Aliens

XI

Hudson had the portable tactical console set up next to the colony's main computer terminal. Wires trailed from the console to the computer, a rat's nest of connections that enabled whoever sat behind the tactical board to interface with the colony's remaining functional instrumentation. Hicks looked up as Ripley entered Operations and slapped a switch to kill the alarm. Vasquez and Hudson joined her in clustering around the console.

'They're coming,' he informed them quietly. 'Just thought you'd like to know. They're in the tunnel already.'

Ripley licked her lips as she stared at the console readouts 'Are we ready for them?'

The corporal shrugged, adjusted a gain control. 'Ready as we can be. Assuming everything we've set up works Manufacturers' warranties aren't going to be a lot of use to us if something shorts out when it's supposed to be firing, like those sentry guns. They're about all we've got.'

'Don't worry, man, they'll work.' Hudson looked better than at any time since the initial assault on the processing station's lower levels. 'I've set up hundreds of those suckers. Once the ready lights come on, you can leave 'em and forget 'em. I just don't know if they'll be enough.'

'No use worrying about it. We're throwing everything we've got left at them. Either the RSS guns'll stop them or they won't Depends on how many of them there are.' Hicks thumbed a couple of contact switches. Everything read out on-line and operational. He glanced at the readouts for the motion sensors mounted on A and B guns. They were blinking rapidly, the strobe speeding up until both lights shone steadily. At the same time a crash of heavy gunfire made the floor quiver slightly.

'Guns A and B. Tracking and firing on multiple targets.' He looked up at Hudson. 'You give good firepower.'

The comtech ignored Hicks, watching the multiple readouts 'Another dozen guns,' he muttered under his breath. 'That's al it would take. If we had another dozen guns. '

A steady rumble echoed through the complex as the automatic weapons pounded away beneath them. Twin ammo counters on the console shrank inexorably toward single digits.

'Fifty rounds per gun. How are we going to stop them with only fifty rounds per gun?' Hicks murmured.

'They must all be wall-to-wall down there.' Hudson gestured at the readouts. 'Look at those ammo counters go. It's a shooting gallery down there.'

'What about the acid?' Ripley wondered. 'I know those guns are armoured, but you've seen that stuff at work. It'll eat through anything.'

'As long as the guns keep firing, they ought to be okay, Hicks told her. 'Those RSS shells have a lot of impact. If it keeps blowing them backward, that'll keep the acid away. It'll spray all over the walls and floor, but the guns should stay clear.'

That certainly seemed to be what was happening in the service tunnel because the robot sentries kept up their steady barrage. Two minutes went by; three. The counter on B gun reached zero, and the thunder below was reduced by half. Its motion sensor continued to flicker on the tactical readout as the empty weapon tracked targets it could no longer fire upon.

'B gun's dry. Twenty left on A.' Hicks watched the counter his throat dry. 'Ten. Five. That's it.'

A grim silence descended over Operations. It was shattered by a reverberating boom from below. It was repeated at regular intervals like the thunder of a massive gong. Each of them knew what the sound meant.

'They're at the fire door,' Ripley muttered. The booming increased in strength and ferocity. Audible along with the deeper rumble was another new sound: the nerve-racking scrape of claws on steel.

'Think they can break through there?' Ripley thought Hicks looked remarkably calm. Assurance—or resignation'

'One of them ripped a hatch right off the APC when it tried to pull Gorman out, remember?' she reminded him.

Vasquez nodded toward the floor. 'That ain't no hatch down there. It's a Class double-A fire door, three layers of stee alloy with carbon-fibre composite laid between. The door wil hold. It's the welds I'm worried about. We didn't have much time. I'd feel better if I'd had a couple bars of chromite solder and a laser instead of a gas torch to work with.'

'And another hour,' Hudson added. 'Why don't you wish for a couple of Katusha Six antipersonnel rockets while you're at it One of those babies would clean out the whole tunnel.'

The intercom buzzed for attention, startling them. Hicks clicked it on.

'Bishop here. I heard the guns. How are we doing?'

'As well as can be expected. A and B sentries are out of ammo, but they must've done some damage.'

'That's good, because I'm afraid I have some bad news.'

Hudson made a face and leaned back against a cabinet 'Well, now, that's a switch.'

