Frowning, Fisher shook his head. “Give the boy some credit, Rana. He’d know if you were shirking your responsibilities in order to ease tension, either what’s between you two or whatever he’s carrying around on his own. He’d never forgive you for that.”
“Now you’re talking like a doctor,” Desai said, rising from the bench. “I should make appointments to see you more often.”
“Come by anytime,” Fisher replied, smiling. “Don’t even need to call ahead first.” Standing up, he regarded her in that mentoring manner she had come to appreciate. “Don’t worry, Rana. In addition to all the responsibility he has on his shoulders right now, it’s been a long time since Diego’s been able to care about anyone that didn’t just take orders from him. He’ll find his way, and so will you.” Reaching out to pat her on the arm, he indicated the racquetball court with a nod. “In the meantime, don’t let it throw you off your game.”
After leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek, the doctor turned and walked out of the room, leaving Desai to finish gathering her belongings as well as her thoughts. In his customary fashion, she realized, Fisher had managed to offer comfort, confidence, and support, all without really conveying anything in the way of helpful advice.
How does he do that?
Meanwhile, Desai knew she was faced with a choice. She could strive ever more diligently to ensure that her relationship with Reyes did not suffer because of their sometimes conflicting responsibilities, or she could surrender to what many might consider to be inevitable. It would, after all, be easy to concentrate solely on her work, committing herself to the career she had chosen and allowing the professional gap to widen between them, taking with it any chance for personal harmony and happiness.
Most troubling to her, Desai realized, was that the question seemed to possess no easy answer.
8
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of her quarters, her back straight and her hands clasped gently in her lap, T’Prynn closed her eyes. Feeble illumination offered by the lone candle resting atop the squat table before her was the only source of light in the room, its flickering luminescence still visible through her eyelids. The rest of the room was consumed by darkness, offering no distractions and allowing her to concentrate on clearing her thoughts and opening her mind as—for the second time—she began to meditate.
And the second time, she failed. As with the first attempt, the serenity she sought within her own mind was interrupted by a single, pervasive demand.
Submit.
The voice of Sten, her long-dead fiancé, called to her as it had almost constantly since that day fifty-three years earlier when, while enveloped in the violent yet passionate embrace of Plak tow,T’Prynn had killed him, snapping his neck during ritual combat. The act had been in accordance with Vulcan traditions and had come while in the throes of ceremonial kal-if-fee,where she had fought Sten to the death for the right to be freed from their betrothal. Even in death, he had forsaken everything that Vulcans held dear, forcing his katrainto her mind as her hands broke his neck.
Submit.
Since that moment, fueled as it had been by long-suppressed emotions run amok—anger, betrayal, unrequited lust—Sten’s living spirit had dwelled alongside T’Prynn’s own consciousness, carrying on the sacramental duel and challenging her for supremacy of her own mind.
Submit.
While there scarcely was a moment during which T’Prynn was not aware of its presence, Sten’s katraseemed to be intruding upon her thoughts of late with increasing frequency, to say nothing of amplified force. She suspected it was due to a lowering of her mental defenses in the face of working long hours and not allowing herself sufficient time for sleep and meditation. There was also the distinct possibility that her infrequent yet fervent trysts with Anna Sandesjo, the inexplicably alluring woman who—among other things—served currently as attaché to Ambassador Jetanien, might also be a contributing factor.
An intriguing notion, that,she mused.
Still, the occurrences were not unknown, and in the past T’Prynn had been able to cope with the incursions using one of several techniques imparted to her by the Adepts. Indeed, she owed her sanity and even her life to the centuries-old order of masters who safeguarded not only the ancient teachings of Surak but also the writings and rituals surrounding Kolinahrand other mental and physical disciplines designed to reinforce the Vulcan people’s edict of wisdom through logic and the careful, deliberate mastery of passion.
Submit!
Despite their best efforts, however, the Adepts had been unable to rid her of Sten’s constant, hammering attacks against the fortification she had erected around her consciousness. All such attempts had failed, with the high masters informing T’Prynn on each occasion that the katraof her dead fiancé would remain with her unless it left of its own volition, or upon her death. Until either of those events occurred, she would forever be locked in mortal combat within the depths of her own mind.
I will not submit to you!Her mind all but screamed the rebuke. I will never surrender.
Deciding with no small amount of irritation that further attempts to meditate would meet with the same result, T’Prynn made one more concerted push against Sten’s katra,succeeding once again—if only temporarily—in forcing her late fiancé’s ubiquitous presence into a deep, dark corner of her mind. That accomplished, she leaned forward and blew out the candle before rising to her feet.
“Computer, lights.”
In immediate response to her commands, a quartet of recessed red lights, one set at eye level into each of the room’s four walls, glowed to life and cast their harsh crimson glare toward the ceiling. As she crossed her quarters to the small, austere desk that occupied the corner nearest her bed, she opened the closure of her meditation robe, removing the garment and folding it carefully before laying it on the edge of her bed. “Computer, display docking-bay departure schedule,” she said, pausing long enough to retrieve her uniform before continuing on to her desk.
Atop the workstation sat a standard-issue bulky gray computer terminal. A collection of data cards, each labeled and ordered with meticulous care, rested within the storage niche molded into the terminal’s base, but aside from that the polished surface of the wood desktop was bare. In accordance with T’Prynn’s request, the computer screen flared to life and coalesced into a text display featuring several columns of precisely arrayed data. Pulling on her uniform and smoothing it into place, she leaned forward to review the report on the monitor. It took her only a moment to note that Cervantes Quinn’s small vessel was still scheduled to depart the station on time.
Her plan to conscript the freighter pilot carried no guarantees of success, of course. She was confident that the Klingon sensor drone, one of however many such devices dispatched into the Taurus Reach by battle cruisers of the empire, would be at the coordinates she had calculated based on information gleaned from a furtive review of intercepted Klingon subspace communiqués. While she initially had doubted Quinn’s ability to find the device and obtain the data it would contain, she reminded herself that the man made a living scrounging and scurrying about space, somehow obtaining that which should by all rights lie beyond his limited grasp. For all the faults the trader possessed, prudence demanded he not be underestimated, regardless of whether he was acting upon her instructions.