The crew just stared at him solemnly, then turned away again.
Wren glanced irritably at Gediman, wondering where all his glibness was now that he needed it. "I don't know what their problem is. They read the literature. They knew what they'd signed on for."
Gediman couldn't pull his eyes from the massive window. The hibernators had all stopped struggling, and were just lying quietly now, in a state imitating coma. According to the remote sensors, the implantation had already begun. Twenty face huggers embraced twenty human heads, their oxygen bladders generously pumping air into the humans, sustaining their lives.
Finally, Gediman spoke. His voice was reedy, thin. "Reading about it is one thing. Seeing it—Seeing it is something totally different." He swallowed hard and distractedly touched his own throat.
As Wren turned back to the video screens, he had to consciously stop himself from doing the same thing.
6
Call and Christie caught up with the group just as they were about to enter the mess hall/recreation area.
Vriess grinned at the woman from his chair. "You guys all done?"
Call gave a nod as Christie said, "Unloaded and signed for. Every last one of them. I take it our glorious leader is still with El General?"
"Who, Elgyn?" Hillard asked casually. "I guess." She spoke to Vriess. "You been 'shopping' yet?"
"On an empty stomach?" the seated man asked. "You gotta be kiddin'. After we finish with this here four-star restaurant, then I'll check out the wares. A man's gotta have priorities."
The group chuckled as they all moved forward through the open doors. The place was cavernous, Call thought, especially compared to the cramped confines of the Betty. It was capable of seating every soldier for a meal at once, if need be. Yet the space was arranged so it could also be used for team sports, or other athletics. There was a basketball hoop set up at one end, near an array of boxing equipment and fitness apparatus.
They were late for dinner, and the only other person in the place was a lone woman toying with a basketball over by the hoop. She was tall, slender, with shoulder-length wavy brown hair. Call assumed she was either a soldier or a researcher off duty.
The others were looking over the area, too. Then Johner spied the strange woman and muttered, "Oh, oh."
Involuntarily, Call felt herself tense.
Johner smiled and said, "You're right about that, Vriess. A man's gotta have priorities." He sauntered over to the woman, and several of the others trailed a discreet distance behind. Call wasn't sure if it was group dynamics, or a sense of impending trouble. She doubted if anyone serving aboard the Auriga would be an easy target for the grotesque Johner.
Brazenly, Johner came up behind the woman. Placing his hands on her shoulders he asked in what he must've thought was a seductive tone, "How about a little one-on-one?"
Call wondered how far Johner ever got with his charge-ahead notion of romance. She had trouble believing that he'd ever gotten a piece of ass in his life for free.
The woman turned her head just slightly, just enough to let him know she was aware of him. Her expression wasn't welcoming. She turned back around as if dismissing him, and kept dribbling the ball.
"What do you say?" Johner pressed, rubbing his nose into her hair, inhaling her scent.
Call heard her clearly. "Get away from me!" The warning was firm, but there was a note of weary resignation in it.
"Why should I?" Johner asked coyly.
"You'll regret it," she said flatly. There was nothing coy in her voice.
Johner pressed himself against her, rubbing himself against her ass. Call felt her gorge rise. He nuzzled the woman's long neck, murmuring. "Are you gonna hurt me then? I think I might enjoy that." His small, nearly colorless eyes narrowed and his twisted smile was hideous, but then everything about Johner was hideous.
The woman turned her head. The parody of a smile she gave him was just as unattractive.
Distantly, Call realized that none of the crew had moved toward the mess tables, that they were all standing expectant, waiting for trouble. Apparently, this was not an unanticipated scene with Johner. Unconsciously, Call felt herself leaning forward, wanting to lend support to the strange woman. She knew that wouldn't be viewed well by the crew but. . .
Vriess tugged at the hem of her shirt. She glanced at him, saw him shake his head slightly. Don't get involved, Call, she could hear him warning.
