Alien - 3 (aliens universe) Read online

  He straightened. There were no mystical forces at work here.

  Raising the torch, he aimed it up the tunnel, saw nothing.

  Kneeling, he relit the next candle and started toward the next in line. As he did so the light of his torch bounced off the walls, off smooth-cut rock. Off something angular and massive.

  It moved.

  Very fast, oh, so very fast. Shards of reflection like chromed glass inlaid in adamantine black metal. It made an incongruously soft gurgling sound as it sprang soundlessly toward him. He was unable to identify it, had never seen anything like it, except perhaps in some especially bad dreams half remembered from childhood.

  In an instant it was upon him, and at that moment he would gratefully have sought comfort in his worst nightmares.

  A hundred metres down the tunnel Golic and Boggs listened to their companion’s single echoing shriek. Cold sweat broke out the back of Boggs’s neck and hands. Horribly, the scream did not cut off sharply, but instead faded away slowly and gradually like a high-pitched whistle receding into the distance.

  Suddenly panicked, Boggs grabbed up the remaining light and took off running, down the passageway, away from the scream. Golic charged after him.

  Boggs wouldn’t have guessed that he could still move so fast.

  For a few moments he actually put some distance between them.

  Then his lack of wind began to tell and he slowed, the torch he clutched making mad shadows on the walls, ceiling, floor. By the time Golic ran him down he was completely exhausted and equally disoriented. Only by sheer good luck had they avoided stumbling into an open sampler pit or down a connecting shaft.

  Staggering slightly, he grabbed the other man’s arm and spun him around.

  Golic gaped in dumb terror. ‘Didn’t you hear it? It was Rains!

  Oh, God, it was Rains.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Boggs fought to get his breath. ‘I heard it. He’s hurt himself.’ Prying the torch from the other man’s trembling fingers he played it up and down the deserted passageway.

  ‘We’ve got to help him.’

  ‘Help him?’ Golic’s eyes were wide. ‘You help him. I wanna get out of here!’

  ‘Take it easy. So do I, so do I. First we’ve got to figure out where we are.’

  ‘Isn’t that a candle?’

  Turning, Boggs advanced a few cautious steps. Sure enough, the line of flickering tapers was clearly visible, stretching off into the distance.

  ‘Damn. We must’ve cut through an accessway. We ran in a circle. We’re back—’

  He stopped, steadying the light on the far wall. A figure was leaning there, stiff as anything to be found in cold storage.

  Rains.

  Staring not back at them but at nothing. His eyes were wide open and immobile as frozen jelly. The expression on his face was not a fit thing for men to look upon. The rest of him was. . the rest of him was. .

  Boggs felt a hot alkaline rush in his throat and doubled over, retching violently. The torch fell from his suddenly weakened fingers and Golic knelt to pick it up. As he rose he happened to glance ceilingward.

  There was something up there. Something on the ceiling. It was big and black and fast and its face was a vision of pure hell.

  As he stared open-mouthed, it leaned down, hanging like a gigantic bat from its clawed hind legs, and enveloped Boggs’s head in a pair of hands with fingers like articulated cables.

  Boggs inhaled sharply, gagging on his own vomit.

  With an abrupt, convulsive twist the arachnoid horror jerked Boggs’s head right off his shoulders, as cleanly as Golic would have removed a loose bolt from its screw. But not as neatly.

  Blood fountained from the headless torso, splattering the creature, Rains’s body, the staring Golic. It broke his paralysis but in the process also snapped something inside his head.

  With ghastly indifference the gargoyle tossed Boggs’s decapitated skull to the floor and turned slowly to confront the remaining bipedal life-form. Its teeth gleamed like the platinum ingots which had been torn from Fiorina’s bowels.

  Howling as if all the legions of the damned were after him, Golic whirled and tore down the tunnel. He didn’t look where he was going and he didn’t think about what he’d seen, and most of all he didn’t look back. He didn’t dare look back.

  If he did, he knew he might see something.

  Bishop’s remains had been carefully laid out on the worktable.

