Alan Dean Foster - Alien

On the bridge, Ripley waited resignedly for some word from the silent exploration party. The first feelings of helplessness and ignorance had faded by now. They had been replaced by a vague numbness in body and soul. She could not bring herself to look out a port. She could only sit quietly, take an occasional sip of tepid coffee, and stare blankly at her slowly changing readouts.

Jones the cat was sitting in front of a port. He found the storm exhilarating and had evolved a frenetic game of swatting at the larger particles of dust whenever one struck the port's exterior. Jones knew he could never actually catch one of the flying motes. He understood the underlying physical laws behind the fact of a solid transparency. That lessened the delight of the game but did not obviate it. Besides, he could pretend that the dark fragments of stone were birds, though he'd never seen a bird. But he instinctively understood that concept, too.

Other monitors besides Ripley's were being watched, other gauges regularly evaluated. Being the only noncoffee drinker on the Nostromo, Ash did his work without liquid stimulation. His interest was perked only by new information.

Two gauges that had been motionless for some time suddenly came to life, the fresh numbers affecting the science officer's system as powerfully as any narcotic. He cut in amplifiers and thoroughly checked them out before opening the intercom to the bridge and announcing their reception.

'Ripley? You there, Ripley?'

'Yo.' She noted the intensity in his tone, sat up in her seat. 'Good news?'

'I think so. Just picked up their suit signals again. And their suit images are back on the screens.'

She took a deep breath, asked the frightening but necessary question: 'How many?'

'All of them. Three blips, steady signals.'

'Where are they?'

'Close. . very close. Someone must've thought to switch back on so we could pick them up. They're heading this way at a steady pace. Slow, but they keep moving. It looks good.'

Don't count on it, she thought to herself as she activated her station transmitter. 'Dallas. . Dallas, can you hear me?' A hurricane of static replied, and she fine-tuned. 'Dallas, this is Ripley. Acknowledge.'

'Easy, Ripley. We hear you. We're almost back.'

'What happened? We lost you on the screens, lost suit signals as well when you went inside the derelict. I've seen Ash's tapes. Have you. .?'

'Kane's hurt.' Dallas sounded exhausted and angry. 'We'll need some help getting him in. He's unconscious. Someone will have to give us a hand getting him out of the lock.'

A quick response sounded over the speakers. 'I'll go.' That was Ash.

Back in engineering, Parker and Brett were listening intently to the conversation.

'Unconscious,' repeated Parker. 'Always knew Kane would get himself in trouble someday.'

'Right.' Brett sounded worried.

'Not a bad guy, though, for a ship's officer. Like him better than Dallas. Not so fast with an order. I wonder what the hell happened to them out there?'

'Don't know. We'll find out soon enough.'

'Maybe,' Parker went on, 'he just fell down and knocked himself out.'

The explanation was as unconvincing to Parker as it was to Brett. Both men went quiet, their attention on the busy, crackling speaker.

'There she is.' Dallas had enough strength left to gesture with his head. Several dim, treelike shapes loomed up out of the almost night. They supported a larger amorphous shape: the hull of the Nostromo.

They had almost reached the ship when Ash reached the inner lock door. He stopped there, made sure the hatch was ready to be opened, and touched the stud of the nearest 'com.

'Ripley. . I'm by the inner hatch.' He left the channel open, moved to stand next to a small port nearby. 'No sign of them yet. It's nearly full night outside, but when they reach the lift I ought to be able to make out their suit lights.'

'Okay.' She was thinking furiously, and some of her current thoughts would have surprised the waiting science officer. They were surprising to herself.

'Which way?' Dallas squinted into the dust, trying to make out shipmarks by the light from the floods.

Lambert gestured to their left. 'Over that way, I think. By that first strut. Lift should be just beyond.' They continued on in that direction until they almost tripped over the rim of the lift, firmly placed on hard ground. Despite their fatigue, they wrestled Kane's motionless form off the travois and onto the elevator, keeping the exec supported between them.

'Think you can keep him up? Be easier if we don't have to lift him again.'

She took a breath. 'Yeah, I think so. So long as someone will help us once we get outside the lock.'

'Ripley, are you there?'

'Right here, Dallas.'

'We're coming up.' He glanced over at Lambert. 'Ready?' She nodded.

He pressed a stud. There was a jerk, then the lift rose smoothly upward, stopped even with the lock egress. Dallas leaned slightly, hit a switch. The outer hatch slid aside and they entered the lock.

'Pressurize?' Lambert asked him.

'Never mind. We can spare a lockful of air. We'll be inside in a minute and then we can get out of these damn suits.' They closed the outer hatch, waited for the inner door to open.

'What happened to Kane?' Ripley again. Dallas was too tired to take notice of something in her voice besides the usual concern. He shifted Kane a little higher on his shoulder, not worrying so much about the creature now. It hadn't moved a centimetre on the trek back to the ship and he didn't expect it would suddenly move itself now.

'Some kind of organism,' he told her, the faint echo of his own voice reassuring in the confines of the helmet. 'We don't know how it happened or where it came from. It's attached itself to him. Never saw anything like it. It's not moving now, hasn't altered its position at all on the way back. We've got to get him into the infirmary.'

'I need a clear definition,' she told them quietly.

'Clear definition, hell!' Dallas tried to sound as rational as possible, keep the frustrated fury he was feeling out of his words. 'Look, Ripley, we didn't see what happened. He was down a shaft of some kind, below us. We didn't know anything was wrong until we hauled him out. Is that a clear enough definition?' There was silence from the other end of the channel.

'Look, just open the hatch.'

'Wait a minute.' She chose her words carefully. 'If we let it in, the entire ship could be infected.'

'Damnit, this isn't a germ! It's bigger than my hand, and plenty solid-looking.'

'You know quarantine procedure.' Her voice exhibited a determination she didn't feel. 'Twenty four hours for decontamination. You've both got more than enough suit air remaining to handle that, and we can feed you extra tanks as necessary. Twenty-four hours won't prove conclusively that the thing's no longer dangerous either, but that's not my responsibility. I just have to enforce the rules. You know them as well as I do.'

'I know of exceptions, too. And I'm the one holding up what's left of a good friend, not you. In twenty-four hours he could be dead, if he isn't already. Open the hatch.'

'Listen to me,' she implored him. 'If I break quarantine we may all die.'

'Open the goddamn hatch!' Lambert screamed. 'To hell with Company rules. We have to get him into the infirmary where the autodoc can work on him.'

'I cant. If you were in my position, with the same responsibility, you'd do the same.'

'Ripley,' Dallas said slowly, 'do you hear me?'

'I hear you loud and clear.' Her voice was full of tension. 'The answer is still negative. Twenty-four hours decon, then you can bring him in.'

Within the ship, someone else came to a decision. Ash hit the emergency override stud outside the lock. A red light came on, accompanied by a loud, distinctive whine.