Alien: Covenant - The Official Movie Novelization

IX

A chilling mist appeared, until half the jumble of severed trees through which they were now traipsing was obscured. At the same time the terrain grew steep and difficult. The mist slowed their progress further by making everything underfoot treacherously slippery.

Lopé didn’t like it one bit. Always thinking defensively, he hadn’t liked the dense forest, and he liked it even less now that much of it was obscured by fog.

A sound pinged in the mist. It came not from the throat of some unique alien life-form, but from Walter’s multiunit. The synthetic frowned at the readout. An anxious Lopé prodded him.

“Something in front of us?”

“No.” Standing close to Walter, Daniels was studying the same readout. “Not in front of us. Stop.”

The sergeant gestured for his troops to halt. The intermittent breeze stirred the damp atmospheric soup, teasing them now and then with an occasional glimpse of boulders, fallen trees, mountainside. Rosenthal took a step into a puddle of water and immediately froze, fearful she might have disturbed something.

“Not in front of us,” Daniels repeated. She had her head tilted sharply back. “Above us.”

Shrouded by the mist, they hadn’t been able to see it until they were virtually beneath it. Or at least, an awed Lopé thought as he stared upward, beneath part of it. The two gigantic, asymmetrical arms protruded skyward at an angle, as if reaching for something unseen.

They weren’t trees, Daniels told herself. They were part of an artificial construct, gigantic and unfamiliar. But what?

They resumed their advance, everyone occasionally glancing up at the looming, curving sweep of the twin protrusions. They hadn’t gone much further when they found their path blocked by something smooth, striated, almost polished. Tilting back her head again, Daniels found she could not see the top of it. An enormous wall? But if so why here, slapped up against a mountainside?

Coming up alongside her, Walter ran a hand along the facade. Ripples the same color as the main surface indicated the presence of numerous conduits. So tightly integrated were they into the structure that they looked as if they might have grown from it. Or into it. Experimentally, he rapped one with his knuckles, then turned to look back the way they had come.

The arms, the wall, lay in a direct line with the chasm of smashed trees. The crushed growths nearest to the expedition party had been cut off nearly level with the ground. The artificiality of the wall-object combined with the angle of destruction led him to render a preliminary opinion.

“I would say, based on a number of factors, that we have found some kind of vehicle. A ship.”

Lopé grunted. “Goddamn big fucking ship, if it is one.” He mimicked the synthetic’s voice. “I would say, based on a number of factors, that it… didn’t have a very good landing.”

Nearby, Rosenthal started to laugh. It died quickly, smothered by mist and the implications of their find.

As they stood and stared, the fog thinned just enough to see the entirety of one long arm curving overhead. It jutted off the side of the mountain at a sharp angle. The “wall” Daniels had encountered was part of the hull. Much of the vessel—as everyone was starting to think of the artifact—had buried itself in the side of the peak. That, as much as the avenue of downed trees, spoke to the impact with which it had struck.

So overwhelmed was everyone by the discovery that all were startled when Private Cole’s voice sounded sharply over the unified comm.

“Think we found a way in, sir.”

The opening into the ship, if that was indeed what it was, loomed vast, dark, uninviting, and unsettlingly reminiscent of a portion of human female anatomy. The team’s lights probed the gray-black corridor, groping for something solid off which to reflect.

Concentrating on the small circle made by her own beam, Daniels was unable to tell if their surroundings were made of metal, plastic, glass, or something organic in origin. What appeared to be supporting struts could equally well have been the ribs of some gigantic beast through whose viscera they were traveling. Everything visible, which wasn’t much, was tinted with gloom.

Everything looked—wet.

Without hesitating, Lopé led the way, as it was his job. His own light revealed nothing moving: not so much as a worm. There was only a steady drip of water spilling off the edge of the opening that led to the outside world, and the occasional rush of wind. Sometimes the latter blew inward, at other times out. Like a bellows, Daniels mused. Like breathing.

