Dallas reached across the gap, intending to grab the motionless executive officer by his chest harness. His hand had almost made contact when he noticed the grey, equally motionless creature inside the helmet, enveloping Kane's head. He pulled back his groping hand as if burnt.
'What's the matter?' wondered Lambert.
'Watch out. There's something on his face, inside his helmet.'
She walked around the gap. 'What is. .,' then she got her first glimpse of the creature, neatly snugged inside the helmet like a mollusc in its shell. 'Oh, Jesus!'
'Don't touch it.' Dallas studied the limp form of his shipmate. Experimentally, he waved a hand at the thing attached to Kane's face. It didn't budge. Bracing himself, ready to jerk back and run, he reached toward it. His hand moved close to the base, then toward the eye bulge on its back. The beast took no notice of him, exhibited no sign of life except a slow pulsing.
'Is it alive?' Lambert's stomach was turning slowly. She felt as though she'd just swallowed a litre of the Nostromo's half-recycled wastes.
'It's not moving, but I think it is. Get his arms, I'll take his legs. Maybe we can dump it off him.'
Lambert hurried to comply, paused, and looked back at him uncertainly. 'How come I get the arms?'
'Oh, hell. You want to switch?'
'Yeah.'
Dallas moved to trade places with her. As he did so he thought he saw one finger of the hand move, ever so slightly, but he couldn't be sure.
He started to lift under Kane's arms, felt the dead weight, hesitated. 'We'll never get him back to the ship this way. You take one side and I'll take the other.'
'Fair enough.'
They carefully turned the body of the exec onto his side. The creature did not fall off. It remained affixed to Kane's face as securely as it had been when the latter had been lying untouched on his back.
'No good. Wishful thinking. I didn't think it would fall off. Let's get him back to the ship.'
He slipped an arm behind Kane's back and raised him to a sitting position, then got one of the exec's arms across his shoulders. Lambert did the same on the other side.
'Ready now?' She nodded. 'Keep an eye on the creature. If it looks like it's fixing to fall away, drop your side and get the hell clear.' She nodded again. 'Let's go.'
They stopped just inside the entrance to the alien ship. Both were breathing heavily. 'Let him down,' Dallas told her. Lambert did so, gladly. 'This won't work. His feet will catch on every rock, every crevice. Stay with him. I'm going to try to make a travois.'
'Out of what?' Dallas was already headed back into the ship, moving toward the chamber they'd just left.
'The winch tripod,' she heard him say in her helmet. 'It's strong enough.'
While waiting for Dallas to return, Lambert sat as far away from Kane as she could. Wind howled outside the derelict's hull, heralding the approaching nightfall. She found herself unable to keep her gaze from the tiny monster attached to Kane, unable to keep from speculating on what had happened.
She was able to prevent herself from thinking about what it might be doing to him. She had to, because hysteria lay down that particular mental path.
Dallas returned, sections of the disassembled tripod under his right arm. Spreading the pieces out on the deck, he began to rig a crude platform on which to drag Kane. Fear lent speed to his gloved fingers.
Once the device was finished, he lowered it gingerly to the surface outside. It fell the last couple of metres but did not break. He decided it would hold the unconscious exec until they could reach the Nostromo.
The short day was rapidly rushing to an end, the atmosphere once more turning the colour of blood, the wind rising mournfully. Not that they couldn't haul Kane back or find the tug in the dark, but Dallas now had less desire than ever to be abroad on this windswept world at night. Something grotesque beyond imagining had risen from the depths of the derelict to imprint itself on Kane's face and their minds. Worse terrors might even now be gathering in the dust-impregnated dusk. He longed desperately for the secure metal walls of the Nostromo.
As the sun fell behind rising clouds the ring of floodlights lining the underside of the tug winked on. They did not make the landscape around the ship cheerful, merely served to brighten the dismal contours of the igneous rock on which it rested. Occasional clots of thicker dust would swirl in front of them, temporarily oblitreating even that feeble attempt to keep back the cloying darkness.
On the bridge, Ripley waited resignedly for some word from the silent exploration party. The first feelings of helplessness and ignorance had faded by now. They had been replaced by a vague numbness in body and soul. She could not bring herself to look out a port. She could only sit quietly, take an occasional sip of tepid coffee, and stare blankly at her slowly changing readouts.
Jones the cat was sitting in front of a port. He found the storm exhilarating and had evolved a frenetic game of swatting at the larger particles of dust whenever one struck the port's exterior. Jones knew he could never actually catch one of the flying motes. He understood the underlying physical laws behind the fact of a solid transparency. That lessened the delight of the game but did not obviate it. Besides, he could pretend that the dark fragments of stone were birds, though he'd never seen a bird. But he instinctively understood that concept, too.
Other monitors besides Ripley's were being watched, other gauges regularly evaluated. Being the only noncoffee drinker on the Nostromo, Ash did his work without liquid stimulation. His interest was perked only by new information.
Two gauges that had been motionless for some time suddenly came to life, the fresh numbers affecting the science officer's system as powerfully as any narcotic. He cut in amplifiers and thoroughly checked them out before opening the intercom to the bridge and announcing their reception.
'Ripley? You there, Ripley?'
'Yo.' She noted the intensity in his tone, sat up in her seat. 'Good news?'
'I think so. Just picked up their suit signals again. And their suit images are back on the screens.'
She took a deep breath, asked the frightening but necessary question: 'How many?'
'All of them. Three blips, steady signals.'
'Where are they?'
'Close. . very close. Someone must've thought to switch back on so we could pick them up. They're heading this way at a steady pace. Slow, but they keep moving. It looks good.'
Don't count on it, she thought to herself as she activated her station transmitter. 'Dallas. . Dallas, can you hear me?' A hurricane of static replied, and she fine-tuned. 'Dallas, this is Ripley. Acknowledge.'
'Easy, Ripley. We hear you. We're almost back.'
'What happened? We lost you on the screens, lost suit signals as well when you went inside the derelict. I've seen Ash's tapes. Have you. .?'
'Kane's hurt.' Dallas sounded exhausted and angry. 'We'll need some help getting him in. He's unconscious. Someone will have to give us a hand getting him out of the lock.'
A quick response sounded over the speakers. 'I'll go.' That was Ash.
Back in engineering, Parker and Brett were listening intently to the conversation.
'Unconscious,' repeated Parker. 'Always knew Kane would get himself in trouble someday.'
'Right.' Brett sounded worried.
'Not a bad guy, though, for a ship's officer. Like him better than Dallas. Not so fast with an order. I wonder what the hell happened to them out there?'
'Don't know. We'll find out soon enough.'
'Maybe,' Parker went on, 'he just fell down and knocked himself out.'
The explanation was as unconvincing to Parker as it was to Brett. Both men went quiet, their attention on the busy, crackling speaker.
'There she is.' Dallas had enough strength left to gesture with his head. Several dim, treelike shapes loomed up out of the almost night. They supported a larger amorphous shape: the hull of the Nostromo.
They had almost reached the ship when Ash reached the inner lock door. He stopped there, made sure the hatch was ready to be opened, and touched the stud of the nearest 'com.
'Ripley. . I'm by the inner hatch.' He left the channel open, moved to stand next to a small port nearby. 'No
