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While entering the atmosphere of
an uninhabited moon, the shuttle piloted by Tuvok and Ensign
Bennet is rocked by electrodynamic turbulence, causing it to
crash. Bennet dies, but Tuvok realizes he is not alone as three
frightened children venture out from hiding. The children tell
him that their ship crashed too, killing the people who were
looking after them. In the meantime, Voyager welcomes Alcia, the
Prelate of Drayan II, with whom Janeway hopes to negotiate for
minerals they need. The visit is interrupted when Alcia receives
an emergency message, calling her away. Before she goes, she
asks the crew to leave the area.
As Tuvok tries to repair his
damaged shuttlecraft, the children — Tressa, Elani and Corin —
express their fears of being killed by a creature they call the
"morrok." They are even more frightened when a Drayan search
party arrives to look for them. The children tell Tuvok that the
Drayans sent them to the moon to die, and ask him to help them
hide.
With Tuvok's help, the children elude the search team. Later,
Alcia informs Janeway that they have found Tuvok's crashed
shuttle on the moon, which they consider sacred ground. She
orders Janeway to remove her surviving crewmember immediately.
The next morning, Tuvok discovers that Elani and Corin have
vanished. In a nearby cave, he finds their clothes, but not the
children. During a break in the atmospheric turbulence, Tuvok
manages to send a brief message to Voyager. Janeway and Paris
take a shuttlecraft to rescue the Vulcan, but they're pursued by
a Drayan vehicle whose occupants don't want the shuttle to sully
the sacred site.
As the Drayan search party surrounds Tuvok and Tressa, Janeway
and Paris arrive. Tuvok refuses to let the Drayans take the
child, but he is stunned when Alcia reveals that Tressa is
actually 96 years old. Among the Drayan, the aging process is
reversed, and Tressa wasn't brought there to be killed, but to
die a natural death. With Alcia's permission, Tuvok stays with
Tressa to comfort her in her final moments.
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