“It was in the banned histories,” she noted.
“Yes,” he said, “I remember. You landed on the planet Acheron in response to what you thought was a distress call. A party led by Kane, the executive officer, went to find the source of the call and came across a nest full of big, leathery eggs, the likes of which no one had ever seen before.
“Kane descended among the eggs and was attacked by a creature hiding in one of them—a small, grabby thing. He went into a coma with the thing still stuck to his face. When he woke, the creature was dead and Kane seemed right as Rigel. Trouble was he had an alien embryo growing inside him.”
“Which eventually burst out of his chest,” Ripley continued, “splintering his ribcage and killing him. We couldn’t go back into stasis with a creature running around the ship, so we made plans to track it down. But all the while it was growing, maturing. Soon it was an adult, capable of reducing a man to bloody bone fragments and tatters of flesh.”
“Little by little, it took the lives of the Nostromo’s crew. First Brett, then Captain Dallas, then Parker and Lambert. It would have killed me too, but I got lucky.”
Simoni held up his hand. “Hang on. The histories say the alien met its match in you.”
Ripley let out a laugh. “I was lucky. Even now, I’m no match for a full-grown alien. No one is.”
“But you’re a survivor,” he said. “That’s documented.”
She shrugged. “I died, didn’t I?”
He was about to point out that her death had been only a temporary condition, but he didn’t want to get too far off track. “Right,” he said. “Go on.”
“We were pretty unlucky,” said Ripley, “that the Nostromo was the one to receive that distress signal. And even more unlucky that Kane went into that nest and got himself impregnated—and that the alien wound up inside our ship, running loose.
“At least, that’s what I thought when my crewmates started dying around me. But I found out otherwise. In fact, it was all part of a carefully orchestrated plan.
“The Nostromo was picked in advance to be the vessel that would set down on Acheron—because someone knew there was a nest of alien life-forms there. And when we sent a team to investigate, in accordance with our orders, it was no accident that one of us got an alien planted inside him.”
Simoni thought he saw where she was going with this. “Morse said Weyland-Yutani wanted the aliens for their bio-engineering division.”
“Morse was right,” Ripley said. “But he didn’t know all of it. For starters, he didn’t know about Ash.”
Simoni shook his head. “Ash?”
Ripley looked as if she had eaten something rancid. “An android, first generation. Of course, Captain Dallas didn’t know that when Ash was assigned to him. The captain thought Ash was just another company science officer.
“A guy named Umbulu had worked the previous five hauls on the Nostromo, and Dallas liked the work he had done. So Umbulu was all set to work a sixth haul. But two days before the ship’s scheduled departure from Thedus, Umbulu vanished. Left a message for the captain saying something had come up.
“That left the door open for Ash, Weyland-Yutani’s chosen replacement. But he wasn’t there to make scientific judgments and observations. He was there to make certain we brought the company an alien—what he called an encephalopod.”
Interesting, thought Simoni. “What did he do?”
Ripley’s jaw muscles rippled. “After Dallas and Lambert brought Kane back to the ship, I refused to open the hatch for them. I was concerned about the organism compromising our environment. Ash ignored my status as ranking officer on board, not to mention the science division’s rules about quarantine, and let the landing party in.
“At first I thought he had acted rashly because he was eager to examine an unknown life-form. Then he did and said things that told me it was more than that. For instance, Ash was studying Kane’s medical scans on a regular basis—he should have seen the embryo developing inside him. But he never said anything.
“After Dallas was killed, I got hold of Ash’s key when he wasn’t looking and used it to access Mother, the ship’s computer. She confirmed that Ash was protecting the alien from us, making it difficult for us to catch it.
“Mother also mentioned something called Special Order Nine-three-seven. Before I could find out more, Ash came after me—tried to shove a rolled-up magazine down my throat. Parker walloped him with a steel rod, decapitating him, or he would have killed me.
