Aliens (aliens universe) Read online

Burke surveyed the apartment and gratefully said nothing shying away from inanities like 'Nice place you have here' when it obviously wasn't. He also forbore from saying, 'You're looking well,' since that also would have constituted an obvious untruth She could respect him for his restraint. She gestured toward the table.

  'Want something? Coffee, tea, spritz?'

  'Coffee would be fine,' he replied. Gorman added a nod.

  She went into the compact kitchen and dialed up a few cups Bubbling sounds began to emanate from the processor as she turned back to the den.

  'You didn't need to bring the Marines.' She smiled thinly at him. 'I'm past the violent stage. The psych techs said so, and it's right there on my chart.' She waved toward a desk piled high with discs and papers. 'So what's with the escort?'

  'I'm here as an official representative of the corps.' Gorman was clearly uneasy and more than willing to let Burke handle the bulk of the conversation. How much did he know, and what had they told him about her' she wondered. Was he disappointed in not encountering some stoned harridan? Not that his opinion of her mattered.

  'So you've lost contact.' She feigned indifference. 'So?'

  Burke looked down at his slim-line, secured briefcase. 'It has to be checked out. Fast. All communications are down. They've been down too long for the interruption to be due to equipment failure. Acheron's been in business for years They're experienced people, and they have appropriate backup systems. Maybe they're working on fixing the problem right now. But it's been no-go dead silence for too long. People are getting nervous. Somebody has to go and check it out in person. It's the only way to quiet the nervous Nellies.

  'Probably they'll correct the trouble while the ship's on its way out and the whole trip will be a waste of time and money but it's time to set out.'

  He didn't have to elaborate. Ripley had already gotten where he was going and returned. She went into the kitchen and brought out the coffees. While Gorman sipped his cup of brew she began pacing. The den was too small for proper pacing but she tried, anyway. Burke just waited.

  'No,' she said finally. 'There's no way.'

  'Hear me out. It's not what you think.'

  She stopped in the middle of the floor and stared at him in disbelief. 'Not what I think? Not what I think? I don't have to think, Burke. I was reamed, steamed, and dry-cleaned by you guys, and now you want me to go back out there? Forget it!'

  She was trembling as she spoke. Gorman misinterpreted the reaction as anger, but it was pure fear. She was scared Gut-scared and trying to mask it with indignation. Burke knew what she was feeling but pressed on, anyway. He had no choice.

  'Look,' he began in what he hoped was his best conciliatory manner, 'we don't know what's going on out there. If their relay satellite's gone out instead of the ground transmitter, the only way to fix it is with a relief team. There are no spacecraft in the colony. If that's the case, then they're all sitting around out there cursing the Company for not getting off its collective butt and sending out a repair crew pronto. If it is the satellite relay, then the relief team won't even have to set foot on the planet itself. But we don't know what the trouble is, and if it's not the orbital relay, then I'd like to have you there. As an adviser. That's all.'

  Gorman lowered his coffee. 'You wouldn't be going in with the troops. Assuming we even have to go in. I can guarantee your safety.'

  She rolled her eyes and glanced at the ceiling.

  'These aren't your average city cops or army accompanying us, Ripley,' Burke said forcefully. 'These Colonial Marines are some tough hombres, and they'll be packing state-of-the-art firepower. Man plus machine. There's nothing they can't handle. Right, Lieutenant?'

  Gorman allowed himself a slight smile. 'We're trained to deal with the unexpected. We've handled problems on worse worlds than Acheron. Our casualty rate for this kind of operation hovers right around zero. I expect the percentage to improve a little more after this visit.'

  If this declaration was intended to impress Ripley, it failed miserably. She looked back to Burke.

  'What about you? What's your interest in this?'

  'Well, the Company co-financed the colony in tandem with the Colonial Administration. Sort of an advance against mineral rights and a portion of the long-term developmental profits. We're diversifying, getting into a lot of terraforming Real estate on a galactic scale. Building better worlds and al that.'

  'Yeah, yeah,' she muttered. 'I've seen the commercials.'

