Alien

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “Marlow?”

  The man looked up in surprise. For the first time, he saw Amanda.

  “Who wants to know?” His weary tone belied his attempt at defiance. Putting his hands behind his head, he started to lie down on the bunk.

  “My name’s Ripley.” Then, recalling that she was, strictly speaking, a consultant for Weyland-Yutani, she added, “I’m with the company.”

  “Here for your empty box already, huh?” Elbows bent near his ears, Marlow stared at the ceiling. “You fuckers are keen, I’ll give you that.”

  So he knew there was no data on it.

  “I’m here for personal reasons. My mother was the Nostromo’s warrant officer.”

  “You’re serious?” He looked over at the window again.

  Amanda nodded.

  “Shit. Well—” He sat back up and looked at her. “Shit, I’m sorry. Look, Ripley, is it? We never found the ship, just the flight recorder and some junk they left on LV-426.”

  Amanda blinked. “LV-426?”

  “Yeah, some rock they landed on. We found a bunch of their stuff down there, but no sign of the ship herself.”

  This was new. Nobody’d said anything about the Nostromo going anywhere aside from Neptune and Thedus.

  “Look, Ripley, you wanna know what happened?” Marlow got up from the bunk and walked to the window to look her right in the eyes. “Fine. I wanna get outta here. Maybe we can make a deal?”

  Even if Amanda could have made such a deal, given that the Anesidora brought that alien psychopath here, she wouldn’t have been inclined to let him out of the cell. Except maybe to shoot him in the head.

  “Just start talking,” she said. “I want to know everything.”

  Marlow stared at her.

  She stared back.

  He looked away first. “Fine, I’ll tell you.” Sitting back down on his bunk, he stared at the floor. “It was just supposed to be a regular salvage gig.”

  And then Marlow told her the entire story of the Anesidora finding the flight recorder, of Lewis’s attempts to decode it, the signal from LV-426, their trip there, finding the alien vessel, and the parasite attaching itself to his wife’s face. As he told the story, though, Amanda found herself remembering her first week on Luna…

  Encrypted Transmission

  From: Alistair Smythe, Director of Synthetic Development, Seegson

  To: Kenry Ransome, Chief Executive Officer, Seegson

  Date: January 24, 2136

  RE: Development of New Synthetics based on Weyland-Yutani models

  Just received schematics for the 120-A/8. I don’t know how much we paid our mole, but the board is going to need to shell out a hell of a lot more. I know this seems like old tech for WY, but it’s way beyond anything we’re capable of.

  Look, Ken, I know you don’t want to hear this, but we need investment, and you need to talk the board into it. WY and all its subsidiaries are light-years ahead of us. This isn’t a race we can afford to lose.

  This message and any attachments are confidential, privileged and protected. If you are not the intended recipient, dissemination or copying of this message is prohibited. If you have received this in error, please notify the sender by replying and then delete the message completely from your system.

  20

  TRANQUILITY BASE, LUNA

  MAY 2132

  “You wanted to see me?” Amanda Ripley asked her supervisor.

  Flora Mendez was seated behind the small desk in her office. She ran an emergency repair business, and had hired Amanda as a technical assistant. This mostly meant that her job was to help carry the equipment and hand tools to the repair techs.

  Looking up from her Pad, Mendez said, “No, I don’t want to see you, but I have to talk to you, so I’m kind of stuck.”

  Amanda took a seat on the little stool that served as a guest chair. “Did Cisternino complain about me again?”

  “So you know you’re being insubordinate?” Mendez scowled. “That certainly simplifies things.”

  “I’m not being insubordinate,” Amanda said. “He keeps asking for the wrong tool. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Cisternino is the repair tech, so he gets to say what’s the right tool,” Mendez said. “He’s the third repair tech you’ve pissed off, and you’ve only been here a month.”

  “Just let me go out on repairs myself, then. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Funny you should say that.” Mendez leaned forward and folded her hands on the one empty spot on her desk. “I was thinking about promoting you to tech, especially since Cisternino also quit.”

