it. By then it may be too late.
'Thousands of years of effort have not enabled man to eradicate other parasites. He has never before encountered one this advanced. Try to imagine several billion mosquitoes functioning in intelligent consort with one another. Would mankind have a chance?
'Of course, if I am present and functional when the Nostromo arrives, I can inform the boarding party of what they may expect and how to proceed safely against it. By destroying me, you risk loosing a terrible plague on mankind.'
There was silence in the mess, but not for long. Parker spoke first.
'Mankind, in the person of the Company, doesn't seem to give a damn about us. We'll take our chances against the alien. At least we know where it stands.' He glanced over at Ripley. 'No plague's going to bother me if I'm not around to worry about it. I say pull the plug.'
'I agree,' said Lambert.
Ripley moved around the table, started to disconnect the power cord.
'A last word,' Ash said quickly. 'A legacy, if you will.'
Ripley hesitated. 'Well?'
'Maybe it is truly intelligent. Maybe you should try to communicate with it.'
'Did you?'
'Please let my grave hold some secrets.'
Ripley pulled the wire from the socket. 'Good-bye, Ash.' She turned her attention from the silent head to her companions. 'When it comes to choosing between parasites, I'd rather take my chances with one that doesn't lie. Besides, if we can't beat that thing we can die happy knowing that it's likely to get its hooks into a few Company experts. .'
She was seated before the central computer console in the main annex when Parker and Lambert rejoined her. She spoke dejectedly. 'He was right about one thing, Ash was. We haven't got much of a chance.' She indicated a flashing readout. 'We've got less than twelve hours of oxygen left.'
'Then it's all over.' Parker looked at the deck. 'Reconnecting Ash would be a faster form of suicide. Oh, I'm sure he'd try to take care of the alien, all right. But he wouldn't leave us alive. That's one Company order he couldn't tell us. Because having told us everything else, he couldn't leave us around to tell the port authorities what the Company's been up to.' He grinned. 'Ash was a loyal Company machine.'
'I don't know about the rest of you,' said the unsmiling Lambert, 'but I think I prefer a painless, peaceful death to any of the alternatives on offer.'
'We're not there yet.'
Lambert held up a small card of capsules. Ripley recognized the suicide pills by their red colour and the miniature skull and crossbones imprinted on each. 'We're not. Huh.'
Ripley swung around in the chair. 'I'm saying we're not. You let Ash convince you. He said he was the only one with a chance to handle the alien, but he's the one lying in the mess disconnected, not us.
'We've got another choice. I think we should blow up the ship.'
'That's your alternative?' Lambert spoke softly. 'I'll stick with chemicals if you don't mind.'
'No, no. Remember what you proposed before, Lambert? We leave in the shuttle and then let the ship blow. Take the remaining air in portable tanks. The shuttle's got its own air supply. With the extra, there's a chance we might make it back to well-travelled space and get ourselves picked up. We may be breathing our own waste by that time, but it's a chance. And it'll take care of the alien.'
They went quiet, thinking. Parker looked up at Ripley, nodded. 'I like that better than chemicals. Besides, I'll enjoy watching some Company property go up in pieces.' He turned to leave. 'We'll get started bleeding the air into bottles.'
The engineer supervised the transfer of compressed air from the Nostromo's main tanks into smaller, portable canisters they could lug onto the shuttle.
'That's everything?' Ripley asked when Parker leaned tiredly back against the hatchjamb.
'Everything we can carry.' He gestured at the ranked canisters. 'It may not look like much, but that stuffs really under pressure. Enough extra air to give us some breathing space.' He grinned.
'Great. Let's get some bulk artificial food, set the engines, and get the hell out of here.' She stopped at a sudden thought. 'Jones. Where's Jones?'
'Who knows?' Parker clearly wasn't interested in the whereabouts of the ship's cat.
'Last I saw of him he was slinking around the mess, sniffing at Ash's body,' said Lambert.
'Go look. We don't want to leave him. We still have enough humanity in us for that.'
Lambert eyed her companion warily. 'No deal, I don't want to go anywhere on this ship by myself.'
'Always disliked that damn uppity cat,' Parker grumbled.
'Never mind,' Ripley told them. 'I'll go. You two load up the air and food.'
'Fair enough,' Lambert agreed. She and Parker loaded up oxygen canisters, headed for the shuttle. Ripley jogged toward the mess.
She didn't have to hunt long for the cat. After searching the mess and making certain she didn't touch Ash's decapitated form, she headed for the bridge. She found Jones immediately. He was lying on Dallas's console, preening himself and looking bored.
She smiled at him. 'Jones, you're in luck.'
Apparently the cat disagreed. When she reached for him he jumped lithely off the console and walked away, licking himself. She bent, followed him, coaxing with hands and voice.
'Come on, Jones. Don't play hard to get. Not now. The others won't wait for you.'
'How much do you think we'll need?' Lambert stopped stacking boxes, looked over at Parker, and wiped a hair from her face.
'All we can carry. We don't want to make two trips.'
'For sure.' She turned to rearrange her assembled stack. A voice sounded over the open communicator.
'Goddamn it, Jones, come here. Here kitty. . come to mama, kitty.' Ripley's tone was gentle and reassuring, but Lambert could detect the exasperation beneath.
Parker staggered out of Food Locker 2, hidden behind a double armload of food. Lambert continued to sort her boxes, occasionally trading one for another. The thought of eating raw, unpreprocessed artificial food was daunting at best. There was no autochef on the tiny shuttle. The raw bulk would keep them alive, but that was all. She wanted the tastiest selection possible.
She didn't notice the faint red light on the tracker lying nearby.
'Gotcha!' An indignant Jones resisted, but Ripley had him firmly by the nape of the neck. Nor did bracing his feet keep him from being shoved unceremoniously into his pressurized travelling case.
Ripley switched it on. 'There. Breathe your own recycled smell for a while.'
The two flamethrowers were lying outside the food locker. Parker knelt carefully and tried to pick up his. He overbalanced and a fair portion of the neatly aligned boxes tumbled from his arms.
'Goddamn.'
Lambert stopped her rearranging, tried to see around the locker doors.
'What's the matter?'
'Nothing. I was trying to carry too much at once, that's all. Just hurry it up.'
'I'm coming. Keep your head on.'
The red light on the tracker suddenly turned bright crimson, the beeper chirping simultaneously. Parker dropped his packages, stared at it, and picked up his flamethrower. He called back in to Lambert.
'Let's get out of here.'
She'd heard the noise too. 'Right now.'
Something made a different sound behind her. She turned, screamed as the hand clutched at her. The alien was still unfolding its bulk from the airshaft.
Ripley heard the shriek over the open 'com speaker on the bridge and froze.
Parker looked back into the locker, went a little crazy when he saw what the alien was doing. Parker couldn't use the flamethrower without hitting Lambert. Swinging the incinerator like a club, he charged into the locker.
