Microsoft word the com.., p.70
Microsoft Word - THE COMPLETE ALIEN OMNIBUS, page 70
several others were fortunately unintelligible.
Dillon continued. ‘We give thanks, O Lord, your wrath has
come and the time is near that we be judged. The apocalypse is
upon us. Let us be ready. Let your mercy be just.’
Near the back of the hall the prisoners had begun to whisper
to one another, Dillon’s prayer notwithstanding.
‘It was big,’ prisoner David muttered. ‘I mean, big. And fast.’
‘I saw it, asshole.’ Kevin was gazing intently at the place on
the ceiling from which the alien had hung. ‘I was there. Y’think
I’m blind?’
‘Yeah, but I mean it was big.’ So intent were they on the
memory of what had just happened that they even forgot to
stare at Ripley.
Prisoner William rose and surveyed his comrades. ‘Okay, so
what do we do now, mates?’ A couple of the men looked at one
another but no one said anything. ‘Well, who’s in charge? I
mean, we need to get organized here, right?’
Aaron swallowed, glanced around the room. ‘I guess I’m
next in line.’
Morse rolled his eyes ceilingward. ‘Eighty-five’s gonna be in
charge. Jesus, give me a break!’
‘Don’t call me that!’ Aaron glared at the prisoner who’d
spoken. ‘Not now, not ever!’ Rising, he advanced to confront
them.
‘Look, no way I can replace Andrews. I’m not even gonna
pretend that I can. You guys didn’t appreciate him. I know he
was a hardass sometimes, but he was the best man I ever
worked with.’
Dillon was less than impressed. ‘I don’t want to hear that
shit.’ His gaze shifted from the assistant to the lanky figure
seated on the far side of the hall. ‘What about you? You’re an
officer. How about showing us a little leadership?’
Ripley glanced briefly in his direction, took a puff on her
narcostick, and looked away.
Williams broke the ensuing silence, gesturing at Dillon. ‘You
take over. You run things here anyway.’
The bigger man shook his head quickly. ‘No fuckin’ way. I
ain’t the command type. I just take care of my own.’
‘Well, what’s the fuckin’ beast want?’ The discouraged
Williams inquired aloud. ‘Is the fucker gonna try and get us
all?’
The narcostick eased from Ripley’s lips. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, isn’t that sweet?’ Morse growled sarcastically. ‘How do
we stop it?’
Disgusted, Ripley tossed the remains of her narcostick aside
and rose to confront the group.
‘We don’t have any weapons, right? No smart guns, no pulse
rifles, nothing?’
Aaron nodded reluctantly. ‘Right.’
She looked thoughtful. ‘I haven’t seen one exactly like this
before. It’s bigger, its legs are different. The other ones were
afraid of fire, or at least respectful of it. Not much else.’
She let her gaze roam the hall. ‘Can we seal off this area?’
‘No chance,’ Aaron told her. ‘The developed mine complex
is ten miles square. There’s six hundred air ducts that access
the surface. This goddamn place is big.’
‘What about video? We could try to locate it that way. I see
monitors everywhere.’
Again the assistant superintendent shook his head. ‘Internal
video system hasn’t worked in years. No reason to keep an
expensive hi-tech system just to monitor a lousy twenty-five
caretaker prisoners who aren’t going anywhere anyhow. Fact
is, nothin’ much works here anymore. We got a lot of
technology, but no way to fix it.’
‘What eight-five’s tryin’ to tell you—’ Morse started to say.
‘Don’t call me that!’ Aaron snapped.
The prisoner ignored him. ‘—is that we got no entertain-
ment centres, no climate control, no viewscreens, no
surveillance, no freezers, no fuckin’ ice cream, no guns, no
rubbers, no women. All we got here is shit.’
‘Shut up,’ Dillon said warningly.
‘What the hell are we even talkin’ to her for?’ Morse
continued. ‘She’s the one that brought the fucker here. Let’s
run her head through the wall.’
Ripley shrugged ever so slightly. ‘Sounds good to me.’
Dillon walked over to confront Morse. ‘I won’t say it again,’
he said softly. ‘Keep your mouth shut.’
Morse considered, then dropped his gaze and backed off.
For the time being.
The assistant super eyed Ripley. ‘All right. What do we do
now?’
She was aware that not just the three men at the table but the
majority of the prisoners were watching her, waiting.
‘On Acheron we tried to seal ourselves off and establish a
defensive perimetre. It worked, but only for a little while.
These things always find a way in. First I need to see, not hear,
what our exact physical situation is.’
‘It’s fucked,’ Morse growled, but under his breath.
Aaron nodded. ‘Come with me.’ He looked to Dillon. ‘Sorry,
but you know the regs.’
The big man blinked slowly by way of acknowledgment. ‘Just
don’t be too long, okay?’
