"Thank you. I appreciate that. Truly, I do. And in your saying that, you've enabled me to make up my mind about something." She clapped her hands briskly and said, "Clear your mind."

"What?"

Soleta waggled her fingers and indicated that Selar should bring herself closer. "If you still desire that I probe your mind . . . that I meld with you . . . I will do so. After your sitting here patiently and listening to my life's story . . ."

"I do not wish your help out of some misplaced sense of gratitude," Selar told her.

Soleta looked at her skeptically. "Pardon me, but as I recall, a short time ago you were endeavoring to force me into aiding you through a bindingyou are concerned about the ethics involved in my helping you?"

"Matters are different now. You were," and clearly she hated to admit it, "you were correct before. I was . . . 'desperate,' if we must discuss the situation in human terms. I did not wish to depend on such relationships as friendship in order to accomplish what I felt needed to be done. But now that you have unburdened yourself . . ."

"You feel closer to me?"

"Not particularly, no. I simply feel that you have more problems than I do, and it is probably unjust to burden you with mine."

This once again prompted Soleta, in a most shocking manner, to laugh out loud. It was not something she had great experience in doing. It was a quick, awkward sound, closer to a seal bark than an actual laugh. "Your consideration is duly noted," she told her. "But I tell you honestly now, Doctor, that if you are comfortable with the situation—knowing about me what you now know—then I will assist you in your self-examination. If I say to you that it is the least I can do, I ask that you accept that in the spirit in which it's given."

Selar nodded briefly. "Very well."

She drew a chair over to the couch and sat down, facing Soleta. She cleared her thoughts, her breathing slow and steady, relaxing into the state of mind that would most facilitate the meld. Soleta did likewise, almost with a sense of relief.

Soleta did not have a tremendous amount of experience in the technique of the mind-meld, but she was certain that Selar's experience and superior training would more than make up for whatever Soleta might herself lack. Slow, methodical, unhurried, she waited until she sensed that her breathing was in complete rhythm with Selar's. Then, gently, she reached out, touching her fingers to Selar's temples.

"Our minds are merging, Selar," she said.

Their minds, their thoughts, their personas drew closer and closer to one another. The tendrils of their consciousness reached toward each other, gently probing at first . . .

. . . and then . . . contact was made . . .

. . . drawing closer still, and their thoughts began to overlap, and it was becoming hard to determine where one left off and the other began . . .

. . . and Soleta had a sense of herself, she did not lose it, it was still there, still vibrant and alive, but she had a sense of Selar as well, she was Selar, and Selar saw herself through the view of Soleta, outside her own consciousness, looking inward . . .

. . . and Selar felt uncertain and fearful, and she wasn't sure whether the insecurities rose from herself as Soleta and the knowledge of her true lineage or from herself and her concerns over her own state of mind, and she fought past it . . .

. . . and Soleta saw images flashing past her, images that were herself but not herself, images and sensations and experiences that were as real for her as they could possibly be, except none of them, absolutely none of them, had ever happened to her . . . and she began to scrutinize herself with an expertise that she had never before possessed, except it was not herself that she was scrutinizing, and yet it was, and it was with a facility that she had never had, except she did . . .

. . . and Selar felt herself slipping deeply into her own consciousness, gliding into Soleta's mind and using it as an ancient deep-sea explorer would use a bathysphere. Waves of her own thoughts and unconsciousness rippled around her as she descended further and further, moving through her psyche, and she felt waves of light pulsing around her. No, not light . . . life, her life, spread all around about her . . .

. . . and Soleta felt pain, waves of pain, and she heard voices crying out, and one of them was her own, her very own voice, and one of them was not, it was a male, it was someone she had never met in her life, and his name was Voltak, and she knew him with greater intimacy than she had ever known herself, and she could feel him moving within her . . .

. . . and Selar felt him slipping away, and Soleta called out his name, and Selar felt his loss ripping at her, and then Soleta was suddenly yanked downward, further downward, left looking upward at Voltak in the way that a swimmer trapped beneath a frozen lake sees the face of someone above, on the ice, staring down at them . . .

. . . and Selar's mind was left naked and exposed, Soleta probing with Selar's expertise, burrowing down to the core of her psychic makeup, seeking, searching, and buffeted with wave upon wave of heat, red heat that washed over her in delicious waves of agony that she could not ignore, that swept into every pore of her skin, enveloping her, caressing her, and she moaned for the exquisite torment of it all . . .

. . . and she felt something calling her, driving her, and it was voices, not just hers, not just Soleta's and Selar's, not just Voltak's, but Vulcans, hundreds, thousands, millions of them, driving her toward the heat, toward the red waves, as if they were trying to pound her into an inferno shore, and she welcomed it, she welcomed the heat and the waves, she could not, would not turn away from it, she embraced it, wanted it, wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything, and her breath was coming in short gasps, their minds slamming together . . .

My God. . .

The separation was violent. Soleta yanked away from her, and Selar tumbled backward, the chair overturning and spilling her onto her back. Soleta fell over, rolled off the couch and onto the floor. She lay there panting, gasping, her fingers still spasming as sensations shook her body. Sweat was dripping off her forehead, spattering onto the floor. With supreme effort she managed to look over at Selar, who didn't appear to be in much better shape. Selar was lying on her back, her arms outstretched, sucking in air gratefully, as if she had forgotten to breathe for however long they had been joined. It clearly took tremendous effort but slowly Selar turned her head and managed to look at Soleta. Soleta, for her part, felt embarrassed, like a voyeur, even though it had been Selar who had asked for the probe.

Selar was trying to mouth a word. Soleta propped herself up on one elbow and angled herself closer to Selar, just close enough to hear her say it:

"Impossible" was the low whisper. Selar had now actually managed to muster enough strength to shake her head, and again she murmured, " Impossible."

"Apparently . . . not." Soleta was surprised, even impressed, with the calm in her voice. Ever since learning the truth of her background, stoicism had not been something that she had always been able to maintain. Here, though, she was clearly capable of rising to the occasion. "Apparently it's not impossible at all."

"But it was . . . it was barely two years ago . . . I . . . I went through it . . . not time . . . not for years, it is not time . . ."

"Perhaps it's because of the way that it ended the first time," Soleta said reasonably. "The urge was never truly satisfied, but because you were mindmelded at the time . . . it sent you into a sort of psychic shock . . . numbed you . . . but it's finally worn off . . ."