CHAPTER 20

Picard stared at the screen in horror. Was this it? Was this the doom Q had foretold—the one he had failed to avoid, despite his advance knowledge of it?

Riker turned to his tactical officer. "Full scan, Mr. Gaines. Any sign of a subspace rupture?" The man worked for a moment. Picard dreaded what he would hear.

But when Gaines looked up, he was hardly perturbed.

"No, sir," he reported. "The subspace barrier is intact." Everyone seemed to relax. Everyone, that is, except Picard himself. He didn't understand it, and he said so.

But Riker didn't seem to feel compelled to give him an explanation. "All right," said the big man. "Let's get out of here. Engage cloak."

"Cloak is not functioning," Gaines informed him. "We took a direct hit to the starboard plasma coil.

Engineering reports seven hours until we can cloak again."

Riker frowned. "Then we'll do this the old-fashioned way. Lay in a course back to the Federation. Warp 13."

Picard shook his head. "No. We can't leave!"

The admiral gazed at him sympathetically. "We have to," he explained. "This is Klingon territory. We're not supposed to be here."

Picard felt himself growing desperate. Couldn't they see? This was more important than a silly political boundary. This was about extinction.

"No," he insisted, taking hold of Riker's tunic. "We have to stay here... to find the cause of the temporal anomaly. I caused it, dammit... though I don't know how..."

"Captain," the admiral said, pulling Picard's hand away from him, "there could be other attack cruisers on the way. We're getting out of here while we still can."

Picard was becoming frantic. He knew how hysterical he sounded, but he had to get through to them—to show them how important it was.

"We can't! We can't! Will, please... everything depends on this! Please listen to me!"

Too late, he caught sight of the hypospray in Beverly's hand. He started to turn, to fend it off, but he was too slow. He heard a hiss as the doctor released the spray's contents into his bloodstream.

Fighting the instantaneous effects, he lurched forward…

 

... and nearly bumped into a crewman as he came around a bend in the corridor.

The man, an engineering officer, apologized as he stepped to the side. "Sorry, sir."

"That's quite all right," Picard assured him. Judging by the man's uniform—and his own—he was back in the present. Without another word, he proceeded along the corridor.

But where was he going? Slowing down, he thought for a moment.

Sickbay. Of course. Beverly had asked him to come down there. She'd said that she wanted to speak with him.

Speeding up his pace, he negotiated another bend and saw the sickbay doors up ahead on his right. Narrowing the gap, he wondered what the doctor wanted to see him about.

Was it Geordi? Had something changed with regard to his condition?

The doors parted as he came near. Making his way through them, he saw that Beverly wasn't at the engineer's bed at all.

She was at another one—tending to Alissa Ogawa. The nurse was lying down, wearing a patient's gown. And—unless the captain's eyes were going bad—she no longer appeared to be pregnant.

Picard watched as Ogawa's husband went to her side.

He took her hand, tried to comfort her—but the nurse was too distraught. She didn't want to be comforted.

Obviously, there was something wrong here. Something very wrong.

Slowly, not wishing to be any more obtrusive than necessary in the face of Ogawa's suffering, the captain moved to Beverly's side. She noticed him standing there right away.

He asked, "You wanted to see me, Doctor?"

"Yes," she replied. And then, to Ogawa: "I'll be right back, Alissa."

The nurse acknowledged her with a nod. Satisfied that Ogawa would be all right for the moment, Beverly took the captain aside and spoke to him in hushed tones.

"What is it?" he breathed. "What's wrong?"

"Alissa lost the baby," she told him, a shiver in her voice showing how much she shared in her assistant's sorrow.

Picard scowled. "What happened?" he asked.

The doctor looked at him. "I think it's the same thing that happened to Geordi. Somehow, the temporal energy from the anomaly caused the fetal tissue to revert to an earlier stage of development. It was as if the unborn child began to grow younger... and younger still…until finally, the DNA itself began to break down." The captain tilted his head to indicate the nurse.

"How is she?" Beverly shrugged. "Physically, she's fine—at least, for now. But if this temporal reversion continues, I don't think any of us are going to be fine for much longer." A pause. "I scanned most of the crew. The temporal energy is beginning to affect everyone, Jean-Luc." He didn't like the direction in which this conversation was headed. "How?" he inquired.

The doctor sighed. "Our cellular structures are changing. Instead of dividing, our cells are coming together... reverting to earlier cellular structures. In some cases, this has caused old injuries to be healed... but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Eventually, this could kill us all, as it did Nurse Ogawa's baby."

 It was a horrible prospect. Picard's lips pressed together as he contemplated it.

"How widespread is the effect?" he wondered. "Is it localized to this area, or could it affect other areas of space?"

