Only Human by Alara Rogers  
  
Part III: Yamato  
  
With minor revisions to the parts posted before, here is all of  
Only Human Chapter III. 
  
Paramount owns Q and the universe; I own the original characters. 
No copyright infringement is intended.  Not to be sold for profit.   
 
ONLY HUMAN (for those who haven't caught the story thus far) is an  
alternate universe, based on the premise that Q lost his powers for  
good in "Deja Q."  In exchange for protection, he offered the  
Federation the benefit of his advanced knowledge, and was transferred  
to Starbase 56.  Three years later, miserable beyond endurance, Q  
attempted to kill himself.  
  
Dr. T'Laren, Vulcan xenopsychologist and former Starfleet counselor,  
turned up at this point, claiming that Starfleet had hired her as Q's  
therapist.  In fact, it turned out that she was really hired by the Q  
Continuum, in the person of the Q who got Q thrown out, whom T'Laren  
refers to as Lhoviri.  T'Laren persuaded Q to accept her help and  
allow her to counsel him through his depression.  To that end, they  
left Starbase 56 on T'Laren's ship Ketaya-- a gift from Lhoviri, with  
some surprising capabilities-- and headed for the starship Yamato,  
which was currently hosting a physics conference.  
  
Over the course of the past weeks of travel, Q has come to trust  
T'Laren, more or less, though they've had some knock-down-drag-out  
fights in the process.  At the end of Part II, Q decided that he no  
longer wanted to die.  Part III details 's adventures at the scientific  
conference aboard the Yamato, T'Laren's problems as her  
somewhat shady past comes back to haunt her in the forms of her  
young sister-in-law and her former lover, and the ups and downs  
of Q and T'Laren's relations with one another.  Section 14 also  
deals explicitly with sexual themes, though I consider it suitable  
for teens and mature Congresspersons (like Patrick Leahy, who  
opposed the CDA.)  
  
Note that elements of this chapter and previous ones contradict 
the Voyager episode "The Q and the Grey."  I remain convinced 
that my version of the Continuum is more interesting than the 
vision we were presented with in that episode, and so I have not 
revised to fit that episode, as it's too stupid to be canon. :-) 
 
Parts I - III are all available at the following sites: 
 
FTP: 
 
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/al/aleph/startrek 
ftp://ftp.europa.com/outgoing/mercutio/alt.fan.q 
ftp://aviary.share.net/pub/startrek/tng 
 
Web: 
 
http://www.europa.com/~mercutio/Q.html 
http://aviary.share.net/~alara 
http://www1.mhv.net/~alara/ohtree.html 
 
Send comments to aleph@netcom.com. 
             *                   *                    *   

	The alarm was obviously malfunctioning.  There was no way it 
should be ringing this early.  Q turned it off.
	He pointed out to Anderson that that was a really stupid place to 
put a red alert signal.  Anderson gazed down at her boots.  "You have a 
point," she reflected.
	T'Laren came into the room.  "Aren't you going to answer that?"  
she asked.
	"There's no need," Anderson reassured her.  "Starfleet never has 
anything important to say."
	T'Laren didn't seem reassured.  Instead, she turned to Q with an 
expression of concern on her face.  "Q?  Are you going to get up?"
	Abruptly, with a sense of dislocation, he realized he was in his 
quarters, in bed.  Why was T'Laren bothering him?  It was far too early 
for him to get up.  "Why?"  he asked.
	"Because it's 0928, and the conference starts at 1000."
	Q rolled over to look at the chronometer.  It could not possibly 
be 0930 already.  He had just barely gotten to sleep.
	"Can't I take a day off?"  he mumbled.  "This is supposed to be my 
vacation."
	"You can do whatever you like, but you might want to think about 
whether you would rather go in today or not.  People have undoubtedly 
heard all sorts of wild rumors by now.  Do you think you'd want to go 
in and do damage control?"
