Alien - Resurrection: The Official Movie Novelization E-Book

A.C Crispin

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 387

Beschreibung

At the farthest reaches of the solar system, Ellen Ripley awakens on board the space station "Auriga". Her last memory is of her own fiery death. And yet she is somehow alive. Ripley discovers that her "resurrection" is a result of an incredible experiment which has altered both her and the creature she has been carrying. To combat the incalculable alien menace, she teams up with a renegade band of space smugglers.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Epilogue

About the Author

Available Now from Titan Books

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

ALIEN™: OUT OF THE SHADOWS

ALIEN: SEA OF SORROWS

ALIEN: RIVER OF PAIN

THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NO VELIZATIONS

ALIEN

ALIENS™

ALIEN3

Alien™: Resurrection: The Official Movie Novelization

Print edition ISBN: 9781783296736

E-book edition ISBN: 9781783296743

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: March 2015

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

™ & © 1997, 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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PROLOGUE

“That’s an alien!”

Vincent Distephano jerked back involuntarily at the realization. How the hell did it get down here in the aft command capsule? He made himself stop moving as he stared in surprise at the creature’s grotesque appearance.

The alien’s eyes seemed huge, totally disproportionate to the rest of its elongated, misshapen head. The narrow, elliptical iris appeared to curve around the lens, marking it as something other-worldly, non-Terran. It blinked, its translucent lids moving so rapidly, Vinnie couldn’t say if the blink started at the top, the bottom, or even from the sides. In fact, the lids, when not in motion, could not be seen at all. It blinked again, rapidly, two, three times, then turned its head.

Was it aware of him?

Oh, shit!

The creature’s jaws opened threateningly, thin ropes of clear, thick drool forming between thin lips, dripping slowly down dangerously pointed teeth. So many teeth! The lips drew back in a fierce, but silent snarl and the creature moved forward slowly.

Vinnie forced himself to remain motionless as the thing’s maw opened and closed slowly, dripping strands of thick, sticky saliva.

If one of those things got down here, he thought, there could be more of them. Maybe a whole damned swarm! Where’d they come from anyway? How’d they get aboard?

Did it matter? This one was here, right now, with him, and that was the bottom line. The alien scuttled forward and stopped, its movement rapid, insectile, its tail bobbing like a sensor. Could it see him? Was it even aware of him here in the command capsule? Were the huge eyes functional, or had they evolved to detect food or prey by some light-source or sensation undetectable to humans? Could it, perhaps, be more sensitive to motion or scent than vision?

The alien’s grotesque, elongated head swiveled as though the creature were trying to evaluate the entire scene. The many blinking lights and active, multi-colored screens of the command console must be distracting it. Maybe all the command console activity would keep it from discovering Vinnie. He sincerely hoped so. He swallowed.

Just then, one of the observation screens flickered, changing images so rapidly that the alien pivoted to face it. The planet Pluto, sitting silently beneath the ship, was suddenly featured in a startling close-up as one of its few small geysers erupted, spewing liquid nitrogen into space. The brightness of Pluto’s frost bands, even with the random dark reddish areas, was a shocking contrast with the total blackness of the space around it. The creature moved its head from side to side, observing the planetary activity. The geyser activity crested, the silent spewing reaching its zenith. The screen brought the activity into clearer focus, zooming in. In response, the alien turned completely away from Vinnie and suddenly darted toward the screen, as mobile as a spider.

Now! Quick! While it isn’t looking! Move it! With the sharp reflexes of the trained soldier he was, Vinnie’s hand darted out, his trigger finger extending, flexing—

WHAM!

Gotcha, sucker!

He lifted his hand, examining the crushed remains of the dead alien insect stuck to the end of his finger. Wonder what the hell it was? He shook his head in disgust. General Perez would have a shit fit if he heard that there was an alien bug aboard the pristine perfection of his vessel, the Auriga, never mind right in the command capsule. Was this one the only one, or were there others? It only took two to make a thousand. Hell, with some alien species, it only took one.

Still examining the squashed bug, the young soldier took a last slurp from his milk shake, swallowing the dregs. He’d have just as big a shit fit about your eating on duty, boy. Vinnie smiled. Yeah, General Perez was strictly by-the-book, but Vinnie had missed breakfast and he wouldn’t make it to lunch without something to tide him over. Sitting in the command capsule was about the most boring thing to do on the enormous ship. The only thing worse would be to be stuck here with a growling stomach.

He crushed the flimsy cup and stowed it in a pocket, then took the straw from his drink and poked at the remnants of the bug with it. He could still see the elongated head, the tiny, but vicious teeth.

Ugh! You are one ugly mutha. So, how did you crawl on board? You must be from one of the general’s “unofficial” cargo deliveries from some obscure colony beyond the fringes of the frontier. Not that I would know, or would wanna know! When you were a soldier working on a top-secret installation drifting around the gravitational center of Pluto and Charon—in other words, the middle of bum-fuck nowhere!— you learned not to ask, not to tell anything.

