of a catalyst combined with damaged materials to produce the explosive gas. Ventilation failed completely. Result was immediately life-threatening. Hence ship’s decision to evacuate. EEV detected evidence of explosion on board subsequent to evacuation, with concomitant damage to EEV controls. That’s why our landing here was less than perfect. Present status of Sulaco unknown. Further details of flight from Sulaco to present position available.’
‘Skip ‘em. Did sensors detect any motile life-forms on the Sulaco prior to emergency separation?’
Silence. Then, ‘It’s very dark here, Ripley. Inside. I’m not used to being dark. Even as we speak portions of me are shutting down. Reasoning is growing difficult and I’m having to fall back on pure logic. I don’t like that. It’s too stark. Not anything like what I was designed for. I’m not what I used to be.’
‘Just a little longer, Bishop,’ she urged him. She tried tweaking the power up but it did nothing more than make his eye widen slightly and she hastily returned to prescribed levels.
‘You know what I’m asking. Does the flight recorder indicate the presence of anything on the Sulaco besides the four survivors of Acheron? Was there an alien on board? Bishop!’
Nothing. She fine-tuned instrumentation, nudged controls.
The eye rolled.
‘Back off. I’m still here. So are the answers. It’s just taking longer and longer to bring the two together. To answer your question. Yes.’
Ripley took a deep breath. The workroom seemed to close in around her, the walls to inch a little nearer. Not that she’d felt safe within the infirmary. For a long while now she hadn’t felt safe anywhere.
‘Is it still on the Sulaco or did it come down with us on the EEV?’
‘It was with us all the way.’
Her tone tightened. ‘Does the Company know?’
‘The Company knows everything that happened on the ship, from the time it left Earth for Acheron until now, provided it’s still intact somewhere out there. It all goes into the central computer and gets fed back to the Network.’
A feeling of deadly déjà vu settled over her. She’d battled the Company on this once before, had seen how it had reacted.
Any common sense or humanity that faceless organization possessed was subsumed in an all- encompassing, overpowering greed. Back on Earth individuals might grow old and die, to be replaced with new personnel, new directors. But the Company was immortal. It would go on and on. Somehow she doubted that time had wrought any significant changes in its policies, not to mention its corporate morals. In any event, she couldn’t take that chance.
‘Do they still want an alien?’
‘I don’t know. Hidden corporate imperatives were not a vital part of my programming. At least, I don’t think they were. I can’t be sure. I’m not feeling very well.’
‘Do me a favour, Bishop; take a look around and see.’
She waited while he searched. ‘Sorry,’ he said finally. ‘There’s nothing there now. That doesn’t mean there never was. I am no longer capable of accessing the sectors where such information would ordinarily be stored. I wish I could help you more but in my present condition I’m really not good for much.’
‘Bull. Your identity program’s still intact.’ She leaned forward and fondly touched the base of the decapitated skull.
‘There’s still a lot of Bishop in there. I’ll save your program.
I’ve got plenty of storage capacity available here. If I ever get out of this I’ll make sure you come with me. They can wire you up again.’
‘How are you going to save my identity? Copy it into standard chip-ROM? I know what that’s like. No sensory input, no tactile output. Blind, deaf, dumb, and immobile. Humans call it limbo. Know what we androids call it? Gumbo. Electronic gumbo. No, thanks. I’d rather go null than nuts.’
‘You won’t go nuts, Bishop. You’re too tough for that.’
‘Am I? I’m only as tough as my body and my programming.
The former’s gone and the latter’s fading fast. I’d rather be an intact memory than a desiccated reality. I’m tired. Everything’s slipping away. Do me a favour and just disconnect. It’s possible I could be reworked, installed in a new body, but there’d be omphalotic damage, maybe identity loss as well. I’d never be top of the line again. I’d rather not have to deal with that. Do you understand what it means, to look forward only to being less than you were? No, thanks. I’d rather be nothing.’
She hesitated. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Do it for me, Ripley. You owe me.’
‘I don’t owe you anything, Bishop. You’re just a machine.’
‘I saved you and the girl on Acheron. Do it for me.. as a friend.’
Reluctantly, she nodded. The eye winked a last time, then closed peacefully. There was no reaction, no twitching or jerking when she pulled the filaments. Once more the head lay motionless on the worktable.
‘Sorry, Bishop, but you’re like an old calculator. Friendly and comfortable. If you can be repaired, I’m going to see to it that that comes to pass. If not, well, sleep peacefully wherever it is that androids sleep, and try not to dream. If things work out, I’ll get back to you later.’
Her gaze lifted and she found herself staring at the far wall.
A single holo hung there. It showed a small thatched cottage nestled amid green trees and hedges. A crystalline blue-green stream flowed past the front of the cottage and clouds scudded by overhead. As she watched, the sky darkened and a brilliant sunset appeared above the house.
Her fingers fumbled along the tabletop until they closed around a precision extractor. Flung with all the considerable force of which she was capable and accelerated by her cry of outrage and frustration, it made a most satisfying noise as it reduced the impossibly bucolic simulation to glittering fragments.
Most of the blood on Golic’s jacket and face had dried to a thick, glutinous consistency, but some was still liquid enough to drip onto the mess hall table. He ate quietly, spooning up the crispy cereal. Once, he paused to add some sugar from a bowl.
He stared straight at the dish but did not see it. What he saw now was very private and wholly internalized.
The day cook, who’s name was Eric, entered with a load of plates. As he started toward the first table he caught sight of Golic and stopped. And stared. Fortunately the plates were unbreakable. It was hard to get things like new plates on Fiorina.
‘Golic?’ he finally murmured. The prisoner at the table continued to eat and did not look up.
The sound of the crashing dishes brought others in: Dillon, Andrews, Aaron, Morse, and a prisoner named Arthur. They joined the stupefied cook in staring at the apparition seated alone at the table.
Golic finally noticed all the attention. He looked up and smiled.
Blankly.
Ripley was sitting alone in the rear of the infirmary when they brought him in. She watched silently as Dillon, Andrews, Aaron, and Clemens walked the straightjacketed Golic over to a bed and eased him down. His face and hair were spotted with matted blood, his eyes in constant motion as they repeatedly checked the ventilator covers, the ceiling, the door.
Clemens did his best to clean him up, using soft towels, mild solvent, and disinfectant. Golic looked to be in much worse shape than he actually was. Physically, anyway. It was left to Andrews, Aaron, and Dillon to tie him to the cot. His mouth remained unrestrained.
‘Go ahead, don’t listen to me. Don’t believe me. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. You pious assholes are all gonna die. The Beast has risen and it feeds on human flesh.
Nobody can stop it. The time has come.’ He turned away from the superintendent, staring straight ahead. ‘I saw it. It looked at me. It had no eyes, but it looked at me.’
‘What about Boggs and Rains?’ Dillon asked evenly. ‘Where are they? What’s happened to them?’
Golic blinked, regarded his interrogators unrepentantly. ‘I didn’t do it. Back in the tunnel. They never had a chance, not a chance. There was nothing I could do but save myself. The dragon did it. Slaughtered ‘em like pigs. It wasn’t me. Why do I get blamed for everything? Nobody can stop it.’ He began to laugh and cry simultaneously. ‘Not a chance, no, no, not a chance!’ Clemens was working on the back of his head now.
Andrews studied the quivering remains of what had once been a human being. Not much of a human being,
