Voyager detects a distress call from a weakened lifeform aboard a small spacecraft and quickly beams a deathly ill Vidiian female to Sickbay. The Doctor starts treating her for advanced stages of the Phage by transferring her decaying body into stasis and creating a temporary, healthy holographic program of her being. As he becomes acquanted with the alien, a hematologist named Dr. Danara Pel, something momentous occurs — his adaptive program allows him to experience love and romance. Lieutenant Paris continues to be insubordinate and espionage is more complicated than Jonas thought when Seska instructs him to plan an accident which will damage Voyager's warp coils.

Susan Diol (Dr. Danara Pel)
Raphael Sbarge (Crewman Michael Jonas)
Martha Hackett (Seska)
Michael Spound (Lorum)
Rick Gianasi (the Gigolo)

• Danara calls The Doctor "Shmullus" — after her favorite uncle.
  
• Danara will appear later this season in "Resolutions".