Alien alien 3, p.9
Alien--Alien 3, page 9
“And do you hypothesize that these creatures could be of military importance?” The major was another one like Braun, who didn’t chatter needlessly. She was the best strategic thinker Suslov had ever met, which was why he had made her Head of Logistics and Planning, a position Strelnikov had coveted for years.
“I can prove they are, Major,” Braun replied. “All I have to do is clone the alien cells.”
An apprehensive murmur went around the table. Cloning had been universally proscribed for almost a century under the Benevolent Civilizations Treaty. Just the mention had jerked them all out of imminent CO2 stupor. Suslov beckoned to his assistant sitting behind him and told him to step out and notify climate control to triple both the oxygen feed and the ventilation. Now.
He turned back to the meeting. “Dr. Braun,” he said loudly over the not-so-dull roar of aggrieved bureaucrats, and was relieved when they all shut up. “Could it be that these creatures were already weaponized? That they were created as weapons?”
Braun looked pleased with him. “That’s exactly what I think, Colonel-Doctor,” she said. “Video extracted from the robot shows the mature form is an extraordinary killing machine, as strong and relentless as it is savage. The individual creatures don’t display normal animal behavior—they don’t mate or compete for food or territory, nor do they form groups. All they do is kill, with no concern for their own safety. They don’t even try to protect themselves.
“According to information the robot acquired from the colony laboratory, despite the size of the head, there’s nothing that would correspond to the cortex or the cerebrum. They show no sign of what we’d call intelligence—no mental activity that is remotely like conscious thought. They seem to be governed solely by instinct, and in a way that’s closer to programming than any natural phenomenon.”
Novo Ismail, recently appointed as Head of Intelligence, put up their hand. “Our covert sources in Weyland-Yutani have already told us of an ongoing Weapons Division project. However—” Their expression turned a bit sour. “—we have yet to penetrate the Company’s security measures to acquire more substantial intel.”
“Could their project be connected to this alien?” Suslov asked. “Are they trying to develop a living weapon?” He was definitely more alert now, and so was everyone else. He had to wrap this up before they regained the will to argue.
“Excuse me.” The head of the Diplomacy Bureau raised her voice, as well as her hand. She was new in the position, appointed by someone else on the governing council, and Suslov couldn’t remember her name. “I’d like to remind the Colonel-Doctor—and everyone else, of course—that cloning experiments on living tissue from any species violate the Benevolent Civilizations Treaty. And conducting those experiments as part of military research contravenes the primary restrictions on chemical and biological weapons, as agreed to in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Are we really prepared to do that?” she continued. “Moreover, can we justify it—not only privately to each other, but also to the other signatories to the Treaty—when our activities become known?”
She paused to look at each person around the table. “And I promise all of you, they will become known,” she added. “Things like this always get out. Always.”
Lara Braun shook her head. “Nonetheless, I’d like to inform Chief Diplomatic Officer Duchamps that Weyland-Yutani is prepared to do exactly that. I promise you, Irina, that our capitalist cousins are well under way with this project.” She scanned the group, mimicking Duchamps. “We’re all painfully aware of how our technology has lagged behind that of the capitalist cartels,” she said. “Thanks to a stroke of good luck, we have the opportunity to catch up with them—but only if we push ahead now.”
“I agree,” Suslov said. “We must proceed.” He pretended not to notice how delighted Braun was, so she wouldn’t think he wanted to forge an alliance.
By contrast, the head of the Diplomatic Bureau was anything but delighted. Suslov hoped she was better at hiding her feelings when dealing with the capitalists. He made a mental note to send her an anonymous message suggesting she have Freez™ injections. Certain jobs really did call for a faceful of poison.
“With all due respect,” Duchamps said stiffly, “what we have no choice about is the fate of the robot. I go on the record as strongly advising that it be sent to Anchorpoint. Before we do so, however, we should restore it to full function. Are our technicians capable of repairing the thing?”
Braun’s confident composure disappeared; she stared at the other woman in disbelief. “Why would we waste resources doing that?”