  “He quit?”

  “What can I do—he found a better job.” Mendez swiped her finger across the Pad screen. “I thought I’d finally shut you and my techs up, and just make you a tech. Then you’ll stop pissing everybody off. So I did a background check.”

  Amanda frowned. “Wait, you didn’t run one on me before?”

  “I stopped doing that at the assistant level, because most of them were people running away from something Earthside, and they almost all had something in their past I don’t want to know about. But techs I need full background on, so I ran you.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Amanda folded her arms defiantly. “I’m only twenty-one, I haven’t done anything.”

  “That’s not really true. You had family on the Nostromo.”

  “Yeah, my mother went missing with the rest of the crew. So what? Like I said, I haven’t done anything that would turn up in a background check.” There had been, of course, a few incidents in her childhood, but Weyland-Yutani had purged those records.

  “No,” Mendez said, “but your stepfather has.”

  “Fuck.” Amanda let out a long breath that was part snarl. “Look, I can’t help what my stepfather did, and why should it fucking matter anyhow?”

  “It speaks to character.”

  “What does his character have to do with me?”

  Mendez glanced at her Pad. “According to the records, Paul Carter has been a guest of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for two years now, and will continue to be so for another two, unless he manages parole.”

  “He won’t,” Amanda said. “He thinks parole boards are made up of morons, and he has a tendency to tell them that.”

  “More bad character.” Mendez shook her head and had a slightly amazed expression on her face. “I gotta say, Ripley, I had no idea the Mounties still existed.”

  Amanda nodded. “They handle everything north of the 49th parallel that isn’t in a city, including Anmore, which is northeast of Vancouver. They also hate being called Mounties. My stepfather found that out the hard way.”

  “They put him in prison for calling them Mounties?”

  “No, they put him in prison for punching a couple of them in the face. Which was after they asked him not to call them Mounties. My stepfather didn’t listen.”

  “Because he was drunk?”

  “Well, that was the excuse.” Amanda shrugged. “Listening to other people has never been his strong suit. Anyhow, that happened the night I turned eighteen, and he was getting drunk because he was worried that he’d have to actually find a job. He hurt his back when I was sixteen, and I had to quit school so we wouldn’t starve to death.”

  Mendez rubbed her chin and nodded. “But once you turned eighteen, you wouldn’t have to live with him anymore.”

  “Nope.” Amanda shook her head. “And I didn’t. They arrested him at his apartment, and I couldn’t even get into it because it was technically a crime scene. So I left and never looked back. So congratulations, you now know my sordid family history.”

  “Some of it.” Mendez looked back down at the Pad. “There’s also the computer time you’ve been logging.”

  Amanda stood up, outraged. “How the hell is that your business?”

  “It isn’t, if you’re just an assistant. But like I said, I was looking into making you a repair tech, and I’m wondering what exactly you’re digging arou
nd for.”

  “I still don’t see how that’s your business,” Amanda said, “unless you’re actually going to make me a tech.”

  “Well, I can’t do that, unfortunately.” Mendez winced. “I’m sorry, Ripley, but you’re a tech school dropout. You’re lucky to have the assistant job.”

  “Great.” Amanda sat back down and stared at the floor.

  “Look, Ripley, if it was up to me, I’d hire you on the spot. Cisternino isn’t the only one who quit, I lost Jablonski, as well.”

  “It is up to you. You’re the boss.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Mendez shook her head. “Remember Anzovin?”

  Amanda frowned, then placed the name. “She left right after I started.”

  “She didn’t leave. I had to fire her, because she didn’t have proper certifications, and those assholes at Weyland-Yutani threatened to sue us if we didn’t fire her—and refund the fee. Took a huge hit on that.”

  “Fine, whatever. Are you promoting me or not?” Amanda asked, even though she knew the answer. She wanted to hear Mendez say the words.

  “Not, I’m afraid.” She spoke up again before Amanda could reply. “However—there’s something I can do to help you.”

