He carefully exchanged places with her, squeezing past her in the tunnel, then helped her get her head and arms through the hole. Then Bjorn reached in and pulled her carefully out.
He was there a moment on his own, just him and the bodies. I’m still sane, he told himself. Taking a deep breath, he pulled himself out.
* * *
They were in a gigantic chamber, big enough that it was impossible to see the other side of it with their flashlights. The walls and floor gleamed blackly, built as they were out of the same tortured shapes and forms as the rest of the hive.
“This is it,” said Kramm. “The queen’s chamber.”
“Where the hell is everybody?” asked Frances.
They began to follow the wall around to the left, Bjorn carrying Jolena. “If they come,” he was telling her, “I may have to drop you. I will try to set you softly down, as a husband should, but if they come quickly I must drop you.”
“I understand, Bjorn,” she said.
The walls stretched on, falling into a slight curve. The walls themselves held the light as if they were damp, and in some places they were. The floor too was spread and streaked with mucus, slick in places.
The curve of the wall sharpened.
“Where is she?” Frances said.
“I don’t know,” said Kramm. “And where are the rest of them?”
“Maybe we killed them all,” said Jolena.
Kramm shook his head. “At least as many as attacked us would have been held in reserve to defend the queen. They should be attacking us now.”
“What’s that?” asked Gavin.
“Where?” said Frances.
“Up there. The wall there is different.”
It took the rest of them a few more seconds of walking to begin to see what he meant. Up ahead, the wall, to this point irregular and curved, changed, becoming less organic in appearance. The color, they saw as they approached closer, was different as well, dull, no longer reflective. But it took quite a few more steps before they were close enough to see it for what it really was.
A metal wall, sheathed in plexene, running from floor to ceiling, cutting off the remainder of the chamber. It was made of two interlocking panels, one apparently sliding up from a metal groove in the floor, the other sliding down from a similar groove in the ceiling. It was, perhaps, ten meters long. Next to it, inset in a blocky space cut into the baroque wall, was a small opening, leading to a smaller, double-sided metal door, an out-of-date keypad cut into its face. Otis Elevators, it said on it.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Jolena. “What’s all this about?”
“This is an alien farm,” said Frances, nodding now. “The Company doesn’t want to lose its breeder. They’re willing to give up a few eggs and a horde of adults in the interest of science, but if they lose their queen it’ll be hard to replace her.”
“Which leaves us where?” asked Jolena.
“On this side of the wall,” said Kramm. “With no way of getting in.”
“Maybe there’s a way,” said Gavin.
He walked from one end of the metal wall to the other. “No keypad,” he said. “No touchpad. It must be opened remotely from somewhere else.”
“What about the elevator?” asked Frances.
Gavin nodded to Kramm. “The compound seems to like you,” he said. “Why not give it a try?”
Kramm approached the keypad. There was a depression for his thumb. He inserted it, waited as the keypad’s screen lit, the pad itself making a quiet clicking.
User identified, it finally said. Human.
“That’s good news,” said Frances, and smirked. “He’s human after all.”
“Very funny,” said Kramm.
User not in preauthorization database. Please enter override code.
“No good,” said Kramm. “It wants a code.”
“What now?” asked Jolena. “Work our way back upstairs and starve there? Set up camp and starve down here?”
“I will not let you starve to death,” said Bjorn to her proudly. “Before this occurs, I will strangle you so you do not have to suffer.”
“That’s sweet of you, Bjorn,” she said, and patted his cheek.
“I don’t know,” said Kramm. “Any ideas, Frances?”
Frances shook her head. “Nothing but the obvious,” she said. “Back up to the surface and see if we can’t find a tunnel that’ll lead us up on the other side of the crater.”
Kramm hesitated, then nodded. They all started away from the door. All, that is, except for Gavin.
“Just a moment,” he said. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this.” He moved closer to the elevator keypad. Taking a knife from his pocket, he pried the thumb scanner out, revealing a run of microcircuitry beneath it. He took one of his thumbs in his right fist and pulled on it, turned it hard in one direction. When he let go of it, its tip had peeled apart like a banana, revealing complex strata of plastic and metal.
“You’re a synth,” said Kramm, surprised.
“Yes,” said Gavin. “Which explains the quality of my vision. That and eating lots of carrots.” He touched his own circuitry to the exposed surface of the microcircuitry, making delicate minute adjustments of his thumb. “Now the Company knows it as well,” he said. “I’ve played my only card.”
The pad beeped. Authorized user, it said, and the doors swung open.
“Everybody in,” he said. “Step lively.”
They moved quickly forward into the elevator, Gavin still speaking as they entered. “I couldn’t have done it with a new touchpad,” he said. “But with the old pads it’s possible to electronically flick through several million thumbprints in the course of a few seconds. It either accepts one or the processor shorts out. Either way, you usually get in.”
He reached out, pressed the only button in the elevator.
“Now the interesting thing,” he said, “is going to be to see if they can deny my authorization before the elevator reaches its destination. If that happens, we may well die inside this shaft.”
“Shouldn’t you have mentioned that before?” said Frances. “Not to mention bringing up the fact that you’re a synth?”
