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Max had been MAX, just a machine. Ellis couldn't look at it now and think that; he'dbeen with Max,
shared consciousness with it. It was just a machine the way that a diamond was just a rock.
Ellis gazed up at its soulless face, thinking about the
predicament they were in now. Lara had worked up a story about having looped theTrader's log on a
locked channel before the explosion; she said that it was their only chance, that they could count on being
killed if they didn't stick together . . .
. . .the way Max and I were together . . .
Ellis smiled dreamily. He and Max couldn't join again, it would probably kill him, but the idea, the
memory was a comfort. Lara and Jess had been so wor-ried about him afterward, thinking that he
wouldn't re-cover, but it wasn't like that. He'd recovered, he just understood more now, about what it
meant not to be alone. About how dying wasn't so bad, when you'd been a part of something greater
than yourself
"What are you smiling about, kid?"
Ellis looked up at Jess and shook his head, still smiling. Jess was his friend, he was the man who'd led
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Max Ellis through the infestation, but he couldn't pos-sibly understand. Lara, either. They'd think he was
still . . . unwell.
"Nothing, really," he said. "Just how things change, you know?"
Jess smiled back, but Ellis could see that he was hesitant about it. "Yeah, sure. We almost die, survive,
almost die, survive again."
Ellis nodded. "And now we wait for the Company to finish the story."
Jess's smile disappeared. Ellis saw the cold spark in his dark eyes, his feelings about Weyland/Yutani
and what they'd done to his team an all-consuming rage. Ellis could see it as plainly as he could see that
Jess was trying to fight it.
"We keep to our story, they won't do anything," Jess said slowly, as if to reassure Ellis that they would
survive.
Ellis nodded again, and Jess walked stiffly away, back to where Lara was continuing her open hail. It
was sad, that Jess still carried so much pain . . .
Well. That was Jess's battle, not his.
Ellis turned back to gaze at Max, remembering how they'd blasted great, smoking holes through the alien
mass, how Max had saved him, how they had saved the others, 3017 rounds/121 Ml08 canister
grenades launched 17.57 liters napthal fuel ignited within the terminal space . . .
Max was silent. Ellis sat and remembered, for both of them.
The dizziness and nausea had been the worst, the blow to her head leaving her feeling out of touch with
her-self and her surroundings, but after a few hours' rest, she'd recovered. The rest of the damage was
minor: a twisted ankle, the back of her neck bruised, her abs as sore as if she'd performed a thousand
crunches. In an-other day or two, she'd be good as new.
Lucky me.
Noguchi stood at the door to the nest in the empty lower dock, staring in at the captive queen, not
feeling much of anything. A sadness, perhaps. The last of the transports had departed, gone for the Hunt;
there were only eleven yautja still on board, shipworkers all, and the giantShell felt as empty and hollow
as she did.
The Hunt would go on into the early-morning hours; she'd already decided to speak to Topknot when
he returned, after the Hunters' feast. Considering the nomadic nature of the Hunter culture, she had no
doubts that they'd be passing a human outpost within a few weeks. She wouldn't be treated very well in
the time she had left with them, but she'd fought compe-tently enough to hold her head up. Besides, she'd
got-ten used to being treated poorly . . .
"But you're not, are you," she said softly, putting her hand on the window, looking at the giant,
unmov-ing darkness strapped to the back wall. It was the first time she'd been down to see the
imprisoned queen since her narrow escape from the nest, and she didn't like what she saw. There was a
single shaft of puny light shining down over the trapped mother, casting
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most of her in deep shadow. All of her impossibly strong limbs, shackled. Her tiered, lustrous comb,
chained back. And most depressing, the thick cord strung between her outer jaws, gagging her.
The queen was tightly tied, the only real move-ment that of the eggs sliding through the short,
mem-branous sac that she'd created only hours after being placed; eggs that were deposited onto a
weight-triggered conveyer belt and moved to the side, ready to be loaded into a remote and sent off to
some distant world.
In spite of her general dislike of drama, Noguchi found herself trying to draw some analogy between
herself and the queen, perhaps because looking at the trapped animal made her feel the same vague
sadness she felt for herself. They were both female. Both out of their element. Hindered warriors, maybe.
Beaten down by the Hunters, surely . . .
. . .but not anymore, not for me.
She couldn't watch any longer, it was like watch-ing an insect impaled on a pin, dying slowly. Noguchi [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]