By now Worf was at the door. He jammed his fingers in between, gritted his teeth, and grunted. The doors hissed open under the Klingon's strength.

Worf staggered forward slightly, and came within a hairsbreadth of toppling into the shaft. For that was all that was there before him... the darkened shaft. There was no turbolift in sight.

But before Worf could be in serious danger, Riker and Picard had already grabbed him by the arm and uniform back, and pulled him to safety. Q, standing nearby, murmured, "You needn't have worried. He would probably have just landed on his head and been spared serious injury."

Riker leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of the shaft. For the briefest of moments he felt as Orpheus must have, shouting into the black hole that led down into Hades, howling the name of his beloved as she was sent hurtling back to her doom.

"Deanna!" he shouted.

"Today's Random Passage from Q-Squared, a 1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation Novel by Peter David" will continue on Blogtown throughout the week. Can't wait until tomorrow's installment? Q-Squared, a 1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel by Peter David, is available at Powell's.