	She was right; if he didn't go in, people would probably embellish 
what had happened to him last night.  Roth was an inveterate gossip, 
and probably would not be able to resist the temptation to tell 
everyone about Q's misadventures last night.  On the other hand, the 
very fact that he would have to face people who knew about last night 
made him want to curl up and stay asleep for the next several weeks, at 
least.
	Suddenly a brilliant plan occurred to him.  "No, I think I'm going 
to be working here today," he said, in as lofty a voice as he could 
manage, still bleared by sleep.  "The conference has been entertaining 
enough, but I've been spending entirely too much time with intellectual 
inferiors, and they're dragging me down.  I think I'll spend today 
here, getting some *real* work done."
	"As you wish," T'Laren said.  "I'll call and tell them you're 
working at home today."  Sadly, she would probably not add the 
embellishments.  But that was all right-- after he'd enacted his plan, 
no one would be concerned with the incident last night anymore.  
	Q nodded and closed his eyes.  Hadn't it been something like 0400 
before he'd finally gotten to sleep?  Of course he couldn't be expected 
to go to the conference today.
	"I'm going down to the holodeck to practice.  If you need me, just 
call."
	"Delightful," Q murmured.  The warmth of the blankets around him 
was seductive, calling him to curl back into them and give up the 
strains of wakefulness.
			*				*				*
	Hazy, dreamlike excitement at the thought of his plan warred with 
sleep all morning.  Finally, Q pulled himself out of bed in  early 
afternoon, unable to stay in bed any longer, though he wanted to.  He 
actually had something he wanted to do today.  What a novel concept.  
He hadn't felt any sort of excitement, any sort of desire to get up in 
the morning to accomplish something, since... the Borg.  A moment of 
depression and self-pity seized him at that-- his life had truly been 
that miserable for two whole years?  But he pushed it aside.  Time to 
work.
	He pulled up the notes from the conference, showing all the tests 
that had already been run, and the silly hypotheses that went with 
them.  Time travel?  Alternate dimensions?  Alien warp drives?  What 
*was* this silliness?  Didn't these people have a gram of common sense?  
He didn't know quite what the anomaly was, but nobody was in the 
correct ballpark.
			*				*				*
	When T'Laren showed up, toward late afternoon, he was pacing 
around the common room., occasionally directing commands to the 
computer, mostly talking to himself.  T'Laren raised an eyebrow.  "Q?"
	"...would have had the wrong... what's the word, damn...  no, 
anyway, that's the wrong direction... what about the erdionic 
signature?  Undoubtedly didn't check that... yes!  Computer, display 
all analyses of erdionic waves from the singularity."
	"No analysis of erdionic waves has been conducted."
	"What utter morons... shouldn't be surprised, though..."
	"Q?"  T'Laren repeated.
	"Hmm?"  He turned and seemed to notice her for the first time.  
"What are you doing here?"
	"I live here,"  T'Laren said dryly.  "Have you eaten?"
	"Why would I have eaten?  It's far too early."
	"It's 0622," T'Laren said patiently.  "Have you eaten at all 
today?"
	"It can't be that late.  It was barely 0200 just a few minutes 
ago.  Are you sure the chronometer isn't wrong?"
	"You haven't, have you."  She had never seen Q like this, totally 
focused on a problem.  "Why don't you get something to eat?"  
	"I'm not hungry.  Did you know those morons didn't run a *single* 
analysis on erdionic waves?"
	"What's an erdionic wave?"
	"Similar to a veritonic wave, but the amplitude is a lot higher 
and the flavor is a bit more greenish."
	She was *not* going to ask him what that meant.  "Did they run 
analyses on the veritonic waves?"
	"Wouldn't help.  Veritonic waves are strictly three-dimensional 
creations.  Erdions have a propagation pattern in the fourth and fifth 
dimensional axes as well... well, actually, maybe you have a point.  If 
we compared the frequency of veritonic waves to the erdionic... but 
we'd need an erdionic analysis for that... damn.  Who do I go to get 
tests run around here?"
	"Sovaz is the liaison to the ship's science department, so I would 
imagine you would talk to her."
	"Good.  Computer, locate Lt. Sovaz."