Aaron tried to grin, failed. ‘Look at this way: no work
detail today.’
Dillon let his gaze sweep the upper level of the library. ‘Then
why is it I don’t feel relaxed?’
They moved along the main passageway, Aaron holding the
schematic map, Ripley shifting her attention from the printout
to the corridor and walls. There was overhead light, but dim.
Morse was wrong. Some of the complex’s basic life support
system still functioned.
She tapped the plastic sheet. ‘What’s this?’
‘Access serviceway. Connects the infirmary to the mess hall.’
‘Maybe we can go in, flush it out.’
He stayed close. ‘Come on. There’s miles and miles of
tunnels down there.’
She traced lines on the sheet. ‘It won’t go far. It’ll nest in this
area right around here, in one of the smaller passageways or
air shafts.’
His expression twisted. ‘Nest? Don’t you mean “rest”?’
She glanced over at him. ‘I mean what I say. Just don’t ask
me for details. If we can kill or immobilize it, remind me and
I’ll explain. Otherwise you don’t want to know.’
He held her stare a moment longer, then dropped his eyes
back to the map. ‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s like a lion. It sticks close to the zebras.’
‘We don’t have any zebras here.’
She halted and gave him a look.
‘Oh, right,’ he said, subdued. ‘But running around down
there in the dark? You gotta be kiddin’. We got no overheads
once you get out of the main shaft here.’
‘How about flashlights?’
‘Sure. We got six thousand of them. And rechargeable
batteries. But no bulbs. Somebody forgot that little detail. I
told ya, nothin’ works.’
‘What about torches? Do we have the capability of making
fire? Most humans have enjoyed that privilege since the Stone
Age.’
The old vertical shaft stretched up and down into darkness, the
ladder welded to its interior filthy with carboniferous grime
and accumulated gunk. Damp air ascended languidly from the
black depths, thick in Ripley’s nostrils as she leaned out of the
corridor and aimed her torch downward. No bottom was
visible, not had she expected to see one.
They’d started in through the tunnel where Murphy had
been killed, past the huge ventilator blades, which Aaron had
shut down prior to their departure. She sniffed, wrinkled her
nose. The rising air was more than damp; it was pungent with
rotting vegetation and the sharp tang of recycled chemicals.
‘What’s down there?’
Aaron crowded close behind her. ‘Air and water purification
and recirculation.’
‘Which explains the stink. Fusion?’
‘Yeah, but sealed away. Everything operates on automatics. A
couple of techs from the supply ship run a status check every
six months.’ He grinned. ‘You don’t think they’d trust the
maintenance details of a functioning fusion plant to the
delicate ministrations of a bunch of prisoners and a couple of
prison administrators with general degrees, do you?’
She didn’t smile back. ‘Nothing the Company does would
surprise me.’ Holding on to the edge of the opening she aimed
the torch upward, played the light over the smooth metal walls.
‘What’s upstairs?’
‘Low-tech stuff. Storage chambers, most of ‘em empty now.
Cleaned out when Weyland-Yutani closed down the mine.
Service access ways. Power and water conduits. All the tunnels
and shafts are bigger then they need to be. With all the drilling
and cording equipment at hand the engineers were able to
make it easy on themselves. They built everything oversized.’
He paused. ‘You think it might have gone up there
somewhere?’
‘It would naturally choose a large, comfortable chamber for
a nest, and it likes to keep above its . . . prey. Drop down from
above rather than come up from below. Also, the upper levels
are closer to the prison habitat. That’s where it’ll expect us to
be holed up. If we’re lucky we might be able to come up behind
it. If we’re unlucky . . .’
‘Yeah?’ Aaron prompted,
‘We might be able to come up behind it.’ She swung out onto
the ladder and began climbing.
Not only was the ladder thick with encrusted grime, but the
moist air rising from below had stimulated the growth of local
algae and other microorganisms. The rungs were slippery and
uneven. She made sure to grip the side of the ladder firmly
with her free hand as she ascended.
The shaft intersected one or more cross-corridors approxi-
mately every three metres. At each level she shoved her torch
inside, illuminating each tunnel for a respectable distance
before resuming her ascent.
While he was trying to watch Ripley, Aaron’s concentration
slipped along with his foot. Behind him Dillon quickly looped
his left arm around the ladder and caught the flailing ankle
with his other hand, shoving the assistant super’s boot back
onto the nearest rung.
‘You all right up there?’ he inquired in a terse whisper.
‘Fine,’ Aaron replied, albeit a little shakily. ‘Just keep that
torch out of my ass.’
‘Funny you should mention that,’ the big man replied in the
half darkness. ‘I’ve spent years dreaming of doing just that.’
‘Save it for another time, okay?’ Aaron hurried himself, not
wanting Ripley to get dangerously far ahead.
‘One thing more, man,’ Dillon murmured.
The assistant superintendent glanced back down. ‘What
now?’
