ONLY HUMAN CHP. II: KETAYA by Alara Rogers; published by Aleph Press The following is section 12 of 12 of ONLY HUMAN, my alternate universe Q novel. If you've missed any parts, the entire story is available through anonymous ftp at ftp.netcom.com, in the directory /pub/al/ aleph/trek, under the name HUMAN2.ZIP. HUMAN1.ZIP, the first chapter of this story, is also available there. The files are pkzipped using PKWARE's version 2.04g. Other sites where you can obtain the rest of this story: ftp://ftp.europa.com/outgoing/mercutio/alt.fan.q ftp://aviary.share.net/pub/startrek/incomplete http://www1.mhv.net/~alara/ohtree.html http://www.europa.com/~mercutio/Q.html http://aviary.share.net/~alara This is an alternate universe novel, and it's long. I mean *looong.* In this chapter and all future ones, we will learn things about the Continuum which are contradicted by the Voyager episode "The Q and the Grey". This is because that was a miserably bad episode which contradicted so much Q canon that I have decided that, for my purposes, it didn't happen. None of the "facts" about the Continuum established in that episode have any bearing on the Continuum background shown in Only Human. For those who have not read Chapter 1 and want to jump right in anyway, the story is based on the episode Deja Q, where Q lost his powers; except that in this alternate reality, he never got them back. It's been three years since then, and there have been some changes. In exchange for protection from various enemies he made while omnipotent, Q has been selling his services as a scientific advisor to the Federation for the past three years. He assisted the Federation in developing a weapon against the Borg; as a result, casualties were lighter at Wolf 359, and Picard didn't become Locutus, someone else did. On the other hand, recently Picard died when a plasma grenade fused his artificial heart. This know- ledge was the final straw to push an already-deeply-depressed-and- borderline-suicidal Q over the edge into a fairly nasty suicide attempt by drinking hydrochloric acid. Fortunately or unfortunately, Q survived, perhaps by the graces of his personal guardian angel/demon, the Q who got him kicked out of the Con- tinuum. This Q has "hired" a mortal psychologist for Q, a Vulcan woman named T'Laren who was raised on Earth (in Texas, to be precise.) Thus far, T'Laren is something of a mystery; we know that the other Q, whom she calls Lhoviri, saved her life and sanity and offered her something she could not refuse in exchange for taking on this assignment. Lhoviri also gave her a ship, called Ketaya, basically a luxury yacht with a souped-up engine. It is T'Laren's belief that Q's depression is in part caused by the fact that everyone on Starbase 56, where he's been living for the past three years, hates him, and that he needs to leave the base in order to recover. Though Q is not entirely sure he believes her-- he believes his depression is simply caused by the fact that he is, in com- parison to before, "blinded, maimed, exiled, and condemned to die--" he is willing at this point to try anything. As Chapter 2 opens, Ketaya has just left Starbase 56 with Q and T'Laren aboard. * * * "There is something I've been meaning to talk about with you for some time." "About why I came with you? Or desperation?" "Neither, actually." How to broach this. T'Laren studied him, trying to decide the best approach, and finally decided to be reasonably blunt. "I've studied Counselor Medellin's reports on your discussions of sexuality, but I've not discussed the subject with you myself." "For which I was grateful." "It's far too important a topic to ignore, Q." "I was quite happy ignoring it, actually." He turned away from her, heading for the lift. "I haven't had breakfast yet anyway. I have no intention of getting into another marathon discussion before I get some food." "I'll come with you." "I also don't particularly feel like having a marathon discussion while eating." "I'm sure you don't feel like having this discussion at all, but it's necessary." "Why?" She stepped onto the lift with him, and they descended to the kitchen level. There should be a lounge, T'Laren thought-- not the huge and ostentatious observation lounge, but something small and cozy, bigger than the kitchen-- a neutral ground of sorts. They spent all their time having discussions in the kitchen because there really weren't many other places on the ship to talk. "Sexuality is an important part of the human psyche, and for you to reject it as completely as you do is unhealthy. I need to understand why you choose to reject it--" "Because it's *repulsive*." The lift reached Deck 3, and they both stepped off. "You said you read Medellin's reports. You must know what I told her." "I do-- but there are a good number of things you told Counselor Medellin that you later contradicted when talking to me." "Like what? Name one." "I'm not going to be sidetracked, Q. Why do you consider sex so repulsive?" "Because it is. You humanoids use your genitalia for *excretory* functions. Have you any *idea* how utterly grotesque that is?" He shuddered dramatically. "I'm going to eat now. I would appreciate it if we could stop talking about this, so I might have some chance of keeping my breakfast down." She waited until he'd ordered his breakfast-- eggs, bacon, and, in typical Q perversity, a chocolate sundae. "That's the sort of objection a pre-pubescent child might bring up," she said as he ate. "When I was in third grade, we had our first sex education class. My friend Stewart was of the opinion that this was the most incredibly disgusting thing he'd ever heard of, for more or less the same reason you just gave. After his hormones activated, Stewart spent most of his waking hours--" --and probably most of his sleeping ones as well, T'Laren thought-- "plotting how to commit the same act that had repulsed him six