Michael Wayland sat at his desk, his steepled fingers touching the tip of his mouth. He could still feel a dull pain from the stitches placed to pull his damaged ear back in place. Outside his office, through the porthole to the left, the orb of Fury 161 hung like a bloody orange in the night-dark sky. He had hardly spoken a word since he had left the leadworks on the planet.
There was a rap on his door, and in a raspy voice he murmured, "Come in."
The door slip open, revealing a man clad in a silver environmental suit. His helmet was off, revealing a black-haired, bespectacled Filipino. Michael straightened at the man's appearance and the individual confidently strode into the room, bearing an old and coffee-stained manila folder.
He laid it on the desk before Michael and took a step back, assuming a casual military stance. Michael pulled the folder towards himself, reaching at a nearby set of glasses. He placed them on the rim of his nose as he drew up the folder and examined it.
"What is this, Abian?" he queried, opening it and glancing at the fragile, aging color spectrographs within. He grunted, noticing they were not in electronic form, and obviously rather old.
"These are spectrographic readings from 2004," Abian stated. "You'll want to take a look at the last few pages."
"Why bring these to me?" Michael asked, shuffling through the papers.
"Sir, those are spectrographic readings taken from the waters off Bouvetoya Isle on Earth. It's a forgettable place, a paltry thousand miles from Antarctica. However, those readings have a match to those taken from the subject in the EEV," Abian noted.
Michael stopped at the words, and looked up from the papers. "You mean?" he paused as realization set in. "But how is that possible? They were still working on the International Space Station back around then, not even a mission to Mars yet."
"I can fill you in on the details if you really want to know," Abian half grinned, to which Michael gave a dismissive wave. Abian nodded at the expected response, and continued, "I ordered a more recent scan before bringing this to you, and the results are far more positive than I could have hoped," he stated.
Michael cocked his head slightly. "How so?" he asked.
"It's still intact," he smiled.
Michael practically jumped to his feet, letting the papers fall to his desk. "That's incredible," he stated, "After 175 years, it is still there – in one piece?"
"Exactly," Abian hissed. "Despite the elapsed time and that it lies at the bottom of a trench several thousand feet deep, it appears to over 90% intact."
Michael pursed his lips as he calculated for a moment. "It's amazing it wasn't discovered earlier and retrieved; the technology to do so has been available for years," Before Abian could expound on the matter, Michael queried, "We have an undersea facility in the area, if I recall correctly?" Abian nodded, and Michael ordered, "Have the specimen brought there for examination. Then we need to prepare to return to Earth. I want to see this with my own eyes," he stated.
Abian nodded again, turned to leave, and then asked, "Sir, what about the double-Y chromosome criminal we retrieved from the Fiorina 161 facility?"
"No need to waste potential resources," Michael shrugged. "We can deposit him at the facility. I'm sure we'll find a use for him," after a moment's thought, he stated, "Have him prepared for integration; we can't have him babbling about this even inadvertently to anyone – not that any would likely believe him."
"Very good, sir, I'll have that done right away," he stated, making a notation on his personal pad. "We've also received communication from an interstellar drydock that the Sulaco was intercepted not far from this sector," Abian added, "There is a team investigating – we may be able to intercept and recover the vessel. There is a remote possibility lesser specimens or trace goods may still be aboard her."
Michael nodded. "Very good," he murmured, "I suppose we can remain here for a few more hours until we receive confirmation," He said aloud. "Let me know if anything is discovered."
Abian nodded in understanding, then ushered himself out the door. Once Abian had left the room, Michael dared a smile. This was the best news in the past few weeks, despite all the recent setbacks. He was now less disturbed by the loss of his last specimen; there was still a chance to examine an entire, intact specimen of the elusive third species he had been investigating. With luck, the find should be able to recoup the losses caused by his junior assistant's mistakes on Acheron. He winced slightly at memory of his assistant's inability to control the situation, and in turn her – he had been right that her story was true, but from reviewing the EEV's logs the young man had evidentially overstated his ability to control her in retrieving the specimens.
It would be nearly two weeks to return home to examine the specimen, but his eagerness at the prospect of examining the specimen was so great he was not sure he would be able to settle easily into a two-week hypersleep. To both celebrate his upcoming success and to calm himself back down, he slipped to the locked cabinet behind his desk and, after inserting the key into the lock, opened it to reveal a host of knick-knacks collected over the lifetime of several of his forbearers.
Reaching behind the formaldehyde-filled glass jar on the middle shelf that bore an unusually large six-fingered hand, Michael located the bottle of scotch placed there prior to their launch. While he had hoped to use it for a grander toast, he felt Abian's news was worth breaking the bottle out. It had sentimental value to him – MacDonald, the former head of Weyland-Yutani, had presented it to him when a Weyland had once again reached the upper echelons after nearly eighty years in non-family hands. He was quite proud of that coup, and that the humbled MacDonald had presented it just prior to his forced "retirement" had made it all the sweeter. The recent loss of capital and materials at Acheron, as well as the loss of the potential specimen at Fury 161 had put a stumbling block before him as far as advancing in the company. He had dreaded what he would be facing in an internal board review inquiry back on Earth. However, with the logs recovered from the EEV, his deceased, overeager assistant would make an excellent scapegoat and to top it off, Abian's find had rekindled the hope
With the bottle retrieved, he turned back to his seat and slipped a glass out from one of the drawers, leaving the well-oiled pistol that accompanied it lying within. Then, after removing the wrapping off the bottle, he poured himself a fourth of a glass of whiskey and took a moment to uncharacteristically slip his booted feet onto the synthetic mahogany table.
He rose the glass and shone it at the porthole, the whiskey's orange-red color almost matching the bloody color of the moon beyond the tempered glass. "Sorry old girl," he spoke to the phantom shade he himself could see reflected in the glass, "but I'm afraid I still win."
