Only Human by Alara Rogers  
  
Part III: Yamato  
  
Brand new! Never before seen! A new section in the ongoing saga of ONLY
HUMAN, the story that ate my brain! :-)
  
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. 
             *                   *                    *   

	Over the next several days, T'Laren discovered that working with Q 
was a good way to develop empathy for everyone who wanted him dead.  He 
was demanding, snide, condescending, and overbearing.  T'Laren decided 
that this was an excellent learning experience, an opportunity to see Q 
as others saw him and therefore be able to help him deal with people 
more easily.  She repeated this to herself as a calming mantra at least 
once an hour.
	His behavior with the engineers was slightly better, but since 
they didn't know Q as well, they didn't take it nearly as well as 
T'Laren had.  T'Laren was forced to run interference to prevent him 
from mortally offending them, and wasn't sure how successful she'd 
been.  But within a few days, the psionic amplifier took shape.
	"How are we supposed to test something only you have the design 
specifications for?" Dhawan asked.
	She and Yalit were the only of Q's "enemies" who continued to 
snipe at him; as T'Laren had had some opportunity to observe the 
various scientists, she'd concluded that Dhawan did this because she 
sniped at everyone.  LeBeau and Morakh seemed to be genuinely impressed 
by Q's ability.  Perhaps seeing him reinvent an ancient technology in 
three days from nothing more than the information T'Laren was able to 
dig up for him drove it home what he could do as all his posturing 
about his knowledge of the anomaly could not.  Anne Christian had 
mostly stopped sniping at Q fairly early on in the conference; her 
apparent conviction that he was an incarnation of amorality, if not 
evil, didn't seem to require her to attack him constantly.  And while Q 
and Yalit still sparred, it was clear that Q's star was in the 
ascendant, and no one really paid any attention to Yalit at all.
	"Easily, my dear Commander," Q purred at her.  He smiled cheerily.  
"The purpose of this device is to increase the effective range of a 
telepath.  Any telepath.  Therefore, why don't we have a telepath test 
it?"
	Elejani Baii balked at being called a "telepath" when her name was 
suggested.  "I'm merely empathic.  I don't project so much as receive, 
and I think it would be very painful for me to be able to receive from 
a much larger field than normal."
	T'Para didn't say so in so many words, but it was obvious she 
believed that anyone who asked a Vulcan to do such a thing was a 
terrible pervert.  "Vulcan telepathy is a deeply private thing," she 
said.  "We share the contact of minds only with close friends and 
family.  To use our telepathy in any other way is... not what our 
telepathy was intended for."
	Her words angered T'Laren, not at T'Para herself but at the 
attitude behind them.  Soram had been like that-- believed any Vulcan 
who used her telepathy for anything other than bonding and rare 
communion with friends was a freak.  Even if they were right, T'Laren 
was tired of being called a freak, tired of being told that her 
superior telepathic ability and her willingness to use it in the course 
of her Starfleet duties made her a bad Vulcan, somehow.  "I am willing 
to test it," she said.  "Sovaz can corroborate the extent of my 
abilities before amplification.  I am rated 27."
	Dhawan frowned.  "Is this a Vulcan rating scale?"
	Sovaz nodded.  "Most Vulcans fall between 10 and 20.  Healers, who 
are the most powerful of Vulcan telepaths, all have ratings over 30.  A 
27 means that, if T'Laren were to completely lower her own mental 
shielding and quiet her own mind, she would pick up slight emotional 
impressions from all the unshielded members of this gathering, to a 
range of about one meter around her.  It also indicates how powerful 
her mental shielding can potentially be, how many milliseconds it would 
take her to form a mind meld with a nontelepath, and other such things, 
but I think the distance range is what we're interested in."
	"All right."  Dhawan nodded.  "So to effectively test this, 
T'Laren's going to have to pick up emotional impressions from someone 
farther away?"
	Q shrugged.  "I'm not one hundred percent positive how Vulcan 
telepathy works.  It's possible that this amplifier will give T'Laren 
the ability to read minds without touching the people in question at 
all."  He glanced at T'Laren, sudden nervousness in his expression.
	"I give my word that I will not read anyone's mind unless they 
have volunteered to allow me to do so for the purposes of the 
experiment," T'Laren said, having a suspicion why he was nervous.  She 
had reassured him that she couldn't read his mind without establishing 
a link, and he had apparently just given her the power to get around 
that limitation.
