Aliens

by Alan Dean Foster

  Colony architecture tended to the functional. Beautification of surroundings would come later, when the wind wouldn't ruin all such efforts no matter how modest. Wind whipped trash between the buildings—that detritus that was too heavy to blow away. A chunk of metal rocked on an uneven base banging mindlessly against a nearby wall, any echo subsumed by the wind. A few neonic lights flickered unsteadily. Gorman's voice sounded crisply over everyone's suit communicator.

  'First squad up, on line. Hicks, get your people in a cordon between the entrance and the APC. Watch your rear. Vasquez take point. Let's move.'

  A line of troopers advanced on the main entrylock. No one expected a greeting committee to meet them, any more than they expected to cycle the lock and stroll in without difficulty but it was still something of a shock to encounter the pair of heavy-duty tractors that were parked nose-to-nose in front of the big door, barring any entry. It implied a conscious effort on the part of those inside to keep something outside.

  Vasquez reached the silent machines first and paused to peer inside the operator's cab of the nearest. The controls had been ripped out and strewn around the interior. Impassive, she squeezed between the earthmovers, her tone phlegmatic as she reported back.

  'Looks like somebody took a crowbar to the instrumentation. She reached the main doorway and nodded to her right, where Drake flanked her. Apone arrived, scanned the barrier, and moved to the external door controls. His fingers tried every combination. None of the telltale lights came alive.

  'Busted?' Drake inquired.

  'Sealed. There's a difference. Hudson, get up here. We need a bypass.'

  No funny cracks now as the comtech, all business, put his gun aside and bent to examine the door panel. 'Standard stuff, he said in less than a minute. Using a tool taken from his work belt, he pried away the protective weather facing and studied the wiring. 'Take two puffs, Sarge.' His fingers deft and deliberate in their movements, despite the wind and cold, he began patching around the ruined circuitry. Apone and the others waited and watched.

  'First squad,' the sergeant snapped into his suit pickup 'assemble on me at the main lock.'

  A sign creaked and groaned overhead where it had broken loose from its moorings. The wind howled around them buffeting nerves more than bodies. Hudson made a connection. Two indicator lights flickered fitfully. Moaning against the dust that had accumulated in its guide rail, the big door slid back on its tracks, traveling in fits and starts, in sync with the blinking lights. Halfway open it jammed. It was more than enough.

  Apone motioned Vasquez forward. The muzzle of her smartgun preceding her, she stepped inside. Her companions followed as Gorman's voice crackled in their headsets.

  'Second team, move up. Flanking positions, close quarters How's it look, Sergeant?'

  Apone's eyes scanned the interior of the silent structure 'Clean so far, sir. Nobody home yet.'

  'Right. Second team, keep watching behind you as you advance.' The lieutenant spared a moment to glance up and behind him. 'You okay, Ripley?'

  She was abruptly aware that she was breathing too fast, as though she'd just finished running a marathon instead of having been standing in one place. She nodded curtly, angry at herself, angry at Gorman for his concern. He returned his attention to the console.

  Vasquez and Apone strode down the wide, deserted corridor A few lights burned blue overhead. Emergency illumination already beginning to weaken. No telling how long the batteries had been burning. The wind accompanied them partway in whistling down the metal concourse. Pools of water stained the floor. Farther along, rain dripped through blast holes in the ceiling. Apone tilted his head back so that his helmet camera would simultaneously record the evidence of the firelight and transmit it back to the APC.

  'Pulse-rifles,' he murmured, explaining the cause of the ragged holes. 'Somebody's a wild shot.'

  In the operations bay, Ripley glanced sharply at Burke 'People confined to bed don't run around firing pulse-rifles inside their habitat. People with inoperative communications equipment don't go around firing off pulse-rifles. Something else makes them do things like that.' Burke simply shrugged and turned to watch the screens.

  Apone made a face at the blast holes. 'Messy.' It was a professional opinion, not an aesthetic one. The master sergeant couldn't abide sloppy work. Of course, these were only colonists he reminded himself. Engineers, structural technicians, service classifications. No soldiers. Maybe one or two cops. No need for soldiers—until now. And why now? The wind taunted him. He searched the corridor ahead, seeking answers and finding only darkness.

  'Move out.'

  Vasquez resumed her advance, more machinelike in her movements than any robot. Her smartgun cannon shifted slowly from left to right and back again, covering every inch ahead every few seconds. Her eyes were downcast, intent on the gun's tracking monitor instead of the floor underfoot. Footsteps echoed around and behind her, but ahead it was silent.

  Gorman tapped a finger alongside a large red button 'Quarter and search by twos. Second team, move inside. Hicks take the upper level. Use your motion trackers. Anybody sees anything moving, sing out.'

  Someone ventured a couple of lines a capella from Thor's storm-calling song at the end of Das Rheingold. It sounded like Hudson, but Ripley couldn't be sure, and no one owned up to the chorus. She tried to watch all the individual camera monitors simultaneously. Every dark corner inside the building was a gateway to Hell, every shadow a lethal threat She had to fight to keep her breathing steady.

