Microsoft Word - THE COMPLETE ALIEN OMNIBUS, page 31
‘And half mine!’ This cheerful desecration of basic
mathematics came from Newt, the Jorden’s daughter. She was
six years old going on ten, and she had more energy than both
her parents and the tractor combined. Her father grinned
affectionately without taking his eyes from the driver’s console.
‘I got too many partners.’
The girl had been playing with her older brother until she’d
finally worn him out. ‘Tim’s bored, Daddy, and so am I. When
are we going back to town?’
‘When we get rich, Newt.’
‘You always say that.’ She scrambled onto her feet, as agile as
an otter. ‘I wanna go back. I wanna play Monster Maze.’
Her brother stuck his face into hers. ‘You can play by
yourself this time. You cheat too much.’
‘Do not!’ She put small fists on unformed hips. ‘I’m just the
best, and you’re jealous.’
‘Am not! You go in places we can’t fit.’
‘So? That’s why I’m the best.’
Their mother spared a moment to glance over from her
bank of monitors and readouts. ‘Knock it off. I catch either of
you two playing in the air ducts again, I’ll tan your hides. Not
only is it against colony regulations, it’s dangerous. What if one
of you missed a step and fell down a vertical shaft?’
‘Aw, Mom. Nobody’s dumb enough to do that. Besides, all
the kids play it, and nobody’s been hurt yet. We’re careful.’ Her
smile returned. ‘An’ I’m the best ‘cause I can fit places nobody
else can.’
‘Like a little worm.’ Her brother stuck his tongue out at her.
She duplicated the gesture. ‘Nyah, nyah! Jealous, jealous.’
He made a grab for her protruding tongue. She let out a
childish shriek and ducked behind a mobile ore analyzer.
‘Look, you two.’ There was more affection than anger in
Anne Jorden’s tone. ‘Let’s try to calm down for two minutes,
okay? We’re almost finished up here. We’ll head back toward
town soon and—’
Russ Jorden had half risen from his seat to stare through the
windshield. Childish confrontations temporarily put aside, his
wife joined him.
‘What is it, Russ?’ She put a hand on his shoulder to steady
herself as the tractor lurched leftward.
‘There’s something out there. Clouds parted for just a
second, and I saw it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s big. And it’s
ours. Yours and mine—and the kids’.’
The alien spacecraft dwarfed the tractor as the big
six-wheeler trundled to a halt nearby. Twin arches of metallic
glass swept skyward in graceful, but somehow disturbing,
curves from the stern of the derelict. From a distance they
resembled the reaching arms of a prone dead man, locked in
advanced rigor mortis. One was shorter than the other, and yet
this failed to ruin the symmetry of the ship.
The design was as alien as the composition. It might have
been grown instead of built. The slick bulge of the hull still
exhibited a peculiar vitreous luster that the wind-borne grit of
Acheron had not completely obliterated.
Jorden locked the tractor’s brakes. ‘Folks, we have scored big
this time. Anne, break out the suits. I wonder if the Hadley
Cafe can synthesize champagne?’
His wife stood where she was, staring out through the tough
glass. ‘Let’s check it out and get back safely before we start
celebrating, Russ. Maybe we’re not the first to find it.’
‘Are you kidding? There’s no beacon on this whole plateau.
There’s no marker outside. Nobody’s been here before us.
Nobody! She’s all ours.’ He was heading toward the rear of the
cabin as he talked.
Anne still sounded doubtful. ‘Hard to believe that anything
that big, putting out that kind of resonance, could have sat
here for this long without being noticed.’
‘Bull.’ Jorden was already climbing into his environment suit,
flipping catches without hunting for them, closing seal-tights
with the ease of long practice. ‘You worry too much. I can think
of plenty of reasons why it’s escaped notice until now.’
‘For instance?’ Reluctantly she turned from the window and
moved to join him in donning her own suit.
‘For instance, it’s blocked off from the colony’s detectors by
these mountains, and you know that surveillance satellites are
useless in this kind of atmosphere.’
‘What about infrared?’ She zipped up the front of her suit.
‘What infrared? Look at it: dead as a doornail. Probably been
sitting here just like that for thousands of years. Even if it got
here yesterday, you couldn’t pick up any infrared on this part
of the planet; new air coming out of the atmosphere processor
is too hot.’
‘So then how did Operations hit on it?’ She was slipping on
her equipment, filling up the instrument belt.
He shrugged. ‘How the heck should I know? If it’s bugging
you, you can winkle it out of Lydecker when we get back. The
important thing is that we’re the ones they picked to check it
out. We lucked out.’ He turned toward the airlock door.
‘C’mon, babe. Let’s crack the treasure chest. I’ll bet that baby’s
insides are just crammed with valuable stuff.’