Gavin shrugged. “If I’d told you of the danger you might have hesitated before getting on the elevator. It would have decreased our chances of reaching our destination. As for the other, I think of myself as a person same as you. If I had told you I was a synth, you would have treated me differently.”
The elevator dinged, jerking to a stop. The door started to open, then, halfway open, ground to a halt.
“There, you see,” said Gavin, smiling. “Not a second to spare.”
They squeezed their way out of the box. They were in a small, ordinary-looking room, a relief after the baroque passages of the hive. It was simple, square, with metal walls, no windows, a single door.
They went through the door, found themselves in a larger room, a stairway leading up in the middle of it, windows covered by metal plates. There was a pressure door at the far end of the room. In the room’s center a bank of consoles rose to form a half wall.
“This is communications,” said Kramm. “We made it.”
“Excellent,” said Frances. “Where’s the transmitter?”
“Panel three,” said Gavin. “To the left. Or at least it used to be,” he corrected.
“How would you know?” said Kramm.
“You never know what sort of information you’ll pick up if you plug in,” he said.
Where the transmitter had been, the panel had a black streak, perhaps a burn, and an oddly shaped depression.
“They’ve destroyed the transmitter,” said Gavin. “They’ve sabotaged it. They don’t want anyone calling out. Once you’re in here, you’re here for good.”
“But what about the scientists?” Frances asked. “Don’t they need to communicate with the outside world?”
“We haven’t seen a single scientist, have we?” said Kramm. “Are we sure they’re even here
?”
“There’s no fallback transmitter?” asked Frances.
“I don’t think so,” said Kramm.
“Doesn’t look like it,” said Gavin.
Frances sat heavily down. Bjorn and Jolena had already collapsed in a corner, were sleeping the sleep of the damned.
“Any suggestions?” Frances asked.
“We know there’s a place in the dome for a ship to land,” said Kramm. “We go there and look for a ship.”
“But first,” said Gavin, “might I suggest we disable the three cameras in this room?”
Kramm looked up, saw them. He drew out his plasma gun, took each of them out, quickly, one shot each.
“Nice shooting, Tex,” said Frances.
“Thanks,” said Kramm. Who’s Tex? he wondered.
“So, it’s settled?” said Frances. “We try to find the bay and the ship?”
“First, let me see if I can tap into the system,” said Gavin. “Let me listen in a little, see if I don’t hear anything useful.”
6
Kramm found it strange, to say the least, to watch Gavin plug himself into the console. A subtle transformation took place in his features as he did so, a slackening of his mouth and eyes, the slow falling of a human mask. Indeed, Gavin seemed blind as the raw data streamed through him and he tried to process it into information. He spoke in bursts. Kramm and Frances listened, trying to keep it all straight.
The colony’s transmitter had been deliberately sabotaged, he told them. I’m watching the video now. Three men, colonial marines by the look of them, setting a charge and then pfft: gone. No more transmitter. There was, he told them, no active fallback transmitter on the local network, no sign of anything like it, though there was a transmitter fixed to send information only to one source. That perhaps could be fixed and used; the only problem was that it was on top of the dome, on the outside. They couldn’t get to it from inside.
Nor was there any sign of human life in the complex, apart from the five of them. No scientists, no marines, nothing. Only countless Aliens.
“What about the people who are observing us?” asked Kramm. “Where can we find them?”
His eyes focused on them briefly, pupils quivering. “They’re off-world,” he said. “A small outpost of scientists in a station on the nearest moon. They’re the ones watching us. There are cameras everywhere. This is not only a place to farm Aliens; it’s a place to monitor how humans behave when faced by Aliens. They turn people loose here, see how long they can survive, how the Aliens react. We’re a science project. We’re rats in a snake’s cage.”
“How many of them?” Frances asked.
“Scientists? I don’t know,” Gavin said. “Maybe half a dozen. It varies. Maybe seven now. They’ve got a short-range ship. They stop in here from time to time, to drop off some human fodder.”
“No,” said Frances. “How many humans have they killed?”
“Let’s see. They have vid records of 176 deaths,” said Gavin, his eyelids flickering. “At least that many. Probably more.”
Kramm cursed. “We’ve got to get back. Someone has to put a stop to this.”
“There are a few cameras we missed in this room,” Gavin said, after a moment. “One behind that panel,” he said, pointing. “Another in the light fixture. And audio pickups throughout the room. Probably too many to do much about.”
“What about the ship bay?” asked Frances.
“Let me look,” said Gavin, face going suddenly slack again. “Yes,” he said. “A ship there, unless I’m looking at an old security vid. It’s an older model, perhaps thirty years old. It’s not connected to the grid; I can’t tell if it’s functional or not.”
“It’s the only chance we’ve got,” said Frances. “It’s worth a try.”
“Small ship,” said Gavin. “Short range. Flitter class but basic, stripped down. You could make it to the moon. You probably can’t use it for deep-space travel.”
“How do we get to it?” asked Frances.
“Just a moment,” Gavin said. “They’re probing me.” They watched him turn his head from one side to the other, eyes darting about. “Here it is,” he finally said, and a schematic of the complex came up on one of the console screens. “They’re—” he said, and then his eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed.
