The Lost Voyages

The "Star Trek – Voyager" that could have been

by Soledad

ALTERNATE RESOLUTIONS

Disclaimer: All Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry and Viacom or whoever owns the rights at this moment. I don't make any profit out of this – I wish I would, but I don't, so suing me would be pointless.

Author's note: The messy nature of Ensign Brooks was mentioned in "A Year of Hell".

CHAPTER 02 – Serpent in Paradise

Three weeks earlier

Preliminary sensor scans had shown the planet – the third one in a system of seven, surrounding a yellow dwarf star – as a Class M… and a particularly pleasant one at that. It had the usual silicate/iron surface, an oxidizing atmosphere, and it was still geologically active. A young world, with a lush vegetation, but curiously void o sentient life, or so it seemed. The single continent – its surface twice larger than all Earth's landmasses counted together – girdled the equatorial area, but had a very nice, mediterranean climate, due to the planet's distance to its sun and it nearly vertical axis. One could count on balanced temperatures, practically everywhere.

Chakotay beamed down with an away team consisting of Tuvix, Gerron, the Ocampa Kes and Daggin, Ensign Wildman and a six-man security unit… all Starfleet. That seemed to have become a pattern lately: whenever they got to a planet with any inhabitants above Neanderthal level, the captain went with the away team herself. Whenever they found an uninhibited planet, Chakotay was allowed to go down and supervise the gathering of foodstuff and other useful resources… under the watchful eyes of a singularly Starfleet security team.

He sometimes wondered when had their working relationship taken such a harsh turn to the wrong. After a bumpy start, they had worked together well enough for a while; it seemed even that Maquis and Starfleet personnel might indeed merge and become one crew. And it had, to a certain extent. The lower decks had bonded well enough, under the extraordinary circumstances. There were even a few mixed couples, like Sito and Harry Kim. The Ocampa who had joined them two years ago had served as excellent mediators.

The problem were the senior officers – well, certain senior officers, Chakotay corrected himself, walking alongside of Sam Wildman who was checking out some strange violet berries that hung in clusters from the low bushes surrounding the beaming down place. Joe Carey certainly behaved most civilly towards B'Elanna, despite the fact that their working relationship had started with B'Elanna breaking his nose in the heat of an argument. Joe was a decent guy; he got along well enough with all the Maquis serving in Engineering – including Dalby and Chell, which wasn't a small feat.

As fiercely loyal as Chakotay was to his own people, even he had to admit that Ken Dalby could irritate the living highlight out of a person with his hostile attitude. Not that the hadn't had every possible reason to be bitter, but knowing those reasons didn't make it easier to endure his foul moods. As for Chell – the Bolian was a friendly guy but could talk underwater, with his mouth full of marbles, as Tom Paris had once said. Not even Tuvok could break him out of the habit, although the Vulcan had certainly tried his best. Fortunately, ensign Golwat, the only female Bolian on board, didn't seem to mind it. Besides, Chell had calmed down considerably since they'd gotten together. That was another one of the mixed Fleet/Maquis couples that seemed to actually have a future.

The Betazoids had formed their close little circle, too. Well, Stadi and Jurot were cousins to begin with, so it was no surprise that they stuck together very tightly. But the fact that they had accepted Lon Suder – as far as Suder allowed to be taken in at all – had been quite the surprise for Chakotay. For Suder apparently, too, if his first reaction had been any indication. Being in a stable mental bond also proved to be helpful for him to keep his violent nature under better control; he was positively less creepy now than he had been all the years since Chakotay had known him. It was strange how two such seemingly fragile women like Stadi and Jurot had the mental powers to keep someone like Suder in line, but they apparently could do it, and Chakotay was immensely relieved. Without the constant fighting to channel his destructive urges, Suder could have become a serious threat from within.

