Alan Dean Foster: Alien

As they climbed closer they saw that the craft thickened somewhat at the base of the U, with a series of concentric mounds like thick plates rising to a final dome. Dallas formed the opinion that the two horns contained the ship's drive and engineering sections, while the thicker front end held living quarters, possibly cargo space, and the bridge. For all they knew, he might have everything exactly reversed.

The vessel lay supine, displaying no indication of life or activity. This near, the regained transmission was deafening and all three hastened to lower the volume in their helmets.

Whatever metal the hull was composed of, it glistened in the increasing light in an oddly vitreous way that hinted at no alloy ever formed by the hand of man. Dallas couldn't even be sure it was metal. First inspection revealed nothing like a weld, joint, seal, or any other recognizable method of cojoining separate plates or sections. The alien ship conveyed the impression of having been grown rather than manufactured.

That was bizarre, of course. Regardless of the method of construction, the important thing was that it was undeniably a ship.

So startled were they by the unexpected sight that none of them gave a thought to what the seemingly intact derelict might be worth in the form of bonuses or salvage.

All three were shouting at the same time into their helmet pickups. 'Some kind of ship, all right,' Kane kept repeating inanely, over and over.

Lambert studied the lustrous, almost wet shine of the curving sides, the absence of any familiar exterior features, and shook her head in wonder. 'Are you positive? Maybe it could be a local structure. It's weird. .'

'Naw.' Kane's attention was on the twin, curving horns that formed the rear of the vessel. 'It's not fixed. Even allowing for alien architectural concepts, it's clear enough this isn't intended to be part of the landscape. It's a ship, for sure.'

'Ash, can you see this?' Dallas remembered that the science officer could see clearly via their respective suit video pickups, had probably noticed the wreck the moment Kane had topped the rise and given his shocked cry.

'Yeah, I can see it. Not clear, but enough to agree with Kane that it's a ship.' Ash's voice sounded excited in their helmets. At least it was as excited as the science officer ever sounded. 'Never seen anything like it. Hang on a minute.' They waited while Ash studied readouts, ran a couple of rapid queries through the ship's brain.

'Neither has Mother,' he reported. 'It's a completely unknown type, doesn't correlate with anything we've ever encountered before. Is it as big as it looks from here?'

'Bigger,' Dallas told him. 'Massive construction, no small details visible as yet. If it's constructed to the same scale as our ships, the builders must've been a damn sight bigger than us.'

Lambert let out a nervous giggle. 'We'll find out, if there are any of them left on board to give us a welcome.'

'We're close and in line,' Dallas said to Ash, ignoring the navigator's comment. 'You ought to be receiving a much clearer signal from us. What about the distress call? Any shift? We're too close to tell.'

'No. Whatever's producing the transmission is inside that. I'm sure of it. Got to be. If it was farther out, we'd never have picked it up through that mass of metal.'

'If it is metal.' Dallas continued to examine the alien hull. 'Almost looks like plastic.'

'Or bone,' a thoughtful Kane suggested.

'Assuming the transmission is coming from inside, what do we do now?' Lambert wondered.

The exec started forward. 'I'll go in and have a look, let you know.'

'Hold on, Kane. Don't be so damned adventurous. One of these days it's going to get you into trouble.'

'I'll settle for getting inside. Look, we've got to do something. We can't just stand around out here and wait for revelations to magically appear in the air above the ship.' Kane frowned at him. 'Are you seriously suggesting we don't go inside?'

'No, no. But there's no need to rush it.' He addressed the distant science officer. 'You still reading us, Ash?'

'Weaker now that you're on top of the transmitter,' came the reply. 'There's some unavoidable interference. But I'm still on you clear.'

'Okay. I don't see any lights or signs of life. No movement of any kind except this damn dust. Use us for a distance-and-line fix and try your sensors. See if you can see or find anything that we can't.'

There was a pause while Ash hastened to comply with the order. They continued to marvel at the elegantly distorted lines of the enormous vessel.

'I've tried everything,' the science officer finally reported. 'We're not equipped for this kind of thing. The Nostromo's a commercial tug, not an exploration craft. We'd need a lot of expensive stuff we just don't carry to get a proper reading.'

'So. . what can you tell me?'

'Nothing from here, sir. I can't get any results at all. It's putting out so much power I can't get any acceptable reading whatsoever. We just don't carry the right instrumentation.'

Dallas tried to conceal his disappointment from the others. 'I understand. It's not crucial anyway. But keep trying. Let me know the minute you do find anything, anything at all. Especially any indication of movement. Don't go into details. We'll handle any analysis at this end.'

'Check. Watch yourselves.'

'What now, Captain?' Dallas'ss gaze travelled the length of the huge ship, returned to discover Kane and Lambert watching him. The exec was right, of course. To know that this was the source of the signal was not sufficient. They had to trace it to the generator, try to discover the cause behind the signal and the presence of this ship on this tiny world. To have come this far and not explore the alien's innards was unthinkable.

Curiosity, after all, was what had driven mankind out from his isolated, unimportant world and across the gulf between the stars. It had also, he thoughtfully reminded himself, killed the figurative cat.

He came to a decision, the only logical one. 'It looks pretty dead from out here. We'll approach the base first. Then, if nothing shows itself. .'

Lambert eyed him. 'Yeah.'

'Then. . we'll see.'

They started toward the hull, the superfluous finder dangling from Lambert's belt.

'At this point,' Dallas was saying as they neared the overhanging curse of the hull, 'there's only one thing I can. .'

Back aboard the Nostromo, Ash followed every word carefully. Without warning, Dallas's voice faded. It came back strong once more before disappearing completely. Simultaneously, Ash lost visual contact.

'Dallas!' Frantically, he jabbed buttons on the console, threw switches, demanded better resolution from the already overstrained pickups. 'Dallas, do you read me? I've lost you. Repeat, I've lost you. . '

Only the constant thermonuclear hiss of the local sun sounded plaintively over the multitude of speakers. .

Up next to the hull, the colossal scale of the alien vessel was more evident than ever. It curved above them, rising into the dust-heavy air and looking more solid than the broken rock it rested upon.

'Still no sign of life,' Dallas murmured half to himself as he surveyed the hull. 'No lights, no movement.' He gestured toward the imagined bow of the ship. 'And no way in. Let's try up that way.'

As they strode carefully over shattered boulders and loose, shaly rock, Dallas was aware how small the alien ship made him feel. Not small physically, though the bulging, overbearing arc of the hull dwarfed the three humans, but insignificantly tiny on the cosmic scale. Humanity still knew very little of the universe, had explored a fraction of one corner.

It was exciting and intellectually gratifying to speculate on what might lie waiting in the black gulfs when one was behind the business end of a telescope, quite another to do so isolated on an unpleasant little speck of a world such as this, confronted by a ship of nonhuman manufacture that uncomfortably resembled a growth instead of a familiar device for manipulating and overcoming the neat laws of physics.