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“All right,” he said, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His bare feet were touching the cold floor, but he remained seated, dressed in a loose-fitting infirmary gown and a single tangled blanket. “Go ahead and be candid.”

She nodded. After a pause to look over her shoulder, apparently to assure their continued privacy, she met his stare head-on and said, “Although you have been operating as Terix of Romulus for the last fourteen years, your real name is Tevik of Vulcan.”

“Operating?”

“You have been carrying out a long-term deep-cover assignment on Romulus for the V’Shar, Vulcan’s principal intelligence agency.”

He ran his fingertips over the prominent ridge that crossed his brow and subtly jutted over his eyes. “ I am a Vulcan and not a Romulan?”

She nodded. “That is correct. Your Romulan appearance is the result of cosmetic surgery. It is easy enough to verify, should you require proof.”

He also supposed it would be equally easy for Ych’a to rig a medical scanner so that it would support whatever “facts” she wished him to believe.

A people who cannot lie, yet they have a spy bureau, he thought as he began to perceive just how difficult it was to know how far he ought to extend his trust.

Finally he decided to accept Ych’a at face value, at least until and unless she gave him a good reason to withdraw that acceptance.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said at length. “But I do have some questions.”

“Undoubtedly,” she said.

“I feel... intensely conflicted emotions. I thought Vulcans were not subject to such things.”

“Vulcans experience essentially the same emotions as do other humanoid species. We have developed many psychological and physiological mechanisms to control and suppress them, however.”

He thought he was beginning to understand. “But Romulans have not.”

“Correct. And many of your emotional suppression systems have been medically modified, just as both your external appearance and your memory engrams have been altered.”

Memory? This was all going to take some time to sort out, let alone accept. “To enable me to pass among Romulans as Terix?” he said.

“Yes. Some of your emotional dysfunction may also stem from the same recent head injuries that have at least temporarily prevented you from accessing many years of your memories.”

He felt his eyes narrow involuntarily. “My own Vulcan memories? Or memory engrams prepared for me by this... V’Shar intelligence bureau?”

“At present, you appear to be unable to access either set of memories to any significant extent. Doctor Sivath believes this may be the result of the action of a built-in Vulcan neurological defense mechanism.”

“Defense mechanism,” he said, trying to match the flatness of her affect despite the spiral of confusion he felt rising within his breast.

“Your mind needs to determine which of the two conflicting identities locked in your brain’s memory engrams is genuine: that of Tevik of Vulcan or that of Terix of Romulus.

“Once your mind resolves that conflict, your brain should respond by bringing the appropriate memories—and identity—to the surface almost immediately. Disconnected fragments of your artificial memory engrams may linger for some time thereafter, until they are finally subsumed and overwritten by the genuine ones.”

The prospect of laying his last lingering doubts to rest was an attractive one indeed. “How can this be this done?” he asked.

She closed the distance between them until they were almost nose to nose. Her hands, fingers extended almost like claws, extended toward his face. He tried not to flinch or display any fear as her fingertips made contact with his temples. The effect was jolting, like a mild electric shock.

“Therapeutic mind-melds, conducted in a series,” she said. The feeling of electricity briefly intensified before it began giving way to a rising wave of euphoria.

“My mind to your mind,” Ych’a said.

The wave rose further still until it engulfed him,