by Tim Lebbon
Just him, Kasyanov, and Ripley, for however many years it took for them to be found.
“You’ll see Amanda again,” he said—mostly to himself, because he was thinking of his own children, as well. They were all going home.
“Hoop,” Kasyanov said. “I’m about to initiate. The pod calculates that it’ll take just under twenty minutes for the physical repairs, and five more for the limited memory wipe.”
Hoop nodded. Kasyanov stroked a pad on the unit and it began to hum.
Inside, Ripley twitched.
PROGRESS REPORT:
To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division (Ref: code 937)
Date (unspecified)
Transmission (pending)
I will save Ripley. Together, she and I can continue our mission into the darkness. I am convinced there are many more aliens out there. One location is a freak accident, two means countless more.
I would like to know their history.
With a new fuel cell we can drift forever as we seek signs of another colony.
And Ripley can sleep, ready to bear our inevitable prize back home.
I only need her. The others cannot come. I will allow what she has requested. In truth, it’s perfect. She will not remember how determined I remain to fulfill the mission. She will not remember the things I have done.
On waking, she will not even know I am still here.
She will be weak, disorientated, and I will guide her back to the Narcissus.
Hoop moved quickly through the ship toward the bridge. More than ever it felt like a haunted ship. He’d always known the Marion busy, the crew going about their tasks, the off-duty miners drinking or talking or working out. It had never been a silent place. There was always music emanating from the accommodations hub or rec room, a rumble of conversation from the galley and bar.
He felt a pang as he missed his friends, and Lucy Jordan, his one-time lover. She had become more than a friend, and after their romance had dwindled—sucked away, she’d joked without really joking, by the cold depths of space—their friendship had deepened to something he’d rarely felt before. They had trusted each other completely.
And she had been one of the first to die.
Hoop had never given way to loneliness. As a child he’d enjoyed his own company, preferring to spend time in his room making models or reading his parents’ old books, and when he was a teenager he’d kept a small circle of friends. Never one for team sports, his social life had revolved around nights at their houses, watching movies or drinking cheap booze. Sometimes a girl would come onto the scene and take him or a friend away for a time, but they’d always returned to the familiarity of that small, closed circle.
Even as an adult, after marrying and having children and then losing it all, he had rarely felt lonely.
That only happened after the aliens arrived.
Every step of the way toward the bridge, he thought of Ripley. He so hoped she would live, but a different woman was going to emerge from the med pod. If the unit worked well, she would remember little or nothing from the past few days. He would have to introduce himself all over again.
Even though the creature had to be dead, he remained cautious, pausing at each junction, listening for anything out of place. A constant vibration had been rippling throughout the ship ever since the explosion in Hold 2, and Hoop guessed the blast had somehow knocked their decaying orbit askew. They were skipping the outer edges of the planet’s atmosphere now, shields heating up, and it wouldn’t be long before the damaged docking bays started to burn and break apart.
He needed to find out just how long they had.
The bridge was exactly as they’d left it less than a day earlier. It seemed larger than before, and he realized that he’d never actually been there on his own. Lachance was often on duty, sitting in his pilot’s seat even though the Marion rarely needed any manual input. Baxter spent a lot of time at his communications console, processing incoming messages for miners or crew and distributing them as appropriate throughout the ship’s network. Sneddon sometimes spent long periods there, talking with Jordan, and their security officer, Cornell, would sometimes visit.
Other people came and went. The place was never silent, never empty. Being there on his own made it seem all the more ghostly.
He spent a few minutes examining readouts on Lachance’s control panels, consulting the computers, and they told him what he needed to know. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a small data drive, uploading a data purge program before dropping it into an inner pocket.
Insurance, he thought.
Then he quickly made his way down through the accommodations hub. It was a slight detour, but it was much closer to the galley and rec rooms. They needed food, and there wasn’t time enough to go to where most of it was stored.
He found what he sought in various private quarters. Everyone kept a stash of food for midnight hungers, and sometimes because they just didn’t feel like eating with the others. He grabbed a trolley and visited as many rooms as he could, finding pictures of families who would never see their loved ones again, witnessing all those personal things that when left behind seemed like sad, incomplete echoes of what a person had been.
As he gathered, it dawned on him that they’d never be able to take enough to sustain them. But Kasyanov had said there was a large supply of food substitutes and dried supplements stored in the med bay. They’d make do. There would be rationing.
He tried to concentrate entirely on the here-and-now. The thought of the journey that lay ahead would cripple him if he dwelled on it for too long. So he kept his focus on the next several hours.
Leaving the laden trolley along the route that led down to the docking bays, he made his way back up to the med bay. Kasyanov was sitting on one of the beds, jacket cast aside and shirt pulled up to reveal her wounds. They were more extensive than Hoop had suspected; bloody tears in her skin that pouted purple flesh. She quivered as she probed at them with tweezers. There were several heavy bags piled by the door, and a stack of medical packs. She’d been busy—before she took time to tend herself.
“Bad?” he asked softly.
She looked up, pale and sickly.