‘Anytime you want to trade places, you let me know.’
‘In your dreams.’ Despite their circumstances each man
mustered a fraternal grin of understanding. Then they
resumed climbing, the brief feeling of camaraderie swept away
in the desperation and anxiety of their situation.
Ripley glanced down, wondering what they were talking
about. It was good that they could manage to smile under such
conditions. She wished she could share in their amusement,
but knew she could not. She was much too conscious of what
might lie ahead of them. Inhaling resignedly, she ascended the
next step and aimed her light into still another opening.
Straight into the face of the creature.
If her fingers hadn’t contracted in terror she surely would
have fallen off the ladder as she screamed. Reflexively she
swung her torch. It struck the horror square atop the gleaming
black head . . . which crumbled into pieces on contact.
‘What . . . what is it?’ Aaron was yelling below her.
She ignored him as she fought to regain her equilibrium.
Only then did she pull herself up the ladder and step off into
the tunnel.
Together the three stared at the collapsed, dried-out husk of
the adult alien.
‘Ugly sucker, ain’t it?’ Dillon volunteered.
Ripley knelt to examine the cast-off shell. Her fingers
trembled slightly as she touched it, then steadied. It was
perfectly harmless, a shadow of an enigma. There was nothing
there. The skull where her torch had struck had been empty
inside. Experimentally she gave the remainder of the shell a
light push and the massive, streamlined form tumbled over
onto its side. She straightened.
‘What is it?’ Aaron asked her. He prodded the husk with his
foot.
‘It’s shed its skin, moulted somehow.’ She looked sharply up
the tunnel. ‘This is a new one. I’ve never seen this before. Not
at this stage of development.’
‘What’s it mean?’ Dillon muttered.
‘Can’t say. No precedent. One thing we can be sure of,
though. It’s bigger now.’
‘How much bigger?’ Aaron joined her in peering up the dark
passageway.
‘That depends,’ Ripley murmured.
‘On what?’
‘On what it’s become.’ She started forward, holding her light
out in front of her as she pushed her way past him.
Something inside her urged her on, making her increase
rather than slow the pace. She hardly paused long enough to
shine her torch down the side passages that branched off the
main tunnel. The discovery of the alien husk had charged her
with the same sort of relentless determination that had enabled
her to survive the devastation of Acheron. Determination,
and a growing anger. She found herself thinking of Jonesy. No
one wonder she and the cat had survived the Nostromo.
Curiosity and a talent for survival were two of the skills they’d
shared.
Jonesy was gone now, a victim of the time distortions made
necessary by space travel. No more cat-nightmares for him.
Only she was left to deal with life, and all the memories.
‘Slow up.’ Aaron had to break into a jog to catch up with her.
He held up the map, then gestured ahead. ‘Almost there.’
She looked at him. ‘I hope this was worth the climb. What
happened to all the damn lifts in this place?’
‘You kidding? Deactivated when the installation was closed
down. Why would a bunch of prisoners need to be in this
sector anyway?’ He started forward, taking the lead.
They walked another hundred metres before the tunnel
opened up into a much larger passageway, one wide and high
enough to accommodate vehicles as well as men. The assistant
superintendent stopped next to the far wall, holding his torch
out to illuminate a sign welded to the metal.
TOXIC WASTE STORAGE
THIS CHAMBER HERMETICALLY SECURED
NO ACCESS WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION
rating B-8 or Higher Required 146
‘Well, well. What do we have here?’ For the first time in days
Ripley allowed herself to feel a twinge of hope.
‘There’s more than a dozen of these scattered around the
facility.’ Aaron was bending to study the detailed inscription
below the plate. ‘This is the closest one to our living quarters.’
He tapped the wall with his torch and sparks dribbled to the
floor.
‘They were gonna shove a lot of heavy-duty waste in here.
Refining by-products, that sort of thing. Some of these are full
and permanently sealed, others partially filled. Cheaper,
easier, and safer than stuffing the junk into drums and
dumping it out in space.
‘This one’s never been used. Maybe because it’s so close to the
habitat areas. Or maybe they just never got around to it, closed
up shop before they needed the room. I’ve been inside. It’s clean
as a whistle in there.’
Ripley studied the wall. ‘What’s the access like?’
‘Pretty much what you’d expect for a storage facility carrying
this rating.’ He led her around to the front.
The door was scratched and filthy, but still impressive. She
noted the almost invisible seams at the corners. ‘This is the only
way in or out?’
Aaron nodded. ‘That’s right. I checked the stats before we
came down. Entrance is just big enough for a small loader-
transporter with driver and cargo. Ceiling, walls, and floor are
six feet thick, solid ceramocarbide steel. So’s the door. All
controls and active components are external, or embedded in
the matrix itself.’
‘Let’s make sure we’ve got this right. You get something in
