"Will Tevren be allowed to work in the garden?" she asked.

"Of course, if he wishes. The surrounding force field isolates him from other prisoners and blocks his escape. The psionic inhibitor implanted in his brain when he was convicted suppresses all his telepathic abilities. The man is harmless as long as the implant is functioning."

They reached the entrance to the administration building, and Lanolan motioned Deanna inside. " Tevren is waiting for you in counseling room two. Please report back to my office after you've completed your interview." His firm expression softened. "And don't worry, Deanna. He's a challenging patient, but I'm certain you can handle him."

"I'll do my best." Straightening her sand-colored tunic with its red-and-gold prison emblem on the sleeve and clasping her padd tightly for rea.s.surance, Deanna marched down the hallway.

A guard at the entrance to the counseling room opened the door for her. "I'll be right here if you need me, Counselor."

With b.u.t.terflies of apprehension dive-bombing in her stomach, Deanna stepped inside. Sunlight from floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the simply furnished room and shone through the force field that divided the s.p.a.ce in half. On the other side of the shield, a short, nondescript man sat calmly facing Deanna, his hands folded on a table.

She had seen his holo in his file, but Tevren's was an eminently forgettable face, the kind that would never stand out in a crowd. Although he was only eight years her senior, his dark hair was already receding at his forehead and thinning at the crown. At first she found it hard to reconcile the milquetoast appearance of the man before her with that of a ma.s.s murderer.

Until she looked into his eyes.

The dark Betazoid irises glittered like chunks of black ice, and the pinched smile on his face seemed insincere.

Most disquieting of all, however, was the man's total lack of emotion. Unlike the effect created when a Betazoid shielded his thoughts and feelings from another-a phenomenon similar to what Terrans described as "white noise"-the psionic inhibitor implanted in Tevren's brain created an impression of emptiness within the man. Instead of the familiar rea.s.surance of white noise, Deanna faced a forbidding yawning abyss, a black void that chilled her to the core.

Suppressing a shiver, she sat at the same table bisected by the force field and made herself meet Tevren's gaze.

"I'm Counselor Troi."

Tevren's smile broadened, although it never reached his eyes. "I wasn't aware that I'd be given special treatment. You're very pretty."

"My appearance is irrelevant. I'm here to help you."

"Really?" He blinked as if in amazement. "And how do you propose to do that?"

She mustered a smile. "I'd like to begin by asking you questions."

He leaned back in his chair, amus.e.m.e.nt flitting across his unremarkable face. "What kind of questions?"

"You do understand why you're here?"

His mouth widened in a sly grin. "They're afraid of me."

"They?"

"Everyone."

"And why is that?"

"Because I enjoy killing people."

Deanna suppressed her instinctive revulsion and forced herself to stay focused. "Tell me about yourself. Start with your childhood."

Tevren heaved a bored sigh. "Oh, must we play these psychobabble games?"

"Not at all," she replied evenly. "You can return to your cell anytime."

He appeared to consider her for a moment. "You're much prettier than those four walls. I suppose I'd rather stay here."

"You may stay if you cooperate with me." Why doesn't he blink? she wondered. His stare was distracting and unnerving. She breathed deeply in an attempt to loosen the knot of tension beneath her ribs. She had to be careful here. According to his file, Tevren was more than brilliant. His intelligence quotient was off the scale, and he seemed willing and able to play with her head-if she let him.

"Your childhood?" she persisted.

"It's all there in my file, which I'm certain you've already studied."

She pushed back her chair, stood, and headed for the door.

"Please wait," she heard him say.

Deanna turned and faced him with a sympathetic look. "I have better uses for my time than subjecting myself to your evasions."

She turned back toward the door.

"I was an only child," Tevren began. "My parents had almost given up on having children when I was born."

Deanna took another step toward the exit.

"They spoiled me terribly." Tevren's words came in a rush. "Everything I wanted, they gave me. They were trying to make up for-"

He stopped as if he'd said too much, and Deanna half turned around. "What were they trying to make up for?"

"Sit down and I'll tell you."

"Tell me and I'll sit down."

"I was born with telepathic ability."

Deanna worked to keep her expression blank. That significant piece of information hadn't been in Tevren's file, possibly because the only other people who knew it were his parents, who had been among his early victims. For the first time, she experienced a pang of sympathy for Tevren. The vast majority of Betazoid children developed their telepathic skills at p.u.b.erty. Only a fraction of a percent were actually born with the ability, and without special guidance, these telepathic prodigies suffered incredibly debilitating psychological and social damage. Deanna had met and treated one, Tam Elbrun, when she was at the university. Tevren's premature telepathic skills were possibly a contributing factor to his personality disorder. That might also explain why he, of all people, is my first case here. Lanolan must have known about Tevren's developmental aberration and my work with Tam.

She resumed her seat at the table. "That must have been difficult for you."

"On the contrary." His tight little smile returned with an illusion of warmth, giving his unremarkable face a semblance of charm. "It put me at a tremendous advantage, always knowing what my parents and others were thinking. It made the adults around me much easier to manipulate."

Her sympathy evaporated, and her objectivity returned. "Would you say you had a happy childhood?"