'What kind of bad news?' Hicks inquired.

'It will be easier to explain and show you at the same time. I'l be right over.'

'We'll be here.' Hicks flipped the intercom off. 'Charming.'

'Hey, no sweat,' said the jaunty comtech. 'We're already in the toilet, so why worry?'

The android arrived quickly and moved to the single high window that overlooked much of the colony complex. The wind had picked back up and blown off the clinging fog Visibility was still far from perfect, but it was sufficient to permit them a glimpse of the distant atmosphere-processing station. As they stared, a column of flame unexpectedly jetted skyward from the base of the station. For an instant it was brighter than the steady glow that emanated from the top of the cone itself.

'What was that?' Hudson pressed his face closer to the glass.

'Emergency venting,' Bishop informed him.

Ripley was standing close to the comtech. 'Can the construction contain the overload?'

'Not a chance. Not if the figures I've been monitoring are half accurate, and I have no reason to suppose that they are anything other than completely accurate.'

'What happened?' Hicks spoke as he walked back to the tactical console. 'Did the aliens cause that, monkeying around inside?'

'There's no way to tell. Perhaps. More likely someone hit something vital with a smartgun shell or a blast from a pulse-rifle during the fight on C-level. Or the damage might have been done when the dropship smashed into the base of the complex. The cause is of no import. All that matters is the result, which is not good.'

Ripley started to tap her fingers on the window, thought better of it, and brought her hand back to her side. There might be something out there listening. As she stared, another gush of superheated gas flared from the base of the processing station.

'How long before it blows?'

'There's no way to be sure. One can extrapolate from the available figures but without any degree of certainty. There are too many variables involved that can only be roughly compensated for, and the requisite calculations are complex.'

'How long?' Hicks asked patiently.

The android turned to him. 'Based on the information I've been able to gather, I'm projecting total systems failure in a little under four hours. The blast radius will be about thirty kilometres. It will be nice and clean. No fallout, of course About ten megatons.'

'That's very reassuring,' said Hudson dryly.

Hicks sucked air. 'We got problems.'

The comtech unfolded his arms and turned away from his companions. 'I don't believe this,' he said disconsolately. 'Do you believe this? The RSS guns blow a pack of them to bits, the fire door's still holding, and it's all a waste!'

'It's too late to shut the station down? Assuming the instrumentation necessary to do it is still operational?' Ripley stared at the android. 'Not that I'm looking forward to jogging across the tarmac, but if that's the only chance we've got, I'll take a shot at it.'

He smiled regretfully. 'Save your legs. I'm afraid it's too late The dropship impact, or the guns, or whatever, did too much damage. At this point overload is inevitable.'

'Terrific. So what's the recommended procedure now?'

Vasquez grinned at her. 'Bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.'

Hudson was pacing the floor like a caged cat. 'Oh, man. And I was getting short too! Four more weeks and out. Three of that in hypersleep. Early retirement. Ten years in the Marines and you're out and sitting pretty, they said. Recruiters. Now I'm gonna buy it on this rock. It ain't fair, man!'

Vasquez looked bored. 'Give us a break, Hudson.'

He spun on her. 'That's easy for you to say, Vasquez. You're a lifer. You love mucking around on these alien dirtballs so you can blow away anything that sticks up bug eyes. Me, I joined for the pension. Ten years and out, take the credit, and buy into a little bar somewhere, hire somebody else to run the joint so I can kick back and jabchat with the customers while the money rolls in.'

The smartgun operator looked back toward the window as another gas jet lit up the mist-shrouded landscape. Her expression was hard. 'You're breaking my heart. Go cross a wire or something.'

'It's simple.' Ripley looked over at Hicks. 'We can't stay here so we've got to get away. There's only one way to do that: We need the other dropship. The one that's still on the Sulaco Somehow we have to bring it down on remote. There's got to be a way to do that.'

'There was. You think I haven't been thinking about that ever since Ferro rolled ours into the station?' Hudson stopped pacing. 'You use a narrow-beam transmitter tuned just for the dropship's controls.'

'I know,' she said impatiently. 'I thought about that, too, but we can't do it that way.'

'Right. The transmitter was on the APC. It's wasted.'

