Alien 3 (3 page)

The superintendent wasn’t pleased. More complications, more holes in his placid daily routine. More decisions to make.

He didn’t like making decisions. There was always the danger of making a wrong one.

The marine corporal was dead, likewise the unfortunate child. The android didn’t matter. Andrews was somewhat relieved. Only the woman to deal with, then, and just as well. She presented complications enough.

One of the men informed him that the Communicator was holding an on-line message. Leaving the EEV and its contents in the care of others, the superintendent made his way back to his office. He was a big man in his late forties, muscular, powerful, determined. He had to be all of that and more or he’d never have been assigned to Fiorina.

The reply was as terse as his original communication.

TO: FURY 361—CLASS C PRISON UNIT 1237154

FROM: NETWORK CONCOM 01500—WEYLAND-

YUTANI MESSAGE RECEIVED.

Well, now, that was profound. Andrews stared at the readout screen but nothing else was forthcoming. No suggestions, no requests for additional information, no elegant corporate explication. No criticism, no praise. Somehow he’d expected more.

He could send another message requesting more data, except that the powers-that-be were likely to deem it extraneous and dock his pay for the cost. They’d responded, hadn’t they? Even if they hadn’t exactly replied. There was nothing he could do but deal with the situation as best he saw fit . . . and wait.

Another dream. No sense of time in dreams, no temporal spaciousness. People see all sorts of things in dreams, both intensely realistic and wholly imaginary. Rarely do they see clocks.

The twin-barreled flamethrower was heavy in her hands as she cautiously approached the cryonic cylinders. A quick check revealed all three occupants untouched, undisturbed. Bishop, quiescent in fragments. Newt ethereal in her perfect childish beauty, so foreign to the place and time in which she unwillingly found herself. Hicks peaceful, unmarred. She felt herself hesitating as she drew near, but his dome remained shut, his eyes closed.

A sound and she whirled, flipping a switch on the weapon’s ribs even as her finger convulsed on the trigger. The device emitted a plastic click. That was all. Frantically she tried again.

A short, reluctant burst of flame emerged a few inches from one of the barrels, died.

Panicky, she inspected the weapon, checking the fill levels, the trigger, those leads that were visible. Everything seemed functional. It ought to work, it had to work . . .

Something nearby, close. She dreamt herself retreating, backing up cautiously, seeking the protection of a solid wall as she fumbled with the flamethrower. It was near. She knew it too well to think otherwise. Her fingers wrestled with the balky device. She’d found the trouble, she was sure. A minute more, that was all she needed. Recharge this, reset, then ready to fire.

Half a minute. She happened to glance downward.

The alien’s tail was between her legs.

She spun screaming, right into its waiting arms, and tried to bring the flamethrower to bear. A hand clutched; horribly elegant, incredibly powerful fingers crushed the weapon in the middle, collapsing the twin barrels, the other arm trapping her. She pummeled the shiny, glistening thorax with her fists.

Useless the gesture, useless everything now.

It spun her around and shoved her across the nearest cryonic pod. Shoved again. Her face was pressed tight to the cool, inorganic glass. Beneath her, Hicks opened his eyes and smiled again. And again.

She screamed.

The infirmary was compact and nearly empty. It abutted a much larger medical facility designed to handle dozens of patients a day. Those miners, prospective patients, were long gone from Fiorina. They had accomplished their task years ago, extracting the valuable ore from the ground and then following it back home. Only the prisoners remained, and they had no need of such extensive facilities.

So the larger unit had been gutted of salvageable material and the smaller semi-surgery turned over to the prison.

Cheaper that way. Less room to heat, less energy required, money saved. Where prisoners were concerned that was always the best way.

Not that they’d been left with nothing. Supplies and equipment were more than ample for the installation’s needs.

The Company could afford to be generous. Besides, shipping even worthwhile material offworld was expensive. Better to leave some of it, the lesser quality stuff, and gain credit for concomitant compassion. The good publicity was worth more than the equipment.

Besides the facility there was Clemens. Like some of the supplies he was too good for Fiorina, though it would have been difficult to convince anyone familiar with his case of that.

Nor would he have raised much in the way of objections. But the prisoners were lucky to have him, and they knew it. Most of them were not stupid. Merely unpleasant. It was a combination which in some men gave rise to captains of industry and pillars of government. In others it led merely to defeat and degradation. When this situation was directed inward the sufferers were treated or incarcerated on places like Earth.

When it erupted outward to encompass the innocent it led elsewhere. To Fiorina, for example. Clemens was only one of many who’d realized too late that his personal path diverged from the normal run of humanity to lead instead to this place.

The woman was trying to say something. Her lips were moving and she was straining upward, though whether pushing against or away from something he was unable to tell.

Leaning close, he put his ear to her mouth. Sounds emergent, bubbling and gurgling, as if rising toward the surface from deep within.

He straightened and turned her head to one side, holding it firmly but gently. Gagging, choking, she vomited forth a stream of dark salt water. The heaving ended quickly and she subsided, still unconscious but resting quietly now; still, easy.

He eased her head back onto the pillow, gazing solemnly at her mask-like visage. Her features were delicate, almost girlish despite her age. There was about her the air of someone who had spent too much time as a tourist in hell.

Well, being dumped out of a ship via EEV and then awakened and revived from deep sleep by a crash into the sea would be enough to mark anyone, he told himself.

