Alien - 3

V

Later Clemens showed her the assembly hall, pointing out inconsequential he thought she might find of interest.

Eventually they sat, alone in the spacious room. Prisoner Martin quietly swept up nearby.

‘How much of the story of this place do you know?’

‘What you’ve told me. What Andrews said. A little that I heard from some of the prisoners.’

‘Yeah, I saw you talking to Dillon.’ He poured himself a short whiskey from the metal flask he carried. The distant ceiling loomed above them, four stories high.

‘It’s pretty interesting, from a psychosocial point of view.

Dillon and the rest of them got religion, so to speak, about five years ago.’

‘What kind of religion?’

Clemens sipped at his liquor. ‘I don’t know. Hard to say.

Some sort of millenarian apocalyptic Christian fundamentalist brew.’

‘Ummmm.’

‘Exactly. The point is that when the Company wanted to close down this facility, Dillon and the rest of the converts wanted to stay. The Company knows a good thing when it sees it. So they were allowed to remain as custodians, with two minders and a medical officer.’ He gestured at the deserted assembly hall. ‘And here we are.

‘It’s not so bad. Nobody checks on us, nobody bothers us.

Regular supply drops from passing ships take care of the essentials. Anything we can scavenge we’re allowed to make use of, and the company pays the men minimal caretaker wages while they do their time, which is a damn sight better than what a prisoner earns doing prison work Earthside.

‘For comfort the men have view-and-read chips and their private religion. There’s plenty to eat, even if it does tend to get monotonous; the water’s decent, and so long as you shave regular, the bugs don’t bother you. There are few inimical native life-forms and they can’t get into the installation. If the weather was better, it would almost be pleasant.’

She looked thoughtful as she sipped at her drink. ‘What about you? How did you happen to get this great assignment?’

He held his cup between his fingers, twirling it back and forth, side to side. ‘I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but it’s actually much nicer than my previous posting. I like being left alone. I like being ignored. This is a good place for that.

Unless somebody needs attention or gets hurt, which happens a lot less than you might think, my time here is pretty much my own. I can sit and read, watch a viewer, explore the complex, or go into a holding room and scream my head off.’ He smiled winningly. ‘It’s a helluva lot better than having some sadistic guard or whiny prisoner always on your case.’ He gestured at her bald pate.

‘How do you like your haircut?’

She ran her fingers delicately across her naked skull. ‘Feels weird. Like the hair’s still there but when you reach for it, there’s nothing.’

He nodded. ‘Like someone who’s lost a leg and thinks he can still feel his foot. The body’s a funny thing, and the mind’s a heck of a lot funnier.’ He drained his glass, looked into her eyes.

‘Now that I’ve gone out on a limb for you with Andrews over the cremation, damaging my already less than perfect relationship with the good man, and briefed you on the humdrum history of Fury 161, how about you telling me what you were looking for in that dead girl? And why was it necessary to cremate the bodies?’ She started to reply and he raised his hand, palm toward her.

‘Please, no more about nasty germs. Andrews was right. Cold storage would have been enough to render them harmless. But that wasn’t good enough for you. I want to know why.’

She nodded, set her cup aside, and turned back to him. ‘First I have to know something else.’

He shrugged. ‘Name it.’

‘Are you attracted to me?’

His gaze narrowed. As he was wondering how to respond, he heard his own voice answering, as though his lips and tongue had abruptly chosen to operate independent of his brain.

Which was not, he reflected in mild astonishment, necessarily a bad thing.

‘In what way?’

‘In that way.’

The universe, it appeared, was still full of wonders, even if Fiorina’s perpetual cloud cover tended to obscure them. ‘You are rather direct. Speaking to someone afflicted with a penchant for solitude, as I have already mentioned, I find that more than a little disconcerting.’

‘Sorry. It’s the only way I know how to be. I’ve been out here a long time.’

‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘So have I.’

‘I don’t have time for subterfuges. I don’t have time for much of anything except what’s really important. I’ve had to learn that.’

He refilled both cups, picked up his own, and swirled the contents, studying the uninformative eddies which appeared in the liquid.

