underside. Every muscle in her body tensed, ready to throw her clear at the first sight of the tiny invader. She wasn't disappointed when the underside of the platform proved to be unoccupied.
Straightening, she considered where to search next. She brushed against a bulkhead. Something solid and unyielding landed on her shoulder. Her head jerked around and she found herself staring at long skeletal fingers and a dull grey cabochon of an eye.
Somehow she got out a single scream. Her muscles spasmed and she twisted awkwardly. As she did so, the creature tumbled heavily to the deck. It lay motionless.
Dallas and Ash had come running at her scream. Now the three of them stood gazing at the motionless shape lying among them. The fingers were clenched tight, uncannily like the hand of a dead man, which it still resembled more closely than anything else. Only the extra fingers, the tail, and the dull, lidless eye broke the illusion.
Ripley's right hand rested on the shoulder where the thing had landed. She was gulping air rather than inhaling it, the adrenalin slowly leaking from her system. She could still feel the alien weight on her.
She extended a booted foot, prodded the hand-shape. It didn't move or resist. In addition to the dullness of the single eye, its leathery skin looked shrunken and dry. She nudged it with her foot again, turning it over. The tube lay limply against the palm, almost completely retracted.
'I think it's dead.' Dallas studied the unanticipated corpse a moment longer, then glanced at Ripley. 'You okay?'
Tongue and larynx were forced into action. 'Yeah. It didn't do anything. I think it was long dead before it fell on me.'
She walked to the open cabinet and selected a long metal forceps. A touch on the curled fingers failed to elicit any reaction, as did a poke at the eye. Dallas held out the tray. Using the forceps, she maneuvered the petrified alien into it, quickly nipped shut the gleaming lid.
They moved to a nearby table. The alien was carefully removed from the tray and placed on the flat surface. Ash turned a bright light on it. The illumination intensified the ghastly pallor of the thing. He chose a small probe, pushed and prodded the unresisting form.
'Look at those suckers.' He used the probe to indicate the series of small, deep holes lining the inside of the creature's 'palm.' They extended cornpletely around it. 'No wonder we couldn't get it off him, between these, the fingers, and that tail it wrapped around his neck.'
'Where's its mouth?' Dallas had to force his gaze away from the single eye. Even in death, the dull orb possessed a sort of hypnotic attraction.
'Must be this tube-like organ, up in here. The thing it had down his throat. But it never showed any sign of feeding.' Ash used the probe to turn the corpse over on its back. He got a grip on the tube with the forceps, partly pulled it out of the palm. As he extracted more of the tube, it changed colour to match the rest of the body.
'It's hardening as soon as it contacts the air.' Ash moved the tiny form over to a scanner, slipped it underneath the lens, and adjusted controls. Numbers and words appeared on tiny screens when he depressed a certain button.
'That's all,' he finally informed them. 'It's over. It's dead. No life signs whatever. We may not know much about it, but it's not so alien you can't determine whether it's alive or not'
Ripley's shoulder tingled. 'Good. Let's get rid of it.'
Ash looked at her in disbelief. 'You're joking, of course. Very funny.'
She shook her head. 'Like hell I am.'
'But. . this has to go back.' Ash sounded almost excited. 'This is the first contact with a creature like this. There's nothing like it on any of the tapes, not even the hypotheticals. All kinds of tests should be run on it.'
'Fine,' she said. 'So run your tests, and then we'll get rid of it.'
'No, no. It requires the facilities of a completely equipped biology lab. I can only record the slightest details of construction and composition. I can't begin to guess at such critical things as its evolutionary history.
'We can't dump one of the greatest xenological discoveries of the past decade out the lock like a piece of common garbage! I protest, personally and in my capacity as science officer. Kane would do the same.'
'That thing bled acid, nearly bored a hole right through the ship.' She nodded toward it. 'God knows what it might do now that it's dead.'
'It hasn't done anything,' Ash countered. 'The acidic fluid is probably absorbed into the dead cells and has been rendered inert. It hasn't done a thing.'
'Not yet.'
Ash turned an imploring gaze on Dallas. 'It has not moved, nor resisted in any way when we prodded it all over, even in its eye. The scanner insists it's dead and I think it's safe to assume it's not a zombie. Dallas, we have to keep this specimen.'
When Dallas didn't respond, Ash continued. 'For one thing, if we can't pull Kane out of his coma, the medical team that treats him will need to have the creature that induced the condition. Throw it away and we might be throwing away the secret to reviving Kane.'
Dallas finally spoke. 'You're the science officer. It's your department, your decision.'
'Then it's made.' Ash bestowed a fond look on his acquisition. 'I'll seal it in a stasis tube. That'll arrest any possibility of revivification. We can handle it.'
'That's what Kane probably thought,' Ripley muttered. Dallas glared at her and she looked away. 'That takes care of the monster's future, I guess.' She gestured at the medical platform. 'What about Kane?'
Ash turned to face the pallet. After a brief examination of the exec and careful study of his sucker-marked face, the science officer activated several instruments on the medical console. The autodoc made noises, and readouts began to appear.
'He's running a fever.'
'Bad?'
'No. Nothing his system can't handle. The machine will bring his temperature down. He's still unconscious.'
'We can see that.'
Ash glanced back at the bitter Ripley. 'Not necessarily. He could be sleeping, which would be different.'
Ripley started to reply, was cut off by an angry Dallas. 'You two stop your bickering.' As if he didn't have enough to worry about, now he had to deal with tension between crewmates. Considering the mental pressure they'd all been under recently, such conflicts were to be expected, but he'd tolerate only the minimum necessary to relieve it. Open antagonism was something to be avoided at all costs. He had no time to deal with congealing cliques.
To get Ripley's mind off Ash and vice versa, he turned the conversation back to Kane. 'Unconscious and a slight fever. Anything else?'
Ash studied readouts. 'Nothing that shows here. His vital signs continue strong.'
'Long-term prognosis?'
The science officer looked hesitant. 'I'm not a medical officer. The Nostromo isn't big enough to rate one.'
'Or important enough. I know that. But you're the closest thing we've got. I just want your opinion. It's not going into the log and I certainly won't hold you to it. Hell, I can't hold you to it.' His gaze travelled back down to Kane, shipmate and friend.
'I don't want to appear unduly optimistic,' Ash said slowly, 'but based on his present condition and on what the monitors tell me, I'd say he may make it.'
Dallas grinned, nodded slowly. 'Good enough. Can't ask for more than that.'
'I hope you're right,' Ripley added. 'We disagree on some things, but this time I pray to God you're right.'
Ash shrugged. 'I wish I could do more for him, but as I said, I'm not trained for it. It's up to the autodoc. Right now I'm getting back some mighty peculiar readings, but there's no precedent for the machine to attack from. All we can do is wait until it figures out what the alien did to him. Then it can prescribe and commence treatment.' He looked suddenly disappointed.
'I wish I was medically qualified. I don't like waiting on machines.'
Ripley looked surprised. 'That's the first time I ever heard you say anything disparaging about a machine,
