Intermission
6: Underneath My Lucid Skin
Disclaimer:
The Usual. ParaBorg owns 'em. They don't own this story, or its
original content. Neener, neener.
Summary:
From "Dagger of the Mind," the mind-meld scene.
Rating:
PG, TOS
"The
ice is thin, come on dive in
Underneath
my lucid skin
The
cold is lost, forgotten
Hours
pass, days pass, time stands still
Light
gets dark and darkness fills my secret heart…forbidden"
---Sarah
McLachlan
"Ice"
---///---
McCoy
pulls me aside as I watch the unconscious form of Van Gelder. "We
need to talk. I don't think Van Gelder's mad, at least not in the
sense we were led to believe, and if he's not, then Jim could be in
real danger."
I
think of all of Van Gelder's ravings as I have heard them: the neural
neutralizer, allegations of abuse in the penal colony. The ravings
seem to focus on Dr Adams, who was Van Gelder's colleague, and whom
the captain and Dr Noel have beamed down to investigate. "I
concur," I say simply.
"Well,
what are you planning to do about it?" McCoy blusters angrily.
"Don't agree with me, do something!"
I
have known the doctor for long enough to hear the very real concern
under his volatility. "What do you suggest?" I ask,
ignoring the anger that crashes at my shielding. The concern is,
after all, one I share.
The
doctor sighs then. "I don't know. We have to have some way of
knowing if Van Gelder's telling the truth. In his condition, I don't
dare use truth drug; he's got enough chemicals in his bloodstream
without me adding to it. And there's some sort of mental block that
prevents him from answering questions, so using verifier scan is
out." He hesitates then, gaze sharpening in a way that makes me
distinctly uneasy for no reason I can identify. "Isn't there
some Vulcan technique to tell if someone's lying or delusional?"
The
mind-meld. Vehlin-at, the merger of souls. For a Vulcan, one
of the most hidden aspects of our telepathic life. I can still hear
T'Pau's flinty voice as she instructed me in its use: "This
thing is not for the gaze of outworlders. Do not disgrace us."
I
return McCoy's gaze evenly. "I assume it is the mind-meld you
are referring to, Doctor?"
The
growing storm of the doctor's anger brushes against my shielding,
strong enough almost to smell. "I don't care what it's called.
Will it work?" He does not understand; he misinterprets my
reluctance for cowardice, when it is something far other. To save
Jim, to find out the truth, I would risk far more than a mind-meld.
It
is not that which causes me to hesitate. If Van Gelder is actually
mad, the probability is high that I will be drawn into his madness.
But mad though he may be, Van Gelder is also human, and what causes
me to hesitate is the factor McCoy cannot know about. The vehlin-at,
the mind meld, is a telepathic link born of an emotional bond, one
mind to another. Van Gelder is a stranger to me, and he is human. The
perilous intimacy and the storm of Van Gelder's emotions in the
mind-meld could easily overwhelm me. And I have never done this
before, not with a human.
There
is need. I cannot refuse, when it is my captain and my friend at
risk, when there are countless others who might be endangered if any
of Van Gelder's allegations are true. I gather myself, seeking the
center that I may find the inner resources to initiate the meld.
I
close my eyes, and slowly lower my shields. And am reminded,
instantly, of why Vulcans maintain shields: the storms of emotion in
this room, McCoy's concern and impatience, Van Gelder's heightened
agitation, crash over and through me.
I
know the doctor does not understand; we have never gotten to the
point, he and I, where understanding might be possible or likely. "It
is a deeply personal thing among Vulcans," I say.
***
Damn
that Vulcan, why is he delaying? If he can find out the truth, why
doesn't he just do something? "Will it work?" I ask again;
he didn't answer before.
The
look he gives me makes me wish I hadn't spoken. I've never seen him
look so…alien. That's an odd thing to say, coming from a doctor,
but it's true. There's something indefinably different about him now;
a shift in body language, perhaps. Or maybe it's the look in his
eyes. Whatever it is, there is little human about him now.
Spock
moves purposefully towards Van Gelder and I relax slightly. I know,
though I can't say how, that Spock would prefer I leave him alone
with Van Gelder. I meet his look with my own, wondering if he can
read my thoughts. I'm a doctor. I'm not leaving him alone in my
Sickbay.
Spock
seems to sense this. "It will require I make certain pressure
changes. It will not affect you. It is not hypnosis." I nod,
though I really don't understand how the mind-meld works. The only
Vulcan I knew before Spock, one of my classmates in medical school,
had not even told me this much.
Van
Gelder consents to the meld. It's one of the many clues I have that
he may not be as mad as Dr Adams led us to believe; a man with Van
Gelder's illness shouldn't be capable of giving consent to anything
or anyone. But his speech is clear, if a little ragged, and he
obviously understands what Spock is saying. "You must," Van
Gelder says.
When
Spock touches Van Gelder, his agitation level begins to subside
almost immediately. The words Spock speaks are so low, I almost can't
hear them above the steady beeping of the med-panel. "My mind to
your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts." Spock's long hands
touch Van Gelder right above the cranial nerve pathways, and his
voice begins to assume some of Van Gelder's cadences.
