'It's hard to say.' Bishop looked thoughtful. 'There is one thing worth considering, though.'
'What's that?'
'It may have been nothing more than blind instinct attraction to the heat or whatever, but she did choose assuming she exists, to incubate her eggs in the one spot in the colony where we couldn't destroy her without destroying ourselves. Beneath the heat exchangers at the processing plant If that site was chosen from instinct, it means that they may be no brighter than your average termite. If, on the other hand, it was selected on the basis of intelligence, well, then I think we're in very deep trouble indeed.
'That's if there's any reality to these suppositions at all Despite the distance involved, the eggs these aliens hatched from might have been brought down here by the first ones to emerge. There might be no queen involved at all, no complex alien society. Whether by intelligence or instinct, though, we have seen that they cooperate. That's something we don't have to speculate on. We've seen them in action.'
Ripley stood there and considered the ramifications of Bishop's analysis. None of them were encouraging, nor had she expected any to be. She nodded toward the stasis cylinders.
'I want those specimens destroyed as soon as you're done with them. You understand?'
The android glanced toward the two live facehuggers pulsing malevolently in their tubular prisons. He looked unhappy. 'Mr. Burke gave instructions that they were to be kept alive in stasis for return to the Company laboratories. He was very specific.'
The wonder of it was that she went for the intercom instead of the nearest weapon. 'Burke!'
A faint whisper of static failed to mar his reply. 'Yes? That's you, isn't it, Ripley?'
'You bet it's me! Where are you?'
'Scavenging while there's still time. I thought I might learn something on my own, since I just seem to be in everybody's way up there.'
'Meet me in the lab.'
'Now? But I'm still—'
'Now!' She closed the connection and glared at the inoffensive Bishop. 'You come with me.' Obediently he put his work aside and rose to follow her. That was all she was after; to make sure that he'd obey an order if she gave it. It meant he wasn't completely under Burke's sway, Company machine or no Company machine. 'Never mind, forget it.'
'I shall be happy to accompany you if that is what you wish.'
'That's all right. I've decided to handle it on my own. You continue with your research. That's more important than anything else.'
He nodded, looking puzzled, and resumed his seat.
Burke was waiting for her outside the entrance to the lab His expression was bland. 'This better be important. I think I was onto something, and we may not have much time left.'
'You may not have any time left.' He started to protest, and she cut him off with a gesture. 'No, in there.' She gestured at the operating theatre. It was soundproofed inside, and she could scream at him to her heart's content without drawing everyone else's attention. Burke ought to be grateful for her thoughtfulness. If Vasquez overheard what the company representative had been planning, she wouldn't waste time arguing with him. She'd put a bullet through him on the spot.
'Bishop tells me you have intentions of taking the live parasites home in your pocket. That true?'
He didn't try to deny it. 'They're harmless in stasis.'
'Those suckers aren't harmless unless they're dead. Don't you understand that yet? I want them killed as soon as Bishop's gotten everything out of them he can.'
'Be reasonable, Ripley.' A ghost of the old, self-assured corporate smile stole over Burke's face. 'Those specimens are worth millions to the Bioweapons Division of the company Okay, so we nuke the colony. I'm outvoted on that one. But not on this. Two lousy specimens, Ripley. How much trouble could they cause while secured in stasis? And if you're worried about something happening when we get them back to Earthside labs, don't. We have people who know how to handle things like these.'
'Nobody knows how to handle "things like these." Nobody's ever encountered anything like them. You think it'd be dangerous for some germs to get loose from a weapons lab? Try to imagine what would happen if just one of those parasites got loose in a major city, with its thousands o kilometres of sewers and pipes and glass-fibre channels to hide in.'
'They're not going to get loose. Nothing can break a stasis field.'
'No sale, Burke. There's too much we don't know about these monsters. It's too risky.'
'Come on, I know you're smarter than this.' He was trying to mollify and persuade her at the same time. 'If we play it right we can both come out of this heroes. Set up for life.'
'Is that the way you really see it?' She eyed him askance 'Carter Burke, alien smasher? Didn't what happened in C leve of the processing station make any impression on you at all?'
'They went in unprepared and overconfident.' Burke's tone was flat, unemotional. 'They got caught in tight quarters where they couldn't use the proper tactics and weapons. If they'd all used their pulse-rifles and kept their heads and managed to get out without shooting up the heat exchangers, they'd all be here
'Besides, everyone will know we found a devastated colony and that we got out as fast as we could. No one will be looking for us to smuggle anything back in. The Company will back me up on this, Ripley, especially when they see what we've brought them. They'll take good care of you, too, if that's what you're worrying about.'
'I'm sure they'll back you up,' she said. 'I don't doubt that for an instant. Any outfit that would send less than a dozen soldiers out here with an inexperienced goofball like Gorman in charge after hearing my story is capable of anything.'
'You worry too much.'
