Chapter 17 "Could you please tell us one more time, what transpired between you and Ensign Sehm in the escape pod." Three admirals faced Chakotay. He had sat in front of them for over an hour, and out of boredom and frustration had mentally re- christened them Iron Jaw, Simper Bitch, and Helmet Head. It was the kind of thing he might once have done to amuse Tom in the re- telling. Janeway was in the room, behind him. Simper Bitch -- Nachayev -- had asked the question. He'd had enough. It felt surreal, like Wonderland, and he chose his words from the Mad Hatter's tea party. "I can't tell you again since I haven't been able to tell you once. I don't remember anything past finding Sehm unconscious and picking him up." His voice was edging toward insubordination, but he was telling the truth, as he had told it several times already in this hour. "You have no idea why you didn't stay in the escape pod with him? You have no idea who beat you?" Iron Jaw was clearly irritated, and Chakotay was sure the admiral didn't believe him. Chakotay had no idea how he had been hurt. "No, sir. I can only say that I doubt Sehm was responsible for my injuries. As I've said, I found him unconscious, with a broken femur." "And the next thing you remember?" Iron Jaw prompted. Chakotay sighed inwardly. They'd been through this several times. They seemed to think he was hiding something. He was. There was no way he was telling them that he knew the Sehm had been from this mysterious thing called Section Thirty-one. He answered the admiral with the same words he had used before. "I woke up in an escape pod with my CMO and my Ops officer. There was a great deal of pain in my face, and I'm told I had a broken jaw and shattered orbital bone." Finally Helmet Head, the same Admiral Rand who had sent the encoded message, spoke up. "I think we've been over this enough. I see no reason to continue to bother the captain with the disappearance of Ensign Sehm. I would like to note for the record that Captain Chakotay's actions during the battle in Sector 225 likely turned the engagement in our favor." Chakotay nodded acknowledgment and watched Nachayev's lips twitch. Iron Jaw glowered. "His actions also resulted in the destruction of his ship." This time Chakotay let go of a controlled exhalation, but he said nothing. He was tired of explaining, and Siral's report had backed up his belief that Wolf Raider was doomed before he'd strafed those Jem'Hadar ships. Srinak's medical report confirmed a physical basis for his amnesia. He really didn't know what had happened to Sehm. All he wanted was for this to be over. No, that wasn't all he wanted. He wanted this uniform off. Permanently. The thought had formed first when he'd broken the bowl and found surveillance circuitry. It had strengthened when he lost his ship. Now he was only waiting to see whether he would be charged for a crime that didn't even seem to be defined. He didn't know what had happened to cause this hearing, and he wished he did. Maybe that was the hole in his memory. Sehm was missing, likely in the hands of the Dominion. Either he was a Dominion spy or he was a Starfleet spy, and whatever the case it was potentially very bad for the Federation. Nachayev was the one who had called this hearing, and seemed the most concerned. When Chakotay didn't answer Iron Jaw's challenge, Rand cleared her throat and moved to adjourn. After a long pause, Iron Jaw seconded. Nachayev added only, "I'm sure you understand Captain that we'd prefer you didn't leave headquarters." "Am I under arrest?" Rand and Iron Jaw left as if the conversation were not happening. Chakotay wasn't sure whether Janeway was still behind him in the room. Nachayev sighed in a way she must have thought conveyed her disappointment that he didn't think he was trusted, but which only irritated Chakotay. "Please don't force me to make it an order." When he said nothing, she smiled and rose to leave. Chakotay turned to watch her go, and found himself facing Janeway. "Any idea why they're so focused on one ensign?" she asked. "It looks bad, my blood in his escape pod and Dominion transport traces. Maybe I'd found out he was a Dominion spy and tried to stop him." He didn't tell her that he knew Sehm had not been what he appeared to be. Her eyes flicked back and forth between his, her mouth set in that "you're not telling me everything" expression. Chakotay wished he wasn't so transparent to her. "Care to take a walk?" "All right." They strode in silence until they were out doors, and Chakotay wondered whether they could converse without being monitored. He decided he couldn't be sure. He'd have to leave Rand out of it, leave Tom out of it, and leave most of the truth out of it. Finally he began. "I don't think Ensign Sehm was