Passing the transporter room on the way to a briefing in the main biolab, Riker could have sworn he could still smell the metallic tang of blood.
Ridiculous.
The clean-up team would have been exemplary. They always were, especially with biohazard spills like that. And the air filters would have sucked out the scent within minutes, ditto the scent of the cleaning procedure, until within an hour nothing would have been left except -
He found himself entering the room without really meaning to. The ensign on duty gave him a curious look, as if wondering whether he should snap to attention or not in the presence of the first officer.
"Sir?"
The transporter pad was, of course, empty and as clean as any pad should be. Riker stood there dumbly for a moment - I'm really going to have to book a session with Deanna about this - and remembered the blood. That's where it is. The smell's in my memory. And no amount of air filters can touch it.
"Sir?"
The ensign had moved forward and was about a hair's breadth away from tapping his superior's arm. "Are you all right, sir?"
"As you were," said Riker, only a touch more harshly than he intended, and turned on his heel to exit the room.
"Dust, Commander," said Beverly Crusher, her eyes amused. At her shoulder, Data leant forward in order to examine her experiment more closely. "Or a combination of silicates. Loam, perhaps, even sand. But dust will pretty much cover it."
"Intriguing," said Data, at which point Riker, walking through the door, mustered a smile. Only Data could be genuinely intrigued by a handful of what looked for all the world like dried mud in one of the lab's vacuum-sealed containers.
"Where's the captain?" he asked.
"I sent him to bed," said the doctor, dryly. "He'll be joining us later. And Data, if I notice anything aberrant in your systems while I'm here, don't think I'm above ordering you to bed as well."
The android, to Riker's eyes at least, looked suitably warned. His yellow eyes flicked to the first officer as if for confirmation, and Will couldn't resist it.
"If it was doctor's orders, Data, I'd carry you there and tuck you in myself." He managed to forestall it, holding up a hand, but it was a close thing. "I know, I know. You don't sleep. But remember, it's the thought that counts."
He could almost see the thought processes darting across whatever passed for Data's subconscious. Quick, brilliant Data, who could compute at who knew how many thousand reps per second - hit him with a couple of aphorisms relating to human behaviour and you could practically sit back with popcorn to watch him work it out.
And it's better for him to work it out, too - means he's learning for himself and not by rote.
"What do we have, Doctor?" he asked, eyeing the dust.
"The captain wanted a way to neutralise these things," Crusher said, "and I have to tell you, it's not great news. These creatures can travel through vacuum, withstand extremes of heat and cold, and have the tensile strength of a couple of dozen duranium cords."
"Is he thinking that we're going to have to fight these things?"
For fight, read "destroy" - Worf would be proud of me, I'm finally thinking like a Klingon. But that's not what Starfleet teaches us. But I saw the blood -
"I think he's thinking like a Starfleet captain," said Crusher, almost as if reading Riker's mind, "covering every possibility before making his decision."
"Starfleet has encountered a number of hostile races during routine investigations," said Data, "including the Ondras on Harkaway's World, the Gorn sub-species colony on Ypsilon X2, and...a number of others. The reactions of each ranking officer have been remarkably different, relating to the severity of the threat, the years of service of the ranking officer in question, the potential of the threat to spread -"
"Thanks, Data."
A number of others? What, no exhaustive list?
Riker traded a glance with Crusher, who nodded almost imperceptibly. The android was evidently still far from back to normal. It's easy to tell with humans. They get a fever, they get hot. They get sick, they go pale and lose their appetite. I really doubt Data could get any paler, but...
Data had caught the glance and the nod, and looked between them both for a moment to gather the implications, then: "Am I going to be 'ordered to bed', Doctor?"
"Not just yet," said Beverly, reassuringly. "Besides, I wouldn't want to have Will honour his promise to carry you. He'd strain his back."
Riker's eyebrows hiked. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. So what am I to take back about this - " his gesture took in the dust - "to the captain?"
"Tell him that if he wants a permanent solution to the Hitchcock problem," said Crusher, pressing her lips grimly, "we might just be able to oblige him."
"With dust?"
Riker, smiling, couldn't keep the amused incredulity out of his voice.
"Yes, Commander," said Data, and his rock-solid certainty would have been comforting to anyone. "With dust."
Far from being in bed, a fact that would have made Doctor Crusher snort with derision had she known, Picard was in his ready room. The shadow of the exotic lionfish flicked back and forth across his tank.
Waiting. He hated waiting. Waiting was something that admirals excelled at - it was all they had left, after all. Removed from their place among the stars, given a desk, and a handful of patience, and told to wait. To a Picard, it was anathema. He had his best people working to bring him a handful of solutions, and then, only then, could he give answers. It was maddening. Give me action, give me liberty, but don't give me stagnation…
Maybe I should have been raising barns after all…
"Bridge," he said, aloud, "any communiqués from Starfleet Command?"
A pause, a chirp.
"Negative, sir."
It was too early, and he knew that, but the waiting was starting to prey on him. And who was that at Ops, standing in for Data? Ensign…Chavez? The man was barely out of bridge rotation training. Someone was evidently getting sloppy with the duty rotas during the crisis. Well, he'd have to -
Forget that. Focus on the problem. And it was definitely a three-pipe problem, one any new captain would dread. He found his mind wandering inevitably to the old story of the lady and the tiger. Whichever door he opened had a price, had a consequence.
Because who can blame the tiger? A tiger is not evil. A tiger does not hate. A tiger does not manipulate, scheme or betray. It is a predator, and it kills to live, not in violation of any code of ethics. But through the ages humanity has assigned morals to any predator that crosses the line. Killing deer is one thing, the slaughter of sub-sentient by sub-sentient, but the slaughter of sentient by non-sentient…
"Murder," he said out loud, in the clean emptiness of his bright little room. The word didn't fit here. It had no place here amongst the lit panels and the pristine carpet. But perhaps Riker had seen it in its proper place, in that transporter room where blood had turned a civilised corner of the Federation into a little piece of the jungle, red in tooth and claw…
Picard watched the lionfish turn against the simulated reef with a swirl of delicate dappled fins. A lionfish was deadly, too, could poison and kill with those seemingly decorative spines. And he could no more tell the fish not to do so than he could order the creatures of Hitchcock to starve themselves to death.
One may not talk with tigers. One kills them, or one avoids them. And in the past, any man-eating tigers had inevitably been shot by the inhabitants of nearby villages.
The captain's hand flattened against the desk, and the skin around his eyes tautened as he frowned.
And my finger on the trigger. Picard, the big-game hunter.