ONLY HUMAN 

CHP. II: KETAYA

by Alara Rogers; published by Aleph Press

The following is section 8 of 12 of ONLY HUMAN, my alternate universe
Q novel.  If you've missed any parts, the entire story is available
through anonymous ftp at ftp.netcom.com, in the directory /pub/al/
aleph/trek, under the name HUMAN2.ZIP.  HUMAN1.ZIP, the first chapter
of this story, is also available there.  The files are pkzipped using
PKWARE's version 2.04g.

Other sites where you can obtain the rest of this story:

ftp://ftp.europa.com/outgoing/mercutio/alt.fan.q
ftp://aviary.share.net/pub/startrek/incomplete
http://www1.mhv.net/~alara/ohtree.html
http://www.europa.com/~mercutio/Q.html
http://aviary.share.net/~alara

This is an alternate universe novel, and it's long. I mean *looong.* In 
this chapter and all future ones, we will learn things about the 
Continuum which are contradicted by the Voyager episode "The Q and the 
Grey". This is because that was a miserably bad episode which 
contradicted so much Q canon that I have decided that, for my purposes, 
it didn't happen. None of the "facts" about the Continuum established in 
that episode have any bearing on the Continuum background shown in Only 
Human.

For those who have not read Chapter 1 and want to jump right in anyway,
the story is based on the episode Deja Q, where Q lost his powers; except
that in this alternate reality, he never got them back.  It's been
three years since then, and there have been some changes.  In exchange
for protection from various enemies he made while omnipotent, Q has
been selling his services as a scientific advisor to the Federation for
the past three years.  He assisted the Federation in developing a weapon
against the Borg; as a result, casualties were lighter at Wolf 359, and
Picard didn't become Locutus, someone else did. On the other hand, recently 
Picard died when a plasma grenade fused his artificial heart. This know-
ledge was the final straw to push an already-deeply-depressed-and-  
borderline-suicidal Q over the edge into a fairly nasty suicide attempt
by drinking hydrochloric acid.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Q survived, perhaps by the graces of his
personal guardian angel/demon, the Q who got him kicked out of the Con-
tinuum.  This Q has "hired" a mortal psychologist for Q, a Vulcan woman
named T'Laren who was raised on Earth (in Texas, to be precise.) Thus
far, T'Laren is something of a mystery; we know that the other Q, whom
she calls Lhoviri, saved her life and sanity and offered her something
she could not refuse in exchange for taking on this assignment. Lhoviri
also gave her a ship, called Ketaya, basically a luxury yacht with a
souped-up engine. It is T'Laren's belief that Q's depression is in part
caused by the fact that everyone on Starbase 56, where he's been living
for the past three years, hates him, and that he needs to leave the base
in order to recover. Though Q is not entirely sure he believes her-- he
believes his depression is simply caused by the fact that he is, in com-
parison to before, "blinded, maimed, exiled, and condemned to die--" he
is willing at this point to try anything.  As Chapter 2 opens, Ketaya
has just left Starbase 56 with Q and T'Laren aboard. 


