If they were going to try to trap the creature with something other than their hands, they needed something solid. Dallas chose the first suitably sized object he saw, a stainless-steel alloy tray. As he turned to continue the stalk, he was quite aware that if the creature felt sufficiently threatened, it could melt its way through the tray as easily and effortlessly as it could Dallas's hands. But the weight was comforting.
Ash was inspecting the far corner of the infirmary. Ripley grew bored standing next to the door. She closed it, walked in, and looked beneath the platform holding Kane, thinking the creature might have attached itself to the underside. Every muscle in her body tensed, ready to throw her clear at the first sight of the tiny invader. She wasn't disappointed when the underside of the platform proved to be unoccupied.
Straightening, she considered where to search next. She brushed against a bulkhead. Something solid and unyielding landed on her shoulder. Her head jerked around and she found herself staring at long skeletal fingers and a dull grey cabochon of an eye.
Somehow she got out a single scream. Her muscles spasmed and she twisted awkwardly. As she did so, the creature tumbled heavily to the deck. It lay motionless.
Dallas and Ash had come running at her scream. Now the three of them stood gazing at the motionless shape lying among them. The fingers were clenched tight, uncannily like the hand of a dead man, which it still resembled more closely than anything else. Only the extra fingers, the tail, and the dull, lidless eye broke the illusion.
Ripley's right hand rested on the shoulder where the thing had landed. She was gulping air rather than inhaling it, the adrenalin slowly leaking from her system. She could still feel the alien weight on her.
She extended a booted foot, prodded the hand-shape. It didn't move or resist. In addition to the dullness of the single eye, its leathery skin looked shrunken and dry. She nudged it with her foot again, turning it over. The tube lay limply against the palm, almost completely retracted.
'I think it's dead.' Dallas studied the unanticipated corpse a moment longer, then glanced at Ripley. 'You okay?'
Tongue and larynx were forced into action. 'Yeah. It didn't do anything. I think it was long dead before it fell on me.'
She walked to the open cabinet and selected a long metal forceps. A touch on the curled fingers failed to elicit any reaction, as did a poke at the eye. Dallas held out the tray. Using the forceps, she maneuvered the petrified alien into it, quickly nipped shut the gleaming lid.
They moved to a nearby table. The alien was carefully removed from the tray and placed on the flat surface. Ash turned a bright light on it. The illumination intensified the ghastly pallor of the thing. He chose a small probe, pushed and prodded the unresisting form.
'Look at those suckers.' He used the probe to indicate the series of small, deep holes lining the inside of the creature's 'palm.' They extended cornpletely around it. 'No wonder we couldn't get it off him, between these, the fingers, and that tail it wrapped around his neck.'
'Where's its mouth?' Dallas had to force his gaze away from the single eye. Even in death, the dull orb possessed a sort of hypnotic attraction.
'Must be this tube-like organ, up in here. The thing it had down his throat. But it never showed any sign of feeding.' Ash used the probe to turn the corpse over on its back. He got a grip on the tube with the forceps, partly pulled it out of the palm. As he extracted more of the tube, it changed colour to match the rest of the body.
'It's hardening as soon as it contacts the air.' Ash moved the tiny form over to a scanner, slipped it underneath the lens, and adjusted controls. Numbers and words appeared on tiny screens when he depressed a certain button.
'That's all,' he finally informed them. 'It's over. It's dead. No life signs whatever. We may not know much about it, but it's not so alien you can't determine whether it's alive or not'
Ripley's shoulder tingled. 'Good. Let's get rid of it.'
Ash looked at her in disbelief. 'You're joking, of course. Very funny.'
She shook her head. 'Like hell I am.'
'But. . this has to go back.' Ash sounded almost excited. 'This is the first contact with a creature like this. There's nothing like it on any of the tapes, not even the hypotheticals. All kinds of tests should be run on it.'
'Fine,' she said. 'So run your tests, and then we'll get rid of it.'
