The little girl’s face does not change. Her eyes are alive, but her expression is lifeless.
Ripley woke for a time, watching the floor pass by, seeing Hoop’s boots, knowing she was being carried. But even back on the Marion, Amanda was still staring at her. If Ripley lifted her head she would see her. If she turned around, she would be there.
Even when she closed her eyes.
Amanda, staring forever at the mother who had left her behind.
23
FORGETTING
PROGRESS REPORT:
To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division
(Ref: code 937)
Date (unspecified)
Transmission (pending)
I wish I was whole again.
I never used to wish. I was not programed for that, and it is not an emotion, nor an action, that I ever perceived as useful. But for thirty-seven years I was alone in the shuttle’s computer. And there was enough of the human still in me to feel lonely. I was built as an artificial person, after all.
Loneliness, it seems, is not necessarily connected to one’s place in the universe. I know my place, and have no feelings either way about what and where I am. In my case, loneliness rose from simple boredom.
There are only so many times I can defeat the ship’s computer at chess.
And so I have spent long years dwelling upon what wishing might mean.
Now, I wish I was whole again.
The game has turned against me. I am in check. But not for long. The game is never over until it is over, and I refuse to resign.
Not while Ripley, my queen, still lives.
Ripley was heavy. He refused to think of her as dead weight—he wouldn’t allow that, would not give her permission to die—but by the time they reached med bay his legs were failing, and it had been ten long minutes since she’d displayed any signs of life.
The Marion shook and shuddered. It, too, was close to the end.
The difference was that for Ripley there was still hope.
“I’ll fire up the med pod,” Kasyanov said, pressing her good hand against the security pad. The medical bay was a modern, sterile place, but the object at its center made all the other equipment look like Stone Age tools. This Weyland-Yutani chunk of technology had cost Kelland almost a tenth of what the whole of the Marion had cost, but Hoop had always known it had been a practical investment. A mining outpost so far from home, where illness or injury could cripple the workforce, needed care.
Yet there was nothing humane in their incorporation of the pod.
It was insurance.
Hoop put Ripley down on one of the nearby beds and tried to assess her wounds. There was so much blood. Her shoulder wound weeped, several staples protruded from her stomach and the gash there gaped. New injuries had been added to the old. Puncture wounds were evident across her chest, perhaps where the thing’s claws had sunk in. Her face was bruised and swollen, one eye puffy and squeezed shut, scalp still weeping. He thought her arm might be broken.
He had seen the med pod at work several times before, but he didn’t know what it could do for Ripley. Not in the time they had left.
He was pulled in two directions. In truth, he should be back at the shuttle, finishing the fuel cell installation and ensuring that all systems were back online. After that there was Ash, the malignant presence he had to wipe from the Narcissus’s computer before launching.
If Ripley were awake, he could tell her what he’d found. According to the log, the old fuel cell had still maintained more than sixty percent of its charge when it had docked with Marion, and it could only have been Ash who had engineered its draining. To trap her there with them. To force them down to the planet’s surface, not only to retrieve another fuel cell, but to encounter them.
The creatures.
Everything that had happened since Ripley’s arrival had been engineered by the artificial intelligence. Those additional lives lost—Sneddon, Baxter, Lachance—could be blamed squarely on him.
Hoop wished the bastard was human so he could kill him.
“Pod’s ready,” Kasyanov said. “It’ll take half an hour for it to assess the wounds and undertake the procedures.”
Hoop couldn’t waste half an hour.
“I’ll go back for the supplies we need,” he said. “Stay in touch.”
Kasyanov nodded and touched her suit’s comm unit. Then she turned her attention to the med pod’s screen and frowned in concentration, scrolling through a complex series of branching programs flashing there. She was sweating, shaking.
“You good?”
“No. But I’m good enough for this.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Her first, then if there’s time, me.”
“There’ll be time,” Hoop said, but they both knew there were no guarantees.
“I feel… weird inside. Bleeding in my guts, I think.”
“I’ll get up to the bridge, first,” Hoop said, gingerly lifting Ripley off of the bed. “See just how much time we have.”
As if in response, the ship shuddered one more time. Kasyanov didn’t look up or say anything else, and her silence was accusation enough. We could have just gone. But they were set on their course, now, and Hoop knew she would see it through.
He held Ripley as gently as he could, and carried her to the med pod.
“Amanda!” she shouted. She shifted in his arms and he almost dropped her. He staggered a little, then when he righted himself and looked down, Ripley was staring right at him. “Amanda,” she said again, softer.
“It’s okay, Ripley, it’s me.”
“She won’t leave me alone,” she said. Her eyes were wide and white in her mask of blood and bruising. “Just staring. All because of them. My little girl won’t forgive me, and it’s all because of them.” Her voice was cold and hollow, and a chill went through him. He laid her gently in the med pod.
“We’re going to patch you up,” Hoop said.
“I want to forget,” she said. “I can’t… even if you fix me, I can’t sleep with Amanda staring at me like that. I’ll never sleep again. It’ll make me go mad, Hoop. You can make me forget, can’t you? With this?”
Hoop wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, and how much she wanted to forget. But she was all there. This wasn’t a delirious rant—it was a very calm, very determined plea.
“It feels as if I’ve known nothing else but them,” she said. “It’s time to forget.”
“Kasyanov?” Hoop asked.
“It’s a med pod, Hoop,” the doctor said. “That’s almost certainly beyond its capabilities.”
“But it does neurological repairs, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Repairs, not damage.”
“They’ve given me a nightmare, and I think it’s going to kill me,” Ripley said. “Amanda. My girl, dead, staring, never forgiving me. Please, Hoop. Please!” She sat upright, wincing at the pain it drove through her, but reaching out and grasping his arm.
“Hey, hey, lie back,” he said. “Let Kasyanov do her work.” But he could see the terror in her eyes, and the knowledge at what sleep would bring. Even if it’s not real, it’s tearing her apart, he thought.
“We’re ready,” the doctor said.
Ripley let Hoop ease her back down, but she was still pleading with her eyes. Then they closed the clear lid. He felt a tug as he saw her shut away in there, maybe because he thought he might never touch her again.
“So can you?” he asked.