Alien 3 (20 page)

He gaped at her, and she found his honest disbelief reassuring. For the moment, at least, she was not without allies.

‘Take it back? You mean alive? To Earth?’

She nodded.

‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘Look into my eyes, Aaron. This isn’t a real humourous subject with me.’

‘Shit, you mean it. That’s insane. They gotta kill it.’

Ripley smiled tightly. ‘Right. So I take it that we’re agreed on this point?’

‘You’re damn right,’ he said fervently.

He was with her, then, she mused. For now. The Company had a way of swaying people, inducing them to reassess their positions. Not to mention their values.

The infirmary was quiet. Peace had returned to the installation, if not to some of its inhabitants. Concerned that in Clemens’s absence certain of the prisoners whose presence on Fiorina stemmed at least in part from their personal misapplication of certain proscribed Pharmaceuticals might attempt to liberate them or their chemical cousins from their designated repository, Aaron sent Morse to keep an eye on them, as well as on the infirmary’s sole occupant.

Morse sat on one of the cots, perusing a viewer. He was not one of those despondent over the dearth of entertainment material available on Fiorina, since he’d never been much of one for casual diversions. He was a man of action, or had been in his younger, more active days. Now he was a spieler, dealing in reminiscences.

Despite the fact that they’d known each other and had worked side by side for years, Golic had offered no greeting at his arrival, nor a single word since. Now the hulking prisoner finally turned his face away from the wall, his arms still buried inside the archaic restraining jacket.

‘Hey, Morse.’

The older man looked up from his viewer. ‘So you can still talk. Big deal. You never had nothin’ to say anyhow.’

‘C’mon, brother. Let me out of this thing.’

Morse grinned unpleasantly. ‘Oh, so now that you’re all wrapped up like a holiday roast suddenly I’m a “brother”?

Don’t give me any shit.’

‘C’mon, man, it hurts.’

‘Sorry.’ Morse turned back to his viewer. ‘Aaron says to let you go, I’ll let you go. Until then you stay tied up. I don’t wanna get in no trouble. Not with a Company ship coming.’

‘I didn’t do nothing. I mean, I understand I was a little crazy for a while. Shit, who wouldn’t be after what I saw? But I’m okay now. The doc fixed me. Just ask him.?

‘Can’t do that. The doc bought it. You heard.’

‘Oh, yeah. That’s right. I remember now. Too bad. He was a good guy, even if he did slap me in this.’

‘Don’t talk to me.’ Morse made a disgusted face.

Golic continued to plead. ‘What’d I do? Just tell me, what’d I do?’

Morse sighed and set the viewer aside, eying his fellow prisoner. ‘I dunno, but I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m gonna guard your ass just like I was ordered.’

Golic sniffed derisively. ‘You afraid of that pissant Aaron?’

‘No, I ain’t, even if he is the unofficial superintendent now. I just don’t want no trouble with Dillon, and if you’re smart, which I doubt, neither do you.’

The bigger man sniffed glumly. ‘All I did was tell about the dragon. About what it did to Boggs and Rains. Nobody believed me, but I wasn’t lying. I should be the last one to be tied up. It ain’t fair. You know what I’m sayin’ is true. You saw it.’

Morse remembered. ‘Fuckin’ A I saw it! It was big. And fast.

Man, it was fast. And ugly.’ He shuddered slightly. ‘There’s cleaner ways to die.’

‘Hey, that’s right.’ Golic struggled futilely against his restraints. ‘Let me loose, man. You got to let me loose. What if it gets in here? I couldn’t even run. I’d be dead meat.’

‘You’d be dead meat anyway. I saw enough to know that. But it doesn’t matter because it ain’t gonna get in here.’ He smiled proudly. ‘We got it trapped. Me and the others. Locked up tight. I’ll bet it’s good and mad. The Company’ll deal with it when the ship gets here.’