'No, no. It requires the facilities of a completely equipped biology lab. I can only record the slightest details of construction and composition. I can't begin to guess at such critical things as its evolutionary history.
'We can't dump one of the greatest xenological discoveries of the past decade out the lock like a piece of common garbage! I protest, personally and in my capacity as science officer. Kane would do the same.'
'That thing bled acid, nearly bored a hole right through the ship.' She nodded toward it. 'God knows what it might do now that it's dead.'
'It hasn't done anything,' Ash countered. 'The acidic fluid is probably absorbed into the dead cells and has been rendered inert. It hasn't done a thing.'
'Not yet.'
Ash turned an imploring gaze on Dallas. 'It has not moved, nor resisted in any way when we prodded it all over, even in its eye. The scanner insists it's dead and I think it's safe to assume it's not a zombie. Dallas, we have to keep this specimen.'
When Dallas didn't respond, Ash continued. 'For one thing, if we can't pull Kane out of his coma, the medical team that treats him will need to have the creature that induced the condition. Throw it away and we might be throwing away the secret to reviving Kane.'
Dallas finally spoke. 'You're the science officer. It's your department, your decision.'
'Then it's made.' Ash bestowed a fond look on his acquisition. 'I'll seal it in a stasis tube. That'll arrest any possibility of revivification. We can handle it.'
'That's what Kane probably thought,' Ripley muttered. Dallas glared at her and she looked away. 'That takes care of the monster's future, I guess.' She gestured at the medical platform. 'What about Kane?'
Ash turned to face the pallet. After a brief examination of the exec and careful study of his sucker-marked face, the science officer activated several instruments on the medical console. The autodoc made noises, and readouts began to appear.
'He's running a fever.'
'Bad?'
'No. Nothing his system can't handle. The machine will bring his temperature down. He's still unconscious.'
'We can see that.'
Ash glanced back at the bitter Ripley. 'Not necessarily. He could be sleeping, which would be different.'
Ripley started to reply, was cut off by an angry Dallas. 'You two stop your bickering.' As if he didn't have enough to worry about, now he had to deal with tension between crewmates. Considering the mental pressure they'd all been under recently, such conflicts were to be expected, but he'd tolerate only the minimum necessary to relieve it. Open antagonism was something to be avoided at all costs. He had no time to deal with congealing cliques.
To get Ripley's mind off Ash and vice versa, he turned the conversation back to Kane. 'Unconscious and a slight fever. Anything else?'
Ash studied readouts. 'Nothing that shows here. His vital signs continue strong.'
'Long-term prognosis?'
The science officer looked hesitant. 'I'm not a medical officer. The Nostromo isn't big enough to rate one.'
'Or important enough. I know that. But you're the closest thing we've got. I just want your opinion. It's not going into the log and I certainly won't hold you to it. Hell, I can't hold you to it.' His gaze travelled back down to Kane, shipmate and friend.
'I don't want to appear unduly optimistic,' Ash said slowly, 'but based on his present condition and on what the monitors tell me, I'd say he may make it.'
Dallas grinned, nodded slowly. 'Good enough. Can't ask for more than that.'
'I hope you're right,' Ripley added. 'We disagree on some things, but this time I pray to God you're right.'
'I wish I was medically qualified. I don't like waiting on machines.'
Ripley looked surprised. 'That's the first time I ever heard you say anything disparaging about a machine, Ash.'
'No machine is perfect. They ought to be more flexible. We need a complete hospital in here, not just this little autodoc. It's not designed to cope with anything this. . well, this alien. The problem may be beyond its capability. Like any machine, it's only as effective as the information programmed into it. I just wish I knew more medicine.'
'This is also,' Ripley went on, 'the first time I've ever heard you express feelings of inadequacy.'
'If you know less than everything, you always feel inadequate. I don't see how you can feel otherwise.' He looked back down at Kane. 'That feeling is magnified when the universe confronts you with something utterly beyond your experience. I don't have the knowledge to cope properly, and it makes me feel helpless.'