*                              *                                *


     By now, they had progressed from stretching exercises to
simple-- very, very simple-- self-defense techniques. Q wasn't
really in the mood for self-defense; since writing T'Laren's
program, he had been gripped by a vague melancholy. Maybe it was
just exhaustion. After the fifth clumsy mistake, T'Laren relented
and took him to the pool room, where she let him soak in the hot
portion as she swam laps. He lay back in the warmth, all but his
head hidden under the opaquely bubbling water, and watched her.
T'Laren wore a green bathing costume that streamlined her upper
body, making hips and torso blend into one smooth line, while
leaving strong slim arms and legs free to cut through the water
with power and grace. She was really surprisingly aesthetic as
she swam. Q had always thought the notion of humanoids swimming
was about as silly as cetaceans walking about on land, but he had
to admit she could make it look good.
     Finally, T'Laren came out of the swimming section, shivering
violently, and dumped herself into the bath, across from him.
"You really should do some swimming," she said. "It would be good
for you."
     "She says, as she clenches her teeth to keep them from
chattering. Have you considered increasing the pool temperature?"
     "It's not that cold."
     "Then why are your lips such an unlovely shade of-- whatever
they are. Bluish-green or something. They're not normal, in any
case. And you have goosebumps and you're shivering."
     "Vulcans aren't well-adapted to cold, especially not cold
water. The water is actually warm by human standards. And I don't
keep it warmer because I don't want to lose my edge; I used to
swim in water much colder than that back home." She sprawled out,
ducking her hair back into the warm water. 
     "I don't care about your edge. I care about my near-complete
lack of normal human insulation. I'm not going swimming in water
that can make you shiver."
     "We can warm it up for you if you like." T'Laren ducked her
whole body under the water level for several seconds, turning
into an indistinct tan and green blur. She came up, shook her
head violently, and sighed. "I think it's more pleasant to go
from a somewhat chilly swim into a warm bath, myself."
     "Where did you find cold water to swim in in Texas?"
     "I didn't. We used to go to a beach house in Oregon, every
summer... I had no trouble with Texan heat, obviously, and my
father had grown up there, but my mother was Scandinavian and
preferred a cooler temperature." She leaned back and gazed up at
the ceiling, her eyes slightly unfocused as she remembered. "The
first time I went, I was seven, and I'd never seen an ocean
before. I'd spent most of my life in space, the rest of it
inland-- the most water I'd ever seen in one place was a smallish
lake, and here was water that went on forever. I had a sort of
horrified fascination with tides and the concept of the undertow-
- Earth's ocean seemed to me some kind of hungry thing, that
wanted to suck me in and drown me. And I've never had any
patience with being afraid-- I learned to swim so I could show
the ocean that I wasn't afraid of it, that I could go into its
mouth and come back out safely."
     Q looked at T'Laren askance. "Mortal children have very
strange notions."
     T'Laren glanced at him. "I suppose you were born
omniscient."
     "No... but I was born with considerably more sense than
that."
     "You never had a silly notion? A childish fear? A method of
perceiving the universe that you later realized to be wrong?"
     Q shook his head. "I did, but it wouldn't make any sense to
describe it to you. My `childhood' wasn't analogous to anything
you would understand."
     She nodded, and leaned back again. "After I'd been there a
while, I felt... The ocean was a symbol of Earth, a banner of my
alienness. Did you know, I can drink seawater? My mother was
horrified to find me sitting by the beach one day, sipping
seawater from cupped hands-- she'd studied medical texts on
Vulcans and the care of Vulcan children, but nothing had ever
bothered to mention that Vulcans can drink saline solution in
Terran ocean concentrations. And when she told me that humans
couldn't do that, that it would make them thirstier and
eventually kill them, I felt it as a badge of my alien nature, a
sign that I didn't belong. Oceans are alien to my kind-- I
belonged on a hot, dry desert. I didn't belong here." She shook
her head slightly. "And when I first set foot on Vulcan... I
found it unbearably hot and dry, and the gravity dragged at me
and made me exhausted. Biology, it seems, is not destiny."
     "If the ocean made you feel alien, why do you enjoy swimming
so much?"
     "Perversity. It's in my nature, that if I do not belong
somewhere I force my way in. I make the alien accept me, I make
it my home. I did the same thing when I went undercover in the
Romulan Empire-- I have been more human than humans, more Vulcan
than Vulcans, more Romulan than the Romulans."
     "I didn't know you went undercover in the Romulan Empire."
     "You didn't study a detail of my file-- what you called up
were the highlights. But yes, I was a Romulan for a year. It
was... a fascinating experience. Not one I would ever want to
