Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

Her reply was defensive, as was to be expected. 'That's right What about it?'

He ignored the challenge. 'Running loaders, forklifts suspension grates; that sort of thing?'

'It's all I could get. I'm crazy if I'm going to live on charity al my life. Anyway, it keeps my mind off. everything. Days off are worse. Too much time to think. I'd rather keep busy.'

'You like that kind of work?'

'Are you trying to be funny?'

He fiddled with the catch on his case. 'Maybe it's not all you can get. What if I said I could get you reinstated as a flight officer? Get you your license back? And that the Company has agreed to pick up your contract? No more hassles with the commission, no more arguments. The official reprimand comes out of your record. Without a trace. As far as anyone will be concerned, you've been on a leave of absence. Perfectly normal following a long tour of duty. It'll be like nothing happened. Won't even affect your pension rating.'

'What about the ECA and the insurance people?'

'Insurance is settled, over, done with. They're out of it. Since nothing will appear on your record, you won't be considered any more of a risk than you were before your last trip. As far as the ECA is concerned, they'd like to see you go out with the relief team too. It's all taken care of.'

'If I go.'

'If you go.' He nodded, leaning slightly toward her. He wasn't exactly pleading. It was more like a practiced sales pitch 'It's a second chance, kiddo. Most people who get taken down by a board of inquiry never have the opportunity to come back If the problem's nothing more than a busted relay satellite, all you have to do is sit in your cubbyhole and read while the techs take care of it. That, and collect your trip pay while you're in hypersleep. By going, you can wipe out all the unpleasantness and put yourself right back up there where you used to be. Ful rating, full pension accumulation, the works. I've seen your record. One more long out-trip and you qualify for a captain's certificate.

'And it'll be the best thing in the world for you to face this fear and beat it. You gotta get back on the horse.'

'Spare me, Burke,' she said frostily. 'I've had my psych evaluation for the month.'

His smile slipped a little, but his tone grew more determined 'Fine. Let's cut the crap, then. I've read your evaluations. You wake up every night, sheets soaking, the same nightmare over and over—'

'No! The answer is no.' She retrieved both coffee cups even though neither was empty. It was another form of dismissal 'Now please go. I'm sorry. Just go, would you?'

The two men exchanged a look. Gorman's expression was unreadable, but she had the feeling that his attitude had shifted from curious to contemptuous. The heck with him: what did he know? Burke mined a pocket, removed a translucent card, and placed it on the table before heading for the door. He paused in the portal to smile back at her.

'Think about it.'

Then they were gone, leaving her alone with her thoughts Unpleasant company. Wind. Wind and sand and a moaning sky. The pale disc of an alien sun fluttering like a paper cutout beyond the riven atmosphere. A howling, rising in pitch and intensity, coming closer, closer, until it was right on top of you smothering you, cutting off your breath.

With a guttural moan Ripley sat straight up in her bed clutching her chest. She was breathing hard, painfully. Sucking in a particularly deep breath, she glanced around the tiny bedroom. The dim light set in the nightstand illuminated bare walls, a dresser, and a highboy, sheets kicked to the foot of the bed. Jones lay sprawled atop the highboy, the highest point in the room, staring impassively back at her. It was a habit the cat had acquired soon after their return. When they went to bed he would curl up next to her, only to abandon her soon after she fell asleep in favour of the safety and security of the highboy. He knew the nightmare was on its way and gave it plenty of space.

She used a corner of the sheet to mop the sweat from her forehead and cheeks. Fingers fumbled in the nightstand drawer until they found a cigarette. She flicked the tip and waited for the cylinder to ignite. Something—her head snapped around. Nothing there. Only the soft hum of the clock. There was nothing else in the room. Just Jones and her Certainly no wind.

Leaning to her left, she pawed through the other nightstand drawer until she'd located the card Burke had left behind. She turned it over in her fingers, then inserted it into a slot in the bedside console. The videoscreen that dominated the far wall immediately flashed the words STAND BY at her. She waited impatiently until Burke's face appeared. He was bleary-eyed and unshaven, having been roused from a sound sleep, but he managed a grin when he saw who was calling.

'Yello? Oh, Ripley. Hi.'

'Burke, just tell me one thing.' She hoped there was enough light in the room for the monitor to pick up her expression as well as her voice. 'That you're going out there to kill them. Not to study. Not to bring back. Just burn them out, clean Forever.'

He woke up rapidly, she noted. 'That's the plan. If there's anything dangerous walking around out there, we get rid of it Got a colony to protect. No monkeying around with potentially dangerous organisms. That's Company policy. We find anything lethal, anything at all, we fry it. The scientists can go suck eggs. My word on it.' A long pause and he leaned toward his own pickup, his face looming large on the screen. 'Ripley Ripley? You still there?'

No more time to think. Maybe it was time to stop thinking and to do. 'All right. I'm in.' There, she'd gone and said it Somehow she'd said it.

He looked like he wanted to reply, to congratulate or thank her. Something. She broke the connection before he could say a word. A thump sounded on the sheets next to her, and she turned to gaze fondly down at Jones. She trailed short nails down his spine, and he primped delightedly, rubbing against her hip and purring.

'And you, my dear, are staying right here.'

The cat blinked up at her as he continued to caress her fingers with his back. It was doubtful that he understood either her words or the gist of the previous phone call, but he did not volunteer to accompany her.

At least one of us still has some sense left, she thought as she slid back beneath the covers.

It was an ugly ship. Battered, overused, parts repaired that should have been replaced, too tough and valuable to scrap Easier for its masters to upgrade it and modify it than build a new one. Its lines were awkward and its engines oversize. A mountain of metal and composites and ceramic, a floating scrap heap, weightless monument to war, it shouldered its way brutally through the mysterious region called hyperspace. Like its human cargo, it was purely functional. Its name was Sulaco.

Fourteen dreamers this trip. Eleven engaged in related morphean fantasies, simple and straightforward as the vesse that carried them through the void. Two others more individualistic. A last sleeping under sedation necessary to mute the effects of recurring nightmares. Fourteen dreamers— and one for whom sleep was a superfluous abstraction.

Executive Officer Bishop checked readouts and adjusted controls. The long wait was ended. An alarm sounded throughout the length of the massive military transport. Long dormant machinery, powered down to conserve energy, came back to life. So did long dormant humans as their hypersleep capsules were charged and popped open. Satisfied that his charges had survived their long hibernation, Bishop set about the business of placing Sulaco in a low geo-stationary orbit around the colony world of Acheron.

Ripley was the first of the sleepers to awake. Not because she was any more adaptive than her fellow travelers or more used to the effects of hypersleep, but simply because her capsule was first in line for recharge. Sitting up in the enclosed bed, she rubbed briskly at her arms, then started to work on her legs Burke sat up in the capsule across from her, and the lieutenant — what was his name? — oh, yeah, Gorman, beyond him.