The only thing Vinnie had learned in his seemingly endless one-year tour of duty aboard the Auriga was that an assignment to a top-secret installation had to be the most boring job any soldier could be cursed with. Nothing ever happened here, nothing! And General Perez made sure of it, with his constant inspections, his spit-and-polish routine. Every piece of equipment, every computer chip, every installation aboard the Auriga was top of the line, new, shiny, polished, and maintained to perfection. There weren’t even any mechanical crises to relieve the boredom.

Well, in three months, Vinnie would be out of here. And having successfully completed a top-secret tour, he’d have his pick of assignments.

Better believe my next one will have more action than this did. Maybe the outpost on Rigel. Shit happens there. It’s cutting edge. Not like this spook-fest.

He inspected the insect again, picking the pieces apart with his straw. The Auriga’s losing war with bugs was at least humorous in a ludicrous way. Vinnie wasn’t used to seeing insects in space. Of course, the military was notorious for transporting vermin anywhere it traveled, from rats and fleas in cargo and food stores aboard ancient wooden ships, to the introduction of the brown tree snake around the South Pacific Islands in cargo, food, and weaponry crates that caused the extinction of entire bird species in the twentieth century, to a nearly debilitating infestation of common cockroaches from supposedly sterilized, vacuum-sealed dehydrated food delivered to the first Mars colony in the early days of space colonization. But the conditions of most cargo holds usually eliminated the little bastards, so these days the problem was minimized.

Except for the Auriga. Between the mosquitoes that had escaped from some early lab experiment and kept popping up in the strangest places, to the spiders that had appeared suddenly after one of Perez’s unofficial cargo drops, to the occasional alien bug like the one he’d just squashed, the huge spaceship seemed like a giant bug collector! It was as if the galaxy’s lowest life-forms had made it their business to show General Perez that no matter how important he was to the military, no matter how critical his hush-hush operations were out here on the edge of the solar system, he still couldn’t control Mother Nature. Vinnie smiled.

Scraping the remnants of the bug, still dripping blood and drool, into the plastic straw, Vinnie considered reporting the “sighting.” That was the general’s rule. It drove the Old Man crazy to have any uninvited guests aboard his pristine vessel. He always wanted the bugs caught, alive if possible, for “classification” so they could track down its origins. Vinnie thought about the paperwork involved, the investigation, thought about all that ridiculous hassle over a bug. He looked at the end of the straw.

Screw that!

Pointing the straw toward the immaculate viewport of the command capsule, he blew hard into it, ejecting the crushed insect. It impacted against the clear port, splattering, sticking to the transparent material just like a bug on the windshield of a land speeder. Vinnie laughed.

And that, son, is the high point of this interminable shift!

He glanced over the command console and the multiple screens. Everything was quiet. Calm. Boring as death. Even the geyser had stopped erupting. The soldier sighed, scratched his nearly shaven head, and tried not to watch the clock counting down the seconds left in his shift.

Maybe another bug would show up to distract him. He could always look forward to that.

1

Dr. Mason Wren moved briskly along the neutral-colored corridors toward his main lab. General Perez had summoned him for an unexpected briefing while he was in the middle of breakfast, and the twenty-three minutes he’d lost in that meeting were now playing havoc with the scientist’s schedule. Fortunately, Wren could rely on his staff to be on time, to start all the morning programs, check all the results of the night shift’s work, and be ready to apprise him of the experiment’s current status. He strode along, checking his lapel pager out of habit. No messages. Father—or rather, the artificial male voice of the massive state-of-the-art computer system that maintained life-support, research functions, and all other critical systems of the gigantic Auriga—would tell him if there were any messages.

No news is good news.

When Perez had first called him, he’d anticipated trouble, some problem in the new construct, but no. It’d just been some work details the Old Man wanted him to be aware of, so he could be sure his chief scientist was up to date. It’d been two weeks without any middle-of-the-night summons to the lab, and Wren had been gratified at the sudden burst of progress they’d been making. Maybe, at last, they’d finally turned the corner.

The slender, balding scientist approached the lab doors at his usual quick clip, barely noticing the two fully armed soldiers standing guard. They were invisible to him, part of the scenery, like furniture or the rivets on the pneumatic doors. He was aware on some level that the soldiers themselves changed every four hours, but to Wren they all looked identical—square-jawed, eyes locked ahead, olive-drab body armor, massive weaponry held at ready, ever on alert. Black, white, brown, male, female—they all looked the same to Wren. They were soldiers. Grunts. Joes.

He and his staff were doctors. They were scientists. From the least experienced tech to himself, his staff served a higher purpose; the expansion of knowledge, the advancement of humanity, the improvement of the human condition. The soldiers had one purpose to Wren, to make sure he and his staff could accomplish their goals. They were all—both soldiers and scientists—military, but the demarcation of value was clear, in Wren’s mind.

