The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 3

by Sandy Schofield

  Later; that will have to suffice for now.

  “I suppose I thought that I had at last been killed, but that merciful oblivion ended. I awoke, and I was alone. I could feel the heavy parasitic load cradled in my chest; it was… obscene, that feeling, that sick, leaden weight. There’s no way to describe it, feeling that and knowing what it meant for me.

  “The aliens’ secretions had weakened with their sickness; I pulled free easily, and none of the creatures came to stop me. The smell of death was everywhere, the aliens, the crew.

  —the dark, murky stench, the stumbling footsteps to get away, the madness dulled by days of terror and that final act—

  “I didn’t look for my father; I didn’t want to see what they’d done to him. All I wanted was to die, but not inside the hive.

  “The passage to the outside was unguarded, and I realized then that they were all dead. Still, I expected to be stopped somehow; I didn’t think it was possible that I would be allowed to just leave, to walk out as if none of that nightmare had ever occurred… but I did. Walked out into the open space, walked away from that dead hive and into the light; the place that had once seemed an Eden to me was no longer.

  “The fresh air, the brightness, they were quite a shock to my ravaged senses. I collapsed just outside the nest, but I was happy, knew then that I would at least die with the sun on my face.

  “After a time, I found I could go on. I passed the smugglers’ ship and returned to the Incunabulum. It was untouched, humming, power levels full.

  “This then was my homecoming. Our comfortable ship, sweet and dependable, full of warm ghosts that loved me. I saw by the terrestrial calendar that I had been in the hive for forty-three days; not such an eternity as I’d dreamed…

  “I thought of my family and those aliens lying dead together, almost in each other’s arms. In death, they were united; I alone had emerged from that apocalypse. I was alive, but I can’t say that I had survived; the Paul Church that had been was no longer. And perhaps… perhaps for a reason.

  “Suddenly, I wanted—I was desperate to live, to start over. I didn’t question it as I didn’t question why I alone had made it out alive—but I can tell you that the feeling was overwhelming and beautiful, like a cold splash of water on dehydrated flesh. Not to waste my rebirth, squander it away in selfishness, but to go on, to keep searching for a solution. So I sent a distress signal.

  “It took me four hours to cleanse my body. I patched my wounds, then used the ship’s ultrasound to examine the alien larva in my chest. It was dead, dead and rotting; its immediate removal was imperative.

  “I had no surgical experience at all, but I gathered what information and tools I could and set to work. The ship had a fairly extensive medical center, thankfully. The operation took seven hours, but it was a complete success.

  “When the rescue party arrived a month later, I met them on my own two feet—though I was an atrophied mess by then, alive but in poor condition.

  “I was debriefed at length. It turned out that the smugglers—aspiring bug farmers, if you can believe it—were responsible for the hive.

  “The Company considered my experience most valuable. As compensation for my ordeal in the service of the government, I was granted a full biomechanical makeover. The hive was destroyed before I had a chance to tell them about that toxic mold or the colloid leeches, most unfortunate for all of us; I’ve tried to replicate some version of the mold many times—unsuccessfully so far—and I’ve never heard of any species like those swimming parasites. But I’ve been studying aliens ever since. And someday…”

  Church sighed, then motioned around him in a sweeping gesture. “There are no laws that govern my research aboard this station. My work is blasphemous—abominable—illegal, I’m sure. And I haven’t yet created an end to the alien threat. But my experiments have yielded some unexpected, miraculous results.”

  He sought out Crespi’s intent gaze. “You’ve heard rumors, no doubt—numerous metabiotics, self-replicating brain tissue, acquired intrasensory abilities, the so-called ‘time serum’…”

  Crespi’s dark eyes sharpened. “The time serum? Your work?”

  “Yes. The results will benefit—”

  “Results?!” McGuinness stepped toward him angrily, cutting him off. “You killed these people for—science?!”

