'That should do it. But what about Parker?'
'I don't know. I can't get a response out of him. If it worked, he should be screaming fit to bust the speakers.' She made a decision. 'I'm going down to see. Take over.' She slipped out of her chair, raced for B corridor.
She nearly fell a couple of times. Once she stumbled into a bulkhead and nearly knocked herself out. Somehow she kept her balance and staggered on. The alien was not uppermost in her mind. It was Parker, another human being. A rare enough commodity on board the Nostromo now.
She raced down the companionway onto B corridor, headed up toward the airlock. It was empty, except for a limp form sprawled across the deck: Parker.
She bent over him. He was groggy and half conscious. 'What happened? You look like hell. Did. . .?'
The engineer was trying to form words, had to settle for gesturing feebly toward the airlock. Ripley shut up, looked in the indicated direction, saw the bubbling hole in the lock door. The outer hatch was still open, ostensibly after blowing the alien out into nothingness. She started to rise.
The acid ate completely through.
There was a bang of departing air, and a small hurricane enveloped them. Air screamed as it was sucked into a vacuum. A flashing red sign appeared in several recesses in the corridor walls.
CRITICAL DEPRESSURIZATION.
The Klaxon was sounding again, more hysterically now and with better reason. Emergency doors slammed shut all over the ship, beginning with the breached section. Parker and Ripley should have been safely sealed in a section of corridor . . . except that the airtight door separating them from the airlock vestibule had jammed on one of the methane cylinders.
Wind continued to tear at her as she hunted for something, anything, to fight with. There was only the remaining tank. She raised it, used it to hammer at the jammed cylinder. If either one of them cracked, a slight spark from metal banging on metal could set off the contents of both bottles. But if she didn't knock it free, quickly, the complete depressurization would kill them anyway.
Lack of air was already weakening her. Blood frothed at her nose and ears. The fall in pressure made Parker's existing wounds bleed afresh.
She heaved the bottle at the trapped cylinder a last time. It popped free as easily as a clean birth. The door slammed the rest of the way shut behind it, and the howl of disappearing wind vanished. Confused air continued to swirl around them for several minutes more.
On the bridge, Lambert had seen the ominous readouts appear on her console: HULL BREACHED–-EMERGENCY BULKHEADS CLOSED. She hit the 'com.
'Ash, get some oxygen. Meet me at the main lock by the last of the sealed doors.'
'Check. Be right there.'
Ripley staggered to her feet, fighting for every breath in the atmosphere-depleted chamber. She headed for the emergency release set inside every bulkhead door. There was a stud there that would slide the door back, opening onto the next sealed section and fresh air.
At the last instant, as she was about to depress the red button, she saw to her horror that she was fumbling against the door leading not down B corridor, but to the empty vestibule outside the lock. She turned, tried to aim herself, and fell as much as walked to the opposite door. It took precious minutes to locate the panel on it. Thoughts swam in her brain, broke apart like oil on water. The air around her was turning foggy, full of the smell of roses and lilac.
She thumbed the stud. The door didn't move. Then she saw she was pushing the wrong control. Sagging against the door for support, trying to give her rubbery legs some badly needed assistance, she fought to gather her strength for another try. There wasn't much air left worth breathing.
A face appeared at the port set in the door. It was distorted, bloated, yet somehow familiar. It seemed that she knew that face from sometime long ago. Someone named Lambert lived behind that face. She was very tired now and started to slide slowly down the door.
She thought distant, angry thoughts as her last support was taken away. The door slid into the roof and her head struck the deck. A rush of clean air, ineffably sweet and refreshing, swept over her face. The mist began to fade from her eyes, though not yet from her starved brain.
A horn sounded the return of full internal pressurization as Lambert and Ash joined them. The science officer hurried to administer to Parker, who had collapsed again from lack of oxygen and was only now beginning to regain consciousness.
Ripley's eyes were open and working, but the rest of her body was dysfunctional. Hands and feet, legs and arms were sprawled in ungainly positions across her body and the deck, like the limbs of a slim, not particularly well-crafted doll. Her breath came in labored, shallow gasps.
Lambert set one of the oxygen tanks down next to her friend. She placed the transparent mask over Ripley's mouth and nose, opened the valve. Ripley inhaled. A wonderful perfume filled her lungs. Her eyes closed from sheer pleasure. She stayed that way, unmoving, sucking in long, deep draughts of pure oxygen. The only shock to her system was of delight.
Finally she moved the respirator aside, lay for a moment breathing normally. Full pressure had been restored, she noted. The bulkhead doors had automatically retracted with the return of standard atmosphere.
To replenish that atmosphere,, she knew, the ship had been forced to bleed their storage tanks. They'd deal with that new problem when they were forced to, she thought.
'Are you all right?' Ash was querying Parker. 'What finally happened here?'
