by Peter David
“I see.” Despite the gravity of the situation, Calhoun had to fight back a slight smile. “And you’d say this, even though it may be the only method that might succeed in bringing Tsana out of her coma. . . .”
“She is not in a coma, ‘Dr.’ Calhoun,” Selar interrupted him coolly. “She is in shock. Her mind has withdrawn into itself. I am not especially familiar with this race. For all I know, that is not an unusual reaction for this species to undergo when faced with situations of great trauma.”
“Not unusual?” He pointed at the insensate girl lying on the other side of the room. “That child is in pain, Doctor.”
“You don’t know that, Captain.”
“I believe I do.” He kept looking at her. When he next spoke to Selar, it was with his back still to her. “Ever watch a cat sleep, Doctor?”
Selar stared at him blankly, then glanced at Burgoyne. S/he shrugged, no help at all. “A cat,” she repeated. “Small earth creature?”
He nodded. “You can tell when they’re having hunting dreams. You watch their ears twitch. You watch their paws move, thrust ever so slightly as they dream about stalking some helpless prey. Well, two-legged individuals have the same sort of telltale body language sometimes, Doctor, even when they’re not part of the waking world. You tell me that Tsana is not in a coma, and I’ll take your word for it. But watch her carefully. She twitches every now and then—”
“Muscle spasms,” Selar said.
“Possibly,” he allowed. “But watch. See? See how she seems to put her hands up a bit, there . . . right there, she just did it.” And indeed, just for a moment, a sudden slight convulsion of Tsana’s hands occurred, palms up.
“I saw, yes. Very minor. I do not see—”
“No, you don’t. But I see. She’s warding something off, Doctor. She’s trying to keep something away from her. Something that terrifies her.”
“Captain, that is pure supposition,” Selar said.
“Possibly,” he admitted. “Or possibly she is in a state of deep shock, kept where she is, blocked by something she is so afraid to deal with that her only choice is to stay deeply hidden within herself so she doesn’t have to face it.”
“Either way, the result remains the same.”
He pivoted on his heel to face her. “Only for as long as you allow it to remain the same.”
“Captain, I really must insist—” Burgoyne started to say.
But Selar interrupted him. “The captain is endeavoring to instill some measure of guilt within me, Commander. He will not succeed. Vulcans do not feel guilt.”
“Or pity,” said Calhoun.
“That is not necessarily the case,” she said. “At the moment, I pity you for making these pathetic efforts, endeavoring to have me override not only my concerns for my own privacy, but also that which makes medical sense. She is a species I have not yet encountered, Captain. I said it before, but I do not think you fully comprehend it.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the desk. Her face was cold and hard. “Allow me to explain it to you. If we approached a planet with the notion of going down to its surface, would you insist on a full sensor scan to ascertain—to the best of your ability—whether it was hospitable? Even survivable? Or would you simply take a shuttlecraft to the surface without any sort of prior analysis and just hope that the away team didn’t die from . . . oh, I don’t know, methane poisoning . . . the moment they opened the doors? Ideally—and I certainly hope this would be your answer, for if it was not, I may recommend you be relieved of command—you would endorse exploring the world before setting foot on it.”
“And this is similar, is what you’re saying.”
“Any alien mind is terra incognita, as cratered and dangerous as any other. It must be carefully studied, catalogued, and understood. For all you know, Captain . . . for all any of us knows . . . I could wind up doing that girl more harm than good. There are Vulcans who are absolute masters of the mind-meld, who have honed it to such a degree, through years of training, that they could thrust themselves into any sort of mental situation and survive it. I am not one of them. I am a doctor, not a psychic. My job is to heal bodies, not reconstruct fractured minds.”
“I thought your job was to help people,” Calhoun told her.
Her eyes narrowed. “And I thought, Captain, that your job was to maintain amicable relations with races, not kidnap members of their ruling class. I have refrained from telling you how to do your job. Kindly extend me the same courtesy.”