“Ankor, Cole,” Lopé snapped. “Stay on watch here at the entry. Don’t come in, and don’t leave. Anything out of the ordinary shows itself—I mean anything else out of the ordinary—you tell us pronto.”

No argument was forthcoming from the two privates, who were more than happy to be ordered to remain outside. Raising his carbine, the sergeant clicked on its laser sight and moved inward, letting the red beam dictate their path.

Reaching an even larger open chamber, they paused to examine their surroundings. Laser scopes and lights cut through the darkness to reveal the extent of the room. Stepping on something that moved slightly, a startled Daniels let out a small gasp and drew her foot back. Shining her light on the floor revealed fragments of broken material. Raising the beam showed that the shards had once formed some kind of black urn.

Others stood upright nearby. Not all had fallen over or been shattered. Some remained intact. Nor was all the detritus in the room hard and unyielding. Some of it had turned soft with age. Spread out among the desolation were carpets of what appeared to be black mold. Embedded in the moldy masses were tiny clusters of larger, more solid objects.

Extending a finger, a curious Hallet bent toward one. He was immediately enjoined by a stern Lopé.

“Hey.” The sergeant shook his head slowly. “Don’t. Touch.” Having delivered the order, he moved on.

Hallet straightened to follow when… movement caught his eye. Had one of the tiny ovoids stirred slightly on its own? Or was it just the wind rippling through the chamber? He hesitated. This could be significant. He might even get credited with an important discovery.

“Guys…”

Everyone else had moved on, following Lopé’s lead. Still, Hallet lingered, debating what to do. Surely something so small couldn’t present much of a danger. The thought of being the first one to make a major discovery on this new world, beating out even the scientists, was seriously tempting.

His companions were out of sight now, but their lights were still visible, probing walls and floor. Easy to follow.

He leaned down anew, crouching…

The murky interior of the ship was devoid of internal illumination, but not of water. It ran down the uneven levels in thin, almost silent rivulets. In places it gathered to form shallow pools. The team ignored them, splashing occasionally through deeper accumulations.

In another corridor they came upon a row of what Daniels at first thought were sculptures. Closer inspection revealed them to be suits. At first glance there was no way to tell if they were space suits, survival suits, suits for carrying out daily activities, or suits for performing actions she could not imagine. What was more intriguing than their function was the inescapable fact that the bodies they were manufactured to fit were far larger than those intended for humans. The shapes were generally humanoid. Bisymmetrical: two arms, two legs, a skull, and generally human proportions.

But much, much bigger.

Walter joined her, scrutinizing silently, making notes and taking readings without the aid of external instrumentation. He offered no comment, nor did she solicit any. As usual, if he had anything of consequence to offer, he wouldn’t need to be prodded to voice it.

Oram regarded their dank surroundings with an increasing look of unease. Reaching into a pocket, he withdrew his worry beads and began to roll them between his fingers. The sharp click-click proved even more unnerving than the silence they interrupted.

Still lingering behind them, Hallet thought better of his actions. As long as he had been a member of the Covenant’s security team, there hadn’t been a time when it had been wise to ignore Lopé’s instructions. Tempting as it was to see himself credited with an important finding, maybe in this case it was better to leave such probing to those with more experience.

After all, he would still get credit for pointing it out to the scientists when they traced their path back through this chamber. So he took a step backward, away from the small rotund object he had been examining. As he did so his foot inadvertently brushed against another one that was half buried in the mold behind him.

It dissolved into a cloud of motes.

Rising, they swiftly coalesced into a microscopic form that would have been difficult to see even in bright sunlight. In the darkness, it was essentially invisible. Hallet’s beam might have been strong enough, but it was turned the other way as he prepared to catch up to the rest of the team.

The mote-shape hovered for a long moment near his head, as if in contemplation. As if studying. Then it darted forward abruptly, slipping into one nostril. An ovipositor-like tube formed. A function engaged, not quite imperceptible.

