Alien

II

Though far from comfortable, the mess was just large enough to hold the entire crew. Since they rarely ate their meals simultaneously (the always functional autochef indirectly encouraging individuality in eating habits), it hadn't been designed with comfortable seating for seven in mind. They shuffled from foot to foot, bumping and jostling each other and trying not to get on each other's nerves.

Parker and Brett weren't happy and took no pains to hide their displeasure. Their sole consolation was the knowledge that nothing was wrong with engineering and that whatever they'd been revived to deal with was the responsibility of persons other than themselves. Ripley had already filled them in on the disconcerting absence of their intended destination.

Parker considered that they would all have to re-enter hypersleep, a messy and uncomfortable process at its best, and cursed under his breath. He resented anything that kept him separated from his end-of-voyage paycheck.

'We know we haven't arrived at Sol, Captain.' Kane spoke for the others, who were all eying Dallas expectantly. 'We're nowhere near home and the ship has still seen fit to hustle us all out of hypersleep. Time we found out why.'

'Time you did.' Dallas agreed readily. 'As you all know,' he began importantly, 'Mother is programmed to interrupt our journey and bring us out of hyperdrive and sleep if certain specified conditions arise.' He paused for effect, said, 'They have.'

'It would have to be pretty serious.' Lambert was watching Jones the cat play with a blinking telltale. 'You know that. Bringing a full crew out of hypersleep isn't lightly done. There's always some risk involved.'

'Tell me about it.' Parker muttered it so softly only Brett could overhear.

'You'll all be happy to learn,' Dallas continued, 'that the emergency we've been awakened to deal with does not involve the Nostromo. Mother says we're in perfect shape.' A couple of heartfelt 'amens' sounded in the cramped mess.

'The emergency lies elsewhere — specifically, in the unlisted system we've recently entered. We should be closing on the particular planet concerned right now.' He glanced at Ash, who rewarded him with a confirming nod. 'We've picked up a transmission from another source. It's garbled and apparently took Mother some time to puzzle out, but it's definitely a distress signal.'

'Whoa, that doesn't make sense.' Lambert looked puzzled herself. 'Of all standard transmissions, emergency calls are the most straightforward and the least complex. Why would Mother have the slightest trouble interpreting one?'

'Mother speculates that this is anything but a 'standard' transmission. It's an acoustic beacon signal, which repeats at intervals of twelve seconds. That much isn't unusual. However, she believes the signal is not of human origin.'

That provoked some startled muttering. When the first excitement had faded, he explained further, 'Mother's not positive. That's what I don't understand. I've never seen a computer show confusion before. Ignorance yes, but not confusion. This may be a first.'

'What is important is that she's certain enough it's a distress signal to pull us out of hypersleep.'

'So what?' Brett appeared sublimely unconcerned.

Kane replied with just a hint of irritation. 'Come on, man. You know your manual. We're obliged under section B2 of Company in-transit directives to render whatever aid and assistance we can in such situations. Whether the call is human or otherwise.'

Parker kicked at the deck in disgust. 'Christ. I hate to say this, but we're a commercial tug with a big, hard-to-handle cargo. Not a damn rescue unit. This kind of duty's not in our contract.' He brightened slightly. 'Of course, if there's some extra money involved for such work. .'

'You better read your contract.' Ash recited as neatly as the main computer he was so proud of. ' 'Any systematic transmission indicating possible intelligent origin must be investigated.' At penalty of full forfeiture of all pay and bonuses due on journey's completion. Not a word about bonus money for helping someone in distress.'

Parker gave the deck another kick, kept his mouth shut. Neither he nor Brett considered himself the hero type. Anything that could force a ship down on a strange world might treat them in an equally inconsiderate manner. Not that they had any evidence that this unknown caller had been forced down, but being a realist in a harsh universe, he was inclined to be pessimistic.

Brett simply saw the detour in terms of his delayed paycheck.

'We're going in. That's all there is to it.? Dallas eyed them each in turn. He was about fed up with the two of them. He no more enjoyed this kind of detour than they did, and was as anxious to be home and offloading their cargo as they were, but there were times when letting off steam crossed over into disobedience.

