Prometheus in Chains

Locutus of Borg studied the sensor array information filtering into his brain dispassionately.  The Enterprise had attempted to create a weapon to destroy the Borg vessel, had attempted to fire it, and had done themselves serious damage as a result.  They were now irrelevant, as was the keening voice at the back of his brain screaming. It was time to proceed onward to sector 001.

And then there was a bright flash of light in the center of the ship, where he stood with the Queen.

Two simultaneous streams of information flowed through Locutus.  Stream One: Designate: Inexplicable One, species 1732.  All previous assimilation attempts futile; attempts to contact futile; attempts to comprehend and adapt futile.  Inexplicable Ones not irrelevant, but behavior is unpredictable; examine databanks to determine previous Inexplicable One actions and attempt to predict. Stream Two: Picard data.  Q!  Omnipotent entity responsible for our exposure to Borg/our exposure to humanity/unpredictable and often unpleasant annoyance but Q, for the love of God, for the love of anything you hold holy, help me, please, I'll do anything, free me kill me anything don't let me be this--  further Picard data irrelevant.  Filtration in place.

"Inexplicable One," Locutus said, turning toward the energy form contained in the matter-shape of a human.  "Q.  Explain your presence among the Borg."

"Shut up," the entity said.  "You are irrelevant, Locutus.  And soon, you won't exist." He strode over to the Queen, who was watching with concern.  This was unexpected and might present an obstacle to the assimilation of the Federation.  "Borg.  Haven't you learned yet not to concern yourself with what is ours?"

"You are the Inexplicable One responsible for showing the humans to us."  The Queen strode forward, facing the creature.  "Your species don't communicate with the Borg, despite our best attempts to establish communication--"

"Establish a means of assimilation, you mean."

"You have demonstrated your perfection.  We seek to improve ourselves.  Why would we not seek to understand and assimilate you?"

"Well, there's certainly plenty of room for improvement, but the truth is, the moment we thought there was any significant possibility you might pose a threat to us, we'd annihilate you.  So I wouldn't pursue that course of action all that intently, were I you." 

"Very well.  But it remains true that you don't communicate with us.  You granted us the knowledge of this species.  Why would we assume that you would object to our assimilation?"

The Inexplicable One smiled.  Picard-data told Locutus to be deeply concerned.  The Borg were not afraid, never afraid, but this might be a serious obstacle.

"You assumed wrong," the Inexplicable One whispered.  "Now transmit this back to your central database and record it in your permanent archives-- Humanity is mine.  Don't. Touch."

And then there was blinding light, and the cube exploded.

Locutus heard the voices scream, saw the Queen come to pieces in front of him, felt the Collective fall away from him and leave him alone, and then he was not.

Jean-Luc Picard did not open his eyes, because they were already open.  But it felt as if he had opened his eyes, felt as if a veil between himself and the world had suddenly disintegrated, and he was himself again.

He stood in a dim gray place of no dimension, no boundaries, no features at all.  The only other object in this landscape of nothingness was Q, standing in front of him.

"Q," he whispered, overwhelmed, unable to formulate even what he felt, much less what he wanted to say.  He wanted to throw himself at the entity's feet, prostrate himself with gratitude, weep with relief, tremble with terror.  He didn't know what to feel, whether to be relieved or afraid.

"I know you're falling apart, Jean-Luc, but please try to muster up some of that good old human repression of yours for just a few minutes-- I need you to remember this, because my time is short and I won't have the opportunity to remind you.  Can you manage that?"

"Q, what is this about?  Is this... another test?"

"I should send you back to that cube.  Another test, indeed.  No, Picard, this is not another test.  This is you, being rescued from the Borg.  Now I want you to engrave this in your puny human mind, all right?  This is the last time.  I demolished that Borg ship for you.  I will not do it again.  When I told the Borg you were under my protection, I was bluffing.  They may believe me, and decide humanity's not worth the risk of running afoul of me, or they may decide that my interest in you only makes you more appetizing, and redouble their efforts.  If I'd had time to do this right, you'd be ready for the Borg in your own right, but I didn't, and you're not.  And if they decide to come for you again, you're going to have to be.  You get one free pass, Picard-- use it wisely."

The dim grayness was beginning to lighten.  Picard felt an indefinable pressure in the air, heard a distant roaring like the sound of a crowd a mile away.  Both sensations were slowly intensifying.  "Why are you doing this, Q?" he asked, feeling sluggish and stupid, bruised inside and out, his mind reeling.  "You exposed us to the Borg.  Why save us now?"

"You are an obtuse piece of flotsam after all, aren't you.  I exposed you to the Borg.  That's why.  I don't like interference in my plans and I don't like being pushed into a position where I'm forced to do the wrong thing.  This was wrong enough but under the constraints I was under, it was the best I could do.  When I started this, I expected to have free reign-- I didn't expect the politics back home to get quite so intense, so soon."  Q smiled.  The roaring was growing louder, so that he had to speak louder to be heard over it.  "You don't understand any of this.  That's all right, you don't have to.  This has to do with me, not you.  Go live your happy little mortal life."

"What about the Borg?"

Q sighed.  "What a waste of time.  I can't believe I have to spend what little time remains to me catering to your stupidity, but then, you have had a bit of a shock.  Once again.  Maybe they'll believe me and stay away, and maybe they won't.  I got rid of much of what they already know about you, so they'll have to adapt all over again, but I'm not going to protect you the next time.  Be ready this time."  The otherness was now bright enough around them to hurt Picard's eyes, the pressure was almost painful, and the roaring had acquired a component of a loud whine.  Q's eyes flicked backward, as if watching for something coming up behind him, a moment of fear showing on his face, and abruptly Picard realized what was going on.  This pressure, this sound, had occurred twice before, when the Continuum had snatched Q back after his failure to trick Riker into becoming a Q and when the Continuum had deposited Q naked on the bridge of the Enterprise.  The signature of the Continuum, bearing down on Q.  But he didn't know what it meant.

"We will," he told Q.  "What's happening, Q?"

For a moment, Q's smile actually seemed-- tender?  "Don't worry about it, Jean-Luc.  My choice, my problem.  But I'm... touched... that you care."  He shook his head.  "My time grows short, I'm afraid.  Let's get this over with."

Before Picard could ask him get what over with, Q leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead.  Even if he hadn't been staggered with everything that had happened to him, with being mentally invaded and consumed by the Borg and then so suddenly saved by Q, the sheer forwardness and also uncharacteristicness of the gesture stunned him.

Q straightened up.  "Goodbye, Jean-Luc.  We won't meet again."

And his hand lifted, and gestured, and Picard suddenly found himself sitting on a bed in Sickbay, with Beverly crying out "Jean-Luc!", and the Enterprise was all around him and he could hear the far-distant thrum of the engines and all he could see was the afterimage of Q, standing against blinding light, smiling sadly.

Life went on.

Picard mediated the Klingon Succession, nearly died in a shuttle crash, foiled a con artist.  Nine months after the defeat of the Borg, he was giving the keynote speech at an archaeological conference hosted on the Enterprise, and he was not happy. Archaeology was one of his great loves, but this conference was being attended by a former girlfriend, the rogue archaeologist Vash, who apparently thought that their liaison had meant more than it had.  And he didn't want to hurt her, but she didn't fit this part of his life-- their time together had been in the context of a vacation, a holiday, free pass from the burdens of command.  It wouldn't have happened otherwise-- she was too irresponsible, too wild and entirely too willing to border the illegal and unethical to be the lover of Captain Picard of the Enterprise.  He had to keep the part of him that had enjoyed her company separate from his role now, as host of the conference.  And of course she saw that as him being ashamed of her, rejecting her.  And of course she was very angry over it.  But it wasn't as if he had a choice.

