Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

Apone yelled back at them. He was already out in the drying room, toweling off his shoulders. They were as devoid of fat as those of troopers twenty years younger.

'Let's go, let's go. Buncha lazybutts'll run the recyclers dry C'mon, cycle through. You got to get dirty before you can get clean.'

Informal segregation was the order of the day in the mess room. It was automatic. There was no need for whispered words or little nameplates next to the glasses. Apone and his troopers requisitioned the large table while Ripley, Gorman Burke, and Bishop sat at the other. Everyone nursed coffee tea, spritz, or water while they waited for the ship's autochef to deal out eggs and ersatz bacon, toast and hash, condiments and vitamin supplements.

You could identify each trooper by his or her uniform. No two were exactly alike. This was the result not of specialized identification insignia, but of individual taste. The Sulaco was no barracks and Acheron no parade ground. Occasionally Apone would have to chew someone out for a particularly egregious addition, like the time Crowe had showed up with a portrait of his latest girlfriend computer-stenciled across the back of his armour. But for the most part he let the troopers decorate their outfits as they liked.

'Hey, Top,' Hudson chivvied, 'what's the op?'

'Yeah.' Frost blew bubbles in his tea. 'All I know is I get shipping orders and not time to say hello-goodbye to Myrna.'

'Myrna?' Private Wierzbowski raised a bushy eyebrow. 'I thought it was Leina?'

Frost looked momentarily uncertain. 'I think Leina was three months ago. Or six.'

'It's a rescue mission.' Apone sipped his coffee. 'There's some juicy colonists' daughters we gotta rescue.'

Ferro made a show of looking disappointed. 'Hell, that lets me out.'

'Says who?' Hudson leered at her. She threw sugar at him.

Apone just listened and watched. No reason for him to intervene. He could have quieted them down, could have played it by the book. Instead he left it loose and fair, but only because he knew that his people were the best. He'd walk into a fight with any one of them watching his back and not worry about what he couldn't see, knowing that anything trying to sneak up on him would be taken care of as efficiently as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Let 'em play, let 'em curse ECA and the corps and the Company and him too. When the time came, the playing would stop, and every one of them would be all business.

'Dumb colonists.' Spunkmeyer looked to his plate as food began to put in an appearance. After three weeks asleep he was starving, but not so starving that he couldn't offer the obligatory soldier's culinary comment. 'What's this stuf supposed to be?'

'Eggs, dimwit,' said Ferro.

'I know what an egg is, bubblebrain. I mean this soggy flat yellow stuff on the side.'

'Corn bread, I think.' Wierzbowski fingered his portion and added absently, 'Hey, I wouldn't mind getting me some more a that Arcturan poontang. Remember that time?'

Hicks was sitting on his right side. The corporal glanced up briefly, then looked back to his plate. 'Looks like that new lieutenant's too good to eat with us lowly grunts. Kissing up to the Company rep.'

Wierzbowski stared past the corporal, not caring if anyone should happen to notice the direction of his gaze. 'Yeah.'

'Doesn't matter if he knows his job,' said Crowe.

'The magic word.' Frost hacked at his eggs. 'We'll find out.'

Perhaps it was Gorman's youth that bothered them, even though he was older than half the troopers. More likely it was his appearance: hair neat even after weeks in hypersleep, slack creases sharp and straight, boots gleaming like black metal. He looked too good.

As they ate and muttered and stared, Bishop took the empty seat next to Ripley. She rose pointedly and moved to the far side of the table. The ExO looked wounded.

'I'm sorry you feel that way about synthetics, Ripley.'

She ignored him as she glared down at Burke, her tone accusing. 'You never said anything about there being an android on board! Why not? Don't lie to me, either, Carter. I saw his tattoo outside the showers.'

Burke appeared nonplussed. 'Well, it didn't occur to me. I don't know why you're so upset. It's been Company policy for years to have a synthetic on board every transport. They don't need hypersleep, and it's a lot cheaper than hiring a human pilot to oversee the interstellar jumps. They won't go crazy working a longhaul solo. Nothing special about it.'

'I prefer the term "artificial person" myself,' Bishop interjected softly. 'Is there a problem? Perhaps it's something I can help with.'

'I don't think so.' Burke wiped egg from his lips. 'A synthetic malfunctioned on her last trip out. Some deaths were involved.'

'I'm shocked. Was it long ago?'

'Quite a while, in fact.' Burke made the statement without going into specifics, for which Ripley was grateful.

'Must have been an older model, then.'

'Hyperdine Systems 120-A/2.'

Bending over backward to be conciliatory, Bishop turned to Ripley. 'Well, that explains it. The old A/2s were always a bit twitchy. That could never happen now, not with the new implanted behavioral inhibitors. Impossible for me to harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed a human being. The inhibitors are factory-installed, along with the rest of my cerebral functions. No one can tamper with them. So you see I'm quite harmless.' He offered her a plate piled high with yellow rectangles. 'More corn bread?'

The plate did not shatter when it struck the far wall as Ripley smacked it out of his hand. corn bread crumbled as the plate settled to the floor.

'Just stay away from me, Bishop! You got that straight? You keep away from me.'

Wierzbowski observed this byplay in silence, then shrugged and turned back to his food. 'She don't like the corn bread either.'

Ripley's outburst sparked no more conversation than that as the troopers finished breakfast and retired to the ready room Ranks of exotic weaponry lined the walls behind them. Some clustered their chairs and started an improvised game of dice Tough to pick up a floating crap game after you've been unconscious for three weeks, but they tried nonetheless. They straightened lazily as Gorman and Burke entered, but snapped to when Apone barked at them.

'Tench-hut!' The men and women responded as one, arms vertical at their sides, eyes straight ahead, and focused only on what the sergeant might say to them next.

Gorman's eyes flicked over the line. If possible, the troopers were more motionless standing at attention than they had been when frozen in hypersleep. He held them a moment longer before speaking.

'At ease.' The line flexed as muscles were relaxed. 'I'm sorry we didn't have time to brief you before we left Gateway, but—'

'Sir?' said Hudson.

Annoyed, Gorman glanced toward the speaker. Couldn't let him finish his first sentence before starting with the questions Not that he'd expected anything else. He'd been warned that this bunch might be like that.

'Yes, what is it, Hicks?'

The speaker nodded at the man standing next to him 'Hudson, sir. He's Hicks.'

'What's the question, soldier?'

'Is this going to be a stand-up fight, sir, or another bug-hunt?'

'If you'd wait a moment, you might find some of your questions anticipated, Hudson. I can understand your impatience and curiosity. There's not a great deal to explain All we know is that there's still been no contact with the colony Executive Officer Bishop tried to rise Hadley the instant the Sulaco hove within hailing distance of Acheron. He did not obtain a response. The planetary deepspace satellite relay checks out okay, so that's not the reason for the lack of contact We don't know what it is yet.'

'Any ideas?' Crowe asked.