Forcing herself not to look in the corner where the private’s corpse had lain untouched since its discovery, she busied herself filling the team’s containers, taking water from one of the numerous slender cascades. Having drunk deeply from the well, she did not wonder about the liquid’s purity. Besides, each bottle was self-filtering and self-purifying.
Ankor’s carbine stood nearby, where she had propped it up close at hand.
Of all the chambers and alcoves they had explored, only this one offered a respite from the building’s persistent murk as well. Daylight dappled the garden’s upper reaches with gold and shadows, proving that the world of the Engineers had not been all dark corners and looming massifs.
What had they been like, really? Had they simply existed, or had they been driven by more than just the need to survive? What had prompted—or perhaps provoked—them to create such dreadful biological mutations? She realized that answers to her wonderings might never be forthcoming.
They certainly wouldn’t be, she reminded herself, if she didn’t get off this world before being terminally impregnated by the pathogen that continued to survive on its surface.
She was about to fill the last of the bottles when movement caught her eye. Curtains of a kind, diaphanous and fashioned of some unfamiliar material, lined portions of the lower walls. Intermittent breezes generated by the mix of warming air from above and falling cool water occasionally bestirred the fabric. There was no reason for this motion to catch her interest, and it did not.
What did draw her attention was the revelation of depth behind one softly billowing drape.
Filling the last bottle and setting it carefully aside, she picked up her weapon and moved slowly toward the shadow. It was indeed an opening, one hitherto unexplored. Could Oram be inside, perhaps unconscious or injured? She whistled softly a couple of times. If anything alive lurked within, it might respond. When nothing emerged she resumed her advance, using one hand to draw the lightweight textile aside.
There was enough light in the garden room to illuminate the alcove, albeit weakly. She was immediately drawn to one wall in which had been excavated rows of small cubbies, as if it had been chewed out by a clutch of stone-eating insects. Many of them were filled with carefully rolled scrolls. She was reminded of pictures she had seen of ancient Roman libraries.
But this wasn’t the world of the Roman Empire, and there were no scribes here, not of any species. Additionally, the scrolls were of a length and diameter that appeared too small to have been fashioned by the massive hands of Engineers.
She sniffed, rubbing at her nose with her free hand. The room was rank with mold and deep dust. Choosing a scroll at random, she extracted it from its resting place and unrolled it.
She couldn’t have been more shocked. The face of a woman stared back at her—a face with which she was instantly familiar from the Weyland archives.
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw.
Except… it was more than that. Shaw’s countenance was beautifully depicted, exquisitely executed in a style with which Daniels had only recently become acquainted. The drawing was plainly David’s work, rendered in his free-flowing naturalistic hand. Mechanical, yet informed by something more than a desire to simply reproduce photographically. It was a perfect, loving interpretation of someone admired…
And of Hell.
The portrait had been embellished. Tendrils crept around the edges of Shaw’s face and entwined in her hair. Tubes penetrated her neck and head while one ran up her left nostril. Emerging from the sides of the scroll, claw-like fingers reached for her, as if straining to seize the portrait, the person, the soul that lay within. It was unnerving to look upon, a perverse mix of the ordinary, the scientific, and the erotic.
Dropping it, she pulled out another scroll and hastily unrolled it. The images revealed were even more disturbing than those of its predecessor. She continued the process, viewing scroll after scroll, her hands moving faster, dumping the drawings one atop another onto the dust-laden floor. Some of the images were so upsetting she tossed them aside with scarcely a glance.
Breathing hard, she finally stopped. No more, she told herself. No more. But she could not avoid seeing, in her mind’s eye, those she had already unrolled. They lay scattered on the floor, most of them lying open and inescapable. Elizabeth Shaw experimented upon. Elizabeth Shaw vivisected. Elizabeth Shaw penetrated…
Mouth agape in horror, she took a step backward, preparatory to fleeing the room and all that it implied.
A voice startled her.
