ELEVEN HOURS EARLIER
"I must admit, it's pretty much what I was expecting," said Riker quietly to Worf as he pretended to inspect a raised bed of native flowers. The Klingon, whose hand had not once moved from the handle of his phaser despite the innocuous nature of their hosts, gave a non-committal grunt.
"I do not trust them."
"Worf," said Riker, smiling his crooked smile, "you wouldn't trust a Vulcan who was telling you the sky was blue."
Worf looked upwards, still frowning severely.
"The sky is not blue here, Commander."
Can't argue with that, thought Riker, glancing up. The sky viewed from Hitchcock was pink, a balmy, slightly sickly salmon hue, with scudding tendrils of red cloud. He couldn't help wondering whether it rained often and what colour the water was. Something Data would no doubt investigate with enthusiasm when he came down here, and Riker could see no reason not to allow a further Away Team, one with a good couple of scientists and a decent engineer. The only danger would be that Data might potentially talk one of the local scientists to death with a neverending supply of "Inquiry -"
As expected, the recent explosion of the nearest moon had caused a few considerable debris impacts on the settlement, knocking out long range communications and several of the original hydroponics domes. The settlement mayor, Stewart, had been so glad to see incoming Starfleet officers that he had actually clapped Riker on both shoulders. Worf's forbidding expression had forestalled any physical contact but Stewart had effusively welcomed them both to his town, which he called Anchorage. The town was showing the signs of its youth; the buildings were in the most part still the pre-fabricated panel dwellings and storehouses commonly issued to Federation colony ships. The inhabitants were also showing the classic signs of the early hardship experienced by settlers. All of them that Riker took note of as he passed were employed in some form of practical work, and they looked fiercely, well-deservedly tired. Hitchcock was clearly about as hospitable as it looked from above, but these people were thriving on adversity.
And there's even a barn.
"We'd been hoping you'd come down when we didn't answer," Stewart said. "It's been a good few weeks, but we knew that when the moon exploded we'd be put on someone's milk run for a check-up."
"Well, the Enterprise isn't exactly on a milk run," Riker said, amused. "But we were in the right sector at the right time. I can arrange for some of our technical crew to come down and help you repair the damage and upgrade some of your systems, if you like."
"It's just what we need. Thankyou, Commander, thankyou. Let me show you some of the sections that suffered damage and then you can better judge what you can offer us."
PRESENT
None of it was real…
I offered up my captain, the second officer, our top hydroponics specialist and one of the youngest technicians on board because he wanted to walk on his first alien world.
Riker, staring at Geordi's fingers as the engineer fitted almost microscopic sensors into the surface of Data's gleaming exposed metal cheekbone, wracked his brain for the hundredth time as to what he and Worf had missed.
No, not Worf. Can't blame Worf. I was in command. Whatever it was, I missed it.
Picard, after a brief but pointed conversation, had been sedated again, under far less protest than Beverley had expected from him.
"The settlement wasn't there, Will," Picard had insisted. "None of it. Not a building, not a settler, not a grain of wheat, nothing as you described."
Riker exchanged a brief, meaningful glance with the doctor over Picard's head.
"But captain, we have recordings of conversations you had with Mr Stewart from the colony. Before -"
Picard was nodding, almost impatiently.
"I know very well before what, Commander. And I am not delusional, Doctor, kindly stop hovering in that blasted maternal fashion!"
The medical couch blarted an alarm and a series of readouts shot into the red, at which point Picard's already alarmingly ashen face became drained white and Beverley Crusher, brooking no interference, reached out for her hypo. Picard's fingers snapped around Riker's wrist.
"Data will tell you," he said, as the hypo hissed against his shoulder. "He can't be fooled, remember…"
All of which would have been extremely comforting under normal circumstances, and indeed Riker would have given almost anything for the reassurance of Data's eternally calm, constant presence. But even Data was out of commission, and Riker now regretted his immediate, sharp order to La Forge and his team as soon as Picard had relapsed into drugged slumber.
"I don't care if you have to jumpstart him from the warp core, Geordi, get Data up off that couch!"
Geordi's startled, almost wounded expression had quickly turned to bitterness, ("Aye, sir. Working on it.") and Riker could have kicked himself. You jumpstarted a shuttlecraft, an antigrav stretcher, a starship. They were things. You saved Data's life, because he was a person. You would think I'd learnt that lesson after what I put him through in Maddox's trial. Strange how deep prejudices run. Under stress we always pick out the tiny differences for emphasis.
He wondered if he ought to apologise, and indeed who he ought to apologise to, but at that moment Geordi abruptly jumped back from his place at the side of the couch and knocked into the first officer.
"Woah, woah, woah! Hang on, there, Data - "
Because Data was suddenly moving, with that superhuman speed his unassuming figure concealed, sitting bolt upright and lunging off the couch within microseconds, trailing diagnostic equipment and Geordi's technicians in equal measures. Riker found himself staring for a scant moment into wide golden eyes, one framed by shining metal. The techs were good at their job, and liked Data, so did not let go of the android's arms: thus Data dragged them down with him when his legs folded under him and he crashed to the floor.
Riker once again found himself staring down at the back of Data's dark head as the android failed to rise, and this time felt twice as bad because behind him, the somewhat sarcastic and aggrieved tones of Geordi La Forge were saying:
"Well, Commander…he's off the couch like you wanted."