ONLY HUMAN CHP. II: KETAYA by Alara Rogers; published by Aleph Press The following is section 10 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. This is an alternate universe novel, and it's long. I mean *looong.* 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. * * * That night, despite attempts to meditate, he awakened four times with bad dreams. The fourth time, he woke up drenched with sweat, the blankets thrown off his upper body and hopelessly tangled around his legs. "This," Q said to no one in particular, "is positively ridiculous." He kicked free of the blankets furiously, the fear of the dream transmuting to anger. So much for T'Laren's insistence that all he needed to do was relax. He'd been perfectly relaxed before he went to sleep-- actually, he'd been exhausted. He'd tried her method, had done the meditative exercises she suggested, and it hadn't worked. Without bothering to do anything about his rumpled appearance, he stormed out of the bedroom and headed for Deck 1, where T'Laren's quarters were. It was 0500; by all rights, she should be asleep by now. Well, good. He'd wake her up. If he couldn't sleep, why should she? T'Laren's quarters were unlocked. They were also empty. The hard mattress she slept on-- or at least he presumed she slept on it-- was made up as a militarily precise bunk, with no sign that someone had ever slept there, or even leaned on it. "Computer, where's T'Laren?" "T'Laren is in the gymnasium." In the gymnasium at 0500. *Why am I not surprised?* He headed back down to Deck 3, his fury cooling slightly with time. The ridiculousness of his actions, storming around Ketayain his pajamas because he had a bad dream, started to reach him. Resolutely he forced himself to concentrate on anger, to ignore the growing sense of embarrassment and focus on finding T'Laren. As he stepped into the gymnasium, he staggered and nearly fell. It was like walking off a staircase without realizing there was a final step to descend. A sudden weight settled over his entire body, making it hard to breathe, and an intense heat brought beads of sweat to his face in the first few seconds-- beads that evaporated quickly in the dry air. It wasn't hard to deduce that T'Laren had set the interior to a Vulcan environment, heavy gravity, heat and all. Didn't she know it was a bad idea to have differential gravities aboard a ship in warp? He leaned a hand against the wall to regain his balance, breathing deeply, and stepped forward from the antechamber into the gym proper. T'Laren was working out on a complex jungle gym of parallel bars, wearing a blue-grey gym suit that wasn't much larger than the swimsuit she'd worn before. Her skin was flushed a dark green, under a sheen of sweat. As Q watched, she wrapped her legs around one of the bars, swung around it, and tried to do a handstand onto the bars below. Her wrist twisted as her weight came on it, and she fell with a startled yelp, crashing on her hands and knees to the mats below. Q clapped slowly and sarcastically. "Bra-*vo*!" T'Laren got up from the mat slowly, turning to face him. "I didn't hear you come in." "No, you seemed rather occupied with finding new and exciting ways to maim yourself." "Are you here for a reason? It's very early." She stood up, wiping sweat off her face. "I thought I'd take in a sauna," he said, glancing around. "Why exactly are you exercising in Vulcan gravity at five in the morning?" "Why exactly are you asking?" T'Laren went over to the replicator. "A tall glass of water. And a wet cloth." She was limping slightly, favoring her left knee. "I do believe I asked first." She drank most of the glass of water in one draught. "I always exercise around this time. Normally you're asleep at this time. Another glass of water, please." "Where's the logic in being polite to a replicator?" "What are you doing here?" Q leaned back against the wall. The gravity was very tiring. "I just woke up for the fourth time tonight with another nightmare, and I want to know what you plan to do about it." "Ah." T'Laren set her second glass of water down and wiped off her face with the wet cloth, both times using the wrist that hadn't betrayed her. "We could discuss it, if you'd like." "T'Laren, I'm *tired*. I don't want to discuss it, I *want* to get back to sleep." "Did you try meditation?" He gave her a disgusted look. "No, I thought I'd try banging my head on the wall instead." "What kind of nightmare was it?" "It doesn't *matter* what kind of nightmare it was! You told me that if I was properly relaxed I wouldn't have nightmares. Well, I did the relaxation exercises before I went to bed and it didn't do me any good at all. I even tried them again after the first nightmare. