Aliens (aliens universe)

by Alan Dean Foster

  Shining her light ahead, she forgot the pain. The girl was backed against the far end of a small spherical chamber, one of the colony's ventilation system's pressure-relief bubbles. She was not alone.

  Surrounding her were wadded-up blankets and pillows mixed with a haphazard collection of toys, stuffed animals dolls, cheap jewellery, illustrated books, and empty food packets. There was even a battery-operated disk player muffled by cut-up pillows. The entire array was the result o the girl's foraging through the complex. She'd hauled it back to this place by herself, furnishing her private hideaway according to her own childish plan.

  It was more like a nest than a room, Ripley decided.

  Somehow this child had survived. Somehow she had coped with and adapted to her devastated environment when all the adults had succumbed. As Ripley struggled with the import of what she was seeing, the girl continued to edge around the back wall. She was heading for another hatch. If the conduit it barred was no bigger in diametre than the cover protecting it the girl would be out of their grasp. Ripley saw that she could never enter it.

  The child turned and dove, and Ripley timed her own lunge to coincide. She managed to get both arms around the girl locking her in a bear hug. Finding herself trapped, the girl went into a frenzy, kicking and hitting and trying to use her teeth. It was not only frightening, it was horrifying: because, as she fought, the child stayed dead silent. The only noise in the confined space as she struggled in Ripley's grasp was her frantic breathing, and even that was eerily subdued. Only once in her life had Ripley had to try to control someone small who'd fought with similar ferocity, and that was Jones, when she'd had to take him to the vet.

  She talked to the child as she kept clear of slashing feet and elbows and small sharp teeth. 'It's okay, it's okay. It's over you're going to be all right now. It's okay, you're safe.'

  Finally the girl ran out of strength, slowing down like a failing motor. She went completely limp in Ripley's arms almost catatonic, and allowed herself to be rocked back and forth. It was hard to look at the child's face, to meet her traumatized, vacant stare. Lips white and trembling, eyes darting wildly and seeing nothing, she tried to bury herself in the adult's chest, shrinking back from a dark nightmare world only she could see.

  Ripley kept rocking the girl back and forth, back and forth cooing to her in a steady, reassuring voice. As she whispered she let her gaze roam the chamber until it fell on something lying on the top of the pile of scavenged goods. It was a framed solido of the girl, unmistakable and yet so different. The child in the picture was dressed up and smiling, her hair neat and recently shampooed, a bright ribbon shining in the blond tresses. Her clothing was immaculate and her skin scrubbed pink. The words beneath the picture were embossed in gold:

  FIRST-GRADE CITIZENSHIP AWARD REBECCA JORDEN

  'Ripley. Ripley?' Hicks voice, echoing down the air shaft 'You okay in there?'

  'Yes.' Aware they might not have heard her, she raised her voice. 'I'm okay. We're both okay. We're coming out now.'

  The girl did not resist as Ripley retraced her crawl feet first dragging the child by the ankles.

  VII

  The girl sat huddled against the back of the chair, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked neither right nor left, nor at any of the adults regarding her curiously. Her attention was focused on a distant point in space. A biomonitor cuff had been strapped to her left arm. Dietrich had been forced to modify it so that it would fit properly around the child's shrunken arm.

  Gorman sat nearby while the medtech studied the information the cuff was providing. 'What's her name again?'

  Dietrich made a notation on an electronic caduceus pad 'What?'

  'Her name. We got a name, didn't we?'

  The medtech nodded absently, absorbed by the readouts 'Rebecca, I think.'

  'Right.' The lieutenant put on his best smile and leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. 'Now think, Rebecca Concentrate. You have to try to help us so that we can help you. That's what we're here for, to help you. I want you to take your time and tell us what you remember. Anything at all. Try to start from the beginning.'

  The girl didn't move, nor did her expression change. She was unresponsive but not comatose, silent but not mute. A disappointed Gorman sat back and glanced briefly to his left as Ripley entered carrying a steaming coffee mug.

  'Where are your parents? You have to try to—'

  'Gorman! Give it a rest, would you?'