'There's got to be another way to bring that shuttle down. I don't care how. Think of a way. You're the comtech. Think of something.'

'Think of what? We're dead.'

'You can do better than that, Hudson. What about the colony's transmitter? That uplink tower down at the other end of the complex? We could program it to send that dropship a control frequency. Why can't we use that? It looked like it was intact.'

'The thought had occurred to me earlier.' All eyes turned toward Bishop. 'I've already checked it out. The hardwiring between here and the tower was severed in the fighting between the colonists and the aliens—one more reason why they were unable to communicate with the relay satellite overhead, even if only to leave a warning for anyone who might come to check on them.'

Ripley's mind was spinning like a dynamo, exploring options, considering and disregarding possible solutions unti only one was left. 'So what you're saying is that the transmitter itself is still functional but that it can't be utilized from here?'

The android looked thoughtful, finally nodded. 'If it is receiving its share of emergency power, then yes, I don't see why it wouldn't be capable of sending the requisite signals. A lot of power would not be necessary, since all the other channels it would normally be broadcasting are dead.'

'That's it, then.' She scanned her companions' faces 'Somebody's just going to have to go out there. Take a portable terminal and go out there and plug in manually.'

'Oh, right, right!' said Hudson with mock enthusiasm. 'With those things running around. No way.'

Bishop took a step forward. 'I'll go.' Quiet, matter of fact. As though there was no alternative.

Ripley gaped at him. 'What?'

He smiled apologetically. 'I'm really the only one present who is qualified to remote-pilot a dropship, anyway. And the outside weather won't bother me the way it would the rest of you. Nor will I be subject to quite the same degree of. mental distractions. I'll be able to concentrate on the job.'

'If you aren't accosted by any passing pedestrians,' Ripley pointed out.

'Yes, I will be fine if I am not interrupted.' His smile widened. 'Believe me, I'd prefer not to have to attempt this. I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid. As nuclear incineration is the sole alternative, however, I am willing to give it a try.'

'All right. Let's get on it. What'll you need?'

'The portable transmitter, of course. And we'll need to check to make sure the antenna is still drawing power. Since we're making an extra-atmospheric broadcast on a narrow beam, the transmitter will have to be realigned as precisely as possible. I will also need some—'

Vasquez interrupted sharply. 'Listen!'

'To what?' Hudson turned a slow circle. 'I don't hear anything.'

'Exactly. It's stopped.'

The smartgun operator was right. The booming and scratching at the fire door had ceased. As they listened, the silence was broken by the high-pitched trill of a motion-sensor alarm. Hicks looked at the tactical console.

'They're into the complex.'

It didn't take long to get together the equipment Bishop needed. Finding a safe way out for him was another matter entirely. They debated possible exit routes, mixing information from the colony computer with suggestions from the tactical console, and spicing the results with their own heated personal opinions. The result was a consensual route that was the best of an unpromising bunch.

It was presented to Bishop. Android or not, he had the fina say. Along with a multitude of other human emotions the new synthetics were also fully programmed for self-preservation Or as Bishop ventured when the discussion of possible escape paths grew too heated, on the whole he would rather have been in Philadelphia.

There was little to argue about. Everyone agreed that the route selected was the only one that offered half a chance for him to slip out of Operations without drawing unwelcome attention. An uncomfortable silence ensued once this course was agreed upon, until Bishop was ready to depart.

One of the acid holes that was part of the colonists' losing battle with the aliens had formed a sizable gap in the floor of the medical lab. The hole offered access to the maze of subfloor conduits and serviceways. Some of these had been added subsequent to the colony's original construction and tacked on as required by Hadley's industrious inhabitants. It was one of these additions that Bishop was preparing to enter.

The android lowered himself through the opening, sliding and twisting until he was lying on his back, looking up at the others.

'How is it?' Hicks asked him.

Bishop looked back between his feet, then arched his neck to stare straight ahead. The chosen path. 'Dark. Empty. Tight but I guess I can make it.'

You'd better, Ripley mused silently. 'Ready for the terminal?'

A pair of hands lifted, as if in supplication. 'Pass it down. She handed him the heavy, compact device.

Turning with an effort, he shoved it into the constricted shaft ahead of him. Fortunately the instrument was sheathed in protective plastic. It would make some noise as it was pushed along the conduit but not as much as metal scraping on metal He turned on his back and raised his hands a second time.

