And they had also climbed over the thing that took up much of the cavern’s floor.
Ripley found it difficult to judge just how huge the place was. There was no point of reference. The thing inside the cavern was so unknown, so mysterious, that it could have been the size of her shuttle or on the scale of the Marion. At a rough guess she would have put the cave at two hundred yards across, but it could have been less, and perhaps it was much, much more. She thought the object was some sort of carved feature, hewn from the base rock long, long ago.
She had the impression that it had once been very sharp, defined, each feature clear and obvious. But over time the structure had softened. Time had eroded it, and it was as if she looked through imperfect eyes at something whose edges had been smoothed over the millennia.
She heard the others dropping down behind her, sensed them gathering around her and Hoop. They gasped.
“Oh, no,” Kasyanov said, and Ripley was surprised at the wretchedness her voice contained. Surely they should have been feeling wonder. This was amazing, incredible, and she couldn’t look at the structure without feeling a sense of deep awe.
Then behind her, Lachance spoke and changed everything.
“It’s a ship,” he said.
“What?” Ripley gasped. She hadn’t even considered that possibility. Buried almost a mile beneath the planet’s surface, surely this couldn’t be anything but a building, a temple of some sort, or some other structure whose purpose was more obscure.
“Down here?” Hoop said. There was silence again as they all looked with different eyes.
And Ripley knew that Lachance was right.
She was certain that not all of the object was visible—it quite obviously projected beyond the edges of the cavern in places—but there were features that were beginning to make sense, shapes and lines that might only be of use in a vessel built to fly. The entire left half of the exposed surface might have been a wing, curving down in a graceful parabola, projections here and there seemingly swept back for streamlining. There were cleared areas that might have been entrance gantries or exhaust ducts, and where the object’s higher surfaces rose from the wing, Ripley could see a line of hollows seemingly punched into the curved shell.
“It’s not like any I’ve ever seen before,” Lachance said quietly, as if afraid his voice might echo out to the ship. “And I’m not sure. But the more I see, the more certain I become.” No wisecracks now. No casual quips. He was as awestruck as the rest of them.
“The miners went close,” Hoop said. “They strung those lights up and all across it.”
“But we’re not going to make the same mistake, right?” Baxter said. “They went closer, and look what happened to them!”
“Amazing,” Sneddon whispered. “I should be…” She took a small camera from her hip pocket and started filming.
“But how can it be all the way down here?” Kasyanov asked.
“You’ve seen enough of this planet,” Hoop said. “The storms, the winds, the moving sands. This looks old. Maybe it was buried long ago. Ages… ten thousand years. Sank down into the sand, and storms covered it up. Or perhaps there was some way down here, a long time back. Maybe this is the bottom of a valley that’s long-since been filled in. Whatever… it’s here.”
“Let’s go,” Baxter said. “Let’s get the hell—”
“There’s no sign of those aliens,” Hoop said.
“Not yet, no! But this must be where they came from.”
“Baxter…” Kasyanov started, but she trailed off. She couldn’t take her eyes off the massive object. Whatever it was, it might have been the most amazing thing any of them had ever seen.
“Ripley, is this anything like the one your guys found?” Hoop asked.
“Don’t think so,” she said. “I wasn’t on the ground team that went there, I only saw some of the images their suit cameras transmitted. But no, I don’t think so. That ship was large, but this…” She shook her head. “This looks enormous! It’s on a much different scale.”
“It’s the find of the century,” Sneddon said. “Really. This planet’s going to become famous. We’ll be famous.”
“You’re shitting me!” Baxter replied. “We’ll be dead!”
“There,” Lachance said, pointing across the cavern. “Look, where it rises up into what might be the… fuselage, or the main body of the ship. Toward the back. Do you see?”
“Yeah,” Ripley said. “Damage. Maybe an explosion.” The area Lachance had pointed toward was more ragged than the rest, smooth flowing lines turned into a tattered mess, tears across the hull, and a hollow filled only with blackness. Even this rough, wrecked area had been smoothed somewhat over time. Dust had settled, sand had drifted against torn material, and everything looked blurred.
“Seriously, I think we should get back,” Baxter said. “Get ourselves away from here, and when we reach home, report everything. They’ll send an expedition. Colonial Marines, that’s who need to come here. People with big guns.”
“I agree,” Kasyanov said. “Let’s go. This isn’t for us. We’re not meant to be here.”
Ripley nodded, still unable to take her eyes from the sight, remembering the horrors of her waking nightmares.
“They’re right,” she said. She remembered her crew’s voices as they’d approached that strange extraterrestrial ship, their undisguised wonder. It had quickly turned to dread. “We should leave.”
And then they heard the noise behind them. Back through the tumbled section of cavern wall, from where they’d just dropped down. Back in the tunnels.
A long, low hiss. Then a screech, like sharp nails across stone.
A many-legged thing, running.
“Oh, no,” Kasyanov said. She turned and aimed her plasma torch at the hole they’d climbed down through.
“No, wait—!” Hoop said, but it was too late. Kasyanov pulled the trigger and a new sun burst around them.
Ripley fell back, a hand clasping into her collar. The others retreated, too, and the plasma burst forged up through the crack, rocks rebounding, heat shimmering the air all around in flowing waves. Ripley squinted against the blazing light, feeling heat surging around them, stretching her exposed skin, shriveling hair.
She tripped and fell back, landing on Hoop where he had already fallen. She rolled aside and ended up on her stomach beside him. They stared into each other’s faces. She saw a brief desperation there—wide eyes, and a sad mouth—and then a sudden reaffirming of his determination.
She stood behind him as Kasyanov backed away from what she had done. The plasma torch emanated heat, its inbuilt coolant system misting spray around the barrel. Before them, the rocks glowed red, dripping, melted, but they were already cooling into new shapes. Heat haze made the cavern’s wall seem still fluid, but Ripley could hear the rocks clicking and cracking as they solidified once more.
The crack they had crawled through was all but gone, swathes of rock melted down across it and forming a new wall.
“We can hit it again, melt through!” Baxter said. “Kasyanov and me, we can use both of the plasma torches to—”
“No,” Sneddon said. “Didn’t you hear what was through there?”
“She fried it!” Baxter protested.
“Wait,” Ripley said, holding up a hand and stepping closer.
The heat radiating from the stone was tremendous, almost taking her breath away. Though she could hear the sounds of it cooling, and the whispered bickering behind her, she also heard something else. The opening back up into the mine was now almost non-existent, just a few cracks, and if she hadn’t known it was there she wouldn’t have been able to find it. But sound traveled well.