(Standard Year 2251)
Jade first heard of Alan Turing long after she'd met Richard. She had just published her landmark paper on the comparative psychologies of Andorians and Humans, and she was between projects. She'd applied for grants from a number of agencies and departments and was teaching at Alterra in Phoenix, waiting for one of the applications to be approved.
She usually had lunch in the faculty cafeteria with a group of other instructors. They were a mixed lot from several of the University's departments: an historian, a linguist, an engineer, a computer science instructor. On this particular day, she'd been held up in an argument with a student and reached the cafeteria after all the others were halfway through their meal.Ed Marks, the historian, greeted her as she sat, and announced to the rest of the table, "I've heard rumors that our Dr. Han may be moving on soon to - uh - greener but sandier pastures."
"Green and sandy," mused Ray Allen, the engineer. "What is this, a riddle?"
"Sort of," Ed explained. "The planet is Vulcan. The riddle is, why?"
"That's easy," said Ray. "Because it's there."
Jade smiled. "You're close," she said between mouthfuls of rice and vegetables. "I want to do a study of comparative Vulcan/Human psychology, continuing my series on differences and similarities between species."
Donna DeSilva shook her head. "Good luck. There's no such thing as Vulcan psychiatry. No Vulcan psychologists. You'll have to make it up as you go along."
Jade stiffened slightly at the use of one of Richard's favorite phrases. "That's the challenge," she managed, refusing to betray her emotions.
"Wait a minute," Ed objected, turning to Donna. "What's a linguist know about psychology?"
"The two are inseparably linked," Donna answered smugly. "How you think affects how you talk, the idioms you use, the images that your language evokes."
"It goes the other way, too," Jade rejoined. "Your language's peculiarities influence how you think and feel, and that's what psychology is all about."
The computer specialist, Sam Martine, grunted into his coffee. "I thought psychology was all about sex. That's certainly all they talk about."
"Nonsense," Ray put in. "That's just the Freudians." He winked at Jade. "Right, Doctor?"
She gave him her sweetest smile. "And all the Jungians talk about is quantum physics."
"I always suspected there were at least some reasonable people in your profession."
There was laughter all around, then Ed pushed his tray away from him, piling it on top of Sam's already empty one. "Why don't the Vulcans have psychologists?" he asked.
"They think it's a waste of time," Donna answered from over her shoulder as she rose to get a second cup of tea. "They think they already know all there is to know about themselves through meditation and introspection and the like." She resumed her seat. "Myself, if I was a psychologist, I'd think that attitude was highly significant."
"It is," Jade agreed. "That's one of things I want to study."
"You'll never get funding from the Vulcan Science Academy, then," Ed said, and reached over to pour Jade a cup of coffee from the carafe on the table. "They don't fund projects they think are useless. And you'll never get them to change their minds on what they think they can use. I've tried."
"I haven't applied to the VSA. There are other agencies and departments that might be interested."
"Like who?"
"Starfleet, for one. A study of comparative psychologies might help smooth over potential problems in mixed crews. Also the Diplomatic Corps, various trade ministries, even the Federation Health Agency."
Sam started chuckling to himself. "I've got a good experiment you can try," he said. "See if a Vulcan can pass the Turing Test."
Ray broke into peals of laughter, almost chocking on his roast beef. Sam grinned broadly, inordinately pleased with himself. The others looked at each other in confusion. "I think we missed something," Jade said.
"Okay," Ray answered after a moment, calming down. "Alan Turing. Mathematician and computer pioneer, mid-Twentieth century." He put on his best lecture voice. "Turing thought computers would someday have Human or near-Human capabilities. Not just in computation - that was obvious from the start - but that you'd actually be able to carry on a conversation with one. This was in the 1940's, when computers could barely add."
Ed grinned. "Heretical notion. Machines don't have souls."
Ray nodded. "Something like that. Anyway, how would you know if a computer was intelligent or if it could think and feel like a person? Turing suggested a test which came to be known as the Turing Test."
"Typical geeky creative designation," Donna muttered. Jade grinned. Ray didn't seem to notice.
"It worked like this. You hide a person behind one wall and a computer behind another. Then you ask them questions. Talk to them. If you can't tell which is the computer and which is the person, you've got an intelligent computer, a machine that thinks like a Human."
