, his voice beginning to break.

Then he pushed away from the table and stood, shaking his head violently. "This is stupid. I'm obviously overtired. Can I have my sedative now?"

T'Laren shook her head. "You do look exhausted," she said. "But if you're that tired, you shouldn't need a sedative."

"It doesn't matter how tired I am, I can't sleep without a sedative. Could you just give me one, and save the argument for tomorrow?"

"I don't like you constantly taking sedatives. Your health is poor as it is. It sounds as if you've grown dangerously dependent on them." She stood up. "I think it would be best if we got you off them as soon as possible. I don't want you taking sedatives when you're this weak."

Q stared at her in disbelief. "You're not going to give me a sedative."

"Correct."

"But I need it." He sat down heavily and swallowed. "Do I have to beg?" he asked harshly.

"Explain to me why you need a sedative. What symptoms do you experience that prevent you from sleeping?"

"Well, to begin with, I'm in constant pain." His voice was sharp and challenging. "I told you already, I'm constantly plagued with aches and pains. My neck, my back, my head, my stomach, all hurt all the time. I can ignore them when I'm awake to a small extent, but they take over when I'm trying to sleep. If you won't let me have a sedative, can I have a painkiller?"

"I don't want you dependent on them, either." T'Laren walked around behind him and reached toward his shoulder. Q flinched.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, sounding frightened.

"Checking something." She took his shoulders in each hand and felt for tension with thumbs and fingers. His neck and back were rigid, his muscles like duranium cables. "Try to relax."

"But what are you doing?"

"A large part of your pain seems to be coming from tension. Q, I'm not going to hurt you or do anything you'd find unpleasant. Please relax."

He relaxed slightly. She could see it in the set of his shoulders, hear it in the soft release of held breath. But she could barely feel the relaxation at all-- his back muscles were still rigid. His spine was badly out of alignment, the muscles in his back having gradually tugged it into an unnatural configuration.

T'Laren released him and stepped back. "All right. I believe I know how to fix the problem."

"Really." His voice was flat and disbelieving.

"Come with me." She left the kitchen. Q stood up and followed.

"Are we going to sickbay? I don't need an adjustment. I just need a painkiller. Or a sedative. Either would do."

"We're not going to sickbay," she said, and palmed open his suite's door.

"Why are we going to my room?" he asked nervously, following her inside.

"Lie down."

"I-- no." He backed away from her toward the exit. "Tell me what you're going to do."

"I'm going to fix your back so you can sleep. Now lie down."

Q scrutinized her suspiciously. "This doesn't have anything to do with sex, does it?"

T'Laren blinked in surprise before she could control the reaction. Where had he gotten that from? "No. It has nothing to do with sex, I assure you. I'm just going to fix your back."

That seemed to lessen his nervousness, but not eliminate it entirely. He sat down on the bed, but made no move to lie down. "Do I have to take off my shirt?"

The answer, T'Laren suspected, had to be 'no' or he would balk again. "It isn't necessary. It would make things easier, but I can work with your shirt on. And no, you do not need to remove any other articles of clothing either, though I suspect you would be more comfortable with your shipboots off."

Q lay down on his back, making no move to take his boots off. T'Laren wondered why he was so incredibly nervous. Medellin and his file had both said that he was celibate by choice, and that he claimed this was because he considered sex disgusting and beneath him. He had never demonstrated any problem with the relief of pain, however, and there was nothing in his files to indicate a phobia of being touched. Perhaps he'd been reading too many books where a massage led to seduction-- though even then, this wasn't disgust. This was fear. It occurred to T'Laren to wonder if someone had molested him somehow in the past three years-- surely sexuality would not carry sufficient value to members of the Q Continuum that he should be terrified of the possibility.

"You have to turn over," T'Laren said. "I can't reach your back."

He did so. "Are you sure this has nothing to do with sex?" he asked, his voice somewhat muffled against the bed.

"Positive. Backrubs can be used as a form of foreplay or seduction, but by themselves they are completely platonic. I assure you, there is nothing sexual in this. Now relax."

She reached down and found the nexii of tension under the shoulderblades with her fingertips, digging in slowly. Q made a sharp noise, jerked and turned his head with an expression of outrage that quickly faded to puzzlement. "That felt good," he said, surprised.

"It's supposed to. Lie still and let me finish."

He lay his head back down on the bed, pillowing it on his arms. "I've gone to sickbay to have my back fixed in several extreme cases. The remedy usually was almost worse than the problem."

"This is a massage, not a chiropractic adjustment-- although I think you need that, too. Once I've relaxed the muscles, we'll adjust your spine. It only hurt you before because you were too tense." She probed the area around his shoulderblades with slender fingers, varying the pressure as she located the worst points. The tension in the muscles slowly started to ease under her fingers. Q sighed.

"Mm. I thought the only kind of massage that was supposed to feel good was the sexual kind. The other kind was supposed to be painful, or it wasn't a good massage."

"You're talking about rolfing. That's only one school of thought. Most people acknowledge that a therapeutic massage should feel good." She moved up from the shoulderblades to the collar and neck area.

"Ohh. This really feels quite astonishingly good. Where did you learn to do this?"

T'Laren herself relaxed slightly. She enjoyed making people feel good, and it was considerably more pleasant when they acknowledged that it was working, instead of challenging and resisting her. "Part of Vulcan training. In order to properly control our bodies, which is necessary for mastering our emotions, we need a thorough knowledge of our own neuroanatomy. As it happens, Vulcan spinal neuroanatomy is virtually identical to nearly every other humanoid race's. That's why the nerve pinch works; it is actually just a side effect of our training. Only Vulcans in Starfleet and in security positions are really good at it, since we're the only ones who practice it a lot. The same goes for backrubs; while any Vulcan would know the techniques in theory, few have practiced it. Vulcans use self-relaxation techniques instead. I, however, lived among humans, so I ended up practicing a great deal, first on my parents and then my classmates at the Academy."

"Well, you're very good. If you ever decide to quit the psychology business, you have a brilliant future as a chiropractor. Or a masseuse. I'll personally write you a letter of recommendation. Ohh. This is astonishing."

He sounded almost dazed, as if he couldn't believe he could possibly feel good. T'Laren wondered how much pain he'd actually been in, and if that could have anything to do with his depression. If he really had been suffering physically for some time, that could well be a component of his desire to escape his life. "I'm glad you find it pleasant," she said, and moved up to the bare skin on the back of his neck. Here she could feel the tension more powerfully than through his clothes, with the distant currents of his mind tantalizing the edge of her consciousness, a faint shadowy wash of pain receding to pleasure. With a small effort, she shielded her mind.

Q suddenly tensed, his head moving up. "You people are touch-telepaths, aren't you."

"We are, but I've shielded my mind against you," she said, wondering why he brought that up now. He couldn't have sensed the brief almost-contact; she had been passively receiving, making no active attempt to link, and Q's ESP rating was no better than human average. He would have had to have been reading her mind to know that she could have opened a link to his, and that was beyond his capabilities now. "Also, unshielded physical contact itself doesn't form a link; an active effort of concentration is needed to open a telepathic channel, preferably at one of the meld points. And if I tried to form a meld, you'd know it. My touching your skin alone doesn't permit me to read your mind, Q." She wasn't going to mention that the back of the neck was a meld point. What he didn't know wouldn't needlessly frighten him.

"Oh." He relaxed. Probably he hadn't noticed anything at all; he was just paranoid about having his mind read. T'Laren imagined she would be in his position, too. To be so immensely powerful on a telepathic scale that others' minds were an open book, and yet they could only sense you at all if you chose; and then to be suddenly stripped of that power, one's mind naked and psionically defenseless... that would be somewhat horrifying.

