Did Ash know that Kane was carrying a baby alien?

Is there any indication that Ash knew about Kane being infested with an Alien but said nothing?

It seems there is hardly a way how he could not have known. It seems obvious that the facehugger did not simply want to hang out with Kane for a while and then die. Now, if there was some way the alien baby could be shielded from detection that would be interesting but even so, Ash already knew an alien was involved and Kane was in some way central to this.

However, if he knew, why would Ash have allowed Kane to walk around freely since that meant they might have lost the creature he wanted to return to Earth? A related question is why did Ash not agree to freeze Kane, which would have gotten the alien back to Earth.

So to sum up these issues, what did Ash really know about Kane and the alien and what was his ultimate plan? To allow the alien to kill everyone (except him although I have seen aliens kill androids) and bring home a ship potentially full of aliens?