The Battle of Betazed - Charlotte Douglas [16]
“And you liked this feeling of power?”
He pivoted quickly on his heel, rushed to the table, and leaned across it with his palms spread, his face within a millimeter of the force field. “It’s more than a feeling, Counselor. The power is quite real.”
Real enough that only the psionic implant in his brain protected her from it, she reminded herself. “Tell me about it.”
He yawned, as if bored, and drew back from the force field. “It’s all in my file.”
“Fine.” She called his bluff and rose to leave.
“But if you’d rather hear it in my own words …”
She bit back a sarcastic reply. The director was recording the interview. She wanted no record of her losing her control on the first day of her internship. She slid back into her chair and nodded. “Your own words.”
Looking very pleased with himself, Tevren sat and leaned back in his chair. “Several hundred years ago, a small, secret society arose on Betazed. Members of this cult dedicated themselves to developing their telepathic skills in creative ways. I found this classified information fascinating and amused myself for a time by attempting to develop some of their simpler skills on my own.”
“What kind of skills?”
“Harmless little amusements, such as amplifying and projecting intense emotions into the mind of another. The ability was useless, really, except for its potential to make others either extremely uncomfortable or to appear foolish in their reactions to the unwanted feelings.” He frowned with distaste. “Besides, the physical and mental effort I had to expend to project the emotion wasn’t worth the fun I received from the results.”
“So, in essence, you became a telepathic practical joker,” Deanna observed.
He nodded solemnly. “A situation far beneath my intellectual dignity. So I decided to accept a greater challenge.”
Deanna waited, knowing and dreading what she was about to hear.
“The classified records of this secret cult,” Tevren continued, “indicated that they had stumbled onto the ability to kill telepathically. That discovery, however, was their downfall. When several members availed themselves of the opportunity to kill with their minds, they were discovered by the authorities. When the authorities realized what the cult had uncovered—a lethal potential in every Betazoid but unknown to all but the members of this cult—the government moved in. They arrested the entire movement, imprisoned them for life, destroyed the instructions for their special skills, and sealed the records of their activities, even of their very existence. For the next four hundred years, only Betazoids with the highest security clearance knew such a group had existed.”
“So you taught yourself to kill.”
Tevren nodded, obviously pleased with his accomplishment. “It was relatively easy, really, once I reasoned it out and practiced a few times.”
Like the majority of Betazoids, what Deanna found most disturbing about the man before her—about any criminal—was his lack of empathy. Because her people were so attuned to the thoughts and feelings of those around them, crime on her planet was rare. Internalizing the pain, fear, and emotional damage his actions would cause often stopped the would-be criminal in his tracks. Tevren obviously suffered no such restraints.
“Why did you kill?” She sincerely wanted to understand. “Was it revenge? Jealousy? Ambition?”
Tevren laughed, a dry husky sound like the rustling of dead leaves. “You psychologists are all alike, trying to see some great motivation behind every behavior. When I killed—except for my parents, whom I killed for practice—it was just for fun.”
She tried not to show her horror. For the first time she truly understood why the authorities had locked Tevren away and buried his crimes. If word of his atrocities were to surface, if the knowledge he’d rediscovered were made public, the peace of Betazed might end forever.
She forced herself to ask the next question. The answer, of course, hadn’t been in his file. And given what he’d just told her, she was certain it wasn’t documented anywhere. But she