The brief moment of fear had caused a mild tensing-up all throughout his back again. She moved down from his neck-- he could probably use a temple massage, too, but things like that would have to wait until he was more secure with her telepathy-- and down his back again, finding the muscle clusters and rubbing them into submission. Probably he could use her ministrations on his buttocks and the backs of his legs as well, but that again would have to wait until he was more secure.

"I think I'll teach you some elementary biofeedback and relaxation techniques," she said. "There's no reason you should have to be in such pain."

"Could I learn that?" he asked.

"I don't see why not. Humans have developed relaxation and meditative techniques themselves, so I know there's no biological reason you can't do it. You'd never be able to achieve a Vulcan level of control, but I think you would feel much better about your life if you had any modicum of control over your own body, however small."

"I agree. Ohh. Yes. Right there." He moaned as she pressed her fingers into the small of his back, on either side of his spine. "This is unbelievable. Why don't Starfleet medics learn how to do this?"

"Most of them do, but it's something done for friends, not as a treatment. Starfleet personnel are all trained in some sort of personal relaxation technique, so they don't need this sort of thing as badly as you apparently do, and most of them have friends."

"Really. It never occurred to me that having friends provided any sort of physical benefit. I'd always thought the advantage was mostly emotional."

"Body and mind are linked. You should know that by now."

"Mine aren't."

That was such an outrageous thing to say that T'Laren had to assume he meant it as a joke, though he'd spoken in a perfectly serious tone of voice. She didn't reply directly. "Humans have a deep psychological need for physical contact with their fellows. It's one of the major differences between humans and Vulcans. Vulcans have a deep psychological need for telepathic contact with their fellows, but if that requirement is fulfilled we have no real need to touch each other. Humans, having no telepathy, need physical contact."

"And what if they don't get it?"

"They generally become very unhappy, which has a profound physical effect. Unhappiness can cause tension, stomachaches, headaches and muscle spasms. Over time, it can cause drastic weight loss, accelerate hair loss, and increase the apparent speed of aging."

"Oh, very funny," Q muttered. He turned his head to look up at her. "Are you trying to say that I'm unhappy because I lack physical contact with human beings?"

"Not at all. You are unhappy for multiple and complex reasons, primary among which is the fact that you have been deprived of most of your abilities and exiled to a life you are unsuited for. No one would deny that. But your lack of positive social contact is another of the reasons, exacerbating the problem, and the lack of physical contact is merely a small aspect of the lack of social contact. I doubt having friends could make you happy, but it could make your life bearable enough that you could continue to hold on in hope of reinstatement. And if your life were more bearable, you wouldn't be under so much stress, and so you wouldn't be in so much pain. Doesn't that make sense to you?"

He sighed. "I'd like to argue with you. I hate the idea that I could be so dependent on other people. Bad enough I need them to protect me, I have to have them like me too? But it's far too obvious that-- ohh-- you've just demonstrated that-- put it this way. I have obviously been missing out on something. And if any of this positive social contact nonsense could make me feel half as good as you are doing now, it's definitely something I want to look into. Ohhh. Why didn't anyone ever tell me this was possible?"

T'Laren raised an eyebrow. Medellin had been trying to get the idea that he should try to make friends through his head for three years. Apparently all it would have taken was a skilled backrub. She would have to call Medellin and suggest the technique for future reference. "People told you several times it was possible for you to feel good. You ignored them or dismissed their suggestions as disgusting, unnecessary or impossible."

"You're right," he murmured. "I'm an idiot, T'Laren. But I'm so used to hurting now that if something comes along that sounds like it might be pleasant, I think there has to be a catch somewhere. Or I think about what it's going to end up costing me in the long run. Ohhh. I never thought-- I could get so used to pain-- that its relief would seem so exquisite. I really can't get over how good this feels. I'm trying to remember if I ever felt this kind of pleasure when I was omnipotent, and you know, I must have, but I can't remember a single incident. This is just unbelievable."

T'Laren frowned slightly. Backrubs were pleasant, but not that much so. She wondered if Q overreacted to pleasure to the same extent that he did to pain, or if it was because he had been desperately starved for humanoid contact. Or possibly both. He was reacting more like a virgin who had just discovered sex than a man receiving his first massage. On the other hand, if it could get him to freely admit that she was right and he was an idiot, perhaps she should not complain of his overreaction.

She had worked her way back up to his neck by this time, and now slowly started to rub his scalp, running her fingers through his hair as she gradually worked over to his temples. She wanted to see if he was ready to trust her yet. He had to know that the temples were some of the primary meld points; Vulcan mindmelds were featured often enough in fiction and holofilms that she didn't think anyone who read as voraciously as he did could avoid knowing it. But when she reached to rub his temples, cautiously, he didn't jerk or flinch or do anything except lie bonelessly under her hands. At least for now, he seemed to trust her not to invade his mind.

She lifted her hands away from his temples. "I'm going to straighten your spine now," she told him. "It won't hurt, but it will feel a little bit unusual. I don't want you to become afraid or tense up."

"If you wanted to break my neck right now, I'd let you," Q murmured. "Do what you will with me."

T'Laren pressed one hand against the small of his back, held his left shoulder with the other, and pulled. Q released his breath explosively, but made no attempt to resist as she pressed the heels of her palms against his spine, pushing the vertebra into place. She repeated this several times, moving up his back, then took his head in her hands and twisted it hard, straightening the spine in the back of the neck. Then she released him and stroked his back lightly, soothing any residual tension as she checked her work. "You need to increase muscle tone in your back, and to learn some relaxation exercises, for this to be permanent. But for the next day or two, I think your back won't give you any trouble."

"Mmm." He turned his head to face her, a lazy, happy smile on his face. "Thank you. That does feel much better."

T'Laren walked over to the replicator and ordered a cup of hot cocoa for him. "Here. Drink this."

Q sat up, leaning back against pillows that he'd propped against the wall behind his bed, and took the drink. "Not that I'm complaining, but why?"

"Warm drinks have a natural sedative effect. Especially warm drinks with high trypsin levels. This is essentially heated chocolate milk. Humans have used it as a natural sleep aid for centuries."

"What's the difference between a 'natural' sedative and a hypo with a sleep drug in it? It seems like you're somewhat inconsistent. If one kind of sedative is bad, why is another good?"

"Comparative levels and strength. Warm cocoa can't put you to sleep against your will. If you're already relaxed and prepared to go to sleep, however, it can help speed the process. A hypo with a sleep drug in it imposes sleep on you; a warm drink helps your body do the job itself. Besides, it'll help settle your stomach."

"All right." He sipped at the drink. "T'Laren-- thank you. Really. It's amazing how much better I feel now. I don't even have stomach pains, and you didn't do anything to my stomach."

"Everything's interrelated."

Q nodded. He seemed unusually open and suggestible, almost a normal human being in comparison to his usual reflexive stubbornness. "I suppose it must be. I-- thank you. I think maybe I will be able to go to sleep now."

"I'm glad." She turned and walked over to the door, which opened to release her. "Good night, Q."

"Aren't you going to tuck me in?" Q asked.

T'Laren turned back, startled. Q smiled winningly. He really could look boyishly charming if he tried. "After all, I'm onwy fwee."

"I thought you were sixteen."

"That, too."

"If you have your heart set on being tucked in," T'Laren said, one eyebrow raised, "I can arrange to oblige."

Q laughed. "No, no. You've babied me far too much already tonight. I'll get spoiled," he said. He put down the cocoa mug, his expression sobering. "I owe you, T'Laren."

"You don't owe me," T'Laren said. "This is my job. If you prefer, you can consider that Lhoviri has pre-paid your debt in full."

"Then I'd owe him, and I'd rather not." He shook his head. "Not that I can avoid it, since all of this is through his doing, but still. I'll find a way to pay you back personally. I promise."

"Try your best to cooperate with me in healing you, and that will be payment enough."

