The Complete Aliens Omnibus

by David Bischoff

  Stan turned to face Julie and Gill. Light glinted off his glasses. His face was drawn. His voice, high and strained, rose as he asked, “Does anyone here have any objections?”

  Gill looked away and didn’t answer. Julie looked faintly annoyed as she said, “Give them Mac or a kennelful of mutts, it makes no difference to me. But would you mind telling me, just to satisfy my own curiosity, why are you doing this?”

  “It’s the only way I can be sure of getting Norbert into the hive quickly without him having to spend God knows how long looking for a way in. The outside of the nest is sealed against the weather, as you might have noticed. Did you check that out? The aliens must have a whole system of tunnels for getting in or out. There must be a hundred miles of tunnel in something that big. This way I’ll have Norbert lay down an electronic path.”

  Gill said, “What purpose will that serve, Doctor?”

  “Two at least,” Stan said. “First, with Norbert videotaping as he goes, we’ll provide science with an invaluable record of life inside an alien hive. And second, we can come back here whenever we like to collect more jelly.”

  “Now you’re talking, Stan,” Julie said. “I knew you weren’t just antidog.”

  “Of course not. As a matter of fact, I’ll have Norbert try to rescue Mac when they’ve reached the queen’s chamber.”

  “That might not be possible,” Gill said.

  Stan shrugged. “Let’s get going. Norbert, do it!”

  50

  “Nope,” Morrison said. “I can’t get a reading.”

  “Let me try,” said Larrimer. He fiddled with the controls. But it showed no trace of the first pod, the one with Norbert and Mac aboard.

  Almost as soon as the five volunteers from the crew had entered the second pod, they lost visual contact with the first, and found themselves flying blind into a whirling sandstorm. Overhead, purple-black ranks of clouds had formed, and soon their visibility was further cut by heavy, driving rain. After the rain let up, the ground below steamed, and a thick mist arose from the land.

  Definitely not flying weather. But the pod was equipped with autopilot and a landing program. Their direction finder was slaved to the first pod’s beacon. All they had to do was sit tight and the pod would take them to Norbert.

  In theory.

  In practice, the autopilot was unable to compensate for the driving wind, a wind that roared loudly enough to be heard inside the pod. The autopilot’s little computer had all it could do to keep them from piling up on the ground below. It brought them down safely, then the comedy of errors began.

  First Larrimer, who had been entrusted with the radio, found out that it would not transmit or receive. Not enough power, maybe, or maybe interference from the electrical storm overhead. Maybe it had even taken one bang too many during their hectic descent.

  “Well,” Morrison said, “they can probably find us even if we can’t find them.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Skysky rubbed his bald head nervously.

  “Sure I’m sure.” Morrison spoke with a confidence he didn’t feel. They’d want to retrieve the pod, anyhow. Those things cost money.”

  Eka Nu looked up. “No,” he said. “Pods are considered expendable. So are crew, sometimes.”

  Not a cheering thought.

  “Anyhow,” Morrison said, “all we have to do is find Norbert. The professor is not about to abandon his favorite toy.”

  That cheered them up a little. Morrison brought out an electron detector and tried to tune it to the trail Norbert was supposed to leave. The little machine buzzed steadily, but showed no sign of a direction. Morrison turned it in every direction. It still didn’t indicate anything.

  “Maybe the hull shielding is stopping the signal,” Morrison said. “We’ve got to go outside anyway, so maybe it’ll be better there.”

  “Go outside in this?” Larrimer asked, jerking his thumb at the mist that rolled in a slow wave across the plain.

  “We can’t stay here,” Morrison said. “If they did try to find us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Our only hope is to find Norbert and await pickup with him and the dog.”

  “Great,” Styson exclaimed. “What about if we run into aliens?”

  “We’ve got our weapons,” Morrison said, “and we have suppressors. What more could you ask for?”