Handling the forceps carefully, he lifted the alien by two of its fingers and transferred it to a large, transparent vial. He touched a control set into the vial's stopper, sealed the vial shut. A yellow glow filled the tube.
Ripley had watched the procedure intently. She half expected the creature to suddenly melt its way out of the stasis tube and come clutching for them all. Finally convinced that it could no longer threaten her, except in nightmares, she turned and headed for the infirmary exit.
'I don't know about the rest of you,' she said back over a shoulder, 'but I could do with some coffee.'
'Good thought.' Dallas glanced at Ash. 'You be okay in here by yourself?'
'You mean, alone with that?' He jerked a thumb in the direction of the sealed container, grinned. 'I'm a scientist. Things like that heighten my curiosity, not my pulse rate. I'll be fine, thanks. If anything develops or if Kane's condition shows hints of changing, I'll buzz you immediately.'
'Deal.' He looked back to the waiting Ripley. 'Let's go find that coffee.'
The infirmary door slid tightly shut behind them and they started back toward the bridge, leaving the autodoc to work on Kane, and Ash to work on the autodoc. .
VIII
The coffee soothed their stomachs if not their brains. Around them the Nostromo functioned smoothly, uninterested in the deceased alien stasised in the infirmary. Familiar hums and smells filled the bridge.
Dallas recognized some of the odours as issuing from various members of the crew. He took no offence at them, merely sniffed once or twice in recognition. Such fineries as deodorant were neither missed nor taken exception to on a ship the size of the Nostromo. Imprisoned in a metal bottle light-years from warm worlds and sanitized atmospheres, the crew's wakened minds were occupied by more important matters than the effluvia of one's neighbour.
Ripley looked troubled still.
''What's eating you? Still simmering over Ash's decision to open the lock and let us back in?'
Her voice was tight with frustration. 'How could you leave that kind of decision to him?'
'I told you,' he explained patiently. 'It was my decision to bring Kane in, not. . oh, you mean about keeping the corpse of the alien?'
She nodded. 'Yeah. It's too late to argue about the lock. I might've been wrong on that. But keeping that thing on board, dead or not, after what it's done to Kane.?
He tried to mollify her. 'We don't know for sure that it's done anything to Kane except knock him out. According to the readouts there's nothing else wrong with him.
'As to retaining it on board, I just run this ship. I'm only a pilot.'
'You're the captain.'
'A title of last resort, one that means nothing in specified situations. Parker can overrule me on a point of engineering. On anything that has to do with the science division, Ash has the final word.'
'And how does that happen?' She sounded more curious than bitter, now.
'Same way that everything else happens. On orders from the Company. Read your own directory.'
'Since when is it standard procedure?'
He was getting a touch exasperated. 'Come on, Ripley. This isn't a military vessel. You know as well as I that standard procedure is what they tell you to do. That principle includes the independence of different departments, like science. If I believed otherwise, I'm not sure I would've set down here.'
'What's the matter? Visions of discovery bonuses fading before the specter of a dead man?'
'You know better than that,' he said sharply. 'There isn't a bonus large enough to trade for Kane's good health. Too late for that, now. We're here, and it's happened.
'Look, ease up on me, will you? I just haul cargo for a living. If I wanted to be a real explorer and go gallivanting off after discovery bonuses I would've joined the Rim Corps. Gotten my head torn off at least half a dozen times by now. Glory. . no thanks. Not for me. I'll settle for having my executive officer back again.'
She didn't reply this time, sat silently for several minutes. When she spoke the next time, the bitterness was gone. 'You and Kane been together on many flights?'
'Enough to know each other.' Dallas kept his voice level, eyes on his console.
'What about Ash?'
'You going to start in on that again?' He sighed. There was nowhere to run. 'What about him?'
'Same thing. You say you know Kane. Do you know Ash? Have you ever shipped with him before?'