As he continued his approach, the doors opened soundlessly, admitting him to the main lab. As he passed the two guards, he noted distantly, with some amusement, that not only did they look identical, they even chewed their gum in the same rhythm. Like robots. No, not like robots. Robots had actually been pretty individualistic… when they’d still existed.

Behind him, the doors closed as soundlessly as they’d opened, and now the soldiers were forgotten. As he’d expected, his staff was all here, everyone fully engaged, doing their jobs, the work of science. And this lab was the perfect place to do that job. Every piece of equipment, every program, every person in here was the best. And their results would prove their value.

Wren came up on the first workstation, glancing at the myriad screens there. He noted the rapidly shifting data patterns, recording in his mind the progress they indicated. He looked sideways at Dr. Carlyn Williamson, and she gave him a small smile.

“We’re still on the money, Dr. Wren,” she told him, pleased.

He smiled back. “Nice way to start the morning, Carlyn.”

He moved to the next station, nodding at Drs. Matt Kinloch, Yoshi Watanabe, Brian Clauss, Dan Sprague, and their graduate student, Trish Fontaine. Kinloch gave him a thumbs-up, which Wren knew was a positive reference to a battery of tests they’d begun last night. Wren returned the gesture and kept moving. One part of his mind noted the similarity of garb of himself and his staff—scrubs or military drabs covered by identical ubiquitous lab coats—and wondered if Perez had as much trouble telling his people apart as Wren did the general’s soldiers.

After he’d toured the area once, and been satisfied that everything was exactly the way he wanted it—a situation that seemed almost too good to be true—Dr. Wren finally allowed himself to approach the incubator.

Dr. Jonathan Gediman, his young, dark-haired, eager associate, was waiting for him, his body so tense with anticipation, Wren half expected him to start dancing from foot to foot. Wren really couldn’t blame his protégé. Everything he’d seen this morning told him things were still progressing beautifully. But after all the failures they’d endured so far, Wren wanted to postpone any sense of satisfaction. There was still plenty that could go wrong.

“You waited for me,” Wren said to his associate. “I appreciate that.”

Gediman nodded. “I had enough to keep me busy. Are you ready to view her now?”

Wren repressed a frown. He didn’t like the tendency Gediman had to personalize the specimen. It didn’t seem professional. But Gediman was such a good worker, so committed to the experiment, and so creative, that Wren tried to overlook such foibles.

“Sure,” Wren told Gediman, “let’s look at the specimen.”

Gediman tapped the controls in the proper sequence, and they both watched data stream across the small screen at the top of the incubator. The tall metal cylinder adjusted its own temperature, as cold vapors wafted off the exterior. Slowly, mechanically, the external metal housing rotated, then rose, moving up until it touched the ceiling, where it halted. The metal housing opened automatically, revealing a smallish cryogenic tube about a meter long and a half meter in diameter.

Wren stared up at the data. The length and progress of incubation, components of the chemical growing medium, electrical stimulation of cells, and so on, moved across the screen in a constantly updated pattern.

“There she is!” Gediman’s voice murmured softly.

His tone made Wren glance at him. Gediman’s eyes were wide, his expression as hopeful as a father seeing his newborn infant for the first time. It pleased Wren. In many ways, this was Gediman’s offspring. Gediman, Wren, Kinloch, Clauss, Williamson—every person in this lab was the specimen’s parent, and Wren encouraged them to feel proprietary about it. That kind of possessive pride encouraged greater effort, more creative thinking, a devotion to the cause that no salary could compensate for. Wren had to smile.

“Look at her face!” Gediman said with that same proud awe.

Wren looked, as the specimen floated into view through the opaque gel that surrounded it, nurtured it, urged it to develop. At first, the specimen seemed little more than a vague mass. Curled in a classic fetal position—and that alone marks a miracle of scientific achievement—it floated closer to the glass, allowing Wren to see what Gediman had noted.

It was the face of a child, a lovely human girl, and Wren found himself swept up in the same excitement that had captured Gediman. The features had developed to the point where they were recognizable, not just as human, but as an individual. Tiny wisps of baby-fine brown hair floated around the perfectly shaped head, giving the specimen an ethereal appearance, like some kind of mer-child. Wren blinked, pulling his mind out of fantasy. His trained eye examined the various tubes, cables, and readout sensors attached to the tiny specimen. Everything was right where it was supposed to be, doing its job, feeding the specimen, nurturing it, stimulating it to grow and develop far faster than nature ever intended.

But then Wren had no patience for nature—not for its slowness, not for its errors, and certainly not for its random surprises. He was not the least bit interested in nature’s surprises. His job was to anticipate nature and mold it to his needs. It was beginning to look as if he’d finally done that. He smiled, his fingers grazing the incubator’s sides almost caressingly.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Gediman said quietly.

