Strange New Worlds 2016 (6 page)

Q all but lunged from his chair, knocking it back. It clattered against the wall.
“Out of my way, Riker.” Q pushed past the first officer. He ran—no, that was not correct;
Q did not run. He moved in a decisive manner out into the frigid London evening. Q
could see his breath. There was snow on the ground. Icicles twinkled from the eaves
of buildings that leaned together along the cobblestone street, which was riotous
with horrible people. There was an unsettling commotion as these same people eagerly
and anxiously tried to finish their Christmas provisioning. A woman and her baby stood
near the doorway. She turned toward Q.

“A penny for the baby,” she said, brushing a strand of red hair from her face.

Q would have delighted at the sight of Beverly Crusher reduced to street beggar if
he was not so confused by the fact that he didn’t seem to be in control. He walked
on without saying a word to the doctor. Her baby began to wail.

“Shut up, Wesley,” she said sternly, tucking the threadbare gray blanket tighter around
the infant.

What was going on? Q looked more closely at his surroundings. It was definitely London
in the 1840s. The same London he had created only a few moments earlier. He peered
closely at an exterior wall of a building. They were even the same atoms he had used
for the construct. But he shouldn’t have been here as Scrooge. And he certainly shouldn’t
have been here without his powers—well, his most important powers. He snapped his
fingers again. Nothing. Yet he’d been able to see the atomic structure of his surroundings.
He looked up into the light snowfall.

“Q, is that you?” he said.

He wouldn’t put it past Q to do something like this. They were always butting in where
they didn’t belong. But what senses he had remaining to him told him this wasn’t Q.
Something else was going on. Someone else was in control. Q shivered. He told himself
it was from the cold, having left Scrooge’s overcoat back at the counting-house.

Around him, the closely packed street vendors and shops sold everything from unplucked
geese to mulled wines, from toys and dolls to gemstones. The odors of both cooked
and uncooked foods, washed and unwashed humans, assaulted his olfactory senses. Q
felt quite lost and out of sorts amongst the hoard of Victorian humanity. And he did
not care for that feeling in the least.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Q spun around as someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was La Forge and Troi.

“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mister Scrooge or Mister Marley?” said the Betazoid,
wearing a tightly corseted dress.

Q was several blocks from the counting-house of Scrooge and Marley. “This isn’t supposed
to happen here.” This was supposed to happen in the counting-house, right after Scrooge’s
nephew left. The story was adapting, but Q wasn’t sure what that meant or
if
it meant anything.

La Forge and Troi smiled at him, waiting for his answer. Q decided to test them.

“I’m Marley,” said Q.

The two glanced at each other and then back at Q.

“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mister Scrooge or Mister Marley?” said La Forge.

The players switched lines, but the lines stayed the same. Perhaps the players couldn’t
ad-lib. The programming behind this was more archaic than even the clunky holodecks
of which the humans were so proud. These “actors” were equipped with simple programs.
Nothing more. And idiotic grins to match, like that of a simpleton or someone quite
deranged. Q was certain that the sophistication of his situation was minimal.

“Few things are ever as simple as they appear, Q,” said Troi.

Q almost missed it because he was deep in thought. His eyes narrowed, and his head
whipped around. “What did you say?”

“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mister Scrooge or Mister Marley?”

Had he heard the Betazoid correctly? His disquiet grew even more. He snapped his fingers.
Still nothing happened. La Forge and Troi continued to stare with simpering expressions.
Would they wait forever for the correct response? Q could wait that long, and longer.
“Forever” was an archaic concept to him. However, that would be far too boring, so
Q dismissed the tactic.

He pointed a finger at the
U.S.S.
Enterprise
’s chief engineer and its counselor. “I’ll get to the bottom of this. And whoever
is doing this will pay dearly.”

Troi smiled, almost sadly, and shook her head.

“Go stuff yourselves.” Q turned and walked away from the duo, his boots crunching
atop the thin layer of snow on the ground. He wasn’t going to play along. He was Q.
He didn’t play along with anyone.
He didn’t have to!

He turned into an alley, deciding to head east to see if he could find the boundaries
of this pseudoworld. But it was the wrong way. The alley became dark. Pitch. Grumbling,
he turned and found himself in a sitting room, a small Dutch fireplace before him.

“ ‘Paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures,’ ”
said Q softly. There was a tiny glow from the meager amount of coal that Scrooge allowed
himself.

Q spoke to the room in general. “Okay, let’s get this over with. Where’s Marley?”

“Behind you.”

Q approached a feeling that was not unlike being startled. Though to be startled would
be absurd for him. He smiled and turned.

“Jean-Luc, I should have known. Okay, let’s have it. Oh, wait. That’s right. I start.”
Q cleared his throat. “How now! What do you want with me?”

“Much!” said the apparition of Picard, his voice spectral.

The captain of the
Enterprise
was dressed appropriately in waistcoat, tights, boots, and even Marley’s pigtail.
He was see-through, of course, and carried about him an impressive length of chain.
It had the requisite padlocks and keys, but Q realized that in place of cash-boxes,
ledgers, and purses, it had the whorls of galaxies, the spirals of DNA, and the frenzied
orbits of electrons around dense nuclei.

“This is going to be a long night,” said Q.

