‘What about Boggs and Rains?’ Dillon asked evenly. ‘Where are they? What’s happened to them?’
Golic blinked, regarded his interrogators unrepentantly. ‘I didn’t do it. Back in the tunnel. They never had a chance, not a chance. There was nothing I could do but save myself. The dragon did it. Slaughtered ’em like pigs. It wasn’t me. Why do I get blamed for everything? Nobody can stop it.’ He began to laugh and cry simultaneously. ‘Not a chance, no, no, not a chance!’ Clemens was working on the back of his head now.
Andrews studied the quivering remains of what had once been a human being. Not much of a human being, true, but human nonetheless. He was not pleased, but neither was he angry. There was nothing here to get angry at.
‘Stark raving mad. I’m not saying it was anyone’s fault, but he should have been chained up. Figuratively speaking, of course.’ The superintendent glanced at his medic. ‘Sedated. You didn’t see this coming, Mr. Clemens?’
‘You know me, sir. I don’t diagnose. I only prescribe.’
Clemens had almost finished his cleaning. Golic looked better, but only if you avoided his eyes.
‘Yes, of course. Precognitive psychology isn’t your speciality, is it? If anyone should have taken note, it was me.’
‘Don’t blame yourself, sir,’ said Aaron.
‘I’m not. Merely verbalizing certain regrets. Sometimes insanity lurks quiet and unseen beneath the surface of a man, awaiting only the proper stimulus for it to burst forth. Like certain desert seeds that propagate only once every ten or eleven years, when the rains are heavy enough.’ He sighed. ‘I would very much like to see a normal, gentle rain again.’
‘Well, you called it right, sir,’ Aaron continued. ‘He’s mad as a fuckin’ hatter.’
‘I do so delight in the manner in which you enliven your everyday conversation with pithy anachronisms, Mr. Aaron.’ Andrews looked to his trustee. ‘He seems to be calming down a little. Permanent tranquillization is an expensive proposition and its use would have to be justified in the record. Let’s try keeping him separated from the rest for a while, Mr. Dillon, and see if it has a salutary effect. I don’t want him causing panic. Clemens, sedate this poor idiot sufficiently so that he won’t be a danger to himself or to anyone else. Mr. Dillon, I’ll rely on you to keep an eye on him after he’s released. Hopefully he will improve. It would make things simpler.’
‘Very well, Superintendent. But no full sedation until we know about the other brothers.’
‘You ain’t gonna get anything out of that.’ Aaron gestured disgustedly at the straitjacket’s trembling inhabitant.
‘We have to try.’ Dillon leaned close, searching his fellow prisoner’s face. ‘Pull yourself together, man. Talk to me. Where are the brothers? Where are Rains and Boggs?’
Golic licked his lips. They were badly chewed and still bled slightly despite Clemens’s efficient ministrations. ‘Rains?’ he whispered, his brow furrowing with the effort of trying to remember. ‘Boggs?’ Suddenly his eyes widened afresh and he looked up sharply, as if seeing them for the first time. ‘I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me. It was… it was…’ He started sobbing again, bawling and babbling hysterically.
Andrews looked on, shaking his head sadly. ‘Hopeless. Mr. Aaron’s right. You’re not going to get anything out of him for a while, if ever. We’re not going to wait until we do.’
Dillon straightened. ‘It’s your call, Superintendent.’
‘We’ll have to send out a search party. Sensible people who aren’t afraid of the dark or each other. I’m afraid we have to assume that there is a very good chance this simple bastard has murdered them.’ He hesitated. ‘If you are at all familiar with his record, then you know that such a scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility.’
‘You don’t know that, sir,’ said Dillon. ‘He never lied to me. He’s crazy. He’s a fool. But he’s not a liar.’
‘You are well-meaning, Mr. Dillon, but overly generous to a fellow prisoner.’
Andrews fought back the sarcasm which sprang immediately to mind. ‘Personally I’d consider Golic a poor vessel for your trust.’
Dillon’s lips tightened. ‘I’m not naive, sire. I know enough about him to want to keep an eye on him as much as help him.’