There was so much more Calhoun wanted to say, so many ways he felt he could approach the question in a manner that might convince her. He even opened his mouth as if he was about to reply, but then he saw the way her face was set, the inflexibility in her eyes. So he closed his mouth and instead simply said, “Very well. Do all that you can to help her.” Whereupon he turned and left without another word.
“How fortunate that he told me that,” she said dryly. “Had he not, I might have done less than I could to help her.” She looked up at Burgoyne and said, “I appreciate your support.”
“Thank you.” S/he dropped into the chair opposite Selar, straddling it. “Selar . . . the mind-meld is the only way.”
She moaned ever so softly. “Burgoyne . . .”
“Selar, listen to me. As you yourself pointed out, Captain Calhoun removed this girl against the will of the Aerons. She had been here for some time. There is no question in my mind that the Aerons have already contacted Starfleet. We may be hearing from them before too long. The odds are that Starfleet is going to frown on the captain’s actions and order him to return Tsana to the Aerons.”
“Certainly that would be the captain’s concern rather than mine.”
“It should be your concern, because she is your patient. If she is returned to that world, she may never recover.”
“We do not know that, Burgoyne. I do not know that, nor do you. What I do know is that it is my responsibility to tend to her medical needs and to do her no harm.”
“No, Selar,” s/he said intently. “That’s your job. Your responsibility is to help that girl. You know that.”
“Kindly do not tell me what I know.”
“All right. I’ll tell you what I know. There was nothing in Soleta’s job description saying that she should help you when you were in emotional turmoil months ago, remember? But she mentally merged with you to—”
“Stop it.” The tips of her ears were flushing green ever so slightly. “I do not wish to speak of that, Burgoyne. It was an intensely personal situation, and I do not feel that either it, or Soleta’s involvement in it, are appropriate for discussion.”
“I’m your lover, Selar, and the cocreator of our child. It doesn’t get much more personal than that.”
“That,” she said, “shows how little you truly understand me.”
“I understand you, Selar. I understand you well enough to know that when you needed help, Soleta was there for you, and when that girl needs help,” and s/he pointed at Tsana, “you aren’t there for her. All because you’re afraid—”
“It has nothing to do with fear.”
“It has everything to do with fear. The thing you hate more than anything else in this universe, Selar, is opening yourself up, even a little bit.” Despite the tension in the air, s/he actually smiled slightly, revealing the edges of hir fangs. “The fact that you have done so with me, even the small amount that you have, is a source of great pride to me. You don’t want to try and probe Tsana’s mind because it means you’d have to let your guard down slightly, and you hate that. Hate that with a passion, which is doubly aggravating, considering you acknowledge neither hatred nor passion as part of your psychological makeup. But we’re on the clock now, Selar. If Starfleet steps in, and the captain refuses to obey—which, knowing him, he might do—they could court-martial him. You won’t have helped him, the ship, or Tsana. You’ll only have helped yourself stay safe and sound in your cocoon of logic and imperviousness to emotion.”
Her eyes n
arrowed. “Did you put this together? You and Calhoun?”
“What? What are you—?”
“Are you working in tandem with him?” she said. “First his approach, more strident, and then yours—”
“Selar! For the love of . . .” In utter exasperation, s/he stood and said, “Look, I’m telling you what I think. I’m sorry if you believe that I was somehow coerced into saying it. I would like to think that, in the future, I would be able to tell you what’s on my mind without it being second-guessed as having some sort of sinister motivation.”
“I was not saying it was ‘sinister.’”
But Burgoyne wasn’t listening. Instead s/he said briskly, “I’ll see you this evening,” and exited Selar’s office and sickbay.
Once in the corridor, s/he walked about ten feet and then stopped. Calhoun was leaning against the bulkhead, arms folded, waiting with one eyebrow cocked. “Well?” he inquired.
“She figured it out,” said Burgoyne. “That you and I were working together.”
“Grozit,” muttered Calhoun. “Well, we thought that might happen. . . .”
“You thought that might happen, Captain,” Burgoyne reminded him. “You asked me to aid you in this, and I cooperated because I’m your second-in-command, and because I really do feel she should help the girl.” S/he glanced around to make sure no one was coming from either direction, then lowered hir voice and continued. “But I feel as if you were trying to manipulate her through me.”
