**** **** **** ****





Chapter One



"...throughout the next several weeks, if our calculations are correct," Captain Kathryn Janeway was saying
to the senior officers assembled around her, when an Ensign suddenly came over the comm system alerting
to the fact that they'd reached the rendezvous coordinates.

"But enough of that," she continued once she'd spoken with the Ensign. "Let's go welcome our men home,
shall we? And hope they have some good news for us." She smiled and stood - effectively ending the
debriefing and dismissing all officers present. One by one they filed out onto the bridge, taking their places
- with only Lt. Torres, her chief of Engineering, and Seven leaving on the turbolift for other duty stations.

Kathryn had barely just taken her seat in the center of the bridge when Ensign Kim called out from his
place at the Opps console, his voice laced with concern.

"Captain, we've reached the rendezvous coordinates, but I'm showing no signs of the shuttlecraft in the
vicinity."

Captain Janeway immediately frowned and exchanged a worried look with her first officer, Commander
Chakotay.

"That's not like Tom," she heard herself commenting. And it wasn't. A lot of other pilots might have gotten
delayed, or might have miscalculated the necessary departure time in order to make the rendezvous
coordinates on time - but not her Chief Pilot. To Tom Paris, flight was like the ability to draw breath. He
didn't get delayed; he didn't miscalculate. And he didn't miss a rendezvous....unless something was very
wrong.

Janeway knew exactly what procedures to follow. "Lt. Tuvok, scan the moon we left Lieutenant Paris and
Ensign Darber to investigate. Are you getting any signs of the shuttlecraft?"

As she might have expected, Tuvok already had the results of his scans ready before she'd asked for them.
His response came from the Security console in his cool, Vulcan monotone. "There are no signs of the
shuttlecraft on either of the two moons in this vicinity. Nor is there any sign of the missing crewmen. I
must also regretfully inform you that I am not picking up any energy emissions that might lead us to where
the shuttlecraft was last headed."

Janeway's lips curled in a slight smile at Tuvok's usual, blessed efficiency, but her smile disappeared
behind a slight sigh of frustration as she rose from her seat, placing her hands on her hips.

Well, whatever this situation was it couldn't be good - and it would definitely take them out of there way.

"Harry, what's the nearest M-class planet?"

Ensign Kim inputted a few standard commands at his console, then looked up. "There's an M-class planet
relatively close to here - only a parsec away."

Janeway nodded. "Give Lt. Carter the coordinates," she ordered, referring to the officer currently at the
conn. Then to the aforementioned lieutenant: "Carter, take us in at Warp 2."

"Aye, Captain."

Then Kathryn once again took her seat and prepared...to wait.
**** **** **** ****

If there was one thing he was tired of - it was waiting.

Tom Paris had been waiting for answers now for two weeks - and he was tired of the responses he kept
getting to his questions.

It would end today, he promised himself, standing a bit straighter now with the strength of the
determination he poured into that promise. It wasn't an easy stance to take, but Tom refused to let himself
relax his posture. He forced himself to put only as much of his weight as was absolutely necessary on the
cane that was now forever at his side. And he staunchly ignored the urge to reach up and try to massage
away the ache that throbbed in his temples and behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. Instead he stared,
resolute, out the window by which he stood - staring out as far as his limited eyesight would allow.

When the door behind him quietly opened, and Dr. Bree'aje came in carrying his usual tray of foods and
medicines, Tom turned with the practiced calm and ease of a man who had had to learn to move slowly and
carefully in order to keep his balance. He didn't return the doctor's kind smile and friendly greeting.

"Good morning, Tom. You're looking much better today. I reckon that leg of yours should just about be
completely healed by now, don't you?"

The doctor went about unloading his tray, but Tom only stared at the older man's back for a moment. His
leg would never be 'completely healed' - they both knew that. There would always be a modicum of pain
and difficulty in movement, that was simply a fact. It had just been damaged too badly in 'the accident' to
be fixed. At least, to be fixed by their primitive medicines...and why was it that he thought like that
anyhow? Their medicines. He was one of 'them' wasn't he? It was one of those thoughts that always popped
up at the most unexpected times and that kept him from truly trusting this man who'd cared for him. Kept
him from trusting the answers he and the others kept giving him for what had happened to him --for who he
was.

"Why have I been brought here? What happened to my memory? Is the accident that injured my leg and my
eyes the same one responsible for my memory loss?" Tom demanded, not hesitating a moment this time.

The doctor stood up rather well under the angry young man's barrage of questions, but his eyes were tired
and his smile was sad as he turned away from the table he'd been preparing. He sighed and took a seat.

"You just can't begin a day with a simple 'good morning', can you?"

Tom walked - slowly and carefully - to stand before the older man. "That's not going to work, you know?"
he said. "I'm not going to feel guilty for wanting some answers to my questions. You've obviously done a
lot to help me. You've probably saved my life and I thank you for that. But that doesn't change the fact that
I need to know..."

"You need to know something that I can't tell you!" the doctor suddenly interjected, then looked apologetic.
"Tom...you need to know where your life has gone...and how to get it back, but that's just something I can't
help you with. There aren't any easy answers in amnesia cases like yours." He met Tom's eyes with an
intense look. "Especially when you refuse to believe the answers that I can give you."