what Starfleet says he was, and I think I've been under suspicion of *something* for a while. But I don't know what." "There is no indication that this ensign was an intelligence operative, and there's nothing in your records to note suspicion." The rise of a question accompanied her careful statement. Chakotay was relieved that she'd looked in the records, and it made him wonder whether she had suspicions about the situation. He decided to tell her only about the bowl, and did so, omitting the fact that he'd broken it on purpose. "Sehm was the one who brought it to me." "It could have been switched before it was given to him." "Maybe," Chakotay admitted, "but see if you can find anyone who knew Sehm at the Academy. Be discreet. If no one remembers him..." He trailed off, then stopped to face her. "Kathryn, these hearings. Will they stop if I resign?" His question surprised her. "Why resign?" "I've had enough of this." "'This?'" "Suspicion. Surveillance. Spies." "You put up with plenty of that in the Maquis," she observed evenly. "From my enemies. Not from my own. What I thought was my own," he corrected. To his mild surprise, she didn't try to correct him. She began walking again, and when he caught up she said, "At least sleep on it. Let me do some checking." "All right." Sleeping on it was easier than resigning instantly. He felt sure he would resign, but he wanted to talk to his spirit guide. His ship was gone, and his faith in Starfleet broken once again. He would not be betrayed a third time. Janeway's hand on his arm brought his attention to her. "I have to go, Chakotay. It's been a long time since we had breakfast together. Can we meet tomorrow?" It was a simple request, but it opened a box of Voyager memories. "I'd like that." She smiled, squeezed lightly, then walked away. He went straight to his temporary quarters. Though hungry, he took nothing but water, giving himself at least a symbolic afternoon fast. His ritual garb was lost to the wreck of Wolf Raider, and he had left of his old possessions only the medicine bundle and the shards and stones from Tom's original bowl. The counterfeit second bowl with the circuitry had been taken as evidence, yet when he'd tried to bring up its existence at the hearing today, Nachayev had brushed it aside as unrelated. Her assurances only convinced him that she was lying. He unrolled his bundle, and guided by he knew not what impulse, he placed the pottery pieces in a rough circle around his usual fetishes. The river stones he lined up like a path leading to the Akoonah. Then he stripped in front of the mirror, watching as each piece of his uniform came away, folding them with crisp corners that seemed sharp enough to sever his ties to Starfleet. He felt physically changed, as if what he saw in the mirror was completely different from what he had been even moments before. He'd thought of the Alice in Wonderland similarity at the hearing. Now he felt as if he was going through the looking glass to where everything would be different. All that was left were the Starfleet issue shorts and undershirt. Resolutely he pulled them off, tucking them under the neat pile of jacket, pants, and turtleneck. His comm badge and his four pips he left on the fabric. It was an empty suit now. Chakotay looked at himself carefully. On his head a wide grey streak ran from above his right eye to back behind his ear, and as he looked at it he laughed at himself for having dyed his hair in the Delta Quadrant. For several years he had darkened the salt and pepper of his Maquis days, of his first years on Voyager, to black. War had stripped him of that vanity. War had stripped him of almost everything. He had nothing but his medicine bundle and his uniform, and he realized even as he thought it that he was wrong. He would never put on the uniform again. He didn't know where he would go, had vague notions of finding Tom, or even going back to the old Reservation lands where he had been born. Only his resignation was sure; everything else was a mystery. He should be comfortable with mystery, with owning nothing. His tribe taught that one could only possess one's own heart and courage, and that everything else was transient. He clung to that thought, trying to make it true, hoping it would ease the place where his identity as a Starfleet officer was slowly becoming achingly empty. As he reached for the Akoonah, he chanted the syllables, the ritual sounds that had no translation. "Akoochimoyah. Akoochimoyah. I am on the planet of my ancestors. I have traveled far, but I have come home. Akoochimoyah." The setting of the Vision was a plain of dusty brown grasses and an open sky. The bright banding of the snake stood out as it made its way among the blades. Chakotay squatted down and his