	"Lieutenant Sovaz is in Conference Room 7."
	"They're still *at* that?"
	"Q, you should eat," T'Laren repeated patiently.  "The tests can 
wait until after dinner."
	"I told you I'm not hungry.  Q to Sovaz."
	"Sovaz here," his combadge chirped.
	"Sovaz, I need a 12-hour scan run for erdionic waves."
	"What are erdionic waves?"
	Q looked shocked, and somewhat dismayed.  "Tell me you're joking."
	"Vulcans don't joke," Sovaz said.  There was a voice in the 
background.  "Oh, Dr. Markow is explaining them to me."
	"And you're supposed to be the liaison to a conference of 
*physicists?*"
	Murmuring in the background for half a minute.  When Sovaz 
returned, her voice said, "Dr. Markow says that erdionic waves were 
discovered only four months ago."
	"Discovered by Federation types, you mean.  Yes, I know.  I was 
there.  I wouldn't call it 'discovered', exactly, not when I 
practically had to spoon-feed it to them."
	"We don't have equipment that can detect erdionic waves, I don't 
think.  I'll check with Commander Mariani."
	"Oh, for-- You're supposed to be a state-of-the-art science 
vessel!  How can you possibly not have this equipment?"
	"We had our last refit six months ago," Sovaz said.  "Is there 
equipment that can detect erdionic waves on Starbase 56?  Possibly we 
can download the design specifications and replicate or build the 
detector here."
	Q sighed heavily.  "I'm not interested in your petty little 
technical problems.  It is beyond unbelievable that no one thought to 
run this scan.  I want it by tomorrow morning."  He tapped his combadge 
off.  "Can you believe this?  They don't even have a *detector*.  What 
am I even *bothering* for?"
	"Q, starships can't go in for a refit every time someone comes out 
with a new discovery," T'Laren pointed out.  "And if erdionic waves 
were only discovered four months ago, with your help, it seems only 
natural that you would be more familiar with them than anyone here."
	"Why am I bothering to impart my knowledge to the Federation if 
four months later supposed physicists *still* don't know what I'm 
talking about?"  He paced furiously.
	"Members of Starfleet science are usually more generalists and 
less specialized than civilian scientists.  Sovaz has an enormous 
quantity of information to try to keep current with.  It is hardly her 
fault if one or two things slip through the cracks."
	"And what are you defending her for?  I thought you didn't like 
her."
	"Why do you say that?"
	"Well, if you treat people you *like* the way you treat Sovaz, I 
don't see why you don't have a reputation much like mine."
	T'Laren decided to ignore that.  She walked over to the 
replicator; Q wasn't going to eat if she didn't put the food in front 
of him.  "One bowl of ri'keyh.  One omelette, three eggs, with 
mushrooms, peppers, and steak bits.  One fizzy chocolate and one grape 
juice."
	"I *said* I'm not hungry."
	"I suspect that if you start to eat, your appetite will return."  
She set the plates and glasses down on the table-- chocolate drink and 
omelette for Q, vegetable casserole and grape juice for her.  "I don't 
dislike Sovaz, Q.  I would simply rather not deal with her."
	"Why not?  What'd she do to you?"
	"She did nothing to me."  *It was what I did to her*.  "Seeing her 
evokes painful memories that I would rather put behind me."  She seated 
herself and began to eat.
	With some degree of bad grace Q sat down as well.  "I might as 
well," he muttered.  "Since they're holding me up with their 
incompetence, I don't have much better to do."
	"Tell me what you've found."
	"Why bother?  You wouldn't understand it."
	"I won't understand the details, no, but I should be able to pick 
up enough to get a general sense."
	"T'Laren, people need advanced degrees to be able to pick up 
enough of what I tell them to have some idea what I'm talking about.  I 
don't do well on talking to laypeople."
	Perhaps he had a point.  But she didn't really want to know what 
he'd found; she wanted him to talk to her about his interests, to share 
his excitement in his incomprehensible discoveries with her, to tell 
her what actions he was taking.  "Then tell me what you've been doing 
instead.  In a general sense."