years ago." "So you're saying I'm an eight-year-old child." "Not at all. I'm saying that if a reason sufficient only for an eight-year-old child is sufficient for you, there's something seriously wrong with you. You are an adult human male, and while your health is poor now, you were in perfect condition three years ago. Your physical drives should be enough to overcome a repulsion of that nature; if not, it would imply that your body is somehow defective. I find it hard to imagine that the Q Continuum would have given you a defective body, especially one deficient in such an important aspect of human existence, given that they seemed to want you to become as human as possible. Is there some factor I'm not aware of?" "It's..." Q reddened, and looked down off the edge of the table at his boots. "...not a defective body." T'Laren had rather suspected not. "So you are capable of physical desire." "My body is, yes." He looked up. "But that's irrelevant," he said sharply. "What my body may want has no bearing on what *I* want. And *I* consider sex repulsive." "That may be true. But your body is exquisitely evolved to override any sort of mental opposition to sex, especially one as fundamentally baseless as disgust. I strongly suspect you must have better reasons for your inhibitions than simply thinking sex is dirty." "I am really not comfortable discussing this," Q said. He pushed his plate away. "Why are you so interested, anyway? Do I detect a bit of prurient curiosity in your obsession with my sex life?" "When uncomfortable, attack?" T'Laren sat down. "I know you're not comfortable with this, Q. You weren't very comfortable talking about most of the things we've discussed." "This is different." "Why is it different?" "Why do you care?" he snapped. "I really have to wonder about this, T'Laren. You have this obsession with physical fitness-- which, coincidentally, usually seems to require you to wear significantly fewer clothes than usual. You've persuaded me to allow you to touch me. Now you insist that I *must* have sexual desires. This is a very disturbing pattern." T'Laren wondered if she should respond to the allegation-- it was typical behavior for him to make something up to get outraged over, but he sounded genuinely upset. "If you thought about it, I think you'd realize how paranoid you sound." "That's right, T'Laren. Belittle me, make me sound like a fool, but by no means respond. If you answered the question, you might have to lie, and we all know how much you hate to lie." That settled it. "If you're seriously worried, and not simply trying to escape an uncomfortable topic by attacking me, I will answer the question. Why does this disturb you? Are you afraid I might molest you? Or use my position to take advantage of you? Or do you simply fear that my motives aren't pure?" "Any of it." "Well, we can take care of the first two possibilities easily enough. In the first place, I am your therapist, and a highly ethical one at that." *When I'm not seducing Romulans, or betraying my husband, or worse.* The thought came unbidden, unwanted she forced it away before it could show on her face and undermine her argument. "It would be morally wrong for me to abuse your trust in such fashion. And as a Vulcan, I am very good at resisting temptation. If-- for the sake of argument-- I found myself tempted to do such a thing, I could easily refrain from doing so." "Your control's not that good." "My control is iron, for a human. If I were as controlled as a normal Vulcan, I would be incapable of feeling tempted. Being what I am, I admit that under certain circumstances I have found myself attracted to men I should not become involved with, but I am Vulcan enough to resist temptation." *Sometimes.* "And to answer your third point, and make the previous question moot-- Q, why exactly do you think I might be attracted to you? You yourself have pointed out that your personality is not particularly lovable. Your health is poor, your appearance is not the best-- and you would make a very unpleasant meld partner. My sexuality is inextricably tied to my telepathy-- I am better off with my own imagination than with a man I can't meld with." *It would have been nice if I'd felt that way four years ago, wouldn't it. I might not need to be here now.* Q blinked. "That's... rather blunt." "Would you prefer I spared your feelings and left you fearful of my motives?" "Not as a general rule." "Then we're back to the original question. Do you have any other reasons for your fear of sex?" "I wouldn't call it *fear*, T'Laren." "We already determined that it cannot solely be disgust--" "Can't it?" he snapped. "You tell me sex is a basic human drive. I agree. It's also responsible for more idiocy, and more humiliations, than probably any other basic human drive. And it's not a biological requirement for the individual-- merely the species. I'm a hostage to this body, T'Laren. I have to feed it when it's hungry, rest it when it's tired, alter *my* behavior because it doesn't feel well-- and I'm not strong enough to resist it. I don't want to die-- not most of the time, anyway-- so I can't afford to put my foot down about any of its demands that it actually requires. It does not, however, need sex. I can in perfect safety hold out on that one." "Why do you want to hold out?" "Because I'm sick of being a hostage! I *hate* having a mortal body-- its constant demands, the way it can affect my mind when it's improperly cared for or just being ornery. I can refuse to give it sexual gratification. And it makes me feel... like I still have some modicum of control over my own life that I can resist my body's demands, even over a small thing like that." "Yes, but why sex? Why not resist your body's desire to eat chocolate, and have vegetables instead? Why not resist your body's reluctance to exercise?" "I do. Every day." "You never did before I convinced