Alan Dean Foster: Alien - 3

‘So we’re just caretakers, just a custodial staff. Keeps things from freezing up in case the price of the ore or the need for it goes back up. Works out well for the government and the Company.’

‘I’d think you’d go crazy after a year or so in a place like this.’

Clemens had to laugh. ‘That’s what they said some of us were before we were sent here. But I don’t think we are, at least not the majority of us. The isolation isn’t nearly so trying if you can learn to think of yourself as a contemplative penitent instead of an incarcerated felon.’

‘Any women ever been here?’

‘Sorry, Lieutenant Ripley. This is a double Y chromosome facility. Strictly male.’

She nodded, then turned and bent to crawl through what remained of the battered air lock. Clemens let her forge a path, then followed.

The battered exterior of the craft was pristine compared to what she encountered inside. Walls were crumpled and bent, readouts and consoles smashed, equipment strewn haphaz-ardly across the deck. The thick smell of salt water permeated everything. She paused, astonished that anything or anyone could have survived intact, much less her own fragile form.

‘Where are the bodies?’

Clemens was equally taken with the extent of the destruction, marvelling that Ripley had suffered no more damage than she had.

‘We have a morgue. Mining’s the kind of enterprise that demands one. We’ve put your friends in there until the investigative team arrives, probably in a week’s time.’

‘There was an android. .’

Clemens made a face. ‘Disconnected and discombobulated.

There were pieces of him all over the place. What’s left was thrown in the trash. The corporal was impaled by a support beam straight through the chest. Even if he’d been conscious he’d never have known what hit him. As it was he probably never came out of deep sleep long enough to hurt.’

‘The girl?’ She was holding a lot in, Clemens saw. He had no idea how much.

‘She drowned in her cryotube. I don’t imagine she was conscious when it happened. If anything, she went out more quietly than the corporal. I’m sorry.’

Ripley digested this quietly. Then her shoulders began to shake and the tears came. That was all. No yelling, no screaming, no violent railing at an unfair, uncaring universe.

Little Newt. Newt, who’d never had a chance. At least she was free. Wiping at her eyes, Ripley turned to survey the remains of the little girl’s cryotube. The faceplate was broken, which was understandable.

Abruptly she frowned. The metal below the faceplate was strangely discoloured. She leaned forward and ran her fingers over the stain.

Clemens looked on curiously. ‘What is it?’

Ripley rose, the emotion of the moment transformed into something else. There was no concern in her voice now, none of the tenderness he’d noted previously.

‘Where is she?’

‘I told you, the morgue. Don’t you remember?’ He eyed her with concern, worried that she might be having a reaction to something from the armpack. ‘You’re disoriented. Half your system still thinks it’s in deep sleep.’

She whirled on him so suddenly that he started. ‘I want to see what’s left of her body.’

‘What do you mean, what’s left? The body’s intact.’

‘Is it? I want to see it. I need to see for myself.’

He frowned but held off questioning her. There was something in her expression. . One thing was clear: there would be no denying her access. Not that there was any reason to. He had the feeling her desire to view the corpse had nothing to do with nostalgia. Difficult on short acquaintance to figure what she was really like, but excessively morbid she wasn’t.

The circular stairwell was narrow and slippery, but cut time off the long hike from the storage chamber where the EEV had been secured. Clemens was unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

‘Any particular reason you’re so insistent?’

‘I have to make sure how she died,’ she replied evenly. ‘That it wasn’t something else.’

‘Something else?’ Under different circumstances Clemens might have been insulted. ‘I hate to be repetitious about a sensitive subject, but it’s quite clear that her cylinder was breached and that she drowned.’ He considered. ‘Was she your daughter?’

‘No,’ Ripley replied evenly, ‘she wasn’t my daughter. My daughter died a long time ago.’

As she spoke her eyes avoided his. But of course she was still weak and had to concentrate on the narrow, spiraling steps.

‘Then why this need?’

Instead of answering directly she said, ‘Even though we weren’t related, she was very close to me. You think I want to see her the way you’ve described her? I’d much rather remember her as she was. I wouldn’t ask to do this if it wasn’t damned important to me.’

He started to reply, then stopped himself. Already he knew that Ripley wasn’t the sort of person you could force a reply from. If she was going to tell him anything it would come in her own good time.

He unlocked the entrance and preceded her inside. A bottom drawer responded to his official key code and slid open on silent rollers. She moved up to stand alongside him and together they gazed down at the peaceful, tiny body.

‘Give me a moment. Please.’

Clemens nodded and walked across the room to fiddle with a readout. Occasionally he turned to watch as his companion examined the little girl’s corpse. Despite the emotions that had to be tearing through her, she was efficient and thorough.

When he thought a decent amount of time had passed, he rejoined her.

‘Okay?’ He expected a nod, perhaps a last sigh. He most definitely did not expect what she finally said.

‘No. We need an autopsy.’

‘You’re joking.’ He gaped at her.

‘No way. You think I’d joke about something like this? We have to make sure how she died.’ Ripley’s eyes were steel-hard.

‘I told you: she drowned.’ He started to slide the body drawer back, only to have her intervene.

‘I’m not so sure.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I want you to cut her open.’

He stared at her in disbelief. ‘Listen to me. I think you’re disoriented. Half your system’s still in cryosleep.’

‘Look,’ she said in a thoroughly no-nonsense tone, ‘I have a very good reason for asking this and I want you to do it.’

‘Would you care to share this reason?’ He was very composed.

She hesitated. ‘Isn’t it enough that I’m asking?’

‘No, it is not. “Request of close personal friend” won’t cut it with Company inspectors. You’ve got to do better than that.’

He stood waiting, impatient.

‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘Risk of possible contagion.’

‘What kind of “contagion”?’ he snapped.

She was clearly reaching. ‘I’m not the doctor. You are.’

He shook his head. ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

‘Cholera.’ She eyed him squarely. Her determination was remarkable.

‘You can’t be serious. There hasn’t been a case reported in two hundred years. C’mon, tell me another. Never turn down a good laugh in this place. Smallpox, maybe? Dengue fever?’

‘I am telling you. Cholera. I was part of the combat team that nuked Acheron. They were experimenting with all kinds of mutated bacterial and viral strains in what was supposed to be a safe, closed environment. Maybe you know about some of the Company’s interests. The infection got loose and. . spread. It was particularly virulent and there was no effective antidote.

Nor could the infection be contained, though the people there tried.’

‘So they nuked the place? Seems like a pretty extreme prescription. Of course, we don’t hear much out here, but it seems to me we would have heard about that.’