  Hicks led his squad up a deserted stairwell to the town's second level. The corridor was a mirror image of the one directly beneath, maybe a little narrower but just as empty. It did offer one benefit: They were pretty well out of the wind.

  Standing in the middle of a knot of troops, he unlimbered a small metal box with a glass face. It had delicate insides and like most marine equipment, a heavily armoured exterior. He aimed it down the hallway and adjusted the controls. A couple of LEDs lit up brightly. The gauges stayed motionless. He panned it slowly from right to left.

  'Nothing,' he reported. 'No movement, no signs of life.'

  'Move out' was Gorman's disappointed response.

  Hicks held the scanner out in front of him while his squad covered him, front, back, and sideways. They passed rooms and offices. Some of the doors stood ajar, others shut tight The interiors were similar and devoid of surprises.

  The farther they went, the more blatant became the evidence of struggle. Furniture was overturned and papers scattered about. Irreplaceable computer storage disks had been trampled underfoot. Personal possessions, shipped at great cost over interstellar distances, had been thrown thoughtlessly aside, smashed and broken. Priceless books of real paper floated soddenly in puddles of water that had leaked from frozen pipes and holes in the ceiling.

  'Looks like my room in college.' Burke was trying to be funny. He failed.

  Several of the rooms Hicks's squad passed had not just been turned upside down; they'd been burned. Black streaks seared walls of metal and composite. In several offices the triple-paned safety-glass windows had been blown out. Rain and wind gusted through the gaps. Hicks stepped inside one office to lift a half-eaten doughnut from a listing table. A nearby coffee cup overflowed with rainwater. The dark grounds lay scattered across the floor, floating like water mites in the puddles.

  Apone's people systematically searched the lower level moving in pairs that functioned as single organisms. They went through the colonists' modest, compact living quarters one apartment at a time. There wasn't much to see. Hudson kept his eyes on his scanner as he prowled alongside Vasquez looking up only long enough to take note of a particular stain on one wall. He didn't need sophisticated electronic analyzers to tell him what it was: dried blood. Everyone in the APC saw it too. No one said anything.

  Hudson's tracker let out a beep, the sound explosively loud in the empty corridor. Vasquez whirled, her gun ready Tracker and smartgun operator exchanged a glance. Hudson
nodded, then walked slowly toward a half-open door that was splintered partway off its frame. Holes produced by pulse-rifle rounds peppered the remnants of the door and the walls framing it.

  As the comtech eased out of the way, Vasquez sidled up close to the ruined barrier and kicked it in. She came as close as possible to firing without actually unleashing a stream of destruction on the room's interior.

  Dangling from a length of flex conduit, a junction box swung back and forth like a pendulum, driven by the wind that poured in through a broken window. The heavy metal box clacked against the rails of a child's bunk bed as it swung.

  Vasquez uttered a guttural sound. 'Motion detectors. I hate 'em.' They both turned back to the hallway.

  Ripley was watching the view provided by Hicks's monitor Suddenly she leaned forward. 'Wait! Tell him to—' Abruptly aware that only Burke and Gorman could hear her, she hurried to plug in her headset jack, patching herself into the intersuit communications net. 'Hicks, this is Ripley. I saw something on your screen. Back up.' He complied, and the picture on his monitor retreated. 'That's it. Now swing left There!'

  The two men who shared the operations bay with her watched as the image provided by the corporal's camera panned until it stabilized on a section of wall full of holes and oddly shaped gouges and depressions. Ripley went cold. She knew what had caused the irregular pattern of destruction.

  Hicks ran a glove over the battered metal. 'You seeing this okay? Looks melted.'

  'Not melted,' Ripley corrected him. 'Corroded.'

  Burke looked over at her, raised an eyebrow. 'Hmm. Acid for blood.'

  'Looks like somebody bagged them one of Ripley's bad guys here.' Hicks sounded less impressed than the Company rep.

  Hudson had been making his own inspection of a room on the lower level. Now he beckoned to his companions to join him. 'Hey, if you like that, you're gonna love this.' Ripley and her companions shifted their attention to the view being relayed back to the APC by the voluble private's camera.

  He was looking down. His feet framed a gaping hole. As he leaned forward over the edge they could see another hole directly below the first and beyond, dimly illuminated by his helmet light, a section of the maintenance level. Pipes conduits, wiring-all had been eaten away by the action of some ferocious liquid.

  Apone examined the view, turned away. 'Second squad, talk to me. What's your status?'

  Hicks's voice replied. 'Just finished our sweep. There's nobody home.'

  The master sergeant nodded to himself, spoke to the occupants of the distant APC. 'The place is dead, sir. Dead and deserted. All's quiet on the Hadley front. Whatever happened here, we missed it.'

  'Late for the party again.' Drake kicked a lump of corroded metal aside.

  Gorman leaned back and looked thoughtful. 'All right. The area's secured. Let's go in and see what their computer can tel us. First team, head for Operations. You know where that is Sergeant?'

  Apone nudged a sleeve switch. A small map of the Hadley colony appeared on the inside of his helmet visor. 'That tal structure we saw coming in. It's not far, sir. We're on our way.'

