Alien: The Official Movie Novelization by Alan Dean Foster

Author:Alan Dean Foster [Foster, Alan Dean]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2014-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

VIII

The coffee soothed their stomachs if not their brains. Around them the Nostromo functioned smoothly, uninterested in the deceased alien stasised in the infirmary. Familiar hums and smells filled the bridge.

Dallas recognized some of the odours as issuing from various members of the crew. He took no offence at them, merely sniffed once or twice in recognition. Such fineries as deodorant were neither missed nor taken exception to on a ship the size of the Nostromo. Imprisoned in a metal bottle light-years from warm worlds and sanitized atmospheres, the crew’s wakened minds were occupied by more important matters than the effluvia of one’s neighbour.

Ripley looked troubled still.

‘What’s eating you? Still simmering over Ash’s decision to open the lock and let us back in?’

Her voice was tight with frustration. ‘How could you leave that kind of decision to him?’

‘I told you,’ he explained patiently. ‘It was my decision to bring Kane in, not… oh, you mean about keeping the corpse of the alien?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s too late to argue about the lock. I might’ve been wrong on that. But keeping that thing on board, dead or not, after what it’s done to Kane.’

He tried to mollify her. ‘We don’t know for sure that it’s done anything to Kane except knock him out. According to the readouts there’s nothing else wrong with him.

‘As to retaining it on board, I just run this ship. I’m only a pilot.’

‘You’re the captain.’

‘A title of last resort, one that means nothing in specified situations. Parker can overrule me on a point of engineering. On anything that has to do with the science division, Ash has the final word.’

‘And how does that happen?’ She sounded more curious than bitter, now.

‘Same way that everything else happens. On orders from the Company. Read your own directory.’

‘Since when is it standard procedure?’

He was getting a touch exasperated. ‘Come on, Ripley. This isn’t a military vessel. You know as well as I that standard procedure is what they tell you to do. That principle includes the independence of different departments, like science. If I believed otherwise, I’m not sure I would’ve set down here.’

‘What’s the matter? Visions of discovery bonuses fading before the spectre of a dead man?’

‘You know better than that,’ he said sharply. ‘There isn’t a bonus large enough to trade for Kane’s good health. Too late for that, now. We’re here, and it’s happened.

‘Look, ease up on me, will you? I just haul cargo for a living. If I wanted to be a real explorer and go gallivanting off after discovery bonuses, I would’ve joined the Rim Corps. Gotten my head torn off at least half a dozen times by now. Glory… no thanks. Not for me. I’ll settle for having my executive officer back again.’

She didn’t reply this time, sat silently for several minutes. When she spoke the next time, the bitterness was gone. ‘You and Kane been together on many flights?’

‘Enough to know each other.’ Dallas kept his voice level, eyes on his console.

‘What about Ash?’

‘You going to start in on that again?’ He sighed.

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