Alien, page 3
She’d seen enough of the corporate wheels to know that saving lives was not and never had been the highest priority of pharmaceutical companies, even ones whose professed ideals she’d believed in. At Seegson, like the rest, it was money.
It always came down to money.
The door to the lab slid open with a soft whoosh. Camilla came in carrying an armful of flowers, and the picture struck Siobhan as sweet. With the synthetic’s placid expression, her soft, matronly features, and her eyes as cornflower blue as the blossoms in her arms, she looked gentle, almost blithely so. Perhaps that was the endearing, if somewhat misleading, part of her charm. Camilla was a Seegson 226-B/2, built to withstand a range of extreme temperatures, resistant to venom and poison, and exceedingly strong.
Those little blue flowers she carried produced a pollen that was deadly to inhale or even touch, growing against reason in the inhospitable terrain beyond the oasis of the Gatelands. Camilla smiled at her, and then moved to the counter to place the flowers in a glass preservation bin that would prevent pollen being expelled into the lab.
“Good evening, Dr. McCormick. How are you?” Even after twelve years, Camilla still addressed her colleagues formally. Siobhan had tried more than once to explain why it was okay to call her by her first name, and each time the synthetic nodded, replied with, “Okay then, Siobhan,” and offered a small smile. Then the next day she returned to formalities.
Camilla had mentioned once that while she had been designed to adapt, particularly in ways which would make humans more comfortable around her, some small glitch in her programming seemed to prevent her from circumventing the conflict that first names presented.
“I’m fine, Camilla, thanks,” Siobhan said. “Just tired, is all. The electrical storm last night kept me up. I got two, maybe three hours of sleep.”
Camilla tilted her head thoughtfully. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you sleep better tonight.” When Siobhan didn’t answer, the synthetic’s gaze flicked to the transmissions terminal. “Have you received any further word on the evacuation timetable?”
Siobhan nodded. “Tomorrow, they said. If all goes well, the ship should be here by tomorrow.”
“Good,” Camilla said. “Most of the residential area has been cleared, and it seems as if the colonists are packed. If you relay the specifics of the procedure to me, I’ll make sure the residents are all well aware and prepared.”
“Thanks.” She took Camilla’s hand as the synth passed by and gave it a quick squeeze. “I’m really glad you’re in this with me. I don’t think I could have made it through these last few months without you.”
“I am glad, too, doctor.” Camilla looked down on her with motherly warmth. “I appreciate your having kept me on here. It gives me… purpose.” After a moment, Camilla shifted gears and said, “I understand that the planet they are sending us to for relocation processing is LV-846, in time for the summit meeting next week. The United Americas joint chiefs will be there, plus government officials including representatives of the UA and UPP, and at least three Independent Core Colony leaders. It will be a historic event, and may very well mean the difference between peace or war for generations to come.”
“A collision in its own right,” Siobhan muttered, and at Camilla’s perplexed look, she added, “Where did you hear that?”
“A news transmission,” Camilla replied. “Sometimes Seegson Newscore still transmits to my terminal.”
“Well, I’m glad one of us is connected to the outside worlds,” Siobhan said with a weary grin.
“It is a good thing,” Camilla agreed, mimicking the grin. “I hope we make it in time to witness the summit meeting.”
Siobhan chuckled. “I had no idea you were interested in politics.”
Camilla gave her an almost shy look. “I find the process of government—of a few individuals controlling the welfare and futures of the many—somewhat illuminating. Individual human beings often put their well-being in the hands of those they know and trust, those who have their best interests at heart, but the masses entrust their welfare to complete strangers. It seems as if that would require the strangers to have a profound understanding of many things, in order to make wise and informed decisions.” She paused for a moment, and then added, “The arrangement requires a lot of trust for everyone involved in the process.”
Siobhan glanced at the drawer in which she had placed the UA transmission.
“I suppose it does seem… counterintuitive,” she said, “but sometimes we have to trust in those we don’t know, or even those who wouldn’t normally have our best interests at heart. Sometimes, it’s a leap of faith.”