He returned to his Ready Room to lick his wounds in private, where he was notified that another of the archaeologists at the conference, a Dr. Queria Lang, wanted to see him.

After the fight with Vash, the last thing Picard actually wanted to do was meet with another of the archaeologists.  There was his love of archaeology, and then there was his overwhelming desire to be left alone.  But he was still the captain, he still had to be available to the delegates, and Dr. Queria Lang was one of the top names in archaeology, a woman whose work his old mentor Dr. Galen spoke highly of and whose papers Picard himself followed with interest.  Lang had a remarkable talent for  fleshing out ancient alien civilizations, for finding Rosetta Stones to translate their ancient writings into forms modern civilizations could understand.  And it was very likely that whatever she'd have to say, it  would get his mind off Vash.

Dr. Lang was a woman of medium height, black curly hair shot through with grey, dressed stylishly.  "Captain Picard.  It's an honor to be here on your ship.  I've heard so much about you."

Picard smiled automatically, responding to the pleasantry in kind.  "The honor is ours, Dr. Lang.  I've always found your research fascinating."

"I'd like to know if I could ask you a few questions."

"Of course.  Ask whatever you like."

He expected questions about his own amateur archaeological interests, about the Enterprise's expeditions to alien worlds, about the topic of the symposium.  He didn't expect what he got.  "If someone saved your life, and by doing so put themselves in grave danger, would you save them?"

"That's... a rather unusual question, Dr. Lang.  I wasn't expecting--"

"It's a matter of life or death, Captain."

He studied her.  She seemed absolutely serious.  "So this isn't a hypothetical question."

"It may be hypothetical.  It would depend on the answer."

"I should think the answer would be obvious, Doctor.  Of course I would try to save someone I owed such a debt to.  As a general rule I even try to save people I don't owe such debts to.  Or are you speaking of the general case of humanity?"

"No, no, I meant you personally.  Now, what if you really didn't like the person?"

"I'm not sure what that would have to do with it."

"Imagine this guy is the most annoying twit you've ever encountered in your life.  Every time you see him he sets your teeth on edge and you just want to smack him silly.  And the worst of it is he's a deliberate jerk, not some innocent overly pompous ambassador but someone who takes great pleasure in making you hate his guts.  Now imagine that he stepped in to save your life, and for that his life is in danger.  But he's still a jerk.  Would you still risk yourself to save him?"

If this wasn't hypothetical then Picard had no idea what she was talking about.  He didn't know that many people who were deliberate jerks. Admiral Nechayev, perhaps.  But she hadn't gone out of her way to save his life, let alone risk her own.  "If someone risked so very much for me, I don't think it would matter to me how annoying I found him.  I would, indeed, take a good deal of personal risk to try to help someone who had saved my life.  Now can you explain what this is about?  Is there someone who needs help?"

"What about your ship?  Would you risk your crew?"

"That entirely depends on the nature of the danger.  I would certainly not expose my crew to as much risk as I myself would suffer to satisfy a mere personal debt, but we are all in the business of risk, after all--"

"What if it wasn't just you he saved?  What if it was your whole ship?"

"Who, exactly, are you trying to persuade me to save, Dr. Lang?"

She paced back and forth in his ready room.  "How much do you remember of what happened when you were saved from the Borg, Captain?"

And that explained it.  Her words fell into place with a sudden click.  Goodbye, Jean-Luc.  We won't meet again...  "Q.  What's happened to Q?  And what do you know about it?"

Dr. Lang spun to face him.  "What did he tell you?"

"What, when he saved me from the Borg?  Why?  How much do you know about it?"

"I don't know what he did.  I know what you put in your logs-- that you believe Q is responsible for transforming you back from Locutus and blowing up the Borg ship.  What else was there?  Did he say anything to you about why he was doing this?"

"Dr. Lang, I've asked you twice already, and I really would like a straight answer.  What do you know about what Q did?  What's your connection with him?"

She turned away from him, looking at the fish tank intently.  The silence stretched.  "Well?"

Lang still didn't look at him.  "I'm his sister."

Picard blinked.  "You are... a Q."

"Yes, and also, no."

"Enough riddles, Dr. Lang!  If you're a Q, why are you questioning me about what Q said to me?  Don't you know already?  And what has your Continuum done to him?"

"You sound almost as if you care," she said, still looking at the fish tank.

"Well, of course I care.  You didn't need to play an elaborate game of questions with me-- you could have asked me outright if I would be willing to try to help Q.  From what he said to me in those last moments, I gathered that the Continuum was about to punish him again, and I think perhaps he didn't expect to survive it.  If he risked that for me, for humanity, to save us from the Borg--" --to save me from being Locutus--  "Where is he?"

She finally turned to face him.  "I don't know."

"If you don't know, I hope you don't think I do."

"No, no, I know better."  Lang flopped down heavily in one of the conference room chairs.  "I'm sorry, Captain.  I didn't mean to be so-- evasive.  But I've kept this secret for thirty-five years-- well, all right, for fifteen years, I didn't know it for the first twenty or so-- and I've never told anybody.  And I wouldn't be telling you now, especially given your probable opinion of my species, except that my little brother is in deep trouble, and you're my best hope of saving him."

"Why would a Q need the assistance of a human starship captain?"

"I don't have any powers.  Had to put them aside in order to live as a human.  I can pass gas and stub my toe just like you, Captain."  She smiled.  "I fell in love with your species about a hundred years ago or so, and decided thirty-six years ago to incarnate myself as a human, live your life from the ground up.  Childhood and all.  I didn't find out I was a Q until I was 21, and I'm still far from omniscient, though I retain enough of my memories to make it reasonably easy for me to help my grad students figure out where to look to understand alien civilizations.  There's only two things I can't do that you can-- have babies and die, since when this physical body dies, I get my powers and my immortality back-- and there's not a lot more than that that I can do that you can't."

Picard's gut instinct was to trust what Lang was telling him.  She seemed entirely sincere.  Which, of course, made him rather suspicious.  He was a polite man, a man who gave those he met the benefit of the doubt, but the Q-- in particular the one Q he'd met-- made him antsy.  Q didn't lie so much as he bent the truth creatively, but there wasn't any good reason why a Q might not lie, if it served her purpose.  What that purpose might be, Picard couldn't imagine.  He did have an idea of how to check up on her story, however, but first, he needed more detail.  "So how is it that you know Q's in trouble?"

"I get news from home every so often.  What I've been told is that Q has been thrown out of the Continuum for violating the terms of his parole.  You see, the last time he lost his powers, he was let back in for committing a selfless act, but he was placed on strict conditions of parole-- no interfering with mortals.  Absolutely none.  So he violated his parole about as spectacularly as he could by jumping into your war with the Borg and destroying the Borg ship.  That's not what we do, as a general rule, and commonly it's not what he does--  it was seen as a direct defiance of the Continuum, and it was punished harshly.  They took his powers away again, they made him human again since it was for humans that he committed his act of defiance... but they sent him somewhere else.  Not the Federation.  And they won't tell me exactly where, except that humans are common there but it's not the Federation.  Which, since they'd have selected it as a punishment, means it's probably pretty bad.  It might be a Romulan or Cardassian POW camp, it might be a lost colony, it might be one of those places that assorted aliens used to kidnap random humans to.  I just don't know."

"And you would like me to find him for you?"