  Bright overhead lights illuminated each component. Tools rested in their holders, ready to be called upon. The profusion of torn hair-thin fibre-optic cables was staggering.

  Some Ripley had simply tied off as best she could. Her experience did not extend to making repairs on the microscopic level. She’d spent a lot of time wiring the parts together as best she could, sealing and taping, making the obvious connections and hoping nothing absolutely critical lay beyond her limited talent for improvisation.

  She wiped her eyes and studied her handiwork. It looked promising, but that meant nothing. Theoretically it stood a chance of working, but then theoretically she shouldn’t be in the fix she was in.

  No way to know without trying it. She tested the vital connections, then touched a switch. Something sizzled briefly, making her jerk back in the chair. She adjusted a connection, tried the switch again. This time there was no extraneous flash.

  Carefully she slipped one bundle of fibre-optic filaments into what she hoped was still a functional self-sorting contact socket.

  A red digital readout on the test unit nearby immediately went from zero to between seven and eight. As she threw another switch the numbers wavered but held steady.

  The android’s remaining intact eye blinked. Ripley leaned forward. ‘Verbal interaction command. Run self-test sequence.’

  Then she wondered why she was whispering.

  Within the battered artificial skull something whined. Other telltales on the test unit winked encouragingly. A garbled burbling emerged from the artificial larynx and the collagenic lips parted slightly.

  Anxiously she reached into the open throat, her fingers working inside. The burbling resolved itself as the single eye fixed on her face.

  ‘Ripley.’

  She took a deep breath. She had visual, cognition, coordination, and memory. The external ears looked pretty good, but that signified nothing. All that mattered was the condition of the internal circuits.

  ‘Hello, Bishop.’ She was surprised at the warmth in her tone.

  After all, it wasn’t as if she were addressing a human being.

  ‘Please render a preliminary condition report.’

  There was a pause, following which, astonishingly, the single eye performed an eloquent roll in its socket. ‘Lousy. Motor functions are gone, extracranial peripherals nonresponsive, prospects for carrying out programmed functions nil. Minimal sensory facilities barely operative. Not an optimistic self-diagnosis, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she told him honestly. ‘I wish it could be otherwise.’

  ‘Not as much as I do.’

  ‘Can you feel anything?’

  ‘Yes. My legs hurt.’

  Her lips tightened. ‘I’m sorry that—’

  ‘It’s okay. Pain simulation is only data, which from the rest of my present condition I infer is probably inaccurate. Confirm?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘I’m afraid that your legs, like most of the rest of you, has gone the way of all flesh.’

  ‘Too bad. Hate to see all that quality work lost. Not that it matters in the scheme of things. After all, I’m just a glorified toaster. How are you? I like your new haircut. Reminds me of me before my accessories were installed. Not quite as shiny, though.’

  ‘I see that your sense of humour’s still intact.’

  The eye blinked. ‘Like I said, basic mental functions are still operative. Humour occupies a very small portion of my RAM-interpretive capacity.’

  ‘I’d disagree.’ Her sm
ile faded. ‘I need your help.’

  A gurgle emerged from between the artificial lips. ‘Don’t expect anything extensive.’

  ‘It doesn’t involve a lot of analysis. More straightforward probing. Where I am right now they don’t have much in the way of intrusive capability. What I need to know is, can you access the data bank on an EEV flight recorder?’

  ‘No problem. Why?’

  ‘You’ll find out faster from the recorder than I could explain. Then you can tell me.’

  The eye swiveled. ‘I can just see it. You’ll have to use a direct cranial jump, since my auxiliary appendages are gone.’

  ‘I know. I’m all set. . I hope.’

  ‘Go ahead and plug in, then.’

  She picked up the filament running from the black box and leaned toward the disembodied skull. ‘I’ve never done this before. It won’t hurt or anything?’

  ‘On the contrary, I’m hoping it’ll make me feel better.’

  She nodded and gently inserted the filament into one of several receptacles in the back of his head, wiggling it slightly to make sure the fit was tight.

