The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 6

by Diane Carey

  * * *

  Nate pretty much knew what he was going to find when he got into Room One of the Giff ship.

  He wasn’t sure, at first, what tipped him off that they were too late. But as he and Hesse flew the diamond-flyers through several rooms, passing through doors to get to the crew quarters of the vast alien vessel orbiting Iapetus, he figured it out. You could smell it on the whole ship, really, on first entering. Just subtly at first. Strongly in this room as they approached that red splash on the floor that had once been a human being…

  The clue was simple: the smell of fresh human blood.

  There wasn’t much left of Collindale. If they hadn’t known that it was just him and Julie in here, they’d never have been able to identify him. His head was just an empty shell, his chest missing everything that should have been in it: heart, lungs, digestive organs, liver, all gone. His genitals, his upper legs, many of his bones—chewed away. Missing.

  Hesse and Nate, hands sweating on the rifles, glanced around for the thing that had killed him. No immediate sign of it.

  “Up there,” Hesse said, his voice rasping, as he pointed.

  Nate looked, and saw the blood dripping from the chamber up above. “Hesse… she… she and I…”

  “I’ll go see, Nate,” Hesse said, holding his rifle ready. He stepped onto the diamond-flyer, and ascended to the chamber dripping blood to them.

  The blood came down, tick tick tick, a drop at a time, as Nate waited.

  After a moment Hesse called down. “Yeah. She’s dead, Nate. No reason to see this.”

  Nate swallowed, and turned away, walked toward the door, leaving the flyer behind. He just kept walking, for a long time. Thinking. First thinking: I should’ve married her. And kept her on Earth…

  Finally he did come to another conclusion.

  He was going to destroy those things. The aliens.

  He was going to kill them all.

  12

  Sitting in the bridge, waiting for word from UNIC Central, Corgan was exhausted and angry and frustrated. They’d gone through every room, every corridor of the ship, they’d run bots through the small spaces. They’d done it for hours.

  Nothing.

  They’d found some indications the murderous little aliens had been there. Small holes burnt with acid—the bullet that had hit the endoparasite in the kitchen had apparently cracked its exoskeleton, not enough to do much damage to it. Only a little acid had leaked out.

  They found new holes torn in the thin metal flashing that edged the vents, where something had broken out—or in. They also found a lump that might’ve been alien scat— with a human tooth in it. The sight of that made Dinswood throw up again.

  Nate came in, looking a little unsteady, holding the gun at the end of his arm. Corgan thought he looked slightly drunk.

  “Nate—you find some of Bayfield’s pruno stash? Or maybe you’re just as tired as I am.”

  “Nah—I smuggled some scotch in, when we first boarded. See, the security officer, that’d be me, is the guy in charge of searching for contraband, so…” He grinned weakly, and sat down in the co-pilot’s seat, taking a flask from his coat and offering it to his commanding officer. “I wasn’t drinking it till today—I was keeping it for a special occasion. Julie liked scotch. But… here.”

  Corgan looked at him with bland surprise. “Man, you were always a stickler. Now you’re waving whiskey around.” He took the flask and unscrewed it. Anyone else, he’d have confiscated it and written them up. But Nate and he had saved each other’s lives in Pakistan. He couldn’t pull that kind of tight-ass rank on him. And he knew Nate’d be reliable no matter what.

  Corgan took a swig. “Whew! Here’s to Bayfield—I’m starting to understand him.” And he took another, and passed it back. “Nate—nothing. We searched the ship and found just flat out nothing. I wish we had motion detectors or something on this ship—we do have those half-assed surveillance cams but they’re not everywhere and they’re not finding anything. And I swear we looked everywhere.”

  Ashley came in, looking haunted and weary. “I was just talking to Reynolds, Captain. He’s sort of punch drunk, but… he said something about the cellular activity of these nasty buggers. Said that their cells can multiply with incredible speed—they grow fast. So we might’ve been looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore. It could be transformed into something else. Something like that thing we saw on the computer on the Giff’s ship. And that thing seemed to just blend in with the background when it wasn’t moving. Not exactly chameleon-type camouflage—but like it seemed… like a part of the ship itself. Reynolds thinks they might’ve evolved to just blend in with spacecraft.”

