Possession - J.M. Dillard [3]
“Yes, of course, Healer. I will remember.” How could he forget? As a young man, he’d spent years talking with groups of others like himself and their healers, trying to recover from the terrible memories, the horrifying experiences. The memory of his mother’s screams, her savage, sadistic murder at his father’s hands—his father, who had been the gentlest, most logical of men. His father had never recovered from the responsibility of his actions after the madness was cured. He had died young, broken by guilt.
“Please, come by my office before you begin work this morning, Skel,” T’Son said calmly.
He stiffened, anticipating her request.
“It is best if we meld,” she told him, “so that I can try to remove the most difficult dream memories. Many healers believe this prevents the same dream from recurring repetitively.”
He swallowed, but said with the same calm as she, “I will do that, Healer. In your office, before I go to my laboratory.”
“Try to sleep, Skel. You have not rested enough over the past few days. If you can’t sleep, take one of the herbal sedatives I’ve given you.”
“Yes, Healer,” he promised.
She nodded, and the screen went dark.
He stared at the blank screen a long moment, knowing sleep was impossible for him now. He should take the sedative. He should do as she suggested. It was the logical choice.
But he could not shake the sense of danger the dream had evoked. He moved to his dresser, removed his night clothes, and donned his normal attire. There would be few in the laboratory at this hour. While the Vulcan Science Academy normally employed few security devices, the work he was doing was always tightly secured and restricted. He could check the security system and all the forcefields. It would only take a moment. Perhaps, having reassured himself, he could then sleep. It was not logical, but he would do it anyway, for he had learned as a child that reassurance was the most efficient strategy for dealing with irrational fear.
Then he would be rested before he went to T’Son’s office. Before he had to meld.
As he left the living quarters and moved silently through the nearly empty stone hallways of the Vulcan Science Academy, he tried not to think about the upcoming appointment. It was illogical to dislike the meld—dislike of anything was illogical by its very nature. Nevertheless, he hated melding after his nightmares. It brought all the terrifying images to the surface and made him relive them again, even though, afterward, he rarely suffered from the exact same images.
It just meant his memories—his mother’s warning—had to take different paths to break through to his dreams.
The sensors turned the lights on in his lab as he entered it. All seemed as it had been when he left but a few hours before. He swallowed and forced his mind to be calm. He reminded himself the lab was often disturbing to him after a dream. Even the healer recognized that there was a certain logic in that.
He walked over to the containment area and checked the computer console that managed his experimental subjects. The multiple forcefields were all in place, under complex codes that only he and two others knew. Everything was as he had left it. He stared at the console. No, not quite everything.
A telltale was out. His fingers flew over the controls. A routine cell replacement was necessary. In fact, the telltale had already been reported and a security maintenance worker had taken tricorder readings, no doubt to effect the correct repair. It was a minor matter—not enough for him to have been notified. Could his dream have been triggered by something so trivial? T’Son would dismiss this as coincidence, and no doubt, she would be right.
Skel noted that the maintenance worker had not left an identifying code. That was contrary to regulations, and he would have to look into it. This area was off-limits to all but the most experienced technicians, as it was too risky to have insufficiently trained workers