Alien

Lambert thumbed her own communicator. 'Kane. . Kane. Goddamn it, answer us!'

'Keep trying.' While Lambert continued to call, alternately pleading and threatening, Dallas reached across the shaft opening and examined the cable. It moved easily in his hand. Too easily. He tugged, and a metre of line came up in his grasp without the expected resistance.

'Line's slack.' He glanced back at her.

'He still doesn't answer. Can't or won't. Do you think he could have gone and unhooked himself? I know what you told him, but you know how he is. Probably thought we wouldn't notice a temporary reduction in cable tension. If he spotted something and was afraid of the cable getting snagged or not reaching, I wouldn't put it past him to go and unlatch.'

'I don't care what he might've found. I do care that he doesn't answer.' Dallas adjusted the winch motor, switched it on. ''Too bad if it upsets him. If there's nothing wrong with him or his equipment, I'll make him wish he had unhooked.'

A flip of another switch and the winch began to reel in cable. Dallas watched it intently, relaxed a little when he saw the line snap taut after a couple of metres had been rewound. As expected, the cable slowed.

'There's weight on the end. It caught'

'Is it hooked on something?'

'Can't be. It's still coming up, only slightly different speed. If it had gotten caught and was dragging something besides Kane, the different weight would make it rise slower or faster. I think he's still there, even if he can't answer.'

'What if he objects and tries to use his chest unit to try to descend?'

Dallas shook his head curtly. 'He can't do it.' He nodded toward the winch. 'The cable override's on the unit there, not the portable he's wearing. He'll come up whether he likes the idea or not.'

Lambert gazed expectantly down the shaft. 'I still can't see anything.'

A lightbar illuminated a portion of the hole. Dallas played it across smooth walls. 'Neither can I. But the line's still coming up.'

It continued its steady rise, both suited figures waiting anxiously for something to appear in the waiting circle of Dallas's light. It was several minutes before the cone of illumination was interrupted by something rising from below.

'Here he comes.'

'He's not moving.' Lambert searched nervously for a gesture of some kind from the nearing shape. An obscenity, anything. . but Kane did not move.

The tripod bent slightly downward as the last few metres of cable were reeled in.

'Get ready to grab him if he swings your way.' Lambert readied herself on the opposite side of the shaft.

Kane's body appeared, swinging slowly on the end of the cable. It hung limp in the dim light.

Dallas reached across the gap, intending to grab the motionless executive officer by his chest harness. His hand had almost made contact when he noticed the grey, equally motionless creature inside the helmet, enveloping Kane's head. He pulled back his groping hand as if burnt.

'What's the matter?' wondered Lambert.

'Watch out. There's something on his face, inside his helmet.'

She walked around the gap. 'What is. .,' then she got her first glimpse of the creature, neatly snugged inside the helmet like a mollusc in its shell. 'Oh, Jesus!'

'Don't touch it.' Dallas studied the limp form of his shipmate. Experimentally, he waved a hand at the thing attached to Kane's face. It didn't budge. Bracing himself, ready to jerk back and run, he reached toward it. His hand moved close to the base, then toward the eye bulge on its back. The beast took no notice of him, exhibited no sign of life except a slow pulsing.

'Is it alive?' Lambert's stomach was turning slowly. She felt as though she'd just swallowed a litre of the Nostromo's half-recycled wastes.

'It's not moving, but I think it is. Get his arms, I'll take his legs. Maybe we can dump it off him.'

Lambert hurried to comply, paused, and looked back at him uncertainly. 'How come I get the arms?'

'Oh, hell. You want to switch?'

'Yeah.'

Dallas moved to trade places with her. As he did so he thought he saw one finger of the hand move, ever so slightly, but he couldn't be sure.

He started to lift under Kane's arms, felt the dead weight, hesitated. 'We'll never get him back to the ship this way. You take one side and I'll take the other.'

'Fair enough.'

They carefully turned the body of the exec onto his side. The creature did not fall off. It remained affixed to Kane's face as securely as it had been when the latter had been lying untouched on his back.

'No good. Wishful thinking. I didn't think it would fall off. Let's get him back to the ship.'

He slipped an arm behind Kane's back and raised him to a sitting position, then got one of the exec's arms across his shoulders. Lambert did the same on the other side.

'Ready now?' She nodded. 'Keep an eye on the creature. If it looks like it's fixing to fall away, drop your side and get the hell clear.' She nodded again. 'Let's go.'

They stopped just inside the entrance to the alien ship. Both were breathing heavily. 'Let him down,' Dallas told her. Lambert did so, gladly. 'This won't work. His feet will catch on every rock, every crevice. Stay with him. I'm going to try to make a travois.'

'Out of what?' Dallas was already headed back into the ship, moving toward the chamber they'd just left.

'The winch tripod,' she heard him say in her helmet. 'It's strong enough.'

While waiting for Dallas to return, Lambert sat as far away from Kane as she could. Wind howled outside the derelict's hull, heralding the approaching nightfall. She found herself unable to keep her gaze from the tiny monster attached to Kane, unable to keep from speculating on what had happened.

She was able to prevent herself from thinking about what it might be doing to him. She had to, because hysteria lay down that particular mental path.

Dallas returned, sections of the disassembled tripod under his right arm. Spreading the pieces out on the deck, he began to rig a crude platform on which to drag Kane. Fear lent speed to his gloved fingers.

Once the device was finished, he lowered it gingerly to the surface outside. It fell the last couple of metres but did not break. He decided it would hold the unconscious exec until they could reach the Nostromo.

The short day was rapidly rushing to an end, the atmosphere once more turning the colour of blood, the wind rising mournfully. Not that they couldn't haul Kane back or find the tug in the dark, but Dallas now had less desire than ever to be abroad on this windswept world at night. Something grotesque beyond imagining had risen from the depths of the derelict to imprint itself on Kane's face and their minds. Worse terrors might even now be gathering in the dust-impregnated dusk. He longed desperately for the secure metal walls of the Nostromo.

As the sun fell behind rising clouds the ring of floodlights lining the underside of the tug winked on. They did not make the landscape around the ship cheerful, merely served to brighten the dismal contours of the igneous rock on which it rested. Occasional clots of thicker dust would swirl in front of them, temporarily oblitreating even that feeble attempt to keep back the cloying darkness.

On the bridge, Ripley waited resignedly for some word from the silent exploration party. The first feelings of helplessness and ignorance had faded by now. They had been replaced by a vague numbness in body and soul. She could not bring herself to look out a port. She could only sit quietly, take an occasional sip of tepid coffee, and stare blankly at her slowly changing readouts.

Jones the cat was sitting in front of a port. He found the storm exhilarating and had evolved a frenetic game of swatting at the larger particles of dust whenever one struck the port's exterior. Jones knew he could never actually catch one of the flying motes. He understood the underlying physical laws behind the fact of a solid transparency. That lessened the delight of the game but did not obviate it. Besides, he could pretend that the dark fragments of stone were birds, though he'd never seen a bird. But he instinctively understood that concept, too.