There was a figure in the corner, a shadow within shadow. Huddled, it shrank from the light, hugging its knees as it tried to back even further, stopped only by the wall.
Daniels, holding the torch that emitted only a feeble light, was horrified.
"Commander?" he asked disbelievingly, still not quite equating this pathetic form with the brave officer he once knew.
The face slowly turned now, and there was no doubt this was the Commander. His eyes were huge and startled looking, and an indefinable expression crossed his face. He looked hunted - or haunted. Daniels couldn’t tell which.
He shook his head as the saw the figure’s dark skin twitch and spasm. Whatever had happened here, it had left Grieg paralysed with fear.
"Shit." Daniels said, then touched his communicator. "Daniels to Fairburn - send a med. team down, stat! The Counsellor, too."
The terrified face beyond sank back into its protective embrace of darkness.
"What happened?"
The Captain had been unable to stay on the ship once she had heard James had been found. The Nerani Ambassador had come along as well; given she was exhibiting distress about having caused this, this wasn’t all that surprising.
K’Teira, striding along at one side of the team as Daniels led them through the labyrinth to the Commander, wasn’t as sure about her motives. The woman was certainly upset about whatever had befallen him, and even felt responsible for it, given it was at her behest he’d gone in the first place. However she also showed signs of confusion and puzzlement. There was something strange going on here, and K’Teira was watching for clues to work it out.
"We’re not entirely sure, Captain." the ambassador explained, shaking her head in angry confusion. "According to my people, he went into the temple and disappeared, just like the old stories. Nothing like this has happened in nineteen of our generations. It shouldn’t have happened now! We have been careful!"
"What do you mean ‘old stories’?" She beckoned K’Teira in closer, a tacit command to begin research immediately.
"This complex dates back to the dawning of our people." she replied. "Much of its history is related in the oral traditions, not in the texts. That’s why I was assigned, that’s why - are there telepaths amongst you?"
This last was a suddenly frenzied shout, and the woman ran out ahead, planting her feet apart and standing ready to hold them at bay with her bare hands if necessary.
Trying to determine what had changed, K’Teira surveyed their surroundings.
The milky crystal of the labyrinthine corridors they had passed through abruptly terminated just ahead of them in a wide archway of blue stone. Beyond this lay a cold blackness - if it weren’t for the flickering of a torch somewhere far down its passage, it would feel like a dark, cold abyss stood before them.
It marked the difference between day and night.
"No!" The Captain was frustrated, frantic about her friend, and furious. "Only Lieutenant Mogaddí. But I don’t…"
"She mustn’t come any closer!" The ambassador’s plea was full of terror now. The young Betazoid named blinked in surprise at the gamut of emotions she could abruptly feel from her, but obediently stepped back.
"There is a protection here." the Ambassador continued. "Spies cannot proceed into the Chambers. It is all mirrors in here - it will drive you mad!"
"Stay here, Lieutenant." the Captain said softly. "Get word to the ship if anything else goes wrong."
"Aye, Captain." She nodded, and assumed a guard position to the side of the arch.
"Now, we’re going in." Randall warned the ambassador in a dangerous tone, advancing on her, heedless of her own safety, until she was right against her. "I have an officer down in there who might have been affected by this ‘protection’ of yours. If I find this is so, and if it’s found to have permanently damaged him, treaty or no, I will get the Federation to come down on you hard. We should have been warned!"
Unseen by the ambassador, Randall began waving the team through. Daniels in front and with K’Teira close behind, they filed through, unnoticed by the other pair.
"We vetted him carefully before we allowed him in! He showed no sign of telepathy or heightened awareness. We have had Terrans in there before to no ill effect. I am at a loss to understand it…"
K’Teira heard this on the way past, and considered these words as she made her way deeper into the bone numbing cold of the Chambers. This was the source of the Ambassador’s confusion!
She started to think.
Into the greater darkness, a light came; faint, but visible. It slowly crept into the ancient, dusty room, illuminating the old chromium floor and the eternal emptiness of the place.
