Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [90]
The heavy doors clanged shut, and the guards moved away in a group, pulling Rukath/Tuvok by his ankles toward the cell block’s outer doors.
Mekrikuk took a deep breath and began to prepare himself. Though his psionic abilities had always been fairly limited, he pushed out with them aggressively, reaching toward the one particular mind that offered any prospect of freedom and salvation.
The gray stillness was infinite. It held neither memories nor ghosts from his former life. Though Tuvok was aware that his body was being kicked, the sensation didn’t register as pain so much as a lighter shade of gray.
He had not gone so deeply into a healing trance in more than half a century. To any who might examine him, he was functionally lifeless. Only a deep-tissue tricorder scan would reveal the persistent vestiges of life within him, a state not very far removed from suspended animation. He was well aware that such a low level of metabolic activity couldn’t be maintained for long; were his heart rate to decline any further, or the balance of gases in his bloodstream to alter in the slightest, his mimicry of death would become far more perfect than he had intended.
Tuvok found the trance more difficult to maintain than usual for several reasons. Although the Reman Mekrikuk had helped to restore him somewhat from his earlier malnourished condition—thus aiding him in regaining a degree of control over his mental disciplines—Tuvok knew that his current condition was far from ideal. More important, those in a healing trance often found it difficult to return to full consciousness unaided.
For this reason, Tuvok had worked with Mekrikuk on a specialized form of hypnotic command, to be delivered telepathically. The Reman’s esper abilities were untrained and limited, but Tuvok had mind-melded with Mekrikuk—a terrible mutual lowering of personal barriers, but a deed thought necessary by both men under the current dire circumstances—and had given the Reman clear, unambiguous instructions.
Time passed, all but unreckonable in the gray infinite, before Tuvok saw the silent flash of color that represented Mekrikuk’s mental burst, far away, coruscating and crackling as it moved inexorably toward him. Eventually, with an almost agonizing slowness, it engulfed Tuvok, and he saw in it the path that would lead his mind toward a fully conscious state. Tuvok wondered idly whether the characters in the ancient stories of fal-tor-pan—the re-fusion of a Vulcan’s immortal katra with its still-living body—had experienced something similar. Though Ambassador Spock was rumored to have undergone just such a refusion once, Tuvok had never quite been able to bring himself to believe it.
As he gradually drifted back to himself, Tuvok began to regain some rudimentary awareness of his physical body. He realized with some discomfort that he was being dragged by his feet, the rough-hewn stone floor tearing away at his bloodied back through the rags that draped his emaciated body. He felt a burning sensation in his nostrils, mouth, and eyes, and realized that his captors had sprayed him with something caustic, probably to make certain that he truly was as dead as he appeared. He was careful not to react to the smell or the pain, keeping his breaths shallow, willing his countenance to remain just as lifeless as it had looked while he had been in the healing trance.
“Dii Pangaere tohr ve reh nubereae,” he heard one Romulan guard say to another, and he felt a twinge of pride that he had outlasted their expectations.
His captors suddenly stopped dragging him, and Tuvok heard one of them bark a sharp command. “Aihr Arrain Vextan. Abrai na iaaeru!”
As if the grinding mechanical sounds of the prison doors weren’t clue enough that they had reached the outer gates, Tuvok felt the floor vibrating beneath him as the great metal barriers rolled open. Seconds later, he was dragged into the area beyond the doors, where the floor was smoother, and the air cooler and less fetid. Though his eyes remained closed, he could sense a