	"I came up with a brilliant plan this morning," Q said, attacking 
his omelette as if it had just tried to bite him.
	"Your plan to sleep in and announce that you were working at 
home?"
	"My plan to not come back to the conference until I actually know 
the answer.  If I can solve the anomaly, no one's going to *care* about 
the incident with LeBeau anymore.  But I'm being hampered by a lack of 
data.  You know, this is the third test I've had to have them run?  
What do these people think they're *doing?*"
	"Part of the entire reason you were invited to the conference is 
so that you could help them to determine what sort of scans would be 
useful to run."
	"Yes, well, obviously someone's got to."
	"How far have you gotten?"
	"I have a very good idea of what it's not.  Actually, I do have a 
vague hypothesis about what it might be, but it's possible that's just 
wishful thinking.  Until I get the erdionic wave scans back, I won't 
have enough evidence to even begin pursuing my vague hypothesis."
	"What do you think it might be?"
	Q's combadge cheeped at him.  "Q here."
	"Commander Mariani's altered the sensor array so it should be able 
to pick up erdionic waves," Sovaz's voice said.  "We're beginning the 
scan now."
	"Lovely."
	"What is this for?  Do you have a theory?  None of us have been 
able to figure out what erdionic waves should have to do with the 
anomaly."
	Q grinned coldly.  "No, I don't imagine you would."
	"So what is your theory?"
	"I'll leave you to ponder that overnight.  Q out."
	"That was rather cruel," T'Laren pointed out.
	"T'Laren, you wound me.  I'm merely raising levels of 
anticipation.  Now they have something more interesting to gossip 
about."  He pushed his chair back and got up.  "Now, I do have to get 
back to work if I'll be ready for tomorrow.  So why don't you run along 
and find something to do?"
	Instead of running along and finding something to do, T'Laren 
watched Q, under pretense of reading.  She sat curled up on the couch 
with the datapadd, watching him pace and talk to himself.  He kept 
picking bits of abandoned omelette or mushroom off his plate and eating 
them every time he passed the table; T'Laren had the bright idea of 
replicating fruit, cheese, crackers and pastries and leaving most of 
the stuff on the table, while she returned to her post on the couch 
with a small sampling of it.  Sure enough, Q would pick up bits of the 
appetizers and absently snack while he paced, too engrossed in his own 
thoughts to quite realize that he was eating.  She had just figured out 
how to get Q to eat more.  Now, if she could only find a way to trick 
him into exercising, things would be wonderful.
			*				*				*
	The results of the scan came in at 0700 hours.  Q hadn't been up 
the whole time, of course; he kept getting up in the middle of the 
night and going to check, as the results of the scan would determine 
whether he went in to the conference tomorrow.  
	As he'd hoped, the concentration of erdionic waves radiating 
toward and from the anomaly was effectively doubled.  He ran another 
analysis while he got dressed, and determined that half the radiation 
in the area was most likely a fifth-dimensional reflection of the other 
half.  Which meant... Excitement bubbled over in him.  Not only did he 
think he knew what it was, but he could even imagine a plan to 
investigate further.  He didn't know why he'd never thought of this in 
the old days, why no one had, but perhaps it was a matter of 
perspective; only a creature reduced to the level of a barely evolved 
sentient could conceive of a plan so primitive, so low-tech.
	Waiting for the conference to re-open at 1100 drove him nuts.  
Waiting the additional fifteen minutes to be fashionably late was out 
of the question.  He strode into the conference room only five minutes 
after it had begun, before the meeting had even been called to order, 
and clapped his hands.  "If you're all done blathering about your 
tedious little social lives, I have something important to show you."
	Every head turned toward his.  "As important as breaking 
defenseless women's arms?"  LeBeau asked, unable to let him go without 
trying for her pound of flesh.
	Q sneered at her.  "Your tedious harping on my part of a 
distasteful incident that you yourself caused is irrelevant to the 
purpose of this conference.  But let's put it to a vote.  Would people 
rather hear LeBeau whine, or would you rather find out what the anomaly 
is?"
