She sat down, started trying to manipulate the touch-screen. It wouldn’t respond to her. Unauthorized user, it kept repeating.
“Who changed the course?” she asked it.
“Classified,” the navigator claimed.
“That’s what it said to me too,” said Kramm.
“What signal transmitted the order?” she asked.
“Classified,” said the navigator.
She started feeling around the paneling. “There’s got to be something around here,” she said. “Some sort of controller or inhibitor, unless it’s built in.” And then she stopped, looked thoughtfully at Kramm. “How did they bring you in when you flew to C-3 L/M?” she asked.
“Automatic,” he said. “The craft flew itself.”
“Navigator,” she said. “Are you authorized to take remote signals from Planetus?”
“Affirmative,” it said.
“Are you authorized to accept remote signals from anyone else, even on a temporary basis?”
“No,” said the navigator.
“Sometimes the easiest way over a wall is around it,” said Frances to Kramm. “Did Planetus authorize the course change?”
The navigator said, “Classified.”
“Did Biotech authorize the course change?”
“No,” said the navigator.
“Did Planetus authorize the course change?” she asked again.
“Classified,” the navigator said again.
“There’s your answer,” said Frances, “or the closest thing to an answer you’re likely to get out of the thing. Go wake up the others. We’ve been betrayed.”
* * *
He went back to the control room, flicked the trigger switch on the first cryounit, waited a moment to make sure the awakening process was operational and the person had begun to thaw, and then moved on to the next one. Bjorn was the last one. By the time Kramm had triggered the switch for Bjorn’s unit, Kelly had started to stir in the first one, would be awake any moment. He returned to her plexene chamber. Once she opened her eyes, he lifted the lid.
“Time to wake up,” he said. “Trouble.”
She lay there for a few minutes and then, groaning, started to pull herself up. Kramm helped her sit up and left her there, going on to the next unit.
It all went smoothly until he reached Bjorn’s unit and found the top of it still locked. He checked the control panel. Receiving signal, it read. Then, Complying. The trigger switch had been sprung but then had suddenly been countermanded—how, he didn’t know. He saw the same countermand had been sent to all the other cryounits as well, that they were simply waiting for their lids to be swung closed so that they could lock down.
Cryo, Bjorn’s display read. Quick freeze. Nonliving organic matter. Verify? Y/N.
It means to kill him, he realized. He pressed NO but the screen didn’t register it. He tried again, still no response. A moment later the display changed. Freeze will begin— it said.
“What’s going on?” asked Jolena. “Where’s Bjorn?”
—in thirty seconds.
He began hammering on the plexene lid, trying to dislodge it, then tried to force his fingers between the lid and the body of the unit. The lid remained firmly closed. “Quick,” he shouted. “Something to pry this open, now!”
Inside, Bjorn was beginning to blink his eyes. The monitor had counted down to twenty, then nineteen as he watched it. He kept hammering on the lid, kept trying to wedge his fingers under it. Jolena had started trying to bash in the unit’s control panel—which, Kramm realized suddenly, might only make things worse. Two of the technicians had run out of the room for help; the third, Gavin, was trying to slide a penknife into the crack between the unit’s body and its lid.
Kramm heard the freezing jets start to ratchet up. Inside the cryounit, Bjorn managed to focus on him, suddenly seemed aware that something was going wrong. Kramm looked to the control panel but couldn’t tell what time, if any, was left: Jolena was in the way.
He heard a thump and the plexene beside his hand rose in a transparent blister. In the blister he could see, just briefly, Bjorn’s fist. Another thump and the blister swelled higher. Jolena shrieked—the time, Kramm realized, must just have run out.
And then the plexene blister shattered and there was Bjorn’s arm, like a monolith, knuckles bloody, sticking halfway through the broken plexene. Sheath breach, the control panel was reading. Operation suspended. Please repair. The lock snapped open and then they could open the lid up and pull Bjorn out.
He was as cold and hard as a block of ice, but not shivering at all.
“Bjorn,” Jolena was shouting, hugging him. “Are you all right?”
When he smiled, his chapped lips split. “Ya, sure,” he said. “I don’t mind a little cold.”
8
“And now what?” Gavin asked. They were all there on the bridge now, many of them still a little woozy, but mostly okay.
“We wait,” said Frances. She had removed the access panels, investigating the control system and the navigator. “I can disengage the navigator, but I can’t figure out how to run the engines without it. That’d leave us drifting in space, without food, to die. There’s no way we can go into cryosleep again, not if we want to stay alive.”
“And we can probably make it to Soulages,” she said. “Five more days and we’re there. We’ve got a little food and Duncan’s tofu, enough water if we’re careful. We’ll be hungry by the time we get there, but we’ll get there.”
“But what if there are Aliens on the planet’s surface?”
“What if there are?” asked Frances. “What else can we do? Besides, we’ve got lots of weapons.”
“There are stockpiles there too,” said Kramm. “Unless Weyland-Yutani cleared them out. Food that we can take, more weapons maybe, and maybe something we can use to inhibit the navigator, block the signals it is receiving from Planetus and switch the ship back to manual control.”