  The others grumbled, but it was obvious that they had to make a move. First Morrison told them to check their weapons, and there was a clatter of metal on metal as they shoved magazines into their carbines and set the plasma burners on standby.

  “Ready?” Morrison asked. “Okay, here we go.”

  He cracked the hatch. It opened smoothly, and they stepped out one by one onto the plain.

  The first thing they discovered was that they couldn’t see worth shit. It wasn’t quite as bad as that, actually. About three feet visibility, Styson estimated.

  Cautiously they stepped out of the pod and tested out the land. It was solid underfoot. Moving only a few feet away from the pod, they formed a circle around the electron detector and tried to get a reading. The thing buzzed, and the needle swooped erratically, but there was no definite and unambiguous signal. At last Morrison decided to follow the biggest needle deflection and hope for the best.

  “It’s this way,” he stated. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew they had to go somewhere. He was beginning to think this volunteering hadn’t been such a good idea. The bonus had sounded good, but you don’t get to spend it if you’re dead.

  * * *

  In single file, staying close to each other, the volunteers moved across the plain. All five men had weapons at the alert. The mist billowed around them like white waves in a sea of clouds, sometimes covering them completely, which was like walking through a sort of impalpable white cotton candy. Sometimes the mist would begin to dissipate, and then the men could see each other’s heads and shoulders, rising ghostlike out of the whiteness, with wisps of mist clinging to them. But then the mist rose again and buried them. Morrison, in the lead, was following a compass course he had set after taking his best guess as to what the electron detector was indicating. It didn’t occur to him that it might not mean anything at all. That would be too unfair.

  Styson, bringing up the rear, kept on turning around and trying to look behind him. He was sure something big and terrible was going to materialize out of the mist and snap him up. It was a crazy, kid’s sort of thinking—he knew that—but he couldn’t control his fear. His hands tightened on his carbine. He wished he was holding his harmonica. That always gave him confidence. But it was in his pocket, because he needed both hands to hold his carbine. Now his fingers tightened on the weapon, and he checked to make sure all safeties were off. He missed his harmonica, but he knew it was a lot more important to hold on to the weapon. Stood to reason…

  And then the mists closed down again and the men lost all visibility—Styson staggered along, carbine held out in front of him like a blindman’s cane, trying to peer into the numbingly white world in which he found himself. What a rotten job this had turned into!

  And then he bumped into something.

  Styson stumbled, then regained his balance. Larrimer had been next in line. He called out, “Larrimer, is that you?”

  There was no answer. Whoever was ahead of him was just becoming visible, a dark shadow in the pale glimmer of the surrounding mist.

  “Whoever it is, try to keep the pace up,” Styson said. “We need to get out of here… Who is that, anyway?”

  He reached out and poked what he thought was Larrimer on what he thought was Larrimer’s shoulder. There was a movement, and the shape ahead of him turned. The mists started to dissipate, and Styson saw something too tall to be Larrimer or any other man, something so tall that he had to crane his neck back to see it.

  No mistaking what it was now. It was an alien, and there was something about its quick, questing movements that decided Styson that this was not Norbert. This was the real thing.

&nbs
p; He tried to get his carbine up, but the sling had somehow gotten tangled around his left arm. And the massive creature was too close to him, anyhow. He closed his eyes and made a quick, fervent prayer.

  Moments later he opened his eyes. The alien had walked right past him, brushing against him as it did so. It continued to move away, still looking around as if seeking something.

  “Hey, fellas!” Styson called out. “We got company!”

  The men ahead of him were aware of this. They had spotted aliens before Styson did, but had kept quiet in order not to alert the creatures. Aliens were primarily visual hunters, but no one knew to what extent they could also use their hearing. This didn’t seem the time to find out. Now, as Styson caught up with them, they shushed him into silence.

  Morrison continued to lead. The mist thinned, and soon they could see black shapes moving through white cotton. Aliens, moving in the same general direction the men were going, walking singly or in small groups. They passed the men and paid no apparent attention to them. One went by within a foot of Morrison and never turned its head. Morrison was starting to feel a modest confidence… And then it happened.

