Unforgotten
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
Tracer Kellin, security operative of the Remoran government, could hardly believe the situation she found herself in. The last thing she remembered was falling asleep in her own bed, on her own home planet, prepared to undertake a mission to pursue the runaway Reskett. She had opened her eyes to find herself in an unfamiliar ship's sickbay, on a biobed, with a middle-aged, balding alien man bending over her with a frown of concern.
Now here she was, in a room full of her own clothes and posessions (which she couldn't remember putting there) and a broken blue vase on the table (which she couldn't remember throwing). The only possible explanation was that she had attempted desertion herself, been caught by one of her own colleagues and had her memories modified – but why would she do such a thing?
The answer to that question walked into her door as if he had been waiting just for that. She listened with growing confusion as he introduced himself and told her the whole story.
Commander Chakotay. He gave her the oddest feeling of deja-vu, pacing through her quarters with his hands behind his back. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a red-and-black uniform, with black hair and a copper skin tone she had never seen before. His ears were rounded at the tips, unlike her people's pointed ones, marking him as an alien. There was a tattoo above his left eye, a pattern of dark lines like a wing. It made her want to reach out and trace those lines.
"What I'm about to tell you may sound strange," he said, in a low, soft voice. "But it's what you asked me to do … before you lost your memory."
She listened.
"You came here about a month ago, to look for a runaway. We worked together to find him. Afterwards … you came back."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because … " He turned to face her, his face etched into lines of almost painful hope. "We'd fallen in love," he said. "You promised me to tell you."
Oh. That made more sense than it didn't … but still …
"Excuse me," she faltered. "You're certainly attractive … but to me, that still seems very unlikely."
Kellin was a bounty hunter; she lived a focused, efficient life, pursuing anyone who attempted to abandon the homeworld and escorting them safely home. She spent months under a depolarization cloak, unseen, unheard. She could not efford emotional entanglements. Was it possible that this man Chakotay, with the dark eyes and intense voice, had persuaded her to make an exception?
"But it's what happened," he said, taking a step closer. A sense of passion held in check grew around him, as if he wanted to shake her by the shoulders and scream at her, or else kiss her. She began to feel dizzy.
"What do you want from me?" she asked.
"I want you to stay with us. Just for a few days. We could … get to know each other again."
For a moment, she longed to say yes. Just to talk to someone, to break out of her lonely existence and spend some time with this fascinating stranger who, if he could be believed, loved her enough to tell her all of this in spite of her disbelief …
"I'm sorry." She stepped away. "I don't remember anything you said. I just want to go home."
Home to her favorite downtown bar, her friends, her little apartment with a view of the ocean. Home, where the world made sense to her and she would no longer be confronted with Chakotay's smoldering eyes.
"Kellin - " He clenched his hands at his sides, as if forbidding himself to reach for her. "Think about this. You're missing an entire month of your life, Kellin! You have an empty space where they took your memories from you! Doesn't that bother you at all?"
She saw herself aiming the neurolytic emitter at countless bodies, countless distorted faces pleading for her to stop. She had told herself over and over again that she was doing it for their own good, that they would be so much happier on Remora than on some alian ship. Had they felt it too – this sickening dislocation, this vertigo of the mind?
"Never mind about me," said Chakotay. "But what about that government of yours? Why do you think so many people are so desperate to leave? Maybe that proves there's something wrong with your society!"
"It's not that many," she said automatically, bristling up in defence of Remora. It was seventeen percent of the population, to be exact, but that was no business of his.
"Then why not let them go?" Chakotay retorted.
"Because – because that would imply we don't care enough about them," she said.
The words had been drummed into her during her years of training until she said them in her sleep. We are Remoran. We are one people. Return our lost brothers and sisters to the homeworld. Keep our people whole.
She remembered her father, who had shot himself rather than have his memory modified and go back. That was why she had chosen her profession in the first place – to make sure there would be no more children left behind. She hadn't dared to ask herself why he had done it.
"In my culture, we show our caring differently," said Chakotay. "We respect free will. On this ship, everyone who wants to come or go has the right to do so. You asked for asylum, Kellin, even if you don't remember. You were tired of being trapped."
Trapped. Another thing she didn't care to think about. Endless scans and controls before her ship could leave orbit. The nasal voice of their ruler droning endlessly along the news channels. The occasional neighbors and classmates who had 'disappeared', with nobody asking out loud where they went.
Think about this … an empty space where they took your memories from you … Never mind about me.
He really meant it, she could tell. He would be willing to let her go, even back to Remora if she wanted; her happiness was more important to him than his own … but she could see it in his face, hear it in the cracks in his voice, that he was still desperate for her to stay.
"I have a life," she protested, even while knowing she was losing the battle. "My home, my friends … they'll be wondering what happened to me."