She shook her head.  "It's a big galaxy.  You'd have no guarantee of succeeding at such a mission even if you got Starfleet to assign it to you full priority.  No, I had something else in mind.  Sooner or later, someone will tell me where they sent him.  He does have friends and allies, and while no one's going to be permitted to interfere, telling me where he is doesn't qualify as interference.  I don't think.  In any case, when they do tell me where he is, I want to be able to act on it immediately, and lacking any starships of my own, I think I'd better be aboard this one.  So I would like to request that I be permitted to live on your ship, and that, when I find out Q's whereabouts, you do whatever you can find it in you to do to try to rescue him."

Picard shook his head.  A Q on his ship.  All he needed.  Even if she had no powers.  "Dr. Lang, a starship really isn't a good place for a civilian--"

"Tell that to all the civilian scientists you have aboard right now."  She sighed.  "I am a renowned anthropologist and archaeologist with first contact certification and experience.  If you're thinking I'll be the disruption my brother would have been, kindly remember I've been human for thirty-five years.  I do have some social skills and I can obey a hierarchical structure.  You have a high interest in my chosen field, Captain Picard, and for that reason the Enterprise does more than its share of archaeological missions.  If you've followed my research as you claim, you know I can be very valuable to you just as a human scientist, ignoring for the moment the fact that I know a lot more than that.  And you should feel free to check my references at the Daystrom Institute; I think you'll find I have a reputation for being fair and about as easy to work with as any scientist is likely to be."  She grinned.

The thing was, she was probably right.  He knew enough of her reputation to know that she didn't have a reputation for being difficult or a prima donna, the way so many scientists were and the way Q had been in his short time as a human aboard the Enterprise.  Was he being unfair?  He wouldn't judge any other species by the actions of one... but then, he knew next to nothing about the Q, except that Guinan had said that some of them were almost respectable.  About the only thing he had to go on was that the Continuum was capable of punishing wayward Q and had done so to Q... twice, once seemingly for reasons Picard agreed with and once for reasons that horrified him.  "Tell me something, Dr. Lang.  Q's referred to his fellows in the Continuum as his 'brothers and sisters', yet they were the ones that exiled him.  You call yourself his sister.  Does this denote a closer relationship to Q than most Qs in the Continuum have with one another?  Or is there some other reason why you are trying to save him from the sentence your people carried out?"

"Did you ever have a little brother, Captain?"

"No.  My only brother is elder."

"Ah.  Then it might be hard for you to understand, but I'll try."  Lang stood up again, pacing restlessly.  From what very little he'd seen, it seemed to be a characteristic of Q's that they couldn't sit still.  "We don't reproduce as you do.  When the Continuum feels the need to create new Q, which hasn't happened in the past thirty thousand years or so, the whole Continuum generates... um... a bunch of Q, you might say a class.  A generational cohort.  Over time, even by our standards.  The oldest ones of the group are... I don't know how to put this... we're created with the purpose of giving the group stability, of riding herd on the younger ones.  Basically, we raise the younger ones and teach them, because fully adult Q are... well, they don't interact well with the young of our species.  We don't have mothers and fathers, but we do have older sibs who... imagine a species where the adults practice a form of benign neglect, the young run wild, and the older sibs are born and trained to do all the parenting that's going to happen.  And then they all get to be adults and take their rightful places within the Continuum and they're all considered equal.  But we older sibs still see ourselves as protectors of the younger ones, even when the younger ones are full adult Q as we are.  I more or less raised Q... and a bunch of other Q in our cohort, but they're not the ones in trouble.  He is."

Picard thought of the notion of Robert charging to the rescue if he himself were in trouble, and shook his head at the absurdity of it.  "He's very lucky to have an older sister like you, then.  I've never observed it to be a given that older siblings will watch out for their grown younger sibs.  In fact, in my experience older siblings tend to be something of bullies."

"Oh, we are.  Totally.  We're incredibly mean to the little twerps."  She grinned.  "That's our job, after all.  How are they going to grow up to be functional Q if someone doesn't mock them mercilessly for their stupid mistakes so they stop making them?  You try watching over a herd of omnipotent babies and tell me you wouldn't bully the little creeps too."

"I'm beginning to understand Q somewhat better."

She abruptly became serious.  "I love all my brothers and sisters.  I chew them all out when they're stupid, and you better believe I've given your Q an earful about forty million times.  But on the very rare occasions when they get themselves into trouble, I have to do my best to do whatever I can for them.  I can't restore Q to the Continuum; even when I return myself, I'll be only one voice there.  And with my powers, I'd be forbidden to interfere.  But I don't agree with his sentence, and I don't agree with their decision to punish him beyond making him mortal by sending him into danger, and since I'm currently a mere human, I'm free to act to save him.  If they'll just tell me where he is.  And if I put myself in a position where I can tell mortals that owe him a debt where he is, sooner or later one of his allies will slip the information to me.  The Q will allow it if mortals, acting on their reactions to his actions, or on their own interests, decide to help Q or harm him.  They've probably forbidden anyone to explicitly tell such mortals where he is, after what happened with the Calamarain.  But telling me is another story.  I can bridge between the Continuum and the mortals with the power to save him, and all you have to let me do to do it is stay aboard your ship."

"I can't have constant interference from Q's coming to check up on you, Dr. Lang."

"I've had Q coming to check up on me my whole life and no one's noticed.  They don't interfere with my mortal life.  Why would they?  They know I'll kick their asses when I come home if they mess around with my human friends."

"No tests?  No conundrums to solve?  No temptations of power, no accusations that we're a grievously savage race?"

"Boy oh boy, if I didn't know which Q had been assigned to humanity already, I could make a good guess just from that list."  She smiled.  "We're not all the same, you know.  If I'd been assigned to test you, you'd never have known I was there.  We have different styles.  And I think, with Q out of the picture, they'll wait for me to come home to give my report on humanity before scheduling any more tests.  I'm really kind of pissed off they assigned him without waiting for me to begin with, but then, having multiple perspectives is good for the Continuum."

"Well."  She talked a good game, her story was consistent and made sense, but Picard wanted to check one more thing before giving the woman permission to stay aboard his ship.  "You've given me a lot to think about, Dr. Lang, and I'd very much like to continue our conversation, but I fear lunch calls.  You'll join me in Ten-Forward, I hope?  We won't have much opportunity to talk after lunch, since the conference will resume."

"Lunch sounds delightful."

Generally, whenever he sat down with a guest in Ten-Forward, Guinan would assign herself to his table and come over to meet the guest and talk.  Actually Guinan usually came over to his table in Ten-Forward even if he didn't have a guest-- unless he wanted to be alone, which she had an uncanny knack for knowing ahead of time.  He could only hope that she would do as she usually did, or else pick up on his intense desire to have her come over and see their guest for herself.  Picard didn't want to offend Lang by overtly requesting that Guinan check her out, but he wasn't going to allow her to remain aboard the Enterprise unless the only other person on this ship who'd had independent dealings with the Q Continuum could verify his impulse to trust Lang's story.

And as he'd expected, Guinan strolled over.  "Good afternoon, Picard," she said.  "How's the conference going?"

"Well enough," he said, knowing Guinan would know about himself and Vash, and knowing that she'd ask him nothing so long as he didn't want her to.  He glanced over at Lang.

The archaeologist was staring at Guinan intently.  The stare caught Guinan's attention, and she turned to face Dr. Lang, who burst out, "Mairi?  Is that you?"

"Shyovan?"  Guinan asked. 

Lang laughed.  "Of all people to run into!  You work aboard this ship, or are you here for the conference too?"

"I run this lounge.  Does Captain Picard know what you are?"

