Unmaking

[Tachyon 0]

“Unmaking”

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“Hold her down! Somebody get me the sedative, now!” The first doctor attempted to restrain the seizing Trill.

 

“It's too late; she's gone into shock. We have to try the treatment now,” said the second doctor, her face wan and grim.

 

The doctor's expression said it without words; nevertheless, he protested: “Without the sedative, the host will die.”

 

“What choice do we have? We must save the symbiont.”

 

He knew she was right. That was her job, as his assistant: be the voice of cold reason and utter detachment from the case. He hated himself for making her do it. Almost as much as he hated himself what he was about to do.

 

“All right,” he said as he lashed the restraints around the patient's arms and legs. “Begin the treatment.”

 

***

 

The Trill looked at the Vulcan sitting on her couch and wondered which of them was more crazy. “No. Absolutely not.”

 

Her expression implacable as always, Varal replied, “Why not?”

 

“I am not 'mind-merging' with you. No way.”

 

Varal's tone came as close to irritable as any self-respecting Vulcan would allow. She crossed her legs and put her hands in her lap. “'Mind melding,' and you did not answer my question. I assure you, the risks are negligible—I am quite proficient. Think of the possible benefits.”

 

Pacing in front of the window, Lina said, “Look, no Vulcan has ever mind melded with a Trill before, right? Let alone a joined Trill.”

 

“That is correct.”

 

“So no matter how 'proficient' you are, you're exploring new territory here. And I don't care how steeped in logic your ego is: that's what this is about. You want to be the first Vulcan to mind meld with a joined Trill.”

 

“There is more to it than that, Hazani. You and I have known each other for nearly fifty years now. . . . We grew quite close in your last host's lifetime. This would be a chance to . . . recapture that closeness.”

 

“Which is why I can't allow it,” said Lina, her voice hard. “You know the rules.”

 

They lapsed into silence, both knowing that Lina was right. Varal's request, while intriguing, was impracticable, unthinkable. Irresistible.

 

A minute passed.

 

Lina sat down next to her longtime friend. “What do I do?”

 

“Just open your mind,” said Varal as she placed her hands on Lina's face, her fingers pressing softly into Lina's temples. “My mind to your mind. . . .”

 

The connection was a shock, like the sudden birth of a new sun right in front of her eyes. Lina didn't feel Varal's mind so much as know Varal's mind. She could traverse the contours of the Vulcan's memories, the scar-tissue of the deeply-buried emotions . . . and far, far below that, she caught glimpes of the Varal's tightly-contained subconscious. In turn, Lina's mind spread open like a delicate lily, all of Hazani's memories unfurling at Varal's deft touch.

 

Our thoughts are one, Hazani.

 

Yes . . . Lina revelled at this sharing of consciousness, this utter understanding of her Varal. And reflected in her friend's mind, she also saw the minds of Hazani's prior hosts. Having yet to undergo the zhian'tara, this was her first external look at her predecessors' personalities. She felt their echoes caress her mind, resonating against Varal's alien thoughts, and washing gently over her own awareness. So many thoughts. So many memories.

 

Too many, in fact, for Varal to handle. She felt her grip wavering, her control slipping—not over the mind meld, unfortunately, but over herself. The lifelong barrier erected against her base urges now flared before cracking along its foundation, allowing emotions and desires to slip through with increasing vigour and violence. They punctured the careful equilibrium of the meld.

 

What's going on? What's happening? Varal, I can't hear you anymore! Var— Lina gasped and doubled over in pain. So many voices. The feelings . . . the memories—Varal's unchecked emotions had somehow soured Hazani's memories, done something to upset the careful balance between symbiont and host. She slumped against the unconscious Varal, her eyes open but unseeing.

 

That was how they were discovered three hours later.

 

***

 

The doctor watched as the Trill Guardian communed with the symbiont, who floated inside a transparent tank next to the operating table. The Guardian had one hand on the tank's side, his eyes closed in concentration. The symbiont remained stationary, but as it was featureless, the doctor had trouble telling if it was paying attention.

 

Finally, the Guardian stood up and turned to the doctor. “Hazani is doing much better. He seems calmer. It appears your treatment strategy worked.”

 

“Maybe for him. But what about her?” the doctor asked, looking at the corpse covered by a flimsy sheet.

 

“She understood the risk when she became an Initiate and made her choice.”

 

The doctor narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing those of the Guardian's for a hint of decency. “Don't you care? Aren't you bothered, even a little, that a thirty-year-old woman in the prime of her life is dead just so that a two-hundred-year-old creature can live for future centuries? Is that what we are—a species that sacrifices those who lack longevity so the old can grow older?”

 

“That's a very interesting line coming from you,” said the Guardian. “Usually only unjoined Trill take up that banner—then again, you're relatively young, are you not? Fourth host?” The Guardian gazed at the doctor with a practised stare. His grey hair, balding in the middle, made plain his position on that issue. He knew all the arguments. Nevertheless, he humoured the doctor. “The host would have died anyway.”

 

“Her name was Lina. And that's not the point.”

 

“No, the point is that you made the right call. There's no use torturing yourself over someone you couldn't save.”

 

The doctor snorted but decided not to dignify the Guardian with a response—clearly caring for symbionts did little for one's bedside manner or empathy for patients.

 

“How is the Vulcan?”

 

Following the Guardian's gaze, the doctor turned to look through the operating room window to the comatose patient lying on a bed in the ICU. “I doubt she'll wake up. We're sending her back to Vulcan, where their doctors will look over her . . . but the prognosis isn't good. She's gone deep; I doubt even a Vulcan master can save her now.”

 

“'And at long last she understood her mother's words: for at the heels of hubris follows only sorrow',” quoted the Guardian. He noticed the doctor's grimace and smirked. “You don't think Cavalian appropriate for the occasion? Vulcan mind melds are dangerous enough between Vulcans . . . I don't know what Hazani was thinking allowing such a thing. Perhaps one of those masters you mention could have achieved a successful meld, but a mere whelp like that . . .” the Guardian shook his head, “. . . we will be pushing the Symbiosis Commission toward establishing some stricter regulations henceforth, and the legislature will hopefully follow suit.”

 

“Politics,” the doctor sneered. “Games, all of it.”

 

“You should try it sometime. Takes the edge off.” The Guardian motioned to an attendant to pick up the tank. Then he drew himself up to his full height. His voice acquired a didactic, formal tone. “You did well, Dr. Admiran. The balance between symbiont and host is always precarious, and when an external force begins playing with memory, we always fear for the symbiont's sanity. Despite all our centuries of coexisting, we have yet to see what effect an insane symbiont would have on a joined Trill . . . nor are we anxious to find out. You have our thanks.”

 

Gazrin Admiran watched the Guardian depart, leaving him alone in the operating room with a dead body and too many regrets. He wondered why for some, life was too fragile to last even a single lifetime, while others got to experience eternity.