Suddenly Ripley felt a rush of hatred for the company. They had decided she and her crew were expendable, and four decades later they were still fucking with her life.
It was time for that to stop.
Hello Ash, she typed. The words appeared on the screen before her, flashing green, the cursor passing the time as a response was considered. She didn’t actually expect one, assuming a resounding silence as the AI strived to hide its continued existence. Instead, the reply was almost instant.
Hello Ripley.
She sat back in her seat, stroking the cat. The sensation returned—the feeling of being watched. She didn’t like it.
You brought us here in response to the Marion’s distress signal?
That’s right.
Crew still expendable in accordance with special order 937?
You’re the last of the Nostromo’s crew.
Answer the question, Ash.
Yes. Crew expendable.
“Nice,” she breathed. Jonesy purred in her lap. But I know where you are now, Ash. You can’t control things anymore. You’re without purpose.
I did my best.
Ripley looked at those words and thought about what they meant. The Nostromo’s crew, brutally killed by the thing Ash had allowed on board. Her decades in hypersleep, away from her daughter and home.
Fuck you, Ash, she typed.
The cursor blinked back.
Ripley punched the computer off and then sat back in the chair. Jonesy stretched and allowed himself to be scratched.
6
FAMILY
The Marion drifted, Lachance computed, and he decided that four days after Ripley’s arrival would be the optimum time to drop back down to the mine. It would entail a thousand-mile, three-hour drop, four hours at the mine retrieving the spare fuel cells, and then an hour’s blast back into orbit. If all went well they’d be away from Marion for around eight hours. If all didn’t go well…
Everyone knew what the results of that would be.
Hoop suggested that they open up the Samson a day before they were due to drop. That would give them time to tackle the creatures inside, clear out the ship, and prep it for travel. If there was damage, they could do their best to repair it.
No one mentioned the possibility that it might be damaged beyond their ability to repair. There were so many things that could go wrong that they didn’t bear discussing, and as such the survivors lived in a miasma of false positivity. The only talk was good talk. Everyone kept bad thoughts to themselves.
Baxter was the only one who was openly pessimistic, but then they were used to that with him. Nothing new.
Hoop was becoming more and more impressed with Ripley. That first day she’d been woozy and uncertain, but she soon found her feet. She came across as strong, resilient, yet damaged—tortured by what she had experienced. She’d once mentioned her daughter, but never again. He could see the pain in her eyes, but also the hope that she would see her child again.
Hope in the face of hopelessness, he supposed, was what kept them all going.
And she was attractive. He couldn’t get away from that. She looked to him first when they had group conversations, and he didn’t think it was because he was ostensibly in command. Maybe it was because, having both lost their children, they had something in common.
Hoop often thought about his two sons, and how he and their mother had watched a marriage dissolve around them. Neither of them had been able to rescue it. His job was the prime cause, she’d told him. It’s dangerous, she said. You’re away for a year at a time. But he’d refused to accept all of the blame.
It’s well-paid, had been his response. One more long job, then we’ll be able to buy our own business back on Earth, be self-sufficient.
And so it had spiraled, until eventually he had retreated to the one thing he knew was utterly indifferent, not caring how and what he was.
Space.
I ran away. The thought dogged him constantly, and it was the last thing the woman he loved had said. You’re running away.
Ripley’s presence made him feel more guilty than before, because in his case it had been a willing decision. She should only have been away for eighteen months.
He and Ripley spent some more time in the Narcissus, talking about the journey they would undertake together, being positive, discussing how nine people could live in a shuttle designed for three or four, at most. For years. Perhaps many years.
All the time there was a quiet hysteria lurking behind everything they said, a shared understanding that this was a crazy, unworkable idea. But it was their only idea. Sometimes it felt cramped with just the two of them in the shuttle, although Hoop wondered whether that was just him.
They also discussed their families. Hesitatingly at first, but then with an increasing openness. They talked of guilt, and how incredible distances did nothing to dull the sense of loss. He didn’t pity her, and he thought she was thankful for that. She gave him understanding, and he was grateful. They were both cursed by distance and time, and the staggering loneliness that both could instill in a person. They were getting to know each other. And while it was a good feeling, there was also something delicate about every connection made.
They were both tentative, guarded. Their situation meant that they could be ripped apart at any moment.
They also talked about Ash. Hoop was quite the computer expert, and he didn’t mind saying it. But though he was relatively confident about being able to purge Ash’s AI from the shuttle’s computer—or at very least, compartmentalize it so that it could no longer exert any control—he and Ripley decided that he should wait until they were away from the Marion and headed home. They would need the computer untouched and undamaged in order to program their route, and it was possible—albeit remotely—that his efforts to remove Ash might corrupt a wider swathe of the systems.
Besides, the disembodied Ash could do them no harm.
Those three days passed quickly, and there were tensions in the group. There always had been, and those that were familiar Hoop cast to one side. The relationship between the doc and Garcia was weird—he thought they were probably lovers, as well as colleagues—but they were always efficient, and professional when it was needed. Powell complained. Sneddon was quiet and steadfast, a gentle bravery shining through. She would be a rock for them all.
The others bickered, though no more than usual. But it was Ripley’s presence that caused the greatest waves.
“But I can’t help being fascinated by them,” Sneddon said. She was scrolling through stills from inside the Samson again, the tablet propped against her coffee mug. It had been almost three weeks since they’d last seen inside the dropship. None of them knew what to expect when they opened it up.
“They’re monsters,” Ripley said. She was leaning against a work counter. The science lab was small and compact, and with the three of them in there it was already growing warm. Hoop had suggested that they conserve power and turn off any unnecessary environmental systems.