Alan Dean Foster - Alien - 3

‘That’s a bit uncharitable,’ the med tech murmured. ‘How are you feeling?’

Ripley licked her lips. ‘Not so hot. Nauseous, sick to my stomach. And pissed off.’

He straightened, nodding to himself. ‘Shock’s starting to set in. Not unexpected, given what you’ve been through recently.

It’s a wonder you’re not over there sharing a blank wall with Golic.’ Walking over, he gave her a cursory examination, then headed for a cabinet, popped the catch, and began fumbling with the contents.

‘I’d best give you another cocktail.’

She saw him working with the injector. ‘No. I need to stay alert.’ Her eyes instinctively considered possible entrances: the air vents, the doorway. But her vision was hazy, her thoughts dulled.

Clemens came toward her, holding the injector in one hand.

‘Look at you. Call that alert? You’re practically falling over. The body’s a hell of an efficient machine, but it’s still just a machine.

Ask too much of it and you risk overload.’

She shoved back a sleeve. ‘Don’t lecture me. I know when I’m pushing things. Just give me the stuff.’

The figure in the corner was mumbling aloud. ‘I don’t know why people blame me for things. Weird, isn’t it? It’s not like I’m perfect or something but, sweet William, I don’t see where some people come off always blaming others for life’s little problems.’

Clemens smiled. ‘That’s quite profound. Thank you, Golic.’

He filled the injector, checking the level.

As she sat there waiting to receive the medication she happened to glance in Golic’s direction and was surprised to see him grinning back at her. His expression was inhuman, devoid of thought — a pure idiot’s delight. She looked away distastefully, her mind on matters of greater import.

‘Are you married?’ the straightjacketed hulk asked unexpectedly.

Ripley started. ‘Me?’

‘You should get married.’ Golic was utterly serious. ‘Have kids. . pretty girl. I know lots of ‘em. Back home. They always like me. You’re gonna die too.’ He began to whistle to himself.

‘Are you?’ Clemens inquired.

‘What?’

‘Married.’

‘Why?’

‘Just curious.’

‘No.’ He came toward her, the injector hanging from his fingers. ‘How about leveling with me?’

He hesitated. ‘Could you be a little more specific?’

‘When I asked you how you got assigned here you avoided the question. When I asked you about the prison ID tattoo on the back of your head you ducked me again.’

Clemens looked away. ‘It’s a long sad story. A bit melodramatic, I’m afraid.’

‘So entertain me.’ She crossed her arms over her chest and settled back on the cot.

‘Well, my problem was that I was smart. Very smart. I knew everything, you see. I was brilliant and therefore thought I could get away with anything. And for a while I did.

‘I was right out of med school, during which time I had managed the extraordinary accomplishment of finishing in the top five percent of my class despite having acquired what I confidently believed to be a tolerable addiction to Midaphine.

Do you know that particular pharmaceutical?’

Ripley shook her head slowly.

‘Oh, it’s a lovely chain of peptides and such, it is. Makes you feel like you’re invincible without compromising your judgment. It does demand that you maintain a certain level in your bloodstream, though. Clever fellow that I was, I had no trouble appropriating adequate supplies from whatever facility I happened to be working in at the time.

‘I was considered most promising, a physician-to-be of exceptional gifts and stamina, insightful and caring. No one suspected that my primary patient was always myself.

‘It happened during my first residency. The centre was delighted to have me. I did the work of two, never complained, was almost always correct in my diagnoses and prescriptions. I did a thirty-six-hour stretch in an ER, went out, got high as an orbital shuttle, was crawling into bed to lose myself in the sensation of floating all night, when the ‘com buzzed.

‘A pressure unit had blown on the centre’s fuel station.

Everyone they could get hold of was called in to help. Thirty seriously injured but only a few had to be sent to intensive care.

The rest just needed quick but rote attention. Nothing complicated. Nothing a halfway competent intern couldn’t have managed. I figured I’d take care of it myself and then hiphead it back home before anyone noticed that I was awfully bright and cheery for someone who’d just been yanked out of the sack at three in the morning.’ He paused a moment to gather his thoughts.

‘Eleven of the thirty died when I prescribed the wrong dosage of painkiller. Such a small thing. Such a simple thing.

Any fool could’ve handled it. Any fool. That’s Midaphine for you. Hardly ever affects your judgment. Only once in a while.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.

‘Don’t be.’ His expression was unforgiving. ‘No one else was.

I got seven years in prison, lifetime probation, and my license permanently reduced to a 3-C, with severe restrictions on what and where I could practice. While in prison I kicked my wonderful habit. Didn’t matter. Too many relatives around who remembered their dead. I never had a chance of getting the restrictions revised. I embarrassed my profession, and the examiners delighted in making an example of me. After that you can imagine how many outfits were eager to employ someone with my professional qualifications. So here I am.’

‘I’m still sorry.’

‘For me? Or about what happened? If it’s the latter, so am I.

About the prison sentence and subsequent restrictions, no. I deserved it. I deserved everything that’s happened to me. I wiped out eleven lives. Casually, with a dumb smile on my face.

I’m sure that the people I killed had promising careers as well.

I destroyed eleven families. And while I can’t ever forget, I’ve learned to live with it. That’s one positive thing about being assigned to a place like this. It helps you learn how to live with things that you’ve done.’

‘Did you serve time here?’

‘Yes, and I got to know this motley crew quite well. So when they stayed, I stayed. Nobody else would employ me.’ He moved to give her the injection. ‘So, will you trust me with an injector?’

As he was leaning toward her the alien hit the floor behind him as silently as it fell from the ceiling, landing in a supportive crouch and straining to its full height. It was astonishing and appalling how something that size could move so quietly. She saw it come erect, towering over the smiling medic, metallic incisors gleaming in the pale overhead light.

Even as she fought to make her paralyzed vocal cords function, part of her noted that it was slightly different in appearance from every alien type she had encountered previously. The head was fuller, the body more massive. The more subtle physical discrepancies registered as brief,

observational tics in the frozen instant of horror.

Clemens leaned toward her, suddenly more than merely concerned. ‘Hey, what’s wrong? You look like you’re having trouble breathing. I can—’

The alien ripped his head off and flung it aside. Still she didn’t scream. She wanted to. She tried. But she couldn’t. Her diaphragm pushed air but no sound.

It shoved Clemens’s spurting corpse aside and gazed down at her. If only it had eyes, a part of her thought, instead of visual perceptors as yet unstudied. No matter how horrible or bloodshot, at least you could connect with an eye. The windows of the soul, she’d read somewhere.

The alien had no eyes and, quite likely, no soul.