“I would say ‘influence.’ ‘Manipulate’ is a harsh word. . . .”
“But wholly inaccurate, Captain?”
Calhoun looked levelly into hir eyes, and then admitted, “Not . . . wholly, I suppose.”
“Captain . . .” Burgoyne paused, trying to determine the best thing to say. “I am very anxious to do whatever I can to accommodate you. I want to serve you in the capacity of second-in-command to the best of my ability. But so help me, if you ever attempt to utilize me in that fashion again—”
“Understood.”
“I will resign the post.”
“I said, understood, Commander,” Calhoun repeated.
“With all respect, Captain, I know you say you understand . . . but that’s not the same as a promise that you won’t.”
“No. It’s not,” said Calhoun. “I can’t read the future, Burgoyne. I don’t know what will happen in times to come, nor do I know what I will be calling upon you to do. All I can promise is that I will certainly take your sensibilities into consideration, and be aware of the consequences of anything I might request. I certainly hope that will satisfy you.”
Burgoyne considered it, then sighed. “I certainly hope so, too, Captain.”
It was an hour later when Selar became aware of him.
He had entered so silently that he had eluded the notice of not only the doctor, but all the technicians in sickbay. She finally noticed him though. Surprisingly, he was standing next to Tsana, looking at the insensate girl. She strode over to him, her normally deadpan face slightly pinched to display her annoyance. “Moke,” she said, “we have been over this. If you are not ill, you should not be here.”
The boy glanced up at her, looking chagrined, taking a step back as if he thought he could scamper back into the shadows and elude detection. Apparently realizing that was a hopeless prospect, though, he stayed where he was. He didn’t apologize for his presence. He didn’t say anything; just kept shifting his gaze from Selar to Tsana and back again.
A thought crossed her mind. Watching his eyes very carefully for any sign of prevarication, she said, “Did Captain Cal—did your adoptive father send you here?”
He looked puzzled. “No. Why would he do that?” And there was enough sincerity in that question, in that whole clearly befuddled attitude that she was immediately satisfied that he had come of his own initiative. She could not know for certain, of course, but every instinct told her that the child was as incapable of duplicity as she herself was. However, that still left her with an obvious question, which she promptly asked.
“Then why are you here?”
He did not answer immediately. Instead he looked at Tsana. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I am not quite certain,” admitted Selar, bound by Vulcan society and culture to answer truthfully in all things when it was remotely possible.
“Oh.”
“Are you here because of her, Moke?”
“No.”
“Then why?” Indeed, part of her wasn’t the least bit interested in the “why” of it. She wanted him out and gone, and that would be that. But another part—the hated, “less logical” side—wanted its needs attended to.
“Because of you.”
She stared at him. “I do not understand.”
“Okay.” And apparently that, in Moke’s opinion, was that. The fact that she didn’t understand seemed to be—as far as he was concerned—solely her problem. Instead, his attention was back on Tsana. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
“It is very complicated, and you should not be—”
“Can you make her better?” he asked with some urgency.
Well . . . there it was. The question, stripped of all its second-guessing and rationalization. She wanted to lie to the boy. She wanted to lie to herself. But she could not. “ Possibly, yes,” she said.
He had been standing behind Tsana. Now he walked around the medscan table, his chin barely coming up to the edge, and his eyes were directly on level with Tsana’s open but unseeing eyes. He blinked owlishly, stared into them, then looked up at Selar and said, “Then you should.”
He said nothing more, just left that three-word statement hanging in the air. He left almost immediately thereafter, but Selar did not move from the bedside. She simply stood there, staring down at the immobilized child.
There was a footfall by her side, one of her associate physicians approaching, a petite, redheaded woman. “Dr. Selar . . . ? Has there been a change in the patient’s condition?”
“No. No, there hasn’t, Dr. Scasino.” She turned to the physician. “Stay near, would you, please?”
Scasino looked at her oddly, obviously a bit confused by the tone of Selar’s voice. “Yes, Doctor. Is there a prob—?”