Parker wiped a crust of dried blood from his upper mouth, tried to shake the webs from his brain. 'I'll live.' For the moment, he ignored the science officer's last question.
'What about the alien?' Ash tried again.
Parker shook his head, wincing at some sudden pain. 'We didn't get it. The warning Klaxon went off and it jumped back into the corridor. It caught an arm, or whatever you'd like to call it, in the closing inner door. Just pulled itself free like a lizard shedding its tail.'
'Why not,' commented Ash, 'with its inbuilt talent for regeneration?'
The engineer continued, sounding every bit as disappointed as he felt. 'We had the bastard. We had him.' He paused, added, 'When it pulled free of its limb, it bled all over the place. The limb did. I guess the stump healed over fast, lucky for us. The acid ate right through the hatch. That's what caused the depressurization.' He pointed shakily toward the door sealing off the airlock vestibule from the rest of the corridor.
'You can probably see the hole in the hatch from here.'
'Never mind that now.' Ash looked up curiously. 'Who hit the warning siren?'
Ripley was staring over at him. 'You tell me.'
'What does that mean?'
She wiped blood from her nose, sniffed. 'I guess the alarm went off by itself. That would be the logical explanation, wouldn't it? Just a temporary, slightly coincidental malfunction?'
The science officer rose, looked at her from beneath lowered lids. She'd made certain the remaining methane cylinder was within reach before she'd spoken. But Ash made no move toward her. She still couldn't figure him.
If he was guilty, he ought to jump her while she was weakened and Parker was worse. If he was innocent, he ought to be mad enough to do the same. He was doing nothing, which she hadn't prepared for.
At least his first words in response were predictable. He did sound angrier than usual. 'If you've got something to say, say it. I'm getting sick of these constant, coy insinuations. Of being accused.'
'Nobody's accusing you.'
'Like hell.' He lapsed into sullen silence. Ripley said nothing for a long moment, then gestured at Parker. 'Take him to the infirmary and get him patched up. Leastwise we know the autodoc can handle that.'
Ash gave the engineer a hand up, slipped Parker's right arm over his shoulders, and helped him down the corridor. Ash walked past Ripley without looking back at her.
When he and his burden had disappeared around the first turn, Ripley reached up with a hand. Lambert took it, leaned back, and
watched with concern as Ripley swayed a little on her feet. Ripley smiled, released the steadying hand.
'I'll be okay.' She brushed fitfully at the stains on her pants. 'How much oxygen did that little episode cost us? I'll need an exact reading.' Lambert didn't reply, continued to stare speculatively at her.
'Something wrong with that? Why are you looking at me that way? Oxygen readings no longer for public consumption?'
'Don't bite my head off,' Lambert replied, without rancor. Her tone was disbelieving. 'You were accusing him. You actually accused him of sounding the alarm to save the alien.' She shook her head slowly. 'Why?'
'Because I think he's lying. And if I can get into the tape records, I'll prove it.'
'Prove what? Even if you could somehow prove that he was responsible for the alarm going off, you can't prove that it wasn't an accident.'
'Mighty funny time for that sort of accident, wouldn't you say?' Ripley was silent for a bit, then asked softly, 'You still think I'm wrong, don't you?'
'I don't know.' Lambert looked more tired than argumentative. 'I don't know anything anymore. Yeah, I guess I have to say I think you're wrong. Wrong or crazy. Why would Ash, or anyone, want to protect the alien? It'll kill him as dead as it did Dallas and Brett. If they are dead.'
'Thanks. Always like to know who I can depend on.' Ripley turned away from the navigator, strode purposefully down the corridor toward the companionway.
Lambert watched her go, shrugged, and started gathering up the cylinders. She handled the methane with as much care as the oxygen. It was equally vital to their survival . . .
'Ash, you in there? Parker?' When no response was forthcoming, Ripley cautiously entered the central computer annex. For an indeterminate time, she had the mind of the Nostromo completely to herself.
Taking a seat in front of the main console, she activated the board, rammed a thumb insistently against the identification plate. Data screens flickered to life.
So far it had been easy. Now she had to work. She thought for a moment, tapped out a five-digit code she thought would generate the response she needed. The screens remained blank, waiting for the proper query. She tried a second, little-used combination, with equal lack of success.
She swore in frustration. If she was reduced to trying random combinations she'd be working in the annex until doomsday. Which, at the rate the alien was reducing the crew, would not be far in the future.
She tried a tertiary combination instead of a primary and was stunned when the screen promptly cleared, ready to receive and disseminate. But it didn't print out a request for input. That meant the code had been only half successful. What to do?
She glanced over at the secondary keyboard. It was accessible to any member of the crew, but not privy to confidential or comment information. If she could remember the interlock combination, she could use the second keyboard to place questions with the main bank.
Quickly she changed seats, entered the hopefully correct interlock code, and typed out the first question. The key would be whether or not the interlock was accepted without question. Acceptability would be signified by the appearance of her question on the screen.