"She's told me she's a Q," Picard said.  "I take it you two know each other?"

Guinan nodded.  To Lang she said, "You're masking very well.  I couldn't sense you at all.  I still can't."

"Nothing to sense.  I'm human."

"They didn't throw you out, did they?"

"Naah.  I'm on sabbatical.  One of these days I'll go back to the Continuum, but you'd be shocked to hear how much more entertaining life is when you don't know everything."

"I wouldn't be shocked at all.  I've known too many of your kind, Shyovan."

"It's Queria Lang, now. What about you?"

"I'm Guinan, now.  What brings you to the Enterprise?  Or is it just coincidence, with the conference?"

"There are no coincidences," Lang said.  "But you know that as well as I do.  I'll give you three guesses what I'm here about.  Here's a hint: four characters, five in Standard, starts with an A..."

"I didn't need the hint," Guinan said.  "What's he done now?"

"Oh, only got himself thrown out of the Continuum again and exiled to somewhere where he'll probably end up burned at the stake or something, for the horrific crime of saving humanity from the Borg."  Lang looked down at her empty place on the table.  "If you're the bartender here, can I trouble you for a real drink?"

"I've got something I think will do for you.  Captain?"

"Just tea, please.  I have a conference to get to in a short while."

"Tell me more in a minute," Guinan said to Lang, then went over to the bar.  She returned with a cup of tea and a small glass of what looked very much like orange juice.  "It's real vodka, Queria.  Don't overdo."

"I never overdo."  She proceeded to contradict herself by gulping down a considerable quantity of her drink in one shot, then coughed and choked. 

"Of course you don't," Guinan said.

"Tell him you trust me," Lang said, jerking a finger at Picard.  "He's my only hope for getting Ashke out of this mess."

"Tell me about that.  They threw him out of the Continuum for saving humanity?"

"Captain Picard didn't tell you?"

"That Q saved us from the Borg?  Yes.  I want to know why the Continuum threw him out for that.  After everything he's done, after all the pain he's caused, they pick that to exile him for?"  Guinan shook her head.  "I think I might take back every nice thing I ever said about you people."

"Don't ask me to explain it, I wasn't there.  But it wasn't unanimous like the last time, I can tell you that.  There's politics involved, which I fucking hate--"  She downed another sizable quantity of vodka and orange juice.

"So you're here to do what?"

"Charge to the rescue, of course.  I'm here trying to recruit the cavalry.  Unfortunately I'm sort of stuck hanging around with the cavalry until the post office comes through with a shipment of maps from home.  I don't know where he is, M-- Guinan.  And I think I'd be honor-bound to try to keep the little twit from getting his fool self killed if this was about Ashke the irresponsible jerk.  The fact that he just committed probably one of the most moral acts of his life and they threw him out for that-- I need to be here.  I need to be available to let Picard know where he is, the moment I find out.  He's disrupting my entire goddamn mortal life again, and just like the last time, I don't have a choice."

"The last time?"

"Yeah, you wouldn't know.  Well, I won't go into it.  Your opinion of us is low enough as it is."  She took another swig.  "Anyway, I thought Captain Picard wanted some lunch, but I get the distinct feeling what he wants is for you to tell him I'm not a brat like Ashke and he can trust me on his ship."

Picard smiled to cover his embarrassment.  "Well, I do need to protect my ship, Dr. Lang."  He turned to Guinan.  "Since Dr. Lang seems to know why I'd seek your advice, I suppose I'll be completely indiscreet and ask you directly.  Do you think it would be safe to let her come aboard as a civilian scientist, or do you think her Q nature would be disruptive to this ship?"

Guinan studied Lang intently for several seconds.  "You remember when I told you some of the Q are almost respectable?  This is the one I was thinking of."

"Almost respectable?  I think I'm hurt."

Guinan ignored that.  "As a Q, Queria was apparently a proponent of the radical theory that the Q Continuum should leave mortals alone.  Or at least so some of her siblings have said.  I've never heard of her deliberately causing harm to mortals.  The Q who you've had dealings with, Picard, refers to her as, roughly translated, a 'stick in the mud' and an 'old fuddy-duddy', so I think it's safe to say that she wouldn't be going about pulling Q tricks randomly.  Also, I have... some ability, to perceive entities like Q, and she's not tripping those senses at all.  I think she's telling the truth about being human, and I think she's telling the truth about her motives.  If you've made the decision to use the Enterprise to rescue Q, you don't have any good reason not to let her aboard the ship."

Picard nodded.  "I had thought so as well, but since you are the only person on this ship with greater expertise in dealing with the Q Continuum than myself, I thought it best to consult you first."

Lang stood up rapidly, almost knocking over her chair, and swayed just a little bit.  "So you agree?  It's all right for me to join Enterprise's civilian scientists?"

"Yes," Picard said.  "I agree.  Under one stipulation.  I imagine that if you have kept this secret your entire human life, it's not something you'd want widely known, and I respect your privacy.  However, my command staff will need to know-- Commander Riker, Lt. Commander Data, Lt. Worf, Dr. Crusher, Lt. Commander LaForge and Counselor Troi.  The information will be kept on a 'need-to-know' basis, and I don't foresee anyone outside the group I just named having a need to know.  If anyone else needs to know, I'll consult you.  Do you accept that?"

She considered.  "It'll be strange, having so many people knowing.  But yes, I accept, of course."

"You'll have to put in the request yourself--"

"It's already in the system.  In fact it's probably sitting on your desk right now, or whoever handles personnel transfers.  It just needs an approval."  Lang took a step away.  "I need to go pack, and make arrangements to have my courses covered in my absence.  And deal with the conference, too.  I have a doctorate student presenting a paper."

"That's fine.  I'll look into the status of your request, and see if I can expedite it."

"Thank you, Captain Picard.  For everything."

As she left, and Picard turned to leave, Guinan touched his arm lightly.  "A word with you, Picard?"

"Of course."  He turned back to Guinan.

"I called her almost respectable.  There's a reason for that."

"You said you believed she wouldn't disrupt the ship?"

"Said it, and believed it.  But there's something you've got to keep in mind, when you're dealing with the Q.  You can't fully trust them.  Ever."

"Then you don't believe she's trustworthy."

"No.  I believe she's as trustworthy as a Q gets, but I know better than to think that's enough.  You see, the Q are master manipulators.  I don't think they can help it; it's what they are.  And you're almost better off, in some ways, with someone like Q.  He gets off on power, on making people angry with him and lording it over them.  He'll manipulate events to make you angry or irritated or outright hate him.  It's what he does, even when he isn't trying to-- I believe it's what he is, in some sense. 

"Queria's different.  What she wants is for people to like her and trust her.  She wants to be seen as a benevolent guide, or a mother, or a lover, or your favorite teacher.  She's known as a goddess on a lot more worlds than Q is thought a god-- Q doesn't like worship, he likes to annoy people.  He gets demonized a lot.  But she likes the goddess thing.  And she's a Q.  So if she wants you to like and trust her, chances are you're going to.  She's charming, she's generous, she's funny, she's loyal.  Hell, Picard, I like her.

"But I don't trust her, because she's Q.  She comes from a species that's so different from ours, the only reason we can imagine there are points of commonality is that they're amazingly good at translating themselves into our terms.  That doesn't mean that's what they are.  They don't have an ethical system that bears any resemblance to yours, or mine, or probably to any mortal ethical system.  They don't see us as equals.  They have codes and strictures we couldn't understand the point of, and they're lax in areas we can't imagine why they think they have the right to be.  Individual Q can be good people, but we can't forget that they're working from completely different assumptions about the universe than we are.  Queria does her best, but she's as hampered by her culture and her beliefs as any of us.  And if the welfare of individual mortals contradicts her goals, I think she would trample on those mortals without a second thought."

