"Commander Chakotay, I have need of you in astrometrics."

Harry Kim, Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres raised their hands almost in unison to stifle uncontrollable laughs that the Borg’s demand of their second-in-command had produced.

Chakotay looked at her, smiling in the manner that was known to charm many a female heart in the galaxy.

"All right, Seven. After I have finished my meal I’ll be with you. Let’s say in ... oh, fifteen minutes?"

Seven straightened her already ramrod posture and took another step towards the first officer, her cheeks becoming flushed as her voice rose in timbre.

"Commander, I need to see you now! It is of vital interest to this ship."

"If it is such urgency, shouldn’t you be speaking to the captain rather than me?" the man stated matter-of-factly.

"I will speak with Captain Janeway after I have verified my hypothesis. But for that, I need you... and I need you now," the tall woman persevered.

Again, the muffled expressions around the table surfaced. They all knew who Chakotay would rather say I need you... and it was not the blonde automaton standing next to their table. Poor Chakotay!

Harry finally decided to make the ultimate sacrifice.

"Seven, Chakotay has just joined us, and only now is starting his dinner. I’ve about completed my meal; how about if I help you?"

"No, only Commander Chakotay can satisfy me," the woman stated solemnly, oblivious to the devastation that her comment quickly brought to Harry’s face.

Chakotay moved his chair back, and reached over to console the younger man.

"That’s all right, Harry; another time maybe. It’s clear when experience is needed over youth; I’d better go," he winked at the other man.

Tom and B’Elanna were now about to explode from the double entendre scene that was taking place in front of them, with Chakotay leading the poor hapless Seven down a well-known path. Harry was squirming in his chair, his emotional response having taken a 180 degree turn. He now was obviously succumbing to the throes of a case of giggles.

"Thank you, Commander," Seven stated solemnly, turning sharply. "Please come with me."

"Of course," Chakotay responded, quickly catching up with her long strides. The pair quickly disappeared behind the fast-closing doors of the mess hall.

"Now what do you think that was all about?" asked Harry.

"Well, for your sake, my friend, let’s hope it isn’t what you’re thinking it is," responded Tom, slapping the younger man’s back.

Harry roughly pushed Tom’s hand away.

"And just what is that supposed to mean? I’m over all of that... infatuation."

B’Elanna now chimed in.

"Oh, come on, Harry. We know what you really want... down deep, in that wounded heart of yours. And, you know," she said, looking over at Tom, her eyes inviting his agreement, "I just think she might like you, too!"

Harry shook his head, thinking of the abuse that he had been through thanks to their newest crew member.

"Yeah... she’d like to kill me," he mumbled.

"Harry, Harry... she’s just a kid. And don’t you remember how boys and girls really beat up on the ones they truly like? No... I don’t think you have a thing to worry about. Now, Chakotay just might; I think she was serious about needing him for something." He suddenly looked around at the other crew members present in the mess hall. "I just hope that none of this gets misconstrued or taken out of context if the Captain does hear about this little escapade."

"Well, it won’t be from me," said Harry.

"Or me," smirked B’Elanna. "I don’t want you to get into any more trouble than you usually do," she stated through a smile as she good-naturedly jabbed her handsome blond helmsman in his perpetually bruised, Klingon-ravaged ribs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The doors to the astrometrics lab opened, revealing the many screens with their images of Delta Quadrant foci.

"This way, Commander," Seven of Nine continued brusquely, signaling the man to the video station where she finally stopped. "I have come across a very interesting signal that I would like for you to see."

Seven’s high-heeled boots placed her at about the same height as the man approaching her. He positioned himself at her side, rather than trying to grasp the information by looking over her shoulder. She touched several of the keys on the keypadd on the monitor. At first, all that appeared were irregular lines indicating static in a radiowave message. Quickly the lines began to coalesce against the green background, and a definite image appeared in front of him.

He stared at it for a few seconds before recognition registered in his mind. A slight gasp escaped from his lips, and he physically fell back a few millimeters, for, on the screen before him was a design a portion of which the larger portion he was well familiar... it was the identical image of wings and lines that decorated the left side of his forehead!

"Seven... this looks like..."