He nodded. "All right. Good night, T'Laren."

"Good night."

There were monitors in her room, hidden behind paneling, from where she could observe every room of the ship. They had not been part of the original equipment; she had suggested that they would be helpful to have in dealing with a suicide risk who was frequently attacked by various beings, and so Lhoviri had provided them. She was glad, now, that she'd set them up to be hidden unless she asked for them to be displayed; after the story Anderson had told about Q's hunger strike, T'Laren knew that she couldn't under any circumstances let Q know the monitors were there.

She checked the setup. She had programmed the computer to recognize human emotional states to some extent by monitoring the biosensor readings, listening to what people said-- such as "Help" or "Stop", indicating possible need or distress-- and comparing non-verbal vocalizations to a list of parameters to see if particular sounds might be cries of pain, or of fear, or expressions of happiness. The system was not perfect-- she had done extensive testing of similar monitor systems when she was still a ship's counselor, and found that the computer had a fairly high error rate, especially with people as theatrical in their ordinary behavior as Q was. But she wanted to invade his privacy as little as possible, and at the same time needed a system to alert her if he was in trouble or in pain. The computer was programmed to contact her through a stud in her ear, on a frequency inaudible to humans, if it determined that Q was in any sort of distress, and it would automatically display the monitors if she was in her rooms and he wasn't with her.

Everything was working. T'Laren thought of testing the system, and decided against it-- Q might be dressing for bed or something, and while she had no personal taboos against that sort of thing she didn't yet know what might disturb Q. There was conflicting evidence as to whether he had developed a sense of modesty or not. If Q ever did find out she'd been monitoring him, she wanted to be on unshakable moral high ground. So she shut the monitors down and prepared for her nightly meditation.

It was more difficult to achieve trance state than it had been since she'd relearned the disciplines. Insistent thoughts, observations she'd made in the course of the day, plans she had, all intruded and disturbed her concentration. She considered sleeping instead, but rejected the possibility almost out of hand. T'Laren had not experienced uncontrolled sleep since... had it been two years already? Two years since she and Soram had returned to Vulcan, and she had... well, of course she hadn't dreamed since then. Until she'd met Lhoviri, she'd been in no position to dream. And in the time since Lhoviri had come to her-- she thought it'd been about eight months, but time did strange things around Lhoviri-- she had been too busy fighting her way back to a precarious self-control to allow the luxury of dreams. Dreams were entirely too dangerous, their function to bring to the surface things that T'Laren had to repress. The thought intruded that that was a kind of cowardice, but she pushed that thought away too. Few Vulcans allowed uncontrolled dreaming. Meditation was the Vulcan way. She was Vulcan, therefore she would meditate, and there was nothing dishonorable or cowardly about it. So she concentrated on the disciplines, focusing down until all external disturbances vanished and there was nothing but utter peace.

When her internal clock wakened her, five hours later, she felt relaxed, refreshed and completely free of intrusive feelings. She lay on top of her bed, reflecting. It was times like this that made her believe she had, indeed, chosen the correct path in deciding to be Vulcan. She was at such peace that she could not understand why anyone would choose the path of emotions, if given a choice.

Q would still be asleep; most humans slept eight hours or more, and Q had been exhausted. T'Laren dressed and went out to the bridge, where she checked that everything was running smoothly-- of course, the computers would tell her if there was anything wrong, but she felt it illogical to rely on computers too much. Upon determining that there were no problems, she went out onto the observation deck and sat down on the balcony, gazing out at the stars. Soon enough Q would wake up, and she would be plunged back into the stresses of her work. Right now, though, she wished to maintain the peace of her meditation for as long as she could.

A tiny chime in her ear woke her out of her meditation. T'Laren stood up. According to the monitor system, Q was apparently in some distress. She didn't waste time detouring to her room to see what the problem was; instead, she jumped off the balcony and down into the pit, reaching Deck 3 as fast as Earth-normal gravity could carry her, and went directly to Q's quarters.

As she entered his suite, she heard a faint whimper from the bedroom, behind a closed door. There were a number of relatively harmless possibilities-- he could be asleep and having a bad dream, for instance-- but for someone who regularly came under attack by various species with unknown capabilities, there were also a number of genuinely threatening possibilities. T'Laren palmed open the door and went directly in.

The light was on. Q was lying in bed, in black and blue pajamas, curled up tightly and facing the door. He raised his head as she came in, with an expression of outrage and red, swollen eyes. Shiny tracks glittered on his cheeks. "I thought you Vulcans were big on privacy," he snarled. "Don't you knock?"

"I'm sorry," T'Laren said, and meant it-- she wouldn't have intruded if she'd thought she had a choice. But she made no move to leave. "I heard you cry out, and I thought you might be under attack of some sort. I would have asked your permission to enter otherwise."

He levered himself up on one elbow, outrage giving way to a horrified disbelief. "You heard that? Through two doors?"

"Vulcan hearing is much superior to human," she said. "A human would have heard nothing, I'm sure." She took a step forward. "Q, what's wrong?"

"I'm fine," he snapped, but his voice broke, undermining the statement. He sat up, yanking the blankets around him like a kind of cloak. "Fine," he repeated sharply, keeping his voice under slightly better control this time. "It was just a dream."

"It must have been very bad," T'Laren said softly, walking over to a chair by his bed.

Q laughed bitterly. "Oh, no. I'm used to the bad ones. I can handle them by now. It's the good dreams that are killing me." He looked down for a moment, then raised his gaze and glared at her. "It's all your fault. I told you I needed a sedative. I always have dreams unless I take a sedative."

"I don't understand," T'Laren said, sitting down in the chair. "How are the good dreams killing you, Q?"

Q's face twisted with sudden pain. He turned his head away from T'Laren with a sharp shaking gesture and made a sound halfway between an exasperated sigh and a cry of pain. For a moment he seemed to be struggling with his words, or perhaps with his voice. When he finally spoke, it was with the harsh tone of a person using anger to fight off pain. "Every so often I dream that I'm back in the Q Continuum," he said. "It varies, how. Sometimes I dream that my people have taken me back, I'm forgiven, all debts paid. Sometimes I never left at all. All this has been a cruel practical joke a few of my fellows have played on me, and at first I'm outraged, but then I laugh about it with them. Sometimes it turns out that I inflicted this on myself, for some obscure reason that makes perfect sense in the dream, but that my limited mortal mind can no longer comprehend when I wake up. Once, I dreamed that Lhoviri gave me my powers back directly after I tried to sacrifice myself to the Calamarain-- time off for good behavior, I suppose. Whatever, I'm back. I'm myself again." He looked back at her. The anger had faded from his tone, replaced by a desperate longing. "My brothers and sisters have taken me back. I'm immortal again, omnipotent again. All my worries and troubles are gone. My family cares about me. My life is wonderful."

The pain came back to his face as his voice started to crack. "And then I wake up, and it's not true. It's not true. And the disappointment is so incredible that I want to die."

"Q--"

She reached for him, but he threw her off. "Don't you understand? It's never going to get any better! They'll never take me back, and I can't bear living like this..." His voice broke completely. "I want to die, T'Laren, I can't stand this anymore. I can't!"

"I thought you were going to try to give this a chance," T'Laren said, still gentle. "I thought you wanted to try to hang on long enough to see if your life would become bearable--"

"It never will!" Q shouted. "I could hold on a year, maybe two, I don't know how many, if I knew they would take me back, but they won't! I'm never going to be part of them again, never..." His breath caught, and he doubled over, unbreathing, for several seconds. When the air finally came out, it was as an agonized sob. He drew his knees up and pressed his face against them. "I can't bear this anymore," he said again, choking it out between strangled sobs. "Please. Help me die..."