“I’ve puked blood. I’ll have to use the med pod. Otherwise, I’ll die of internal bleeding and infection within a day.”
“We’ve got maybe two hours,” Hoop said.
“Time enough,” she replied, nodding. “She’ll be done in fifteen minutes.”
He had seen the unit working before, but it never ceased to fascinate him. Ripley looked thin and malnourished, battered and bruised. But the med pod had already repaired most of her major wounds, and several operating arms were concentrating on the rip in her stomach. They moved with a fluid grace, lacking any human hesitation and targeted with computer confidence. Two delved inside, one grasping, another using a laser to patch and mend. Its white-warm glow reflected from the pod’s glass cover and gave movement to Ripley’s face, but in truth she was motionless. Back down in the depths of whatever dreams troubled her so much.
They, too, would soon be fixed.
The arms retreated and then her wound was glued and stitched with dissolvable thread. A gentle spray was applied to the area—artificial skin, set to react over time as the natural healing processes commenced. When she woke up, there would be little more than a pale pink line where the ugly slash had once existed.
Bumps and bruises were sprayed, her damaged scalp treated, an acid splash across her left forearm and hand attended to, after which the pod’s arms pulled a white sheet from a roll beneath the bed and settled it gently across Ripley’s body. It was almost caring.
Kasyanov glanced at Hoop, and he nodded. She initiated the next process. Then sighed, sat back, and closed her eyes as the interior of the med pod changed color. Rich blue lights came on, and arms as delicate as daisy stems pressed several contact pads against Ripley’s forehead, temples, and neck. The lights began to pulse hypnotically. The po
d buzzed in time with the pulsing, emitting a soporific tone. Hoop had to look away.
He turned to Kasyanov. Her breathing was light and fast, but she waved him away, nodding.
“I’m good,” she said.
“You’re shit.”
“Yeah. Well. What’s that, a doctor’s analysis?”
Hoop could barely smile. Instead, he went to the bags she’d left by the med bay’s door and opened the first to check inside.
“Antibiotics, viral tabs, painkillers, sterilization spray,” Kasyanov said. “Other stuff. Bandages, medicines, contraceptives.”
Hoop raised an eyebrow.
“Hey. Forever is a long time.”
He checked another bag and saw a jumble of plastic containers and shrink-wrapped instruments.
“You planning on passing time by operating on us?”
“Not unless I have to. But you really want to die from appendicitis?”
A soft chime came from the med pod and the lights inside faded to nothing. Sensor tendrils curled back in, fine limbs settled into place, and then the lid slid soundlessly open.
“She’s done?” Hoop asked.
“Guess so.” Kasyanov hauled herself upright, growling against the pain. “Get her out. I’ve got to—”
A distant explosion thudded through the ship. The floor kicked up. Ceiling tiles shuddered in their grid.
“Hurry,” Hoop said. As he moved across to the pod and prepared to lift Ripley out, Kasyanov was already working at its control panel. Her good hand moved quickly across the touchscreen. Hoop lifted Ripley clear, the lid slid closed, and moments later a sterilizing mist filled the interior.
Hoop settled Ripley on one of the beds, carefully wrapping her in the sheet and fixing it with clips. She looked tired, older. But she was still alive, and her face seemed more relaxed than he had seen it. He so hoped that she was dreaming harmless dreams.
“Now me,” Kasyanov said. “Five minutes, if that. We’ve got time?”
Hoop was surprised at the doctor’s sudden vulnerability.
“Of course,” he said. “I’m waiting for you, whatever happens.”
She nodded once, then with a wry smile she held out her hand.
“Quick lift?”
Hoop helped her into the pod. She lay down, touched the inner shell, and a remote control grid appeared. A wave of her hand closed the lid.
“See ya,” she said, attempting an American accent.
Hoop smiled and nodded. Then he turned back to check that Ripley was all right.
Behind him, the med pod whispered.
PROGRESS REPORT:
To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division
(Ref: code 937)
Date (unspecified)
Transmission (pending)
The doctor has served her purpose.
She makes the next step almost too easy.
The med pod wasn’t quite soundproof.
Looking at Ripley, Hoop heard Kasyanov’s muffled yell. He turned around to see thin metallic straps whipping across the doctor’s body, constricting across her shoulders, chest, stomach, hips, and legs. She cried out in pain as they crushed against her wounds.
Hoop knew that shouldn’t be happening. He tried to open the lid, but it was locked, and however much he touched and pressed the external control panel, nothing happened.
Kasyanov looked at him through the glass, wide-eyed.
“Ash,” Hoop hissed. Kasyanov couldn’t have heard him, but she saw the word on his lips. And froze.
A soft blue light filled the med pod.
“No!” she shouted, the word so muffled that Hoop only knew it because of the shape of her mouth.
A single surgical arm rose from its housing and loomed over Kasyanov’s chest.
Hoop tried to force the lid. He snapped up the plasma torch and used the hand rest to hammer at the lid’s lip, but only succeeded in bending part of the torch.
Kasyanov’s voice changed tone and he looked to her lips, searching for the word she had chosen, and it was Hoop.
