A/N- In the interests of PUSHING myself to continue (and finish) this story, here is this chapter, errors and all. Not much happens here, but it sets the scene for the next chapter which is already almost done. Life's been hard for me lately and the mirror universe is not good for you when you're battling hard times.


Worth

Zymak was awakened in the middle of the night. He thought at first it might be for the situation involving Patricia. But he was temporarily confused as he heard Stilen's voice come through his comm. "How may I help you?" he asked his fellow agent.

"My presence in deed, voice or word is unacceptable to the husband of Maya. So I have contacted you at this time because I wish for you to deliver a message to her from myself."

Zymak's impatience wanted to rear up. He did not wish to deal with Stilen's obsession with a female disinterested in his advances at this time. But he asked, "And that would be?"

"I am sending you a document. It is encrypted and it will destroy itself within three minutes of your decoding it."

He sat up then, fully awake. This was important. "I shall attend this now," he promised.

He received and then decoded the document in his tiny living space. His eyebrow rose at the information. True to what was said, the message began to disappear even as his eidetic memory captured what was stated.

T'Pau was obviously not taking it well that she had been unable to attain her goal in the form of entrapping Maya in some form of improper thought. In that way, she would have been able to ship her off-world, never to be seen again. But T'Pau had not realized how strong Maya was going to become or how quickly… until now. The clan mother now realized the Terran was a true threat to her goals on many levels.

According to what Zymak had read in the document, T'Pau had decided she would not suffer her presence any longer. A powerful off-world telepath had been contracted to kill the female that, from her point of view, stood in her way.

###

"I do not understand," said Sarek to Zymak the next day. "What is it that has happened to cause this amount of vitriol toward she who is my ward? She cannot be a true danger to the clan in any way since Maya holds no ill will toward any so far as I am aware."

Since Sokam was still on the other side of the planet treating patients from the nuclear fallout, Maya had gone to Zurel and Mariana's for the time being in order to stay with Mariana and Patricia. Amanda had gone there that day, as well, with Spock. It had given the two men a chance to speak to one another unimpeded. Zymak did not want to take the chance that he was being watched, so he did not wish to approach Maya directly.

"You are aware that all Terrans that have pledged to learn the ways of logic were called for examination, are you not?" asked the agent.

"Yes, of course," said Sarek. And he had been deeply concerned. On some level he knew T'Pau would attempt to be rid of her via this 'examination'. But she had gone the day before and did whatever was necessary and then he had heard nothing more of it. She must have passed inspection. "It went well, did it not?"

"For her, yes."

Sarek's brow rose. He barely used that gesture, but he was truly confused. "I do not understand your meaning."

"I was present for her examination. She did more than well enough for it. But it was not all that took place on that day."

Sarek was asking quickly, "Allow me to see for myself what took place." He knew what could happen to someone mentally up against T'Pau and could not believe it had not occurred to him that it might be the clan mother herself examining Maya, touching the girl's mind. It brought back negative memories for himself being forced to accept T'Pau's will and he was not comfortable with what his ward may have gone through.

"Yes, I shall share what happened freely," Zymak acquiesced. Sarek went to kneel before him, but the hyper-telepath simply shook his head. "Touch is unnecessary for me since we are both well and in health."

The two stood together and watched as his premises shifted and faded. The memory began to unfold and the room around them morphed, changed into Zymak's point of view of that day.

Maya had arrived to the examination wearing the robes of the S'Chn T'Gai, but also she wore a sash for T'Niye's clan denoting her student status.

The room she stood and waited in was colorless and devoid of all else.

"T'Pau had us watch from outside the room in the double reflective glass for a total of one hour and fifteen minutes," Zymak clarified. "Most of the other subjects were kept waiting a maximum of ten minutes. T'Pau seemed to wish to… unsettle the Terran."

And Sarek saw T'Pau in the memory. She simply sat there and watched as Maya pulled out a PADD and began to work. Since there was no chair in the room, the woman paced back and forth as she read over her notes on something from work. They could hear her whispering in an old dead language none of them knew, trying to decipher some puzzle or riddle. She shook her head once, twice a third time. Finally, she nodded, began to tap furiously on her PADD. She had obviously worked out whatever it was that needed doing.

But it was not Maya that interested Sarek during that wait, it was T'Pau. The woman simply sat there and watched the Terran as if she were studying a foreign specimen that should be dissected.

"It is time," T'Pau finally said to Zymak.

She stood and he followed her into the room. To his alarm, three others entered the room from another door, as well. Sarek immediately felt deep stirrings of stark discomfort in his mind. Those three had been the same that had helped T'Pau in her subjugation of his will.

