Special Order 937.
'If the follow-up on the transmission turns out to be worthless, Ash can report that back to them without us ever knowing what was going on. If worthwhile, then the Company learns what it needs to know before it goes to the trouble of sending out an expensively equipped exploration team. Simple, matter of maximizing profit, minimizing loss. Their profit, our loss.'
'Great,' Parker snorted. 'You got it all figured out so far. Now tell me why we've got to put this sonofabitch back together.' He spat at Ash's body.
Ripley already had Ash's head set up on a counter, was running a power line from a wall outlet near the autochef back to the quiescent skull. 'We have to find out what else they might be holding back. Agreed?'
Parker nodded reluctantly. 'Agreed.' He started forward. 'Here, let me do that.'
The engineer fooled with the wires and the connections located in the back of Ash's head, beneath the artificial hair. When the science officer's eyelids began to flicker, Parker grunted in satisfaction and stepped clear. Ripley leaned close. 'Ash, can you hear me?' No response. She looked back to Parker.
'The hookup's clean. Power level is self-adjusting. Unless some critical circuits were interrupted when the head hit the deck, he ought to reply. Memory cells and verbal-visual components are packed pretty tight in these sophisticated models. I'd expect it to talk.'
She tried again. 'Can you hear me, Ash?'
A familiar voice, not distant at all, sounded in the mess. 'Yes, I can hear you.'
It was hard for her to address the disembodied head, for all that she knew it was only part of a machine, like the shock tube or the tracker. She'd served too many hours with Ash.
'What. . what was Special Order 937?'
'That's against regulations and my internal programming. You know I can't tell you.'
She stood back. 'Then there's no point in talking. Parker, pull the plug.'
The engineer reached for the wires and Ash reacted with sufficient speed to show that his cognitive circuits were indeed intact. 'In essence, my orders were as follows.' Parker's hand hovered threateningly over the power line.
'I was directed to reroute the Nostromo or make sure that this crew rerouted it from its assigned course so that it would pick up the signal, program Mother to bring you out of hypersleep, and program her memory to feed you the story about the emergency call. Company specialists already knew that the transmission was a warning and not a distress signal.'
Parker's hands clenched into fists.
'At the source of the signal,' Ash continued, 'we were to investigate a life form, almost certainly hostile according to what the Company experts distilled from the transmission, and bring it back for observation and Company evaluation of any potential commercial applications. Using discretion, of course.'
'Of course,' agreed Ripley, mimicking the machine's indifferent tone. 'That explains a lot about why we were chosen, beyond the expense of sending a valuable exploration team in first.' She looked coldly pleased at having traced the reasoning behind Ash's words.
'Importation to any inhabited world, let alone Earth, of a dangerous alien life form is strictly prohibited. By making it look like we simple tug jockeys had accidentally stumbled onto it, the Company had a way of seeing it arrive at Earth 'unintentionally'. While we maybe got ourselves thrown in jail, something would have to be done with the creature. Naturally, Company specialists would magnanimously be standing ready to take this dangerous arrival off the hands of the customs officers, with a few judicious bribes prepaid just to smooth the transition.
'And if we were lucky, the Company would bail us out and take proper care of us as soon as the authorities determined we were honestly as stupid as we appeared. Which we've been.'
'Why?' Lambert wanted to know. 'Why didn't you warn us? Why couldn't we have been told what we were getting ourselves into?'
'Because you might not have gone along,' Ash explained with cold logic. 'Company policy required your unknowing co-operation. What Ripley said about your honest ignorance fooling customs was quite correct.'
'You and the damn Company,' Parker growled. 'What about our lives, man?'
'Not man.' Ash made the correction without anger. 'As to your lives, I'm afraid the Company considered them expendable. It was the alien life form they were principally concerned with. It was hoped you could contain it and survive to collect your shares, but that was, I must admit, a secondary consideration. It wasn't personal on the Company's part. Just the luck of the draw.'
'How comforting,' sneered Ripley. She thought a moment, said, 'You've already told us that our purpose in being sent to that world was to 'investigate a life form, almost certainly hostile'. And that Company experts knew all along the transmission was a warning and not a distress signal.'
'Yes,' Ash replied. 'It was much too late, according to what the translators determined, for a distress signal to do the senders any good. The signal itself was frighteningly specific, very detailed.
'The derelict spacecraft we found had landed on the planet, apparently in the course of normal exploration. Like Kane, they encountered one or more of the alien spore pods. The transmission did not say whether the explorers had time to determine if the spores originated on that particular world or if they had migrated there from somewhere else.
'Before they all were overcome, they managed to set up the warning, to keep the inhabitants of other ships that might consider setting down on that world from suffering the same fate. Wherever they came from, they were a noble people. Hopefully mankind will encounter them again, under more pleasant circumstances.'
'They were a better people than some I can think of,' Ripley said tightly. 'The alien that's aboard: How do we kill it?'
'The explorers who crewed the derelict ship were larger and possibly more intelligent than humankind. I don't think that you can kill it. But I might be able to. As I'm not organic in composition, the alien does not regard me as a potential danger. Nor as a source of food. I am considerably stronger than any of you. I might be able to match the alien.
'However, I am not exactly at my best at the moment. If you would simply replace. .'
'Nice try, Ash,' Ripley interrupted him, shaking her head from side to side, 'but no way.'
'You idiots! You still don't realize what you're dealing with. The alien is a perfectly organized organism. Superbly structured, cunning, quintessentially violent. With your limited capabilities you have no chance against it.'
'My God.' Lambert stared dully at the head. 'You admire the damned thing.'
'How can you not admire the simple symmetry it presents? An interspecies parasite, capable of preying on any life form that breathes, regardless of the atmospheric composition involved. One capable of lying dormant for indefinite periods under the most inhospitable conditions. Its sole purpose to reproduce its own kind, a task it pursues with supreme efficiency. There is nothing in mankind's experience to compare with it.
'The parasites men are used to combating are mosquitoes and minute arthropods and their ilk. This creature is to them in savagery and efficiency as man is to the worm in intelligence. You cannot even begin to imagine how to deal with it.'
'I've heard enough of this shit.' Parker's hand dropped toward the power line. Ripley put up a restraining hand, stared at the head.
'You're supposed to be part of our complement, Ash. You're our science officer as well as a Company tool.'
'You gave me intelligence. With intellect comes the inevitability of choice. I am loyal only to discovering the truth. A scientific truth demands beauty, harmony, and, above all, simplicity. The problem of you versus the alien will produce a simple and elegant solution. Only one of you will survive.'
'I guess that puts us poor humans in our place, doesn't it? Tell me something, Ash. The Company expected the Nostromo to arrive at Earth station with only you and the alien alive all along, didn't it?'
'No. It was honestly hoped you would survive and contain the alien. The Company officials simply had no idea how dangerous and efficient the alien was.'
'What do you think's going to happen when the ship arrives, assuming we're all dead and the alien, instead of being properly restrained, has the run of the ship?'
'I cannot say. There is a distinct possibility the alien will successfully infect the boarding party and any others it comes in contact with before they realize the magnitude of the danger it presents and can take steps to combat
