‘We don’t have any weapons, right? No smart guns, no pulse rifles, nothing?’
Aaron nodded reluctantly. ‘Right.’
She looked thoughtful. ‘I haven’t seen one exactly like this before. It’s bigger, its legs are different. The other ones were afraid of fire, or at least respectful of it. Not much else.’
She let her gaze roam the hall. ‘Can we seal off this area?’
‘No chance,’ Aaron told her. ‘The developed mine complex is ten miles square. There’s six hundred air ducts that access the surface. This goddamn place is big.’
‘What about video? We could try to locate it that way. I see monitors everywhere.’
Again the assistant superintendent shook his head. ‘Internal video system hasn’t worked in years. No reason to keep an expensive hi-tech system just to monitor a lousy twenty-five caretaker prisoners who aren’t going anywhere anyhow. Fact is, nothin’ much works here anymore. We got a lot of technology, but no way to fix it.’
‘What eight-five’s tryin’ to tell you—’ Morse started to say.
‘Don’t call me that!’ Aaron snapped.
The prisoner ignored him. ‘—is that we got no entertainment centres, no climate control, no viewscreens, no surveillance, no freezers, no fuckin’ ice cream, no guns, no rubbers, no women. All we got here is shit.’
‘Shut up,’ Dillon said warningly.
‘What the hell are we even talkin’ to her for?’ Morse continued. ‘She’s the one that brought the fucker here. Let’s run her head through the wall.’
Ripley shrugged ever so slightly. ‘Sounds good to me.’
Dillon walked over to confront Morse. ‘I won’t say it again,’
he said softly. ‘Keep your mouth shut.’
Morse considered, then dropped his gaze and backed off.
For the time being.
The assistant super eyed Ripley. ‘All right. What do we do now?’
She was aware that not just the three men at the table but the majority of the prisoners were watching her, waiting.
‘On Acheron we tried to seal ourselves off and establish a defensive perimetre. It worked, but only for a little while.
These things always find a way in. First I need to see, not hear, what our exact physical situation is.’
‘It’s fucked,’ Morse growled, but under his breath.
Aaron nodded. ‘Come with me.’ He looked to Dillon. ‘Sorry, but you know the regs.’
The big man blinked slowly by way of acknowledgment. ‘Just don’t be too long, okay?’
Aaron tried to grin, failed. ‘Look at this way: no work detail today.’
Dillon let his gaze sweep the upper level of the library. ‘Then why is it I don’t feel relaxed?’
They moved along the main passageway, Aaron holding the schematic map, Ripley shifting her attention from the printout to the corridor and walls. There was overhead light, but dim.
Morse was wrong. Some of the complex’s basic life support system still functioned.
She tapped the plastic sheet. ‘What’s this?’
‘Access serviceway. Connects the infirmary to the mess hall.’
‘Maybe we can go in, flush it out.’
He stayed close. ‘Come on. There’s miles and miles of tunnels down there.’
She traced lines on the sheet. ‘It won’t go far. It’ll nest in this area right around here, in one of the smaller passageways or air shafts.’
His expression twisted. ‘Nest? Don’t you mean “rest”?’
She glanced over at him. ‘I mean what I say. Just don’t ask me for details. If we can kill or immobilize it, remind me and I’ll explain. Otherwise you don’t want to know.’
He held her stare a moment longer, then dropped his eyes back to the map. ‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s like a lion. It sticks close to the zebras.’
‘We don’t have any zebras here.’
She halted and gave him a look.
‘Oh, right,’ he said, subdued. ‘But running around down there in the dark? You gotta be kiddin’. We got no overheads once you get out of the main shaft here.’
‘How about flashlights?’
‘Sure. We got six thousand of them. And rechargeable batteries. But no bulbs. Somebody forgot that little detail. I told ya, nothin’ works.’
‘What about torches? Do we have the capability of making fire? Most humans have enjoyed that privilege since the Stone Age.’
The old vertical shaft stretched up and down into darkness, the ladder welded to its interior filthy with carboniferous grime and accumulated gunk. Damp air ascended languidly from the black depths, thick in Ripley’s nostrils as she leaned out of the corridor and aimed her torch downward. No bottom was visible, not had she expected to see one.
They’d started in through the tunnel where Murphy had been killed, past the huge ventilator blades, which Aaron had shut down prior to their departure. She sniffed, wrinkled her nose. The rising air was more than damp; it was pungent with rotting vegetation and the sharp tang of recycled chemicals.
‘What’s down there?’
Aaron crowded close behind her. ‘Air and water purification and recirculation.’
‘Which explains the stink. Fusion?’
‘Yeah, but sealed away. Everything operates on automatics. A couple of techs from the supply ship run a status check every six months.’ He grinned. ‘You don’t think they’d trust the maintenance details of a functioning fusion plant to the delicate ministrations of a bunch of prisoners and a couple of prison administrators with general degrees, do you?’
She didn’t smile back. ‘Nothing the Company does would surprise me.’ Holding on to the edge of the opening she aimed the torch upward, played the light over the smooth metal walls.
‘What’s upstairs?’
‘Low-tech stuff. Storage chambers, most of ‘em empty now.
Cleaned out when Weyland-Yutani closed down the mine.
Service access ways. Power and water conduits. All the tunnels and shafts are bigger then they need to be. With all the drilling and cording equipment at hand the engineers were able to make it easy on themselves. They built everything oversized.’
He paused. ‘You think it might have gone up there somewhere?’
‘It would naturally choose a large, comfortable chamber for a nest, and it likes to keep above its. . prey. Drop down from above rather than come up from below. Also, the upper levels are closer to the prison habitat. That’s where it’ll expect us to be holed up. If we’re lucky we might be able to come up behind it. If we’re unlucky. .’
‘Yeah?’ Aaron prompted,
‘We might be able to come up behind it.’ She swung out onto the ladder and began climbing.
Not only was the ladder thick with encrusted grime, but the moist air rising from below had stimulated the growth of local algae and other microorganisms. The rungs were slippery and uneven. She made sure to grip the side of the ladder firmly with her free hand as she ascended.
The shaft intersected one or more cross-corridors approxi-mately every three metres. At each level she shoved her torch inside, illuminating each tunnel for a respectable distance before resuming her ascent.
While he was trying to watch Ripley, Aaron’s concentration slipped along with his foot. Behind him Dillon quickly looped his left arm around the ladder and caught the flailing ankle with his other hand, shoving the assistant super’s boot back onto the nearest rung.
‘You all right up there?’ he inquired in a terse whisper.
‘Fine,’ Aaron replied, albeit a little shakily. ‘Just keep that torch out of my ass.’
‘Funny you should mention that,’ the big man replied in the half darkness. ‘I’ve spent years dreaming of doing just that.’
