XII
"What exactly is it you want to know?" Nathan asked, leaning back in his chair as he skimmed over a sheet of paper.
"Well, what are they, for a start?" I asked. "And what did they do to Cara?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you much, Matt," He replied, shaking his head. "Ryan's told us everything he knows, apparently."
"Anything's better than nothing." I told him, standing up and walking over to the hypersleep pod in which Cara's body now lay. "I… I just want to know what they did to her." Nathan sighed, and came over to stand by my side.
"I know it's frustrating," He said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "And I understand that you want answers. So if you really want to know everything… then I'll tell you everything."
"From what Ryan's told me, I've managed to establish this: the Xenomorph is a parasitic organism which reproduces through a complex chain of radically different stages. In some ways, it's almost as if there are two separate species involved in the Xenomorph life cycle. The first is the Facehugger. That's the thing that hatched from the egg on the XH-12's landing craft. What it did to Cara is a bit of a grey area. I think that it implanted some kind of embryonic larvae into her stomach, which incubated over a short period of time. The information that Ryan gave me would suggest that Cara's 'twins' are not a regular occurrence. Anyway, after impregnating its host, the Facehugger dies. That's when the second stage begins."
"That's the big one, isn't it?" I asked, interrupting Nathan's speech.
"Yes." He replied. "The second stage is the 'alien' itself. As the larva grows inside its host, it leeches DNA from them, replicating it and mixing it with its own. Hence, the fully-grown creatures are humanoid."
"So they're part human?" I enquired. Perhaps this could explain the strange behavior of the female Xenomorph.
"I wish," He said, chuckling slightly. "They may resemble humans in physical form, but as far as the mind goes, they couldn't be more different. Xenomorphs have only one intention, Matthew: to kill."
I had to bite my lip to refrain from contradicting Nathan at this point. If Xenomorphs existed for no other reason than to kill, why had the one I had encountered earlier not tried to hurt me? Why had she exhibited human emotion? I attempted to ask Nathan, without making any reference to my previous encounter, of course.
"But what if there are two?" I asked. "Will that cause any genetic differences between them?"
"Funny you should say that, actually." He replied, heading back to his seat. "I think it's quite probable, in fact." He sat down, and turned his chair to face me, before continuing.
"If there were two larvae growing inside Cara, they would theoretically receive an equal amount of her DNA. Nevertheless, theories tend to fall apart when put to the test. It seems much more likely that one of the embryos received a greater quantity of human DNA than the other. As you say, the two specimens are, in all probability, genetically different. One of them would effectively be more… 'Human' than the other."
"And what does that entail?" I pressed, desperate to learn more about the 'human' Xenomorph I had seen earlier.
"Well, physically speaking, there'll probably be almost no difference." He explained, "Except, perhaps, a slightly thinner body, wider chest, stuff like that. Mentally, who knows? As I said, Ryan told me that very little research ever went on at Weyland-Yutani into the effects of multiple births from a single host. For all we know, the Xenomorph which took the major portion of Cara's DNA could display near human-level intelligence, and even basic emotions, such as fear or happiness. Mind you, it'd still no doubt be imprinted with the base Xenomorph instinct to kill."
Nathan continued to tell me more about the nature of the Xenomorph over the course of the next fifteen minutes or so. As he spoke, everything slowly began to fall into place. The Xenomorph attacking the XH-12, the Facehugger jumping at Cara. From the information he gave me, I had managed to piece almost everything together. Here's what I got:
The crew of the XH-12 had escaped aboard one of their landing craft after a Xenomorph attacked their ship. Unbeknownst to them, a stowaway was hiding inside one of their stomachs. The 'infected' crew member soon died, and his… 'Child' had run amok aboard the vessel. Eventually, it went on to kill all but one crew member, whilst simultaneously constructing a nest in the generator bay. In a last-ditch effort to eject the creature into space, the sole survivor had fired a chain-gun (a weapon which literally fired a chain of metal, much like a small bicycle chain, with such force that it could tear through thin sheets of steel) into the rear wall of the cargo bay. Unfortunately, whilst the Xenomorph was successfully disposed of, the surviving crew member had also killed his/herself in the process. After that, the ship's computer sent out a distress signal.
An unknown amount of time later, Archie woke us all up from hypersleep after receiving the XH-12's distress call. We went aboard, found the dead crew (and of course, the Xenomorph's nest), and returned to the Archimedes with a lodger of our own. Now, Cara was dead, impregnated with twins by the Facehugger that had attacked her. One twin had gone on to kill Brad, or so we assumed. The other? She'd inherited more of Cara's DNA than expected. She was more… human. According to Nathan, this would make no difference when it came down to base instincts. But I wasn't so sure. If the Xenomorph I'd encountered earlier was really a killer, it would have killed me. Simple as that. Anyway, all that aside, the situation now made infinitely more sense than it had just half an hour ago. Except for one thing…
"Nathan?" I asked, remembering the biggest unsolved piece of the puzzle. "There is something I still don't understand. Why didn't the larvae in Cara's stomach show up on any of the scans you performed?"
"I'm glad you asked." Nathan replied, getting up and walking over to a large printer on the opposite side of the room. He reached into the tray and pulled out two pieces of paper, which he then handed to me.
"What's this?" I asked, puzzled.
"See for yourself." He told me, before retreating back to his desk.
Looking down at the two prints in my hand, I was shocked by what I saw. The first was an X-Ray scan of Cara's torso. It showed a collection of small bones in her stomach, arranged similarly to the bones of her own ribcage, but twofold. I could hardly believe it. I looked at the second print, a CT scan of her digestive system. Sure enough, the image showed two worm-like objects nestled together in her stomach. 'What the hell…' I thought to myself as I stared in disbelief at the images.
"These came out when I asked Archie to re-print Cara's scans." Nathan explained, pulling the prints from my hands.
"They're not blank." I said, realising that I was stating the obvious. Nathan simply nodded.
"The original prints weren't even Cara's," He continued, placing the sheets in his desk drawer. "They were from a male."
"Who?" I asked, leaning against the wall with my arms folded.
"I don't know." Nathan replied. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was telling the truth. "But someone's gone to a whole lot of trouble to try and cover this whole thing up."
"You think it was sabotage?" I continued. Could it be? Could someone aboard have been trying to keep these things a secret?
"I know it was sabotage." He said sternly. "Look, Matt, Archie wouldn't lie to us. He can't. It goes against his core programming. The only explanation is that someone ordered him to replace the feed for the X-Ray and CT scanners."
I looked down at the ground, lost in deep thought at Nathan's words. Who would do something like this? Replace the feed for the X-Ray and CT scanners; try to cover up Cara's condition? And why? For now, that mystery remained unsolved. But that wasn't important at this moment in time. I suddenly remembered the cause for my conversation with Nathan in the first place. To find out if, and how, a female Xenomorph (who displayed human emotion) could possibly exist. And now I knew.