A feeling of deadly déjà vu settled over her. She’d battled the Company on this once before, had seen how it had reacted.
Any common sense or humanity that faceless organization possessed was subsumed in an all-encompassing, overpowering greed. Back on Earth individuals might grow old and die, to be replaced with new personnel, new directors. But the Company was immortal. It would go on and on. Somehow she doubted that time had wrought any significant changes in its policies, not to mention its corporate morals. In any event, she couldn’t take that chance.
‘Do they still want an alien?’
‘I don’t know. Hidden corporate imperatives were not a vital part of my programming. At least, I don’t think they were. I can’t be sure. I’m not feeling very well.’
‘Do me a favour, Bishop; take a look around and see.’
She waited while he searched. ‘Sorry,’ he said finally. ‘There’s nothing there now. That doesn’t mean there never was. I am no longer capable of accessing the sectors where such information would ordinarily be stored. I wish I could help you more but in my present condition I’m really not good for much.’
‘Bull. Your identity program’s still intact.’ She leaned forward and fondly touched the base of the decapitated skull.
‘There’s still a lot of Bishop in there. I’ll save your program.
I’ve got plenty of storage capacity available here. If I ever get out of this I’ll make sure you come with me. They can wire you up again.’
‘How are you going to save my identity? Copy it into standard chip-ROM? I know what that’s like. No sensory input, no tactile output. Blind, deaf, dumb, and immobile. Humans call it limbo. Know what we androids call it? Gumbo. Electronic gumbo. No, thanks. I’d rather go null than nuts.’
‘You won’t go nuts, Bishop. You’re too tough for that.’
‘Am I? I’m only as tough as my body and my programming.
The former’s gone and the latter’s fading fast. I’d rather be an intact memory than a desiccated reality. I’m tired. Everything’s slipping away. Do me a favour and just disconnect. It’s possible I could be reworked, installed in a new body, but there’d be omphalotic damage, maybe identity loss as well. I’d never be top of the line again. I’d rather not have to deal with that. Do you understand what it means, to look forward only to being less than you were? No, thanks. I’d rather be nothing.’
She hesitated. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Do it for me, Ripley. You owe me.’
‘I don’t owe you anything, Bishop. You’re just a machine.’
‘I saved you and the girl on Acheron. Do it for me.. as a friend.’
Reluctantly, she nodded. The eye winked a last time, then closed peacefully. There was no reaction, no twitching or jerking when she pulled the filaments. Once more the head lay motionless on the worktable.
‘Sorry, Bishop, but you’re like an old calculator. Friendly and comfortable. If you can be repaired, I’m going to see to it that that comes to pass. If not, well, sleep peacefully wherever it is that androids sleep, and try not to dream. If things work out, I’ll get back to you later.’
Her gaze lifted and she found herself staring at the far wall.
A single holo hung there. It showed a small thatched cottage nestled amid green trees and hedges. A crystalline blue-green stream flowed past the front of the cottage and clouds scudded by overhead. As she watched, the sky darkened and a brilliant sunset appeared above the house.
Her fingers fumbled along the tabletop until they closed around a precision extractor. Flung with all the considerable force of which she was capable and accelerated by her cry of outrage and frustration, it made a most satisfying noise as it reduced the impossibly bucolic simulation to glittering fragments.
Most of the blood on Golic’s jacket and face had dried to a thick, glutinous consistency, but some was still liquid enough to drip onto the mess hall table. He ate quietly, spooning up the crispy cereal. Once, he paused to add some sugar from a bowl.
He stared straight at the dish but did not see it. What he saw now was very private and wholly internalized.
The day cook, who’s name was Eric, entered with a load of plates. As he started toward the first table he caught sight of Golic and stopped. And stared. Fortunately the plates were unbreakable. It was hard to get things like new plates on Fiorina.
‘Golic?’ he finally murmured. The prisoner at the table continued to eat and did not look up.
The sound of the crashing dishes brought others in: Dillon, Andrews, Aaron, Morse, and a prisoner named Arthur. They joined the stupefied cook in staring at the apparition seated alone at the table.
Golic finally noticed all the attention. He looked up and smiled.
Blankly.
Ripley was sitting alone in the rear of the infirmary when they brought him in. She watched silently as Dillon, Andrews, Aaron, and Clemens walked the straightjacketed Golic over to a bed and eased him down. His face and hair were spotted with matted blood, his eyes in constant motion as they repeatedly checked the ventilator covers, the ceiling, the door.
Clemens did his best to clean him up, using soft towels, mild solvent, and disinfectant. Golic looked to be in much worse shape than he actually was. Physically, anyway. It was left to Andrews, Aaron, and Dillon to tie him to the cot. His mouth remained unrestrained.
‘Go ahead, don’t listen to me. Don’t believe me. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. You pious assholes are all gonna die. The Beast has risen and it feeds on human flesh.
Nobody can stop it. The time has come.’ He turned away from the superintendent, staring straight ahead. ‘I saw it. It looked at me. It had no eyes, but it looked at me.’
‘What about Boggs and Rains?’ Dillon asked evenly. ‘Where are they? What’s happened to them?’
Golic blinked, regarded his interrogators unrepentantly. ‘I didn’t do it. Back in the tunnel. They never had a chance, not a chance. There was nothing I could do but save myself. The dragon did it. Slaughtered ‘em like pigs. It wasn’t me. Why do I get blamed for everything? Nobody can stop it.’ He began to laugh and cry simultaneously. ‘Not a chance, no, no, not a chance!’ Clemens was working on the back of his head now.
Andrews studied the quivering remains of what had once been a human being. Not much of a human being, true, but human nonetheless. He was not pleased, but neither was he angry. There was nothing here to get angry at.
‘Stark raving mad. I’m not saying it was anyone’s fault, but he should have been chained up. Figuratively speaking, of course.’ The superintendent glanced at his medic. ‘Sedated.
You didn’t see this coming, Mr. Clemens?’
‘You know me, sir. I don’t diagnose. I only prescribe.’
Clemens had almost finished his cleaning. Golic looked better, but only if you avoided his eyes.
‘Yes, of course. Precognitive psychology isn’t your specialty, is it? If anyone should have taken note, it was me.’
‘Don’t blame yourself, sir,’ said Aaron.
‘I’m not. Merely verbalizing certain regrets. Sometimes insanity lurks quiet and unseen beneath the surface of a man, awaiting only the proper stimulus for it to burst forth. Like certain desert seeds that propagate only once every ten or eleven years, when the rains are heavy enough.’ He sighed. ‘I would very much like to see a normal, gentle rain again.’
‘Well, you called it right, sir,’ Aaron continued. ‘He’s mad as a fuckin’ hatter.’
‘I do so delight in the manner in which you enliven your everyday conversation with pithy anachronisms, Mr. Aaron.’
Andrews looked to his trustee. ‘He seems to be calming down a little. Permanent tranquilization is an expensive proposition and its use would have to be justified in the record. Let’s try keeping him separated from the rest for a while, Mr. Dillon, and see if it has a salutary effect. I don’t want him causing a panic. Clemens, sedate this poor idiot sufficiently so that he won’t be a danger to himself or to anyone else. Mr. Dillon, I’ll rely on you to keep an eye on him after he’s released.