"You're saying she's ruthless."

"Not by Continuum standards, she's not.  But by our standards, yes.  And she'll do things because she thinks they're right, and they'll bear no resemblance to anything you might have imagined to be 'right', and she'll tell you her morality is superior to yours because she's a Q.  Make sure she's clear on having to obey the Prime Directive before she comes aboard.  If she's been human for thirty-five years she can probably handle it, but I'd make sure."

Picard nodded.  "I will make absolutely certain of that.  And I'll keep an eye on her.  As a civilian scientist, she normally wouldn't come into any position where she could theoretically damage the ship, but I'll have Mr. Worf make certain."

Guinan gave him a single long nod, then turned and headed back to her hostess duties.  Picard still hadn't had lunch, but if he was to get any work done before the conference started, he should probably go back to his ready room anyway and eat while working.

There was one pleasant advantage to the whole situation with Queria Lang and Q's whereabouts, he reflected later, after the conference was over and Lang, suitably warned, was aboard.  He had barely noticed Vash and her icy silences for the entire duration of the conference.

Q swung the pick at the frozen clay ground dispiritedly, his mind largely occupied with how much he hurt.  He'd suspected-- feared-- he might be made human again, and had taken a moment during his confrontation with the Borg to fix up the body he usually wore, making it strong and healthy with no tendency to a bad back.  He hadn't thought to put callouses on his hands, though.  So his hands were bleeding and raw from the hard labor in the cold, and his back hurt anyway-- he'd prepared for the normal stresses of a human life, not backbreaking labors in a work camp.  His toes felt frozen in the inadequate, too-small boots he'd been issued, and there were blistering sores on his heels and the sides of his feet-- the cold granted him the small mercy of numbing them now, but they'd come back when he tried to sleep-- and he felt hollow and weak from hunger.  Every muscle ached.  The stripes on his back from the last whipping stung-- they'd hit him through his shirt, so the skin hadn't broken, but there were still welts back there.  And all of it was utterly pointless.  His captors would never be able to get crops to grow in this soil nomatter how much their prisoners broke and loosened it.  It was pure makework, designed solely to degrade and break their enemies, and it was succeeding.

He had tried to resist, to simply give up.  A Q did not engage in degrading pointless labor, even if he wasn't a Q anymore.  He'd thrown down his pick, figuring that they'd kill him and that would be the end of that, and better to die quickly than serve as entertainment for his enemies in the Continuum.  From his observation of mortals, he knew that they generally preferred to suffer pain than to die, so if he was prepared for death he figured mere pain wouldn't bother him.  Besides, he was already in great pain from the way the work had blistered and broken his body, so they couldn't really make matters worse, right?

He'd been wrong. The first time the overseer had slammed the lash against his back for his refusal to work, he had been absolutely astonished at the intensity of the pain.  It was worse than anything he'd experienced, worse than anything he'd ever imagined.  He'd learned the hard way that no matter how exhausted and weak he felt, no matter how certain he was that he just couldn't go on, continuing to work was still preferable to being whipped for slacking.  And now, despite three days on half rations that were never generous to begin with and an overwhelming feeling of despair and weariness, he continued to pointlessly chop at the hard ground, because the only endurable alternative was to flee for the fence and get himself shot, and he wouldn't give the Continuum the satisfaction of watching his deliberate suicide.

It was funny.  He had imagined all kinds of horrors the Continuum might inflict on him.  He'd figured they'd send him among some species he'd tormented, or make him human as punishment for his refusal to let the humans be destroyed and then send him among human enemies, the Cardassians or Romulans or somesuch.  He'd never imagined that they'd find somewhere to send him where his own principles would destroy him.  Should have figured as much, though.  The Continuum loved a good irony.  And to make it even more laughable, it was humans themselves who'd do it, albeit humans whose culture was still as primitive and barbaric as he'd once accused Jean-Luc and the Federation of being.  Very funny.  He was laughing on the inside, really. 

The worst part of this, he thought, swinging the pick harder with a sudden spike of rage, was that he was nothing and no one here.  If he were sensible, that wouldn't anger him so.  He'd had a serious moment of panic, when they'd brought him in for questioning, having found him naked in an alley, and their questions had revealed that One True had meddled with this world-- and then he'd remembered that One True was still imprisoned at the center of the galaxy and not likely to be around to be out to get Q personally.  It was really better and safer that no one here knew who he was or what he used to be, and he wasn't about to tell them-- declaring yourself a former god on a world of religious fanatics was a good way to get yourself burned at the stake.  So instead he ended up here, because he hadn't been able to fake being a faithful follower, he couldn't even remember what One True put in his creeds besides monotheism, and as he'd tried to fake it he'd dug himself in deeper and deeper until finally he'd realized that there was no way he could possibly talk his way to safety, so he might as well go up in flames.  They hadn't particularly appreciated his wit at the expense of them and their god, though.  Too bad, because he had been very funny, if he did say so himself.

But it didn't mean anything.  He was a religious dissident; well, they seemed to grow on trees here, although most were practitioners of some other idiotic religion and not people who simply thought One True was a twit.  He was nothing special, not singled out as anyone's particular enemy.  If he died here, he would die as a cog in a wheel, a statistic in a place designed to break and kill people.  And absolutely no one would care one way or the other.

The signal-- a foghorn-like bellow-- for dinner, such as it was, blew.  Q dropped his pick on the ground and slowly trudged over to where the food line was forming.  The ration bars were not in the slightest appetizing-- they were dry and virtually tasteless-- but they were food, and he'd learned the hard way how badly he needed them.  For the past two days, someone had stolen his breakfast bar, cutting his rations in half since they were only fed twice a day, and the resulting feeling of overwhelming hunger, enervation and weakness had him almost fainting by the end of the day.  Today he had somehow managed to hold onto his breakfast, which didn't leave him feeling better so much as it didn't leave him feeling next to dead.

Other men pushed and jostled to be ahead of each other.  Q saved his strength.  He'd never seen them run out of ration bars in the three weeks he'd been here, so he saw no advantage in being at the front of the line.  Certainly he wasn't going to fight for it.

But it was hard to wait.  Anticipation made his stomach rumble and ache all the harder.  By the time he reached the front of the line and took his bar from an unsmiling guard, he was almost shaking with hunger.  He walked some distance from the milling crowd at the front of the food line, trembling hands struggling to open the bar's wrapper, preferring to be far away from the crowd of people who might want to knock him down and take his food.

Suddenly, someone from behind kicked him, and he went flying, the cold ground knocking the breath from him and the ration bar out of his hand.  Before he could get his breath back, a skinny, youngish, slightly popeyed man with unkempt brown hair had grabbed the bar and bit down on the unwrapped end.

"Hey!" Q gasped, in more like a wheeze, and lunged to his feet.  As he lurched toward the thief, the young man kicked him in the knee.  Pain shot through Q's leg, and he collapsed.  The thief calmly took another bite of Q's ration bar, smirking.

"Not much of a fighter, are you, ghostie?" the man said.  Q wanted to strangle him, to throw him to the ground and beat his head bloody against the frozen clay.