	"You know?"  Markow leaned forward, almost imperceptibly, but Q 
knew him well enough to know that that much motion cost him the effort 
that leaping up and shouting would cost an uninjured person.
	"The analysis of erdionic waves was the key, wasn't it?"  Sovaz 
asked, all but bouncing.  "I've thought and I've thought, and I still 
cannot envision what erdionic waves could be telling you."
	Yalit-- who was mercifully wearing a loincloth, at least-- grinned 
toothily.  "You talk big, boy," she said.  "Let's see if you can back 
it up."
	"Boy?"  Q glared at her.  "Madame, we've discussed this, I 
believe.  Your species was still so much primordial sludge when *I* was 
a child."
	"I read your files," Yalit said, undiscouraged.  "You're some kind 
of adolescent by your own standards, aren't you?  Boy."
	"Perhaps I am.  Troll.  But it's hardly relevant in *your* 
species' terms, now is it?"
	"Shut up, Yalit," Dhawan said.  "And Q, quit rising to the bait.  
She's got a point.  Let's see if you're worth the nuisance you've 
caused."
	"Computer!  Crosstab analyses of all radiation scans performed on 
the singularity, compared against ambient for open space."  This was a 
reasonably common sort of request, and the holographic display in the 
center of the room lit up with charts and graphs.  "You will notice an 
emergent pattern, if you look carefully.  Let's examine one comparison 
more closely.  Computer!  Compare veritonic to erdionic radiation, with 
the third axis being ambient."
	The chart popped into existence, causing the other charts to 
become smaller and crowd down at the bottom of the display.  The 
comparison was clear-- veritonic waves were slightly less than ambient, 
while erdionic radiation was nearly double both its own normal ambient 
levels and the adjusted current levels of veritonic radiation.  
	"I was wondering about that," someone said.  "Why there's such a 
big discrepancy."
	Q smiled broadly and turned to the speaker, a human man whose name 
entirely escaped him.  "Any hypotheses?"
	"Well, I looked for high-amplitude radiation effects-- as if the 
gravity gradient is not affecting higher-amplitude radiation at all-- 
but I didn't see anything."
	"And you didn't investigate further?"  Q purred maliciously.
	The man flushed.  "I didn't have time.  The erdionic scan results 
just came back this morning."
	"It couldn't be the gravity dragging in more low-freq, though," 
Roth said.  "Because that wouldn't explain why the erdionic wave 
concentration is *double* ambient.  Right?"  He looked to Q eagerly, 
like a puppy expecting praise.
	Q was a hard pet owner, though.  "So, any brilliant hypotheses, 
Harry?  We want explanations, not more questions."
	"Well..."
	Roth was rescued by Yalit, probably inadvertently.  "What's the 
matter, don't *you* know?"  Yalit asked nastily.  "Why don't you just 
tell us instead of pretending this is a lecture hall?"
	"What do *you* think it is, a marketing presentation?"  Q snapped 
back.  "I'm not here to spoonfeed you answers, troll.  Yes, I could 
stand up here and tell you about all the Secrets of the Universe, and 
you would smile and nod politely, and take notes, and probably fail to 
understand a fraction of a percent of what I was saying.  I would far 
rather make you actually think for yourselves, since I'm *told* you're 
evolutionarily equipped to do that, though I'm sure someone would make 
an exception in your case, and then you might at least have a remote 
chance of understanding it.  Not that you, personally, have any chance 
at all, in my opinion."
	"Can we keep the personal remarks out of this?"  Dhawan snapped.  
"We're well aware you don't like Yalit, Q.  No one likes you, either, 
but they at least behave civilly."
	Q smiled mockingly at her.  "Lt. Dhawan.  If I did that, what 
*would* become of my reputation?"  He turned back to Roth, having 
deliberately dragged his feet a bit with gratuitous insults to give 
Harry time to come up with something, the only mercy he would grant.  
"Well, Dr. Roth?  Dazzle us."
