Star Trek: Quantum Q

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From: bb106@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (JoAnne Soper-Cook)

Subject: Q Stories

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Sender: bb106@freenet.carleton.ca (JoAnne Soper-Cook)

Organization: The National Capital FreeNet, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Date: Sat, 4 Feb 1995 14:30:08 GMT

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Quantum Q                                           May 28, 1994

     

     Emily Tarrant turned over in her bed and wished she could go

to sleep.  It had been a long day, she ought to be tired enough. 

Still, there was a nagging insomnia pulling at her, something

beckoning that there were other things to be doing, other

interests to pursue.  She just wanted to sleep.

     It had been bad enough being stuck all morning rerouting

circuit pathways on one of the shuttlecraft. She would have

though that might have filled the boredom quota for the day. 

Then, after lunch, Counselor Troi had cornered her in Ten-

Foreward and demanded that she come right then to the Psych lab

for her quarterly testing. Long overdue, Troi had said, pulling

her insistently along the corridor.  Better to get it done and

over with.  So she'd whiled the rest of the day away in the Psych

lab looking at holograms and indicating if she was (a) mildly

happy, (b) moderately happy, or (c) markedly happy.  It had been

a colossal waste of time.  And after spending a fretful evening

in her quarters trying to read a holo-book, placating herself

with warm milk and boozy jazz tunes, she had given up in disgust

and gone early to bed.  Most of her friends (the techie ones, she

thought sourly) had gone to an Engineering convention on Rigel,

and the bulk of her colleagues from Exobiology were at some

seminar somewhere.  There was nobody she could talk to, nobody to

go to the holodeck with...she'd run into Commander Data in one of

the corridors, but it was too awkward:  both of them,

unfortunately, remembered only too well their attempts at a

relationship, and how badly it had ended.  She had muttered a

quick greeting and bolted.

     So now she was utterly bored, and her bed seemed to be

getting harder and harder, her pillow turning into cement.   No

matter which way she turned, she became more and more

uncomfortable.  Finally, she sat up in frustration. "God damn

it!"

     "Tut, tut, my dear!"  A sensuous male voice slid out of the

wall and coiled around her.  "Blasphemy!  Just because you're a

little bored...."

     Tarrant watched as Q followed his voice into her quarters,

gazing in dismay as he seemed to coalesce out of the bulkhead,

forming his normal appearence in front of her. 

     "What's the matter?  No excitement in Chez Picard?"  Q

grinned at her, sitting on the end of her bed.

     "Q!"  Tarrant frowned. She wondered what he wanted, wondered

if she wanted him to stay or leave.  Q had visited her before,

this wasn't the first time.  And his visits were always

stimulating, in many ways.  The only trouble was, Tarrant wasn't

sure if it was good protocol to be running around the galaxy with

an omnipotent being who got a kick out of needling Starfleet. 

"What are you doing here?"  She watched as one of his hands rose

to shoulder height, a bright red apple appearing in his palm. 

The apple hadn't been there before.

     "I heard you complaining--decided to see what I could do." 

He bit into the apple with a loud crunch, chewed thoughtfully as

he gazed at her.  "How can I help?"  He leaned forward.  "Just

you come and sit on Uncle Q's lap...."

     Tarrant shivered.  She had definite visions of sitting on

Q's lap, and none of them were even remotely avuncular in nature. 

Oh, she'd like to sit on his lap, alright--

     She pushed it from her head. "I've had an awful day."

     He looked suitably sympathetic, or as sympathetic as he

could with a mouthful of Red Delicious. "Oh...so let's have some

fun!"  He got that tell-tale twinkle in his dark eyes, the one

that Tarrant knew so well, the one that took her to the Festival

of Masques on Saturn three, and Comet-Skating near the Devarae

Nebula, and that one time that she'd gotten drunk on Dronogan

neisroi at the New Moon Ball and had found herself kissing Q in a

corner of the crowded ballroom, while his warm, long-fingered

hands had held her close to him, and...

