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SUMMARY: Voyager rescues a Ramuran woman who claims that she and Chakotay were recently lovers, but he has no memory of her.
A cloaked alien ship suddenly appears. It has an injured female alien on board who, when hailing, calls Chakotay by name. Chakotay leads an away team to the alien ship and rescues the woman, named Kellin. In Voyager's Sickbay, Kellin asks Janeway for asylum from her people. Janeway asks Chakotay to try and find out as much as he can about the mysterious woman. When Chakotay asks how she knows him, she explains that she was recently on Voyager for several weeks. No one remembers her because memories of her people cannot be held in the minds of others for more than a few hours. The bodies of Ramurans produce a pheromone that blocks others species' long-term memory engrams. She confesses that she has returned to Voyager because she fell in love with Chakotay.
Chakotay rescues Kellin |
in Sickbay, the tricorder is unable to scan Kellin |
Chakotay gently questions Kellin |
Chakotay informs the rest of the senior staff that Kellin is from Ramura, a closed society which tracks down people who leave their world. She was on Voyager about a month ago when her job as a tracer (a bounty-hunter who pursues those who leave Ramura and force them to return) led her to a stowaway on the ship. Although Kellin says a computer virus was planted to erase all evidence of her presence, the crew look through navigation logs and other records which would corroborate her story.
Chakotay briefs the senior staff about Kellin and the Ramurans |
Kellin demonstrates by her ship's route
that she was on Voyager as claimed |
Chakotay and Kellin get something to eat in the Messhall where Kellin reveals facts about Chakotay's food preferences which show that she knows him.
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| Kellin and Chakotay in the Messhall |
She recounts to him how they first met: she came aboard in pursuit of the stowaway and Chakotay cornered her in the cargo bay.
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| Kellin's remembers: When Kellin searches for the stowaway in Voyager's cargo bay, Chakotay comes up behind her |
Suddenly, the Ramurans begin firing at Voyager. A sudden lurch of the ship makes Kellin fall into Chakotay's arms as he steadies her. He is unsettled by the sudden physical contact.
Kellin tries to hide her pain when Chakotay says
he cannot feel something for someone he does not remember |
after she falls against him when the ship jolts,
Chakotay feels a moment of awkwardness |
Janeway gives Kellin permission to modify the ship's sensors so that they can see the two attacking cloaked Ramuran ships. Once Voyager returns fire, the Ramurans leave and Kellin says she would like to stay on the ship permanently.
above and right: Voyager manages to locate and fire at a Ramuran
ship after Kellin modifies Voyager's sensors to detect the cloaked ships |
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Although Chakotay does not remember being in love with her, he cannot stop thinking about what she has said about their relationship. When Kellin realises that her people will come back and that she is putting the crew in danger, she tells Chakotay that she will leave if he does not have any feelings for her. However, Chakotay has been falling in love with Kellin and he tells her to stay.
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| Chakotay asks Kellin to stay |
At night, Kellin visits Chakotay in his quarters. She explains how he had helped her find the stowaway. They pretended she was giving up the hunt and beaming off Voyager then suddenly made a magneton sweep to disrupt the stowaway's cloak, and then Kellin wiped out his memories of space outside Ramura with a neurolytic emitter.
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| in the transporter room, the stowaway is uncloaked and captured |
Kellin goes on to tell Chakotay about their last night together, how they celebrated the stowaway's capture, and she demonstrates how she kissed him. Falling in love with her, Chakotay returns her kiss.
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| Chakotay falls in love with Kellin (again) |
As Kellin works in the Astrometrics Lab with Seven and Kim on a defence strategy against her people's technology, Kellin senses that a tracer is on board, and later senses another presence even though the corridors look empty. When she enters her quarters, she finds a vase has been deliberately broken - it is a sign that a tracer is on to her, deliberately left as a warning. When she tells Chakotay about it, the tracer, called Curneth, suddenly materialises. Despite her protests, the tracer shoots her with a neurolytic emitter and she collapses in Chakotay's arms.
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| Curneth shoots Kellin with a neurolytic emitter. Too late, Chakotay brings a phaser to bear on Curneth. |
As Kellin's memories begin to fade, she begs Chakotay to remind her of the love they shared once she no longer remembers. Chakotay goes to see Curneth who has been confined to the Brig but Curneth tells him the process cannot be reversed.
Chakotay with Kellin in Sickbay |
Chakotay visits Curneth in the Brig |
When Kellin recovers, Chakotay finds that she does not recognise him and remembers nothing of their romance. He asks her to stay and see if her feelings can be rekindled, but she refuses to violate her people's edict again. She leaves for Ramura with Curneth. On their departure, Voyager's systems and crew will soon forget them. Chakotay uses handwriting to write about her in his personal log to make certain that he will never fully forget her.
Chakotay asks Kellin to stay but she refuses |
Chakotay watches as Kellin and Curneth leave |
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| Chakotay makes a handwritten record of his time with Kellin |
 NEELIX TO CHAKOTAY: Commander, I don't think you can analyse love. It's the greatest mystery of all. No one knows why it happens or doesn't. It's a chance combination of elements. Any one thing might be enough to keep it from igniting: a mood, a glance, a remark. And if we could define love, predict it, it would probably lose its power. | | |
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