  “Really?” Amanda said sarcastically. She was having trouble buying it, but she had nothing to lose at this point.

  “I’m guessing that the computer time you’ve been logging is to find out things about the Nostromo.”

  Amanda sighed. “My mother’s been missing for a decade now, and I’d really like to fucking find her.”

  Mendez smiled. Amanda had never seen Flora Mendez smile, and it wasn’t a particularly pleasant expression. It didn’t look as if it belonged on her face.

  “I don’t have anything for you right now, about the Nostromo, but—well, let’s just say that doing emergency repairs means data tends to come our way. I can keep an eye out for you, let you know if anything Nostromo-related turns up.”

  If this was Mendez’s way of making up for not promoting her, it was a terrible one. Amanda had found plenty of “anything Nostromo-related” over the last ten years, and all it got her was being conned out of money, or being given information she already had or didn’t need or couldn’t use.

  Still, it was better than nothing.

  “Fine. Can I go now?”

  “You’re gonna be paired with Jin going forward.”

  “Whatever.”

  * * *

  Pairing with Anh Jin turned out not to be as bad as the others, because Jin actually accepted Amanda’s recommendations. This lasted a month, but then one day, Amanda got a note that they had to repair a Lune Buggy.

  Jin never showed.

  Amanda went ahead and fixed it herself.

  The Lune Buggies were owned and operated by Jiaoyang Enterprises, which was a fancy name for Jiao Yang and her three employees, who rented all-terrain vehicles to people doing work on the moon’s surface outside the protective dome of Tranquility Base. Yang herself was present when Amanda did the work.

  “Thanks for this,” she said to Amanda when she was finished. “You new?”

  “Kind of.”

  “You’ll send the bill as usual?”

  “Um, yeah,” Amanda said hesitantly. She had no idea, truly, as she’d never been involved in the paperwork part. So when she returned to the office, she went straight to Mendez.

  “Where’s Jin?” the boss asked, looking up from her Pad.

  “No idea,” Amanda replied. “She didn’t show up. I tried calling her, but no answer, and the voicemail was shut off.”

  “Great.” Mendez sighed. “I’ll look into it. What’d you tell Jiao?”

  “I told her you’d send the bill like usual, after I fixed the Lune Buggy.”

  “You what?” Mendez sighed. “I told you—” She shook her head. “Never mind. Jiao’ll be fine. She doesn’t give a shit as long as the work gets done. But you can’t make a habit of that.” She turned to her computer terminal and started typing. “Okay, I sent an invoice.”

  “I don’t suppose I get paid more for this one?”

  “Actually, I’m glad you’re here, Ripley,” Mendez said, “because I wanted to show you something.”

  Amanda frowned slightly, but didn’t say anything.

  “I have a contact who makes recordings of flight recorders,” Mendez continued. “That stuff is usually covered up, or classified, or considered ‘proprietary information’ or some other bullshit. I talked to him about you, and he said he could get his hands on the Nostromo’s flight recorder.”

  Eyes widening, Amanda leaned forward. “They have the flight recorder?”

  “According to my guy, Weyland-Yutani found it years ago, but they pulled that proprietary information bullshit and wouldn’t tell anyone. According to my contact, none of the crew’s families have been told about this.”

  “Okay.” Amanda was dubious, but didn’t say that aloud.

  “Here’s the problem,” Mendez said. “My guy paid a lot of money to get this. So he’ll need a payment before he’ll release it.”

  Amanda liked the sound of this less and less. “I don’t have much money to spare. My, uh, my portfolio is kind of tied up in food and shelter.”

  “We can work something out here,” the boss said. “Maybe garnishing your wages, or something.”

  “I don’t even know that this is legit,” Amanda said.

  “I know, but luckily, my guy had a make-good. He said he had the next best thing, and that he’d let you have it for less—a copy of the flight recorder for the Sotillo from when your mother served on it as WO.”

  That brought Amanda up short. “Really?”

  “If you want, I’ll have him send it over, so you can see that he’s legit. Then we can talk about the Nostromo.”