  The mist closed down again. The men fumbled their way forward, fighting to keep their balance, and then there was a loud gurgling sound followed by silence.

  “What was that?” Morrison asked.

  “Damned if I know,” Larrimer replied.

  “Is anyone missing? Call out your names, but not too loud.”

  Three men responded to Morrison’s request, but the fourth, Skysky, did not answer.

  Morrison risked shouting. “Skysky? Are you there, Skysky?”

  Nothing.

  “Watch yourselves, boys,” Morrison said. “I think we got trouble.”

  It made no sense, Morrison thought, but it seemed like an alien must have grabbed Skysky, broken his neck before he could do any more than gurgle, and taken his body away.

  The suppressors were supposed to hide them from the aliens.

  But Skysky was definitely gone.

  So, one of two things. Either Skysky’s suppressor had failed, or he had walked right into an alien, and that close, it had been able to figure out what Skysky was.

  A six-foot breeding organism.

  Don’t think about that.

  “You gotta really watch hard,” Morrison said, as if the men needed to be told. “Skysky must have gotten careless. The mist is lifting again. Maybe we can find someplace to hide.”

  The mist dissipated swiftly. The men could see about fifty yards on all sides of them. The visibility continued to improve, and Morrison told them to fan out. The men complied and, following Morrison’s lead, continued to move steadily toward something that looked like a brown breast on the horizon.

  They were passing groups of aliens, but now were able to keep a better distance. The aliens continued to ignore them.

  Until one alien stopped ignoring them.

  It stopped in midstride, swiveled, turning its huge head slowly, and then locked in on something. It turned toward it and began to run.

  When Styson looked to his left, he saw an alien coming straight for him—not for anyone else in the group, but him. He threw up his rifle and fired. The caseless round broke through the alien’s shoulder, almost severing the arm at the shoulder joint. It just seemed to make the creature angrier than it already was. Aliens start out angry and build from there.

  Ignoring the arm dangling from its side, it grabbed Styson around the waist with its good arm. Styson screamed and tried to get the carbine into line. The alien opened its jaws. The secondary jaws looked out for a moment, then rammed into Styson’s face.

  Styson had tried to duck at the last instant, so the secondary jaw caught him in the left eye rather than the mouth. The tooth-lined mouth punched through to Styson’s brain, and when it withdrew, it took a fair amount of gray matter along with it.

  And then the alien turned away from Styson and revolved its head again.

  The other four men had frozen into position, not daring to move while the alien was prowling around Styson, unable to shoot without hitting their comrade.

  It turned out that shooting wasn’t necessary. Not at that moment, anyhow. The alien turned and loped away, rejoining the group it had left earlier.

  Morrison got the men moving again.

  51

  Their breathing space was short. Aliens continued to stream past the three crewmen. But now, some of those closest to the humans were slowing down, turning their heads this way and that. Morrison prayed that they had stiff necks or something. But no such luck. Two of the aliens turned away from the stream and started toward the group. After a moment a third one joined them.

  “Shit!” Morrison said. There was no doubt where that bunch were going. Straight at him. He started firing when they were still thirty yards off, then pushed the selector and fired a grenade. In fact, he fired off all his grenades, something he hadn’t meant to do, but he wasn’t used to these weapons, which were military style. The grenades went lobbing in the air, and most of them came down behind the aliens. Morrison’s last one hit an alien in the chest and, a moment later, exploded in its face. The alien was thrown backward by the force of the explosion. He picked himself up, but his face, such as it was, was ruined. His mouth was gaping open, and through his jaws protruded the smaller secondary jaws. They hung limp at the end of their muscular tube. The tube appeared to have been bitten through. The alien was not out of it yet, though. Shaking its head, it moved again toward Morrison, limping but still deadly.