	Several people volunteered, and stationed themselves at various 
points throughout and outside the room, outside her meter range.  
T'Laren examined the device-- it was a headset, attached to a large 
unwieldy boxlike thing.  She sat in the chair provided and lowered the 
headset over her head.
	For a moment she sensed no differences.  She was still as she ever 
was.  Then she realized that she was expecting the device to make her 
like a Betazoid, or some other distance telepath.  She was still 
Vulcan, and her telepathy still required a total lowering of her own 
shields and a quieting of her mind to accomplish.  It was a little 
difficult to achieve the necessary trance in this crowded room full of 
talking people, but T'Laren had formed mind-melds in the middle of 
space battles before, with explosions sparking all around her and the 
inertial dampeners fading in and out.  This was certainly not worse 
than that.  She focused all of her mind on the sensations of the mind 
alone, shutting out the body's senses.  
	She felt the cold burning like the beginning of a link, before the 
body became irrelevant, but without the feeling of something hot and 
blazing on the other side of her fingertips, the other side of the 
walls around her mind.  There were no walls.  Instead, as she distanced 
herself from her body, she could sense nets of fire, other minds like 
blazing torches ranged around her in cool darkness.  One of the nets 
blazed with far more ferocity than the others, and seemed somehow 
familiar.  She drifted toward it before realizing who it was, and 
forcing herself to turn away before she touched him-- if Q was somehow 
able to feel her touch his mind, even briefly, he would be enraged, and 
rightly so.  She had to seek out the minds that had volunteered.
	Oh, but this was easy.  The furthest volunteer was nowhere near 
the edge of her range.  She forced herself back to herself, briefly.  
"Send someone further away."
	"Further away?  How many meters?"
	"All of them," T'Laren said, and returned to the land of torches 
in the distance.  The furthest volunteer was a human named Lorne.  She 
touched his mind lightly, enough to sense his confusion-- what had the 
Vulcan woman meant when she said "all of them"?  This experiment was 
dangerous, maybe they should stop it, but he wanted to know, he wanted 
to know about the anomaly out there and Q said this was their best 
chance...
	"Your keyword is 'swordfish', Dr. Lorne," she said.  "I don't need 
to go any deeper, do I?"
	"Depth isn't what we're looking for," Q said.  His voice was 
eager.  "Can you project all the way to the barrier, T'Laren?"
	"Don't ask her to try to project herself across twenty light-
minutes until we know she can project herself to the edge of the ship," 
Dhawan said acerbically.
	T'Laren knew that was logical, but it was an effort to restrain 
herself.  Why, she could touch all the minds in this room and not tire.  
She could read Q's mind-- she was sure he'd never notice.  It was to 
help him.  She wouldn't do anything that wasn't for his good.
	"Ensign Paoli, at the far end of the left nacelle, has 
volunteered, T'Laren.  Can you find him and read his keyword?"
	Paoli.  So many minds, so many small fires blazing in the 
darkness.  She scanned them very lightly as she passed, just their 
identities, to see if Paoli was in their self-definition.  And there he 
was, with his keyword.  "Neapolitan," she said.  "That's the ice cream 
that's strawberry and chocolate and vanilla, all mixed together.  
Mother used to say naplotan, that's how I thought you spelled it until 
I was twelve and saw her write it on a box, it was a gift for the 
Vulcan couple next door, because they wanted to experience Earth 
cuisine, but they didn't like the flavor--"
	"T'Laren!"  Someone was shaking her.  "T'Laren, that's too deep!  
Pull back!"
	She opened her eyes, to see T'Para.  "You disapprove of me," 
T'Laren said.  "But I can do what you cannot."
	T'Laren turned away from her body, away from T'Para trying to 
break the trance, and reached out toward emptiness.  So much emptiness, 
so empty.  The blazing fires were behind her.  Q wanted her to reach 
out this way, and she would do it because she could hear his thoughts, 
so loud in his unshielded proximity to her, telling her to go out, to 
find the barrier--
	--something, the sense of a mind touching hers, a mind strangely 
familiar--
	*mother?*
	"My mother," T'Laren said, unaware of the beatific smile spreading 
across her face.  "It's my mother..."
	"It is not your mother," Q said.  "T'Para, is she trying to read 
the barrier?"
