“Lineage” is episode twelve of season seven of Star Trek: Voyager.
B’Elanna arrives in engineering and finds Icheb working. She doesn’t remember giving him permission to be there. Seven explains that she’s teaching Icheb and B’Elanna starts saying she should have been notified when she collapses. Icheb scans her and says he’s detecting another lifesign. Seven looks around, asking where. Inside Lt. Torres. It could be a parasite. Seven scans B’Elanna herself, then contacts the Doctor. She’s bringing B’Elanna there. Seven believes she’s pregnant.
The Doctor tells B’Elanna and Tom that the foetus is seven weeks old. He says she fainted because Klingon and human metabolisms sometimes clash. As she’s pregnant, she can expect behavioural volatility and increased nutritional needs. As to whether they were trying to get pregnant, they wanted a family but the odds against Klingon-human conception are high. The baby is due in 36 weeks, though it might be sooner. B’Elanna wants to be surprised by the sex.
Outside sickbay, Tom and B’Elanna are fretting about what they need to do and decide to keep the news to themselves for a while. Tom arrives in the mess hall and is greeted by applause. Icheb told them. So much for keeping it quiet. Neelix wants to be godfather – he has experience. In engineering, Chakotay asks B’Elanna if she’s checked the warp core for radiation links. She has a certain glow about her. Captain Janeway arrives to congratulate her too, and says she can have time off if she needs it. B’Elanna, by the sounds of it, would be quite happy to give birth in engineering. Harry finds Tom and says it’s all over; a new dad, tied down with a family. Tom says it doesn’t feel quite real yet. Harry suggests that’s what pregnancy’s for; to give it time to sink in before your life spirals out of control.
Tom is working with Tuvok, he thinks this must be the first time Tom has ever volunteered to assist him. Tuvok appears to be the only person who hasn’t heard B’Elanna’s pregnant. Rather poor for the chief of security. Tuvok is only person Tom knows who’s been through fatherhood, and would like advice. Tuvok says it’s been years since he was a father. Offspring can be disturbingly illogical, yet profoundly fulfilling. Expect paradox. Tom expects he will be working with Tuvok a lot more.
Tom and B’Elanna are talking in their quarters; Chakotay wants to be godfather as well. Tom makes a joke and B’Elanna starts going off on one – then decides this must be the behavioural volatility that the Doctor mentioned. Though, with B’Elanna, who would know? Then the Doctor asks them to report to sickbay.
He has a holo of their baby’s spine at 10 months; there’s a deviation. B’Elanna had surgery for it as a child. So did her mother. The Doctor says it tends to run in Klingon families, especially amongst females. Oops. He tries to cover that up, but it’s out. So, B’Elanna and Tom ask if he can do a holo of the whole baby. She has forehead ridges; the Doctor says Klingon traits are dominant for some time. Tom says she is just like B’Elanna and she has a flashback of her father saying she was just like her mother.
B’Elanna has memories of a camping trip with her father, uncle and cousins when she was younger. In the morning, she’s heading to sickbay again for the procedure to correct the spine. The Doctor has been expanding his database related to childcare. And pre-natal enhancement. Yes, he plans to sing to the foetus. B’Elanna dozes off and has more memories of the trip, during which she claimed her cousins didn’t like her.
B’Elanna starts experimenting with the baby’s holo, to see what her appearance would be like if certain genetic sequences were altered. She would look human. B’Elanna tries selling the Doctor that these are for the baby’s health. He wants her to talk to Tom. Tom realises B’Elanna is trying to make their baby not look Klingon.
B’Elanna – even though the memories of the camping trip don’t seem to back this up – claims she was treated like a monster because she was different, and that she doesn’t want her baby treated the same way. Never mind she would be the second human-alien hybrid on the ship, and Naomi isn’t treated like a monster. That’s perhaps because what’s really troubling B’Elanna is something different.