He leaned farther over the cryonic unit, bringing his gun to bear, pointing it at the top of the egg. He couldn’t quite line it up right. He took half a step onto the unit and now could see the facehugger clearly, the fleshy mass of it, flopping over and over within the egg. Carefully, he aimed the pistol at it.
The Alien hissed. Kramm glanced at it briefly, saw that it was holding Frances’s head in its long-fingered and scaly hands, its fingers forming bars over her face.
Frances’s eye was blinking now; she was coming awake. He watched her eye loll about in its socket, then level, fix on him.
“Kramm?” she said, her voice muffled. “What’s going on?”
The creature hissed again and began to apply pressure. Frances yelped.
“All right,” said Kramm, bringing the gun away from the egg, letting it hang loosely to one side. “All right.”
The creature relaxed slightly, but kept its hands wrapped around Frances’s head.
“Kramm?” Frances said.
“I’m right here, Frances,” Kramm said, keeping his voice flat. “No need to worry.”
“What’s going on, Kramm?”
He watched her arms flex against the strange stringy secretions which, still soft, gave a little, stretched. His eyes kept flicking back and forth between Frances and the egg.
“I can’t talk right now,” said Kramm. “And I need you to hold very still.”
She stopped struggling, though he could sense a rising panic in the way she was beginning to breathe. Kramm kept waiting, eyes flicking back and forth between the egg and Frances. How are we going to get out of this one? he wondered.
“Frances,” he said. “There’s an egg here starting to hatch. I’ve got to kill what’s in it before it kills you. But there’s something I need you to do as well.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Once it lets go, throw your head hard to the right.”
“All right,” said Frances, and was quiet for a moment.
“My right or your right?” she asked.
“My right,” said Kramm. “When I say now.”
The facehugger in the egg flipped about in the fluid again, made a scuttling noise. Which do I shoot first? he wondered. It started scrabbling at the side of the egg and then a moment later there it was, a bloated and obscene hand, looming on the lip of the egg. What if it goes after me? he wondered, but then heard the Alien chitter softly, saw it slowly removing its hands from Frances’s face.
“Now!” shouted Kramm.
The facehugger launched itself into the air. Frances threw her head to one side and Kramm fired, the blast catching the facehugger on one side, spinning it in the air and slapping it against the wall. The Alien screeched and slapped its hands together hard where Frances’s head had been a moment earlier. Before it could get itself gathered for a second blow, Kramm had leapt forward, shooting it through the mouth, the innards of its head spraying out over the wall behind. The creature made a halfhearted swipe at Frances’s head again, clawing into her scalp, and then stumbled to one side and collapsed.
He approached the facehugger slowly, prodding it with his boot. It flinched when he touched it, but didn’t move the second time. The Alien itself was lying slouched against the wall. He prodded it; it didn’t move.
He looked up at Frances.
“Well done,” she said. Her face was ghost white.
He looked at the sidearm. “It’s field-tested now,” he said. “Apparently, it will stop Aliens as long as you shoot them in exactly the right place. I’m getting too old for this,” he said. He stuck the sidearm into his belt, pulled a knife out of his pocket, started forward.
“You don’t look too old to me,” she said.
“I’m thirty years older than I look,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Never better,” she said. “I’m tougher than I look.”
He managed to cut away part of the sticky mess around her hand, then chipped away at it where it had begun to harden, then kicked it free from the rest. He broke the opalene bits free around her fingers and wrist. She stretched the arm, shook it.
“This ever happen to you?” she asked. “Becoming part of the interior decorating, I mean.”
“Not so that I like to talk about it,” he said.
He started freeing her second hand while she brushed her hair out of her eyes, tenderly feeling the gash in the side of her head. It wasn’t deep, she told him, nothing to worry about.
“How did you know that would work?” she asked.
“What?”
“Having me throw my head to one side.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “It very well might still have torn your head off. But I was at a loss for anything else to do.”
He broke her other hand free and then broke away the last bits, Frances helping him now. Once he was done, she shook both her arms and then put them lightly around him.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” said Kramm. He stayed there a moment on his knees, not knowing what to do or say, until she let go of him and started working on the amalgam around her chest and legs. Not knowing what else to do he stood, started kicking at it with his boots.
She was nearly free when suddenly he heard her draw her breath in sharply and she began fumbling at his belt. He couldn’t figure out what she was doing and then felt her get hold of the gun and yank it out. He glanced down to see her face intently focused upon something behind him.
“Down!” she yelled. So he fell to one side and rolled, turning to look behind him as he hit. A facehugger was flinging itself through the air toward where he had been. There was the sharp searing noise of the gun and a hole sizzled through the facehugger’s middle. It spun just to one side of his face and curled slowly up near him on the floor.
He looked up to see Frances smiling at him. She brought the pistol close to her lips, pretended to blow smoke off the tip of the barrel. “Frances Stauff, professional gunslinger, at your service,” she said. “There were two eggs. Remember?”