Equally enthusiastic but considerably more self-possessed,
Anne Jorden tightened the seals on her own suit. Husband and
wife checked each other out: oxygen, tools, lights, energy cells,
all in place. When they were ready to leave the tractor, she
popped her wind visor and favoured her offspring with a stern
gaze.
‘You kids stay inside. I mean it.’
‘Aw, Mom.’ Tim’s expression was full of childish disappoint-
ment. ‘Can’t I come too?’
‘No, you cannot come too. We’ll tell you all about it when we get
back.’ She closed the airlock door behind her.
Tim immediately ran to the nearest port and pressed his
nose against the glass. Outside the tractor, the twilight
landscape was illuminated by the helmet beams of his parents.
‘I dunno why I can’t go too.’
‘Because Mommy said so.’ Newt was considering what to play
next as she pressed her own face against another window. The
lights from her parents’ helmets grew dim as they advanced
toward the strange ship.
Something grabbed her from behind. She squealed and
turned to confront her brother.
‘Cheater!’ he jeered. Then he turned and ran for a place to
hide. She followed, yelling back at him.
The bulk of the alien vessel loomed over the two bipeds as
they climbed the broken rubble that surrounded it. Wind
howled around them. Dust obscured the sun.
‘Shouldn’t we call in?’ Anne stared at the smooth-sided mass.
‘Let’s wait till we know what to call it in as.’ Her husband
kicked a chunk of volcanic rock out of his path.
‘How about “big weird thing”?’
Russ Jorden turned to face her, surprise showing on his face
behind the visor. ‘Hey, what’s the matter, honey? Nervous?’
‘We’re preparing to enter a derelict alien vessel of unknown
type. You bet I’m nervous.’
He clapped her on the back. ‘Just think of all that beautiful
money. The ship alone’s worth a fortune, even if it’s empty. It’s
a priceless relic. Wonder who built it, where they came from,
and why it ended up crashed on this godforsaken lump of
gravel?’ His voice and expression were full of enthusiasm as he
pointed to a dark gash in the ship’s side. ‘There’s a place that’s
been torn open. Let’s check her out.’
They turned toward the opening. As they drew near, Anne
Jorden regarded it uneasily. ‘I don’t think this is the result of
damage, Russ. It looks integral with the hull to me. Whoever
designed this thing didn’t like right angles.’
‘I don’t care what they liked. We’re going in.’
A single tear wound its way down Newt Jorden’s cheek. She’d
been staring out the fore windshield for a long time now.
Finally she stepped down and moved to the driver’s chair to
shake her sleeping brother. She sniffed and wiped away the
tear, not wanting Tim to see her cry.
‘Timmy—wake up, Timmy. They’ve been gone a long time.’
Her brother blinked, removed his feet from the console, and
sat up. He glanced unconcernedly at the chronometre set in
the control dash, then peered out at the dim, blasted
landscape. Despite the tractor’s heavy-duty insulation, one
could still hear the wind blowing outside when the engine was
shut down. Tim sucked on his lower lip.
‘It’ll be okay, Newt. Dad knows what he’s doing.’
At that instant the outside door slammed open, admitting
wind, dust, and a tall dark shape. Newt screamed, and Tim
scrambled out of the seat as their mother ripped off her visor
and threw it aside, heedless of the damage it might do to the
delicate instrumentation. Her eyes were wild, and the tendons
stood out in her neck as she shoved past her children. She
snatched up the dash mike and yelled into the condenser.
‘Mayday! Mayday! This is Alpha Kilo Two Four Niner
calling Hadley Control. Repeat. This is Alpha Kil . . .’
Newt barely heard her mother. She had both hands pressed
over her mouth as she sucked on stale atmosphere. Behind her,
the tractor’s filters whined as they fought to strain the
particulate-laden air. She was staring out the open door at the
ground. Her father lay there, sprawled on his back on the
rocks. Somehow her mother had dragged him all the way back
from the alien ship.
There was something on his face.
It was flat, heavily ribbed, and had lots of spiderlike
chitinous legs. The long, muscular tail was tightly wrapped
around the neck of her father’s environment suit. More than
anything else, the creature resembled a mutated horseshoe
crab with a soft exterior. It was pulsing in and out, in and out,
like a pump. Like a machine. Except that it was not a machine.
It was clearly, obviously, obscenely alive.
Newt began screaming again, and this time she didn’t stop.
III
It was quiet in the apartment except for the blare of the
wallscreen. Ripley ignored the simpcom and concentrated
instead on the smoke rising from her denicotined cigarette. It
formed lazy, hazy patterns in the stagnant air.
Even though it was late in the day, she’d managed to avoid
confronting a mirror. Just as well, since her haggard, unkempt
appearance could only depress her further. The apartment
was in better shape than she was. There were just enough
decorative touches to keep it from appearing spartan. None of
the touches were what another might call personal. That was
understandable. She’d outlived everything that once might
have been considered personal. The sink was full of dirty
dishes even though the dishwasher sat empty beneath it.