'Right,' said Brett sardonically.

'Right, what?'

The engineering tech was no fool. The combination of Dallas'ss tone combined with the expression on his face told Brett it was time to ease up.

'Right. . we're going in.' Dallas continued to stare at him and he added with a smile, 'Sir.'

The captain turned a jaundiced eye on Parker, but that worthy was now subdued.

'Can we land on it?' he asked Ash.

'Somebody did.'

'That's what I mean,' he said significantly. ' "Land" is a benign term. It implies a sequence of events successfully carried out, resulting in the gentle and safe touchdown of a ship on a hard surface. We're faced with a distress call. That implies events other than benign. Let's go find out what's going on. . but let's go quietly, with boots in hand.'

There was an illuminated cartographic table on the bridge. Dallas, Kane, Ripley, and Ash stood at opposite points of its compass, while Lambert sat at her station.

'There it is.' Dallas fingered a glowing point on the table. He looked around the table. 'Something I want everyone to hear.'

They resumed their seats as he nodded to Lambert. Her fingers were poised over a particular switch. 'Okay, let's hear it. Watch the volume.'

The navigator flipped the switch. Static and hissing sounds filled the bridge. These cleared suddenly, were replaced by a sound that sent shivers up Kane's back and unholy crawling things down Ripley's. It lasted for twelve seconds, then was replaced by the static.

'Good God.' Kane's expression was drawn.

Lambert switched off the speakers. It was human on the bridge again.

'What the hell is it?' Ripley looked as though she'd just seen something dead on her lunch plate. 'It doesn't sound like any distress signal I ever heard.'

'That's what Mother calls it,' Dallas told them. 'Calling it 'alien' turns out to have been something of an understatement.'

'Maybe it's a voice.' Lambert paused, considered her just-uttered words, found the implications they raised unpleasant, and tried to pretend she hadn't said them.

'We'll know soon. Have you homed in on it?'

'I've found the section of planet.' Lambert turned gratefully to her console, relieved to be able to deal with mathematics instead of disquieting thoughts.

'We're close enough.'

'Mother wouldn't have pulled us out of hypersleep unless we were,' Ripley murmured.

'It's coming from ascension six minutes, twenty seconds; declination minus thirty-nine degrees, two seconds.'

'Show me the whole thing on a screen.'

The navigator hit a succession of buttons. One of the bridge viewscreens flickered, gifted them with a bright dot.

'High albedo. Can you get it a little closer?'

'No. You have to look at it from this distance. That's what I'm going to do.' Immediately the screen zoomed in tighter on the point of light, revealing an unspectacular, slightly oblate shape sitting in emptiness.

'Smart ass.' Dallas voiced it without malice. 'You sure that's it? It's a crowded system.'

'That's it, all right. Just a planetoid, really. Maybe twelve hundred kilometres, no more.'

'Any rotation?'

'Yeah. 'Bout two hours, working off the initial figures. Tell you better in ten minutes.'

'That's good enough for now. What's the gravity?'

Lambert studied different readouts. 'Point eight six. Must be pretty dense stuff.'

'Don't tell Parker and Brett,' said Ripley. 'They'll be thinking it's solid heavy metal and wander off somewhere prospecting before we can check out our unknown broadcaster.'

Ash's observation was more prosaic. 'You can walk on it.' They settled down to working out orbiting procedure. .

The Nostromo edged close to the tiny world, trailing its vast cargo of tanks and refinery equipment

'Approaching orbital apogee. Mark. Twenty seconds. Nineteen, eighteen. .' Lambert continued to count down while her mates worked steadily around her.

'Roll ninety-two degrees starboard yaw,' announced Kane, thoroughly businesslike.

The tug and refinery rotated, performing a massive pirouette in the vastness of space. Light appeared at the stern of the tug as her secondary engines fired briefly.

'Equatorial orbit nailed,' declared Ash. Below them, the miniature world rotated unconcernedly.

'Give me an EG pressure reading.'

Ash examined gauges, spoke without turning to face Dallas. 'Three point four five en slash em squared. . About five psia, sir.'