“Later, we connected Ash’s head to a power source, looking for answers. He told us that Special Order Nine-three-seven directed him to take the ship to Acheron, investigate a life form, and bring it back for observation. With discretion, of course.”
“In other words,” Simoni suggested, “without letting the rest of you in on his agenda.”
“It was the company’s agenda,” Ripley reminded him. “Ash was just their puppet.”
Simoni digested the information, merged it with what he already knew. “So the signal you picked up—that was set up by the company as well?”
“No,” she said. “It was sent out by an alien. But not the kind we’ve been talking about.”
He found himself smiling. “I think you’ve lost me. What other kind is there?”
“Kane didn’t find those eggs in a cavern,” said Ripley. “He found them in the hold of a ship. An alien ship, with an alien pilot—whose chest had exploded giving birth to a encephalopod.”
A chill climbed the rungs of Simoni’s spine. “You mean a sentient being? From another world?”
“That’s right. He was about five meters tall and covered with a layer of alien residue, but there was no mistaking that he had once been a thinking being.”
Holy shit, Simoni thought. “Did you actually see him?”
“Not firsthand,” said Ripley. “But Dallas saw him and sent the image back to the Nostromo.”
The reporter slumped back against the bulkhead. “You know how goddamned big this is? Another sentient species out there, sharing the universe with us?”
“I know how big,” said Ripley.
“All right,” said Simoni, “so the signal … it came from this alien pilot. Maybe he had some kind of tech problem, so he set down on Acheron and sent out a distress call.
“But before anybody could answer it, his chest burst open and he died. And the alien inside him must have been a queen, or Kane would never have discovered all those eggs.”
“A queen,” said Ripley, “yes.”
“Then the Nostromo answered the signal,” he said, trying to bring things full circle. “And Kane was impregnated. And Ash let the landing party back on the—”
Wait a minute.
“Something’s missing,” said Simoni. “Weyland-Yutani already knew there was an alien life form on Acheron. That’s why they woke you out of cryo. That’s why they sent Ash along.”
“They heard the signal,” Ripley suggested in a devil’s advocate kind of way, “and knew it wasn’t from a human ship.”
He considered the idea—and rejected it. “Ash was operating under that order you mentioned. If he were after the pilot, he would have found a way to bring it aboard. Instead, he let the landing party return without it.”
“So,” said Ripley, “it was an encephalopod he wanted. But how did the company know such a thing existed? And how did Ash know the organism on Kane’s face would deposit an embryo inside him?”
Simoni frowned. “Weyland-Yutani had to know the alien’s modus operandi before it got wind of the signal.”
“Right,” said Ripley. “Which means the company sent a team to Acheron in advance of the Nostromo.”
He shook his head. “Then that team could have brought back the alien on its own.” He tried to read his host’s expression. “So Weyland-Yutani never sent a team. They learned of the aliens’ presence there through someone else.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know,” said Simoni. “The milit
ary?”
“No. The military would have moved in on its own. Who knew the pilot’s ship had landed on Acheron?”
“Only the pilot’s people,” he said reflexively. Then he considered the implications. “They’re the ones who told Weyland-Yutani what was on Acheron? But that would mean—”
“We spoke to them,” said Ripley. “In fact, we had already been speaking to them for some time.”
It just got better and better. “Who’s we? You mean Earthgov?”
She shook her head. “An organization whose only purpose is to facilitate a series of transactions between the pilot’s species and various elements of human civilization.”
“Transactions?” Simoni echoed.
Human civilization wasn’t lacking in anything he could think of. Its only problem was getting raw materials from one world to another, and ultimately to Earth.
“Originally,” said Ripley, “the idea was to eliminate any areas of conflict before they could escalate into reasons for war. But after a while, it became more of a clearinghouse. If we wanted something the pilot’s people could provide we traded them something they couldn’t get on their own, and vice versa.
