All Good Things__ - Michael Jan Friedman [72]
But how could that be? How could they still exist when they had watched their younger selves perish? Their continued presence here defied the laws of time and space.
Then he remembered something that someone had said… in the observation lounge, perhaps. In the present… or was it the past? Something about a lack of causality among the three timelines.
In other words, each Enterprise couM have existed independently of the others, unrelated by conditions and events. And judging by the way things had turned out, that was exactly the way it had been.
Abruptly, Picard caught sight of something in the comer of his eye. Glancing to one side of the command center, he felt himself blanch.
There was a tall figure standing there in black robes, with a scythe resting on his shoulder and an hourglass in his hand. At first glance, he thought it was truly the Grim Reaper.
Then, as the foreboding figure turned to look at him, he saw a familiar face in the depths of its cowl—and realized that it was Q. Apparently, the entity had come to torment them in their darkest hour.
As Q smiled, Picard glared at him with overpowering hatred. How could anyone derive so much pleasure from a lesser being’s misery? How could he be so callous, so cruel?
“Two down, Jean-Luc,” remarked Q. “And one to go…”
Picard swallowed his anger. He couldn’t afford the distraction. “Not now, Q!”
He turned to Data, who was still at his station. Gathering his strength, he yelled over the rising din, “Report!”
“The anomaly is nearly collapsed…” said the android, the calmness of his voice belying the urgency of his statement.
“We’re losing containment…” warned Geordi.
“We have to hang on!” cried Picard, his voice cracking. “We have to hang on as long as we can!”
Q leaned closer to the captain. Apparently, no one else on the bridge could see or hear him.
“Good-bye, Jean-Luc,” he said in earnest tones. ‘Tll miss you, you know. You did have a great deal of potential… of entertainment value. But as you can see, all good things must come to an end.”
Geordi shook his head, not liking what he saw on his monitor. “Containment field at critical! Captain, I’m losing it—”
Picard had heard those words before. As he braced himself for the ensuing explosion… for failure on a cosmic scale, for the end of things, for the cloying embrace of chaos… something different happened
The Enterprise didn’t explode at all. It hung there, frozen in a moment of time, with the bridge crew and his comrades exchanging final glances. And as that moment stretched out as no moment had a right to, the anomaly collapsed inward on itself.
The captain saw it on the viewscreen—or rather, an aspect of it, because they were too close to get any real perspective on the spectacle. It was as if the physical representations of temporal disorder were folding in on themselves like an accordion… completely and infi-nitely, finally and irrevocably.
Of course, for Picard and the others, the outcome was the same: death… destruction… annihilation. But maybe, just maybe, they had saved the race of humanoids who had given birth to them… the hopeful, hopeless beings who had climbed from their murky pools one day in order to get a glimpse of the stars.
In the end, all was white. And silent. And strangely, wonderfully, hideously at rest.
Chapter 25 and Jean-Luc?-
Picard looked up and found himself standing alone in a courtroom. And not just any courtroom, but the twenty-first-century chamber in which Q had tried him seven years ago.
Of course, some things had changed. He was dressed in his “present-day” uniform. The gallery of leering, hungry-eyed gawkers was gone ….
And though the captain had distinctly heard Q’s voice, Q himself was nowhere to be seen.
“Up here,” said the voice. This time, it sounded more than a little exasperated.
He looked up—and saw Q descending, as if from the ether, on his floating cushion. He was dressed in his flowing judge