If Picard was feeling like an unwilling huntsman, Riker was feeling more like the tireless sherpa, carrying more than his fair share of the baggage and trying hard to beat a clear path forward. He visited Worf next, who informed him that yes, it would be relatively simple to eliminate most of the southern part of the colony continent from orbit. With a modified phaser beam of the kind used for deep mineral mining. No, the Enterprise wasn't currently equipped with such a beam, but he'd already looked up the specifications and was confident the engineering replicators could handle it. That, should the captain ask, added Worf, was not his preferred option, but the creatures seemed resistant to being engaged in honest face to face combat. They were evidently cowardly, sneaking animals, worth less than the dirt under the paws of a baby targ. Surely it was time to take vengeance for the deaths of the three who had been killed -

Riker managed to forestall a full denegration of the Hitchcock predators' honour by saying a quick thanks and goodbye. He then paid a visit to the chief engineer, who in his turn agreed that Worf's plan was sound in concept, and that the replication of the materials would indeed be simple, but that if they could do it in under six weeks, then he personally, Geordi La Forge, was the queen of Spain. He would in fact repeat this in the briefing room if asked. Several times, if necessary. His best suggestion was that if the captain chose this as a viable course of action, he would require an immediate secondment of staff from Technical Services B and C shift as a bare minimum just to get things started, not to mention a practically permanent reassignment of Data in order to get the isolinear routing set up quickly enough. Surely that wasn't what the captain would want, though? Surely -

Will, after staving off the inevitable mental image of Geordi in a traditional Spanish dress and tiara, admitted that he had suspected as much about staff resource and withdrew to the bridge to gather his own thoughts before reporting to Picard. And what have I got? A whole bunch of "surely". But then, that's my job. The first officer's job is to collate, summarise, and advise. And to stick his neck in the noose first. Damnit, my neck should have been in that noose.

"Is that what all this is about?"

Deanna Troi's voice sounded sympathetic. But then doesn't it always? thought Riker, turning with a sideways smile to see Deanna just taking her seat in the chair to his left.

"All what, exactly?"

"All this." Troi jutted her jaw forward, miming a beard with a flicker of her hand, and rounding her shoulders in belligerent fashion. "You've been strutting about the ship like a peacock with a sore head."

"I think you're mixing your Terran metaphors. You'd confuse the hell out of Data and to be honest, me as well."

Deanna smiled. "It was deliberate, Will. What I'm sensing from you - it's a mixture of pride, anger and guilt." She leant closer. "You're angry with yourself because you couldn't stop the captain and the others getting hurt. It wasn't your fault."

"You know, if you're going to do this for me, you may have to set up a therapy camp for first officers and executive officers, because trust me, we all feel like this." He smiled despite himself. "If you ever meet a first officer who isn't seething with pride, anger and guilt, then he's not doing it right."

Troi pursed her lips close in an amused line, then said:

"If cutting off your right hand would ensure the safety of everyone here on the bridge, would you do it?" At his startled glance, she added: "Not to save their lives in a moment of danger. Just to keep them safe as they go about their everyday duties. To keep them from tripping as they walk to Ten-Forward, or to stop them spraining an ankle at Parisee Squares."

Riker thought about this a moment.

"No. I guess I wouldn't."

"Of course you wouldn't. Living is danger. Working out here in space is risk. Every Starfleet officer knows that when they sign up, and they wouldn't be out here if a part of them didn't want it. I noticed how you felt when we first arrived here, Will and I know how you've always felt about being on board a starship. You want the universe to dare you so that you can throw its dare back in its face." Her smile had faded, leaving a professional seriousness. "Don't forget that, because Hutchens, Ailforth and M'Reva certainly didn't."

Riker almost felt his head begin to shake, to deny that the officers who had lost their lives would have had any truck with such stalwart optimism, but he couldn't do it. Because they would have done. Just stepping into the Academy is like standing in front of the cosmos and shouting "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough." Well, I'm game if you are, cosmos.

He saw out of the corner of his eye Hitchcock spinning slowly in its ugly red corona, and as the door to Picard's ready room hissed open he felt the steel resolution settle into his chest.

Come and have a go…

"Captain? I have options for your consideration."

"Data? Hold up a sec. I'll walk with you."

The android half-turned, giving the approaching Geordi La Forge his profile and a mild, enquiring expression. The engineer looked distracted, if Data was any judge: and he should be by this time. He dedicated a large amount of his time to studying the ways in which his human colleagues expressed themselves. Geordi was moving more quickly than his average speed, averages taken over a year and a half of study, including threat-enhanced sprint, team-based sports, walking alone, walking with others -

Geordi was speaking to him earnestly; a question was being posed. The processor that had been attending to his friend's words shifted priority levels. This was a philosophical and ethical question. Those always required more thought and attention than statistical analysis.

"I do not believe that one may apply ethics to a species which does not display the necessary level of cognitive thought to understand concepts such as right and wrong," he answered, after a pause of almost two seconds to peruse the history of human philosophy and the landmark court cases of '77 and '03.

"I hear you, but we kill off viruses every day." They entered the turbo lift. "Deck Four." Unbeknownst to Geordi, he had taken the part of Commander Riker in an almost identical conversation that had taken place in the captain's ready room almost an hour earlier, with Data speaking the side of Captain Picard. "Three of our guys died, Data. When does it stop being nature and start being a problem we just have to solve?"

The doors hummed open. Geordi took a few steps forward and was aware of his companion's silence immediately. It generally took a direct request to make Data stop talking, and despite the complex ethical nature of Geordi's question there should have been something, some manner of response.

"Data?"

The android was knelt on the floor just outside the turbo lift doors, running his hands over the carpeting and bulkhead. He didn't look weak, or malfunctioning. Just bent down on one knee, examining -

- examining empty air, apparently. Geordi drew a breath slowly, trying to still his worry. This was sure as hell not usual. "Data," he said, again. "What're you doing?"

Data raised his head with a tiny frown gathering his brows and said: "I have been checking for a pulse. There is none." Glancing down again, he tapped his insignia and added: "Data to Sickbay. Emergency medical team to Level Four, Turbolift Three."

Geordi was crouched beside him at this stage. The colours, inputs and impulses from his mechanical VISOR flowed flawlessly into his brain, and his well-trained brain set to the complicated task of interpreting them, and yet still he saw nothing. "You're freaking me out here. What's going on?"

And Data, who was looking down at a half-flayed human corpse, didn't know what to say for almost 0.056 seconds.