"Then why do you keep giving me false ones!" The doctor sighed again, and seemed as though he might
turn away, but Tom's caught his arm with the hand opposite his cane.

"Euran..." Tom tried to craft a clever explanation for why he knew the life they kept telling him was his just
couldn't be...but he knew there was no explanation. He couldn't remember his life - any of it. Therefore, he
couldn't remember if anything he'd been told was actually true or not. But he just felt that the story they'd
given him was wrong. Felt it so deep and so strong that he couldn't ignore those feelings. He struggled with
a way to make this man who'd helped him and who, in other circumstances, he might have considered a
friend, understand.

"Euran, I can't be who you all keep telling me I am. I'm not a skilled doctor..."

"Tom, you're the most talented doctor in this village! You looked over the Givers' scrolls with me, took the
tests. You scored even higher than I did." The doctor laughed slightly at this. "Whatever else you've
forgotten, you've remembered you're calling."

Tom nearly screamed in frustration. "But this isn't it! Don't you see that? A doctor...how can you tell me
I'm the most talented doctor in this village when I can feel, I can feel that that is wrong?"

"Tom.."

But Tom shied away from Euran, dropping into a nearby chair. This was not going any better than any
other morning these last two weeks. He let out a deep breath and nearly groaned at the pounding in his
head. He rested his head in his hands, exhausted.

"And that's not all - all of this feels wrong to me. You tell me I've lived my whole life here, that I'm married
to Lisave..."

Euran Bree'aje moved to sit opposite his troubled ward. "She's been very worried about you, Tom. These
last couple of weeks has been torture for her. Especially after all she's been through - your disappearance,
not knowing whether or not you'd recover..."

Tom's frustrated growl brought Euran out of his thoughts with a start.

"I don't even know her! Don't you think if I'd been married to her for six years that I'd at least feel like I
knew her?"

"But you were married to her, Tom. And you told me yourself you felt as though she were familiar in some
way..."

"Well, that's not enough."

"And what would be? Just what would convince you that your entire life hasn't been just one big
fabrication?"

Tom winced, knowing that - when said like that - his entire stubborn refusal to accept himself as they saw
him sounded ludicrous. But he just couldn't let go of those instinctual feelings, could he? Not just like that.
He couldn't even look at himself in the mirror without getting an eerie feeling that something was wrong.
He unconsciously rubbed at the ridges that curved about his eyes and met Euran's stare.

"What if I could see them again."

And with those words, Dr. Bree'aje visibly paled. "Tom, you can't possibly mean that..."
Tom had risen, and was once again standing at his window.

"I know you've said that they're the ones responsible for this. That they abducted me, scrambled my
memory. But I can't know that. I can't know it in my heart without some proof."

"Some proof," Bree'aje repeated sadly, and shook his head. "Tom I would think that the fact that you are
here, surrounded by friends who have cared for you and worried about you..." Tom couldn't ignore the stab
of guilt that came with those words "...would be more than proof enough. Tom, you have no reason - other
than simply not remembering that what we've told you is true - to think that those...those aliens would do
anything other than shoot you on sight the next time they so much as saw you."

Tom turned away, hearing some truth in Euran's words, but knowing that what Euran was saying was not
entirely true. He did have another reason to seek out these mysterious abductors of his - he did have a
reason to believe that his answers lay with them. His reasons lay with the alien who was found, dead, in the
same place where he'd been left; in the strange sense of...something...familiarity?...he felt when he saw the
alien's face. In the odd feeling of loss and anger he felt, for just a moment, upon learning that the man was
dead, before those feelings disappeared - along with whatever glimpse they might have given him of his
lost memory. He did have a reason, however weak, to take the risk that Dr. Bree'aje believed was involved
with seeking out these alien 'enemies' to his people. But something kept him from telling the doctor that.

"Tom..." Euran said then, from the door, and Tom turned to see him waiting. "Why don't you come with
me?"

Tom followed Euran out of the small domicile where he'd been staying, and into the bright morning
sunshine. He followed the doctor, unseeingly, for several moments - lost in thought, and not being able to
see far enough ahead of them to determine their destination, anyhow.

Euran stopped when they reached a huge, dome-shaped brown tent at the edge of the village, opening its
flap entrance for Tom, who entered before he even realized what this place was. Once he did, he stopped
right where he stood, causing Dr. Bree'aje to nearly bump into him from behind.

This was the infirmary - the place they took the villagers infected with the plague that had swept through
their people nearly a year ago - ...and it was horrific.

Euran had told Tom about the plague, and its victims. But what he'd pictured as several hundred sick
looked more like several thousand. Men, women, and children lay in endless rows of cots, their lilac
complexions turned nearly white; their facial ridges looking starkly pronounced in their gaunt faces; their
closed eyes seeming almost totally sunken in their heads.

Tom took one look at the sick and suffering...and it was like a small light had gone on in the dark place in
his mind where his memory should have been.

Euran saw the look on Tom's face; the stillness that entered his posture, and was at once concerned.

"Perhaps this was too soon..."

But When Tom turned towards him, the look in his eyes stilled him - his words even more so.

Tom said, "I remember..."