Pathways - Jeri Taylor [215]
Back in his room, he found himself pacing frenetically. For the first time, he realized how small and cramped the room was. He moved to the window and flung it open, hoping that the evening breeze might make the space less oppressive.
The heat of the desert flooded in. The room, which had been pleasantly cool, was now even more stifling than ever, making it difficult, somehow, to breathe. With a strangled oath, he slammed shut the window, and the noise it made when it collided with its casing seemed as loud as a tricobalt explosion in the tiny room. His sensitive ears rang painfully, and he swore again.
He flung himself down on his pallet, arm over his eyes, trying desperately to gain control over whatever was happening to him. He took three deep breaths and began the first of the Disciplines, but within seconds, his thoughts had fragmented like shards of broken crystal. He recalled Teknat offering him a napkin, and rage overcame him once more. He clenched his hand into a fist and pounded it against the wall. The pain that resulted was the only slightly soothing sensation he’d had all day.
In the midst of all this, a soft chime announced that someone was outside his door. “Go away!” he called in as loud and strident a voice as he could summon.
But in response, the door opened, and M’Fau was standing there.
Chagrined, he got to his feet. He noticed that his knuckles were gouged, and droplets of blood dripped green on the floor. “I . . . apologize,” he said with difficulty. “I didn’t realize it would be you.”
She made no answer, but entered the room and perched on his chair, hands upon her knees like a scrawny raptor poised to dive for small game. “Sit, Tuvok,” she said, and to his ears her voice seemed to echo as though from the depths of an ancient tomb.
He sat. Irritation and anxiety clawed at him, and he struggled desperately to maintain some measure of control. He envisioned himself putting his hands around M’Fau’s thin neck, skin crepy with folds, and squeezing until her black eyes popped wide and she collapsed in a shuddering death.
“. . . what has happened to you.”
He realized she had been talking to him, but as he had been fantasizing about murdering her, he had no idea what she’d said. He wiped at his face and shook his head, trying to clear it and focus on M’Fau.
“I’m sorry, would you repeat that?”
“I said, I believe I know what has happened to you.”
He stared at her, trying to make sense of this statement, but unable to make sense of anything. He shook his head again. “Oh?” he replied vaguely.
She leaned toward him. “I believe your time has come.”
This, too, made no sense to him, though he forced his mind to try to assimilate her meaning. His time? What time?
“I do not know . . . what you mean,” he said with effort.
She sighed. He discerned then that she was extremely uncomfortable, and this realization struck at him like an asp. He felt unaccountably fearful.
“Thee hast lapsed into the Pon farr,” she continued, using the formal mode as a kind of shelter from her embarrassment. “What the ancients called the plak-tow. The blood fever.”
“I still . . . do not know what you mean.”
“That is because we do not talk about it. But it comes to every Vulcan male at some point, and every seven years thereafter. The onset can have many forms, but I believe thine hast begun.”
Confusion swam in his brain, and he worked desperately to quell it. “What is ‘it’? What comes every seven years? I don’t understand . . .”
“The mating time. Thee must take a wife.”
At these words, a powerful image burst into Tuvok’s brain: he was walking down a richly appointed corridor, drawn inexorably forward by the siren song of a woman’s voice humming an intoxicating melody. The sound was silken, keening, suggesting indescribable longing. His heart hammered as he drew toward a door, rich with brocades, and extended his hand to open it