REP: Oasis 6/8 [PG-13] (TNG, Q)
Laura Taylor
By each spot the most unholy
In each nook most melancholy
There the traveler meets aghast
Sheeted memories from the Past
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by
Edgar Allen Poe
"Dream-Land"
Q squeezed his eyes shut against the burning wind and sand, forcing
tears down his cheeks. Between his legs he felt the steady, rhythmic
motion of a galloping horse as the muffled beat of hooves pounding the
desert floor echoed in his head. He had no recollection of seeing the
moon, but the entire desert seemed to be bathed in the milky cool glow
of a full moon. A few paces ahead, Fatima rode a pure white mare,
counterpoint to Q's own obsidian-black steed, her robes streaming behind
her like the tail on a comet. Silence and darkness hung oppressively
low, yet refused to touch the riders or their mounts as they raced
across the empty dunes.
Q called out to Fatima, to ask her where she was leading him and why
they had left the camp in the middle of the night, but she was either
ignoring him or just out of the range of his voice. He spoke to his
mount, urging it to go faster, but Fatima remained just beyond his
reach. Frantic, Q stretched out his long arm in desperation, silently
pleading for her to wait, but to no avail.
Then Fatima reined in her horse, pulling it up sharply, and turned to
look at Q. "What is it you wish from me? Haven't I done enough for you
already?" Her voice was brittle, resentment and condemnation evident
beneath the clipped syllables. "Our journey will be difficult; we have
no time to waste on your irrelevant questions."
Q guided the stallion until it stood parallel with the white mare, and
realized just how impossibly monochromatic the entire scene was.
Everything he saw was in shades of black or white, with not even a
glimmer of color to disrupt the stark contrasts. Disturbed by the sight,
Q asked, "Where are we going?"
Fatima sighed. "Where I lead, you must follow; where I am going, you
cannot go," was her cryptic response. She raised her arm and pointed to
an indeterminate point in the distant darkness. "Come; they are waiting
for us." She prodded her mount and took off, leaving Q in a whirlwind of dust.
Coughing and sputtering, he chased after her, but the swirling sand
obscured his vision and he could not find her. Even the hoof prints had
disappeared. He reined in his steed to get his bearings and collect his thoughts.
What had she meant by ordering him to follow, yet refusing to let him go
where she went? She was truly a sphinx, or an oracle, or worse. She was
definitely too enigmatic for his comfort, and standing in the pale
desert, cold, lost and alone, Q felt lonely and frightened.
He had no memory of who he was or where he came from, nor could he
recall how he had come to be in the desert. The brief flashes of what he
hoped were memories were of the heavens far above this desolate expanse,
filled with stars and ships and strangely familiar faces, all ebbing and
flowing in a massive ocean of fire, at the center of which stood Fatima
and Abu. Q's fractured self-consciousness could not make any sense out
of the images and, to disconcert him even further, he suspected that
Fatima could help him, if she were not so determined to shroud herself
in mystery. And now she was — or had been, before she abandoned him —
leading Q on this strange moonlit journey across the dunes to heaven
only knew where.
Suddenly chilled, Q shivered violently and wrapped his cloak tightly
about his shoulders. He dismounted and pulled the reins over his horse's
head, leading it behind him as he trudged across the sand in the
direction he thought Fatima had been headed.
After what may have been minutes, or may have been hours, for Q's sense
of time was as disrupted as his sense of self, he spotted what looked to
be a small beacon of color in the distance. As he approached it, he
realized that, whatever it was, it was most definitely brown. Not black,
or white, but brown. As the object loomed nearer, Q thought it was some
sort of statue, or fountain, or perhaps a road sign, though there was no
road in sight. Then, as the object's dimensions became more clear, Q
recognized it as a herm, a devotional device once found at intersections
throughout ancient Greece. It stood about six feet tall, with three
bearded heads carved near the top, each head facing a different
direction. Midway between the heads and pedestal was a ridiculously
enlarged erect phallus. Q stopped to study the statue, and as he walked
around it to inspect it from all angles, he noticed that he was no
longer standing in the desert, but at a three-way intersection, with
each of the three heads facing one of the roads leading away from the
herm. Then the herm spoke.