"They can ask your friend the tracer," with a grim smile. "You'd be famous. The one who got away."
"It doesn't make sense," she whispered.
"I know." His smile softened. "This is exactly how I felt when you showed up for the second time. I'd forgotten you … you had to tell me all about us. I introduced you to an Earth delicacy called 'ice cream' … you said you could eat it every day."
It struck her anew that she had been living here – eating, sleeping, working, learning. She had been immersed in a foreign culture, trying new things every day just like this 'ice cream'. She felt a tug of regret at not remembering.
The tracer had stolen a month of her life. It was wrong.
"Show me," she said, sitting down. "Show me some of this 'ice cream'. I want to know what my daily menu will consist of."
Chakotay's face burst into a smile that startled her with its radiance. She had the idea, from their past conversation, that he was a reticent man. Unlike her, he kept his feelings to himself. He must be truly overjoyed to know she would be staying.
"It's just for three days," she added hurriedly. "If I decide I don't like this place, I will leave. And I'll expect you to live up to all that about 'free will', Commander."
"Fair enough." He turned to a computer device set into the wall. "Computer – one scoop of vanilla ice cream."
=/\=
Chakotay took Kellin on a grand tour of the starship Voyager. "This is the turbolift," he said, as she looked uneasily around at the narrow metal tube they were in. "Just tell it where you want to go. Our computer system has an audio interface. Computer – mess hall," he ordered.
"Mess hall?" she asked, frowning. Her universal translator gave the phrase literally. Why would someone call a place after the concept of disorder?
"It's where we go to eat and socialize, besides our quarters. Don't worry, it's not really that messy."
They shared a grin.
Had she liked his sense of humor? Was that part of why she'd fallen for him?
The mess hall was a wide room with white walls, metal tables and bright lighting, full of people wearing uniforms like Chakotay's, except most of them were yellow at the shoulders rather than red. Behind the counter, surrounded by brightly colored bowls of fruit and bubbling pots, stood a stocky blonde man in a much-stained brown apron.
"Kellin!" he exclaimed, toddling towards them and beaming all over his homely, alien face. "You're staying? How wonderful! Oh, but of course you don't remember? I'm Neelix. Species: Talaxian. Occupation: head chef and morale officer aboard the good ship Voyager. Now, how can I help you?"
Kellin was overwhelmed. This was the second alien lifeform she had talked to in as many hours, and the most ebullient one she'd ever met. She appealed to Chakotay with a look.
"Excuse us, Neelix," he said, standing protectively behind her; he did not touch her, but he might as well have put an arm around her shoulders. "Kellin's still adjusting. Give her a little space, all right?"
"Oh, yes!" said Neelix, wide-eyed, backing away as if from a rigged bomb. "Of course. Do forgive me, Kellin, Commander. But by the way, I hope you'll be joining me here for dinner tonight. I'm cooking plomeek soup a la Neelix," he winked at Kellin, "Your favorite."
Once they were back in the turbolift, Kellin rubbed her pounding head and leaned against the wall. "It's all so much," she said. "So much I should know … "
Chakotay touched her for the first time in her memory. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, warming her through her dark sweater from top to toe. "It's all right," he said. "Don't pressure yourself. Forget about the past; just think of it as a new assignment."
The oddest assignment of her life – instead of chasing down a deserter, she was chasing after a love she couldn't remember feeling, a life she'd never had.
Sickbay was mercifully familiar – the smell of desinfectant, the orange stripes of light in one corner, the biobeds against the walls and the sarcastic, but not unkind, Emergency Medical Hologram. She let him take tissue and blood samples, much to his satisfaction. If she did decide to stay, something would have to be done about her memory-blocking pheromones; otherwise, she would be triggering intruder alerts every week. Even if she did leave, the Doctor would have a unique opportunity for research.
They saw the astrometrics lab, where a woman with cybernetic implants in her face and hands was compiling a star chart. She and Kellin could have been sisters – tall, slim, blonde, blue-eyed and painfully direct. The woman, an ex-Borg known as Seven of Nine, told Kellin to her face that she was grateful to have her still on board.
"Having the Commander emotionally compromised by your absence would have had an adverse effect on crew morale."
Chakotay grimaced. Kellin decided she liked Seven.
"Everybody seems to like me," she confided to Chakotay in the turbolift. "It's strange … I can't remember ever being so popular."
"We Humans believe in hospitality," said Chakotay simply. "We welcome strangers so we can learn from them, and they from us."
"I can see that."
It was a surreal experience, for Kellin, to see so many different species working together in relative harmony. On a Remoran ship, an alien would have caused chaos – if they'd been able to get past the cloak in the first place. Not to mention the planet, which was as rigorously guarded as their technology would allow.
