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“Go ahead, La Forge,” came Gold’s voice.

“It appears there was a crew on this vessel, Captain,” La Forge continued. Duffy examined his tricorder as he spoke. Out of the corner of his eye, Duffy saw something on the floor, and directed his tricorder at it.

“A single pilot,” said La Forge. “Humanoid. It appears to be female.”

“Injured in the crash?”

“Negative. It looks as though she was strapped into the seat. Hard to say how long she’s been dead. Long enough for decay to set in.” La Forge stepped closer to the corpse, his face almost touching that of the dead pilot. “No obvious trauma.”

Duffy knelt and regarded the piece of equipment on the floor. According to his readings, it was the alien equivalent of a tricorder. Gingerly, he reached to pick it up. It was about the size of an old-style tricorder, and weighed about as much. They could take this back to the ship and analyze it while Faulwell and 110 continued to work on the computer here.

He glanced over at the linguist and the Bynar, and frowned to himself. 110 seemed to be having a hard time cracking the ship’s computer, and Faulwell was looking a tad impatient. I’m sure it would be much faster if 111 was still with us, Duffy thought. Although even a single Bynar is usually several times faster than any human in accessing a computer.

“No, wait,” said Gomez. She was squatting on the other side of the humanoid in the chair, examining the fastenings. “Look at this, Commander.”

Both Duffy and La Forge moved to shine their wristlamps where Gomez had indicated. La Forge inhaled swiftly, but otherwise gave no indication of how startled he must be. Duffy gaped, seasoned Starfleet officer though he was.

“Correction, Captain Gold,” Geordi said. “The pilot appears to be impaled upon the chair.”

That got Bart’s attention. His head whipped around, and he gazed, frowning, at the corpse in the chair. Leaving the Bynar alone for the moment with the conundrum of the computer that would not yield its information, he strode quickly over to the rest of the team.

“Geez, will you look at that? You’re right,” he said, distaste in his voice. As rigor mortis had set in, the arms had pulled back from the metal of the chair. Three spikes extended from the chair deep into the pilot’s arms. “Do you think this was some kind of torture device?”

Gomez shook her dark head, recovering her composure quickly. “I don’t know. And we shouldn’t make assumptions without all the data,” she said. “Captain, I think we should transport this pilot to sickbay and have Dr. Lense perform a complete autopsy.” Her eyes flickered to 110. “And 110 seems to be having a tough time figuring out this computer.”

“What?” Gold’s voice was incredulous. “And Earth is having a tough time spinning.”

“He’s doing the best he can,” said Bart, almost as if in defense. “It’s still hard for him, by himself.”

“I’ll send over Pattie and Ina to lend him a hand. Or leg, as the case may be. The rest of you, keep examining that ship. I’ll have the pilot beamed over and I’ll let you know when Lense learns anything.”

“Aye, sir.” La Forge, Gomez, Duffy, and Bart stepped back from the chair. The figure shimmered, then dematerialized.

A terrible sound rent the air, a high-pitched scream of agony mixed with an ear-splitting mechanical hum. As one, they whirled to behold 110, his tiny body arched in agony, screaming as his body shuddered and writhed. Blue light crackled around his small frame, enveloping the Bynar and the console on which his delicate fingers were placed. He was caught, writhing, unable to break free. Unable to do anything but cry out.

His crewmembers rushed forward. Before they could get to him, a final burst of energy lifted 110 up into the air and hurled him across the room. He slammed into a bulkhead, and Duffy heard an audible crack as the Bynar tumbled, limp, to the deck. The buffer lay beside him, blinking wildly.

Faulwell was the first to reach him, but by then Gomez was already saying, “Medical emergency! Lock onto 110 and get him to sickbay now!”

Even as 110