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"My mind to your mind."
The warm glow of candlelight illuminated Suder's quarters. It cast an obscured, flickering outline of Suder and Tuvok on the far wall.
"My thoughts to your thoughts."
The shadow of their kneeling bodies were like two rippling pillars that began to bleed together. The arching bridge of arms linked the pair as the distinction between them faded to unity.
"Our minds are melding.”
The boundaries between each man dissolved, and like two waves, they crashed and enveloped each other before sinking back into the sea of shared consciousness.
“Our minds are one."
For Tuvok, the room was now gone, and was replaced by the darkness of Lon Suder's mind. Suder's thoughts, feelings, and memories flashed like a horrid montage across Tuvok's psyche.
Now melded with Tuvok, Suder's body sat in idle repose, at odds with the turmoil within. They remained like this for several minutes before their psyches disengaged.
"Thank you." Suder said breathily.
Their meld had calmed him somewhat, but he was still tense.
"During our meld, I sensed a particular disquiet." Tuvok stated.
Suder looked away as if deep in thought. It was several moments before he responded.
"Is what I did illogical, or is it just evil?" He asked. The question took Tuvok by surprise. There was no need to ask what Suder was referencing.
"You were only doing what you believed you needed to do because your perception and facts were limited. I do not believe you are evil, nor particularly illogical." Tuvok told him.
"I'm a murderer." Suder said bitterly.
"You said that you killed because you thought you must. Your obstructed telepathic ability prevented you from comprehending the suffering and even the sentience of others. This was a great error, but not an evil." He said.
"But, surely needing to kill is illogical." He said, baffled.
"Need is logical, it is mechanical. It can be quantified. Your facts were wrong, you were not functioning correctly. Corrupted data has led to harmful or fatal mistakes, even by the most honourable and competent people in Starfleet. For example: an incident occurred many years ago during a diplomatic convention with an unfamiliar species, several representatives being hosted on a Starfleet ship nearly died of hypoxia. It was the result of Starfleet being furnished with the wrong environmental specifications. Although no personnel were at fault, they did nearly cause the death of several people due to a misunderstanding. One can be wrong while still adhering to logic, and even having admirable intentions. Indeed, doing what you believed to be right with what you believed to be true is neither illogical nor evil. It was simply the unfortunate result of a skewed perception." Tuvok said.
Lon Suder was staring at a nonspecific point in the room behind Tuvok.
"In your example, it's only logical if your goal is to support life. People need oxygen to live. Cutting off their oxygen is a logical method of killing them." Suder said softly in a voice devoid of emotion.
Tuvok's brow furrowed, a strong reaction for a Vulcan.
Besides missing the point, his reference to asphyxiation was particularly disturbing considering how often his hands were near Tuvok's neck. They were always lingering gently, however, not violently attacking. His hand would rest high on Tuvok's shoulder during a meld. They would sit loosely in front of him during meditation, Tuvok would sit only a foot away, eyes closed, unguarded.
Tuvok did not respond right away. He was not ready to interpret Suder's odd thoughts as the beginning of a relapse, not after all the work they had done together towards his rehabilitation.
Suder then looked at him and held his gaze, a strange standoff, for several moments. However, his eerie calm eventually broke and he dropped his head into his hands with a defeated exhale.
"Were my compulsions needs, or were they the breakdown between want and need." Suder asked, his face obscured.
Tuvok thought on this, carefully formulating his answer.
"I do not know. The mysteries of the mind elude philosophers and neuropsychologists alike. But, I believe that you acted out of necessity. Why you needed to kill is a difficult question to answer. It is possible that in order to rationalize wanting to kill, you came to believe it was a necessity. It is also possible that you experienced great satisfaction from exercising a violent evolutionary behavioural imperative that you truly could not control." He said.
"Which is it?" Suder asked.
"Want and need are sometimes difficult to distinguish. People want to have children, however the evolutionary demand to propagate has made this desire a biological imperative. It is want and need... self preservation, as well. We need to live and we want to live. Although, unlike needs, wants and preferences cannot be logical or illogical. Desire does not defy logic, it directs it. We use logic to achieve a goal that desire has determined." Tuvok spoke this as if he had just realized it himself.
"So, desire transcends logic. Does it also transcend good and evil?" Suder asked.
Tuvok regarded the man before him, the vexing, tragic enigma.
"Logic can be used for both good or evil purposes. Just as both good and evil actions can result from giving into our desires. Nearly all intelligent beings will experience conflicting desires at some point, even I: Union or Solitude, Safety or Exploration, Compromise or Victory. Perhaps we rely on something beyond logic to choose our path, but we must choose. If we choose to do good, when that is our path, that is what we may become." He said.
They sat in a comfortable silence as they both pondered his words and what they meant in regard to their relative situations.
"I know right from wrong now. And, you've helped me learn to control myself... and to connect with other people. But, my desires... so many of them, they're still - they're evil." Suder said shakily with a haunted look. He made a gesture with his hand as if to reach out to Tuvok, but stopped himself at the last moment and retreated.
This was a rare occasion where Tuvok believed that logical deliberation had reached the end of its usefulness.
"Not all of them." Tuvok said. He reached forwards and took Suder's hand in his own. He traced the smooth skin with his thumb in an uncharacteristic display of affection. He focused on projecting a psychic message to Suder.
Suder gasped, overcome.
"I can feel that. I... I can actually sense something from you. I see it. I didn't think I was capable." He said.
"What you sense from me, do you feel the same?" Tuvok asked. Had he been of any other planetary origin, he might have been nervous.
Suder took Tuvok's hand in both of his and raised it to his lips. He gave him a chaste kiss on the back of the hand.
"I feel... something good."