EMANATIONS
Episode 9
Part C

 

Araya: "Hatil, what are you saying? Hatil: "I'm just not sure I'm ready, that's all. Araya: "I don't understand. Hatil: "Neither do I. It's just that I'm starting to wonder what really happens when I die, if I'm really going on to a higher level of consciousness." Araya: "The alien, what has he been telling you?" Hatil: "All he's done is made me stop and think about something we've always taken for granted. Now that I've thought about it, I'm not so eager to go through with it any more." Araya: "Hatil, we know nothing about him, or why he's come here, or why he's spreading lies about the next emanation. All I know is you can't throw away a lifetime of belief because of him. It doesn't make any sense." Hatil: "I don't know what to think any more. I'm scared, Araya. Araya: "It's going to be alright. Think about your father. He's waiting for you. I'll see you at the transference ritual." As Araya goes to leave, she stops and tells Kim: "I don't know who you are, or where you come from, but you stay away from my husband!" Kim gets up and hurries after her to speak to her. Kim calls after her: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" But she leaves. Hatil: "Harry, you have to forgive my wife. She's having trouble understanding my concerns about the afterlife. That's why I'm here: I'm er...getting ready to die. Forgive me for asking me again, but can you tell me anything about what I might find in the next emanation?" Kim: "Everyone keeps asking me that and I just keep giving the same answer: I don't know." Hatil: "But you do come from the afterlife." Kim: "I come from a different reality, maybe another dimension, maybe it is your afterlife, I don't know. All I do know that there are countless billions of people there who are born, live and die just like you do here." Hatil: "But you did see my people there. You said they were dead." Kim: "Yes, but look, for all I know your thanatologists are right and all I saw were the corporeal remains of your people and you do go on to a higher consciousness." Hatil: "But it's, it's also possible that there is no higher existence for us, that when we die we simply cease to exist." Kim: "I, I really can't say. I don't know what happens to your people after they die; I don't even know what happens to my people after they die." Hatil: "Don't you have thanatologists, people who study death?" Kim: "Sort of. There have certainly been medical experts, philosophers, theologians, who all spend a great deal of time debating what happens after death, but no one's come up with an answer yet." Hatil: "My people have come to think of death as just another stage of our existence. There are some people who are even eager to die, if they're feeling depressed or lonely in this life they simply move on to the next one." Kim: "Is that why you're here, because you're not happy with your life?" Hatil, getting up with difficulty due to his injured leg: "Ever since the er...accident, life hasn't been easy, but I have to say this is more my family's idea than it is mine." Kim: "Your family?" Hatil: "I'm a burden to them right now, it takes a lot of their time and resources to care for me and I can't give much back to them, so there was a family meeting and it was agreed that I should move on to the next emanation. You look appalled." Kim: "It's not my place to judge your culture. But from my perspective it's a little chilling to hear that." Hatil: "Even though the family did it out of love and everyone was happy for me, and they said they'd see me when they got to the next emanation, I have to admit there was a little voice inside of me that was terrified of dying, and since I've been talking to you that little voice has started to get louder."

USS Voyager in the ring system.

Engineering. Janeway: "I'm reading another vacuole forming on the ship. Tuvok, try remodulating the shield harmonics." Tuvok: "It's no use, Captain. The vacuole is still forming."

Suddenly there is a flash of bright light and....

....a body appears on the upper level!

Tuvok steps forward and calls up to the engineers up there: "Take the body to the ship's morgue."

Janeway: "This is odd. Three bodies have appeared on Voyager so far, and each one of them has released some kind of neural energy. In every case, the energy has passed through the hull and out into the rings. The energy's frequency is identical to the ambient radiation in the asteroid field."
Torres: "The vacuoles are disrupting the warp core's magnetic interlocks. It won't be long before we lose antimatter containment."

Janeway: "The vacuoles have all formed within twenty metres of the warp core. They might be attracted to it." She taps her combadge. Via comms: "Janeway to Bridge. Mr Paris, lay in a course. I want to get at least a half a light year away, warp seven." Paris, via comms: "Aye, Captain."

He executes the required moves, and Voyager hurtles away from the ring system and jumps to warp.

Paris reports, via comms: " Paris to Janeway. I've brought us out of warp. We're .6 light years from the ring system."
Janeway: "Any other subspace vacuoles forming?"
Torres: "No. The magnetic interlocks have stabilised. I think we're safe out here."
Janeway: "Begin working on a way to protect the warp core from these vacuoles."
She and Tuvok leave.

Torres: "Aye, Captain." She looks intently at the console as she starts working on it.

USS Voyager.

Kes is with Ptera in the Messhall. Kes: "Sometimes I come in here and just stare out at the stars for hours. I never get tired of looking at them." Ptera: "We were always told we would see beautiful sights in the Next Emanation - colours, lights, and that we would see them with new eyes and a new understanding. But now.... What happened to the others - my brother, my father and everyone before them? People die every day on my world. Do they all end up as lifeless corpses?" Kes: "When people die on my world, we bury them beneath the soil, and we believe that their comra is released into the afterlife." Ptera: "Their 'comra'?" Kes: "Our soul, our spirit, the essence of our beings. Maybe something similar happens to you." Ptera: "But you don't understand. We don't believe in any kind of spirit. When we die, we're supposed to re-appear as physical beings with arms and legs. That's the whole point of sending our people through the spectral ruptures. We're supposed to travel onto the Next Emanation as ourselves and be reunited with our families. But none of that is true, is it? None of the people I love are here. I'm alone. I don't belong here." Becoming distressed: "I can't live like this. Please, can't you send me home?" Kes: "I think there is only one person on this ship who could answer that question."

Janeway walks round behind Ptera and Kes and heads for the other end of the Briefing Room. Janeway: "We're doing everything we can to get you back home, Ptera. Once we locate our missing officer," sitting down in her seat, "we're hoping he might be able to tell us enough to-" Torres, leaning forward: "Wait a minute, Captain. Maybe there is a way to send Ptera home and find Ensign Kim at the same time." Janeway: "Explain." Torres: "What if we recreated the transporter accident? If it's true that Harry was pulled through the vacuole during transport, we might be able to reproduce those circumstances and send Ptera home." Chakotay: "We could send Ptera through the subspace transponder, and hope the signal will penetrate the dimensional barrier, and allow us to lock on to Kim with the transporter beam." Torres: "Right." Ptera: "So I can get home?" Janeway: "Ptera, you should know that there's no guarantee this is going to work." Ptera: "I understand the risk, but I've already been dead once and I'm prepared to die again if necessary. So if there's a chance I can get home, I'm willing to take the risk." Janeway: "Alright. Commander, prepare a subspace transponder and teach Ptera how to use it." Chakotay: "Aye, Captain." Ptera looks at Kes. They smile at each other - Kes is pleased that her new friend is at last happy.