  The lieutenant started to respond sharply. His reply faded to a resigned nod. He rose, shaking his head. 'Total brainlock Tried everything I could think of except yelling at her, and I'm not about to do that. It could send her over the edge. If she isn't already.'

  'She isn't.' Dietrich turned off her portable diagnostic equipment and gently removed the sensor cuff from the girl's unresisting arm. 'Physically she's okay. Borderline malnutrition, but I don't think there's any permanent damage. The wonder of it is that she's alive at all, scrounging unprocessed food packets and freeze-dried powder.' She looked at Ripley 'You see any vitamin packs in there?'

  'I didn't have time for sight-seeing, and she didn't offer to show me around.' She nodded toward the girl.

  'Right. Well, she must know about supplements because she's not showing any signs of critical deficiencies. Smart little thing.'

  'How is she mentally?' Ripley sipped at her coffee, staring at the waif in the chair. The child's skin was like parchment over the backs of her hands.

  'I can't tell for sure, but her motor responses are good. I think it's too early to call it brainlock. I'd say she's on hold.'

  'Call it anything you want.' Gorman rose and headed for the exit. 'Whatever it is, we're wasting our time trying to talk to her.' He strode out of the side room and back into Operations to join Burke and Bishop in staring at the colony's central computer terminal. Dietrich headed off in another direction.

  For a while Ripley watched the three men, who were intent on the terminals Hudson had resurrected, then knelt alongside the girl. Gently she brushed the child's unkempt hair back out of her eyes. She might have been combing a statue for all the response she elicited. Still smiling, she proffered the steaming cup she was holding.

  'Here, try this. If you're not hungry, you must be thirsty. I'l bet it gets cold in that vent bubble, what with the heat off and everything.' She moved the cup around, letting the air carry the warm, aromatic smell of the contents to the girl's nostrils 'It's just a little instant hot chocolate. Don't you like chocolate? When the girl didn't react, Ripley wrapped the small hands around the cup, bending the fingers toward each other. Then she tilted hands and cup upward.

  Dietrich was correct about the child's motor responses. She drank mechanically and without watching what she was doing Cocoa spilled down her chin, but most of it went down the small throat and stayed down. Ripley felt vindicated.

  Not wanting to overwhelm an obviously shrunken stomach she pulled the cup away when it was still half full. 'There wasn't that nice? You can have some more in a minute. I don't know what you've been eating and drinking, and we don't want to make you sick by giving you too much rich stuff too quickly. She pushed at the blond tresses again.

  'Poor thing. You don't talk much, do you? That's okay by me You feel like keeping quiet, you keep quiet. I'm kind of the same way. I've found that most people do a lot of talking and they wind up not saying very much. Especially adults when they're talking to children. It's kind of like they enjoy talking at you but not to you. They want you to listen to them all the time but they don't want to listen to you. I think that's pretty stupid Just because you're small doesn't mean you don't have some important things to say.' She set the cup aside and dabbed at the brown-stained chin with a cloth. It was easy to feel the ridge of unfinished bone beneath the tightly drawn skin.

  'Uh-oh.' She grinned broadly. 'I made a clean spot here Now I've gone and done it. Guess I'll just have to do the whole thing. Otherwise nothing will match.'

  From
an open supply packet she withdrew a squeeze bottle full of sterilized water and used it to soak the cloth she was holding. Then she applied the makeshift scrubber firmly to the girl's face, wiping away dirt and accumulated grime in addition to the remaining cocoa spots. Throughout the operation the child sat quietly. But the bright blue eyes shifted and seemed to focus on Ripley for the first time.

  She felt a surge of excitement and fought to suppress it 'Hard to believe there's a little girl under all this.' She made a show of examining the cloth's surface. 'Enough dirt there to file a mining claim on.' Bending over, she stared appraisingly at the newly revealed face. 'Definitely a little girl. And a pretty one, at that.'

  She looked away just long enough to assure herself that no one from Operations was about to barge in. Any interruption at this critical moment might undo everything that she'd worked so hard to accomplish with the aid of a little hot chocolate and clean water.