'Shout if it changes.'

'You worried about redundancy management disabling CMGS control when we're busy elsewhere?'

'Yeah.'

'CMG control is inhibited via DAS/DCS. We'll augment with TACS and monitor through ATMDG land computer interface. Feel better now?'

'A lot.' Ash was a funny sort, kind of coldly friendly, but supremely competent. Nothing rattled him. Dallas felt confident with the science officer backing him up, watching his decisions. 'Prepare to disengage from platform.' He flipped a switch, addressed a small pickup. 'Engineering, preparing to disengage.'

'L alignment on port and starboard is green,' reported Parker, all hint of usual sarcasm absent.

'Green on spinal umbilicus severance,' added Brett.

'Crossing the terminator,' Lambert informed them all. 'Entering nightside.' Below, a dark line split thick clouds, leaving them brightly reflecting on one side, dark as the inside of a grave on the other.

'It's coming up. It's coming up. Stand by.' Lambert threw switches in sequence. 'Stand by. Fifteen seconds. . ten. . five. . four. Three. Two. One. Lock.'

'Disengage,' ordered Dallas curtly.

Tiny puffs of gas showed between the Nostromo and the ponderous coasting bulk of the refinery platform. The two artificial structures, one tiny and inhabited, the other enormous and deserted, drifted slowly apart. Dallas watched the separation intently on number two screen.

'Umbilicus clear,' Ripley announced after a short pause.

'Precession corrected.' Kane leaned back in his seat, relaxing for a few seconds. 'All clean and clear. Separation successful. No damage.'

'Check here,' added Lambert.

'And here,' said a relieved Ripley.

Dallas glanced over at his navigator. 'You sure we've left her in a steady orbit? I don't want the whole two billion tons dropping and burning up while we're poking around downstairs. Atmosphere's not thick enough to give us a safe umbrella.'

Lambert checked a readout. 'She'll stay up here for a year or so easy, sir.'

'All right. The money's safe and so's our skulls. Let's take it down. Prepare for atmospheric flight.' Five humans worked busily, each secure in his or her assigned task. Jones the cat sat on a port console and studied the approaching clouds.

'Dropping.' Lambert's attention was fixed on one particular gauge. 'Fifty thousand metres. Down. Down. Forty-nine thousand. Entering atmosphere.'

Dallas watched his own instrumentation, tried to evaluate and memorize the dozens of steadily shifting figures. Deep-space travel was a question of paying proper homage to one's instruments and letting Mother do the hard work. Atmospheric flight was another story entirely. For a change, it was pilot's work instead of a machine's.

Brown and grey clouds kissed the underside of the ship.

'Watch it. Looks nasty down there.'

How like Dallas, Ripley thought. Somewhere in the dun-hued hell below another ship was bleating a regular, inhuman, frightening distress call. The world itself was unlisted, which meant they'd begin from scratch where such matters as atmospheric peculiarities, terrain, and such were concerned. Yet to Dallas, it was no more or less than 'nasty'. She'd often wondered what a man as competent as their captain was doing squiring an unimportant tub like the Nostromo around the cosmos.

The answer, could she have read his mind, would have surprised her. He liked it.

'Vertical descent computed and entered. Correcting course slightly,' Lambert informed them. 'On course now, homing. Locked and we're in straight.'

'Check. How's our plotting going to square with secondary propulsion in this weather?'

'We're doing okay so far, sir. I can't say for sure until we get under these clouds. If we can get under them.'

'Good enough.' He frowned at a readout, touched a button. The reading changed to a more pleasing one. 'Let me know if you think we're going to lose it.'

'Will do.'

The tug struck an invisibility. Invisible to the eye, not to her instruments. She bounced once, twice, a third time, then settled more comfortably into the thick wad of dark cloud. The ease of the entry was a tribute to Lambert's skills in plotting and Dallas'ss as a pilot.

It did not last. Within the ocean of air, heavy currents swirled. They began buffeting the descending ship.

'Turbulence.' Ripley wrestled with her own controls.

'Give us navigation and landing lights.' Dallas tried to sort sense from the maelstrom obscuring the viewscreen. 'Maybe we can spot something visually.'