'Sorry. I like living. I don't like the idea of waking up some morning with an alien monstrosity exploding out of my chest.'
'That's not going to happen.'
'You bet it isn't. Because if you try taking those ugly little teratoids out of here, I'll tell everyone on the rescue ship what you're up to. This time I think people will listen to me. Not that it would ever get that far. All I have to do is tell Vasquez, or Hicks, or Hudson what you have in mind. They won't wait around for a directive, and they'll use more than angry words So you might as well give it up, Burke.' She nodded in the direction of the cylinders. 'You're not getting them out of this lab, much less off the surface of this planet.'
'Suppose I can convince the others?'
'You can't, but supposing for a minute that you could, how would you go about convincing them that you're not responsible for the deaths of the one hundred and fifty-seven colonists here?'
Burke's combativeness drained away and he turned pale 'Now wait a second. What are you talking about?'
'You heard me. The colonists. All those poor, unsuspecting good Company people. Like Newt's family. You said I'd been doing my homework, remember? You sent them to that ship, to check out the alien derelict. I just checked it out in the colony log. It's as intact as the plans Hudson called up. Would make interesting reading in court. "Company Directive Six Twelve Nine, dated five thirteen seventy-nine. Proceed to inspect possible electromagnetic emission at coordinates—but I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, am I? Signed Burke, Carter J." ' She was trembling with anger. It was all spilling out of her at once, the frustration and fury at the incompetence and greed that had brought her back to this world of horror.
'You sent them out there, and you didn't even warn them Burke. You sat through the inquest. You heard my story. Even if you didn't believe everything, you must have believed enough of it to want the coordinates checked out. You must have thought there was something to it or you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of having anyone go out there to look around. Out to the alien ship. You might not have believed, but you suspected. You wondered. Fine. Have it checked out. But checked out carefully by a fully equipped team, not some independent prospector. And warn them of what you suspected. Why didn't you warn them, Burke?'
'Warn them about what?' he protested. He'd
heard only her words, hadn't sensed the moral outrage in her voice. That in itself explained a great deal. She was coming to understand Carter J. Burke quite well.
'Look, maybe the thing didn't even exist, right? Maybe there wasn't much to it. All we had to go on was your story, which was a bit much to take at face value.'
'Was it? The Narcissus's recorder was tampered with, Burke Remember me telling the board of inquiry about that? You wouldn't happen to know what happened to the recorder would you?'
He ignored the question. 'What do you think would've happened if I'd stuck my neck out and made it into a major security situation?'
'I don't know,' she said tightly. 'Enlighten me.'
'Colonial Administration would've stepped in. That means government officials looking over your shoulder at every turn paperwork coming out your ears, no freedom of movement at all. Inspectors crawling all over the place looking for an excuse to shut you down and take over in the name of the almighty public interest. No exclusive development rights, nothing. The fact that your story turned out to be right is as much a surprise to me as everyone else.' He shrugged, his manner as blasé as ever. 'It was a bad call, that's all.'
Something finally snapped inside Ripley. Surprising both of them, she grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
'Bad call? These people are dead, Burke! One hundred and fifty-seven of them less one kid, all dead because of your "bad call." That's not counting Apone and the others torn apart or paralyzed over there.' She jerked her head in the direction of the processing station.
'Well, they're going to nail your hide to the shed, and I'll be standing there helping to pass out the nails when they do That's assuming your "bad call" lets any of us get off this chunk of gravel alive. Think about that for a while.' She stepped away from him, shaking with anger.
At least the aliens' motivations were comprehensible.
Burke straightened his back and his shirt, pity in his voice 'You just can't see the big picture, can you? Your worldview is restricted exclusively to the here and now. You've no interest in what your life could be like tomorrow.'
'Not if it includes you, I don't.'
'I expected more of you, Ripley. I thought you would be smarter than this. I thought I'd be able to count on you when the time came to make the critical decisions.'
'Another bad call on your part, Burke. Sorry to disappoint you.' She spun on her heel and abandoned the observation room, the door closing behind her. Burke followed her with his eyes, his mind a whirl of options.
Breathing hard, she strode toward Operations as the alarm began to sound. It helped to take her mind off the confrontation with Burke. She broke into a run.
XI
Hudson had the portable tactical console set up next to the colony's main computer terminal. Wires trailed from the console to the computer, a rat's nest of connections that enabled whoever sat behind the tactical board to interface with the colony's remaining functional instrumentation. Hicks looked up as Ripley entered Operations and slapped a switch to kill the alarm. Vasquez and Hudson joined her in clustering around the console.
'They're coming,' he informed them quietly. 'Just thought you'd like to know. They're in the tunnel already.'
Ripley licked her lips as she stared at the console readouts 'Are we ready for them?'
The corporal shrugged, adjusted a gain control. 'Ready as we can be. Assuming everything we've set up works Manufacturers' warranties aren't going to be a lot of use to us if something shorts out when it's supposed to be firing, like those sentry guns. They're about all we've got.'