  'The corporation won't see any substantial profits out of Acheron until terraforming's complete, but a big outfit like that has to consider the long term.' Seeing that this was having no effect on his host, Burke switched to another tack. 'I hear you're working in the cargo docks over Portside?'

  Her reply was defensive, as was to be expected. 'That's right What about it?'

  He ignored the challenge. 'Running loaders, forklifts suspension grates; that sort of thing?'

  'It's all I could get. I'm crazy if I'm going to live on charity al my life. Anyway, it keeps my mind off. everything. Days off are worse. Too much time to think. I'd rather keep busy.'

  'You like that kind of work?'

  'Are you trying to be funny?'

  He fiddled with the catch on his case. 'Maybe it's not all you can get. What if I said I could get you reinstated as a flight officer? Get you your license back? And that the Company has agreed to pick up your contract? No more hassles with the commission, no more arguments. The official reprimand comes out of your record. Without a trace. As far as anyone will be concerned, you've been on a leave of absence. Perfectly normal following a long tour of duty. It'll be like nothing happened. Won't even affect your pension rating.'

  'What about the ECA and the insurance people?'

  'Insurance is settled, over, done with. They're out of it. Since nothing will appear on your record, you won't be considered any more of a risk than you were before your last trip. As far as the ECA is concerned, they'd like to see you go out with the relief team too. It's all taken care of.'

  'If I go.'

  'If you go.' He nodded, leaning slightly toward her. He wasn't exactly pleading. It was more like a practiced sales pitch 'It's a second chance, kiddo. Most people who get taken down by a board of inquiry never have the opportunity to come back If the problem's nothing more than a busted relay satellite, all you have to do is sit in your cubbyhole and read while the techs take care of it. That, and collect your trip pay while you're in hypersleep. By going, you can wipe out all the unpleasantness and put yourself right back up there where you used to be. Ful rating, full pension accumulation, the works. I've seen your record. One more long out-trip and you qualify for a captain's certificate.

  'And it'll be the best thing in the world for you to face this fear and beat it. You gotta get back on the horse.'

  'Spare me, Burke,' she said frostily. 'I've had my psych evaluation for the month.'

  His smile slipped a little, but his tone grew more determined 'Fine. Let's cut the crap, then. I've read your evaluations. You wake up every night, sheets soaking, the same nightmare over and over—'

  'No! The answer is no.' She retrieved both coffee cups even though neither was empty. It was another form of dismissal 'Now please go. I'm sorry. Just go, would you?'

  The two men exchanged a look. Gorman's expression was unreadable, but she had the feeling that his attitude had shifted from curious to contemptuous. The heck with him: what did he know? Burke mined a pocket, removed a translucent card, and placed it on the table before heading for the door. He paused in the portal to smile back at her.

  'Think about it.'

  Then they were gone, leaving her alone with her thoughts Unpleasant company. Wind. Wind and sand and a moaning sky. The pale disc of an alien sun fluttering like a paper cutout beyond the riven atmosphere. A howling, rising in pitch and intensity, coming closer, closer, until it was right on top of you smothering you, cutting off your breath.

  With a guttural moan Ripley sat straight
up in her bed clutching her chest. She was breathing hard, painfully. Sucking in a particularly deep breath, she glanced around the tiny bedroom. The dim light set in the nightstand illuminated bare walls, a dresser, and a highboy, sheets kicked to the foot of the bed. Jones lay sprawled atop the highboy, the highest point in the room, staring impassively back at her. It was a habit the cat had acquired soon after their return. When they went to bed he would curl up next to her, only to abandon her soon after she fell asleep in favour of the safety and security of the highboy. He knew the nightmare was on its way and gave it plenty of space.

  She used a corner of the sheet to mop the sweat from her forehead and cheeks. Fingers fumbled in the nightstand drawer until they found a cigarette. She flicked the tip and waited for the cylinder to ignite. Something—her head snapped around. Nothing there. Only the soft hum of the clock. There was nothing else in the room. Just Jones and her Certainly no wind.