  'Good. Hudson, when you get there, see if you can bring their CPU on-line. Nothing fancy. We don't want to use it; we just want to talk to it. Hicks, we're coming in. Meet me at the south lock by the uplink tower. Gorman out.'

  'Out is right.' Hudson would have spat save for the fact that no suitable target presented itself. 'He's coming in. I feel safer already.'

  Vasquez made sure her suit mike was off before agreeing.

  The powerful arc lights mounted on the front of the APC illuminated the stained, wind-scoured walls of the colony buildings as the armoured vehicle trundled down the main service street. They passed a couple of smaller vehicles parked in a shielded area. The APC's gleaming metal wheels threw up sheets of dirty water as it rumbled through oversize potholes Internal shocks absorbed the impact. Wind-blown rain lashed the headlights.

  In the driver's compartment, Bishop and Wierzbowski worked smoothly side by side, man and synthetic functioning in perfect harmony. Each respected the other's abilities. Both knew, for example, that Wierzbowski could ignore any advice Bishop gave. Both also knew that the human would probably take it. Wierzbowski squinted through the narrow driver's port and pointed.

  'Over there, I think.'

  Bishop checked the flashing, brightly coloured map on the screen between them. 'That has to be it. There's no other lock in this area.' He leaned on the wheel, and the heavy machine swung toward a cavernous opening in the wall nearby.

  'Yeah, there's Hicks.'

  Apone's second in command emerged from the open lock as the armoured personnel carrier ground to a halt. He watched while the crew door cycled and slid aside. A suited Gorman was first down the ramp, followed closely by Burke, Bishop, and Wierzbowski. Burke looked back, searching for the tank's remaining occupant, only to see her hesitate in the portal. She wasn't looking at him. Her attention was focused on the dark entrance leading deep into the colony.

  'Ripley?'

  Her eyes lowered to meet his. By way of reply, she shook her head sharply from side to side.

  'The area's secured.' Burke tried to sound understanding 'You heard Apone.'

  Another negative gesture. Hudson's voice sounded in their headsets.

  'Sir, the colony CPU is on-line.'

  'Good work, Hudson,' said the lieutenant. 'Those of you in Operations, stand by. We'll be there soon.' He nodded to his companions. 'Let's go.'

  VI

  In person the devastation looked much worse than it had on the APC's monitors.

  'Looks like your company can write off its share of this colony,' he murmured to Burke.

  'The buildings are mostly intact.' The company rep didn't sound concerned. 'The rest's insured.'

  'Yeah? What about the colonists?' Ripley asked him.

  'We don't know what's happened to them yet.' He sounded slightly irritated by the question.

  It was chilly inside the complex. Internal control had failed along with the power, and in any case, the blown-out windows and gaping holes in the walls would have overloaded the equipment quickly, anyway. Ripley found that she was sweating despite her environment suit's best efforts to keep her comfortable. Her eyes were as active as any trooper's as she checked out every hole in the walls and floor, every shadowed corner.

  This was where it had all begun. This was the place where it had come from. The alien. There was no doubt in her mind what had happened here. An alien like the one that had caused the destruction of the Nostromo and the deaths of all her shipmates had gotten loose in Hadley Colony.

  Hicks noticed her nervousness as she scanned the ravaged hallway and the fire-gutted offices and storage rooms Wordlessly he motioned to Wierzbowski. The trooper nodded imperceptibly, adjusted his stride so that he fell into position on Ripley's right. Hicks slowed down until he was flanking her on the left. Together they formed a protective cordon around her. She noticed the shift and glanced at the corporal. He winked, or at least she thought he might have. It was too fast for her to be certain. Might just have been blinking at something in his eye. Even in the corridor there was enough of a breeze to blow sand and soot around.

  Frost emerged from the side corridor just ahead. He beckoned to the new arrivals, speaking to Gorman but looking at Hicks.

  'Sir, you should check this out.'

  'What is it, Frost?' Gorman was in a hurry to rendezvous with Apone. But the soldier was insistent.

  'Easier to show you, sir.'

  'Right. It's up this way?' The lieutenant gestured down the corridor. Frost nodded and turned up into darkness, the others following.

  He led them into a wing that was completely without power Their suit lights revealed scenes of destruction worse than anything yet encountered. Ripley found that she was trembling. The APC, safe, solid, heavily armed, and not far off, loomed large in her thoughts. If she ran hard, she'd be back there in a few minutes. And alone once again. No matter how s
ecure the personnel carrier was, she knew she was safer here, surrounded by the soldiers. She kept telling herself that as they advanced.

  Frost was gesturing. 'Right ahead here, sir.'

  The corridor was blocked. Someone had erected a make-shift barricade of welded pipes and steel plate, extra door panels, ceiling sheathing, and composite flooring. Acid holes and gashes scarred the hastily raised barrier. The meta had been torn and twisted by hideously powerful forces. Just to the right of where Frost was standing the barricade had been ripped open like an old soup can. They squeezed through the narrow opening one at a time.

  Lights played over the devastation beyond. 'Anybody know where we are?' Gorman asked.

  Burke studied an illuminated company map. 'Medical wing We're in the right section, and it has the right look.'