     Damn!  Tarrant shook her head to loosen the thought.  Where

the hell had that come from?  She cast a look at Q, who was still

innocently eating the apple he'd conjured out of nowhere. "Where

did you get that apple?"  she asked, to change the subject.

     "Canada--the Annapolis Valley, to be exact."  He took

another bite, examined it closely.  "Want some?"

     "No--how can you get apples from Canada, Q?"

     He finished the fruit, and the core disappeared into

nothingness.  "Can I stay here for awhile?"  He asked, apparently

apropros of nothing.  "Some of the other Q's are looking for me." 

His gaze was guileless, betraying nothing.

     Tarrant sighed, loudly. "What have you done now?"

     "Nothing."  he sounded disgruntled that she would even ask.

"I was just having some fun with the Mayor-Emeritus of Pamre

Five." Suddenly, Q's fingers were intensely interesting to him.

     "What did you do to him?"  Tarrant resisted the urge to

giggle--now that Q was here, her bad day had vanished like a

mist.

     "I just let the air out of his ritual phallic-enhancement

trousers."  Q's face was poised to laugh, Tarrant could see that.

     "Q!"  She composed herself. "You know how

important...er...size is to those people.  Especially for their

ruler--it's necessary for the people to think he has the biggest-

-you know--"

     "I know all about it." Q was trying to look chastened,

without much success.  "I just think it's a ridiculous custom--

and the pants were bright yellow--"

     "What color was the phallic enhancement unit?"  Tarrant

couldn't look him in the eye.

     Q's composure was beginning to show signs of wear.

"Green...a sort of really putrid--"  He caught Tarrant's gaze and

started to laugh, slowly at first, like a valve releasing

pressure, then building in intensity until he was lying across

Tarrant's bed, holding his sides.  "--a really horrible cucumber

green, with these little brass bells--at least, I think they were

brass, which would ring every time he moved...."  He laughed for

a few moments longer, pausing to wipe his eyes with the corner of

the bedsheets. "So, I need somewhere to hide--can I stay here for

a week?"

     "No."

     "A couple of days, then--just until the Mayor-Emeritus cools

off--"

     Tarrant shook her head. "No way."

     "A day--"

     "No!"

     He was getting desperate. "Just for tonight then--I promise,

I'll behave myself--"

     "Out of the question--Captain Picard doesn't want you

anywhere near this ship!"

     "Please--I'm begging you--just for tonight--"

     Tarrant sighed. "Alright, but--"

     "Gee, thanks!"  The air rippled for a moment, and Q's

uniform disappeared, was replaced with silk pajamas.  "What side

of the bed do you want?  I like to sleep near the wall, myself,

what with all that stellar drift near the windows--"

     "Shut up, Q."

     "Yes, Ma'am. Your wish is my command."  Q pulled the covers

over himself.

     "That's what I'm afraid of," Tarrant confessed, wearily. 

There was silence for a few moments.

     "Remember that time on Lrawner Two when I convinced that

Paklid senator that you were the long-lost Regent Of Vicaria?  We

had him conned into calling you 'Majesty' and everything--it was

priceless!"  Q sounded positively gleeful, Tarrant couldn't tell

for sure: it was completely dark.  "We had him eating out of our

hands--"

     Tarrant hit him with a pillow. 

     She was awakened some time later by her computer chime.  She

sat up in the eerie darkness, the total blackness of space, her

room formless around her. "Tarrant here."

     "Just wanted to inform you that we're on possible alert

status," Jackson, the officer on night-watch, sounded tired. "The

remote sensor array spotted three Romulan Warbirds uncloaking

near the edge of the neutral zone.  Captain wants a ship-wide

alert."

     Tarrant struggled to concentrate...she'd been dreaming about

something, floating somewhere...  "Alright--thanks Commander

Jackson."  Since she was one of the ship's tactical officers,

Jackson had been correct in notifying her. 

