And the punchline ...

Posted on 17 Jul 2009 @ 2:19am by

2,572 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: M2: Aggressive Negotiations
Location: Isha's Quarters
Timeline: Whilst at SB47 (before 'Favours')

Isha shifted her glass aside as T'Pal emerged from her bedroom.

"I hope you were right about this being more relaxing for me," she said in an uneasy tone; a glass may have done, but Isha had gone a little further than that. "What do we do then, T'Pal?" she asked, "or maybe we should start with where ..."

'You are intoxicated," T'Pal said dryly, eyeing Webb as if he should have known better than allowing the Ambassador to indulge herself. "You can sit on the couch, I will join you," she said and moved to do just that.

"A little ... maybe," Isha would admit that much. She turned towards T'Pal, projecting confidence as she hid her chewed thumbnail in her palm. Isha felt as sure as a five year old child beginning the ceremony of d'Sora - unsure of the outcome, yet dimly aware of the worst that could happen ... "If I need to apologise I'll do it later, T'Pal," she said, "just tell me what I need to do."

T'Pal could see that Isha was nervous, but failed to understand the logic behind trying to hide it under these circumstances as she would know exactly how she felt in a few minutes. "It is normal for other species to feel nervous before a mind meld, Ambassador. All I need you to do is to sit and try to relax and once I am in your mind to assist me," she said even as she placed her fingers one by one on the side of Isha's face. The Ambassador would also know that T'Pal did think her to be at least a lettle brave and honourable to avail herself like this.

Isha swallowed; her instinct was to pull away, but she kept herself steady. "How will I know?" she asked trying to distract herself from the unaccustomed touch of fingers on her skin, "How will you even know where to go?"

"It will be like talking now, without the restraints of verbal communication.." T'Pal answered with the patience her meditation had afforded her. "Please Ambassador... let us begin..." she urged.


Softly she began the words that initiated the link between them. "My mind to yours ... your mind to mine.... we are one....." As she said that, her mental energy flowed in a controlled burst to Isha's mind even as she herself opened the barriers of her own mind. Her head went slightly backwards, but the similarities between the Romulan and the Vulcan part of her brain, made the transition relatively smooth.

Isha gasped, quite aware of her accelerated heartrate, "It was probably a good idea not to give me any further chance to back out," Isha 'said' only she realised that she didn't say it.

Oddly, Isha felt no inclination to push her way into T'Pal ... perhaps that apprehension explained Elek's reluctance to look at what she herself was thinking, even when it was needed ... how awful to be able to do this at will ... to feel that sort of memory from another person, or maybe that was just what she felt in T'Pal ...

"I think I am doing the mental equivalent of burbling," she 'said' "should I try and find this man, or do I try and show you what those eyes are like and let you browse ... though I'm not sure I'd like that, I'm very organised and I wouldn't like you to mess it up ... I'm burbling again."

"Yes you are...." T'Pal's words came clear as crystal. her mind was peaceful, strong and structured, like the equivalent of ancient library. "Organized as a person yes, but in your mind... no...though you would have the capabilities to be," she said thoughtfully, but that was not the issue "Think about the eyes...focus on them..."

Isha started with the man in the lift, rather tall, thin, but strong, as though he had been formed from twisted wires - he could hardly have faked that either, she surmised. She moved to his face - prominent bone structure, his skin a little stretched over it - he could have been carved, she thought.

Eyes, eyes, eyes ... oddly she found it hard to see them, even though they had been so clear to her before now she tried to focus on them, they blurred from glinting black and smeared to grey.

"Do you see any of this, T'Pal?" Isha asked.

"I do... " she answered. 'I see everything and I believe I have found a barrier.... are you aware of anyone tampering with your memory/" she asked while she was trying to ascertain what kind of technique had been used.

"No ... I can only think of one time whe ... oh, don't take me there, T'Pal, please - I can't go there," she said she did not want to go back to that place.

"I am with you all the way, Isha," T'Pal said calmly, using her name for the first time. Her own confidence and peace was clear in her voice. "We do this together." Though it was said with little emotion, it was said with sincerety and quiet conviction, something Isha would feel. T'Pal would not leave her not matter what.

Perhaps it was already too late because Isha was almost certain that it was her husband she was saying the words to, “You have to believe me,†she said, “I did nothing.†She had not dared move from the room since he had stormed out instructing her to remain there; she had though he might hurt her but all he had were words …

“I didn’t believe it until I heard it from your lips … you are either innocent or the most accomplished liar who ever walked on ch’Rihan – I will know which†… that was what he had said and he returned flanked by four uniformed officers of the Tal’Shiar.

Functionaries, Isha noted immediately as she rose. “Nvied, don’t do this,†she said, “you have to believe me, I have told you nothing but the truth … don’t let them take me there …†but he did nothing to stop it, why would he, he had ordered it.

The place they were going were the offices of the Internal Affairs Division of the Tal’Shiar, not part of the ostentatious official complex situated in the south of Ra'tleihfi but the edifice by the river – an old warehouse - which popular rumour held was the actual place that division operated firm. It was a rumour that Isha never cared about having confirmed, and certainly not in person.

How could he do this, how could he give me to them? she thought, her initial shock at her husband’s action had worn off and settled into complacency; did it really require four of them to take her in, or was that just standard procedure? Either way there was nothing she could do about it. They may have bound her arms but they hadn’t hurt her, but then she hadn’t struggled, she had barely been able to walk as he stood by and watched.

Few outsiders ever entered this building, and those that did were usually prominent political prisoners, too sensitive to put into the normal system … they weren’t often seen again, unless public evidence of their reform and rehabilitation was required and even then they seemed to slip quickly out of sight and out of memory.