T'Laren moved to the bed and put her arm around him. "Q. Listen to me. There's no reason to believe they won't take you back--"

"There's no reason to believe they will, either!" he screamed, his voice raw with hysteria. "If they cared about me, they wouldn't let me suffer like this!"

"You were doing so well before. You were so calm when you went to bed. What happened? Was it just the dream?"

"I was stupid before," Q snarled, lifting his head to look at her. Now his entire face was puffy and tear-stained. "I actually believed you could help me. Stupid, gullible, pathetic fool! Damn Medellin, damn Li, why did they have to save me? Why couldn't they have let me die?"

T'Laren raised an eyebrow. She was beginning to get seriously alarmed. Unless it was normal for Q to go from being upset over a dream to full-blown hysterical despair, there was something very wrong. "Q, we discussed this, remember? There's no reason to think your people won't take you back. It'll just take time. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, I remember. I remember you browbeat me into believing you because I wanted to believe it so much." He turned away from her and put his face against his knees again, muffling his sobs. "Thus proving I'm as pathetically gullible as any other mortal creature, and all my years of experience and wisdom don't mean a damn thing. Biology is destiny, and my destiny is to be worm food. And I'm never going to have anything good in my life again. That business about learning about humanity is crap-- the Q know everything they need to about humanity, they don't need any input from me. There's never been any reason for them to take me back. My people hate me. They want me dead and so do I."

T'Laren was somewhat at a loss. Under similar circumstances with any other patient, she would reassure them that their loved ones cared for them, or that they had great potential in their future. All of Q's potential was behind him in his own view, and he had no loved ones. The closest he came to friends were an android who had no emotions and would probably dislike Q if he did, and a scientist who might or might not have a crush on him and whose name Q barely remembered. Lhoviri had gotten through to her under similar circumstances by pointing out that she could still help people, and thus atone for her own guilt. Q didn't care about such things, though, and appeared to feel less guilty than self-pitying. The only thing she could think of to do at the moment was to put both arms around him and hold him as the spasms of grief racked his body. "Your people don't want you dead," she said softly. "They saved your life. Didn't you realize?"

He looked up at her again. "They did that?"

"Lhoviri made sure you didn't die of your injuries. I think he also sent Counselor Medellin a premonition that you were in trouble."

It seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Q's face twisted up with grief again. "No wonder I couldn't kill myself right!" he screamed. "They won't let me die, will they? They want me to stay alive, and suffer, and suffer..." Abruptly he stood up, tearing free of her, and screamed at the ceiling. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry about Azi, I'm sorry about the Kakkadim, I'm sorry about all of it! Please, stop torturing me like this... take me back or let me go, please, if I can't be with you I want to die..." He folded up and crumpled onto the floor, sobbing hysterically.

His loved ones. Of course. The problem wasn't that Q had no loved ones, it was that the ones he had had rejected him. Immediately T'Laren knew what she had to say. She knelt down on the floor next to him and put her arm around him again. "Q, listen to me. Please. I think there's something you don't understand."

"What?" he asked, a strangled snarl.

"You think your people hate you because they condemned you to this. That they saved your life solely to see you suffer. But don't you realize that they're above that? Why would they let Lhoviri torment you like this?"

"They let me torment Azi," he choked. "If they let me get away with that, they'll let anyone do anything to me."

Sometime later, when he was calm, she had to ask him who Azi was. "They did not let you get away with it. Is this letting you get away with it? Isn't that part of what they're punishing you for?"

A complete shot in the dark-- she had no idea if whatever he did to this Azi had anything to do with his punishment. But he stilled slightly under her arm and did not contradict her. "You have done things your people consider wrong, yes," she said. "But you told me before that they could have killed or reabsorbed you--" --and what did it mean to be reabsorbed, anyway?-- "-instead of making you mortal. What advantage does it give them to make you mortal, rather than killing you?"

"It gives them more time to watch me suffer."

"It gives you time to change. Mortality is a death sentence, yes. In Q terms, what's left of your human lifespan is probably only a fraction of an instant. But you live on our terms now, and on our terms you have many long years left. Time in which you can grow and change. Didn't you just say you don't believe they sent you here to learn about humanity?"

"Of course they didn't! They've had three or four of us do it already. They don't need me. They never needed me."

"They do need you," she said softly. "You're part of them. But they need you to change. To grow up. Have you ever heard of the concept 'tough love'?"

"What does some antiquated Earth notion have to do with anything?" he snapped through tears.

"It isn't antiquated. The idea is that if a child-- an adolescent-- is delinquent, or disobedient, and gentler methods of discipline have not worked, it's time for extreme measures. Because if the parent doesn't go to extremes, doesn't hurt the child terribly in order to make him change, the child won't. And he'll grow up to be a delinquent adult, useless to society. Sometimes really stubborn teenagers need to suffer tremendously before they can be salvaged as worthwhile citizens." She leaned down, trying to see his face. "Don't you see the analogy, Q?"

"No."

He was being stubborn-- T'Laren was sure he could see it. "Lhoviri doesn't want you to die, Q," she said. "He saved your life, twice. He hired me to help you-- and I assure you, I don't care how omnipotent he is, he went to a lot of trouble to get me into any kind of shape where I could help you. There are any number of psychologists who could play games with your head to build you back up so he could crush you, as you once accused. Lhoviri wouldn't have needed to trouble himself at all to acquire one. Instead, he put a lot of effort into helping me, so that I could help you. An entity that merely wanted to torment you would not have bothered."

"So what are you saying?" Q asked harshly.

"He wants to take you back. He does care about you. Perhaps he got you kicked out of the Continuum because he thought that was your only hope. Because if you kept going the way you'd been going, you would have reached the point where no change would be possible, and the Continuum would have been forced to kill you. By condemning you to mortality, he's given you one last opportunity to learn, and to mature at a faster rate than you could have otherwise. You're right that the Continuum probably doesn't need to learn what it means to be human, but you do. A large part of what they punished you for seems to be your complete disregard for the lives and rights of mortal beings. If you can learn how to function in a mortal society, they could trust you to be responsible with your powers again, and they could take you back."

"I can't believe that," he whispered.

"Why not?"

"Because I want it to be true, and I never get what I want."

"That's pure irrationality and you know it. I know how much it hurts to trust, Q, but you have to. Lhoviri is not about to let you kill yourself, no matter how much you want to. Your only alternative is to try to do what he sent you here to do, because otherwise you're going to be hopelessly miserable and have no way to escape your misery."

"I can't believe you," Q said desperately. "I can't..."

T'Laren had made her point. She said nothing more; simply held him as he wept hysterically. After a minute or two, she got him to ease from the tight, inward-drawn ball he'd curled into and cling to her instead. T'Laren stroked his hair and murmured soothing words, until finally the sobs faded out.

Eventually Q let go of her and turned away, embarrassed. "I-- didn't mean to do that," he said. "That was incredibly idiotic. I apologize."

"What was?"

"Having-- hysterics, like that." He shook his head. "Everything you said was perfectly rational and sensible, and I was reduced to saying 'did not's' and bawling like an infant. Maybe I am a three-year-old at that; I certainly acted like one."

T'Laren disengaged and stood up. "I can certainly understand why your loss of control shames you," she said. "But please keep in mind that I'm used to people doing irrational things that later embarrass them. I would, however, like to figure out why you lost control so quickly and completely. Do you think you can talk about it?"

"Let me wash my face and put some clothes on. I feel ridiculous."

"Very well." T'Laren went out into the living room of the suite and ordered cups of hot chocolate for both of them.

Q came out about ten minutes later, wearing a red jacket over a black jumpsuit that was belted at the waist, and boots with red piping. "More natural sedatives?" he asked. "Or is this part of your insidious plot to fatten me up?"