"I'm not sure I buy that," Jade started to object. "How they talk doesn't necessarily indicate anything about how they think..."
"It sure does," Donna interrupted.
"With sentient beings, yes, but a computer has to be programmed. What we get is information about how the programmer thinks."
"Doesn't matter," Sam broke in with exasperation. "Point is, my joke. Trying the Turing Test with a Vulcan."
"What, put a Vulcan and a Human behind screens?" Ed asked. "That's not even a challenge!"
Sam scowled. "No, I meant a Vulcan and a computer. See if you can tell which one is the machine!"
Ray and Sam grinned, expectantly. Donna finished her tea. Ed shrugged. Jade frowned disapprovingly.
"It was funny the first time," Sam complained.
"I guess you can't explain jokes," Ray sympathized as he rose from the table.
"Actually," Sam muttered, leaving his seat to exit with Ray, "I think these non-tech types just don't have a sense of humor."
Jade did have a sense of humor, and she’d had one even then. Only then it had been buried in dedication to her work, a dedication caused by the terrible, lingering specter of her haunting failure. Still, she might not have found that particular joke funny anyway. She had a soft spot in her heart for logical, guarded, pretending-to-be-emotionless green-blooded sentient machines. Hadn't she protected one from snowballs when she'd been a little girl in Minnesota?
The aromatic smoke drifted around her head and she found herself smiling. Would a Vulcan be able to pass the Turing Test? What would happen to Human models of sentience if the computer passed and the Vulcan didn't? Her smile turned to a chuckle, and soon to full-throated laughter.
She tapped out the remaining Rigellian from her pipe and carefully put it away. She felt relaxed and renewed as she climbed into her bed. Laughter was a miraculous restorer of equilibrium.
("Where were you last night? Richard demanded in her sleep.
"With James Kirk, exactly where I want to be," she answered, but the dream went on relentlessly.)
Jade scowled. "Are you getting possessive?"
"I had some tickets to a play. But you probably wouldn't have been interested anyway. It was a love story."
"Now what is that supposed to mean?"
"It means I'm tired of you not being ready to get serious. Who were you with last night?"
"Do you really think that's any of your business?"
"You know," Richard said, almost thoughtful, "I've noticed something about you. You almost never answer a question. You usually turn it around and ask a question back. What do you suppose, with all your vast psychological knowledge, is the reason for that?"
"Do I really do that?" Jade asked, feigning sweetness. But then she rushed on before Richard could respond. "I just don't feel like telling you what I was doing because it really isn't any of your business and you wouldn't like it anyway and I just wanted to avoid upsetting you."
"Upsetting me? What am I, a rowboat? I'll sink if I'm upset?"
"What are you talking about?"
"What are you talking about? Am I going to fly into a jealous rage because you see someone else?"
"Aren't you doing exactly that right now?"
"No, I'm not. This isn't a jealous rage, it's a plain, everyday, ordinary rage. You haven’t told me what you were doing last night. Is there a reason I should be jealous?"
"Do you think you have any right to be?"
"Questions again, always questions! Yes, damn it, I have a right to be! Just because you're not ready for a permanent relationship doesn't mean I have to be satisfied with crumbs and bread crusts."
"Richard, if I didn't care about you, would I be concerned about upsetting you?"
"If you cared about me, you wouldn't do things that you wouldn't want to tell me about for fear of upsetting me."
"You don't own me."
"Somebody should, don't you think?"
"If that's what you think, maybe we want different things."
"And maybe we don't. Maybe we want exactly the same things. Maybe that's the problem."
"You're not making any sense at all."
"You’re trying to be a therapist. Make an effort to understand me. You're supposed to be able to do things like that."
"Professionally, Richard. You're not one of my patients."
"Then what am I? What do you want from me? What are my limits? What do you want from someone else?"
"And you claim I’m the one who asks a lot of questions?"
"Can you answer one of them? Any one, I'm not choosy. Go ahead, pick a question, any question."
Fair enough demand. He had a right to know. He wanted to define their relationship -- and probably change it if he could. But the problem was she wasn't too sure about it herself. He wasn't the sort of person she'd ever imagined herself falling in love with....
