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SUMMARY: Kim and Paris are wrongly convicted of terrorist murders and end up in an alien prison hell-hole where prisoners are driven violently insane by means of a cranial clamp. Kim and Paris have only each other if they are to survive long enough to be rescued by Voyager, but the authorities who convicted them also plan to arrest and try Voyager's crew as accomplices.
Kim hurtles down a long Chute into a hellish reception by prisoners detained in an Akritirian gaol. To protect him Paris has to threaten one particularly violent prison bully, called Pit, with a knife. While on shore leave Paris and Kim were wrongly convicted of carrying out a terrorist bombing which killed 47 Akritirian patrollers. Their confessions were falsely obtained.
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| Pit torments the helpless Kim |
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| Paris fends Pit off using the only language Pit understands - the threat of violence |
Paris tells Kim about "the clamp", a cranial implant which every prisoner wears. The clamp seems to affect the wearer's nervous system and it cannot be removed - the last person Paris saw try this died. The prisoners believe that the prison (or "Maximum Security Detention Facility") is 300 metres underground.
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| Paris shows Kim where the clamp is embedded in his skull |
When food is delivered down the Chute, the starving prisoners scramble for the food bars. One, called Zio, slits the throat of a prisoner in order to steal his food bar. One prisoner, desperate for more food, tries to climb the Chute but as soon as he touches it a forcefield fries him.
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| Food bars, but not enough, arrive down the Chute for the starving prisoners. A prisoner is killed by the Chute's forcefield. |
 | Ambassador Liria of the Akritiri refuses Janeway's demands to see Paris and Kim. They were convicted because the explosive used in the bombing was trilithium and chemical traces of it were found on Paris' and Kim's hands and clothing. There is no source of trilithium in the Akritirian system and therefore Liria believes that Voyager is collaborating with the terrorists because Voyager is powered by dilithium which can be converted to trilithium. Accordingly Liria orders Voyager impounded and the crew arrested - they will be tried as co-conspirators. |
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| Janeway talks with Liria |
Two Akritirian patrol ships approach and fire on Voyager. Janeway orders flight from the Akritirian system.
 | At a staff meeting held in the Briefing Room, Janeway decides they will try to prove Paris' and Kim's innocence by finding the bombers. Torres says that paralithium is used as a fuel for certain ion-based propulsion systems and can be converted into trilithium. Accordingly, Voyager starts scanning for ships entering and leaving Akritiri space that use paralithium as a fuel. |
Paris finds a pipe when he and Kim search the prison. He believes that Kim might be able to use the pipe and its loose wiring to rig a device to short out the Chute's forcefield long enough for them to climb up safely out of the tube.
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| Kim and Paris see hope in a pipe |
The clamp in his head makes it hard for Kim to concentrate on neutralising the Chute's forcefield. As a distraction and incentive, they discuss what food they would like to eat when they get out of the prison, such as steak, a 2296 bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild and fudge ripple pudding. They are so hungry they could even eat Neelix's leola root stew.
When Kim tries to deactivate the forcefield he is stunned and thrown backwards by an energy discharge.
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| Kim is stunned and hurled backwards |
A group of prisoners gather, including Pit and his henchmen. Pit is curious about the pipe. To retain the pipe and defend Kim, Paris fights Pit. He downs Pit but one of Pit's men draws a knife and stabs him.
Paris fights Pit |
the stabbing |
As Kim helps the injured Paris away, Zio asks Kim what he wants for "the dead man's boots".
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| Kim and Paris do not deign to respond to Zio's callousness |
When Kim and Paris arrive back at their make-shift shelter, they find it taken over by two prisoners who have clearly been driven mad by the clamp. Kim goes and negotiates with Zio, whom he comes across writing a manuscript. They eventually agree that they will stay with Zio who will provide bandages and water for Paris, and Kim will take him along when they escape up the Chute. Zio has been in the prison for 6 years.