He turned the torch around and aimed at the pod’s lid, close to her feet. If he was careful, only released a quick shot, angled it just right, he might be able to—
The blue light pulsed and the delicate arm sparked alight. There was a fine laser at its tip, and in a movement that was almost graceful, it drew rapidly across Kasyanov’s exposed throat. Blood pulsed, then spurted from the slash, splashing back from the pod’s inner surface and speckling across her face.
She was held so tightly that Hoop only knew she was struggling because of the flexing and tensing of her muscles, the bulging of her eyes. But those soon died down, and as the blue light faded, Kasyanov grew still.
Hoop turned away, breathing hard, and even when the ship juddered so hard that it clacked his teeth together, he did not move.
You bastard, he thought. You utter bastard, Ash.
Somehow he held back his rage.
* * *
Ripley groaned and rolled onto her side.
“I’ve got you,” Hoop said, moving to her side. Dropping the plasma torch, he slipped his hands beneath her and heaved her up onto his shoulder.
The shuttle awaited them, and now he was the last survivor of the Marion.
It was time to leave.
24
REVENGE
PROGRESS REPORT:
To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division
(Ref: code 937)
Date (unspecified)
Transmission (pending)
Ripley lives. He will bring her, and then discover the final surprise.
Time to leave.
I cannot pretend I am not disappointed that things went wrong. I cannot deny that I am frustrated. But I have time on my side.
I am immortal, after all.
Hoop left med bay with Ripley over his shoulder. The ship juddered so hard that he fell into a wall, jarring his whole body. The Marion groaned and creaked. It struck him what an irony it would be if the ship broke her back there and then, venting to space, killing him and Ripley and ending their long, terrible journey.
He thought of Lachance, who might have prayed to help him reach his destination. But Hoop knew that he was on his own. The universe was indifferent. Whether he and Ripley escaped, or died here and now, it all came down to chance.
A rhythmic booming commenced from somewhere deep below. It sounded like a giant hammer, smashing at the ship’s spine, pulsing explosions working outward from the engine core, thudding heartbeats of a dying ship. But still the vessel did not break up.
“Well, let’s go, then,” he muttered, moving on.
He tried to move quickly. His legs were as shaky as the ship now, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. His stomach rumbled, and he was suddenly, sickeningly hungry. He snorted a laugh at how ridiculous that was. But he also vowed to enjoy a feast, once they were in the Narcissus and away from the ship.
Just the two of us now, he thought. One asleep, one awake, sharing the stasis pod and maybe being together for a while in between. We might even do this. We might survive and get home.
And what story would he tell Ripley, when his newfound loneliness became too great and he woke her, ready to spend some of his own time in hypersleep? How would she react to being roused by someone she didn’t know? If the memory wipe had been thorough, the last thing she’d remember would be putting herself into stasis after destroying the Nostromo.
But that was for the future. If they survived, he would be able to tell her everything, or perhaps nothing at all. All he could concentrate on now was staying alive.
He moved as quickly and safely as he could. Reaching the stairs that led down into the docking area, he decided he’d have to take the elevator. Ripley was becoming heavier by the moment. He glanced at the trolley of food and realized he would have to return for it.
As he entered the elevator, though, he already mourned the feast left behind.
The ca
r descended smoothly, and the doors opened onto a corridor lit by flickering lights. Something exploded. It was far away, but it punched through the whole superstructure, knocking him from his feet again. Ripley rolled against the wall, groaning, waving her hands.
“Don’t wake up yet,” he muttered. She’d panic. He had enough to contend with.
She opened her eyes and looked right at him, motionless, holding her breath. There was no expression on her face, and nothing like recognition in her eyes. Hoop began to speak, to make sure she was still Ripley, still there. But then she closed her eyes again and slumped down. He had no idea what she had seen, but it hadn’t been him.
A deep groan rumbled through everything, and he felt a sickly movement in his stomach and head. The Marion was starting to turn in a roll, and if that happened she would quickly come apart. From somewhere behind him he saw flashing yellow and orange bursts, illuminating the walls before fading again. Fire! But then he realized there were viewing ports back on the deck from which he’d just descended. The flames were filtering in from outside.
Things were heating up.
He closed a blast door behind him, but it immediately re-opened. He didn’t bother trying again. Maybe it was Ash still playing his games. Or it might just be the Marion, getting cranky in her final moments.
“Come on, come on!” he implored, urging himself on, Ripley slung across both of his shoulders now. He staggered along the corridor, bouncing from wall to wall as the ship shook and rumbled. Another explosion came from far away and he felt the pressure blast smack him in the back, pushing him onward so hard that he lost his footing and went to his knees. He kept hold of Ripley this time. She grunted.
“Yeah, me too,” he said. He stood again and passed by the Samson’s docking arm, moving quickly on to Bay Four and the Narcissus. He opened the vestibule doors and hurried through. In minutes they’d be away. He would look back and see the distant flare as the massive ship met its end.
Or maybe not. Maybe he wouldn’t look at all. He’d seen enough destruction, and he couldn’t help feeling sad at the Marion’s demise.