Is that what I'm doing? Am I falling in love with Richard? If not, what do I want from him? And if I am, gods, why? He's insecure, arrogant, controlling and sometimes simply incomprehensible. So why do I feel so drawn to him? Why do I feel so guilty over last night - which is NOT any of his business? Why do I want to continue this relationship -- whatever it is?
"I think we need each other," Jade began slowly. "We share a lot of interests. We share a profession..."
"Almost," Richard reminded her.
"Almost," she agreed. "We do things together. We need that. I think you need a little more stability. I think I need to be needed."
"Very polite of you, Doctor. Stability. Meaning that currently I'm unstable."
"I didn't say that."
"Maybe you should have."
(Maybe you should have drifted away from her as dreams faded into darkness.)
The smell of saltwater was invigorating. He never grew used to it, never stopped noticing it. He was always aware of it with at least a part of his mind. Here at the ship's prow, it permeated everything.
Far below him, the ship sliced into the waves, splitting them cleanly, throwing them aside. The water was a deep blue, as blue as the cloudless sky above. Far, far away was the horizon; he sped toward it, a line that separated blue from blue and fled from him as quickly as he approached. Always there, far ahead. He was always running towards it, and it was always beyond reach. It was wondrous, glorious to have a thing to reach for, to always have a goal. To know that one can seek forever and always find fresh challenges. To reach the horizon, to achieve everything, is to have no more to do or to find, no more purpose, no more goal. To die.
He turned and faced the rising sun. The great ship, a big three-masted man-o-war stretched out behind. The sails strained against the rigging, the boards creaked below and around him. The men - his men, his crew - bustled about, some swabbing the deck, others attending to the sails; one group drilling on the quarterdeck, others polishing the cannon. He laughed from the sheer joy and pride of it all and stamped his foot on the deck just to feel the strong, solid wood beneath.
He turned around again to face forward - and it was night. That should have surprised him, he supposed, but after all, he'd sailed at night before. And the stars were so lovely! A thousand thousand of them, reds and yellows, blues and greens, filling the velvet sky above and the sable sea below. They were speeding past him now, above, below and on both sides and he was standing on the metal deck of the ship his ship and watching the stars stream past faster and faster the wind in his hair the wind from the stars the smell of the ocean the thrum of the engines the creak of the boards beneath his feet no not feet not yards meters and not boards but metal and it doesn't creak and his crew was waiting for him waiting on the bridge across the stars across the worlds the worldwinds whirlwinds from the stars like crystals like diamonds with eons die-with-eon dylithium crystals in the scotch like ice cubes in the engines scotty with the dylithium crystals cubes ice whirlwind stars ship crew sea sky beyond above saltwater ocean horizon stars worlds meters winds boards stars decks yards above stars yardarms stars stars STARS!
"Are you awake, Jim?"
He recognized the voice. It was Dr. Han. He shook his head. "I hope not. I don't have many good dreams. I don't want to leave one."
"How do you feel?"
"Exhausted." He looked at the tiny, dark room, at the glass wall that separated him from the dimly-lit control booth. He could see Dr. Han, her hands moving over the panel, shutting down the equipment. "Did you plan all that?"
"No. They were mostly your images. I just started it rolling."
"Until it rolled right over me."
"Until you immersed yourself in it, yes." He watched as she made a few notes on a statboard.
"Why?"
"Why what? This particular session?"
"Yes. Why this one?"
She rose from her chair. He watched her as she walked to the door of the control booth, entering the small cubicle in which he was seated. "The eighteenth century sailing vessels serve as a metaphor for you, leading you gently back to reality, to the reality you knew. Sometimes the images bombard you. Sometimes we get just one or two new ones. Then I can build on them later."
He thought about that. "We've done this before? This technique, starting me out on a three-master and letting the images roll?"
"Yes, Jim. Many times."
"I don't remember."
She took his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "I know. Don't worry about it. You will."
He gazed up, directly into her eyes. "When?"
Jade took a deep breath. When indeed? She was determined not to let Jim see her own insecurities, determined also to keep him shielded from Baker's unreasonable demands for 'progress'. "That doesn't matter, Jim," she answered, deliberately meeting his gaze. "There's no hurry. We'll take all the time we need." I wish I believed that myself, she thought. It'd sound more convincing.