repeat, but very revealing."
     Abruptly she climbed out of the hot tub. "Get out of there,
you're starting to look far too flushed. I don't want you getting
heat stroke."
     "No chance of that," Q said. He stretched his limbs out
under the water. "Computer, reset hot tub temperature for 34 C."
He looked up at T'Laren. "There. It's four degrees below my body
temperature. You have to be happy with that."
     "That's acceptable," she said. She pulled one of the foam
pool chaises over to the side of the tub and lay down on it.
     "Going undercover sounds like a far more interesting career
than being a counselor. If you were more Romulan than the
Romulans, why did you quit?"
     "I didn't quit. My mission was over, so I came home.
Besides... I'm far too social a being to bear undercover work
very well. I missed my friends, and the Federation, and the
freedom to be myself. I was a very lonely Romulan." She lay back
again, closing her eyes. "I only did it in the first place
because the number of Vulcans who can effectively impersonate
Romulans is very few. Most Federation spies in the Romulan Empire
are human, or Betazoid, or some other near-human race, despite
the fact that such spies can be given away by a paper cut,
because they can act and most Vulcans can't. I was offered a
career in Intelligence if I wanted it. But the same factors that
gave me the ability to impersonate a Romulan made me far more
miserable doing so than a typical Vulcan would have been."
     Q frowned, studying her for a few seconds. "If you're such a
social being and whatnot... how can you stand being locked up on
a space yacht with only me for company?"
     T'Laren's eyes snapped open and she sat up quickly, swinging
her legs off the chaise and onto the floor so she could face him.
"Q, I didn't say I was dissatisfied with our current
arrangement."
     "No, you didn't. But you said you're a social being and you
missed your friends. Don't you still miss them? I'm..." He
considered how best to phrase this-- he didn't want to sound
whiny or self-pitying. "I'm undoubtedly not the most charming of
companions. Don't you-- doesn't that create problems for you?"
     "It doesn't, and it wouldn't matter it did," she said. "I
have a job to do, and that's the most important consideration.
But it was very considerate of you to ask. Thank you."
     He was not very accustomed to praise-- it seemed as if he'd
spent most of the last three years being criticized and
condemned, and so he had few defenses against kind words. A warm
flush of slightly embarrassed pleasure spread through him. He
hadn't even been trying to make her think he was being
considerate-- it was simply a question that had seemed important
for him to ask. Q smiled almost without volition. "Was it
really?"
     "Yes. It was."
     Q gazed out at the pool, still smiling. "Hmm. Maybe I'm not
completely hopeless after all." He glanced over to T'Laren to
gauge her reaction. "Don't you think?"
     "I never thought you were completely hopeless."
     "Would you have taken the case if you thought I was?"
     "I had to take the case," she said. "I owed Lhoviri. But I
suspect he wouldn't have asked me if you were completely
hopeless." She got up and padded over to the swimming pool. "Are
you sure you don't want a swim?"
     "Positive."
     "What if I warm up the pool?"
     "Maybe later," he said to get her off his back. T'Laren
seemed to think that every minute he didn't spend exercising or
eating was a waste.
     He had to admit some appreciation for her methods, now. He
had gained back most of the weight that the suicide attempt had
lost him, so that he now merely looked thin again and no longer
like a study aid for medical students. Q had a sneaking suspicion
that T'Laren had been dosing him with an appetite enhancer, as he
was hungrier lately, and taking more pleasure in food, than he'd
been in nearly a year. He hadn't yet mentioned it, because he
didn't want to look stupid if he was wrong-- and besides, he
really didn't mind all that much. He had been able to tolerate
his own horrible appearance only because of some perverse notion
that his looks should reflect his mental state-- in some ways, it
would have been unbearable to look good when he was so miserable
inside. Now that he was starting to feel a bit better, it seemed
entirely appropriate that he should start looking better too.
     T'Laren returned, cold once again, and climbed into the pool
with him. "I really think you ought to do some swimming," she
said. "We cut your training session short so you wouldn't get
hurt, but you still need your daily exercise."
     If this went on, he was going to end up being forced to
swim, and he still despised swimming. "I have a question I've
been meaning to ask you, actually," he said, conjuring up an
offering to appease her.
     "Go ahead."
     "I was thinking about what we discussed before, about
dreams. And I was thinking about a particular dream I had a few
weeks ago that's been bothering me for some time." If anything
could get T'Laren off the topic of exercise, he figured, a dream
would do it. And while he was pretty sure he could guess what
this one had meant, he *was* actually interested in seeing what
T'Laren made of it.
     T'Laren raised an eyebrow. "If I didn't know better, I would
