Even with that thing stalking them on the Nostromo they had gone on the offensive, hunting it, seeking to drive it toward the airlock. And after Dallas was gone and Ash was revealed for what he was… even then they had been acting in their own best interests.
Here, now, she could only stand and wait to die.
They flashed past levels 6 and 7, and each time the impact of safety buffers seemed harder. Was their descent slowing? Ripley wasn’t sure. Sparks flew all around the cage’s outsides, metal whined and screeched, and at the speed they were going now, she figured they’d know nothing about reaching level 9.
She contemplated that final moment, the instant when the elevator struck, crumpled, and they were all smacked into the solid floor, mashed together… and she wondered if she’d feel anything at all.
The brief waking nightmare seemed somehow worse.
“We’re slowing!” Hoop said. They thudded past the buffer on level 8, and then a heavy grinding sound commenced.
Ripley and the others were all flung to the floor. A rhythmic clanging began, resounding explosions from all around that vibrated through the cage’s structure. Bolts, screws and shreds of metal showered around her, and Ripley expected them to burst apart at any moment.
The noise became almost unbearable, pulsing into her ears, her torso, and the vibrations threatened to shake her apart bone-by-bone. Lying flat on the floor, she managed to turn her head toward Hoop. He was sitting propped in the far corner, head tilted to one side so he could still look at the control panel.
He glanced across, saw her looking.
“Dampers working,” he shouted.
Then they struck bottom. Ripley’s breath was knocked out of her as she was punched into the elevator’s floor. Something heavy landed on her leg. A scream was cut off, but someone else grunted and started to moan.
The lift mechanism was smoking, filling the air with an acrid haze. Lights flickered off and then came back on again, buzzing and settling into an even glow. The sudden silence was more shocking than the noise and violence had been.
Ripley pushed herself up onto hands and knees, breathing hard and waiting for the white-hot pain of cracked ribs or broken limbs to sing in. But apart from an array of bruises, a bloodied nose, and a sense of disbelief that they had somehow survived, she appeared to be fine.
“Are we still falling?” Sneddon asked. “My guts tell me we are.”
“Nice landing,” Lachance said, nodding at Hoop. “Make a pilot out of you yet.” Hoop smiled back.
“I think…” Baxter said. He stood, then howled, slipping sideways and falling again. Kasyanov caught him. “Ankle,” he said. “Ankle!” The doctor started examining him.
“Anyone else hurt?” Hoop asked.
“Only my pride,” Lachance said. His suit was speckled with vomit, and he brushed at it with one gloved hand.
“Best pilot in the galaxy, my ass,” Ripley said, pleased to see the Frenchman smile.
“We okay?” Sneddon asked. “We’re not just hanging here waiting, to fall the rest of the way, are we? The way our luck’s been going, you know.”
“No, we’re down,” Hoop said. “Look.” He nodded at the cage doors, then pulled a small, narrow flashlight from his tool belt. It threw out a surprisingly bright beam. He aimed it past the bent bars of the deformed cage, revealing the smoother metal of more solid doors.
“Level 9?” Ripley asked.
Hoop nodded.
“And the elevator’s fucked,” Baxter said. “That’s just fucking great.” He winced as Kasyanov probed around his foot and lower leg, then groaned when she looked up.
“Broken ankle,” she said.
“No shit,” Baxter replied.
“Can you splint it?” Hoop asked. “He’s got to be able to walk.”
“I can walk!” Baxter said, a little desperately.
“We can help you,” Ripley said, aiming a warning stare at Hoop. “There are enough of us. Don’t panic.”
“Who’s panicking?” Baxter said, looking desperate, eyes wide with pain and terror.
“We won’t leave you,” Ripley said, and he seemed to take comfort from that.
“Everyone else?” Hoop asked. Sneddon nodded, Lachance raised a hand in a casual wave. “Ripley?”
“I’m fine, Hoop,” she said, trying not to sound impatient. They were down, battered and bruised, but they couldn’t afford to hang around. “So what now?”
“Now we have two choices,” Hoop said, glancing at Baxter again. “One, we start climbing.”
“How many stairs?” Kasyanov asked.
“We’ve struck bottom at level 9. Seven thousand steps to—”
“Seven-fucking-thousand?” Sneddon spat. Baxter remained silent, but he looked down at the floor close to his wounded foot and ankle. All his weight was on the other foot.
“Choice two,” Hoop continued, “we make our way across to the other elevator.”
Silence. Everyone looked around, waiting for someone else to speak.
“And whatever they found was down here, where they were working the new seam,” Baxter said. “On level 9.”
“There’s no choice,” Kasyanov said. “How far is the other elevator shaft?”
“In a straight line, a little over five hundred yards,” Hoop said. “But none of the tunnels are straight.”
“And we have no idea what happened down here?” Ripley asked.
No one answered. They all looked to Hoop. He shrugged.
“All they said is that they found something horrible. And we already know what that was.”
“No we don’t!” Kasyanov said. “There could be hundreds!”
“I don’t think so.” They looked to Sneddon, who was looking down at the spray gun she’d picked up once again. “They hatch from people, right? We’ve seen that. So by my reckoning—”
“Eighteen,” Ripley said. “Maybe less.”
“Eighteen of them?” Kasyanov asked. “Oh, well, that’s easy, then!”
“We’re better prepared now,” Ripley said. “And besides, what’s the alternative? Really?”
“There is none,” Hoop said. “We make it for the other elevator, up to level 4 for the cell, then back to the surface.”
“But what about—” Kasyanov began, but Hoop cut her off.
“Whatever we find on the way, we handle it,” he said. “Let’s say positive. Let’s stay cool, and calm, and keep our eyes open.”
“And hope the lights are still working,” Lachance said.
As they picked up their weapons, and Kasyanov did her best to splint Baxter’s ankle with supplies from her med kit, Ripley mulled over what Lachance had said. Down here, in the dark. Feeling their way along with the aid of weak flashlights, a billion tons of planet above them.
No, it didn’t bear thinking about.
When she blinked, she saw Amanda in a floral dress thrashing on the sweet, green grass with one of those monsters attached to her face.
“I’ll see you again,” she whispered. Hoop heard, glanced at her, but said nothing. Perhaps they were all finding some way to pray.
11
MINE
As she exited the remains of the elevator—wondering whether they were incredibly lucky to have survived, or incredibly unlucky for it to have happened in the first place—Ripley realized with a jolt that this was the only planet other than Earth on which she had ever set foot. The voyage aboard the Nostromo had been her first, coming soon after she’d been licensed for space flight, and even after landing on LV426 she’d never actually left the ship.
She had always assumed a moment like this would have brought a moment of introspection. A rush of wonder, a glow of joy. A deep grounding of herself and her place in the universe. Sometimes, after having traveled so far, she’d feared that she would have no real stories to tell.