“‘An incident?’ I asked.
“That’s all he can say at the time, Braley claims, but he sends me a vid showing the outpost, a haze of smoke rising from it. A few hours later, he comes back on a secure line and tells me what it is.”
Darby leaned forward, looked hard at Kramm. “That’s where you come in.”
“You still haven’t told me anything,” said Kramm.
“Why don’t I just show you?” Darby said.
He took a small iridescent rod off his desk, pushed it into a small hole in the surface of the desk itself.
The walls suddenly sputtered, the wood fading to be replaced on all sides by smooth dull plastic. On three sides this quickly faded to a dark gray, with the final wall, to his left, lighting to a bright white.
And then that faded too, to be replaced by an image of a small outpost, smoke rising above it.
“That’s the vid I was telling you about,” said Darby. “From outside. What’s coming next is from the security cameras inside.”
The image stuttered and went dead. When something came on again, it was grainy and distorted, hard to make out. It was a camera slowly scanning along a row of boots and lower legs. It was only when it swept past the last boot and he realized the boot was in a puddle of what he suddenly knew was blood that Kramm knew the men whose legs he was seeing were dead.
Then the vid cut to another camera vantage. Kramm watched it pass back and forth over a prone man’s body. This man was still alive, his chest rising and falling. He couldn’t see his head. Kramm watched.
“So what’s the big deal about—” he had just started to say, when it happened.
The man’s stomach bulged and then tore apart. He saw the tiny sharp-toothed gleaming head of an Alien newborn erupt out through it, facing away from the camera, toward the man’s invisible head. He felt the sweat break out on the back of his neck. And then the vid went dead.
“Now you know why we called you,” said Darby.
* * *
“Isn’t there more?”
“That’s all they sent us,” said Darby. “They claimed that was the only footage that was usable. Faulty connection or something.”
“Do you believe them?” asked Kramm.
Darby pursed his lips. “It doesn’t matter much what I believe,” he said. “What matters is that this is all they sent us.”
“Will you play it again?” asked Kramm.
Darby reached over and tapped the rod with one finger. It slid back into the surface of the desk and the vid began again. The slow movement down the row of boots, then the second camera, then the explosion of the chest, the creature’s head strangely shiny. There was something odd about it, but Kramm couldn’t quite figure what it was.
“Can I see it again?” he asked.
“Of course,” said Darby.
It was there in the first part, from the first camera, and then something else wrong later, just something he had a feeling about.
“Again,” he said, “just the first part?”
“Of course,” said Darby.
“Loop it,” said Kramm. “Let’s just watch the boots a few times in a row.”
“Anything wrong, Mr. Kramm?” asked Darby.
He didn’t say anything, just watched the camera move down the row of boots, then the last, bloody boot. Then down the row again, then the bloody boot again.
“Why a row?” he finally asked.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s too neat,” he said. “They shouldn’t all be in a row like that. Parts of them would be all over the room. If there were enough eggs most of them would be gone, plastered into a hive somewhere.” He felt his skin crawl at the thought. “There’s something wrong,” he said.
Darby smiled. “I knew you were the right man for the job,” he said.
“And then later,” Kramm said. “When it bursts out of the chest, let’s see that again.” Darby moved the image forward, stopped it. “That gleam,” Kramm said. “It’s not right. They gleam, but not like that.”
“Maybe it has adapted, Mr. Kramm, or maybe this is a different variety than what you’ve seen in the past.”
“Maybe,” said Kramm, suddenly feeling tired again. “Or maybe the light’s odd. It could be nothing.”
“But we thought something was wrong too,” said Darby. “Which is why we rushed you awake.”
“You noticed it too?”
“Not that,” said Darby. “The two cameras. Why would they be sweeping at different speeds?”
“I didn’t notice that,” said Kramm.
“We all notice what we are trained to notice,” said Darby.
“What else do you know?”
“Only what they told us. The incident took place four days ago. According to Weyland-Yutani, the outpost and the terraformer itself were decimated. All seven scientists and technicians were killed with, and I quote, all the telltale signs of an Alien invasion: burst chest cavities and dead facehuggers found near the bodies.”
“With that sort of information, why do you need me?” asked Kramm.
“We don’t know that we do need you,” said Darby. “But as you so aptly point out, Mr. Kramm, something just doesn’t feel right.”
* * *
Darby went on to explain further. Because of formal agreements between Planetus and the Company, Planetus representatives were allowed to visit the accident site. But none of the Planetus employees in C-3 L/M knew much, if anything, about Aliens. There had seemed no reason to install an Alien specialist on a planet in a region of space far distant from any previous infestation.
“The few that do know anything have knowledge that—since not only has the Alien threat been carefully controlled over the last few decades but even information about them is now carefully regulated and controlled—remains largely theoretical,” said Darby. “They’ve looked at the vid, but they aren’t likely to grasp the subtleties of the situation.”
“What about Weyland-Yutani?”
“They have specialists there, or claim they do, all of whom confirm that the evidence suggests there has been an Alien outbreak. And yet, the Aliens seem to have come and gone.”
