The Battle of Betazed - Charlotte Douglas [17]
He leaned forward again, until static from the force field sparked against the tip of his nose. He drew his lips back in a smile, his eyes glittering. “Remove this damned inhibitor from my brain, and I’ll be happy to give you a personal demonstration.”
Troi put aside the memory of the sadistic gleam in Tevren’s eyes. “For four interminable months, I worked with Tevren for several hours each day,” she told Picard.
The captain regarded her with compassion. “Were you able to help him?”
She shook her head. “He was no nearer rehabilitation the day I left Darona than he had been the day I arrived. If anything, Tevren became more entrenched in his depraved fascination with death. He took perverse pleasure in describing every vicious detail of each of his murders, the agonies of his savaged victims, the so-called cleverness of his brutality. Director Lanolan worked with him, too, with no better results than I had. We tried everything—recreational therapy, behavioral conditioning. Even antipsychotic drugs were a dismal failure.”
Picard raised an eyebrow. “I take it Tevren didn’t care for gardening.”
Deanna nodded. “Since he could no longer kill people, he took great joy in mutilating the director’s prize plants. He was punished by confinement to his quarters, but he actually seemed to prefer the isolation.”
“And he never revealed how he killed with his mind?”
“I don’t think he could, not as long as the inhibitor was functioning. He implied the skill had to be conveyed telepathically.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand something, Counselor,” Picard said with a frown. “You said Tevren claimed to have developed the ability after studying the records of a cult. Why couldn’t the resistance do the same?”
“Because the records were historical, not technical. I think they gave him clues. From what I could piece together from his usual half answers, it took him three years just to reason out the process of utilizing his psionic talents invasively. If it were any easier for a Betazoid to learn it on her own, there would be more like Tevren. But with someone to teach it …”
“Deanna,” the captain said, “the people of Betazed are among the most benign, enlightened, and peace-loving I’ve ever known. I know from studying their history that your people’s telepathy and empathy were a force for civilizing your planet and creating one of the most unified and compassionate civilizations in the Federation. At the risk of playing devil’s advocate, I find it hard to believe that the knowledge of the mere capacity for abusing those talents would threaten your culture.”
Troi smiled faintly. “That’s kind of you to say, Captain. And you’re right. To some degree, my culture owes whatever good it’s achieved to our ability to know one another telepathically. It’s made us truly whole in a way few species ever become. But every culture, no matter how benign, struggles with its own capacity for evil. That struggle is hardest on a telepathic species, where the slightest thought of violence, destruction, even death, can potentially be made manifest. There’s a reason the Vulcans struggled so long to master their passions, and still do. They know the capacity for evil can never truly be purged. Mastery is the best anyone can hope for.”
“Hmm,” Picard murmured. “Your point is well made, Counselor. What’s your estimation of Tevren? Will he cooperate?”
Troi took a deep breath. “That’s another variable in all this. It’s been seventeen years. I honestly don’t know how much he may have changed, if at all. It may be that after seventeen years of incarceration, he’ll do anything to be free. Or it may be that he simply won’t care anymore.” Deanna set her cold cocoa aside. “He’s truly a monster, sir. The man enjoyed wringing the last desperate breath from his victims. I read the autopsy reports. They all died slowly and savagely, their minds destroyed one tiny piece at a time. And this,” Troi said, “is the person in whom the resistance feels compelled to place