  Leaning to her left, she pawed through the other nightstand drawer until she'd located the card Burke had left behind. She turned it over in her fingers, then inserted it into a slot in the bedside console. The videoscreen that dominated the far wall immediately flashed the words STAND BY at her. She waited impatiently until Burke's face appeared. He was bleary-eyed and unshaven, having been roused from a sound sleep, but he managed a grin when he saw who was calling.

  'Yello? Oh, Ripley. Hi.'

  'Burke, just tell me one thing.' She hoped there was enough light in the room for the monitor to pick up her expression as well as her voice. 'That you're going out there to kill them. Not to study. Not to bring back. Just burn them out, clean Forever.'

  He woke up rapidly, she noted. 'That's the plan. If there's anything dangerous walking around out there, we get rid of it Got a colony to protect. No monkeying around with potentially dangerous organisms. That's Company policy. We find anything lethal, anything at all, we fry it. The scientists can go suck eggs. My word on it.' A long pause and he leaned toward his own pickup, his face looming large on the screen. 'Ripley Ripley? You still there?'

  No more time to think. Maybe it was time to stop thinking and to do. 'All right. I'm in.' There, she'd gone and said it Somehow she'd said it.

  He looked like he wanted to reply, to congratulate or thank her. Something. She broke the connection before he could say a word. A thump sounded on the sheets next to her, and she turned to gaze fondly down at Jones. She trailed short nails down his spine, and he primped delightedly, rubbing against her hip and purring.

  'And you, my dear, are staying right here.'

  The cat blinked up at her as he continued to caress her fingers with his back. It was doubtful that he understood either her words or the gist of the previous phone call, but he did not volunteer to accompany her.

  At least one of us still has some sense left, she thought as she slid back beneath the covers.

  IV

  It was an ugly ship. Battered, overused, parts repaired that should have been replaced, too tough and valuable to scrap Easier for its masters to upgrade it and modify it than build a new one. Its lines were awkward and its engines oversize. A mountain of metal and composites and ceramic, a floating scrap heap, weightless monument to war, it shouldered its way brutally through the mysterious region called hyperspace. Like its human cargo, it was purely functional. Its name was Sulaco.

  Fourteen dreamers this trip. Eleven engaged in related morphean fantasies, simple and straightforward as the vesse that carried them through the void. Two others more individualistic. A last sleeping under sedation necessary to mute the effects of recurring nightmares. Fourteen dreamers— and one for whom sleep was a superfluous abstraction.

  Executive Officer Bishop checked readouts and adjusted controls. The long wait was ended. An alarm sounded throughout the length of the massive military transport. Long dormant machinery, powered down to conserve energy, came back to life. So did long dormant humans as their hypersleep capsules were charged and popped open. Satisfied that his charges had survived their long hibernation, Bishop set about the business of placing Sulaco in a low geo-stationary orbit around the colony world of Acheron.

  Ripley was the first of the sleepers to awake. Not because she was any more adaptive than her fellow travelers or more used to the effects of hypersleep, but simply because her capsule was first in line for recharge. Sitting up in the enclosed bed, she rubbed briskly at her arms, then started to work on her legs Burke sat up in the capsule across from her, and the lieutenant — what was his name? — oh, yeah, Gorman, beyond him.

  The other capsules contained the Sulaco's military complement: eight men and three women. They were a select group in that they chose to put their lives at risk for the majority of the time they were awake: individuals used to long periods of hypersleep followed by brief, but intense, periods of wakefulness. The kind of people others made room for on a sidewalk or in a bar.

  PFC Spunkmeyer was the dropship crew chief, the man responsible along with Pilot-Corporal Ferro for safely conveying his colleagues to the surface of whichever world they happened to be visiting, and then taking them off again in one piece. In a hurry if necessary. He rubbed at his eyes and groaned as he blinked at the hypersleep chamber.

  'I'm getting too old for this.' No one paid any attention to this comment, since it was well known (or at least widely rumoured) that Spunkmeyer had enlisted when underage However, nobody joked about his maturity or lack of it when they were plummeting toward the surface of a new world in the PFC-directed dropship.

