Alien

scale as our ships, the builders must've been a damn sight bigger than us.'

Lambert let out a nervous giggle. 'We'll find out, if there are any of them left on board to give us a welcome.'

'We're close and in line,' Dallas said to Ash, ignoring the navigator's comment. 'You ought to be receiving a much clearer signal from us. What about the distress call? Any shift? We're too close to tell.'

'No. Whatever's producing the transmission is inside that. I'm sure of it. Got to be. If it was farther out, we'd never have picked it up through that mass of metal.'

'If it is metal.' Dallas continued to examine the alien hull. 'Almost looks like plastic.'

'Or bone,' a thoughtful Kane suggested.

'Assuming the transmission is coming from inside, what do we do now?' Lambert wondered.

The exec started forward. 'I'll go in and have a look, let you know.'

'Hold on, Kane. Don't be so damned adventurous. One of these days it's going to get you into trouble.'

'I'll settle for getting inside. Look, we've got to do something. We can't just stand around out here and wait for revelations to magically appear in the air above the ship.' Kane frowned at him. 'Are you seriously suggesting we don't go inside?'

'No, no. But there's no need to rush it.' He addressed the distant science officer. 'You still reading us, Ash?'

'Weaker now that you're on top of the transmitter,' came the reply. 'There's some unavoidable interference. But I'm still on you clear.'

'Okay. I don't see any lights or signs of life. No movement of any kind except this damn dust. Use us for a distance-and-line fix and try your sensors. See if you can see or find anything that we can't.'

There was a pause while Ash hastened to comply with the order. They continued to marvel at the elegantly distorted lines of the enormous vessel.

'I've tried everything,' the science officer finally reported. 'We're not equipped for this kind of thing. The Nostromo's a commercial tug, not an exploration craft. We'd need a lot of expensive stuff we just don't carry to get a proper reading.'

'So. . what can you tell me?'

'Nothing from here, sir. I can't get any results at all. It's putting out so much power I can't get any acceptable reading whatsoever. We just don't carry the right instrumentation.'

Dallas tried to conceal his disappointment from the others. 'I understand. It's not crucial anyway. But keep trying. Let me know the minute you do find anything, anything at all. Especially any indication of movement. Don't go into details. We'll handle any analysis at this end.'

'Check. Watch yourselves.'

'What now, Captain?' Dallas'ss gaze travelled the length of the huge ship, returned to discover Kane and Lambert watching him. The exec was right, of course. To know that this was the source of the signal was not sufficient. They had to trace it to the generator, try to discover the cause behind the signal and the presence of this ship on this tiny world. To have come this far and not explore the alien's innards was unthinkable.

Curiosity, after all, was what had driven mankind out from his isolated, unimportant world and across the gulf between the stars. It had also, he thoughtfully reminded himself, killed the figurative cat.

He came to a decision, the only logical one. 'It looks pretty dead from out here. We'll approach the base first. Then, if nothing shows itself. .'

Lambert eyed him. 'Yeah.'

'Then. . we'll see.'

They started toward the hull, the superfluous finder dangling from Lambert's belt.

'At this point,' Dallas was saying as they neared the overhanging curse of the hull, 'there's only one thing I can. .'

Back aboard the Nostromo, Ash followed every word carefully. Without warning, Dallas's voice faded. It came back strong once more before disappearing completely. Simultaneously, Ash lost visual contact.

'Dallas!' Frantically, he jabbed buttons on the console, threw switches, demanded better resolution from the already overstrained pickups. 'Dallas, do you read me? I've lost you. Repeat, I've lost you. . '

Only the constant thermonuclear hiss of the local sun sounded plaintively over the multitude of speakers. .

Up next to the hull, the colossal scale of the alien vessel was more evident than ever. It curved above them, rising into the dust-heavy air and looking more solid than the broken rock it rested upon.

'Still no sign of life,' Dallas murmured half to himself as he surveyed the hull. 'No lights, no movement.' He gestured toward the imagined bow of the ship. 'And no way in. Let's try up that way.'

As they strode carefully over shattered boulders and loose, shaly rock, Dallas was aware how small the alien ship made him feel. Not small physically, though the bulging, overbearing arc of the hull dwarfed the three humans, but insignificantly tiny on the cosmic scale. Humanity still knew very little of the universe, had explored a fraction of one corner.

It was exciting and intellectually gratifying to speculate on what might lie waiting in the black gulfs when one was behind the business end of a telescope, quite another to do so isolated on an unpleasant little speck of a world such as this, confronted by a ship of nonhuman manufacture that uncomfortably resembled a growth instead of a familiar device for manipulating and overcoming the neat laws of physics.

That, he admitted to himself, was what troubled him most about the derelict. Had it conformed to the familiar in its outlines and composition, then its nonhuman origin would not have seemed so threatening. He did not put his feelings down to simple xenophobia. Basically, he hadn't expected the alien to be so completely alien.

'Something's coming up.' He saw that Kane was pointing to the hull ahead of them. Time to set aside idle speculation, he told himself firmly, and treat with reality. This odd horn-shape was a spacecraft, differing only in superficial ways from the Nostromo. There was nothing malignant about the material it was formed of or ominous about its design. One was the result of a different technology, the latter possibly of aesthetic ideals as much as anything else. When viewed in that manner, the ship assumed a kind of exotic beauty. No doubt Ash was already raving over the vessel's unique design, wishing he were here among them.

Dallas noticed Lambert's unvaried expression and knew there was at least one member of the crew who'd trade places with the science officer without hesitation.

Kane had indicated a trio of dark blotches on the hull's flank. As they climbed nearer and slightly higher in the rocks, the blotches turned into oval openings, showed depth in addition to height and width.

They finally found themselves standing just below the three pockmarks in the metal (or plastic? or what?) hull. Narrower, still darker secondary gaps showed behind the exterior ovals. Wind whipped dust and pumice in and out of the openings, a sign that the gaps had remained open for some time.

'Looks like an entrance,' Kane surmised, hands on hips as he studied the gaps. 'Maybe somebody else's idea of an airlock. You see the inner hatch openings behind these?'

'If they're locks, why three of them so close to each other?' Lambert regarded the openings with suspicion. 'And why are they all standing open?'

'Maybe the builders liked to do things in threes.' Kane shrugged. 'If we can find one, I'll let you ask him.'

'Funny boy.' She didn't smile. 'I'll buy that, but what about leaving all three open?'

'We don't know that they're open.' Dallas found himself fascinated by the smooth-lipped ovals, so different from the Nostromo's bulky, squarish lock entrances. These appeared moulded into the fabric of the hull instead of having been attached later in construction with awkward welds and seals.

'As to why they might be open, if they indeed are,' Dallas continued, 'maybe the crew wanted to get out in a hurry.'

'Why would they need three open locks to do that?'

Dallas snapped at her, irritated. 'How the hell am I supposed to know?' He added immediately after, 'Sorry. . that was uncalled for.'

'No it wasn't.' This time she did grin, slightly. 'It was a dumb question.'

'Time we got ourselves some answers.' Keeping his eyes on the ground and watching for loose rock, he started up the slight incline leading toward the openings. 'We've waited long enough. Let's move inside, if we