you to. It must have been obvious to you that your body would last longer with regular exercise, and you were told several times that it would make you feel better in the long run. But you didn't try to resist your body's reluctance on that one. Why sex?" "Maybe I just don't have a very high libido." "Any libido at all would make it a strange choice. Your life is very unpleasant-- at least, so you've told me at length. Why have you gone to such lengths to resist a source of potential pleasure?" "What are you saying, T'Laren, that I should run out and sleep with a total stranger at the first opportunity?" "No. Of course not." She marshaled her argument carefully. "At this stage in your social development, it's entirely appropriate that you don't have sex. You have no friends, and few skills at making connections with people. Sexuality is only a small part of sociality, and you've mastered very little of that thus far. But you are at least willing to admit that you should work toward making social connections with others. You are trying to improve that aspect of your life. What concerns me about your sexuality is that you deny it. You won't try to change something about yourself unless you're desperate, and if you refuse to admit that sex is something you need, you will never admit that you're desperate. You'll channel the need into something else. Q, you were there for the Inquisition, the Puritan witch-hunts, the Victorian age-- you *know*, probably better than I do, what happens when humans repress their sexuality." "You're talking about entire societies of humans, whose cultures repressed them. My culture isn't repressing me-- I don't *have* a culture. I choose to repress myself." "Yes, but I still don't understand why. If it were a mere exercise in control--" "A *mere* exercise in control?" He stood up, shoving his chair backward. "T'Laren, how can you possibly be so dense?" He faced her. "You said it yourself. I'm unattractive both socially and physically. If by some miracle someone *did* want me, what could I possibly give them? I'm terrible at cooperative social endeavors, and sex certainly qualifies. I'm selfish, and socially inept, and not terribly dextrous. And do you know what humans *do* to those who accept sexual gratification without being able to reciprocate? I would be a laughingstock. In exchange for a few fleeting moments of purely physical enjoyment, I would make myself unnecessarily vulnerable-- physically as well as emotionally; it would be just my luck that the first person who actually wanted me would turn out to be an assassin-- and then, assuming that my partner was *not* an assassin, they would probably talk about me behind my back in less than glowing terms about what an inept lover I turned out to be. I need this?" He shook his head. "No, I can't imagine *anything* being pleasurable enough to be worth that." He paced around the table. "The drives may be hardwired in, but they're sadly misplaced here. I couldn't participate in perpetuating this miserable little species even if I were mad enough to want to. And I'm not fond of being at the mercy of a completely useless biological drive, when the consequences of giving in to it involve so much potential for humiliation and misery." T'Laren frowned slightly. "What did you mean about perpetuating the species?" "I mean I'm sterile. Completely. Which, all things considered, is just as well." "Your choice?" Q shook his head. "I didn't think about it one way or another. I didn't design the body that way, if that's what you're asking. I found out at my first detailed physical, so I assume the Continuum was responsible-- especially since the method they chose is pretty abnormal. My cells simply do not undergo meiosis, for reasons that baffle Federation medical technology. I can't produce sperm cells. And, as I've said, it's probably just as well." "You sound as if you're trying to convince yourself of that." "Convince myself that I don't want to have to worry about making sure I have contraceptive shots on a regular basis, even though I have no intention of needing them, just on the off chance that I might--? I hardly need to convince myself of that." "I would think... progeny are the mortal route to immortality, after all. I thought it might have occurred to you that that might be the only kind of immortality you could have now." Q snorted. "That's not immortality. Mortals convince themselves that it is because otherwise they have to face the fact that they are completely ephemeral, and few mortals can face that. If the so-called `immortality' of reproduction comes from creating something that will outlast you... I've created entire species, T'Laren. I hardly need to create one measly human. And if it comes from genetics, creating something that is fundamentally like you... my genetics have nothing whatsoever to do with who I am. If I were capable of fathering a human child, and foolish enough to do so, it wouldn't be *mine*-- it would be the child of the man whose body I copied. Besides, I can't stand the young of my own species-- I certainly can't tolerate children of this one. And, leaving aside the fact that I would be a horrible father anyway, what kind of legacy would it be to give a child of *any* species, to have for a parent someone that practically everyone in the galaxy wants dead?" "You still sound as if you're trying to convince yourself." "I'm *not*--" He put a hand to his head. "I am. All right. Not about the children-- I don't want children, the whole idea's ridiculous-- but they didn't *tell* me. They made this decision about my life, they altered the body I chose for myself, without even warning me they were going to do it, let alone consulting me. And that's stupid of me. I would have made the same decision myself-- and they *knew* that. They're omniscient. Why bother to ask me when they already know my answer? Simpler just to do