“A good deal of the time these transactions involved theft, slavery, or murder. But Earthgov had the luxury of disassociating itself from all of it.”
Unbelievable, Simoni thought. “How did you find all this out?”
“Call caught onto it. She had hacked into Earthgov’s mainframe before she left Earth the first time, and gotten the first hints then. But they were so subtle, it took a long time for her to put it all together.
“She called the organization Loki, after a shadowy and elusive god in one of Earth’s ancient pantheons. After a while, the rest of us started using that name for it too.
“It was Loki who learned from the pilot’s species what was on Acheron. And it was Loki who passed the information on to Weyland-Yutani, prompting the company to insert Ash into the crew and issue special order nine-thirty-seven.”
“What did the pilot’s people get in return?” asked Simoni.
“A human research colony on a world called Bahgreb, which they seized without a fight a year or so later.”
“The aliens were that important to us?”
Ripley grunted disdainfully. “At the time the Nostromo landed on Acheron, Earthgov was battling political insurgents in the plexes. It needed a bio-weapon to clean them out.”
“Earthgov was going to unleash encephalopods in the plexes?” It sounded insane.
“Earthgov didn’t understand what it was dealing with,” she said. “No one ever does.”
Simoni had to take Ripley’s word for it. He had never seen an alien, only heard accounts of them from ex-military types who had served on the Auriga—or claimed to.
“And the people who attacked us?”
“Loki,” said Ripley. “Trying to stop us from interfering in one of their deals with the pilot’s people. They have the resources to clear away obstacles like the Betty, and you can be sure Earthgov will look the other way.”
“Then why did they board us? Why not just destroy the Betty and be done with it?”
“Because,” she said, “they wanted to know how much we knew, and who else might know it. And the only way they could do that was by seizing us and our computers.”
And when they failed, they killed themselves. He had to admit that smacked of an intense need for secrecy. But then, there were fanatics all over the place. One didn’t have to posit three-hundred year-old conspiracies to explain them.
“So what deal is it we’re interfering with?” he asked.
“Earthgov gets clearance to colonize a world rich in minerals, which the pilot’s people had laid claim to some time ago. And the pilot’s people get a colony full of human hosts.”
“Hosts?” he echoed uncomfortably. “You mean the way you were a host?”
“Exactly,” said Ripley. “The pilot’s people have obtained some eggs and seem eager to grow a pack of aliens. We haven’t figured out why, but we know where—and we intend to stop it.”
“That’s where we’re headed, then?” the reporter asked. “To save a human colony?”
“That’s where we’re headed,” Ripley confirmed. “So what do you think, Simoni? Any chance people will believe this?”
He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “Not a chance. At least at first. But after a while, it’ll start attracting some believers.”
“Not that it matters,” she said. “Loki’s too good at moving in the shadows. But if it makes them the least bit uncomfortable, that’ll be a good thing.”
And if it makes me famous, Simoni thought, it will be a good thing too.
After all, in the final analysis he didn’t care about Ripley or Call or humanity. He cared about himself. And a story like this would make him king of the web writers, then and forever more.
* * *
Pandor was beginning to remember.
He could see the leathery-looking ovoid in the cryo tube, and the ghostly-white, spider-like thing at its core. He felt again his surprise at the way it shot out at him—and his horror as he realized it was going to choke him to death.
Apparently, it had stopped short of that.
“Well?” said Seigo, who was sitting next to him.
Pandor blinked and looked at him. “What is it?”
“I asked you to pass the bread, for godsakes. Three times.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” said Pandor, returning his attention to the dinner table and locating the bread basket.
“It’s not an exaggeration,” said Seigo, as he accepted the napkin-lined, red plastic basket and removed a small, soft dinner roll. He looked to the others who were seated with them at the long, aluminum-alloy table in the mess hall. “Am I right?”
Cody shrugged. “I wasn’t really listening.”
“Me either,” said Gogolac.
