Pathways - Jeri Taylor [209]
“Thank you, but after a race, I always meditate. It’s part of my training program.”
“Since when—” Scott began, but the woman, pearly eyes fastened on Tuvok, cut him off.
“I’ve always found Vulcan meditation rituals more satisfying than any others when it comes to slowing the heart rate. But they seem to increase the activity of my mind, rather than reduce it.”
Tuvok was curious in spite of himself. He appraised the poised young woman who held his gaze so unflinchingly. “How did you become familiar with Vulcan meditations?”
“My mother travels to Vulcan frequently as a cultural liaison. I began accompanying her when I was a small child. I’ve spent several summers studying at the Temple of Amonak.”
Tuvok regarded her with bemusement. He had long wanted to study at the Temple of Amonak, a notion supported by his father but disapproved of by his mother, on the grounds that he needed more well-rounded activities. “He’d spend all his time in a temple if he were given the chance,” he’d heard his mother say on more than one occasion. And now he was face-to-face with a human who had been able to accomplish what he had been denied.
“With whom did you study?”
“Primarily with the priestess M’Fau. She held special classes daily for young people. She was remarkable. I think she may be the reason I find it difficult to still the mind when I follow her meditations—I’m always reminded of her, and I begin thinking about how wise she was, how much I learned from her—and pretty soon my mind is a jumble of thoughts.”
Curiosity was giving way to something else, something Tuvok had experienced before and which he strove rigorously to control. He had no words for these incipient feelings—for that is unmistakably what they were—but they had to do with this cool human woman and the fact that she had had experiences which he had been denied. He had a wish to hear of those experiences, and a sense that there was something wrong if a human could study with M’Fau and he could not . . .
Some of these sensations were unpleasant (those which others would identify as resentment and jealousy), and Tuvok used all the techniques at his disposal to suppress them. Another sensation was less bothersome, and seemed somehow less treacherous; it was like a curiosity but magnified a thousandfold. He allowed the sensation to roil within him for a moment, testing it, trying to decide if it had to be quelled or if he could act upon it. He decided he could.
“I would very much like to speak with you about your experiences at Amonak,” he intoned. “It would be interesting to hear of your classes with M’Fau.”
He was vaguely aware of Scott’s surprised and elated expression, his quick good-bye and equally swift departure. Tuvok was completely focused on this provocative woman with the dusky gray eyes and the forthright manner that was so . . . so Vulcan.
He spent inordinate quantities of time with Sophie Timmins during the last months of his senior year at the Academy, discussing the teachings of M’Fau, meditating communally, and discussing the profundities of cthia. He discerned that Sophie’s fascination for things Vulcan was not merely an intellectual curiosity; she seemed to want, on some deeply felt level, to be Vulcan. She pored over Vulcan history, and studied Surak’s writings assiduously.
She was the first true friend Tuvok had made among humans, and that only because she did everything she could to disavow her humanity and to inculcate Vulcanism.
But in the end, she, too, wanted more. She was unable to free herself completely of human longings, unable to quell the fiercely passionate spirit that seemed to inhabit all Terrans. She wanted a physical intimacy that he could neither understand nor satisfy.
The end came during an evening in June, when the weather was uncharacteristically warm for San Francisco. Tuvok and Sophie sat in a gazebo situated on the grounds of the Academy, secluded within a grove of eucalyptus trees. They had been studying the tenets of Kolinahr, the