Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

'Let me know when your brain starts working again. Disappointed, the lieutenant turned back to the mike. 'Proceed with your advance, Sergeant.'

The troopers resumed their march, their suit lights shining on the vitreous walls surrounding them. The deeper they went into the maze, the more it took on the appearance of having been grown or secreted rather than built. The labyrinth looked like the interior of a gigantic organ or bone. Not a human organ, not a human bone.

Whatever else its purpose, the addition served to concentrate waste heat from the processor's fusion plant. Steam from dripping water formed puddles on the floor and hissed around them. Factory respiration.

'It's opening up a little just ahead.' Hicks panned his camera around. The troop was entering a large, domed chamber. The walls abruptly changed in character and appearance. It was a testimony to their training that not one of the troopers broke down on the spot.

Ripley muttered, 'Oh, God.' Burke mumbled a shocked curse.

Cameras and suit lights illuminated the chamber. Instead of the smooth, curving walls they'd passed earlier, these were rough and uneven. They formed a rigged bas-relief composed of detritus gathered from the town: furniture, wiring, solid and fluid-state components, bits of broken machinery, persona effects, torn clothing, human bones and skulls, all fused together with that omnipresent, translucent, epoxy-like resin.

Hudson reached out to run a gloved hand along one wall casually caressing a cluster of human ribs. He picked at the resinous ooze, barely scratching it.

'Ever see anything like this stuff before?'

'Not me.' Hicks would have spat if he'd had room. 'I'm not a chemist.'

Dietrich was expected to render an opinion and did so 'Looks like some kind of secreted glue. Your bad guys spit this stuff out or what, Ripley?'

'I—I don't know how its manufactured, but I've seen it before, on a much smaller scale.'

Gorman pursed his lips, analysis taking over from the initial shock. 'Looks like they ripped apart the colony for building materials.' He indicated the view offered by Hicks's screen 'There's a whole stack of blank storage disks imbedded there.'

'And portable power cells.' Burke gestured toward another of the individual monitors. 'Expensive stuff. Tore it all apart.'

'And the colonists,' Ripley pointed out, 'when they were done with them.' She turned to look down at the sombre-visaged little girl standing next to her.

'Newt, you'd better go sit up front. Go on.' She nodded and obediently headed for the driver's cab.

The steam on C-level intensified as the troops moved stil deeper into the chamber. It was accompanied by a corresponding increase in temperature.

'Hotter'n a furnace in here,' Frost grumbled.

'Yeah,' Hudson agreed sarcastically, 'but it's a dry heat.'

Ripley looked to her left. Burke and Gorman stayed intent on the videoscreens. To the lieutenant's left was a small monitor that showed a graphic readout of the station's ground plan.

'They're right under the primary heat exchangers.'

'Yeah.' A fascinated Burke was unable to take his eyes off the view being relayed by Apone's camera. 'Maybe the organisms like the heat. That's why they built—'

'That's not what I mean. Gorman, if your people have to use their weapons in there, they'll rupture the cooling system.'

Burke abruptly realized what Ripley was driving at. 'She's right.'

'So?' asked the lieutenant.

'So,' she continued, 'that releases the freon and/or the water that's been condensed out of the air for cooling purposes.'

'Fine.' He tapped the screens. 'It'll cool everybody off.'

'It'll do more than cool them off.'

'For instance?'

'Fusion containment shuts down.'

'So? So? Why didn't she get to the point? Didn't the woman realize that he was trying to direct a search-and-clear expedition here'

'We're talking thermonuclear explosion.'

That made Gorman sit back and think. He weighed his options. His decision was made easier by the fact that he didn't have any. 'Apone, collect rifle magazines from everybody. We can't have any firing in there.'

Apone wasn't the only one who overheard the order. The troopers eyed one another with a combination of disbelief and dismay.

'Is he crazy?' Wierzbowski clutched his rifle protectively to his ribs, as if daring Gorman to come down and disarm it personally.

Hudson all but growled. 'What're we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?' He spoke into his headset. 'Hey, Lieutenant you want maybe we should try judo? What if they ain't got any arms?'

'They've got arms,' Ripley assured him tightly.

'You're not going in naked, Hudson,' Gorman told him 'You've got other weapons you can use.'

'Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea,' Dietrich muttered.

'What, using alternates?' Wierzbowski muttered.

'No. Hudson going in naked. No living thing could stand the shock.'

'Screw you, Dietrich,' the comtech shot back.

'Not a chance.' With a sigh the medtech yanked the fully charged magazine from her rifle.

'Flame units only.' Gorman's tone was no-nonsense. 'I want all rifles slung.'

'You heard the lieutenant.' Apone began circulating among them, collecting magazines. 'Pull 'em out.'

One by one the rifles were rendered harmless. Vasquez turned over the power packs for her smartgun with great reluctance. Three of the troopers carried portable incinerator units in addition to their penetration weapons. These were unlimbered, warmed up, and checked. Unnoticed by Apone or any of her colleagues, Vasquez slipped a spare power cell from the back of her pants and slipped it into her smartgun. As soon as the sergeant's eyes and all suit cameras were off them, Drake did likewise. The two smartgun operators exchanged a grim wink.

Hicks had no one to wink at and no smartgun to jimmy with What he did have was a cylindrical sheath attached to the inner lining of his battle harness. Unzipping his torso armour, he opened the sheath to reveal the gunmetal-gray twin barrels of an antique pump twelve-gauge shotgun with a sawed-off butt stock. As Hudson looked on with professional interest the corporal resealed his armour, clicked back the stock of the well-maintained relic, and chambered a round.

'Where'd you get that, Hicks? When I saw that bulge, I thought you were smuggling liquor, except that'd be out of character for you. Steal it from a museum?'

'Been in my family for a long time. Cute, isn't it?'

'Some family. Can it do anything?'

Hicks showed him a single shell. 'Not your standard militaryissue high-velocity armour-piercing round, but you don't want it going off in your face, either.' He kept his voice down. 'I always keep this handy. For close encounters. I don't think it'l penetrate anything far enough to set off any mushrooms.'

'Yeah, real cute.' Hudson favoured the sawed-off with a last admiring look. 'You're a traditionalist, Hicks.'

The corporal smiled thinly. 'It's my tender nature.'

Apone's voice carried back to them from just ahead. 'Let's move. Hicks, since you seem to like it back there, you take rear guard.'

'My pleasure, Sarge.' The corporal rested the old shotgun against his right shoulder, balancing it easily with one hand, his finger light on the heavy trigger. Hudson grinned appreciatively, gave Hicks the high sign, and jogged forward to take up his assigned position near the point.

The air was thick, and their lights were diffused by the roiling steam. Hudson felt as though they were advancing through a steel-and-plastic jungle.

Gorman's voice echoed in his headset. 'Any movement?' The lieutenant sounded faint and far away, even though the comtech knew he was only a couple of levels above and just outside the entrance to the processing station. He kept his eyes on his tracker as he advanced.