Flashback - Diane Carey [16]
If she could just get her fingers on it for a minute or two.
"Doctor," she announced as she strode directly into the med lab.
"Ah-Captain." The Doctor looked up from the monitor with Tuvok's brain scan on the screen. He seemed more hopeful, or at least glad to have something to report. "Mr. Tuvok is awake now and resting in relative comfort. He wishes to speak to you after I give you my report. I may have a theory for you to consider."
"Go ahead."
"I think we may be dealing with a repressed memory."
Janeway felt her brow pucker at those words.
But the Doctor moved again to the brain monitor, and she went with him.
"The memory engrams in the dorsal region of his hippocampus are being disrupted," the Doctor said. "It's causing physical damage to the surrounding tissue. In Vulcan medicine, this is known as a t'lokan
schism. It means that the subject is inhibiting a traumatic memory which is beginning to surface."
"And that's causing brain damage?" the captain asked, determined to understand. Mental instability, maybe, but actual physical injury to the brain?
"Strange, I know," the Doctor agreed. "In human subjects, repressed memories are nothing more than psychological traumas. They can be dealt with through standard therapeutic techniques." He looked down at Tuvok with a sympathy and concern belying the engrammatic sense of life machines were beginning to possess. "But in Vulcans, there is a physical reaction to the battle between the conscious and the unconscious. In extreme cases, the mind of the patient can literally lobotomize itself."
The idea struck Janeway full in the heart, even though she had suspected something like this might be going on. Lobotomize itself! So powerful-and such desperation. The animal in the trap chews off its own leg. The terrorized mind commits suicide to avoid the terror.
Could Vulcans really be that different? Perhaps this was one of the reasons they strove so hard for control over their minds. A mind that strong was like a fire-breathing dragon on the loose. Control was essential, or it would self-immolate.
She was afraid of the answer, but she had to ask. "What's the treatment?"
"There is no medical treatment for this condition," the Doctor told her flatly, but with definite reluctance. "Vulcan psycho-cognitive literature suggests that the patient initiate a mind-meld with a
family member . . . then the two of them attempt to bring the repressed memory to the conscious mind." Pull the dragon forward out of the cave. Then kill it. Or tame it.
"Normally," the Doctor said, "this will result in what they call a reintegration. The memory is restored to its proper place in the conscious memory."
Janeway considered the idea. Again, the seventy years between this ship and home taunted her. "I'm the closest thing Tuvok has to a family member on this ship."
"That's why I've asked you to come," the Doctor said. "He has a request to make of you."
She stared at the Doctor for a long moment. She didn't have to be telepathic to know what that meant.
In the main exam area of sickbay, Tuvok lay on his bio-bed with his fingers steepled in concentration. He was strained, fatigued, his skin without luster, his eyes without ease. He didn't even notice Janeway approach until she was almost at the bedside.
"Did the Doctor explain the situation to you?" he asked. His voice had a telltale rasp.
"Yes," she said. "Tuvok . . . are you sure it's the right thing to do?"
He hesitated in frustration. The last couple of days had taken a bitter toll, both physically and emotionally, for him, and the stress was showing in his face, his voice, and how much this request was disturbing
him. "I do not know how else to proceed," he admitted.
"The Doctor tells me this is a memory, and yet... no matter how hard I try, I cannot remember it."
He took a steadying breath and tried to center himself, to regain control enough at least to discuss the illogical logically. Janeway gave him the moment.
"If the Doctor is correct," he