Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

'Come on out,' she said soothingly. 'It's all right. There's nothing to be afraid of here.' She tried to reach farther behind the cabinet.

The girl retreated from the extending fingers, backing away and trembling visibly. She had the look of a rabbit paralyzed by oncoming headlights. Ripley's fingers almost reached her. She opened her hand, intending to gently caress the torn blouse.

Like a shot, the girl bolted to her right, scuttling along beneath the cabinetry with incredible agility. Ripley dove forward, scrambling on elbows and knees as she fought to keep the child in view. Outside the cabinets Hicks crabbed frantically sideways until a small gap appeared between two storage lockers. He snapped out a hand, and his fingers locked around a tiny ankle. An instant later he drew it back.

'Ow! Watch it, she bites.'

Ripley reached for the other retreating foot and missed. A second later the girl reached a ventilation duct whose grille had been kicked out. Before Hicks or anyone else could make another grab for her, she'd scrambled inside, wriggling like a fish. Hicks didn't even try to follow. He wouldn't have fit through the narrow opening stark naked, much less clad in his bulky armour.

Ripley dove without thinking, squirming into the duct with her arms held out in front of her, moving with thighs and arms. Her hips barely cleared the opening. The girl was just ahead of her, still moving. As Ripley followed, her breathing loud in the confined tunnel, the child slammed a metal hatch in place ahead of her. With a lunge Ripley reached the barrier and shoved it open before it could be latched from the other side. She cursed as she banged her forehead against the metal overhead.

Shining her light ahead, she forgot the pain. The girl was backed against the far end of a small spherical chamber, one of the colony's ventilation system's pressure-relief bubbles. She was not alone.

Surrounding her were wadded-up blankets and pillows mixed with a haphazard collection of toys, stuffed animals dolls, cheap jewellery, illustrated books, and empty food packets. There was even a battery-operated disk player muffled by cut-up pillows. The entire array was the result o the girl's foraging through the complex. She'd hauled it back to this place by herself, furnishing her private hideaway according to her own childish plan.

It was more like a nest than a room, Ripley decided.

Somehow this child had survived. Somehow she had coped with and adapted to her devastated environment when all the adults had succumbed. As Ripley struggled with the import of what she was seeing, the girl continued to edge around the back wall. She was heading for another hatch. If the conduit it barred was no bigger in diametre than the cover protecting it the girl would be out of their grasp. Ripley saw that she could never enter it.

The child turned and dove, and Ripley timed her own lunge to coincide. She managed to get both arms around the girl locking her in a bear hug. Finding herself trapped, the girl went into a frenzy, kicking and hitting and trying to use her teeth. It was not only frightening, it was horrifying: because, as she fought, the child stayed dead silent. The only noise in the confined space as she struggled in Ripley's grasp was her frantic breathing, and even that was eerily subdued. Only once in her life had Ripley had to try to control someone small who'd fought with similar ferocity, and that was Jones, when she'd had to take him to the vet.

She talked to the child as she kept clear of slashing feet and elbows and small sharp teeth. 'It's okay, it's okay. It's over you're going to be all right now. It's okay, you're safe.'

Finally the girl ran out of strength, slowing down like a failing motor. She went completely limp in Ripley's arms almost catatonic, and allowed herself to be rocked back and forth. It was hard to look at the child's face, to meet her traumatized, vacant stare. Lips white and trembling, eyes darting wildly and seeing nothing, she tried to bury herself in the adult's chest, shrinking back from a dark nightmare world only she could see.

Ripley kept rocking the girl back and forth, back and forth cooing to her in a steady, reassuring voice. As she whispered she let her gaze roam the chamber until it fell on something lying on the top of the pile of scavenged goods. It was a framed solido of the girl, unmistakable and yet so different. The child in the picture was dressed up and smiling, her hair neat and recently shampooed, a bright ribbon shining in the blond tresses. Her clothing was immaculate and her skin scrubbed pink. The words beneath the picture were embossed in gold:

FIRST-GRADE CITIZENSHIP AWARD REBECCA JORDEN

'Ripley. Ripley?' Hicks voice, echoing down the air shaft 'You okay in there?'

'Yes.' Aware they might not have heard her, she raised her voice. 'I'm okay. We're both okay. We're coming out now.'

The girl did not resist as Ripley retraced her crawl feet first dragging the child by the ankles.

The girl sat huddled against the back of the chair, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked neither right nor left, nor at any of the adults regarding her curiously. Her attention was focused on a distant point in space. A biomonitor cuff had been strapped to her left arm. Dietrich had been forced to modify it so that it would fit properly around the child's shrunken arm.

Gorman sat nearby while the medtech studied the information the cuff was providing. 'What's her name again?'

Dietrich made a notation on an electronic caduceus pad 'What?'

'Her name. We got a name, didn't we?'

The medtech nodded absently, absorbed by the readouts 'Rebecca, I think.'

'Right.' The lieutenant put on his best smile and leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. 'Now think, Rebecca Concentrate. You have to try to help us so that we can help you. That's what we're here for, to help you. I want you to take your time and tell us what you remember. Anything at all. Try to start from the beginning.'

The girl didn't move, nor did her expression change. She was unresponsive but not comatose, silent but not mute. A disappointed Gorman sat back and glanced briefly to his left as Ripley entered carrying a steaming coffee mug.

'Where are your parents? You have to try to—'

'Gorman! Give it a rest, would you?'

The lieutenant started to respond sharply. His reply faded to a resigned nod. He rose, shaking his head. 'Total brainlock Tried everything I could think of except yelling at her, and I'm not about to do that. It could send her over the edge. If she isn't already.'

'She isn't.' Dietrich turned off her portable diagnostic equipment and gently removed the sensor cuff from the girl's unresisting arm. 'Physically she's okay. Borderline malnutrition, but I don't think there's any permanent damage. The wonder of it is that she's alive at all, scrounging unprocessed food packets and freeze-dried powder.' She looked at Ripley 'You see any vitamin packs in there?'

'I didn't have time for sight-seeing, and she didn't offer to show me around.' She nodded toward the girl.

'Right. Well, she must know about supplements because she's not showing any signs of critical deficiencies. Smart little thing.'

'How is she mentally?' Ripley sipped at her coffee, staring at the waif in the chair. The child's skin was like parchment over the backs of her hands.

'I can't tell for sure, but her motor responses are good. I think it's too early to call it brainlock. I'd say she's on hold.'

'Call it anything you want.' Gorman rose and headed for the exit. 'Whatever it is, we're wasting our time trying to talk to her.' He strode out of the side room and back into Operations to join Burke and Bishop in staring at the colony's central computer terminal. Dietrich headed off in another direction.