Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [123]
Troi bit her lip, put herself behind the door, and waited.
The sound of phaser fire came from right outside the door. Troi got an image from her counterpart of the sparks and smoke jumping from the door control. The door flew open.
It was, of course, one of her guards that plunged in first: no chance she would have gone in first herself, if only because it was below her dignity. Deanna stunned the man immediately.
From outside, that mind seized hers. Its power was terrible, magnified by some kind of training that Deanna couldn’t believe—and, terribly, that she coveted. I could have that kind of power, she thought.
The wall of blocks trembled. Oh, no, Deanna said, furious that she could be tempted that way. But she was having none of it. She reached out to that other mind, grappled with it. Then came the shock of satisfaction as the other’s alarm came down the link, now reestablished, between them. The other might have raw power, but Deanna had finesse. The other battered at her blocks and found them too well established: hit them, hit them again, bristling with rage and scorn.
But her counterpart had no blocks up at all —apparently thinking she had no need for them. And it was hilarious, in a way, for she refused to acknowledge Deanna as another version of herself— if she had, she could have treated Deanna’s blocks as if they were her own and demolished them, as it were, from the inside.
Deanna, though, knew perfectly well they were more or less the same person—no matter how loathsome the concept was—and knew she could affect that other mind as if it were her own. She laughed soundlessly and left the other battering at her own protective walls, while she slipped out from behind one of them and came at the counselor’s mind from underneath, stabbing it deep with a well-whetted knife of rage at what the counselor had done to Geordi.
There was a soundless shriek of pain and surprise at the violation. Deanna enjoyed the feeling, and while the other was frozen with reaction, simply stepped around from her hiding place by the doorway and out into the corridor. Alone, the counselor stood there, trying to move, unable to escape the iron grip Deanna had on her—and Deanna, very calmly, stepped up to her and clubbed her in the side of the head with her phaser.
The counselor went down like a felled tree. “You can have too much of the life of the mind,” she said softly, and reached down to take the counselor under the armpits and drag her in out of sight.
Geordi was still busy with the tricorder. “How much longer?” Deanna said, starting to feel the reaction now to what she had just done, and the nervousness —for other minds were coming toward them, very close. One of them was plainly Picard’s—all stern resolution and an odd pity. In company with it was another, a smothered blaze of excitement and surmise. Another, though, was Picard’s counterpart’s, that icy rage very much in evidence, and they were both getting closer all the time.
“Just a couple more minutes!” Geordi said.
Down the corridor, Deanna heard the turbolift door open.
She peered out most cautiously, hearing the hurrying footsteps, holding the phaser ready—
—and saw the captain and this universe’s Worf coming toward them. All was well with both their minds, there was no sense of compulsion. Her face lit briefly with the smile she hadn’t dared to let out.
“Captain!”
“Counselor,” Picard said, then winced a little and smiled. “Perhaps I might call you Deanna for the moment—I’ve had enough of the counselor for one day.”
“It would seem she has as well,” Worf said as they stepped into the core access room and found the other Troi collapsed on the floor.
Picard raised an eyebrow at this and looked over at Geordi. “Mr. La Forge, how is it going?”
“Almost done, Captain. One more chip.”
“I meant, how are you?”
Geordi smiled, then groaned again. “I feel like elephants have been holding a tap-dancing competition on my body, and the finals are being held in my head. But other than that …”
Picard