  Morrison didn’t have time for that one yet. The two closer ones were coming up fast. He took the one to his left, blasting caseless projectiles into its chest. He could hear firing near him. It was Eka Nu, who had moved up to join him. Farther away, Larrimer tried to join them, but a long black arm came out of nowhere and caught him in midstride. He jerked around like a trout on a hook as the alien brought him close to his face. Then it released the facehugger, and Larrimer fell to the ground, moaning and twitching. The alien hoisted him to his shoulder. Larrimer knew he was going to have the worst death he could have imagined, hanging just barely alive from a wall in the hive while a newborn grew within him, getting ready to eat its way out.

  Morrison and Eka Nu had their hands full with the two aliens, who were coming at them at a full charge. Morrison saw his projectiles slam into the alien, and still it kept coming. He fired until the magazine was empty. He fired the last rounds with his eyes closed. When he opened them, the alien was dead at his feet. Eka Nu hadn’t been so lucky, however. The alien on his side had kept on coming on all fours, had grabbed Eka Nu around the shoulders, hugged the crewman to him, then turned him. The two stared face-to-face for a moment, then the facehugger hit and Eka Nu knew no more.

  Morrison found himself alone. He was panting, exhausted, trembling. The guys were all gone. He looked around. He didn’t see any aliens. Maybe they had left Maybe he could still find…

  Then something moved on the ground. It was the alien he had winged. He was still coming, crawling. And behind him, half a dozen others were starting over.

  Yes, Morrison thought, I guess you could say the suppressors had failed. No other explanation.

  I did the best I could, he thought as he turned the carbine so its muzzle faced him. He preferred a slug in the mouth to a facehugger.

  * * *

  The harvester’s entry lock gave way under repeated blows from the outside. The door flew open. Big-bodied, ghastly, and weird, three aliens crowded into it, their eager, evil faces turning at all angles on short powerful necks, checking out the place, alert for danger. They ignored Norbert, protected by his suppressor. The dead crewmen from the harvester required no attention.

  Stan, watching from the lander, said, “All right, Norbert. Do it now.”

  Norbert lifted Mac, removed his collar into which a suppressor was built, and handed him to one of the aliens. The alien showed no surprise, quietly accepted Mac from Norbert’s arms.


  Handling the dog carefully, the alien turned, left the ship, and joined the others outside. Then, as if in response to an inaudible signal, they all started marching across the plain. Stan, Gill, and Julie watched on their screen as Norbert fell into line behind the group of aliens carrying Mac. Watching from the lander through Norbert’s vision sensors was uncannily like being within the robot alien himself, feeling his body sway and move as it negotiated the uneven ground. Stan had to adjust the audio because the wind out there on AR-32’s plain had risen swiftly after the mist dissipated and now was shrieking like a banshee, pushing and pulling against the line of aliens, slowing but not stopping them as sand was alternately pushed into mounds in front of them and then suddenly scoured away.

  They were moving toward the hive, which was now and then revealed as Norbert changed the angle of his vision from the ground immediately in front of him to the hazy horizon line. The hive was still quite a long way away, perhaps a hundred yards, when the aliens stopped and began looking around.

  Stan leaned close to the screen and stared but he couldn’t tell what they were looking for. A specially coded pheromone signal, perhaps, because they fanned out and continued searching, their heads turning back and forth like hounds following a scent.

  At last one of them found something. A silent signal seemed to pass between him and the others, and they all moved together to a piece of ground that looked no different to Stan’s eyes than any other. Rooting in the soil, the leading alien dislodged a large flat piece of stone, revealing a shallow tunnel leading into the earth.

  The tunnel sloped downward for perhaps twenty feet, then leveled out. It had been made with some care. The light, friable soil was held in by flat rocks, some of which were highly phosphorescent.

  “Look at how the roof is shored up,” Stan remarked to Gill.

  “That’s more technical skill than we ever gave the aliens credit for.”