Beverly shook her head. "I don't know."

The captain couldn't take any chances. "Send a report to Starbase Twenty-Three," he said. "They're the nearest outpost. Have them begin checking their personnel for these effects."

"Will do," she assured him. As he watched, she moved across sickbay to put the order into effect.

Picard took another look at Ogawa. Could this be the catastrophe Q had warned him of? Was humanity going to devolve into the single-celled creatures that had been its primeval forebears?

He set his teeth. Not if he could help it.

Looking up, he said, "Mr. Data."

The android's reply over the intercom system was crisp and immediate. "Aye, sir?"

"Meet me in the observation lounge," the captain told him.

"On my way," said Data.

 

A few minutes later, Picard found himself studying a padd in the ship's observation lounge as Data looked on. It contained an outline of the android's initial findings regarding the spatial anomaly.

Finished, the captain looked up and eyed Data across the polished expanse of the 1ounge's table. "Fascinating," he commented.

"Indeed," said the android.

"And how long until we've completed the tachyon scan?" Picard inquired.

Data hardly found it necessary to think about it. "Approximately one hour, forty-five minutes, sir."

The captain nodded. "Good. Once that's done, I want you to analyze the information and find a way to shut the anomaly down. But I don't want to do anything that will exacerbate the problem."

"I could prepare a risk analysis on whatever solution I devise," the android suggested.

"Good idea," Picard confirmed.

"Thank you, sir," replied Data. And without any further ado, he made his exit, intent on the task ahead of him.

The captain watched him go, then picked up the padd and walked over to the observation portal. He was just starting to feel that they might have a fighting chance against the anomaly…

 

... when someone cried out in a strident voice, "Seven! A winner?' Turning, the captain was shocked to see that the observation-lounge table was gone. In its place was an old-fashioned craps table, straight out of some archaic Earth casino—a table covered with green felt and host to several small piles of plastic chips.

A pair of dice sat on the end closest to Picard. One showed a set of three dots, the other a set of four. The total? Seven.

Looking up, he saw that Q was standing at the opposite end of the table, dressed as a twentieth-century croupier. Tossing some chips to the human, the entity used his croupier's stick to rake in the dice.

"Place your bets," he called out, "place your bets. New shooter, new shooter comin' up."

The captain glared at him. "What do you want this time, Q?"

Q shrugged. "I'm just here as an observer, Jean-Luc. I want to see what kind of bet you're going to make on this anomaly."

Picard stiffened. What was this about? "I'm not betting anything," he declared.

"Oh, yes you are," Q argued. "And the stakes on this table are pretty high. The highest, in fact."

With his stick, he indicated a small sign on the table. It read: TABLE MINIMUM—HUMANITY OR THE RACE OF YOUR CHOICE. The captain was not amused in the least.

"You sure you want Data to shut down that temporal anomaly?" Q pressed. He picked up the dice and rolled them around in his hand.

Picard looked at him. "Are you suggesting that by shutting the anomaly down, I will cause the destruction of mankind?"

Q shook his head. "I'm not suggesting anything, my friend. I just run the table." Picking up some chips, he began to place a bet. "Let's see... you've bet on the temporal anomaly at four to one. Shall we see what comes up?"

As Q threw the dice…

 

... the captain found himself on a craggy ledge.

Looking down, he saw that he was perched high above a vast, chaotic soup—a miasma of steaming lava and bubbling gases. It was hot here, so oppressively hot that he already found himself perspiring, and the air was full of fine, black flecks.

"Welcome home," said Q, who was standing beside him, still dressed in his croupier's outfit.

"Home?" echoed Picard, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He honestly didn't know what his companion was talking about.

"Don't you recognize your old stomping grounds?" asked Q. "This is Earth—France, in fact. About... oh ... three and a half billion years ago, give or take an eon or so." He wrinkled his nose. "Smells awful, doesn't it... all that sulfur and volcanic ash... I really must speak to the maid."

The captain turned to him, his eyes stinging from the debris in the atmosphere. "Is there a point to all this, or are we just on another of your merry travelogues?"

The entity looked at him. "Travelogues? You wound me, Jean-Luc. All I'm doing is trying to further your miserable education."

"Indeed," Picard commented. "And exactly what am I to learn in this place? How to asphyxiate myself?" Q smiled knowingly and pointed to the sky. "Look!" he exclaimed. "Pretty impressive, wouldn't you say?" As Picard followed the gesture, his mouth went even drier. All he could see, from horizon to horizon, filling the heavens with its ominous brilliance, was the spatial anomaly that they'd located in the Devron system.

But here, it was even bigger.

"The anomaly is here?" wondered the captain. "At Earth...?"

