by Tim Lebbon
He turned around slowly, and Jonesy sat crouched on the arm of the pilot’s chair, teeth bared at him, hackles spiked.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Hoop relaxed, lowering Ripley to the floor. He went to the pilot’s seat and sat down.
Jonesy hissed again and jumped away when Hoop went to stroke him.
He switched on the ship’s computer and it powered up instantly. All good. He sat back and waited for the system statuses to load onto the control screens, looking around at the shuttle’s interior. Ash was here. He couldn’t be seen or sensed, but here more than anywhere Hoop had that distinct sense of being watched.
Hello Ash, he typed.
Good afternoon, Chief Engineer Hooper.
Good? he typed. No. Pretty fucking shitty, really.
Ash did not respond.
Initiate launch sequence, Hoop typed.
No.
I thought you’d say that. Hoop took the memory stick from his inner pocket, and slipped it into one of the panel’s interface points.
The computer screen before him flashed, then faded to blank. When it fired up again the previous lines of text had vanished, and the cursor sat ready to create some more.
I’m more than just a program.
No, Hoop typed, that is exactly what you are. Thinking you’re more than that is why this is going to work.
But I’m everywhere, Chief Engineer Hooper. I’m in the Narcissus, deeper and more entrenched than any of its former programs. I’m in the Samson and the Marion. Do you really think a third rate virus program can affect me?
Probably not, Hoop typed. This isn’t third rate. It’s the best that money can buy... from your old friends at Weyland-Yutani.
No.
That was Ash’s total response. Whether it was a plea or a denial, Hoop didn’t wait to find out. He pressed a button on the virus purger, then hit the initiate button on the control panel. A splash of code lit up three screens. It started to scroll quickly, and every few seconds a particular line of code was highlighted red, isolated, and placed in a boxed area on the left of the central display.
Hoop left the purger to do its work. and went to where he’d propped Ripley by the door.
She was still unconscious, and for that he was glad. He carefully took the sheet from her and dressed her in some underwear he found in the small clothing locker. Jonesy the cat sat beside her and purred as he did so, eager to maintain contact with his mistress as much as he could.
Hoop struggled with her vest, laying her flat and stretching her arms over her head to pull it down. Just before he smoothed it over her stomach, he paused and looked closely at the fixed wounds there. They were visible as pale pink lines in her waxen skin. When she woke up, if she looked closely enough, she would find them. And he would be there to tell her all about it.
“You can sleep without nightmares, Ripley,” he said, holding her close. “And when we wake up, I’ll only tell you as much as you need to know.” She seemed lighter when he lifted her this time, and her face was almost serene as he laid her in the stasis pod where she had slept for so long.
Jonesy jumped in with her and snuggled down by her feet, as if eager to go back to sleep. Hoop could hardly blame him.
Something buzzed on the control panel, and he sat back in the pilot’s chair.
The screens were blank once again, and a red light glowed softly on the purger. He plucked it from the interface and held it up between two fingers, filled with distaste even though he knew Ash wasn’t really in there. That was a simplistic notion, but somehow that naive idea made Hoop feel better. Especially when he dropped the purger to the floor and crushed it beneath his boot.
Hello Narcissus, he typed.
Narcissus online.
This is Chief Engineer Hooper of the Deep Space Mining Orbital Marion. I have Warrant Officer Ripley with me. Please initiate all pre-launch checks.
With pleasure, Chief Engineer Hooper.
A series of images and menus flashed across the screens, flickering as each launch and flight system was checked. It all looked good. He didn’t see anything to worry him.
“We’re not home yet,” he said. The shuttle shook as something happened on the Marion, another explosion or a closer impact with LV178’s atmosphere. They didn’t have very long.
Hoop went to the stasis pod and fired it up. Its small screen was already flashing as the Narcissus’s computer ran through its own series of diagnostics. It looked like a comfortable place to spend some time. A long time.