'Let's have the rest.'

Ripley passed him a small satchel. It contained tools, patch cables and replacement circuit boards, energy bypasses, a service pistol, and a small cutting torch, together with fuel for same. More weight and bulk, but it couldn't be helped. Better to take a little more time reaching the uplink tower than to arrive short of some necessary item.

'You're sure about which way you're going?' Ripley asked him.

'If the updated colony schematic is correct, yes. This duct runs almost out to the uplink assembly. One hundred eighty metres. Say, forty minutes to crawl down there. It would be easier on treads or wheels, but my designers had to go and get sentimental. They gave me legs.' No one laughed.

'After I get there, one hour to patch in and align the antenna. If I get an immediate response, thirty minutes to prep the ship, then about fifty minutes' flight time.'

'Why so long?' Hicks asked him.

'With a pilot on board the dropship it would take half that but remote-piloting from a portable terminal's going to be damn tricky. The last thing I want to do is rush the descent and maybe lose contact or control. I need the extra time to bring her in slow. Otherwise she's liable to end up like her sister ship.'

Ripley checked her chronometre. 'It's going to be close You'd better get going.'

'Right. See you soon.' His farewell was full of forced cheerfulness. Entirely for their benefit, Ripley knew. No reason to let it get to her. He was only a synthetic, a near-machine.

She turned away from the hole as Vasquez slid a metal plate over the opening and began spot-welding it in place. There wasn't any maybe about what Bishop had to do. If he failed they wouldn't have to worry about holding off the aliens. The bonfire that was slowly being ignited inside the processing station would finish them all.

Bishop lay on his back, watching the glow from Vasquez's welder transcribe a circle over his head. It was pretty, and he was sophisticated enough to appreciate beauty, but he was wasting time enjoying it. He rolled onto his belly and began squirming forward, pushing the terminal and the sack of equipment ahead of him. Push, squirm, push, squirm: slow going. The conduit was barely wide enough for his shoulders Fortunately he was not subject to claustrophobia, any more than he suffered from vertigo or any of the other mental ills mankind was heir to. There was much to be said for artificial intelligence.

In front of him the conduit dwindled toward infinity. This is how a bullet must feel, he mused, lodged in the barrel of a gun. Except that a bullet wasn't burdened with feelings and he was. But only because they'd been programmed into him.

The darkness and loneliness gave him plenty of time for thinking. Moving forward didn't require much mental effort so he was able to spend the rest considering his condition.

Feelings and programming. Organic tantrums or byte snits? Was there in the last analysis that much difference between himself and Ripley or, for that matter, any of the other humans? Beyond the fact that he was a pacifist and most of them were warlike, of course. How did a human being acquire its feelings?

Slow programming. A human infant came into the world already preprogrammed by instinct but could be radically reprogrammed by environment, companions, education, and a host of other factors. Bishop knew that his own programming was not affected by environment. What had happened to his earlier relative, then, the one that had gone berserk and caused Ripley to hate him so? A breakdown in programming—or a deliberate bit of malicious reprogramming by some stil unidentified human? Why would a human do such a thing?

No matter how sophisticated his own programming or how much he learned during his allotted term of existence, Bishop knew that the species that had created him would remain forever shrouded in mystery. To a synthetic mankind would always be an enigma, albeit an entertaining and resourceful one.

In contrast to his companions there was nothing mysterious about the aliens. No incomprehensible mysteries to ponder, no double meanings to unravel. You could readily predict how they would act in a given situation. Moreover, a dozen aliens would likely react in the same fashion, whereas a dozen humans might do a dozen completely different and unrelated things, at least half of them illogical. But then, humans were not members of a hive society. At least they chose not to think of themselves as such. Bishop still wasn't sure he agreed.

Not all that much difference between human, alien, and android. All hive cultures. The difference was that the human hive was ruled by chaos brought about by this peculiar thing called individuality. They'd programmed him with it. As a result he was part human. An honourary organic. In some respects he was better than a human being, in others, less. He felt best of all when they acted as though he were one of them.

He checked his chronometre. He'd have to crawl faster or he'd never make it in time.