  “So… we might’ve walked right by it! Taken it for some pipe fitting in the shadows down in engineering…”

  She nodded.

  “You… want a drink, Ashley? It’s against regs but… we’re drinking to missing friends.”

  She looked at the flask, and then at him. “Maybe… later. At the right time, Captain. I’d like that.”

  Nate raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  Corgan tossed him the flask. “We’re going to get some rest—and then we’re going to look again. I want cots brought in here. This is the most defendable part of the ship. We’re going to take turns on watch. Everyone comes in here and that means Reynolds too…”

  Nate sighed. “Reynolds? Couldn’t we leave him to his own devices? I mean, Jesus—the good people get… get…”

  He closed his eyes. And after a moment said, “Never mind. I’ll get it done.”

  * * *

  Reynolds was at the infirmary lab workstation, poring over the ship’s out-scan computer files, looking for some sign that the CANC ship was close. Nothing yet. But they’d be here. And soon. Then what?

  He should prepare the way for them. Make himself useful. Show his loyalty. Because if he didn’t seem useful to them—and loyal!—they just might kill him. He was stuck with them now. It seemed foolish in retrospect. He’d been desperate for work—and desperation made him believe the CANC agent. And the calculating bitch had been so flattering… She had gone right for his weakness.

  The Hornblower’s out-scanners would warn Corgan when the enemy ship arrived within two thousand klicks. The obvious move was to disable those scanners, allow CANC to get in close enough to act before they could be stopped by the crew of the Hornblower. That would mean cutting the power source, or removing a key component. Electronics weren’t his forte. But how hard could it be?

  “Reynolds?” The security officer on the comm said, the suddenness of his voice making Reynolds jump in his chair, as if he’d been caught at sabotage by just thinking about it. “You’re to come up to the bridge—we’re camping there. And we’re gonna do another search of the ship—we think we missed those fuckers. You have any suggestions for that?”

  “Um… suggestions? I’d have to give it some thought…”

  “Just—get your ass up here.”

  “I’ll come… right away.”

  He had to carry out his little act of sabotage before reporting to them—he’d never get another chance, with Nate Eusebius breathing down his neck.

  There was another factor. Two more living factors in fact: the second-stage xenomorphs. Suppose the creatures caught him alone in the ship somewhere?

  He turned and looked at the still-bloody ventilation opening high in the wall—they’d blocked it up by wedging an old sterilizer unit into it. But he didn’t feel safe, even in here.

  There might be a way, though—to distract the stage twos… or stage threes, if what he suspected was true. He might be able to keep them busy with one of his fellow crewmen.

  He shuddered at the thought. But after all—what would they do to him, if they knew he’d betrayed the Hornblower to CANC? They’d kill him—or imprison him for life. He had to do what he had to do.

  There was no help for it. It was all too likely he’d have to kill them—or feed them to his new alien fr
iends…

  * * *

  “Captain? Oh-five-hundred…”

  “What? Ashley? Oh…” Corgan sat up on his cot, blinking. “What are you grinning at?”

  “Just that you snore.” She looked at him affectionately.

  Nate, coming in with his rifle in his hand, chuckled. “We could hear it down the corridor. Never could hear it when you were in your cabin. Those hatches must be rattle-proof…”

  “Wait—” Corgan rubbed his eyes and accepted a cup of coffee from O’Neil. “Did you say oh-five-hundred? I didn’t mean to sleep more than an hour…”

  O’Neil shrugged. “Ashley wouldn’t let us wake you. What now, Captain?”

  “Now, we eat those breakfast bars from that crate Dorea rounded up, and we do another search. This time, we don’t make up our minds ahead of time about what we’re looking for. Anything unusual.”