His tone was actually fairly light-hearted. T'Laren studied his face. It was a bit difficult to tell in this lighting-- Vulcan eyes were not well-adapted to dim yellow lights-- but it looked like he had made himself up to obliterate all traces that he'd been crying, and done so successfully. Since she had first met him lying in a hospital bed, she hadn't seen him wearing makeup before, but it looked skillfully applied-- which meant he wore it fairly often. Possibly for this reason? Men in Starfleet occasionally used basic foundation makeup to make their skin look better, but rarely took it farther than that. Q had gotten rid of the circles under his eyes, the puffiness and red eyes from crying, and had subtracted half a dozen years from his apparent age. That took more skill than most men had. In fact, in this lighting and with her Vulcan eyes, she could only tell he was wearing makeup from the fact that no one who had just been crying hysterically for the past half hour or so could possibly look that good without it.

"It's part of an insidious plot, of course," T'Laren said. "This one simple drink has more calories than you could possibly imagine."

"Than I could possibly imagine?" he asked skeptically.

"Well, your imagination tends toward the grandiose, it's true. Perhaps not." She handed him the cup. "Now. Why don't you sit down, and we'll talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" Q asked, sipping his drink. He wasn't being obviously coy; the question was asked in a sincere tone of voice. T'Laren thought it beyond the realm of possibility that it was a sincere question, but perhaps Q was trying to make her think so.

"Pretending that nothing happened isn't going to change the facts, Q," she said. "I would like to talk about the fact that you broke down seemingly because of no more than a bad dream, despite the fact that you put a high value on remaining in emotional control. Has this happened to you before?"

He frowned at his drink. "Occasionally," he said. "I am sorry-- I really don't know what happened to me. I was-- I was fine when I went to bed, more or less. Actually, after that backrub, I was in better condition than I've been for a long while. Then I had that dream, which woke me up, and I felt like crying. I had it somewhat under control until you came in; somehow then I fell apart. I'm not sure why."

"When has this happened before?"

"Oh... once when I was talking to Sekal. Several times when I wake up in the middle of the night, or when I'm trying to get to sleep. It happened to me almost every night when I thought Security wanted to kill me, but the only person I broke down around then was Lieutenant T'Meth. She's a Vulcan security officer, Sekal's wife--"

"I know. Sekal told me."

"All right. It happened my first night aboard the Enterprise and my first two or three nights aboard Starbase 56, so I'm really not too surprised it's happened now." Q drained his drink and began to study his now-empty mug. "For someone who's spent the past several thousand years as an avatar of change, I seem to handle instability in my mortal existence very badly."

"What exactly happens? Is the intensity of emotion you're experiencing greater than normal, or is it just that you are less able to control the expression of that emotion?"

"I... don't know." He shrugged, playing with the mug. "Maybe both. It happens a lot at night, like I said. Data once told me that human beings are predisposed to getting depressed in the wee hours. Maybe that's part of it. What time is it now?"

"0300 hours. And we're still synchronized to Starbase 56's time, so that's 0300 hours for your cycle as well as mine. That could be part of the explanation, I suppose..."

Q put down the mug. "You sound like you think you know what it is."

"I may know a factor. Or I may be drawing a false analogy. But that sort of sudden and total breakdown over a thing that seems objectively trivial... used to happen to me all the time. It is a symptom of faulty repression. When a person is incapable of actually controlling their emotions, as Vulcans do, but is trying to keep from showing those emotions most if not all of the time, it creates a terrible conflict. This happens to humans who repress their feelings quite a great deal. All it takes is a tiny crack, and the facade breaks completely."

"I know. Vulcans do that when you finally get them mad."

She decided that for the moment she didn't want to know how much Q knew about getting Vulcans mad, or where and when he learned it. "Does that seem to you as if it could be part of your problem?"

"It doesn't much sound like it," Q said. "I don't repress my feelings. You want the entire range of humanity's least pleasant emotions-- anger, fear, despair, pain-- I've got it all. I've never made any attempt to hide what I'm feeling."

"No, not in the usual sense," T'Laren admitted. "But in another sense, you do. There are emotions you dislike acknowledging. You rarely express guilt, or even admit to being wrong. You rarely express a desire for social contact, despite the fact that you obviously need it. In fact, you rarely display any of the social emotions at all. Most of what you show is a reaction to internal circumstances, or a pose adopted to get a reaction from someone else. Would you ever admit that you were lonely and wanted to be with someone?"

"Of course not," Q said. "I'm allergic to getting laughed at."

T'Laren nodded. "In trying to protect yourself from humiliation, you do hide certain emotions. You'd freely admit you were angry-- but not if you were angry at someone for hurting your feelings. Then you would hide your anger with a pose, or give it some rationalization. You admit to fear because you can't help yourself-- if you could keep from showing it, you would. I suspect, in fact, that you would hide as many of your real emotions as possible, and replace them with calculated poses designed to get planned reactions out of people. I suspect that that is what you did for the three years or so of your contact with humanity when you were still omnipotent, and that the only reason you don't still do it is that your situation has overwhelmed you."

Q shrugged. "That could be. I never thought about it in those terms, but... yes, I suppose I do do that. I feel safer when no one knows what I'm thinking."

Fortunately, he also seemed to enjoy talking about himself, or she would never get him to admit anything. She wondered if she should ask him why he would tell her such things if that were true, and decided against calling his attention to it. "And that's where the repression is coming in. The idea behind emotional expression is to express oneself, not to hide behind a manufactured facade. The more one represses oneself, the more pressure is placed on that facade. You do express yourself frequently-- under normal circumstances, that would be enough to keep the pressure you place on yourself bearable. But these are not normal circumstances for you and will never be as long as you are mortal. The fact that you are suffering constant painful emotions, and to one extent or another hiding most of them, is putting a great deal of pressure on your facade. Every so often it needs to crack."

"It seems as if you're making this unnecessarily complicated," he said, picking up the mug again and holding it in his lap as he looked at her. "There's a much simpler explanation, one that doesn't involve the invocation of all sorts of hypothetical repressed emotions."

"And that is?"

"I'm just depressed." He put down the mug again and leaned forward. "T'Laren, I really think you're making a big deal over nothing. I'm very unhappy. Humans cry when they're unhappy. I am human. You're a Vulcan, you can do logic-- that one's nice and simple, enough for even a Klingon to understand. The fact that I am not crying constantly involves the suppression of emotion, I assume, but one hardly needs to invoke that to explain why I crack."

Actually, he had a point. T'Laren wondered if she was projecting again. "It seemed rather... extreme. Rather sudden."

"It's always sudden. If I can feel it coming on, I can control it usually."

"Why is it important to you to be able to control it?"

Q looked at her as if he had never heard a stupider question in his life. "A Vulcan needs to ask me this?"

"I know where my own desire for emotional control stems from. I am asking about yours."

"Because it's bad enough that I spend all my time whining and complaining, that I'm a complete coward who'll throw dignity to the wind and grovel if threatened, that I spend my entire life worrying about how to avoid pain-- I don't want to be constantly bawling, too. Humans give me little enough respect as it is. And shouting angrily at people or eviscerating them with clever wit are much more acceptable methods of dealing with one's emotions, among humans, than crying is. And I don't know why we're still discussing this; this conversation has to be the most trivial pursuit I've engaged in in quite some time." He stood up. She could almost see his defenses rebuilding themselves, from embarrassment to forced equilibrium and now to anger. "I'm going back to bed. Are you going to continue to refuse me a sedative?"

"Yes."

"Then do me a favor. Don't come in my room unless I actually call for help. I'll come out and get breakfast when I wake up." He turned and walked to the door of the bedroom. "And for future reference, unless you're positive I'm dying, knock first."

"Very well." T'Laren stood, placing the cocoa mug into the disposal beneath the replicator. "I hope your sleep is undisturbed this time."

