“Now… he’s not really here anymore. He’s just code. Ethereal.” She blew smoke again, but this time didn’t wave it away. “And we know where to find him.”
“So we just shut down Ripley’s shuttle’s computer until we’re ready to go,” Hoop said. “Then when we’re underway, and before we initiate main thrust, I’ll do my best to purge Ash from the systems. Or at least to isolate him to certain drives.”
“God knows you’ll have plenty of time,” Powell said.
“Right,” Ripley said. “And there’ll always be someone awake, to monitor any changes in the shuttle’s programed flight. Incoming signals. Whatever.”
“So Ash is just floundering,” Sneddon said. “Following his programing, but without a plan.”
Ripley shrugged. She wasn’t sure. He’d been so deceitful, so scheming back on Nostromo, that she didn’t want to underestimate him now. But whatever part of Ash still survived, he could no longer intrude in their actions. Not physically, at least.
Soon, she would return to the Narcissus to find out more.
“So that’s the plan,” Hoop said. “Lachance, I need you to plot the Marion’s trajectory around the planet; let us know when we’ll be closest to the mine. But it’s gotta be soon, like in the next couple of days. Powell, Welford, I need you to gather as much of the mining equipment as you can. We need plasma torches, sand picks, anything else you can find.”
“There are the thumpers,” Garcia said. “They use them to fire charges deep into loose sand.”
Hoop nodded.
“Can we really use them in the Samson?” Baxter asked.
“We don’t have to use the explosive charges,” Welford said. “Substitute bolts, or something, and you have a pretty good projectile weapon.”
Ripley was looking into her cup of cold coffee, listening to the discussion, trying to take it all in. But her mind was elsewhere. Somewhere dark, claustrophobic. Stalking the steam-filled corridors where lighting flashed, the countdown siren wailed, and the alien could have been waiting around any corner.
“How many are in there?” she asked. The conversation was too loud, so no one heard her. She tried again. “Hey!” That quieted them down. “How many are in the Samson?”
“We think four,” Hoop said.
“Fully grown?”
He shrugged. Looked around.
“Last time we saw, they looked big,” Baxter said. “Just shadows, really. They were still, hunkered down at the back of the passenger compartment.”
“Maybe they were dead,” Kasyanov said hopefully. Nobody responded to that. Their luck wasn’t going that way.
“They have acid for blood,” Ripley said.
“What?” Sneddon asked.
“Dallas—our captain—said it was molecular acid of some sort. It ate through two decks before its effect slowed down.”
“Oh, man,” Powell said, laughing in disbelief. “Do they fire lightning out of their asses, too? Do they cum nuclear jelly? What else, huh?”
“Ripley, that’s…” Sneddon stopped, and shook her head. Ripley looked up in time to see her glance at the others, eyebrows raised.
“I’m not making this up,” Ripley said.
“No one said you were,” Hoop said.
“Hoop, come on!” Sneddon said. “Acid for blood?”
There was a long silence on the bridge. Ripley smoked the last of her cigarette and dropped the butt into her coffee mug. It sizzled out. She was feeling an increasingly urgent need to get back to the Narcissus, alone, find her own space. Talk with Ash. She wasn’t sure it would solve anything, but it might make her sense of betrayal easier to bear.
She’d promised Amanda she’d be home.
Closing her eyes, she willed back the tears. She’d already cried too much. Now it was time to survive.
“If you want to use the Samson, best draw them out before you kill them,” she said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“We’ll work on a plan,” Hoop said. “In the meantime—”
“Good. I’m going back to my shuttle.” Ripley stood, but the science officer blocked her path.
“Now wait,” Sneddon said. She was six inches shorter than Ripley, but she stood her ground. Ripley respected that. “None of us knows you. You come here for whatever reason, start telling us these stories about rogue AIs and aliens with acid for blood. And now you want to go back to your shuttle?”
“Yeah, why?” Powell asked. “Hoop, we can’t just let her wander round.”
“What, you’re afraid I’m going to damage your perfect little ship?” Ripley asked. “God knows, we wouldn’t want to scratch the paint.”
“Let’s just chill,” Hoop said. But Sneddon’s blood was up.
“What are you going back for?” she demanded. “You’ve just come from there with Hoop.”
“You’re welcome to come,” Ripley said. She was staring Sneddon down. She waited until the shorter woman averted her gaze, then smiled. “I’m just going to feed my cat.”
As it turned out, Jonesy wasn’t hungry. Ripley laid out some reconstituted chicken, and though he crept from the stasis pod and sniffed at it, he turned his nose up and slinked away. But he stayed in the shuttle.
Maybe he can smell them out there, Ripley thought. Maybe he knows more than the rest of us.
The acid-for-blood thing troubled her. What she’d witnessed had been just a drop, spilled from the thing hugging Kane’s face when Ash and Dallas tried cutting it off. She didn’t know whether the fully-grown alien carried the same blood, or whether wounding one would result in a similar effect. Really, she knew so little. But though the reality of her experience had been terrifying, the alien had taken on larger, darker connotations in her sleep.
Thirty-seven years of nightmares, she thought. And now that I’m awake, the nightmare has woken with me.
She moved around the cramped space, again wondering just how the hell nine people would survive in here. Even with one in the stasis pod, there’d barely be room for the rest to sit down. There was a small bathroom behind the equipment locker, so at least there’d be privacy for toilet and limited washing. But existing together here for more than a few days hardly bore thinking about.
For months? Years?
She finally found Jonesy again in the suit locker, snuggled down in one of the big EVA boots. He took some coaxing, but eventually he miaowed and climbed out, letting Ripley pick him up and hug him to her. He was her link to the past, and the only solid proof that any of it had actually happened. She didn’t really require such proof— she was confident that she could distinguish reality from nightmare—but the cat was a comfort nonetheless.
“Come on then, you little bastard,” she said. “You gonna help me?” She held the cat up and looked into his eyes. “So why didn’t you spot anything wrong with that bastard Ash? Damn fine ship’s cat you are.”
She sat in the pilot’s seat, Jonesy on her lap, and rested her fingers on the keyboard. She took a deep breath. Ash had tried to kill her, but he was just a machine. An AI, true. Created to think for himself, process data and make his own decisions, act on programed responses and write and install new programs based on experience— essentially learning. But a machine nevertheless. Designed, manufactured, given android life in the labs of Weyland-Yutani.