“When it comes to diplomacy, courtesies are never wasted,” Duchamps said, gazing at Suslov now. “Today’s gesture of goodwill, no matter how small, might be crucial in resolving tomorrow’s crisis. If we return the robot to them as is, they could claim we damaged it while we were looting its data.”
“All right, say we do repair it,” Suslov said, slightly amused. “They’ll still think we squeezed it for every last drop of data.”
“Of course they will.” Duchamps seemed equally amused. “But accusing us publicly would make them look very bad—so ungrateful. It would also leave them open to accusations concerning the so-called accidental violation of our territory.” Her smile widened. “The enemy can’t fire on us if we don’t give them ammunition.”
A murmur of agreement went around the table. Even Strelnikov seemed mollified.
“Our technicians will repair the robot,” Suslov said with a tone of finality. “We’ll restore its motor functions and other capabilities using our highest-quality components. The technicians must do their very best work and clean it thoroughly to remove any contaminants that might impair its function, allowing us to return it to them in better condition than we found it.” He paused, holding up a hand to forestall any comments or questions.
“And then,” he continued, “using the alien cells recovered from the robot, we proceed with a program of scientific research. We will clone the alien… not to explore its potential as a weapon, but to discover the properties of a substance previously unknown to us. Is this clear?”
They all nodded dutifully.
“Then the matter is settled, with prejudice,” he told them. “We’re adjourned.”
His wasn’t the only sigh of relief.
14
“Initially, this was a routine test for organic-biological compatibility,” Dr. Trent said while a tech she had introduced as Tully set up for the holographic display. Rosetti recognized him as one of the civilians who had been on the Sulaco, and he looked like he hadn’t gotten over it yet.
If he’d been a Marine, Rosetti would have insisted he remain in the clinic for further observation. He wondered what Adele Trent was thinking. Maybe she was showing off for Company Ken. See how fast my people recover? Company Barbie, however, was conspicuous by her absence, which surprised him. He’d thought Fox and Welles were electronically stapled together.
As if he’d caught the gist of Rosetti’s thoughts, Fox turned to him, his smile professionally cordial. “Ms. Welles is catching up on file work we didn’t have a chance to finish yesterday, thanks to, ah, some sudden developments. She should be joining us later.”
Rosetti nodded. A JAG officer had once told him that any time people volunteered answers to questions you hadn’t asked, it was misdirection, like a stage magician.
“I should clarify that Ms. Welles isn’t my assistant, nor am I hers,” Fox went on. “We’re colleagues.” He shifted impatiently in his chair as he watched the tech, who seemed to be having trouble with the hardware. Tully looked up from the projector, first at Trent, who made a small, hurry-up motion, and then at Rosetti.
“Is there some problem?” Rosetti asked.
“Sometimes it has trouble connecting with the nebula,” Tully told him.
“The nebula?” Fox sat up straight, looking to Trent, then to Rosetti. “What nebula?”
“On a planet, it’s called the cloud,” Trent said, “but a cloud in space is a nebula.”
Fox’s expression turned wary, as if he thought Tully were trying to put something over on him. “If a nebula is a cloud, why not stick with the original term? Everyone knows what a cloud is. ‘Nebula’ sounds like something different.”
Tully paused to face him. “It is something different. On a planet, clouds are water or ice crystals. Out here, a nebula is made of dust and ionized gases.”
“Tully.” Trent looked a warning at him.
“Sorry,” the tech said, sounding a bit sulky. “It’s been tough going lately. You ever have one of those lifetimes?”
Rosetti gave a short spontaneous laugh that surprised all of them, including himself. “I hear you, Mr. Tully,” he said, ignoring Fox’s disdainful look. “Take your time. We’ll wait.”
Trent’s expression said she didn’t know what had gotten into him. Rosetti would have told her to relax, but he knew how she felt. Nobody could relax with Company goons on the premises. Fox was staring hard at the tech as if he were trying to will him to work faster. The son of a bitch was probably trying to think up some way to penalize Tully for lecturing him on clouds and nebulae. Maybe he’d issue a fiat saying anyone using the word “nebula” would forfeit their shares.