	"I can't believe she'd be able to," T'Para said.  "The barrier is 
too far away."
	"That *is* what the amplifier is for.  Is she all right?"  She 
sensed his nervousness, concern for her tingeing his overwhelming need 
to know what the barrier was.
	"I would need to meld with her to determine that," T'Para said.
	"I don't," Elejani Baii's voice said.  "Bring her back.  Turn the 
machine off, Q."
	And then the sense of her mother's presence suddenly cut off.  
"*Nooo!*" T'Laren screamed, thrown back into the confines of her own 
mind.  T'Para and Stamor were holding her down as she struggled, trying 
to get out of the chair to turn the device back on.  "Bring her *back!*  
It's my mother, Q, she's alive, I sensed her--"
	"You sensed no such thing," Q said brutally.  "How old were you 
when your mother died?"
	She looked up at him, confused.  Her mother wasn't dead, she had 
just *sensed* her.  Mom and Father had lied to her, telling her Mother 
was dead when it wasn't true, because she knew the dead could come 
back, hadn't she come back at Lhoviri's will?  Hadn't she come back 
from *somewhere*?  "I sensed her," she repeated.  And then, hesitantly, 
"I sensed her through the barrier... it's a barrier to the world of the 
dead.  Dead souls.  I sensed my mother."
	"It is not, and you did not," Q told her.  "What's wrong with her?  
Why is she behaving like this?"  There was panic in his voice.
	"It is your device, Q," Soltan said.  "Surely if anyone knew, you 
would."
	"I take it you didn't expect this?" Dhawan said dryly.
	"No, I... I'd never have let her use it if I'd known she'd react 
like this.  But I've never seen anyone react this way to psionic 
amplification before."
	"Could it be true?" Sovaz asked.  "Is it possible that T'Laren was 
indeed amplified enough to contact... I don't know, perhaps the 
scattered remnants of her mother's katra?"
	"That's ridiculous.  If a katra is lost, it is lost," Soltan said 
brusquely.
	"I believe she's still in trance," T'Para said, and then someone 
was hitting her, slapping her face.  The sudden pain, the sensation of 
impact, drove aside the cold burning.  Slowly T'Laren felt herself 
filling her own body again, coming back to reality.
	T'Para reached to hit her again, and she caught the hand.  "I 
am... recovered.  I..."  She looked around the gathering.  She was 
sitting on the floor, and everyone was staring at her, over three dozen 
scientists and she had just broken down in front of all of them, 
begging for her mother.  
	"Are you all right?" Q asked.
	"It would seem so."
	He sighed.  "You simply must be difficult, mustn't you?  A 
perfectly straightforward experiment, and you have to wig out.  I 
suppose your life isn't complete unless you're making mine more 
difficult."
	She recognized that he was trying to lighten the tension, 
insulting her to cover his anxiety at whatever had just happened.  So 
she forced down the annoyance she felt and responded in kind.  "That 
*is* my job, or so you've been telling me for months."
	"Can you describe your subjective sensations while using the 
amplifier?" Sovaz asked eagerly.  
	"I sensed my mother," T'Laren said, unwilling at the moment to 
delve more deeply into what she'd felt, the sense of power and 
invulnerability, the arrogance.  She remembered what she'd thought 
about invading Q's mind, and cringed inwardly.
	"That shouldn't have happened," Q said, sounding frustrated.  
"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen."
	"What was it, if not my mother?" T'Laren asked.
	"How would I know?  You weren't supposed to perceive your mother."
	"We need someone else to test it," Stamor suggested.  "I would 
volunteer."
	T'Laren looked at him, genuinely horrified for a moment.  "You 
cannot."
	"Why not?"
	The puzzlement in his voice sounded genuine.  *Ivory tower 
academic*, T'Laren thought with a touch of anger.  Was she supposed to 
put his private life on display in front of all these people?  The 
reason he couldn't do it was that if he was close to his time, and 
unbonded, he might reach to invade a nearby woman's mind-- probably 
Sovaz, as she was his choice-- and force a link.  It was ordinarily 
very difficult for one Vulcan to force a link on another, though that 
didn't stop a man lost in the throes of pon farr from trying-- but with 
the link it would be child's play.  If T'Laren could have been 
seriously tempted to read Q's mind, Stamor would never be able to 
resist bonding with Sovaz.  She switched to Old High Vulcan so at least 
only the Vulcans here would understand her.  "Thee art unbonded."