"At this point in history," Q explained, "the anomaly is everywhere. It has filled this entire quadrant of your galaxy."

Picard's eyes were watering from the ashes in the air.

He dabbed at them, to no avail.

"The further back in time I go... the larger the anomaly." He tried to make sense of that. "But--"

Abruptly, Q took off along the length of the ledge, as if he'd caught a glimpse of something he couldn't resist.

"Jean-Luc, quickly—there's something over here I want you to see!" Beckoning enthusiastically, Q knelt by a small muddy pond at one end of their ledge. The captain went over to see what Q was looking at.

Together, they peered down into the water. It was murky, almost impenetrable to the naked eye... but free of the algae one might normally see in such a place.

"What am I looking at?" asked Picard finally.

"Looking at?" repeated Q. "Why, mon capitaine, this is you. And may I say you've never looked better."

The captain found himself becoming annoyed. Q was toying with him. He hated that, with a passion.

"Me, Q?"

"I'm serious, Jean-Luc. Well, in a manner of speaking. You see," he said, pointing, "right here, life is about to form on this planet for the very first time. Two proteins are about to combine and form the first amino acid— one of the building blocks of what you laughingly call life."

Despite himself Picard was intrigued. Impossible as it was to see anything, he couldn't help but lean closer to the surface of the pond.

Q turned to him and spoke in his most mysterious, conspiratorial whisper. "Strange, isn't it? Everything you know... your entire civilization... it all begins right here in this little pond of goo. Disgustingly appropriate somehow, isn't it?" He grunted. "Too bad you didn't bring a microscope. This is quite fascinating, don't you think?"

Pointing into the depths of the pond—at something no human could hope to discern, of course—Q provided a blow-by-blow description of the action. "Here they go... the two proteins are moving closer... closer... closer..."

Suddenly, he recoiled, disappointment etched into his features. "Oh, no! Why... nothing happened! Nothing at all!"

Picard stared at him through eyes rubbed raw by primordial pollution. "What do you mean, nothing happened? Don't tell me you stopped it!"

Q looked at him and wagged his finger. "Now, Jean-Luc, we've talked at length about your incessant need to blame me for all your problems. You did this all by your lonesome, I assure you."

The captain frowned. "I did nothing, Q."

Q stood. "Au contraire." He pointed to the sky. "You did that. And that disrupted the beginning of life."

Removing the pair of dice from his pocket, he showed them to Picard. "You see? Snake eyes. You lose."

The captain glanced at the dice. They had turned up snake eyes, all right. But the dice weren't the ultimate arbiter of his fate; they couldn't be.

Despite the omens Q had presented to him, there was still a chance that he would find a way out of this... a way to preserve humanity. He looked up, intending to question Q further…

 

... and realized he was looking at Deanna Troi instead. By her uniform and her hairstyle, he could tell that he was back in the past.

It was funny how well he was adjusting to his transits through time. The feelings of disorientation were now at a minimum.

Looking around, he saw that he was on the bridge.

O'Brien, Data, Tasha, and Worf were at their usual stations.

Troi spoke as if she were answering a question he had just posed to her. "Dr. Selar has reported that twenty-three children on board have contracted some kind of illness. She said their tissues appear to be... reverting to some earlier state of development." Oh, no, he thought. Not here, too.

She paused, well aware that he wouldn't like what she had to tell him—not knowing he appreciated the nature of the problem better than she did. "She thinks it's being caused by the anomaly, sir." Picard nodded, then turned to Tasha. "Lieutenant, inform Starfleet Command that we believe the anomaly has toxic effects."

"I already have," she said. A beat. "They've ordered us to withdraw from the Neutral Zone and to escort the pilgrim ships back to Federation territory."

The captain considered the order grimly. "Tell Starfleet we're remaining here," he replied. "However, we'll tell the pilgrim ships to withdraw."

He turned to the android. "Mr. Data, as soon as the tachyon scan is complete, I want you to—"

Tasha interrupted. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, sir."

Picard was surprised. He faced her. "What?" The security chief straightened, her resolve evident in her every feature. "We've received direct orders to leave the Neutral Zone, sir. There are children dying— children we may be able to save if we act now. And our presence here is in direct violation of the Treaty of Algeron."

The captain remained calm, despite the stakes they were playing for. "Are you questioning my orders, Lieutenant?"

Tasha took a breath. "Yes, sir... I am. And unless you take this ship back to Federation territory... I'm prepared to relieve you and take command of this vessel."

Picard hadn't been prepared for that. He looked around and saw that the rest of the bridge crew was watching the confrontation.

Obviously, he told himself, this was going to be a lot more difficult than he'd anticipated.