Cold Fire
StarDate: 49164.8
Original Airdate: November 13, 1995
By Christina Luckings
The Story
In a darkened room, lit by a couple of candles and the passing
stars, and scented by an incense burner, Tuvok has his hands
on Kes. His finger tips are touching her face, joining their
minds, as he gives her a daily tutorial in controlling her mental
abilities. Today’s lesson is how to focus on just one mind
out of the entire crew. She finds Neelix, who is having his hair
cut, and giggles when he complains about the anonymous barber
trimming his ear hairs. Tuvok ends the lesson there with a promise
to teach her how to control her emotional outbursts, which she
doesn’t look too pleased about. When she arrives in sickbay,
the EMH points out that these lessons are regularly making her
late for her medical duties. Kes assures him that she will try
to keep a closer eye on the time in future. Their chat is interrupted
by a rattling sound which they track down to a dry lump of matter
in a container in a cupboard. The Caretaker’s remains are
vibrating.
Captain Janeway, Torres and Tuvok come to examine the lump and
work out what happened. The EMH tells them that he originally
detected life signs but Torres pronounces it dead while Tuvok
wants to put it in a containment field as a precautionary measure
anyway. Then the remains begin to rattle again, giving Torres
the opportunity to discover that the life signs are external
and sporocystian. The Caretaker was a sporocystian, recalls Janeway,
and she contacts the bridge to tell Ensign Kim to scan for such
a life form nearby. He finds it about ten light years away but
he can’t locate it exactly, and then it disappears.
Torres takes the lump to engineering where she and Kim put it
in a cylinder to use it as a compass the next time what Janeway
assumes could be the Caretaker’s missing mate reappears.
On the bridge, Tuvok tells the Captain that he thinks he can
create a toxin to slow down the alien. She lets him proceed while
the life signs show up again. With a little fine tuning to the
compass they get a fix and Voyager sets off for the source of
the signal at maximum warp.
They arrive at a one-tenth size replica of the Caretaker’s
array, but instead of sporocystian life forms on board the sensors
detect over two thousand Ocampa living there. Tuvok’s hailing
signal gets a response of weapons fire before a male appears
to tell them that they are not wanted there. Kes is summoned
to the bridge to be told that she is not the only Ocampa to have
left the homeworld as she has always thought. She readily agrees
to act as intermediary and the array is hailed so that she can
try to arrange a meeting. The belligerent male is back on the
viewscreen calling the sight of Kes a trick, and wanting to know
an Ocampa is doing on an alien starship. She says that it is
a long story and asks what he is doing on an alien space station.
They agree to tell each other their stories on board Voyager.
In the briefing room, Tanis tells the senior staff exactly how
Voyager is regarded in this area of space. It is a ship of death.
They killed the Caretaker, declared war on the Kazon, raided
planets for their resources, or so people are told. These accusations
are strongly denied, and the Captain assures him that they only
want to find the female Caretaker. Responding to a telepathic
message from Tanis, Kes asks Janeway if she can talk to him alone.
The officers leave them alone, and Kes tells him that these are
kind people. Tanis expresses a wish to see a place that is special
to her, so she takes him to the airponics bay. He is impressed
with the flowers and vegetables growing in their tiered units.
To him, life on a space ship is cold, barren and isolating. Kes
does not agree, and fails to see the difference between it and
life on a space station. Then Tanis casually tells her that he
is fourteen years old, when as far as Kes knew, Ocampa never
live beyond nine years. Living on Voyager is holding her back,
he claims, just like on the homeworld where the Caretaker was
only interested in maintaining the status quo. Suspiria, the
Caretaker’s mate and whose race are called the Nacene,
brought a group here three hundred years ago and taught them
how to develop their psycho-kinetic skills. Now they have the
ability to enhance life, and much more besides.
Tanis returns to the array, and Kes reports to Janeway and Tuvok
in the Captain’s Ready Room. Meeting him has confirmed
her belief in her people’s potential, and she doesn’t
know whether to be excited or frightened. Tuvok suggests that
not being emotional about it might be better, but Janeway feels
a mix of the two is right. However, she urges caution, despite
Kes’ good feeling about the situation.