	"Something in the nature of the singularity is causing high-
amplitude wave forms to be reflected,"  Harry said.  "So erdionic waves 
and other sigma-level hi-freqs are turning up as double ambient."
	"Oh, Harry."  Q put on a disappointed face.  "So very close... and 
yet so very, very far away."
	"What about the netrimic radiation?"  Milarca asked.  "That's a 
sigma, but it's not doubled."
	"What *about* the netrimic radiation?  Answers, people, answers.  
Questions are easy."
	"Computer," Morakh said, "maximize the lower graphs."
	"Bonebrain!"  Q exclaimed delightedly.  "Have you caught onto 
something?"
	"Tone it down, Lucy.  You're being ridiculous," Markow said.
	"Fine, Daedalus, *you* want to get up here and do it?  I'm sure 
*you* know exactly what the anomaly is, now that I've shot down your 
silly theory about time travel."
	"Where related wave forms are discrepant, such as veritonic or 
erdionic, it seems that there's a dimensional propagation issue," 
Morakh said.  He called up graphs of several other groupings of related 
wave forms.  "Erdionic waves have a fifth-dimensional propagation 
pattern.  Veritonic waves, while related, propagate only in the third 
dimension.  But veritonic waves are displaying normal ambient levels, 
and erdionic waves are doubled.  Therefore the singularity must be 
radiating fifth-dimensional waveforms itself."
	"Ohhh.  For a moment there, I thought you were going to transcend 
your species' normal stupidity," Q said, mock-disappointed.  "I guess 
not though."
	"Look at the graph," Markow said.  "Veritonic radiation is *not* 
equal to ambient levels.  It's less.  And the cutoff isn't fifth-dim 
propagators.  Waveforms propagating in the fourth and sixth are showing 
the same patterns as erdionic waves."
	"And?"  Q prompted.
	"So.  The singularity is reflecting waveforms in the fourth, fifth 
and sixth dimensions, and absorbing waveforms that are tridimensional 
or less.  Nothing we've scanned has any higher than a sixth-dimensional 
pattern, so there's no way to tell if the pattern holds at higher 
dimensional levels, but it looks as if the singularity is only 
*absorbing* lower-order radiation, and everything else is being 
reflected.  That's obvious."
	"Obvious.  Sure.  I knew that," Roth muttered.
	"But why?"  Sovaz asked.  "What's causing such an unusual 
pattern?"
	"An excellent question," Q said, beaming at her.  He turned to 
Markow.  "You ruined it, Daedalus.  You should let someone else answer 
the questions once in a while."
	"I wasn't in the mood for your theatrics.  Get on with it."
	Q nodded, and went over to the lightboard, drawing out an equation 
on it.  He had figured out the equation for the first time last night, 
this being the first time he'd had need to.  The numbers were so cold 
and impersonal, trying to pin down a transcendent concept.  "Anyone 
here recognize this?"
	Everyone stared.  It was Markow who finally said, "No."
	"It looks..."  Elejani Baii hesitated.  "I thought for a moment it 
might be a descriptor of telepathic radiation, but it's not, is it?"
	"This," Q said, "is a wave-form beyond the science you've achieved 
thus far.  It's low-order, as these things go, but this wave-form 
propagates *n-*dimensionally.  With enough power behind it, it's 
theoretically capable of propagating through an aleph-null order of 
dimensional levels.  In fact, no one has that kind of power available, 
but I've seen these waveforms cross as many as two hundred dimensional 
orders."
	"But what good is it?"  Dhawan asked.
	"Pardon?"  Q stared at her.  "Did you just ask me what *good* a 
physical aspect of the universe is?  As if the entire universe was 
designed specifically for *your* benefit, Lt. Dhawan?"  He turned to 
his audience with an overblown expression of disbelief.  "And they call 
*me* arrogant!"
	"No, I *meant* what relation does it have to what we're trying to 
accomplish here,"  Dhawan said.  "It's very lovely, Q, but why are you 
bringing it up *now?  *That's what I'm asking."
