The Complete Aliens Omnibus

by David Bischoff

  “We’re able to throw some protection around your ship, too,” Potter said. “My men are coming now.”

  A bay door in the Lancet’s side cracked open, then let down to the ground, forming a landing ramp. Stan watched a dozen men come running down the ramp. Carrying bulky weapons, they were masked and shielded, and wearing full space armor.

  “You waste no time, do you, Captain?” Stan said.

  “You’re damned right,” Potter said. “The sooner I get you people out of the harvester the better.”

  “One way or another,” Stan said mildly.

  “What was that?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Stan muttered. “But it looks to me like your men are running into a little difficulty.”

  69

  The armed men were moving across the corridors between the force fields that lay between Potter’s ship and the harvester. The force fields shimmered faintly in the pelting rain. Low, flat lighting, grim and without shadows, illuminated the scene, and this was aided by the search beam from the Lancet, which flooded different areas with its sulfurous, yellow light. The men moved at a brisk trot, helmet shields up so they could communicate better.

  Their troubles began slowly and built fast. The first man to scream was hardly noticed, so rapidly were the others moving. But then the squad leader became aware that something was amiss.

  His name was Blake and he was from Los Angeles. He was used to skulking around smoking ruins and walking down ruined streets. So he wasn’t entirely surprised when he saw one of the men throw his arms in the air as something long and black snaked out from seemingly nowhere and grabbed him around the neck. But what had it been? Blake wasn’t sure. He stared, gaped. Another man screamed, and was dragged away shrieking. Then Blake realized that somehow the aliens had gotten into the uninterdicted corridors between the force fields, and were grabbing soldiers as they crossed from one field to another.

  Seeing this, Blake shouted some orders. His little squadron was already cut in half. He ordered the remaining soldiers to fight back-to-back. They were closer to the harvester than to the Lancet, so he ordered them to continue.

  You could see that the men didn’t want to go. What had begun as a nice little bug fight had turned into a slaughter of humans. It wasn’t fair! But there was no one to complain to.

  They fought, their weapons flashing and flaming, and they caught a group of aliens as they were preparing to charge, caught them dead on and blew them to hell and back. The air rained black body parts. The acid from the aliens’ wounds sprayed far and wide, and the ground sizzled beneath them. Luckily the soldiers were in acid-proof armor, or the acid would have made short work of them.

  The sun came out as the slaughter continued, and the men seemed to be holding their own. Then the aliens got around the other side of the force field, and the soldiers were caught between two attacking alien groups.

  They continued fighting, falling one after another. The lucky ones were dead when they hit the ground. Some of the others, wounded but not yet dead, weren’t so lucky. Aliens draped them over their shoulders and retreated to the hive. These soldiers would make fine hosts, just what the queen needed.

  Seeing this, Blake fought hard to keep his composure. It was unnerving, seeing friend after friend pulled apart, torn to bits, or dragged away unconscious to be glued to the wall of the hive with something small and deadly growing inside him, after the facehugger had done its work.

  Blake turned back. It was all happening too fast. When he looked around, he saw the last of his men collapse, scream, and get dragged off. Blake saw his chance and sprinted to the harvester. He got there before the aliens, but just barely. He pounded at the door. “Let me in! Please, please, let me in!”

  Stan’s mild-mannered face peered back at him through the viewport. His lips moved. Blake couldn’t hear the words, but Stan was saying, “Sorry, I can’t open the door. I don’t have the strength to close it again.”

  Blake pounded again, and then the aliens were on him. A claw came around his shoulder and grabbed his face at the forehead. It pulled, tearing the skin right off. Blake felt his nose pull away, felt his lips leave his mouth, felt all this, and then another claw had seized him by the neck, it was pulling out the tendons of his neck! And then Blake felt no more.

  70

  Potter was shouting, his voice grating on the speaker. “Damn you! What have you done to my men?”

  “Not a thing, Captain,” Myakovsky said. “They brought it on themselves. Nothing I could do for them. Can you get us out of here, Captain?”

  “It seems scarcely worth my time,” Potter grumbled. “I ought to nuke all of you.”

  “But then you’d lose the contents of the harvester,” Stan said.

  “True enough. But I could always come back for it, after things have cooled down.”

  “I have a better plan,” Stan said. “Something that will be of use to us all.”

  “Hurry up and tell me what it is,” Potter said. “I don’t like leaving my ship down here.”

  “It’s too complicated to explain over radio,” Stan said. “But I think you will like it. Listen, I have an android here who has been damaged in recent fighting. I could send him over to you. He’d explain the whole thing.”

  “I don’t know if I should even bother.” Potter was obviously thinking aloud.

  “I think you’ll be interested in my scheme,” Stan continued. “And after all, it won’t take very long.”

  “All right,” Potter said. “Send him over. This better be good.”

  “It’ll be very good,” Stan affirmed.

  “How are you going to get him through the aliens? If my own men couldn’t make it, how do you expect your android to get here?”

  “Modern technology is a wonderful thing,” Stan said evasively. “He’ll be right over, Captain. Signing off.”