Wren opened his mouth then closed it, only nodding. It’s certainly developing far better than we had any right to hope. As the specimen floated away from him, he thought he saw the developing eyes roll under their lids. He wondered if it could yet detect differences in light and dark. He wondered what, if anything, it could sense.

* * *

Suddenly, it was bright and she recoiled. You could be seen in the light. It was harder to hide in the light. Her body curled around itself. The warm wetness surrounding her said safety, but the bright light made her fear. Chaotic dream images flickered across her faltering consciousness.

The cold comfort of cryosleep.

The driving need to protect her young.

The strength and companionship of her own kind.

The power of her own rage.

The warmth and safety of the steaming crèche.

The images were meaningless and meaningful at the same time. She recognized them on a level far beyond consciousness, far beyond learning. They were part of her, part of who she’d been, what she’d been. And now they were part of what she was becoming.

She floated in the gelatinous, comforting warmth, trying to hide from the light. And the sounds. Murmuring, distant sounds that were outside of her. Inside of her. They came and went, the sounds, meaning nothing, meaning everything.

She heard the inside sounds again, one so much stronger than the others. The one she always listened to. The one she tried so hard to remember. She heard it whisper—

My mommy always said there were no monsters—no real ones. But there are.

If only she knew what it meant. Perhaps someday…

* * *

For just a moment, Wren let himself hope, let himself anticipate. There would be papers. Books. Publications. Awards. This was just the beginning.

The fetus floated, turning in the gel-filled incubator, and Wren had to admit that Gediman was right. It was beautiful. A perfect specimen…

Its back was to him now and the curved spine bumped the glass. He saw it then, something that had not been there before.

“Did you notice that?” he asked Gediman matter-of-factly, keeping his voice even.

“What…?” Gediman muttered, then spied the specimen’s back.

“There.” Wren pointed to the four buds on either side of the spine. “These. Four of them. Right where the dorsal horns should be.”

Gediman frowned, seeing them. “You think she’ll start developing abnormalities?”

Wren shook his head. “We’ll watch them. They could mark the beginning of embryonic failure.”

“No…!” Gediman sighed.

“Let’s not anticipate trouble. If we get lucky, they may just be vestigial growths. In that case, they could be removed.”

Gediman looked worried, some of his earlier joy dissipating.

Wren patted his back. “It’s still far superior to any specimen we’ve grown to date. I’m hopeful. You should be, too.”

His associate smiled again. “We’ve come so far, and she’s doing so well. I hope you’re right, Dr. Wren.”

So do I, Wren thought, watching the specimen. He hoped this was not yet another of nature’s little jokes at his expense.

* * *

One month later, Wren and Gediman once again stood before the incubator. This unit was much larger than that first one had been, nearly three meters in height and a meter around. The child-size specimen that had floated like a small cork in that early incubator had grown and flourished until it nearly filled this current chamber.

The atmosphere in the lab was one of high anticipation. Wren couldn’t help but notice how often his staff members wandered close to the incubator, just to look at it, marveling at what they’d accomplished.

So much from so little. Ancient blood samples. Bits of tissue from the marrow, the spleen, the spinal fluid. Scattered, shattered DNA. Infected cells. From all that, this.

The specimen turned, its shoulder-length, wavy brown hair floating loosely around its face, occasionally obscuring the attractive, recognizably human features. Its hand curled into a fist, then relaxed. The eyes beneath the closed lids moved back and forth.

Dreaming? What kind of dreams does it have? Whose dreams does it have?

Wren looked up at the incubator’s readouts. The first screen showed the specimen’s ECG—its heartbeat, steady, rhythmic, its sinus arrhythmia completely normal. Good. Very good.

He turned to the second screen. Where the first screen was labeled to identify the adult-size female specimen—the designation “HOST” appearing in prominent letters—the second screen was labeled “SUBJECT.” Across it registered a second ECG. This heartbeat moved much faster than the host’s, with a wave pattern that was tachycardic. Still, it was just as strong as the host. It was sound.

Wren smiled. He looked again into the face of the host specimen. It was frowning. If he were more of a romantic, like Gediman, he would think it looked unhappy.

Whose dreams are you having? Your own? Or those of your symbiont? I would love to know…

* * *

Dr. Jonathan Gediman couldn’t believe his luck. Dr. Wren was actually going to allow him to do the operation. Standing in the chilly sterile room, in sterile clothing, with his body completely scrubbed and ready, he fumbled with the surgical visor as he manipulated it into place. Beside him Dr. Wren stood ready, gowned, expectant, anxious. Dr. Dan Sprague was there, too. Dan had congratulated him when Wren made the announcement, his sincere good wishes helping a little to ease Gediman’s jitters. Some of them anyway.