“What do you mean, ‘come and gone’?”
“They’re not there anymore. It’s as if they have vanished into thin air.”
“That’s not possible,” said Kramm. “That’s not what they do.”
“Which leaves one of two possibilities: the Company has killed the creatures off and for some reason doesn’t want to tell us. Or they’re still there, hidden, waiting. You’re the only Planetus employee with hands-on experience with the beasts. We want you to go and take a look, tell us honestly what you think.”
“I want to be clear about one thing,” said Kramm.
“And what’s that?”
“No tunnels,” said Kramm. “I don’t do tunnels. And I don’t do the dark either.”
Darby nodded. “All we want is for you to visit the site, take a look around, tell us what you think, and make a recommendation. They’re eager to close down the facility, file the case, and bury the bodies, so you’ll be the last visit, the final word.”
“All right,” said Kramm. “So be it.”
* * *
By the time his meeting with Darby was over, he was able to walk again; slowly and with a cane, but his movement was coming quickly back. Darby accompanied him as he made his way across decks and to the ship bay. Helping Kramm into a small ship, he belted him in.
“We’re not far away now,” said Darby. “You’ll be there in two days with the deep-space drive. Can’t put you to sleep, I’m afraid: doctors say it’s too soon. But we’ll set everything, put you on automatic pilot. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”
“And what if I find out something you don’t want to know?” Kramm asked.
“Hmm?” said Darby, fiddling with the webbing. “No such thing,” he said. “All we want is to know the truth.”
He started to turn away, beginning to leave the shi
p. At the last moment he hesitated, turned back.
“I almost forgot,” he said, and removed something from his jacket pocket, pressing it into Kramm’s hand. It was a small device, a rectangular black case about the size of two fingers, no seams anywhere on it, very light.
“What is it?” Kramm asked.
“It’s not important that you know,” said Darby. “It’s in case they do try to do something to you. Just make sure you carry it with you when you go to the site. It might be better if you didn’t let anyone know you have it.”
Kramm tried to hand it back, but Darby was already too far away. “Nothing to worry about,” he was saying, shaking his head. “Just a little protection for everyone involved. I promise you it’s nothing to worry about.”
He took a step out, then peered back through the hatch. “Good luck, Mr. Kramm,” he said, flashing a smile at him. “We’re all behind you.”
PART TWO
C - 3 L / M
1
It was the first time he had traveled without being placed in cryonic storage. It was also the first time he had traveled alone for more than a day. The computers were all preprogrammed, and after he undocked from the larger Planetus vessel and felt the initial blast accelerating the craft there was nothing for him to do. He unwebbed and wandered the ship, finding it eerie to be on it alone, with nothing but the emptiness of space around him.
He did some thinking, trying to push certain memories down far enough to where he’d never touch them again, trying to dredge others up. There was the way his wife’s hair had smelled, the way his daughter, when very young, hardly more than a year or two old, used to run about strangely folded at the hips, arms stretched behind her like she was flying. There was a certain look his wife gave him sometimes, when she was angry. And another look, not all that dissimilar, that she gave him when she was feeling romantic. Between all these moments of communion with the dead, as he shuffled about along the deck and ate food reconstituted from tubes, there were the memories he was trying to forget. His wife dead and split apart, the look of confusion she had given him when he had first come into the devastated room, his own bloody fingers.
What exactly had happened to him there below the house, in the darkness? He could make guesses, could piece some of it together logically, could understand what must have happened to him down there, but there were lots of gaps, whole days or hours that he could not even begin to remember, when he had been hardly, if at all, human. It was as if part of him had been left down there, down below in the darkness, and was still there, waiting in the darkness for him to come back and retrieve it.
It was only when his throat started to get sore that he realized he had been talking to himself for nearly two days straight. This is why they put us into cryonic storage, he thought. When they don’t, we go mad. He was relieved when the planet appeared on the screen before him and he felt the ship shift slightly under his feet, and there was the computer telling him to return to his seat for landing.
What if the computer breaks down? he couldn’t help but thinking on the way down. What would happen to me then?
* * *
Once landed, he found himself in the Planetus spaceport, seated on a neoplastene bench that slowly adapted itself to the shape and weight of his frame. He felt like it was slowly swallowing him. He found himself getting up and pacing back and forth every few minutes until the neoplastene returned to its original shape and he could start the process over again.
It was then, for some reason, that he started to think again not about his most recent Alien encounter but about an earlier one, another one that had come very close to killing him. It made his ribs ache just thinking about it.
He had gone into the situation knowing roughly what to expect. A caretaker family in a world in the process of being terraformed, a distress signal sent out, then silence. Three in the family, meaning three Aliens, more or less: maybe one more if there had been a living alien to begin with as well as the eggs. It was likely to be a little tricky, but he’d faced similar odds before and had come out all right. Besides, he had an ex-marine turned Company employee with him, armed to the teeth.
All they needed to do was go in, make a cursory check for survivors, a good-faith effort, just something so the company could say it had been done. They’d been given a nuke about the size of a softball; once he’d checked for survivors, he was to sink it somewhere near the hive, if there was a hive, and then get the hell away.