"The tattoo that you have had since your youth. Yes, Commander, that’s exactly what I thought and why I felt the necessity to bring you here to see for yourself," Seven said with droll self-satisfaction.

Chakotay was tracing the outline of the pattern that came out of his distant familial heritage.

"Where did this come from?" he asked, dumbfounded.

Seven was now also following the angles of the design with her finger.

"I was working some more on signals that we were receiving from the message arrays several months ago... along with the messages from Starfleet. I have been attempting to decode additional messages for Voyager," she stated quietly, not wishing for the first officer to notice a softer side that was being revealed.

She cleared her throat, and spoke more firmly.

"There seemed to be some subspace static among the communication waves, so I amplified them to see if they, too, were part of the damaged messages that people were expecting. I was rather confused at first, for I could not identify pattern. When I began to look at it a section at a time, I realized that this part (she pointed to the left half of the pattern) was your personal mark."

Chakotay was still staring at the screen in disbelief.

"Surely this is just a coincidence. After all, the pattern is drawn from known designs with aboriginal meaning, and..." He cut his words short, as memories of an earlier Delta Quadrant experience with his "sign" flooded his conscious.

"What is it, Commander?" the tall Borg woman asked, sensing his thinking processes.

He looked at her, yet looked straight through her as, he spoke.

"Seven, almost three years ago, we came upon a planet where a native population lived that I believe may have been my ancestors on Earth. You see, they had the technologies thousands of years ago to travel across space, and they chose the ancient ancestors of my people with whom to make contact. They used this design in their early communications with us."

Seven looked at him incredulously. "If they traveled that great a distance so long ago, why did they not share their knowledge with you?"

"That is one of the great mysteries. They seem to have lost the capability of space travel, although they can -- and do -- protect their planet and civilization by controlling the weather."

"And you say that you recognized them by this sign?" she questioned.

"Yes. They had the same tattoo markings, and they shared other symbols with which I am familiar from my family’s culture. Yet... they said nothing about knowing a way to travel Earth... or for that matter, the Alpha Quadrant."

"I have not detected any identifying plasma pattern with this signal to connect it with a population so far away in the Delta Quadrant. And I have no Borg recollection of such a people," Seven stated.

Like a silent siren, the image on the screen seemed to call to the two people. Seven’s attention was quickly drawn back to it.

"This... coincidence... of the design is most perplexing. Let me amplify it further."

The woman again gave instructions to the monitor, and the image became magnified by a factor of ten. He saw that the enlarged lines were composed of many dots, similar to pixels in computer graphics.

"Do you think that this is a graphic design?" he asked, looking the screen in front of them.

"No, Commander. These are images from space. What I think we are seeing is a pattern of stars and solar systems." She quickly superimposed another image on top of the design. "Let me try this. Yes... just what I surmised. What we now see..."

"...is a map of the Delta Quadrant," Chakotay finished, his eyes grown large with astonishment and his mouth slowly mouthing the surprised words. "The pattern encompasses our journey so far in the Delta Quadrant. But what is the rest of the design? Where is it going? Will it give us further information into our travels? And why this design....what is the rest of it?"

Seven looked at him with confident eyes.

"Commander, I believe this to be a map of the Delta Quadrant, leading back to the Alpha Quadrant. However, you will see here," she stated as she followed the pixeled patterns, "it seems to be incomplete. You see how the straight lines in your tattoo weave into the new part on the right... another coiled pattern. And yet, the coil does not appear to be complete."

"Have you found any more of the images which might be part of the puzzle pieces?" Chakotay asked.

"I have not," she answered. "I have spent several hours searching for just those designs; but nothing has matched."

Chakotay’s shoulders slumped a few degrees, as he stated flatly, "In other words, we have an incomplete map."

"Not necessarily," Seven continued. "I believe that we will find them."

She turned, and looked at his tattoo studiously.

"Commander, is there anyone else on Voyager who has markings like yours?"

"Do you mean a tattoo? No, I don’t think so. At least, not any that are visible." His eyes started gleaming, as a soft laugh came from his throat.

"Do you find this question amusing?" Seven asked, somewhat rebuffed.