  Church met her gaze dead-on. “I’ve killed no one. I appropriated the bodies of soldiers who died in the line of duty. The chemicals that their bodies put out are invaluable; they’re the key to the final solution—the scarring, the mutations, are necessary, if distasteful. Each reaction is carefully measured and recorded, and the results are used in the creation of new telepathine drugs—synthesized chemicals that will bring an eventual end to the alien threat.

  “And you accuse me of murder? Really, McGuinness, you already know the truth. Stop playing innocent.”

  She looked to Crespi, suddenly confused. And quite anxious.

  “I have no idea what he—”

  Church frowned. “Oh, please. You’re not the only one handy with spy cameras; you showed Crespi a doctored photo that convinced him that you and David Lennox were engaged.”

  She was openly shocked now. “What—?”

  Church looked sadly at the man-computer that had once been his assistant. “David was a body donor; he believed in me. You hardly knew him at all…”

  Church turned back to them. McGuinness stuttered, incensed and still disbelieving. “You—you liar—”

  Church shook his head sadly, looked back at David. “I should know. David and I were lovers.”

  “No! He’s lying, Crespi, don’t listen to him!”

  Church spun back, addressed Crespi firmly. “Think about it, and think well, Crespi! Mortenson was a spy for Grant Corporation; Admiral Thaves knew, he pegged him! Mortenson was under constant surveillance by ship’s orders, but he ditched us somehow, ended up dead… and Sharon McGuinness was his partner.”

  She shifted her panicked gaze between the two men. “It’s a lie!”

  Church glared at her. “That’ll be for a tribunal to decide. Now, Colonel Doctor, if you’ll be so kind as to arrest this woman—”

  “Crespi—Tony, please! He’ll kill me!”

  Crespi wavered, looked at Church and then the woman, his face undecided. If Crespi was reasonable, logical, he would see the truth of what Church said, would have no other choice. Church waited, wondered what he would do—if he was as bright as he seemed to be.

  McGuinness stood with her back to the partly opened hatch; if Crespi made the right decision, would she run?

  So many unanswered questions…

  The three of them stood there silently, a triangle of hope and despair and truth, waiting, locked in place for the decision to come.

  23

  Crespi had listened to the doctor’s story, fascinated, sickened, and finally in awe of Paul Church. A lesser man would not have survived, let alone flourished as Church had done. This man had lived among the loathsome breed, exploited and then killed them with little more than his mind and bare hands.

  And now this—accusation. It was almost too much for his fuzzy, exhausted mind to grasp. He stared at Church, thought about what he’d said, saw the clear, steady gaze, confident and certain. If he was lying, he was doing it very well.

  He looked to McGuinness, the woman he thought he knew. Her eyes were wide and frightened, pleading. She’d played it straight with him, hadn’t she? The code slate had been the key to the hidden lab, she’d gotten him in, had been as shocked and horrified as he was.

  Except—did that make her innocent?

  There were holes in her story, perhaps—holes in Church’s, too, but it all came down to who he believed, her word against his. If she had lied to him about how many crew fatalities there had been and she could have, could have lied about everything—

  And Mortenson. What had he been doing messing around with those suits? McGuinness said station’s orders, but again, her word agai
nst Church’s…

  He looked back at the doctor, considered what he knew so far. Church’s biomake meant that he could easily kill both of them, probably without breathing hard. Why would he lie to see McGuinness arrested if he wanted her dead, or wanted them both dead? He had admitted to everything, admitted that his work was brutal, unappealing, even illegal. And yet he sought no approval, made no excuses for what he had done.

  But what about the alien in his unity lab? Who else could have let it in?

  And, on the tail of that: How could McGuinness have known about the slate and not about the drone?

  Crespi closed his eyes, tormented by conflicting emotions, truth or lie, him or her. There could be no compromise. He searched for his instincts and again couldn’t find them; he was tired, so very tired, wanted only for this to be over with, just to go lay down somewhere and sleep…

  “I… I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  The decision was made.