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that you, dear doctor, are a quack. Why don't you give me a sedative? We *know* that works." "I could also use a nerve pinch on you," T'Laren said coolly. "That would work, too." "You're not taking me seriously!" Q snapped. T'Laren pressed a hand to her head. "Forgive me. I'm angry and frustrated at the moment-- it has nothing to do with you, although your behavior is not improving matters." "*My* behavior isn't improving matters. I see. You're the one who's supposed to be helping me, and I'm the one who's suffering, but you don't feel good. Oh. Poor baby." "You are the only one permitted to be angry?" T'Laren asked. "You're the only one permitted to have any sort of feelings?" "You're a Vulcan! And anyway, you're my doctor. You're supposed to be able to put personal problems aside." "Ideally, yes. Here's some news for you, though: this isn't an ideal universe." Q scowled. "I know that. Don't try to tell *me* about the shortcomings of the universe, T'Laren." "Then you know that it isn't always possible to live up to ideals." T'Laren leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. "Give me a moment." She took a deep breath. Q watched, fascinated despite himself. Her tension had not been all that obvious, not to a person used to reading human beings, but the change as it drained out of her was dramatic. When she opened her eyes, she seemed entirely composed, her face and voice free of the edge of impatience that had been there before. "There." "I've never seen a Vulcan do that before." "Aside from me, you probably never will again. Most have mastery internalized far better than I do-- it would take something of truly stunning proportions to make them show emotion, or the struggle for control." "Vulcans don't usually admit that they even *have* emotions." "I know. It's a matter of shame. I've always felt that there's no point to it myself; denying my feelings exist will not help me to master them. Vulcan discipline doesn't work by pretending emotions aren't there and hoping they go away, though many humans seem to think that's how we do it." "What were you exercising in a Vulcan gravity for, anyway?" "You're the physics expert, Q. What do you think?" "I think having a differential gravity field inside our warp field is asking for trouble, actually." "Oh." T'Laren frowned slightly. "Why?" "It's unstable. If you've got multiple gravitational fields inside a single warp envelope, it unbalances the warp field, puts a strain on the engines and drains the dilithium crystals. Admittedly, dilithium can be recharged, but if we ever do plan to use the transwarp engines we'll want crystals at maximum capacity, so they don't blow out on us." "We used higher-than-Earth-gee fields for gymnasium programs aboard some of the starships I was on, and no one ever said it was dangerous." "Starships have more sheer power to play with. Our engines are designed for speed, not luxury. Also more space-- the proportionate size of the differential gravity field makes a big difference. And I still don't know what you'd want such a program for." "I was born aboard a starship under Earth gee, and raised on Earth. Earth's gravity is considerably lighter than Vulcan's." She requested a medical tricorder from the replicator and ran it over her wrist. "You think of me as strong, because I'm a Vulcan and I'm stronger than you. In point of fact, though, at your size you would be stronger than me if you were in reasonable shape." "Really." Q's eyebrows went up. "I've always been weaker than other Vulcans. For most of my life, I struggled to compensate, with exercise regimens like the one you just saw. Since I *am* genetically Vulcan, and Earth's gravity isn't that much lower, I can come very close to a normal Vulcan level of strength for a woman my size if I train hard enough. But toward the end... I let things slide, and I'm paying for it now." She put the tricorder down. "It's twisted, not sprained. I'll have to do something about it later, and the knee too. Right now, though... let me take a shower, and I'll try to deal with your problem. I should only be a few minutes." "I'll wait outside." After the heat in the gymnasium (and why did she have it set to a complete Vulcan environment if all she wanted was the heavier gravity, anyway?), the coolness of the ship's corridors was a soothing balm. Q leaned against the wall, growing more and more conscious of his rumpled appearance. What had possessed him to come out here in *pajamas?* What was *wrong* with him? His hair was a wreck, he had been drenched with sweat before he'd gone in the gymnasium and he probably reeked by now-- really, he must look a disaster. He thought of going back to his room to get changed before she got out-- T'Laren probably didn't care what he looked like, but he did. She came out then, wearing a dull beige shipsuit, her hair still slightly damp. Personally, Q couldn't see why anyone would dump water all over themselves when they could be cleaned with intangible, efficient sound waves instead, but he was willing to admit that was a personal bias. "I've been considering," she said as they walked toward his room. "I still think the problem is tension-- especially since yesterday morning. You look as if you're tense and frightened when you sleep, even under sedation-- I imagine you must be extremely tense when you don't take sedatives. You say you've tried meditation, and