The robot guns guarding the entrance to Operations opened up, their metallic clatter ringing along the corridors. Ripley picked up her flamethrower and headed for computer central Vasquez finished welding the floor plate that blocked Bishop's rabbit hole into place with a flourish, put the torch aside, and followed the other woman.

Hicks was staring at the tactical console, mesmerized by the images the video pickups atop the guns were displaying. He barely glanced up long enough to beckon to the two arrivals.

'Have a look at this,' he said quietly.

Ripley forced herself to look. Somehow the fact that they were distant two-dimensional images instead of an immediate reality made it easier. Each time a gun fired, the brief flare from the weapon's muzzle whited out the video, but they could stil see clearly enough and often enough to watch the alien horde as it pushed and stumbled up the corridor. Each time one was struck by an RSS shell, the chitinous body would explode, spraying acid blood in all directions. The gaping holes and gouges in the floor and walls stood out sharply. The only thing the acid didn't chew through was other aliens.

Tracer fire lit the swirling mist that poured into the corridor from jagged gashes in the walls as the automatic weapons continued to hammer away at the invaders.

'Twenty metres and closing.' Hicks's attention was drawn to the numerical readouts. 'Fifteen. C and D guns down about fifty percent.' Ripley checked the safety on her flamethrower to make sure it was off. Vasquez didn't need to check her pulse-rifle. It was a part of her.

The readouts flickered steadily. Between the bursts of fire a shrill, inhuman screeching was clearly audible.

'How many?' Ripley asked.

'Can't tell. Lots. Hard to tell how many of them are alive and which are down. They lose arms and legs and keep coming until the guns hit them square.' Hudson's gaze flicked to another readout. 'D gun's down to twenty rounds. Ten.' He swallowed. 'It's out.'

Abruptly all firing ceased as the remaining gun ran out of shells. Smoke and mist obscured the double pickup view from below. Small fires burned where tracers had set flammable material ablaze in the corridor. The floor was littered with twisted and blackened corpses, a biomechanical bone-yard. As they stared at the monitors several bodies collapsed and disappeared as the acid leaking from their limbs chewed a monstrous hole in the floor.

Nothing lunged from the clinging pall of smoke to rip the silent weapons from their mounts. The motion-sensor alarm was silent.

'What's going on?' Hudson fiddled uncertainly with his instruments. 'What's going on, where are they?'

'I'll be. ' Ripley exhaled sharply. 'They gave up. They retreated. The guns stopped them. That means they can reason enough to connect cause and effect. They didn't just keep coming mindlessly.'

'Yeah, but check this out.' Hicks tapped the plastic between a pair of readouts. The counter that monitored D gun rested on zero. C gun was down to ten—a few seconds worth of firepower at the previous rate. 'Next time they can walk right up to the door and knock. If only the APC hadn't blown.'

'If the APC hadn't blown, we wouldn't be standing here talking about it. We'd be driving somewhere talking with the turret gun,' Vasquez pointed out sharply.

Only Ripley wasn't discouraged. 'But they don't know how far the guns are down. We hurt them. We actually hurt them. Right now they're probably off caucusing somewhere, or whatever it is they do to make group decisions. They'll start looking for another way to get in. That'll take them awhile, and when they decide on another approach, they'll be more cautious. They're going to start seeing those sentry guns everywhere.'

'Maybe we got 'em demoralized.' Hudson picked up on her confidence. He had some colour back in his face. 'You were right Ripley. The ugly monsters aren't invulnerable.'

Hicks looked up from the console and spoke to Vasquez and the comtech. 'I want you two walking the perimetre. Operations to Medical. That's about all we can cover. I know we're all strung-out, but try to stay frosty and alert. If Ripley's right they'll start testing the walls and conduits. We've got to stop any entries before they get out of hand. Pick them off one at a time as they try to get through.'

The two troopers nodded. Hudson abandoned the console picked up his rifle, and joined Vasquez in heading for the main corridor. Ripley located a half cup of coffee, picked it up, and drained the tepid contents in a single swallow. It tasted lousy but soothed her throat. The corporal watched her, waited unti she'd finished.

'How long since you slept? Twenty-four hours?'