“And maybe pigs have wings,” muttered Duncan.
“Pigs do have wings,” said Gavin. “On Titus-Carmel 7, in the Claro system. I’ve seen them with my own eyes.” He looked down. “Well, on vids anyway.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you see on a vid,” said Duncan.
“So we wait,” interrupted Frances. “We try to relax. We take it easy. We rest. We try not to spend too much energy before we arrive.”
“What do we know about the place?” asked Jolena.
“We’re landing near a walled colony,” said Kramm. “One central building, maybe twelve or thirteen outbuildings, single-family dwellings, cultivated land between them. The planet has harsh winds and frequent downpours, at least it did last time I was there. Inside the compound, though, the walls give some shelter from the wind. There are one or two dwellings outside the wall as well,” he said. “But we’ll try to stay clear of them.”
“Why?” asked Kelly.
“Because I know there used to be Aliens in at least one,” he said. “My own. There may or may not be Aliens inside the compound as well, but there’s more shelter there, less open ground for them to come at us. Plus, that’s where the supplies are likely to be found.”
“One other thing,” Frances said. “According to the computer, the planet has a breathable atmosphere, but only marginally breathable. They’ve stopped terraforming. You’ll first feel like you’re not getting enough air, then perhaps slightly euphoric. After a while, you may even start to hallucinate or shut down. To prevent that, there are three breathers. We’ll have to share them back and forth.”
“So we just wait,” said Duncan.
“We’ll keep trying to contact someone,” said Frances. “Gavin and Kelly, you can take another look at the schematics with me, help me to double-check that there’s no way around the navigator. Duncan, you can manage the signal and put out a distress call. The rest of you just relax and wait.”
* * *
By the fourth day they were not only inordinately hungry; they were b
ored and a little stir crazy. Bjorn oiled all his guns and then when he was done oiled them again. Kramm scoured the ship looking for flashlights, kept all of them that he could find in a sack near the foot of his bed. No tunnels, he kept thinking, no darkness, even as he braced himself for both those things. Jolena played endless games of holographic solitaire, developing more and more complex multidimensional variations.
Gavin and Kelly figured out which of the cards in the navigator needed to be replaced to disable the automatic control, but confirmed Frances’s opinion that it couldn’t be done without disabling the ship and leaving them adrift in space. It needed to be replaced by another 610b card, which hopefully the supply stores on Soulages would have. Was there a nuclear generator powering in the colony? they asked Kramm.
“Yes,” said Kramm. “At least one. Maybe more.”
“That, or we might be able to get the right sort of card off a terraformer,” said Gavin. “Except we’re talking about machinery thirty years old. When did they introduce the 610b, Kelly?”
Kelly shook her head. “I don’t carry that kind of information around in my head,” she said.
“There’s another possibility,” said Kramm. “That we’re not the first ship that Weyland-Yutani has sent here, or that one of the colony ships is still here. We may be able to get a controller off an old ship or even transfer over to an old ship.”
Near the end of the fourth day, Duncan gave a shout. “Message coming through,” he said. “Planetus line.” They all gathered round.
It was Darby, but his glasses were now missing and one side of his face was covered in gauze. He looked very nervous, highly uncomfortable.
“Hello, Frances,” he said wearily. “Mr. Kramm. Crew. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch.”
“Darby,” said Frances. “We’ve been redirected. It’s to the planet which . . .” She let her voice trail away as she saw the look on his face.
“Yes, Frances,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m completely aware of what has happened. And I also regret to say that there’s nothing whatsoever I can do about it.”
Frances just stared speechlessly at the screen.
“What’s happened, Darby?” asked Kramm.
“Ah, Mr. Kramm,” he said. “What hasn’t happened? We start out in life with such high ideals but in time we feel lucky if we even make it to the end of the day alive.”
A fist lashed out and struck him hard in the side of the head, knocking him out of his chair. For a moment the chair was empty, swiveling slowly around. And then he stumbled up into the frame again, slowly sitting back down.
“I have certain topics I have been asked to cover,” he said. “I suppose they have asked me to do this so that you don’t suspect some kind of trick on their part. I am, so to speak, the face that you trust. But apparently I am not allowed to wax poetic.
“Yes,” he said. “I have been informed about your course deviation. I’m afraid that that deviation has been initiated through our Planetus system. The controller we installed to allow Mr. Kramm to travel to C-3 L/M unaccompanied, remotely observed and guided from here, is the culprit. We controlled the master unit for that and were certain it would be safe. We were not right, in retrospect, to be certain. Unfortunately, we could not see the direction in which events would unfold.”
He held up one hand and they saw that it was bandaged, two fingers missing.
“This is one direction events took,” he said. “And this,” he said, touching the bandaged side of his face, “is another.”
“Background,” said a voice off-camera.
“Yes,” said Darby, casting his eyes nervously to one side. “Of course. Stick to the script. Time is money.” He swallowed. “With the news of the Alien invasion on C-3 L/M our stocks dipped sharply and then things deteriorated into outright panic. Investors sold their shares in droves. Hard, really, to blame them, if news of the invasion had in fact been true.