spirit guide reared up. "I brought some friends." Chakotay suddenly felt movement and looked up to see a black bear staring at him, standing firmly on all four paws. Pacing behind the bear was a large grey wolf. These were powerful animals, ones he'd never encountered in a vision before. Their presence unsettled him. "Why are they here?" "To let you know they've taken their skins back, and you can't have them any more." He didn't understand at first, and then the glaring conceit of his impromptu legend broke on him. He had left the skin of the wolf neatly folded in his temporary quarters. "Then what do I wear?" "What are you?" "I don't know." "What do you want to be?" "I don't know." "What do you want to do?" Chakotay didn't know where the answer came from, and was surprised to hear himself speak it. "Fly." The snake darted its head, and Chakotay looked in the direction indicated. A low flat rock had appeared, with the brazier and pile of feathers from his vision of Tom. "Am I supposed to put those on?" "Are you?" "I can't do it by myself." "Can't you?" came the voice, full of ironic teasing. "You took the skin of the bear and the wolf without asking, without help." "Yes, I understand that now." "Do you? If you want wings, make them." "I can't do it alone!" "Hmm." The snake appeared to be studying Chakotay's bare feet. With no warning it struck and clamped its jaws around a brown big toe. Chakotay rose from his crouch and jumped back, dislodging his spirit guide. "Why did you do that?" "I was hungry and I saw a great big naked frog. Didn't taste very good, though." "That's comforting." "Small comfort, frog, since predators only know what you taste like after they bite. Better not to be bitten in the first place." And then he was alone, left to contemplate the Vision's meaning. He began to pull himself out of the trance, to return to the waking world, but he could not. He tried his usual tricks for lucid dreaming -- looking at his hands, looking for a full moon -- but his hands were ordinary and no moon could be seen in the vision's clear day. He began to struggle harder, felt panic rise, and heard in the distance an unfamiliar voice say, "Initiate." Suddenly he was dancing to a chant he had never heard before, the one nude man in a crowd of masked and fringed dancers. He recognized them as Hopi, and thought to himself, "Wrong tribe." He'd said that somewhere before, but he couldn't remember where, or to whom. The dance was not one he knew, but it was easy to follow and quick to learn. He was buffeted occasionally by the costumes of the others, and he found a pile of masks and shields near the circle laid out by moving feet. There were no clothes, but he took up a painted mask and a small feathered shield, which might at least afford him some protection in the crowd. When he rejoined the circle, part of him wondered why he didn't just walk away, but that voice was drowned out by the chants. *--* "What do you mean he's gone?" Tom looked at Janeway's face on the Logan's comm screen. Her lips were pulled tight. "I went to meet him for breakfast, but he wasn't there. He didn't answer and when I went in, there was nothing in the room but an empty glass and his uniform. Neatly folded," she added. "Medicine bundle?" "Gone. Looks like he pulled a Tom Paris." "That's not like him Kathryn." "I didn't think it was like you, either." He ignored her pointed look. "Have you looked for him?" "He hasn't left the planet by any known transport, and I wouldn't know where to look on Earth." "Where do rubber trees grow?" To her blank expression he said, "His father, his tattoo, are from the Rubber Tree People. South American continent. Or what about the Southwest? I think he was born there on what used to be Reservation land." Desert or jungle seemed like the best options. She considered. "I'll get someone on it." "That tattoo isn't common among North American Indians. He should stand out." Tom was thinking out loud. "He'll probably have trouble blending in in South America, too, but I can't imagine where else he would go, especially if he took his medicine bundle." He shook his head to clear it and said to Janeway, "We're at least eighteen hours away." "We're on it, Tom. At least two separate branches of Starfleet want him back." With those words she reached to cut communications. "Wait, what do you mean?" Janeway stayed her hand. "Tom, did you send Chakotay a bowl?" "What? Yes. I made it on that troop ship and sent it from Station Ten. Did he get it?" "He got a bowl, with surveillance circuitry in it. He was sure you didn't do that." "I didn't." Then suddenly he asked, "Was the paint on it even?" "He mentioned that it was, and that the paint was even was how he knew it wasn't yours." She looked at him for an explanation, but