“It’s not me that does the work, it’s the pod. I just initiate the programs.” Kasyanov sighed. “But yes, I think it could manipulate her memories.”
“How?”
“I’ve only ever heard about it,” Kasyanov said. “It can repair brain damage, to an extent, and at the same time there’s an associated protocol that allows for memory alteration. I think it was designed primarily for military use. Get soldiers back into the fight that much quicker, after battlefield trauma.” She paused. “It’s really pretty inhumane, when you think about it.”
Hoop thought about it, remembering the sheer terror he had seen in Ripley’s eyes.
“I don’t think I have any choice,” he said. “How much memory will it affect?”
“I have no idea. I don’t think it was developed for fine tuning.”
He nodded, tapping his leg.
“Do it.”
“You’re sure?”
If we go too far back, she won’t even remember me. But that was a selfish thought, far more about him than it was about her. If he had a shred of feeling for her, his own desires shouldn’t enter into it.
When they were finally on Narcissus and away from here, they could meet again.
“She’s sure,” he said, “and that’s as sure as I need to be.”
Kasyanov nodded and started accessing a different series of programs.
While the doctor worked, Hoop moved around the med bay, seeing what he could find. He packed a small pouch with painkillers, multi-vitamin shots, antibiotics, and viral inhibitors. He also found a small surgery kit including dressings and sterilization pads. He took a handheld scanner that could diagnose any number of ailments, and a multi-vaccinator.
Just him, Kasyanov, and Ripley, for however many years it took for them to be found.
“You’ll see Amanda again,” he said—mostly to himself, because he was thinking of his own children, as well. They were all going home.
“Hoop,” Kasyanov said. “I’m about to initiate. The pod calculates that it’ll take just under twenty minutes for the physical repairs, and five more for the limited memory wipe.”
Hoop nodded. Kasyanov stroked a pad on the unit and it began to hum.
Inside, Ripley twitched.
PROGRESS REPORT:
To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division (Ref: code 937)
Date (unspecified)
Transmission (pending)
I will save Ripley. Together, she and I can continue our mission into the darkness. I am convinced there are many more aliens out there. One location is a freak accident, two means countless more.
I would like to know their history.
With a new fuel cell we can drift forever as we seek signs of another colony.
And Ripley can sleep, ready to bear our inevitable prize back home.
I only need her. The others cannot come. I will allow what she has requested. In truth, it’s perfect. She will not remember how determined I remain to fulfill the mission. She will not remember the things I have done.
On waking, she will not even know I am still here.
She will be weak, disorientated, and I will guide her back to the Narcissus.
Hoop moved quickly through the ship toward the bridge. More than ever it felt like a haunted ship. He’d always known the Marion busy, the crew going about their tasks, the off-duty miners drinking or talking or working out. It had never been a silent place. There was always music emanating from the accommodations hub or rec room, a rumble of conversation from the galley and bar.
He felt a pang as he missed his friends, and Lucy Jordan, his one-time lover. She had become more than a friend, and after their romance had dwindled—sucked away, she’d joked without really joking, by the cold depths of space—their friendship had deepened to something he’d rarely felt before. They had trusted each other completely.
And she had been one of the first to die.
Hoop had never given way to loneliness. As a child he’d enjoyed his own company, preferring to spend time in his room making models or reading his parents’ old books, and when he was a teenager he’d kept a small circle of friends. Never one for team sports, his social life had revolved around nights at their houses, watching movies or drinking cheap booze. Sometimes a girl would come onto the scene and take him or a friend away for a time, but they’d always returned to the familiarity of that small, closed circle.
Even as an adult, after marrying and having children and then losing it all, he had rarely felt lonely.
That only happened after the aliens arrived.
Every step of the way toward the bridge, he thought of Ripley. He so hoped she would live, but a different woman was going to emerge from the med pod. If the unit worked well, she would remember little or nothing from the past few days. He would have to introduce himself all over again.
Even though the creature had to be dead, he remained cautious, pausing at each junction, listening for anything out of place. A constant vibration had been rippling throughout the ship ever since the explosion in Hold 2, and Hoop guessed the blast had somehow knocked their decaying orbit askew. They were skipping the outer edges of the planet’s atmosphere now, shields heating up, and it wouldn’t be long before the damaged docking bays started to burn and break apart.
He needed to find out just how long they had.
The bridge was exactly as they’d left it less than a day earlier. It seemed larger than before, and he realized that he’d never actually been there on his own. Lachance was often on duty, sitting in his pilot’s seat even though the Marion rarely needed any manual input. Baxter spent a lot of time at his communications console, processing incoming messages for miners or crew and distributing them as appropriate throughout the ship’s network. Sneddon sometimes spent long periods there, talking with Jordan, and their security officer, Cornell, would sometimes visit.
Other people came and went. The place was never silent, never empty. Being there on his own made it seem all the more ghostly.
He spent a few minutes examining readouts on Lachance’s control panels, consulting the computers, and they told him what he needed to know. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a small data drive, uploading a data purge program before dropping it into an inner pocket.
Insurance, he thought.
Then he quickly made his way down through the accommodations hub. It was a slight detour, but it was much closer to the galley and rec rooms. They needed food, and there wasn’t time enough to go to where most of it was stored.
He found what he sought in various private quarters. Everyone kept a stash of food for midnight hungers, and sometimes because they just didn’t feel like eating with the others. He grabbed a trolley and visited as many rooms as he could, finding pictures of families who would never see their loved ones again, witnessing all those personal things that when left behind seemed like sad, incomplete echoes of what a person had been.
As he gathered, it dawned on him that they’d never be able to take enough to sustain them. But Kasyanov had said there was a large supply of food substitutes and dried supplements stored in the med bay. They’d make do. There would be rationing.
He tried to concentrate entirely on the here-and-now. The thought of the journey that lay ahead would cripple him if he dwelled on it for too long. So he kept his focus on the next several hours.
Leaving the laden trolley along the route that led down to the docking bays, he made his way back up to the med bay. Kasyanov was sitting on one of the beds, jacket cast aside and shirt pulled up to reveal her wounds. They were more extensive than Hoop had suspected; bloody tears in her skin that pouted purple flesh. She quivered as she probed at them with tweezers. There were several heavy bags piled by the door, and a stack of medical packs. She’d been busy—before she took time to tend herself.