	He blinked at her.  "What?"
	"You don't speak the High Speech?"
	"Only one or two formal words.  I have not had occasion in my life 
to learn."
	T'Laren thought *all* Vulcans knew at least the basic grammar and 
the words for bonding in Old High Vulcan, and judging from the slight 
puzzlement she saw in the others, she knew they were bemused by his 
ignorance as well.  But then, Stamor *was* a physicist.  "We must speak 
in private," she told him, and pulled him aside.
	Once they were a sufficient distance from the gathering, she 
explained to him in the barest of whispers why he could not risk it.  
He argued with her, a little more loudly than he should have, as if it 
truly didn't shame him for others to know he was close to his time.  
Perhaps he, too, was raised by humans.  Or wolves, maybe.  T'Laren 
pulled her trump card.  "As *ba'shel* to Sovaz, I say your plan is too 
dangerous to my kinswoman.  I shall not allow it.  And as a 
psychologist, and the closest thing to an expert on psionic 
amplification next to Q that we have, and the only person here who's 
used the device, I am eminently qualified to do so."
	Stamor was furious with her.  He controlled it well enough that a 
human couldn't have read him, but T'Laren saw the rage in his eyes, and 
knew any of the other Vulcans would see it as well.  
	But then, what did she care?  If he shamed himself by showing his 
emotions so openly, what was that to her?  She walked back to the 
gathering to find T'Para and Dhawan attempting to talk Sovaz out of 
using the device.
	"I am the logical alternative," Sovaz was arguing.  "My telepathic 
rating is not the equivalent of my sister's, but T'Laren is less 
disciplined than I am, and more inclined to flights of fancy.  In 
addition, my mother yet lives, and I am familiar with the touch of her 
mind, as T'Laren, who lost her mother in early childhood, could not 
be."
	For a moment T'Laren felt a sickening humiliation.  So Sovaz 
turned on her too, calling her undisciplined and given to fancy?  And 
then logic reasserted itself.  Sovaz was merely speaking the truth, and 
it probably did not even occur to her that she was embarrassing 
T'Laren.  
	"Sovaz, you don't have the experience with using telepathy that 
your sister clearly does," T'Para said.  T'Laren interpreted this as 
"Sovaz, you aren't a pervert like your sister," though she had to admit 
T'Para was doing a good job of keeping all traces of the revulsion she 
must feel out of her demeanor, even sounding sympathetic.  
	"Someone must if we're to learn anything at all about this," Sovaz 
said.  "T'Laren's experience proves nothing if it is not replicated."
	"You could get hurt," Dhawan pointed out.  "T'Laren had some kind 
of bad reaction; we don't know what might happen to you."
	"I'm a Starfleet officer," Sovaz said, as if she expected this to 
end the argument.  And, clearly, she was right.  No one raised any 
objections as she seated herself in the chair.
	"Sovaz!"  T'Laren called before she pulled the helmet down.  "You 
must swear not to touch any minds that have not willingly opened to 
you."
	"Of course," Sovaz said, as if this went without saying.
	T'Laren shook her head.  "You must swear it.  Say the words."  The 
Vulcan psyche had a much harder time with breaking an explicit promise 
than an implicit one, and she knew Sovaz would need the protection of 
an oath to keep her out of unauthorized heads.
	"Is this really necessary?" Dhawan asked.  "She's not a child, 
T'Laren."
	"I am not speaking as her former sister-in-law, but as one who has 
used the device," T'Laren said frostily.
	"My oath as a Starfleet officer and my word as a Vulcan that I 
will invade no unwilling minds," Sovaz said.  "There, that should do 
it."  She pulled the helmet down over her head.
	"What are you sensing?" Q asked.
	Sovaz' eyes took on an unfocused quality.  "Fascinating... I 
understand why T'Laren made me swear that oath.  I have such power... 
the temptation to use it, to learn everything everyone knows, is 
incredible."
	"Don't lose it," Dhawan warned.  "You're here for a reason."
	"I haven't forgotten," Sovaz said.  "I'm reaching toward the 
barrier now... Oh."
	And a slow smile spread across her face, eerie to see on an adult 
Vulcan.  That was how she herself must have looked, T'Laren thought.  
"Sovaz, do you sense T'Rafi?"
	"No, not at all.  But I am definitely sensing a presence."