“A leap of faith.” Camilla tilted her head again, processing the new concept, and seemed satisfied with the phrase. “Yes, that’s it. This summit meeting… it’s a leap of faith.”
Siobhan laughed, but it was a tired sound, stretched thin.
“My understanding from the news reports,” Camilla went on, “is that in addition to the peace talks, they will be discussing the pathogen bombs and their origin. Newscore didn’t get more specific than that, but it sounds like there might be new information.”
“Well, finally,” Siobhan said. “Maybe they can find a way to put an end to all these colonial uprisings. Truth be told, Cam, I don’t think I can do another three-year stint in a military lockdown.”
“I don’t think Seegson would put their people through that.” Camilla rested a hand on her shoulder; it was a gesture both gentle and reassuring. “Not after the upheaval of leaving this place.”
Siobhan smiled. “Maybe they’ll reassign us to LM-490. I hear the beaches there are beautiful.”
Camilla seemed on the verge of replying when her terminal began beeping loudly. The same sound came from Siobhan’s, and her breath caught in her chest. Her first thought was that the moon had taken an unexpected detour out of orbit, and that the hours they thought they had would instead be minutes, maybe less. Then she recognized the signal code.
Someone was sending a distress call.
Wheeling her chair closer to the terminal, she peered at the screen. It wasn’t an interplanetary call for help; rather, it was on the terrestrial channel, and seemed to be coming from the Weyland-Yutani lab sixty miles away.
Siobhan called up the transmission. The message repeated steadily.
HELP US.
HELP US.
HELP US.
She pushed the “received” button to notify the sender that the message had reached its destination.
The transmission that followed, distorted and choppy as it was, brought back the inexorable wave of dread.
3
At the Gatelands, the outer perimeter of the Hygieia Colony, it was surprisingly quiet. Despite the fact that it had been a good seven hours or so since the last ground tremor, the vurfur, it seemed, had retreated into the thick, uneven, twisted brambles that passed for forests outside the terraformed oasis on BG-791.
Maybe, for once, it would be an easy night patrol.
Lance Corporal Kenny Elkins looked up at the sky. It was a different kind of dark up there, since the orbit of the moon had shifted. When night came on, sometimes minutes earlier or minutes later than it seemed as if it should, it came quickly, and it came heavily. A clear night like it was tonight—with the stars and the gas giant Hephaestus in full view—could cloud over in an instant and rain frozen hail down on the landscape, pelting the huge brambles and knocking loose their man-sized thorns, or tearing through the roofs of the colony like laser-scissors through fraying fabric.
Sometimes, jagged bolts of lightning ripped across the sky or lanced down to spear a dusty outcropping of lifeless rock or graying dirt. The vurfur would stomp the ground with their hooves and snort, brandishing their impressive antlers and baring their sharp teeth before taking off into the brambles for shelter. Their absence was usually a pretty reliable sign that a storm was brewing somewhere not far off.
The vurfur didn’t like the storms. Neither did Elkins. Come to think of it, he didn’t much like the vurfur, either. Their meat was nearly inedible, and they were an ornery bunch to boot. One had bitten him on the forearm a month or so earlier and the wound had gotten infected. Dr. McCormick had given him strong antibiotics to knock out the infection and the bite had mostly healed, but nights like this, when a storm might come or go on a whim, it still ached a bit in the muscle there.
Elkins shrugged off the fatigue in his back and arms, switched the gun to his other shoulder, and resumed patrolling. He scanned the dark in front of him, watching for movement near the launch platform where interstellar ships landed and took off. It would be there, he figured, that the UA evacuation ship would touch down, and they could all finally get off this godforsaken rock.
Beyond, the dark was impenetrable. Elkins had been out there beyond the Gatelands a few times during the day, but never very far. There was no reason, really. If the scientists needed some fungus or plant sample only found in the wilds, the synth on staff at the lab made those treks, and it was equipped to handle itself. Those instances, as far as Elkins knew, were few and far between.
