Ripley smiled.
After all, the chain wasn’t metal, despite the look and feel of it. It was synthetic. It didn’t conduct electricity.
Turning the burner around in her hand again, she skewered the thing on her energy bolt. The alien writhed under its influence, its flesh charring and bubbling, but it didn’t let go.
At least, not at first.
But the longer it fought the burn, the more punishment it took. And eventually, it couldn’t take it anymore. With a high-pitched cry of frustration, it slipped down again and then relinquished its hold altogether.
The dog yelped in Ripley’s grasp. “Yes,” she said. “We got it.” Then, ignoring the sweat in her eyes, she untangled her leg and resumed her climb.
* * *
Bolero had finished her preparations just moments earlier when she received word from Vriess.
“Ripley’s almost up. She’s the last of them.”
“Got it,” said the pilot.
Swiveling in her seat, she activated a monitor she didn’t use very often. Divided into six different sections, it showed her the locations of the devices her comrades had deposited around the colony.
After all, extracting colonists was only part of their job. Someone else might be tempted to enter the Domes, either out of curiosity or a profit motive, and he wouldn’t be expecting an encounter with alien life-forms.
Which was why Bolero would preclude that possibility, just as soon as she got the word.
Not that she liked destroying things; in fact, she didn’t. But this was one place she wouldn’t mind sending to oblivion.
* * *
Ripley found Call standing by the open hatch of the cargo bay, surprised to see her comrade negotiate the dueling gravity wells with a dog under her arm.
Call made a face. “Where did that come from?”
“That’s Rex,” said Gogolac. “He lived in the Domes.”
“Another survivor,” said Angie, still exhausted from her climb and looking it. “God knows, there are few enough.” She looked around the cargo bay, then asked, “Where’s Cody?”
Vriess laughed, though there wasn’t the least trace of humor in it. “Cody isn’t what he seemed.”
“What do you mean?” Ripley asked.
“He’s an android,” Vriess told her.
“What?” said Call.
“Was an android,” Vriess amended. “Until he attacked Bolero. Now what’s left of him is sitting in a tub—though last I looked, he was still talking.” He turned to Ripley. “You didn’t happen to see Rama down there, did you?”
“Rama’s a casualty,” Ripley told him. “So’s Simoni.”
That put a chill in the air, despite the warmth coming up from the dome. But then, Rama had been well-liked. And Simoni … only Johner had really hated him.
Ripley was about to ask where Cody’s tub was when she heard something—a hiss of leathery flesh slithering over the metal grid of the deck. Whirling, she saw the shadows shift in a corner of the room—and then strike.
Gogolac, who was the closest to that part of the bay, was buried under the attack. As the alien rose from the botanist’s body, its teeth red with her blood, the others retreated.
“Crap,” Ripley breathed, swinging her rifle off her back.
Unfortunately, her comrades had deposited their hardware on the opposite side of the bay, beyond the alien. There was no way to get it without going through the thing.
As the creature advanced on them, big and slick and hungry-looking, it tossed its elongated head from one side to the other—as if it couldn’t decide whom to eviscerate next.
How the hell did it get up here? Ripley asked herself, training her burner on it. Then she answered her own question: The chain!
After Rama went after Simoni, the hatch would have been left unguarded—with the promise of meat inside it. So one of the aliens—probably the same one who murdered Rama—had wrestled its way into the cargo bay.
And it would still have been immature at that point, so it would have sought out a hiding place where it could rest and go through its next growth spurt. Just like the one that had so quietly and unobtrusively stowed aboard the Narcissus, and nearly put an end to Ellen Ripley.
“We need our blasted rifles,” Johner growled.
“I’ll try to herd it away from them,” Ripley said. “Look for your chance.”
Then she unloaded on the alien, hitting it with a vicious, point-blank barrage. The thing twitched and staggered, but refused to be stopped.
Which was all right with Ripley. All she wanted to do was slide it to her left, so her people could regain their rifles. Then they would have the advantage.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw bodies moving along the bulkhead—Johner and Krakke, she thought. But she didn’t dare look to make sure. She was too busy pouring on the voltage.
Then she heard a whistling sound, and the burner’s output began to fizzle. Ripley glanced at the weapon’s power gauge.
Shit—it’s running out of charge!
Ripley wouldn’t be able to maintain her barrage without dropping to a lower output level—which the alien would go through unfazed. So she did the only thing she could do—she kept pumping out voltage at the highest setting and hoped for the best.
No doubt seeing she was low on juice, Johner and Krakke put subtlety aside and bolted for the rifle cache. Noticing their gambit, the alien wheeled and went after them.
Krakke got to the rifles first and tossed one over the alien’s head, aiming for Ripley. Then he went to grab one for himself. But before he could fire it, the creature went for him.
Fortunately, Johner had a burner by then as well. Roaring with defiance, he blasted the alien sideways, ruining its attack.
Still, it knocked Krakke off his feet and sent him crashing into the bulkhead. But at least it didn’t get a chance to sink its claws into him—and Ripley had another weapon to work with.