Selar did not wait for the question to be finished. Instead, she turned to Tsana and gently placed her fingers on either side of the girl’s forehead. “Our minds are merging, Tsana . . .
“. . . merging . . .
“. . . merging . . . do not be afraid . . . merging . . .”
She slid through easily, like a melting drop of snow dancing between the breaks in a rock face. There was no resistance, none.
All around her was darkness, a void. She tried to visualize herself, to see her self-image of her hands, feet, legs, anything, but there was nothing. By this point in the merge, there should have been enough illumination for Selar to put together a coherent version of herself. Then she quickly discerned why she was having trouble. A merge literally drew upon the abilities, the thoughts of two minds, working as one. Each mind drew strength from the other.
But in Tsana’s case, there was nothing to draw from. She had withdrawn so fully, so completely, that it was like melding with a black hole. As much as Selar was putting forward, she was getting little to nothing back again.
It was a daunting moment for Selar as she weighed her options. Her natural caution told her to retreat rather than hurl herself into a situation that was increasingly fraught with danger, since she didn’t know or understand the parameters of it. . . .
“Then you should.” Moke’s childish, innocent comment still hung upon her. It was irritating, and she could only think that she was ascribing any sort of importance to it at all because she was looking at his quiet, troubled eyes and seeing an image of her own son as he got older.
She pushed further in. Still there was no resistance, and she began to probe with almost reckless abandon, trying to find some aspect of the girl that was salvageable, approachable. You�
�re hiding, she called through the void. You’re hiding . . . I can tell, Tsana. I can sense it. Which was not really true; she could sense nothing save the emptiness around her, but she was hoping that somehow, in some way, the probe would draw her out.
She heard something . . . well, not heard. Not technically. It was a sensing of something that simulated auditory stimulation in the meld. She glided toward it, a deep sea diver with an endless (or maybe not so endless) supply of oxygen, spiraling into the depths, and there was shouting, and feet running, and crying out, and sickening splats like raw meat being thrown against walls. . . .
Existence and nonexistence lurched around her, and suddenly she was hauled in and down, like a roller coaster that had been quietly cruising along and suddenly hit a drop. She hung on, fighting the urge to scream, because such reactions were counterproductive to the success and smoothness of a mind-meld. She needed to retain her core, her essence; she needed to remain focused, damn it. There was always a danger, when merging with a strong personality, that one could virtually be consumed by it. There was a similar danger when merging with one who was so vacant that there was pure emptiness everywhere. Just like a diver, she could lose track of which way was up or down, which way presented escape, and unlike a diver, she couldn’t simply release a few air bubbles and follow them to be guided to the surface. . . .
She kept hearing the sounds, the same sounds, over and over, and then she realized that it was not simply a continuation of the noises, it was a repetition. The same set of noises, repeatedly. Tsana was reliving something. She was caught in a loop, her mind shutting down, not allowing her to depart from it.
The sounds grew louder, as if Selar were approaching a battlefield, and then she was gone, that was all, just gone, sucked down, sucked away, and she saw Tsana, and she was Tsana, and the terror was overwhelming, and the floor under the bed was cold, so cold, and the dust under the bed made her want to sneeze, but she knew if she did she’d be dead because they were dead, her brothers were dead, she had just seen it happen, the man had been there, the man with the big gun, and when her brothers had seen him they had almost laughed because they’d been so relieved, except he’d shot them and she heard their bodies fly backwards and pieces of them hit the wall, and pieces of them splattered to the floor in front of her, and there was blood coming down from everywhere, as if she was in a rainstorm of blood, and all she wanted to do was scream and scream and keep on screaming forever as the blood pooled around her, but she didn’t dare, she couldn’t make a noise, Selar couldn’t make a noise, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe because he would come again, the man would find them, and she wanted to run, and she had run, and more men were chasing her, and she couldn’t take it anymore, she just couldn’t, Selar couldn’t, Tsana couldn’t, they couldn’t, she couldn’t, it was safer here, safer, safer . . .