As she left, she realized, suddenly, why it had happened. Q's explanation, like most of his explanations, had not completely satisfied her-- he had given a reason, but not all the reasons. Now she thought she understood. His defensiveness and his antisocial behavior were all part of the same thing. Earlier tonight, she had gotten him to lower his defenses against her-- leaving him unable to protect himself from his own emotions. In the process of rebuilding his safeguards, Q had started to become defensive and accusatory, and then had withdrawn contact completely by ending the conversation.

He wasn't simply obnoxious because he didn't know any better. It was a defense. She'd known that already, but had not quite realized the obvious corollary-- the more she chipped away at it, the more vulnerable he would become. If he ever realized that, she would never be able to get him to trust her-- he would shut her out completely, perceiving her as a threat. And in a certain sense, she would be.

Perhaps this was going to be more difficult than she'd initially thought.

Q seriously considered going without breakfast long enough to take apart the replicator and bypass the security control T'Laren had put on it. His head hurt and his eyes were sore, and after his disgraceful behavior last night he would really rather not face a cheerful Vulcan, the way they all seemed to be in the morning. On the other hand, he also didn't feel like doing all the work necessary to bypass the control, and while he wasn't particularly hungry he did require coffee, as quickly as possible. So much for T'Laren's theory that he drank coffee to counteract the effects of his sedatives; he was exhausted, having woken several times in the night with unpleasant dreams. Tonight he was getting his sedative, and he didn't care what he had to do to get it.

After a sonic shower-- Ketaya was equipped with water plumbing, since most humans preferred the less efficient water showers, but Q wasn't most humans-- and other morning ablutions, including a reapplication of makeup to hide the effects of last night's crying jag, he felt marginally capable of facing a fellow sentient. He walked to the kitchen and strode over to the replicator, ignoring T'Laren. "Coffee."

"Decaffeinated," T'Laren piped up before the replicator could start materializing the cup.

He turned on her. As he'd expected, she seemed obscenely cool and wakeful. "What is the point to decaffeinated coffee? Do you think I drink coffee for the taste?"

"It's possible," she said. "Decaf doesn't taste any different, you know."

"I know. I just don't care. What gives you the right to dictate what I drink?"

"I am responsible for your health." She stood up. She was wearing a yellow pantsuit, a crime against fashion if there ever was one-- how could anyone raised on Earth have so little sense of aesthetics as to wear yellow over Vulcan skin? "Breakfast platter," she said to the second replicator, and withdrew a plate full of various foods.

Q raised eyebrows at it. "I always thought overeating was some kind of sin for Vulcans. Or at the very least illogical."

"This isn't mine," she said, and set it down at the table across from her place. "This is for you. I want you to finish all of it."

"You're not serious." Her steady gaze indicated that she was, in fact, perfectly serious. "I can't eat all that! I could maybe manage half that, on a good day. But I'm not anywhere near hungry enough--"

"Sit down and eat," T'Laren interrupted, with no more than her usual calm in her voice. "If you truly cannot finish, we'll simply dispose of the remainder. But I want you to eat as much of it as you can."

Q sat down, not entirely sure why he was bothering. The foods before him were all foods he'd liked, back when he still got any modicum of pleasure whatsoever out of eating. That itself made him less willing to eat. How much information was in his files, anyway? Had Medellin or someone been recording what he got out of the replicators and the frequency of individual foods? "I don't want any of this."

"That's unfortunate," T'Laren said, standing at his shoulder. "It is sad when one must do something one doesn't wish to do."

Or in other words, he still had to eat it. "Can't I get something else?"

"I've analyzed your nutritional requirements and created a program to devise meals that satisfy them. If you ask for something else, the replicator will produce it, but it will also generate complements for it to make a balanced meal, and you'll have to eat them. You might be better off just eating this."

With bad grace, Q took a forkful, wondering in some part of his mind why he wasn't fighting harder. Weakness, perhaps. He was putting up less resistance than he had to Anderson's constant demands, and T'Laren had put much less pressure on him than Anderson ever had. Maybe he was just too tired to fight anyone.

"I'm worried about this power trip of yours, T'Laren," he said. "Forcing me to eat what you want me to eat sounds to me like you're overcontrolling. I got enough of that from Anderson; I'm not putting up with it from you. And I want my sedatives back. I slept miserably last night."

"I can tell," T'Laren said.

Was that a pointed reference to his hysterics last night? Q flushed angrily, and snapped, "A good portion of which was your fault. If you hadn't barged in when you did, I'd have gotten back to sleep without-- oh." T'Laren's fingers pressed into his back just under the collarbone, probing for and loosening painful knots there. It was difficult to maintain his train of thought. "Without... I'd have gotten back to sleep normally and... whatever."

"Maintaining all that anger must be a difficult job," T'Laren said. "You've made yourself tense again. Is it really worth it?"

He really should not allow this. Q remembered how he'd behaved last night-- not the crying jag, but his almost obscene pliability and defenselessness under T'Laren's ministrations. She could have done anything to him, anything at all, and he wouldn't have been able to muster up resistance until it was too late. Obviously he was as vulnerable to pleasure as he was to pain, and he should avoid it for the same reason. He could too easily succumb to this and make as big a fool of himself as he had last night-- he must have looked so incredibly naive and idiotic, going on and on about a backrub as if it were the most pleasurable thing in existence. Far too dangerous. He had to tell her to stop.

In a few minutes.

"I'm not sure I understand you, Q," she said. "You increase your own pain, you know. You fight battles with the wrong people over trivial things, depleting your resources for the important battles. You project anger and disdain at the universe, almost constantly-- don't you realize that that weakens you? You devote so much of your strength to holding up your defenses that every so often your strength runs out and you crumble. If you were more discriminating about what you defended yourself against, you would lose your defenses completely less often."

She didn't understand. Which was good-- she shouldn't understand, she already understood far too much for Q's liking. For a moment, her words reawakened the anger, strengthening him against her. But it was impossible to retain anger or even annoyance at her as her fingers so expertly forced relaxation on him. Q could feel the anger seeping away, stolen away from him by slim fingers, leaving him defenseless.

He jerked away from her. "Don't do that," he said harshly.

"Do what?"

Q turned to face her. T'Laren looked genuinely puzzled. "Don't touch me. Not without asking permission first."

"I-- very well. Forgive me. It was an invasion of your privacy, and I should have known better." She sat down. "Why did you wait so long to tell me to stop, if I was making you uncomfortable?"

That was exactly the sort of question he never wanted to have to answer. What was he supposed to say, "Oh, I liked it too much to make myself ask you to stop?" That certainly lent credibility to his refusal. Humans took statements like that as an excuse to try to persuade one against one's better judgement. He imagined Vulcans-- normal Vulcans, at least-- would take his refusal at face value, and not press further. He had no idea what this one would do. "Drop the subject," he said.

It was one of the weakest attempts to avoid a topic he'd ever produced, and it didn't work. "I can't," she said. "It's important that I know. I cannot simply drop subjects that make you uncomfortable if I'm to help you."

Q sighed. "If you must know, it took me a few minutes to recover from the shock of being touched without permission at all. I'd thought you were more professional than that, T'Laren. You made me very anxious."

T'Laren's expression didn't change. From a Vulcan, he had to take that as a good sign. If he hadn't hurt her, she wouldn't have bothered to keep her face so controlled, and she would have shown some reaction. "You have not previously struck me as someone who freezes in unpleasant situations."

An old bitterness welled to the surface. "No, didn't you hear? I got someone killed by freezing up once. It made me infamous. Well, more infamous than I already was."

"I see," she said, nodding. "You found the situation so unpleasant that you froze. The fact that you relaxed completely and leaned into my touch was an unfortunate side effect of my advanced techniques of Vulcan mind control, which were also responsible for the happiness you experienced last night, the acute depressive attack you experienced later last night, and in fact were responsible for your suicide attempt in the first place."