‘Good. I don’t want any more people vanishing because of his ravings.’
Ripley rose and approached the group. All eyes turned to regard her.
‘There’s a chance he’s telling the truth.’ Clemens gaped at her. She ignored him. ‘I need to talk to him about this dragon.’ Andrews’s reply was crisp. ‘You’re not talking to anyone, Lieutenant. I am not interested in your opinions because you are not in full possession of the facts.’ He gestured towards Golic. ‘This man is a convicted multiple murderer, known for particularly brutal and ghastly crimes.’
‘I didn’t do it!’ the man in the straitjacket burbled helplessly.
Andrews looked around. ‘Isn’t that right, Mr. Dillon?’
‘Yeah,’ Dillon agreed reluctantly, ‘that part’s right.’
Ripley gazed hard at the superintendent. ‘I need to talk to you. It’s important.’
The older man considered thoughtfully. ‘When I have finished with my official duties I’ll be quite pleased to have a little chat. Yes?’
She looked as if she wanted to say something further, but simply nodded.
VIII
Aaron took charge of the water pitcher, making sure the glasses were filled. He needn’t have bothered. Once Ripley started talking, no one noticed irrelevant details such as thirst.
She explained carefully and in detail, leaving nothing out, from the time the original alien eggs had been discovered in the hold of the gigantic ship of still unknown origin on Acheron, to the destruction of the original crew of the Nostromo and Ripley’s subsequent escape, to the later devastating encounter on Acheron and her flight from there in the company of her now dead companions.
Her ability to recall every relevant incident and detail might have struck an observer as prodigious, but remembering was not her problem. What tormented her daily was her inability to forget.
It was quiet in the superintendent’s quarters for quite a while after she finished. Ripley downed half her glass of purified water, watching his face.
He laced his fingers over his belly. ‘Let me see if I have this correct, Lieutenant. What you say we’re dealing with here is an eight-foot-tall carnivorous insect of some kind with acidic body fluids, and that it arrived on your spaceship.’
‘We don’t know that it’s an insect,’ she corrected him. ‘That’s the simplest and most obvious analogue, but nobody knows for sure. They don’t lend themselves to easy taxonomic study. It’s hard to dissect something that dissolves your instruments after it’s dead and tries to eat or impregnate you while it’s alive. The colony on Acheron devoted itself frantically to such studies. It didn’t matter. The creatures wiped them out before they could learn anything. Unfortunately, their records were destroyed when the base fusion plant went critical. We know a little about them, just enough to make a few generalizations.
‘About all we can say with a reasonable degree of assurance is that they have a biosocial system crudely analogous to the social insects of Earth, like the ants and the bees and so forth. Beyond that, nobody knows anything. Their intelligence level is certainly much greater than that of any social arthropod, though at this point it’s hard to say whether they’re capable of higher reasoning as we know it. I’m almost certain they can communicate by smell. They may have additional perceptive capabilities we know nothing about.
‘They’re incredibly quick, strong, and tough. I personally watched one survive quite well in deep interstellar vacuum until I could fry it with an EEV’s engines.’
‘And it kills on sight and is generally unpleasant,’ Andrews finished for her. ‘So you claim. And of course you expect me to accept this entire fantastic story solely on your word.’
‘Right, sir,’ said Aaron q
uickly, ‘that’s a beauty. Never heard anything like it, sir.’
‘No, I don’t expect you to accept it,’ Ripley replied softly. ‘I’ve dealt with people like you before.’
Andrews replied without umbrage. ‘I’ll ignore that. Assuming for the moment that I accept the gist of what you’ve said, what would you suggest we do? Compose our wills and wait to be eaten?’
‘For some people that might not be a bad idea, but it doesn’t work for me. These things can be fought. They can be killed. What kind of weapons have you got?’
Andrews unlocked his fingers and looked unhappy. ‘This is a prison. Even though there’s nowhere for anyone to escape to on Fiorina, it’s not a good idea to allow prisoners access to firearms. Someone might get the idea they could use them to take over the supply shuttle, or some similar crackbrained idea. Removing weapons removes the temptations to steal and use them.’