  * * *

  McGuinness was furious at the accusation, furious and desperately afraid that Crespi would listen to Church. Why was he waiting? Why was he struggling with Church’s lies?

  “I… I’m sorry,” Crespi whispered, and when he opened his eyes, he looked at her.

  “Very sorry, but I—McGuinness, I’ll have to—”

  She backed away, felt her arm brush against the cool metal of the hatch behind her, glanced. It opened into a long, dim corridor.

  “You monsters,” she breathed, stunned tears of disbelief welling up. This can’t be happening, can’t—

  She turned and ran.

  * * *

  Crespi grabbed for her, but she was gone, footsteps clattering hollow down the smooth metal passage.

  “McGuinness!”

  He shot a look back at Church, saw the doctor move quickly to a circuit panel set in the wall.

  “After her! I can control every door in the station from here, we can corner her in the pit!”

  Crespi was already running, his own boots ringing down the corridor, echoing back to taunt him—

  Church was right, God I’ve been such a fool—

  This was a bad dream happening too fast—he felt as if he’d boarded a runaway rail, his car bulleting away from the sane, the rational, his intuition so muddled that he had to rely on guilty action to see him through.

  He reached the end of the passage, turned, saw a glimpse as she ducked around the corner, still running. There were several dull clangs as doors closed elsewhere, limiting her escape, sealing her in.

  “Give it up, McGuinness!” His shout reverberated throughout the hall, surely reached her, but still she ran.

  Another bend, another flash of flying movement ahead, but he was closer, gaining. His feet pounded, angry—Why did she have to lie, why, how could I have been so blind—and he turned the corner, right on top of her.

  She let out a moan when she saw how close he’d come, leapt forward in a burst of anxious speed. He could hear her breathing now, hear her curses.

  “Stupid, stupid—” Her voice trailing behind her, turning another bend.

  He ran, ducked—and she was cornered, nowhere left to run, her back against the enclosure wall, her face openly terrified—

  “No!” she shouted, but she was looking behind him, back the way they’d come.

  Crespi turned as the door to the pen slammed down, the metallic sound quiet after the bounding echoes of the passageway. He turned back, sweating, pleased; she was caught, no way for her to get away—

  The look of pure panic across her features gave him pause.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, somehow hurt himself that she could think that, but she didn’t seem to hear him at all.

  “He’s got us,” she whispered, and Crespi’s heart suddenly pounded even harder than when he’d run, followed by a slow, horrible sinking in his gut.

  She looked up and he followed her gaze, saw Paul Church step to the railing above the kennel and call down to them.

  “You really should have listened to her, Crespi.”

  Their captor smiled and folded his arms.

  Crespi fell back against the wall, his ears hammering with dull pulses of blood, felt angry and hurt and lost all at once.

  He’d made the wrong choice, and it was going to cost them.

  24

  Church stood there, smiling. Crespi was a reasonable man; Church’s story had made good, solid sense, could very well have been the truth—except it wasn’t, and Crespi was apparently not so bright after all. He needed more in an assistant.

  He looked down at the pair, savoring the moment. The woman had helped greatly, her panicked looks, the vehement; shouted denials—and she had run, exactly as he’d assumed she would.

  Well, hoped she would…

  Never mind. In the end, she’d done what he wanted, forced into play by her valiant, stupid knight.

  Of course, he could have just as easily taken them here—but where was the fun in that? No, much better that Crespi had made the decision, now lived with the knowledge that he’d forsaken both himself and McGuinness, all in the name of duty…

  Crespi made a great show of his amazement, his face red and spluttering.

  “Church! What the devil are you doing?”

  Church shook his head sadly. “Please. You flatter yourself by being surprised at how easily you’ve been deceived. You people can be bought with a cookie, fooled with three words—really, I can’t believe how quick you were to sell out the truth for something that sounded better.”