	"Characterize the presence," Markow demanded.
	"I sense overwhelming curiosity," Sovaz said.  "And... 
hospitality... no, that's not quite it.  The presence... is eager to 
learn about us... to befriend us.  The hand of friendship extended... 
and a sense... controlled excitement.  It's pleased to be in contact 
with us... excited about the possibilities..."  Sovaz' voice betrayed 
her own excitement, too lost in her explorations to maintain proper 
control.
	"That's it," Q said.  "Sovaz, characterize your own feelings 
toward the presence."
	"Feelings?"  She blinked at him.  "I'm a Vulcan."
	"Oh don't give me that."
	"Give you what?"
	"Never mind.  You must be projecting something at the presence.  
What are you sending?"
	"I am communicating... friendship.  We mean no harm.  We seek 
amicable relations and mutual exploration--"
	"Are you feeling curious?"
	"To the extent that curiosity can be described as an emotion, I 
suppose you could say I am feeling that--"
	"How about excitement?"
	"Q, your experiences with T'Laren may have led you to a 
misconception about Vulcans, but we don't get excited."
	"Never mind that.  I have enough anyway."  He grinned broadly.  "I 
don't know why you people can't recognize yourselves, and I haven't a 
clue why T'Laren would think her own self was her mother, but that's 
what you're doing.  Your psionic energies are reflecting off the 
barrier, and you're reading yourselves."
	"Myself?"  Sovaz frowned slightly.  "This doesn't *seem* like 
myself..."
	"It doesn't?" Q asked, seeming slightly deflated.
	"Q."  T'Laren had something now, knowing him.  "Do the Q ever have 
occasions to mentally contact themselves?  Across time, for instance, 
or something?"
	"Not across time, but of course we do.  An individual Q can split 
himself up into multiple entities if he wants; any Q who does that, and 
doesn't have the ability to recognize his own self down to the deepest 
levels of his psyche, will never reintegrate himself again.  Our 
defenses against integrating with other Qs are too strong."
	"So you would recognize yourself, if you had your powers and tried 
to read the barrier."
	"Yes, of course."
	"Mortal telepaths *can't* segment our minds like that, Q.  A 
humanoid who divides his mind loses the ability to reintegrate it at 
will; the divided selves feel like other people, and to reintegrate 
feels like death to all of them."
	"You can't?"
	"So none of us have any experience with contacting our own minds.  
However, Sovaz seems to have described her own subjective sensations 
quite well in describing the presence.  As for me... there's a theory 
that all mammalian infants experience some confusion of the mother with 
the self, and this is well-documented in the case of Vulcan infants.  
The developing telepathic centers receive the mother's thoughts, such 
that Vulcans actually carry racial memories, passed through the 
maternal line.  The only time in my-- or any Vulcan's-- life when I 
might have experienced something akin to contacting myself is when I 
was an infant, reading my mother's mind.  And because my mother died 
when I was very young, I never had an opportunity to meld with her as a 
whole, developed personality myself... so if I contact myself, it 
triggers those buried memories, and I subconsciously analogize it to 
the only similar experience I've had, touching my mother.  However, 
Sovaz *has* melded with her mother since becoming a developed 
personality, so she could not associate this sensation with her infant 
memories of her mother, as she has learned since that her mother is 
*not* her self.  So she cannot jump to the conclusions my subconscious 
did, and instead perceives the actual personality characteristics she 
herself is projecting as if they come from another entity."
	"Of course this is all speculation," Dhawan said.  "You didn't 
come up with this theory until Q had already revealed what we were 
supposed to be seeing."
	T'Laren nodded.  "True.  Unfortunately, Q is no expert on mortal 
psychology, so I suppose it was inevitable.  However, a possibility 
occurs to me."  She turned to Q.  "You would recognize your own mind if 
you encountered it, wouldn't you?"
	"Yes, but I wouldn't encounter it."
	"What if *you* used the device?"
	He stared at her.  "I'm not a telepath."
	"No, you're not.  But humans aren't psi-nulls, either.  All humans 
have a slight amount of psionic ability, and you are a normal human in 
that respect.  If the device allows *me* to become as powerful as I 
did, it might enable you to behave as an active telepath."
	She didn't quite understand Q's expression.  He was looking at her 
with something akin to fear.  "There's no way I could reach the 
barrier, even if it *did* make me telepathic."
