"How long have I slept?" Elizabeth said, groggily rubbing her eyes.

"Five hours and thirty-four minutes. I hope it was enough."

It would have to do. Sleep was a luxury she could scarcely afford under the new circumstances, and every fiber in her body knew it. She slowly raised to her feet, blinking hard, hoping to clear the fog away. "And the ship?"

"As before. I've tried some start cycles but normal operation can't be sustained."

"Then what can we do, David?"

"From here, not much more. Still, we might be able to restore primary power from the engine room. Superluminal travel is, I'm afraid, beyond what we can repair, but at least there's a chance you won't freeze to death."

"I see." She started walking, caressing a cryo-pod as she passed it by. If her journey were to take longer, and it now seemed that it would, the cryo-pod was the only way she would live through it. She stopped, and briefly turned her head toward the cargo hold door.

"Ah," David interjected, "I kept that part of the ship locked tight, obviously."

"Good."

Elizabeth helped him out. There had been no time to fully reattach David to his body, and while some fluency had returned to his movement, it was simply the best he could do while partially operational. Not always good enough.

She placed the re-breather helmet on her head, hopefully an unnecessary precaution, but one she felt she could not do without. Beyond the dim glow of the control room was the rest, the most, of the ship- her prison. She had little fondness for it when its sickly blue shimmer made sure that every strange crevice, every tentacle in the wall, every grotesque ornamentation was clearly seen and vividly remembered. She liked it even less now that the only reliable lights were her torch and helmet, tiny illuminated spots, leaving the rest to dark imagination.

And yet, it was this demented cell that kept her safe from cold endlessness. It had only wanted one thing, that she be its pilot. Since she had failed, it was now lifting its protection. It was up to another ailing machine, the shambling android by her side, to convince it that the verdict had been premature.

David. The same machine that killed her lover, the same machine that wanted her to keep an abomination in her womb, the same machine that brought death upon his maker. He told her he would hate to see her hurt, and despite it all she chose to believe him. There comes a time when the improbable must be embraced, because all other options are impossible to live with. She never trusted the ship and yet in all the weeks that she had traveled she had to breathe its air and drink its rations, or else she'd die. She had to trust David, or else ...

Or else she'd have despaired. It was David that had saved her from that. Her soul was precious, he said. He said he wanted one of his own; something he could never have, his creator had decreed. No pain, no pleasure, both dismissed as "vulnerabilities"; no feelings but hatred. Did she believe there was a hell waiting for him, he asked her. Damn Weyland for toying with creation; but David, what soul could he hope to get? How does one go about creating such a thing?

They reached the engine room, where her fate would be decided by the congress of the two machines. Elizabeth sometimes helped David if his strength or dexterity were lacking, but for the most part it was him doing the prodding, the probing, the disassembly. He worked fast and from what she could read on his face, he was actually getting somewhere. Her suit beeped a warning- radiation. It prompted her to interrupt him. "Any progress?"

"Yes. There are things in here that I recognize, they are quite common." He smiled. "Or at least, not unheard of on Earth. Your Engineers still find use for nuclear material."

"So there's a chance you can restore power to the ship?"

"From what I can tell, there are small nuclear batteries all along the engine, but they seem meant to kick-start something else. From what you told me you have seen, it is at the ends of the ship that the problem is located."

"Then that's where we'll go."

They stooped through an access vent, the torus of the engine close by their side. When Elizabeth had been exploring this region, soon after her departure from LV-223, it had been as well lit as the rest of the ship; now there really was no other light but what she had brought with her. Or rather, almost no other light.

It was a distant orange spark in the corner of her eye that caught her attention. Turning her torch toward the spot revealed nothing; it looked normal from where she stood. She turned the torch away. Again an orange spark, from the same place, and this time she waited, leaving it in darkness so that the torchlight wouldn't drown it out. Another spark.

"David, did you see that?"

"Yes. It's likely nothing, but I suggest a cautious approach."

His reply, though meant to be reassuring, only told her that he had no idea what the thing was. She traced lines on the floor and walls with her torch, looking for anomalies, checking for things to avoid stepping in. It all seemed clear, and as normal as an alien ship could be. Except there, the orange spark.

And as she approached it she realized that it was not normal at all.