"I'm going to kill you," Q wheezed.  He couldn't believe this was happening again. He had deliberately gotten away from the crowd so it wouldn't happen, and it still did.  How could he survive when people kept stealing his rations?  "Ghost" was camp slang for a walking dead man, someone who had given up and hadn't enough will to live to fight back if they were victimized.  Rather than feeling pity for those poor unfortunates, most people in the camp at best despised the ghosts and at worst would steal from them or abuse them.  Did people really think he was a ghost?  Was that why they kept stealing his food? He wanted to live, dammit!  Okay, well maybe he didn't really, but he didn't want to die either.  Certainly not by slow starvation and weakness.  How dare this fellow arbitrarily decide that Q was a ghost and could be stolen from?  How could he survive if someone kept taking his food?

"I'm trembling, ghost-man," the thief said.

And then a man came up behind the thief and said, "Toynbee.  Give him back his food."

The thief spun to face the newcomer.  "What?  I wasn't doing anything!"

"Except stealing rations.  Return it.  Now."

"Oh, come on, Lehnsherr.  Look at him.  He's a ghost! There really any point to wasting food on his kind?  He's just gonna die anyway."

The man's voice was deep, and rich, with a timbre not unlike Jean-Luc's, and the hint of a strange accent, not the base norm for this world and its speech.  He did not raise it, but there was no mistaking the menace in it as he said "You will give the fellow back his ration, or you will most certainly regret your acts."

Toynbee scowled and threw the ration bar at Q, who grabbed it and devoured it, struggling to stand up as he did so.  He watched the man intently as he power-chewed his food.  Knowing humanity as well as he did, he knew that in primitive conditions like this humans rarely gave something away for nothing, and that included commodities like protection.  The man's appearance gave Q no clues as to what he wanted, though.  He was tall, though not quite as tall as Q himself, well-built and well-fed, without the gauntness that characterized so many of the prisoners here.  Someone with power, then, either a trusty or someone with many connections in the black market.  His hair was solid silver, thick and unusually well-groomed for a prisoner in this place, but he didn't look quite as old as the hair color implied-- his face was that of a man in his late thirties or forties, perhaps a well-preserved fifty at most.  His face was broad, more pentagonal than oval, with a large nose and full lips and intense, piercing blue eyes, and he did not hold himself like a prisoner.  He was also very good-looking, but despite Q's thorough embrace of human aesthetics, Q knew better than to hold that as a hopeful sign. 

The thing was, Q didn't fit the type who would be singled out by this sort of man, and it puzzled him.  While a gang of prison rapists might choose to pick on anyone who seemed like they'd make a good victim, individuals offering "protection" for sexual services would historically pick on young, small or effeminate men, or ethnic minorities, or people from the upper classes when the prison population was dominated by a lower class.  Q was none of those things.  Oh, he was perfectly willing to recognize that the flamboyant style he'd adopted in part to irritate Picard and in part because it was the best reflection possible of his own larger-than-life nature would be seen as effeminate in a place like this-- but he had killed that style, adopted a much more subdued demeanor, for exactly that reason.  His appearance, after he'd fixed it up, was still that of a man in his mid-thirties, not nearly young enough to attract the usual sort of sexual predator.  He'd learned to mimic the dominant accent after only a day here-- mimicry was one of the things the Q had evolved to do before they'd become omnipotent, and if you could say that omnipotent beings did anything better than anything else, mimicry would be what they still did best-- so no one could single him out as a minority or a member of a hated class, and his physical appearance wasn't unusual for this place.  So he really didn't fit the usual target for a sexual demand.  On the other hand, while a man with power might normally approach someone Q's size to be a general thug for hire, Q's incompetence at thuggery had to be evident, given that he obviously couldn't fight to protect what was his.  It made him curious, and worried.  He didn't like not being able to predict what was going to happen, not when what was going to happen was so potentially bad for him.  So far, everything that had happened to him had been painfully predictable, given his knowledge of humans in fascist mode, and while that hadn't actually helped him any, it had somewhat improved his ability to deal with it.

He finished his ration bar.  "So," he said, "what sordid demand were you planning to make of me in exchange for my rescue?  Or do you go about helping random strangers out of the goodness of your heart?"

The man chuckled.  "Neither," he said.  "I do indeed want something from you, but I doubt very much you'd find it all that sordid.  I am Erik Lehnsherr."  He said it as if he expected it to mean something to Q.

Q wasn't going to pretend he knew what the man's name meant.  "Q," he said bluntly.

"That's an unusual name."

"John Quarton, but everyone calls me Q."  It was the best name he'd been able to come up with on half a second's notice, when he'd first been captured.  "So, Erik, what is this non-sordid task you had in mind for me?"

"We can't really talk about it here," the man said.  "Go get your tools and then come with me."

Q shrugged and did as the man suggested-- well, all right, as the man had ordered, although Q was taking the orders as a suggestion he happened to want to go along with.  He got his pick, moving more quickly despite his injured knee than was his usual choice in this place -- he wanted to know what Lehnsherr wanted from him. Despite every rational reason to reject such a desire, Q felt as if even a negative interaction with a person would be better for his mental health than being left totally alone.  It hardly mattered what Lehnsherr wanted of him-- even the opportunity to turn him down was more connection with fellow sentient beings than he'd been able to have in weeks.

"Now what?" he said, as he returned.  "They'll be blowing the back-to-work horn any minute now, and I for one don't relish the thought of being flogged for failing to go back to my pointless chores."

"Don't worry, you'll be covered," Lehnsherr said.  "I'll have one of my men substitute for you.  The guards don't care.  To them we're only warm bodies."

The idea that Lehnsherr had sufficient power that he could compel someone else to replace Q made Q somewhat apprehensive-- both that it wouldn't work, and that only a trusty could have that kind of power.  If Lehnsherr wanted him to become a trusty or to spy for them, Q would definitely refuse.  He had been many things in his millions of years of life, but a collaborator with fascist regimes was not him.  In fact refusing to collaborate with a government he had lost the ability to believe in was what had gotten him here, but he had resolved when they made him human that he wouldn't change, even if it got him killed.  It was more important to him to maintain his integrity than mere survival as a mortal could possibly be. 

He followed Lehnsherr across the field, approaching a standard prisoner barracks.  Several men were sitting around in front of the barracks, talking quietly.  "Rasputin!"  Lehnsherr said, and one of the men, a huge, pale-skinned man with black hair, looked up.  "Could you take the rest of tonight's shift on group C7?  This is Mr. John Quarton-- he normally works there, but he and I need to have a discussion."

"Of course, sir," Rasputin said.  He had a faint accent that Q identified as belonging to the northern regions of this planet.  The man got to his feet and came over to Q.  "Give me your tools."  Q did so.

"Why would you take my shift?  What work of yours am I supposed to do in exchange?"

The man smiled.  "Mr. Lehnsherr is my supervisor, so I do the work he tells me, and if you're here to exchange jobs with me for the night, then you do what he tells you.  But I think tonight you will just talk."  He took the pick and walked off.

"You're a supervisor?"

"It was either that or kill me.  They knew I had experience of such places, and they knew I would be able to keep some of their most valuable workers performing, so they gave me the job.  I believe they thought they were co-opting me, but I think soon they'll learn who was using who.  Please come in."  He opened the door to the barracks and gestured Q inside.

It looked just like Q's barracks-- plain, wooden, painful and dull.  The walls were lined with wooden shelves, broken by supporting beams into pallets not quite 2 meters long, shorter than Q by about 8 cm, as he knew from painful experience.  Each shelf had one sad, thin blanket.  They ran from the floor itself up to 60 cm below the ceiling, each shelf about 60 cm from the next above it, barely enough room for a man to lie down.  There was no window.  In Q's own barracks, there was a single bucket by the door for sanitary purposes, so any man to use it had to sit right by the drafty door, exposed to all in the room.  In this barracks, they seemed to have removed some shelves from the corner and hung a blanket from the first shelf they left in place, making a tiny alcove just large enough for a man to presumably sit down on the bucket, though with the blanket in the way Q couldn't actually see for certain.  They had also plastered clay on the walls, shoring up the joints between the ill-fitting wooden boards making the barracks and making the room significantly warmer than the barracks Q lived in. 