  No need to worry. Everyone in Operations was still clustered around the main terminal. Hudson was seated at the console fingering controls while the others looked on.

  A three-dimensional abstract of the colony drifted across the main screen, lazy geometric outlines tumbling from left to right, then bottom to top, as Hudson manipulated the program. The comtech was neither playing nor showing off; he was hunting something. No rude comments spilled from his lips now, no casual profanity filled the air. It was work time. If he cursed at all, it was to himself. The computer knew all the answers. Finding the right questions was an agonizingly slow process.

  Burke had been inspecting other equipment. Now he shifted his position for a better view as he whispered to Gorman.

  'What's he scanning for?'

  'PDTs. Personal data transmitters. Every colonist has one surgically implanted as soon as they arrive.'

  'I know what a PDT is,' Burke replied mildly. 'The Company manufactures them. I just don't see any point in running a PDT scan. Surely if there was anyone else left alive in the complex, we'd have found them by now. Or they'd have found us.'

  'Not necessarily.' Gorman's reply was polite without being deferential. Technically Burke was along on the expedition as an observer for the Company, to look after its financial interests. His employer was paying for this little holiday excursion in tandem with the colonial administration, but what authority he had was largely unwritten. He could give advice but not orders. This was a military expedition, and Gorman was in charge. On paper Burke was his equal. The reality was very different.

  'Someone could be alive but unable to move. Injured, or maybe trapped inside a damaged building. Sure the scan's a long shot, but procedure demands it. We have to run the check.' He turned to the comtech. 'Everything functioning properly, Hudson?'

  'If there's anyone alive within a couple of kilometres of base central, we'll read it out here.' He tapped the screen. 'So far I've got zip except for the kid.'

  Wierzbowski offered a comment from the far side of the room. 'Don't PDTs keep broadcasting if the owner dies?'

  'Not these new ones.' Dietrich was sorting through her instruments. 'They're partly powered by the body's own electrical field. If the owner fades out, so does the signal. A stiff's electrical capacitance is nil. That's the only drawback to using the body as a battery.'

  'No kidding?' Hudson spared the comely medtech a glance 'How can you tell if somebody's AC or DC?'

  'No problem in your case, Hudson.' She snapped her medica satchel shut. 'Clear case of insufficient current.'

  It was easier to find another clean cloth than to try to scrub out the first one. Ripley was working on the girl's small hands now excavating dirt from between the fingers and beneath the nails Pink skin emerged from behind a mask of dark grime. As she cleaned, she kept up a steady stream of reassuring chatter.

  'I don't know how you managed to stay alive with everybody else gone away, but you're one brave kid, Rebecca.'

  A sound new to Ripley's ears, barely audible. 'N-newt.'

  Ripley tensed and looked away so her excitement wouldn't show. She kept moving the washcloth as she leaned closer. 'I'm sorry, kid, I didn't hear you. Sometimes my hearing's not so good. What did you say?'

  'Newt. My n-name's Newt. That's what everybody calls me Nobody calls me Rebecca except my brother.'

  Ripley was finishing off the second hand. If she didn't respond, the girl might lapse back into silence. At the same time she had to be careful not to say anything that might upset her. Keep it casual and don't ask any questions.

  'Well, Newt it is, then. My name's Ripley— and people cal me Ripley. You can call me anything you like, though.' When no reply was forthcoming from the girl, Ripley lifted the smal hand she'd just finished cleaning and gave it a formal shake.

  'Pleased to meet you, Newt.' She pointed at the disembodied doll head that the girl still clutched fiercely in one hand. 'And who is that? Does she have a name? I bet she does. Every dol has a name. When I was your age, I had lots of dolls, and every one of them had a name. Otherwise, how can you tell them apart?'

  Newt glanced down at the plastic sphere with its vacant glassy eyes. 'Casey. She's my only friend.'

  'What about me?'

  The girl looked at her so sharply that Ripley was taken aback. The assurance in Newt's eyes bespoke a hardness that was anything but childish. Her tone was flat, neutral.