The fan blades were each twice the size of a man. They had to be, to suck air from the surface and draw it down into the condensers which scrubbed, cleaned, and purified Fiorina’s dusty atmosphere before pumping the result into shafts and structures. Even so, they were imperfect. Fiorina’s atmosphere was simply too dirty.

There were ten fans, one to a shaft. Eight were silent. The remaining pair roared at half speed, supplying air to the installation’s western quadrant.

Murphy sang through the respiratory mask that covered his nose and mouth, filtering out surface particles before they were drawn off by the fan. Carbon deposits tended to accumulate on the ductway walls. He burned them off with his laser, watched as the fan sucked them away from his feet and into the filters. It wasn’t the best job to have, nor the worst. He took his time and did the best he could. Not because he gave a damn or anticipated the imminent arrival of Company inspectors, but because when he finished with the ducts they’d give him something else to do. Might as well go about the cleaning as thoroughly as possible so it would kill as much time as possible.

He was off tune but enthusiastic.

Abruptly he stopped singing. A large deposit had accumulated in the recess off to his left. Damn storage areas were like that, always catching large debris that the surface filters missed. He knelt and extended the handle of the push broom, winkling the object out. It moved freely, not at all like a clump of mucky carbon.

It was flat and flexible. At first he thought it was an old uniform, but when he had it out in the main duct he saw that it was some kind of animal skin. It was dark and shiny, more like metal foil than flesh. Funny stuff.

Stretching it out on the floor he saw that it was big enough to enclose two men, or a young calf. What the hell. .?

Then he knew. There were a few large native animals on Fiorina; poor, dirt-hugging primitive things with feeble nervous systems and slow response times. Obviously one had somehow stumbled into an air intake and, unable to get out again, had perished for lack of food and water. It couldn’t use the ladders, and the roaring fan constituted an impenetrable barrier. He poked at the empty skin. This desiccated husk was all that remained of the unfortunate visitor. No telling how long it had lain in the recess, ignored and unnoticed.

The skin looked awfully fresh to have contained an old, long since dried out corpse. The bugs, he reminded himself. The bugs would make short work of any flesh that came their way.

It was interesting. He hadn’t known that the bugs would eat bone.

Or maybe there’d been no bones to dispose of. Maybe it had been a. . what was the word? An invertebrate, yeah.

Something without bones. Wasn’t Fiorina home to those too?

He’d have to look it up, or better yet, ask Clemens. The medic would know. He’d bundle the skin up and take it to the infirmary. Maybe he’d made a discovery of some kind, found the skin of a new type of animal. It would look good on his record.

Meanwhile he wasn’t getting any work done.

Turning, he burned off a couple of deposits clinging to the lower right-hand curve of the duct. That’s when he heard the noise. Frowning, he shut off the laser and flicked on the safety as he turned to look behind him. He’d about decided that his imagination was starting to get to him when he heard it again -

a kind of wet, lapping sound.

There was a slightly larger recess a few metres down the duct, a sometime storage area for supplies and tools. It should be empty now, cleaned out, the supplies stocked elsewhere and the tools salvaged by the departing maintenance personnel.

But the gurgling noise grew louder the nearer he crept.

He had to bend to see inside. Wishing he had a light, he squinted in the reflected glow from the duct. There was something moving, an indistinct bulk in the darkness. The creature that had shed its skin? If so and he could bring it out alive he was sure to receive an official Company commendation.

Maybe his unanticipated contribution to the moribund state of Fiorinan science would be worth a couple of months off his sentence.

His eyes grew accustomed to the weak illumination. He could see it more clearly now, make out a head on a neck. It sensed his presence and turned toward him.

He froze, unable to move. His eyes widened.

Liquid emerged suddenly in a tight, concentrated stream from the unformed monster’s mouth, striking the paralyzed prisoner square in the face. Gas hissed as flesh melted on contact with the highly caustic fluid. Murphy stumbled backward, screaming and clawing at his disintegrating face.

Smoke pouring through his clutching fingers, he staggered away from the recess, bouncing off first one wall then the other.

He had no thought of where he was going, or where he was. He thought of nothing save the pain. He did not think of the fan.