No, the real problem was Janeway, who never quite managed to turn her pretty words about trust and cooperation into reality. Chakotay knew that she'd only chosen him as her First Officer to secure the cooperation of the Maquis, without whom she wouldn't be able to run her ship to begin with. She'd have preferred Rollins, a rigid, by-the-book, unimaginative Starfleet officer as her XO… or even Tom Riker, whom she'd known from the Academy… or at least his counterpart…whatever. After all, the two Rikers had only existed for the last ten years or so, after a freak transporter accident had created a second version of the original. And even though Riker #2 had joined the Maquis for what Chakotay suspected were personal reasons, he was still Fleet through and through in his heart – and Janeway trusted him instinctively, more than she'd ever trust Chakotay.

But the other Maquis, the former crew of the Crazy Horse, would never follow Riker any more than they'd follow Rollins. Hell, they wouldn't even follow Ro, despite the fact that she'd deserted from the Fleet for the case, and had fought like a demon on their side ever since. They respected her, sure – but the only one they trusted, the only one they'd follow through hellfire if they had to, was Chakotay. They followed orders aboard Voyager because "the Chief" had told them to do so – and would stop obeying if he told them so. Janeway knew that, and it didn't make her happy.

The whole situation didn't make Chakotay happy, either. He cared for the crew deeply... not for the Maquis only, he'd come to like and value the majority of the Fleeters as well – and wanted to do his best to ensure their safety and well-being. Yet Janeway kept ignoring his suggestions. The most recent, ugly confrontation about the possibility of forcibly separate Tuvix again had only been the peak of the iceberg. Chakotay had to walk on razor's edge to keep his position, as this was the only way to protect his own people. He had to pick his fights very carefully, as Janeway had grown more and more obsessed with the singular goal to get the crew home, by any means necessary.

Even if it meant to sacrifice the present for the future.

But people weren't meant to live like that. They needed to have a life, even under the given circumstances, which, admittedly, weren't ideal. They were people, not machines; people with an average lifespan. Only the three Vulcans could hope to catch up with everything that they would miss during the long way home. Vorik and T'Prena would still be in their best years, and even Tuvok would be a powerful elder – they could afford to wait. But the others, the humans, the Bajora, the Betazoids, the Bolians… they would grow old and die before they could have lived. And that was not right.

Sure, Chakotay wanted to get home just like everyone else – with the possible exception of Tom Paris who had nothing and nobody to return to. But he didn't want people to have to sacrifice everything that made life worth to live for that sole purpose. Shortening the journey by a month or two, or even by a year, was, in his opinion, not worth driving the crew beyond their limits without proper shore leave on some friendly planet where they could feel real sunlight on their faces and breathe fresh, unrecycled air. Or to endanger them all by pushing their way through hostile territory, just to go forward faster.

Unfortunately, this was something Janeway didn't seem to understand. But again, obsessed people rarely listened to reason.

And so they pushed forward at the best speed the battered engines could produce, taking unnecessary risks, getting into deadly confrontations that perhaps could have been avoided with a little more patience and circumvention. Not all of them, of course; there were always people out there who wanted confrontation, who had malevolent intention, who needed to be put to their places. Chakotay knew that and understood the necessity of using force when nothing else worked. He'd done so himself in the past often enough. But he also believed that half the time a little delay wouldn't have been such a high prize for more safety. They'd get home later… but perhaps with more of the crew still alive.

He glanced at Wildman on his left who shouldn't have been here in the first place. She should have been back aboard Voyager with her kids, the second only born a few weeks ago, instead of collecting food samples on some nameless planet. Certainly, her knowledge as an exobiologist was not sorely needed to operate the damned test kit. Every idiot could do that.

"What have you done to earn this assignment, Ensign?" he asked. "Or are you here to make sure Tuvix isn't trying to poison us?" After the nearly-forced separation issue, Tuvix' relationship with the captain was tense at best. The Vulcan part of him might have understood the logic of such a decision, but the part that had once been Neelix was well capable of keeping grudges.

Not that Chakotay really thought Tuvix would cause anyone serious harm… he was still Tuvok, at least partially, and that ruled out any such possibility. But he also had enough from Neelix in him so that a prank was not entirely out of the question. Knowing that the captain, who'd been one of his oldest friends, no longer trusted him, might lead him to unexpected reactions.

Wildman, however, shook her head in clear annoyance.