  71

  “Julie,” Gill said. “Can you hear me?”

  Julie’s eyelids fluttered. Pain contorted her face. She gave a long shudder and then looked around. “Oh my God, is this where I am? I was having such a nice dream, Gill. There’s this lake I know of. I went there just once when I was a little girl. I remember fields of spring flowers, a little lake. There was a rowboat. I was drifting in the rowboat, and there were willows hanging down over the boat. Oh, Gill, it was so pretty!”

  “I’m sure it was,” Gill said.

  “Have you ever had a dream like that?” Julie asked.

  “No, I have not,” Gill replied. “I do not dream.”

  “Well, you can have half of mine,” Julie said sleepily. “It wasn’t really a little lake, I don’t need it all… Where’s Stan?”

  “He’s right over there,” Gill said. “He’s trying to save you.”

  Julie grimaced. “I’m afraid he’s cut it a little too fine this time. Poor Stan. He has such great ideas. But I’m glad I came, anyhow. He’s not long for this world, you know.”

  “I know,” Gill said.

  “It’s too bad. He’s such a brilliant man. But they’ve done nothing but crowd him. He hasn’t had a chance. Except this one. And I think this wasn’t much of a chance.”

  “I suppose not,” Gill said.

  She looked at him. “Your arm! What happened?”

  “Ran into a little trouble,” Gill said.

  “You’re using understatement, just like a human.”

  “I suppose it rubs off,” Gill said. “A lot of things do. I feel…”

  “Yes?”

  “I feel like I understand a lot more about humans now,” Gill said. “It’s… interesting, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it is,” Julie said. “Are you all right, Gill? You’ve got a very strange expression on your face.”

  “I’m fine,” Gill muttered. “It’s just that… well, even an android can run out of time.”

  Suddenly Stan’s voice came from across the cabin. “Gill? What are you doing?”

  “Just looking after Julie, sir.”

  “That’s
good. But she needs to rest now. Come over here. I have some instructions for you.”

  “Yes, Dr. Myakovsky.” He turned to Julie. “Julie…”

  “What is it, Gill?”

  “Try not to forget me.” Gill stood up and crossed the room.

  Stan Myakovsky was huddled up in the control chair. He appeared to be experiencing no pain for the moment. But he had changed. Gill noticed that the doctor seemed to have shrunk inside his own skin, to be falling in on himself.

  “Now pay attention,” Stan said. “Forget about Julie for a moment. I have work for you to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are going over to the Lancet to parlay with Captain Potter.”

  “To what end, sir?”

  “Ah, yes,” Stan said. “Negotiations usually have a point, don’t they? Ours will be different. There’s no point at all.”

  “But what do you want me to accomplish, sir?”

  “Oh, that I can easily tell you,” Stan said. “I want Potter to take his ship away from here. I will retain the harvester. I will find some way to make rendezvous with Captain Hoban, and we will go back home with our ill-gotten gains. How does that sound to you?”

  “Wonderful, sir. But I’m afraid—”

  “Yes, I am, too,” Stan said. “The captain is not going to like it at all. That’s why I have something else in mind. Come over here to the workbench, Gill. I have a modification I must make in you.”

  Gill hesitated. “A modification, sir?”

  “You heard me. What is the matter with you?”

  “I wouldn’t want to change my thinking on certain issues.”

  Stan looked at Gill then glanced over at Julie, who was resting with eyes closed. “I think I understand. You’ve undergone quite a little course in humanization, have you not?”

  “I don’t know what to call it, but I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

  “I won’t change any of those qualities you call emotional, Gill. They are rare and special, I agree with you on that, and sometimes they are a long time coming to men—and to androids, never. Or just about never. No, it’s your command structure I need to modify. And something I need to wire into you. It will make it easier for you to do what you will have to do, unless things go a lot better than I imagine they will.”

  “I wish you’d explain a little more,” Gill said, letting Stan take him by his remaining hand and lead him over to the workbench.

  Stan checked out his instruments. “Better not to explain too much,” he said, fitting magnifying lenses over his glasses. “I’ll know what to do when the time comes. And so will you.”

  72

  There were heavy ground mists when Gill left the harvester and started his trek to the Lancet. The ship loomed eerily in the mounting mists. Gill walked between the force fields. There were aliens out there, and he walked past them. The aliens were searching, but they didn’t seem to know what they were looking for.

  Gill knew that he had a certain amount of natural immunity, since androids did not smell like men. But to be on the safe side he had taken the last suppressor. Gill touched it on his wrist for luck. He wasn’t superstitious, but he knew that men were, and of late he had been seeking to emulate them in every way.

  The suppressor was working. It had been Mac’s, but that was quite a while ago and now Mac was a bundle of wet fur on a garbage heap in an alien hive.

  Gill knew he had to keep his mind on business. Usually, this was no problem for an android. Artificial men weren’t bothered by random thoughts, stray insights, weasel realizations that came to them like thieves in the night. Not usually. But this time was different.