‘That’s right,’ Golic agreed readily. ‘And the way I hear it, they’ll be here soon. So what’s the big deal? Why should I have to hang around like this? By the time the ship shows orbit my arms’ll be dead. I’ll need surgery, and all for nothin’. Come on, man. You know they ain’t gonna take me offworld for no surgery, and we may not get a new medic for months. I’ll have to suffer all that time, and it’ll all be your fault.’

‘Hey, lay off. I didn’t put you in that.’

‘No, but you’re keepin’ me in it, and the guy that gave the order’s dead now. Aaron doesn’t give a shit. He’s too busy trying to make that lady lieutenant. Has he even asked about me?’

‘Well, no,’ Morse admitted guardedly.

‘See?’ Golic’s face was full of pathetic eagerness. ‘I won’t cause you no trouble, Morse. I’ll lay low until the ship gets here. Aaron won’t even know I’m around. Come on, lemme loose. I’m hungry. What’s the big deal? Didn’t I always give you free ciggies before anybody else?’

‘Well . . . yeah.’

‘You’re my friend. I love you.’

‘Yeah, I love you too.’ Morse hesitated, then cursed softly.

‘Fuck it, why not? Nobody deserves to be tied up like an animal all day. Not even a big dumb schmuck like you. But you’re gonna behave yourself. No fuckin’ around or I’ll get nothin’

but shit.’

‘Sure, Morse. Anything you say.’ He turned to present his back and Morse began undoing the seals on the straps. ‘No problem. Trust me, buddy. I’d do it for you.’

‘Yeah, but I ain’t crazy enough to get myself in a sack like this. They know I’m sane,’ the other man said.

‘C’mon, don’t make fun of me. Do I sound like I’m crazy?

Course not. It’s just that everybody likes to make fun of me because I like to eat all the time.’

‘It’s not that you like to eat, it’s your table manners, man.’

Morse guffawed at his own humour as he undid the strap.

‘That’s got it.’

‘Gimme a hand, willya? My arms are so numb I can’t move

‘em.’

‘Shit. Bad enough they ask me to keep an eye on you, now I gotta play nursemaid too.’ He reached up and pulled the jacket off Golic. The bigger man helped as best he could.

‘Where they got it?’

‘Up in the nearest waste tank on Level Five. Man, did we get that sucker nailed down! I mean tight.’ He fairly preened.

‘Fuckin’ marines couldn’t do it, but we did.’

Golic was swinging his arms. Back and forth across his expansive chest, then up and around in ever-widening circles, getting the circulation back.

‘But it’s still alive?’

‘Yeah. Too bad. You oughta see the dents it put in the door.

Ceramocarbide door, man!’ He shook his head wonderingly.

‘One tough-ass organism. But we got it.’

‘I gotta see it again.’ The big man’s gaze was focused on a point beyond Morse, on something visible only to Golic. His expression was impassive, unwavering. ‘Got to see it again. He’s my friend.’

Morse took a sudden, wary step backward. ‘What the fuck you talkin’ about?’ His gaze whipped to the infirmary entrance.

Golic calmly ripped a small fire extinguisher off the nearby wall and the other man’s eyes widened. He made a leap for the door . . . too slow. The extinguisher came down once, a second time, and Morse crumpled like a misplaced intention.

Golic looked down at him thoughtfully, his face full of idiot sadness, his tone apologetic. ‘Sorry, brother, but I had a feeling you wouldn’t understand. No more ciggies for you, mate.’

Silently he stepped over the unconscious form and exited the room.

Aaron fussed with the deep-space communicator. He was checked out on the equipment—it was a requirement of his rating—but he hadn’t had occasion to make use of it since his assignment to Fiorina. Andrews had always handled things on the

rare

occasions

when

expensive

near

instantaneous

communication between the installation and headquarters had been required. He was both pleased and relieved when the readouts cleared for use, indicating that contact with the necessary relays had been established.

Ripley hovered over him as he worked the keyboard. She offered no suggestions, for which he felt an obscure but nonetheless real gratitude. The message appeared on the main screen as he transmitted, each letter representing an impressive amount of sending power. Fortunately, with the fusion plant operating as efficiently as ever, there was no dearth of the necessary energy. As to the cost, another matter entirely, he opted to ignore that until and unless the Company should indicate otherwise.

