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Neelix looked crushed. "Oh," was all he said in a small, soft voice.

"I really believe they'll be all right" she said, echoing the words she'd said to Torres. "Now. How are you doing?"

"I'm feeling fine, Captain," Neelix assured her, still clasping her hands as he sat on the bed. "But I'm all for following the Doctor's orders." His face fell. "They tell me that I attacked Dr. R'Mor. I have no memory of such a dreadful thing. I can't believe it."

"We couldn't either," his captain assured him. "That's the first clue we had that there was something very wrong. No one blames you, Neelix. You were infected with the dark matter."

His whiskers drooped. "Still, I feel just terrible about it. I'll work extra shifts, I'll donate my replicator rations, anything to make it up to that poor man."

Janeway squeezed Neelix's hands, then let them go. "I'm sure that of all of us, Dr. R'Mor best appreciates how dark matter affects people. There's no grudge, Neelix. Though," she added, "if you want to

brew up a pot of that new coffee substitute you've been working on, I think we could all use some."

"Coming right up!" The Talaxian started to slip off the bed. The Doctor cleared his throat. Neelix, chastened, climbed back up. "Once the Doctor has released me, of course." Sighing, he lay back down on the bed, twiddling his thumbs impatiently.

Janeway looked around, the smile on her lips fading. Carefully surrounded by stasis fields were the bodies of the two Romulan centurions and that of Ensign 'Kirby. Johnson had apparently made it, but the bombardment of dark matter had been too much for Kirby. Once there was a moment to slow down, to think, to breathe again, the three would be placed into the smooth, round-edged Starfleet coffins and sent off into space with all honors, the Romulan soldiers as well as her own loyal crewman.

She hated this. Hated loss of life. Gamely, Janeway squared her shoulders, grateful that the next leg of the journey provided opportunities to save lives, not take them. She turned to the visitor aboard her ship.

"How are you feeling, Khala?" she asked.

"Fine, thank you, Captain," the woman replied. "Although, according to your Doctor, I shouldn't be."

The Doctor was fairly quivering with information he wished to deliver. Janeway turned to him. "Out with it, Doctor. What's going on?"

"I truly wish I knew," he replied, startling her. "Come here and let me show you something." She followed him to his office, where he impatiently punched up some schematics.

"You will recall my exasperation with the tricorder when we first attempted to scan Khala," said the Doctor. "I had thought that the dark matter was distorting my readings, bat apparently, they were accurate."

The information the Doctor showed her was no different from the confused jumble he'd had her look at earlier. The scientist in her was excited by the bizarre readings, but in her position as captain, she knew they represented yet another puzzle they'd have to unravel.

The DNA sequence was indeed backward. The whole thing looked like some young Academy student's idea of a joke. According to the laws of science and physics as she understood them, Khala ought not to exist.

Yet there she was, a beautiful young woman painted in shades of blue, looking around curiously at their sickbay. Janeway regarded her for a moment: a lost, frightened soul, no doubt as confused as they as to why she was here.

The door hissed open and Ensign Kim entered. "Good," said the Doctor. "You can help me run another series of tests on Khala."

Kim did a double take at the attractive alien female in sickbay. "Hello," he said, a little shyly. She smiled at him in return. Kim turned to Janeway. Privately, he said, "Captain, what's going on? Where are Tom and Chakotay? And who is-"

"I'm going to make a shipwide announcement shortly, Harry." She squeezed his shoulder. "But I think everything's going to be all right." Quickly

Janeway downloaded the information to a