Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

Ripley sat on a nearby bench regarding this cat-play. 'Dumb cat. Don't you know a solido by now when you see one? Although maybe she shouldn't be too hard on the cat. Solido design had improved during the last fifty-seven years Everything had been improved during the last fifty-seven years. Except for her and Jones.

Glass doors sealed the atrium off from the rest of Gateway Station. The expensive solido of a North American temperate forest was set off by potted plants and sickly grass underfoot The solido looked more real than the real plants, but at least the latter had an honest smell. She leaned slightly toward one pot. Dirt and moisture and growing things. Of cabbages and kings, she mused dourly. Horsepucky. She wanted off Gateway. Earth was temptingly near, and she longed to put blue sky between herself and the malign emptiness of space.

Two of the glass doors that sealed off the atrium parted to admit Carter Burke. For a moment she found herself regarding him as a man and not just a company cipher. Maybe that was a sign that she was returning to normal. Her appraisal of him was mitigated by the knowledge that when the Nostromo had departed on its ill-fated voyage, he was two decades short of being born. It shouldn't have made any difference. They were approximately the same physical age.

'Sorry.' Always the cheery smile. 'I've been running behind all morning. Finally managed to get away.'

Ripley never had been one for small talk. Now more than ever, life seemed too precious to waste on inconsequential banter. Why couldn't people just say what they had to say instead of dancing for five minutes around the subject'

'Have they located my daughter yet?'

Burke looked uncomfortable. 'Well, I was going to wait unti after the inquest.'

'I've waited fifty-seven years. I'm impatient. So humour me.'

He nodded, set down his carrying case, and popped the lid He fumbled a minute with the contents before producing several sheets of thin plastic.

'Is she.?'

Burke spoke as he read from one of the sheets. 'Amanda Ripley-McClaren. Married name, I guess. Age sixty-six at. time of death. That was two years ago. There's a whole history here. Nothing spectacular or notable. Details of a pleasant ordinary life. Like the kind most of us lead, I expect. I'm sorry. He passed over the sheets, studied Ripley's face as she scanned the printouts. 'Guess this is my morning for being sorry.'

Ripley studied the holographic image imprinted on one of the sheets. It showed a rotund, slightly pale woman in her midsixties. Could have been anyone's aunt. There was nothing distinctive about the face, nothing that leapt out and shouted with familiarity. It was impossible to reconcile the picture of this older woman with the memory of the little girl she'd left behind.

'Amy,' she whispered.

Burke still held a couple of sheets, read quietly as she continued to stare at the hologram. 'Cancer. Hmmm. They stil haven't licked all varieties of that one. Body was cremated Interred Westlake Repository, Little Chute, Wisconsin. No children.'

Ripley looked past him, toward the forest solido but not at it She was staring at the invisible landscape of the past.

'I promised her I'd be home for her birthday. Her eleventh birthday. I sure missed that one.' She glanced again at the picture. 'Well, she'd already learned to take my promises with a grain of salt. When it came to flight schedules, anyway.'

Burke nodded, trying to be sympathetic. That was difficult for him under ordinary circumstances, much more so this morning. At least he had the sense to keep his mouth shut instead of muttering the usual polite inanities.

'You always think you can make it up to somebody — later you know.' She took a deep breath. 'But now I never can. I never can.' The tears came then, long overdue. Fifty-seven years overdue. She sat there on the bench and sobbed softly to herself, alone now in a different kind of space.

Finally Burke patted her reassuringly on her shoulder uncomfortable at the display and trying hard not to show it 'The hearing convenes at oh-nine-thirty. You don't want to be late. It wouldn't make a good first impression.'

She nodded, rose. 'Jones. Jonesey, c'mere.' Meowing, the cat sauntered over and allowed her to pick him up. She wiped self-consciously at her eyes. 'I've got to change. Won't take long. She rubbed her nose against the cat's back, a smal outrage it suffered in silence.

'Want me to walk you back to your room?'

'Sure, why not?'

He turned and started for the proper corridor. The doors parted to permit them egress from the atrium. 'You know, that cat's something of a special privilege. They don't allow pets on Gateway.'

'Jones isn't a pet.' She scratched the torn behind the ears 'He's a survivor.'

As Ripley promised, she was ready in plenty of time. Burke elected to wait outside her private room, studying his own reports, until she emerged. The transformation was impressive. Gone was the pale, waxy skin; gone the bitterness of expression and the uncertain stride. Determination? he wondered as they headed for the central corridor. Or just clever makeup?

Neither of them said anything until they neared the sub-leve where the hearing room was located. 'What are you going to tell them?' he finally asked her.

'What's to tell that hasn't already been told? You read my deposition. It's complete and accurate. No embellishments. It didn't need any embellishments.'

'Look, I believe you, but there are going to be some heavyweights in there, and every one of them is going to try to pick holes in your story. You got feds, you got Interstellar Commerce Commission, you got Colonial Administration insurance company guys—'

'I get the picture.'

'Just tell them what happened. The important thing is to stay cool and unemotional.'

Sure, she thought. All of her friends and shipmates and relatives were dead, and she'd lost fifty-seven years of reality to an unrestoring sleep. Cool and unemotional. Sure.

Despite her determination, by midday she was anything but cool and collected. Repetition of the same questions, the same idiotic disputations of the facts as she'd reported them, the same exhaustive examination of minor points that left the major ones untouched — all combined to render her frustrated and angry.

As she spoke to the sombre inquisitors the large videoscreen behind her was printing out mug shots and dossiers. She was glad it was behind her, because the faces were those of the Nostromo's crew. There was Parker, grinning like a goon. And Brett, placid and bored as the camera did its duty. Kane was there, too, and Lambert. Ash the traitor, his soulless face enriched with programmed false piety. Dallas.

Dallas. Better the picture behind her, like the memories.

'Do you have earwax or what?' she finally snapped. 'We've been here three hours. How many different ways do you want me to tell the same story? You think it'll sound better in Swahili, get me a translator and we'll do it in Swahili. I'd try Japanese, but I'm out of practice. Also out of patience. How long does it take you to make up your collective mind?'

Van Leuwen steepled his fingers and frowned. His expression was as gray as his suit. It was approximated by the looks on the faces of his fellow board members. There were eight of them on the official board of inquiry, and not a friendly one in the lot. Executives. Administrators. Adjusters How could she convince them? They weren't human beings They were expressions of bureaucratic disapproval. Phantoms She was used to dealing with reality. The intricacies of politicorporate maneuvering were beyond her.

'This isn't as simple as you seem to believe,' he told her quietly. 'Look at it from our perspective. You freely admit to detonating the engines of, and thereby destroying, an M-Class interstellar freighter. A rather expensive piece of hardware.'