Extensive robotic exploration had led to subsequent maps and documentation of the moon’s geography, drawn up back when it was first discovered. BG-791 was almost as devoid of life as the planet it orbited. Other than the oasis where the colony had been built—the only part of the moon that had responded to terraforming—there was a large dried-up lakebed far to the south with some unusual mushrooms and bird nests, and a Weyland-Yutani lab outpost about sixty miles west. Until the human settlers had arrived on BG-791, the dominant species had been the vurfur.
There was a lot of empty darkness out there.
Well, most of it was empty.
A thump behind him made him stop. He held perfectly still, listening, inhaling shallow breaths and letting them go as silently as he could. Most likely the noise was nothing to worry about. The moon made creaking noises sometimes, groaning from the pressure exerted by the sudden pull or release of gravity, the—
A snort came through the dark, not close enough to feel… not yet.
Elkins turned slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements. He eased the gun off his shoulder, aiming in the direction of the sound. The lights of the colony’s perimeter dropped off beyond where Elkins was standing. After a moment, he could make out a hulking shape several feet away, something with antlers… or spines… it was hard to tell. The thing in the dark pawed and scraped at the ground.
It made an odd noise, one that Elkins didn’t recognize. The vurfurs made a kind of warbling growl, not like—
The ground beneath him shook as the thing charged.
Caught off guard, Elkins shouted, firing blindly into the dark.
Another shot rang out, this one loud in Elkins’s ear. The thing that had been charging him collapsed with a heavy thud and slid in the gray dirt to his feet. Panting, Elkins looked from the dead vurfur to the dark that had yielded the kill shot. Out of it stepped First Sergeant Alec Brand, his gun aimed at the carcass. Satisfied it wouldn’t get back up, he lowered his gun.
“You okay?” Sarge asked.
“Yeah,” Elkins said. He shivered. “Yeah. Shit. Thanks, Sarge.”
“No problem.” Sarge gave him a small, mirthless smile. “Shift change. Let’s head back, huh?” He turned and walked back into the darkness.
With a final glance out at the wild moonscape beyond the Gatelands, that mostly empty wilderness drenched in erratic night, Elkins exhaled shakily and followed his commanding officer.
* * *
At the United States Colonial Marines guard barracks just outside the metal fence surrounding the Hygieia Colony, two more of Alec Brand’s squad, privates Anita Compton and Danny McGowan, sat at a rickety card table. Each held a fan of playing cards.
The remaining member, Eddie “Roots” Rutiani, napped on a cot against the back wall. There was little light in the room except for the swinging overhead bulb, which shook something fierce every time a tremor rattled the barracks, but it was enough for the game. The majority of the colony’s belongings were stacked in boxes and crates, taking up most of the barracks’ two storage rooms and the rec area where the three squad members and their own personal effects were gathered.
McGowan squinted at his hand and frowned, as if he could change the cards he held. Compton fought a smile for as long as she could, but then it broke out into a full grin.
“You gonna play your hand or what, McGowan?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved impatiently at her with his free hand. “Gimme a minute, will ya?”
“You’re not going to win,” Compton teased. “You suck at this game, and you’ve got no poker face at all.”
“This ain’t poker,” McGowan grumbled, giving her an annoyed glance over the top of his cards.
“Doesn’t matter,” Compton said, sitting back with an air of triumph. “You can’t play cards for shit.”
“Screw you, Compton.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen, either. Not if you screw like you play cards.”
“Ouch!” Roots said, rolling over on the cot. “She got you there, man.”
“Suck vurfur balls, Roots,” McGowan said, shooting him a look.
“Play your damn hand already, D.” Roots rolled away again. “I’m exhausted, and you two are keeping me awake.”
McGowan opened his mouth to reply when a tremor rumbled beneath their feet. He flinched, and Compton’s hand was on her gun before Roots had rolled back over.
“Just a tremor,” McGowan said.
“They’re getting worse,” Roots mumbled.
“Was nothing,” McGowan replied.
“Moon’s tearing apart out from under us.”
“It was nothing,” McGowan barked at him. “Just a tremor.”