"Whither goest thou, traveler?"
Q nearly jumped out of his skin. "What the--? I wasn't expecting an
enchanted herm."
"An enchanted herm? Oh, that's a fine treat. But this is thy dream, so
if I surprised thee, it's only thy own fault."
"This is a dream?"
"Is it a dream? Or is it reality? The difference is not so great, I
think. When thou hast the ability to translate thought into action, the
line blurs. Dreams and reality flow through thee, uniting and
separating, until thou canst not tell one from the other."
"Well then, Father Hermes, perhaps you can tell what this dream means?
That is your purpose, isn't it - to interpret dreams?"
"No. I cannot. My home is in the borderlands between Earth and Hades,
helping travelers find their way to the Styx, but thou art not like
other travelers. Thou art not dead, yet...thou dost not live. Thou art
wandering through the borderlands, and now that thou hast come before
me, thou must choose thy path. The road behind thee takes thee back
whence thou came; do not look back or thy fate will be like that of
Lot's wife. Thou must choose from the other two paths. Each road will
lead thee to Anubis. There Anubis will judge thee, and thou wilt learn
thy destiny. I cannot tell thee which road to choose, traveler; I can
only tell thee to seek the phoenix rising from the ashes, for she will
lead thee to the sign of life."
Q stepped back, puzzled and frustrated with the herm's riddles. How was
he supposed to know which road to choose? Then he noticed a faint
glimmer of red on the horizon, in the direction of the road leading to
his left. He looked up, and for the first time since his strange journey
began he noticed the full moon descending in the west, to his right. Of
course! The herm had instructed him to seek the phoenix rising from the
ashes — the sun rising in the east! He turned to retrieve his horse, but
it had disappeared. He looked back at the herm, about to ask where the
horse had gone, but then he remembered Fatima.
"I was with someone — a young woman — earlier, but we were separated.
Has she come by here? She had told me that I was supposed to follow her."
The herm waggled its phallus in a grotesque rebuke. "It is thy journey,
traveler. Thou must make it alone. Hurry, for Anubis becomes impatient.
And traveler? Remember me to Anubis." At that the herm disappeared, and
Q found himself in a hardwood forest, the three roads clearly marked
between the trees. He turned left and headed towards the sun.
Presently he came upon a tall, dark-skinned man wearing the native
costume of one of the American Indian tribes. Though his attire was
ornately decorated with beads and feathers, his face remained unmarked
except for a small feathered tattoo over his left eyebrow. He stood
before Q, strong, proud and immovable. A wolf trotted out of the woods
and sat silently at his feet, her lips curled in an eerie grin.
Something about the stranger looked familiar to Q, but he could not put
his finger on what. The man looked him up and down, then, without saying
a word, drew a circle in the dirt with his toe.
Q felt panic rising up within him. The herm had not warned him about any
dangers along the road, only about meeting Anubis, the jackal-headed
Egyptian Lord of the Dead. Was this stranger Anubis, and if not, then
who was he and what threat did he pose to Q? Was he the test, the
judgment that Anubis would supposedly impose on Q? What was the meaning
of the circle drawn in the dirt?
Then Q remembered the herm's instructions: 'Seek the sign of life.
Remember me to Anubis.' Holding his breath with nervous anticipation, Q
stepped forward and drew a T, for the intersection where he met the
herm, in the dirt below the circle. Tau with Omega ascendant: the ankh,
the Egyptian sign of life.
The stranger smiled. "You have met the challenge, traveler. In your
dream, I am Anubis, but you have known me elsewhere as Chakotay."
Q's mind reeled. He was flooded with images of a ship floundering far
from home, tensions simmering among its crew, a hodgepodge of formerly
warring camps, and of a woman, her hands on her hips, her strong chin
jutting in defiance, and of a boy...his boy. His child. He staggered,
then dropped to his knees as unexpected grief overwhelmed him. The wolf
padded over and licked his tears.