that didn't work. We tried massage, and that didn't work very well. I still disapprove of sedatives-- I could give you a muscle relaxant, but over the long run that has the same problem as the sedatives." "None of this helps, you know." Q palmed open the door to his room. "All of it helps. Knowing what does not work is certainly useful in tracking down what does." T'Laren stepped inside and sat down in the chair, folding her hands in her lap, as Q sat down on the bed and leaned back against his pillows. "We haven't yet tried combining techniques. Perhaps you're too tense to place yourself in a deep enough trance to do youself good. I could massage the tension out while you make the attempt..." "I'm certainly not going to turn down a gratuitous backrub, but I don't really think that will work. For one thing, I doubt I could concentrate enough to try meditating with you rubbing my back." "You might be surprised. Actually, anything that relaxes the body increases suggestibility, and that improves the odds for self-hypnosis-- which is, essentially, what I've been trying to teach you to do." "I'm not too happy with the idea of being suggestible, quite frankly." "I know. Some time ago I considered the idea of using hypnosis with you, but I think you're far too resistant for it to work. You refuse to yield your will to someone else. However, keep in mind that it's your subconscious mind that's affected by increased suggestibility. We have been trying to find a way to make your subconscious-- which seems to be as stubborn as the rest of you-- take orders from your conscious mind. I'm sure the idea of you yourself giving suggestions to your subconscious doesn't disturb you." "Of course not. That's not what bothers me..." But he couldn't quite articulate what bothered him, other than the usual problem-- he simply didn't want to take the risk of letting another person manipulate him, and in these circumstances that was a foolish fear to have. Right now he would use any method at all. He shook his head. "I'm too tired to have this argument. I suppose it would be foolish of me not to try it." "Yes." By now he had become somewhat more accustomed to backrubs-- he enjoyed them still, but no longer overreacted the way he had the first time. Which was just as well, as if he'd kept overreacting like that he would have had to refuse them entirely. He lay down on the bed, on his stomach with his head turned sideways on the pillow and his arms under the pillow, supporting his head. For a moment, he was uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was in a pair of light, rumpled pajamas, with his feet bare, and that he was in his bedroom with T'Laren. The fact that she was fully dressed helped ease the self-consciousness some, though, and when she began on his back it felt too good to particularly care about what he was wearing or how vulnerable he was. It was, however, far too distracting for him to put himself in a trance. In an environment of boredom, it was very easy for Q to put himself into a trance-- when he was too physically weary to do anything and didn't want to sleep, he could use meditation as a method of simply shutting his brain off for a while. Using it for something constructive, however, like trying to persuade himself to not have nightmares, was much more difficult. He simply couldn't do it here. For one thing, with T'Laren pressing down on his back he couldn't breathe deeply or regularly. "This isn't going to work," he said, rolling over. "What's wrong?" "It's too distracting. And I can't breathe properly." "Mm." T'Laren nodded. "All right. Roll over again and I'll finish with your back. Then there's something else we could try." "What?" "An adaptation of this. If you lay on your back, I can still reach most of your head and neck. As long as your back is relaxed already, that might be enough." That sounded rather attractive, he had to admit. "Fine." After she had finished with his back, she had him move down on the bed, far enough for her to kneel at the head of the bed just above his head, and lie down on his back with his head supported on a pillow, leaving a space free that she could reach his neck. His exhaustion was catching up with him. "I want you to take deep breaths," T'Laren said. "Try to relax. Since ideally you should go directly to sleep when we finish here, would you like me to turn off the lights?" The idea of being in a completely dark room with T'Laren bothered him more than he was willing to admit. Besides, he didn't sleep in complete darkness anyway. "Computer, sleep lights." The room dimmed, the regular lights going off and the three blue panels at the base of the room's walls lighting up, filling the room with a dim, diffuse illumination. "I didn't know there were moon lights on Ketaya" T'Laren said. "Is that what they're called? Moon lights?" "Either that or nightlights." "I hate the term nightlight. Children who're frightened of the dark use nightlights. I just prefer to be able to see if something wakes me up." "Reasonable, given your circumstances." She reached under