Chakotay stifled the humorous thoughts. "No, not at all. It just reminds me of times in Earth’s history when people used tattoos, not as a badge of honor such as mine, but as body decorations. The designs were sometimes placed in rather... um... private areas."

Seven’s eyebrow rose, as she inquired, "Oh? Where were they found?"

Chakotay continued. "Well, most of the visible ones were on the arms or hands or shoulders. Men frequently had them on their torsos. But, sometimes..." the face of the dark man became quite infused with a deep blush,"... sometimes they would have the designs placed on their buttocks or thighs; and, in the case of women, their breasts or..."

Seven’s head jerked with instinctive sublimated pain when he mentioned the last anatomical area.

"Why would they do such things?" she asked.

He swallowed, and continued. "Sometimes just to know that they bore a mark in a hidden area... sometimes to surprise... um... intimate acquaintances..."

"You mean, like their lovers?" she interjected.

"Yes, something like that," he continued, wishing to change the subject. "However, the practice disappeared around the middle of the twenty-first century, and now is seen only in cultures such as mine in which they are used ritualistically."

Seven was obviously in thought again.

"Commander, would there be anyone aboard Voyager who might know of any markings such as these on any other crew members?"

The first officer shook his head, thinking about such invasions of privacy, but suddenly brightened.

"Medical records!" he suddenly said. "The Doctor should have such items noted in crewmembers’ medical histories!"

"Then I would suggest we start there," Seven stated firmly. "I shall proceed there immediately; the doctor and I work well together."

Chakotay grabbed her arm, as she turned quickly to make the trip to sickbay.

"Seven, I believe that I should investigate this. It is my responsibility as first officer to retrieve such privileged information on a need-to-know basis. You remain here, to monitor for more information from other possible signals. Oh.. and Seven, please keep this information to yourself, until I have talked with Captain Janeway about how we should proceed."

The Borg human was taken back a little, but responded with a knowledgeable nod to the senior officer.

"As you wish, Commander," she answered, the barest hint of a small pout on her face.

As he hurriedly left the lab area, he turned, and seeing the rather disappointed appearance on Seven’s face, he commented, "Oh... and great job, Seven. This is the best news we’ve had in a long time."

With Borg control, she conquered the displeasure and turned back to her monitors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chakotay hit his commbadge the minute he got on the turbolift.

"Chakotay to Captain Janeway," he stated.

"Janeway here. What is it, Commander?"

"Captain, Seven has shown me some very interesting information in astrometrics that I would like to discuss with you."

"All right," she responded. "I’m in my quarters right now. Shall we meet in my ready room?"

"I’m currently on the turbolift, Captain. Your quarters are closer for both of us than the bridge... if you think that is appropriate," he added, as a second thought.

The captain’s husky laugh came across the communicator. "With a comment like that, Commander, what do you have in mind?"

Now it was his turn to chuckle. "Well, I was just thinking that if you are uncomfortable with my..."

"Nonsense! I’ll see you in a few minutes," Janeway said, signaling the end of the communiqué.

Chakotay amended his destination and the lift came to an abrupt halt at the deck level for her quarters. He exited in broad steps, wondering what she would say to learn that part of the map for their homeward journey had been as plain as... well, as plain as the tattoo on his face. His dimples widened again as he shook his head.

The jaunt to the captain’s quarters was a quick one. He buzzed her with his arrival, and her doors whooshed open. She stood there in front of him, relaxed in off-duty garb of a gray jumper over a darker gray body stocking. The light behind her was low, except in a corner location where a reading chair obviously had been in use. He glanced at her hands, and saw a novelpadd clasped by the fingers of her right hand.

"Captain, I apologize for disturbing you in your off-time..."

She shook her head as once again a closed laugh came from her throat.

"Chakotay, when do I... or you, for that matter... ever really have *off-time*? Please... please, come in," she said, waving him inside and away from the doors. A quick cool breeze behind him signaled their closing.

"Now... what is this discovery that you and Seven have found?" she asked, ushering him to the sofa underneath her wide spaceportal window. Once he was seated, she placed her book on the low table in front of the sofa, and sat at the end opposite him. She pulled her legs up underneath her body, and seemed to be settling down for a long story from her favorite storyteller.