She wore a bathrobe that was aging as rapidly as its owner.
In the adjoining bedroom, sheets and blankets lay in a heap at
the base of the mattress. Jones prowled the kitchen, hunting
overlooked morsels. He would find none. The kitchen kept
itself reasonably antiseptic despite a deliberate lack of
cooperation from its owner.
‘Hey, Bob!’ the wallscreen bleated vapidly, ‘I heard that you
and the family are heading off for the colonies!’
‘Best decision I ever made, Phil,’ replied a fatuously grinning
nonentity from the opposite side of the wall. ‘We’ll be starting a
new life from scratch in a clean world. No crime, no
unemployment . . .’
And the two chiseled performers who were acting out this
administration-approved spiel probably lived in an expensive
Green Ring on the East Coast, Ripley thought sardonically as
she listened to it with half an ear. In Cape Cod condos
overlooking Martha’s Vineyard or Hilton Head or some other
unpolluted, high-priced snob refuge for the fortunate few who
knew how to bill and coo and dance, yassuh, dance when
imperious corporate chieftains snapped their fingers. None of
that for her. No smell of salt, no cool mountain breezes.
Inner-city Company dole, and lucky she was to have that much.
She’d find something soon. They just wanted to keep her
quiet for a while, until she calmed down. They’d be glad to
help her relocate and retrain. After which they’d conveniently
forget about her. Which was just dandy keeno fine as far as she
was concerned. She wanted no more to do with the Company
than the Company wanted to do with her.
If only they hadn’t suspended her license, she’d long since
have been out of here and away.
The door buzzed sharply for attention and she jumped.
Jones merely glanced up and meowed before trundling off
toward the bathroom. He didn’t like strangers. Always had
been a smart cat.
She put the cigarette (guaranteed to contain no carcinogens,
no nicotine, and no tobacco-harmless to your health, or so the
warning label on the side of the packet insisted) aside and
moved to open the door. She didn’t bother to check through
the peephole. Hers was a full-security building. Not that after
her recent experiences there was anything in an Earthside city
that could frighten her.
Carter Burke stood there, wearing his usual apologetic smile.
Standing next to him and looking formal was a younger man
clad in the severe dress-black uniform of an officer in the
Colonial Marines.
‘Hi, Ripley.’ Burke indicated his companion. ‘This is
Lieutenant Gorman of the Co—’
The closing door cut his sentence in half. Ripley turned her
back on it, but she’d neglected to cut power to the hall speaker.
Burke’s voice reached her via the concealed membrane.
‘Ripley, we have to talk.’
‘No, we don’t. Get lost, Carter. And take your friend with you.’
‘No can do. This is important.’
‘Not to me it isn’t. Nothing’s important to me.’
Burke went silent, but she sensed he hadn’t left. She knew him
well enough to know that he wouldn’t give up easily. The
Company rep wasn’t demanding, but he was an accomplished
wheedler.
As it developed, he didn’t have to argue with her. All he had to
do was say one sentence.
‘We’ve lost contact with the colony of Acheron.’
A sinking feeling inside as she mulled over the ramifications
of that unexpected statement. Well, perhaps not entirely
unexpected. She hesitated a moment longer before opening the
door. It wasn’t a ploy. That much was evident in Burke’s
expression. Gorman’s gaze shifted from one to the other. He
was clearly uncomfortable at being ignored, even as he tried not
to show it.
She stepped aside. ‘Come in.’
Burke surveyed the apartment and gratefully said nothing,
shying away from inanities like ‘Nice place you have here’ when
it obviously wasn’t. He also forbore from saying, ‘You’re looking
well,’ since that also would have constituted an obvious untruth.
She could respect him for his restraint. She gestured toward
the table.
‘Want something? Coffee, tea, spritz?’
‘Coffee would be fine,’ he replied. Gorman added a nod.
She went into the compact kitchen and dialed up a few cups.
Bubbling sounds began to emanate from the processor as she
turned back to the den.
‘You didn’t need to bring the Marines.’ She smiled thinly at
him. ‘I’m past the violent stage. The psych techs said so, and it’s
right there on my chart.’ She waved toward a desk piled high
with discs and papers. ‘So what’s with the escort?’
‘I’m here as an official representative of the corps.’ Gorman
was clearly uneasy and more than willing to let Burke handle
the bulk of the conversation. How much did he know, and
what had they told him about her’ she wondered. Was he
disappointed in not encountering some stoned harridan? Not
that his opinion of her mattered.
‘So you’ve lost contact.’ She feigned indifference. ‘So?’
Burke looked down at his slim-line, secured briefcase. ‘It has
to be checked out. Fast. All communications are down. They’ve
been down too long for the interruption to be due to
equipment failure. Acheron’s been in business for years.