  Private Drake was rolling out of the capsule next to Spunkmeyer's. He was a little older than Spunkmeyer and a lot uglier. In addition to sharing similarities in appearance with the Sulaco, likewise he was built a lot like the old transport Drake was heavy-duty bad company, with arms like a legendary one-eyed sailor, a nose busted beyond repair by the cosmetic surgeons, and a nasty scar that curled one side of his mouth into a permanent sneer. The scar surgery could have fixed, but Drake hung on to it. It was one medal he was allowed to wear all the time. He wore a tight-fitting floppy cap, which no living soul dared refer to as 'cute'.'

  Drake was a smartgun operator. He was also skilled in the use of rifles, handguns, grenades, assorted blades, and his teeth.

  'They ain't payin' us enough for this,' he mumbled.

  'Not enough to have to wake up to your face, Drake.' This from Corporal Dietrich, who was arguably the prettiest of the group except when she opened her mouth.

  'Suck vacuum,' Drake told her. He eyed the occupant of another recently opened capsule. 'Hey, Hicks, you look like I feel.'

  Hicks was the squad's senior corporal and second in command among the troops after Master Sergeant Apone. He didn't talk much and always seemed to be in the right place at the potentially lethal time, a fact much appreciated by his fellow Marines. He kept his counsel to himself while the others spouted off. When he did speak, what he had to say was usually worth hearing.

  Ripley was back on her feet, rubbing the circulation back into her legs and doing standing knee-bends to loosen up stiffened joints. She examined the troopers as they shuffled past her on their way to a bank of lockers. There were no supermen among them, no overly muscled archetypes, but every one of them was lean and hardened. She suspected that the least among them could run all day over the surface of a two-gee world carrying a full equipment pack, fight a running battle while doing so, and then spend the night breaking down and repairing complex computer instrumentation. Brawn and brains aplenty, even if they preferred to talk like common street toughs. The best the contemporary military had to offer. She felt a little safer — but only a little.

  Master Sergeant Apone was making his way up the centre aisle chatting briefly with each of his newly revived soldiers in turn. The sergeant looked as though he could take apart a medium-size truck with his bare hands. As he passed Comtech Corporal Hudson's pallet, the latter voiced a complaint.

  'This floor's freezing!'

  'So were you, ten minutes ago. I never saw such a
bunch of old women. Want me to fetch your slippers, Hudson?'

  The corporal batted his eyelashes at the sergeant. 'Would you sir? I'd be ever so grateful?' A few rough chuckles acknowledged Hudson's riposte. Apone smiled to himself as he resumed his walk, chiding his people and urging them to speed it up.

  Ripley stayed out of their way as they trudged past. They were a tightly knit bunch, a single fighting organism with eleven heads, and she wasn't a part of their group. She stood outside isolated. A couple of them nodded to her as they strode past and there were one or two cursory hellos. That was all she had any right to expect, but it didn't make her feel any more relaxed in their company.

  PFC Vasquez just stared as she walked past. Ripley had received warmer inspections from robots. The other smartgun operator didn't blink, didn't smile. Black hair, blacker eyes, thin lips. Attractive if she'd make half an effort.

  It required a special talent; a unique combination of strength mental ability, and reflexes, to operate a smartgun. Ripley waited for the woman to say something. She didn't open her mouth as she passed by. Every one of the troopers looked tough Drake and Vasquez looked tough and mean.

  Her counterpart called out to her as she came abreast of his locker. 'Hey, Vasquez, you ever been mistaken for a man?'

  'No. Have you?'

  Drake proffered an open palm. She slapped it, and his fingers immediately clenched right around her smaller fingers. The pressure increased on both sides — a silent, painful greeting Both were glad to be out from under hypersleep and alive again.

  Finally she whacked him across the face and their hands parted. They laughed, young Dobermans at play. Drake was the stronger but Vasquez was faster, Ripley decided as she watched them. If they had to go down, she resolved to try to keep them on either side of her. It would be the safest place.

  Bishop was moving quietly among the group, helping with massages and a bottle of special postsleep fluid, acting more like a valet than a ship's officer. He appeared older than any of the troopers, including Lieutenant Gorman. As he passed close to Ripley she noticed the alphanumeric code tattooed across the back of his left hand. She stiffened in recognition but said nothing.