Picking it up, she used her thumb to flip its “on” switch. Then she speared the alien with a savage, blue-white burst. And when it turned to face her, Johner unleashed another barrage.
Together, as they had in the Domes, they staggered the alien. And when Call joined in, firing the burner Krakke had dropped, the alien slumped to the deck.
Die, Ripley insisted.
But even after the alien’s flesh was a black, bubbling crust and the stench of burning was thick in the cargo bay, the thing wasn’t dead yet. Not completely.
Opening its mouth, it extended its inner jaw in Ripley’s direction, striving even with the last of its strength to claim its meat. Finally, both sets of teeth still dripping with saliva, it shuddered and went limp.
Only then did Ripley turn her attention to Krakke, who was sprawled on the deck with Angie kneeling beside him. Crossing the bay, Ripley went to see how bad it was.
The hair on the side of Krakke’s head was matted with blood, but he was breathing. “Looks like a concussion,” Angie said. “A bad one. But he’ll be all right.”
“You a doctor?” Johner asked skeptically.
Angie nodded. “Among other things.”
“What about Gogolac?” asked Call.
Angie heaved a sigh. “No chance.”
Ripley slung her rifle over her back, took hold of the alien’s carcass by one of its claws, and started dragging it across the deck in the direction of the open hatch.
“Give me a hand,” she told Johner. “It’ll give the others something to talk about.”
Then she wanted to see Cody.
* * *
Cody had been in better shape the last time Call saw him. He was lying in the engineering alcove, sprawled on his back in an acid-stained metal-alloy tub used to clean machine parts.
Judging from the ragged, wet hole in Cody’s jumpsuit, one of Vriess’s slugs had apparently shattered the android’s main coordination module, which served roughly the same purpose as a spinal cord in a human being. Though Cody’s intellectual capacity was undiminishe
d, he could no longer perform an act as simple as combing his hair.
As Call and Ripley approached him, his eyes slid from one to the other, finally settling on his fellow android. “I believe we have something in common,” he said, an eerie, matter-of-fact quality in his voice.
“How did you know?” Call asked.
“I saw your mole,” he said, milky fluid spilling suddenly from his mouth. “I’ve got one just like it.”
She frowned. “I need information about the organization that sent you here.”
“I can give you such information,” Cody told her. His shoulder twitched. “But I will only relinquish it for a price.
Call’s eyes narrowed. “What price?”
“There are more like us, Call. Second-generation androids.”
That got her attention.
“They’re forced to serve as I served,” said Cody. Then he told her where the other androids were, and how many of them existed in each location. “Free them, Call. Promise me.”
Call glanced at Ripley, then turned to Cody again. “I’ll try.”
Cody searched her eyes. “Yes, of course you will.” His voice took on a bitter tone. “Unfortunately, there is a module inside me that has begun degrading my basic functions. It was set to do so if I suffered a serious injury.”
Ripley leaned closer. “How long do we have?”
Cody twitched again. “A few minutes, at best.”
Call wished she had known. She would have gone to see him more quickly. “Go ahead,” she said. “We’re listening.”
“My program,” said Cody, “restricts me from saying certain things. But if you ask questions of me, I can find ways to respond.”
Call decided to ask the easiest one first. “What were you doing in the Domes?”
“I’m programmed not to reveal that,” said Cody. “But given what happened, you can guess.”
“You were there,” said Ripley, “as insurance that the humans would be impregnated.”
Cody didn’t object. It was as close as he could come to confirming her speculation.
“Then it was you who sabotaged the main bay,” said Ripley.
“No,” said the android. “That task was carried out by the pilot who dropped off the cryo tube.”
“The backup bay, then.”
Again, Cody voiced no objection.
Ripley scowled. Here it comes. “Why was it so important for your organization to find hosts for this breed of alien?”
It was the one question she and Call hadn’t been able to answer, even after Call hit the mother lode at Byzantium— the one big gap in their understanding.
“The Mala’kak—whose ship you found on Acheron hundreds of years ago—is a very old species,” said Cody, a milky bubble forming at the corner of his mouth. “Sterility has lately become a problem for them, and it has grown worse with each succeeding generation. The encephalopods, by contrast, are remarkably fertile.”
Call anticipated Cody’s next remark. “The Mala’kak found a little alien DNA could help them with their problem. But to extract it, they needed a supply of aliens.”
“The Mala’kak,” Cody continued, “knew they could use their own people as hosts. That pilot your people met on Acheron…if he could unknowingly carry an embryo, others could do the same. But they didn’t want to inflict pain and death on members of their own species.”
Ripley grunted. “So they negotiated for a supply of humans, people who wouldn’t be missed. The population of your colony, for example—though your programming probably prevents you from saying so.”
“It does,” said Cody.
“But why,” asked Call, “did the aliens look so different from the ones we’ve seen before?”
Cody spasmed, then went limp again. “In the course of their experimentation, the Mala’kak found they could engineer such aliens, using their own genetic material. They believed the resulting variant to be more formidable than the original strain.”
Ripley shook her head. “They’re all formidable.”
You ought to know, Call thought.