     "Romulans--interesting."  Q sat up beside her, an oblique

shape in the bed.  His voice sounded less alert than usual, and

Tarrant wondered if he'd been caught sleeping.  If he was in

human form, he could sleep, couldn't he?

     "Don't get any ideas," Tarrant warned. "The last thing I

need--"

     "Shh."  Q touched her lips gently. "I wouldn't dare--do you

think I want every Q in this sector trampling all over each

other?  If they find out where I am, I'm in big trouble."  He was

silent for a brief moment. "It seems I forgot to thank you for

taking me in."

     "Were you asleep just now?"  Tarrant was suddenly curious.

     "Not in the way you think about sleeping--I was simply

elsewhere."

     "But I woke up, you were here in the bed, right where you'd

been when I turned off the lights.  I don't remember you going

anywhere."

     He shook his head. "Precisely--my body was still here, or

this human configuration of it."

     "What do you really look like?" Tarrant asked him. "In your

natural state, I mean?"  Her eyes were getting used to the

darkness, she could make out his features a little.  For once, he

wasn't smirking.

     "There is no 'natural state' for a Q--not one that anybody

remembers.  Each of us has the option, of course, of taking

whatever physical configuration we desire.  I could appear to you

as anything you can think of, or as nothing you've even

envisioned, even in your wildest dreams."  He smiled.  "Is there

any particular configuration you would like me to take?"

     "You don't have to do that for me," Tarrant demurred.

     "No, seriously--I can appear as anything you wish."

     Tarrant hesitated. "I like the way you look right now best

of all."

     Q laughed. "What do you mean, 'best of all'--you haven't

seen any of the other choices!"  He seemed quite amused. "I can

be anything--the perfect quantum Q."  

     "I don't want you to be anything other than what you are

right now," Tarrant affirmed quietly.  

     "So you like this?"  He indicated, with a gesture, his

present form.

     Tarrant nodded. "Do you guys--Qs, I mean--get to choose how

you want to look if you appear humanoid?"

     Q frowned, a little ruefully, Tarrant thought.

"Unfortunately, no--there are limited combinations of humanoid

appearence.  And there are some..."  He paused, seeming to look

inward, "...prerequisites."  He laughed shortly, an unpleasant

sound. "I had to take what they were giving out."

     "You don't like the way you look?"  Tarrant readjusted her

pillow so that she could lie on her side and talk to him at the

same time.

     "Well--I'm not exactly the stuff of holo-vids, now am I?" 

     "You can't be serious!"  Tarrant was both amazed and amused.

"You'd want to look like Dack Liu-Desmia?  Or gar-Shish Melnack? 

Why?"

     Q fidgited. "I...would rather not discuss it."

     "You're insecure!" 

     "I am not--that's a human quality.  One that, thankfully, I

am without."  Q sounded miffed.

     "Vulnerable, then--Oh, come on, Q!  I know you like humans,

and I know how lonely you get sometimes.  Being omnipotent isn't

all bread and circuses, now is it?"

     "I've never been lonely in my life."

     "No--that's why you're always here, on this ship.  Because

you don't get lonely. I know how lonely you get, when you've seen

it all and done it all, because you see and do it all alone!"

     "You know?  How do you know?"  Q was beginning to get angry,

Tarrant could feel it; his anger pulsed between them, a living

thing.

     She touched his silk-clothed forearm.  "Because of how you

kissed me on Dronogar Seven...."

     Dronogar Seven....standing under the arches of the ballroom,

a glass in her hand, Tarrant had turned to survey the crowd of

wise, peaceful Dronogans calling in their new year.  When she had

turned again, she raised her glass to Q, standing beside her,

resplendant in the requisite Dronogan ritual robes.  "To the

angry gods, that they might be appeased," she had intoned, as was

the custom.  

     "And to you, my dear--" He had smiled at her. "I must

confess, you look absolutely stunning."  