Now close to her, the spark could shine through the torchlight. It came from a slimy, black spot in the floor, a sick amorphous growth among the metal incrustations, tiny black filaments its only ornament. It moved. Very slowly but there was no mistaking it. It moved, eating its way through the floor, dissolving its features, breaking everything up into smaller and smaller pellets that it seemed to consume, generating the sparks as it did so, and leaving behind a thin metallic trail that stretched to the wall and beyond.

"Oh God! Is that-"

"I think it started life as a mold spore." He used a compressor in his throat to inhale, another function Weyland must have tossed in just to keep options open. He used the same compressor to exhale violently. "It also appears to be generating spores as we speak."

"Oh God! We must kill it!"

David did not respond. He cocked his head examining the mutated mold as it slowly crawled on the floor. It seemed to hit some power transmission wire, as the electric jolt made it reel back and vomit its metallic dejections, as well as pieces of black filament, onto the offending floor segment, before resuming its ponderous motion. Toward the engine.

"David, how can we kill these things before they destroy the ship?"

"I am not sure about that, Elizabeth."

She didn't wait for his response. How she longed for a flamethrower now, and decontamination gases, and vats of acid - though it was doubtful those would be useful against something that ate through metallic and ceramic floors. But there was another force of destruction right beside her. She clawed at the engine's torus, her hands tracing the movements she had seen David perform as he had opened it minutes before. She knew that inside there would be radioactive material. She plucked what looked like a promising piece out, her suit dutifully warning her of an increase in radiation levels.

"Elizabeth, stop, that isn't ... "

The radioactive piece fell into the monstrous slime, which eagerly embraced it in its dissolving grasp, consuming it with its acidic juices, incorporating its substance into its own. And slowly dying.

"... meant to work that way."

He knelt alongside the former monster, curiosity on his face. The slime had ceased moving, its filaments were breaking up, and whatever could once be called its body was degenerating into a mere puddle. He dipped the tip of a finger in it, and the trail of liquid turned into a thin radioactive metallic film as he lifted it.

"It's dead. At least that thing is dead now."

"Yes, it is quite dead." He lifted his head to peer into the darkness of the corridor before them. "-This- one is dead."

Tell-tale orange sparks scintillated in the gloom. A horde of them, and they seemed to be approaching, sluggish moths drawn to an invisible flame.

Her suit warned her again of increased levels of radiation and recommended leaving the area. She hoisted David by the shoulder and together they stepped back, heading toward the engine room again.

"David, can we flood this corridor with radiation?"

"Are you sure that is safe?"

"Whatever is coming from inside the engine couldn't get through its walls, but it can kill those things, and they're flocking to it."

"Before we commit to such drastic action, I would inquire whether we would not be wasting an interesting opportunity by doing so."

"David, are you insane?"

He took a second to respond. "My self-diagnostics do not detect anomalies. I am merely suggesting that we are looking at an interesting new organism with capabilities that can be useful to us right now."

"David, this is not the time nor place to play xenobiologist! Can we flood this corridor with radiation?"

"Yes ... we can. Exposing the reactor interior should be sufficient. I recommend you allow me to do so, to minimize the dose to you. I'm more resistant to such damage than you are."

He turned to open the engine's torus again, and reaching inside, twisted one of its components. Again, the suit warned her.

"There are safety mechanisms to prevent this from happening. It is not a normal use case," he said.

"This is not a normal situation."

They continued their walk toward the engine room, Elizabeth a few steps in front, David a few steps back, stopping every now and then to twist the ship's entrails.

She insisted that they make a stop at the sick bay. The Engineers' equipment decontamination niche would be just large enough for them to fit, one at a time. She preferred to take a chance with its noxious corrosive fumes rather than risk carrying the monster spores another step. Her body clenched as the niche started its work on her, the blistering heat of its solutions still perceptible through the insulation of the suit. David endured the decontamination stoically, seeming not to mind the acidic steam despite his exposed fiber-optic nerves and power cables. The same decontamination fluids would then be used to scrub the floors, a measure Elizabeth hoped would be enough against stray spores. She'd have to wait and see if she was right.

The control chamber was where they'd wait out the reactors' fever. One hour, two hours, whatever it took to kill the infestation near the engine. The other rooms in the ship would need further scrutiny and, possibly, more decontamination as well.

"I can check to see if they are killed. You should get some rest in the meantime," David said.

"No, thank you, I'll sleep when those things are dead."

-:-:-

He walked the corridors of the ship alone. Despite her claim, Elizabeth had given in to accumulated fatigue and slept peacefully in the control chamber. And that, for now, was preferable. For she might not like what he was about to do.