'No substitute for the instruments,' said Ash. 'Not in this.'

'No substitute for maximum input, either. Anyhow, I like to look.'

Powerful lights came on beneath the Nostromo. They pierced the cloud waves only weakly, did not provide the clear field of vision Dallas so badly desired. But they did illuminate the dark screens, thereby lightening both the bridge and the mental atmosphere thereon. Lambert felt less like they were flying through ink.

Parker and Brett couldn't see the cloud cover outside, but they could feel it. The engine room gave a sudden shift, rocked to the opposite side, shifted sharply again.

Parker swore under his breath. 'What was that? You hear that?'

'Yeah.' Brett examined a readout nervously. 'Pressure drop in intake number three. We must've lost a shield.' He punched buttons. 'Yep, three's gone. Dust pouring through the intake.'

'Shut her down, shut her down.'

'What do you think I'm doing?'

'Great. So we've got a secondary full of dust.'

'No problem. . I hope.' Brett adjusted a control. 'I'll bypass number three And vent the stuff back out as it comes in.'

'Damage is done, though.' Parker didn't like to think what the presence of wind-blown abrasives might've done to the intake lining. 'What the hell are we flying through? Clouds or rocks? If we don't crash, dollars to your aunt's cherry we get an electrical fire somewhere in the relevant circuitry.'

Unaware of the steady cursing taking place back in engineering, the five on the bridge went about the business of trying to set the tug down intact and near to the signal source.

'Approaching point of origin.' Lambert studied a gauge. 'Closing at twenty-five kilometres. Twenty. Ten, five. .'

'Slowing and turning.' Dallas leaned over on the manual helm.

'Correct course three degrees, four minutes right.' He complied with the directions. 'That's got it. Five kilometres to centre of search circle and steady.'

'Tightening now.' Dallas fingered the helm once more.

'Three kiloms. Two.' Lambert sounded just a mite excited, though whether from the danger or the nearness of the signal source Dallas couldn't tell. 'We're practically circling above it now.'

'Nice work, Lambert. Ripley, what's the terrain like? Find us a landing spot.'

'Working, sir.' She tried several panels, her expression of disgust growing deeper as unacceptable readings came back. Dallas continued to make sure the ship held its target in the centre of its circling flightpath while Ripley fought to make sense of the unseen surface.

'Visual line of sight impossible.'

'We can see that,' Kane mumbled. 'Or rather, can't see it.' The rare half-glimpses the instruments had given him of the ground hadn't put him in a pleasant frame of mind. The occasional readings had hinted at extensive desolation, a hostile, barren desert of a world.

'Radar gives me noise.' Ripley wished electronics could react to imprecations as readily as people. 'Sonar gives me noise. Infra-red, noise. Hang on, I'm going to try ultra violet. Spectrum's high enough not to interfere.' A moment, followed by the appearance on a crucial readout of some gratifying lines at last, followed in turn by brightly lit words and a computer sketch.

'That did it.'

'And a place to land on it?'

Ripley looked fully relaxed now. 'As near as I can tell, we can set down anywhere you like. Readings say it's flat below us. Totally flat.'

Dallas's thoughts turned to visions of smooth lava, of a cool but deceptively thin crust barely concealing molten destruction. 'Yeah, but flat what? Water, pahoehoe, sand? Bounce something off, Kane. Get us a determination. I'll take her down low enough so that we lose most of this interference. If it's flat, I can get us close without too much trouble.'

Kane flipped switches. 'Monitoring. Analytics activated. Still getting noise.'

Carefully, Dallas eased the tug toward the surface.

'Still noisy, but starting to clear.'

Again, Dallas lost altitude. Lambert watched gauges. They were more than high enough for safe clearance, but at the speed they were Travelling that could change rapidly if anything went wrong with the ship's engines, or if an other-worldly downdraft should materialize. Nor could they cut their speed further. In this wind, that would mean a critical loss of control.