it. I *know* that." "But you still resent them for making the decision for you." "It's stupid of me. I know that." "Human emotions are under no constraints to be logical. Q, you have every right to resent your fellows. Whether or not the punishment was justified, they did exile you to a harsh and painful existence. You wouldn't be a normal human if you didn't resent them. And on top of that, they alter the body you chose for yourself, making major decisions about your life for you. It would have been common courtesy to consult with you. It wasn't necessary, but it wouldn't have been an effort for them, either, would it have?" "No," he said quietly. "It wouldn't have." "As for your earlier statements... do you truly believe that there's no potential for anything but humiliation in sexuality?" Q sat down, folding his hands on the table and staring at them. "I've... occasionally tried to figure that out. Cost/benefit analysis and all that." He looked up, half-smiling. "The answer ends up being very annoying." "What is the answer?" "If I were to... indulge such base physical desires, it would... have to be with someone I could trust completely. Presumably, then, someone who actually cares about me to some extent, who wouldn't want to humiliate me and would be willing to... overlook, or accept, my probable ineptitude. It would... it would have to be for something more... what's the word, powerful? Meaningful, that's it. Something more meaningful than the mere gratification of lust." "And why does that annoy you?" "Because it makes me sound like a romantic." Q rolled his eyes. "`It would have to be an act of *love*,'" he crooned in an overblown parody of romanticism. "Please. Don't make me gag." "I think everyone who knows you is well aware that you're not a romantic, Q," T'Laren said dryly. "Given that you wish to avoid humiliation-- and potential assassins-- your preference is actually quite understandable in practical terms." "Well, that's good to hear." "But this still doesn't seem to completely explain your behavior." T'Laren leaned forward slightly. "You've explained why you find it practical to make yourself find sex disgusting. When I first offered to rub your back, though, and you thought I might be trying to seduce you, you seemed positively terrified of the possibility." "I wasn't *terrified*, T'Laren." "You seemed to be. Or at least, far more nervous and uncomfortable than a person who merely has no interest in sex would be. If sex only disgusted you, I would have thought you would have accepted a backrub, and then if you felt it was somehow becoming sexual, informing me that you had no interest-- probably in your typical inimitable fashion." He smiled at that. "But you seemed very close to panic. I remember at the time I wondered if perhaps you had been molested somehow, as it seemed-- " She broke off as she saw his expression change. "Q? *Did* someone molest you?" "It wasn't anything," he said, sharply and far too quickly. "What happened?" She leaned further forward, placing a hand on the table, near him. "Q, please tell me what happened?" "I just told you nothing happened!" he snapped, but his face was flushed. "And I don't want to talk about it." T'Laren pulled back slightly. "You don't want to talk about the fact that nothing happened?" she asked with just a tiny twinge of dryness. "I'm tired of telling you about everything. Can't I keep a few things to myself?" "You certainly can if you really want to. But if you've been sexually molested somehow-- don't you see how that would have to change my approach? You gave me a good, rational reason for avoiding sex, but if that's not your real reason-- if your real reason is that you were abused-- then we still have to work on the problem." "I wasn't abused!" Q snapped. "Not exactly. And I don't want to talk about it." "Are you sure?" "Look, T'Laren, it's not that important. You seem to have some kind of overblown sordid story in your head. It wasn't what you're probably thinking." "Then what was it?" "I don't want to talk about it! It's embarrassing." Sometimes T'Laren wondered if Q ever meant it when he said he didn't want to discuss something. He seemed to spend a lot of time dropping vague hints and then trying to refuse to talk about what they meant. "Of course it's embarrassing," T'Laren said gently. "But you were willing to tell me about other incidents that embarrassed you, weren't you?" "Humans think this one's funny. You might as well be a human for all intents and purposes. You'll laugh." "I assure you, I won't laugh." "Oh, of *course* you won't *show* it, T'Laren. You'll keep your Vulcan mask in place. You might even pretend concern. Inside your Vulcan skull, though, you'll be having hysterics. I *know* it." "Q, I don't see how I could consider someone being sexually molested to be funny--" "Because it isn't what you think! And I want to know the answer to that one, too. Somehow humans-- well, Ohmura, anyway-- thought this was a laugh riot. I don't see how." He sounded hurt and angry. "Perhaps I might understand why. If you told me what happened, I could explain why humans would find it funny." "And what if you think it's funny, too?" "I won't think it's funny. I don't think things that cause people pain or distress are funny. And if you truly didn't want to tell me, Q, why would you have tried to evade the topic so ineptly? You're better at misdirection than that." His face twisted into a bitterly wry half-smile. "Touch‚," he murmured. Q's hand closed around his drink glass. He twisted it, swirling the drink inside around, and stared down into it. "I've told you everything else, more or less. I suppose I should tell you this one, too. If for no other reason than that I suspect you've got a completely wrong notion of what happened." He looked up at her. "This was in the early days. I'd been on the station two, three months. We hadn't really gotten