The visor focused wildly, and he touched the controls. The apparatus would allow him to automatically enjoy whatever range of vision he needed, from far-seeing binocular vision to a microscopic ability that would let him examine tissue right down to the cellular level. Taking a deep breath, he tried to steady his nerves. He nearly jumped when Sprague reached over with sterile gauze and mopped his brow.

“Take it easy there, bud,” Dan teased. “You’re sweatin’ like a dog.”

Gediman nodded, thinking distractedly, Dogs don’t sweat. He blinked, and focused his mind. If only Wren weren’t standing so close. Even without the visor, Wren would spot the tiniest screwup, the smallest error. For that matter, so would Sprague.

Cool it, Gediman, he told himself. It’s not like this is your first surgery! This is a simple procedure. You’ve done similar ones a million times.

Yeah, but not here. Not on this specimen.

Not on Ripley.

Specimen was Wren’s word, but Gediman had stopped thinking of her that way when she was just a microscopic bundle of eight perfectly formed cells.

He turned his head and let himself look at her, really look. Behind the thick transparency of the enclosed surgical chamber that separated her from the medical staff, she was breathing normally, slowly, in anesthetized sleep. She looked relaxed there on the table, her eyes unmoving, her strong jaw slack in sleep, her lips slightly parted. Except for the multiple catheters and sensors decorating her body under the diaphanous, shroudlike surgical drapes, she looked as attractive as Sleeping Beauty must have waiting for her prince’s kiss. Gediman wet his lips.

She looks normal. A tall, attractive young woman. Even the clinging amniotic gel and the blue tinge to her skin doesn’t change that.

He was so proud of her.

She’d come through so much, accomplished so much already. And this would be her proudest moment—if he didn’t screw it up.

He walked up to the instrument panel, slipping his gloved arms into the surgeon’s controls past the elbows. Wren and Sprague flanked him, watching. Around the encased surgical theater, behind protective transparencies, milled the rest of their team. Every one of them had an investment here.

He slid his fingers into the sensitive glovelike controls, felt them mold around his hands and arms, and gently wiggled them to get the contact right. Carefully, he manipulated the controls, watching the various robot arms in the surgical chamber come alive in response.

“I’m ready,” he said to the room, glancing at his readouts. Everything looked good. Brain activity. Respiration. Heart rate.

He moved the laser saw into position over her sternum.

“Remember,” Wren said softly, nearly in his ear, “take it slow. Just one step at a time. I’m right beside you.” He’d meant that to give Gediman confidence but it had just the opposite effect.

He initiated contact with the laser, drawing a bright, straight line so the incision would proceed caudally from midsternum to just above the umbilicus. He glanced at Ripley’s readouts. She wasn’t under that deep, and he wanted to be sure she couldn’t feel this.

“I’ve got it,” Sprague said quietly beside him, mopping his brow again. It was Dan’s job to keep track of her anesthesia. Gediman trusted him, but…

The initial incision was done. He manipulated the robot clamps, attached them to the skin, had them retract just enough. Then the laser again, to carefully cut between the muscles on the fascia, right on the Linia alba. Then, after that, the peritoneum. In moments, he was through. Bleeding was minimized as the laser cauterized as it cut. The incision looked good.

“Excellent,” Wren breathed. “Okay, now, move the tank in place. Careful… Get ready with the amnio…”

Gediman was ahead of him. He’d already signaled for the small incubator full of amniotic fluid to be delivered. He watched as it slid into place mechanically beside Ripley’s supine body, nestling near her ribs and hip. The surgeon could feel the anxiety in the room climb as the tiny chamber silently traveled to its destination, halted, then slowly raised its lid.

“Good,” said Wren. “Good. We’re ready.”

Gediman bit his lip. His right hand flexed in the control glove.

A specially padded robot clamp moved into position at his urging, and cautiously snaked its way into the incision site, disappearing inside Ripley. Gediman turned back to the readout screens, following the clamp’s progress inside his patient. He manipulated the clamp carefully, skillfully.

A bead of sweat tracked down his forehead, sliding toward the visor, but Sprague was there, mopping him, trying to control the profuse, nerve-induced sweating that had broken out all over the surgeon, in spite of the cold room.

He watched the clamp and the color-enhanced images of the interior of his patient the biosensors provided. He smiled.

“There she is,” he murmured delightedly.

The prize. The goal of all their work.

He tightened the clamp carefully, even as Wren whispered unnecessarily, “Easy! Easy!”

“I’ve got her,” Gediman purred, as he slowly extracted the clamp from Ripley’s body.

Every eye was focused on the incision site as the clamps drew out of Ripley’s abdomen.

Cradled in the padded vise curled a tiny, red-stained, embryolike creature, its features blurred by the blood and connective tissue of its mother.

“Readouts are good,” Wren told him, as he studied the parasite’s bio-scan.

“Same here,” Dan agreed, reporting on Ripley’s.