When he stumbled into the huge blades they shredded him instantly, sending blood and ragged chunks of flesh splattering against the metalwork of the duct. It would have taken some time for his erstwhile friends to have found him if his skull hadn’t been caught just right between one blade and the casing.

Fouled, the safeties took over and shut down the mechanism.

The motor stopped and the blades ground to a halt. Down the main corridor a previously quiet fan automatically picked up the slack.

Then it was quiet again in the side shaft except for the distant, barely audible noise which emerged from the old storage recess, a perverse mewling hiss there was no longer anyone present to overhear.

Clemens’s quarters were luxurious compared to those of the other prisoners. He had more space and, as the facility’s medical technician, access to certain amenities denied his fellow Fiorinans. But the room was comfortable only by comparison. It would not have passed muster on the most isolated outpost on Earth.

Still, he was aware of his unique position, and as grateful as he could be under the circumstances. Recently those circumstances had become a great deal better than normal.

Ripley shifted beneath the bedsheets of the cot, stretching and blinking at the ceiling. Clemens stood across the floor, near the built-ins. A narcostick smoked between his lips as he poured something dark and potent from a canister into a glass.

For the first time she saw him with his official cowl down. The imprinted code on the back of his shaven skull was clearly visible.

Turning, he saw her looking at him and gestured with the container.

‘Sorry I can’t offer you a drink, but you’re on medication.’

She squinted. ‘What is it this time?’

‘It would surprise you.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve already surprised me.’

‘Thanks.’ He held the glass up to the light. ‘The medical instrumentation the Company left behind is rudimentary, but sophisticated enough in its way. Since we can’t always rely on supply drops I have to be able to synthesize quite a range of medications. The program that synthesizes rubbing alcohol doesn’t take much adjusting to turn out something considerably more palatable.’ He sipped at the contents of the glass, looking pleased with himself.

‘A small hobby, but a rewarding one.’

‘Does Andrews know?’ she asked him.

‘I don’t think so. I sure as hell haven’t told him. If he knew, he’d order me to stop. Say it was bad for morale and dangerous if the other men knew I could do it. I couldn’t disagree with him there. But until he does find out, I’ll go on happily rearranging ethyl molecules and their stimulating relations to suit my own personal needs.’ He held the canister over an open tumbler. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll save you some. For later.’

‘That’s thoughtful of you’?

‘Don’t mention it. When I was in school recombinant synthetic chemistry was one of my better subjects.’ He hesitated. ‘Speaking of thoughtfulness, while I am deeply appreciative of your attentions, I also realize that they manifested themselves at just the right moment to deflect my last question. In the best possible way, of course. I wouldn’t want you to think for a minute that I’d have had it any other way. But the damn thing has a grip on me and won’t let loose.’

She stared up at him, his glass held delicately in one hand.

‘You’re spoiling the mood.’

‘That’s not my intention. But I’m still a medical officer and one does have a job to do, and frankly, the more effort you put into avoiding the issue, the more curious I am to find out why.

What were you looking for in the girl? Why were you so insistent on having the bodies cremated?’

‘I get it. Now that I’m in your bed, you think I owe you an answer.’

He replied patiently. ‘Trying to get me mad isn’t going to work either. No, you owe me an answer because it’s my job to get one and because I stuck my neck out for you to give you what you wanted. Being in my bed has nothing to do with it.’

He smiled thinly. ‘Your nonresponsiveness in this matter is likely to complicate our future relationship no end.’

She sighed resignedly and turned onto her side. ‘It’s really nothing. Can’t we just leave it at that? When I was in deep sleep I had a real bad dream.’ She shut her eyes against the gruesome memory. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just had to be sure what killed her.’

She looked back up at the medic. ‘You have no idea what my recent life has been like or what I’ve been through. It would make your wildest nightmares seem like the fuzzy musings of an innocent five-year-old. I know that I’ll never forget any of it.

Never! But that doesn’t keep me from trying. So if I seem a little irrational or unreasonably insistent about certain things, try to indulge me. Believe me, I need that. I need someone to be concerned about me for a change. As far as Newt. . as far as the girl is concerned, I made a mistake.’

