Transcription is commonly defined as template-directed RNA synthesis mediated by a polymerase. However, this definition is historically contingent on duplex DNA and is not a logical necessity for heredity. In this work, I develop a general framework for reading and transcription in Q-DNA, defined as a canonical tetra-stranded hereditary polymer, without assuming the existence of a classical RNA polymerase. I introduce the notion of decoding channels, formalize local and topological readout mechanisms, and analyze the emergence and resolution of controlled ambiguities inherent to multi-strand encoding. This framework leads to a precise definition of the Q-code and establishes explicit constraints on any physical or enzymatic system capable of reading tetra-stranded genetic information.