"Yes," Voltak agreed readily. He hesitated. "Your point being . . . ?"

"My point," and she tried to remember what it was. It took her a moment. "Yes. My point is that, rather than just giving in to rutting impulses, we should . . . should . . . talk first."

"Absolutely, yes . . . I have no problem with that." In point of fact, Voltak looked as if he were ready to paw the ground. But instead he drew himself up, pulled together his Vulcan calm and utterly self-possessed demeanor. "What shall we talk about?"

"We shall discuss matters that are of intellectual interest. And as we do that, we can . . . introduce ourselves to the physical aspect of our relationship . . . in a calm, mature manner."

"That sounds most reasonable, Selar."

They sat near each other on the bed, and Voltak extended two fingers. Selar returned the gesture, her fingers against his.

It was such a simple thing, this touch. And yet it felt like a jolt of electricity had leaped between the two of them. Selar had trouble steadying her breath. This was insanity. She was a rational person, a serious and sober-minded person. It was utter lunacy that some primordial mating urge could strip from her everything that made her unique. It was . . . not logical.

"So . . . tell me, Selar," said Voltak, sounding no more steady than Selar. "Do you feel that your . . . medical skills have been sufficiently challenged in your position on the Enterprise?Or do you feel that you might have been of . . . greater service to the common good . . . if you had remained with pure research, as I understand you originally intended to do."

Selar nodded, trying to remember what the question had been. "I am ... quite fulfilled, yes. I feel I made the . . . the right decision." Her fingers slowly moved away from his and reached up, tracing the strong curve of his chin. "And . . . you . . . you spoke once of teaching, but instead have remained with . . . with fieldwork."

He was caressing the arch of her ear, his voice rock steady . . . but not without effort. "To instruct others in the discipline of doing that which gives me the most satisfaction . . . did not appear the logical course." He paused, then said, "Selar?"

Her voice low and throaty, she said, "Yes?"

"I do not wish . . . to talk . . . anymore."

"That would be . . . acceptable to me."

Within moments—with the utmost efficiency and concern for order—they were naked with one another. He drew her to him, and his fingers touched her temples. She put her fingers to his temples as well, and their minds moved closer.

There was so much coldness in the day-to-day life of a Vulcan, so much remoteness. Yet the Vulcan mind-meld was the antithesis of the isolation provided by that prized Vulcan logic. It was as if nature and evolution had enhanced the Vulcan telepathic ability to compensate for the shields they erected around themselves. As distant as they held themselves from each other, the mind-meld enabled them to cut through defenses and drop shields more thoroughly than most other races. Thus were Vulcans a paradoxical combination of standoffish and yet intimate.

And never was that intimacy more thorough than in a couple about to mate.

They probed one another, drawn to each other's strengths and weaknesses. Voltak felt Selar's deep compassion, her care for all living beings masked behind a facade of Vulcan detachment, and brought it into his heart. Selar savored Voltak's thoroughness and dedication, his insight and fascination with the past and how it might bear on the future, and she took pride in him.

And then their minds went beyond the depth already provided by the meld, deeper and deeper, and even as their bodies came together their minds, their intellects were merged. In her mind's eye, Selar saw the two of them intertwined, impossible to discern where one left off and the other began. Her breath came in short gasps, her consciousness and control spinning away as she allowed the joy of union to overwhelm her completely . . . the joy and ecstasy and heat, the heat building in her loins, her chest . . .

. . . her chest . . . . . .

. . . and the heat beginning to grip her, and suddenly there was something wrong, God, there was something terribly wrong . . .

. . . her chest was on fire. The euphoria, the glorious blood-frenzy of joining, were slipping away. Instead there was pain in her torso, a vise-grip on her bosom, and she couldn't breathe.

Selar's back arched in agony, and she gasped desperately for air, unable to pull any into her lungs, and her mind screamed at her, You're having a heart attack!And then she heard a howl of anguish that reverberated in her body and in her soul, and she realized what was happening. It wasn't her. It was Voltak. Voltak was having a massive coronary.

And Selar's mind was linked into his.

She had no command over her body, over her faculties. She tried to move, to struggle, to focus. She tried desperately to push Voltak out of her mind so she could do something other than writhe in pain. But Voltak, his emotions already laid bare and raw because of the Joining, was responding to this hide ous turn of events in a most un-Vulcanlike manner. He was afraid. Terrified. And because of that, rather than breaking his telepathic bond with Selar, he held on to her all the more desperately. It is impossible to convince the drowning man that the only chance he has is to toss aside the life preserver.

Calm!her mind screamed at him, calm!But Voltak was unable to find the peaceful center within him, that intellectual height from which his logic and icy demeanor could project.

And in her mind's eye, she could see him. She could see him as if he were being surrounded by blackness, tendrils reaching out and pulling him down, far and away. Paralyzed, pain stabbing her through the chest, she didn't know whether to reach out to him as raw emotion dictated, or try to break off as logic commanded so that she might still have a chance of saving him. She elected the latter because it was the only sane thing to do, she might still have a prayer . . .

And as she started to pull away, Selar suddenly realized her error, because Voltak called to her in her mind, My katra . ..

His soul. His Vulcan soul, all that made him what he was, his spirit, his essence. Under ordinary circumstances a mind-meld would preserve his katraand bring it to a place of honor with his ancestors. But these circumstances were far from ordinary.

To accept the katrawas to accept the death of the other, and Dr. Selar was not ready or willing to accept that Voltak was beyond hope, beyond saving. She was a doctor, there were things she could do, if she could only battle past the accursed mental and physical paralysis that the mind-meld had trapped her in.

And in a fading voice she heard again, katra,and she knew that he was lost. That it was too late. Desperately Selar, who only instants earlier had been trying to pull free, reversed herself and plunged toward him. She could "see" his hand outstretched to her, and in the palm of his hand something small and glowing and precious, and she reached toward him, desperately, mental fingers outstretched, almost pulling it from his grasp, a mere second or two more to bring them sufficiently close together . . .

. . . and the blackness claimed him. Claimed him and claimed her as death closed around the two of them. Coldness cut through Selar, and for a moment the void opened to her, and she saw the other side and it was terrifying and barren to her. So much emptiness, so much desolation, so much nothingness. As life was the celebration of everything that was, there was death, the consecration of everything that wasn't. And from the darkness, something seemed to look back at her, and reject her, pushing her away, pushing Voltak and his soul forever out of her reach, for it was too late.