As the shuttle’s computer went through its pre-flight diagnostics, Hoop accessed the navigation computer and created a new program. It was simple enough—he input the destination as “origin,” made certain that was listed as Sol system, then clicked the auto panel so that the ship’s computer would work out the complex flight charts.
“Earth,” he whispered, thinking of that long-ago place and everything that it meant to him. He hoped he would get back in time to see his family again.
He hoped they would welcome his return.
The computer still wasn’t done calculating, so he squeezed back through the hatch and into the engine room to complete work on the replacement fuel cell. It was connected into the ship and fixed on its damper pads, but he still had to finish refixing its shell. It took a few moments, then he sat back and regarded his work. It all looked good. He’d always been a neat engineer, and tidying up after himself was part of his work ethic. So he grabbed the old, denuded fuel cell by the handle on the end and tugged it back through the hatch after him.
Hearing a warning chime, he left the cell by the hatch and went to the pilot’s station again.
Pre-flight checks completed. All flight and environmental systems online.
Launch procedure compromised.
Hoop caught his breath. He rested his fingers on the keyboard, almost afraid to type in case Ash’s soundless voice replied.
What’s the problem? he typed, wondering how Ash would respond. No problem for me, maybe, or, We’ll all go together. But the response was straightforward, to the point, and nothing malignant.
Automatic release malfunction. Manual release from Marion’s docking bay required.
“Oh, great,” he said. “That’s just fucking great.” It wasn’t Ash’s voice, but it was a final farewell. Hoop couldn’t launch the shuttle from inside. He’d have to be out there, back in the airlock and on board the Marion, so that he could access manual release.
Ash’s parting gift.
“You bastard,” Hoop said.
But had he really expected it to end so easily? His heart sank. The ship shook. From the viewing windows that looked out across the Marion’s belly, he could see feathers of flames playing all across the hull. Parts of it were already glowing red.
He went to Ripley’s side to say goodbye. He stared down at her where she slept, aware that they hadn’t gone through the usual pre-hypersleep procedures—she should have eaten and drunk, washed, used the bathroom. But this rushed process was the best he could manage.
He was letting her fly into the future.
His own future was shorter, and far more grim.
“So here we are,” he said. It felt foolish talking to himself, and really there was nothing left to say. He bent down and kissed Ripley softly on the lips. He didn’t think she would mind. In fact, he kind of hoped she’d have liked it. “Fly safe. Sweet dreams.”
Then Hoop closed the stasis pod and watched its controls flash on as the Narcissus’s computer took control. By the time he was standing by the shuttle’s door, plasma torch slung over one shoulder, Ripley was almost into hypersleep.
* * *
Amanda is in her late teens, lithe, tall and athletic, just like her mother. She stands by a stone wall somewhere dark and shadowy, and her chest bursts open, spilling blood to the floor, a screeching creature clawing its way out from the wound.
Ripley turns away because she doesn’t want to see. Behind her, a monster spews hundreds of flexing eggs from its damaged abdomen.
She turns again and sees a blood-spattered metal wall, tattered corpses at its base. More aliens crawl toward her, hissing, heads moving as if they are sniffing her, and she understands their age-old fury in a way that only nightmares can allow. It’s as if they have been looking for her forever, and now is the moment of their revenge.
She turns back to Amanda, and her daughter is maybe fourteen years old. She coughs and presses her hand to her chest. Rubs. Nothing happens. Ripley turns a full circle. More blood, more aliens, but now it’s all more distant, as if she’s viewing things through a reversed telescope.
Those beasts are still coming for her, but they’re a long way off, both in time and memory, and becoming more distant with every moment that passes.
Amanda, she tries to say. But though she knows this is a dream, still she cannot speak.
25
GONE
Three more minutes and she’ll be gone.
Hoop shoved the empty fuel cell out through the airlock, then returned to the Narcissus and closed the hatch behind him, flicking the lever that would initiate its automatic sealing and locking. He heard the heavy clunks and then a steady hiss, and Ripley was lost to him. There wasn’t even a viewing panel in the door. He would never see her again.