	"We don't know that.  Q, I don't think reaching the barrier was 
actually a stretch for me."
	He shook his head rapidly-- definitely frightened.  "It would be 
bad science.  I know what the theory is supposed to be-- it's my 
theory, after all.  No one would believe it.  It wouldn't prove 
anything."
	"It might be interesting in its own right," Markow said.  "If you 
gave an ordinary human the ability to access telepathic powers, I'd 
imagine there would be some sort of learning curve that might be a 
problem.  But you have some experience using telepathy, so one presumes 
you'd know what you were doing.  It might be interesting to see what 
the device does for humans."
	"It might also be interesting to give you the ability to walk-- 
for five minutes-- and then take it away from you again," Q snapped at 
Markow, and finally T'Laren understood why he was so upset.  
	Dhawan stared at him.  "You know, I knew you were unbelievably 
rude, but I don't think I realized quite *how* bad you are until just 
now," she said.  "That was totally uncalled for."
	"Actually, it wasn't," Markow said.  "He's right.  I should have 
known better."
	Q was getting more and more agitated.  "This whole thing was a 
mistake," he said.  He turned off the machine, pulled down a panel, and 
reached inside.
	"What are you doing?" Sovaz asked.
	"Disabling the machine," he said.  He straightened up.  "This 
device is entirely too dangerous to be left in the hands of lowly 
creatures like yourselves.  I've just pulled out a handful of leads, 
and I'm the only one who knows how to reconnect them.  Someone else 
*could* theoretically do it, I imagine, but they run a serious risk of 
getting it wrong and making the machine melt down while they;re using 
it, which would produce some rather crispy brains, I would imagine."
	"I agree," T'Para said.  "The temptation to use this would be too 
dangerous."
	"So none of this proves anything?" Dhawan asked.
	"It looks to me like it indicates we're on the right track," Malo 
said.  "I checked an hour ago with Commander Mariani, and the engineers 
are almost done configuring the clockwork probe."  T'Laren remembered 
from discussions she'd overheard that it was Malo's idea to use 
clockwork in the first place.  Somehow it didn't strike her as at all 
odd that the first scientist to think of such a distinctly low-tech 
solution would be a Bajoran.
	"When will it be ready to use?"  Q asked.
	"Two days, she said."
	Q nodded, and looked at Dhawan.  "When that probe goes through, 
that's when you'll have your incontrovertible answers, my dear."
	*				*				*
	After the conference broke up and everyone returned to their 
quarters or did whatever they usually did whenever they weren't at the 
conference, T'Laren noticed Q being unusually subdued.  "I'm sorry 
about putting you on the spot like that," she said.  "I should have 
realized you wouldn't want to use the device yourself."
	"Oh, I wanted to," he said.  "When you told me there was some 
possibility it might at least let me have my telepathy back, if nothing 
else... it certainly wasn't that I didn't want to."
	"Then why didn't you?"
	"For the same reason I don't want to take euphorics."  He stared 
at the carpet.  "I could be so easily addicted to a crutch like that.  
And the moment I was, someone would use that to enslave me.  They've 
tried to enslave me, or at least control me, with everything I enjoy.  
What would they do if I was actually addicted to something?"
	She didn't point out that in her opinion he had already been 
dependent on sedatives and painkillers.  There was a distinction 
between the medical dependency he suffered from, the fact that he had 
conditioned himself to require sedatives before sleeping and run up 
such a high tolerance to painkillers that he needed megadoses, and a 
powerful psychological dependency, like a device that could make him a 
telepath.  "Based on what you know of humans and of psionic 
amplification, do *you* think it would have worked?"
	"Not to get me anywhere near the barrier, no.  But to make me a 
telepath?  Yes, I think it could have."  He looked at her.  "Do you 
know what it's like to be deaf to your native language?"  There was 
almost a pleading note to his voice.
	"No, I can't say I do.  Is that what it feels like to you?"
	"Speech is incredibly clumsy."  He gestured.  "Even your body 
language-- well, humans' body language, you people don't *have* a body 
language-- doesn't carry enough of the overtones.  We speak on so many 
levels of speech at once, with your mortal speech translating as only 
the most superficial upper layer.  To be limited only to that-- it's 
like you're used to hearing symphonies, and now all the music you get 
is someone singing a cappella.  Off-key."
