- Overcoming his fear of transporter, Lt. Barclay joins an away team, only to find something in the beam with him.
- The Enterprise locates the scientific research ship USS Yosemite, which went missing while exploring plasma streams. Geordi assigns reluctant engineer Lieutenant Reg Barclay, whose idea it was, to help him bridge both ships' transport systems and join Riker's away team, but after a deconstruction phobia-caused hesitation and anxiety counseling with Troi, Barclay goes later, alone. Riker's team finds victims of an explosion, which may fit the Ferengi report Picard receives of an alleged Cardassian attack. While Barclay beams back, he notices an eel-shaped entity which floats to him and touches his left arm in the phased matter stream, but a full transporter diagnostic finds no problem, so he fears he is a victim of incurable transporter psychosis, although none has been reported on modern models for years. Geordi realizes either would fit with the same ionic fluctuation phenomenon suggested by in otherwise acceptable transporter readings. Worried about Barclay's mental condition, Troi orders him to take a leave, during which he apparently experiences some physical transformation of his possibly infected arm, so he decides to do another transporter test during which the 'eel' reappears. Picard now authorizes an attempt to contain it, starting a cascade of surprising consequences.—KGF Vissers
- The Enterprise locates the scientific research ship USS Yosemite, which went missing while exploring plasma streams, in the Igo sector. The ship is stranded in the middle of the plasma stream and there is no way of knowing whether anyone is alive.
Geordi assigns reluctant engineer Lieutenant Reg Barclay (Dwight Schultz), whose idea it was, to help him bridge both ships' transport systems and join Riker's away team. But after a transport deconstruction phobia-caused hesitation, which leads Barclay from pulling out at the last second, and anxiety counseling with Troi, Barclay goes later, alone.
Geordi and Worf figure out there was a Clast on board the ship and it originated in the transporter section, which is strange since the transporter itself is working. Riker's team finds victims of the explosion, which may fit the Ferengi report Picard receives of an alleged Cardassian attack. While Barclay beams back, he notices an eel-shaped entity which floats to him and touches his left arm in the phased matter stream, but a full transporter diagnostic finds no problem, so he fears he is a victim of incurable transporter psychosis, although none has been reported on modern models for years. Barclay researches the symptoms of transporter Psychosis and realizes that he has most of the symptoms (including dehydration, hallucinations (the eel) and so on) and concludes that he is suffering from the same.
Beverly transports over one dead body from the ship and finds evidence of ionized burns all over the body. The body was exposed to ionized gas or high energy plasma prior to death. Geordi found fragments of a broken sample container on the ship and speculates that maybe the Yosemite tried to transport the plasma from the streamer on the ship, inside a container and it somehow got away from them and exploded, killing everyone. Data and Geordi try to recreate their experiment on board the Enterprise.
Worried about Barclay's mental condition, Troi orders him to take a leave, during which he apparently experiences some physical transformation of his possibly infected arm, so he decides to do another transporter test during which the 'eel' reappears. Barclay escalates this to the senior staff on the ship. Geordi realizes either incident with Barclay would fit with the same ionic fluctuation phenomenon recorded by the otherwise acceptable transporter readings.
Picard now authorizes an attempt to contain it. Beverly finds same ionization patterns in Barclay's left arm, as she found in the tissue of the dead body recovered from the Yosemite. Geordi transports the plasma inside a sample container, reinforced by a force field. The plasma explodes but is contained by the force field. Geordi picks up bi-magnetic signals from the plasma in his visor. Barclay's physical changes on the arm spread to his face and are now visible to Geordi and Data. Geordi explains that the life forms in the plasma are microbes, one of which might have been caught inside the buffer of the Yosemite transporter, which is what Barclay saw. Some of these microbes are inside Barclay now.
Geordi figures out a way to remove these microbes by sending Barclay into the transporter again. But this time, Barclay will be required to stay suspended by for 30-40 secs. Inside, Barclays sees that there are actually 4 microbes in the buffer (there were 4 crew members missing from the Yosemite). He figures maybe the Yosemite crew tries the same thing as the Enterprise before the plasma blew up. He grabs hold of one microbe and materializes, with one crew member. Worf and his team bring back the other 3. The re-programmed bio-filter removes the microbes from Barclay and the other crew members.
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