'No.' The thought didn't bother Dallas in the least. 'This is the first time. I went five hauls, long and short, various cargos, with another science officer. Then two days before we left Thedus, they replaced him with Ash.'
She stared at him significantly.
'So what?' he snapped at her. 'They also replaced my old warrant officer with you.'
'I don't trust him.'
'Sound attitude. Now me. . I don't trust anyone.' Time, he thought, to change the subject. From what he'd seen so far, Ash was a fine officer, if a bit stiff when it came to being one of the gang. But personal intimacy wasn't a necessity on voyages where you spent most of your time except arriving and departing in the narcosis of hypersleep. As long as the man did his job, Dallas didn't give a damn about his personality. Thus far, there'd been no reason to question Ash's competency.
'What's holding up repairs?' he asked her.
She glanced at her chronometre, did some quick figuring. 'They ought to be pretty much finished by now. Shouldn't have to do more than fine-check.'
'Why didn't you say so?'
'There are still some things left to do, I'm sure, or they would've said something. Listen, you think I'm stalling for Parker, of all people?'
'No. What's left to do?'
She ran a fast request through her board. 'We're still blind on B and C decks. Scanners blew and need to be completely replaced there.'
'I don't give a damn about seeing B and C decks. I know what they look like. Anything else?'
'Reserve power systems blew just after we touched down. Remember the trouble with the secondaries?'
'But the main drivers are fixed?' She nodded. 'Then that stuff about the reserves is crap. We can take off without them, get back into hypersleep, and do some real travelling instead of hanging around here.'
'Is that a good idea? About taking off without having the secondaries fixed, I mean.'
'Maybe not. But I want out of here, and I want out now. We've investigated that signal all we're going to and there's nobody here to rescue except Kane. Let some properly equipped Company expedition set down and go digging around that derelict. That's not what we're paid for. We've complied with the directives. Now I've had enough. Let's get this turkey off the ground.'
They settled into their roles on th
e bridge. Kane and the dead alien were forgotten. Everything was forgotten, except take-off procedure. They were a unit now. Personal animosities and opinions were submerged in the desire to get the tug off the ground and back into clean, open space.
'Primary drive activated,' Ash reported, up from the infirmary and back at his regular station.
'Check.' This from Lambert.
'Secondaries still not functioning, sir.' Ripley frowned at the crimson readout on her overhead console.
'Yeah, I know. Navigator, are we set?'
Lambert studied her board. 'Orbital re-entry computed and entered. I'm matching up positions with the refinery now. Have it in a second. There.' She hit a series of buttons in sequence. Numbers flashed above Dallas's head.
'Good enough. We'll correct when we're up, if necessary. Stand by for lift-off.'
Swathed in roiling dust, the Nostromo began to vibrate. A roaring rose over the howl of the storm, a man-made thunder that echoed across lava hillocks,and shattered hexagonal basalt columns.
'Standing by,' said Ripley.
Dallas glanced across at Ash. 'How's she holding?'
The science officer studied his gauges. 'Everything's working. For how long, I can't say.'
'Just long enough to get us up.' Dallas flipped on the intercom. 'Parker, how do we look from down there? Can we make it out without engaging the deep drive?'
If they couldn't break gravity on the primary drive, Dallas knew, they'd have to cut in the hyper to get them out. But a second or two of hyperdrive would throw them completely out of this system. That would mean relocating it and using precious wake time to link up once more with their cargo. And wake time translated as air. Minutes equaled litres. The Nostromo could continue to recycle their meager supply of breathing material only so long. When their lungs started rejecting it, they'd have to go back into the freezers whether they'd found the refinery or not.
Dallas thought of the gigantic floating factory, tried to imagine how long it would take for them to pay for it on their various modest salaries.
Parker's reply was hopeful, if not exactly encouraging. 'Okay. But remember, this is just a patch job. Need shipyard equipment to make proper repairs.'
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