"You have one more challenge ahead of you, traveler," Anubis-Chakotay
said. "The road behind me forks. One path will lead you home. The other
path...it is difficult to say."
Q looked up, but the man and wolf had vanished, and the scene had
changed once again. Now he found himself on top of a mountain, with two
roads leading to the base. As Anubis-Chakotay had not given him any
warnings or instructions, Q turned left, as he had before, and made his
way down from the summit.
As he rounded a large boulder, Q spotted a small scorpion standing in
the middle of the path, ferociously jabbing her tail at him in a silent
challenge for him to attempt to pass as she skittered back and forth
across the path. Suddenly a high, keening wail shattered the stillness
of the air and the scorpion charged.
*************************
A sharp burning sensation roused Q from his slumber. For a brief moment,
he thought he had actually been stung by the scorpion, and it was only
the sight of a dagger held in Fatima's small hand slicing through the
air over his head that convinced him this was reality, and the scorpion
was a dream. Frozen by terror, he could not decide if it would be safer
for him to remain very still and let Fatima think she had already killed
him, or to flee into the desert. Then he heard the unmistakable hiss of
a cobra poised to strike.
It was enough for him to make a decision.
Q rolled to his right and off the bed faster than he thought humanly
possible, but he barely made it to relative safety before the cobra sank
her fangs into the cushion where his left leg had lain only a second
before. Then Q saw the glint of light on metal, and Fatima's dagger
flashed down and beheaded the cobra before she could tear herself free
of the cushion. Q and Fatima stood there in the half-light, both
breathless, he from not breathing, she from exertion. Then Q felt an
agonizing, burning fire in his leg and gasped in pain as he collapsed on
the bed.
"What is it?" Fatima asked, concern etched on her face.
"I don't think you made it in time," moaned Q, clutching at his thigh.
"I think she got a good chunk of me up here."
Fatima raised her dagger, causing Q to shrink back in distrust, but she
merely used it to tear a seam in his caftan. She sucked in her breath.
"Yes, she did, but I don't think she got you head-on. There may be hope
for you yet."
"Hurry," Q gasped, "The pain — it's like being burned alive."
Fatima looked up, startled. Her face had become deathly pale. Through
his haze of pain, Q thought he saw pain and anger in her eyes before she
regained her composure and went to work on his leg. She tore one sleeve
from her shift and tied it tightly around Q's thigh just above the hole
where one fang had pierced his flesh. With her dagger she made a neat
incision over the hole, causing Q to cry out, then began methodically
sucking the poison out and spitting it into a bowl that seemed to
materialize from out of nowhere. When she was satisfied that she had
removed as much of the toxin as possible, she dabbed some myrrh on the
wound and bound it with her other sleeve. She retrieved a cup and filled
it halfway with water, then hooked the cobra's mouth over the rim and
squeezed just behind the reptile's eyes, forcing whatever poison
remained out through the fangs and into the water. She then handed the
cup to Q.
"Drink this," she ordered gently.
Q's stomach lurched. Despite the care she had just displayed in tending
his wound, he did not trust her. The memory of that dagger arcing
through the air between dream-reality and consciousness, coupled with
the gruesome sight of her 'milking' the severed head of the cobra, was
just too much for him, and he turned away in revulsion. His confidence
only went so far, and with all he had been through lately, it was even
more limited than usual.
"I'm not trying to kill you," Fatima pleaded. "This is an ancient folk
remedy for snakebites. It's an effective serum. It's diluted enough that
it cannot hurt you, although it may make you nauseous."
"I already am nauseous."
"Then it may make you vomit."
"And I'm supposed to want that?"
"Q, I don't know if I was able to remove all the poison from your
bloodstream. Drinking this will help your body develop the antibodies to
fight what's left."