His thumb caressed the side of the small glass he held as he nodded slowly, tight-lipped and understanding. ‘Yes, possibly.’

She continued to stare at him. ‘Maybe I’ve made another mistake.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Fraternizing with the prisoners. Physical contact. That’s against the rules, isn’t it?’

‘Definitely. Who was the lucky fellow?’

‘You, dummy.’

Clemens eyed her uncertainly. ‘I’m not a prisoner.’

She gestured. ‘Then what about the code on the back of your head?’

His hand went reflexively to the back of his skull. ‘I suppose that does demand an explanation. But I don’t think this is the moment for it. Sorry. We are rather spoiling things, aren’t we?’

The intercom buzzed for attention. He looked apologetic as he moved to acknowledge the call.

‘Got to respond. I’m not allowed the luxury of refusing calls.

This isn’t Sorbonne Centrale.’ He flicked on the two-way. A thin, poorly reproduced voice filtered through.

‘Clemens?’

The medic shot her a resigned look. ‘Yes, Mr. Aaron.’

‘Andrews wants you to report to Vent Shaft Seventeen in the Second Quadrant. ASAP. We’ve had an accident.’

Suddenly involved, he turned to make certain the omnidirectional mike built into the unit got a good dose of his reply.

‘Something serious?’

‘Yeah, you could call it that,’ the assistant told him. ‘One of the prisoners on work detail got diced.’ The unit clicked off abruptly.

‘Damn.’ Clemens drained his glass and set it down on the console, turning back to his guest. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.

Official duties.’

Ripley tensed slightly, fingering the glass. ‘I was just starting to enjoy the conversation. As opposed to other things.’

‘How do you think I feel?’ he muttered as he popped a closet and began removing clothes.

‘Maybe I should come along.’

He glanced back at her. ‘Better that you don’t. It’s one thing if I’m seen as treating you as part of my regular rounds. If everyone starts noticing us together all the time with you looking decidedly healthy, it might inspire questions. And talk. Among these guys, the less talk the better.’

‘I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand.’

He stepped into work trousers. ‘Those are the two things you have to do to survive on Fiorina. Also, I don’t think your presence would be appreciated by Superintendent Andrews.

Wait here and take it easy.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ll be back.’

She said nothing further, looking distinctly unhappy.

There wasn’t much to examine. Hell, Clemens thought as he surveyed the carnage inside the air duct, there wasn’t much to bury. Cause of death was a foregone conclusion. There were as many stains on the motionless fan as on the walls.

It didn’t make a lot of sense. Men regularly stepped on or brushed against ragged metal edges and cut themselves, or fell off catwalks, or injured themselves trying to body surf in the choppy bay, but they knew intimately the potential dangers of the mothballed mine and studiously avoided them. The giant fan was a threat impossible to dismiss or overlook.

Which didn’t necessarily mean the unfortunate and now deceased Murphy was innocent of fooling around. He could have been running, or sliding on the slick ductwork, or just teasing the blades with his broom. He must have slipped, or had part of his clothing caught up in the works. They’d never know, of course. No reason to assign two men to duct cleaning duty.

Murphy had been working alone.

Aaron was evidently of similar mind. The assistant was staring grimly at the fan. ‘He was a nutter. I gave him the assignment. I should’ve known better, should’ve sent somebody else, or at least paired him up with someone a little more stable.’ Behind them prisoner Jude continued to mop up.

Andrews was quietly furious. Not because Murphy was dead, but because of the circumstances. They would not reflect favourably on him. Besides which it would mean more paperwork.

‘No apologies, Mr. Aaron. It wasn’t your fault. From the look of it, it wasn’t anybody’s fault except perhaps Mr. Murphy’s, and he paid for it.’ He looked to his medic. ‘Your observations, Mr.

Clemens?’

The tech shrugged. ‘Not really much to say, is there? Cause of death is unarguably obvious. I doubt he felt any discomfort. I’m sure it was instantaneous.’

‘No shit.’ Aaron surveyed the widely scattered human debris with unconcealed distaste.