Lehnsherr knelt on the floor and reached under one of the bottommost shelves, fumbling around with his hand on the dark floor.  He pulled something free and handed it to Q-- an orange and a piece of dried beef.  "Here you go, Mr. Quarton.  I imagine you might like something to eat."

Of course he would like something to eat.  It was unlikely there was anyone in this hellhole who wouldn't like something to eat.  Q grabbed the food, his mind racing.  By the unspoken social contract of a place like this, Q would be signing a contract with Lehnsherr by taking these, putting himself voluntarily in Lehnsherr's debt, and he disliked the notion of doing that when he hadn't yet heard what he was agreeing to.  On the other hand, Q was very good at breaking unspoken social contracts, and while Lehnsherr obviously had the power to force him into something, it was likely that, if he intended to do that, he would do it whether Q took the food or not.  So Q decided to eat the food.  He didn't know when he'd get another chance.  He had never eaten either an orange or dried beef before-- actually, since he'd missed out on the sundaes on the Enterprise the first time he'd been human, he hadn't had a chance to eat anything but the jail food, a kind of thin soup, in the first place he'd been imprisoned and then the tasteless ration bars here-- but he hadn't wanted to repeat his dependence on the people around him when he next became human once he'd seen that punishment coming again, so he had made sure to memorize a wide selection of foods most humans found appetizing.  Based on that information, the food made his mouth water.  Well, that and he was still weak from hunger.

He bit into the orange, which tasted terrible, waxy and bitter.  It was hard to believe this was considered appetizing to humans.  Then Lehnsherr took the orange from him before he could try to bite again.  "You don't need to peel it with your teeth-- my nails can get the peel off for you."  Of course-- oranges had inedible peels.  Q felt rather stupid, but was glad Lehnsherr had come up with an explanation for his attempt to eat the orange with the peel on-- he didn't feel like trying to tell this man that he was a visitor from outer space and had never eaten an orange before.

He worked on the dried beef while Lehnsherr ripped the peel off the orange.  It was very difficult to chew, but rather tasty anyway, so he was pretty sure that he was eating it the right way.  The orange turned out to be juicy and sweet, with a sharp tang to it.  The beef jerky had been very salty and had made him thirsty, so the high juice content of the orange was quite pleasant.

"So," he said, having eaten about half of each, "you said you wanted something from me.  What?"

"Do you recognize my name, Mr. Quarton?"

He had told the man to call him Q.  "Can't say I do, Erik."

As he'd hoped, the man frowned at the familiarity, but he hadn't been pushed far enough yet to mention it.  "I've been watching you, Mr. Quarton.  Toynbee thought you were a ghost, but I don't agree with that.  Certainly you haven't successfully been able to fight back against any of the inmates attacking you, and you don't show a lot of evidence of knowing how to organize for your own survival.  But when I looked at you, I didn't see a man who'd given up, who wasn't fighting because he was embracing death.  I saw-- and see-- a man who hates his captors, who wants with all his heart to fight them, and anyone else who takes advantage of him, but simply doesn't know how.  Is that accurate?"

Q blinked.  It was certainly a more flattering picture than the coward Picard had thought him or the ghost-man Toynbee had called him.  "I suppose so.  Are you offering to teach me how to fight?"

"Among other things.  Tell me, Mr. Quarton, about your background.  How did you come to be here?"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"But you are a religious dissident, isn't that right?  An atheist, I believe they said?"

"I believe in your God," Q retorted.  "I just think he's a posturing buffoon."

Lehnsherr laughed.  "I hope you didn't tell anyone that."

"Well, I was already in trouble.  I didn't think I had much to lose."

He laughed harder.  "You... told... the Morals Police that God is a posturing buffoon?"

"Among other things."

"Oh.  Oh, I don't know if you're a fool or a braver man than any I've known, but I can tell you're going to be entertaining to deal with, Mr. Quarton.  I'd like to clarify, though, that my God is not a posturing buffoon.  If He exists, which I am not certain of, He is tremendously saddened by the perversion of His name that has occurred on our world.  The entity that the Theocrats believe in, now, I would call Him more an evil, sadistic liar than a posturing buffoon."

"Yeah, okay.  I can go with that too." Q thought of telling Lehnsherr he'd actually met One True, and decided it was a bad idea.

"You were a wealthy man, weren't you?  Never knew hardship, never knew danger?  Some sheltered scion of a powerful family?  Surrounded by bodyguards and by people who'd hide your radical beliefs, make excuses for you, until it was too late and they couldn't anymore?"

Given that Lehnsherr couldn't possibly know the actual circumstances that brought him here, he was amazed at how close to the truth the man's guesses were.  Bitterly Q said, "Add to that, 'family threw me out on my ass when they decided they didn't want to put up with my radical beliefs, and essentially abandoned me to the tender mercies of the Morals Police out of spite,' and you'd be pretty damn close."

"I'm glad to see I haven't lost my talent for assessing people."  Lehnsherr began to pace in the tiny room.  "We are part of the Resistance, Mr. Quarton.  We want to see the Theocracy brought down and replaced with a democratic government that permits the practice of all creeds, including atheism.  And from watching you, I have come to believe that you are exactly the kind of man we're looking for-- someone with an open mind, someone who feels passionately enough about freedom of belief that he's willing to risk ending up in a place like this.  So I ask you this.  I can give you food, a better work assignment, and eventually, your freedom from this place.  What I ask in return is that you swear allegiance to me, and to the Resistance.  Will you do that?"

Long practice at throwing up facades to hide his emotions kept the smile off Q's face.  After so many weeks of being seen as a mere interchangeable part, a throwaway nothing, to be considered important and valuable by anyone was a pleasure.  This, though... if there was a Resistance to the Theocracy, of course he'd join up.  He'd spent millions of years as the Q Continuum's loyal opposition, one of the anadvocates whose role in life was to question, test limits and rebel, and the fact that they'd thrown him out for it didn't change his conviction that it needed to be done.  He'd spent almost as much time among mortals  fomenting rebellion, encouraging questioning of the status quo, and generally upsetting apple carts.  If there was any human role he'd be good at, being a rebel was it. 

But there were issues that needed to be dealt with.  "That depends.  Are you a megalomaniac whose ego is too big to recognize that you could ever be wrong?  Most rebel leaders are, and their revolution falls apart the moment it succeeds, self-destructing in an orgy of death that usually ends in more repression than there was to begin with."

"You're something of a historian, I see."

"Among other things.  You see, now that I know there is a Resistance, I think there is probably no better use for my life, short and brutal as it is likely to be now that I've fallen from grace, than to throw everything I have into trying to destroy the Theocracy that put me here.  But that doesn't mean I'm willing to pledge allegiance to you."

"Then you'll likely die in this prison camp.  I have a plan I'm working on to get myself and my people out.  If you're not one of my people, you'll have to wait until we've taken enough power to liberate all the captives, and you could well be dead by then."

"I could be.  But I don't do well with authority."  Q walked around to stand behind Lehnsherr, speaking into his ear.  "I could be the best thing that ever happened to you and your Resistance, but only if you're strong enough to stand having me.  Still want to try?"