‘No weapons of any kind?’
‘Sorry. This is a modern, civilized prison facility. We’re on the honour system. The men here, though extreme cases, are doing more than just paying their debts to society. They’re functioning as active caretakers. The Company feels that the presence of weapons would intimidate them, to the detriment of their work. Why do you think there are only two supervisors here, myself and Aaron? If not for the system, we couldn’t control this bunch with twenty supervisors and a complete arsenal.’ He paused thoughtfully.
‘There are some large carving knives in the abattoir, a few more in the mess hall and kitchen. Some fire axes scattered about. Nothing terribly formidable.’
Ripley slumped in her chair, muttering disconsolately. ‘Then we’re fucked.’
‘No, you’re fucked,’ the superintendent replied calmly. ‘Confined to the infirmary. Quarantined.’
She gaped at him. ‘But why?’
‘Because you’ve been a problem ever since you showed up here, and I don’t want that problem compounded. It’s my responsibility to deal with this now, whatever it is, and I’ll rest easier knowing where you are at all times. The men are going to be nervous enough as it is. Having you floating around at your leisure poking into places you shouldn’t will be anything but a stabilizing influence.’
‘You can’t do this. I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘I didn’t say that you had. I’m confining you for your own safety. I’m in charge here and I’m exercising my discretion as installation superintendent. Feel free to file an official complaint with a board of inquiry when you get back.’ He smiled paternally.
‘You’ll have it all to yourself, Lieutenant. I think you’ll be safe from any large nasty beasts while you’re there. Right? Yes, that’s a good girl. Mr. Aaron will escort you.’
Ripley rose. ‘You’re making a bad decision.’
‘Somehow I think I’ll manage to live with it. Aaron, after escorting the lieutenant to her new quarters, get going on organizing a search party. Fast. Right now all we have to go on is that babbling Golic. Boggs and Rains may only be injured and waiting for help.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘You’re all wrong on this, Andrews,’ Ripley told him. ‘All wrong. You’re not going to find anybody alive in those tunnels.’
‘We’ll see.’ He followed her with his eyes as his assistant guided her out.
* * *
She sat on the cot, sullen and angry. Clemens stood nearby, eyeing her. Aaron’s voice sounding over the intercom system made her look up.
‘Let’s all report to the mess hall. Mr. Andrews wants a meeting. Mess hall, right away, gang.’ A subtle electronic hum punctuated the second-in-command’s brief announcement.
Ripley looked over at the medical officer. ‘Isn’t there any way off Fiorina? An emergency service shuttle? Some damned way to escape?’
Clemens shook his head. ‘This is a prison now, remember? There’s no way out. Our supply ship comes once every six months.’
‘That’s it?’ She slumped.
‘No reason to panic. They are sending someone to pick you up and investigate this whole mess. Quite soon, I gather.’
‘Really? What’s soon?’
‘I don’t know.’ Clemens was clearly bothered by something other than the unfortunate Murphy’s death. ‘No one’s ever been in a hurry to get here before. It’s always the other way ’round. Diverting a ship from its regular run is difficult, not to mention expensive as hell. Do you want to tell me what you and Andrews talked about?’
She looked away. ‘No, I don’t. You’d just think I was crazy.’ Her attention wandered to the far corner where the catatonic Golic stood staring blankly at the wall. He looked a lot better since Clemens had cleaned him up.
‘That’s a bit uncharitable,’ the med tech murmured. ‘How are you feeling?’
Ripley licked her lips. ‘Not so hot. Nauseous, sick to my stomach. And pissed off.’
He straightened, nodding to himself. ‘Shock’s starting to set in. Not unexpected, given what you’ve been through recently. It’s a wonder you’re not over there sharing a blank wall with Golic.’ Walking over, he gave her a cursory examination, then headed for a cabinet, popped the catch, and began fumbling with the contents.
‘I’d best give you another cocktail.’
She saw him working with the injector. ‘No. I need to stay alert.’ Her eyes instinctively considered possible entrances: the air vents, the doorways. But her vision was hazy, her thoughts dulled.