The first officer took a deep breath. He hoped that she would not think of this as just another one of his "fables", but take it seriously. Maybe I should have had her meet me in astrometrics, he thought.

"Kathryn, it seems that Seven has decoded some subspace signals, that, when amplified and combined with a map of the area in the Delta Quadrant which we have traveled, appears to almost complete a map..." he paused, hoping for her acceptance of the theory, or least a positive response to continue their quest. "...a map that would get us back to the Alpha Quadrant."

"What?" Janeway asked, her voice and body jolting with shock at the suggested theory. "Are you saying that she thinks that she can create a map for us with these signals?" She jumped up from her seated position, and half danced two steps towards him, before seating herself again. "Did you see the map? Is it real? What do you think?"

Chakotay began laughing, and he instinctively reached over to Janeway’s animated hands, urging them into a calmer pose.

"Oh, it’s real, all right. You don’t know how real!" he continued. He recounted the story of the time earlier in their odyssey when they had come across the Sky Spirit people, and how he had found his markings among their sacred rituals... of their stories of their people having traveled great distances to another world, and leaving descendants... and traditions there.

"This map... this pattern... Kathryn, what we have so far, is this," he said quietly, taking her right hand in his left, and lifting her fingers to rest upon his dark blue markings, tracing them along the pattern. He continued speaking softly, as her fingers continued tracing.

"This design... this pattern... seems to be their map to travel from the Delta Quadrant to Earth, in the Alpha Quadrant."

She withdrew her fingers, her eyes asking more questions than her voice could speak.

"Your tattoo? Are you certain? How do we interpret it? What else have you and Seven discovered? How long?...."

"Please... one question at a time, Kathryn," he laughed, placing two fingers over her lips to silence the flow of her inquisitiveness.

Her reactions told him that she did not disbelieve, but that she required much more information before she would be convinced completely.

"Unfortunately, what we have is an unsolved... or at least, incomplete... mystery," he continued, now enclosing her fingers and her hand between his two larger ones. "It seems that the signal indicates that the horizontal lines of my tattoo are joined with yet more of the design... there is evidence that the lines connect with a spiral or coiled section; it is incomplete. And before you ask, Seven has been searching for more signals to decode into the pattern."

Janeway thought for a moment, and then asked, "What about the garbled messages from Starfleet that we received? Has she investigated this possibility?"

"One of the first things she did," Chakotay answered, shaking his head. Nothing."

He released Janeway’s hands as he led into his next suggestion. He subconsciously was drawing his design with his right index finger in the table in front of him, his eyes focusing on the unknown of another dimension.

"We have wondered if there might be someone else aboard Voyager who might also have a ritualistic design or tattoo similar to mine... something that might provide us with our missing pattern piece." He was shaking his head, realizing the improbability of such a statement. "Although why... or how... such a design could be here... at this time... Anyway," he looked up at her and his eyes as much as his voice queried, "I was wondering if I could have your permission to ask the doctor about any indication in the crew’s medical records, or if he himself had noticed anything that would fall into that category."

Janeway got up, and slowly walked around the other end of the sofa, gazing out into the dark void of space, with the stars providing pinhole openings to the other side of the universe.

"Chakotay, you might not have to go that far," she answered softly with a slight sigh, turning to him with a firm knowing expression on her face.

It was now his turn to look surprised, with the questions tumbling from his mouth. He rose, his brow furrowing as he approached her.

"Do you know of such a person?" he asked.

"Indeed I do," she answered, her eyes now grasping his. "Me."

"You?" he responded incredulously. "You have a tattoo? Where... when?"

Her laugh quieted his inquires. She walked toward her desk, her hands idly playing with the piece of carved obsidian that served as a paperweight.

"Well, I think they may qualify... " she started, looking across the room to him. "I have some peculiar markings that have appeared over the last two or three years. The doctor noticed them before I did, and we both presumed at first that they were broken blood vessels or latent birthmarks. However, over the past few months... and I thought it was my imagination playing games... they seemed to have developed into a definite pattern."

"You?" he stammered. "When did you first notice them? Do you have any idea what they are, or what caused them?" he asked fervently.

