Aliens

XII

She hadn't intended to go to sleep. All she'd wanted was to share a little space, some warmth, and a few moments of quiet with the girl. But her body knew what she needed better than she did. When she relinquished control and allowed it the chance to minister to its own requirements, it took over immediately.

Ripley awoke with a start and just missed banging her head against the underside of the cot. She was wide-awake instantly.

Dim light from the Med lab filtered into the operating room Checking her watch, she was startled to see that more than an hour had passed. Death could have visited and departed in that much time, but nothing seemed to have changed. No one had come in to wake her, which wasn't surprising. Their minds were occupied with more important matters. The fact that she'd been left alone was in itself a good sign. If the final assault had begun, Hicks or someone else surely would have rousted her out of the warm corner beneath the bed by now.

Gently she disengaged herself from Newt, who slept on oblivious to adult obsessions with time. Ripley made sure the small jacket was pulled up snugly around the girl's chin before turning to crawl out from beneath the cot. As she turned to roll, she caught another glimpse of the rest of the Med lab — and froze.

The row of stasis cylinders stood just inside the doorway that led toward the rest of Hadley central. Two of them were dark their tops hinged open, the stasis fields quiescent. Both were empty.

Hardly daring to breathe, she tried to see into every dark corner, under every counter and piece of freestanding equipment. Unable to move, she frantically tried to assess the situation as she nudged the girl sleeping behind her with her left hand.

'Newt,' she whispered. Could the things sense sound waves? They had no visible ears, no obvious organs of hearing, but who could tell how primitive alien senses interpreted their environment? 'Newt, wake up.'

'What?' The girl rolled over and rubbed sleepily at her eyes 'Ripley? Where are—'

'Shssh!' She put a finger to her lips. 'Don't move. We're in trouble.'

The girl's eyes widened. She responded with a single nod now as wide-awake and alert as her adult protector. Ripley didn't have to tell her a second time to be quiet. During her solitary nightmare sojourn deep within the conduits and service ducts that honeycombed the colony, the first thing Newt had learned was the survival value of silence. Ripley pointed to the sprung stasis tubes. Newt saw and nodded again. She didn't so much as whimper.

They lay close to each other and listened in the darkness Listened for sounds of movement, watching for lethal lowslung shapes skittering across the polished floor. The compact space heater hummed efficiently nearby.

Ripley took a deep breath, swallowed, and started to move Reaching up, she grabbed the springs that lined the underside of the cot and began trying to push it away from the wall. The squeal of metal as the legs scraped across the floor was jarringly loud in the stillness.

When the gap between bed rail and wall was wide enough, she cautiously slid herself up, keeping her back pressed against the wall. With her right hand she reached across the mattress for the pulse-rifle. Her fingers groped among the sheets and blanket.

The pulse-rifle was gone.

Her eyes cleared the rim of the bed. Surely she'd left it lying there in the middle of the mattress! A faint hint of movement caught her attention, and her head snapped around to the left As it did so, something that was all legs and vileness jumped at her from its perch on the foot of the bed. She uttered a startled, mewling cry of pure terror and ducked back down Horny talons clutched at her hair as the loathsome shape struck the wall where her head had been a moment earlier. It slid, fighting for a grip while simultaneously searching for the vulnerable face that had shown itself a second ago.

Rolling like mad and digging her bare fingers into the springs, Ripley slammed the cot backward, pinning the teratoid against the wall only centimetres above her face. Its legs twitched and writhed with maniacal ferocity while the muscular tail banged against springs and wall like a demented python. It emitted a shrill, piercing noise, a cross between a squeal and a hiss.

Ripley heaved Newt across the floor and, in a frenzied scramble, rolled out after her. Once clear, she put both hands against the side of the cot and shoved harder against the imprisoned facehugger. Timing her move carefully, she flipped the cot and managed to trap it underneath one of the metal rails.

Clutching Newt close to her, she backed away from the overturned bed. Her eyes were in constant motion, darting from shadow to cupboard, searching out every corner. The whole lab area was fraught with fatal promise. As they retreated, the facehugger, displaying terrifying strength for something so small, shoved the bulk of the bed off its body and scuttled away beneath a bank of cabinets. Its multiple legs were a blur of motion.