Q turned at the sound of his name and looked closely at Fatima. It was
the first time he had heard her use it, and the gentle, pleading tone in
her voice softened his heart. Grudgingly, he accepted the cup and drank
the contents in one swallow, although as soon as it hit his tongue he
had to fight the impulse to spit it back out. Fatima then removed the
cup from his lips and gently eased her arm down and pulled it away from
where it had been supporting his neck so that his head rested against
the pillow. She tentatively reached out her hand to smooth the hair away
from his forehead, prepared to jerk back if he flinched at her touch. He
did not.
"You were dreaming when the cobra attacked?" she asked, her voice
softened by concern and nervousness.
Q's eyes flew open. "Yes. It was...surreal. I didn't even realize it was
a dream until it was nearly over, and I'm not entirely sure that it was
just a dream."
"Yes, I know. I had the same dream."
"How do you know? I haven't even told you what my dream was about."
"We were riding across the desert under a full moon, until we were
separated. Then we each had to face a challenge posed by a herm, and
later by Anubis. Our response to the challenges determined our destiny.
Is that what you dreamed?"
The look on Q's face was of pure astonishment. "I — Yes, that's exactly
right. Except then I found myself facing a rather high-and-mighty
scorpion, just before I woke up."
There was a faint rustling sound, and Abu Primus stepped out from the
shadows where he had witnessed the entire exchange into Q's line of
sight. "I sent you both that dream," he said. "The scorpion was
specifically sent to Q to warn him about the danger."
Q struggled to sit up. "What? How? To control your own subconscious mind
is one thing, but to project that control on others, and to enable two
people to experience an identical dream...that would require an
incomprehensible amount of telepathic power. You're obviously not just
some desert mystic. Who, or what, are you?" For the first time since he
regained consciousness yesterday, he was beginning to trust Fatima;
Abu's revelation destroyed all that.
"It was necessary. Your life is in serious danger, Q, and you need
Fatima's help. You were too busy trying to find answers to your
questions and to recover your memory to see that. You've never been able
to see the forest for the trees."
Fatima, who had been studying her feet since Abu spoke, raised her eyes
to his. "I think we need to tell him everything. He doesn't trust us."
"If we tell him everything, then he definitely won't trust you," Abu
responded, any hint of reproof absent from his tone.
Q's eyes shifted back and forth between Fatima and Abu. "Tell me
everything? Tell me what? Are you saying that you've known who I am all
along? Then why have you been stringing me along like this?" His voice
was shrill with pain, fear and distrust.
Abu eased himself down cautiously onto the edge of the bed. "Let me tell
you a story first, then we'll see."
"A man set out one day with his beloved son to graze his flock. As they
were headed home, a herd of magnificent gazelles appeared across their
path. Silently and quickly the father rounded up the flock. Warning the
boy not to stray until he returned, he hurried after the gazelles. The
wild things leaped in the air and streaked off as soon as he stepped
towards them, but he was a keen hunter and loved nothing better than the
chase. Eagerly he followed their trail.
"Meanwhile the child waited alone. It was his fate that a She-Ghoul,
that monster of the wilderness who loves to feed on human flesh, should
spy him as he stood unprotected. With one leap she sprang upon him and
greedily devoured him.
"The father hunted long and far but could not catch a single gazelle. At
last he gave up and returned to the flock. His son was nowhere in sight,
but on the ground he found dark drops of blood. He was inconsolable, but
what else could he do but turn home?
"On the way he rode past a cave, and there he saw the She-Ghoul dancing,
fresh from her feast. The man shot her, then slashed open her belly and
in it he found his son. He laid the boy upon his cloak, pulled the
woolen cloak around him tight, and carried him home.
"When he got home he called his wife and said, 'I have brought back a
gazelle, dear wife, but it can only be cooked in a cauldron that has
never been used for a meal of sorrow.'
"The woman went from house to house in search for such a pot. But one
neighbor said, 'We used the large cauldron to cook the rice for the
people who came to weep when my husband died.' Another told her, 'We
last heated the big cooking pot on the day of my son's funeral.' She
knocked at every door but did not find what she sought. So she returned
to her husband empty-handed.