'Don't worry, man, they'll work.' Hudson looked better than at any time since the initial assault on the processing station's lower levels. 'I've set up hundreds of those suckers. Once the ready lights come on, you can leave 'em and forget 'em. I just don't know if they'll be enough.'
'No use worrying about it. We're throwing everything we've got left at them. Either the RSS guns'll stop them or they won't Depends on how many of them there are.' Hicks thumbed a couple of contact switches. Everything read out on-line and operational. He glanced at the readouts for the motion sensors mounted on A and B guns. They were blinking rapidly, the strobe speeding up until both lights shone steadily. At the same time a crash of heavy gunfire made the floor quiver slightly.
'Guns A and B. Tracking and firing on multiple targets.' He looked up at Hudson. 'You give good firepower.'
The comtech ignored Hicks, watching the multiple readouts 'Another dozen guns,' he muttered under his breath. 'That's al it would take. If we had another dozen guns . . .'
A steady rumble echoed through the complex as the automatic weapons pounded away beneath them. Twin ammo counters on the console shrank inexorably toward single digits.
'Fifty rounds per gun. How are we going to stop them with only fifty rounds per gun?' Hicks murmured.
'They must all be wall-to-wall down there.' Hudson gestured at the readouts. 'Look at those ammo counters go. It's a shooting gallery down there.'
'What about the acid?' Ripley wondered. 'I know those guns are armoured, but you've seen that stuff at work. It'll eat through anything.'
'As long as the guns keep firing, they ought to be okay, Hicks told her. 'Those RSS shells have a lot of impact. If it keeps blowing them backward, that'll keep the acid away. It'll spray all over the walls and floor, but the guns should stay clear.'
That certainly seemed to be what was happening in the service tunnel because the robot sentries kept up their steady barrage. Two minutes went by; three. The counter on B gun reached zero, and the thunder below was reduced by half. Its motion sensor continued to flicker on the tactical readout as the empty weapon tracked targets it could no longer fire upon.
'B gun's dry. Twenty left on A.' Hicks watched the counter his throat dry. 'Ten. Five. That's it.'
A grim silence descended over Operations. It was shattered by a reverberating boom from below. It was repeated at regular intervals like the thunder of a massive gong. Each of them knew what the sound meant.
'They're at the fire door,' Ripley muttered. The booming increased in strength and ferocity. Audible along with the deeper rumble was another new sound: the nerve-racking scrape of claws on steel.
'Think they can break through there?' Ripley thought Hicks looked remarkably calm. Assurance—or resignation'
'One of them ripped a hatch right off the APC when it tried to pull Gorman out, remember?' she reminded him.
Vasquez nodded toward the floor. 'That ain't no hatch down there. It's a Class double-A fire door, three layers of stee alloy with carbon-fibre composite laid between. The door wil hold. It's the welds I'm worried about. We didn't have much time. I'd feel better if I'd had a couple bars of chromite solder and a laser instead of a gas torch to work with.'
'And another hour,' Hudson added. 'Why don't you wish for a couple of Katusha Six antipersonnel rockets while you're at it One of those babies would clean out the whole tunnel.'
The intercom buzzed for attention, startling them. Hicks clicked it on.
'Bishop here. I heard the guns. How are we doing?'
'As well as can be expected. A and B sentries are out of ammo, but they must've done some damage.'
'That's good, because I'm afraid I have some bad news.'
Hudson made a face and leaned back against a cabinet 'Well, now, that's a switch.'
'What kind of bad news?' Hicks inquired.
'It will be easier to explain and show you at the same time. I'l be right over.'
'We'll be here.' Hicks flipped the intercom off. 'Charming.'
'Hey, no sweat,' said the jaunty comtech. 'We're already in the toilet, so why worry?'
The android arrived quickly and moved to the single high window that overlooked much of the colony complex. The wind had picked back up and blown off the clinging fog Visibility was still far from perfect, but it was sufficient to permit them a glimpse of the distant atmosphere-processing station. As they stared, a column of flame u
nexpectedly jetted skyward from the base of the station. For an instant it was brighter than the steady glow that emanated from the top of the cone itself.
'What was that?' Hudson pressed his face closer to the glass.
'Emergency venting,' Bishop informed him.
Ripley was standing close to the comtech. 'Can the construction contain the overload?'
'Not a chance. Not if the figures I've been monitoring are half accurate, and I have no reason to suppose that they are anything other than completely accurate.'
'What happened?' Hicks spoke as he walked back to the tactical console. 'Did the aliens cause that, monkeying around inside?'
'There's no way to tell. Perhaps. More likely someone hit something vital with a smartgun shell or a blast from a pulse-rifle during the fight on C-level. Or the damage might have been done when the dropship smashed into the base of the complex. The cause is of no import. All that matters is the result, which is not good.'
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