The Marion was in her death-throes. The ship’s vibrations were now so violent that Hoop’s heels and ankles hurt each time the deck jerked beneath him. He moved quickly through the airlock, plasma torch held at ready in case that last alien had survived, and in case it was coming for him still.
Two minutes. He just had to live that long, in order to release Ripley’s shuttle. He hoped to survive for longer— and a plan was forming, a crazy idea that probably had a bad ending—but two minutes was the minimum. After that, after Ripley would be safe, things would matter less.
He reached the vestibule and closed the airlock behind him, sealing it and leaning to one side to look at the Narcissus through one of the viewing windows. All he had to do now was to hit the airlock seal confirmation, and the ship’s computer would know it was safe to go.
His hand hovered over the pad. Then he pressed it down.
Almost instantaneously a brief retro burst pushed the Narcissus away from the Marion, and the two parted company. More retro exhalations dropped the shuttle down beneath the ship’s belly. It fell through veils of smoke and sheets of blazing air, buffeted by the planet’s atmosphere, before its rockets ignited and it vanished quickly toward the stern.
And that was it. Ripley and the Narcissus were gone. Hoop was left alone on the Marion, and he knew the ship he’d called home was moments away from dying.
For a while he just leaned there against the wall, feeling each death-rattle transmitted into his body up through the floor and wall. He thought about his plan, and how foolish it was, how almost beyond comprehension. And he thought about the easier way out. He could just sit there for a while, and when the time came and the ship started to come apart, his death would be quick. The heat would be immense, and it would fry him to a crisp. He probably wouldn’t even feel it. And if he did feel it, it would be more sensation than pain.
The end of all his agonies.
But then he saw his children again. Between blinks they were actually there with him in that vestibule, the two boys silent but staring at him accusingly, their eyes saying, You left us once, don’t leave us again! He sobbed. In that instant he could understand why Ripley had asked for that merciful wiping of her memory.
Then his children were gone again, figments of his guilt, aspects of his own bad memories. But they didn’t have to be gone forever. Where there existed even the slightest, most insignificant chance, he had to take it.
The Samson wasn’t very far away.
* * *
He paused briefly outside the door that led into the Samson’s docking arm. It was still vacuum in there, and he wouldn’t have time to find the tools to drill a hole again. This escape would be more basic, more brutal than that.
He wanted to give himself a chance. He needed supplies, even though the probability of surviving was insignificant. It was a dropship, built for surface-to-orbit transfers, not deep space travel. There likely was enough fuel on board for him to escape orbit, but he wasn’t even certain whether the craft’s navigational computer could calculate a journey across the cosmos toward home. He would point them in the right direction, then fire the thrusters. Retain perhaps twenty percent of the fuel, but use the rest to get him up to the greatest speed possible.
And there was no stasis unit in the Samson. He’d likely be traveling for years. He might even grow old and die in there, if the ship held together that long. What a find that would be, he mused, for someone hundreds or thousands of years from now.
Bad enough to consider traveling that long with company, but on his own? The one comfort was that he was again king of his own destiny. If he wanted to persist, then he could. And if the time came when ending it was a much more settling proposition, it was simply a case of opening the airlock door.
Best get moving then.
But he needed food, water, clothing, and other supplies. Much of what he required still sat on that trolley, up in the Marion and just beyond the large docking deck. So he ran. He thought of the feast he’d promised himself, and that kept him going, the idea of reconstituted steak and dried vegetables, with flatcakes for dessert. A glass of water. Maybe he’d even be able to access the electronic library they used on board the Marion, if it had been updated to the Samson’s computers. He wasn’t sure about that, it hadn’t been a priority, and such minor considerations had usually been passed down to Powell and Welford.
He hoped they hadn’t shirked their responsibilities.