The others gave him wary stares. He was about to say something, maybe to smooth over his harsh words, when Sergeant Brand and Kenny Elkins walked in. McGowan and Compton moved to stand but Sarge waved them down. Elkins crossed to the empty chair between McGowan and Compton, and sat.
“Deal me in next hand?”
“So.” Sarge nodded at Compton. “How bad is Danny losing?”
McGowan tossed his cards on the table as the others snickered. Joking and playing cards had once been a good time, all things considered. Lately, though, the barracks felt too small and the air too heavy. Cards had become a way to kill time, not to relax after a patrol shift.
Compton scooped all the cards off the table and shuffled them. Sarge sat in the desk chair across from the table.
“Roots, you’re up,” he said. “Compton, you too, I think.”
“On it, Sarge,” Roots responded, rolling off the cot and landing on his feet. To Compton, he said, “Let’s go bag us some vurfur. Seems to be all we’re here for, anyway.” Anita Compton rose and, grabbing her gun, turned to Sarge.
“They quiet tonight?” she asked. “Hiding from the storm?”
“Not all of them,” Elkins said. He took cards off the table and started dealing. “One nearly ran me through tonight. I would’ve been done in by a goddamn alien deer if it weren’t for Sarge here.”
“No shit?” McGowan looked from Elkins to Sarge. “One got that close?”
Sarge shrugged. “They’re getting antsy, I guess. They probably know what’s coming.”
“I dunno… I kinda feel sorry for them,” Compton said. “When this moon crashes, they’ll be wiped out. Extinct. Everything that lives here will be.”
“Good riddance,” Roots said from the doorway. “You ready?”
Compton moved to join Roots at the door, squeezing McGowan’s shoulder on the way past.
“Watch out for Elkins,” she said over her shoulder. At the door, she turned with that grin again and added, “He cheats.” Then she and Roots slipped out into the night.
“Roots is right,” McGowan said, still watching the doorway. “We were exiled here—we all know it. We’re glorified game wardens, here to deal with the fucking deer population.”
“We weren’t ‘exiled’ here.” Sarge rolled his eyes. “It’s a security detail. Guard the Seegson lab. You know, the UA wanted Hygieia pretty bad before they found out it was gonna crash. Any Independent Core Systems colony they could get their hands on, stick it to the UPP—all that. I think they even gave Seegson some funding for the research, and they’re getting a shit-ton of data from Siobhan’s people, too.”
McGowan smiled down at the cards Elkins had dealt him. He knew better than to call Sarge out on the way he looked at Dr. McCormick, or even mention how he’d used her first name. It wasn’t exactly a secret—at least to McGowan—that there was something brewing between their sergeant and the good doctor.
“You know what I think?” Elkins said, oblivious to Sarge’s crush. “I think they sent us here because of the Solokov woman.”
Katya Solokov was the wife of Maxim Solokov, one of the “contractors” responsible for settling Independent Core Systems worlds. Without governmental oversight from either the UA or the UPP, men like Solokov were limited only by their money and their resources—and Solokov had a lot of both. He was also the kind of man who gave contractors a bad name. Solokov ran as many criminal enterprises as he did legit ones, and showed no mercy to those who got in his way.
When his wife left him and took his two sons with her, she rightfully feared for her life and sought the help of the UA government in obtaining asylum.
“Katya Solokov,” Elkins said. “I remember, and little Mikhail and Dimitriy.” Under instructions from the UA, Sarge and his men had questioned Katya at length. They were especially interested in the pathogen bombs dropping on UA colonies. Rumor had it that Solokov had financed—if not ordered—the production of the bombs.
The rumor was proved false, and Solokov was cleared. Getting to the truth had saved Sarge and his squad from a court martial, given what they’d done.
After Katya had been questioned, the joint chiefs decided there was nothing more she could reveal concerning Maxim Solokov’s criminal businesses. But while in custody she had learned a great deal about the UA. Fearing she might go back to her husband and use what she knew as a way back into his good graces, their leader, Assistant Commandant General Vaughn, made the decision to send Katya and her two children to Nungal 734.