"I did nothing," she replied. "But the captain thought I'd benefit from a change of scenery," she added, her voice dripping with sarcasm, which was unusual. As a rule, she was a fairly balanced, rather good-natured woman. "To get over my post-natal depressions, she said."

"Are you suffering from post-natal depressions?" Chakotay asked in concern.

In a way, it would have been understandable. The baby was not hers, after all… well, not entirely. Just like Harry Kim, it was brought over from the parallel Voyager, the one created by a strange duplicating effect within a plasma nebula in Vidiian territory. The fact that Wildman's baby had died before her eyes and she was now stuck with the surviving child of her parallel self, could have led to depressions.

This was a situation similar to that of Riker's, and Chakotay knew that Harry Kim, too, was still struggling with the fact that he was actually his own parallel self. Those things were not easy to accept – especially under such circumstances, when people weren't given enough time to cope with the situation. Which was exactly what Chakotay had told the captain repeatedly… but to no end.

As if guessing what was going on in his mind, Wildman shook her head again.

"Actually, I'm suffering from post-marital depressions, if we need to give a fancy name to simple unhappiness," she replied dryly. "My marriage contract has run out shortly after Elrem was born. It's… not easy for me to come to terms with. We had a good marriage."

"Why didn't you sign a longer contract, then?" Chakotay asked with a frown. "In your line of work longer periods of separation are inevitable. A contract for ten or fifteen years would have served you better."

"I know," she answered with a dull ache in her voice. "But we had no other choice. My husband is K'tarian; they're not allowed to sign a long-term contract with off-worldlers, especially the males, unless they wish to give up their citizenship, severe all ties to their people and go into exile. I couldn't do that to Gresk."

"Gresk?" Chakotay grinned involuntarily, because it sounded like a kitten sneezing. "Your husband's name is Gresk?"

She grinned back at him, although without any true amusement. "That's the shortened version of his given name, and that's what I call him. Gresk re'Ndek ar'Hatharr tre-K'tarr would be a bit too much to spell every single time. K'tarian names – that is, the full names that they only use when signing official documents – always include the given name combined with that of the family, the name of the Pride the individual belongs to and the planet he or she is from."

"The planet?" Chakotay repeated, a little baffled.

"The K'tarian system has three habitable planets," Wildman explained. "They have spread out within their solar system some eight hundred years ago and populated all three of them. They are a very old race, older than Vulcans, even."

"It must have been a long and slow evolutional process for a felinoid species to become almost completely human-looking," Chakotay said. "Compared to them, the Caitians and the Kzinti are almost like intelligent primates would be compared to us."

Wildman nodded in agreement. "And just like with Vulcans, some of their ancient customs are downright alienating," she said. "Their biology is, in its own way, just as strange, and it determines what they are and how they live a lot stronger than our biology does to us."

"Really?" Chakotay said in surprise. "I've never heard about that. In fact, I don't know much about K'tarians at all, although I'm fairly well-informed when it comes to the various Federation member species."

"They're very private about their affairs," she replied. "I can tell you a few things if you're interested, Commander… things that are not too personal, that is… after we're done collecting samples here."

"I'd like to learn about them," Chakotay admitted. "I'm a trained anthropologist and palaeontologist, but hadn't had the chance to do anything related to my field for years. I really miss being a scientist again."

"Then we should speed up the food collecting part," she suggested. "The sooner we finish our task, the sooner can we return to Voyager."

Chakotay agreed with the suggestion, and they continued their survey. Soon enough, a low bush that looked eerily similar to potato caught his eyes. The tubers under the leaves had a deep indigo colour – what was it with this planet and violet, lilac or indigo plants anyway? – but looked very much like potatoes, too.

"Ensign, would you mind to bring the test kit over here?" he called out to Wildman. "I think I found something."

"Just a moment, Commander," Wildman replied, and then she came indeed.

In the meantime, Chakotay had excavated a small opening in the soft soil and cut a thin sliver from one of the exposed tubers. They placed that sliver into the small chamber within the testing unit and Chakotay keyed in the code to assess the viability of his find.

