Chapter 2. Return
"Captain, I'm begging you. I need to know."
She looks taken aback by my sudden vehemence, and I instantly regret pushing her. I'm glad the doctor is there to advocate for me, for Naomi.
He jumps in again. "I have to agree with Ensign Wildman. We have no way of knowing what memories from Naomi's time on Quarra may yet resurface. She's an articulate child and closely attached to Samantha, but she is still very young. We cannot entirely rely on her ability to tell us everything that happened to her, and the records on her from the planetary government are decidedly thin."
Captain Janeway looks weary. "In your professional opinion, Doctor, is it worth risking another diplomatic incident to obtain more information about Naomi's adoptive family?"
I must bristle visibly - my self-control seems to be gone since re-entry - because the captain hastily adds, "Her fraudulent adoptive family. I'm sorry, Ensign."
The doctor smooths over my distraction. "Yes, captain. As Chief Medical Officer, I believe letting Naomi's mother meet them, in their home, will be in Naomi's best interests. I will be happy to explain my reasoning to the Quarran officials, if you think that would help."
Captain Janeway cocks an eyebrow. "That won't be necessary, Doctor. I'll handle it. You're needed here, on the ship. Commander Chakotay, please assemble an away team to accompany Ensign Wildman. Two security officers and … Ensign, would you like Tal Celes to come along, for … moral support?"
I choke out, "Thank you, Captain, but no. In fact, I'd prefer to go alone if possible."
She gives me a surprisingly kindly look; apparently she understands my desire to confront this ordeal without any witnesses. But she shakes her head and says, "I"m sorry, but I can't allow that - for everyone's safety. The situation is too volatile. You don't have to take a friend along, but the commander and security team will go with you."
Naomi doesn't want me to go. I promise her that it's safe, that I'll return soon, that the bad men won't be allowed to take my memories and keep me from her. She clings to me and there is desperation in her voice as she begs me not to forget, not to forget her again. It takes coaxing from all three of us - me, Neelix, and Tal - to get her to let go of me, to stay and help them in the galley. I promise her again that I'll be back before dinnertime, and then I head straight to the transporter room.
We beam down onto a street corner, in a part of the city that I don't recognize. The streets are wider and cleaner, and the apartment buildings are much taller and more architecturally interesting than what I'd seen previously. I say to Commander Chakotay, "I guess they put her in the nice part of town." I almost miss the discerning look he gives me in reply.
As I turn to survey the neighborhood, the smell of the city, the quality of this planet's light and gravity, all pull me back hard into my mindwiped memories. Fear and a deep sense of worthlessness rise up hard in my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut, give my head a shake to clear it, then open my eyes to find the commander still watching me. Deep breath. I can do this, for Naomi. These are false memories, deceptive emotions. I focus my mind's eye on my daughter, and my body calms.
The deputy governor and his aide are waiting for us at the family's door, along with a man they introduce as the deputy minister of health, tasked with overseeing the dismantling of the illegal mindwiping project. He gives me a particularly sympathetic look, one I recognize as the sort that officials direct at those they label victims. I suppress a rude thought, smile politely, shake hands with each of them. Commander Chakotay does most of the talking.
Kubeki opens the outer door at our ring, looking nervous and, to my eye at least, resentful. The officials thank her for agreeing to our visit, and so does Commander Chakotay. I am introduced as Ensign Samantha Wildman, Naomi's mother, and she flinches, avoids my gaze. Invites us in, clearly under some amount of duress. It penetrates my haze of anger that this situation must be difficult for her and her husband as well.
Their home is much larger and far more comfortably furnished than the one I had shared with three roommates. As we enter the main living space Kubeki introduces us to her husband, who welcomes us in a voice that booms slightly too loudly. I see him size up the commander and swiftly assess the security team. He barely looks at me.
We are given a tour of their home. It's awkward, with four from Voyager and three government officials squeezing into rooms and clogging up hallways. More awkward is that both Kubeki and Storrin repeatedly slip and call my daughter Alassi, the name under which she'd come to them. Once the deputy governor does likewise, and the health minister smoothly corrects him. My slow burn of rage continues to build.
I can tell from our hosts' comments that they are trying to impress upon me the material comforts they'd supplied for Naomi - a large bedroom tastefully furnished and equipped with Quarra's latest technology. They show me her clothing and schoolbooks, and I wonder nastily why they have kept these things. In the kitchen they show me the menu plan Kubeki had prepared each week for the past month, and produce Naomi's medical records. I do not point out that these are only the records from her time in their home, and that I have seen them as well as the records from her arrival and mindwiping procedures.
They are trying to demonstrate that they took good care of her. Probably they did take good care of her. But what I need to know is not what she ate or wore. I need to know how they spoke to her, whether they answered her questions, respected her wishes when possible, showed her affection. I realize that even if I could ask these questions I would not trust their answers. This is a fool's errand. I should not have come.
