“Get closer,” Hoop said, joining Ripley behind the two flight chairs. “We don’t know what happened down here, but it’s a fair bet they were pursued all the way to the ships.”
“How do you figure that?” Sneddon asked from where she was still strapped in.
“Because the Samson left so many behind.”
Lachance dropped them lower and closer to the landing pads. They were only a couple of hundred yards from the dome, and Ripley saw hints of the connecting tunnels that ran between them. Sheets of sand blew across the ground, driven by winds they could not feel in the Samson. The landscape was daunting but strangely beautiful, dust sculptures forming incredible, graceful shapes. Away from the artificial interruption of the mine, the desert looked like a frozen sea, flowing over years instead of moments.
Miles in the distance, electrical storms flashed deep inside looming clouds.
“How the hell are you going to land?” Ripley asked.
“The pads are usually cleared by the ground crews,” Lachance said. “Big blowing machines, sand scoops. It’ll be okay. I’m good.”
“So you keep saying,” she said. “I’m still waiting for proof.”
“No sign of any nasties waiting for us,” Hoop said.
“In this weather?” Baxter asked.
“There’s no saying what environments they live in, or even prefer,” Ripley said. She remembered Ash—before his true nature was exposed, when he was studying the alien—talking about remarkable adaptations to the ship’s environment. Maybe sand-lashed, storm-blasted landscapes were their preference.
“Strap in, ladies and gentlemen,” Lachance said. He checked readouts, stroked his hand across the projected nav controls in front of him, and then settled back in his seat.
Ripley and Hoop went back to their seats and secured their safety straps. She waited for him to check her clasps again, and saw Sneddon looking from her to Hoop, and smirking. Ripley stared back.
The science officer looked away.
The Samson shook as retros fired. Moments later there was a heavy bump, and then the engines started to cycle down.
“There,” Lachance said. “Told you I was good.”
Hoop exhaled, and from across the cabin Ripley heard Kasyanov mutter something that might have been a prayer. Straps were opened, they stood and stretched, then gathered at the front of the ship to look outside.
Lachance had landed them facing the dome. The line of the partly buried tunnel was obvious, leading from their pad to the dome, and the storm suddenly seemed more intense now that they had touched down. Maybe because there was more sand to blow around at low level.
“Suit up,” Hoop said. “Grab your weapons. Lachance, you take point with me. I’m going to be opening doors and hatches. Baxter, you bring up the rear.”
“Why do I have to come last?” the communications engineer asked.
“Because you’re a gentleman,” Sneddon said. Kasyanov chuckled, Baxter looked uncertain, and Ripley wondered at the complex relationships between these people. She’d barely scratched the surface—they’d been here so close together for so long.
The inside of the Samson suddenly seemed so much safer. Through her fear Ripley was determined, but she couldn’t shake those terrible memories. Not the new ones, of Powell and Welford being killed by those fast, furious things. And not the old ones, back on the Nostromo. She couldn’t help feeling that even more terrible memories were soon to be forged.
If she lived to remember.
“Let’s stay close and tight,” she said. No one replied. Everyone knew what was at stake here, and they’d all seen these things in action.
“We move fast, but carefully,” Hoop said. “No storming ahead. No heroics.”
They fixed their helmets, checked each other’s suits and air supplies, tested communications, and hefted the weapons. To Ripley they all looked so vulnerable: pale white grubs ready for the aliens to puncture, rip apart, eat. And none of them had any real idea about what they were about to encounter.
Perhaps the uncertainty was a good thing. Maybe if they knew for sure what they would find down in the mine, they would never bring themselves to enter.
Breathing deeply, thinking of Amanda, who probably believed her mother to be dead, Ripley silently vowed that she would do anything and everything necessary to stay alive.
Lachance opened the outer hatch, and the storm came inside.
PART 2
UNDERGROUND
10
SKIN
“What the hell is that?” Hoop asked.
“Looks like… hide, or something,” Lachance said.
“They shed their skins.” Ripley came to stand beside them, charge thumper aimed forward. “It happens when they grow. And you’ve seen how quickly that is.”
“How many are there?” Hoop almost went forward to sift through the drift of pale yellow material with his boot. But something held him back. He didn’t even want to touch it.
“Enough,” Sneddon said. She sounded nervous, jumpy, and Hoop was already wondering whether she should really be in charge of the other spray gun.
Then again, they were all scared.
They’d made their way across the storm-lashed landing pad and into the tunnel entrance without incident. The violent winds, blasting sand, and screaming storm had been almost exciting, primal conditions that they could never grow used to after living on climate-controlled ships.
Inside the tunnel the illumination was still functioning, and halfway along there were signs of a fight. An impromptu barricade had been formed from a selection of storage pods and canisters, all of which had been knocked aside, trampled, broken, and blasted. Impact marks scarred the metal-paneled walls and ceiling, and a dappled spread of flooring was bubbled and raised. The acid splash was obvious, but there was no sign of the wounded or dead alien that had caused it.
They reached the end of the tunnel, facing the heavy, closed blast doors that opened directly into the mine’s surface dome. And no one was eager to open them. They all remembered what had happened the last time.
“Any way we can see inside?” Ripley asked, nodding at the doors.
“Baxter?” Hoop asked.
“I might be able to connect with the mine’s security cameras,” the communications officer said. He put his plasma torch down carefully and pulled a tablet computer from the wide pockets of his suit.
The storm rumbled against the tunnel’s upper surface, sand lashing the metal with a billion impacts, wind roaring around the grooved, curved metal shell. It sounded like something huge trying to get in. The tunnel and metal dome had been constructed to provide the mine with protection against such inimical elements. A huge investment had gone into sinking this mine almost thirty years ago, and its maintenance had been a headache ever since. But the allure of trimonite was great. Its use in industry, its allure as an ultra-rare jewel, ensured that the investment paid off. For those with a monetary interest, at least.
As usual, it was the workers—braving the elements and facing the dangers—who gained the least.
“Can you tell whether systems are operational?” Ripley asked, her voice impatient.
“Give me a chance!” Baxter snapped. He knelt with the tablet balanced on his thighs.
All good so far, Hoop thought, but they hadn’t come that far at all. There could be anything beyond these doors. The mine’s upper compound might be crawling with those things. He imagined the surface buildings and dome’s interior as the inside of a huge nest, with thousands of aliens swarming across the ground, up the walls, and hanging in vast structures made from the same weird material they’d found inside the Samson.