	"Because, my dear, we can use this to test my theory."
	"Oh, so it's a theory, not a fact?"  Yalit asked nastily.
	"What *is* your theory?"  Morakh growled.
	Q paced.  "There are... areas... of the universe where space has 
been contorted into a little knot.  Sort of a Klein bottle, actually.  
A kind of barrier exists around the edges of these places that is 
impervious to all but the lowest orders of radiation.  Basically, 
kinetic energy can get through, and gravitic radiation, and *nothing 
else*.  No electromagnetism, no subspace radiation... It absorbs lower-
order radiation and reflects radiation in higher dimensionalities.  If 
you try to use the fourth or fifth dimensions to circle around the 
barrier, to a time and/or universe where it didn't exist, you end up 
being... reflected.  Not a pleasant experience, or so say those who 
have tried.
	"The form of radiation I have described to you can go *anywhere*.  
Literally.  By its very nature it modulates the locons and chronons it 
intersects.  There is no barrier that is impervious to that wave-form 
on the board there, *except* the barriers of an Anomaly."
	"What is the radiation called?"  Sovaz asked.
	"Well, it doesn't have a name, obviously.  Not in *your* language.  
My people just call it by what it is, but then we have that option, 
being telepathic and all."
	"I vote we call it a Q-uon!"  Roth said brightly.  He grinned up 
at Q.  "After all, you discovered it and all."
	Under normal circumstances, Q would have said that was the 
stupidest thing he had ever heard, given how often he had identified 
new particles and such to the Federation.  Under these circumstances, 
however, given the nature of the waveform he had just described, it was 
entirely appropriate.  "While I find your notion that you can name 
parts of the universe after your small little selves mildly offensive, 
in this case I accept.  We'll call it a quuon."
	"Because it's *your* name that's being proposed?"  Milarca asked 
coolly.
	"No, because it's my species that's being proposed.  And given 
what this particular waveform *is*, I find that curiously apropos."
	"What *is* this particular waveform?"  Sovaz asked.
	"That's not relevant to the discussion," Q said loftily.  "What is 
relevant is this:  because these... quuons... can go anywhere except 
through the Anomaly barrier, they are a certain way to determine if my 
theory is actually correct."  He was actually positive his theory was 
correct, or he would never have mentioned it; scientists did have a 
distressing tendency not to want to take his word for it, though.  "If 
we could generate a small burst of these with the specified parameters, 
and fire it at the singularity, we could then determine if it had been 
reflected or not.  If it *had*, it would prove my hypothesis."
	"Which is?  You described an anomaly; that tells us just as much 
as saying it's a singularity.  What is the nature of this anomaly?  
What causes it?"  Milarca asked.
	This was, of course, beyond the ability of the mortals in the room 
to guess at.  Q launched into a lecture on the Anomalies, failing to 
mention that what he was telling them was actually itself only a 
theory, albeit a theory devised by a people with a far more advanced 
science than they could possibly imagine.  The Continuum had never 
managed to explore the insides of the Anomalies.  Being entities of 
energy, they could not get through the barrier, however they tried-- 
and while a few actually *had* gotten through the barrier, none had 
ever returned or reported.  And no wonder.  The waveform that Q had 
just permitted to be labeled with his name was the substrate of 
communication within the Continuum; since it was reflected by the 
Anomaly barrier, no one *could* get a message through.  But Q had a 
plan, breathtakingly simple and abysmally low-tech, something his 
people had not been able to devise in a billion years.  It would be an 
enormous coup for him if *he* managed, in his lowly form, to succeed at 
something that the rest of the Continuum had failed at; possibly they'd 
be grateful and impressed enough to take him back, and if not, it would 
at least be a slap in their faces, that he had done what they in their 
loftiness could not do.
	He wrapped up his lecture.  "So, effectively, the Anomaly appears 
to be--"
	"This is total crap," the Tellarite interrupted.
	"Excuse me?"  Q was *not* accustomed to being interrupted in this 
fashion.