Jim smiled. "I'm glad we've got time to work out our problems, Doctor."
She scowled at him. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, a little sharply.
"We doctors tend to use the royal 'we' whenever we're talking to our patients."
"I'm just trying to reassure you that I'm as deeply involved ..."
"But let a patient try it and we get a bit huffy, don't we?"
She dropped his hand in feigned disgust. "I am not huffy!"
His eyes sparkled up at her. "Then how are we feeling?"
She laughed. "You're impossible!" she said, and started to turn away from his chair. He reached up, touching, but not clasping, her hand.
"No, not impossible. At least I hope not. And we certainly are beautiful when we're being huffy."
Jade felt herself flushing, and made a casual gesture that removed her hand from his touch. "Why, thank you," she rejoined lightly. "But we're not supposed to notice things like that about our doctor."
"Nonsense. We may not be well, but we're not dead. Besides, we're Freudian, aren't we?"
"Yes, we are -- I am. What difference does that make?"
"Freudianism is all sex, isn't it?"
She scowled again. "It is not."
There was a quizzical lift to Jim's eyebrow that Jade couldn't help but recognize: Jim had, after all, spent a lot of time with a Vulcan. "Oh?" he said skeptically.
"And the correct term is Freudian psychology, ‘Freudianism’ makes it sound like a religion."
"Isn't it?"
Jade studied him. His face was serious and almost challenging -- yet his eyes danced. Is he joking with me? She couldn't tell. When in doubt, take the patient seriously. That was where she'd made her mistakes with Richard... and don't think bout that now. "There are fanatics in every profession. I suppose there are some Freudian therapists who take his theories as gospel..."
"According to Sigmund," Jim interrupted. "Which would no doubt find that Christ was acting out an Oedipal complex due to his guilt that his mother and father weren't married -- or that his real Father never came to visit him -- and would assign it all to an unhealthy view of sexual relations." He stood up from his chair, giving a slight bow. "Sex and religion."
Jade smiled at him. "Very clever, Doctor."
"Clever enough to know what you're doing by sending me down to the sea in chips.
"Chips?"
Jim pointed to the control booth. "Computerized Freudianism is still Freudianism."
Jade stared blankly for a moment, then the pun hit her. Computers. Chips. Down to the sea in... And can a Vulcan pass the Turing Test? She couldn't help laughing. "You are impossible!"
"And you're still beautiful."
"Jim...."
"And I'm still not dead." He grinned and motioned to the door out of the cubicle. "And you're still Freudian. After you, Doctor."
It was not until an hour or so afterwards, after Jade had returned to her quarters and James had gone back to his private room, that she allowed herself the indulgence of wondering about his remarks. They all hit close enough to home to make her feel the tiniest bit insecure. On the other hand, it would seem to imply that James was getting back his old perceptiveness -- not to mention his quick wit.
There's a logic puzzle for you, she thought as she settled into a deep, enfolding chair. If he's being perceptive, not merely teasing, it means that the patient is aware of the doctor's personal emotional involvement with him. If his perception is already that accurate, he's really come quite a long way. Which means I'm succeeding. But if he's correct, and I am emotionally involved, I can't be helping him, in which case his perception may not be accurate. Which means I'm screwing up. If I'm hurting him, I'm helping him, and if I'm helping him, I'm screwing up.
She shook her head, but smiled. Turing would have liked that puzzle.
Ah, yes. But would Freud have approved? She really was, after all, a Freudian. Some of her colleagues used to tease her about that; the science of psychology, they'd say, should have learned something new in the four hundred years since Freud. But then, most of them were Jungians, the current fad recognizing the relationship between the mind and quantum physics. Jade had teased them right back, reminding them that the physical sciences had also progressed in the last four hundred years. If they really wanted to be modern, she'd say, they should follow Simon or the Nihlists or even Daystrom.
Daystrom? they'd say. Isn't he the computer nut? Multitronics? The one who thought that a computer could replace a starship captain?
Certainly, he was wrong about that. But he had managed to create a computer that could mimic Human psychoses. He'd made a lot more progress towards understanding the Human mind than anyone since Freud. Or Alan Turing. She'd never argued with them about Alan Turing. After her affair with Richard, that was far too painful.