his neck and pressed fingertips into the muscles there. "Close your eyes." Q did so, sighing. It was a good bit easier to breathe deeply, now that he wasn't being pressed down into the bed. It was strange, how his neck and head could be so tense, and yet he didn't even notice he was in pain until something happened to take the pain away. He hated being that used to pain that it dropped into the background-- though maybe it was preferable to the way it had been in the early days, when he couldn't stop noticing pain, and a twinge he would now consider negligible would have him all but crippled. As T'Laren's fingertips moved up to his temples, massaging the barely-noticed headache away, he could hear her murmuring almost inaudibly, soothingly, telling him to relax. Sleep was a warm, dark tide, lapping at him and washing away the strains of the day. He was tired enough that the sensation of falling asleep was in itself extremely pleasurable, something it very rarely was-- normally he fought sleep, resisting the onslaught of unconsciousness with all his strength, but he had no strength right now and it felt wonderful to yield for once. His breathing changed, becoming more regular. Quite unconsciously he smiled as the dark tide took him and washed everything away but peace. T'Laren waited with her fingers pressed gently to his temples, sensing and guiding the ebb of consciousness, until she knew that he was deeply and peacefully asleep. Though it was difficult to imagine a mind more resistant to suggestion than his, she thought that perhaps he had been receptive enough to her telepathic suggestion to act on it. If this worked, he would sleep deeply and with no emotionally charged dreams. She drew back her hands and cautiously removed herself from the bed, prepared to soothe Q back to sleep if he showed any signs of being woken by her movements. He showed none. For a few moments she stood by the bed, looking down at him in the dim bluish light. With the tension gone from his sleeping form, his lips turned in an unconscious smile, he actually looked healthier than he had this morning, when he'd slept so tensely. He was still thin and fragile-looking, still vulnerable, but it was a far more innocent vulnerability than the knowing fear she'd seen in him this morning, and it inspired a kind of tender protectiveness-- even in her, with her extensive knowledge of what exactly he was. If he ever managed to look this way when awake, he'd have a much easier time of it getting people to be sympathetic to him. She left the room, heading for sickbay. It had, perhaps, been a bad idea to give Q a massage after twisting her wrist. Her priorities were strange ones, she thought. Few doctors were ever quite so obsessed with their patients as she was-- and she had to admit that an objective observer would probably call it obsession. For three or four months, ever since Lhoviri and she had decided she was sane enough to work again, she had spent most of her waking hours thinking about and preparing for her treatment of Q. She had interviewed people who knew him, studied his records extensively, done everything she could to increase her understanding of him. T'Laren had never been that focused on one patient before in her life, nor had she ever known a doctor who was-- except in cases of countertransference, where the psychologist fell in love with her patient. *Small danger of that here*, she thought dryly. As far as he'd come in the past two weeks, Q was still far from lovable. She was obsessed with him because he was the symbol of her debt to Lhoviri, the service she must discharge for the profound gift of having reality rewritten to correct her mistakes. That was all. That being said, however, she had to admit that that in itself could be a problem. Until Q was reasonably well-adjusted to being human, until she had completed the task Lhoviri had given her, T'Laren could not entirely forgive herself for the things she had done, the things Lhoviri had saved her from doing. There was nothing she could do about that-- emotional mastery only went so far, and besides, Lhoviri had altered reality in order to pay for a psychologist who would obsess herself with his younger brother. That was part of the deal. But it meant she would have to watch herself carefully-- despite what she'd told Q today, the lack of other people around was a problem, though not for the reason he thought. It was not that Q was not the most charming of companions-- he wasn't, but that wasn't the point. If the only social connections T'Laren could make were with the patient that she was obsessed with anyway, she became dangerously vulnerable to countertransference. Probably his unlovability and obnoxiousness were all that had saved her thus far. As she shaped Q into a closer approximation of a socially viable and likable human, she ran the risk of becoming Pygmalion, and falling for her creation. She would have to be constantly on guard for that. It would be better once they were on Yamato, she thought. Once there were other people around to diffuse her focus.