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| Zio in his shelter. Kim negotiates with him. |
on board their ship, Vel and Piri are defiant when Voyager hails them | Voyager tracks down an Akritirian ship and sensors indicate that the bomb was made aboard their ship. The ship has two people aboard - Vel and Piri, brother and sister. When the pair refuse to surrender, Janeway has them beamed aboard against their will. In the briefing room, Piri, who is 14 years old, reveals that they are both members of the Open Sky terrorist group, that they will form the legitimate government of Akritiri one day, and that they know where the Maximum Security Detention Facility is where Paris and Kim are imprisoned. Janeway orders that they be detained. |
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| Janeway interrogates Vel and Piri in Voyager's Briefing Room |
 | As Kim works on disabling the Chute's forcefield, Zio tells him there is a battle inside him to the death between him (Kim) and the clamp and that he has to use whatever force he can to defeat it. Kim replies that he would rather use my energy on to work on getting out of here. |
as Zio makes his messianic pronunciation, we see his head with the "halo" of the Chute's forcefield behind him | Zio declares: "When I first got here I assumed the clamp was just a refined form of torture, to make our prison stay that more arduous. Gradually I began to understand it more fully. It's all here in my Manifesto, my insights, my reasoning. It's an experiment, they're studying us like animals, pitting us against each other to find out what happens, you can see that, can't you? ... The greatest threat of course would be if we started to co-operate with each other, so they prevented that. ....what's the ultimate purpose of the clamp? It's inspired, brilliant: it's a method for controlling the prison population. We kill each other off." |
Kim successfully disables the Chute's forcefield and he leads Zio on an arduous climb to the top. Once there he wipes the window to see where they are, and finds that they are in a spaceship and the exit leads into space. There is no escape!
Kim climbs the Chute |
exterior view of the prison in space |
Zio tells Kim that Paris is no longer a friend but a burden. Zio offers Kim his Manifesto about the clamp, that the way forward is to convince people that they need to be trained to resist the clamp's effects. But Kim knocks the pages of the Manifesto into the air, demanding Zio's help of more bandages for Paris. Zio says that Kim has given into the clamp. Kim argues that if the prisoners co-operate with each other they can climb the Chute when a ship docks to deliver a prisoner or food or whatever, and have the element of surprise. Kim addresses the prisoners accordingly but they jeer and throw things.
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| when Kim calls on the prisoners to join together to escape, he is jeered |
Despondent over the prisoners' lack of response, Kim returns to the shelter where he finds a delirious Paris taking the pipe apart. Losing control and driven wild by the clamp, Kim turns on him and beats him with it. Zio encourages him to give Paris the death-blow, and Kim comes to his senses in time.
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| Kim nearly kills Paris |
Zio hands Kim a knife to kill Paris. Once he is dead, says Zio, he and Kim will go on to disseminate the Manifesto. He adds that if Kim cannot learn to kill, he will not survive in the prison. Kim, as answer, deliberately lets the knife drop to the ground. Zio orders him to take Paris and leave his shelter.
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| Zio expects Kim to kill Paris but Kim refuses |
 | Voyager returns to the borders of Akritiri space. Janeway tells Ambassador Liria that they have apprehended the bombers but Liria says that no convictions can be overturned, even upon new evidence, and that the policy acts as a deterrent. "That is an outrageous policy!" says Janeway angrily. |
Janeway speaks to Vel in her Ready Room. She threatens to hand him and Piri over to the Akritirians. He agrees to give her the shield codes for the Maximum Security Detention Facility in exchange for letting himself and his sister go. After Vel is removed, Janeway tells Tuvok that, as Voyager would invite attack on entering Akritiri space, Neelix's little ship is still in the hangar bay.
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| Janeway threatens Vel, then afterwards talks strategy with Tuvok |
In the prison, shorn of the protection of Zio's shelter, Kim defends Paris who lies unmoving being eaten up by fever and dying. Kim desperately wields the pipe to keep the other prisoners at bay: "This man is my friend. Nobody touches him!"
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| Kim desperately defends the dying Paris |
The Chute opens. But it is not a new prisoner. Suddenly Janeway and Tuvok are there, a Security team close behind. Neelix, at the controls of his ship, stalls for time when challenged by Akritiri patrols, by pretending he thought it was a refuelling depot. The away team take Paris and Kim and beam to Neelix's ship. Then Neelix deftly evades the two pursuing Akritirian patrol ships as they open fire.
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| Janeway to the rescue. Neelix at the controls of the rescue ship. |
In Voyager's Sickbay, after removing the clamps, the Doctor comments that acetylcholine is a brain chemical common to the neural structures of most humanoids, and that the clamp stimulated the production of acetylcholine in the hypothalmus in order to stimulate aggressive tendencies. Kim realises that Zio was right.
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| while the Doctor explains, Kim is sombre as he guiltily remembers events in the prison |
Leaving sickbay, Paris suggests he and Kim blow a week's replicator rations on the slap-up meal they were imagining in prison. Kim feels most uncomfortable and reminds Paris that he tried to kill him.
Paris: "You want to know what I remember? Someone saying, 'This man is my friend. Nobody touches him.' I'll remember that for a long time."
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| Paris: "You want to know what I remember? Someone saying, 'This man is my friend. Nobody touches him.' I'll remember that for a long time." |
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| The serious moment is over. They look forward to a slap-up meal together in the Messhall. |
 | | PARIS, AFTER SEARCHING FOR FOOD IN THE PRISON: Well, I found close to fifty good citizens in this quaint little community, but not a grocer among them. |
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