Dimly, Gediman was aware of the rest of the crew drawing closer to the glass, peering to see for themselves. No one spoke. All eyes focused on that one small bundle…

“I’m severing the connections,” Gediman announced.

“Go ahead,” Wren agreed.

He moved another device around the creature, one that would cut and cauterize each of the six thin umbilical-like structures that tied the tiny Alien to its host. He moved the cutting clamp quickly, expertly, decisively… Four, five, six! It was free.

The creature suddenly writhed and uncoiled, as if being severed from its mother had told it it was time to begin its own independent life. Time to breathe. Time to grow. Time to move.

It squirmed, twisted in the padded clamp, lashing its tail, and finally opened its small jaw in a silent scream.

“Damn!” Sprague swore at the tiny bundle’s raging protest.

“Careful!” Wren ordered, all business. “Don’t release it. Get it in the tank.”

Gediman nodded tersely. He knew he had the thing secure as it fought and twisted impotently in the clamp’s grasp. He slipped it into the amnio tank, not releasing it until the cover was nearly secure. He released the creature and extracted the clamp in one swift move that left the tiny Alien encased safely in the protective incubator.

“Beautiful!” Wren exclaimed. “Beautiful work, Gediman.” He grasped Gediman’s shoulder in congratulations.

The surgeon released the breath he was holding, as Sprague mopped his brow again. He felt his whole body relax and only then realized how tense he’d been. “Thank you, Dr. Wren.”

They all watched as the small incubator tank—with the now frantically swimming creature searching for escape—disappeared from the surgical chamber the same way it had been delivered. Kinloch and Fontaine would accompany it on its journey to the growing chamber, and monitor it until it was out of danger.

Gediman looked across at the observation deck, saw the rest of the team smiling at him, Kinloch giving him a thumbs-up. He smiled in return. Then, finally, he turned back to Ripley.

Pulling off his visor, he hesitantly glanced at Wren. “Well…?” He indicated Ripley, still sleeping in the chamber.

“The host?” Wren asked, not looking at her.

Gediman glanced at the readouts. “Her ECG is normal… She’s doing fine.” He stopped himself, as he realized he was arguing for her. Wren already thought his interest in this specimen was unprofessional. He had to watch what he said; Wren hadn’t made up his mind about her fate. Gediman waited tensely.

Wren looked over the screens, then took a second to gaze at Ripley. Finally, he said, “Sew her back up.”

Gediman had to stop himself from blurting out, Thank you! He knew it was well within Wren’s right as chief scientist to terminate her. For some reason, Gediman couldn’t accept that. It was such a waste! Especially after all their work.

“Dan,” Wren was saying to their associate, “close up here, will you? I think Gediman’s had enough excitement for one day.”

Gediman smiled, and nodded at Dan.

“Sure thing,” Sprague agreed. “Be happy to.”

Gediman glanced over the readouts automatically one more time. Anesthesia, respiration, heart rate, all looked good. He let Wren pull him aside.

“Well,” Gediman said, letting the excitement creep into his voice, “that went as well as could be expected.”

“Oh, better than that, Doctor,” Wren said respectfully. “Far better than that.”

* * *

Something told her to wake. She ignored it. Once she woke, the dreams would all come real. Once she woke she would exist again, and there had been peace, finally, in nonexistence. She was sorry that it might be over.

Something told her to wake. She resisted.

Slowly, she registered a dim sensation. Something outside of herself. Something happening to her self. Something taken from her.

Something she wanted taken?

She couldn’t remember.

In spite of the cold, in spite of the brightness, she opened her eyes.

She could see everything happening all around her, see it perfectly. But she could understand none of it. Strange metallic and plastic armatures moved rapidly around her, pulling closed a gaping wound in her chest, even as a different armature moved to seal the wound closed. She registered the sensation, some slight pain that was easy to ignore. Her eyes moved around as she gathered information.

Then she realized. It was gone. They’d taken it from her. Her young. Part of her felt enormous relief. Another part of her felt tremendous rage. She vacillated between the feelings, understanding neither, merely experiencing the emotional swings as she lay perfectly still, watching the surgical arms.

Two of the mechanical arms, she realized, were somehow connected physically to one of the creatures looking into the strange, clear egg case she was trapped in. She was ringed by these creatures, all of them looking down at her while they presumed her helpless. The arms swung and moved, performing their work, completing tasks she had neither asked for nor wanted nor understood.

She watched the creature manipulating the arms, watched it watching her so intently. With neither rage nor relief, she reached up quickly, snatched the forearm of the creature shielded from her behind the sealed egg case. With detached curiosity, she gripped the arm with a modicum of strength and twisted it, just to see what would happen.

It was interesting. The creature instantly stopped hurting her. That was good. She twisted more, and there was a strange cracking, grinding feel to the part of the being caught inside the artificial arm. Even more interesting was the reaction of all the creatures outside the clear egg case. The one attached to the arm was flailing wildly, pounding on the case with its free arm, its mouth opening hugely as if to bite her. How funny. She wondered if it were making sounds. The strange egg case she lay in seemed to prevent any sound from passing through, because all she could hear was her own breathing.

