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Janeway: "Personal log stardate 48546.2. Our journey is several weeks old now, and I have begun to notice in my crew and, in my myself, a subtle change as the reality of our situation settles in. Here in the Delta Quadrant we are virtually the entire family of man. We are more than a crew, and I must find a way to be more than a captain to these people, but it's not clear to me exactly how to begin. At the Academy we're taught that a captain is expected to maintain a certain distance. Until now I've always been comfortable with that distance....Maybe this is just the way it works, maybe the distance is necessary, maybe more than ever they need me to be larger than life. I only wish I felt larger than life. Computer, delete last sentence."
 | Janeway: "So, has Neelix concocted anything interesting this morning?"
Kim: "There's an ancient Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times'. Mealtime is always interesting now that Neelix is in the kitchen."
Janeway: "We shouldn't judge him too harshly. He is helping us conserve replicator energy."
Paris: "And I'm sure the gastro-intestinal problems will go away as soon as our systems get used to his er...'gourmet' touch." |
Kim tells Paris, "Should've asked her to join us ... Who else is she supposed to get chummy with out here?"
 | Janeway looks into the Galley where Neelix finds her investigating the various stages of food preparation. |
 | The coffee has run out. Neelix advises that the captain should not use a replicator ration as she needs to set an example to the crew. He gets her to try his "even-better-than-coffee-substitute", but she is horrified as it gloops into the mug! When Chakotay contacts her on the combadge she uses it as an excuse to leave in a hurry....without drinking the coffee substitute. |
Voyager detects a rich deposit of omicron particles 64 million kilometres inside a nebula. The nebula is 7au in diameter and sensors show intermittent gamma and thermal emissions. The crew decide to collect omicron particles to provide an additional anti-matter energy reserve.
 | Janeway enquires about the morale of the crew; she hopes that exploring the nebula will raise spirits. Chakotay replies that the crew is going through "nuanka", a period of mourning. He tells Janeway about a Native American tradition in which an animal acts as a person's counsellor and guides and accompanies that person through life. An animal guide does not define who a person is, but simply chooses to be with someone. It would offend an animal guide to speak its name. Being in touch with one's animal guide is what Carl Jung thought he invented when he came up with his active imagination technique in 1932. Janeway guesses that Chakotay's animal guide is a bear, but he says no it is not, and "she" guides him very well. |
 | Janeway: "There's coffee in that nebula." Voyager enters the nebula. |  |
 | Paris, at helm control, reports that the opening in the nebula's mass just closed behind them. |
 | Janeway and Chakotay on the Bridge. |
 | Neelix notices through the window where Voyager is. He exclaims to Kes: "Now look what she's gotten us into! ... I'm smart enough to go around nebulas when I encounter them." |
 | Kes: "These people are natural born explorers, Neelix."
Neelix: "These people are natural-born idiots, if you ask me. They don't appreciate what they have here, this ship is the match of any vessel within a hundred lightyears and what do they do with it? 'Well, er, let's see if we can't find some space anomaly today that might rip it apart!'" ...
Kes: "...If I were captain I'd open every crack in the universe and peek inside, just like Captain Janeway does." |
 | Inside the nebula, an energy barrier blocks Voyager's way to the rich deposit of omicron particles in the nebula. The energy barrier is 50 metres deep and is a natural phenomenon. Voyager gets through it by using a 4 second burst of maximum thrusters. |
 | Torres reports that lumps of matter from the nebula are sticking to the hull. Voyager vents deuterium into space after it is hit by multipolar charges from within the nebula. With the lumps of matter beginning to drain the ship's energy reserves, Janeway orders reverse course to leave the nebula, but magnicide dust builds up on the outer rim of the energy barrier and prevents Voyager from getting back through it. |
 | Chakotay suggests firing a photon torpedo. He says they have 38 photon torpedoes but Janeway objects, saying there is no way to replace them after they're gone. They try a burst of phaser fire but the barrier is unaffected. They have to fire a photon torpedo which creates a large breach and Voyager escapes. They collect a sample of the nebula for Torres to examine. |
 | Later, in Kim's quarters, Kim is suddenly woken up. "Dark enough for you?" Paris enquires. He makes Kim get up because he wants to show him something. En route to the Holodeck Kim explains that his room-mate at the Academy, James Mooney McAllister, never slept because he studied algorithims till dawn. Kim did not move out because he got Kim through 4th year quantum chemistry. |
 | Paris takes Kim to Chez Sandrine's, Paris' holosimulation of where spent much of his Starfleet Academy second semester. |
 | Paris tells Kim that he includes Ricky (left) in all his holoprograms. The hologram on the right is of Sandrine, the owner of Chez Sandrine in Marseilles, France, Earth. Paris says he discovered the real Chez Sandrine when he visited Marseilles and had his pocket picked. Kim is shocked, but Paris says they only do it for the tourists and return what they steal...sometimes. |