He was still there at the very outer limits of seeing, still scrabbling away from the light, still turning his face away. If the beam ventured near him he would hide his head as though the light hurt. When it was fully dark there they could still hear his ragged, terrified breathing echoing out across the space.
The med. team went in, Eden at the vanguard, holding out a careful hand.
"James?" he said softly.
The replying sound was worse than a scream to those who knew the man. The whimpering of one who had looked fear in the face and gone right through it, beyond terror and into pure horror, where the vocal cords and mind have seized into terrible incoherence, was nothing on the tiny intake of breath he gave. A sharp and discordant note was in it that burned in the souls of all present. His head buried between his trousered legs, there came a soft moan of pure emotion.
Eden knew there was nothing he could do yet.
"No." he said, waving the others back to the doorway. "This isn’t our area. K’Teira?"
The Counsellor cocked her head to the side, studying the pitiful shape within the room. Where do I begin? she thought. He has to get out of here - the mirrors are doing this. But if he would not trust one of his oldest friends…?
But then, she had an ace in the hole.
She stepped into the room, and stayed just within the doorway, then angled the light down and away from him. She watched him for a while, studying to see if she had been noticed.
He continued to shake, looking away.
She took one step forward.
"James." she said, bringing the light up a little closer, but so that he might see her, not the other way around. "We’re here." She thought for a moment. "You know us."
She moved the light again, even closer to herself now, its soft light taking her right out of the shadows.
He looked up, his eyes wide, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he so painfully tried to fend off the panic that was closing in.
She took a half step. He tried to spread himself across the wall, but he didn’t look away. His eyes fixated on her, he tried to back off, but could go nowhere. He began to whimper softly.
"K’Teira…" Eden’s voice was concerned, but she savagely waved him off with a hand.
"Leave now." she said neutrally, not allowing her eyes to break the gaze they’d attained with the Commander’s. "I’ll call you when we’re ready. Get away from the door."
She heard their retreat, then felt the nothingness behind her. They were alone.
Gradually, she raised her open hand towards the figure.
"I’m K’Teira." she said softly. "I can’t pretend to know what’s going on in your mind right now. I don’t know what you see me as. But I am your friend, and I will not let you go. You know me." She stepped forward. "Let me help you out of here."
A half sob escaped the shattered man, barely audible. Then, like lightning he was on his feet and to her, grasping her so tightly she could hardly breathe. She hugged him back, the force of the tremors pounding through him rocking her as well. He was intensely cold, and he whispered something over and over that was just out of her earshot.
Intense dread washed over her, pelting her in waves. The dark held unknown monsters; the light burned beyond belief; friends were impostors, enemies hired assassins that were everywhere… best not to move… to hide was the best thing…
Gods, she thought sickly. This is what he’s going through?
"I have to get you out of here." she told him thinly. "You have to move."
The tousled head buried into her shoulder moved in the affirmative.
Slowly but surely she made him take a step, then another. And another. It was like moving an iceberg out of heavy seas. Something - and she couldn’t tell if it was some outside force or simply that of his own terror - was holding him here, and fighting it was taking all her strength.
But she still had that other card to play.
"James." she said, then whispered something softly into his ear.
Shock.
Surprise.
Then the tremors lessened a little. His breathing became easier, though his grip never wavered. He even managed to look up for a second, his expression one of a man coming out of a wild dream.
"Don’t waste it! Use it!" she hissed. "Let that dominate your thoughts long enough to get us out of here!"
"It was our government’s protection in the elder times." The Nerani Ambassador had become more restrained since her experiences here. She was sitting before the assembled senior officers in the conference room with a contrite expression; what had happened in the Chambers had deeply affected her. She was a HistoryGiver - one of the honoured few who were able to tell the Histories word-perfect and so had had the arrogance to match this exalted position, and had been assigned to the Fairburn to warn of any potential dangers. This she obviously hadn’t done, and the realization of her crime towards one ignorant of the dangers as well as the reduction in status she was now undergoing had changed her considerably.
"In the elder times, there was war and strife between the different factions of our peoples, as is common amongst the people of the stars." she continued. "One faction was especially good at using telepathy to not only listen in and spy on the war councils, but had learned to used telekinesis to assassinate whole war rooms at a time.