     "Thank you for bringing me."  Tarrant touched his arm,

feeling the warm skin so close underneath.  Her fingers moved up

his arm, and then around his neck, as her other hand joined the

first.  She stood for a long moment, simply looking at him.

     "What are you doing?" His voice had been hushed, expectant.

     And then she had kissed him: pressing her opened mouth to

his, feeling the impulsive, beating life underneath her hands,

the silkiness of his dark hair when she slid her fingers into it.

She had pulled away for a moment, to stare at him, and then he

pulled her again into his embrace, returning the caress she had

offered, his hands holding her face to his as his tongue gently,

so gently, coaxed her lips open.  She had felt the shocking,

intense desire leap from his body to hers, scorching her like

sheet lightning, and where she was pressed so tightly to him, she

could feel the unmistakable physical signs.  She had wanted him

so badly, it was a physical pain....

     "I don't know what you're talking about," Q said. 

     "I think you do know--I think you know and you're afraid to

admit it, because if you do, you won't seem as all-powerful as

you'd like me to think."

     "Oh thank you Counselor Troi for that very entertaining

spate of meaningless psychobabble," he spat, angrily. He threw

back the covers and got out of the bed. "I have never asked you

for help in all the time I've known you, and when I do--"

     Tarrant got out of the bed and faced him across the floor. 

"I told you--you could stay here with me, at least until the

Mayor Emeritus calms down a bit!  What are you getting all upset

about?"

     Q was silent for a moment.  When Tarrant had gotten out of

her bed, the computer had sensed the movement of her body's heat

signature and had turned up the lights a little.  She could see Q

standing across from her in those silk pajamas.  The fabric was

very fine and soft, the cut of the garment relaxed, and she could

discern the outline of his body underneath the cloth.  His

shoulders looked broad and hard, and she was sure that his belly

was flat, muscular.  

     "I have never met a more infuriating humanoid in all of my

lengthy and considerable existence," Q was saying slowly, as he

crossed the room and took her into his arms. "I do not know why

you continue to irritate me so much--"

     "--malice is the other side of love," Tarrant pointed out.

     "I'm not capable of love," Q countered.  His hands were on

her waist, his long fingers holding her close to him.  "I'm far

too jaded for that!"

     "You are capable of it--" Tarrant assured him, running her

hand through his hair and down his face.  "--of that and much

more.  When I think of all the covert help you've given this

ship, times you've gotten us out of situations when it seemed

hopeless--"

     "Stop saying those things," Q said. "You'll ruin my

reputation." He kissed her, a long, deep kiss that lit fire in

her belly.  Tarrant clutched his shoulders and pulled him tighter

against her; she wanted to crawl inside him, stay there.

     "You know, for an omnipotent being, you really are a good

kisser," Tarrant told him, brazenly nipping his bottom lip with

her teeth.  "And you know, I would very much like to take you to

bed now, if you're ready for that sort of thing."

     "Oh, I don't know," he said, teasing her. "I don't know if

my omnipotent self could stand the strain."

     But then there was nothing else to say, for they were

clasped in each others' arms, moving blissfully together, Tarrant

exploring every inch of him to see what kinds of things he liked,

and how much he liked them, and when he begged her to stop. He

was surprisingly human in his desires and his needs, but his

skill at these particular pleasures were definitely otherworldly. 

He relished making Tarrant feel things she would have previously

thought impossible.

     Much later, lying in each others' embrace, Tarrant lazily

smoothed his chest with the palm of her hand. "I didn't know you

could do that sort of thing," she teased.

     Q turned to look at her. "Oh, really?" One of his eyebrows

went up. "What do you think we Qs do all day?  Play chess and

misplace galaxies?"

     "What's it like?"  Tarrant wanted to know, "Between two Qs,

I mean?"

     Q smirked. "I don't know--I never had a relationship with

any of them--you, on the other hand--"

     Computer dimmed the lights.

                         THE END     

--

JoAnne

("Oh night that was my guide, oh night! more loving than

the rising sun..."

St. John of the Cross)