Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [33]
All things being equal, of course, he would have let the philosopher kill himself, if for no other reason than it would shake the Continuum to its very core. And indeed, after the philosopher claimed asylum on Kathy Janeway’s little lost ship, he was more than happy to let the philosopher’s Vulcan advocate argue the case for suicide. For appearance’s sake—the Continuum was always watching—he continued to defend the Continuum’s position, but he was secretly grateful for the final verdict Kathy gave.
He supposed he could have shown his gratitude by sending Voyager back home, but he knew what lay ahead for them. Kathy’s little band of starlost simpletons would do much to curtail the Borg’s activities in what humans called the Alpha Quadrant, which was, he thought, necessary. If the Borg discovered Them… He shuddered. That was why he had sent the Enterprise to meet them in the first place a few moments ago.
However, his desire to shake the Continuum out of its complacence worked a little too well. The philosopher’s death split the Continuum in two, fracturing them more than his arguments about humanity ever could. Q—who had stymied him from the very start—led the other side in the civil war, even condemning him to a firing squad at one point. Q, though, came to his rescue, as she often did. Having already recruited a Vulcan physician to train the Q in how to heal themselves—never before had the omnipotent beings been injured—Q then brought the tattooed stiff, the philosopher’s Vulcan advocate, and the comedy stylings of Kim and Paris into the Continuum to rescue him and Kathy.
Kathy had been present because, thinking that an injection of literal new blood into the Continuum was what was needed, he had tried to convince her to have a baby with him. (She was the best available choice of the human women Q knew. Vash was too irresponsible to make a good mother, which was what made her appealing in the first place, but not for this. And if he propositioned Crusher or Troi on the Enterprise, it would just get Jean-Luc’s and Riker’s backs up.) When it was all over, Kathy instead suggested he mate with Q.
That did the trick. The Continuum stopped fighting itself, and the universe was a safer place.
He had to admit to enjoying fatherhood. They had several adventures together—the Great Barrier, the gateways, the Bolgar. He told q several wonderful stories, even bringing them together into an end-of-the-universe narrative that he was quite proud of, and he tried to teach q about the universe. Meanwhile, he had a little fun on his own with those kids on Liten, and he continued to run errands for the Continuum, like that business with the Nacene. When q got to be so much that even his mother couldn’t deal with him, he fobbed q off on Kathy, which worked rather well. (He was also delighted to see that Kathy had actually tamed several Borg, something that had to irk the Collective, and probably would keep them away from Them, thus reassuring him that leaving Kathy and the gang stuck in exile was the right thing to do.)
Then the fateful day came at last. Jean-Luc’s little ship was on its way to Gorsach IX. Leaving q with Q (who had finally been convinced to come back and help raise the little monster after he’d calmed down on Kathy’s ship), he hied his way back to the Enterprise.
9
Enterprise
In orbit of Gorsach IX
One day before the end of the universe
“AH, JEAN-LUC, IT’S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN. I know I’ve been much more dilatory in my visits since you upgraded to this deboned chicken of a ship, but I’ve been fairly busy. After all, I’m a family man now.”
Picard sighed. He supposed he should have realized. “I take it that Gorsach IX is your doing, Q?”
Q snapped his fingers, the medtech uniform changing to that of a Starfleet captain with a flash of light. Now that he was no longer disguised, it was typical of Q to go back to his default of appearing in a Starfleet captain’s uniform. Just once, Picard wished Q would change his