Alien

'You don't remember?' Ash said.

So, Dallas told himself with satisfaction, the amnesia analogy was nearer the mark than he'd suspected.

Kane winced slightly, more from muscles cramping from disuse than anything else, and took a deep breath. 'I don't remember a thing. I can barely remember my name.'

'Just for the record. . and the medical report,' asked Ash professionally, 'what is your name?'

'Kane. Thomas Kane.'

'That's all you remember?'

'For the moment.' He let his gaze travel slowly over the assembly of anxious faces. 'I remember all of you, though I can't put names to you yet.'

'You will,' Ash assured him confidently. 'You recall your own name and you remember faces. That's a good start. Also a sign that your loss of memory isn't absolute.'

'Do you hurt?' Surprisingly, it was the stoic Parker who asked the first sensitive question.

'All over. Feel like somebody's been beating me with a stick for about six years.' He sat up on the pallet again, swung his legs over the side, and smiled. 'God, am I hungry. How long was I out?'

Dallas continued to stare at the apparently unharmed man in disbelief. 'Couple of days. You sure you don't have any recollection of what happened to you?'

'Nope. Not a thing.'

'What's the last thing you remember?' Ripley asked him.

'I don't know.'

'You were with Dallas and me on a strange planet, exploring. Do you remember what happened there'

Kane's forehead wrinkled as he tried to battle through the mists obscuring his memories. Real remembrances remained tantalizingly out of reach, realisation a painful, incomplete process.

'Just some horrible dream about smothering. Where are we now? Still on the planet?'

Ripley shook her head. 'No, I'm delighted to say. We're in hyperspace, on our way home.'

'Getting ready to go back in the freezers,' Brett added feelingly. He was as anxious as the others to retire to the mindless protection of hypersleep. Anxious for the nightmare that had forced itself on them to be put in suspension along with their bodies.

Though looking at the revitalized Kane made it hard to reconcile their memories with the image of the alien horror he'd brought aboard, the petrified creature was there for anyone to inspect, motionless in its stasis tube.

'I'm all for that,' Kane said readily. 'Feel dizzy and tired enough to go into deep sleep without the freezers.' He looked around the infirmary wildly. 'Right now, though, I'm starving. I want some food before we go under.'

'I'm pretty hungry myself.' Parker's stomach growled indelicately. 'It's tough enough coming out of hypersleep without your belly rumbling. Better if you go under with a full stomach. Makes it easier coming out.'

'I won't argue that.' Dallas felt some sort of celebration was in order. In the absence of partying material, a final presleep feast would have to do. 'We could all use some food. One meal before bed. .'

IX

Coffee and tea had been joined on the mess table by individual servings of food. Everyone ate slowly, their enthusiasm coming from the fact they were a whole crew again rather than from the bland offerings of the autochef.

Only Kane ate differently, wolfing down huge portions of the artificial meats and vegetables. He'd already finished two normal helpings and was starting in on a third with no sign of slowing down. Unmindful of nearby displays of human gluttony, Jones the cat ate delicately from a dish in the centre of the table.

Kane looked up and waved a spoon at them, spoke with his mouth full. 'First thing I'm going to do when we get back is eat some decent food. I'm sick of artificials. I don't care what the Company manuals say, it still tastes of recycling. There's a twang to artificials that no amount of spicing or seasoning can eliminate.'

'I've had worse than this,' Parker commented thoughtfully, 'but I've had better, too.'

Lambert frowned at the engineer, a spoonful of steak-thatwasn't suspended halfway between plate and lips. 'For somebody who doesn't like the stuff, you're pounding it down like there's no tomorrow.'

'I mean, I like it,' Parker explained, shoveling down another spoonful.

'No kidding?' Kane didn't pause in his eating, but did throw Parker a look of suspicion, as though he thought the engineer might not be entirely right in the head.

Parker tried not to sound defensive. 'So I like it. It sort of grows on you.'

'It should,' Kane shot back. 'You know what this stuff is made out of.'

'I know what it's made out of,' Parker replied. 'So what? It's food now. You're hardly the one to talk, the way you're gulping it down.'

'I've got an excuse.' Kane stuffed another huge forkful in his mouth. 'I'm starving.' He glanced around the table. 'Anyone know if amnesia affects the appetite?'

'Appetite, hell.' Dallas picked at the remnants of his single serving. 'You had nothing in you but liquids all the time you were in the autodoc. Sucrose, dextrose, and the like keep you alive but aren't exactly satisfying. No wonder you're starving.'

'Yeah.' Kane swallowed another double mouthful. 'It's almost like I. . like I. .' He broke off, grimaced, then looked confused and a little frightened.

Ripley leaned toward him. 'What is it. . what's wrong? Something in the food?'

'No. . I don't think so. It tasted all right. I don't think. .' He stopped in midsentence again. His expression was strained and he was grunting steadily.

'What's the matter then?' wondered a worried Lambert.

'I don't know.' He made another twisted face, looking like a fighter who'd just taken a solid punch in the gut. 'I'm getting cramps. . getting worse.'

Nervous faces watched the exec's twist in pain and confusion. Abruptly, he let out a loud, deep-toned groan and clutched at the edge of the table with both hands. His knuckles paled and the tendons, stood out in his arms. His whole body was trembling uncontrollably, as if he were freezing, though it was pleasantly warm in the mess room.

'Breathe deeply, work at it,' Ash advised, when no one else offered any suggestions.

Kane tried. The deep breath turned into a scream.

'Oh, God, it hurts so bad. It hurts. It hurts.' He stood unsteadily, still shaking, hands digging into the table as if afraid to let go. 'Ohhhh!'

'What is it?' Brett asked helplessly. 'What hurts? Something in. .?'

The look of agony that took over Kane's face at that moment cut off Brett's questioning more effectively than any shout. The exec tried to rise from the table, failed, and fell back. He could no longer control his body. His eyes bugged and he let out a lingering, nerve-chilling shriek. It echoed around the mess, sparing none of the onlookers, refusing to fade.

'His shirt. .' Ripley murmured, as thoroughly paralyzed as Kane, though from different cause. She was pointing at the slumping officer's chest.

A red stain had appeared on Kane's tunic. It spread rapidly, became a broad, uneven bloody smear across his lower chest. There followed the sound of fabric tearing, ugly and intimate in the cramped room. His shirt split like the skin of a melon, peeled back on both sides as a small head the size of a man's fist punched outward. It writhed and twisted like a snake's. The tiny skull was mostly all teeth, sharp and red-stained. Its skin was a pale, sickly white, darkened now by a crimson slime. It displayed no external organs, not even eyes. A nauseating odour, fetid and rank, reached the nostrils of the crew.

There were screams from others besides Kane now, shouts of panic and terror as the crew reflexively stumbled away from the table. They were preceded in instinctive retreat by the cat. Tail bottled, hair standing on end, it spat ferociously and cleared the table and the room in two muscle-straining leaps.

Convulsively, the toothed skull lunged outward. All of a sudden it seemed to fairly spurt from Kane's torso. The head and neck were attached to a thick, compact body covered in the same white flesh. Clawed arms and legs propelled it outward with unexpected speed. It landed messily among the dishes and food on the table, trailing pieces of Kane's insides. Fluid and blood formed an unclean wake behind it. It reminded Dallas of a butchered turkey with teeth protruding from the stump of a neck.