Trying to keep to the centre of the room as much as possible Ripley continued backing toward the doorway. As soon as her back struck the door, she reached up to run a hand over the wall switch. The barrier at her back should have rolled aside. It didn't move. She hit the switch again then started pounding on it, regardless of the noise she was making. Nothing Deactivated, broken, it didn't matter. She tried the light switch Same thing. They were trapped in the darkness.

Trying to keep her eyes on the floor in front of them, she used one fist to pound on the door. Dull thunks resounded from the acoustically dampened material. Naturally the entrance to the operating theatre would be soundproofed Wouldn't want unexpected screams to unsettle a queasy colonist who happened to be walking past.

Keeping Newt with her, she edged away from the door and around the wall until they were standing behind the big observation window that fronted on the main corridor. Hardly daring to spare a glance away from the threatening floor, she turned and shouted.

'Hey — hey!'

She hammered desperately on the window. No one appeared on the other side of the triple-glazed transparency. A scrabbling noise from the floor made her whirl. Now Newt began to whimper, feeding off the adult's fear. Desperately Ripley stepped out in line with the wall-mounted video surveillance pickup and began waving her arms.

'Hicks! Hicks!'

There was no response, not from the pickup, nor from the empty room on the other side of the glass. The camera didn't pan to focus on her and no curious voice came from its speaker. In frustration Ripley picked up a steel chair and slammed it against the observation window. It bounced off without even scarring the tough material. She kept trying.

Wasting her strength. The window wasn't going to break and there was no one in the outer lab to witness her frantic efforts. She put the chair aside and struggled to control her breathing as she surveyed the room.

A nearby counter yielded a small, high-beam examination light. Switching it on, she played the narrow beam over the walls. The circle of light whipped over the stasis tubes, past tal assemblies of surgical and anaesthesiological equipment, over flush-mounted storage bins and cabinets and research instrumentation. She could feel Newt shaking next to her as she clung to the tall woman's leg.

'Mommy — Mommmyyyy. '

Perversely it helped to steady Ripley. The child was completely dependent on her, and her own obvious fear was only making the girl panic. She swept the beam across the ceiling, brought it back to something. An idea took hold.

Removing her lighter from a jacket pocket, she hastily crumpled together a handful of paper gleaned from the same cabinet that had provided the beam. Moving as slowly as she dared, she boosted Newt up onto the surgical table that occupied the centre of the room, then clambered up after her.

'Mommy — I mean, Ripley — I'm scared.'

'I know, honey,' she replied absently. 'Me too.'

Twisting the paper tightly, she touched the lighter's flame to the top of her improvised torch. It caught instantly, blazing toward the ceiling. She raised her hand and held the fire toward the temperature sensor at the bottom of one of the Med lab's fire-control sprinkler heads. Like much of the self-contained safety equipment that was standard issue for frontier worlds, the sprinkler had its own battery-powered backup power supply. It wasn't affected by whatever had killed the door and the lights.

The flames rapidly consumed her handful of paper threatening to burn her ungloved skin. She gritted her teeth and held tight to the torch as it illuminated the room, bouncing off the mirror-bright surface of the globular surgica instrument cluster that hung suspended above the operating table.

'Come on, come on' she muttered tightly.

A red light winked to life on the side of the sprinkler head as the flames from her makeshift torch finally got hot enough to trigger internal sensors. As it was activated, the sensor automatically relayed its information to the other sprinklers set into the ceiling. Water gushed from several dozen outlets flooding cabinets and floor with an artificial downpour Simultaneously the Operations complex fire alarm came to life like a waking giant.

In Operations central, Hicks jumped at the sound of the alarm. His gaze darted from the tactical console to the main computer screen. One small section of the floor plan was flashing brightly. He rose and bolted for the exit, shouting into his headset pickup as he ran.

'Vasquez, Hudson, meet me in Medical! We got a fire!' Both troopers abandoned their guard positions and moved to rendezvous with the corporal.