‘I am trying to concoct a scenario,’ the superintendant continued. ‘For the report, you understand. I find it difficult to believe that he simply stumbled into so blatant a danger, one in whose proximity he had spent some time working. Perhaps he was pulled in?’

Clemens pursed his lips. ‘Possible. I’m neither physicist nor mechanic—’

‘None of us are, Mr. Clemens,’ Andrews reminded him. ‘I am not asking you to render judgment, but simply to offer your opinion on the matter.’

The medic nodded. ‘A sudden rush of air might do it, I would imagine. Power surge resulting in exceptional suction. Only—’

‘Right,’ Aaron said quickly. ‘Almost happened to me once, in the main quadrant. Four years ago. I always tell people, keep an eye out for the fans. They’re so damn big and solid and steady, you don’t think of the unexpected happening in their vicinity.’

He shook his head steadily. ‘Doesn’t matter how much I talk.

Nobody listens.’

‘That’s fine,’ Clemens agreed, ‘except that before I came down I checked the programming, and the fan was blowing. A power surge should’ve sent him spinning up the duct, not flying into the blades.’

Aaron’s gaze narrowed, then he shrugged mentally. Let the superintendent and the medic work it out. It was their responsibility. Meant nothing to him. He’d offered his reasoning, done the best he could. He was sorry for Murphy, but what the hell.

Accidents happened.

Clemens strolled up the duct tunnel, studying the walls. The bloodstains diminished gradually.

There was a large recess in the left side of the tunnel and he knelt to peer inside. It was a typical ancillary storage chamber, long since cleaned out. As he started to rise and move on, something caught his eye and caused him to hesitate.

It looked like a spill. Not blood. Some kind of chemical discolouration. The normally smooth metal surface was badly pitted.

Andrews had moved up silently to stand nearby. Now he joined the medic in studying the recess. ‘What’s that?’

Clemens straightened. ‘I really don’t know. I just thought it looked funny. Probably been like that ever since the ductwork was installed.’ His indifference was somewhat forced and the superintendent picked up on it immediately, pinning the medic with his gaze. Clemens looked away.

‘I want to see you in my quarters in, say, thirty minutes,’ he said evenly. ‘If you please, Mr. Clemens.’

He turned toward the rest of the search party, which was busy gathering up the remains of the dead man. ‘Right. This isn’t where I want to spend the rest of my day. Let’s finish up and get out so Mr. Troy can restart the unit and we can all get back to normal.’ He began shepherding the men toward the exit.

Clemens lingered. As soon as he was certain Andrews was fully occupied with concluding the grisly cleanup, the medic returned to his examination of the damaged metal.

It was quiet as a tomb inside the EEV. Shattered consoles clung like pinned arachnids to the walls. Equipment lay where it had fallen from braces or spilled from cabinets. The pilot’s chair swung at an angle on its support shaft, like a drunken glove.

A single light illuminated the chaotic interior. Ripley was working inside the burst bulkhead, alternating the laser cutter with less intrusive tools. A protective composite plate peeled away reluctantly to reveal a sealed panel beneath. Gratified, she went to work on the panel clips, using a special tool to remove them one at a time. The panel itself was clearly labelled.

FLIGHT RECORDER

DO NOT BREAK SEAL

OFFICIAL AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED ISA 445

As soon as the last clip was snapped off she removed the panel and set it aside. Beneath, a smooth-surfaced black box sat snug inside a double-walled, specially cushioned compartment.

The compartment was dry and clean, with no lingering smell or dampness to suggest that it had been violated by the intrusive salt water of the bay.

The latch on the side released smoothly and the box face slid aside, revealing readouts and flush-mounted buttons beneath the protective shield. She thumbed one and several telltales lit up instantly. Touching it again, she watched as they shut down.

The box slipped freely out of its compartment. She set it gently on the deck, next to the light, and let her gaze once more rove the devastated interior of the emergency vehicle, trying to remember, trying to forget.

Something moved behind her, scrabbling against the torn and broken superstructure. She whirled, panicky, as her eyes detected movement in the darkness.

‘Damn!’ she cried, slumping. ‘You trying to scare the life out of me?’