	"And yet you're afraid of telepathy."
	"I'm afraid of other people's telepathy.  If I were a telepath, I 
wouldn't be frightened."  He looked at her hard.  "Did you read my mind 
today?"
	"No.  I found it enormously, almost overwhelmingly tempting," she 
admitted, "but I managed to restrain myself.  Did you know that would 
happen?"
	"I hadn't a clue."  He sagged.  "I *knew* about psionic 
amplification.  I knew what it could do.  And I still built the damned 
thing.  I'm going to toss it in the warp core-- it's way too 
dangerous."
	"You couldn't have known."
	"I *could* have.  I should have; in a way, I even did.  I've 
*seen* what happens to mortals when you grant them superior powers.  If 
you Vulcans didn't make a religion of self-control, we'd probably all 
be bowing down and worshipping you and Sovaz now."
	"Is there any danger that someone might be able to repair the 
device, and use it?"
	"Dhawan had Washington put a handful of goons on guard around the 
thing, and like I said, if you don't know how to reconnect the leads 
you have something like a 96% chance of frying the machine or yourself 
or both.  So I'd say not."  He slumped back in the chair, closing his 
eyes, one arm thrown over his forehead.  "Still, tomorrow I think I'm 
going to dispose of it.  It'll be safe for tonight, but the longer the 
temptation exists..." He opened his eyes and sat up slightly, looking 
at her.  "T'Laren, I don't even know if *I* can resist the temptation 
of that thing indefinitely."
	"Do you want me to accompany you when you go to destroy it?"
	"Can I trust you?"
	She considered.  "If the device really had had the ability to 
contact the dead, and I truly was able to make contact with my natural 
mother... then no.  Since that's not the case, however, I feel no 
desire to use the device again.  That kind of power simply doesn't 
interest me-- certainly it was thrilling and tempting while I had it, 
but now... I search my mind for an emotional reaction to the idea of 
using it again, and find only uneasiness.  So I suspect I'm as safe as 
is possible."
	He nodded.  "All right, then.  You can back me up..." He sounded 
very, very weary.
	"You've had a strenuous day.  Why don't you get some rest?"
	Q got up without arguing with her.  He'd argued this particular 
point less and less often, of late.  "Good idea," he said tiredly.  
"I'll see you whenever."
	She remained in the common room, reading, for another half hour 
before the doorbell chimed.  
	Stamor stood at the door, looking as agitated as a Vulcan ever 
got.  "I must speak with you."
	T'Laren stepped back to let him in.  "About what?"
	He was carrying a device of some kind, which was humming.  T'Laren 
glanced down at it.  "What is that?"
	"It's something for Q.  I need to show it to him."
	"He's asleep at the moment."
	"I thought that might be the case." Stamor set the device down on 
a table.  "He isn't the only person I've come here to see."
	"I have discussed the issue with Sovaz.  She wishes you to speak 
with her parents before she makes a decision."
	"I see.  You have my thanks."
	He came uncomfortably close to her as he spoke.  Surprised, 
T'Laren backed away slightly, but more by unconscious instinct than any 
real fear.  She didn't move to defend herself until Stamor suddenly 
lunged at her, and by then it was too late.
	A hand came down on her shoulder.  T'Laren twisted wildly, trying 
to pull away before his hand closed on the nerves, but didn't get far.  
His fingers missed the correct point and hit her millimeters off 
instead. She slumped, numb, stunned but not unconscious.
	Stamor flung her down, and then apparently seemed to think twice 
about it.  He bent, his hands reaching for her temples in the pattern 
of a meld.  Terror seared through her-- he was going to attempt to 
mindrape her!  And yet, along with the terror was a fierce fury and 
exhilaration.  Her body was useless, stunned by the nerve pinch, but 
her mind, though clouded, was still her own.  And she was a powerful 
telepath, experienced with melds under hostile conditions.  He was 
moving the battle from the arena where he'd already defeated her to the 
one where she still had a chance of success. 
	Cold fire pressed against her temples, a burning that made the 
world recede, as she felt an alien presence touch her mind.  T'Laren 
didn't wait for him to invade.  She launched her mind forward, pushing 
past the barriers he was already lowering in preparation for invading 
her, invading his mind.