"The bush itself does look a lot like potato," he said as they waited for the scan to finish. "So I thought there might be something underneath worth digging up."

"Afraid not," Wildman said, reading the tester's display. "It seems to be toxic; not overly so but enough to make it unfit for consumption."

"Well, that's a real shame," Chakotay said. "My mouth was already watering at the thought of a baked potato; a real one, not some replicated stuff."

"I know what you mean," Wildman smiled wistfully. "My Grandpa used to make the best baked potatoes… with lots of ground cheese and sour cream and…"

Chakotay laughed. "Stop it, Ensign. Torturing a superior officer is a major offence. Show me what you have found instead."

"These here," Wildman led him back to her earlier position and showed him the small, pea-pod like fruits (lilac in colour, of course) hanging in clusters from a bush. "They're not real peas, of course, and I don't know what they'll taste like when cooked, but at least they are edible… and quite nutritious."

"That's all what counts; nothing can be worse than leola root, and we've already eaten that for what? Two years?" Chakotay called up the previous test results. "I see they check out just fine… they actually have some vague similarities to Brussels sprouts."

Wildman pulled a face. "Ewww… I hate Brussels sprouts. But as you said: everything is better than leola root."

"Quite right," Chakotay agreed, retrieving his shoulder sack. "Should we gather up some of them?"

"We should," Wildman said, moving her own sack and placing it under the bush. "At least it means some variety on the menu; and who knows, Tuvix even might make them enjoyable, somehow."

They both laughed and continued stuffing their sacks with the pea-pod like fruits, hoping that the new chef would indeed be able to make a pleasant meal out of them. They were just about to return to the beam-up site when Chakotay decided to go back to the tuber roots, after all.

"I want to bring at least one bush with me," he said. "Who knows, perhaps we can use them yet. Some plants are only toxic when eaten raw. Perhaps the cooking process will make these tubes edible, too."

Wildman flashed him a knowing smile. "You really want that baked potato, don't you?" she asked.

"You have no idea," Chakotay replied, grinning. "Even if we can't use them right away, perhaps the Ocampa can breed an edible version out of the things, given enough time."

"All right, Commander," Wildman laughed at the longing in his voice. "I'll try to help you remove the plant, without damaging the roots. Then we can give it a thorough study in the exobiology lab. It's not so as if we had all that much to do there anyway, and I have the feeling that you're not the only one who misses potatoes… or something similar, at least."

"Hopefully more similar than Neelix' concoction used to be to coffee," Chakotay commented, squatting down and wiping away the loose soil with his bare hands. "I thought the captain would explode when he pointed out that she should show an example in consuming all the ersatz foodstuffs he'd come up with. There are a lot of things Kathryn Janeway would be willing to give up, but coffee is not one of those."

"I can't really blame her," Wildman replied, loosening the tuber roots carefully, so that she'd be able to pull out the whole plant, eventually. "There are small comforts from home that can mean the world for a person. Especially comfort food of any kind."

"I know," Chakotay grinned. "That is why I'm trying to take this almost-potato with us. Only real mushroom soup would be better than having potatoes somewhen in the future."

"That wouldn't be bad," Wildman agreed, "but for me, it's apples. I miss them more than I could describe. Before… before this, there was no day without an apple for me. Even if it was replicated, which couldn't even come close to the real thing."

"Perhaps one day we're gonna find something close enough," Chakotay said, freeing one of the tubers completely.

"Close enough would never be enough," Wildman replied, sliding her hand in between the still half-covered tubers, trying to lift them carefully… then she yanked the hand back, staring at the small, bleeding wound between thumb and forefinger in dismay. "Dammit!"

"What did this?" Chakotay lost all possible interest in the not-quite-but-perhaps-one-day-potato at once.

"Some kind of burrowing insect," Wildman replied. "I only saw it for a moment; brown, about as long as my little finger… quite unremarkable, really, and hard to spot, it blended with the earth so well."

"Let me see that hand," Chakotay took it in his own hands, looking at the small wound in concern. "I'd better suck it out, just in case that thing released a toxin into the wound."

