The natives employ a cloaking device to disable Voyager and the endangered Away Team must transport out, leaving Chakotay alone on the planet. When he's confronted by the aliens, they respond to his familiar tattoo marking. Chakotay recognizes the tones of their language as those of his own people and applies what he recalls from his father's teachings on their heritage to assure the natives of Starfleet's peaceful intentions and his sympathetic perspective. Along the way, he reconciles the conflicts he had had with his dead father.

Meanwhile, while tending to the pregnant Ensign Wildman, The Doctor is challenged by Kes to show more compassion for his patients. So, he programs himself with a simulated flu virus to experience the discomforts living beings can feel.