guess that you were trying to avoid swimming."
     "Would I do a thing like that?"
     "Most certainly you would."
     Q grinned and leaned back. "Maybe just a little," he said.
"But it really has been bothering me. I thought of it before when
we were discussing dreams, but I got sidetracked."
     "Very well," T'Laren said with the good-natured resignation
of someone defeated at her own game. "Tell me about it."
     "I don't know if you remember-- or if you ever knew. This
happened the night before I met you, the first night I was
conscious after I tried to kill myself. And you remember, I'm
sure, how Li went out of his way to torment me by refusing me
access to the computers, or the ability to talk, or anything at
all to occupy my time."
     "I remember that," she said, nodding. "Though I think
phrasing it as `Li went out of his way to torment you' is perhaps
a slight exaggeration."
     "Oh, no. I exaggerate not at all," Q said. He sat up and
leaned forward slightly. "Shortly after Li refused me computer
access, I tried to ask a nurse for it back. In response, she put
my hand in a restraint so I couldn't reach the call button, and
left me that way. She claimed she was going to come back in an
hour and let my hand free again, but I'm positive several must
have passed before it occurred to anyone that I might have a
genuine emergency and it would be nice if I could call for help,
wouldn't it? Now if that isn't maliciously tormenting a sick man,
I'd like to know what is."
     "Putting itching powder in a sick man's bed would qualify as
malicious torment a bit better, I think," T'Laren said. "As would
refusing him medical care, adjusting the temperature of his
bedroom to be uncomfortable, dumping cold water on him--"
     "I get the idea. You're a laugh riot, T'Laren. Remind me not
to get sick around you. My point is that I was miserably bored. I
was trying not to go to sleep, because I was afraid I'd have
nightmares... but I was also exhausted, and ill, and bored out of
my mind, so one can imagine how successful I was. And I had a
very vivid nightmare... actually, I'm not sure whether to
classify it as a nightmare or not. It was definitely nightmarish
in plot, but the emotional content it evoked was completely
inappropriate. In any case, it was very vivid-- I might even have
thought it actually happened, except that if it had, I wouldn't
be here."
     "Go on."
     "I dreamed that I woke up-- you know how you can have those
dreams where everything starts out being exactly as it is in
reality? I was in sickbay, my hand was still in the restraint,
and it was dim in the room, so I couldn't see very clearly. And
there was a person standing next to my bed. It was a large
humanoid, probably male, although it could have been a big woman
like Anderson-- I couldn't really tell, he was in shadow. Since I
couldn't talk, I couldn't ask him to come closer where I could
see him properly. I had just started to wonder if he was there to
turn on my speaker or something when he put a pillow over my
head.
     "At first I was terrified. I tried to struggle, but I was in
the same physical position in the dream as I was in real life,
and you remember what that was. I had one hand free, but I was
too weak to lift it as far as my head, and reaching the call
button with it was out of the question. Then I remembered that I
wanted to die, that this person was giving me something I'd tried
and failed to obtain for myself, and I relaxed.
     "After that it was very... pleasant." Q frowned,
remembering. "I felt an overwhelming sense of happiness, that I
was finally getting to die. I even felt gratitude. I would have
thanked my murderer if I could talk. It seemed as if he had come
as a benefactor, that he had come to put me out of my misery as a
mercy. I realized at one point that I wasn't breathing anymore,
but it didn't feel at all unpleasant-- I've suffocated in reality
before, and it's quite horrible. This was nothing like that. I
felt no urge to breathe at all. I was overwhelmed with a sort of
euphoric dizziness-- it felt as if I were spinning out of my
body, like a butterfly trapped in a cocoon, squirming its way
free. Or as if I were being tugged out of a whirlpool that had
been dragging me down, or flying free of a planetary gravity
well. And I felt an enormous sense of gratitude that I was being
allowed such a pleasant death. My own attempt had been truly
horrific. This was... wonderful."
     He shook his head, trying to dispel the vague and disturbing
yearning he felt toward the memory. "Then I woke up, which
startled me quite a bit. I'd been utterly convinced it was
actually happening. My head hurt terribly, my hand was still in
the restraint, and I was still terribly bored. And I felt an
awful sense of disappointment that it had been a dream. I peered
into the darkness for some time-- you have to understand, I was
barely awake, and I wasn't thinking very straight-- hoping it
would turn out to be true after all, that there was a mercy
killer lurking in the shadows. Which, of course, there wasn't."
     Q looked up at T'Laren, intending to gauge her reaction. It
was far more than he had expected. She seemed to have gone very
still, retreating into one of her Vulcan silences. "T'Laren?"