That would give Rosetti a great reason to shove his boot up Fox’s ass sideways. Or maybe he should retire before that began to sound like a reasonable response.
“Okay, we’re in business,” Tully announced. “Sorry about the delay. I don’t know why it was so hard to get the connection. It’s supposed to be brand-new equipment—the Company sent it less than a month ago.” Rosetti grimaced inwardly, and imagined Fox adding “criticism of Company hardware” to the list of Tully’s high crimes and misdemeanors.
The lights dimmed and a large silvery cube blurred into existence in midair, seemingly balanced on one corner. Its edges went from fuzzy to hard and bright as it grew to twice its original size. A second later, the image of a familiar double helix, complete with red and green beads, appeared in the center of the cube.
“As I was saying,” Dr. Trent began, “this was a compatibility test, checking for any markers in common.” Her tone became more confident as she warmed to her subject. “The theory that terrestrial life has an extraterrestrial origin may be out of fashion these days but it still hasn’t been disproven. The building blocks of terrestrial life have been discovered on a multitude of other worlds, countless meteors and asteroids. To dismiss it—”
“We’re all familiar with the theory, Dr. Trent,” Fox said impatiently. “So let’s get to the point. What kind of DNA were you looking for?”
“Human, of course,” Trent said archly. “What we found—well, see for yourselves.”
A new image appeared inside the cube. It looked like a cubist’s interpretation of an Art Deco staircase, some of its lines in glowing neon purple, others in bright chartreuse. The image was clear, yet Rosetti had trouble focusing on it, as if it were somehow resisting his sight, refusing to be seen.
“Are you sure that’s a biological structure?” Rosetti turned to Trent, glad to give his eyes a break; they were starting to hurt. “It doesn’t look organic to me—more like a machine.”
Trent chuckled grimly. “Wait till we get to the good part.”
He turned back to see the weird shape in the cube moving toward the double helix. Rosetti expected them to bounce off each other. Instead, the weird one pounced on the double helix; its glowing lines broke, became entangled with it, incorporated some of the beads while others melted into the lines of the new shape. Any remaining red and green beads from the helix had been transformed into polygons, their colors no longer solid but distributed here and there on the various sides, making a random mosaic. The new form was easier to look at, although Rosetti was pretty sure that wasn’t a good thing.
“The only things I’ve seen behave like that are viral cells,” Fox said. “Never genetic material. Never.” He sounded awestruck. “How long does this process take in real time, Trent?”
“You just saw it.” Trent seemed revolted, either by what they’d just seen or by Fox’s enthusiasm, or both. The long-suffering tech looked as if he was about to throw up.
“It’s a Darwinian ideal that exceeds Darwin,” Fox continued. “Nature offers all living things just two alternatives: adapt or die. These creatures are the ultimate survivors—no matter what, they adapt. Immediately.” His enthusiasm was starting to piss Rosetti off. “We could learn so much from them. I want a preliminary report—”
“I can tell you everything you need to know, right now,” Tully said.
Everyone turned to look at him in surprise.
He jerked his chin at the cube. “They adapt—we die.”
15
Workshop 11 was a cavernous space filled with big machines in various stages of disassembly or reassembly and the heavy smell of oily metal. Hicks had been told he could pick up some paid shift work on the civilian side, if he didn’t mind manual labor, and he didn’t. The shrink who’d signed him off as fit for a routine employment furlough told him his wanting to keep busy was a good sign, and he’d be interested in hearing about it afterward.
The shrink’s response had given Hicks pause; it made him sound like a neurotic who’d been running around inside his own head for so long that he couldn’t get out. But then, prolonged periods of isolation could do that to a person.
