Alan Dean Foster: Alien

Fusion and solar power ran all of man's machines. But they couldn't substitute for petrochemicals. A fusion engine could not produce plastics, for example. The modern worlds could exist without power sooner than they could without plastics. Hence the presence of the Nostromo's commercially viable, if historically incongruous, cargo of machinery and the noisome black liquid it patiently processed.

The only system the cameras picked up was the one set neatly in the centre of the various screens, the one with the improper necklace of planets circling an off-colour star. There was no doubt now in Kane's mind and less than that in Lambert's that the Nostromo's intended that system to be their immediate destination.

Still, it could be an error in time and not in space. Sol could be the system located in the distance just to this star's left or right. There was a sure way to find out

'Contact traffic control.' Kane was chewing his lower lip. 'If we can pick up anything from them, we'll know we're in the right quadrant. If Sol's anywhere nearby, we'll receive a reply from one of the outsystem relay stations.'

Lambert's fingers nicked different controls. 'This is the deep-space commercial tug Nostromo, registration number one eight zero, two four six, en route to Earth with bulk cargo crude petroleum and appropriate refinery. Calling Antarctica traffic control. Do you read me? Over.'

Only the faint, steady hiss of distant suns replied over the speakers. Near Ripley's feet, Jones the cat purred in harmony with the stars.

Lambert tried again. 'Deepspace commercial tug Nostromo calling Sol/Antarctica traffic control. We are experiencing navigation-fix difficulties. This is a priority call; please respond.' Still only the nervous stellar sizzle-pop. Lambert looked worried. 'Mayday, mayday. Tug Nostromo calling Sol traffic control or any other vessel in listening range. Mayday. Respond.'

The unjustified distress call (Lambert knew they were not in any immediate danger) went unanswered and unchallenged. Discouraged, she shut off the transmitter, but left the receiver on all-channels open in case another broadcasting ship happened to pass close by.

'I knew we couldn't be near our system,' Ripley mumbled. 'I know the area.' She nodded toward the screen hanging above her own station. 'That's nowhere near Sol, and neither are we.'

'Keep trying,' Kane ordered her. He turned back to face Lambert. 'So then where are we? You got a reading yet?'

'Give me a minute, will you? This isn't easy. We're way out in the boondocks.'

'Keep trying.'

'Working on it.'

Several minutes of intense searching and computer-cooperation produced a tight grin of satisfaction on her face. 'Found it. . and us. We're just short of Zeta II Reticuli. We haven't even reached the outer populated ring yet. Too deep to grab onto a navigation beacon, let alone a Sol traffic relay.'

'So what the hell are we doing here?' Kane wondered aloud. 'If there's nothing wrong with the ship and we're not home, why did Mother defrost us?'

It was only coincidence and not a direct response to the exec's musing, but an attention-to-station horn began its loud and imperative beeping. .

Near the stern of the Nostromo was a vast chamber mostly filled with complex, powerful machinery. The ship's heart lived there, the extensive propulsion system that enabled the vessel to distort space, ignore time, and thumb its metallic nose at Einstein. . and only incidentally power the devices that kept her fragile human crew alive.

At the fore end of this massive, humming complex was a glass cubicle, a transparent pimple on the tip of the hyperdrive iceberg. Within, settled in contour seats, rested two men. They were responsible for the health and well-being of the ship's drive, a situation both were content with. They took care of it and it took care of them.

Most of the time it took perfectly good care of itself, which enabled them to spend their time on more enlightening, worthwhile projects such as drinking beer and swapping dirty stories. At the moment it was Parker's turn to ramble. He was reciting for the hundredth time the tale of the engineering apprentice and the free-fall cathouse. It was a good story, one that never failed to elicit a knowing snigger or two from the silent Brett and a belly laugh from the storyteller himself.

'. . and so the madam busts in on me, all worried and mad at the same time,' the engineer was saying, 'and insists we come and rescue this poor sap. Guess he didn't know what he was getting into.' As usual, he roared at the pun.

'You remember that place. All four walls, floor and ceiling perfectly mirrored, with no bed. Just a velvet net suspended in the centre of the room to confine your activities and keep you from bouncing off the walls, and zero-gee.' He shook his head in disapproving remembrance.

'That's no place for amateurs to fool around, no sir! Guess this kid got embarrassed or cajoled into trying it by his crewmates.'

'From what the girl involved told me later, as she was cleaning herself up, they got started off fine. But then they started to spin, and he panicked. Couldn't stop their tumbling. She tried, but it takes two to stop as well as start in free-fall. What with the mirrors messing up his sense of position and all, plus the free tumbling, he couldn't stop throwing up.' Parker downed another mouthful of beer. 'Never saw such a mess in your natural life. Bet they're still working on those mirrors.'

'Yeah.' Brett smiled appreciatively.

Parker sat still, letting the last vestiges of the memory fade from his mind. They left a pleasantly lascivious residue behind. Absently, he flipped a key switch over his console. A gratifyingly green light appeared above it, held steady.

'How's your light?'

'Green,' admitted Brett, after repeating the switch-andcheck procedure with his own instrumentation.

'Mine too.' Parker studied the bubbles within the beer. Several hours out of hypersleep and he was bored already. The engine room ran itself with quiet efficiency, wasted no time making him feel extraneous. There was no one to argue with except Brett, and you couldn't work up a really invigorating debate with a man who spoke in monosyllables and for whom a complete sentence constituted an exhausting ordeal.

'I still think Dallas is deliberately ignoring our complaints,' he ventured. 'Maybe he can't direct that we receive full bonuses, but he is the captain. If he wanted to, he could put in a request, or at least a decent word for the two of us. That'd be a big help.' He studied a readout. It displayed numbers marching off plus or minus to right and left. The fluorescent red line running down its centre rested precisely on zero, splitting the desired indication of neutrality neatly in two.

Parker would have continued his rambling, alternating stories and complaints had not the beeper above them abruptly commenced its monotonous call

'Christ. What is it now? Can't let a guy get comfortable before somebody starts farting around!'

'Right.' Brett leaned forward to hear better as the speaker cleared a distant throat.

It was Ripley's voice. 'Report to the mess.'

'Can't be lunch, isn't supper.' Parker was confused. 'Either we're standing by to offload cargo, or. .' He glanced questioningly at his companion.

'Find out soon,' said Brett.

As they made their way toward the mess, Parker surveyed the less than antiseptically clean walls of 'C' corridor with distaste. 'I'd like to know why they never come down here. This is where the real work is.'

'Same reason we have half a share to their one. Our time is their time. That's the way they see it.'

'Well, I'll tell you something. It stinks.' Parker's tone left no doubt he was referring to something other than the odour the corridor walls were impregnated with. .