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Commander," Wildman said, clearly worried. "There's no need to endanger yourself. I can return to Voyager and have one of the doctors take a look at it."

"Nonsense," Chakotay replied. "We do this on Dorvan V all the time when one gets bitten by a snake. Nobody has ever come to any harm. I don't intend to swallow it, so there won't be any risk."

Reluctantly, Wildman agreed to let him clean the wound the old-fashioned way. It wasn't the first time she'd done something like that. On the primitive worlds she'd visited during her field training as an exobiologist, she often had to use methods that would have driven any Starfleet doctor to despair. Besides, Chakotay apparently knew what he was doing. The wound was cleaned and the bleeding stopped within a minute or so. They had acted immediately, she reminded herself. Everything would be all right.

And yet she could not shake off the nagging feeling that they had made a mistake. That something was very wrong, despite appearances. She just couldn't put her finger on what it was.

Having dealt with her small injury, Chakotay gathered the away team and had them beamed back to Voyager. They had found an astounding variety of edible plants – aside from the almost-potato, which they decided to leave behind, after all, not wanting to risk another injury – and Tuvix promised a spectacular dinner. Considered that as a merged being he seemed to be a much better cook than Neelix had ever been – not the least due to the fact that he was a lot more restrained with the use of hot spices – that was not an empty promise.

Sam Wildman was glad to be back on board again. As good it was to feel real sunlight again, she didn't like to leave her children in the case of virtual strangers. Even though she'd lived in close quarters with said strangers for the last two years. And while Susan Brooks had been a good friend since well before the disastrous mission that had stranded them in the Delta Quadrant – not to mention the fact that she loved to baby-sit and got along with Naomi splendidly – she was also a very messy person. Her quarters were in constant disarray, making Sam afraid that her daughter would slip on some carelessly dropped item and break her neck on one of those days.

She retrieved her children, nursed little Elrem and put both kids to bed. She felt like turning in early, too. Working outdoors could make one exhausted, despite the sunshine and the fresh air, when one hadn't had either of those for quite some time.

In her bloodstream, the organism began to roam, to feed. It did not precisely fit the characteristics of any germ, bacteria or virus; nonetheless, it was slowly making her sick and weak whiles he slept. It was nothing humans – or any Alpha Quadrant species, for that matter – had ever encountered on any world. It thrived in moist environments and lived off on proteins that were exclusively found in mammals, thus the insect that had delivered it had been a mere carrier, a host unaffected by the deadly threat that nestled in its body.

The organism had no ecological purpose on the planet where Sam had encountered it. All it could do was to grow and to kill. Neither had it originated from that planet – as it had the ability to lay dormant for a very long time, it could travel from planet to planet: with the help of visiting starships or that of simple rubbish that had somehow been sucked or blown outside of a planet's atmosphere.

It had already travelled across a large section of the Delta Quadrant, leaving death and emptiness behind – until it had been trapped on the planet the Voyager crew had christened New Earth. There it had gone dormant for a very long time. The sun of the planet, the yellow dwarf star, emanated a certain type of radiation that didn't quite become it. Oh, it got passed back and forth lower lifeforms, but with all of them having adapted to the radiation, it had not been able to multiplicate.

Yes, it had been dormant, but not entirely unaware of its surroundings. As soon as it had sensed the approach of a harmless, nutrient-filled environment, one for which it had been waiting for many years, it had entered through the broken skin of Sam's hand. The carrier insect had helped it, true, but it would have found a way in any case. It went wherever it wanted to be; anywhere it could carry sickness and death.

Once it had entered the nutritious environment that was Sam's body, it had grown strong enough to counteract the disadvantageous radiation of the yellow dwarf star, at least temporarily. Just before Chakotay had begun to suck the small wound clean, the organism had managed to duplicate itself, ready to send out the duplicate to new environs.

In the very moment when Chakotay had pressed his lips on the wound, the duplicate had penetrated his body, too, using the mixture of human body fluids as a carrier. Both humans were now carrying a thriving version of the organism within them, getting it back to Voyager – to new, rich feeding grounds.

