We do learn from a new line of flashback dialogue that the Caretaker's mate lit out of Ocampa space a hundred years ago. Kes and Tuvok are working on her mental skills, but she still lacks discipline. She goes to Sickbay, where once again she is late for duty. The Doctor starts to ask her to be more careful and place her medical studies above her studies with Tuvok, but they are interrupted by a strange noise and look in a Sickbay storage cabinet. The Caretaker quartz is rattling inside its salad bowl.
Torres examines the quartz, but finds no sign of life.
They put it in a containment field, and when the quartz rattles again, she realizes it's responding to a sporocyistian lifeform about ten light years away. Janeway heads towards the site of that lifeform, wondering if it could be the Caretaker's mate. Janeway looks unhappy with the thought, but tells him to make the weapon. Following the quartz compass, Voyager finds a smaller version of the Caretaker's array. There's no sporocystian life on it, but they do read 2,000 Ocampa.