Chapter 2. Chakotay

The problem with Quarra is that it is so much like Federation worlds, but without any Vulcans. And you can imagine how surprised I am to find myself saying that, given my frequent irritation with Tuvok. But it's true. If you can imagine all the technological arrogance of a new warp civilization, without any ancient stoic philosopher-kings to moderate things, rein in ambitions, slow the pace of discovery … you'd pretty much find yourself looking at Quarra.

Because I don't believe for a second that the mindwiping project was the work of a few bad apples. That was a polite fiction, told by them to save face, and accepted by us in the name of diplomacy and getting our people back as quickly as possible.

I assumed as much all along, but it was the Wildman family's case that clinched it for Kathryn. I think she had a hard time shaking off the last vestiges of her own mindwiping, the vague sense of contentment. It colored how she saw the whole planet, still, during our initial communications with the authorities. But everything we learned during Sam's re-entry, and during the abortive meeting with the people who had adopted Naomi, made it impossible to deny the truth of the situation.

The mindwiping conspiracy was so vast it could better be called an open secret, at least within the industrial sector's leadership, the labor and immigration ministries, and the medical system. There was too much coordination, too many workers tailor-made to the labor market's specific needs the very month they arrived. And far too little curiosity about where all these off-worlders were coming from.

That woman said more than she knew - Kubeki with the big house, when she remarked on Naomi's unusual curiosity. That said more about Quarran culture and its strategically manufactured silences and blind spots than it did about our bright little Naomi. Some curiosity on Kubeki's part might have led her to wonder at the convenient supply of off-worlder orphans to fill the homes of couples like her and her husband, casualties of their toxic planet's infertility epidemic.

I won't let myself think what would have happened to B'Elanna's child if she'd given birth there.

I shouldn't have led that away team. I failed Samantha and served Kathryn poorly that day. I knew I carried baggage from my people's historical trauma of forced relocations, assimilation, and stolen children. But I thought I could keep that separate from my professional responsibility to the ship. If I'd been listening to my gut, we would have declined tea, diplomatic offense be damned, and pursued obtaining Sam's records privately from the health ministry. Kathryn is the diplomat, the one who can compartmentalize her feelings from her duty. Someday I'll learn that when I try to follow her example I'm usually just deluding myself.

By the same token, I probably have no business trying to counsel Samantha now. But who else is there? Fortunately, she's undergone extensive counseling before and is cooperative. She's leading our sessions as much as I am. It was her idea to search the Federation databases for her own childhood records.

The mindwiping and false memories stirred up real memories that Samantha had laid to rest in adolescence; now she is revisiting them from the perspective of adulthood. She showed me a photo of herself at around age eight, a starkly-lit headshot from an intake form on her homeworld. She had never seen this particular holo and couldn't recall exactly which familial crisis she had just endured when it was taken. I studied the image - the child's expression so similar to every traumatized orphan I saw in the refugee camps as a Maquis - and asked Sam how she felt when she saw it.

"Sad," she answered. I waited. She needs time and silence to pull words up to the surface. Then she clarified, "I felt compassion. And not just for the little girl, then. For myself, now. I sat and cried. It … helped. It healed something."

"Good," I said. "That was good work, Sam. A big step."

There was still something in her eyes, something she was trying to say. I waited some more.

"I think -" and her throat closed on the tears that filled her eyes. I handed her a tissue, kept silent, pulled my own thoughts inward to give hers breathing room.

"I think I can try to tell Joe now."

"Are you still afraid he'll reject you when he knows about your past?" I didn't share her fear, but this wasn't about Joe and it certainly wasn't about me. It was about Sam and the price she'd had to pay for her secrets all this time.

"Yes. A little. But more afraid now of … of lying to him by staying silent. He knows something bad happened. He just doesn't know what, or when. He deserves to know."

"Why does he deserve to know?" I hoped I was phrasing it right. I was trying to mirror her statements to help her reflect on her own thoughts. I hoped she didn't feel like I was arguing with her. A couple of psychology courses at Starfleet Academy are not a counseling degree.

She answered, "Joe is a good man." I waited. We both knew that wasn't a reason. "He wants …" She touched her sternum. "He wants in. He wants to help me, to share my ... "

As she trailed off, I broke with the most basic counseling protocol and finished her sentence for her. "Burden. He wants to share your burden. Because that's what a good man does."

She noticed the roughness in my voice and looked back at me steadily. "I was going to say sorrow. But burden works, too. Anyway, he deserves to know."

I didn't try to dissuade her.