Cold-sleep was supposed to ameliorate the disrupting effects caused by extreme dislocations in space and time, but it wasn’t completely foolproof. Even asleep, those three little pounds of fatty tissue called the brain could somehow sense that long periods of time had passed and it processed the experience in the whacked-out funhouse of the subconscious mind.
Still, the shrink had okayed him for real work rather than booking him into a hobby lodge for needlepoint or bridge, so Hicks figured he knew what he was doing.
According to the woman on the assignment kiosk in the nearest Operations node, W-11 was the big machine shop on this level—it was all loaders, construction equipment, big engine parts for spacecraft, terraformers, and large-scale life-support.
“It’s all things they need for waystations the size of Anchorpoint or bigger,” she explained. “We need to keep them running at top efficiency. Sound like something you could do?” She looked at him with a glimmer of curiosity. Instantly, Hicks was back on the Sulaco with Sgt. Apone, prepping for the drop at LV-426, with Ripley saying she felt like a fifth wheel and asking was there anything she could do.
Standard military protocol was to treat all civilians like the highest-ranking officers, but Hicks knew Apone had been strongly tempted to tell Snow White to get the hell out of everyone’s way. Instead, he’d removed the cigar from his mouth and said, I don’t know. Is there anything you can do?
Hicks had figured she’d back down, but instead of slinking off in embarrassment, Ripley told him she could drive a loader. I’ve got a Class Two rating. Then she showed him it wasn’t an empty boast by expertly picking up a crate of weapons.
Where do you want it? she’d asked with a smile, almost glamorous amid all that heavy machinery. Apone had looked from her to Hicks and back again before bursting into hearty, good-natured laughter.
The memory vanished and Hicks realized the woman at the kiosk was still waiting for an answer. He tapped the edge of his flexi against the tablet on the counter to accept the job and told her the same thing Ripley had said to him later on, after Apone wasn’t around to be impressed.
“I can handle myself.”
* * *
The map on Hicks’s flexi had made finding the workshop easy enough. The schematic for the workshop itself, however, was less helpful, as it couldn’t convey how much the interior landscape shifted as machinery came in for maintenance and repair. Worse, the lighting was terrible—Anchorpoint was pretty stingy with the candlepower. It was standard practice on the larger space stations, but Hicks had never liked it, especially in a place like this. It was like trying to find his way around shadowy rock formations in a canyon at nightfall.
He made his way through the clusters of machinery and finally found a workstation surrounded by piles of metal components, bits of framework, and machines in various stages of assembly. A small round housekeeping ’bot was scrubbing at grease stains on the floor. Pink foam bubbled up from its brushes as it spun around and around. The spiral design on the ’bot’s flat surface was too scratched and faded to be even vaguely hypnotic.
“You Hicks?”
A husky man with dark brown skin and a full head of short dreads, some of them beaded, peered at him from a perch on a tall stool at the workbench. There was a rack of high-intensity light hanging just above his head. Only one was turned up to full power, its beam aimed directly at the complicated jumble of hardware in his hands. Various other parts were scattered over the ersatz-wood surface, along with wires, bits of circuit boards, and other things Hicks had no clue about. Off to one side was an angle-poise magnifier-lamp with extra lenses. It looked like a genuine antique.
“None other,” Hicks said, glancing at his flexi. “If you’re Walker, I’m here on a temporary duty assignment.”
The man nodded. “Glad you didn’t get lost—I can really use you.” Under his nimble fingers, the jumble he was holding turned into a joystick controller. Walker touched a fingertip to it and Hicks heard the harsh metallic growl of a power-loader coming to life behind him. He stepped to one side as it lumbered forward, thumping to a heavy-footed stop fifteen centimeters to Walker’s right. Exactly fifteen centimeters, Hicks knew, no less and no more. Engineers like Walker lived and breathed precision.
“We got some throwbacks around here that have to have a joystick,” Walker said. “Won’t use voice commands or gestures or a touch-pad. Won’t even try to learn.” He slid off the stool and gestured for Hicks to follow him. “So, tell me, you ever blow out the hydraulic lines on a force-feedback system?”
