Well of Souls

“My time.” Bat-Levi mouthed the words as if they tasted bad. Her scar rippled as she clenched her jaw. “I hate when you psychiatrists couch things as matters of choice when there are none. Like I asked for this, like I came to you and said I really wanted to spend time in here.”

“No one’s forcing you to talk about anything, Darya.”

“Oh, no?” That tiny snick again, as she readjusted her spine, as if some bit of metal had snapped back into place. “I have to be here, don’t I? Five sessions, that’s the number, right? That’s as many sessions as you need to write up a report, recommend whether or not I can stay active. You and Starfleet and the Vulcan shrinks…you all agreed. A precondition to my coming back to duty: Keep an eye on the crazy woman. Doesn’t matter that I do my job just fine. You’re all just worried that I’m still crazy.”

“I don’t know if the Vulcans think you’re crazy. I didn’t speak with your physician.”

“But you read his report.”

“Skimmed, actually: All doctors, even erudite Vulcan psychiatrists, tend to write summaries that verge on the incomprehensible. Anyway, crazyisn’t a word we use to describe patients anymore.”

“And Starfleet?”

“I don’t recall they used the word crazy,either. Someone—I believe it was Captain Nash—mentioned that you were troubled. Other than that, he said very nice things. But you know all this, Darya. You have the same access to your perso

“Whatever.” Bat-Levi held herself ramrod straight, and Tyvan wasn’t sure if this was because her spine was less flexible, or she was really that defensive. Looking at the way her black eyes flashed—a veritable semaphore of hostility—Tyvan decided on the latter.

“You want to talk about how angry you are, in general?” asked Tyvan. He shifted in his chair, and he caught the squeal of leather. “Or how frightened you are?”

Bat-Levi jerked, and a servo clattered. “I’m not scared. I’m not scared of anything.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay,” said Tyvan, and laced his fingers across his middle.

The silence stretched for several minutes. An antique wind-up clock, with a brass disc pendulum, ticked, tocked, ticked. (He had a regulation chronometer that would ding at the end of their session, but he kept the clock because the face was circular and the sweep of the hands, round and round, was a reminder that life and the psyche were circular because the important things came up again and again.) Tyvan never took his eyes from Bat-Levi; Bat-Levi seemed to find something fascinating on the carpet. Finally, Bat-Levi looked up. “What?”

“I was looking at your hand,” said Tyvan, deciding to go for broke. Besides, he was being truthful. “The artificial one.”

He saw her flinch—and there was that squeal of servos again—then resist the temptation to hide the hand. “What about it?” she asked.

“No nails. How come they forgot to give you nails?”

A red flush bloomed along the underside of her jaw. “I…I don’t know. I never asked. Then, once I noticed, I decided it wasn’t important.”

“Oh. Well, that was an oversight. Makes it that much harder for people not to stare.” Tyvan blinked once, very slowly. (His therapy supervisor once said Tyvan reminded him of a lizard drowsing on a rock.) “You’d think they’d want to avoid that.”

“Avoid what?”

“People staring.”

“That?I don’t care. People are going to stare anyway, don’t you think? Nails, no nails, what are nails when you look the way I do?”

“Well,” Tyvan’s eyes moved over her body as if taking inventory, “now that you mention it, nails aren’t that big a deal. Of course, I guess you were counting on that.”

Bat-Levi’s jaw spasmed, pulling the scar along the right side of her face even tighter. It shone pink like the smooth skin of a naked rat. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Tyvan pi

“Oh?”

“Yeah, oh, I don’t buy that.” He shifted his lanky frame (he was so thin, sitting for long made his tailbone ache) and ran a hand through ci

Bat-Levi pushed air out between her lips in a dismissive snort. “More than my share: first on Starbase 32 when they tried talking me into reconstructive surgery, then on Meir III at my parents’ place, and again on Vulcan. Want to know something?”

“What?”

“I liked the Vulcans best. They’re so logical, and they can be very passionate in their logic. But they know how to keep things in perspective, and I have to be honest here. Meditation and Healing Disciplines have helped more than all the cathartic theatrics you other psychiatrists seem to want.”

“Actually,” said Tyvan, “I don’t want you to dissolve into a puddle of elemental protoplasm.” He stopped, worried that this sounded too defensive and thought that, maybe, he was. She’d spent a lot of time with psychiatrists; that was clear. He tried another tack. “You think you’ve figured me out.”

“Sure.” Bat-Levi smirked, easy to do given the way the right side of her mouth curled. “Lull the patient into thinking you’re really not paying attention, that things are going along fine, then snap!You’ll be all over me like a Darwellian long-tongue slurping up an unsuspecting fly.”

“I’m not paying attention?” asked Tyvan, knowing that he hadn’t been, not earlier.

“No, I said you just lookedlike you weren’t. You’re very good at it. You looked a million kilometers away. But, you see, Iknow that you’re just waiting, watching for a chink in my armor.” She reached down with her artificial hand and gave one of her artificial legs a good thump. She clunked. “In my case, that’s apt.”

Tyvan took a moment before he replied. “Wow, you are good.”

Bat-Levi’s twisted smirk of triumph evaporated. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I started out asking you about your nails and your prosthetics, and now we’re talking about how good or not good I am at my job, and whether I measure up to other shrinks you’ve known. You’re very good at ducking.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bat-Levi said, and Tyvan could tell she was lying. Her face was too stony. On the other hand, maybe that was easy for her. All that scarring must make facial expressions difficult.

Tyvan kept his tone mild. “Don’t be stupid, Darya. If you’re going to be stupid, you can leave. We both have better things to do.”

Her black eyes widened and then shone with bright, unshed tears, and he saw he’d hit the mark. “You’re right,” she said, her voice dripping with bitterness. “I’m so stupid. So, okay, you want to talk about my nails, the way I look, my guilt, sure fine, go ahead, fine, make your point.”

He paused. Then: “I never said anything about guilt, Darya.”

She swallowed so hard he heard it. “Yes, you did,” she said, but her voice was smaller, a little timid. “Yes, you did. I heard you. You did.” She flared. “Anyway, so I’m feeling guilty. This is a surprise? It’s all over my profile. Yes,I feel guilty. Yes,I get depressed, and, yes,I’ve wanted to die. I’ve tried to die, and then when the Vulcans wouldn’t let me, I stopped trying. I decided that God meant for me to live and remember, so I’m alive and I doremember and I feel the guilt every single day of my life. And that’s the way it should be. That’s justice. There, is that what you want?”

Tyvan was sure that if looks could kill, he’d have been in his casket. “It’s not a question of what I want, Darya, though you’re right. I’m not surprised. You love your guilt. You’ll hang onto guilt until the day you die.”