All of this was said in the same calm, reasonable tone of voice. If Q hadn't listened to the words, he would never have recognized the statement as sarcasm. "Aren't you laying it on a bit thick?" he asked. "The Vulcan mind control line was enough, I think. The rest of it was a bit over the top."

"I am sorry I invaded your privacy without asking," T'Laren said. "I perceived that you were tense, and moved to correct the situation. It had not occurred to me that you have such a desperate need for your anger and tension-- and pain-- that you would be upset with me for easing them for you."

"Need?" Q frowned. "Why would I need pain? I've told you, I'm no masochist. I don't like pain. I also don't like being touched casually. That's all."

"Your files show no sign of such an aversion," T'Laren said.

That was the last straw. Q pushed out of his chair and stood with such force that the chair fell over. "What, do you have everything on record about me?" he demanded. "What I eat and when, who I eat with, what I talk about with them, what I say about them when their back is turned? Do you have monitors running when I go to the bathroom, too? Insights into the psyche obtained by stool inspection? Do you watch me at night and count my dreams from REM movements?"

"The hyperbole is unnecessary," she said, "and will not distract me from the point. We were discussing why you felt the need to reject something you obviously derived enjoyment from, not what is or is not in your files."

"Maybe that's what you're discussing. I'm more concerned about those files. This meal--" He lifted the plate. "All of these are foods I used to like before I stopped liking anything. Do you have that on record too? How much privacy do I have left?"

"Your favorite foods are not on any record I ever saw. Foods you are allergic to or dislike strongly are listed in your file, where known-- anything Medellin saw you have an extreme negative reaction to, meaning that the list probably covers only a fraction of the total. I selected common human breakfast foods, such as eggs and fruit, for your meals, and excluded what I know you don't like. If these happen to be foods you particularly like, it's by coincidence only. And I'd advise you to sit down and finish eating them."

Q put the plate down. "I'm not hungry," he muttered.

T'Laren studied him. "Very well. In that case, come with me." She stood up and walked toward the kitchen door.

"Why?" T'Laren had an annoying habit of making demands without explaining her reasons, and Q decided he was going to break her of it. He stood where he was.

T'Laren turned again to face him. "Since your appetite is low, now would be an ideal time to begin a physical training regimen. You have a great deal of tension and hostility that might be more profitably channeled into physical activity, and such activity would increase your appetite."

He wasn't hearing this. He couldn't be. Q looked down at his hands, the only part of his body he could see that he hadn't concealed under clothes designed to tell flattering lies. The fingers were bony skeleton appendages, more like a Mestavan than a human, and the knuckles stood out like a Klingon's forehead ridges. Underneath the gracefully lying fabric he'd hidden himself in, the rest of his body was just as bad-- he had taken pains not to look at himself naked in a mirror for months now, and his condition had gotten considerably worse since his failed suicide attempt. Incredulously he looked up at T'Laren. "You can't seriously want me to exercise in my condition."

"I believe we discussed this last night, Q. Did you believe I'd forgotten?"

Actually, Q himself had forgotten. Now that she'd reminded him, he did remember that she'd threatened to make him exercise. It was as unbelievable now as it had been then. "I thought maybe you'd have come to your senses."

"I don't plan to make you run a marathon," T'Laren said. "For now we'll start with simple stretching exercises. If you can walk, you can do that much."

He supposed that was probably correct, though the idea of doing any kind of exercise whatsoever made him feel immensely put-upon. Sulkily he followed T'Laren to the gym, wondering why he was bothering. "Look, I really don't think I'm up to this. Can't we wait a week or so, until I'm a little stronger?"

"How do you expect to get stronger when you don't eat?" T'Laren went over to the clothing replicator. "Exercise suits."

"All right!" Q threw up his hands. "I'll finish the damned breakfast. Will that make you happy? Are you satisfied?"

T'Laren handed him an exercise suit. "Change into this. You can use the change room over there if you would rather do so privately."

"I already said I'd finish breakfast. What more do you want?"

"You misunderstand," she said. She had gone completely Vulcan; he couldn't read her at all. "I am not Anderson, attempting to coerce you through threatened punishments. This is not a punishment, Q. You are going to exercise. It would be very nice if you would eat as well, but it will not change anything. Now change your clothes-- what you are wearing is too confining for exercise."

"You said it was just stretching."

"It is difficult to stretch when one's clothes will not stretch with you."

"And what if I refuse?" he asked belligerently, folding his arms and glaring at her. "What will you do to me if I walk back to my room right now?"

"Please don't," T'Laren said calmly. "I would not wish to resort to threats."

"Oh, so you are like Anderson. What threats are you not wishing to resort to? Take away my replicator privileges? Oh, wait, it's been done before. Why don't you cut off my computer access? That would be truly original."

"That would be unnecessary," T'Laren said, moving around him to stand in front of the door. She placed her exercise suit in a neat bundle on the floor. "There is only one exit from here, Q. You have three choices: you may stay here in the gymnasium and do nothing, you may attempt to force your way past me, or you may do as I have asked. If you attempt to force your way past me, you will fail. I am a Vulcan, Starfleet-trained, and in perfect health. You would then be left with the previous two choices, and undoubtedly some bruises. So I might suggest limiting your consideration to those two, keeping in mind that I am far more patient than you."

Q stared at her. "You're actually threatening me with physical violence."

"Not at all. I am threatening to turn any attempts of yours at physical violence back at you. I threaten no violence myself."

"Semantics," Q muttered. Had he really thought it would be any different? Wherever he went, people would try to dominate him, to control him, and as long as he had such a glaring weakness as his inability to tolerate boredom, they would succeed.

With extremely bad grace, he took the exercise suit from her and undressed, quite deliberately doing so in front of her. Normally he would have sought privacy to undress-- he had no sense of modesty in the usual sense, but he was ashamed of how thin he was right now, and usually tried to avoid letting anyone see him without clothes to hide the damage. Right now, though, he wanted to flaunt his weakness. Let her see how truly pathetic he looked, and she would realize that he couldn't possibly indulge in any physical exercise now. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced over to see what her reaction was-- but she, too, was changing, paying no attention to him. Q quickly looked away. Experience had taught him that it was dangerous for him to look at nude attractive humanoids, and while he thought he was probably too ill for it to be a problem right now, there was no sense taking chances. He didn't need to risk humiliation and discomfort right now; he was already uncomfortable enough.

By the time he was done changing, T'Laren was dressed and waiting with arms folded, her stillness conveying the patience of stone. He faced her sullenly. "Now what?"

"Touch your toes without bending your knees."

This felt immensely stupid. Half-heartedly, Q attempted to touch his toes, came to the conclusion that if he couldn't bend his knees his toes might as well be in another solar system, and straightened up. "I can't."

"Try."

He made a few more half-hearted attempts, feeling self-conscious and idiotic. His body simply would not bend that way. It was painful to make the attempt. "Fine, I tried. Happy now?"

"You aren't trying."

"I am too!"

"We will do this until you do it properly. Again."

Q sat down on the floor, arms folded. "I can't do it."

T'Laren looked down at him for several seconds. Q stared back at her, challenging her to do something. Without breaking the stare, T'Laren said, "Q. It is necessary that you learn how to defend yourself physically. I am Starfleet trained, but I am only one person-- I may not always be able to save you. What would you do if your life depended on your ability to hold off some assassin a few moments until I could arrive?"

Q shrugged. "I suppose I'd die," he said blandly. "Which frankly, at the moment, doesn't strike me as an overly unpleasant prospect."

T'Laren continued to stare at him. Q, still unwilling to back down, stared back, studiedly expressionless. Finally T'Laren stepped away from the door, ceasing to block his path out. "Get up and come with me."

He stood up. "What now?"

"I have something to show you."