Maya turned off her PADD and placed it in the bag she wore at her side that appeared to be nothing more than a cloth attachment to her robes. "Clan mother," she greeted her with the ta'al. "I am here for your inspection as per your request." Sarek noted that the language spoken by Maya had been Vulcan.

"Did any of the other Terrans examined speak Vulcan during their examination?" asked Sarek.

"A few," said Zymak. "But none with this proficiency."

Sarek noticed T'Pau's eyes squinted by just a fraction. She thought the girl using the Vulcan language was a calculated move. And he realized then T'Pau's true problem. Her machinations were so pervasive, plans within plans, that it did not occur to her that someone like Maya would do something simply because she thought she should, not as a plan of attack or a precursor for some form of attack. She would always assume the worst of anyone foreign to her way of being and existing.

"As you have noted," said T'Pau, also in Vulcan, "there is no surface to recline or sit on in this place and we have kept you waiting a substantial amount of time. Are you certain you are well enough to proceed?"

"I was not aware there was a choice," Maya answered with a straight face. "We will do this now," she said very simply.

This rubbed T'Pau the wrong way and Sarek knew that Maya had said that on purpose, at least.

"Submit your mind your mine," T'Pau demanded.

Sarek felt himself becoming more disquieted as Maya walked to the clan mother and knelt down before her and inclined her head to T'Pau's hand.

T'Pau placed her hand on the girl's face and closed her eyes. Within sixty seconds, the clan mother opened her eyes and looked at Maya as if she were disgusted. "You will open all to my perusal."

"I have done so," Maya insisted.

"There are areas that are unreachable for my inspection."

"They are the areas of my mind that are deemed private and untouchable by my subconscious. I cannot control their availability. In order for one to gain access, you would literally have to break in and then I would be damaged beyond repair."

"So be it!" T'Pau declared and then used both hands on Maya's face. She seemed to be gaining something she wished to know, but it came at a price. A trickle of blood began to ooze down T'Pau's face from her nose.

Zymak stood off to the side, unwilling to intervene. He had melded with Maya often enough to still have a small tendril of himself inside her mind, watching. And she was still unharmed. T'Pau on the other hand-

The clan mother dropped both hands from the Terran's face and realized she was bleeding. Her face changed just the slightest. "We shall determine what you keep behind those walls."

"It is not anything substantial," Maya shrugged. "My everyday life, my beliefs on logic and order are there, open for your perusal. Those are the things up for examination, aren't they? If you want to know what's behind the wall, I can simply tell you. But I can't lower it. That's not the way my mind is made."

It was the innocence on her face that was causing T'Pau's insistence. She was convinced this young woman was deliberately keeping things from her. She looked up at her three accomplices who had, until then, remained still and silent on the other side of the room. They now began to circle and close in on the young woman. All four of them simultaneously touched Maya's skin at different points.

Sarek's stomach began to lurch as he watched this attack occur.

The group of five closed their eyes and Zymak could feel the chipping away on the inside of Maya's mind, what she jokingly referred to once as her 'internal involuntary firewall'.

"What is happening?" Sarek asked.

Zymak said, "She seems to have grown a natural protection of some sort. I believe it originates from whatever species it is that lurks within her and she truly has no control over it. It is simply there. It formed about the time she began to realize that she was in true danger months ago. Whatever it is, it has a two-part function. While it protects her, it takes power directly from whoever is trying to forcibly break in. While they try to scale the wall, it leeches their energy little by little and it makes her wall even stronger."

Sarek looked at Zymak, openly shocked. "This is not your doing? Or T'Niye's?"

He shook his head. "No. She possesses an inner shield she did not have previously. And though I shall admit that T'Niye is able to gain access behind that shield as well as Sokam, I have only been able to walk within it once. But I came away slightly damaged for a short time. It is only because she trusts me that I did not suffer what you shall see they are about to."

The first of the other three, the weakest, stumbled backward clutching his head as blood poured out of his nose. The other two intruders were not far behind as blood began to leak from not only their noses, but also their eyes and ears. T'Pau, by then, had stopped her part of the meld, more blood trickling down her face. She turned and looked at Zymak. "Agent! Use your gifts. Decipher what you will."

Zymak didn't need to touch anyone to have mental contact with them, but he walked directly to Maya and touched her face.

Sarek suffered a disorienting jolt as he realized he was being pulled directly into Maya's mind with Zymak for this part of the memory.

He could see Zymak of the past in there speaking with an internal manifestation of Maya. "You are unharmed?" asked the agent.

"I'm all right," she assured him, a smile on her face she would never show T'Pau.

"The wall-"

"It's a little chipped, but its fine," she waved the concern off. "Once I get some sleep, it'll go back to normal."