She turned back to Johner and the woman, and wondered if calling Johner over to eat with them would distract him enough to—
Without warning, the woman erupted, slamming a vicious elbow jab into Johner's stomach. Immediately she pivoted halfway, firing a fist into his face, sucker-punching him hard. Call was stunned to realize that through all that, she'd casually hung onto the basketball with the other hand. The big man was actually airborne for a second, then hit the slick floor and slid.
The crew of the Betty was stunned, not that the woman had struck out at Johner, but at the amazing force she'd used. Call blinked as Johner kept sliding until he was stopped by a pile of pedestal-style punching bags that crashed over onto him in a tumble.
Before Call could absorb what she'd seen, Hillard gave a shout of rage and jumped the strange woman. The woman pivoted again and easily tossed Hillard off. Call gaped in surprise—the pilot was a tough, deadly fighter, but the other woman threw her as if she were a child. Hillard slammed into the deck, her own momentum working against her. As an afterthought, the woman chucked the basketball, and Hillard took it right in the gut without warning. It knocked the wind out of her with a rush that left her gasping.
Christie, his overdeveloped, dark muscles suddenly standing out in sharp relief, grabbed one of the pedestal punching bags and slammed it into the woman's head, base-first, with all the strength the big man had. Call gaped in shock as the stranger took a blow from the flat end of the weighted base right in the face without flinching, like a boxer. Nothing showed in her expression, except for a small trickle of blood oozing from her nose.
Christie was just as dumbfounded, and let her have it again, harder if possible. Once again the woman took the blow, absorbed it, and stood her ground. With a roar, Christie launched the weapon again. This time the woman's hand shot up, grabbing it on the shaft, stopping it in midblow. With little effort, she ripped the object from Christie's grasp—Christie's! Call realized numbly—and tossed it away.
Then she was on him like a wild animal. Burying one hand in his hair, she grabbed his jaw with the other while he struggled futilely to toss her off. He started shouting, clawing at her, punching, doing everything to dislodge her, as she tried to break his jaw. It was a terrifying tableau.
Call started to move forward to help Christie, when Vriess clutched her shirt. "Stay out of it!" he ordered. She hesitated, but obeyed.
Suddenly, Johner was back on his feet. He ran to the two struggling figures and slammed a meaty fist into the woman's unprotected kidney.
The woman's head snapped around, and her face contorted—in rage, not pain. She dropped Christie like an afterthought, and he collapsed like a doll. Unexpectedly the woman dropped, too, landing on her knees, her hand snaking out. In one coordinated move she latched onto Johner's crotch with the same crushing strength she'd used on Christie's jaw. Johner screamed, an agonized high-pitched sound. As he fell to his knees, the stranger fired a punch to his gut, folding him completely.
In the midst of this mayhem and the moans and shrieks of the injured crew, a man's voice suddenly rang out clear and firm.
"RIPLEY!"
Call turned at the sound, saw four soldiers, guns drawn, aimed right at them—no, not at them, at the woman. Among them stood two lab-coated men, one slightly behind the other. She recognized the first. He'd taken delivery of the cargo. The name "Wren" was stamped across the pocket of his white coat. Slightly behind him stood a man with the name "Gediman" on his coat. Gediman looked twitchy as hell, but Wren was an ice man. It was easy to see who was in charge.
> The woman Wren had addressed raised her head slowly, her expression once more collected, dispassionate, as if she hadn't just mopped the floor up with them—a group that prided itself on being the toughest of the tough.
Call turned back to stare at the woman. Did he say Ripley? Call blinked, stunned. Ripley?
Everything stopped. The Betty crew started to back off. Christie struggled to his feet, moved his arms behind his back as if at ease, when Call knew he was anything but. Hillard managed to stand under her own power. But Ripley still clung one-handed to Johner's shirt as if unwilling to release her prey, now that he was down.
"Let's not have a scene," Wren said quietly, as if speaking to a child. As if they hadn't already had a scene, and a horrendous one at that. As if he didn't have four trained soldiers holding guns on one lone woman. As if he had any real control over her.
