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"You'll be landing on Deck Seven, ETA four min-utes. Please remain aboard until we've had a chance to
verify your status; we'll let you know when you've been cleared."
Lara frowned, her gut sinking. "Mr. Vincent, I can assure you that "
"Over and out," he said. The 'com went dead.
Ellis looked pale. "What does that mean?" he asked. "Are they do we have to wait until they call one
of the home offices? Find out who we are?"
"It means they already have," Jess said, his voice tight with anger. He glared out at the growing station,
his upper lip curled. "They don't want us wandering around, telling people what really happened.
Probably gonna feed us some bullshit line about quarantine."
"But it's standard protocol, isn't it?" Ellis asked. "Us coming from an infected area?"
Jess laughed, a humorless bark. "Yeah, right. We don't have sleep capacity, they'd know that. For
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Chris-sake, if one of us was dorked and corked, we'd all be wiped by now."
They fell into an uneasy silence as the shuttle low-ered itself over LZ Seven, the station giant now that
they were so close, Lara keeping her hands on the con-trols in case the program glitched. Jess was right,
Bunda wasn't worried about infection which could only mean that someone, Grigson maybe, had sent
word. They were the sole survivors from an infested DS terminal, the only witnesses to a terrible mistake
made by Weyland/Yutani, and there was no way the Com-pany was going to let them walk. What was
the old saying? Out of the frying pan, into the fire . . .
As soon as the shuttle touched down, Jess stood and walked to the side hatch, talking back over his
shoulder.
"We can't get off, but they didn't say anything about opening the door, did they?"
Before Lara or Ellis could move, Jess had hit the lock panel, jabbing at the controls determinedly. The
thick metal door raised with a hiss and warm air flooded in, warm and almost overwhelmingly fragrant. It
smelled of soil and vegetation, of sun-warmed life, of jungle rot. It was exquisite, and Lara and Ellis both
stood and moved toward the open hatch, Lara feeling a reflexive need to breathe it in. She didn't notice
that Jess had frozen, gazing out into the sunny morning with a look of disgust on his unshaven face.
"I guess they really don't want us to get off," he said softly.
Lara and Ellis stood on either side of him, looking at the six men and women standing some ten meters
away, standing near a fuel hatch. Their expressions were grim, their bodies tensed their hands
white-knuckled on the carbine rifles they held, pointed at the open door of the shuttle.
At us.
The half dozen "guards" didn't move, didn't speak; they didn't have to. She and Jess and Ellis were
prison-ers, and would be until the Company decided what was to be done with them. And in that
second, realizing that the situation was only going to get worse, an idea that had been gradually forming in
Lara's tired mind fi-
nally took shape. It was so obvious that she could hardly believe it hadn't already occurred to her.
"Jess, Ellis. Back away from the door, slowly. We have to talk."
TheTrader's log had been destroyed, along with theTrader, the space station, their ship but the
Company didn't know that. If they did, she and the boys would be dead already.
And as long as they think we might have something they want . . .
Slowly, hands raised, the three of them moved away from the hatch, away from the light, the hope that
Lara had felt at the sight of the beautiful world re-born as the idea solidified, the details falling into place.
If they played it right, there was a chance that they could walk away, after all.
Noguchi was in her quarters, sitting on her rumpled bed and lost in thought. The Hunt would begin soon,
probably as soon as dusk fell over the planetShell was orbiting. Most of the eggs would have hatched by
now, the face-hugging embryo carriers finding incubators, the aliens born in crunches of blood and bone.
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They were much more active at night, on worlds that had night; most Hunts started when the day star set
over the seeded planet. Even now, as the bugs began their violent domination of their new home, the
Hunters would be arguing over the best sites, working through the rankings for each group of warriors,
and planning path direction; Hunts usually started scattered, but al-most always ended with all of the
groups meeting at a predesignated site the better to display their bloody trophies, to count losses, and
step up in caste.
The problem was, she didn't know if she could Hunt this time. Seeing the human trophy carried by the
young Leader had shaken her, thrown her off-balance in a way that she hadn't expected. How would she
be able to find the focus she'd need to Hunt? The damage that had been done to her respect for the
yautja was
deep, and probably irreparable. She was afraid to leave, to go back to a way of life she didn't really
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