“You have no idea,” said Picard. “You’d better sit down.”

Stave Three

Q tried the door again. Locked. He even attempted something so banal and menial as
to put his shoulder into it. With a grunt and an uncharacteristic twinge of pain,
he found it to be quite solid. There was no getting out of Scrooge’s apartment through
the main door.

Sighing, he turned to the Picard/Marley ghost and said with little enthusiasm, “Mercy.
Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?”

“You’ve skipped a few pages, but no matter,” said Picard.

Q moved toward Jean-Luc and gestured toward the chain. “May I, oh spirit?”

Picard shrugged. “You’re supposed to ask me to sit down.”

Q hefted the chain in his hands. It was heavier than it looked. “Not exactly what
Dickens described.”

“We felt you needed something more suitable to your own existence.”

“We?”

Picard’s slight smile didn’t change. “Unlike the Earth-bound Marley, this is the chain
you have forged in life, or what approximates life for you. Do these galaxies not
look familiar? This DNA? Even these atoms?”

Q looked more closely and shrugged. “They seem familiar.”

“You have long ignored that you share in the responsibility of the universe and that
there are consequences to your cavalier attitudes,” the ghost intoned, lifting the
chain.

Ominously, the ghost returned to the script. “How is it that I appear before you in
a shape that you can see, I may not tell.
I have sat beside you many and many a day
.”

Q stared at the apparition. “Who are you? Who is this ‘we’ you spoke of?”

“As I said, ‘I may not tell.’ ”

“Well, then, Jean-Luc, or whoever you really are, if you’re not going to tell me anything
of value, I’ll be leaving now,” said Q, yanking hard on the chain.

With a thunderous roar, it coiled onto the wood floor, shaking the building. Q was
disappointed that the chain slipped through the vaporous figure of the starship captain
instead of pulling him to the floor. Q then quickly pulled the chain across the floor
and into the bedroom. He wound one end around the post of Scrooge’s bed, tying it
there as best he could, and then collected and lifted the rest of the chain and heaved
it through the closed bedroom window. It smashed the glass easily, the glass and wood
sounding like brittle cymbals against each other. The chain fell out of sight. Q leaned
out. The chain was long, reaching to within a few meters of the street three stories
below. He turned to Picard, bowed, and then crawled very un-Q like out the window
and clung to the chain with all his non-Q strength. He let himself down several links
of chain at a time, descending slowly but steadily. Then the chain seemed to dance
in his hands. He looked up, confused, then realized his weight on the chain was pulling
the bed.

“Expect the first tomorrow when the bell tolls one.” Picard stood on the side of the
building, perpendicular to Q.

“Please leave me—” The chain danced again in his hands, and then he plummeted. Above,
through the broken window, he heard the heavy wooden feet of the bed scrape loudly
over the floor. Q squawked and clung as tightly to the chain as he could manage. The
bed crashed into the wall of the bedroom, suddenly stopping Q’s descent and causing
the chain to shudder in his grasp. He nearly fell. The street was far enough below
for him to twist an ankle or possibly even break his non-omnipotent bones. He dangled
like that for several moments, his heart hammering in his chest. Vaporous breath puffed
in quick bursts from his mouth.

Picard strolled down the side of the apartment building as easily as though it were
the street below. In the darkness of the London night the ghost glowed with greenish-white
light that might have been a reflection of the gas lamps guttering below.

“Expect the second on the next night at the same hour,” said Picard, stopping next
to Q. The ghost clasped his hands behind his back, as though out for a casual walk
down the street. Q could see Picard’s hands through his translucent body. He still
had that idiotic smile on his face.

Q grunted several unintelligible lines before managing to say, “If you’re not going
to help me down, please just shut up.”

The chain, the part of it that was iron and not some spiral galaxy or recombinant
DNA, grew cold from the freezing night air. It felt like the skin of his hands was
being torn off. He recommenced his descent. His arms shook against the exertion. In
trying to ignore the pain, he pictured removing the skin from the beings doing this
to him. Retribution would be sweet.

Picard continued. “The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has
ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember
what has passed between us!”

“Listen, Jean-Luc or Jacob or whoever you really are—” Q looked up, but the apparition
was gone.

“Thank you!” yelled Q into the swirling snow and dark night, relieved at the ghost’s
exit.

Then he realized he was near the ground. With a bit of satisfaction he dropped less
than a meter to the snow-covered lane below, twisting his ankle. He groaned and bent
to feel it, certain his foot must be pointing in the wrong direction. He paused. There
was a wood floor beneath him, not cobblestone.

Stave Four

Q sat in the dusty old velvet chair in front of the Dutch fireplace. He waited for
what seemed an eternity, even for him, before he heard the chimes of the neighboring
church bell strike one.

“Finally,” he said, standing up. “All right. Come on out. I want to get this over
with while the universe is still young.”

The ghost materialized in front of him, sparkling into view as though being transported.
But something didn’t seem quite right with the lights. Q realized it was an older
transporter technology than that used on Picard’s
Enterprise
.

The beaming ended, but the spirit continued to shimmer in the dark of Scrooge’s apartment.
Q tried to make out the face, wondering which of the
Enterprise
’s tiresome crew it might be. It was none he recognized.