They had no idea what was happening to them, of course. They both believed that they were merely exhausted from working down on the planet, after having spent such a long time in the closed, artificial environment of a starship. It was a plausible explanation, after all. Why should they have sought for other reasons?

In the new environment, protected from the radiation of the yellow dwarf, the organism grew strong within the bodies of its clueless hosts, expanding, duplicating, and ready to send out new copies of itself into other beings. All it needed was contact, an exchange of body fluids to transmit itself to many new – and healthy – bodies. Its current nutrient levels were satisfying for the moment. But it would require more, soon, or it would go hungry and die along with the hosts it inhibited.

But even if it had been capable of concern, it wouldn't be worried. It might lack intelligence, but it possessed a keen sense for nutrients, and that sense told him that there were a great number of potential hosts nearby. All it had to do was to wait for the right opportunity.

Chakotay was annoyed with his own tiredness. It was not natural, he decided. As a Maquis, he had spent a great deal of time on various planets, all fairly rough, between raids. He was used to live in the near-untouched wilderness. Half a day on some uninhibited world shouldn't have exhausted him this much. He hadn't even worked all too hard down there. This was ridiculous!

And that was not all there was. He had the diffuse feeling of being watched. But several security scans in his quarter, performed by Gregor Ayala personally, each more thorough and more detailed than the one before, had resulted in nothing.

"I'm sorry, Cap," Ayala shook his head, "but I can't find anything… or anybody here. No hidden surveillance devices, no peepholes in the bulkhead, no invisible spies hiding in the cupboard… nothing. What made you think someone would be spying on you anyway?"

"I'm not sure," Chakotay replied slowly. "it's just… just a nagging feeling that I'm not alone, that's all. I can't explain it, but it won't leave me alone."

"Hmmm…" Ayala grunted noncommittally. "Do you have this… feeling everywhere on the ship or just in your own quarters?"

Chakotay tried to remember, which wasn't easy, as tired as he felt.

"Now that you're asking," he finally said, "I felt it in the transporter room, too. And in the captain's ready room, when I made my report to the captain."

"That's odd," Ayala, acknowledged master of the understatement, said. "Could possibly any of our resident telepaths be messing with your head?"

"I guess it is possible," Chakotay answered after a while, not really believing it, though. "But I can't see why they would do so."

"For a number of reasons," Ayala replied grimly. "If I were you, I'd have my head checked out. Just in case."

"By whom?" Chakotay asked. "I don't really think T'Prena would be willing to perform a mind-meld with me, just to find out whether someone is tampering with my head or not. Nor would I want her to do so, to be perfectly honest."

"Of course not," Ayala agreed. "Not only is she a Vulcan, she's also Starfleet, and quite rigidly so. But Stadi is a decent one… and a very strong telepath, even as Betazoids go. Plus, as she's the ship's counselor, she'd be bound by doctor/patient confidentiality… or something like that."

"Perhaps," Chakotay allowed, "but I'd rather try to figure out things on my own."

Ayala rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. "Oh, great! Let me guess: you'll go on a vision quest."

Chakotay nodded in agreement. "Yep; I'll go on a vision quest."

Ayala shrugged. "It's your choice, man. Me, I'd rather take my chances with Stadi, but we can't all be rational, I guess. Go and talk to your spirits, then. Perhaps they are smarter than we both thing."

They laughed, both knowing that Ayala couldn't – and wouldn't – follow Chakotay down the spiritual path, and that Chakotay wasn't the least bothered by his best friend's blatant disbelief. The acting security chief left shortly thereafter, wishing his XO and former captain good luck. He still had reports to fill out, which, he guessed, was punishment enough.

Finally left alone, Chakotay dimmed the lights in his cabin to near-darkness, to shut out as many distracting impulses as possible. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he spread out the contents of his medicine bundle before him: the feather of a blackbird he had befriended in his parent's garden; a polished stone from the river near their house, painted with an ancient symbol for blessing the land wherever it was laid upon the earth; and the small electronic device known as the akoonah, which had long replaced the use of peyote to kick off the vision quest. He placed his hand on the akoonah and closed his eyes, focusing all his senses inward.