'Clearing, clearing. . that's got it!' He studied readouts and contour lines provided by the ship's imaging scanner. 'It was molten once, but not anymore. Not for a long time, according to the analytics. It's mostly basalt, some rhyolite, with occasional lava overlays. Everything's cool and solid now. No sign of tectonic activity.' He utilized other instruments to probe deeper into the secrets of the tiny world's skin.

'No faults of consequence below us or in the immediate vicinity. Should be a nice place to set down.'

Dallas thought briefly. 'You're positive about the surface composition?'

'It's too old to be anything else.' The executive officer sounded a touch peeved. 'I know enough to check age data along with composition. Think I'd take any chances putting us down inside a volcano?'

'All right, all right. Sorry. Just checking. I haven't done a landing without charts and beacon since school training. I'm a bit nervous.'

'Ain't we all?' admitted Lambert readily.

'If we're set then?' No one objected. 'Let's take her down. I'm going to spiral in as best I can in this wind, try to get us as close as possible. But you keep a tight signal watch on, Lambert. I don't want us coming down on top of that calling ship. Warn me for distance if we get too close.' His tone was intense in the cramped room.

Adjustments were made, commands given and executed by faithful electronic servants. The Nostromo commenced to follow a steady spiraling path surfaceward, fighting crosswinds and protesting gusts of black air every metre of the way.

'Fifteen kilometres and descending,' announced Ripley evenly. 'Twelve. . ten. . eight.' Dallas touched a control. 'Slowing rate. Five. . three. . two. One kilometre.' The same control was further altered. 'Slowing. Activate landing engines.'

'Locked.' Kane was working confidently at his console. 'Descent now computer monitored.' A crisp, loud hum filled the bridge as Mother took over control of their drop, regulating the last metres of descent with more precision than the best human pilot could have managed.

'Descending on landers,' Kane told them.

'Kill engines.'

Dallas performed a final prelanding check, flipped several switches to OFF. 'Engines off. Lifter quads functioning properly.' A steady throbbing filled the bridge.

'Nine hundred metres and dropping.' Ripley watched her console. 'Eight hundred. Seven hundred Six.' She continued to count off the rate of descent in hundreds of metres. Before long she was reciting it in tens.

At five metres the tug hesitated, hovering on its landers above the storm-wracked, night-shrouded surface.

'Struts down.' Kane was already moving to execute the required action as Dallas was giving the order. A faint whine filled the bridge. Several thick metal legs unfolded beetle-like from the ship's belly, drifted tantalizingly close to the still unseen rock below them.

'Four metres. . ufff!' Ripley stopped. So did the Nostromo, as landing struts contacted unyielding rock. Massive absorbers cushioned the contact.

'We're down.'

Something snapped. A minor circuit, probably, or perhaps an overload not properly compensated for, not handled fast enough. A terrific shock ran through the ship. The metal of the hull vibrated, producing an eerie, metallic moan throughout the ship.

'Lost it, lost it!' Kane was shouting as the lights on the bridge went out. Gauges screamed for attention as the failure snowballed back through the interdependent metal nerve ends of the Nostromo.

When the shock struck engineering, Parker and Brett were preparing to crack another set of beers. A line of ranked pipes set into the moulded ceiling promptly exploded. Three panels in the control cubicle burst into flame, while a nearby pressure valve swelled, then burst.

The lights went out and they fumbled for hand beams while Parker tried to find the button controlling the backup generator, which provided power in the absence of direct service from the operating engines.

Controlled confusion reigned on the bridge. When the yells and questions had died down, it was Lambert who voiced the most common thought.

'Secondary generator should have kicked over by now.' She took a step, bumped a knee hard against a console.

'Wonder what's keeping it?' Kane moved to the wall, felt along it. Backup landing controls. . here. He ran his fingers over several familiar knobs. Aft lock stud. . there. Nearby ought to be. . his hand fastened on an emergency lightbar, switched it on. A dim glow revealed several ghostly silhouettes.

With Kane's light serving as a guide, Dallas and Lambert located their own lightbars. The three beams combined to provide enough illumination to work by.

'What happened? Why hasn't the secondary taken over? And what caused the outage?'

Ripley thumbed the intercom. 'Engine room, what happened? What's our status?'