Jade rose from the chair, going to her dresser and her pipe. She really shouldn't be indulging so much. It made her morbid. It really wasn't terribly healthy...
No, she corrected herself. Smoking, or taking any mood-altering drug, while not good for the body in and of itself, is never the real problem. It's only a symptom. Really healthy people don't need to do that to themselves. Even if I were to stop smoking, it wouldn't eliminate the real problem. That, my dear, she said to herself, goes much deeper.
She smoked, of course, to dull the pain. The fact that of late it never worked for very long didn't seem to be a strong enough argument against it. Or that until about two years ago it had been only an occasional solace. Neither did the fact that to get mellow enough to dull the pain she always had to get morbid first. That's the problem with depressants. They're depressing.
Freud would naturally enough have found other reasons for her smoking. Oral fixation. Phallic symbols. A vital herb from her father's homeworld. Deep, sexual secrets. There was a poem, now no doubt centuries old, that every first year psychology student learned:
Everything in the world
Is concave or -vex
So everything you dream
Will have to do with sex
Ah yes, dear Sigmund. But sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. She giggled at the thought of Freud's portrait in her freshman text, that huge, brown cigar clamped firmly between his lips. Alan Turing would have understood.
She must be getting past the morbid stage. Her thoughts were becoming disjointed, flitting aimlessly about. Pretty painlessly, too. Only one passing thought of Richard. Scarcely a mention of her research into Turing. And barely a nod to either Selar or her father.
That was the real test, of course. If she could think about Selar without pain. Or could recall her father's face without tears stinging her eyes. Or think about what she'd read of Turing without feeling the blind rage start to build.
But no, it all was coming. She wasn't there yet. She took another deep pull at her pipe.
If I had any medical ethics, she thought, I wouldn't be doing this. She'd declare herself incompetent to continue James', therapy. She'd resign her commission, leave her feelings toward James alone. Any therapist who needed a crutch this badly shouldn't be practicing.
Being damned hard on yourself tonight, aren't you? It isn't as though you're a basket case. You've functioned most of your life, and haven't screwed up anyone or anything -- with one exception, of course -- badly enough to consider yourself some sort of pariah. You've helped innumerable patients before this one -- even conceding the one you really blew. You have, Jade Melissa Han. You have helped, far more than you've hurt.
But how do you weigh help against death?
It was only her training, her brilliance, her skill at taking tests that had allowed her problem to stay hidden from the examiners. Naturally, psychologists were given an incredibly comprehensive battery of tests before other minds were entrusted to them. Jade had managed to fool them. She'd known what they'd be looking for, if they'd known it was there, and she'd managed to hide it. Thank the gods they didn't then use psycho-cins as therapeutic devices. She wondered briefly how many other therapists had managed to keep such secrets.
But then, it’s unlikely there are many other therapists with a secret like mine. Not many who have been responsible for the deaths of four men.
Even as she thought it, she realized it was ridiculous. She hadn't been responsible for Turing's death. Turing had died three hundred years before she was born. It was just guilt by association. It was the psychiatrists who killed him. Her guilt rested merely in the fact that she had found out about it and still remained a psychologist. It welled up in her now. How, how could she remain a part of the profession that had killed a man like that? Especially when she herself would have been persecuted by those same people for the same reasons.
That was three centuries ago, she told herself harshly. Times change. Bisexuality is accepted now for the Human norm it is. Homophobia, anti-Semitic and racial prejudice – such things are gone...
Are they? It hasn't been that long since the Elihuites staged a witch-hunt through Fleet, trying to get rid of all the alien officers. Is that any different?
But she had fought that, as much as she had been able. She had a clear conscience there. With Turing, it was different. She was helpless. The only thing she could have done about it would have been to resign her profession. She wouldn't do that. It was giving up, giving in to the helplessness and removing herself from that taint of guilt by refusing to accept it. Yet feeling personally guilty over something she'd had nothing to do with, something that had happened long before she'd been born, wasn't the sign of a healthy mind.
Still, she wondered how many Terrans of German descent still felt guilty about Hitler -- and yes, Mother, the Catholics were less to blame about that than most others. He'd tried to stamp them out, too. Or how many Chinese, like her father, felt guilty over Lee Kuan. Or how many planetary governors over Kodos? Or starship captains over Thompson?
