sign of them yet. It's nearly full night outside, but when they reach the lift I ought to be able to make out their suit lights.'
'Okay.' She was thinking furiously, and some of her current thoughts would have surprised the waiting science officer. They were surprising to herself.
'Which way?' Dallas squinted into the dust, trying to make out shipmarks by the light from the floods.
Lambert gestured to their left. 'Over that way, I think. By that first strut. Lift should be just beyond.' They continued on in that direction until they almost tripped over the rim of the lift, firmly placed on hard ground. Despite their fatigue, they wrestled Kane's motionless form off the travois and onto the elevator, keeping the exec supported between them.
'Think you can keep him up? Be easier if we don't have to lift him again.'
She took a breath. 'Yeah, I think so. So long as someone will help us once we get outside the lock.'
'Ripley, are you there?'
'Right here, Dallas.'
'We're coming up.' He glanced over at Lambert. 'Ready?' She nodded.
He pressed a stud. There was a jerk, then the lift rose smoothly upward, stopped even with the lock egress. Dallas leaned slightly, hit a switch. The outer hatch slid aside and they entered the lock.
'Pressurize?' Lambert asked him.
'Never mind. We can spare a lockful of air. We'll be inside in a minute and then we can get out of these damn suits.' They closed the outer hatch, waited for the inner door to open.
'What happened to Kane?' Ripley again. Dallas was too tired to take notice of something in her voice besides the usual concern. He shifted Kane a little higher on his shoulder, not worrying so much about the creature now. It hadn't moved a centimetre on the trek back to the ship and he didn't expect it would suddenly move itself now.
'Some kind of organism,' he told her, the faint echo of his own voice reassuring in the confines of the helmet. 'We don't know how it happened or where it came from. It's attached itself to him. Never saw anything like it. It's not moving now, hasn't altered its position at all on the way back. We've got to get him into the infirmary.'
'I need a clear definition,' she told them quietly.
'Clear definition, hell!' Dallas tried to sound as rational as possible, keep the frustrated fury he was feeling out of his words. 'Look, Ripley, we didn't see what happened. He was down a shaft of some kind, below us. We didn't know anything was wrong until we hauled him out. Is that a clear enough definition?' There was silence from the other end of the channel.
'Look, just open the hatch.'
'Wait a minute.' She chose her words carefully. 'If we let it in, the entire ship could be infected.'
'Damnit, this isn't a germ! It's bigger than my hand, and plenty solid-looking.'
'You know quarantine procedure.' Her voice exhibited a determination she didn't feel. 'Twenty four hours for decontamination. You've both got more than enough suit air remaining to handle that, and we can feed you extra tanks as necessary. Twenty-four hours won't prove conclusively that the thing's no longer dangerous either, but that's not my responsibility. I just have to enforce the rules. You know them as well as I do.'
'I know of exceptions, too. And I'm the one holding up what's left of a good friend, not you. In twenty-four hours he could be dead, if he isn't already. Open the hatch.'
'Listen to me,' she implored him. 'If I break quarantine we may all die.'
'Open the goddamn hatch!' Lambert screamed. 'To hell with Company rules. We have to get him into the infirmary where the autodoc can work on him.'
'I cant. If you were in my position, with the same responsibility, you'd do the same.'
'Ripley,' Dallas said slowly, 'do you hear me?'
'I hear you loud and clear.' Her voice was full of tension. 'The answer is still negative. Twenty-four hours decon, then you can bring him in.'
Within the ship, someone else came to a decision. Ash hit the emergency override stud outside the lock. A red light came on, accompanied by a loud, distinctive whine.
Dallas and Lambert stared as the inner door began to move steadily aside.
Ripley's console flashed, lit up with unbelievable words. INNER HATCH OPEN, OUTER HATCH CLOSED. She stared dumbly at the legend, not believing. Her instruments confirmed the incredible pronouncement.
Their heavy burden sagging between them, Dallas and Lambert staggered out of the lock into the corridor as soon as the inner hatch had swung aside enough to give them clearance. At the same time, Parker and Brett arrived.
Ash moved to help with the body, was waved back by Dallas. 'Stay clear.' They set Kane's body down, removed their helmets.
Keeping a respectful distance away, Ash walked around the crumpled form of the exec, until he caught sight of the thing on his head.
'God,' he murmured.
'Is it alive?' Parker studied the alien, admired the symmetry of it. That did not make it appear less loathsome in his eyes.
'I don't know, but don't touch it.' Lambert spoke as she slipped off her boots.
'Don't worry about that.' Parker leaned forward, trying to make out details of the creature where it was contacting Kane. 'What's it doing to him?'
'Don't know. Let's take him to the infirmary and find out'
'Right,' agreed Brett readily. 'You two okay?'
Dallas nodded slowly. 'Yeah. Just tired. It hasn't moved, but keep an eye on it.'
'Will do.' The two engineers took the burden from the floor, slipping carefully beneath Kane's arms, Ash moving to help as best he could. .
VI
In the infirmary, they placed Kane gently on the extended medical platform. A complex of instruments and controls, different from any others aboard the ship, decorated the wall behind the unconscious exec's head. The table protruded from the wall, extending out from an opening about a metre square.
Dallas touched controls, activated the autodoc. He walked to a drawer, removed a tiny tube of gleaming metal from inside. After checking to make sure it was fully charged, he returned to stand next to Kane's body. Ash stood nearby, ready to help, while Lambert, Parker, and Brett watched from the corridor behind a thick window.
A touch on the side of the tube produced a short, intense beam of light from its far end. Dallas adjusted the beam until it was as narrow and short as he could make it without reducing power. Carefully, he touched the end of the beam to the base of Kane's helmet. Metal began to separate.
He drew the cutter slowly across the side of the helmet, over the top, and down the other side. He reached the base of the helmet on the other side, drew the beam through the thick seal. The helmet separated neatly. He and Ash each took a side as Dallas shut off the beam, removed the helmet.
Except for a slow, steady pulsing, the creature showed no sign of life, and no reaction to the removal of the helmet and its subsequent exposure to their full view.
Dallas hesitated, reached out, and touched the creature, hurriedly drew his hand back. It continued to pulse, did not react to the touch of his fingers. He reached down again, let his palm rest on the creature's back. It was dry and cold. The slow heaving made him slightly ill and he almost pulled his hand away again. When the creature still showed no inclination to object, he got the best grip he could on the rubbery tissue and pulled as hard as he could.
Not surprisingly, this had no effect. The thing neither moved nor relinquished its hold.
'Let me try.' Ash stood near a rack of nonmedical tools. He selected a pair of thick pliers, moved to the table. Carefully getting a grip on the creature, he leaned back.