	*"Adral tr'Sahlassiu, do you understand that if you take this 
mission it will be decades before you can return to the Romulan 
Empire?"*
	*"I do, Commander," the young Tal Shiar said.  "I'm honored."*
	*Telepath, throwback, his appearance more Vulcan than Romulan, at 
last Adral had found some way to serve his Empire as a true Romulan and 
make use of the traits that had made him a misfit.  The Tal Shiar 
recruited any throwbacks or half-bloods with Vulcan parents that they 
could find, and gave them a chance to serve the Empire with their 
telepathic gifts.  And Adral was a brilliant physicist as well, 
something the Tal Shiar had encouraged, since it gave him a perfect 
cover.  Make him into a Vulcan scientist, child of far-flung colonists 
to explain his occasional ineptitude with Vulcan traditions.  He could 
get close to the best and brightest of the Federation, and in a moment 
of privacy, rape their minds and drain all they knew.  Then wipe their 
memories of the assault... or, if his superiors deemed that the 
intended victim was entirely too dangerous to the Federation to live, 
kill them.  Three cerebral hemorrhages had occurred to scientists known 
to Stamor the Vulcan, but two were aged and therefore no suspicion was 
cast.*
	T'Laren recoiled in horror from the truths she absorbed from the 
spy's mind.  The Tal Shiar telepaths were a nightmare of hers.  Stories 
were told of secret Romulan breeding projects to create more telepaths 
by raping captive Vulcans and raising their offspring to be loyal 
Romulans.  While she'd been on Romulus, that had been her fear-- not 
for her life, which any spy could lose if caught, but that she would be 
mindraped, and drugged with the potions that caused pleasurable lust in 
Romulans and maddening need in Vulcans, and then raped and forced to 
bear children who would be willing slaves of the Romulan Empire.  When 
she'd first touched his mind and sensed what he was, that was what 
she'd feared-- why else would a Vulcanoid male assault a woman and 
force a mindmeld on her?  But then the rest of it had come to her, and 
she'd realized she'd misread the danger entirely.
	She was not Stamor/Adral tr'Sahlassiu's target.  Q was.
	**You are his psychologist.  I need to know how to break him-- his 
knowledge is far too great for me to absorb in one session.  I need to 
make him pliable, rewrite his desires so he wishes me to meld with him 
and take what I need.  If anyone knows where his vulnerabilities are, 
it would be you.**
	And that was why he had come to her, courting Sovaz.  To give him 
an excuse to come in to her while Q was asleep.  The existence of the 
telepathic amplifier had forced his hand; he hadn't intended to come at 
her today, but he feared that she would persuade Q to repair the 
device, and that she'd see his intentions in his mind.  He had had to 
strike before that.
	*I'll give you no such information*, T'Laren snarled back at him, 
battering at the Romulan's mind, trying to force him back.
	**If you don't give me the information I need, then he's too 
dangerous for me to let live for a second session.  I'll have to kill 
him.**  He showed her graphic images of the last three he'd killed, the 
look of agony on their faces when they died, the pain of their brains 
exploding.
	*Q would rather die than be your slave, I'm sure*.
	It should have been easy for her.  The meld had already taken 
place; they were each inside each other's minds, vulnerable to one 
another.  But she had trained to meld with aliens while holding her own 
psyche intact to facilitate communication-- not to engage in telepathic 
combat.  tr'Sahlassiu, on the other hand, was adept at breaking the 
minds of others.  Even Vulcans.
	He forced his way through her defenses, looking for her memories 
of Q, and she couldn't stop him.  She couldn't stop him.
	T'Laren withdrew from the mental violation, pulling her ego back 
from the meld, and focused instead on her body.  It was almost 
impossible for a Vulcan to make herself move during a meld, unless it 
was in the context of sex when instinct took over, but T'Laren had done 
it before in her Starfleet career.  With all the force she possessed, 
she commanded her body to shove tr'Sahlassiu and get to her feet.
	She was sluggish, weak, but he was entirely lost in the world of 
the mind.  He sensed nothing until her hands shoved him back, breaking 
the contact between them, and with it, the link.  T'Laren struggled to 
her feet.  "Q! Get help!" she screamed.
	With the link broken, tr'Sahlassiu had full control of his own 
body, however, since he hadn't been nerve-pinched before.  With no 
finesse, he hit her, slamming her head back against the wall.  Already 
dazed, T'Laren had no opportunity to protect herself.  She struck the 
wall, and then everything went dark.
	*				*				*