Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

And the two chiseled performers who were acting out this administration-approved spiel probably lived in an expensive Green Ring on the East Coast, Ripley thought sardonically as she listened to it with half an ear. In Cape Cod condos overlooking Martha's Vineyard or Hilton Head or some other unpolluted, high-priced snob refuge for the fortunate few who knew how to bill and coo and dance, yassuh, dance when imperious corporate chieftains snapped their fingers. None of that for her. No smell of salt, no cool mountain breezes Inner-city Company dole, and lucky she was to have that much.

She'd find something soon. They just wanted to keep her quiet for a while, until she calmed down. They'd be glad to help her relocate and retrain. After which they'd conveniently forget about her. Which was just dandy keeno fine as far as she was concerned. She wanted no more to do with the Company than the Company wanted to do with her.

If only they hadn't suspended her license, she'd long since have been out of here and away.

The door buzzed sharply for attention and she jumped Jones merely glanced up and meowed before trundling of toward the bathroom. He didn't like strangers. Always had been a smart cat.

She put the cigarette (guaranteed to contain no carcinogens no nicotine, and no tobacco-harmless to your health, or so the warning label on the side of the packet insisted) aside and moved to open the door. She didn't bother to check through the peephole. Hers was a full-security building. Not that after her recent experiences there was anything in an Earthside city that could frighten her.

Carter Burke stood there, wearing his usual apologetic smile Standing next to him and looking formal was a younger man clad in the severe dress-black uniform of an officer in the Colonial Marines.

'Hi, Ripley.' Burke indicated his companion. 'This is Lieutenant Gorman of the Co—'

The closing door cut his sentence in half. Ripley turned her back on it, but she'd neglected to cut power to the hall speaker Burke's voice reached her via the concealed membrane.

'Ripley, we have to talk.'

'No, we don't. Get lost, Carter. And take your friend with you.'

'No can do. This is important.'

'Not to me it isn't. Nothing's important to me.'

Burke went silent, but she sensed he hadn't left. She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't give up easily. The Company rep wasn't demanding, but he was an accomplished wheedler.

As it developed, he didn't have to argue with her. All he had to do was say one sentence.

'We've lost contact with the colony of Acheron.'

A sinking feeling inside as she mulled over the ramifications of that unexpected statement. Well, perhaps not entirely unexpected. She hesitated a moment longer before opening the door. It wasn't a ploy. That much was evident in Burke's expression. Gorman's gaze shifted from one to the other. He was clearly uncomfortable at being ignored, even as he tried not to show it.

She stepped aside. 'Come in.'

Burke surveyed the apartment and gratefully said nothing shying away from inanities like 'Nice place you have here' when it obviously wasn't. He also forbore from saying, 'You're looking well,' since that also would have constituted an obvious untruth She could respect him for his restraint. She gestured toward the table.

'Want something? Coffee, tea, spritz?'

'Coffee would be fine,' he replied. Gorman added a nod.

She went into the compact kitchen and dialed up a few cups Bubbling sounds began to emanate from the processor as she turned back to the den.

'You didn't need to bring the Marines.' She smiled thinly at him. 'I'm past the violent stage. The psych techs said so, and it's right there on my chart.' She waved toward a desk piled high with discs and papers. 'So what's with the escort?'

'I'm here as an official representative of the corps.' Gorman was clearly uneasy and more than willing to let Burke handle the bulk of the conversation. How much did he know, and what had they told him about her' she wondered. Was he disappointed in not encountering some stoned harridan? Not that his opinion of her mattered.

'So you've lost contact.' She feigned indifference. 'So?'

Burke looked down at his slim-line, secured briefcase. 'It has to be checked out. Fast. All communications are down. They've been down too long for the interruption to be due to equipment failure. Acheron's been in business for years They're experienced people, and they have appropriate backup systems. Maybe they're working on fixing the problem right now. But it's been no-go dead silence for too long. People are getting nervous. Somebody has to go and check it out in person. It's the only way to quiet the nervous Nellies.

'Probably they'll correct the trouble while the ship's on its way out and the whole trip will be a waste of time and money but it's time to set out.'

He didn't have to elaborate. Ripley had already gotten where he was going and returned. She went into the kitchen and brought out the coffees. While Gorman sipped his cup of brew she began pacing. The den was too small for proper pacing but she tried, anyway. Burke just waited.

'No,' she said finally. 'There's no way.'

'Hear me out. It's not what you think.'

She stopped in the middle of the floor and stared at him in disbelief. 'Not what I think? Not what I think? I don't have to think, Burke. I was reamed, steamed, and dry-cleaned by you guys, and now you want me to go back out there? Forget it!'

She was trembling as she spoke. Gorman misinterpreted the reaction as anger, but it was pure fear. She was scared Gut-scared and trying to mask it with indignation. Burke knew what she was feeling but pressed on, anyway. He had no choice.

'Look,' he began in what he hoped was his best conciliatory manner, 'we don't know what's going on out there. If their relay satellite's gone out instead of the ground transmitter, the only way to fix it is with a relief team. There are no spacecraft in the colony. If that's the case, then they're all sitting around out there cursing the Company for not getting off its collective butt and sending out a repair crew pronto. If it is the satellite relay, then the relief team won't even have to set foot on the planet itself. But we don't know what the trouble is, and if it's not the orbital relay, then I'd like to have you there. As an adviser. That's all.'

Gorman lowered his coffee. 'You wouldn't be going in with the troops. Assuming we even have to go in. I can guarantee your safety.'

She rolled her eyes and glanced at the ceiling.

'These aren't your average city cops or army accompanying us, Ripley,' Burke said forcefully. 'These Colonial Marines are some tough hombres, and they'll be packing state-of-the-art firepower. Man plus machine. There's nothing they can't handle. Right, Lieutenant?'

Gorman allowed himself a slight smile. 'We're trained to deal with the unexpected. We've handled problems on worse worlds than Acheron. Our casualty rate for this kind of operation hovers right around zero. I expect the percentage to improve a little more after this visit.'

If this declaration was intended to impress Ripley, it failed miserably. She looked back to Burke.

'What about you? What's your interest in this?'

'Well, the Company co-financed the colony in tandem with the Colonial Administration. Sort of an advance against mineral rights and a portion of the long-term developmental profits. We're diversifying, getting into a lot of terraforming Real estate on a galactic scale. Building better worlds and al that.'

'Yeah, yeah,' she muttered. 'I've seen the commercials.'

'The corporation won't see any substantial profits out of Acheron until terraforming's complete, but a big outfit like that has to consider the long term.' Seeing that this was having no effect on his host, Burke switched to another tack. 'I hear you're working in the cargo docks over Portside?'