The infirmary door hissed softly as it slid back to admit Andrews and Aaron. Clemens wasn’t crazy about either the superintendent or his number two. At the same time he was quite aware that Andrews wasn’t in love with the facility’s sole medical technician either. Though in status he might be a notch above the general population, Clemens was still a prisoner serving sentence, a fact neither of the two men ever let him forget. Not that he was likely to. Many things were difficult to accomplish on Fiorina, but forgetting was impossible.

They halted by the side of the bed and stared down at its motionless

occupant.

Andrews

grunted

at

nothing

in

particular.

‘What’s her status, Mr. Clemens?’

The technician sat back slightly, glanced up at the man who for all practical purposes served as Fiorina’s lord and master.

‘She’s alive.’

Andrews’s expression tightened and he favoured the tech with a sardonic smile. ‘Thank you, Mr. Clemens. That’s very helpful. And while I suppose I wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, want it to be otherwise, it also does mean that we have a problem, doesn’t it?’

‘Not to worry, sir. I think we can pull her through. There’s no internal bleeding, nothing broken, not even a serious sprain. I think she’ll make a complete recovery.’

‘Which, as you know, Mr. Clemens, is precisely what concerns me.’ He stared appraisingly at the woman in the bed.

‘I wish she hadn’t come here. I wish she wasn’t here now.’

‘Without wishing to sound disrespectful, sir, I have this feeling that she’d eagerly concur with you. Based on what I was told about her landing and having seen for myself the current condition of her EEV, I’m of the opinion that she didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of choice in the matter. Any idea where they’re from? What ship?’

‘No,’ Andrews muttered. ‘I Notified Weyland-Y.’

’They answer?’ Clemens was holding Ripley’s wrist, ostensibly to check her pulse.

‘If you can call it that. They acknowledged receipt of my message. That’s all. Guess they’re not feeling real talkative.’

‘Understandable, if they had an interest in the ship that was lost. Probably running around like mad trying to decide what your report signifies.’ The mental image of confounded Company nabobs pleased him.

‘Let me know if there’s any change in her condition.’

‘Like if she should conveniently expire?’

Andrews glared at him. ‘I’m already upset enough over this as it is, Clemens. Be smart. Don’t make it worse. And don’t make me start thinking of it and you in the same breath.

There’s no need for excessive morbidity. It may surprise you to learn that I hope she lives. Though if she regains consciousness she may think otherwise. Let’s go,’ he told his factotum. The two men departed.

The woman moaned softly, her head shifting nervously from side to side. Physical reaction, Clemens wondered, or side effects of the medication he’d hastily and hopefully dumped into her system? He sat watching her, endlessly grateful for the opportunity to relax in her orbit, for the chance simply to be close to her, study her, smell her. He’d all but forgotten what it was like to be in a woman’s presence. The memories returned rapidly, jolted by her appearance. Beneath the bruises and strain she was quite beautiful, he thought. More, much more, than he’d had any right to expect.

She moaned again. Not the medication, he decided, or pain from her injuries. She was dreaming. No harm there. After all, a few dreams couldn’t hurt her.

The dimly lit assembly hall was four stories high. Men hung from the second floor railing, murmuring softly to each other, some smoking various combinations of plant and chemical.

The upper levels were deserted. Like most of the Fiorina mine, it was designed to accommodate far more than the couple of dozen men presently gathered together in its cavernous depths.

They had assembled at the superintendent’s request. All twenty-five of them. Hard, lean, bald, young and not so young, and those for whom youth was but a fading warm memory.

Andrews sat confronting them, his second-in-command Aaron nearby. Clemens stood some distance away from both prisoners and jailers, as befitted his peculiar status.

Two jailers, twenty-five prisoners. They could have jumped the superintendent and his assistant at any time, overpowered them with comparative ease. To what end? Revolt would only give them control of the installation they already ran. There was nowhere to escape to, no better place on Fiorina that they were forbidden to visit. When the next supply ship arrived and ascertained the situation, it would simply decline to drop supplies and would file a report. Heavily armed troops would follow, the revolutionaries would be dealt with, and all who had participated and survived would find their sentences extended.

The small pleasures that might be gained from defiance of authority were not worth another month on Fiorina, much less another year or two. The most obdurate prisoners realized as much. So there were no revolts, no challenges to Andrews’s authority. Survival on and, more importantly, escape from Fiorina depended on doing what was expected of one. The prisoners might not be content, but they were pacific.

Aaron surveyed the murmuring crowd, raised his voice impatiently. ‘All right, all right. Let’s pull it together, get it going. Right? Right. If you please, Mr. Dillon.’

Dillon stepped forward. He was a leader among the imprisoned and not merely because of his size and strength.

The wire rimless glasses he wore were far more an affectation, a concession to tradition, than a necessity. He preferred them to contacts, and of course the Company could hardly be expected to expend time and money to provide a prisoner with transplants. That suited Dillon fine. The glasses were antiques, a family heirloom

which had somehow survived the

generations intact. They served his requirements adequately.

The single dreadlock that hung from his otherwise naked pate swung slowly as he walked. It took a lot of time and effort to keep the hirsute decoration free of Fiorina’s persistent bugs, but he tolerated the limited discomfort in order to maintain the small statement of individuality.

He cleared his throat distinctly. ‘Give us strength, Oh Lord, to endure. We recognize that we are poor sinners in the hands of an angry God. Let the circle be unbroken . . . until the day.