Lehnsherr turned to face him.  "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that I know technologies you haven't yet dreamed of.  I can make you and your cell of fighters technologically superior to the Theocracy and give you an incalculable tactical advantage.  I can teach you Earth history you probably don't know about all the rebellions that succeeded, and that failed, and that succeeded and then failed.  I can help you to get in contact with Earth, and they can help you rebuild your society safely, without tearing itself in more warfare after you win.  But I have a price, and it's more than just feeding me and protecting me.  You have to be willing to listen.  You want my allegiance?  You have to put up with my questions.  You have to accept that I will challenge you whenever I think you're doing something stupid and whenever I think you think you are.  I don't want to run your little rebellion, but I want to be your favored advisor, the guy who has the right to say anything to you and you'll take it, and listen to it.  And you may very well decide that I'm wrong and overrule me but you will listen, because if you don't, if you take my questioning of your authority as some primitive alpha male ploy for dominance instead of a challenge to stupidity, you won't hold my loyalty.  And if you are stupid most of the time, you won't hold my loyalty either."  He studied Lehnsherr's eyes intently, smiling sardonically.  "You up to that?"

Lehnsherr looked back as intently, unsmiling.  "You are a very arrogant man, John Quarton."

"So they tell me."

"And I imagine it's one of the things that got you into trouble.  It may again."

"It certainly may.  But I won't change who I am."

"I wonder if that's integrity or rank foolishness?"  Lehnsherr shook his head slightly.  "I'm finding some of your claims hard to believe.  But if what you're saying is true-- and I intend to make you verify these skills, mind-- then I would be a fool to turn down the offer of such advice.  I do not believe I am a megalomaniac, and although I am well known for being very stubborn, I will change my mind if presented with sufficient facts.  If I am plainly wrong, or if there is a flaw in my plan I haven't thought of, I need to know about it.  So... welcome to our cell of the Resistance, Mr. Quarton." He put out his hand.

"It's Q, Erik dear," Q said, taking the hand and shaking it. 

"Then it's Mr. Lehnsherr, or Erik.  Not 'Erik dear.'"

"No problem, Erik."

"Something else I should ask you.  How do you feel about... deviant behavior?"

"Define deviant."

"Well, how would most people define deviant?  I don't, personally, think there is any problem with deviating from the norm, if that's what you feel the need to do, but I realize that most people don't agree with me."

"What are we talking about?  Having sex with goldfish, sleeping on sidewalks nude and painted blue, eating with the wrong fork at elite dinner parties?  What do you mean by 'deviant'? I mean obviously we're all religious deviants or we wouldn't be here."

"I mean... homosexual behavior.  Men and men together."

"Not women and women?  Or don't they count?"

Lehnsherr flushed slightly.  "I just need to know if it will bother you that some of our number prefer to sleep with men. Or that some do it for the sake of the cause."

"That depends.  Am I expected to prostitute myself for the cause?"

"No!  That's strictly voluntary... I want to know if you're going to look down on men who choose to serve the cause that way, not to ask you to join them.  I have much more important uses for you in mind, particularly if you can do what you say you can."

"I'm failing to see how it would be any of my business.  If some of your men feel that peddling their nether regions is the best way they can serve the cause, and they're comfortable with that, why exactly would I care?  As long as they don't expect me to join them, or buy from them, it has no impact on me."

"Ah."  Lehnsherr smiled, nodding.  "An enlightened attitude.  I hoped for such an attitude from you, but I had to make sure-- I don't like any of our men to look down on each other.  Or any of them to look down on the women, for that matter, but until we get out of this place we won't be joining forces with the women of our cell."

"Are they in a women's prison somewhere?"

"I hope not.  Most members of my cell actually aren't here; I've been building a new cell since I was captured, out of recruits from the camp, like you.  Once we get out of here, we'll make contact with them."

"How did a known leader of the resistance end up a trusty in the camp?  Or do they know who you are?"

"Oh, they know." Lehnsherr smiled wryly.  "The people who run this camp aren't particularly ideological.  They know I am Jewish, but oddly, they consider that less of a problem than to be a heretic, pagan, Muslim or atheist.  Of course I haven't quite pointed out to them that I'm an agnostic Jew.  I'm a hard worker, I grew up in a much harsher camp than this and so I'm very good at functioning within the rules here, and they knew that because of the power I wield among dissidents, I would end up a power here whether they liked it or not.  Unless they killed me, but that would make me a martyr.  They preferred to give me power, attempting to co-opt me into the system and make me look like a collaborator, and since my unit does real work and is very successful at it, they give me a considerable amount of autonomy.  I think they are convinced that I can't possibly escape, so I can't be very dangerous."

"How do you plan to escape?"

Lehnsherr raised his finger and waggled it in a "tsking" motion.  "Now, John.  I can't really tell a man I just met all about that, can I?  You'll need to prove yourself to us."

"And when do I start doing that?"

"Tomorrow.  You'll go back to your own barracks tonight, but I'll arrange matters that tomorrow you'll report here for the skilled work detail.  Do you know chemistry?"

"Intimately."

"Well, your knowledge will be tested tomorrow, then.  I'll try to find an opportunity to quiz you on the rest of it while we work tomorrow, but if not, it will be tomorrow night after lights out.  This will be your barracks from tomorrow morning onward, so we'll have ample opportunity to talk, and everyone here is in the cell."

"You seem to have fewer people in your barracks than the one I was in.  We're doubling up men on pallets; we certainly don't have room to take out some pallets and make a bathroom.  How'd you manage that?"

"Well, firstly, many of the people in our cell do skilled work, and the skilled work detail is always smaller.  But the other reason..."  Lehnsherr's smile turned quite cold.  "Originally, not everyone in the work group was in the cell.  Some joined and some left voluntarily.  Others turned out to be spies... and suffered accidents.  Tragic, really."

Blandly Q said "I'm sure it was a terrible loss."  If Lehnsherr thought to frighten him by displaying ruthlessness, he had a lot to learn.

He returned to his barracks that night in better spirits than he'd been since falling to this world.  It was good to have allies, to have people to play off again, who could help him navigate this society and its pitfalls and protect him from its horrors.  And to fall in with rebels against the Theocracy seemed like impossible good luck.  It only made reasonable sense-- he hadn't attempted to hide his hatred of the Theocracy or disgust with it since coming here, and of course in a camp for dissidents there'd be rebels--  but part of him wondered if some of his family might be looking out for him... or more likely, and more frightening, setting him up for a fall.

But he couldn't worry about it.  They'd told him they wouldn't interfere, that he was on his own for better or worse.  He had to assume that that was true, and that he'd make his own luck.  His personal gods were as absent from his life as One True, banished to the center of the galaxy, was from this world, whatever the natives thought.  And meeting Erik Lehnsherr might be a stroke of luck, but he'd have to work to stay with the man.  He recognized the type-- idealistic, ruthless, and very attached to their own power-- and knew that Lehnsherr's rebellion might succeed in overthrowing the Theocracy, but it didn't have a hope of not self-destructing afterward unless someone could ride herd on Lehnsherr's ego.  That someone, obviously, was going to be Q, but it was going to be a lot harder to deflate someone so proud without having his powers to resort to, and when the man had so much power in this world.  Picard had thrown him in the brig when given the chance.  Q couldn't let Lehnsherr get to the point of doing that, which would make handling him the biggest challenge of his life.  Especially since a misstep could mean his death, unlike anytime previous in his life.

Even that thought couldn't bring him down, though.  A challenge.  Q had never backed away from a challenge.  And this one would transform his miserable mortal life for the better.  Food, no more grueling horrible mindless labor, and maybe freedom...

He couldn't wait for morning.