“What was initially surprising,” he said, “was that someone was there to immediately snap up the shares, even when the price was still a little high. Can you guess who that someone was?”
“Weyland-Yutani,” said Frances.
“That’s correct, dear Frances. We’ve experienced a hostile takeover.” He held his mangled hand up to the camera again. “In this case hostile isn’t merely a metaphor. Planetus is now controlled by the Company. Which of course changes everything.”
“What do they know about us?” asked Frances.
“I did my best,” said Darby. “I tried to cover the trail, get rid of any documentation or vids that might compromise us or that might reveal our plan. But I’m afraid they were always one step ahead of me. They must have been planning this for months. They were already swarming into our offices before I even knew we’d been taken over. Which is a long way of saying that I’m sorry to say that they know everything. Once they began to tear out my fingernails, I told them everything they wanted to know.” He looked down. “I’m very sorry.”
“What are they planning to do with you?” asked Frances.
“Do?” he said. “I imagine they’ll keep me around a little while to see if I have anything else to tell them. Eventually they will probably kill me. If I’m lucky, they’ll freeze me a while just in case I might come in handy a few dozen years down the road. Like you, Mr. Kramm. I’m sorry I told them,” he said again.
“Anyone would have done it,” said Frances, but Kramm could tell by the tone of her voice that she didn’t believe this.
Darby didn’t believe it either. “It’s nice of you to say that,” he said. Then he looked to the side again, his head tilted up. “I think I’m done. Am I done?”
“You’re done,” a voice said.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I hope whatever happens to you, it won’t be because of me.”
They watched Darby slowly stand, a shadow of his former self, and stumble out of the frame, leaving behind only an empty chair.
“Well, that’s it then,” said Frances. “No more Planetus.”
“We can still go to the regulatory commission,” said Kramm.
“If we can get there. Right now we have to worry about whatever’s waiting for us on Soulages. There could, for all we know, be—”
“People,” said Duncan. “Why haven’t they turned off the feed yet?”
They all stared at the screen, the empty chair still standing there, facing away from them.
“Because they’re listening to us,” said Kramm finally.
“Turn it off,” said Jolena.
“No need to turn it off,” said a familiar voice from the screen. The chair swiveled around to face them. It now contained Braley.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “You managed to sort it out, only not soon enough to do you any good.”
“You cheap whore,” said Frances, her voice low and deadly.
“Now, now,” said Braley, clearly amused, “let’s keep it clean. I’ve got things I want to say. Of course I always knew you were smart, which is to say dangerous. Which is why I filed the necessary paperwork to have you slaughtered.”
“You won’t get away with this, Braley,” said Frances.
“Unfortunately you seem to have wriggled out of your first death, which is why I’ve had to redirect your ship to less pleasant climes. I’m sure Anders has told you where you’re going, and what you’re likely to find there. And I will get away with it, Frances. I already have.”
“Just turn it off,” said Kramm.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Braley. “I have a few things to say that might be of use. We here at Weyland-Yutani, formerly Planetus, believe in giving a man a fighting chance.” He flashed his artificial smile and looked pointedly at Frances. “We even extend the same privilege to women,” he said, and laughed. “But, officially speaking, you are all now expendable.”
“We always were in your eyes,” said Frances.
“Far from it,” said Braley. “I needed you and Anders to be able to bring
this takeover about. But now you’ve served your purpose. The paperwork has been filed. For that reason, and to protect our investment, your ship has been disabled and you’ve been redirected toward a planet Anders is all too familiar with.”
“Soulages,” said Kramm.
“The very same,” said Braley. “But we’re covering ground we’ve already touched on. Let me add a new detail: the very spot where the Alien and Alien eggs that found their way into your ship were harvested. You’ll meet lots of new friends there, no doubt.”
“You won’t get away with this,” said Frances again.
Braley leaned further back in his chair, smiling wider. “Since, officially speaking, you are already dead, you won’t be missed,” he said.
He reached out as if to turn off the camera, then stopped, drew his hand back.
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Anders,” he said. “We’ve made a few modifications since you were last there. Who knows? You might not even recognize the place.”
“What sort of modifications?” asked Kramm.
“Now, now,” said Braley, “that would be telling. The Company sends its fondest greetings and sincerely hopes you will enjoy your new home.”
PART FIVE
GOOD AS DEAD
1
Before they landed, dizzy with hunger, Kramm had a dream. In it, the ex-marine who had been killed early in his career, who had suddenly disappeared from right behind him, was there, kneeling at his bedside. He was dead, a gaping hole in his chest, his face gaunt and bloodless.
Kramm, he said, his voice as wispy and bitter as the wind.
“What is it?” asked Kramm. In his sleep it seemed natural that the dead would converse with him.
You left me, he said.
“But you were dead,” Kramm said. “I left you because you were dead.”
It wasn’t me, the ex-marine said.
“But I saw your limbs,” said Kramm. “I saw bits and pieces of you spread all over the nesting chamber.”
It wasn’t me, the ex-marine said.
“But where were you?” asked Kramm. “How could I have saved you?”
The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 35