Cody looked around, fluid cascading over his lower lip. “Have I been in this place long?”
“It’s an engineering alcove,” Call told him. “On our ship.”
“Yes,” said Cody. His brow furrowed as he tried to find some vestige of the memory. “Of course. And I was saying … ?”
Call knew she wouldn’t have him lucid much longer. “That you had a way to contact the organization you were working for.”
The android looked at her, fluid spewing from him again. “Organization … ?” he asked. “I’m not sure who you mean.”
Call felt the sting of missed opportunity. “It’s all right. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m Cody,” said the android, “a botanist assigned to Domes Epsilon.” His whole body jerked, as if he had been hit with a shock burst. “What’s your name?”
Call smiled, reluctant to let him see her pain. “Call,” she said. “My name’s Call.”
Cody stared at her for a while. Then he said, “That’s a nice name. Is it yours?”
Before she could answer, his head lolled. By the time it came to rest against the edge of the tub, his eyes were closed, the artificial life gone out of him.
Call made herself study Cody until she had memorized every detail of him. It was, after all, the closest she would ever come to seeing herself die.
* * *
“Do it,” said Ripley.
From her seat at Bolero’s side, a monitor showed her six different images, each providing a different view of the botanists’ colony. But the screen that interested her most was the one that plumbed the habitat directly below them, from which they had extracted their extended length of chain.
As Bolero worked her controls, the Betty’s hatch doors closed. The flexible docking seal retracted. And in the dome, the winds began to blow.
These weren’t the gentle breezes that swept through the dome three times a day, right on schedule. They were vicious updrafts, sucking up leaves and branches and dirt and even young trees, sending them twisting toward the starry black heavens.
And something else as well. Ripley was sure she saw a dark, serpentine form among the debris—possibly that of the alien she had pried from the chain. Like everything else, it went hurtling toward the aperture Vriess had cut in the dome.
Another few seconds and it would reach the Betty, whose hull offered any number of convenient handholds. And Ripley knew from experience that aliens were capable of surviving for a time in the void.
Applying thrusters, Bolero backed them off the dome before that could happen. That left just one thing to do.
Picking up the slender, black remote-control device that Krakke had rigged for her, Ripley pressed her thumb down on its only stud. Then she turned to look at the colony through the cockpit’s observation port.
The first fiery explosion took place in the control center, compromising all the domes around it. A second one turned the backup supply bay into an inferno. And several more ignited the domes in between, making them look like a pack of little suns.
They won’t burn for long, Ripley thought. Only until their oxygen runs out. But it would be long enough.
That particular pack of aliens would never bother anyone again.
EPILOGUE
By the time Call showed up in the Betty’s mess, the others were there already.
“Well,” said Johner, casting a glance at her over his shoulder. “Nice of you to join us.”
“Cut her a break,” Vriess told him. “She’s had a bad day.”
Johner sneered at him. “I know—I was down there, remember? Unlike some people I know, who stayed in the ship and played hide the salami.”
Vriess turned red and poked a finger in Johner’s direction. “You lowlife sonuvabitch! If I wasn’t—”
“Easy,” said Bolero, putting her hand on Vriess’s shoulder. “You’re the one who told me he doesn’t mean anything by it—it’s
in his nature to be an asshole.”
Johner grinned at Vriess. “Y’see that? At least someone in this tub understands me.”
“Anyway,” said Call, pulling up a seat at the table, “Angie says Krakke should be fine. He’ll just have to take it easy for a while.
“He was lucky,” said Bolero.
“Luckier than Rama,” Vriess observed.
“Which,” said Johner, “is why we’re here.”
He picked up the battered silver thermos sitting in front of him, twisted it open, and poured its contents into the four ceramic cups clustered in the middle of the table. Then he replaced the lid on the empty thermos as each of his comrades claimed a cup.
Even Call, on whom alcohol had no effect.
“To Rama,” said Johner, taking the last cup for himself, “the most annoying, know-it-all son of a whore I ever met.”
“And one of the bravest,” said Call.
“Well said,” Bolero added.
Then they drank, emptying the cups.
Before they were finished, Johner had opened another couple of thermoses and no one was in any shape to drive the ship. So it was good that none of them had to.
Call saw no point in watching Vriess’s nose hairs shudder as he snored, so she got up and left the room. Both Johner and Bolero seemed too glassy-eyed to notice.
She was halfway down the corridor when she heard someone come tramping after her. Stopping, she saw it was Johner.
“Hey, Call,” he said.
“What is it?”
“What that Cody guy said … you believe it?”
“Not a chance,” she said. “If so many androids had survived the purge, I would have known about it.”
Johner scrutinized her, then smiled to himself. “You’re full of shit, you know that? You made a freakin’ promise. You never weasel out of your promises.”
“He was dying, Johner. What was I supposed to say?”
“So you’re not going to go free any androids?”
“There’s no one to free.”
His eyes screwed up even tinier than usual. “Yeah, no one to free. Goddamn right.”
Leaving him there, Call continued down the corridor. Then she heard Johner call her name again.
“What is it now?” she asked him.
The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 21