"Take it easy," Geordi murmured, as Data was hauled off the floor and reinstated on the couch. The engineer gave Riker a warning look: don't you dare say anything. Sir.

Data looked…odd. His habitual, fluid ease of movement was gone, and in its place a shuddery sort of awkwardness that Riker didn't like at all, and he had a hunch that Geordi liked it even less.

Power not circulating properly, Geordi had said, and there it was in a nutshell: an android running on fumes. Data tilted his head, the familiar birdlike mannerism flooding Riker with hope, and said:

"Accessing."

And then was silent, head cocked, with the bright sickbay lights catching on his damaged face. Riker turned an interrogative look on Geordi, who said:

"I hope I was the only one who heard that…" and one of the techs was shaking his head.

"The distortion on his voice synth? No. It was there."

"Data," Riker said, sharply, staring into the blank expression. "Data. Are you all right?"

Data blinked, and looked directly at the first officer, focussing. "Sir." It was there again, an electrical slurring on the "r", like static interference. Even Riker caught it that time. "Are you all right?" he repeated, gentler.

There was a short metallic clunk as the length of metal pipe hit the floor, released from Data's implacable grip. Behind Riker, unnoticed, Beverley Crusher picked it up. There were the imprints of Data's fingers in its surface.

"…all right," agreed Data eventually, nodding, just once. His voice was flat, as if he was concentrating on something else - which he would be, several million diagnostic subroutines in all likelihood. Then, in a more normal tone, he added: "Positronic engrams are functioning within acceptable parameters. Central power core is functioning at less than forty percent capacity. Emergency power core is -"

Riker interrupted. "How's your memory functioning?"

Another blink. "Fully, sir." Geordi winced at the electric quaver on the words, but Riker took the plunge.

"Tell me what happened on Hitchcock, Data."

There was an overly lengthy pause while Data interrogated his memory. Data's recall was normally practically instant. Then he glanced down at his now empty left hand, looked up at Riker with the closest thing the first officer had ever seen to alarm on that smooth, pale face, and asked:

"Did I kill the captain, sir?"

THREE HOURS EARLIER

"You're answering a question with a question, Number One," said Picard, with his usual dignity, but with a hint of bait-the-first-officer that Riker normally found amusing. At present, he found it frustrating. "That's never a sign that a cogent argument is about to come forth."

Because of course there was no reason why the captain shouldn't accompany the Away team if he wanted to - especially to a colony planet whose only problem was a broken long-range comms system and a few smashed hydroponics domes. Riker and Worf had been over the colony thoroughly, for several hours. They had met Mrs Hedren, a farmer specialising in poultry. They had spoken to Jeffries and Thorwald, who were documenting the colony's progress and history in minute detail. They had even been down into the tunnels below Anchorage and been introduced to the intricacies of the waste disposal system by a waste disposal specialist named Perkins.

It was all very normal and all very (Riker mentally apologised to his Academy Colony Theory lecturers) boring indeed, and Worf had been visibly disappointed at the lack of jeopardy and the abundance of goodwill.

So really, no reason at all, except that Riker had a job to do, and a big part of that job was going down to planets and doing some legwork. So the captain didn't have to do it.

No-one had ever mentioned what you should do if the captain wanted to do the legwork himself.

Nothing in Starfleet command training had ever quite covered Jean-Luc Picard.

"To salve your conscience, Will," said the man in question, "I shall call it shore leave. We're not expected at Ceri Magna V for forty-eight hours, plenty of time for a day trip. I shall take Mr Data with me - "

The android swivelled in his chair to face the command circle, with a tiny quirk of expression in his eyes and mouth indicating he was, to some level at least, pleased with the notion.

" - we shall be perfectly safe," Picard concluded. "I have a mind to walk on ground again, tread the skin of a world beneath my feet and feel some natural gravity pulling me down. I'm sure Counsellor Troi will agree that this sort of thing is good for the soul."

Deanna Troi nodded and smiled dutifully, but there was still tension around her eyes.

"Assign a team of technicians and specialists to accompany us," Picard ordered, standing up and tugging down his uniform top. "We'll leave in two hours."

PRESENT

"Did you -" For a moment Riker partly wanted to shake Data for acting so out of character and not answering the question he'd been asked. The other, stronger part of him was getting the creeping horrors about that bloodstained metal pipe and Picard's injuries.

Could Data really have…

"No!" he said, aloud, "no, no-one killed the captain. He's right over there, under sedation but alive, Data, alive."

Had Data been human, he would have sighed, sagged with relief. He merely nodded, very slowly, accepting this fact, and not even looking to check that Riker's assertion was correct. Geordi, muttering under his breath, was back at work on Data's face, scanning the contours of the missing skin and feeding the resulting parameters into the replicator.

"Tell me who attacked the Away Team on Hitchcock," Riker ordered, and Data blinked, twice, before beginning to speak, his malfunctioning voice burring and cracking slightly.

"No-one, sir," he said, and that was when Riker's sinking feeling hit new depths.

Data was lying to him.

Down the rabbit hole indeed. Captain, it's true Data cannot be fooled, but is he fooling us? And why?

As if hearing Riker's unspoken thought, on his couch next to Data's, Picard shifted uneasily in his drugged sleep, revisiting Hitchcock in his mind.

ONE HOUR EARLIER

"Energise," said Picard: and they beamed down into hell.

It was red, and hot and barren, and had an atmosphere like gritty industrial smog. An unhealthy haze covered the landscape, stirring in a hot, seething wind. Half-hidden forms that could have been mountains hung, barely seen, behind the clouds. The air rattled and howled like a broken window in a hailstorm.

Data's pale skin and gold blaze of uniform stood out briefly, flickered in the haze. Behind the android might have been the blurs of blue science uniforms, another flicker of gold, but everything was vague, smoky, indistinct.

"Mr Data!" Picard shouted, and almost immediately choked on his mouthful of foul air. He thought Data turned to his hail, but couldn't be sure: so he reached up to his own chest, slapped his combadge. "Picard to Enterprise."

No reply. "Enterprise, come in!" Picard shouted. Had that been a whisper of response? It was so hard to hear. "Enterprise, if you can hear me, there's something….the weather down here, it's changed. Some sort of dust storm. It is imperative that we reach the colony before - "

A flicker of gold in the corner of his eye, and the fog cleared like a curtain being raised. Data stood sharply visible in the sudden window of clarity. He was stood perfectly balanced on the uneven red ground, right arm held aloft: in his grip was Lieutenant M'Reva, the Caitian, and she was quite clearly being strangled.