To hell with it. You had nothing to do with Turing. You aren’t blind, you aren’t prejudiced. You aren’t Catholic, either. Shut up, Jade. You didn't kill Turing. You don't have to atone for it...
But yes, she did. Turing was a brilliant man. He'd been driven to suicide by inept psychologists the mid-Twentieth century. It had been at almost precisely the same time -- at most half a decade later -- that James had been trapped, committed to an asylum in Earth's past. It was just possible that some of the same so-called doctors had been involved...
Possible, but highly unlikely. That's paranoia talking. Or Jungian synchronicity. And I'm not a Jungian. If I try hard enough, maybe I can convince myself that my obsession with helping James has nothing to do with a personal attachment to him. It's in atonement for my profession's sins against Alan Turing.
That's not much better.
Or it's my personal atonement for failing Richard. He committed suicide, too. Which is -- face it, Dr. Han -- part of the reason Turing's death haunts you so. But Richard was beyond your help, even before you ever met him. Monsters in the psycho-cin remember? Pre-programmed and inevitable. Richard knew what he was talking about. You're not responsible for what he did.
And Selar? His death was an accident. You were hundreds of parsecs away. He was a normal, stable, healthy Vulcan... who genetically altered an Indiian child... out of love for her, damn it. That had nothing to do with you either! You can't kill a man just by loving him!
But yes, you can.
She had killed her father. She'd loved him, and he had died because she loved him. And because he'd loved her.
I'm sorry, Daddy. I loved you. I'm sorry. I loved you. I'm sorry I loved you.
Four o'clock. Four o'clock. The words, the time danced in Jade's head as she waited impatiently at the spaceport. The ship from Rigel would dock at four o'clock and her father would be on it. For the millionth time, she ran her hand over her inches-long hair. Would he like it short? He'd always said her hair was so beautiful; he even coined a nickname for it. He called it the Silk Waterfall. She could remember his voice clearly, calling to her when she'd be getting ready for school; "And don't forget to comb the Silk Waterfall!"Daddy, I miss you so much!
It had been nearly six months since she'd seen him. His business on Rigel made it difficult for him to get away. Since the divorce, there had been so little time...
Jade quickly banished those thoughts. She understood, with all a 16 year old's wisdom, why her mother and father had dissolved their marriage. She often wondered how they had ever gotten together in the first place. They were hardly a perfect match.
Li Han was a quiet, studious man; a doctor with a warm, caring, if somewhat self-contained manner. Of Chinese ancestry, he'd been born at the colony on Rigel 9. Jade’s mother, Kelly O'Shea, was a fiery, red-haired, green-eyed Irish Catholic. A corporate officer of Terracon Galactic industries, she was passionate in her work, in religion, in love - and in anger. She was a demanding woman, a perfectionist for herself as well as her daughter. Jade had lived with her mother on Earth for the last four years, since the divorce. Except for two summers, she had only seen her father on these never-frequent-enough and never-long-enough seven-day trips. True, they wrote, but letters and subspace communication weren't the same as having his arms around her.
Though she might wonder how her parents ever got together, she didn't have to wonder why they had stayed married for 13 years. She only had to look in the mirror for that answer. At times, it still made her feel responsible for her mother's bitterness, and her father's deep sense of failure. She remembered clearly, too, the fights: her mother screaming, her father's quiet withdrawal. Their fights always ended the same way. Father would wait until Mother’s tirade stopped, then he would say, very softly, "I'm sorry, Kelly. I am what I am. I do love you." And he always checked in on his little girl before going to bed. Jade always pretended to be asleep, and he'd whisper, "For you, honey. I'll try again for you."
She had finally confronted them both, just after her 12th birthday. She had told them she knew how incompatible they were, she knew that they stayed married for her sake. She told her father she loved him too much to see him so miserable. She told him she thought he and her mother would be better off apart. Her mother had sighed, very deeply and said, "Li, that's what I've been trying to tell you."
"Is this really what you want, honey?" he'd asked her. Jade had nodded, telling him she would rather see him happy sometimes, even if that meant only seeing him sometimes. And he'd reluctantly agreed.