Ripley's clothes clung to her as the sprinklers continued to drench the room and everything in it. The siren continued to hoot wildly. Between its steady howl and the splatter of water on metal and floor, it was impossible to hear anything else.

She tried to see through the heavy spray, wiping water and hair away from her eyes. One elbow banged against the surgical multiglobe and its assortment of cables, highintensity lights, and tools, setting it swaying. She glanced at it and turned away to resume her inspection of the room. Something made her look a second time.

The something leapt at her face.

Falling water and the shrieking siren drowned out the sound of her scream as she stumbled backward, falling off the table and splashing to the floor, arms flailing, legs kicking wildly Newt screamed and scrambled clear as Ripley hurled the chittering facehugger away. It slammed into a wall, clung there like an obscene parody of a climbing tarantula, then leapt back at her as though propelled by a steel spring.

Ripley scrambled desperately, pulling equipment down on herself, trying to put something solid between her and the abomination as she retreated. It went over, under, or around everything she heaved in its path, its multijointed legs a frenzy of relentless motion. Claws caught at her boots and it scuttled up her body. She pushed at it again, the feel of the slick leathery hide making her nauseous. The one thing she dared not do was throw up.

It was unbelievably strong. When it had jumped at her from atop the multiglobe, she'd managed to fling it away before it could get a good grip. This time it refused to be dislodged, hung on tight as it ascended her torso. She tried to rip at it, to pull it away, but it avoided her hands as it climbed toward her head with single-minded purpose. Newt screamed abjectly, backing away until she was pressed up against a desk in one corner.

With a last, desperate gesture Ripley slid both hands up her chest until they blocked her face, just as the facehugger arrived She pushed with all her remaining strength, trying to force it away from her. As she fought, she stumbled blindly, knocking over equipment, sending instruments flying. On the wet floor her feet threatened to slip out from under her. Water continued to pour from the ceiling, flooding the room and blinding her. It also hindered the facehugger's movements somewhat, but it made it impossible for her to get a strong grip on its body or legs.

Newt continued to scream and stare. In consequence she failed to see the crablike legs that appeared above the rim of the desk she was leaning against. But her ability to sense motion had become almost as acute as that of the sentry-gun sensors Whirling, she jammed the desk against the wall, fear lending strength to her small form. Pinned against the wall, the creature writhed wildly, fighting to free itself with its legs and tail as she leaned against the desk and wailed.

'Ripleyyy!'

The desk bounced and shuddered with the teratoid's struggles. It slipped one leg free, then another. A third, as it began to squeeze itself out of the trap.

'Ripleeyyy!'

The facehugger's legs clawed at Ripley's head, trying to reach behind it to interlock even as she whipped her face from side to side. As it fought for an unbreakable grip it extruded the ovipositorlike tubule from its ventral opening. The organ pushed wetly at Ripley's arms, trying to force its way between.

A shape appeared outside the observation window, dim behind mist-shrouded glass. A hand wiped a clear place Hicks's face pressed against the glass. His eyes grew wide as he saw what was happening inside. There was no thought of trying to repair the inoperative door mechanism. He stepped back and raised the muzzle of his pulse-rifle.

The heavy shells shattered the triple-paned barrier in several places. The corporal then dove at the resulting spiderweb patterns and exploded into the room in a shower of glittering fragments, a human comet with a glass tail. He hit the floor rolling, his armour grinding through the shards and protecting him from their sharp edges, sliding across to where the facehugger finally got its powerful tail secured around Ripley's throat. It began to choke her and pull itself closer to her face.

Hicks slipped his fingers around the thrashing arachnoidal limbs and pulled with superhuman force. Between the two of them they forced the monstrosity away from her face.

Hudson followed Hicks into the room, stared a moment at Ripley and the corporal as they struggled with the facehugger Then he spotted Newt leaning against the desk. He shoved her aside, sending her spinning across the damp floor, and, in the same motion, raised his rifle to blast the second parasite to bits before it could crawl free of the desk's imprisoning bulk. Acid splattered, chewing into desk, wall, and floor as the crablike body was blown apart.