'Lousy.' Parker sounded busy, mad, and worried all at once. A distant buzzing, like the frantic wings of some colossal insect, formed a backdrop to his words. Those words rose and faded, as though the speaker were having trouble staying in range of the omni-directional intercom pickup.

'Goddamn dust in the engines, that's what happened. Caught it coming down. Guess we didn't close it off and clean it out in time. Got an electrical fire back here.'

'It's big,' was Brett's single addition to the conversation. He sounded weak with distance.

There was a pause, during which they could make out only the whoosh of chemical extinguishers over the speaker. 'The intakes got clogged,' Brett finally was able to tell the anxious knot of listeners. 'We overheated bad, burnt out a whole cell, I think. Christ, it's really breaking loose down here. . '

Dallas glanced over at Ripley. 'Those two sound busy enough. Somebody give me the critical answer. Something went bang. I hope to hell it was only back in their department, but it could be worse. Has the hull been breached?' He took a deep breath. 'If so, where and how badly?'

Ripley performed a quick scan of the ship's emergency pressurization gauges, then made a rapid eye search via individual cabin diagrams before she felt confident in replying with certainty. 'I don't see anything. We still have full pressure in all compartments. If there is a hole, it's too small to show and the self-seal's already managed to plug it.'

Ash studied his own console. Along with the others, it was independently powered in the event of a massive energy failure such as they were presently experiencing. 'Air in all compartments shows no sign of contamination from outside atmosphere. I think we're still tight, sir.'

'Best news I've had in sixty seconds. Kane, hit the exterior screens that are still powered up.'

The executive officer adjusted a trio of toggles. There was a noticeable flickering, hints of faint geologic forms, then complete darkness.

'Nothing. We're blind outside as well as in here. Have to get secondary power at least before we can have a look at where we are. Batteries aren't enough for even minimal imaging.'

The audio sensors required less energy. They conveyed the voice of this world into the cabin. The storm-wind sounds rose and fell against the motionless receptors, filling the bridge with a hoo-click that sounded like fish arguing.

'Wish we'd come down in daylight.' Lambert gazed out a dark port. 'We'd be able to see without instruments.'

'What's the matter, Lambert?' Kane was teasing her. 'Afraid of the dark?'

She didn't smile back. 'I'm not afraid of the dark I know. It's the dark I don't that terrifies me. Especially when it's filled with noises like that distress call.' She turned her attention back to the dustswept port.

Her willingness to express their deepest fears did nothing to improve the mental atmosphere on the bridge. Cramped at the best of times, it grew suffocating in the near blackness, made worse by a continuing silence among them.

It was a relief when Ripley announced, 'We've got intercom to engineering again.' Dallas and the others watched her expectantly as she fiddled with the amp. 'That you, Parker?'

'Yeah, it's me.' From the sound of it, the engineer was too tired to snap in his usual acerbic manner.

'What's your status?' Dallas crossed mental fingers. 'What about that fire?'

'We finally got it knocked down.' He sighed, making it sound like the wind over the 'corn. 'It got into some of that old lubrication lining the corridor walls down on C level. For a while I thought we'd get our lungs seared proper. The combustible stuff was thinner than I thought, though, and it burnt out fast before it ate up too much of our air. Scrubbers seem to be getting the carbon out okay.'

Dallas licked his lips. 'How about damage? Never mind the superficial stuff. Ship-efficiency function and performance hindrance are all I'm concerned about.'

'Let's see. . four panel is totally shot.' Dallas could imagine the engineer ticking off items on his fingers as he reported back. 'The secondary-load sharing unit is out and at least three cellites on twelve module are gone. With all that implies.' He let that sink in, added, 'You want the little things? Give me about an hour and I'll have you a list.'

'Skip it. Hold on a second.' He turned to Ripley. 'Try the screens again.' She did so, with no effect. They remained as blank as a Company accountant's mind.

'We'll just have to do without a while longer,' he told her.

'You sure that's everything?' she said into the pickup. Ripley found herself feeling sympathy for Parker and Brett for the first time since they'd become part of the crew. Or since she had, as Parker preceded her in seniority as a member of the Nostromo's complement.