But she didn't want to think of all that now. It was four o'clock and all she wanted was to see her father coming out of the courier shuttle.....
The rest of the memory came too fast, like a hurricane whirling inescapably in her mind. The announcement of delays, the waiting, the worrying, the call for friends and/or relatives of the passengers of the starliner Elegance to come to the port office, the subdued voice of a starline executive informing them that the Elegance had been destroyed in an explosion and that an investigation was underway and the company extended its deepest sympathy.
Her father was dead. He had died coming to visit her, because he loved her. He'd agreed to the divorce because he'd loved her. If she hadn't loved him too much to let him go on in a marriage that hurt him, he wouldn't have been on a starliner coming to visit her. He wouldn't've moved back to Rigel 9. He'd be alive and able to help her, to hold her, to take away the pain that was burning inside her, eating her up, making her gasp and struggle for air and inhale more deeply of the soothing smoke that came from a plant native to his homeworld.
"Jade, are you in?"
At the sound of Robyn's voice, Jade struggled up from the fog that encased her. She hated to have anyone catch her like this. Stoned was alright, but unable to really wake up because she'd fallen asleep stoned... No, that was too unprofessional to admit to. Even to Robyn.
"Damn, I overslept," Jade mumbled, and glanced covertly at the doorway. Robyn stood leaning against the frame, her mouth a wry twist.
"Yeah, right," she said. She pushed herself away from the door and into the room. The door hissed softly closed as she came over and bent down next to Jade's bed. "It's 2200, Doctor," she whispered.
Jade felt the flush crawl over her neck and face. "I know," she replied, attempting to cover her consternation with irritability. "I took a nap after the last therapy session and..."
"And this room reeks of Rigellian," Robyn countered. She shook her head, the short layers of sandy brown hair shifting with the movement. "Jade, you don't have to lie to me."
"I'm not lying," Jade protested, then stopped herself at the look of plain skepticism in Robyn’s brown eyes. "Well, I did fall asleep," she finished. "And to be further truthful, I really would like to be..."
"You didn't return my call," Robyn interrupted, standing up straight. "So I thought I'd call on you."
Jade sighed. "Robyn, I know your work means the world to you, but I really can't handle technical details of anything right now, and..."
"And you were thinking about things you'd rather not think about, hence the Rigellian." Robyn turned her back to the bed. "You think a hardware freak like me can't detect program patterns when I see them?"
Jade shifted on the bed. "What are you talking about?"
"You do this, Jade. You have a therapy session, it brings back memories you can't handle, so you dose yourself good to prevent having to think about them. And you do it in the name of protecting your patient from your problems."
"Do you really think a self-proclaimed hardware freak is qualified to make these kinds of diagnoses?" Jade bristled.
"There are other ways of dealing with pain, Doctor," Robyn went on as if Jade hadn't spoken, "other things one can do to ward off bad memories than to get so wasted you can't think, much less about anything unpleasant." With a sudden movement, Robyn pulled her shirt over her head and turned to face Jade. "Like answer invitations to dinner and after from a concerned friend."
A smile pulled at the corners of Jade's mouth. "I didn't read the message."
"Uh huh. Serves you right." Robyn again knelt next to the bed, reaching out with both hands to caress Jade's face. "You know it doesn't matter to me."
Jade's hands came up to caress Robyn’s. " I... I really don't like to use you like this."
"So we’ll do what I like for a change."
"You know how I feel."
"Call me James."
Jade grimaced. "Gods, that hurts!"
Robyn grinned. "I can get nastier."
"Please don't."
"Then stop the martyr act. It's boring. I'm here because of what I want, Jade. I don't happen to mind if it helps you at the same time. It's better for your professional reputation than Baker finding out you spend every off hour wreathed in fragrant smoke, yes?"
"True," Jade conceded, then added softly, "even if it wasn't always like that."
"Turing again, huh?" Robyn snorted. "Christ on a crutch you're predictable!"
It was Jade's turn to shake her head. Robyn had misunderstood. She'd been referring to herself, not psychiatry, but she didn't feel like explaining. As the Silk Waterfall rustled over her shoulders, she couldn't help the twinge of sorrow, even as Robyn bent to kiss her.