Ripley shrugged indifferently. She wasn't surprised by the question. The constant tension had drained her. If she looked half as tired as she felt, it was no wonder that Hicks had expressed concern. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her before the aliens did. When she replied, her voice was distant and detached.

'What difference does it make? We're just marking time.'

'That's not what you've been saying.'

She nodded toward the corridor that had swallowed Hudson and Vasquez. 'That was for their benefit. Maybe a little for myself too. We can sleep but they won't. They won't slow down and they won't back off until they have what they want, and what they want is us. They'll get us too.'

'Maybe. Maybe not.' He smiled slightly.

She tried to smile back but wasn't sure if she accomplished it or not. Right then she'd have traded a year's flight salary for a hot cup of fresh coffee, but there was no one to trade with, and she was too tired to work on the dispenser. She slung the flamethrower over her shoulder.

'Hicks, I'm not going to wind up like those others. Like the colonists and Dietrich and Crowe. You'll take care of it, won't you, if it comes to that?'

'If it comes to that,' he told her softly, 'I'll do us both Although if we're still here when the processing station blows it won't be necessary. That'll take care of everything, us and them. Let's see that it doesn't.'

This time she was sure she managed a grin. 'I can't figure you, Hicks. Soldiers aren't supposed to be optimists.'

'Yeah, I know. You're not the first to point it out. I'm a freakin' anomaly.' Turning, he picked something up from behind the tactical console. 'Here, I'd like to introduce you to a close personal friend of mine.'

With the smoothness and ease of long practice he disengaged the pulse-rifle's magazine and set it aside. Then he handed her the weapon.

'M-41A 10-mm pulse-rifle, over and under with a 30mm pump-action grenade launcher. A real cutie-pie. The Marine's best friend, spouses notwithstanding. Almost jam-proof self-lubricating, works under water or in a vacuum and can blow a hole through steel plate. All she asks is that you keep her clean and don't slam her around too much and she'll keep you alive.'

Ripley hefted the weapon. It was bulky and awkward stuffed with recoil-absorbent fibre to counter the push from the high-powered shells it fired. It was much more impressive than her flamethrower. She raised the muzzle and pointed it experimentally at the far wall.

'What do you think?' Hicks asked her. 'Can you handle one?'

She looked back at him, her voice level. 'What do I do?'

He nodded approvingly and handed her the magazine.

No matter how quiet he tried to be, Bishop still made noise as the portable flight terminal and his sack of equipment scraped along the bottom of the conduit. No human being could have maintained the pace he'd kept up since leaving Operations, but that didn't mean he could keep going indefinitely. There were limits even to a synthetic's abilities.

Enhanced vision enabled him to perceive the walls of the pitch-dark tunnel as it continued receding ahead of him. A human would have been totally blinded in the cylindrical duct At least he didn't have to worry about losing his way. The conduit provided almost a straight shot to the transmitter tower.

An irregular hole appeared in the right-hand wall, admitting a feeble shaft of light. Among the emotions that had been programmed into him was curiosity. He paused to peer through the acid-etched crack. It would be nice to be able to take a bearing in person instead of having to rely exclusively on the computer printout of the service-shaft plans.

Drooling jaws flashed toward his face to slam against the enclosing steel with a vicious scraping sound.

Bishop flattened himself against the far side of the conduit as the echo of the attack rang along the metal. The curve of the wall where the jaws had struck bent slightly inward. Hurriedly he resumed his forward crawl. To his considerable surprise the attack was not repeated, nor could he sense any apparent pursuit.

Maybe the creature had simply sensed motion and had struck blindly. When no reaction had been forthcoming from inside the duct, there was no reason for it to strike again. How did it detect potential hosts? Bishop went through the motions of breathing without actually performing respiration. Nor did he smell of warmth or blood. To a marauding alien an android might seem like just another piece of machinery. So long as one didn't attack or offer resistance, you might be able to walk freely among them. Not that such an excursion appealed to Bishop, since the reactions and motives of the aliens remained unpredictable, but it was a useful bit of information to have acquired. If the hypothesis could be verified, it might offer a means of studying the aliens.

Let someone else study the monsters, he thought. Let someone else seek verification. A bolder model than himself was required. He wanted off Acheron as much for his own sake as for that of the humans he was working with.