The vehicle had stopped, they were inside now. They didn’t speak but one of them took her upper arm and guided Isha to her feet. She complied, she couldn’t imagine that anyone ever resisted.

Isha pulled herself out of the memory and she was back in that calm spot where her mind connected with T’Pal’s. “I don’t want to be there,†she said, “Please don’t make me go in there and find him.â€

T'Pal was fully aware of Isha's fear and knew that she needed to provide strength for her. It was as if she embraced Isha with her mind. For a moment she allowed her to experience some of what she had experienced herself... the time she was captured by the Cardassians, young and inexperienced, the time they went to free prisoners from a prison camp.... times when she experienced intense apprehension. Except for her previous mate, very few had seen that side of her. She did understand, but they needed to press forward.

"I am going in with you," she said simply. 'This is not real. Take what you think you will need with you," she encouraged.

“It was real, though, “and this is not a place I have thought of since I chose to forgive my husband … of the few people who knew he had this done to me … most of them think he was extremely lenient, he thought I had been deceiving him since the day we had met, and the head of a House like ours has absolute power, if he should choose to wield it. You’re thinking how alike they are … they were, physically, had they not been born fifteen years apart they might have been twins but T’Pal, Nveid and Nniol are, were two very different men though to a degree I chose to forgive them both for what they put me through … I’m thankful that pity does not seem to be an emotion you are troubled by – I don’t want that – I made my choices and I will live with them.â€

“I will try and stay there until we know what we need to know. Nothing in my life prepared me for it, and I was left with … there I go again, distracting myself. I shall imagine that you really were there; the Elements know I took strength from something …

As she returned to her past Isha found herself in a small windowless room, sitting on a functional bench that protruded from one wall; it was made of the same matt metal that clad the walls.

Her fingers traced again and again over a raw patch of skin that looped one of her fingers, she had worn a ring there for forty years until they had taken it and the rest of her jewellery from her.

Later, just as she had found herself able to slump into a heap in the corner they had come again and insisted that she remove her robes and change into a thin smock which did little to cover her body and nothing to warm her.

They were intent on removing every item that made her who she was and when they came again they unbound her hair, and it fell in three heavy braids down her back and they removed them one by one, dropping each to the floor before her eyes.

Her head felt very light.

I am Isha, she thought though every physical manifestation of that fact had been taken from her and her own tears had removed any vestige of that identity from her face.

And now she was alone again; the light was like dawn or dusk, a half light that does little to aide the vision … dusk, Isha concluded because all she could imagine was that it could only get darker.

“And here you are again,†he said tapping the hypospray he held between his fingers against the palm of his other hand.

Isha sat in the light, she looked through the shadow trying to see who was speaking to her in that irritating disrespectful tone, she saw nothing but the movement of a slightly darker shadow against the dim and distant walls.

There was someone behind her, but from the chair they had bound her to she could not see them either, she felt the band that tightened around her brow lessen and with the tension gone she yielded to the pain and her head dropped forward.

She felt nauseous and the acrid tang in the air suggested that she had already vomited.

“You’re beginning to bore me,†he said, “did you know that aside from that grinding pain in your temples over application of the mind probe soon begins to cause neurological degeneration? It cannot be repaired … I’m curious as to what it is that you are doing – physically your reaction is what is to be expected – you’re becoming rather ill now yet mentally … we have barely been able to do more than skim the surface – whatever it is I suggest that you stop doing it and then we can all go home.â€

“I’m telling you the truth,†Isha replied as she had done over and over again, “I cannot help it if your methods are flawed.â€

“Aside from your inappropriate arrogance, what bothers me is that you have just done something that should not be possible – not once, but three times – there are ways to resist a mind probe, if you have the right training, if you have had certain genetic modifications or been dosed with the right chemical inhibitors – I have studied your record, you have undergone none of these processes – not through us. .â€

Isha said nothing, she still could not see him, and tried to focus on that. This was the past and she could not change what was happening, but that was why she had come back here, to find Nerok’s eyes, had T’Pal heard him speak, she wondered, did they even sound the same?

“So, we’re going to try something else,†he said … I don’t advise holding back information from me, I will know everything you know – that is why I am here, it is why you are here.â€

“Its soon T’Pal,†Isha said, as the man in her memory applied the hypospray to her neck. “But I think that Ensign Webb was wrong about something … I don’t think that this Nerok meant to kill me or harm me … I think that he wanted me to assist him. TPal, You know that I spoke with Nniol, of course you do, you were rather put out about it … well, I am speculating, but I think Nniol thought that I had been contacted, that maybe I had some form of message for him.â€

The mental link was stable, allowing T'Pal sustained access. without too much effort. "I tend to agree with you, that is a real possibility. You are not Nerok's mission, in fact .. I can't see Nniol leaving you to anyone else. Nerok will try to contact Nniol, but he doesn't know how?" she speculated. "Unless of course, Nerok had made contact already... that is why we need to get to the bottom of this."

Isha nodded, or at least gave the mental equivalent of non-verbal agreement, “I am trying, T’Pal,†she said somewhat defensively as she watched herself – she looked very small with her arms shackled to the chair and her head lolling to one side exposing the pale, waxy skin of her throat. Though her eyes were sunken and closed her lips were moving but Isha already knew what she was saying and it was not relevant to what she and T’Pal were looking for. As she tried to speed her recollection along Isha knew that the man was growing increasingly frustrated with her refusal, or rather her inability to respond to his questions in the manner he expected her to.

To be continued ...

 

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