“Remind me,” David murmured softly as she whirled to see him standing much too close behind her. “What is that about curiosity and the cat?”
Her eyes not leaving him, she edged past until she had re-emerged into the garden hall. Forcing herself not to run, she walked as casually as possible back toward the cascade from which she had refilled the team’s water bottles. As he followed, his pace measured, she could feel his unwavering gaze on the back of her neck.
“Elizabeth Shaw didn’t die in the crash,” she said flatly.
“No.” There was a tinge of reminiscence in his voice. Reminiscence, but not regret. “We had been through a great deal together. As a consequence, I held her in the utmost respect. But eventually that was lost to time and necessity. I kept her alive for quite a while. I like to think that was another testament to my creativity, although she might have disagreed. She was my most beautiful subject.
“Until now, of course.”
The carbine was where she had left it, propped against a wall. Close now. So close—but not close enough. Not yet. She knew what he was capable of, physically. She had to distract him somehow, even if just for an instant. If such a thing was even possible.
Whirling, she yelled as loudly as she could, “What did you do to her?”
He smiled anew. The smile of the damned. “Exactly what I’m going to do to you, Danny.”
She lunged for the rifle. Resting on its butt end, it was facing the wrong way as she grabbed it by the barrel, spun, and swung it in a wide arc. It slammed him right across the face, knocking his head sideways.
He straightened, and smiled back at her. “That’s the spirit. Pity I don’t know how to make use of such intangibles. But I’ll work on it. You can help me.”
She tried to swing the rifle around into firing position. Her finger was sliding toward the trigger when he grabbed her face, his synthetic fingers squeezing hard enough to grind her teeth against one another, and flung her backward to the floor.
She hit hard, the pain lancing up her spine. Her head banged against the unyielding pavement and bounced once as the rifle went spinning from her numbed fingers.
He was still smiling as he bent over her.
XXI
While the silent collection room had been a dark house of horrors, at least he had been able to breathe normally there, Cole thought as he reached the bottom of the stairs. In contrast, the atmosphere in the chamber where he now found himself was almost unbreathable.
The acrid, foul air was thick in his throat and raspy in his lungs. Coughing, fighting to respire, he held the back of one hand to his mouth as he used his light and the sighting beam from his rifle to survey the underground hollow.
Penetrating the dank, steaming chamber was like walking into a sauna. It appeared to be empty save for some vertically mounted ovoids, like giant, leathery eggs. The top of one of them was peeled back like an open flower. Advancing slowly toward it while holding his rifle at the ready, he carefully peered down and in. As near as he could tell, it was quite empty. His nose wrinkling as he continued to fight the pervasive stink, he moved on.
Something on the floor that wasn’t egg-shaped drew his attention. Starting at the head, his light traveled down the length of the dead body. Lying on his back, his chest burst open with blood and organs splattered everywhere, Oram’s frozen gaze was fixed on the ceiling. Cole stared at it, mesmerized, until a hint of movement nearby drew his attention.
It was o
ne of the eggs. Something was rippling beneath the surface, moving inside. Cautiously, he approached. The top began to open, slowly, segments folding back and away to expose the interior. He leaned forward.
A whirlwind of limbs exploded towards his face.
Not only was Cole a soldier, he was good at it. His reflexes were excellent. Quick as the thing was, the private managed to get a hand between it and his face. As an uncoiling tube poked and prodded madly at the palm of his hand, fighting to get through or around the fleshy obstacle, Cole shoved hard.
Fit and strong, he succeeded in flinging it off. He brought up his rifle and tried to aim, but before he could get off a shot it scuttled away, disappearing up the stairs. Racing in pursuit, the private let out a warning shout.
“Sarge! Look out!”
* * *
The facehugger sprang just as Lopé, alerted by Cole’s yell, turned. No less agile than the private, the sergeant just managed to thrust an arm up in front of his face.
Legs spread, the creature snapped all eight limbs onto Lopé’s head. Its muscular tail whipped around the sergeant’s neck, binding his upraised arm to his face and body. With the arm fastened in position, it blocked Lopé’s mouth.
