Riker's eyes widened. No control in the world could have stopped all the physical indications that despite his silence shouted clearly that his skin was crawling, his heart thumping hard.

Ensign Hutchens was dead. This wasn't him. Ensign Hutchens was in the sickbay morgue, in stasis, and not even all of him was there, either. Half of him was still down on Hitchcock -

And then he realised. No. Some of Hutchens was likely still down on the planet, to be sure, but some of him really was here. In front of them. In the belly of that…that thing, if it had a belly in the traditional sense. This was one of the original murderers from Picard's beam-down.

They'd had murderers on the Enterprise before. Of course they had. They'd even had ones whom they'd invited in, accepted and put emotional investment into - Riker had to stop himself thinking about Lore - but this was something worse, something nastier.

This creature was trying to scare them. Deliberately and nastily. It could have presented as anything it wanted, but it had to choose the poor, maimed body of the dead man.

His anger growing, he felt Deanna touch his arm, very softly. Her quiet voice reached his ears.

"You can't be certain," she whispered. "Remember, we are as alien to them as they are to us. It may be trying to appear to us in a form it thinks we will welcome, that of a friend who was recently with us."

Riker forced himself not to look at her, to keep eye contact with the bloodied apparition instead.

"We know you're not really the man you're presenting us," he said, loudly, "but if you're comfortable talking this way, let's do so. What do you want aboard our ship?"

Hutchen's body swayed behind the force field, dripped gore into a puddle at his feet. He remained silent, and Riker fought his disgust.

It's not real, it's not real. It's in your head. Your mind is creating everything, including that widening pool of red, even down to the gleaming highlights in the blood that make it look so fresh and so viscous -

His stomach turned.

"Please," he managed. "We need to talk with you. It's very important."

To distract himself, he started composing his report to Picard in his head. No, sir, we tried everything, it's a dumb animal and didn't make any effort to communicate. In fact, it threatened us. Recommend we start that plan to destroy them immediately -

There was a ghastly, clotted sound from behind the force field. Deanna became very still and withdrawn at his side.

The deathly smile on the face of the corpse was gone. Now the swollen lips were parted, and a rattle of voice escaping them.

Riker took half a step forward, his desire to make some sense out of this insanity overriding his horror and revulsion. "Try again," he urged.

Hutchens swayed, eyes blinking slowly, the lashes themselves stiff with blood.

"Help us," he said.

Will and Deanna shared a glance of disbelief.

On the bridge, Picard was looking at Data in slight alarm, and not because of what the android had been saying to him.

"Mr Data," he said, quietly, and Data stopped talking, his expression a mask of polite enquiry. "I think you'd better report to engineering. I'd like Geordi to take another look at you."

Data cocked his head. "Is something wrong, sir?"

Picard gave him a steady look, as if trying to work out what to say that wouldn't frighten or upset him: Data always appreciated that, even though he wasn't able to be frightened or upset. It was a confirmation of the fact that Picard always thought of him as a person first rather than a machine. Something was evidently wrong. He ran a deeper self-diagnostic immediately, then checked a number of minor but vital functions, and yellow eyes focused once more to meet Picard's gaze. The entire check had taken less than a second.

"Ah."

"Ah, indeed." The captain's combadge signalled, interrupting them.

"Riker to Picard."

"Picard here," said the captain, holding Data where he was for a moment with a gesture.

"You'd better get down here, sir. Our visitor needs to talk with you."

At almost the same moment, Data's badge chirped. "Troi to Data," said the counsellor's voice. "It'd be helpful if you could join us at the force field. Having someone who can see past the illusion would be useful at this point."

Data gave Picard an eloquent look. Picard nodded after a moment.

"On my way, Counsellor."

Visitor.

Riker's choice of words had been interesting, thought Picard as he and Data walked out of the lift and along the corridor towards the location of the force field. It was crucially non-antagonistic. It was diplomatic, even. Riker still had the potential to surprise his commanding officer with his ability to be all things to all men despite his own strength of feeling. And efforts to establish communications had evidently been successful, which admittedly made things a lot more complicated. He could almost hear his old Academy tutor's voice now: Jean-Luc, you're going into Starfleet. We like things complicated here.

Picard spared a glance for Data, walking easily at his side. Thinking of the potential to surprise…the second officer would obviously still need watching. The fluctuations in power were evidently still giving him trouble. He'd blacked out while speaking to Picard on the bridge - simply shut down as still as a statue for almost thirty seconds without apparently realising, then continued talking quite fluidly as he was wont to do. An internal check of his built-in chronometer had evidently revealed the problem to the android - the expression that flicked across Data's face when his diagnostics knew more than his conscious functions did was always priceless, because it was a far more human expression of confusion than any he'd ever practiced.

However, Picard mused as Riker and Deanna came into view in front of them, he'd much prefer to avoid seeing that look on Data's face anytime again soon.

Behind the force field stood a nightmare vision that was hard to look at, and Picard found Data's quiet impassivity a great comfort at that moment.

A droplet of blood ran slowly down to the floor and joined a greater pool. Picard watched it, unable to dismiss it as what it inevitably was - an enforced hallucination.

"Mister Data," he murmured, trying not to let his distaste roughen his voice too much.

"The creature has come forward to the force field," said Data, perfectly matter-of-fact. "It appears on average smaller than the others I have seen. It remains static. I do not see anything else," he added, apparently as a well-meaning afterthought given the white, shocked faces of the other officers.

"Sometimes I really envy you, Data," said Riker, in an undertone. Picard, wrenching his gaze from the blood, met the eyes of the apparition.

"I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of Starfleet," he said. Mentally, he continued: I have spoken to animate tar, giant insects, microscopic organisms…I can speak to a ghost. "What do you want from me, from my ship?"

Hutchens lurched like a zombie from the golden age of human cinema, and that horrible clotted voice came clearly to the captain's ears.

"We want to be rescued, Captain Jean-Luc Picard. We ask for asylum."