Possession - J.M. Dillard [34]
“How could she?” Beverly wondered aloud. “They’re not intelligent. I’m not even sure the Vulcans consider them ‘alive’ in any sense.”
Deanna had been listening to the two officers as she stared at the small unimposing artifacts. She felt odd watching them like this, as if she were observing a venomous snake caged in a glass tank—a snake that knew it was in a tank and therefore made no attempt to strike. A snake that was content to sit, wait, and bide its time.
“Counselor?” Picard asked again. “Are you sensing anything?”
She heard again that terrible voice, that primal scream of a mother protecting her child.
RUN! RUN, MY CHILD! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
Only this time it was her own mother’s voice she heard—Lwaxana pleading with her to flee, to get out of there, to save herself …
Troi gave herself a mental shake, knowing that she was just reacting to the shocking effect of Skel’s memories. Deanna glanced at Picard, then turned back to the artifacts.
Vulcans were primarily touch telepaths, and obviously, with these objects contained behind multiple forcefields and the danger of infection, no Vulcan would ever be allowed to put hands upon these. If there was any chance there was life in these pods, or even, however remotely possible, intelligence, she was obliged to discern that.
Hesitantly, Deanna opened her empathic sense to the artifacts sitting in the containment field.
POWER!
It hit hard, like a blow to the skull, as a torrential flood of sensory input invaded her mind. Her head snapped back as if she had been physically struck, causing her instinctively to hold up her hands to ward off the attack.
“What’s happening to her?” she heard Picard demand, worry etched in his voice, but she could not respond to him. She could only fight for her own sanity.
Something was grasping her arms: Crusher, Picard, followed by Beverly shouting, but Deanna could no longer understand the words, could no longer do anything except fall into a maelstrom of emotion, hatred, rage. Dimly, she was aware of Picard lifting her in his arms and running out of the room, as if he could outrace disaster and impending doom.
“Deanna! Deanna!” Beverly shouted, as the empath spiraled down, down, down into hell. “Deanna, break the connection! Break it! You can do it! Come on!”
A slap … distant and faraway, a quicksilver glimmer of physical pain like a lifeline in the middle of overwhelming rage, fury, terror, despair. Troi mentally grasped at it.
Another slap. Another, stronger …
The blows rocked her; she sucked in a lungful of air like a newborn, at last breaking the connection.
The sensation of normalcy, of freedom from mental anguish, brought infinite relief. Deanna inhaled shakily and examined her surroundings: she lay on a diagnostic bed in outer sickbay, as far as possible from the receptacles, with both Picard and Beverly gazing down at her with expressions of profound alarm.
“Deanna, thank God!” Crusher exclaimed, as she stared at her medi-scanner readout. “You’re all right now. But that was close.”
Picard turned to Crusher, a mixture of worry, indignation, and the need to know warring on his face. “What happened in there?”
“Her bodily functions were shutting down,” Crusher said incredulously, still studying the readout, “while her brain—” The doctor shook her head, struggling to explain. “Her brain was trying to reformat its neural pathways into something completely different! I’ve never seen anything like it—well, maybe once. Over a century ago on Reydovan Four, there was an unusual virus that reformatted the brain to its needs. The victims were alive but no longer humanoid, trapped in a nightmare world of consciousness not of their own making. That’s the only analogy I can come up with. But Deanna’s body was dying, even though the brain was showing no response to the organ failures. I don’t understand it. Not at all. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“What did you feel while this was happening?