     "Did you by any chance tell security about this?" she asked.
     "About a dream? Don't be ridiculous." He stared at her.
"T'Laren, what's wrong?"
     "That... was not a dream, Q."
     Not a dream? He blinked. "How could it have actually
happened? T'Laren, I *died* in it. Unless our current adventures
are a dream themselves, and these are really the last few
nanoseconds of my existence, it had to have been a dream."
     "You didn't die. You lost consciousness. For that matter,
even if you had had a clear near-death experience, life support
might have brought you back."
     "How do you *know* it was a dream? Were you the killer?"
     She ignored that. "Do you have any reason, aside from your
difficulty in explaining your survival, to believe that it was a
dream?"
     "It happened when I was asleep."
     "It happened when you were half-asleep. And predisposed to
believe that anything happening to you might have been a dream."
     "All right then, if it wasn't a dream why aren't I dead?"
     T'Laren folded her hands in front of her. She looked as if
she were cold, despite the warmth of the bath. "You were on
respiratory life-support. Your trachea and lungs were too badly
damaged to risk letting them handle the entire burden of your
respiration; most of your oxygen was being supplied directly into
your bloodstream. Cutting off the supply to your lungs would only
produce mild anoxia; and such anoxia can produce a euphoric high,
much like what you describe."
     "Oh." Q considered that. "That would mean... hmm. I wonder
who it was."
     "You seem remarkably unconcerned."
     "I'm not on Starbase 56 any more; whoever he was, I'll
probably never see him again. Probably some security guard who
saw me helpless and couldn't resist the temptation any longer.
The trail would be quite cold by now."
     "I think we should call Starbase 56. Perhaps they have
security camera images still on file."
     "If you want to. I really don't care all that much. Whoever
he was, whatever his motives, I was quite happy with his actions
at the time."
     "You were also quite happy with Thelkas's actions."
     "You have a point." Q shrugged. "Okay, go ahead. Call
Starbase 56 if you want." He leaned back. "Euphoric high from
anoxia, hmm? If I ever get around to trying it again, I'll have
to remember that one."
     "Don't say that." Under the veneer of Vulcan control,
T'Laren seemed truly agitated. 
     "T'Laren." Q moved forward, walking on his knees the short
distance across the bathtub. He put his hands on her shoulders.
"What are you getting so upset about? It was a joke. As for the
other thing... it didn't happen, all right? What, were you afraid
I'd die before you could pay off your debt to Lhoviri?"
     "Jokes are commonly defined as statements which are funny,"
she said, but there was a hollowness in the retort. "And I am
very concerned for you. You are enough at risk for suicide
without deciding you have a taste for self-strangulation."
     "It was a *joke*, T'Laren. Perhaps not a funny one, but a
joke nonetheless. Do you seriously think I would find some
entertainment value in strangling myself?"
     "Yes."
     "*Why?* Who would be sick enough to *enjoy* something like
that?"
     "Many human beings would. Have you never heard of autoerotic
fatalities?"
     Q released T'Laren and backed away, sitting back down in the
water. "Do I really want to hear this?"
     "Mild anoxia is pleasurable for many humans. Throughout
history, many so-called suicides have been accidents, as people
who discovered the pleasures of being breathless miscalculated,
and lost their breath for all time. I thought you were an expert
on the dark side of humanity, Q."
     "I must have missed that one." Q stared at T'Laren. "That is
utterly disgusting. Do you think for a second I would kill
myself-- or even risk my life-- for *sexual* reasons? Oh, that is
*repulsive*. I'm ashamed of you."
     "Ashamed of me? You are the one who found pleasure in being
suffocated."
     "It wasn't erotic pleasure, I *assure* you."
     "Would you know erotic pleasure from any other kind?"
     That was definitely not a question Q wanted to answer. A
truthful answer would be hideously embarrassing and a false one
would lose him the argument. "It was a sensation of peace,
T'Laren. The euphoria of freedom. It wasn't the first time,
either. I felt similarly the second time I tried to kill myself,
and that had nothing to do with strangulation at all. Or are you
going to tell me that another human sexual perversion involves
slitting one's own wrists for thrills?"
     "No. Not to my knowledge." She climbed out of the bath and
knelt by the side. "I find this very disturbing, Q. Will you tell
me about this? I have never heard of people finding pleasure in
cutting their wrists. Perhaps it will make sense in context."
     "The context might take quite some time to explain."
     "Then I think you should get out of the bathtub. Shall we go
to the kitchen to discuss this?"
     That struck him as a very good idea. As soon as T'Laren had
mentioned sex, he had started to feel very uncomfortable being
around her with both of them in a near-nude state. If he was
going to tell her about the circumstances of his second suicide
attempt, he wanted to be wearing his armor again.