“Gavin?” said Frances.
Kramm tugged Gavin’s thumb loose, disconnecting him. He lay on the floor, shivering and shaking, like someone going through a combination of a malarial ague and an epileptic fit. Kramm tried to hold him still, but Gavin was too strong; it was all he could do to hold on.
Gavin’s hands flailed suddenly, struck the console’s base, denting it. One hand began to seep white fluid. His back arched and Kramm felt himself lifted up. Then he slammed back down and for a moment, Kramm’s hands were caught under Gavin’s body, his fingers being crushed. He tore them free with some effort. A moment later he was hurled back against the console, his breath knocked out of him. Frances tried to get in to help, had her legs kicked out from under her by a stray gesture from Gavin’s arm.
“Just step away from him,” Jolena said tiredly. “There’s nothing to be done.”
They both scrambled back and away, to where Bjorn and Jolena sat against the wall, alert now. They watched Gavin continue to contort and flail.
“What the hell is going on?” Frances asked.
“Virus,” said Jolena. “He’s infected. I’ve seen it before with synths. Either he’ll shake it off or he’ll die.”
“There’s really nothing we can do?” asked Kramm.
“Nothing,” said Jolena. “Obviously they didn’t like him plugging into their system.”
They stayed motionless, watching him thrash, Frances and Kramm slowly getting their breath back. It went on a long time. And then Gavin began to grunt, making low moans and hissing through his teeth. His eyes began to weep a milky fluid, slowly at first, then quicker. The same fluid began to bubble out of his mouth, and then his head threw itself out, his mouth opened, and all movement ceased.
“He lost,” said Jolena, simply.
Kramm came slowly over. He tried to straighten Gavin’s head, close his mouth, but nothing would move, all of him locked in place.
“And then there were four,” said Bjorn.
“Don’t be morbid, Bjorn,” said Jolena.
“Ah well,” said Frances. “No point wasting time. Let’s find that ship and get the hell out of here.”
7
According to the schematic that was still on the screen, the layout was similar to what it had been on the other side of the crater: the communications building leading out through the pressure door to a hall, that hall running to a large chamber with a tunnel in one wall. But the tunnel was barred off on the map. From the same chamber, the other halls ran off. One of them to the ship bay.
They had with them a few more clips, probably close to a hundred shots in all. They divided the clips and the weapons up roughly evenly, though Bjorn kept the three remaining grenades for himself. Jolena could walk but only slowly and with effort; she was clearly in pain. Bjorn, worried about her, seemed more distracted than usual. Frances seemed to be experiencing an odd mix of bravado, self-confidence, and fear. But Kramm, strangely enough, was beginning to feel truly himself for the first time since his family’s death. What does something like this do to you? he asked himself. What happens to you when you face death again and again and come out of it alive? What happens when you find yourself entombed behind a wall of Alien bodies and manage to wriggle your way free?
The answer, he realized, was that it stripped everything about you that was unnecessary—and maybe even a few things that were necessary—away. It left less of you, but what it did leave was hard, real, and free, and very much yourself.
He moved toward the front, ready to try his thumbprint on the pressure door.
Welcome, Anders Kramm, the readout read. Unauthorized for entry to this sector.
He tried
again, same response. Each of the other three tried in turn.
“Now what?” asked Kramm. “Are we trapped here?”
“I don’t know,” said Frances.
“I will use one of my grenades,” said Bjorn. “And then we shall leave.”
They crouched behind the consoles as Bjorn, with the help of his small crowbar, bent the lip of the doorframe out enough that he could jam the grenade in. Kramm couldn’t help but marvel again at the man’s strength.
Bjorn pulled the pin, flicked the safety lever, then lumbered casually back behind the consoles.
The blast when it came was tooth rattling, the room for a moment filled with acrid smoke. When the smoke had faded, they got up, saw that the door was still largely in place, but the pressure seal was broken. A good portion of the wall next to the door had been mangled, blown back to reveal the door’s mechanism.
Bjorn slapped the small prybar against his palm. “Now I will bend it,” he said.
“Just a moment, Bjorn,” said Jolena. She limped up, examined the exposed mechanism, then groped in a pocket, came out with a pin. She bent over the gearage, working the pin carefully and deftly about until there was a snap and the door slid open.
“Sometimes it takes a woman’s touch,” she said.
The hall, they saw, was no longer a hall per se but a long dark coiling tunnel. It was damp and low; they would have to bend down to enter it.
“The bugs have been busy,” said Frances.
Kramm nodded. “They must not have liked the interior decorating,” he said.
“Eyes open,” said Frances. “We go down the tunnel and into the large room, then down another hall, unless that’s become a tunnel too, and into the ship bay. How hard can that be?”
“We’re about to find out,” said Kramm.
“Maybe there will be a sandwich awaiting us,” said Bjorn hopefully.
They started forward, Kramm first, bent down, feeling the walls of the tunnel around him. Jolena came next. She reached out from time to time to steady herself against his back. The first time, he flinched, but then quickly got accustomed to her touch. Then Bjorn, then finally Frances bringing up the rear.
The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 40