Tanis joins the senior staff for a meal, and brings some of
his own cuisine which Neelix pronounces delicious. Kes has told
her boyfriend about the longer lifespan of the Ocampa on the
array and he is very interested in how they have done it. It
turns out to be a technological development which Suspiria helped
them with. Tanis’s father lived for twenty years. Neelix
wants to know if they could extend Kes’s lifespan with
it too. Captain Janeway is more interested in locating Suspiria,
however, and Tanis is quite coy about her. He offers to take
them to the meeting place then turns his attention to Kes. He
invites her to move to the array, to live with the Ocampa. Kes
is flattered by his attention but reluctant to give an answer,
while Neelix is very unhappy at the thought of loosing his beloved.
Tanis backs off slightly and offers to help Kes with her mental
abilities instead, implying that Tuvok is not a suitable teacher.
He makes an appointment with her for later on.
In Engineering, Tuvok shows the Captain his anti-sporocystian
gun, while the EMH is on the monitor explaining the theory behind
it. Apparently there is an enzyme in the life form which can
be temporarily affected by the energy in the weapon, paralysing
it. Janeway gives the weapon her blessing.
In the mess hall Tanis is showing Kes how to move objects with
her mind, by focusing on the goal and not the task. By thinking
about taking a drink from a cup, it moves across the table to
her hand. Then he shows her how to heat the drink up, by viewing
the molecules of the liquid with her mind and then using the
fire of her mind to make them active. The tea bubbles impressively
and she pronounces the technique simple. Tanis promises to take
her further tomorrow and leaves. Neelix dashes over to hug her
and tell her how proud he is of her. She answers the question
that has been on his mind since the meal earlier, by asking him
if he would go with her if she decided to live on the array.
The besotted, possessive Talaxian assures Kes that he would go
anywhere with her.
"Captain's log, supplemental. We've arrived at what Tanis
calls the meeting place, the region of space where Suspiria exists."
On the bridge, Tanis uses Tuvok’s station to send out
a sub-space carrier wave, then tells the Captain that Suspiria
should be there within forty seven hours. There is no need to
let him know when she does turn up because he will be aware of
it. While they are waiting, Kes gives Tuvok a demonstration of
her tea-heating power, but finds that once she has started it
she cannot get it to stop. The cup breaks, she begins to panic
and turns her attention to Tuvok, who in turn gets the benefit
of the heat her mind is generating, collapsing in agony.
In sickbay, the EMH cheerfully explains how Tuvok’s blood
temperature rose thirty seven degrees and he went into shock
but that he was able to heal and revive him. He prescribes three
days light duty but the local representative of the ‘worst
patients’ species pronounces that unnecessary. Kes is wracked
with guilt over what she inadvertently did to him, but Tuvok
reassures her that as she did not kill him, she should regard
this as a learning experience. He sites it as proof that she
needs further instruction, and comments that he would regret
not being her instructor. Kes gratefully accepts his forgiveness.
Tanis is waiting for her in the airponics bay. He was aware
of the incident somehow, and tells her that things are going
to get harder for her now. Soon she will be well beyond the people
on Voyager, so far beyond them that they will seem like mere
pets to her. He demonstrates by telling her to touch one of the
flowers. The rest of the crew only experience things via their
senses of touch and sight, but as an Ocampa she can sense the
life with her mind. Following his instructions she perceives
the plants in a much more heightened way. The colours are far
more vivid than before. She becomes connected to every one of
them, then he tells her that they can be even more beautiful
if she brings the fire. Swept along in the euphoria of what she
is feeling, she does so, and absorbs the life from all the plants
in the bay before collapsing on the floor. Although she is dismayed
at the devastation she has caused, Tanis is not. As far as he
is concerned, helping or hurting, giving life or killing is all
the same once you have seen beyond the physical world as they
can. It is also another reason why she has to go and live with
the rest of the Ocampa on the array. He is sure that once she
has met Suspiria she will decide to join them, and if she develops
far enough, the Nacene will invite her to join her in Exocia,
the sub-space layer where she lives as pure thought. He makes
it sound like going to heaven.
In engineering, the Caretaker’s remains begin to rattle
again, and Torres calls the bridge to tell them that there is
a sporocystian life form very close by. Kim’s instruments
are showing a sub-space rupture opening and Tanis is aware of
Suspiria’s presence before Janeway calls him to the bridge.
Torres doesn’t like the look of the readings she is getting
and decides to investigate the rupture further but she doesn’t
get the chance. Kim tells the Captain of plasmatic energy readings
in Engineering, and no one answers her hails. She sends Tuvok
to investigate and once he arrives with his team he announces
that the female Caretaker is present. Janeway hands the bridge
over to Chakotay and heads down there herself.
Meanwhile in the mess hall, Tanis is trying to get Kes to commit
herself to moving to the array. He gets her to open her mind
to Suspiria, and the young woman is horrified to feel her anger
towards the Voyager crew. The Nacene wants to destroy the ship!