Gorman leaned close to Ripley and got both hands around the end of the facehugger's tail. Like a herpetologist removing a boa constrictor from its favourite branch, he unwound it from her throat. She gasped, swallowing air and water and choking spasmodically. But she kept her grip on it as the three of them held it between them.

Hicks blinked against the spray, nodded to his right. 'The corner! Together. Don't let it keep a grip on you.' He glanced over his shoulder toward the watching Hudson. 'Ready?'

'Do it!' The comtech raised his weapon.

The three of them threw the thing into the empty corner. It scrabbled upright in an instant and jumped back at them with demented energy. Hudson's shot caught it in midair, blowing it apart. The heavy downpour from the sprinklers helped to localize the resultant gush of acid. Smoke began to mix with water vapour as the yellow liquid ate into the floor.

Gagging, Ripley fell to her knees. Red streaks like rope burns scarred her throat. As she knelt next to Hicks, and Hudson the sprinklers finally shut down. Water dripped from cabinets and equipment, racing away through the holes the acid had eaten in the floor. The fire siren died.

Hicks was staring at the stasis cylinders. 'How did they get out of there? You can't break a stasis field from the inside.' His gaze rose to the security pickup mounted on the far wall. 'I was watching the monitors. Why didn't I see what was going on here?'

'Burke.' It came out as a long wheeze. 'It was Burke.'

It was very quiet in Operations. Everyone's thoughts were racing at breakneck speed, but no one spoke. None of the thoughts were pleasant. Finally Hudson gestured at the subject of all this solemn contemplation and spoke with his usua eloquence.

'I say we grease him right now.'

Burke tried hard not to stare at the menacing muzzle of the comtech's pulse-rifle. One twitch of Hudson's finger and the Company rep knew his head would explode like an over-ripe melon. He managed to maintain an icy calm betrayed only by the isolated beads of sweat that dotted his forehead. The last five minutes had seen him compose and discard half a dozen speeches as he decided it was best to say nothing. Hicks might listen to his arguments, but the wrong word, even the wrong movement, could set any of the others off. In this he was quite correct.

The corporal was pacing back and forth in front of the Company rep's chair. Occasionally he would look down at him and shake his head in disbelief.

'I don't get it. It doesn't make any sense.'

Ripley crossed her arms as she regarded the man-shape in the chair. In her eyes it had ceased to be human. 'It makes plenty of sense. He wanted an alien, only he couldn't figure out a way to sneak it back through Gateway quarantine. I guaranteed him I'd inform the appropriate authorities if he tried it. That was my mistake.'

'Why would he want to try something like that?' Hicks bemusement was plain on his face.

'For weapons research. Bioweapons. People — and I use the word advisedly — like him do things like that. If it's new and unique, they see a profit in it to the exclusion of everything else.' She shrugged. 'At first I thought he might be different When I figured otherwise, I made the mistake of not thinking far enough ahead. I'm probably being too hard on myself. I couldn't think beyond what a sane human being might do.'

'I don't get it,' said Vasquez. 'Where's his angle if those things killed you? What's that get him?'

'He had no intention of letting them kill us — right away. Not until we got his toys back to Earth for him. He had it timed just right. Bishop'll have the dropship down pretty soon. By then the facehuggers would've done their job, and Newt and I would be flat-out with nobody knowing the cause. The rest of you would have hauled us unconscious onto the dropship. See if we were impregnated, parasitized, whatever you want to call it, and then frozen in hypersleep before we woke up, the effects of hypersleep would slow down the embryonic alien's growth just like it does ours. It wouldn't mature during the flight home. Nobody would know what we were carrying, and as long as our vital signs stayed stable, no one would think anything was radically wrong. We'd unload at Gateway, and the first thing the authorities would do is ship us Earthside to a hospital.

'That's where Burke and his Company cronies would step in They'd claim responsibility, or bribe somebody, and check us into one of their own facilities where they could study us in private. Me and Newt.'

She looked over at the frail figure of the girl sitting nearby Newt hugged her knees to her chest and watched the proceedings with sombre eyes. She was all but lost in the adult jacket someone had scrounged for her, scrunched down inside the copious padding and high collar. Her still-damp hair was plastered to her forehead and cheeks.

