It was clear what the creature was doing to Kane, if not why. The exec's jaws had been forced apart. A long, flexible tube extended from the palm of the hand creature down his throat. It terminated at the end of his esophagus. The tube was not moving, merely sitting there.
More than anything else, this part of the internal view made Dallas feel sick.
'It's got something down his goddamn throat.' His hands clenched, unclenched with murderous regularity. 'What the hell kind of thing is that to do to a person? It's not a fair way to fight. Damn it, Ash, it's not. . clean!'
'We don't know that it's fighting with him, or even harming him.' Ash confessed to being confused by the whole situation. 'According to the medical monitors, he's fine. Merely unable to react to us. I know this sounds silly right now, but think a minute. Maybe the creature's a benign symbiote of some kind. Perhaps, in its own particular, confused way, it's done this to try to help him.'
Dallas laughed humorlessly. 'It's fond of him, all right. It won't let go.'
'That tube or whatever must be how it's supplying oxygen to him.' The science officer adjusted a control, switched to a tighter view and finer resolution. The screen showed Kane's lungs working steadily, at a normal pace, and seemingly without effort despite the obstruction in his throat. Ash switched back to the first view.
'What oxygen?' Dallas wanted to know. 'He came all the way back to the ship with a busted faceplate. The creature's not attached to his suit tanks so all his suit air must have bled out through the open regulator in the first couple of minutes.'
Ash looked thoughtful. 'I can imagine some possibilities. There's a little free oxygen in the atmosphere here. Not much, but some. And a lot more tied up with the nitrogen in various oxides. I suspect the creature possesses the ability to break down those oxides and extract the oxygen. Certainly it has the capability to pass it on to Kane, perhaps also for itself. A good symbiote would be able to determine quickly what requirements its partner would have. Certain plants have the same oxygen-extracting ability; others prefer different gases. It's not an impossibility.' He turned back to the screens.
'Perhaps it's our terrestrial prejudices at work and it's really a plant and not an animal. Or maybe it possesses characteristics and abilities common to both.'
'It doesn't make sense.'
Ash glanced at him. 'What doesn't?'
'It paralyzes him, puts him into a coma, then works like mad to keep him alive.' He glanced up at the screen. ' I thought it would be, well, feeding on him somehow. The posture and position it's in right now is typical of feeding. But as the instruments say, it's doing exactly the opposite. I can't figure it.
'In any case, we can't leave the damn thing on him. It might be doing all kinds of things to him, maybe good, maybe bad. We can be sure of one thing, though. None of them are natural to the human system.'
Ash looked doubtful. 'I don't know if that's really such a good idea.'
'Why not?' Dallas eyed his science officer questioningly.
'At the moment,' Ash explained, not offended by the slight challenge in Dallas's voice, 'the creature is keeping him alive. If we remove it we risk losing Kane.'
'We have to take that chance.'
'What do you propose to do? It won't pull off.'
'We'll have to try cutting it off. The sooner we remove it, the better it's likely to be for Kane.'
Ash appeared ready to argue further, then apparently changed his mind. 'I don't like it, but I see your point. You'll take the responsibility' This is a science decision and you're taking it out of my hands.'
'Yeah, I'll take the responsibility.'
He was already pulling on a pair of disposable surgical gloves. A quick check indicated that the autodoc wasn't attached in any way to the body, wasn't doing anything to it that could result in harm if it was temporarily removed. A touch of a button and Kane slid back out of the machine.
A cursory inspection was enough to show that the creature still hadn't moved or released its grasp on Kane's face.
'The cutter?' Ash indicated the laser device Dallas had used to remove Kane's helmet.
'No. I'm going to proceed as slowly as possible. See if you can find me a manual blade.'
Ash moved to an instrument case, searched through it briefly. He returned with a thinner version of the cutter and handed it carefully to Dallas.
He inspected the tiny device, shifted it in his hand until he had a firm, comfortable grip on the slim pencil. Then he switched it on. A miniature version of the beam the heavy-duty cutter had generated appeared shining coherently at the far end of the surgical knife.
Dallas moved to stand opposite Kane's head. Working with as much control as he could muster, he moved the light-blade toward the creature. He had to be prepared to pull away fast and carefully if it reacted. A wrong move and he could sever Kane's head from his shoulders as easily as a bad report could cut a man's pension.
The creature didn't move. Dallas touched the beam to grey skin, moved it a millimetre or two downward until he was sure he was actually cutting flesh. The beam travelled effortlessly down the creature's back.
Still the subject of this preliminary biopsy did not move, nor did it show any sign of pain from the continuing cut. At the top of the wound a yellowish fluid began to drip, flow down the smooth side.
'Starting to bleed,' Ash noted professionally.
The liquid flowed onto the bedding next to Kane's head. A small wisp of what Dallas first thought might be steam rose from the pallet. The dark gas was not familiar. The hissing noise that began to issue from the bedding was.
He stopped, removed the blade, and stared at the sizzling spot. The hissing grew louder, deeper. He looked downward.
The liquid had already eaten through the bedding and the metal medical platform. It was pooling and sizzling, a miniature hell, near his feet as it began to eat into the deck. Metal bubbled steadily. Gas produced as a by-product started to fill the infirmary. It seared Dallas's throat, reminding him of police-control gas, which was only mildly painful but impossible to stomach. He panicked at the thought of what this stuff might be doing to his own lungs.
Eyes filling with sharp tears, nose running, he tried frantically to close the wound by squeezing together the two sides of the cut with his hands. In the process, some of the still-flowing liquid leaked onto his gloves. They began to smoke.
As he staggered toward the corridor, he fought to pull them off before the tough material was eaten through and the liquid started on his skin. He threw them on the deck. The still-active droplets fell from the gloves and commenced dissolving additional pits in the metal.
Brett was looking mad and more than a little scared. 'Shit. It's going to eat through the decks and out the hull.' He turned, ran for the nearest companionway. Dallas yanked an emergency lamp from its holding socket and followed the engineering tech, the others crowding close behind.
The B deck corridor below was lined with instruments and conduits. Brett was already searching the ceiling below the infirmary. The liquid still had several intervening levels of alloy to penetrate.
Dallas turned the light on the roof, hunted, then held it steady. 'There.'
Above them, smoke began to appear. A smudge of yellow fluid appeared, metal sizzling around it. It oozed downward, formed a drop, and fell. It immediately began to bubble on the deck. Dallas and Brett watched helplessly as the tiny pool increased in size and ate its way through the bulkhead.
'What's below us?'
'C corridor,' announced Parker. ' Not instrumentation.' He and Ripley rushed for the next down companionway while the others remained staring at the widening hole in the deck.