But on this ship, besides the bubbly morale officer, she saw a bald, blue-skinned man chatting with a group of Humans, a woman with arched cranial ridges running the Engineering station, a few young people with wrinkled noses and one glittery earring each, and a brown-skinned man with the most immobile face Kellin had ever seen. Chakotay named the species for her: Bolian, Klingon, Bajoran, Vulcan. Not to mention herself, the Remoran. It was amazing.
The turbolift swished open once again to reveal a pair of double doors opposite. "This is our holodeck," said Chakotay. "We use it to recreate an environment out of photons. Computer, run program Chakotay Pi Alpha."
"Program complete," said the computer. "Enter when ready."
The doors slid open, and the sight before Kellin's eyes took her breath away.
There was a forest inside that room. Tall trees with luscious green leaves dappled with sunlight, flowering bushes close to the ground, mushrooms dotting the rich brown earth, tiny wildflowers – white, pink, yellow, blue – and everything looked so real. She could have sworn that they had stepped off the ship and onto some paradise of a planet.
"This is a recreation of the forest near my former home," said Chakotay. "On Dorvan, a colony of Earth. It was invaded by an enemy race, the Cardassians. The real forest was destroyed."
She looked up and saw the shadow in his eyes, as if he were watching the trees fall to alien bombs. So he, too, knew what it was like to lose a home.
"But you'll always have this," she said, a tentative attempt at comfort. "It's beautiful."
"I know."
She looked up at him – and realized that it was not the forest he was looking at.
Beautiful …
Kellin, being a sensible woman, knew her assets – including her physical ones. She had been involved with several men, mostly other tracers, and she knew when they were interested in her. Chakotay definitely was – but there was more than that behind his eyes.
He was looking at her tenderly, almost protectively, as if she were one of the lush trees in his home forest. It made her nervous, but she didn't want him to look away.
Eventually he did, and whatever had ben bubbling up between them suddenly fell flat.
"Is there anything else you'd like to see?" he asked. "We have plenty of other programs … "
"Tell me what I did," she said abruptly. "Besides chasing Reskett, I mean … I must have been useful on this ship in some way. Was I a security officer?"
"You were, actually." He gave her another slight smile. "You reported to Commander Tuvok – that's … "
"The man with the brown skin? And the ears like mine?" Kellin grinned. "I like him. He seems like a no-nonsense sort of being."
Chakotay launched into a description of Vulcan culture, including their attitudes about the expression of emotion. Kellin couldn't have said what fascinated her more – the information, or the beautiful landscape surrounding her.
=/\=
Once the seventy-two-hour period she had determined on was almost over, with only three hours to go, Kellin and Chakotay found themselves in her quarters once again. They had been careful to spend nearly all their waking minutes in each other' company so he wouldn't forget her, with only the necessary hours of sleep separating them (eight for him, five for her). She had laughed and talked and listened more than she could ever remember doing, not since before her father's death and her mother's descent into depression. Chakotay had that effect on her.
"Computer," said Kellin. "One bowl of tomato soup."
She leaned back in an armchair with the tray on her knees.
"You really like Human food, don't you?" Chakotay teased, with an undercurrent of something that was not humor flickering in his black eyes. He knew just as well as she did how little time they had left.
"I'm staying," she said.
His face lit up like a sunrise. It was almost worth it to leave home just for that look.
"Are you … sure?" he asked quietly.
She nodded.
"And may I ask … "
She looked down at the red swirls of soup in her bowl. This was awkward. But, never let it be said that Tracer Kellin was afraid to speak her mind. No – not Tracer Kellin. She would be just Kellin from now on, maybe eventually with a Starfleet title.
"It's not only because of you," she said. "I … I've come to feel at home here. Everyone on this ship has been so good to me … but yes, mostly it is because of you. I don't know you as well as you know me," with a nervous litle laugh, "but I know I … care for you. You're such a kind person … you're smart, funny, good-looking … if I ever wanted to fall in love, it would be with you, Chakotay."
She placed the bowl aside on the coffee table and held out her arms. Chakotay, still radiant, stood up and pulled her close to him for a hug.
"Thank you," he whispered, his breath warm against her ear. "I'm so glad."
=/\=
Curneth was sitting cross-legged on his bunk in the brig and did not move as Kellin approached him. His eyes flickered in her direction and turned away.
"I've decided to stay," said Kellin.
Chakotay was not there; this was something she felt she had to do alone.
"You're only making this so much harder for yourself," said Curneth, shaking his head. "Our ships will pursue you, you know that. You'll be outnumbered. Do you really want to be responsible for the deaths of your own kind?"
"Why?" she snapped. "Why would the government send soldiers to die for just me? What happened to Hasketh being a father to us all? Wouldn't a loving father just let his daughter go?"
Curneth jumped up and came as close to the forcefield as he dared, his eyes flashing.