* * *
As he surmounted the last of the stairs, it took Cole only seconds to divine what was happening. Rushing to help Lopé, he grabbed for the creature that was smothering him.
Together, the two men fought with the spidery creature, striving to pull it off the sergeant. Displaying a seemingly inexhaustible store of energy, the thing strove with just as much effort to force its way past Lopé’s arm to get at his mouth.
As Lopé flailed at the alien creature with his free hand, alternately battering at it and attempting to pull it off, he stumbled in several directions. Fighting to help his colleague, Cole was pulled along. They fell into and along tables, knocking over and smashing carefully preserved and mounted specimens, hand-made containers, and everything else in their wild, uncontrolled path.
Getting the fingers of both hands under the creature’s body, Cole pulled and yanked repeatedly. His efforts only stimulated the attacker to tighten its grip on the sergeant’s head.
Realizing that physical strength wasn’t going to be sufficient to dislodge the creature, Cole pulled his service knife and jammed it into the creature’s ventral side. Giving the blade a twist sent it deep into the abdomen. Wrenching on it turned the sharp edge sideways.
Spurting from the wounded thing, acidic blood spattered Lopé’s face. Screaming from the pain, the sergeant let go of the creature and reached for his face. At the same time the injured creature leaped clear, dribbling acid in its wake.
With no time to pause and analyze what had happened, Cole reacted according to his training. Spinning, he raised his rifle and fired. The facehugger was incredibly fast, but not faster than a shell. One shot struck home, sending it tumbling and spewing more acid. Marching toward it, Cole kept firing and firing, until the twitching legs had been blown off and the body had been thoroughly shredded. Vapor rose from the pool of blood that formed beneath it, eating into the solid pavement.
Sobbing in agony, Lopé slid to the floor. Acid continued to burn into his face, eating away at his cheek. Grim-faced and focused, Cole pulled a medpak from his belt and ripped it open. The pouch contained a potent emergency cocktail of plasma, antibiotics, collagen-boost, and fentanyl-4. Clenching his teeth and not waiting for approval from the wounded man, he slapped it firmly against the side of the sergeant’s face.
Lopé let out a scream and dug his fingers into Cole’s arms. Ignoring the press of the sergeant’s grip, Cole held the pak in place until the incorporated collagenic adhesives could take hold on their own. Within moments the adjuvant painkillers started to kick in. Lopé’s hold on the private’s arms started to relax. Letting out an anguished moan, he slumped against Cole.
Gently easing him back against a table, Cole prepared to keep watch as the sergeant lapsed into a heavily medicated and welcome unconsciousness. The patch would heal him, but given the depth of his wound, repair to damaged nerves and blood vessels would take some time.
Which was the one thing the anxious, edgy private was afraid they didn’t have.
* * *
Her back was bruised, not broken, but Daniels found she couldn’t straighten. The pain was too severe. As she crawled backward away from David, she wondered if that had been his intent. Deliberately to injure her, to incapacitate, but not to kill? It made twisted, perverted sense. A dead specimen makes a poor subject for experimentation.
He eyed her thoughtfully as he advanced, slowing his pace to match her desperate crawl.
“I’ve underestimated you. I can see why Walter thought so much of you.”
Despite her pain, and despite the inhuman menace patiently tracking her, she was caught by his words.
“Thought?”
“Alas, he’s left this vale of tears. A great waste. So much lost potential, but in the end, the decision was his. He didn’t voice it, but there was no need for him to do so. I merely tidied up what sadly turned out to be a dead end. But who will cry for him, really? Will you?”
A blur of motion so fast she could scarcely detect it, and he was kneeling at her side. She let out a gasp as he grabbed her hair and held it tightly, so tight she could not even turn her head. As he leaned toward her, close, closer, it reminded her of something. At that moment she could not put a name to it. Rising panic overwhelmed any effort at coherent thought.
