Kane would make a better captain, he thought. Kane handled this kind of worry more easily, didn't ever let it get too deep inside him. But Kane wasn't around to help.
He thumbed a corridor intercom. A voice answered promptly.
'Engineering.'
'Dallas. How are you guys coming?'
Parker sounded noncommittal. 'We're coming.'
'Damn it, don't be flip! Be specific!'
'Hey, take it easy, Dallas. Sir. We're working as fast as we can. Brett can only complete circuits so fast. You want to corner that thing and touch it with a plain metal tube or with a couple hundred volts?'
'Sorry.' He meant it. 'Do your best.'
'Doing it for everybody. Engineering out.' The intercom went blank.
That had been thoroughly unnecessary, he told himself furiously. Embarrassing as well. If he didn't hold together, how could he expect any of the others to?
Right now he didn't feel like facing anybody, not after that disturbing and inconclusive encounter with Ash. He still had to decide in his own mind whether he was right about the science officer or whether he was a damn fool. Given the lack of a motive, he irritably suspected the latter. If Ash was lying, he was doing so superbly. Dallas had never seen a man so in control of his emotions.
There was one place on the Nostromo where Dallas could occasionally snatch a few moments of complete privacy and feel reasonably secure at the same time. Sort of a surrogate womb. He turned up B corridor, not so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he neglected to search constantly for small, sly movements in dark corners. But nothing showed itself.
Eventually he came to a place where the hull bulged slightly outward. There was a small hatch set there. He pressed the nearby switch, waited while the hatch slid aside. The inner hatch of the shuttlecraft was open. It was too small to possess a lock. He climbed in and sat down.
His hand covered another red stud on the shuttle's control panel, moved away without touching it. Activating the corridor hatch would already have registered on the bridge. That wouldn't alarm anyone who happened to notice it, but closing the shuttle's own hatch might. So he left it open to the corridor, feeling a small but comforting touch apart from the Nostromo and its resident horror and uncertainties. .
X
He was studying the remaining oxygen for the last time, hoping some unnoticed miracle would have added another zero to the remorseless number on the gauge. As he watched the counter conclude its work, the last digit in line blinked from nine to eight. There was a thumping sound from the entryway and he spun, relaxed when he saw it was Parker and Brett.
Parker dumped an armload of metal tubes onto the floor. Each was about twice the diametre of a man's thumb. They clattered hollowly, sounding and looking very little like weapons. Brett untangled himself from several metres of netting, looked pleased with himself.
'Here's the stuff. All tested and ready to go.'
Dallas nodded. 'I'll call the others.' He sounded general call to bridge, passed the time waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive in inspecting the collection of tubes doubtfully. Ash was the last to arrive, having the farthest to come.
'We're going to try to coerce that thing with those?' Lambert was pointing at the tubes, her tone leaving little doubt as to her opinion of their effectiveness.
'Give them a chance,' Dallas said. 'Everybody take one.' They lined up and Brett passed out the units. Each was about a metre and a half long. One end bulged with compact instrumentation and formed a crude handhold. Dallas swung the tube around like a sabre, getting the feel of it. It wasn't heavy, which made him feel better about it. He wanted something he could get between himself and the alien in a hurry, acidic expectorations or other unimaginable forms of defence notwithstanding. There is something illogical and primitive, but very comforting, about the feel of a club.
'I put oh-three-three portable chargers in each of these,' Brett said. 'The batteries will deliver a pretty substantial jolt. They won't require recharging unless you hold the discharge button down for a long time, and I mean a long time.' He indicated the handle of his own tube. 'So don't be afraid to use 'em.
'They're fully insulated up here at the grip and partway down the tube. Touching the tube will make you drop it quick if you've got it switched on, but there's another tube inside that's supercool conductive. That's where most of the charge will be carried. It'll deliver almost 100 per cent of the discharged power to the far tip. So be goddamn careful not to get your hand on the end.'
'How about a demonstration?' asked Ripley.
'Yeah, sure.' The engineering tech touched the end of his tube to a conduit running across the nearest wall. A blue spark leaped from tube to duct, there was a satisfyingly loud crack, and a faint smell of ozone. Brett smiled.
'Yours have all been tested. They all work. You've got plenty of juice in those tubes.'
'Any way to modulate the voltage?' Dallas wondered.
Parker shook his head. 'We tried to approximate something punishing but not lethal. We don't know anything about this variety of the creature, and we didn't have time for installing niceties like current regulators, anyway. Each tube generates a single, unvariable charge. We're not miracle workers, you know.'
'First time I ever heard you admit it,' said Ripley. Parker threw her a sour look.
'It won't damage the little bastard unless its nervous system is a lot more sensitive than ours,' Brett told them. 'We're as sure of that as we can be. Its parent was smaller and plenty tough.' He hefted the tube, looking like an ancient gladiator about to enter the arena. 'This'll just give it a little incentive. Of course, it won't break my heart if we succeed in electrocuting the little darling.'
'Maybe it will work,' Lambert conceded. 'So that's our possible solution to problem one. What about problem number two: finding it?'
'I've taken care of that.' Everyone turned in surprise to see Ash holding a small, communicator-sized device. Ash was watching only Dallas, however. Unable to meet the science officer's eyes, Dallas kept his attention single-mindedly focused on the tiny device.
'Since it's imperative to locate the creature as soon as possible, I've done some tinkering of my own. Brett and Parker have done an admirable job in concocting a means for manipulating the creature. Here is the means for finding it.'
'A portable tracker?' Ripley admired the compact instrument. It looked as if it had been assembled in a factory, instead of something hastily cobbled together in a commercial tug's science lab.
Ash nodded once. 'You set it to search for a moving object. It hasn't much range, but when you get within a certain distance it starts beeping, and the volume increases proportionate to decreasing distance from the target.'
Ripley took the tracker from the science officer's hand, turned it over, and examined it with a professional eye. 'What does it key on? How do we tell alien from fellow bitcher?'
'Two ways,' Ash explained proudly. 'As I mentioned, its range is short. That could be considered a shortcoming, but in this instance it works to our advantage, since it permits two parties to search close by one another without the tracker picking up the other group.
'More importantly, it incorporates a sensitive air-density monitor. any moving object will affect that. You can tell from the reading which direction the object is moving. Just keep it pointed ahead of you.
'It's not nearly as sophisticated an instrument as I wished to have, but it's the best I could come up with in the limited time available.'