“Thanks,” said Kramm.
“No problem,” she said. “You’re all right?”
Kramm nodded. “Never better,” he said, then smiled and added, “I’m tougher than I look.”
5
A little later, Frances was free. They examined the Aliens, Kramm turning the facehuggers over with his boot. They had tightened in death, growing paler. Underneath, they looked as if they were wearing their internal organs on the outside. The wall was burnt and pocked by their acid, one burn having eaten partway through the floor, but the outer hull, according to the computer, hadn’t been breached.
“Do you suppose there are any more of them?” Frances asked.
“God, I hope not,” said Kramm.
They made a sweep of the ship, storage compartments and all, but found nothing.
“Doesn’t he look familiar?” asked Frances about the man who had been cuffed to the cryonic unit.
“I don’t think so,” said Kramm.
“He does to me,” she said. “Wait a minute, let me think.” She put her finger to her pursed lips. “It’s Standish,” she said at last.
“Who?”
“From Marshall’s vid. He was one of the original seven, the first to fly off.”
Kramm looked closer. “Could be,” he conceded. “Doesn’t look like he flew far.”
“Braley must have decided he was a security risk after all,” said Frances.
“Or that he was expendable.”
“Or that he was expendable,” Frances agreed.
They made their way to the flight deck. “How did they get here?” Kramm asked on the way up.
“They were put here,” said Frances.
“I know that,” said Kramm. “But where did they come from? This is a spaceport; security is tight.”
Frances shrugged. “Maybe they were smuggled through,” she said. “Though that would have been difficult, even for Braley. Perhaps they were brought in from a
nother ship, off-world. Braley could have landed them. As long as he didn’t take them out of the spaceport they never would have had to go through security.”
They settled into their chairs, into the webbing, Frances checking the instrumentation as they spoke.
“Weyland-Yutani must have decided it was in their best interest to do away with us,” said Frances.
“But why?”
“That’s the real question,” said Frances.
“And they thought a juvenile alien and two eggs were enough to do the job?” asked Kramm.
“It almost was,” said Frances. “I also think it’s fair to deduce that the man I assigned to guard the ship has been bought.” She tapped the monitor. “There’s something going out on the intergalactic channel,” she said. “Attention all ships. From Weyland-Yutani. Accept?”
Kramm shrugged. “Let’s take a look,” he said.
Frances nodded, set about turning the monitors over to the Intergalactic feed. “It’s midfeed,” she said. “It’ll take a moment for it to cycle around and capture the beginning.”
Kramm nodded. “One thing puzzles me more than anything,” he said. “Why, if you first go to the trouble of staging an Alien invasion, do you then introduce actual Aliens? What can the Company possibly hope to gain?”
“Another question I can’t answer,” said Frances.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” said Kramm.
“It made sense to Braley,” she said. “We just have to figure out why.”
* * *
A talking head, probably a synthetic or a hologrammatic representation of a nonexistent person, began to speak.
Authorities were informed today of the deaths of Frances Stauff and Anders Kramm, two Planetus representatives, at the hands of Aliens on C-3 L/M. According to Charles Braley, official Weyland-Yutani representative, the pair were part of a team sent to investigate reports of a possible Alien outbreak at a scientific research station on the planet.
Braley had this to say:
The announcer’s head faded, to be replaced by Braley’s well-oiled smile.
While it is true that there was evidence of an Alien outbreak, and though two Planetus representatives and seven scientists were unfortunately killed, there is no cause for alarm. We are completely confident that the Aliens have been exterminated.
He gave his winning smile and faded out, the announcer’s head reappearing.
Authorities continue to investigate the incident, pending the arrival of an interplanetary fact-finding commission. They stress, however, that there is no cause for concern or alarm.
The announcer was replaced by two still photographs, one of Kramm, taken decades earlier, the other of Frances.
Anders Kramm was a “sleeper” for Planetus, his voice said. He was a specialist in Alien behavior, kept on retainer by the small but ambitious company. He had been in cryonic storage nearly thirty years before being awakened just a few days ago when Weyland-Yutani identified a potential Alien threat on C-3 L/M and informed Planetus, the joint shareholder in the planet. Frances Stauff was second-in-command for Planetus’s local security forces. She graduated at the top of her class. Further specifics of their demise have not been made available at this time.
The unflappable announcer’s face returned.
Again, authorities continue to investigate the incident, but stress that there is no cause for alarm. We will make more information available to the general public as information becomes available to us.
* * *
Kramm and Frances stared at one another.
“You look very much alive to me,” Frances finally said.
“Same here,” said Kramm. “They must have been very sure the Aliens would kill us.”
Frances nodded. “To get an intergalactic broadcast approved and on the air so quickly,” she said, “the information would have had to be disseminated well before we were attacked. Probably even before we boarded the ship. Probably Braley had it all planned even before he met you, Kramm. It’s a setup.”
“But why?” asked Kramm.