"We were losing the war to these brutes, and so the Chambers were created. The Crystal is a power collector to run the Chambers themselves. The Chamber, as you have guessed, is a mental reflector and amplifier. The average person isn’t affected, as they haven’t got the capability to receive thoughts. But to a telepath…" She spread her hands. "You have seen the result.
"Yet the case of your Commander is extremely unusual. When the wars were over, we set into place screening systems and certain tests to ensure that no one of heightened awareness could get into the building, for their own good. No matter the blocking a telepath puts up, it had never failed, until now.
"Our experts are at a loss to explain it. According to every test we could devise, he was not telepathic. He was even deeply scanned by one of the top telepaths on our planet, to be absolutely sure he wasn’t going into danger…" Her voice now shook. "I never thought to see it in my lifetime, Captain. There are stories I know that you wouldn’t want to hear; stories of mind-quaking horror of what the Chamber has done to telepaths who managed to get in.
"Our government deeply regrets what our oversight has done, and so I announce to you now that the Chambers are to be declared off-limits to all off-worlders until we can determine what caused this. A formal apology is currently being drafted for both Commander Grieg and the Federation, as we are entirely to blame for this horrible occurrence.
"I am only thankful that it was the fear that got him. I’d hate to think of some of the other things that might have befallen him.
"Thank-you."
She retreated into a miserable ball in her chair, her head down. To the Captain, she now seemed a pitiable figure; a shame really. Though she has been a pain, she had been a mostly honourable one. She didn’t think it right to belabour the point now that an apology had been gained.
"Thank-you, Ambassador. This has been a trying time for us all. Does anyone have anything they’d like to add?"
The general feeling was of no, but she saw that Daniels was still troubled by all of this. Ever since he’d found James, he’d not been himself. For Matthew Daniels to look pensive and introspective, something had to be very wrong. She knew the Counsellor was planning to do something, but at the moment, she had more important matters on her plate. If only he wouldn’t react so badly to Berry…?
She looked pointedly at him, inviting him to speak, but he started under her gaze, shook his head sheepishly and returned to his reflections.
She sighed.
"All right, that will be all for now. Dismissed."
"Captain." The Ambassador didn’t give her time to approach first, The contrite woman stepped over to her as the others slowly filed out. Randall didn’t miss the silence radiating off them. There was something about this whole thing that had affected them all deeply. She didn’t blame them. It had bitten into her, too.
"Ambassador?"
"I was wondering," she began diffidently. "how the Commander is now. I haven’t seen him since he was brought back to the ship, and…"
Randall smiled gently.
"I was just going to go down to Sickbay to find out for myself. You’re welcome to join me."
The tired alien woman suddenly smiled in return; the first the Captain had seen since her voyage with them had begun.
"I will, Captain. Thank-you."
In Sickbay, Commander Grieg was sitting up in his bed, talking with K’Teira. He looked near to back to normal, to the Captain’s untrained eye as he laughed and joked. Then she was a shiver pass through him, and a hint of grey touched his face again as for a moment his eyes darted around the room.
His eyes caught hers, and he relaxed.
"Hello, Captain. Come to check on my progress?" He smiled grimly. "Physically there’s nothing wrong with me, and Eden can’t find any reason why…" He shook his head. "But as for my mental state…"
The muscles in his arm tensed, and the Captain traced its length down to a crease in the bedcover, where she realized with shock his hand was gripping K’Teira’s with white-knuckle strength. He wasn’t normally one who sought physical comfort…
The Captain saw the Counsellor watching her, and tore her eyes away from the vaguely disturbing sight.
"As you can see, he’s much better than he was." the Klingon said in even tones. "He will be released from Sickbay this afternoon."
"And you’ll receive her report later, I’m sure." James said softly, thoughtfully looking away from all of them and into some other place…
The Captain looked to K’Teira, who motioned she should say something.
"How…" Her voice rasped. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "How much do you remember, Commander?"
The fog in his eyes lifted and he thought about his words.
