|
Janeway has a miserable
headache. The pain affects her normal scientific curiosity;
Chakotay's enthusiasm over some binary pulsars goes unshared.
And neither of them notices that something is aboard the ship,
carefully scanning each member of the crew.
When Chakotay begins aging
rapidly, the Doctor's scan detects that segments of his DNA have
been hyperstimulated. Neelix has a different ailment, but the
Doctor finds segments of his DNA are also hyperstimulated. Soon,
others are coming in with obscure genetic problems. Torres and
the Doctor find microscopic tags on the crewmembers' DNA, but
before they can investigate further, the Doctor's program is
deactivated and Torres collapses.
Later, the Doctor taps into Seven of Nine's audio implants to
ask her to meet him in the holodeck. He adjusts her Borg sensory
nodes so she can scan Voyager for anything unusual. Suddenly,
Seven can see aliens everywhere, invisibly prodding crewmembers
with instruments. She goes to the Captain and finds Janeway
flanked by aliens sticking needles into her head — the source of
her headaches.
 Seven tells the Doctor that the aliens are performing medical
experiments on the crew. She could make them visible with a
modulated phaser beam, but the Doctor believes they might
retaliate. He suggests that delivering a simultaneous
neuroleptic shock to each member of the crew will undo the
experiments. But when Seven tries to implement the plan, Tuvok
stops her, misunderstanding her intentions. The aliens realize
she can see them, and Seven is forced to use her phaser to make
one visible. She brings it to Janeway, who is outraged when the
alien — a Srivani — explains they are using the data to cure
disorders within their race. The Srivani threatens to kill
everyone if the experiments are not allowed to continue.
The Captain feels it's time for desperate measures. She steers
Voyager into the binary pulsar, knowing it means almost certain
destruction. The Srivani evacuate the ship as Voyager plunges
through at full throttle. The ship comes out relatively
unscathed and the Doctor is able to neutralize the effects of
the experiments, allowing them to continue the tedious voyage
toward home. |
