The tunnel was tight and warm, wet in spots, thick with slime. Kramm shined his flashlight ahead, playing it about the walls.
Up ahead, the sound of scuttling and a brief flare of motion, quickly snuffed out. He felt the impulse to fire a shot, but pushed it down. I’ve got a light, he told himself. I’ve got a gun. I’ll be all right.
“Not so fast,” he heard Jolena say behind him. “Slower, please.”
He slowed his pace, his back starting to ache now from being bent over. It felt like he was moving through water, his movements too slow, hardly movements at all. Something needs to happen, he thought, despite knowing that if something did happen it wouldn’t be good.
He took another slow step, feeling Jolena touch his back. The tunnel grew briefly irregular, a heap of broken material from the wall on the floor. He tripped a little, reached out to steady himself, caught himself against the wall. But the wall, where he touched it, moved.
And then things did start to happen. He was flat on his face, his breath knocked out of him, without knowing what exactly had happened. There was shouting from the tunnel behind him and something was digging hard into his back. He tried to get to his feet but couldn’t, made a tremendous effort and managed to roll over only to see, above him, a scaly tail, the creature’s legs. Jolena fired once and the creature shuddered, bringing its face sinuously around and down near his own, and he saw the bullethole in the center of its head, the acidic blood pulsing slowly out of it. He moved his hand up to ward it off, and at that moment it opened its teeth wide and plunged in.
The pain in his hand was unbearable, but even worse was having that weird inhuman face just centimeters from his own, as if they were lovers. It stared at him—if it had eyes—chewing on his hand. He could feel the inner mouth trying to open, to spring out, the blood dripping out of its forehead and sizzling on the tunnel floor just beside his ear, burning in his hair, as the light cast by the several flashlights conducted a complex war of light and shadow around him: nothing what it seemed, or anything else either. Someone was screaming, he realized in the back of his mind, and then realized that it was him. And then another shot, another hole appearing in the creature’s head and it began to shake and curl up, the pain in his hand growing even stronger, and then it loosened its grip on him, and died.
The others got it off him, helped him to his feet, sprayed him with the acid neutralizer. His left hand, he saw, dazed, was partly gone, the pinky and third finger and much of the palm below them chewed away. He just stared at it, watching the blood congeal. Bjorn, he suddenly realized, had encircled his arm with one huge hand, had tightened his grip, his hand a sort of makeshift tourniquet.
“Perhaps you will hate me,” said Bjorn. “But this is what I can do.” And Kramm felt his arm being dragged toward the floor, his body following. And then suddenly Bjorn was pressing the bloody raw blade of Kramm’s hand into a puddle of the Alien’s blood.
Pain seared up his arm and all through him, and he heard himself scream, as if at a great distance. He tried to jerk his hand away, but Bjorn was holding him there.
“No, you see,” said Bjorn calmly. “It is for your own good. I am sealing the wound. I am stopping the blood.”
When Bjorn dragged him away again, the flesh and tissue where the wound had been was bubbling. They sprayed it quickly with neutralizer, and then Bjorn laid Kramm flat on the ground and tore off a good part of the leg of Kramm’s trousers, Frances quickly and efficiently binding the wound.
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
He shook his head, still in pain.
“At the least he is still alive,” said Bjorn. He shrugged. “He can always buy a new hand.”
“Don’t, Bjorn,” said Jolena.
Bjorn, half crouched in the tunnel, regarded her quizzically. “But why?” he asked. “I am just speaking the truth.”
“People have to sort through things on their own,” she said. “He needs quiet.”
Kramm thought for a moment he was going to pass out. He was barely conscious of Frances beside him, her arm around him. He could still feel the pain coming in waves, intense and crippling, and then slowly a part of his mind started to push the pain back, store it deeper inside his head, reduce it to a constant but bearable pressure. And then he sat there a while longer, moving his missing fingers and taking a slow inventory of himself.
“I’m still alive,” he finally said.
