Q QUEST

Captain Jean-Luc Picard walks around the courtroom, studying his surroundings. “I sincerely hope this is the last time I’ll find myself here.”

Q shakes his head. “You just don’t get it, do you, Jean-Luc?” He leans in. “The trial never ends.” He smiles patronizingly. “We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons... and for one brief moment, you did.”

“When I realized the paradox...”

“Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you’d never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you... not mapping stars and studying nebulae... but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence.”

Q moves his chair away from Picard, who asks, “Q, what is it you are trying to tell me?”

Q leans to an intimate distance away from Picard’s ear and, as always, he feels finally prepared to tell his old friend the deepest of truths.

But then Q stops himself and says, “Computer–freeze program.”

Jean-Luc becomes completely still, trapped within a single point in time unto his own existence.

Q pulls back and smiles at the frozen holographic image of his old friend. “No, I still can’t say it, Jean-Luc. But you’ll figure it out on your own, one day. I promise. Computer–end program.”

The courtroom, along with Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise, disappear in an instant, leaving Q alone within the quiet confines of the Q Continuum’s Q-Holodeck No. 42353.7.

“I will always enjoy revisiting this moment with you, Jean-Luc.” He walks out of the blue-purplish walls of the Q-holodeck and steps out onto the metallic, shiny, silver flooring of the circular Q Continuum Station, platform QQ001.

Before Q knows it, heavy footsteps rapidly approach him. He looks and sees a fellow Q, wearing the familiar purple jumpsuit uniform of a Q Continuum officer, with gold lining around the shoulders denoting a captain’s rank.

This Q suddenly notices Q and turns back to say, “Oh–Q!”

Q sighs. “Hello, Q.”

The other Q angrily throws his hands in the air toward the Q-holodeck archway. “Will you please quit replaying that program of yours over and over and get back to work!”

Q brushes his superior off with the wave of a hand. “Oh, what do you know, Q? My work will get done when it gets done. There’s no reason to rush.”

The superior Q gives up and dismisses his irritatingly defiant, subordinate Q with a barely discernible “bah” grunt, then turns to hurry along on his way. But then he looks back and shouts, “And will you please get out of that silly costume!”

Q responds with his own “bah” grunt before taking one more quick glance back into the interior of his favorite Q-holodeck, right as the doors marked Q close shut on the place yet again.

“Until next time, my friends.”