Unconcerned, Hallet rubbed the side of his nose.

A figure returned to meet him. It was Lopé, and his concern quickly switched to irritation.

“Hey, Tom, keep up!” he barked. “Do I need to put you on a leash?”

“Yeah, sure. Sorry, Sarge. I was just looking around.”

“We’re all ‘looking around.’ That’s why we’re here instead of back on the ship. Let’s just make sure we keep in sight of each other while we look around, okay?” He lowered his voice in a conspiratorial, comradely tone. “The brains tend to wander off on their own. I don’t need one of my own people doing the same. Especially you, Tom.”

No more was said. They hurried to rejoin the others.

The next chamber they entered was enormous. Unlike those through which they had come, this one had a rounded, dome-like ceiling supported by curving walls. The walls themselves showed no signs of joints, welds, seams, or internal support of any kind. A gently sloping ramp led to a huge platform that rose from the exact center of the floor.

It fronted a console that curved around an impressive device that might equally have been a weapon, a telescope, or some kind of instrument whose purpose was not immediately apparent. There was a chair, and as they approached it, their footsteps clicking on the ramp, they saw that it was unoccupied.

Spaced equidistantly around the chamber they found four huge pods. Closed and covered with deeply inscribed indecipherable writing, they appeared to grow out of the floor of the platform. It was much too soon to tell if they were analogs to the hypersleep shells like those on the Covenant, or intended for some other purpose, yet their similarity was near enough to give Daniels chills. One obvious difference was size. They dwarfed those on board the mother ship. She wished fervently she could read the script on their sides.

As Rosenthal played her light over the artifacts, Oram mounted the central console to investigate the sweep of inactive instrumentation. There were no buttons, switches, monitors, or any other recognizable controls. Only multiple imbedded hemispheres of varying sizes hinted at a means of activation. Though he was careful to touch nothing, his caution was misplaced. The engineering behind the console had not relied on anything as primitive as actual physical contact.

Oram’s hand passed over a matte inlay and…

A holo appeared, flashing to life exactly where Rosenthal was standing. Startled, she jumped clear, allowing the image to fully reveal itself. Though blurry and indistinct, it was clearly a human woman. The imagery was accompanied by audio. Audio that was by now as familiar as it was mystifying… and disturbing.

“Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong… West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home, country roads…”

As he strained to parse the lyrics, Oram couldn’t keep from sensing the underlying sadness in what ought to be a positive tone.

“Listen to her voice,” he murmured as the song reverberated around the vast bowl of the chamber. “So much regret. And distress.”

“Fucking distressed me.” Seriously unsettled by the eerie tonalities, Rosenthal didn’t care if she stepped on the captain’s rhetorical toes. “What the hell was she doing out here? How the hell did she even get here, on an alien ship, crashed on an alien world? Poor thing.” She hefted her heavy F90 rifle, a companion to the ones carried by Cole and Ledward. “Not liking this one bit, Captain.”

Oram didn’t respond. He stared at the holo, fascinated as it shifted position inside the chamber. As they watched, the figure looked over its shoulder, silent for a long moment. As much as he was able to tell, the image looked nervous—or scared. Then the singing resumed, as ethereal as its insubstantial vocalist.

“If I were stuck here,” Rosenthal added under her breath, “I’d want to go home, too. Even to West Virginia, wherever it is. Or was.”

Unable to repress his curiosity any further, Oram approached the figure. It ignored him and continued its mournful lament. Until he swept his hand through it, at which point it shut off completely, sound as well as visual.

Having had enough of ghosts, Rosenthal had shifted her attention to the enormous slanted chair in the center of the room. Climbing into it, she played her light around the interior of what appeared to be additional instrumentation. As Oram had discovered, it was as dark and dead as the rest of the ship. Nothing reacted to the light from her beam, the movement of her limbs, or even contact with her hand. Everything she touched was as cold as the water that dripped and ran through the vessel’s disturbingly organic corridors.