“You are,” agreed Frances. “But you won’t be much longer if we stay here. Shall we go?”
Kramm nodded. “Let’s go,” he said.
He let her help him up and they were off again, still moving slowly, Frances in front this time.
There was the sound of movement out far ahead of them and she fired. The sound stopped.
“You shouldn’t waste bullets,” Jolena scolded, from behind.
“I didn’t,” said Frances, and indeed as they got closer they saw the shape of the creature that had collapsed in the middle of their path.
They stepped gingerly over it. Up ahead, the tunnel opened up a little but not into a room of the size they anticipated. Instead, they found themselves in a small, rounded, organically formed chamber perforated by a half-dozen tunnels. Something scuttled back into a tunnel as they came through.
“Well,” said Frances. “Things seem to have gotten a lot more complicated.”
“It should be one of those three tunnels, no?” said Jolena, pointing. “That’s the right direction.”
“All right,” Frances said. “But which? Kramm?”
“How do I know?” asked Kramm.
“Pick one, Kramm,” said Frances. “You know how they think. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
He stared at the three entrances. They were seemingly identical, though one was placed higher on the wall than the other two. What did he know, really, about Alien behavior? Was there any sure way to tell which tunnel was the right one?
He tried again to remember his hours of wandering in the dark, wondering if that might give him some clue. But all he could conjure up were vague feelings, sensations of touch or things heard. There was nothing visual because, in the dark, there had been nothing to see. Which meant that it didn’t matter which tunnel looked right. What mattered was which tunnel felt right.
There were stirrings in the tunnels, the Aliens getting restless. How long before they attack? he wondered.
“Well,” Frances said. “Which one is it to be?”
He took his flashlight awkwardly in the remainder of his hand, balancing it between his thumb and forefinger. It made the hand throb. He approached the first hole, pistol ready as well, and shined the light in. It looked like any other Alien tunnel—dark and shiny, oddly ridged, organized, dollops of their opaque jelly clumped here and there. It curved quickly out of sight. Something was in it, and he heard it scuttle its way deeper down the passage as his light fell into the hole.
He had to stand on his tiptoes to peer down the second tunnel. It was similar to the first—dark, curving (upward this time), slimy.
“Well?” said Frances.
He turned, saw the three of them were all facing different directions, guns at the ready.
“I don’t know yet,” Kramm said. “Just give me a minute.”
“Hurry,” said Frances.
He peered back into the second tunnel, this time seeing one of the creatures just rounding the curve. It screeched, started toward him quickly as he fumbled the gun into position and fired. It screeched again, the sound echoing oddly through the round chamber, and it tried to turn about in the tight passage, and he shot it a second time. It collapsed, stayed still.
But that tunnel, now that he had a chance to look long and hard at it, seemed no different from the others.
“Trouble?” said Frances.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” said Kramm.
“Good for you,” said Frances. “Now make a damn choice.”
But that was just it, he couldn’t choose. They were all the same.
The Aliens worked by instinct; they would build their tunnels the same way every time, whether they were curving through the hive or ending in a door—
He stopped. There was something to that: Why would the Aliens build a tunnel leading to a door they wouldn’t be able to open? Surely the company had no intention of letting them get to the ship bay and the flitter it contained—even less intention of letting them get there if another ship had landed in the bay. All the company needed was a way in to harvest the eggs and Aliens they wanted and then get out safely again.
Which meant what they were looking for was not a tunnel that had been made by Aliens at all, only a tunnel that at best had been made to look as though it had been made by Aliens. That as though again—another simulation, another fake.
“It’s none of these,” he said.
“What?” said Frances. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No,” said Kramm. “I’m not.”
“Which one is it then?”
He let his eyes flicker over the remaining tunnels in turn. “Maybe that one,” he finally said.
“But it’s pointing in the wrong direction,” said Frances. “Are you sure?”
Kramm approached it, shined his light in. The tunnel’s shape was not quite right, the smoothness of the lip slightly compromised. He chipped away at the secretions that formed it, found underneath it a curved metal edge.