FURY 361—CLASS C PRISON UNIT, FIORINA

REPORT DEATH OF SUPT. ANDREWS, MEDICAL

OFFICER CLEMENS, EIGHT PRISONERS. NAMES TO

FOLLOW . . .

When he’d finished the list he glanced back up at her. ‘Okay, we got the first part. All nice and formal, the way the Company likes it. Now what do I say?’

‘Tell them what happened. That the alien arrived on the EEV and escaped into the complex, that it was hunting down the local population one man at a time until we devised a plan of action, and that we’ve trapped it.’

‘Right.’ He turned back to the keyboard, hesitated. ‘What do we call it? Just “the alien”?’

‘That’d probably do for the Company. They’d know what you were referring to. Technically it’s a xenomorph.?

‘Right.’ He hesitated. ‘How do you spell it?’

‘Here.’ She elbowed him aside impatiently and leaned over the keyboard. ‘With your permission?’

‘Go ahead,’ he said expansively. Impressed, he watched as her fingers flew over the keys.

HAVE TRAPPED XENOMORPH. REQUEST PERMIS-

SION TO TERMINATE.

Aaron frowned up at her as she stood back from the board.

’That was a waste. We can’t kill it. We don’t have any weapons here, remember?’

Ripley ignored him, concentrating on the lambent screen.

‘We don’t have to tell them that.’

‘Then why ask?’ He was obviously confused, and she was in no hurry to enlighten him. Just then there were more important things on her mind.

Sure enough, letters began to appear on the readout. She smiled humourlessly. They weren’t wasting any time replying, no doubt for fear that in the absence of a ready response she might simply proceed.

TO FURY 361—CLASS C PRISON UNIT

Aaron leaned back in the chair and rubbed his forehead tiredly. ‘See? That’s all they ever tell us. Treat us like shit, like we’re not worth the expense of sending a few extra words.’

‘Wait,’ she told him.

He blinked. Subsequent to the expected official acknowledgment, letters continued to appear on the screen.

RESCUE UNIT TO ARRIVE YOUR ORBIT 1200

HOURS. STAND BY TO RECEIVE. PERMISSION DENIED

XENOMORPH.

UNTIL RESCUE TEAM ARRIVES. REPEAT IMPERA-

TIVE—PERMISSION DENIED.

There was more, in the same vein, but Ripley had seen enough. ‘Shit.’ She turned away, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. ‘I knew it.’

Aaron’s gaze narrowed as he tried to divide his attention between Ripley and the screen. ‘What do you mean, you knew it? It doesn’t mean anything. They know we don’t have any weapons.’

‘Then why the “imperative”? Why the anxious insistence that we don’t do something they must realize we’re not capable of doing?’

He shrugged uncomprehendingly. ‘I guess they don’t want to take any chances.’

‘That’s right,’ she murmured tightly. ‘They don’t want to take any chances.’

‘Hey,’ he said, suddenly alarmed, ‘you’re not thinking of countermanding Company policy, are you?’

Now she did smile. ‘Who me? Perish the thought.’

The vestibule outside the toxic storage chamber was dimly illuminated, but he inadequate light did not trouble the three prisoners on duty. There was nothing in the shafts and tunnels that could harm them, and no noise from within. The three dents stood out clearly in the heavy door. They had not been expanded, nor had they been joined by a fourth.

One man leaned casually against the wall, cleaning the dirt from under his nails with a thin sliver of plastic. His companion sat on the hard, cold floor, conversing softly.

‘And I say the thing’s gotta be dead by now.’ The speaker had sandy hair flecked with grey at the temples and a large, curving nose that in another age and time would have given him the aspect of a Lebanese merchant.

‘How you figure that?’ the other man asked.

‘You heard the boss. Nothin’ can get in or out of that box.’

He jerked a thumb in the direction of the storage chamber.

‘Not even gases.’

‘Yeah. So?’

The first man tapped the side of his head with a finger.