going on the work against the Borg yet, and I hadn't yet worked out who everyone was and what their positions were. I knew ranks, because they were obvious, but I was vague on names and functions. "I'd managed to throw out my back yet again-- I suspect it was actually less dysfunctional than my back generally is today, but I was also much less used to pain in those days, so it felt quite horrible. I could still walk, so I was on my way to Sickbay to get it fixed-- not an event I was looking forward to; Li had no conception of how to be gentle with things like that. And on my way, I ran into a young woman, a lieutenant in blues. I dimly recalled having seen her around the sickbay labs, so I assumed she was medical. "She asked me what was wrong, and I told her. So she offered to fix my back for me. As I recalled her having been one of the few people on the base who treated me with anything resembling kindness, I saw no reason not to let her, as she assured me what she had in mind would be... considerably less unpleasant than Li's torture devices." Q glanced down in apparent embarrassment on the last part. As if he were ashamed of his own embarrassment, he quickly looked up again. "You have to understand, I was much more naive then. I was spending so much time in just trying to adjust to what had happened to me, I didn't notice a lot of the more subtle nuances of human interaction. It didn't enter my mind that it might be a bad idea to go back to my room with her." T'Laren had a sneaking suspicion she knew where this was going. "I understand." "I should have realized, you know." He looked pensive. "Of course, I had nothing to compare it to. But when she started on my back... it was completely different from the way you did it. It was a lot more... um, a lot less... what's the word I'm looking for? Less... not impersonal..." "Clinical?" "Yes, exactly. Much less clinical. More... um. In any case, I had nothing to compare it to, as I said, so I didn't realize this wasn't entirely aimed at fixing my back until... well, eventually it became quite obvious. I may have been naive, but never *that* naive." T'Laren could just imagine. "Was the woman Lieutenant Amy Frasier, by any chance?" Q looked stricken. "Did she *tell* you--?" "No-- but when I interviewed you she seemed to be unusually vitriolic about you. Then Lieutenant Roth explained why, in his belief, Frasier particularly hated you--" "*He* told you? He *knows* what happened?" Q was quite agitated. "Good God-- if Roth knew, it must have gotten all over the station--" "Roth didn't know what happened, exactly. He deduced that you probably rejected Frasier sexually, from the fact that her interest in you seemed to turn very quickly into hatred, but he knew none of the details." "Oh." Q calmed down. "That's different." "What did you do, when she made it obvious that she was trying to seduce you?" *And how did she make it obvious, exactly?* T'Laren had to admit to an overwhelming curiosity about the extent of Q's self-proclaimed naivete. How much, exactly, had it taken for him to catch on? He was badly embarrassed enough by talking about this at all, though; T'Laren was sure that if she asked him, not only wouldn't she get an answer but he'd balk at telling the rest of the story. "Well, I-- I confess, I was mostly very confused. I wasn't sure why she was doing this. Why me? I knew even then that my personality was... not exactly the most endearing. So... I asked her that. Why me?" He began playing with his napkin, watching his own fidgeting hands instead of looking at T'Laren. "I think... had I gotten a different answer... I might have gone along with her at that point. I would have... I'd even have accepted mere physical attraction. After all, I *was* good-looking then. And I'm capable of vanity. Actually, I think I have more right to be vain about my appearance than most humans. I chose this form, after all. If someone likes the way I look, that's a positive reflection on my taste as well as my appearance. In fact, I'm almost sure I would have accepted that. At... that particular point... there probably weren't that many reasons... I wouldn't have accepted." "I take it she picked one." "She said-- well, she made it clear that she was interested in me solely because she'd never had a several-million-year-old former god before. And that was quite unacceptable. Quite aside from the fact that I find it insulting and offensive to be, to be merely a *novelty* item-- part of her collection of unusual aliens she's bedded-- that wasn't the worst. I could just picture her telling her co-workers, `And you'll never guess what I did over the weekend. I did a former god!' 'Really? Was he any good?' `No, actually he was terrible. One of the worst I've had.' It didn't strike me that Amy Frasier would be the type to... forgive any clumsiness on my part. I could just imagine what she'd say about me afterward. Probably to the entire starbase. So I said no." "Abrasively, I take it." "Um... no. I couldn't seem to... I didn't have a lot of breath for talking, if you really must know. But I did say no. And she wouldn't take no for an answer. She kept right on with what she was doing." And then he tore her apart, most likely. "What did you do then?" "I called Security." T'Laren blinked, the closest she would allow herself to letting her jaw drop. No, she *hadn't* known where this was going, apparently. "You... didn't." "I *did*," Q said indignantly. "I said no, after all. And she wouldn't stop. So I called Security and told them I wanted to press charges of attempted rape." A call for Security couldn't be countermanded. And Security was never very far from Q's quarters... T'Laren had a sudden mental image of the hapless lieutenant trying desperately to clothe herself before Security showed, probably failing, Q's righteous indignation, probably in a state of undress himself... oh, she could see why Ohmura would have thought it was funny. She herself thought it more tragic than anything else. How could *anyone* have so little common sense? No wonder Frasier hated him. Had anyone done that to T'Laren, he would have found out the truth behind the rumors of the Vulcan death grip. "What... was Security's reaction?" "I told you, Ohmura thought it was funny. T'Meth probably didn't, but she was looking at me like this was the most trivial complaint she'd ever heard, and I was a worm for wasting her time. I don't know why! I told Frasier to stop, she wouldn't stop. If our sexes had been reversed, there wouldn't have been any question that it was attempted rape. No one would have thought it was funny." "Q..." How to put this. "Were you... physically aroused at that point?" *And did you make any attempt to hide it from Security?