A Captain And A Madman

Chapter Three: Trouble Brewing

"One thing I've got to ask," Riker said, "is whether anyone else is getting the damnedest sense of deja vu."

The senior staff had assembled for a briefing in the Conference Lounge; though they'd had another such briefing less than six hours earlier, to fine-tune the logistics relating to their mission to Alcheron V, this one had been arranged for a much more specific, and far more unusual, reason.

Data frowned, just a little. "I will confess that many of our conferences are quite similar in layout; I've noticed that Lieutenant Worf has seated in that precise chair more than seventy five percent of the-"

"Not the meeting, Data," Riker corrected; "I mean, this... Doctor."

Picard was in the midst of massaging his temples with one hand, but he managed a wan smile; "I presume you're referring to our illustrious visitor not too long ago, Mister Rasmussen."

"Exactly," Riker agreed, spreading his hands as if in supplication; "Both of them very eccentric men in little ships, loosely speaking, that are supposedly capable of time travel. Both ending up on the Enterprise, both claiming they'd like background information, of one sort or another, both acting like they own the place, neither giving us a single piece of useful information, just more and more questions. Only Rasmussen turned out to be a con man from the past... so how can we be sure that this Doctor doesn't have some ulterior motive?"

Picard thought about it for a moment before replying; "I will confess, both have similarities..."

"Both talk too much," Worf muttered under his breath.

"...but at the same time," the Captain continued, "Rasmussen came with a seemingly legitimate, if unusual, explanation for his presence. He had an indisputably advanced vessel, knowledge of who we all were and of the Enterprise, enough evidence to create an adequate cover, as any competent conman would need. This Doctor, on the other hand, has a story, an origin, a very methodology and style that all seem to scream impossibility... it's as if he stepped from a child's bedtime story, a madman with a magic box. If someone wished to deceive us, there are certainly more reasonable ways to go about it."

"There is another possibility," Worf rumbled; "Q."

"The thought occurred to me, Mister Worf," Picard admitted; "Actually, the thought occurs to me whenever anything unusual happens. But it is unlike Q to work behind the scenes like this... he usually likes to flaunt his actions, proudly claim responsibility for them. This sort of deception would be uncharacteristic of him."

"So, what?" Riker asked, running a hand across his jaw. "We're just going to accept that we're being visited by a bowtie-wearing time traveler in a wooden box from another dimension?

"I think," Picard said slowly, "until we have evidence to directly contradict his story, we have to at least take some of what he says on faith... though we should not drop our guard just yet. Doctor Crusher, what precisely did your examination reveal? What is he?"

"I honestly don't know what to call him," Crusher admitted, settling back into her chair; "He seems perfectly human on the outside, but medical scans show a completely alien biology, unlike anything I've encountered before. Two hearts, cerebral activity completely off the charts, a metabolism that seems to require very little food... there are organs and neurological structures that I can't even begin to guess at, some of which might even hint at telepathic ability. Even a DNA analysis is raising more questions than it's answering. It's almost as if his genetic code's been repeatedly torn apart and stitched back together in a different sequence, as it's littered with fragmented genomes, and in a constant state of flux. Even more bizarre than that, however, are the trace amounts of radiation in his tissue."