Alien

much as bending.

When it was locked, Dallas moved it so that its apex was positioned over the centre of the shaft. Braces secured the three legs to the deck. A small winch and spool arrangement attached to the apex held thin cable. Dallas manually unwound a metre or two of the gleaming lifeline, handed the end to Kane. The exec affixed the cable to the loop on his chest unit, double locked it tight, and had Lambert check by pulling on it with all her weight. It held easily.

'Don't unhook yourself from the cable under any circumstances,' Dallas said sternly. 'Even if you see piles of diamonds sparkling just out of your reach.' He checked the cable unit for himself. Kane was a good officer. The gravity here was less than on Earth, but still more than adequate to make a mess of Kane if he fell. They had no idea how deep into the bowels of the ship the shaft went. Or the shaft might be a mining shaft, extending below the hull into the ground. That thought led to another, which made Dallas grin to himself. Maybe Kane would find his diamonds after all.

'Be out in less than ten minutes.' He spoke in his best no-nonsense tone. 'Read me?'

'Aye, aye.' Kane carefully sat down, swung his legs over the edge. Grasping the cable with both hands, he pushed off, hung by the cable in the middle of the opening. His lower body was cloaked in black air.

'If you're not out in ten minutes, I'll pull you out with the override,' Dallas warned him.

'Relax. I'll be a good boy. Besides, I can take care of myself.' He'd stopped swinging from side to side, now hung motionless in the gap.

'Do that. Keep us informed as you descend.'

'Check.' Kane activated the climbing unit. The cable unwound smoothly, lowering him into the shaft. He thrust out with his legs, contacted the smooth sides. Leaning back and bracing his feet against the vertical wall, he was able to walk downward.

Holding himself motionless, he switched on his lightbar, pointed it down. It showed him ten metres of dull- coloured metal before dissolving into nothingness.

'Hotter in here,' he reported, after a cursory inspection of his suit's sensory equipment. 'Must be warm air rising from below. Could be part of the engine complex, if that's still functioning. We know something's supplying power to that transmitter.'

Kicking away from the wall and playing out cable, he started down in earnest. After several minutes of rappelling his way down the shaft, he stopped to catch his breath. It was warmer, and growing more so the farther he dropped. The sudden changes put a burden on his suit's cooling system and he began to sweat, though the helmet's own unit kept his faceplate clear. His breathing sounded loud to him within the helmet and he worried because he knew Dallas and Lambert could hear. He didn't want to be called back up.

Leaning back, he glanced upward and saw the mouth of the shaft, a round circle of light set in a black frame. A dark blot appeared, obscured one round edge. Distant light glinted off something smooth and reflective.

'You okay down there?'

'Okay. Hot, though. I can still see you. Haven't hit bottom yet.' He sucked in a deep draught of air, then another, hyperventilating. The tank regulator whined in protest. 'This is real work. Can't talk anymore now.'

Bending his knees, he kicked away from the wall again, let out more cable. By now he'd gained some confidence with regard to his surroundings. The shaft continued steadily downward. So far it had displayed no inclination to narrow, or change direction. Widening he wasn't as concerned about.

He kicked off harder the next time, began taking longer and longer hops, falling steadily faster in the darkness. His lightbar continued to shine downward, continued to reveal nothing but the same monotonous, unvarying night beneath him.

Out of breath again he paused in his descent to run a check of his suit instrumentation. 'Interesting,' he said into his pickup. 'I'm below ground level.'

'Read you,' replied Dallas. Thinking of mine shafts, he asked, 'Any change in your surroundings? Still the same stuff walling the shaft?'

'Far as I can see. How am I doing on line?'

A brief pause while Dallas checked the cable remaining on the spool. 'Fine. Got over fifty metres left. If the shaft runs deeper than that we'll have to call this off until we can bring bigger stuff from the ship. I wouldn't think it'd go that far down, though.'

'What makes you think so?'

Dallas sounded thoughtful. 'Would make the ship all out of proportion.'

'Proportion to what? And to whose ideas of proportion?'

Dallas did not have a reply for that.

Ripley would have given up on the search if she'd had anything better to do. She did not. Playing at the ECIU board was better than wandering around an empty ship or staring at the vacant seats surrounding her.

Unexpectedly, a realignment of priorities in her querying jogged something within the ship's Brobdingnagian store of information. The resultant readout appeared on the screen so abruptly she almost erased it and continued with the next series before she realized she actually had received a sensible response. The trouble with computers, she thought, was that they had no intuitive senses. Only deductive ones. You had to ask the right question.

She studied the readout avidly, frowned, punched for elaboration. Sometimes Mother could be unintentionally evasive. You had to know how to weed out the confusing subtleties.

This time, however, the readout was clear enough, left no room for misunderstanding. She wished fervently that it had. She jabbed at the intercom. A voice answered promptly.

'Science blister. What is it, Ripley?'

'This is urgent, Ash.' She spoke in short, anxious gasps. 'I finally got something out of the Bank, via ECIU. It might have just come through, I don't know. That's not what matters.'

'Congratulations.'

'Never mind that,' she snapped worriedly. 'Mother has apparently deciphered part of the alien transmission. She's not positive about this, but from what I read I'm afraid that transmission may not be an SOS.'

That quieted Ash, but only for an instant. When he replied his voice was as controlled as ever, despite the import of Ripley's announcement. She marveled at his self-control.

'If it's not a distress call, then what is it?' he asked quietly. 'And why the nervous tone? You are nervous, aren't you?'

'You bet your ass I'm nervous! Worse than that, if Mother's correct. Like I said, she's not positive. But she thinks that signal may be a warning.'

'What kind of warning?'

'What difference does it make, 'what kind of warning'!'

'There is no reason to shout.'

Ripley took a couple of short breaths, counted to five. 'We have to get through to them. They've got to know about this right away.'

'I agree,' said Ash readily. 'But it's no use. Once they went inside the alien ship we lost them completely. I've had no contact with them for some time now. The combination of their proximity to the alien transmitter coupled with the peculiar composition of the vessel's hull has defeated every attempt of mine at re-establishing communication. And believe me, I've tried!' His next comment came off sounding like a challenge.

'You can try to raise them yourself, if you like. I'll help in any way I can.'

'Look, I'm not questioning your competence, Ash. If you say we can't contact them, we can't contact them. But damn it, we've got to let them know!'

'What do you suggest?'

She hesitated, then said firmly,?I'm going out after them. I'll tell them in person.'

'I don't think so.'

'Is that an order, Ash?' She knew that in an emergency situation of this kind the science officer outranked her.

'No, it's common sense. Can you see that? Use your head, Ripley,' he urged her. 'I know you don't like me much, but try to view this rationally.'

'We simply can't spare the personnel. With you and me, plus Parker and Brett, we've got minimum take-off