Colours chased one another for a second. The screen cleared.
WHO TURNED ON AIRLOCK 2 WARNING SYSTEM?
The response was flashed below.
ASH.
She sat digesting that. It was the reply she'd expected, but having it printed out coldly for anyone to read brought the real import of it down on her heavily. So it had been Ash. The critical question now was: Had it been Ash all the time? She entered the follow-up query:
IS ASH PROTECTING THE ALIEN?
This seemed to be Mother's day for brief responses.
YES.
She could be brief in turn. Her fingers moved on the keys.
WHY?
She leaned forward tensely. If the computer chose not to reveal further information, she knew of no additional codes that could pry answers free. There was also the possibility that the computer truly had no explanation for the science officer's bizarre actions.
It did, though.
SPECIAL ORDER 937 SCIENCE PERSONNEL EYES ONLY RESTRICTED INFORMATION.
Well, she'd managed this long. She could work around those restrictions. She was starting to when a hand slammed down next to her, sinking up to the elbow in the computer terminal.
Spinning in the chair, her heart missing a beat, she saw, not the creature, but a form and face now become equally alien to her.
Ash smiled slightly. There was no humor in that upturning of lips. 'Command seems a bit too much for you to handle. But then, proper leadership is always difficult under these circumstances. I guess you can't be blamed.'
Ripley slowly backed out of her chair, carefully keeping it between them. Ash's words might be conciliatory, even sympathetic. His actions were not
'The problem's not leadership, Ash. It's loyalty.' She kept the wall at her back, started circling toward the doorway. Still grinning, he turned to face her.
'Loyalty? I see no lack of that.' He was all charm now, she thought. 'I think we've all been doing our best. Lambert's getting a little pessimistic, but we've always known she's on the emotional side. She's very good at plotting the course of a ship, not so good at planning her own.'
Ripley continued to edge around him, forcing herself to smile back. 'I'm not worried about Lambert right now. I'm worried about you.' She started to turn to face the open doorway, feeling her stomach muscles tightening in anticipation.
'All that paranoia coming up again,' he said sadly. 'You just need to rest a little.' He took a step toward her, reached out helpfully.
She bolted, ducking just beneath his clutching fingers. Then she was out in the corridor, sprinting for the bridge. She was too busy to scream for help, and she needed the wind.
There was no one on the bridge. Somehow she got around him again, throwing emergency switches as she ran. Bulkhead doors responded by dropping shut behind her, each one just a second too late to cut him off.
He finally caught her in the mess chamber. Parker and Lambert arrived seconds later. The signals set off by the closing bulkhead doors had alerted them that something was wrong in the vicinity of the bridge, and they'd been on their way there when they encountered pursuer and pursued.
While it was not the type of emergency they'd expected to find, they reacted well. Lambert was first in. She jumped on Ash's back. Annoyed, he let go of Ripley, grabbed the navigator, and threw her across the room, then returned to what he'd been doing a moment before, trying to squeeze the life out of Ripley.
Parker's reaction was less immediate but better thought out. Ash would have appreciated the engineer's reasoning. Parker hefted one of the compact trackers and stepped behind Ash, who single-mindedly continued to choke Ripley. The engineer swung the tracker with all his strength.
There was a dull thunk. The tracker continued through its arc while Ash's head went a different way.
There was no blood. Only multihued wires and printed circuits showed, protruding from the terminated stump of the science officer's neck.
Ash released Ripley. She collapsed on the floor, choking and holding her throat. His hands performed a macabre pantomime above his shoulders while hunting for the missing skull. Then he, or more properly, it, stumbled backward, regained its balance, and commenced searching the deck for the separated head . . .
XIII
'A robot. . . a goddamn robot!' Parker muttered. The tracker hung limp and unbloodied in one hand.
Apparently there were audio sensors located in the torso as well as the skull, because the powerful form turned immediately at the sound of Parker's voice and began to advance on him. Raising the tracker, the engineer banged it down on Ash's shoulder, then again, and again . . . to no effect. Groping arms swung close, embraced Parker in a hug that was anything but affectionate. The hands climbed upward, locked around his neck, and contracted with inhuman strength.
Ripley had recovered
, now searched frantically until she spotted one of the old shock tubes they'd first planned to drive the alien with. She snatched it up, noting that it still carried a full charge.
Lambert was pulling at Ash's legs, trying to upend the rampaging machine. Naked wiring and contacts showed from the open neck. Ripley dug at them. Parker's eyes were glazing over, and faint wheezing sounds were coming from his constricted throat.
Finding a knot thick with circuitry, Ripley jabbed the prod inward and depressed the trigger. Ash's grip on the engineer appeared to weaken slightly. She withdrew the prod, aligned it differently, and stabbed downward a second time.
Blue sparks flew from the stump. She jabbed again, crying inside, holding the trigger down. There was a bright flash and the smell of burnt insulation.
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