Q made an exasperated noise. "Like what? I'm getting very tired of these vague directives of yours, T'Laren."

"It would be meaningless if I told you what in advance," she said. "I believe it will be something of interest to you."

"I doubt it," Q muttered, but went with her. Curiosity had always been one of his greatest weaknesses.

They walked a short distance down the hall to the lift. "Deck 4," T'Laren said, and they descended.

"What's on Deck 4?"

"Airlocks, maintenance and supply."

"Oh, you've got a present for me, hidden in the supply closet. How nice. T'Laren, you shouldn't have." No response. Not even a "Shut up, Q." This was beginning to frighten him. It was fine to offend people, but not to the point where they stopped talking to him.

"Is it bigger than a breadbox?" Q persisted, as they stepped off the turbolift. "Or perhaps you're going to show me the skeletons in your closet. Are there dead bodies down here? Victims of some arcane Vulcan rite?" Still no response. Q was not used to being ignored, not when there was no one else to talk to, and it was making him desperate. What did he have to do to get a reaction out of her again?

T'Laren palmed the door to the main airlock, and it lifted. Now Q was getting extremely nervous. "T'Laren?" he asked, backing away. "Why are you opening the airlock?"

"I have some knowledge of death by vacuum," she said calmly. "It is a quick death and a merciful one. There are a few brief moments of pain, but the cold quickly robs one of consciousness. I imagine it is far less painful than drinking etching solution."

She was completely insane. Q's blood went cold with fear. "I imagine so," he said weakly, and then turned to bolt desperately for the lift.

He never even got close. The moment his back was turned, the moment he began to run, T'Laren's arm grabbed his and snagged him back. He stumbled, windmilling with his free arm, trying to pull free, but it was useless. T'Laren reeled him in to her and turned him toward the airlock, pushing. Q dug in his heels, not that that did much good with shipboots on an uncarpeted ship's corridor floor. "No-- don't-- please don't--"

"Why are you resisting? This is what you want," T'Laren said. She lifted him slightly, so he could no longer brace himself against the floor, and shoved, releasing him. Q staggered, falling forward into the airlock. As he caught himself against the far wall, he heard the hum of the door lowering behind him.

"No!" He turned and lunged at the airlock door, too late. It shut with a clang that sounded unpleasantly like a death knell. The top half of the door was transparasteel-- Q could see T'Laren outside the lock, standing by the release button with the same lack of expression she'd shown before. Terrified, he pounded on the transparasteel. "Let me out! Please! Please!"

T'Laren raised an eyebrow. "I do not understand what you are afraid of," she said. "Not five minutes ago, you expressed complete unconcern at the possibility of your own death. I no longer wished to torment you by forcing you to remain alive against your will."

He had known she was mentally unstable, and he had gone with her anyway. Stupid fool! There was no one here to save him-- he was trapped alone in an airlock with a mad Vulcan on the other side and no one else around for light-years. Q sank to his knees, terrified, hands and face pressed firmly against the transparasteel. "Please. Please, let me out. Don't kill me. Please."

"You do not, in fact, wish to die."

"No. No. I don't. Please, don't kill me, please..."

"But you do understand that this would be a far kinder death than you could expect from some assailant. That is clear to you, I hope."

She was going to kill him. It was obvious that she'd made up her mind. His life was moments away from ending, and he couldn't think of what to say, what to do to make her let him go. He had expected to be killed by some revenge-craving member of a highly advanced species unknown to humanity, not an insane citizen of the Federation to whom he'd done nothing personally. "Yes, yes, I know, I still don't want to die! T'Laren, please! Let me out!"

"It is your decision," she said. "Consider it carefully." Her hand hovered near the airlock release. "If you live, you will continue to be plagued by aches and pains, at risk for a worse death, lonely and crippled. Death will end your suffering, you understand. Simply tell me your decision, and I will carry it out for you."

It was hopeless. She wasn't listening to him. Q sagged, his head sinking below the level of the transparasteel, where he could no longer see his tormenter. He began to sob helplessly, despairingly. "T'Laren, don't kill me, please don't kill me, please..."

"Very well," her voice came, echoing in the airlock. A moment later the door he was leaning against moved upward.

Q crawled out of the airlock as soon as the opening was big enough for him to fit through, away from T'Laren, and sat up against the far wall of the corridor, hugging his knees as he tried to control his breathing. He still didn't feel safe. He didn't know what he'd said that had finally gotten through to her, and he didn't know what he'd said that had precipitated the attempt in the first place, and so he had no way of knowing that it would not happen again or that she wouldn't carry through her threat next time.

Footsteps approached. He glanced up, saw T'Laren coming over toward him, and flinched, curling inward more tightly. "Q," she said gently.

"Changed your mind?" he asked raggedly. "Going to finish me off anyway?"

"Q, I wasn't actually trying to kill you."

That statement was too outrageous for him to devise a suitable reply. He looked up and glared at her. "No?" he finally said, a wealth of disgust and disbelief in the one word.

"The airlocks have safety interlocks on them. They can't be opened to vacuum if there's a life form inside, not unless one bypasses the interlocks-- and I'm not an engineer. I'd have no idea how to go about bypassing the safety features. I couldn't have spaced you if I'd wanted to."

The words sank in slowly. She hadn't been trying to kill him. She had been trying to make it look as if she would, to humiliate and terrify him, to make a complete fool out of him. Terror began to transmute to rage. "How dare you?" Q asked, getting to his feet. Rage built up uncontrollably, hazing his vision. "How dare you!"

Fury overpowered him completely, and he lunged at T'Laren, pinning her back against the wall. Had he the power, he would have thrown her into the heart of a sun, dismembered her cell by quivering cell, cast her into a hellish pocket dimension to suffer eternities of agony. He couldn't do any of those things anymore, so he locked his fingers around her slim neck and squeezed with all the strength of his rage, lifting her off her feet and slamming her into the wall. "How dare you humiliate me like this! Who-- do you-- think-- you-- are?" he screamed, punctuating the question by repeatedly smashing her head back into the bulkhead.

Even the power of his rage, however, was not quite enough to match a Vulcan's strength. Perhaps it would have if his body had been stronger. As it was, though, T'Laren's fingers wrapped around his and pried him loose from her throat. She pushed him back and sank to the floor, gasping. Q staggered backward, the aftermath of the sudden adrenaline rush catching up with him. Weakness overwhelmed him, the counterpoint of the rush of strength a minute ago, and he too had to sit down on the floor.

He had never been so angry. Not in his entire mortal life had he felt such fury at someone that he had attacked them physically. In his entire existence, he could remember only one other time that his rage had so overpowered his reason, and that had been a cold, slow rage, burning for years. That had been with Azi... and Azi had betrayed the friendship of millennia, had been far more to him than T'Laren could ever be. But the way he felt now, the weak helpless fury, the betrayal... was as close an approximation to how he'd felt when Azi had attacked and nearly destroyed him as he thought he could get in mortal form. T'Laren should be afraid, he thought. T'Laren should be very afraid. No one hurt him like that without suffering for it.

"Impressive," T'Laren said hoarsely, struggling to her feet. "I'd been informed you have no natural instinct for physical violence. Somebody was mistaken, it seems."

"If I weren't so weak, I would kill you," Q said, getting up off the floor himself.

"If you weren't so weak, it would have been far harder for someone to threaten your life in such fashion. Q, my point here has not been to needlessly humiliate you."

The look he gave her could have fused hydrogen into helium. "No?" he asked, not loudly, but with white-hot rage behind it. "Clarify for me. What was your point here?"

"You essentially said you didn't care if someone killed you. I believed you were lying, if not to me then to yourself, and decided to prove my theory. Obviously you do not, in fact, wish to die."

"I do, in fact, wish to kill you."

"Irrelevant," she said sharply. "We aren't discussing your v