Alien: Out the Shadows

“We’re keeping a close eye on things,” Hoop said, nodding. “The image we showed you is the last we’ve seen inside the Samson. But it’s safe.”

“Safe,” Ripley said, trying the word. On this dying ship it seemed so out of place.

Hoop led the way, and at the end of a corridor they turned to go right. He nodded to the left, where a heavy bulkhead door had been welded shut with a dri-metal seal. “The Delilah crashed into the ship through there, taking out Bays One and Two. We were lucky the fuel cell didn’t rupture, but we had to cut it loose afterward. It was snagged on the wrecked superstructure, wrapped up a load of other tattered ship parts. Me, Welford, and Powell went out there and spent three hours with cutting torches. Shoved it aside. When we came back inside we watched for an hour while it floated away.”

“And this way?” Ripley asked, pointing right. They continued, and she noticed Hoop taking a tighter grip on the plasma torch.

“Bay Three’s through there,” he said, nodding toward a door. Its control panel had been removed and wires and connectors hung loose.

“What’s with that?” Ripley asked.

“No way of opening it without fixing the controls.”

“Or smashing the door down.”

“That’s six-inch triple-layered polymer-inlaid steel,” Hoop said. “And there are three more doors and a vented airlock between here and the Samson.”

Ripley only nodded. But the word “safe” still eluded her.

“Come on,” Hoop said. “Your shuttle’s through here.”

Ripley was surprised at how comforted she felt, ducking through Bay Four’s open airlock and entering the Narcissus. She had no good memories of the vessel— only of the alien, and her terror that it would take her, too. But Jonesy was there, snuggled up in the open stasis pod as if still in hypersleep. And there were memories of the Nostromo and her crew. Dead for almost four decades, now, but to Ripley it felt like yesterday.

Parker, slaughtered on the floor. Lambert, hanging where the alien had slung her after ripping a hole through her face. All that blood.

“You okay?” Hoop asked.

Ripley nodded. Then she moved through the cramped shuttle and sat in the pilot’s seat. She was aware of Hoop walking, slowly, around the shuttle as she ran her fingers across the keyboard and initiated the computer. Mother was gone, but the Narcissus’s computers still had a similarly constructed interface, designed so that the user felt as if they were actually talking to a friend. With technologies that could make an android like Ash, it had always seemed strange to Ripley giving a faceless computer a human voice.

She entered her access code. Morning, Narcissus, she typed. The reply appeared onscreen.

Good morning, Warrant Officer Ripley.

Request reason for Narcissus’s change of course.

Information withheld.

“Huh,” Ripley said.

“Everything okay?” Hoop asked. He was examining the stasis pod she’d spent so long in, stroking Jonesy who was slinking back and forth with his back arched, tail stretched. He might well have been the oldest cat in the galaxy.

“Sure,” she replied.

Hoop nodded, glanced toward the computer screen, and then started looking around the rest of the shuttle’s interior.

Request records of incoming signals received over the past one thousand days. Ripley expected a streaming list of information—space was filled with beamed communications, and most ship’s computers logged and discarded them if they were not relevant.

That information also withheld.

Request replay of distress signal received from Deep Space Mining Orbital Marion.

That information also withheld.

“Fuck you very much,” Ripley muttered as she typed, Because of Special Order 937?

That reference does not compute.

Emergency Command Override 100375.

I’m afraid that Override code is no longer valid.

Ripley frowned. Tapped her fingers beside the keyboard. Stared at the words on the screen. Even Mother had never communicated in such a conversational tone. And this was just the shuttle’s computer. Weird.

Request data of timescales and travel distances since Nostromo’s detonation?

That data unavailable.

Unavailable or withheld?

The computer did not reply.

Such evasiveness wasn’t possible from this machine. Not on its own. It was a functional system, not an AI like Mother. And Mother was gone.