“God,” she muttered, remembering the suits in the corridor and comparing them to the size of the console. “They were giants.”

“Maybe not.” Always hard to impress, Lopé used his light to study the exterior of the seat-console. “Maybe they were normal-sized, and we’re a race of midgets.”

Oram’s expression twisted. “I’m afraid I don’t believe in giants.”

Hanging from a chain around Rosenthal’s neck was an ancient symbol—a Star of David. Reaching into her shirt she pulled it out, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. Metal though it was, it was less cold than her surroundings.

“I do,” she said simply.

Not far from the chamber and off a side passage, Daniels and Walter encountered a number of smaller alcoves. Most held objects smooth, twisted, and generally incomprehensible. Both human and synthetic were shocked when they peered into one that had been turned into a semblance of living quarters—for a human.

Walter moved on to inspect another alcove further down, but Daniels lingered. As she shined her beam inside, it was a glint of gold that caught her eye and drew her attention. The last thing she expected to see on the alien vessel was a crucifix, but that’s exactly what it was, gold and straightforward, hanging by its chain from a bent piece of conduit.

She beckoned to Walter.

“Over here. I’ve got something.” Wary as always, she waited for him to join her so they could enter together.

The alcove had been made into the equivalent of a ship’s cabin. There was some furniture, plainly hand-made, a bed, and a desk with a chair. Atmospheric moisture had taken its toll on any of the contents that were organic in origin. Although it could use a polish, the gold crucifix and chain looked as new as the day they had been forged.

The same couldn’t be said for the moldy pile of bound paper lying on the desk. How and where the paper had been acquired, Daniels could not imagine. Perhaps, she mused, it had been manufactured on site. There was certainly plenty of wood available from which to make pulp.

She couldn’t remember ever seeing bound paper anywhere outside of a museum. Yet here it was, in as unlikely a place as could be envisioned. Sadly, much of it had been rotted by the constant moisture, and the contents rendered illegible. But the front still retained recognizable, embossed letters.

“Dr. Elizabeth… Shaw.” Daniels said it aloud.

Nearby, Walter spotted a transparent block. His light picked out an image of two smiling people, floating within it.

“Is that her?”

Walking over, Daniels picked up the block and studied the contents. Frozen in time, space, and the transparent material, a man and a woman stared back at her.

“Seeing that it’s in here, in this place, close to a journal with her name on it, it seems likely,” she answered, “but I don’t know.”

While she continued to examine the image block, Walter played his light into other corners of the alcove-cabin. There were clothes, neatly folded, with some of them decaying like the paper journal, only not as rapidly. Personal items. A smattering of small artifacts, likely gathered from the distant reaches of the ship. A helmet.

Walter went stock still as his light caught the logo on the spherical piece of protective gear. Since the helmet wasn’t made of paper, fabric, or any other material subject to normal weathering, the writing on it was still perfectly clear.

“Do you remember the Prometheus?” he asked.

Daniels turned away from the desk and back to him. “The ship that disappeared… yes. It was major news for a while. Then people forgot about it, just like they inevitably forget about everything.”

“Precisely,” he concurred. “That was ten years ago. The mission was funded by Weyland Industries.”

She stared at him. “So?”

“Look at this.” Picking up the helmet, he brought it close enough for her to see the logo. “If memory serves, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw was chief science officer of the Prometheus.”

Daniels was as stunned as the synthetic had been when his gaze had first picked out the logo on the helmet.

“Crazy.” She shook her head in amazement. “That explains all this.” With the sweep of a hand she took in the alcove and its contents. “But not how she ended up here.” Turning, she peered into the recesses of the makeshift habitat. “There’s no body. There have to be some remains somewhere.”

“Of course,” Walter agreed readily. “Remains. Somewhere.”