"Akoo-chee-moya," he murmured. "I remain far from the sacred places of my grandfathers, far from the bones of my people. We seem to have found a paradise, a place to rest in our long journey; and yet my spirit is troubled. Perhaps there is a powerful being that could lead me on the path of enlightenment. If it is permitted, lend me your guidance. Show me the truth of this place, so that I can protect those who look at me for guidance. Let me find the answers I seek."

He activated the akoonah. Unlike the peyote that had needed some time to draw a veil over the sensory intake of his forefathers, the electrical impulses of the akoonah provided the same effect instantly, by stimulating the usually slumbering parts of his brain… and that without polluting his blood with psychoactive toxins. The physical world faded away from his consciousness, leaving him enter the spirit plane. His heartbeat and his breathing slowed down to a minimum that was necessary to stay alive. In that extremely focused state, he opened his inner eyes to the realm of spirits and symbols.

The usual environment of his vision quest had always been a forest lightening. One similar to that on Dorvan V where the cottage of his grandfather stood – now an empty shell, since the death of the 'crazy old man' as he'd been called. That was where his spirit guide, the totem animal who acted as both his tutor and his twin sister in the world beyond, usually waited for him.

This time, however, he found himself in a different forest; one very much like that which he had recently visited, leading the away team. He could see the tall trees with the fruits that looked eerily like greenish-gold mangos, the bushes with the pea-pod like clusters, event he plant with the purple tuber roots; the one he'd thought would be something akin to potato. The one where Wildman had been bitten by that insect.

Yet he could not see his animal guide anywhere. That in itself was strange… quite unsettling, actually. Never before had the wolf failed to greet him when he entered the spirit world. Something was wrong here, very wrong. The fact that he couldn't even feel the presence of his guide, let alone talk to her, filled his very soul with dread. Never before had he felt so alone inside his own heart and mind… so abandoned… so helpless…

For a moment, he considered opening his eyes for real, deactivating the akoonah and returning to the physical world, but after a brief hesitation he decided against it. He believed that the spirits had brought him for a reason; which meant he couldn't turn back until he'd learned all that was there to learn about the false paradise below. Because now he knew beyond doubt that it was false; that something was indeed very wrong with the planet. The only remaining question was: what was wrong?

His instincts told him to examine the plant with the tuber roots. Somehow he could feel that everything had begun there, in the very moment in which Wildman got bitten. That was the place where he had to begin his search.

He turned to the half-unearthed plant and was about to bend down and finish the excavation when it happened. The vision serpent – a powerful symbol that only appeared on a quest at the times of great, imminent danger – burst forth from under the earth like an exploding volcano. It rose to its full height, which was that of the tallest tree and beyond, and turning to Chakotay, it disgorged a great cloud of impenetrable darkness that threatened to swallow him.

Chakotay tried to flee but could not move. An awful weariness descended upon him, and it took all his energy to keep standing. He wondered what kind of meaning this ordeal might have, what kind of truth could be learned her at all. Then the darkness engulfed him, and he was lost in it, completely.

The safety circuit in the akoonah beeped frantically, deactivating the small device at the first sign of neurogical distress. The automated alarm system connected to that special circuit waited for exactly sixty seconds for Chakotay to return to the here and now and disconnect it. After that, it sent an impulse to the omnipresent board computer, and a distress call was sent out to Sickbay, alerting the doctors about the medical emergency in the First Officer's quarters.

Chakotay knew nothing about those events. The contents of his medicine bundle scattered around his seemingly lifeless form, he lay slumped onto one side in the middle of the sleeping area of his quarters, his eyes glassy and wide open, frozen in an intense expression of terror.

He didn't react to the frantic efforts of Pharin, the Ocampa nurse, who happened to have the dog watch in Sickbay, to raise him. He didn't hear the small, fairy-like woman contact Sickbay again, asking for an emergency beam-out. For all that he was still, albeit way too flatly breathing, he seemed dead to the world.

~TBC~