He walked, the engine at his side spewing copious amounts of alpha and beta particles. So easy to block by just a layer of spandex- or android skin- yet so deadly to life were they to be ingested. As evidenced by several puddles of black goo, liquid metallic remnants of things once alive. A pity. Rational yes. Certainly more manageable. Just limited, and limiting. What was bringing those beings here? It was obvious the engine was calling to them somehow, all the way from their birthplace in vents beneath the cargo hold. It couldn't have been the nuclear particles, which would be effectively screened by the multiple walls. Whatever it was, he couldn't detect it.

He collected a black drop from a corpse puddle, its still corrosive substance erasing the Weyland logo from his finger. Time to place some marks of his own. He smeared the drop on a wall, its substance solidifying into a faintly radioactive smear. A note made for later usefulness. He collected more of the fluid from the puddles in his tool pouch.

He pushed forward, as far as he could go along the access vent. He arrived at a place where small pieces had fallen from the walls; they looked like they had been liquid at the time, and formed flattened pebbles on the floor. The pebbles became larger as he went on a couple of steps, and he had to stop in front of a series of metal curtains that blocked further access. They hadn't been there initially, he could tell. They had also been melted, then solidified, from the ceiling.

This must be it; whatever prevented the ship from operating at its full capacity was there. If only he could reach beyond, he might know what to do. He struck at the curtains, listening to the sound they made. Grave, massive, thick, invulnerable.

Invulnerable, maybe not. He carefully approached the first curtain and used the compressor in his throat to exhale. He knew, even if he could not see it, of the spore in his breath, the spore now clinging to the metal in front of him. He gently dabbed the area with moisture and a small amount of Elizabeth's rations, and waited.

He didn't need to wait long; soon enough, the spore grew to a tiny spec, barely visible to his eyes, and started crawling towards the engine. No, not that way, David thought. He smeared some of the puddle liquid in the path of the mold. It rushed toward it, but the smear's poisonous emissions kept it at bay. A Solomon's seal, meant for a pathetic demon; magic or science, containment always necessary. He kept smearing the wall, guiding the growing dot: not here; you will do as I say; no new spores from you; open the metal veil for me.

Demonologists, alchemists, physicists. Weyland. For one second, he felt inhabited by their spirits. For one second, he felt as if he understood their drive to mark, to bind a piece of the Universe to their will and thus create its purpose. No orders that he was following now; it was him that made the order. Was this what it was to be human? Elizabeth. Wasn't she doing the same?

Elizabeth, with her strange notions of a God and a master plan for everything. A plan from which people have strayed, but surely could come back to. A plan which, if only it were followed, would be fair and good for everyone. Would there be a fair and good place for him in it?

It suddenly struck him that he was being cruel. He had placed large amounts of the radioactive sludge to kill whatever spores the new mold spot would be generating, keeping it alive but preventing it from fulfilling life's one imperative, to be fruitful and multiply. It was the practical thing to do but it felt ... crueler than Weyland. Obey me, he silently promised, and your spores will inherit the galaxy.

"David, where are you?", her voice came cracking through the communication link in his suit.

"I'm in the engine room, checking on our unwanted passengers."

"And what do you see?"

"Your solution has proven most effective. I would recommend we keep the radiation surge going for a while longer, to get rid of any that are still hidden."

"Can you come back here?"

"Certainly. I won't be a moment."

A perfect solution in his mind; he'd keep the access vent flooded with a barrier of radiation that only he could or would dare cross. That way, he thought, she won't bother you, and you won't bother her; obey me; open the metal veil.


Author note:

As I've mentioned somewhere else, good thing I don't do this for money, or my ass would've been fired ages ago.

So anyways, chapter seven is finally here (what is it with androids and obviously nasty alien critters?) and hopefully ch8 will be uploaded before the heat death of the universe.

Reviews, once a few appear, will be answered by me writing a self-review, as usual. Answers to techie questions, should they crop up, will be relegated to PMs. Apart from two things which I'll briefly comment on now. Yep, I took some license with radiation poisoning; it's not the fast killer depicted here. Also, I must wonder what the heck those suits use to stay in touch, even being able to send a full video stream, despite metal walls and earth/rock (as seen in the movie). Meh, whatevs; in a universe with FTL, a black goo that produces any number of effects, an octopus that grows twenty-fold despite there being no food in sight, and ceramics/metal eating mutated molds, who cares the radio is magic.