‘Save it for another time, okay?’ Aaron hurried himself, not wanting Ripley to get dangerously far ahead.
‘One thing more, man,’ Dillon murmured.
The assistant superintendent glanced back down. ‘What now?’
‘Anytime you want to trade places, you let me know.’
‘In your dreams.’ Despite their circumstances each man mustered a fraternal grin of understanding. Then they resumed climbing, the brief feeling of camaraderie swept away in the desperation and anxiety of their situation.
Ripley glanced down, wondering what they were talking about. It was good that they could manage to smile under such conditions. She wished she could share in their amusement, but knew she could not. She was much too conscious of what might lie ahead of them. Inhaling resignedly, she ascended the next step and aimed her light into still another opening.
Straight into the face of the creature.
If her fingers hadn’t contracted in terror she surely would have fallen off the ladder as she screamed. Reflexively she swung her torch. It struck the horror square atop the gleaming black head. . which crumbled into pieces on contact.
‘What. . what is it?’ Aaron was yelling below her.
She ignored him as she fought to regain her equilibrium.
Only then did she pull herself up the ladder and step off into the tunnel.
Together the three stared at the collapsed, dried-out husk of the adult alien.
‘Ugly sucker, ain’t it?’ Dillon volunteered.
Ripley knelt to examine the cast-off shell. Her fingers trembled slightly as she touched it, then steadied. It was perfectly harmless, a shadow of an enigma. There was nothing there. The skull where her torch had struck had been empty inside. Experimentally she gave the remainder of the shell a light push and the massive, streamlined form tumbled over onto its side. She straightened.
‘What is it?’ Aaron asked her. He prodded the husk with his foot.
‘It’s shed its skin, moulted somehow.’ She looked sharply up the tunnel. ‘This is a new one. I’ve never seen this before. Not at this stage of development.’
‘What’s it mean?’ Dillon muttered.
‘Can’t say. No precedent. One thing we can be sure of, though. It’s bigger now.’
‘How much bigger?’ Aaron joined her in peering up the dark passageway.
‘That depends,’ Ripley murmured.
‘On what?’
‘On what it’s become.’ She started forward, holding her light out in front of her as she pushed her way past him.
Something inside her urged her on, making her increase rather than slow the pace. She hardly paused long enough to shine her torch down the side passages that branched off the main tunnel. The discovery of the alien husk had charged her with the same sort of relentless determination that had enabled her to survive the devastation of Acheron. Determination, and a growing anger. She found herself thinking of Jonesy. No one wonder she and the cat had survived the Nostromo.
Curiosity and a talent for survival were two of the skills they’d shared.
Jonesy was gone now, a victim of the time distortions made necessary by space travel. No more cat- nightmares for him.
Only she was left to deal with life, and all the memories.
‘Slow up.’ Aaron had to break into a jog to catch up with her.
He held up the map, then gestured ahead. ‘Almost there.’
She looked at him. ‘I hope this was worth the climb. What happened to all the damn lifts in this place?’
‘You kidding? Deactivated when the installation was closed down. Why would a bunch of prisoners need to be in this sector anyway?’ He started forward, taking the lead.
They walked another hundred metres before the tunnel opened up into a much larger passageway, one wide and high enough to accommodate vehicles as well as men. The assistant superintendent stopped next to the far wall, holding his torch out to illuminate a sign welded to the metal.
TOXIC WASTE STORAGE
THIS CHAMBER HERMETICALLY SECURED
NO ACCESS WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION
Rating B-8 or Higher Required 146
‘Well, well. What do we have here?’ For the first time in days Ripley allowed herself to feel a twinge of hope.
‘There’s more than a dozen of these scattered around the facility.’ Aaron was bending to study the detailed inscription below the plate. ‘This is the closest one to our living quarters.’
He tapped the wall with his torch and sparks dribbled to the floor.
‘They were gonna shove a lot of heavy-duty waste in here.
Refining by-products, that sort of thing. Some of these are full and permanently sealed, others partially filled. Cheaper, easier, and safer than stuffing the junk into drums and dumping it out in space.
‘This one’s never been used. Maybe because it’s so close to the habitat areas. Or maybe they just never got around to it, closed up shop before they needed the room. I’ve been inside. It’s clean as a whistle in there.’
Ripley studied the wall. ‘What’s the access like?’
‘Pretty much what you’d expect for a storage facility carrying this rating.’ He led her around to the front.
The door was scratched and filthy, but still impressive. She noted the almost invisible seams at the corners. ‘This is the only way in or out?’
Aaron nodded. ‘That’s right. I checked the stats before we came down. Entrance is just big enough for a small loader-transporter with driver and cargo. Ceiling, walls, and floor are six feet thick, solid ceramocarbide steel. So’s the door. All controls and active components are external, or embedded in the matrix itself.’
‘Let’s make sure we’ve got this right. You get something in there and close the door, no way it can get out?’
Aaron grunted confidently. ‘Right. No fuckin’ way. That sucker is tight. According to the specs it’ll hold a perfect vacuum. Nothin’ bigger than a neutrino could slip through.
That ceramocarbide stuff even dissipates lasers. You’d need a controlled nuclear explosion to cut your way in.’
‘You sure this thing is still operational?’
He indicated a nearby control box. ‘Why don’t you find out?’
She moved forward and broke the thin seal that covered the enclosure. The lid flipped down, exposing several controls. She studied them for a moment, then thumbed a large green button.
The immense door didn’t so much slide aside as appear to vanish silently into the wall. She cycled it again, admiring the smooth play of forces that could shift so much mass with such speed and ease. The prisoners were similarly impressed. The efficiency of the long-dormant technology lifted their spirits considerably.
Beyond the open barrier was a slick-walled, empty chamber.
An ephemeral coating of dust covered the floor. It would accommodate several full-grown aliens with ease.
‘Let me see the map.’ Aaron handed her the sheet and her index finger drew patterns on the plastic. ‘We’re here?’ He leaned close and nodded. ‘Administration’s here, assembly hall up this corridor?’
‘You got it. Fast, too,’ he added admiringly.
‘I owe the fact that I’m still alive to an understanding of spatial relationships.’ She tapped the sheet. ‘If we can get it to chase us down these passageways, here and here, then close these off one at a time, we might get it inside.’ The three of them stared into the storage chamber.
Dillon looked back at her. ‘Lemme get this straight. You wanna burn it down and outta the pipes, force it here, slam the door, and trap its ass?’
She spoke without looking up from the map. ‘Ummm.’