* "I don't see what that has to do with anything. I said no." "Were you?" "What my body may or may not want is irrelevant. *I* didn't want this!" "Most men do not draw such a sharp distinction between themselves and their bodies." "I'm not most men." *I know*. "Ohmura wouldn't take the charges, then?" "He told me-- after he stopped trying to keep from laughing- - I had no idea he thought an attempted rape was so hysterically amusing-- he told me that the charges wouldn't stick, that there was no chance the case would even go to court, and that if I pressed charges I would be the laughingstock of the base. He assured me that neither he nor T'Meth would mention the incident to anyone else if I would drop the charges. And... I couldn't understand why they were being so unjust, but I do know that humans are capable of gross acts of injustice. After seeing his reaction, I believed him that I'd get no human court to treat me fairly. That everyone would find it horrendously entertaining. So... I agreed." "Probably the most sensible thing you did that evening." "You're laughing at me!" "I assure you, I'm not laughing," T'Laren said, deadly serious. "Q, that was *not* an attempted rape." "No? What would you call it?" "A seduction that went seriously wrong." T'Laren found herself feeling sorry for Lieutenant Frasier. Her motives may have been shallow, but she'd hardly deserved this. "T'Laren, I told her to stop. She refused." "Did she even *hear* you?" "Of course she heard me! She said something to the effect of, `you don't really want me to stop.' You know, `your lips say no, no, no, but your heart says yes, yes, yes' kind of thing. I felt like I was in a bad gothic romance." "Q, Amy Frasier is half your size! If you felt threatened by her, why didn't you push her away?" "I panicked, all right?" She could see that. After all, Q had a history of screaming for help rather than defending himself physically. He could conceivably have been too panicked to realize he could just remove the problem from his person. "Anyway," he added, "I couldn't seem to... to make myself move." "I thought you didn't freeze when you panic." "I don't. It wasn't... I wasn't frozen." He stared at the floor in a misery of embarrassment. Abruptly T'Laren understood. She tried to find a tactful way to phrase her understanding. "You felt yourself at war with your own body? You found it physically pleasurable, but feared the consequences too much to let it go on?" "Yes. Exactly." "And so you said no. And she ignored you." "Yes! It was *my* understanding that that constitutes rape, or at least attempted rape. What was so incredibly humorous about the situation?" How to phrase this. "You're not a disembodied mind, Q. When you told Frasier no, your body language may have betrayed you. You may have said it in a fashion that implied that you didn't really mean it." "What's that supposed to mean? No means no." "Not always. Humans are more complex than that." She sighed. "Several things were working against you. For one thing, you're male. Since males can't hide physical arousal, and in most cases physical arousal implies desire, it's difficult for some humans to take a man's refusal seriously. There would have to be some reason why he would not want to fulfill his body's obvious desires." "Perhaps most human men take their orders from an insignificant piece of flesh between their legs. I, however, would prefer to make decisions with something more capable of high-order logic." "As you said, you're not most men. Plus, the dichotomy between body and mind isn't as simple as you think, Q. What confuses you is the fact that you didn't used to have a body. Now that you have one, though, you are your body. You're not a ball of energy trapped inside a fleshy shell. You *are* your body. What it wants, you cannot help but want. The conflict was not between your body and your mind, but between the desire for pleasure and the desire to avoid humiliation. In you, in this circumstance, the desire to avoid humiliation was stronger. In most men, it goes the other way around. And Lieutenant Frasier's experience was with other men, not you. She didn't know you. Also, you were physically stronger than her. With her Starfleet training, she could conceivably have overpowered you-- but she wasn't trying to. She would have assumed that if you really didn't want her there, you would push her away, or move away from her." "But I said no." "No doesn't always mean `no, stop this right now and go away.' It can mean `no, I need a bit more persuasion before I'll go through with this.' Obviously Frasier interpreted it as the second. I suspect her comment about you not really meaning it was intended as something of a flirtatious joke. If you *had* really meant it, in her mind, you would have repeated yourself more firmly, with some move to physically distance yourself from her. Rape involves coercion. What Frasier was trying was seduction, not coercion." "I consider attempts to make my body overpower my personal judgment a form of coercion. How is attempting to control my