Tom wasn't going to give it. He only confirmed what Chakotay had thought. "Someone made a switch." "I don't know, Tom." "I do. He's currently thought to be in Dominion hands." "Ensign Sehm?" She looked concerned. "Chakotay thought it was him, too. He asked me to see if anyone at the Academy remembered him. I haven't had the chance to look into it yet." "Don't, Kathryn." He hoped his face conveyed enough urgency. He didn't want her to draw that kind of attention to herself. She started to speak, stopped. "All right. See you in eighteen hours. Janeway out." Tom turned to Seven and Ba'ruq. "What do you think?" "They assume he has fled," Seven said from her new bridge station. "He could have been captured." "Section Thirty-one?" "Perhaps." "Then how do you explain the fact that he folded his uniform and took his medicine bundle?" "I do not." "Ba'ruq?" "They're your people, Paris. I do not understand this kind of deceit. It seems that Dahl may have wounded you again by switching your gift? What was that?" Tom gritted his teeth. "While I was in transport, I made a bowl for Chakotay to replace one that I broke, and I sent it to him through Starfleet channels. It seems he got something different." He was angry that they had corrupted what was meant to be a very personal message, and now he was worried that they were going to hurt the message's recipient. "If Section Thirty-one has Chakotay." He glanced to the Borg. "The White Raven is faster than the Logan. Can I take it and go ahead?" "I will accompany you." "Thanks." *--* Seven's modified engines would cut the trip down to three hours. Tom had trouble keeping still for even the first few minutes. At a glance form the Borg, he took the co-pilot's seat and distracted himself by flying the ship. A few minutes later she said, "We have an incoming transmission from Starfleet." "For me?" "No. It is from Administration. For me." She looked mildly surprised. "The message is text only." "What's it say?" "'Seven of Nine, please be advised that you have two outstanding reports from your tenure in Engineering and Ships Design. Please fill out the following forms and return. J. Rand.' There are resource allocation reports appended." "Whoo-hoo!" Tom cried, leaning forward to key in Maquis algorithm two. "'Whoo-hoo'?" "Hah!" he said triumphantly. "Read it now." "'We've found out where they're holding him. Can assist with information. Order specifics with returned forms,'" she read. "The forms are now building schematics with a personnel estimate. There appear to be only six individuals expected, but it looks formidable. I doubt we could break in, and certainly not without notice. The facility is located underground in a city on the continent's eastern coast." "They only took him across the continent?" Tom asked, disbelief and scorn mingled. "Why not off planet?" "I assume that is a rhetorical question. The schematics show a building near the waterfront with subsurface connection to tunnels." "Old subway tunnels maybe. Can we reach it from an adjoining passage?" "No, the plans indicate there are duranium barriers and shields in place." She sounded grim. "We will have to make our way down from the surface." Tom didn't like it. Too much attention would only bring down the local authorities. He looked over Seven's shoulder. "It doesn't say which one of these rooms he's in." "No. We have no way of ascertaining his location. Sensors are blocked." "Let me think." Tom fingered his earring and wondered how they could get in. If the opposition was as well trained in combat as Dahl, he worried about how they would get through. He didn't like the idea of relying on firepower in close quarters, or bombs inside a city. Dahl's image stuck in his mind, and suddenly Tom had an idea. "Seven, how far along were you and Ba'ruq with that mobile holoprojector for the Doctor?" "It does not yet have enough memory to store his entire holomatrix." "How big is it?" "Currently it masses one point oh two kilograms, and the volume is one thousand and sixteen cubic centimeters. It will be worn as a belt." "What if we configured it for a different image and voice. Could we take it with us?" "Yes. What is your plan?" "Take Dahl with us. Let them think we're with him." "They will know it is a hologram." "What if you use it to make yourself look like him, and have it send out false sensor readings. That way there'll be a mass, but you can cover your Borg readings and send out human signals." "I would be in disguise as a male Betazoid? I am not telepathic." "All we need are accurate physical specs and a voice print." Tom said as if it were settled. "We'll improvise the rest." "And you will explain your presence in what way?" "Prisoner?" Tom smiled. "Recruit?" She looked at him for a long moment. "Recruit."