INNOCENCE
Episode 38
Part C

 

Tuvok: "Where did you last see the missing children?" Corin: "By the big tree, when we went to sleep last night." Tuvok: "Were either of them injured?" Corin: "Kerin hurt his hand." Tuvok: "But both were able to walk?" Tressa: "Uh huh." Tuvok: "Did any of you hear them get up during the night?" Tressa: "You think they wandered off and got lost, but they didn't. The Morrok took them. They're gone." Tuvok: "The other children aren't within scanning range of this tricorder. That is the only thing we know for certain at this time." Tressa: "You don't understand. We have to get away from here!" Corin: "Please can we go?" Elani: "We're scared." Tressa: "Please, Tuvok?" Tuvok: "Children, you are allowing your fears to guide you. You must learn to exercise control over your own imagination." Corin: "But the Morrok!" Tuvok: "Yes, the existence of such a creature is one possibility. However, your emotional reactions are preventing you from accurately judging how unlikely that is to be true." Corin: "I can't help it. I'm scared." Tuvok: "I believe you can help it. Vulcan children learn to detach themselves from their emotions at an early age." Elani: "How?" Tuvok: "First, you must focus on the object of your fear. Picture the Morrok clearly in your minds. That image is accompanied by an emotional response. Describe for me what that feeling is like." Tressa: "It makes my stomach all tight." Elani: "I feel like I want to run but my legs won't work." Tuvok: "Now, if you could see this emotion in physical form, what would it look like?" Corin: "It's like this big black cloud with lots of thunder and lightning all around us." Tuvok: "Then imagine a strong wind is pushing that cloud away. Watch as your fear grows more distant. It is no longer a part of you. Once you begin to detach yourselves from your emotional responses, you come closer to controlling them. Eventually, they will be eliminated altogether." Elani: "Do you live your whole life without feeling anything?" Tuvok: "More accurately, we strive to control our feelings." Tressa: "You don't get scared, ever?" Tuvok: "No." Corin: "Even when your shuttle crashed?" Tuvok: "That is correct." Corin: "But what if there was this big hairy tardeth coming after you?" Tuvok: "The circumstances are irrelevant. A Vulcan approaches every situation logically. Now I must begin work on my shuttle. We will resume the search for the other children once the sensors are operational. I expect each of you to sit quietly and not touch any of the equipment." Tressa: "We promise."

It is later, and the children are definitely not sitting quietly and they are definitely touching the equipment. They are scampering around the shuttlecraft, inside and outside, squealing and laughing as they play chase with each other. Tuvok: "Elani, please put that down." Corin: "Let me have it!" Tressa: "No, I found it!" The tool accidentally gets activated. A spike of energy erupts briefly from it. Tuvok: "Be careful with that!" He goes and picks up the children one by one and places them in particular places, well apart from each other. "You will stay here, and you will stay here." Elani: "Where do I get to sit?" Corin complains at Elani's privileged position: "But I want to sit next to you." Tuvok resumes work. Corin looks at him, moving from place to place to get a good look. Corin: "Tuvok?" Tuvok: "Yes." Corin: "Why do your ears look like that?" Tuvok: "All Vulcans have similarly shaped ears." Corin: "Why?" Tuvok: "It is the result of many millennia of evolution." Elani: "Do they make you hear better?" Tuvok: "No." Tressa: "Where do Vulcans live? Is it far away?" Tuvok: "My homeworld is on the other side of the galaxy." He notices Elani holding a piece of delicate equipment. "Elani. Elani! I asked you not to play with that." Elani: "Sorry." He takes each of their hands and puts them into a folded position. As well as the meditative exercise he is about to show them, it will also usefully keep their prying hands away from the equipment and tools. Corin: "What are you doing?" Tuvok: "It helps prepare you to attain a meditative state. Now close your eyes, and imagine all the energy in your body is flowing to the point where your fingertips meet. Nothing else you hear or feel is important. Let the outside world fade away. You exist only inside your mind." Corin: "Tuvok?" Tuvok: "Yes." Corin: "Do you have any children?" Tressa tells Corin: "Be quiet. We're trying to attain a meditative state." Corin: "But I want to know!" Tuvok: "I have four children. Now you must concentrate." Corin: "What are they like?" Tuvok, pointedly: "Well behaved." He continues: "They had already mastered several states of heightened awareness by the time they were your age." Elani: "If Vulcans don't feel anything, does that mean you don't love them?" Tuvok: "My attachment to my children cannot be described as an emotion. They are part of my identity and I am incomplete without them." Elani: "I bet they miss you too." Corin: "Tuvok?" Tuvok: "Yes." Corin: "I have to scratch my nose." Tuvok: "You may." Tressa: "Tuvok!" By now even Vulcan patience is under strain. "Yes!" Tressa: "I hear something." Corin: "Is it a ship?" Tuvok: "I believe so."

Shortly afterwards, inside the shuttlecraft, Tuvok checks the flight instruments. Tressa: "Can you see who it is?" Tuvok: "The sensors are only partially functional. I'm attempting to identify the ship by its shield harmonics." Elani: "Is somebody coming to save us?" Tuvok: "It is not a shuttle from Voyager. The pattern of the harmonics matches that of the ships we scanned in orbit around Drayan. It seems your people have come looking for you." To the children, this is not good news, as he expected. Tressa: "We have to hide, Tuvok! You can't let them find us here." Tuvok: "I don't understand. I thought you wanted to go home." Tressa: "They won't take us home. They're the ones who made us come here." Tuvok: "For what purpose?" Tressa: "They send us here to die." Corin: "We have to go!" Tressa: "If they find us, we'll all die!" Elani: "Please, Tuvok." Tuvok: "Why would your own people want to harm you?" Tressa: "Please! They're coming!" Elani: "Help us!"

Soon afterwards, the Drayan search party finds the crashed shuttlecraft. A Drayan man investigates. 1st Drayan man: "There's no one inside." 2nd Drayan man: "Any indication where they've gone?" 1st Drayan: "No." 2nd Drayan: "Spread out and search the area."

Tuvok: "Two of them are coming this way." He works the controls on his tricorder. Corin: "What are you doing?" Tuvok: "This will hide us from their scanners."

With trepidation, Tressa peeps out from her hiding place.

The Drayans search in their area, but do not find them.

As the Drayans move away, talking amongst themselves, Tuvok asks the children: "Why do you believe they've come to kill you?"
Tressa: "We're supposed to die here. That's what this place is for."
Corin: "They bring children here for the final ritual. Then the Morrok takes them away."
Elani: "No one ever comes back."
Tuvok: "It is illogical for a society to kill its own children."
Tressa: "The scrolls say we should be happy, that when we die the energy inside us is set free."
Corin: "Is it true? Is that what really happens?"
Tuvok: "Vulcans believe that a person's katra, what some might call a soul, continues to exist after the body dies."
Elani: "Do you believe that?"
Tuvok: "When I was younger I accepted it without question. In recent years I have experienced doubts. I do believe there is more within each of us than science has yet explained."
Tressa: "I know we should have more faith. It's wrong to be afraid of death."
Tuvok: "There is nothing wrong in choosing to live."
Elani: "Will you help us?"

Tuvok: "Until I can gain a better understanding of your situation, I believe it would be best to get you safely back to Voyager." They rush up and overwhelm him as they hug him.