Kes struggles in Tanis’ arms. All she wants to do is help
her friends somehow but he is determined to restrain her.
Janeway walks into a silent, apparently empty engineering and
sees a little girl sitting cradling the Caretakers remains. She
tries talking to her, to persuade her that they did not kill
her mate, that they are explorers just as she is, but Suspiria
will not be convinced. Her voice changes from a little girl’s
to that of a mature woman and she levitates Janeway up to where
the rest of the crew are hanging in midair, in pain and dripping
blood. On the bridge, Paris announces that Voyager is coming
apart molecule by molecule. In the mess hall, Neelix tries to
intervene between Tanis and Kes, and is thrown across the room
by an angry glare. This attack on her boyfriend infuriates Kes,
and she turns her rage on Tanis. He drops to the floor, clutching
his head. Suspiria is distracted and the crew drop to the floor.
Janeway grabs the toxin gun and fires it at the Nacene, briefly
knocking her out while Tuvok puts a forcefield around her. The
alien concludes that Janeway is about to kill her as she did
her mate, so to prove her wrong, the Captain order the forcefield
to be lowered. This act of mercy bemuses the Nacene, and she
reverts to an energy state and leaves Voyager. Tanis senses her
departure and calls out for her to take him with her. He disappears
as Kes cradles the stunned Neelix in her arms. Tuvok tries to
track Suspiria but the sup-space rupture seals, cutting her off
from their sensors.
"Captain's log, supplemental. We've resumed our course
back to the alpha quadrant but the female Caretaker is still
out there with the power to send us home, and I will use all
my power to find her and convince her to do just that."
It is 1500 hours and Kes is with Tuvok for another of her daily
lessons in mental discipline. She is no longer able to bring
the fire and make the tea heat up, and assumes that Tanis must
have been doing it for her. The experience has left her never
wanting to see her dark side again, the part of her that took
pleasure from killing the plants. Tuvok tells her that it is
the darkness that shows us the light. Negative thoughts are a
part of everyone, even Vulcans. This revelation surprises Kes,
and he explains that although his race have learnt to control
their violent impulses, they cannot deny that they exist. He
reaches across the table to her and, placing his fingers on her
face, they begin that day’s lesson.
Review:
The opening narration sets this episode 10 months into Voyager’s
journey home and follows on from lines in Caretaker abort a curious
and adventurous mate who had left sometime previously. I do so
like sequels, and I am also pleased to see more of Kes onscreen,
giving us a glimpse into her role on the ship. In particular
her pupil/teacher relationship with Tuvok. R should that be father/daughter?
He certainly seems to have a paternal attitude towards her, while
she slightly resents his attempts to get her to give up fun for
logic. At other times in this story, Tuvok behaves like a paranoid
Vulcan, deeply mistrustful of anything strange and always ready
to destroy the different. This is a far cry from the tolerant
attitude of IDIC that we were introduced to in the original Star
Trek, but it is probably normal behaviour for a Security Chief.
The Ocampa on Suspiria’s array are a very different lot
from sweet, caring Kes. Tanis comes over as selfish and hedonistic.
His attitude of superiority and disdain for ‘lower’ life
forms may be a result of some kind of link that he seems to have
with Suspiria, but certainly he is not a nice person. It is to
Kes’s credit that she does not like this attitude either
after experiencing extreme pleasure at the cost of the contents
of the airponics bay. It is also with great relief that we discover
that these extraordinary mental powers vanish with Tanis at the
end of the episode. Having a character with the ability to affect
matter at the molecular level just by thinking about it would
greatly unbalance the show, and leave the writers with very little
scope for future jeopardy stories. As it is, this is the second
time in three shows that Kes has saved the ship with her mind
(Persistence of Vision, when the feisty little thing revealed
the Botha that was putting the crew into hallucinations).
In all, it’s a fair episode for the ship, and a good one
for Tuvok and Kes. It links back to the start of the show and
looks forward to possible future story lines as Janeway continues
to try and find the Nacene and persuade her to send them home.
Just a thought for the season seven finale?
Grade: 7/10
Cast:
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran as Chakotay
Roxanne Biggs-Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Harry Kim
Guest Cast:
Gary Graham as Tanis
Lindsay Ridgeway as Girl
Norman Large as Ocampa Man
Creative Staff:
Director: Cliff Bole
Teleplay By: Brannon Braga
Story By: Anthony Williams