  “Thing is,” Nate said, “we’re all gonna be armed. So check your fire—with a crowd of us out ready to jump at our shadows, friendly fire might be the biggest danger.”

  Corgan nodded but privately, remembering Hesse’s description of Collindale’s gutted body, he suspected the biggest danger wasn’t friendly fire. It was literally right around the corner…

  “Everyone here?” he asked, looking around. Just one face missing. “Where’s Reynolds?”

  “Said he was coming. Hasn’t shown up. I tried calling the son of a bitch again—no answer.”

  “Those nasty little things probably got him,” said Dix, wearily standing up next to his cot. “… Captain I don’t want to go out there and find those things. I say we head to Mars and get the fuck off this ship.”

  “I second that,” said O’Neil heartily, around a mouthful of breakfast bar.

  “We can’t,” Corgan said. “UNIC procedure is clear. We’re quarantined. And I have another order—we have to try and keep our claim on the Giff vessel active. It’s the greatest discovery since Eric the Red found America. We can’t just let CANC have it.”

  “We’re not going to benefit from any discovery that kills us!” O’Neil pointed out, spraying crumbs.

  “O’Neil,” Corgan said patiently, checking the load on his rifle, “it’s not just about benefiting us. Is that hard to comprehend? You took an oath when you signed on. We’re here for our people—the United Nations: The USA, the EU, Latin America Unified, any of that ring a bell? It’s not just about us.”

  “Oooh, that’s some stirring bullshit,” Dix said. “But it don’t mean nothing if we die and CANC gets this thing. Look—maybe somebody can volunteer to stay behind on the steel egg and the rest of us can…”

  “Can transport those things that killed five people back to the Mars Colony—so they can start killing there too?” Corgan interrupted. “We can’t be sure of how they reproduce, whether or not we missed one of them somehow… Something could be hidden in the ship… hide in the lander, say, that takes you off to Mars.”

  “We can be fucking careful about it, Captain!”

  Nate was looking with cold intensity at Dix. “The captain has made a decision, Dix. You want to stay in the brig instead of going with us on this search team? I’ve got one, you know. It doubles as storage, but it locks from the outside. But you do that, you do it without a weapon. Alone. And I don’t know as it’s completely secure, in there.”

  Dix glared at him, his jaws working. Finally he said, “Let’s get this bullshit over with.”

  Nate was still glaring at him. “I think you ought to go on point, Dix. I’m not sure I want my back turned to you.”

  “You saying I’m a traitor?” Dix demanded. “Just because I think we’re doing something stupid? I fought in the Hong Kong war, man! I paid my fucking dues! I’m missing a piece of my right hip already!”

  “You signed up for outer planetary exploration—and it was a contract that put you under military rules,” Corgan pointed out. “You’re here. You don’t get to pick and choose, not at this point, Dix. No one thinks you’re a traitor—”

  “Did you see what that thing did to Bayfield? You weren’t there! You weren’t there when it ate his fucking brains, Captain!”

  Corgan looked at him, swallowing. He was underestimating the effect this nightmare could be having on his crew. Dix was just the first to crack… O’Neil, probably, would be next. Then maybe Buxton. Harl had been through a lot already. Funny that the women were among the toughest on the crew. But in Corgan’s estimation, that was often true.

  “You’ve been through some serious hell,” Corgan said, more softly, meeting Dix’s eyes. “But we need you to go the rest of the way with us—so we can get out of hell together. Can I count on you, man?”

  Dix hesitated. O’Neil watched him, clearly hoping he’d say no.

  But Dix shrugged and said, “If we’re gonna do it—let’s get it done.”

  Corgan nodded. “Good man. Nate—try to raise Reynolds again…”

  * * *

  In the out-scan room—a semi-globe bulging from the top hull of the Hornblower, halfway back from the bridge— Reynolds was using wire-clippers to sever every wire he could reach inside the tube-array of the scanner.

