Spirit Walk_ Old Wounds (Book 1) - Christie Golden [54]
She glanced at the chronometer. “I checked with Lieutenant Kim. It’s going to be another several days before we arrive at Loran II at this speed, and that should be plenty of time for us to complete the process and for you to reflect on it and integrate it.”
Kaz tried not to look as nervous as he felt, but he suspected the rattling of the delicate china cup in its saucer gave him away.
“I’ve studied nearly every therapy technique practiced by humanoids within the Federation,” Astall continued. “What we’re going to do now is a combination of guided meditation, hypnotherapy, and a greatly simplified version of the zhian’tara. I won’t be using any medication at all. We want your mind clear.”
“All right.” Kaz nodded and sipped the tea. Astall was right: it was good.
“We’re going to address the memories of Gradak that are contained in the Kaz symbiont. We’re going to ask him to step into your body—in a purely symbolic way, of course—and let him tell us exactly what it is that’s bothering him so badly. Once he has told us this, we’ll ask him to return to the symbiont and take his place with the memories of all the other hosts that have gone before.”
Kaz stared into the depths of his cup. “What if he doesn’t want to leave?”
Astall smiled gently. “As I said, this is symbolic, not literal. He will never really be present, so that’s not an issue. This is all about accessing memory, Jarem, not channeling a dead spirit. That sort of thing is more Sekaya’s job.”
Kaz’s eyebrows shot upward. “Sekaya can do that?”
“I’m not sure, but certainly she’d be better equipped to handle anything like that than I would!” Astall said. “Let’s see if I can put it another way. You understand about the workings of the humanoid brain. It varies from species to species, of course—heck, it varies from person to person and even brain hemisphere to hemisphere—but there are more similarities than differences. Memories, both long- and short-term, are stored in the medial temporal lobe, specifically, in the hippocampus. And correct me if I’ve got this wrong, but the Trill neural transmitter isoboromine is what connects the memories contained in the symbiont to the brain of the current host.”
“That’s more or less right,” Jarem said, smiling.
“As long as I’ve got the gist of it. We’re simply turning things around a bit. Right now, you have access to the memories of all the symbiont’s previous hosts along with Jarem’s. At the present moment, Jarem’s memories are in the forefront. Which is as it should be as you are the current, living host.”
She held out her left hand, relaxed and open, to try to illustrate the point.
“Gradak’s are more deeply embedded, less immediate.” Astall closed her right hand into a loose fist and held it close to her heart. “We’re going to bring Gradak’s memories into that center-stage position while Jarem’s step back a little. That’s all.”
As she spoke, she shifted position with her hands, bringing the left hand to her heart and extending and opening the right. It was a graceful and fluid gesture, and Jarem grasped exactly what she planned to do. He nodded his understanding. He felt much better now that she had explained it in a somewhat more dispassionate, scientific way.
“Got it.”
“Then, when we’re done, we’ll shift things back to their proper places. You won’t lose any memories; you’ll just feel Gradak’s as more immediate for a while.”
“Any side effects?” he joked.
“I think it likely that you might feel a bit unsettled afterward,” she said. “It will take some time for you to readjust to being Jarem Kaz and not Gradak Kaz. Fortunately, we’re not due to arrive at Loran II for another few days, so we do have that time. And we both expect that some of his memories that will surface could be traumatic, and you’ll have to deal with that. But that’s about it.”
A thought struck Kaz. “Have you done this before?”
“Not with a Trill,” she said. “I’ve done this sort of guided meditation quite often, though.”
She leaned forward and looked at him intently. “Jarem, we don’t have to do this. We can wait until we return