Clemens paused in the cramped entrance, an incongruously boyish grin on his face. ‘Sorry, but the doorbell isn’t working.’

Straining, he stepped into the chamber. ‘You know, wandering about without an escort is really going to piss Superintendent Andrews off. Whatever you’re up to, putting yourself on his bad side isn’t going to help.’

‘Screw him. What about the accident?’ Her tone was intent, her expression earnest.

‘Very bad, I’m afraid.’ He leaned against some dangling wiring, backed off hastily when it threatened to come down around him. ‘One of the prisoners has been killed.’

She looked concerned. ‘How?’

‘It wasn’t pretty. Sure you want to know?’

She made a small noise. ‘If you’re worried about me fainting on you, you’ve got the wrong lady.’

‘I thought as much. Just giving you the option. It happened in one of the operational air shafts.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘Poor silly bastard backed into a working two-metre high-speed fan. Splattered him all over the place. We had to scrape him off the walls.’

‘I get the picture. It happens.’

‘Not here it doesn’t. Andrews is ticked. It means he has to file a report.’

‘By communications beam?’

‘No. No need for the expense. I imagine it’ll go out with the next ship.’

‘Then what’s he worried about? Nobody’ll read it for months.’

‘You’d have to know the superintendent to understand. He takes everything personal.’

‘Too bad for him, especially considering his current employment.’

Clemens nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘I found something at the accident site, just a bit away from where it happened. A mark, a burn on the floor. Discoloured, blistered metal. It looked a lot like what you found on the girl’s cryotube.’

She just stared at him, her gaze unblinking, uninformative, her expression unfathomable.

‘Look, I’m on your side,’ the medic insisted when she remained silent. ‘Whatever it is you’re involved in or trying to do, I want to help. But I’d like to know what’s going on, or at least what you think is going on. Otherwise I’m not going to be able to be of much use to you. Maybe you can do whatever it is you’re trying to do alone. I can’t make you talk to me. I just think that I can help, make it easier for you. I have access to equipment. You don’t. I have some knowledge that you don’t. I won’t interfere and I’ll rely entirely on your judgment. I have to, since I don’t have a clue as to what you’re up to.’

She paused, considering, while he watched her hopefully. ‘I hardly know you. Why should I trust you?’

He forced himself to ignore the hurt, knowing there was nothing personal in the query. ‘No reason. Only that without somebody’s help it’s going to be hard for you, whatever it is you’re trying to do. I hardly know you, either, but I’m willing to follow your lead.’

‘Why? Why should you? By your own admission you don’t have any idea what’s going on, what’s at stake.’

He smiled encouragingly. ‘Maybe I think I know you a little better than you think you know me.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Is that a hindrance to what you’re doing?’

She smiled in spite of herself. ‘Probably just the opposite. All right.’ She slid the black box out where he could see it clearly. ‘I need to know what happened here in the EEV, why we were ejected from our ship while still in deep sleep. If you really want to be helpful, find me a computer with audio and sensory interpretation capabilities so I can access this flight recorder.’

Clemens looked doubtful. ‘We don’t have anything like that here. The Company salvaged all the sophisticated cybernetics.

Everything they left us is either basic program and response or strictly ROM.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘I imagine they didn’t want a bunch of dumb prisoners messing with their expensive machinery.’

’What about Bishop?’

‘Bishop?’ He frowned.

‘The droid that crashed with me.?’

He was checked and discarded as useless.’

’Let me be the judge of that.’ A note of concern entered her voice. ‘His components haven’t been cannibalized or compacted, have they?’

‘I told you: nobody here’s smart enough to do the first, and there wasn’t any reason to waste the energy to carry out the latter. What’s left of him’s in fewer pieces than the prisoner who got killed, but not many. Don’t tell me you think you can get some use out of him?’

‘All right, I won’t tell you. Where is he?’

Clemens looked resigned. ‘I’ll point you in the proper direction, but I’m afraid I can’t join you. I have an appointment. Watch your step, okay?’

She was unfazed. ‘If I wasn’t in the habit of doing so, I’d be dead now twenty times over.’