  The out-scanner, to Reynolds, resembled the planetarium projector of his boyhood, and the room itself had the familiar oversized-igloo shape. But this device, of black plasteel, projected through the convex ceiling, which closed with airtight integrity around it; above, it became a kind of giant cauliflower of metal, emanating an advanced form of radar into space; an identical one projected from the bottom hull of the ship, but Reynolds had done some research, and learned that disconnecting one made them both inoperable.

  Working quickly, Reynolds cut large segments of wire away so the lines wouldn’t be easily reparable. Then he reached down deep inside the device, and found a shiny rectangle of metal, about the size of a cube of butter, with 33-389 printed on it—just as described in the ship’s electronics catalog. He pulled it free. That would stop HDSP—Heim Drive Signal Pulses—which meant an end to fast interworld communication with Mars colony and Earth. The ship would only be able to use its relatively inter-ship short-range radio transmitters—five thousand clicks, no more.

  He carried the wire segments and the HDSP radio unit to the room’s disposal unit. He dropped them all in—and dropped the clippers in with them.

  There. He was committed now.

  But he wasn’t done… there was something else he had to make up his mind to do. Maybe he shouldn’t do it. Maybe it was, after all, going too far. They treated him with contempt, yes, but he had to admit he did have a certain hauteur that put people off at times. Perhaps they might be forgiven their jealousy—a great man had to expect people to resent him, after all. Perhaps he shouldn’t take this last step. It would make him either the lowest of the low—or the highest of the high. And from here he couldn’t quite see which, but surely…

  His sublime train of thought was interrupted by a booming, irritating, jeering voice:

  “Reynolds?” the comm shouted at him, making him wince. “Reynolds!” It was that egregious bully, Nate Eusebius. “Where are you?! Report in! You’re supposed to be up here on the bridge!”

  He didn’t answer. If he did, they’d know where he was—they could ask the ship’s computer, it would tell them where his voice was coming from. And he didn’t want them to know he’d been in this room.

  There was another reason he kept quiet. The xenomorphs. He was pretty sure one of the ways they tracked prey was through sound. Vocalizations.

  “Reynolds, goddamnit, you muttonhead!”

  That was it, then. Nate Eusebius had made up Reynolds’s mind for him.

  Reynolds found the little transparent aerosol squeeze bottle he’d secreted in his pocket and held it up to the light, looking at the faintly visible yellow swirl in the preservative solution. It didn’t seem deteriorated, but it was hard to tell without a microscope. He had carefully—very carefully— extracted it from the arthropodic stage of the xenomorph.

  �
�Reynolds… I just have a feeling you’re okay, and you’re listening. One of those instincts. And let me tell you, if I find out that’s the truth, I’m gonna brig your ass for insubordination… If the fucking cameras were working—but half of them were down and Bayfield was supposed to… What? Yes Captain, I’m trying, he’s not responding… Reynolds?”

  The analyzer estimated a high probability that the extract was a pheromone of unknown specificity. But the likelihood was that it was an “alarm” pheromone, something emitted by an organism to call others of its kind when it was in danger. Reynolds had taken the pheromone from the first-stage xenomorph, the endoparasite that Beresford had removed prematurely—distressed by the upset in its cycle, it had emitted alarm pheromones. The endoparasite from Cruz hadn’t responded for its own reasons—perhaps a greater instinctive imperative to increase its mass through acquisition of protein—or it had been out of range.

  “Reynolds, report!”

  But properly dispersed, this material might well call the xenomorphs to any spot he chose… which he’d better vacate, fast, if he wanted to live.

  “Reynolds!”

  If the others in the crew got in his way, and thus in the way of the xenomorphs, it was on their heads. He had been crossed too many times in his life already.

  “Reynolds… we’re gonna throw you in the brig if you don’t report in!”

  And in fact he got a quiver of delight, at the core of his being, thinking of the xenomorphs doing his bidding… and killing his enemies.

  Smiling, Reynolds put the bottle back in his shirt pocket, took the long rubber surgical gloves from his pocket, put them on, pulled them as far up his forearms as they would reach and walked over to the out-scanner.