“The hell you weren’t,” said Seigo. He turned to Shepherd. “Did you hear me ask him for the basket?”
Benedict, who was seated immediately to Pandor’s right, said, “What’s the difference? You got the rolls, didn’t you?”
Seigo scowled at him. “It’s a goddamned conspiracy. You’re all out to make me insane.”
“For godsakes,” Gogolac interjected, “it’s just a bread basket. Get over it already.”
Just then the door to the room slid aside, revealing the octagonal corridor beyond. Philip was standing on the threshold, holding a tray full of steaming food.
“All right,” he said, his burden filling the room with the savory smells of seasoned tomato sauce and baked cheeses. “Buon apetito, everybody.”
It was Thursday night. They always ate Italian on Thursdays.
Placing the tray on the edge of the table, Philip offloaded three big, white ceramic dishes—a bowl full of caesar salad, a platter covered with eggplant parmigiana, and another platter piled with baked ziti. All homemade, Pandor reflected. As if they had a choice in the matter.
“No meat,” Seigo observed. “Again.”
“As you know,” said Philip, “meat’s at a premium around here until the next supply ship.”
“So I’ve heard,” Seigo replied drily.
“However,” Philip rejoined, “we did dig up something for the seafood lovers among us.”
As he spoke the words, the door slid aside again and Angie came in, dwarfed by the platter in her hands. “Calamari marinara!” she announced in her best Italian accent—which wasn’t very good at all.
Pandor found himself smiling. Calamari was his favorite dish, bar none. “Where did you find it?”
“Behind the carrot cake,” said Angie, setting her platter down on the table. “Didn’t even know it was there until this morning.”
Philip clapped Pandor on the shoulder. “Just the thing to get you back to full strength, eh?”
“I certainly hope so,” said Pandor.
“I don’t know how you can eat that stuff,”
said Seigo, pinching his features for emphasis.
“Like this,” said Benedict, spooning an oversized, sauce-drenched mound of calamari into his plate. “And like this.” With his fingers, he picked up a large, meaty ring of squid flesh and popped it into his mouth. Then he chewed it with exaggerated gusto.
Seigo rolled his eyes and looked away. But Hendricks chuckled, as she often did at Benedict’s antics.
“You two are like children,” Gogolac said of Seigo and Benedict, “and nasty children at that.”
Benedict handed Pandor the serving spoon and said, for Seigo’s benefit, “Dig in, Elijah. It’s a nice batch. Tender, flavorful … I’ll have to send my compliments to the laser defroster.”
“Thanks,” said Pandor, taking the spoon and using it to put some of the calamari on his plate.
As he did so, he saw a cluster of squid tentacles poking out from the red sauce. It made him stop in mid-motion. Hadn’t the creature’s limbs looked a little like that before they wrapped themselves around his face?
“What’s the matter?” asked Angie.
Pandor felt everyone’s eyes on him. “Nothing,” he said, smiling to reassure them. “Really.” He dug his fork into the calamari and put some in his mouth.
Benedict was right. It was delicious. And with an effort, he was able to force the image of the creature from his mind.
After all, his ordeal was over. And he was recuperating nicely—Angie had said so. His throat didn’t hurt anymore and he didn’t feel dehydrated. Except for a little weariness now and then, one would never know he had been in a coma a couple of days earlier.
The whole thing was so bizarre, so unlike anything he had ever heard of. But it was behind him.
Shepherd had gone through the supply bay a second time to allay Seigo’s fears, and hadn’t found anything. There was no sign of any other ovoids, or—more importantly—any other creatures. Whatever had latched onto Pandor had been a one-of-a-kind passenger.
Of course, they were still waiting for a response from Domes Gamma as to where it had come from. It seemed unlikely that Murakami was raising such creatures on purpose. So where had they picked up the ovoid? And were there others hidden somewhere on Gamma, biding their time until they could spring at unsuspecting botanists?
The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 11