"His Excellency, Chancellor Hasketh, is the greatest leader Remora has ever known!" he hissed back. "He saved us from civil war and famine! Have you forgotten?"
"Hardly! Don't the newsvids and the billboards hammer it into our heads every day?"
Curneth ran his hands through his hair and turned away in frustration. "Being among these aliens has obviously damaged your mind," he said, fighting for a calm tone of voice.
"Oh, I know what damaged my mind, Curneth," said Kellin, with a meaningful glance at the holster where he usually kept his neurolytic emitter.
"Do you want to know why I became a Tracer?" she asked, after a pause.
Curneth shrugged.
"Because when I was seven years old," (starting puberty in Remoran terms), "My father deserted too. He was a poet and a dramatist, and he'd written a play about a city with an army surrounding it, whose people would slowly starve unless somebody escaped to bring a message to their allies. The censors blocked it from being published, and ordered all his other works off the shelves. He could never find another publisher. He had to go to work at the local food procesing plant to support my mother and me. Ten hours a day, minimum wage.
"One morning I woke up to find our hovercar gone, and my mother crying. She said he'd left, to find a place in the galaxy where people were free to live and create as they wanted. He'd come back and take us there, he said. Two days later, they brought him home – with a phaser burn straight through the heart. He'd killed himself rather than go back home. As for my mother, she opted to have every memory of her marriage erased – including memories of me. I was placed in an institution and, when I turned thirteen," (the age of adulthood) "sent to train with the Secret Police Force. And that's all."
Kellin told her story with the honesty and directness that was her trademark, forcing herself not to cry; the facts spoke for themselves. To her bitter satisfaction, the condescending look on Curneth's face melted away.
"For so many years years, I believed that if they'd only shot Father with the emitter earlier, everything would have been all right," she said. "If the Tracers had been more efficient. But Chakotay and the others have taught me about freedom, Curneth. Father needed his freedom to write; he could never have been happy without it. And I need Chakotay – even if I didn't remember him, something would be missing."
Curneth leaned against the wall, unable to meet her eyes.
"Please," said Kellin. "Tell the High Command you couldn't find me. Tell them I died. Anything … only let me stay."
Curneth sighed.
"I became a Tracer because I was fascinated with aliens," he admitted. "As are you, it seems. Very well. I'll ... I'll turn the emitter on myself so they can't find you."
There was a strong sense of finality in the air, like the ringing of a funeral gong. Kellin realized that she would never again hear someone speak her native language without a translator, never see someone wearing Curneth's familiar uniform. She would never drink crystal juice with her friend Jessalin, or sing for her ancestors at the local shrine, or complain about the rainstorms in the city where she had been born. So much to leave behind.
So much to discover.
"Thank you … thank you so much, Curneth. I'll never forget this." The tears which had been threatening during their entire conversation overflowed from her eyes.
She pressed her commbadge.
"Kellin to transporter room? Beam Mr. Curneth back to his ship, please."
=/\=
Twenty-eight days later, the EMH came striding up out of his office with a silvery hypospray, smug satisfaction radiating from every photon. Coming up with a canceling agent for her pheromones was a fascinating puzzle to him, especially since, as they worked on the computers as well, he had to take all his notes on paper.
"I do believe, Crewman Kellin, we've finally had a breakthrough," he said, clapping her on the shoulder. "If this compound does what it's supposed to do, you should make an unforgettable impression on every member of this crew." He grinned.
"If is good," she muttered, lifting her hair and closing her eyes. "Go ahead, Doctor."
A hiss, a prickling sensation on her neck, and it was all over.
"There. If it works, come see me tomorrow for another dose. Now get out there and dazzle 'em."
Kellin smoothed her yellow-and-black uniform, nodded her thanks to him and left.
Chakotay was standing outside Sickbay, as he did every time the Doctor came up with a new formula. He kissed her thoroughly, cupping her face in his large hands.
=/\=
She deliberately avoided Chakotay until they were past the twenty-four-hour barrier, just to prove that her stealth skills were still in fine working order. It was just time for his morning shift when she looked up from her croissant and raktajino in the mess hall to find a tall, broad figure towering over her.
"Crewman Kellin, where in the universe have you been?" he asked, his voice low and silky as he leaned over her. "Twenty-six hours … do you realize how much my hand hurts from filling ten pages of a paper notebook, in case I forgot you?"
His eyes crinkled with joy and amusement, even as he pretended to go into one of his infamous quiet tempers.
"You did that?" Now why were her eyes stinging? There was no reason whatsoever for her to cry. "Oh, Chakotay, I'm sorry. I just wanted to surprise you."
"I have a feeling," he said, sitting down opposite her, "That you'll be surprising me for the rest of my life."
"That should be difficult," she quipped, in spite of her shaky voice. "Now that you remember me."
"I trust you'll be up to the challenge," he said, with that gentle smile she loved.