 | Meanwhile, on Voyager Torres examines a sample of the residue from the nebula which stuck to the hull and then takes it to the Doctor. When she complains about his bedside manner, he tells her to take it up with a man called Zimmerman at the Jupiter station who programmed him, and who looks a lot like him. Torres explains where she got the sample. The Doctor replies: "What were we doing in a nebula? No wait, don't tell me, we were investigating. That's all we do around here. Why pretend we're going home at all? All we're going to do is investigate every millimetre of this quadrant, aren't we?" He runs an analysis of Torres' sample and says, "This is what brought you to me, isn't it, the nucleogenic peptide bonds." |
 | In Janeway's Ready Room, Chakotay shows her his medicine bundle in order to help her find her animal guide. His medicine bundle contains a blackbird's wing, a stone from the river, and an akoonah. An akoonah is a modern device used instead of the psycho-active herbs used in past centuries to facilitate the search for an animal guide. |
 | Janeway meets her animal guide. But before she gets a chance to converse with it they are interrupted by Torres. Janeway apologises to him, saying she should have asked the computer for no interruptions. She explains to Torres what she and Chakotay were doing, and Torres expresses the wish that she has better luck with her animal guide than she did with hers. Chakotay explains to Janeway that Torres is the only person he knows who tried to kill her animal guide. Torres reports that the presence of nucleogenic peptide bonds indicate organic matter, and parts of a larger organism, i.e. a lifeform. |
On the Bridge Janeway, Chakotay, Torres and Tuvok are examining the leakage of omicron particles through the breach they made in the lifeform - they want to see if they harmed it. The Doctor says, "I see, you ran your ship through it, fired phasers at it and blew a hole in it with a photon torpedo. I'd say it was a pretty good chance-" Janeway interrupts, "Computer, mute audio." They discover that they did harm the creature, as Janeway says, "all the phenomena we've encountered were this lifeform's natural defence systems. ... We've severely hurt an innocent lifeform." Janeway asks how they can repair the damage.
 | The Doctor has to wave his arms to attract attention. When audio is resumed, he says "this lifeform has the capacity to regenerate. The process may simply need a helping hand." Torres says that "sending out a nucleonic beam along the edges of the breach should theoretically promote regeneration." Janeway orders Kim to find new safeguards and Tuvok to find a way to modify the shields against the lifesform's natural defences. She gives the order to re-enter the lifeform at 13:00. |
 | In the Messhall Neelix serves bantan. He tells the diners: "It's a little on the spicy side .. but as long as you don't eat any of the little pink things you'll be fine." Neelix is infuriated when Chakotay orders yellow alert and orders all personnel to their stations, emptying the Messhall. Neelix flings off his apron, telling Kes he has had enough and is going straight to the captain about it. |
 | Neelix goes to the Captain's Ready Room and objects to them going back into the lifeform. He says he and Kes will sit this one out if Janeway will have his ship prepared, but she replies that he cannot just leave whenever things get a little rough, concluding: "...just like Jonah and the whale, you're going in." When she says, "Dismissed," and Neelix does not go, she tells him, "It's a Starfleet expression for 'get out'." Bemused, Neelix leaves. |
 | On re-entering the lifeform Voyager plunges into freefall after ship's systems are heavily damaged by the lifeform's natural defences which this time involve nothing they had encountered before - Voyager is being hit by multi-polar charges. The ship's shields cannot compensate for these charges because polarity is rotating so rapidly. Inertial dampers go offline and stability is only restored after resetting the IDF (inertial damping field) baseline at three-zero-zero and re-initialising. |
Once the ship is stabilised they find themselves some 70,000 kilometres from the wound they have come to heal. When Janeway says they need to find a way back to the wound without triggering the lifeform's natural defences, Chakotay notes the organism's defences have stopped attacking them now that they have shut off all propulsion systems. "Maybe that's what cues it to respond." He suggests that the eddies which are densly packed with omicron particles are actuallly a form of circulatory system. Janeway orders Paris use the reaction control thrusters "in drift mode only" in order to navigate Voyager into the random eddies of the lifeform so that they can "surf back" (Paris' words) to the wound. They travel at 200 kph.
 | Neelix and Kes come onto the Bridge. Neelix insists the crew have a work break and offers them following hors d'oevres: Ailis paté, Felada onion crisps and stuffed cardaway leaves. He informs them he has just appointed himself ship's morale officer. He even suggests they sing some songs, but Janeway tells him: "Don't push it, Neelix." |
 | Voyager arrives back at the creature's wound. Voyager fires burst of the nucleonic beam, but it stimulates only 0.4% regeneration in the lifeform. The Doctor suggests a 'suture', an ancient medical technique that was used before the advent of laser technology in which surgical fibre was used to stitch together a wound to allow it to heal naturally. The ship acts as a large suture needle or conduit. |
 | Voyager leaves the lifeform, having successfully produced a 40% regeneration, with the lifeform well on its way to recovery. |
 | Kim invites Janeway to join him at Sandrine's. She decides to have a go at pool and asks to borrow Chakotay's "stick", leading people to think she is a novice. She does not even look at the pool table as she pots the black in a side pocket, just as she called! |
Later that night Janeway goes to speak with her animal guide. "A-koo-chee-moya, we are far from the sacred places of our grandfathers and from the bones of our people, but perhaps there is one powerful being who will embrace this good crew and give them the answer they seek."
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