"She has demanded I walk behind the wall."

"You can if you want to. I trust you."

"It is not right," Zymak protested. "The wall is there for a reason. This is unethical."

Maya laughed at him in her mind. "Since when did an agent of the V'Shar care what's unethical to do or not do?"

He knew she was right. He had done plenty of things he was not proud of all on the orders of the council. But this he couldn't do. "You are vital to the future of my clan. I ask you to please harm me when I approach the wall."

"Oh hell no," she exclaimed, very much her old self from two years before.

"You must do it."

"I can't. I can't harm you deliberately. Not you or anyone I trust. But you're an agent, think about it. You can simulate that harm on yourself."

He thought about what she had said. "You are correct," he corroborated.

Once again, there was a disorienting spin as Sarek saw himself standing outside Maya's mind again, looking at the proceedings.

"Behind the wall," reported Zymak, "is her bond to Sokam and her plans for the future. But I was unable to obtain those plans."

There was a thirsty look in T'Pau's face as she ordered, "You shall try again."

Zymak put his hand to Maya's face yet again, but there was no shift back into her mind. Through sheer will Zymak caused himself to begin bleeding from the nose and one eye.

T'Pau was less than pleased as the agent's hands fell from the Terran woman's face. "I was unsuccessful."

The clan mother stared the girl down hard. "What do you keep behind the wall?" she wondered aloud.

"Shall I be examined for logic this day or another?" asked Maya sincerely.

"I shall do so at this time," said Zymak.

"You shall not!" T'Pau interrupted. "I shall do so." She looked at her other three accomplices that were still recovering from various states of bleeding. "Leave at once!" she declared sharply at them.

The three left, but Zymak remained in the room.

"You are not needed here," T'Pau exclaimed.

"The V'Shar have asked me to remain and obtain the report as well."

T'Pau looked at him with a warning in her eyes. "Does Sumar still entertain that he shall obtain this Terran as an agent at some future date?"

"I am unaware of what it is my superior presumes to wish for a future time. However, I am under orders and I obey my orders to the best of my abilities."

The examination itself went well. It was a benign question and answer process that Maya passed easily since she showed no outward excessive signs of emotion.

"That was ALL that was required?" asked Sarek incredulously. "T'Pau was not supposed to invade her mind, after all?"

"That is something she took upon herself to do," Zymak confirmed. "No other Terran that reported for questioning underwent such an examination… or shall I say, attempted examination."

At the end of it, Maya simply bowed briefly. "Peace and long life to you, clan mother," she wished her before departing.

T'Pau said not one word in return.

###

Sarek and Zymak sat in their respective minds again. Sarek was exhausted. If Zymak was tired, he couldn't tell. "Did T'Pau say nothing after her departure?"

"Nothing at all," he confirmed.

"And now she wants her dead." Sarek shook his head.

"I cannot understand the full ramifications of why she would wish such a thing. Would not the young lady birth strong resilient telepaths for your clan? If I were the head of a clan, I would order her to produce offspring as soon as possible for just such an outcome. Most certainly a woman of that worth in the past of our world would have been encouraged to make as many children as possible to spread her unique abilities through our gene pool."

"The problem, Zymak, is that the first one of her offspring must be given over to your clan, one T'Pau sees as a true rival for power over the council. And Maya is not a Vulcan. What if she is only able to produce the one offspring?"

"This is most likely T'Pau's mindset," Zymak agreed. "I had not considered that angle." He knew he must be preoccupied very much not to see that angle on his own. "She would consider it folly for the woman to produce only one and then have the abilities shared between her clan and mine."

"We must not allow this death to happen," said Sarek.

"Of course we must not. However, I am unfamiliar with this killer that has been contracted. There was no information on him in the V'Shar database."

"I would not ask you since I know you are undergoing some things of a personal nature at this time," said Sarek, "and Sumar's interest in Maya is professional but Stilen-" his voice trailed off.

"No, he is not to be trusted where the Terran female is concerned," Zymak agreed. "However, he did ensure we knew of the threat to her person."

"That interest was personal for him, not truly for her sake."

"That is true." He was suddenly tired. "I shall speak with Zurel about her further security and perhaps ask that she remain there with he and his wife for the time being since his complex is very well secured."

"I agree."

##

After speaking with Zurel regarding Maya's security precautions, Zymak was able to attain a full measure of rest, at least, when the call he had been waiting for finally came in. Patricia was now in need of him to be champion at her soon-to-be ex-bondmate's kal-i-fee.

He stood and readied himself. It was going to be a more than interesting day.


About three or four chapters left at this point! Will update again this week or the next.