"Images. Fragments. And the emotion… It was mostly emotions." he replied, starting to shiver. "It was awful. Everything was wrong, everything was a threat, nothing was real, or was too real, and there was no such thing as a friend…" He shook, and Randall could see his grip heading for breaking point. How the Klingon didn’t scream from agony, she had no idea.
The Ambassador had been watching all of this with a mix of horror and sadness, but now she swallowed and said,
"There is one thing that puzzles me. In the stories, it is said that there was nothing could break its influence.. Yet you obviously did, Counsellor. Might I inquire how?"
A neat diversion. Randall saw his grip loosen slightly and the look of concentration on the Klingon’s face relax.
"I realized through observation and your comment about mirrors that what was happening was a reflection of what he was feeling amplified and somehow served back to him. I just got him feeling something different long enough to get him out."
"And what would that be?" Curiosity led many a cat into many a dire strait. This was no different.
K’Teira smiled bleakly.
"Patient/Counsellor confidentiality."
The Ambassador bowed her head.
"I understand." she said. "Thank-you. Commander, I just wanted to stress to you how deeply sorry I am I got you into this in the first place. My government will compensate you, of course."
"My thanks for the offer, but I…" he started, but the woman held up a hand.
"None of that!" she sniffed. "My word on this is final. You will be compensated. We are extremely sorry."
He bowed his head.
"Thank-you." he sighed.
"And now I must go." she told them. "I have matters to attend to. Please let me know about his condition, Counsellor. Thank-you Captain, for your continued understanding."
K’Teira nodded, and the woman left.
The Captain stayed silent for a moment or two, and then pursed her lips.
"I know what the answer is going to be, but I have to admit I’ve been curious about it too. What did she tell you, James, to get you to snap out of it where Eden couldn’t?"
"I…" He looked at the Counsellor, who smiled as if to say it’s up to you. Then he looked back at his Captain. "It’s too hard to put into words right now." he said softly. "It wasn’t so much what she said, but what went with it. It made me feel like there was something else other than the chaos around. It lightened the load considerably."
"And you’re not going to tell me, are you?" she sighed.
K’Teira smiled.
"No. It’s up to him, and I’m not sure he’s ready for it now. Or if he ever will be."
Randall narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but knew she had to take this at face value. What was so important that K’Teira would want to hide it from her, anyway?
"All right." she replied. "I’ll expect to have a report from you soon, Counsellor. And it’s good to see you looking so much better now, James. I hope I’ll see you on the bridge soon - it’s just not the same without you."
After the Captain had gone, James turned to K’Teira and released her hand for the first time that day. It was a milestone of sorts, as this time he didn’t start shaking immediately.
"How did you know?" he asked quietly. She knew what he was referring to.
"I’ve known for a while." she replied. "And because you didn’t realise it for so long yourself, you weren’t able to hide it. I know Eden suspected it."
"I see." He looked down at the bedcovers, plucking at the top of them. "And what do you think?"
"I think that’s another time’s conversation." she replied. "Not while I’m still in the role of your counsellor - unless you want Berry?"
"No!" The thought terrified him for just an instant, long enough for him to reflexively grasp at her hand.
She sighed. This was going to be a bumpy road, she knew, and they hadn’t even begun travelling it yet.
K’Teira’s Private Log I don’t know where this is going to take things. He is still extremely dependent on me, and I’m not sure if the residual effects will ever fade. I wish it hadn’t ever had to come to having to say it, but I have, and he is now aware that I know. He is embarrassed by this, and as a consequence it is harder for him to come back into reality because he isn’t sure who can read him and who can’t. He feels things so strongly, and yet hides them just as well, out of training, out of a desire to remain private. Sometimes its hard not to notice the extra layers of distance he puts between himself and the world. I can only hope it will pass and his rationality will win out.
There is also the matter of his strong latent empathic sense. To know there is one in his make-up explains a lot about his reactions to things; and it also explains how tortured by things he ends up. I remember how he was when he arrived from the Portsmouth, just as I remember how soon his turn around came. Now that I think about it I realise that he might have been reflecting the emotional states of those around himself, and not just his own.
What a mess.
Eight simple words had been his saviours; but would they also be his downfall?
And those words?
"James, I know you’re in love with me."
fin