  ‘That tickles.’ She jerked her fingers back. ‘Just kidding,’ the android told her with a reassuring smile. ‘Hang on.’ His eyes closed and the remnants of his forehead wrinkled in concentration. It was, she knew admiringly, nothing more than a redundant bit of cosmetic programming, but it was encouraging to see that something besides the android’s basics still functioned.

  ‘I’m home,’ Bishop murmured several minutes later. ‘Took longer than I thought. I had to run the probe around some damaged sectors.’

  ‘I tested the recorder when I first found it. It checked out okay.’

  ‘It is. The damaged sectors are in me. What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘McNary Flight Recorder, model OV-122, serial number FR-3664874, installed—’

  ‘Are all your language intuition circuits gone? You know what I mean. From the time it was emergency activated. What happened on the Sulaco? Why were the cryotubes ejected?’

  A new voice emerged from the android’s larynx. It was female and mechanical. ‘Explosive gasses present in the cryogenic compartment. Fire in the cryogenic compartment.

  All personnel report to evacuation stations.’ Bishop’s voice returned. ‘There are a large number of repeats without significant deviation in content. Do you wish to hear them all?’

  Ripley rubbed her chin, thinking hard. ‘No, that’s sufficient for now. Explosive gases? Where did they come from? And what started the fire?’ When no response was forthcoming she became alarmed. ‘Bishop? Can you hear me?’

  There was gurgling, then the android’s silky faux voice.

  ‘Sorry. This is harder than I thought it would be. Powering up and functioning are weakening already damaged sectors. I keep losing memory and response capability. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. You’d better keep your questions brief.’

  ‘Don’t null out on me yet, Bishop,’ she said anxiously. ‘I was asking you about the report of fire.’

  ‘Fire. . — *crackle— *. . yes. It was electrical, in the subflooring of the cryogenics compartment. Presence of a catalyst combined with damaged materials to produce the explosive gas. Ventilation failed completely. Result was immediately life-threatening. Hence ship’s decision to evacuate. EEV detected evidence of explosion on board subsequent to evacuation, with concomitant damage to EEV controls. That’s why our landing here was less than perfect. Present status of Sulaco unknown. Further details of flight from Sulaco to present position available.’

  ‘Skip ‘em. Did sensors detect any motile life-forms on the Sulaco prior to emergency separation?’

  Silence. Then, ‘It’s very dark here, Ripley. Inside. I’m not used to being dark. Even as we speak portions of me are shutting down. Reasoning is growing difficult and I’m having to fall back on pure logic. I don’t like that. It’s too stark. Not anything like what I was designed for. I’m not what I used to be.’

  ‘Just a little longer, Bishop,’ she urged him. She tried tweaking the power up but it did nothing more than make his eye widen slightly and she hastily returned to prescribed levels.

  ‘You know what I’m asking. Does the flight recorder indicate the presence of anything on the Sulaco besides the four survivors of Acheron? Was there an alien on board? Bishop!’

  Nothing. She fine-tuned instrumentation, nudged controls.

  The eye rolled.

  ‘Back off. I’m still here. So are the answers. It’s just taking longer and longer to bring the two together. To answer your question. Yes.’

  Ripley took a deep breath. The workroom seemed to close in around her, the walls to inch a little nearer. Not that she’d felt safe within the infirmary. For a long while now she hadn’t felt safe anywhere.

  ‘Is it still on the Sulaco or did it come down with us on the EEV?’

  ‘It was with us all the way.’

  Her tone tightened. ‘Does the Company know?’

  ‘The Company knows everything that happened on the ship, from the time it left Earth for Acheron until now, provided it’s still intact somewhere out there. It all goes into the central computer and gets fed back to the Network.’

  A feeling of deadly déjà vu settled over her. She’d battled the Company on this once before, had seen how it had reacted.

  Any common sense or humanity that faceless organization possessed was subsumed in an all-encompassing, overpowering greed. Back on Earth individuals might grow old and die, to be replaced with new personnel, new directors. But the Company was immortal. It would go on and on. Somehow she doubted that time had wrought any significant changes in its policies, not to mention its corporate morals. In any event, she couldn’t take that chance.

  ‘Do they still want an alien?’