“I’m sure,” he said. “This isn’t made by Aliens. Humans did this.”
He pulled himself up and into the tunnel, saw that it went back wrong as well—straighter than the other tunnels. He turned himself partly around, held out his hand.
“Come on,” he said.
Frances reached out and with his help pulled herself up and in. She squeezed by him and into the tunnel beyond.
“Now Jolena,” said Kramm. “Hand her on in, Bjorn.”
“All right,” said Bjorn. He slipped his sidearm into his holster, picked Jolena up under her arms. He began to hand her in.
That was the moment Kramm saw the tail curl down behind them.
“Look out!” he yelled. Bjorn dropped Jolena and spun around, his sidearm somehow already drawn, dwarfed by his massive hand. Jolena gave a cry of pain, collapsed, began fumbling for her gun. Kramm too had his gun out, was peering out of the tunnel entrance, searching for a clear shot.
The creature leaped, struck Bjorn hard in the shoulder and chest, digging its claws into his back. Bjorn didn’t even budge, swept the creature off of himself as if it were a fly, sending it hurtling across the room. There were bullets in it even before it hit the floor, one from Kramm, two from Bjorn. But there were others of them now creeping out of the holes, slithering down the walls and toward them.
“Get in the tunnel!” Frances yelled. “Now!”
Jolena struggled to her feet. Bjorn was turning a slow circle, firing all the time. Jolena reached out to Kramm. He had taken her under the arms to help her in, when suddenly she was jerked away and out of his hands. He rushed to the edge of the hole, saw her being dragged up the wall by one of the creatures. He fired at it, missed, and watched it disappear into one of the tunnels.
Kramm scrambled out, fumbling his way up the wall best he could with his gun and injured hand, following them into the tunnel. It was dark inside; he didn’t have his flashlight; it was too hard to see, impossible to shoot. There were shapes there in front of him but he couldn’t tell where the Alien stopped and she began.
“Jolena!” he called.
“Here,” she called.
“I’m coming,” he said, then heard the report, was blinded by the flash. And there she was, pulling herself down the tunnel and toward him.
“Too late,” she said.
In the chamber below, Bjorn bellowed like a bull that had been blooded. Kramm made it to the hole’s edge, saw the creatures flashing madly about, Bjorn standing among them, using one of them like a club now to keep the others at bay.
Kramm shot a few, then sprang out and down. Frances was there too, leaning out of the manmade tunnel, firing. Bjorn’s sides were torn and bloody. The creature he was swinging about was still alive and kept trying to claw back at him. Jolena too was at the entrance of the upper tunnel now, taking the creatures out one by one with careful, perfect shots.
And then just as suddenly as they had appeared, the creatures were gone, flowing back into the holes like rats, leaving their dead and wounded behind. Bjorn snapped the tail of the one he held like a whip, bashed its brains out against the wall.
“Now they run,” he said with grim satisfaction.
“They’ll regroup and be back,” said Frances. “Quick, get into the tunnel.”
Bjorn nodded. He reached up toward Jolena who was perching on the lip of the tunnel above. “Jump,” he said. “I will catch you.”
“Be careful of my feet,” she said.
“I will be cautious of them,” he said. “You have my promise.”
She pushed off and fell. Or would have fallen anyway had not a long, clawed hand latched onto her shoulder and begun to pull her back in. She struggled, started to reach for her pistol, but it was already too late. She gave a moan, her face contorting, and threw back her head. And then, suddenly, a strange lump appeared beneath the surface of her shirt, in the middle of her chest, her shirt slowly staining with blood. She opened her mouth, and darkness poured out. The creature behind her hissed and Jolena writhed and there was an awful, slickened sound, then the creature’s tail tore fully and wetly through her chest, impaling her.
For a moment she was still alive, blood pooling in her mouth. Her eyes cast themselves around the room, touched on Kramm, then found Bjorn and stayed on him as she opened her mouth as if to speak, and then died.