  Crespi had no response, though he glanced at McGuinness somewhat guiltily.

  Charming! He’s gone and piddled on her carpet, feels just awful about it—“Here, my dearest, roses for you, so sorry about the mess, can you forgive me?”

  Church cackled, but inside he felt something harden. It was sad, really. Pathetic.

  “You’re a slave to your empirical truth,” he sneered. “A slave to sweetness and light. And what are they? Prosthetic abstractions conceived by embryonic minds, unable to cope with the truth! Where does good exist? Only in your empty skulls; God, if you only knew how I see you… humans.”

  Confusion from the little man. “But you’re hu—”

  Church sighed. “Oh, do shut up, Crespi. Must you always believe in appearances? I told you the truth already, but you didn’t listen; I didn’t survive the hive—I am the hive. When I look the cosmos in the eye, it blinks. But you—the good soldier, so proud of your brains, your courage—you’re nothing but a fatuous rah-rah boy, so limited, so confined, scampering around with your tiny goals, your tiny thoughts—you’re beneath my contempt, can’t you see that? No better than Mortenson, or any of the others; just another warm body.”

  He was honestly angry, though not surprised by it. He’d had such hope for Crespi, had actually thought at one point that he was on the verge of understanding—of escaping the boundaries of his preconditioned, petty morality and moving beyond…

  It hurt to be wrong. And pain always brought anger, didn’t it? Next time, he’d try to keep his expectations to a minimum.

  The same thing you said after David, Doctor. Really, you should try to learn from your mistakes…

  He felt his anger dwindle and fade. Truly, it wasn’t Crespi’s fault that he had been overestimated, nor was he to blame for not trusting in McGuinness; humans had a nasty habit of letting each other down—dying in their quiet lack of purpose, justifying their existence with self-righteous, selfish attacks on their fellow man—

  In a way, this was the best thing he could do for them, do by them; at least this way, their lives wouldn’t be entirely useless. There was hope for Crespi yet.

  Church reached down and picked up the handheld control for the electric shock device installed in the pen.

  “You have the honor of contributing to my research, my real research—what you found back in that lab, but were too narrow-minded to see. Although you won’t be in any condition to appreciate it, you will have assisted in th
e creation of an evolutionary bridge to the true crown of creation. The pink poetry of man will be subsumed by the black, blank genius of the alien—and the result will be the original and final creature. It will feed and live off of itself.

  “And I will join it.”

  He could almost feel his eyes ablaze with his inner fire, the quest revealed at last. He felt powerful, untouchable—

  —and to these little people, you’re just chewing at scenery; get on with it.

  He smiled to himself. There was no need to explain any further, they would be too closed off in themselves to hear Truth—and they wouldn’t understand anyway. David hadn’t, and he’d been brighter than the two of them combined.

  Church pointed at the door that would lead them through the labyrinth. “Go through the door, both of you.”

  Crespi stared up at him, almost expressionless, but when he spoke, his voice seethed with pure, bare hatred. “Go to hell!”

  “Been there,” Church said mildly, and stroked the control in his hand.

  An electric pulse, sparks flying white and blue as they both convulsed, dropped to the floor, writhed in agony. A strange, twitching moan erupted from Crespi, closest to the circuit, his cry low, pained. McGuinness tried to scream “stop,” stuttered and faltered, her mouth open, teeth almost glowing—

  Church released the switch reluctantly. Too much would kill them before they’d even had a chance to begin—and he wanted very much to see how far they would get before he could salvage their bodies and examine the brain tissue for future application. The telepathine ploy had served its purpose well, but the chemicals he truly needed were quite different. Some of the mutilations to his test subjects had been necessary in the beginning—

  A fleeting thought, gone before he realized he’d had it—

  (not anymore, now you just like it)

  —Church shook his head. The genetic work was his current focus, though he still needed to do more chemical work. To merge man and drone was no small task, and he needed to find the common denominators, the shared transmitters of rage.