She blinked and twisted the arm again. More flailing, more writhing. And now more and more creatures racing around the one she’d caught, grabbing him, moving their tiny, ineffectual mouths open and closed, waving their arms. So much excitement.

One of the creatures pushed the others aside, looking down at her in the case. He stared at her wildly, his tiny eyes opened as wide as they would go. He slapped at devices on his side of the case, manipulated things she couldn’t see, and suddenly, she felt her eyes grow heavy.

She was sorry. She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to watch the creatures. Learn from them if she could. And more than that, she wanted to get out of here… But sleep stole over her before she could worry about it further.

* * *

In seconds, the gleaming, sterile surgical theater had gone from exultant success to chaos. Wren could hear the horrible snap and crunch of Dan Sprague’s bones from ten feet away where he and Gediman had been discussing the Alien embryo. Dan’s screams could be heard throughout the entire station.

The sterile chamber had instantly filled with every available team member, soldiers, and other observers, all of them violating every protocol they’d been rigidly trained to follow. And none of them could free Sprague from the host specimen’s grip.

It was unprecedented. It was unexpected. It was exciting!

Wren shoved his way to the front where he could see the host and her victim, and get control of the situation. Everyone was shouting conflicting orders, while Dan just kept screaming…

…and she just lay there under her drapes, her wound only partially sealed, her face as impassive as a sphinx as she deliberately twisted.

Wren pounced on the anesthesia controls, increasing the dosage radically.

Gediman was beside him, frantic for his pet. “Don’t kill her, Doctor Wren, please don’t kill her!”

Don’t beg, Gediman, Wren thought at him in disgust. It’s unprofessional.

The host blinked lazily, still not releasing Dr. Sprague. Her eyes moved, seemed to latch onto Wren’s. She looked straight at him, into him, through him. He felt a chill. Then her lids closed slowly, and in seconds her grip relaxed.

Clauss and Watanabe had Dan on a stretcher in seconds, Watanabe quickly, efficiently examining the badly broken arm. Bones pierced the skin and sterile gown in several places. The arm was mangled so badly the hand was facing in a completely unnatural direction. Blood pulsed from Dan’s arm, flowed over the immaculate sterile gown, splatted onto the floor. In the sterile room painted in gleaming whites and neutral tones, the blood’s brilliant red was all the more shocking.

At least he was sterile, Wren thought clinically. We should be able to avoid infection, in spite of all these people violating the sterility of the room. He was pleased to see Watanabe taking charge. He’d specialized in orthopedics before coming here.

The young doctor looked up from his writhing patient. “Dr. Wren, I’d like to take Dan into surgical room C and prep him immediately.”

“Go right ahead, Yoshi,” Wren approved. “Brian and Carlyn can assist. Will you need anyone else?”

“No, that should be fine,” Watanabe assured him, then signaled to the soldiers to take Sprague’s stretcher out of the room. Everyone but Gediman filed out with it.

Gediman had moved back to the robot controls, efficiently closing up the host’s wound, in spite of the disorder around him. Wren approved.

But Gediman looked twitchy. Wren wondered if the sudden shocking violence of the host’s attack had been more than he could handle.

“You okay?” Wren asked. The theater was once again quiet, restored to its normal sterile ambiance. Only an abstract pattern of blood spatters marked the accident.

Gediman nodded abruptly. He finished the closure, withdrew the instruments. The host slept on, as its surgical chamber was automatically removed to a secured recovery cell.

“I’m fine,” Gediman insisted, in spite of his shaky voice. “And… and I’m grateful, Doctor. I appreciate your not euthanizing her. I think this was just an unfortunate incident…”

Wren pulled his attention away from the host and back to his protégé. “There was nothing unfortunate about it, Gediman. Dan will recover. And now we know something about the host we didn’t know before. Something we couldn’t have anticipated. An unexpected… benefit.”

He smiled at Gediman, knowing his excitement about this unexpected development was obvious, and watched as his associate slowly realized Wren’s attitude about the host had changed radically. Suddenly, Gediman realized Wren no longer saw the host as a liability but as an advantage. Gediman had long argued against terminating the specimen, but Wren was only interested in the wealth of information that could be gleaned from a cadaver. But now Wren was his ally, not his opponent, in determining the host’s fate.

Gediman relaxed with a sigh and grinned back at Wren.

“We’ll know more in the next few days,” Wren said, “both about the host, and the subject. They should be very interesting days for us, don’t you think, Gediman?”

The associate grinned. “Oh yes, Doctor, I certainly do.”