  “How much does he want for the Sotillo’s recorder?”

  Mendez replied with a number that was exactly the amount she got paid for a job as an assistant. “If you want, I’ll just use your Lune Buggy payment to cover that, and I’ll have the Sotillo’s recorder for you tonight.”

  Something about this didn’t feel right. Amanda had walked into the office hoping to be able to talk Mendez into paying her what Jin would’ve gotten. Now she was walking out with nothing.

  No, not nothing. If it came down the way Mendez described it, tonight she’d get to see her mother. Even if it was a fifteen-year-old recording, it was still Mom. That would be worth losing a day’s wages.

  “Okay, deal,” she said.

  “Good,” Mendez replied. “I’ll call you when the copy comes in. My guy doesn’t zip anything—it’s all on separate storage.”

  “Thank you,” Amanda said as she got to her feet. She wasn’t sure she meant it, but it seemed like something she had to say. “I’ll see you later.”

  * * *

  The only housing Amanda could afford was at BunkMate. They owned an entire corner of Tranquility filled with seven-foot by three-foot by five-foot holes in the wall to sleep in. Each one came with a vid, and a storage unit underneath. She had use of a large bathroom that she shared with everyone else on the floor.

  She’d spent the day doing some research, then returned to Mendez’s office, where her boss had given her an AJR-93 data disc. These were encrypted and couldn’t be copied or altered in any way except by the original user. That, at least, spoke to it being genuine.

  Lying in her bunk, she plugged the disc into her vid and got a menu of options. There were logs recorded by Captain José Rosendo. For several seconds, she stared at the menu.

  Where the fuck do I start? She recalled a line from Alice in Wonderland that said, “Begin at the beginning.” But she didn’t have the patience to go through a boring set-up tutorial. Then she noticed a sub-folder.

  MUTINY

  That piqued her curiosity, and settled the “where-to-start” problem. Her mother had never mentioned a mutiny on the Sotillo, but then again, Amanda would have been only six or seven when it occurred. Mom had ne
ver mentioned the terrorist attack when she was at OTS, either.

  The folder had several files, but one was labelled INTRO, so she started with that. A pleasant face with a mustache appeared on the screen.

  “This is José Rosendo, CO of the USCSS Sotillo,” the face said. “The files in this folder have been segregated on the chance that they’ll be needed for evidence against Engineer Kahananui and Engineer Go for their attempt at mutiny.”

  Wow. Other files included reports by Rosendo, both of the engineers, the XO Asano Standing, and also one by Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley.

  Amanda opened that one first.

  STATEMENT BY WARRANT OFFICER E. RIPLEY W/R/T ATTEMPTED MUTINY BY SHIP’S ENGINEER K. KAHANANUI AND ENGINEER’S ASSISTANT M. GO

  For the first time in over a decade, what Mom said on that last transmission made sense. She’d mentioned one of the engineers on the Nostromo, Parker, and how he was always complaining.

  “It’s KK and Go all over again,” she had said. Amanda had had no idea who KK and Go were, but now she was starting to get the picture.

  Then she saw Mom’s face.

  21

  TRANQUILITY BASE, LUNA

  MAY 2132

  Pouncing on the pause button, Amanda just stared at the frozen image of her mother, her mouth slightly open, her curly hair hanging loose about her shoulders.

  I miss you so much.

  She’d tried so hard to tamp down the memories for fear they’d overwhelm her, but they came flooding back. Going to the zoo. Watching vids while snuggled up on the couch. Reading books together. Eating together.

  Amanda palmed the tears from her face and then started the playback again.

  “I didn’t really notice at first that KK and Go—sorry, Engineer Kahananui and Assistant Engineer Go—were dissatisfied. They complained about the state of the engines, but every ship’s engineer I’ve ever met complained about the state of the engines of whatever boat they were assigned to. I always assumed it to be one of the unwritten rules of space travel.”

  That got a chuckle out of Amanda. Not only space travel, Mom, dirtbound engineers are just as bitchy.