"'Haven't you found the right kind of cauldron?' the man asked. 'There
is no household but has seen misfortune,' she answered. 'There is no
cauldron but has cooked a meal of mourning.' Only then did the man fold
back his woolen cloak and say to her, 'They have all tasted their share
of sorrow. Today the turn is ours. This is my gazelle.'"
When Abu finished, Q snorted, unimpressed and unmoved. "What a lovely
fairy tale. What does it have to do with me?"
Abu stood and looked down at Q, the omnipresent merriment in his eyes
dulled by paternal devotion and grief at the loss of a much-loved child.
"What the story has to do with you, my child, is that I am the father,
and you are the child devoured by the She-Ghoul."
Q's mouth gaped open in shock and disbelief. For what seemed like an
eternity he was incapable of formulating a coherent thought, much less a
question. He at last had the presence of mind to close his mouth and
swallowed loudly. He glanced at Fatima, who sat beside him, her face
ghostly pale, her hands trembling violently as she clutched
involuntarily at her shift. The only person who seemed to have his wits
about him was Abu, so Q redirected his attention to him. "What - I -
That is - I mean - you're my father?" he finally managed to stammer.
Abu nodded gravely. "Essentially, yes. You see, Q is not just your name,
it's what you are; you belong to a race of immortal, omnipotent energy
beings called the Q. And I am the founder of that race."
"And the She-Ghoul?"
"You were recently attacked by an assassin known to us as Soma. You are,
in fact, lying near death on a human starship; everything that you have
experienced here is in your mind. But I have, metaphorically speaking,
rescued you from Soma's belly."
"What about the cobra, or the vulture, or being left for dead in the
desert, for that matter? If this is all in my head, why am I still being
victimized like this?"
"Those are all manifestations of the poison Soma used on you. The
sunburn represents fire; the vulture, air; and the cobra, earth. You
should only have to face the threat of one more material element, water,
and then the poison should finally be out of your system. But you will
not be out of the woods yet. That is where Fatima comes into all this,"
Abu added, anticipating Q's question before he even moved his lips. Q
looked at her, and she nodded in silent agreement. "Her role has not yet
really been defined, although she and I have a sense of what it will
encompass. Just let me impress upon you how much you need her if you're
going to survive, Q. As she told you in your dream, where she leads, you
must follow."
Q closed his eyes and tried to control the flurry of emotions raging
within him. As soon as Abu Primus had told Q who he was, a rush of
memories flooded him, nearly overwhelming him. He had a vague sensation
of the knowledge of his immortality and omnipotence expanding outwards
and straining to overcome the boundaries created by the poison, like an
overfilled balloon about to burst. He envisioned Chaos mocking him as he
tried to make sense of the jumble of images swirling past his eyes. Q
forced himself to relax, allowing the memories to wash over him, sifting
through them as he sought one memory in particular. The image of a
red-faced, middle-aged balding man came to him, and Q recognized
Jean-Luc Picard from his vision while whirling in the desert. Q mentally
stepped back from the image, studying it, and saw himself, teasing
Picard, taunting him because Picard refused to acknowledge Q's power.
Then he saw the Borg cube, saw the merciless automatons as they attacked
the Enterprise. He saw the plasma heat and the handsome young lieutenant
force himself into the conduit, defying all survival instincts on behalf
of his crewmates. Then he saw the grief-stricken widow, her face
shrouded in tears, and at last he knew. He understood. And for the first
time in his infinite existence, Q felt remorse.
He opened his eyes. He was alone. Where Abu and Fatima had gone, he did
not care to know. All he knew was grief and sorrow.
He pulled his knees to his chest, turned his face into the pillow and
sobbed his regret to the cosmos.
TBC...
--
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"This city of monuments [Washington, D.C.] is itself a monument to
blunders, bungles and boondoggles. Part of what makes this country great
is it can survive Washington year after year."
Tom Shales