“And why release it on the intergalactic channel before they’re sure we’re dead?” asked Frances. “For that matter, why release it at all? Why not cover it up?”
“We have to talk to Darby,” said Kramm. “Now.”
* * *
It took them some time to raise Darby on the secure channel he’d given them. When his face finally appeared, he looked distracted, harried.
“Frankly,” he said, “I’m surprised to see you alive, considering the news that’s going out.”
“The reports of our demise have been slightly exaggerated,” said Frances.
“I can see that,” said Darby. “It’s more imperative than ever that you get out of there.” He glanced away from the screen. “I can’t talk long,” he said. “Things are a mess here. Planetus stocks are falling as a result of the news of the Alien invasion.”
“Can’t you tell them the truth?” said Kramm.
“We can try,” said Darby. “We can broadcast a correction, state that both of you are still alive, that there never were any Aliens on C-3 L/M, but the damage has already been done. Our shareholders are panicked and ready to sell. We’ll hold on and try to get the word out, encourage them to hang tight, but who knows what they’ll do?
“But in any case,” he said, “even if we get the word out, how many people are going to want to colonize C-3 L/M now, after this news? There are dozens of planets out there, all of them potentially safer. No, even if we prove the reports are false it’ll be a few years before we’ll be able to start coaxing people in again. We have so much capital sunk into C-3 L/M that I’m not sure, even if the shareholders refuse to sell, that we’ll be able to survive.”
“Won’t it hurt the Company too?” asked Kramm.
“Yes, of course,” said Darby. “But the Company is the Company. They have infinitely more resources.” He looked nervously behind him again.
“That’s it,” said Frances.
“What?” said Kramm. “It all clicks,” she said. “I know what Braley and Weyland-Yutani are doing.”
“Is that right?” asked Darby. “Because from here it looks like one big mess.”
“Right,” said Frances. “That’s what they want you to think. Why fake an Alien invasion first and then bring in actual Aliens? Why say you want to resolve matters privately and then send a ‘reassuring’ message out on intergalactic channels that is sure to start a panic?”
“Why?” asked Darby.
“Because you want to start a panic,” said Frances. “You need Planetus to pull Kramm out of storage so that you can make it clear that an Aliens specialist not affiliated with Weyland-Yutani has been sent to the planet. You need to stage a false Alien invasion to put Kramm and I off guard: something that looks to the untrained eye like Aliens have been there but with a few details off that an expert can’t help but notice. That way, the last thing we’re prepared for are actual, living Aliens. Then you want not only a series of dead pseudoscientists but a dead Alien specialist as well. That will make everyone believe that it’s a serious problem. And you have to kill the Alien specialist with an actual alien because as soon as the news is announced, Intergalactic authorities will flock in and scrutinize everything carefully.”
“Where do you come in?” asked Kramm.
“Me?” said Frances. “I was expendable. That and the fact that I was a burr under Braley’s tail, watching him, making life difficult for him. He’d just as soon have me gone.”
“But why start a panic?” asked Darby again.
“I’m making my way to that,” said Frances. “As I said, Braley wants to start a panic. The Company is using the pretense of an Alien invasion as a way of driving stocks down for both Planetus and Weyland-Yutani. They’re trying to ruin Planetus and then buy them out once the stock value hits rock bottom, thereby gaining the whole planet for themselves. They can take the planet and wait a few years, then use it for whatever they want. It
’s all part of an aggressive and amoral business plan.”
On the screen, Darby looked stunned. “But,” he said, and then his voice trailed off. “Well,” he said, “but in that case,” and his voice slowly died out again. They watched him stare into space a moment, his eyes distant. Then his gaze hardened. “By God, I think you’re right,” he said. “Who would ever—”
“Braley,” said Frances. “It’s brilliant, the kind of thing nobody would guess until it’s too late.”
“Kramm?” said Darby. “You think she’s right?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Kramm. “It’s the kind of thing Braley would do.”
Darby shook his head. “So, what now?”
“Well, we’re still alive,” said Frances. “That’s a start. As long as we’re alive, the report of our deaths can be disproved.”
“And we have Marshall’s vid,” said Kramm, “which shows what actually did happen. With that and what I can say about the first so-called Alien invasion, we might be able to expose Weyland-Yutani.”
“We can take it to the regulatory commission,” said Darby. “Demand reparations.”
“And punish Braley,” said Frances.
Darby leaned back. “Of course all this is contingent on your actually being able to get out of there. You’re in a position of extreme danger. As soon as Braley realizes you’re not dead he’ll do everything to make sure that you are. Get out of there right away, and take anyone else who might be at risk with you. We’ve had too many deaths already. No time to waste,” he said, then he reached forward and cut the connection.
6
“The two ex-marines,” Frances was saying. “Bjorn and Jolena. Braley will kill them if he hasn’t done so already. We have to take them.”
“All right,” said Kramm. “But if we leave the ship will they let us back on again? Won’t Braley start gunning for us as soon as we’re seen?”
The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 33