Amazingly, Ripley released the man, then moved away. She stood apart from everyone, showing no allegiance to anyone but herself. She moved her head in the kneeling Johner's direction and said casually, "He... smells."
As if that were a plausible explanation for what had happened, Wren nodded.
Johner finally managed to grab enough air to speak. "What the fuck are you?" He was nearly sobbing in pain.
Ripley turned to him, stared at him contemptuously, then turned that half-lidded hollow gaze on all of them. Without saying a word, she wiped away the drop of blood sliding down her upper lip and flicked it away. It was no more important to her than any of them were. The Betty crew, the soldiers, their guns, Wren, Gediman.... Call watched the drop of blood land on the floor. Dismissed.
As if she'd just gotten too bored with the whole tableau to continue, Ripley scooped up the discarded basketball from the floor, sailed it the ridiculous distance to the hoop, and watched it go right on through. Then she turned and left.
Wren signaled his approval to the soldiers, who lowered their guns. She heard him say to Gediman, "She is something of a predator, isn't she?"
He admires her for it, Call realized.
Gediman was still as nervous as a cat. He tittered foolishly and mumbled, "Well... the guy does smell."
The two researchers and the soldiers filed on out of the mess, leaving the Betty crew to pick up the pieces of their damaged shipmates. Call helped Christie over to a bench, as Hillard gave Johner a hand up. She knew none of them would feel much like eating now.
As an afterthought, she glanced back toward the doors Ripley had exited through. When she did, she couldn't help but spot the little drop of blood on the floor where Ripley had flicked it.
A tiny plume of smoke drifted up from the stain. Beneath it, the floor was bubbling.
As late night descended on the Auriga, the crew of the two ships found various ways to entertain themselves— safely.
In the privacy of her assigned quarters, Hillard lay stretched out nude on her bunk, her expression blissful. Sighing soft moans of contentment, she indulged in the sensations overwhelming her. Her body ached from the altercation in the mess, but this was making up for it. She deserved it. She intended to enjoy every second of it.
She smiled over her shoulder at the man giving her such intense, intimate pleasure.
Elgyn smiled back at her as he massaged his lover's aching, tired feet.
In the privacy of his quarters, General Perez conscientiously waxed his boots himself, according to regs, by methodically melting the wax with a hand laser, applying it to the leather in a smooth layer, then hand-buffing it to a mirrorlike shine. It was a Zenlike task that kept hands busy and minds relaxed. And it allowed him time to mull over the future of his project.
Down in the ship's stores, Vriess rolled along vast corridors of bins filled to overflowing with neatly categorized and labeled parts. Thousands of parts. Maybe millions of parts. He was in mechanic's heaven. And everything was new, new, new! Perfect, state-of-the-art, high-end stuff. Only the best for General Perez. Already Vriess's arms were full of cables, printed circuit boards, components. He halted before a bin of diodes, nearly rolled on, then reconsidered. Grabbing a box, he was about to move away when he had second thoughts. Glancing around guiltily, he took a second.
In the living room of a joined suite of rooms, Christie, Call, and Johner sprawled in front of a video screen, passing around Johner's thermos of home brew. After this afternoon's fight, none of them had much to say. Call was surprised that neither of the two men or Hillard seemed to resent her lack of involvement, but she was the new kid after all, and she was small. Vriess had stayed out of it, too, and only a fool would think him helpless.
Johner, Christie, and Hillard, along with Vriess and Elgyn, had been together longest. Vriess didn't talk about it much, but he'd once indicated they'd all been mercenaries way back when—before Vriess was paralyzed.
On the screen, a gleaming black and chrome state-of-the-art revolver turned slowly for the viewing audience, while beside it scrolled all the weapon's specifications. The gun was so sophisticated, Call thought, that it ought to be able to load itself. It could be yours, the announcer promised, for a sum of credits at least equal to that needed to purchase a late model space ship.