'So far.' He coughed over the speaker. 'We're trying to get full ship power back right now. Twelve module going out screwed up everything back here. Let you know better about power when we've gone through everything the fire ate.'

'What about repairs? Can you manage?' Dallas was running over the engineer's brief reports in his mind. They ought to be able to patch up the initial damage, but the cellite problem would take time. What might be wrong with module twelve he preferred not to think about.

'Couldn't fix it all out here no matter what,' Parker replied.

'I didn't think you could. Don't expect you to. What can you do?'

'We need to reroute a couple of these ducts and reline the damaged intakes. We'll have to work around the really bad damage. Can't fix those ducts properly without putting the ship in a full drydock. We'll have to fake it.'

'I understand. What else?'

'Told you. Module twelve. I'm giving it to you straight. We lost a main cell'

'How? The dust?'

'Partly.' Parker paused, exchanged inaudible words with Brett, then was back at the pickup. 'Some fragments agglutinated inside the intakes, caked up, and caused the overheating that sparked the fire. You know how sensitive those drivers are. Went right through the shielding and blew the whole system.'

'Anything you can do with it?' Dallas asked. The system had to be repaired somehow. They couldn't replace it.

'I think so. Brett thinks so. We've got to clean it all out and revacuum, then see how well it holds. If it stays tight after it's been scoured, we should be fine. If it doesn't, we can try metalforming a patchseal. If it turns out that we've got a crack running the length of the duct, well. .' His voice trailed away.

'Let's not talk about ultimate problems,' Dallas suggested. 'Let's stick with the immediate ones for now and hope they're all we have to deal with.'

'Okay by us.'

'Right,' added Brett, sounding as though he was working somewhere off to the engineer's left

'Bridge out.,'

'Engineering out. Keep the coffee warm.'

Ripley flipped off the intercom, looked expectantly at Dallas. He sat quietly, thinking.

'How long before we're functional, Ripley? Given that Parker's right about the damage and that he and Brett can do their jobs and the repairs hold?'

She studied readouts, thought for a moment. 'If they can reroute those ducts and fix module twelve to the point where it'll carry it's share of the power load again, I'd estimate fifteen to twenty hours.'

'Not too bad. I got eighteen.' He didn't smile, but he was feeling more hopeful. 'What about the auxiliaries? They'd better be ready to go when we get power back.'

'Working on it.' Lambert made adjustments to concealed instrumentation. 'We'll be ready here when they're finished back in engineering.'

Ten minutes later a tiny speaker at Kane's station let go with a series of sharp beeps. He studied a gauge, then flipped on the 'com. 'Bridge. Kane here.'

Sounding exhausted but pleased with himself, Parker spoke from the far end of the ship. 'I don't know how long it'll hold. . some of the welds we had to make are pretty sloppy. If everything kicks over the way it ought to, we'll retrace more carefully and redo the seals for permanence. You ought to have power now.'

The exec thumbed an override. Lights returned to the bridge, dependent readouts flickered and lit up, and there were scattered grunts and murmurs of appreciation from the rest of the crew.

'We've got power and lights back,' Kane reported. 'Nice work, you two.'

'All our work is nice,' replied Parker.

'Right.' Brett must have been standing next to the intercom pickup back by the engines, judging from the steady hum that formed an elegant counterpoint to his standard monosyllabic response.

'Don't get too excited,' Parker was saying. 'The new links should hold, but I'm not making any promises. We just threw stuff together back here. Anything new up your way?'

Kane shook his head, reminded himself that Parker couldn't see the gesture. 'Not a damn thing.' He glanced out the nearest port. The bridge lights cast their faint glow over a patch of featureless, barren ground. Occasionally the storm raging outside would carry a large fragment of sand or bit of rock into view and there would be a brief flash produced by reflection. But that was all.

'Just bare rock. We can't see very far. For all I know we could be squatting five metres from the local oasis.'

'Dream on.' Parker shouted something to Brett, closed with a workmanlike, 'Be in touch if we have any trouble. Let us know the same.'

'Send you a postcard.' Kane switched off. .