Clemens came towards her, holding the injector in one hand. ‘Look at you. Call that alert? You’re practically falling over. The body’s a hell of an efficient machine, but it’s still just a machine. Ask too much of it and you risk overload.’
She shoved back a sleeve. ‘Don’t lecture me. I know when I’m pushing things. Just give me the stuff.’
The figure in the corner was mumbling aloud. ‘I don’t know why people blame me for things. Weird, isn’t it? It’s not like I’m perfect or something but, sweet William, I don’t see where some people come off always blaming others for life’s little problems.’
Clemens smiled. ‘That’s quite profound. Thank you, Golic.’ He filled the injector, checking the level.
As she sat there waiting to receive the medication she happened to glance in Golic’s direction and was surprised to see him grinning back at her. His expression was inhuman, devoid of thought—a pure idiot’s delight. She looked away distastefully, her mind on matters of greater import.
‘Are you married?’ the straitjacketed hulk asked unexpectedly.
Ripley started. ‘Me?’
‘You should get married.’ Golic was utterly serious. ‘Have kids… pretty girl. I know lots of ’em. Back home. They always like me. You’re gonna die too.’ He began to whistle to himself.
‘Are you?’ Clemens inquired.
‘What?’
‘Married.’
‘Why?’
‘Just curious.’
‘No.’ He came towards her, the injector hanging from his fingers. ‘How about levelling with me?’
He hesitated. ‘Could you be a little more specific?’
‘When I asked you how you got assigned here you avoided the question. When I asked you about the prison ID tattoo on the back of your head you ducked me again.’
Clemens looked away. ‘It’s a long sad story. A bit melodramatic, I’m afraid.’
‘So entertain me.’ She crossed her arms over her chest and settled back on the cot.
‘Well, my problem was that I was smart. Very smart. I knew everything, you see. I was brilliant and therefore thought I could get away with anything. And for a while I did.
‘I was right out of med school, during which time I had managed the extraordinary accomplishment of finishing in the top five per cent of my class despite having acquired what I confidently believed to be a tolerable addiction to Midaphine. Do you know that particular pharmaceutical?’
Ripley shook her head slowly.
‘Oh, it’s a lovely chain of peptides and such, it is. Makes
you feel like you’re invincible without compromising your judgement. It does demand that you maintain a certain level in your bloodstream, though. Clever fellow that I was, I had no trouble appropriating adequate supplies from whatever facility I happened to be working in at the time.
‘I was considered most promising, a physician-to-be of exceptional gifts and stamina, insightful and caring. No one suspected that my primary patient was always myself.
‘It happened during my first residency. The centre was delighted to have me. I did the work of two, never complained, was almost always correct in my diagnosis and prescriptions. I did a thirty-six-hour stretch in an ER, went out, got high as an orbital shuttle, was crawling into bed to lose myself in the sensation of floating all night, when the ’com buzzed.
‘A pressure unit had blown on the centre’s fuel station. Everyone they could get hold of was called in to help. Thirty seriously injured but only a few had to be sent to intensive care. The rest just needed quick but rote attention. Nothing complicated. Nothing a halfway competent intern couldn’t have managed. I figured I’d take care of it myself and then hiphead it back home before anyone noticed that I was awfully bright and cheery for someone who’d just been yanked out of the sack at three in the morning.’ He paused a moment to gather his thoughts.
‘Eleven of the thirty died when I prescribed the wrong dosage of painkiller. Such a small thing. Such a simple thing. Any fool could’ve handled it. Any fool. That’s Midaphine for you. Hardly ever affects your judgement. Only once in a while.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.
‘Don’t be.’ His expression was unforgiving. ‘No one else was. I got seven years in prison, lifetime probation, and my licence permanently reduced to a 3-C, with severe restrictions on what and where I could practise. While in prison I kicked my wonderful habit. Didn’t matter. Too many relatives around who remembered their dead. I never had a chance of getting the restrictions revised. I embarrassed my profession, and the examiners delighted in making an example of me. After that you can imagine how many outfits were eager to employ someone with my professional qualifications. So here I am.’