Johner passed her the thermos without moving his eyes from the screen. She took it and splashed a little more of the lethal brew into her glass.
To each, their own relaxation.
In the restricted area, Gediman worked alone. He walked into the moving observation room that would allow him to quietly observe the progress of the first developing Aliens. He did not allow himself to think about the sleepers in the cryotubes and the face huggers attached to them. He did not allow himself to think about their screams as the erupting embryos emerged. That was not his job. He was a scientist on a mission, and his job, right here, right now, was to observe the developing Aliens that had already been born.
It was too bad they didn't have more historical information. Gediman considered it a scientific tragedy that they couldn't go back to planet LV-426, where the Aliens were originally discovered by the Nostromo crew. The wealth of information that must have been there! But the derelict ship with its bizarre cargo of thousands of eggs had been destroyed when the nuclear reactor of a damaged atmospheric processor had exploded, leaving nothing behind but radioactive waste and a crater nineteen megahectares in size. LV-426 would never be habitable again.
Ripley had escaped the destruction of LV-426 with a few others, but had ended up on Fiorina 161 when her ship had malfunctioned. A single warrior Alien had emerged there, waiting for the Queen that Ripley had unknowingly harbored. But that warrior had been destroyed, and Ripley had committed suicide to ensure the Queen inside her would never emerge.
That might have been the end of human contact with the Aliens, since all attempts, both by military scientists and private corporations, to discover the Aliens' planet of origin had failed to turn up a single clue, in spite of the hundreds of surveyed worlds that existed. The secret of the nearly perfect organisms had died in the holocaust on LV-426, until the discovery of Ripley's preserved blood and tissue samples from Fiorina 161.
That had been twenty-five years ago. The original samples had yielded little information, and they'd nearly been destroyed twice. Ten years ago, however, Mason Wren, a military scientist, had seen the potential there, and somehow managed to convince some very important people in Weapons Research of the possibilities. It had been his project ever since. But only in the last two years had the rest of the crew been ready to believe in Wren's vision. That's when they'd all been moved to the Auriga. That's when they'd suddenly been given everything they needed to make the project work. That was when the cloned cells from the samples began to survive and grow.
And now they were here. Facing the practical application of all that scientific research. There was still so much to learn. Patiently, he watched the monitors, electronic readouts, and the specimens themselves.
Gediman couldn't deny the research crew's amazement at the speed with which some of the embryos burst fr
om their hapless hosts, never mind their incredibly rapid development. Wren couldn't be sure if the growth was accelerated by the work they'd done, or if it was a natural variation. Previous records had been spotty as to the time span elapsed, and the sample size was too small to indicate norms or trends. Of course, they were still waiting for most of the embryos....
He moved the observation room along the track, pausing when he reached a specific cage. Manipulating the controls, he moved the booth right up to the cage's wide, clear port.
Inside, he could see two nearly adult-size Aliens that seemed to be hibernating. They were curled up on the floor, folded as small as possible, totally still. He made notes, checked the time. Suddenly, a third Alien moved up to the window from the shadows.
Gediman jumped involuntarily, having been unaware of the creature until it simply appeared. It loomed before him, dark, massive, malevolent, and totally Alien. The bizarre, elongated head, the huge tail, the six-fingered hands, the external, silicon-sheathed black skeleton, the monstrous dorsal horns. The beast grew still.
So, are you observing me? the scientist wondered. It was an eerie sensation for Gediman to be watched by such a big predator—a predator with no obvious eyes.
But you can see just fine, can't you? Special sensors in that tubular head of yours, for heat, vibration, sound, scent, movement—Three hundred and sixty degrees of awareness, far keener than any eyesight or hearing known. An amazing creature.
He saw again the cryotube that held the man named Purvis. Saw clearly the stark terror on Purvis's very aware face as the egg opened up before him. Saw the face-hugger attack and Purvis's desperate struggle....
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