The Human Trap

 

[BUZZER SOUNDS] 

[LOCK CLICKS] 

This way, sir. 

Q. :

You? You summoned me? 

Young Guinan :

You must be Q. 

Took your damn time. 

Q. :

And you are that multi-celled, sanctimonious, 

droning shrew known as Guinan. 

Right, it's the 21st century. 

Our paths have yet to cross. 

Young Guinan :

I thought The Summoning 

didn't work —

Q. :

"Summoning"? 

The summoning 

is a sacred ritual. 

Not a chat by which you bipeds 

exchange the nauseating 

minutiae of your pathetic lives. 

Young Guinan :

When the ritual stalled, 

I felt something. 

Emptiness and Fear. 

I thought it was me. 

But it wasn't. I feel it 

on you. You're dying. 

Q. :

Another quality I sincerely loathe 

about your species. Empathy. 

Young Guinan :

I knew you could kill each other. 

But otherwise, aren't you... 

Q. :

Immortal? So I believed. 

Yet now... for the first time 

as I look across the temporal 

horizon, it darkens. 

You think I'm dying. 

I prefer to believe that 

I am on the threshold 

of The Unknowable. 

When I first I felt it, I thought 

to myself, "This is good. 

This is new." Infinite Life, 

after all, has its drawbacks. 

And so I prepared myself 

to be enveloped 

in the warm glow 

of Meaning. 

Well, that moment 

has yet to come. 

Not even a glimmer. 

Dying stars burn brighter 

as they spin towards extinction. 

I, on the other hand, seem to be 

simply disappearing... 

into nothing. 

Why do you think it took 

me so long to get here? 

Young Guinan :

That's why you walked in here today? 

Why you're using humans as 

your game pieces? 

Q. : (snaps away 

impotently at Thin Air —)

You see that? I'm honestly trying 

to vaporise you at this moment. 

Young Guinan :

This thing you're doing to Picard, 

it's how you're hoping to find... 

Meaning in Your Life? 

Q. :

I now have A Lifetime. 

Can a single act redeem 

A Lifetime? 

Young Guinan :

Why bring him 

to The Past? 

Q. :

I did not bring him into The Past. 

He did that on his own. 

There are many forms 

of Time Travel. 

Young Guinan :

But he's trapped here. 

Q. :

The Trap... is immaterial. 

It's The Escape that counts. 

I'll see you when I see 

you... unfortunately. 

[BUZZER SOUNDS]

[LOCK CLICKS] 

Humans. They're all 

trapped in The Past. 

[DOOR CLOSES]