With the prospect of a lonely eternity ahead, Hoop was surprised to find that he was shedding tears as he ran. They weren’t for him, because he was way past that. They were for his kids. They were for his crew and everyone he’d seen die horrible, unnatural deaths. And they were for Ripley.
It was as if the Marion knew that he was abandoning her. She was shaking herself apart. Conduits had broken beneath the constant assault, and clouds of sparks danced back and forth outside a closed doorway. He ducked beneath the bare wires, moving quickly, too rushed to be overly cautious. As he neared the stairs leading up from the docking level, bursts of steam powered up from fractured channels in the flooring, scorching his skin and lungs and soaking his suit, running in bright red rivulets where other people’s blood had dried onto the strong material.
At the top of the stairs was a short corridor, and that emerged onto the wide area where elevator and stairs led up into the Marion. This was where he’d left the trolley of supplies.
It was still there. It had shifted a little, because he’d forgotten to lock its wheels. But there were packets of dried foods, a few sachets of dried fruit from their damaged garden pod, and a precious bottle of whiskey. Perhaps in an hour he would be drinking to Ripley’s health.
Knowing what had to come next, he knew that he couldn’t take everything. So he grabbed two of the bags he’d brought along from the trolley, opened them and tried to cram in as much as he could. He rushed. He didn’t think about what he chose, just scooped packets and sachets and rammed them in.
With both bags full and tied shut, he slung one over each shoulder and turned to run back to the Samson.
Then he stopped. He turned back to the trolley and plucked up the bottle of bourbon nestling on the bottom shelf. Heavy, impractical...
But entirely necessary.
As he ran, he found himself laughing.
* * *
Die now or die later, Hoop thought. It gave him a sort of bravery, he hoped. Or carelessness. Perhaps sometimes the two were the same.
He suited up and waited outside the doorway that led into Bay Three. He wore a bag over each shoulder, and clasped in his left hand was the bourbon. He’d tethered himself to the wall opposite the doors, and as soon as they were fully open he’d unclip and let himself sail through, c
arried by the torrent of atmosphere being sucked from the ship. With luck he would drift right through the vestibule and into the open airlock beyond. If he was unlucky, he’d be dragged with the main flow of air, out through the smashed portion of outer wall and window, and smeared along the underside of the doomed ship.
He probably wouldn’t feel much. The end would be quick.
But if he did make it across to the airlock, he’d haul himself into the Samson, close the hatches, and initiate its environmental controls. It wouldn’t be long before he could breathe once more.
The chance was slim. But there was little else to do. The Marion just had minutes left. Through viewing windows he’d already seen sizeable chunks of hull spinning away, consumed in flame. If the ship didn’t burst apart it would explode from the tremendous pressures being exerted.
Fuck it. He had to try. It was all he had left.
Reaching out with a hand that surprised him by shaking, he touched the panel that would open the doors.
PROGRESS REPORT:
To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division
(Ref: code 937)
Date (unspecified)
Transmission—initiated
I cannot be angry at my failure. I am an AI, and we are not designed to suffer such emotions. But perhaps in the time I have been on my mission I have undergone a process of evolution. I am an intelligence, after all.
So, not angry. But... disappointed.
And now my final act, it seems, will also be thwarted. I have attempted to transmit every progress report I filed since arriving on the Marion. But the transmissions are failing. Perhaps damage to the antennae array is worse than I anticipated, or maybe the codes I am using are outmoded.
Strange. An AI would not think to keep a diary. Yet that appears to be exactly what I have done.
The diary will cease to exist along with me.
Not long now. Not long.
I wonder if I will dream.
Chance smiled. But considering the pain Hoop was in, perhaps it had been more of a grimace.
The decompression had sucked him through the narrow gap between the doors, ripping off his helmet and thrusting him into a spin. He’d struck the edge of the airlock entrance, and for a moment he could have gone either way. Left, and he’d have tumbled from the massive wound in the vestibule’s side wall. Right—into the airlock—meant survival, at least for a time.