He took the lead, cutting away the doorlock and then kicking the panel in. The ex-marine was there right behind him.
“Hello?” he called. “Anybody still alive?”
The place looked deserted, hardly a thing out of place except for just inside the front door where the wall had been spattered with blood. A hank of hair and a bit of scalp clung just inside the doorjamb. That was probably enough to justify a good-faith effort. He scooped it into a plastic bag.
But when he looked behind him the ex-marine was gone. It was as if he had never been there at all.
There were marks back through the scrub and dust where the man had been dragged. Why hadn’t he heard anything? He followed the marks, found a little way on the man’s pistol, its barrel bent. A few more steps and the dust was spattered with blood, coagulating here and there into a pale red paste.
The marks led him to a hole, just big enough to admit him. He clambered in, headfirst, a flashlight in one hand, his drawn pistol in the other. It was hot and tight inside.
The tunnel forked and he took the left path, still following the traces of blood. It curved slightly, beginning to descend, and then tightened a little further on. He could still be on his knees, his flashlight and pistol gripped awkwardly in each hand and thunking against the floor of the tunnel, but his back rubbed the ceiling now.
He moved forward on hands and knees, feeling the weight of the earth above him. His flashlight cast odd shadows as he moved, making the tunnel sway around him.
Ahead, he heard a deep shout, maddened. Because of the distortion of the echo he wasn’t sure if it were human. He kept on, moving faster now, feeling the walls tighter and heavier around him.
And then there it was, not far ahead, a glimpse of a jointed and spinelike tail. He dropped to his belly, aiming the flashlight, aiming the gun, and fired.
The sound echoed all around him, deafening him, bringing down a fine sifting of dust. The creature jerked and hunkered down, beginning to turn itself around in the tunnel, bending impossibly, and then there it was, in the light of the flashbeam, turned now and galloping toward him very fast. He steadied the gun, waited until it was almost on him, then quickly fired, twice.
The casing of its head cracked and split, the creature’s greenish blood splattering the tunnel above and to the sides, where it began to hiss. The creature itself came to rest a few centimeters from his hands, balled up and blocking the tunnel, enough of the acidic blood spattered about that he wasn’t sure that it would be safe to climb over it. What now, then? he wondered, and then started crawling backward, awkwardly, back up the slight slope, back the way he had come.
It was difficult not being able to see where he was going, not being completely sure what the tunnel looked like behind him. It was hard not to move too quickly, to scrape the walls and the top of the tunnel and bring down dust or dirt. Just a little more, he told himself, just a little more and then I’ll be at the fork.
But well before he was there, he realized he was no longer the only thing in the tunnel.
At first, he wasn’t sure he’d heard anything. He stopped moving, stayed still, listening. Nothing. But then when he started moving he heard it again, the odd echo of something not quite right. He prepared to roll over onto his back, hoping to get a better look behind him, when suddenly he heard it, clear and loud this time, and then something had his boot and was dragging him quickly along, his face scraping its way along the dirt.
He tried to get turned around so he could get a good shot off, but it had too tight of
a hold on his boot, was dragging him too quickly for him to do anything but try not to lose hold of the flashlight and the gun. The leg of his pants had begun to fill with dirt and his calf had grown warm from the friction, probably was bloody too. The tunnel was getting wider and then they passed through what he realized was the fork and he watched the other gaping tunnel now recede.
And then the creature slowed just a little and Kramm somehow got to his knees and, still being dragged, one hand riding the flashlight as if it were a skate, he forced the gun back between his own legs and pulled the trigger.
The creature gave a shrill cry and let go. Kramm rolled as best he could in the tunnel, the spiked tip of the creature’s tail whipping out and tearing through his suit, cutting a searing gash down his side. He fired again, three times in quick succession this time, lying on his back, and the creature collapsed.
He just lay there for a while, and then realized he was hyperventilating, slowly losing consciousness. He shook his head, forced himself to take slow, deep breaths. Then he rolled over and got to his knees. The tunnel was wide enough that he could turn around in it, just barely, and he did, his side bursting with pain when he touched it against the wall. He moved slowly forward and over the creature, careful to touch it as little as possible. Still, the blood was too fresh and had spread too far and burned against the ball of his palm. He rubbed it desperately back and forth in the dirt a little further up the tunnel until the burning stopped. Through the grime on it he could see a strip of dark, striated muscle, the flesh burned away over it. He awkwardly bandaged it and continued on.
He could see the light of the opening to the surface when he realized he’d have to go back. He still had the nuke on him, there might be one more—or perhaps even more than that if they’d missed something. Plus there was the marine; he might still be alive.
He began the awkward process of turning around in the tunnel again, then started back, sweating, his side aching, his palm aching. The flashlight’s beam started to go dim; he shook it back and forth a few dozen times, charging the coil. There it was, in the tunnel in front of him, the dead alien, and he clambered back over it, carefully this time though the acid of the blood had probably already gone inert. The tunnel started to tighten again.
The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 24