	"This story you're telling is great, but it doesn't relate to the 
singularity we're seeing.  There's no way to test if your Anomaly and 
our singularity are the same thing."
	"I *told* you," Q said, frustrated beyond belief.  "We observe the 
behavior of the quuonic radiation--"
	"With what?"  the Tellarite barked, laughing.  "I did the math.  
To build a detector that would even be able to observe if any of these 
were in the *area*, let alone what the concentration is and where 
they're coming from, would require the power of, oh, about six stars 
going supernova at once.  To generate a *pulse* of these things would 
require several *dozen* stars.  And that's assuming you can channel 
100% of the star's energy; with our current technological levels, we 
could channel maybe ten percent.  Got several hundred spare stars lying 
around?"
	"Dr. Gan's right, "  Sovaz reported.  "I've reconfirmed his 
analysis.  The power requirements to detect a quuon, let alone generate 
it, are far beyond our current technological capability."
	Q blinked.  For the first second, he merely thought, *Well, that 
makes sense.  *Surely these primitives wouldn't have the capacity to 
generate a wave form that could communicate with the Continuum.  What 
had he been thinking?  And then utter humiliation washed over him as he 
realized he'd done it again.  Despite all he'd studied of these 
people's pathetic excuse for science, he still made embarrassing 
missteps like this every so often, believing they could do something 
that they quite obviously could not.  "Well.  I suppose I should have 
guessed that.  You people have *such* primitive technology."
	"So all this is useless?"  Dhawan asked angrily.  "We don't even 
have a way to *test* your theory?"
	"I didn't say that," Q said sharply.  "There's another way to test 
it... I was *planning* on using this method to do some exploratory 
research once we'd confirmed my theory, but we could use it to confirm 
the theory in the first place, I suppose."
	"Which is?"  Markow asked.  "Most of us don't have all eternity."
	Q sighed.  "So terribly impatient.  That's always been your 
downfall, Markow."  He began to pace again.  "The nature of the Anomaly 
is that it's impervious to all forms of energy *but* kinetic.  And 
gravitic, but that doesn't count right now.  What we need to do is 
configure a probe such that it turns off all electronic systems just 
before it reaches the barrier, and coasts through; then turns itself 
back on again, based on some sort of timer that uses a kinetic energy 
system--"
	"There's no such thing,"  someone objected.  "How can you have a 
timer that uses solely kinetic energy?"
	"Clockwork," Malo Ren, the Bajoran scientist said.  That shut 
everyone up for a moment.
	"Exactly.  Clockwork.  It should turn itself back on again, re-
initialize, take readings, save them in a hard form-- one that doesn't 
require the presence of any form of energy to retain the information-- 
turn around, coast back out, turning itself off again for the barrier 
crossing, and then turning back on and warping back through the 
radiation front around the anomaly to return here."
	"Could people be sent?"  Sovaz asked excitedly.
	Q shrugged.  "I don't know.  Some of us tried picking up mortal 
ships and sending them coasting through the Anomaly barriers, but none 
of them ever returned either."
	"My God."  Anne Christian's eyes went wide.  "You're *all* 
monsters."
	Belatedly Q realized that perhaps that hadn't been the smartest 
thing to tell them.  "I never saw the point myself.  The Anomaly was 
simply not interesting enough to warrant that much effort, and I said 
so.  But you know some people."
	"The Q are energy beings, aren't they?"  Elejani Baii asked.  
"Have your people never managed to cross the Anomaly either?"
	"I don't see why it's any of your business," Q snapped.  He didn't 
much like talking about the Continuum, and mentioning something that 
would make them look bad, something they had actually failed at, was 
not something he much wanted to do.
	"Well, that would be something, wouldn't it?"  Roth said.  "If we 
lowly mortals managed to pull off something that the Q Continuum 
couldn't manage..."
	"I would be very surprised," Q retorted.  
	"So you don't think this will work?"  someone asked.
	Q shrugged.  "Implementation isn't my department."
	"Well.  It's worth investigating," Dhawan said.  "We'll contact 
the Engineering Department."
			*				*				*