behavior with pleasure different from trying to control my behavior with pain?" "That's like saying that a person who offers you something pleasant to eat is trying to coerce you into eating. A drug such as iolera, that completely overwhelms your judgment-- yes, that's coercion. But offering a person pleasure in order to get them to do what you want is considered seduction by definition. Most people-- you included-- have stronger defenses against pleasure than against pain. The idea behind seduction is to make the other person want to do what you want them to do, whereas coercion by pain is intended to make them fear the consequences of noncompliance. It's a completely different act." His face was closed and hostile; if she was going to get through to him at all, she would have to show some sympathy. "Mind you, you could have pressed charges against Frasier; Ohmura wasn't telling you the whole truth. You couldn't have made charges of rape hold up in court, but you could have charged her with violating the Starfleet guidelines on relations with aliens." "Starfleet has *guidelines* on that?" "Starfleet has guidelines on all forms of contact with non- humans, including sexual. The guidelines state that one should never assume that a person not of one's own culture-- especially aliens, but including members of one's own species if they are of a different culture-- shares one's own sexual mores and customs. While sexual relations with aliens aren't forbidden-- Starfleet would have a near-impossible time enforcing *that*-- people engaged in sexual relations with aliens are supposed to proceed with caution, and to make their intentions unmistakably clear. Frasier was obviously in violation of the guidelines, and you could have charged her with causing you emotional harm through such violation." His eyes narrowed. "And would that have worked?" T'Laren shook her head. "Difficult to say. I can tell you that you would have found the trial humiliating, however. You would be forced to explain in court, in detail, exactly what she did to you and why it disturbed you. And Ohmura was right-- you would have become a laughingstock." "*Why?*" he snapped. "This sexual double standard humans hold to--" "Not because you're male. If the same thing had happened, and you'd been female, with the same personality you have now, you'd still have been laughed at. You're arrogant, Q. We both know this. And you behave as if you know more than everyone else. You are, in reality, naive about many aspects of human culture-- but you're also incredibly knowledgeable, and you also pretend to be more knowledgeable than you actually are. The humor would be in the fact that an arrogant know-it-all would turn out to be so tremendously ignorant about such an important aspect of human existence. Humans consider other people's embarrassing sexual misadventures to be funny anyway-- Ohmura was probably laughing at Frasier as much as he was laughing at you. But if you had friends, if you didn't behave as if you thought yourself superior to everyone else, there would be sympathy in their amusement, as there was for Frasier. You, however-- as long as you behave the way you do, humans will find your humiliations to be funny." "Do you think it was funny?" "I told you, I don't find things like that funny. I feel sorry for Frasier; she should have been more sensitive, she should have followed the guidelines, she would have completely deserved for you to tear her apart verbally... but she didn't deserve *that* much humiliation. I also feel sorry for you. You could not entirely help your own ignorance." She shook her head slightly. "So that's why you were afraid when I first offered you a backrub?" He didn't answer, staring at the floor. "Q?" He looked up. "It's true, isn't it. They've been laughing all along." T'Laren could not quite follow the leap. "Who have?" "Everyone." Q lifted his empty coffee cup and twirled it around his finger by the handle. "My humiliations have been a source of vast amusement, haven't they. Anderson, Medellin, Li... or we can go back even further, to Picard, Riker, Crusher and LaForge... all immensely amused by me. Watch a being known for godlike omniscience stumble around in ignorance and terror, making a complete idiot of himself!" Abruptly he flung the coffee cup at the floor. It bounced across the floor with a clatter, unharmed. "I would have *died* for this miserable species! I risked my own existence, the displeasure of my people, to save them from the Borg-- how *dare* they be amused by my pain!" "Q, you're overreacting. No one thinks it's funny that beings are trying to kill you, or that you're miserably unhappy. No one thought your suicide attempts were funny. If you had, through ignorance, actually ended up getting raped, no one would have thought that funny. What amuses humans about your situation is your fear of things that seem perfectly natural and pleasant, or at least not unpleasant, to them. You behave as if you're still all-knowing, and so when you're ignorant of something that seems obvious to humans, that's what seems funny. Not the fact that you're suffering." "How do you know? You're not human. You can pretend, you can mimic humans reasonably well, but can you really get inside their heads? Can you know for certain what humans think and feel?" "As certainly as anyone can know what any other being thinks and feels. I've mindmelded with humans, I was raised by them, and with them. There are undoubtedly humans who would find your suffering humorous, or worse. Those are sick people. Most of the humans you will encounter will not be amused." He continued to stare at the floor. She could see an unfocused rage roiling within him, and knew he was going to find some excuse to hang it on, something irrational he could explode against. It looked very much as if they were about to get into a pointless argument. *Well, Counselor, counsel. You're the psychologist-- defuse the situation.