[Pike's quarters]
BOYCE [OC}: Boyce here.
PIKE: Drop by my cabin, Doctor. (Boyce enters with bag) What's that? I didn't say there's anything wrong with me.
BOYCE: I understand we picked up a distress signal.
PIKE: That's right. Unless we get anything more positive on it, it seems to me the condition of our own crew takes precedent. I'd like to log the ship's doctor's opinion, too.
BOYCE: Oh, I concur with yours, definitely.
PIKE: Good. I'm glad you do, because we're going to stop first at the Vega Colony and replace anybody who needs hospitalisation and also. What the devil are you putting in there, ice?
BOYCE: Who wants a warm martini?
PIKE: What makes you think I need one?
BOYCE: Sometimes a man'll tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. What's been on your mind, Chris, the fight on Rigel Seven?
PIKE: Shouldn't it be? My own yeoman and two others dead, seven injured.
BOYCE: Was there anything you personally could have done to prevent it?
PIKE: Oh, I should have smelled trouble when I saw the swords and the armour. Instead of that, I let myself get trapped in that deserted fortress and attacked by one of their warriors.
BOYCE: Chris, you set standards for yourself no one could meet. You treat everyone on board like a human being except yourself, and now you're tired and you
PIKE: You bet I'm tired. You bet. I'm tired of being responsible for two hundred and three lives. I'm tired of deciding which mission is too risky and which isn't, and who's going on the landing party and who doesn't, and who lives and who dies. Boy, I've had it, Phil.
BOYCE: To the point of finally taking my advice, a rest leave?
PIKE: To the point of considering resigning.
BOYCE: And do what?
PIKE: Well, for one thing, go home. Nice little town with fifty miles of parkland around it. Remember I told you I had two horses, and we used to take some food and ride out all day.
BOYCE: Ah, that sounds exciting. Ride out with a picnic lunch every day.
PIKE: I said that's one place I might go. I might go into business on Regulus or on the Orion colony.
BOYCE: You, an Orion trader, dealing in green animal women, slaves?
PIKE: The point is this isn't the only life available. There's a whole galaxy of things to choose from.
BOYCE: Not for you. A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on, and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.
PIKE: Now you're beginning to talk like a doctor, bartender.
BOYCE: Take your choice. We both get the same two kinds of customers. The living and the dying.