I
have a sudden insight: was it this that caused Spock to hesitate? The
thought of being trapped forever within the mind of a madman? I
didn't know, but maybe I should have. Me and my big mouth.
"I
begin to feel a strange euphoria," Spock says now, and Van
Gelder's voice, free of pain for the first time, mutters, "Yes."
***
A
mind-meld between Vulcans can be as simple as an exchange of
information, or as complex as the full marriage bond of adults. Our
minds are trained almost from birth to accept the presence of another
mind, to receive and, one day, to initiate a meld. Though the process
is far from simple, there is a certain order to it, the ritual
unchanged throughout millennia.
Whatever
else may be said about my meld with Van Gelder, "order" is
not the term I would use to describe it. His thoughts are chaos
itself, dark winds scattered on the paths of his mind. I can sense, a
little, that it was not always this way, that his mind was ordered
and quite disciplined for a human. But that was before his illness,
before Dr Adams and the neural neutralizer.
There
are huge blocks around certain areas of his mind, blocks which are
artificial. Most of them have to do with his work at the Tantalus
Colony. //Could you think of these things before?// I ask him. I
need to make sure I am perceiving this accurately. I see patients
with sick minds, patients who had been rejected by every other penal
facility in the Federation. I see Van Gelder, whole and healthy,
cajoling the patients into taking their treatments and treating them
with kindness and concern. The healing energy, the fierce
determination that none should suffer if it is in his power to
correct it, fairly vibrates off of him.
There
is a slight mind-laugh, one that is free of madness and dementia.
//It was my life, my work on the colony. To heal that which is
broken, isn't that what every doctor wants?//
I
had not thought of it, but the only doctor I know is McCoy. I see
that there are similarities between Van Gelder and McCoy; that fierce
compassion in McCoy has expressed itself through his squabbling with
me. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate my opinion of the doctor. It is
a thought to be considered for later, but now…//May I move through
the blocks? It might be painful.//
Van
Gelder's assent is clear. //If you don't, I will remain as I am now.
Not much of a choice// I do what I can to mitigate the pain caused by
the removal of the blockages. The images in his mind are coming more
defined now: Dr Adams, the years of working together as colleagues,
the promise of the neural neutralizer, to heal minds seemingly
broken. And then the discovery of Dr Adams' misuse of that
technology. The quiet report that was never sent, the feeling of fear
as strong arms strapped him into the chair, the devastating emptiness
of not knowing when the mind's betrayal will come.
Van
Gelder is not mad. //I apologize for the intrusion, Dr Van Gelder.//
And slowly, I withdraw from the link.
My
knees buckle when the meld is over. McCoy catches me by the arm and
steers me to a chair. "Are you all right?"
It
is all I can do to form the response; the mind-meld can be
exhausting. "I will recover, Doctor. How is Van Gelder?"
The
doctor looks at the med-panel, and back at me. His astonishment is
plain to read. "Spock, I don't know how to say this, but he's
cured. Whatever you did fixed the damage. He'll need some residual
treatment, but he's going to be fine." He looks at my face,
seeing, perhaps, an emotion I would have denied. "Jim's in
trouble, isn't he?"
I
nod. There is not much time to waste.
***
The
captain and Dr Noel returned, free from harm except for one implanted
memory. Dr Adams died, and Van Gelder returned to the colony for the
last of his treatment. Van Gelder thanked me before he left for what
I had done. One does not thank logic, but still…"I wish you
peace and long life," I said to him before he left. He will
return now, to his work, and to his own destiny.
I
returned to my cabin after he left, to meditate on what I had
learned. I was just entering the second level of meditation when the
door buzzer rang. It was McCoy. "I'm sorry, am I disturbing
you?"
"No,"
I replied. "Come in."
McCoy
looked at the floor and then back at me, as if he suddenly lacked
words or the breath to speak them. That is an unusual condition in my
experience of him; what is it that makes him so nervous? "Spock,
I, uh…Oh, hell, I'm just gonna say it. I'm sorry."
I
raised one eyebrow; this is the last thing I would have expected. "I
do not understand."
The
doctor's blue eyes, clear and direct, met my own. "I didn't
realize what I was asking of you, what you were risking by melding
with Van Gelder. I should have thought about it before I asked it of
you."
"The
cause was sufficient, Doctor. The captain and Dr Noel have returned
safely. There was no other option."
"Maybe,
but…I thought you were a coward for not acting quicker. If I'd
known what was involved in the vehlin-at, I would have known better."
I realized with a start that he has used the Vulcan word for the mind
meld. He has researched.
"It
is done. There is no need for an apology."
"Look,
you green-blooded son of an elf, I'm trying to apologize! Can't you
just accept it for once without relying on your damnable logic?"
Once,
before the meld with Van Gelder, I would have been offended and
confused by such an outburst. But now I understood at least some of
what was behind it. Van Gelder was healed by the meld, but the
exchange was equal. I understood through the meld what motivated Van
Gelder, and McCoy, to heal others: compassion and a hatred for
suffering. McCoy was trying to heal the wound between us, and by
refusing his apology, I have denied that part of him. Curious, the
places where insights come.
I
thought of a saying from my planet. "May our understandings be
many and our wars be few." This is one war I can stop. "I
accept your apology, Doctor. Would you like to learn more about the
vehlin-at?"
THE
END
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