She was now delighted with his curious response, as enthusiastic as hers was moments earlier.

"It was a little over two years ago when I first noted the discoloration. I was dressing, following a shower, and thought that I had bumped into a sharp edge which had left a bruised area. But it did not hurt. I forgot about it until a couple of weeks later, when the affected area seemed to get bigger. So I went to sickbay. The doctor examined the marking, but could not detect any tissue damage, or signs of infection or allergy. There did not seem to be any vascular or nerve involvement, either. All there appeared to be was an accumulation of an aniline-like bluish pigment. We were both mystified. However, my overall health was excellent; there were no adverse effects, so we decided to monitor the situation."

Chakotay’s unconscious staccato nods seemed to punctuate her story.

She continued. "I hypothesized that perhaps one of my visits to a planet had exposed me to some sort of a dye, which was indelible on my skin. Or something that I ate, that seemed to have produced an adverse reaction with isolated cells. We mentioned the peculiarity to Kes before she left us, and even she could not suggest anything concrete. She did examine it once, and stated that it looked like... almost if... someone were writing a message."

"And?" Chakotay urged her on.

"And... the lines grew a little more, from a series of several unequal parallel lines, to a rather ornate spiraled shell-like pattern, which then continued in a narrow horn-like design."

She stopped, and a slight titter came from behind her closed lips, as her cheeks suddenly flushed. "Actually, I have not seen the last bit of the pattern, as it is in...um... a location that I cannot see."

"Can any of us... by that I mean, the crew... see them?" he asked.

She laughed nervously, "Well, not exactly. They are covered by my clothes."

A gleam came into his eyes, as he sensed her rising discomfort with discussing its hidden location. He pushed on, gently. "Oh, I see. Are they on your back? Your shoulders? Your..."

She spun on him, her face becoming increasingly flushed. "Let’s just say, they are in an inaccessible area, and leave it at that."

Now it was his turn to blush. "I’m sorry... I really didn’t mean to pry. But... we really need you to obtain a copy of the exact pattern, in order for us to integrate it with what we already have."

"Mmmmm," she said thoughtfully. "That might be a little difficult for me to do by myself. Perhaps I should ask the doctor for his professional objectivity in drawing it for you."

Chakotay did not want to embarrass Janeway any more, but he knew that he and Seven would need more than a drawing.

"Kathryn, we really need an exact replica of the design. A holograph, or a visual scan of the area to astrometrics..."

"Yes; yes; I understand," she stated uncomfortably. "And I realize that the sooner you get it, the faster we can get our answers." She sighed. "All right; I will contact sickbay, and we can both talk to the doctor to see if he can make the necessary scans for you."

"That would be greatly appreciated," Chakotay said, trying to remain calm in light of the fact that she might share with him the very plans necessary for them to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. But... where had her markings come from? Why was she selected? He thought back to the time when they were in contact with the Sky Spirit people... how he was caught on the planet with them, and she had attempted to get Voyager through the planet’s massive storms... all of that energy that was being transmitted through the heavy atmosphere. Could it be? Was that when it had all begun? Had they selected her, after their pleas for help to return?

He started to speak, when she cut him short with a response to her hail to sickbay.

"Doctor, this is Captain Janeway..."

"Captain!" B’Elanna Torres answered. "I was just going to contact you. It seems that the doctor, in developing another one of his life improvement programs, has managed to lock himself into a data file with an encryption none of us can understand right now."

"We’ve lost the doctor?" Janeway responded, in a mildly panicked voice.

B’Elanna answered with a nervous laugh. "No, not really. Just for a couple of hours. We’ll have him back soon. And, Captain... please talk with him again about doing things like this! The time might come when we can’t decode him..."

"Yes, of course. All right; thank you, B’Elanna. Let me know when we have him back on line. Carry on."

"Yes, Captain," the chief engineer answered obviously anxious to get back to her most recent problem.

Kathryn took in a deep breath. "Well, I guess we wait."

Chakotay thought for a second and then said, "I could ask Seven if she would do the honors..."

CLICK HERE TO GO TO PART 2 AT WARP SPEED!