2

She crouched in the dark, making herself small, and assessed her environment. At least she was finally awake enough to do so. The light was at a minimum, but that did not hamper her. She could see everything she needed to. The space holding her was large enough to stand and stretch in, even walk around, but she did none of those things. She wouldn’t, either, until she knew more. She breathed slowly, quietly, and remained folded tight, assessing.

The cell was empty, holding only herself. There was no water, no clothing, no furniture, nothing that she could use to cause harm to herself or others. She was covered with a flimsy, white drapery, left over from the surgery.

There was a small viewport in the ceiling above her cell, and suddenly a shadow crossed it, making her tense. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, but paid close attention to the owner of the shadow. Boots appeared, stood over the viewport for several seconds, then quietly moved on. So, she was being watched. That was good to know.

Long minutes later, when she was sure the booted feet were not about to return, she began to assess herself Her mind was still sluggish from her long sleep, from the surgery.

Surgery. Why did I have surgery? Have I been sick?

She pushed the questions away. They only confused her. She would wait and hope to learn.

Her face itched. She touched it, scratching lightly. Her skin, still wet and tender, peeled off in large flakes. The skin beneath the peelings felt stronger, drier. She scratched herself cautiously, peeling her skin in long, slippery strips that she discarded. It felt good.

While busy peeling herself, she discovered again the scar running along her chest. Her fingers traced the smooth, perfect line. It was sensitive, but not terribly so. Lifting the drape, she peered at the wound. It troubled her, but she couldn’t say why.

As she traced the line with a fingernail, she became distracted by her own hand, and pulled it out from under the drape. There was something odd about the hand, something unfamiliar. She peered at the tapered, elegant fingers—only five!—and finally, the fingernails. They were long, strong, extremely sharp. They looked strange, but they were her own nails. Yet, she felt as if she’d never seen them before. As if they didn’t belong there.

Troubled for reasons she couldn’t define, she put one in her mouth and chewed, trying to shorten them, bite them off. But they wouldn’t yield, at least not to teeth.

As she bit at her nail, she spotted something dark on the inside of her forearm, near the elbow. She instantly forgot about her nails, and stretched her right arm out to inspect it. There on the skin was a mark. She frowned, trying to remember.

It’s a number. The number eight.

She touched it, then pulled her hand away. What could that mean? Instinctively, she knew it was not her name, nor was it long enough to be her identification.

The number eight.

As she stared at it, trying to make sense of it, she heard a faint buzzing. A tiny, flying organism suddenly circled her head, distracting her. She watched it, fascinated, as it studied her, even as she studied it.

Moving lower, the organism settled on her inner arm, right near the tattoo. She watched patiently, curiously. What was this? What might it do?

Carefully, she lifted her arm for a better view.

The tiny organism had long delicate legs, elegant tiny wings, and a long stinger. A name came back to her.

Mosquito!

She almost smiled at the memory, it was so clear. This was an insect. A mosquito. She watched as it balanced like a dancer on her arm.

Slowly, it inserted its stinger into the flesh of her arm, doing it so delicately she felt nothing. The process amazed her, and she watched with the morbid fascination of a child. The creature’s abdomen began to fill.

With my blood! It’s sucking my blood.

Long forgotten information about the insect began registering in her mind as she watched the creature drink its fill.

Then, in seconds, the insect began to change. Its swollen abdomen began to shrivel, the translucent wings began to curl, the delicate dancer’s legs fold up, as if melting from the inside out. In seconds, it was a dried-up black husk.

She blinked, finding the transformation interesting, but only for the moment. Blowing on her arm, she disposed of the corpse, then thought no more about it. Glancing up at the viewport, she waited for the next reappearance of the booted feet.

3

“Name?” the purser asked, checking her register.

“Purvis,” the man responded automatically. “Larry. I.D. code twelve, seven, forty-nine.” He handed her his computer chip.

She took it, inserted it into her handheld, waited for the information to come up on the screen. She smiled and nodded at him pleasantly. “You’re cleared. Welcome aboard, Mr. Purvis.”

The short, slender man smiled back at her. Mr. Purvis. He liked that. The Xarem corporation touted itself as a top-flight organization, and so far it seemed to be so. The purser waved him into the ship so she could register the woman standing behind him, so he moved along, following the signs for the cryounits. The ship was small, only used for transport, and even the crew would be going to sleep once they were on course and out of the solar system.

Well, Purvis didn’t care if there weren’t any amenities on board. According to the literature that had convinced him to sign on to this outfit, they’d all be waiting for him at the nickel refinery on Xarem. The whole damned planet was named for the company. Prior to their mining claim, it’d been nothing but a number. A couple of months nap time, and he’d be there. New career. Starting over. Not bad for a middle-aged guy.

He wouldn’t think about the life he was leaving behind him here on the Moon. He’d spent two years trying to patch things up with his wife, all for nothing. His kids were grown and on their own—it was time to move on himself. And it wasn’t like he was joining the French Foreign Legion! Conditions on Xarem were supposed to be the best.