He glanced at his chronometre, faintly aglow in the darkness. Still behind schedule. Pale and strained, he tried to move faster.

Ripley had the stock of the big gun snugged up against her cheek. She was doing her best to keep pace with Hicks's instructions, knowing that they didn't have much time knowing that if she had to use the weapon, she wouldn't be able to ask a second time how something worked. Hicks was as patient with her as possible, considering that he was trying to compress a complete weapons instruction course into a couple of minutes.

The corporal stood close behind her, positioning her arms as he explained how to use the built-in sight. It required a mutua effort to ignore the intimacy of their stance. There was little enough warmth in the devastated colony, little enough humanity to cling to, and this was the first physical, rather than verbal, contact between them.

'Just pull it in real tight,' he was telling her. 'Despite the built-in absorbers, it'll still kick some. That's the price you have to pay for using shells that'll penetrate just about anything.' He indicated a readout built into the side of the stock. 'When this counter reads zero, hit this.' He ran a thumb over a button, and the magazine dropped out, clattering on the floor.

'Usually we're required to recover the used ones: they're expensive. I wouldn't worry about following regs just now.'

'Don't worry,' she told him.

'Just leave it where it falls. Get the other one in quick.' He handed her another magazine, and she struggled to balance the heavy weapon with one hand while loading with the other 'Just slap it in hard, it likes abuse.' She did so and was rewarded with a sharp click as the magazine snapped home. 'Now charge it.' She tapped another switch. A red telltale sprang to life on the side of the arming mechanism.

Hicks stepped back, eyed her firing stance approvingly 'That's all there is to it. You're ready for playtime again. Give it another run-through.'

Ripley repeated the procedure: release magazine, check reload, arm. The gun was awkward physically, comforting mentally. Her hands were trembling from supporting the weight. She lowered the barrel and indicated the metal tube that ran underneath.

'What's this for?'

'That's the grenade launcher. You probably don't want to mess with that. You've got enough to remember already. If you have to use the gun, you want to be able to do it without thinking.'

She stared back at him. 'Look, you started this. Now show me everything. I can handle myself.'

'So I've noticed.'

They ran through sighting procedures again, then grenade loading and firing, a complete course in fifteen minutes. Hicks showed her how to do everything short of breaking down and cleaning the weapon. Satisfied that she'd missed nothing, she left him to ponder the tactical console's readouts as she headed for Medical to check on Newt. Slung from its field straps, her newfound friend bounced comfortingly against her shoulder.

She slowed when she heard footsteps ahead, then relaxed Despite its greater bulk, an alien would make a lot less noise than the lieutenant. Gorman emerged from the doorway, looking weak but sound. Burke was right behind him. He barely glanced at her. That was fine with Ripley. Every time the Company representative opened his mouth, she had an urge to strangle him, but they needed him. They needed every hand they could get, including those stained with blood. Burke was still one of them, a human being.

Though just barely, she thought.

'How do you feel?' she asked Gorman.

The lieutenant leaned against the wall for support and put one hand to his forehead. 'All right, I guess. A little dizzy. One beauty of a hangover. Look, Ripley, I—'

'Forget it.' No time to waste on useless apologies. Besides what had happened wasn't entirely Gorman's fault. Blame for the fiasco beneath the atmosphere-processing station needed to be apportioned among whoever had been foolish or incompetent enough to have put him in command of the relief team Gorman's lack of experience aside, no amount of training could have prepared anyone for the actuality of the aliens. How do you organize combat along accepted lines of battle with an enemy that's as dangerous when it's bleeding to death as it is when it's alive? She pushed past him and into the Med lab.

Gorman followed her with his eyes, then turned to head up the corridor. As he did so he encountered Vasquez approaching from the other direction. She regarded him out of cold, slitted eyes. Sweat stained her colourful bandanna and plastered it to her dark hair and skin.

'You still want to kill me?' he said quietly.

Her reply mixed contempt with acceptance. 'It won't be necessary.' She continued past him, striding toward the next checkpoint.

With Gorman and Burke gone, Medical was deserted. She crossed through to the operating theatre where she'd left Newt. The light was dim, but not so weak that she couldn't make out the empty bed. Fear racing through her like a drug she spun, her eyes frantically scanning the room, until a thought made her bend to look beneath the cot.