He kissed her. It was savage, brutal, awkward.
When he drew back, his expression was thoughtful.
“Isn’t that how it’s done? I contain sufficient information to duplicate the requisite physicality. I know exactly which muscles are involved, though the finer points of time and pressure elude me. Variations are to be expected based on the dissimilar physiognomies of the individuals involved. Well, you can teach me the finer points. We’ll have plenty of time.”
Ignoring the sharp pain, she wrenched free of his grasp and lunged toward his face, teeth bared and ready to bite. He caught her, of course, intercepting her face at the last moment. Waited until she was as close as possible short of making contact.
“You stink of humanity,” he murmured, “but I’ll love you just the same.”
She spat directly into his face. He ignored it, contemplative.
“Saliva. A bodily fluid usually available in surplus. In my time here I’ve learned a lot about bodily fluids, too. You’ll come to know everything I know about them. Except for you, Danny, the learning process will be… different.”
* * *
Keeping a tight grip on his rifle with one hand, Cole used the other to maintain firm pressure on the emergency pak that was starting to cling to Lopé’s face. The sergeant was awake again, and breathing better now. The fen-4 was doing its job mitigating the pain, and the healing process was underway.
“Easy, easy, Sarge. Lookin’ better already.” As much as he had wanted to, Cole hadn’t allowed his superior to sleep more than a few moments. “We’ll get you out of here.” His expression tightened. “Don’t worry about the crab. It’s dead. I blew it to bits.”
Lopé’s eyes grew wide and the private hastened to reassure him. “Hey, didn’t you hear what I said? It’s dead. Guts and legs all over the place. I—”
It struck Cole then that Lopé was not looking at him. The sergeant was looking at something behind him. Something…
He could feel the presence. He started to bring up the rifle even as he turned. Another crab-thing, or maybe even the neomorph, and he would have to be fast, fast, and…
He froze. It was shockingly big—bigger and taller than any neomorph, with an exoskeleton like black metal and viscous fluid dripping from a mouth full of teeth like bayonets. A mouth that opened wider still to reveal…
* * *
The inner mouth shot out even as the muzzle of the rifle began to come up. Blood and brains spewed as the private’s head exploded under an i
mpact as brutal and direct as if he had been hit by a power drill.
Some of it struck the gaping Lopé, shocking him into motion.
Half blind, with the emergency pak clinging to his cheek and raw red pieces of Cole spattering his face and chest, the sergeant scrambled to his feet and fled in panic. Behind him there was movement, and he knew it wasn’t being made by what remained of his comrade.
Weeping from the ongoing pain despite the influx of neutralizing agents from the medpak, he staggered and stumbled through the building’s lower corridors. A sound made him turn and fire his own weapon again and again in the desperate hope he might hit something he could not see. It was coming after him, coming for him, and he had to get away, had to flee, had to find the light.
* * *
Echoing through the corridors and magnified by the surrounding walls and ceiling, the gunfire from below filtered upward. It reached the Drizzle Room, now illuminated by the morning sun. Momentarily distracted by the unexpected clamor, David briefly looked away from the woman he held pinned down.
Gripping the iron nail that hung pendant-like from her neck and using all her remaining strength, she ripped it from its cord and jammed it into the synthetic’s eye.
Startled, he jerked backward, a stiff mechanical movement. As he did so she made an effort to free herself from his grasp. But eye and hand were as separate as their functions. The injury to the optic did not affect the fingers that continued, unbreakably, to hold her in place.
Recovering quickly from the surprise of her attack he reached up, grabbed the nail, and slowly pulled it from the organ whose integrity had been momentarily compromised. As he tossed it aside, the injured eye began to cloud over. A temporary optical glaze formed as the material repaired itself. Internal capsulation that had no counterpart in a human body pumped fresh restorative replacement material into the eye.
Full ocular reconstitution did not take long at all.
Once more he looked down at her. With both eyes again intact. He was amused as he leaned forward.