  ‘I don’t know. Hidden corporate imperatives were not a vital part of my programming. At least, I don’t think they were. I can’t be sure. I’m not feeling very well.’

  ‘Do me a favour, Bishop; take a look around and see.’

  She waited while he searched. ‘Sorry,’ he said finally. ‘There’s nothing there now. That doesn’t mean there never was. I am no longer capable of accessing the sectors where such information would ordinarily be stored. I wish I could help you more but in my present condition I’m really not good for much.’

  ‘Bull. Your identity program’s still intact.’ She leaned forward and fondly touched the base of the decapitated skull.

  ‘There’s still a lot of Bishop in there. I’ll save your program.

  I’ve got plenty of storage capacity available here. If I ever get out of this I’ll make sure you come with me. They can wire you up again.’

  ‘How are you going to save my identity? Copy it into standard chip-ROM? I know what that’s like. No sensory input, no tactile output. Blind, deaf, dumb, and immobile. Humans call it limbo. Know what we androids call it? Gumbo. Electronic gumbo. No, thanks. I’d rather go null than nuts.’

  ‘You won’t go nuts, Bishop. You’re too tough for that.’

  ‘Am I? I’m only as tough as my body and my programming.

  The former’s gone and the latter’s fading fast. I’d rather be an intact memory than a desiccated reality. I’m tired. Everything’s slipping away. Do me a favour and just disconnect. It’s possible I could be reworked, installed in a new body, but there’d be omphalotic damage, maybe identity loss as well. I’d never be top of the line again. I’d rather not have to deal with that. Do you understand what it means, to look forward only to being less than you were? No, thanks. I’d rather be nothing.’

  She hesitated. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Do it for me, Ripley. You owe me.’

  ‘I don’t owe you anything, Bishop. You’re just a machine.’

  ‘I saved you and the girl on Acheron. Do it for me.. as a friend.’

  Reluctantly, she nodded. The eye winked a last time, then closed peacefully. There was no
reaction, no twitching or jerking when she pulled the filaments. Once more the head lay motionless on the worktable.

  ‘Sorry, Bishop, but you’re like an old calculator. Friendly and comfortable. If you can be repaired, I’m going to see to it that that comes to pass. If not, well, sleep peacefully wherever it is that androids sleep, and try not to dream. If things work out, I’ll get back to you later.’

  Her gaze lifted and she found herself staring at the far wall.

  A single holo hung there. It showed a small thatched cottage nestled amid green trees and hedges. A crystalline blue-green stream flowed past the front of the cottage and clouds scudded by overhead. As she watched, the sky darkened and a brilliant sunset appeared above the house.

  Her fingers fumbled along the tabletop until they closed around a precision extractor. Flung with all the considerable force of which she was capable and accelerated by her cry of outrage and frustration, it made a most satisfying noise as it reduced the impossibly bucolic simulation to glittering fragments.

  Most of the blood on Golic’s jacket and face had dried to a thick, glutinous consistency, but some was still liquid enough to drip onto the mess hall table. He ate quietly, spooning up the crispy cereal. Once, he paused to add some sugar from a bowl.

  He stared straight at the dish but did not see it. What he saw now was very private and wholly internalized.

  The day cook, who’s name was Eric, entered with a load of plates. As he started toward the first table he caught sight of Golic and stopped. And stared. Fortunately the plates were unbreakable. It was hard to get things like new plates on Fiorina.

  ‘Golic?’ he finally murmured. The prisoner at the table continued to eat and did not look up.

  The sound of the crashing dishes brought others in: Dillon, Andrews, Aaron, Morse, and a prisoner named Arthur. They joined the stupefied cook in staring at the apparition seated alone at the table.

  Golic finally noticed all the attention. He looked up and smiled.

  Blankly.

  Ripley was sitting alone in the rear of the infirmary when they brought him in. She watched silently as Dillon, Andrews, Aaron, and Clemens walked the straightjacketed Golic over to a bed and eased him down. His face and hair were spotted with matted blood, his eyes in constant motion as they repeatedly checked the ventilator covers, the ceiling, the door.