  'I don't want you for a friend.'

  Ripley tried to conceal her surprise. 'Why not?'

  'Because you'll be gone soon, like the others. Like everybody.' She gazed down at the doll head. 'Casey's okay She'll stay with me. But you'll go away. You'll be dead and you'll leave me alone.'

  There was no anger in that childish declamation, no sense of accusation or betrayal. It was delivered coolly and with complete assurance, as though the event had already occurred It was not a prediction, but rather a statement of fact soon to take place. It chilled Ripley's blood and frightened her more than anything that had happened since the dropship had departed the safety of the orbiting Sulaco.

  'Oh, Newt. Your mom and dad went away like that, didn't they? You just don't want to talk about it.' The girl nodded, eyes downcast, staring at her knees. Her fingers were white around the doll head. 'They'd be here if they could, honey,' Ripley told her solemnly. 'I know they would.'

  'They're dead. That's why they can't come see me anymore They're dead like everybody else.' This delivered with a cold certainty that was terrifying to see in so small a child.

  'Maybe not. How can you be sure?'

  Newt raised her eyes and stared straight at Ripley. Smal children do not look adults in the eye like that, but Newt was a child in stature only. 'I'm sure. They're dead! They're dead, and soon you'll be dead, and then Casey and I'll be alone again.'

  Ripley didn't look away and she didn't smile. She knew this girl could see straight through anything remotely phony 'Newt. Look at me, Newt. I'm not going away. I'm not going to leave you and I'm not going to be dead. I promise. I'm going to stay around. I'll be with you as long as you want me to.'

  The girl's eyes remained downcast. Ripley could see her struggling with herself, wanting to believe what she'd just heard trying to believe. After a while she looked up again.

  'You promise?'

  'Cross my heart.' Ripley performed the childish gesture.

  'And hope to die?'

  Now Ripley did smile, grimly. 'And hope to die.'

  Girl and woman regarded one another. Newt's eyes began to brim, and her lower lip to tremble. Slowly the tension fled from her small body, and the indifferent mask she'd pulled across her face was replaced by something much more natural: the look of a frightened child. She threw both arms around Ripley's neck and began to sob. Ripley could feel the tears streaming down the newly washed cheeks, soaking her own neck. She ignored them rocking the girl back and forth in her arms, whispering soothing nothings to her.

  She closed her own eyes against the tears and the fear and lingering sensation of death that permeated Hadley Operations Central and
hoped that the promise she'd just made could be kept.

  The breakthrough with the girl was matched by another in Operations as Hudson let out a triumphant whoop. 'Hah! Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen! Found 'em. Give old Hudson a decent machine and he'll turn up your money, your secrets, and your long-lost cousin Jed.' He rewarded the control console with an affectionate whack. 'This baby's been battered, but she can still play ball.'

  Gorman leaned over the comtech's shoulder. 'What kind of shape are they in?'

  'Unknown. These colonial PDTs are long on signal and short on details. But it looks like all of them.'

  'Where?'

  'Over at the atmosphere processing station.' Hudson studied the schematic. 'Sublevel C under the south part of the complex.' He tapped the screen. 'This charmer's a sweetheart when it comes to location.'

  Everyone in Operations had clustered around the comtech for a look at the monitor. Hudson froze the colony scan and enlarged one portion. In the centre of the processing station's schematic a cluster of glowing blue dots pulsed like deep-sea crustaceans.

  Hicks grunted as he stared at the screen. 'Looks like a town meeting.'

  'Wonder why they all went over there?' Dietrich mused aloud. 'I thought we'd decided that this was where they made their last stand?'

  'Maybe they were able to make a break for it and secure themselves in a better place.' Gorman turned away, brisk and professional. 'Remember, the processing station still has ful power. That'd be worth a lot. Let's saddle up and find out.'

  'Awright, let's go, girls.' Apone was slipping his pack over his shoulders. Operations became a hive of activity. 'They ain't payin' us by the hour.' He glanced at Hudson. 'How do we get over there?'