  Gill found that his attention was divided. Part of him was observing the terrain he passed over, noting the presence and position of the aliens, watching as he drew nearer to the Lancet. But with another part of his mind he was thinking of Julie, seeing her as she had been just a day ago, vibrant and laughing, filled with life. He had felt something special for her then.

  What was it? Was it what the humans called love? How could he find out? No human had been able to explain love to him. Even Stan grew embarrassed and turned away when Gill had asked him to explain the concept and give it a quantifiable value.

  Humans were so strange, so filled with odd compunctions that covertly ruled their behavior. And now he had the most understanding of them he would ever have. It all came from stray thoughts, he told himself, and he worked hard to banish Julie’s image from his mind as he approached the entry port of the Lancet.

  73

  Two of Potter’s crew, heavily armed, were waiting for him in the entryway.

  “I don’t know how the hell you got through,” one of them said.

  “I’ve got a pass,” Gill told them. They just stared at him. Gill decided that his first attempt at that key human quality, humor, hadn’t been a success. But he reminded himself that he was new at it. Perhaps he would get better as he went along.

  The two guards looked through the port visor. They could see the aliens, slowly drifting toward the ship, forming up against the almost invisible walls of the force field. They didn’t do anything. Just stood there, their heads facing the ship, and it was as though some great power of attraction held them there. They were surrounding the force field that protected the harvester, too, more and more of them, and the sight of them was singularly uncanny and disquieting.

  “We better tell the captain about this,” one of the guards said. To Gill he said, “Come on, you. Raise your arms. We’re going to search you.”

  Gill did as he was told. “I carry no weapons,” he told them.

  “Sure. But we’ll just check you anyhow. What happened to your arm?”

  “I lost it at the movies,” Gill said. Again, the guards did not laugh. They just stared at him like he was crazy. Gill wondered what he was doing wrong. This humor thing was going to take some studying.

  74

  “Julie, can you hear me?”

  Julie had been lying on the deck of the harvester near one of the heaters. Stan had found a blanket in one of the back bays and wrapped it around her. She looked better than she had since the accident.

  “Stan?” she said. “I’m very cold.”

  “Let me see if I can find another blanket,” Stan said. “I already have these heaters going full blast.”

  He stood up to go, but Julie reached out and grabbed his arm. “No, don’t leave me, Stan. We’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t we?”

  “To one way of thinking, yes, we are. But to another, we’re in no trouble at all. We’re together, and we’re going to stay that way. Here, Julie, I have something for you. For us both, actually.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out the little case containing the Xeno-Zip ampoules. There were six of them. He uncapped one and lifted Julie’s head so she could drink. When she took down the first ampoule, he matched her with one, then uncorked another.

  “We aren’t supposed to take more than one, are we?”

  “I’ve got a special dispensation,” Stan said. “Don’t worry, it’ll do us no harm.”

  Julie swallowed the contents of a second ampoule. She shuddered, then laughed. “You were right, Stan. I feel a lot better.”

  “Me, too,” Stan said, sitting down on the deck beside her and holding her close to share the warmth. “This is nice, isn’t it?”

  “It’s very nice, Stan,” Julie said. “We never found much time for this before, did we?”

  “Unfortunately not. Sometimes it takes a long time to realize what a good thing is.”

  “As long as it happens sometime,” Julie said.

  “Don’t worry, Julie. We’re going to get out of this.”

  “I’m sure we are,” Julie told him. “One way or the other.” She could feel the pain leaving her body. How miraculous the Xeno-Zip was! What a pleasure it was to be free of pain.

  She knew it had to be the same way for Stan. For the moment they were both young and strong and were
going to live forever. This could only last a little while. But perhaps, she thought, it’ll be long enough.

  The radio kicked into life. “Dr. Myakovsky! Are you there?” It was Captain Hoban from the Dolomite.

  “I have to issue a few last-minute instructions,” Stan said to Julie. “Excuse me, my dear, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  75

  On the Dolomite, Hoban had been working hard to keep the location of his ship a secret. He had no doubt what Potter would do if he knew there was another ship in the area, and where it was situated. He had no intention of sharing the fate of the Valparaiso Queen, the wreck that silently circled the planet. He hadn’t known quite what to do. But then Stan’s message had come to him, and he had no choice but to make contact.

  “Sir,” Hoban said, “I need to tell you, by radioing me, you have compromised this ship’s position. You shouldn’t have done that, sir.”

  “Now, now,” Stan said. “I have a plan whereby Potter and his crew will be neutralized. There will be nothing to prevent you from making rendezvous with us at these coordinates as soon as possible.”

  “I understand, sir,” Hoban said. “But there is a problem. From your present location, it is going to take me at least twenty minutes to get to you.”

  “As long as that?” Stan exclaimed. From where he sat, he could see through one of the viewports as the aliens massed in front of the force field, not trying to get through it—that would have been impossible—but coming together in ever-growing numbers, those behind pushing away those in front. They were crowded as close to each other as they could get and some of them were mounting on the back of others, and others were climbing on top of those.

  Stan saw at once what was going to happen. They were going to keep on piling themselves up until they were able to topple over the rim of the force field, which was only about twelve feet high. Then they’d come for him and Julie.