She relaxed, the tension draining back out of her. Sure enough, the girl was curled up against the wall, jammed as far back in as she could get. She was fast asleep, Casey clutched tightly in one small hand.

The angelic expression further reassured Ripley, innocent and undisturbed despite the demons that had plagued the child through waking as well as through sleeping hours. Bless the children, she thought, who can sleep anyplace through anything.

Carefully she laid the rifle on the cot. Getting down on hands and knees, she crawled beneath the springs. Without waking the girl she slipped both arms around her. Newt twitched in her sleep, instinctively snuggling her body closer to the adult's comforting warmth. A primal gesture. Ripley turned slightly on her side and sighed.

Newt's face contorted with the externalization of some private, tormented dreamscape. She cried out inarticulately, a vague dream-distorted plea. Ripley rocked her gently.

'There, there. Hush. It's all right. It's all right.'

Several of the high-pressure cooling conduits that encircled the massive atmosphere-processing tower had begun to glow red with excess heat. High-voltage discharges arced around the conical crown and upper latticework, strobing the blighted landscape of Acheron and the silent structures of Hadley town with irregular, intense flashes of light. It would have been obvious to anyone that something was drastically wrong with the station. Damping units fought to contain a reaction that was already out of control. They continued, anyway. They were not programmed for futility.

Across from the landing platform a tall metal spire poked toward the clouds. Several parabolic antennae clustered around the top, like birds flocking to a tree in wintertime.

At the base of the tower a solitary figure stood hunched over an open panel, his back facing into the wind.

Bishop had the test-bay cover locked in the open position and had managed to patch the portable terminal console into the tower's instrumentation. Thus far everything had gone as well as anyone dared hope. It hadn't started out that way. He'd arrived late at the tower, having underestimated the length o time it would take him to crawl through the conduit. As if by way of compensation, the preliminary checkout and testing had come off without a hitch, enabling him to make up some of that lost time. Whether he'd made up enough remained to be seen.

His jacket lay draped over the keyboard and monitor of the terminal to shield them from blowing sand and dust. The electronics were far more sensitive to the inclement weather than he was. The last several minutes had seen him typing frenetically, his fingers a blur on the input keys. He accomplished in a minute what would have taken a trained human ten.

Had he been human he might have uttered a small prayer Perhaps he did anyway. Synthetics have their own secrets. He surveyed the keyboard a last time and muttered to himself.

'Now, if I did it right, and nothing's busted inside. ' He punched a peripheral function key inscribed with the signa word ENABLE.

Far overhead, the Sulaco drifted patiently and silently in the emptiness of space. No busy figures moved through its empty corridors. No machines hummed efficiently as they worked the huge loading bay. Instruments winked on and off silently maintaining the ship in its geo-stationary orbit above the colony.

A klaxon sounded, though there were none to hear it Rotating warning lights came to life within the vast cargo hold though there was no one to witness the interplay of red, blue and green. Hydraulics whined. Immensely powerful lifters rumbled along their tracks as the second dropship was trundled out on its overhead rack. Wheels locked in place, and pulleys and levers took over. The shuttle was lowered into the gaping drop bay.

As soon as it was locked in drop position, service booms and automatic decouplers extended from walls and floor to plug into the waiting vessel. Predrop fueling and final checkout commenced. These were mundane, routine tasks for which human attention was unnecessary. Actually the ship could do the job better without any people around. They would only get in the way and slow down the operation.

Engines were brought on-line, shut down, and restarted Locks were cycled open and sealed shut. Internal communications flared to life and exchanged numerical sequences with the Sulaco's main computer. A recorded announcement boomed across the vast, open chamber. Procedure required it even though there was no one present to listen.

'Attention. Attention. Final fueling operations have begun Please extinguish all smoking materials.'

Bishop witnessed none of the activity, saw no lights rotating rapidly, heard no warning. He was satisfied nonetheless. The tiny readouts that came alive on the portable guidance console were as eloquent as a Shakespearean sonnet. He knew that the dropship had been prepared and that fueling was taking place because the console told him so. He'd done more than make contact with the Sulaco: he was communicating. He didn't have to be there in person. The portable was his electronic surrogate. It told him everything he needed to know, and what it told him was good.