He shrugged. "It was the only one I knew. What could I compare it to?"

"Did you have many friends?"

"Several children wanted to be my friends. I am able to exert a certain charm when I wish to, but no, I didn't have friends."

"Why not?"

"People bore me."

"Why?"

"Most are stupid."

"Stupid?"

"Compared to me. I have four university degrees. I could have earned more, but what was the point?"

"Four degrees, yet the only job you've held is as a government researcher. With your intellectual capacity, shouldn't you have advanced further in your career?"

"You're stupid, too, you know."

Troi refused to be baited. "I'm smart enough to realize you're insulting me because you don't want to answer my question."

This time his grin split his face, gracing his ordinary features with a certain attractiveness. "I like you, Counselor Troi."

"Then talk to me."

He pushed back from the table, retreated into his half of the room, and stood before a window. Sunlight streamed down on his upturned face, its bright light accentuating the pallor of his skin, the thinness of his hair. A pink scar glowed at the base of his skull where the inhibitor had been inserted. He continued to stare out the window as he spoke. "My position as a government researcher gave me the highest clearance to the official records of Betazoid history. I became privy to secrets only a handful of people on our world have ever known."

"And you liked this feeling of power?"

He pivoted quickly on his heel, rushed to the table, and leaned across it with his palms spread, his face within a millimeter of the force field. "It's more than a feeling, Counselor. The power is quite real."

Real enough that only the psionic implant in his brain protected her from it, she reminded herself. "Tell me about it."

He yawned, as if bored, and drew back from the force field. "It's all in my file."

"Fine." She called his bluff and rose to leave.

"But if you'd rather hear it in my own words ..."

She bit back a sarcastic reply. The director was recording the interview. She wanted no record of her losing her control on the first day of her internship. She slid back into her chair and nodded. "Your own words."

Looking very pleased with himself, Tevren sat and leaned back in his chair. "Several hundred years ago, a small, secret society arose on Betazed. Members of this cult dedicated themselves to developing their telepathic skills in creative ways. I found this cla.s.sified information fascinating and amused myself for a time by attempting to develop some of their simpler skills on my own."

"What kind of skills?"

"Harmless little amus.e.m.e.nts, such as amplifying and projecting intense emotions into the mind of another. The ability was useless, really, except for its potential to make others either extremely uncomfortable or to appear foolish in their reactions to the unwanted feelings." He frowned with distaste. "Besides, the physical and mental effort I had to expend to project the emotion wasn't worth the fun I received from the results."

"So, in essence, you became a telepathic practical joker," Deanna observed.

He nodded solemnly. "A situation far beneath my intellectual dignity. So I decided to accept a greater challenge."

Deanna waited, knowing and dreading what she was about to hear.

"The cla.s.sified records of this secret cult," Tevren continued, "indicated that they had stumbled onto the ability to kill telepathically. That discovery, however, was their downfall. When several members availed themselves of the opportunity to kill with their minds, they were discovered by the authorities. When the authorities realized what the cult had uncovered-a lethal potential in every Betazoid but unknown to all but the members of this cult-the government moved in. They arrested the entire movement, imprisoned them for life, destroyed the instructions for their special skills, and sealed the records of their activities, even of their very existence. For the next four hundred years, only Betazoids with the highest security clearance knew such a group had existed."

"So you taught yourself to kill."

Tevren nodded, obviously pleased with his accomplishment. "It was relatively easy, really, once I reasoned it out and practiced a few times."

Like the majority of Betazoids, what Deanna found most disturbing about the man before her-about any criminal-was his lack of empathy. Because her people were so attuned to the thoughts and feelings of those around them, crime on her planet was rare. Internalizing the pain, fear, and emotional damage his actions would cause often stopped the would-be criminal in his tracks. Tevren obviously suffered no such restraints.

"Why did you kill?" She sincerely wanted to understand. "Was it revenge? Jealousy? Ambition?"

Tevren laughed, a dry husky sound like the rustling of dead leaves. "You psychologists are all alike, trying to see some great motivation behind every behavior. When I killed-except for my parents, whom I killed for practice-it was just for fun."

She tried not to show her horror. For the first time she truly understood why the authorities had locked Tevren away and buried his crimes. If word of his atrocities were to surface, if the knowledge he'd rediscovered were made public, the peace of Betazed might end forever.

She forced herself to ask the next question. The answer, of course, hadn't been in his file. And given what he'd just told her, she was certain it wasn't doc.u.mented anywhere. But she hoped his answer would give her some insight into his psychopathology. "How did you kill these people, Tevren?"

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 d.a.m.ned inhibitor from my brain, and I'll be happy to give you a personal demonstration."

Troi put aside the memory of the s.a.d.i.s.tic 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 compa.s.sion. "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 compa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sions, 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 their hopes."

Picard turned to look thoughtfully out the curved window of his ready room. "'How dead we lie because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung.'"

Deanna nodded. "Death or shame. Betazed's choices exactly. Was that a quote from Shakespeare?"

Picard shook his head. "A. E. Housman, another human poet."

"One who also understood the nature of war."

"Ah, but did he really?" the captain asked.