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While exploring an uncharted asteroid, Chakotay, Kim and B'Elanna stumble upon the burial ground of the alien race Vhnori. After the Vhnori die, their bodies are deposited on the asteroid by subspace vacuoles. During the investigation, Kim is caught up in a vacuole and deposited on the Vhnori's homeworld, while the alien woman, Ptera, who was to be transported to the asteroid, is beamed aboard Voyager with Chakotay and B'Elanna Thanks to modern medicine she is cured of her brain tumor, but is shocked to see herself among strangers, her beliefs seemingly proven wrong. Her burden is finally eased when she takes a chance and experiments with the transporter -- she rematerializes on the platform dead.

Meanwhile, Kim's presence among the Vhnori causes many to doubt their traditional beliefs. The experts on the planet decide to keep him for examination since he's the only person to ever return from the "afterlife." Kim soon realizes that the only way he can return home is the same way he came: through the Vhnori's death stations.

When Voyager moves in closer searching for Kim, vacuoles begin depositing corpses directly on the ship.After they can find no trace of him, they decide they have to leave to protect the warp core that's being affected by the vacuoles. At that moment, they discover a vacuole deposited a human on the asteroid: it's Kim. They quickly beam him aboardand revive him.

Captain Janeway offers the shaken Ensign a couple of days off to contemplate the experience he just had. The contrast between the Vhnori's devout beliefs and the witnessed reality bothers him, but Janeway notes that at death Ptera's body released a neural energy that became part of the ambient electromagnetic field surrounding the planet. Perhaps that, she adds, is what the Vhnori afterlife is all about.