* "I'm sorry if I upset you," she said gently. "Can you tell me why you're so angry?" Q looked up and glared at her. "You sympathized with *her*. You'd have taken her side if you'd been there. You as much as admitted that she was wrong, she was violating Starfleet guidelines, she had no business behaving that way toward me, and you *still* feel sorry for her!" "You brought your own mortality down on yourself, and I can still feel sorry for you," T'Laren said. "Just because a person has some complicity in an unpleasant event that happens to them doesn't make sympathy for them an invalid response. You're quite right, Q. She was wrong. But she didn't intend to hurt you, and you didn't really make your own position clear enough before bringing out the heavy guns. If you are going to accuse someone of attempted rape, you should at least make sure that you made your unwillingness adequately clear to them. I don't think you did." "Fine. The next time someone tries that, I'll punch her in the face. Would that be better?" "Ordering her to leave your room immediately would work a bit better, I think. As would sitting or standing up and pushing her away. And then there's the entire universe of tactful rejections, which I suspect I or someone will have to teach you at some point. If all else fails, lie and say you can't because your people have forbidden it. Or, if the person doesn't know your circumstances, claim religious reasons. Anyone in Starfleet would back off at that point." "It doesn't matter," Q muttered. "It's not going to happen again anyway." "Do you mean that it won't happen because you're less naive, and won't let matters progress that far? Or do you mean it won't happen because no one will make the offer again?" "Either." "I wouldn't count on the second one if I were you. When your health improves, people will start finding you at least physically attractive again-- and since one of our purposes here is to make you more socially attractive, even people who know you reasonably well might consider you worth pursuing. I think you're reasonably correct on the first, though-- but I still think having a few tactful rejections in your repertoire couldn't hurt." "Whatever you say." He stood up abruptly. "When are we reaching the conference?" "In five days." "I'm bored. Let's speed things up." "Do you think you're well enough?" "I'm not going to get any better by being bored out of my skull, now am I?" "You'll get better by eating right and exercising." "Which I've been doing. I can handle the conference, T'Laren. And we can safely speed up to warp 8 without straining the crystals." T'Laren considered. She suspected strongly that Q was saying this because he was tired of her persuading him to talk about things he would have preferred to keep secret. It was possible that that technique was reaching the point of diminishing returns, though, and it was time to see him interacting with other people, see how far he had indeed come. "I'll notify the Yamato of the change in plans." "Fine. I'll be in my quarters." He was not, however, in his quarters when she came to tell him of Yamato's confirmation. She found him on Deck 4, doing something incomprehensible to the airlocks with a toolkit. "Q?" Q looked up at her almost cheerfully. "And the verdict is?" "We'll be rendezvousing with Yamato in three days instead of five. What are you doing?" "Fixing the airlock." "I didn't know it was broken." Q returned to what he was doing. "It wasn't, exactly. I'm really not fond of that damned security interlock." A chill went down T'Laren's spine. "Were you planning on spacing any living beings?" she asked coolly. "You never know," Q said absently. She knelt next to him and put her hand on his shoulder, tugging him to face her gently. He turned. "What *is* it, T'Laren? I'm busy." "I can see that. I want to know why." "Because. The idea that we can't use the airlocks to space something that might be trying to kill me bothers me just a little bit. Like many `safety' features, I consider this one to be particularly unsafe. So I'm disabling it." "If you disable the safety interlock, it would be far easier for you to space yourself, should you decide to kill yourself," T'Laren said softly. Q put down his tools. "I know that. Why do you think I waited until now to do it?" T'Laren nodded slowly. She thought she knew what he meant, but she wanted confirmation. "Can you explain that?" "I've decided not to kill myself." He picked up the tools again. "I mean, I decided I wasn't going to kill myself right away when I came on this trip. But I thought about it-- I've been thinking about it, for the past few days-- and I've come to the conclusion that I don't *want* to kill myself. That, except with a few bouts with nightmares, I haven't really wanted to since I came aboard Ketaya. I feel much better about my life-- I'm far from happy, but I think I can stick this out for a few more years." Q turned back to his work. "So I've decided that I'm off suicide watch, and I can afford to have something like a live airlock within reach again. I've felt insecure about not being able to use this airlock for some time." "But you felt that you couldn't trust yourself? And now you can?" "Now I can," he agreed. She believed him. His very casualness about the decision made her certain he was sincere. Deliberately T'Laren allowed the smile she felt to show on her face. "I'm very glad." Q glanced at her quickly, and turned back to his work with a small grin spreading across his face. "And I'm glad you're glad. Now can we adjourn the meeting of the mutual admiration society and let me get back to my work?" "Don't tire yourself out. We still have to do your self- defense lessons." "Yes, yes. Go away, T'Laren." She turned away, toward the lift. "I'll see you at lunch." Three days later they docked with Yamato. END CHAPTER II