Tea is offered and we are subtly given to understand by the aide that we cannot refuse it. Six of us sit on upholstered chairs while Kubeki pours and passes. Our security team flanks the little party, doing their best to fade into the muted wall coverings. Chakotay reads my growing despair, and asks our hosts to tell us a story from Naomi's time with them. They look at each other and start to chuckle.
"Oh, yes, we'll never forget her curiosity! It truly was the most remarkable thing about her." Kubeki's eyes are alight with amusement as she perches on a loveseat next to her husband. "From the moment we met her she would not stop asking questions!"
Her husband grunts. "To tell you the truth, it was a bit much sometimes. But she's obviously a clever girl. Maybe too clever for her own good, right?"
"Oh, Storrin, it didn't bother me. I admired her spirit! But when her teacher called us … oh my goodness, I will never forget the look on that woman's face!" Kubeki seems to have a bit of a rebel streak herself, I think.
Storrin's sour expression suggests he too recalls the teacher's phone call, but with considerably less delight. "Even allowing that Naomi didn't know any better … it was disruptive. You shouldn't have encouraged her, dear."
"I don't think the world is going to come crashing to a halt just because a little girl wants her teacher to explain basic labor economics to the class."
Chakotay inserts himself into their developing squabble. "Labor economics?"
Kubeki turned to him with alacrity, clearly pleased to have an engaged audience. "Yes! Can you imagine? Naomi had been with us for just a week at that point, and she must have noticed all the parents in the neighborhood going off to work all day while the children went to school. They were doing a unit on careers, using math concepts to illustrate the different earning power of different professions. And then Naomi - being clever, and maybe just a tad naughty - piped up and asked her teacher to explain why teacher salaries are so much smaller than factory department manager salaries. Naomi pointed out that both jobs required supervising roughly the same number of people but that teachers had to actually teach as well as test their students while managers only have to assess their workers."
Storrin was sitting hunched over and his face was turning red. He was very carefully not looking in the deputy minister's direction.
'"Anyway," continued his wife, "her teacher was so afraid that Naomi would tell us about this conversation that she called me before Naomi even got home to make sure I heard her side of the story first. The poor woman was so flustered. As if we would take the word of an off-worlder child fresh off a transport at face value and report the school for spreading union talk. Preposterous! And she knows full well that Storrin here works in upper management! Of course we were going to set Alassi - oops, sorry, Naomi straight about how the workforce operates."
Her husband, picking up gratefully on the invitation to disparage the teacher rather than continue outlining Naomi's perceptive if innocent class critique, added, "I do think at least half the teacher's displeasure was having her low earnings pointed out by her own student. Well, then perhaps she should have used different class materials, yes? And anyway, teachers don't do so badly here. You'd think someone had called her a janitor."
That brings me out of my reverie. "That was my job. I was a janitor for the big conduit manufacturing plant on the other side of town."
All eyes in the room turn my way and then slide away, as if I have just done something impolite. Except for Chakotay's. He studies me thoughtfully, then turns to the health official and asks him, "Did you know that?"
The official looks uncomfortable and replies, "It was part of Ensign Wildman's file, yes. I saw it earlier today when your captain arranged this meeting."
"Was it also part of Naomi's file?"
Kubeki quickly chimes in, "Certainly not! As you know, we were told she was an orphan, rescued from a ship on which all the adults had died of disease. We had no idea her mother was here on Quarra."
Chakotay turns back to the health minister, "I mean, was it in the records that Kadan kept on Naomi? You would have seen those as well as Ensign Wildman's surely?"
The man swallowed and replied, "Yes, I saw them, and yes, it was documented there that the child's mother had been mindwiped and assigned to maintenance work."
"Why?" I break in. It's like they've all briefly forgotten that I'm there, that Naomi and I aren't merely an assortment of documents.
"Why what, Ensign WIldman?" asks the deputy minister.
"Why did they separate Naomi from me? We were captured together. They knew I was her mother. Why not keep us together, give me a job that could have supported us both?"
The minister looks pointedly at the health official. "That's a valid question, Braggen. Do you know the answer?"
He squirms more, obviously growing deeply uncomfortable. "Please understand that my colleagues and I knew nothing of this illegal program until a few days ago. We are trying as hard as we can to get up to speed on its details - no small task as thousands of victims are turning up during our ongoing investigation."
The minister doesn't let him off the hook. "But you admit you've studied the Wildmans' case, seen their records. What was the rationale for separating them?"
"Minister, you know as well as I do that the labor shortage for unskilled workers is even more severe than for those with technical training. There aren't a lot of uneducated entry-level earners floating around in space waiting to be picked off, after all. Apparently Dr. Kadan felt Ensign Wildman was needed in that sphere."
I feel an odd sense of detached fascination. "But I'm not an unskilled worker, Mr. Braggen. I'm a scientist. I have an advanced degree in xenobiology and six years of experience serving as science officer on a starship."