The clawed hand and the tail began to drag her back into the tunnel. Bjorn gave an unearthly screech and leapt out, grabbing her foot. He pulled hard, dragging her body back out, and the creature along with it. He grabbed its tail and shook Jolena’s body free of it, and then proceeded to shake the creature and bash it against the walls, not stopping until long after it was dead and in pieces.
* * *
He sat there, holding the broken tip of the creature’s tail, staring down at Jolena. No longer bellowing now, just staring down at her, no expression at all on his face.
“Bjorn,” said Kramm beside him. “Time to go.”
“I will stay here,” said Bjorn.
“You can’t stay here,” said Kramm. “We need you.”
“I will stay,” he said again in his quiet voice, still staring at his dead partner.
“Bjorn,” called Frances from the hole. “Bring her along.”
Bjorn just shook his head.
“Don’t you want to find those who did this to her?” Frances asked. “Shouldn’t they be responsible for all they’ve done? For creating all this? Shouldn’t they be punished?”
Bjorn turned slightly toward her. “You will find them,” he said. He gestured around himself. “I will kill these.”
Frances shook her head. “This is an order, Bjorn,” she said. “I order you to come with us.”
His face tightened, his chest expanding. It looked for a moment like he might refuse, but then suddenly he looked down, seeming weaker, older.
“I will come,” he said. “And then I will come back.”
He gathered Jolena’s body in his arms and lifted it up and into the hole. Frances pulled it the rest of the way in, leaving a sticky swath of blood behind. Bjorn forced his way in next. Kramm watched him push his way deeper, listened to the soft swish of Jolena’s corpse being pushed ahead. And then he climbed in himself.
8
The tunnel curved left, the Alien secretions gradually thinning and fading away to reveal the tempered steel corridor beneath. It got larger and squarer; soon they could stand. There was a strange slight humming that at first Kramm couldn’t figure out. He worked his flashlight out of his pocket, shook it to charge the coil, shined it along the walls. There, clustered on the last
bits of the Alien secretion, were tiny microscale robots, about the size of mites, just visible, taking the secretion apart molecule by molecule, stripping the tunnel back to a bare metal hall.
Bjorn was carrying the corpse now, standing, tilting his head to avoid the ceiling. They turned left again, a hard angle this time, and then once again, the hallway widening as they came at last to a metal door.
“No chance it’ll open,” said Frances. “But no harm in trying, Kramm.”
Kramm nodded. He moved his way to the front, trying not to look into Jolena’s glassy eyes, and pressed his palm against the touchplate.
User recognized, it read. Anders Kramm. Access forbidden. Go to hell, Kramm.
“We’re getting to them,” said Frances.
“I will take care of this,” said Bjorn. He held Jolena toward Kramm. “Please hold her for me.”
Surprised, Kramm took the body. It was still supple, though starting to stiffen just a little. There was a slightly acrid smell to it, the smell of the blood perhaps, and it caught in his throat. He tried not to look at her eyes, at the hole in her chest.
And then suddenly he needed to look into her eyes, needed to make sure it wasn’t his own wife he was holding again. He opened his eyes, looked at her. The too-pale face and high cheekbones, the face dead but still serene. He found he could stand to look. Time heals all wounds, he thought, and then made the mistake of glancing at the hole through Jolena’s middle.
Bjorn, meantime, had worked his prybar into the crack between door and wall, slowly bending the frame back until he could get at the door itself. He was now slowly bending it back from the frame, pulling its bottom corner up and away like a page in a book. Soon he had curved it delicately toward them, and there was enough space at the bottom to crawl through.
Frances went first, followed by Kramm, then Bjorn pushed Jolena through, quickly following along himself.
They were in a large open space, the plexene dome again visible above them, sunlight streaming through. The space was mostly empty: two launch pads, the floor covered with exhaust burns, lines of heat baffles protecting the walls. There, on one of the launch pads, was the flitter.
The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 41
