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And yet ... and yet ...
She stood over him, licking lips that had suddenly gone bone dry. The thought of what she was about to do horrified her to the core, but she could see no other option. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then reached into her own mental center and calmed herself. She slowed her breathing, even her heart, penetrating to the peaceful nucleus of her very being so that she could find the i
Her long fingers fluttered, hesitated. Preparing to send her mind into what might well be a dead brain was the psychic equivalent of plunging one’s unprotected hands into raw sewage. The very notion was repulsive; most schools of teaching of the Vulcan mind-meld absolutely forbade it. It was considered a perversion of a very sacred technique. To engage in it was to taint one’s very katra,perhaps beyond reclamation.
Soleta took a deep breath, clearing her mind, shoving aside any hesitations. Entering a mind-meld, even a routine one, could be fatal if there were any doubts. And this was certainly anything but routine.
She slowed her breathing, let her consciousness begin to slip away, malleable, flowing like water, envisioning the mind of her subject as a receptacle into which she could pour her essence. Her initial skittishness evaporated, simply because she didn’t allow for it to exist. Instead, having resolved to do what she felt needed doing, she remembered one of the most important rules of a mind-meld: Confidence. Confidence at all times that one would accomplish what needed to be done. Confidence in one’s sense of self, in one’s ego. Because to lose confidence was to risk being pulled into the mind of the other, and having an exceptionally difficult time finding the way back. Considering the nature of the other in this case, Soleta could not afford to engage in the endeavor with anything other than total commitment and a certainty that she would be able to achieve her goal.
She eased herself in, at first slightly tentative, like a bather dabbing her feet into a pool of icy water. Then she took a breath, fully committed herself, and eased her mind into
Nothing, there were nothing there, just black void, just emptiness, he was gone, that’s all, simply gone, and it was madness for her to be there, she knew it, this was an u
... and the deaths were there, the dead Romulans, and it all came spi
... SOLETA, SOLETA NOW, COME TO ME NOW...
... and Soleta tumbled backward, her arms waving about helplessly, trying to grab handholds on empty air. She collapsed, and the only thing that prevented her from hitting the floor were the strong arms of Dr. Selar.
“You are out. You are out. It is over,” Selar kept saying, and Soleta looked around to see the confused and concerned expressions of medical technicians. For a heartbeat she forgot where she was, and then remembered. Sickbay. McHenry.
“McHenry,” she whispered, and her voice was raspy and constricted. “McHenry ... he’s in there. He’s ...”
“Calmly, Lieutenant,” Selar said to her, and then Soleta felt the push of something against her forearm, and the telltale hiss of a spray hypo. “Calm yourself.” Waving off the other technicians, Dr. Selar eased Soleta over toward a diagnostic table and helped her lie down on it. Whatever the drug Selar had pumped into Soleta’s system, it was obviously working, as Soleta’s pounding heart and scrambled mind began to relax and settle into their more normal patterns.
Selar glanced up at the readings and nodded in mute approval of what she was seeing. “Now then, Lieutenant,” she said, “would you mind telling me what you thought you were doing?”
“Mind-meld ... with McHenry ...”
If Selar felt any revulsion at the concept—a revulsion that would have been as culturally ingrained in her as it would be in Soleta—she covered it with her customary aplomb. “That was ill advised” was all she said.
“I had to try. Had to see if he was there.”