Hicks stopped pacing to stare at Ripley. 'Wait a minute. We'd know about it. Maybe we wouldn't be sure, but we'd sure have it checked out the instant we arrived at the Station. No way would we let anybody ship you Earthside without a complete medical scan.'

Ripley considered this, then nodded. 'The only way it would work is if he sabotaged the sleep capsules for the trip back With Dietrich gone, each of us would have to put ourselves into hypersleep. He could set his timer to wake him a few days down the road, climb out of his capsule, shut down everybody else's bio-support systems, and jettison the bodies. Then he could make up any story he liked. With most of your squad already killed by the aliens, and the details of the fight over on C-level recorded by your suit scanners and stored in the Sulaco's records, it would be an easy matter to attribute your deaths to the aliens as well.'

'He's dead.' Hudson switched his attention from Ripley back to the Company rep. 'You hear that? You're dog meat, pal.'

'This is a totally paranoid delusion.' Burke saw no harm in finally speaking out, convinced that he couldn't hurt himself any more than he already had. 'You saw how strong those things are. I had nothing to do with their escaping.'

'Bullcrap. Nothing's strong enough to force its way out of a stasis tube,' Hicks said evenly.

'I suppose after they climbed out they locked the operating room from the outside, shut down the emergency power to the overhead lights, hid my rifle, and killed the videoscan too. Ripley looked tired. 'You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them killing each other for a percentage.'

'Let's waste him.' Hicks's expression was unreadable as he gazed down at the Company rep. 'No offence.'

Ripley shook her head. Inside, the initial rage was giving way to a sickened emptiness. 'Just find someplace to lock him up until it's time to leave.'

'Why?' Hudson was shaking with suppressed anger, his finger taut on the trigger of his rifle.

Ripley glanced at the comtech. 'Because I'd like to take him back. I want people to know what he's done. They need to know what happened to the colony here, and why. I want—'

The lights went out. Hicks turned immediately to the tactica console. The screen still glowed on battery power, but no images flashed across it because the power to the colony's computer had been cut. A quick check of Operations revealed that everything was out: power doors, videoscreens, sensor cameras, the works.

'They cut the power.' Ripley stood motionless in the near blackness.

'What do you mean, they cut the power?' Hudson turned a slow circle and started backing toward a wall. 'How could they cut the power, man? They're dumb animals.'

'Who knows what they really are? We don't know enough about them to say that for sure yet.' She picked up the pulse-rifle that Burke had taken and thumbed off the safety 'Maybe they act like that individually, but they could also have some kind of collective intelligence. Like ants or termites Bishop talked about that, before he left. Termites build mounds three metres high. Leaf-cutter ants have agriculture Is that just instinct? What is intelligence, anyway?' She glanced left.

'Stay close, Newt. The rest of you, let's get some trackers going. Come on, get moving. Gorman, keep an eye on Burke.'

Hudson and Vasquez switched on their scanners. The glow of the motion-tracker sensors was comforting in the darkness Modern technology hadn't failed them completely yet. With the two troopers leading the way, they headed for the corridor With all power out to Operations, Vasquez had to slide the barrier aside manually.

Ripley's voice sounded behind the smartgun operator 'Anything?'

'Nothing here.' Vasquez was a shadow against one wall.

She didn't have to put the same question to Hudson because everyone heard the comtech's tracker beep loudly. All eyes turned in his direction.

'There's something. I've got something.' He panned the tracker around. It beeped again, louder this time. 'It's moving It's inside the complex.'

'I don't see anything.' Vasquez's tracker remained silent 'You're just reading me.'

Hudson's voice cracked slightly. 'No. No! It ain't you They're inside. Inside the perimetre. They're in here.'

'Stay cool, Hudson.' Ripley tried to see to the far end of the corridor. 'Vasquez, you ought to be able to confirm.'

The smartgun operator swung her tracker and her rifle in a wide arc. The last place she pointed both of them was directly behind her. The portable sensor let out a sharp beep.

'Hudson may be right.'

