Kasyanov shouted something, Garcia held her down, and another sharp pain bit into the back of her hand.
But even as everything faded away, there was no peace to be found.
“She knew what they were,” Hoop said.
They were back on the bridge. Kasyanov and Garcia had remained in med bay to keep Ripley under observation, with orders to call him back down the moment she stirred. He wanted to be there for her. Such an ordeal she’d suffered, and now she’d woken into something worse.
Besides that, she might be able to help.
“Maybe she’ll know how to kill them,” Baxter said.
“Maybe,” Hoop said. “Maybe not. At the very least, she recognized them from that.” He nodded at the monitor. It held the final image they’d gleaned from the Samson’s internal camera. Then they’d lost contact, thirty days ago.
Jones had been long-dead by then. The things had dragged him back into the passenger hold and killed him. They’d grown into dark, shadowy shapes that none of them could quite make out. The size of a person, maybe even larger, the four shapes remained all but motionless. It made them even more difficult to see on the badly lit image.
Baxter scrolled back through the views of Bay Three— images they’d all come to know so well. The trio of cameras Welford and Powell had set up showed the same as ever—no movement, no sign of disturbance. The doors remained locked and solid. Microphones picked up no noise. They’d lost view of the inside of Samson, but at least they could still keep watch.
And if those things did smash through the doors, and burst out of the docking bay? They had a plan. But none of them had much faith in it.
“I’ll go and see how Powell and Welford are getting on,” Hoop said. “Shout if there’s anything from med bay.”
“Why do you think she came here?” Baxter said.
“I’m not sure she knows.” Hoop picked up the plasma torch he’d taken to carrying, slung it over his shoulder, and left the bridge.
The torch was a small, handheld version, used in the mines for melting and hardening sand deposits. The biggest ones they had down there ran on rails, and were used for forming the solid walls of new mine shafts— blast the sand, melt it, and it hardened again into ten-inch-thick slabs. The smaller torches could be wielded by a miner to fix breaches.
Or, Hoop thought, to drive away unwanted guests.
He didn’t know if it would work, and he’d seen the effects when one had been discharged in the Delilah. But in the larger confines of Marion, if one of those things came at him, he’d be ready.
Sneddon was in the science lab. She spent a lot of time in there now, and sometimes when Hoop paid her a visit he felt as if he was intruding. She’d always been a quiet woman, and quietly attractive, and Hoop had often enjoyed talking to her about the scientific aspects of their work. She’d once worked for Weyland-Yutani on one of their research bases orbiting Proxima Centauri. Though she didn’t work directly for them any more, the company still funded science officers on many ships, and for any sub-divisional company who wanted them. The funding was very generous, and it would often go a large way toward bankrolling a mission.
He liked Sneddon. He liked her dedication to her work, and her apparent love of it. It’s an endless, wonderful playground out there, she’d said once when he asked her what she hoped to find. Anything is possible.
Now Sneddon’s childlike imagination had taken a hit.
At the same time, Hoop’s childhood dreams had found reality.
When he reached the lab, Sneddon was sitting on a stool at the large central island. There were a couple of tablet computers in front of her, and a steaming mug of coffee. She held her head in her hands, elbows resting on the counter top.
“Hey,” Hoop said.
She looked up, startled.
“Oh. Didn’t hear you.”
“Everything cool?”
Sneddon smiled softly. “Despite the fact that we’re slowly spiraling to our deaths, set to crash on a lifeless sand-hell of a planet? Yes, everything’s cool.”
He smiled wryly.
“So what do you think about Ripley?”
“It’s obvious she’s seen these things before,” Sneddon replied, a frown wrinkling her forehead. “Where, how, when, why, I haven’t got the faintest clue. But I’d like to talk to her.”
“If you think it’ll help.”
“Help?” Sneddon asked. She looked confused.
“You know what I mean,” Hoop said. He laid the plasma torch gently on the bench.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” she said, smiling. “I know you’re in charge, and I’m pretty sure I know what you’ve been thinking these past few days.”
“Do you, now?” Hoop asked, amused. He liked that she smiled. There were far too few smiles nowadays.
“Escape pods,” Sneddon said. “Maybe try to regulate their nav computers, land within walking distance of each other and the mine.”
Hoop drummed his fingers on the bench.
“Reach there together, there’ll be enough food and supplies down there for a couple of years.”
“And those things, too.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” Hoop said.
“With that?” Sneddon said, nudging the plasma torch. Her bitter laugh wiped the smile from her face.
“There might not be any more things down there at all. They might have all come up on the Delilah.”
“Or there might be a dozen, or more.” Sneddon stood and started pacing. “Think about it. They were hatching from the miners. We saw that. Just… breaking out of them. Implanted by those things attached to their faces, perhaps. I don’t know. But if that is the case, we have to assume that anyone left behind was infected.”
“Sixteen on the Delilah. Six on the Samson.”
Sneddon nodded.
“So eighteen left in the mine,” Hoop said.
“I’d rather go down on the Marion,” Sneddon said, “if it came to that. But now it doesn’t have to.”
“You know something I don’t?”
“No, but maybe I’m thinking about things in a different way.”
Hoop frowned, held out his hands.
“And?”
“Her shuttle. It’s a deep space shuttle! Used for short-distance transfers of personnel, or as a long-term lifeboat.”
“And one stasis pod for nine of us.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sneddon said. “Look.” She slid one of the tablets across to Hoop. At first he didn’t really understand what he was seeing. It was an old, old image of a lifeboat. Lost at sea back on Earth, crammed with survivors, a sail rigged from shirts and broken oars, wretched people hanging over the side, or eating fish, or squeezing drinking water from hastily rigged moisture catchers.
“Today, I’m stupid,” Hoop said. “In charge, yes. But stupid. So just tell me.”
“One stasis pod between the nine of us,” Sneddon said. “But we pack the shuttle with as many supplies as we can. Program a course toward Earth, or at the very least the outer rim. Fire the engines until the fuel’s out and we’re traveling as fast as we can. A good proportion of light speed. Then… take turns in the stasis pod.”
“Take turns?” he said. “She’s been drifting out there for thirty-seven years!”
“Yeah, but something’s very wrong with that. I haven’t checked yet, but the shuttle computer must have malfunctioned.”
“There was no indication of that when I checked its log.”
“You didn’t go deep enough, Hoop. The point is, we can survive like that. Six months at a time, one of us in stasis, eight others… surviving.”