"Yes, Ensign, of course. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply -" The stony expressions on my and Chakotay's faces must have registered with him, because he stops trying to apologize and finally just says it: "Here on Quarra we don't have much use for the biological sciences. We're intensely ramping up our tech manufacturing capacity and need engineers, technicians. There may be a few openings in research and development, but those would go to people in the hard sciences - chemistry, physics."
"So Kadan just stripped it all away and let me clean floors and toilets - for a pittance that would barely house and feed myself, let alone my child. Forgive me, Mr. Braggen, but doesn't that strike you as excessively wasteful of an educated mind?"
"Well." He has decided on full disclosure and he barrels ahead, not thinking or caring that we have an audience for what he is about to reveal. "It wasn't only that your training was in the wrong field for our labor needs. Your neurological make-up, once your education and adult memories were deactivated, was well-suited to … simple work."
I freeze. Chakotay grates out, "Explain that, please."
Braggen complies. "Ensign WIldman's brain scans showed evidence of significant trauma and neglect in her early life. It's most impressive, really, that she ever managed to succeed in school, let alone establish a science career. Most people with her neural make-up wouldn't be capable of it, cognitively or socially."
Kubeki actually gasps at that. I blink at her. I'd almost forgotten that she and Storrin were there. Suddenly they're not as important to me as what this man can tell me, about what was done to me. I forget that I returned to Quarra for Naomi.
"So they were scanning my brain, and they found the underdeveloped neural networks suggesting early trauma, and they said, "Hey, she'd make a good scut worker. People like her learn early not to complain or protest. They'll take abuse and keep coming back for more." Isn't that what happened?" I'm picking up steam.
Storrin has to put his two cents in, of course. "Ensign, janitorial work is hardly abusive. Someone has to clean our workplaces. With your memories of doing science research gone, was it really so bad? Honest work for an honest paycheck, no?"
"The cleaning work was fine, Mr. Storrin. I'm not too proud to do needful work, even now with my memories intact. It's the work environment that wasn't so great. I spent as much time dodging my supervisors' grabby hands and ignoring their demands for sex as I did mopping and sweeping." The room is shocked into silence.
I turn back to the health official. "Did my file tell you that Kadan gave me a whole pile of lovely new adult memories in place of my real ones - my good ones? He really went all out - abusive boyfriends, poverty, fleeing a war. He made damn good and sure I'd be grateful for crumbs and a safe place to sleep. Do you think that was a coincidence?" I toss a suggestion over to the deputy minister. "You might want to look into that, by the way. It's like I was made to order for that particular factory, really."
I continue, "My first day on the job I saw what happened to my roommate who filed a complaint. She'd been there for a month, finally couldn't take it any longer. She was out on her ass before her shift was over, and got evicted from our apartment at the end of the week when she couldn't make rent. They'd blacklisted her, you see, so nobody would hire her at any of the other factories."
All three government officials are grimacing; the aide is frantically taking notes. It's the Quarran couple who look shocked. I'm on a roll, rapidly losing all sense of perspective on what we're supposed to be doing here. I tear into them.
"Oh please. Don't try to tell me that you had no idea this is what goes on on your shop floors and in your offices. It's a very old story, apparently common throughout the galaxy."
Kubeki finds her voice first. "Darling, I'm very sorry you were subjected to such vile treatment. And no, for what it's worth, I'm not shocked to hear that it happens." There are layers of meaning in her voice that even her husband can't entirely manage to ignore. He shoots her a startled glance while she continues. "What concerns me … well, maybe I shouldn't say anything. I suppose it's not my business any longer, now that you and Alassi - I'm sorry, Naomi - have been reunited."
I can't help myself. I lean forward, eyes fixed on hers. "Say it. What concerns you, Kubeki? Please, we all want to know."
She can't resist either. We are two mothers scorned by this planet's sick society, I for my mental scars and she for her barrenness, and this locks us together in something that is starting to feel like a fight to the emotional death. "Well, dear. I'm just … surprised, I guess, that someone with your … unfortunate background … was ever permitted to bear a child in the first place. Didn't it strike anyone as an awful risk, to trust someone with your sort of … damage … with the care and nurture of an infant?"
Chakotay abruptly stands, moves between us two women. "All right, that's enough. This meeting is concluded." He's angry but keeping it reined in tight. His awareness of the entire room seems sharpened, heightened, while mine is dwindling down to a single point of focus. I am looking at his back, at the tension in his shoulders under the red of his uniform, trying to ignore how my entire field of vision is filling with red even as my body feels icy with shock. Then Ensign Murphy has me gently by the elbow and the two of us are out on the street. I have no memory of how we got here. He calls for a beam out and the transporter room materializes around me. I hear his voice over the comm instructing the transporter technician to escort me to sickbay. I follow orders numbly, on autopilot, too cold and dead inside to consider resisting.
Note on names: per synopsis and casting info on Memory Alpha, it seems that Quarran men have names that end in "n" (e.g. Jaffen) and women have names that end in "i" (e.g. Umali.)