Ripley and Hicks exchanged a glance. At least they wouldn't have to stand around anymore waiting for something to happen.

'It's game time,' the corporal said tightly.

Ripley called to the pair of troopers. 'Get back here, both of you. Fall back to Operations.'

Hudson and Vasquez started to backtrack. The comtech's eyes nervously watched the dark tunnel they were abandoning The tracker said one thing, his eyes another. Something was wrong.

'This signal's weird. Must be some interference or something. Maybe power arcing unevenly somewhere. There's movement all over the place, but I don't see a thing.'

'Just get back here!' Ripley felt the sweat starting on her forehead, under her arms. Cold, like the pit of her stomach Hudson turned and broke into a run, reaching the door a moment before Vasquez. Together they pulled it closed and locked the seal-tight.

Once inside, they began sharing out the remnants of their pitifully small armoury. Flamethrowers, grenades, and lastly, a fair distribution of the loaded pulse-rifle magazines. Hudson's tracker continued to beep regularly, rising in a gradua crescendo.

'Movement!' He looked around wildly, saw only the silhouettes of his companions in the shadowed room. 'Signal's clean. Can't be an error.' Picking up the scanner, he panned the business end around the room. 'I've got full range of movement at twenty metres.'

Ripley whispered to Vasquez. 'Seal the door.'

'If I seal the door, how do we get to the dropship?'

'Same way Bishop did. Unless you want to try to walk out.'

'Seventeen metres,' Hudson muttered. Vasquez picked up her handwelder and moved to the door.

Hicks handed one of the flamethrowers to Ripley and began priming the other for himself. 'Let's get these things lit.' A moment later his sprang to life, a small, steady blue flame hissing from the weapon's muzzle like an oversize lighter Ripley's flared brilliantly as she nudged the button marked IGNITE, which was set in the side of the handgrip.

Sparks showered around Vasquez as she began welding the door to the floor, ceiling, and walls. Hudson's tracker was going like mad now, though still not as fast as Ripley's heart.

'They learned,' she said, unable to stand silence. 'Call it instinct or intelligence or group analysis, but they learned They cut the power and they've avoided the guns. They must have found another way into the complex, something we missed.'

'We didn't miss anything,' Hicks growled.

'Fifteen metres.' Hudson took a step away from the door.

'I don't know how they did it. An acid hole in a duct Something under the floors that was supposed to be sealed but wasn't. Something the colonists added or modified and didn't bother to insert into the official schematics. We don't know how up-to-date those plans are or when they were last revised to include all structural additions. I don't know, but there has to be something!' She picked up Vasquez's tracker and aimed it in the same direction as Hudson's.

'Twelve metres,' the comtech informed them. 'Man, this is one big signal. Ten metres.'

'They're right on us.' Ripley stared at the door. 'Vasquez how you coming?'

The smartgun operator didn't reply. Molten droplets singed her skin and landed, smoking, on her suit. She gritted her teeth and tried to hurry the welder along with some choice imprecations.

'Nine metres. Eight.' Hudson announced the last number on a rising inflection and looked around wildly.

'Can't be.' Ripley was insistent, despite the fact that the tracker she was holding offered the same impossible readout 'That's inside the room.'

'It's right, it's right.' He turned his instrument sideways so she could see the tiny screen and its accompanying telltales 'Look!'

Ripley fiddled with her own tracker, rolling the fine-tuning controls as Hicks crossed to Hudson's position in a single stride.

'Well, you're not reading it right.'

'I'm not!' The comtech's voice bordered on hysteria. 'I know these little babies, and they don't lie, man. They're too simple to screw up.' He was staring bug-eyed at the flickering readouts. 'Six metres. Five. What the fu—?'

His eyes met Ripley's, and the same realization hit them simultaneously. Both bent their heads back, and they angled the trackers in the same direction. The beeping from both instruments became a numbing buzz.

Hicks climbed onto a file cabinet. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder and clutching the flamethrower tightly, he raised one of the acoustical ceiling panels and shined his flashlight inside.

It illuminated a vision Dante could not have imagined in his wildest nightmares, nor Poe in the grasp of an uncontrollable delirium.