FLASHBACK
Episode 44
Part F

 

Tuvok calls out urgently: "Mr Valtane, there's a rupture in the plasma conduit behind your console. Get away from that station!"

Valtane calls back: "One more second-" Tuvok gets up and calls urgently: "Dmitri, you must-!"

Valtane's console explodes in a shower of sparks. The dying Valtane is thrown onto the deck by the force of the explosion!

Tuvok bends over the dying Valtane. Janeway races over. Tuvok: "Bridge to Sickbay. Medical emergency." Valtane: "Tuvok." Valtane does not speak again. He is dead.

Suddenly Janeway and Tuvok both 'experience' the repressed memory! They are at the precipice. The girl is about to fall! She is terrified and screaming.

The girl screams: "Tuvok! Help! Don't let me fall!" But Tuvok cannot hold on any longer.
The girl plunges into the chasm. She screams: "No!!!"

In Sickbay, Kes is concerned at the read-outs. "Doctor, what's happening?"

Doctor: "Their memory engrams are destabilising! Something must be going wrong with the mind-meld." He decides: "I'm going to bring them out of it." He taps the controls. Kes: "It's not working." Doctor: "Their neural patterns appear to be locked together. I can't break the meld!"

He rushes over to the surgical bay and scans Tuvok's brain with a medical tricorder. "The damage to his synaptic pathways is accelerating. At this rate, he'll be brain-dead within 20 minutes." He calls out urgently to Kes: "Get me a cortical stimulator!"

Janeway: "I saw her again, Tuvok - the girl. When Valtane died just now, it seemed to cause the memory to resurface." But Tuvok is distracted. "What is it?" Tuvok to Janeway: "Something has gone wrong with the mind-meld." Suddenly Sulu turns in his chair, and looks right at them! He demands of Janeway: "Who the hell are you?!" Sulu calls out: "Intruder alert! Get Security up here!"

Janeway to Tuvok: "What's happening? Why can he see me?" Not only Sulu but everyone on the Bridge can now see and hear Janeway, and also hear anything Tuvok and Janeway say to each other.

Sulu to Janeway: "I asked you a question! Who are you, and what are you doing on my ship?"
Tuvok and Janeway ignore him. Tuvok tells Janeway: "It's an indication that the rate of deteriorating in my brain has increased. At advanced stages of a t'lokan schism, memories and thought processes become distorted and confused."
Sulu does not understand Tuvok's meaning. He demands of Tuvok: "Ensign, do you know this woman?"
Tuvok ignores him and says to Janeway: "I will break the meld, Captain."
Janeway to Tuvok: "No, don't. I think we're getting close to something. Everything seems to be centred around the death of Valtane."

Rand reports: "Direct hit on the port bow. Shields down to 20 per cent. Losing atmosphere on decks 5, 6 and 7." Sulu orders: "I'll re-route the auxiliary power to structural integrity."

>Janeway to Tuvok: "Maybe something happened in this moment between the two of you," referring to Tuvok and Valtane. "Some detail you aren't remembering. I want you to try replaying those events one more time."
Tuvok to Janeway: "I will try, but I must point out that if my neural structures collapse during the meld, you will suffer brain damage as well."
Janeway to Tuvok: "I understand."

Two security guards arrive on the Bridge. Sulu points at Janeway and Tuvok and orders them. "Take those two to the Brig."

Janeway and Tuvok have no option but to co-operate as the security guards herd them into the turbolift to take them to the Brig. Tuvok to Janeway: "Captain, if we replay those events as they see you, it will disrupt the memory again." The security guards hear them but do not know the meaning or significance of what they hear. Janeway to Tuvok: "Then we've got to find a way to make me inconspicuous."

They are 'transported' to crew quarters. Gamma shift is getting ready to go on duty. Tuvok is carefully preparing a flask of tea. This time, Tuvok is able to replay the memory so that Janeway resumes the role of observer - no one except him can see or hear her.

Rand enters the crew quarters. She jokes: "Alright, Gamma shift. Time to defend the Federation against gaseous anomalies!" Tuvok eyes her as the others leave to take up their duty stations.

Rand approaches Tuvok. "How are you, Ensign?" Suddenly she notices Janeway. "Who are you?!" Tuvok applies the Vulcan nerve pinch to Rand and she collapses unconscious to the floor.

As Tuvok and Janeway strip Rand of her uniform, Janeway comments: "We could've just asked her." Tuvok: "Asking female officers for their clothing could lead to misunderstanding." She smiles.

Doctor: "I've programmed a cortical stimulator to emit thoron radiation. We'll bombard his telepathic cortex. That should be enough to terminate the meld. We'll begin with a 20 kilodyne burst, 5 second duration. On my mark. Now." Kes obeys.

Doctor: "It's working. Their neural patterns are starting to separate."

But almost at once he becomes alarmed, exclaiming: "My God." Kes: "What is it?" Doctor: "That's Tuvok's memory engram." He points at the monitor. "That's the Captain's, but this red pattern seems to be another engram!"

Kes: "A third memory engram? How's that possible?" Doctor: "It's not. Which means it can't really be an engram. From the neurochemical modulation, I'd say it's something masquerading as an engram, the way viruses sometimes mimic certain blood factors to avoid being destroyed by antibodies." Kes: "So you're saying it's a virus?" Doctor: "I think so. The thoron radition must've caused it to manifest itself. Increasing the radiation level should destroy it. Go to 40 kilodynes, 10 second burst. Now."