Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

Though the path was twisting, the team made excellent time.

The complex jungle environment proved to be disorienting for the scientists. Peng Wu and Nidhi Vedala marched without speaking, frowns creasing their foreheads. James Stone walked behind them, sweating profusely, eyes wide and constantly scanning.

Only Harold Odhiambo seemed to be perfectly at home, laughing and joking quietly with the Matis guides as he tromped through underbrush in his khaki shorts with his white tube socks rising out of muddy, well-used boots.

Nothing gave the Kenyan scholar more satisfaction than sinking the teeth of his intellect into a new and exotic problem—and this one was unparalleled, given his interests. After years of wide-ranging studies, Odhiambo had devoted the twilight of his career to the geology of other worlds. Though seeing the utterly foreign architecture of the anomaly had frightened him deeply, it had also aroused his curiosity. Now he felt like a child again, riding in the back of his father’s ramshackle fishing boat—a thrilling experience, if not particularly safe.

Stone was moving more cautiously. He wore a bulky metal-framed backpack swarmed by a dozen gently whirring canary drones. For now each small drone stayed within thirty yards or so, periodically returning to self-dock and rapidly recharge its batteries. The effect was that of a man carrying a thriving beehive on his back.

The Matis guides were much amused by the birdlike devices, pointing and calling to them with uncannily realistic birdcalls of their own.

Each of the nimble, hand-size quad-rotor drones carried an array of onboard sensors, as well as a chemical sensor package tailored to detect the signature of the AS-1 and AS-2 varieties. The toxin-detecting sensors continually scanned the air, and as the drones occasionally alighted on stable surfaces, a passive end effector could rasp surfaces to scratch off physical samples for testing.

Cruising through dappled shadows cast by the tree canopy high above, the drones moved like phantom hummingbirds, slightly above eye level, exploring in a cone-shaped pattern out ahead of the group.

A small flat-screen tablet computer hung over Stone’s chest by a lanyard. It displayed a crude drone-generated map, topographic, with the position of each flying robot identified and large objects marked as dots of varying diameters. In one corner, a grainy live video showed one drone’s camera feed. Despite the constant flow of information, Stone rarely stopped to check the screen. He was too afraid of losing the rest of his team in the thick foliage of the jungle.

It was a claustrophobic experience for the scientists, who were unaccustomed to the sheer density of life concentrated in such a small area. On average hundreds of species of plant grow in every acre of the Amazon—a bewildering confusion to eyes used to seeing only a dozen or so species in North American forests.

Soaring trees rose up around them, with roots stretched out like the tendons of extinct dinosaurs, and all of it crawling with vines, flowers, and creepers. Every inch of the jungle was alive with insects and birds and animals—biting ants making their tiny highways, rooting anteaters snuffling through the underbrush, and the flickering neon streaks of macaws winging through the air.

This fecund crush of plant life all around and the spongelike soil beneath seemed to swallow up every sound. Staying close together became a priority for the field team. Even a conversation a few feet away was muted into muffled whispers, and none of the scientists relished the idea of getting lost and needing to blow on an emergency whistle until found.

Marching along with one eye on the unreadable Matis guides, James Stone had begun to harbor suspicions. Entries in his recovered field diary indicated that, for one, he did not believe the team had permission to be on this land. He suspected that nobody, including the Brazilian government, had been notified of the existence of this expedition, much less its purpose.

Thus Stone assumed that if they were to fail, it would likely be a case of disappearing into the jungle forever.

More importantly, he had become increasingly worried about the behavior of their field guide, Eduardo Brink. Stone possessed an uncanny eye for details, a trait shared by his father. Briefly and quietly, Brink and the Matis had huddled together at various times for several worried discussions in an unintelligible pidgin of Portuguese and the native Panoan language.

Brink never shared the content of these discussions.

In one instance, Stone watched as a Matis pointed out an indentation on the path. Brink promptly stamped on it with a jungle boot. When Stone inspected the soil a few minutes later, he saw what could have been a naked human heel print. In another instance, Stone noticed several branches bent at about waist height along the path, as though a person had marked his or her trail through the jungle. Either the lead scouts had begun marking the path after hours of not doing so, or someone else had already been here.

Finally, after hours of marching, Stone spotted a branch that had been laid across the path—insubstantial, but with a clear message: go no further.

Stone was beginning to suspect that the team was under surveillance by an outside group. In any case, he was certain that Brink and his scouts were keeping secrets. Without proof, however, he wasn’t ready to make accusations.

Not yet.

And though his suspicions would turn out to be true, during the course of the day’s hike Stone would find them to be among the least of his worries.

“DR. VEDALA! EVERYONE! I’ve got something!” shouted Stone, his voice thin and indistinct in the hanging curtains of vegetation. “Stop where you are, please. Make your way to me. Don’t stray from the path.”

Moving single file, calling out to each other, the scientists slowed and stopped. Tired and muddy, the field team converged on Stone. The roboticist was breathing hard, holding up the small screen that hung around his neck. Sergeant Brink emerged from behind a tree and stood watching them. He was clearly irritated by the slowdown but said nothing.

On the glowing display, a series of near-identical dots stretched out in a staggered line through the jungle a hundred yards ahead. None of the dots were directly on the path before them, but the scattered line crossed their position. With a finger swipe, Stone sent the canary drones on a wider reconnaissance pattern. More dots began to appear, an irregular line crossing deep into the jungle.

“Look here,” said Stone. “These objects are all nearly the same size. Laid out in two rough lines.”

Odhiambo examined the screen, tracing his rough fingers along the line of dots. In the corner, a thumbnail-size video feed showed a clump of something dark lying on the jungle floor. “Plants do not grow like that. In straight lines.”

Stone stared down at the screen as more dots emerged. “Actually, they aren’t in lines. Not exactly. Look at how they curve. Whatever is out there is lying in two concentric arcs.”

A shotgun blast rang out from farther ahead.

The dull thump of noise faded quickly, but the jungle fell into an immediate, unnatural silence.

“Stay here!” shouted Brink, jogging up the path alone. The team shared a worried glance, and then followed behind him. Stone brought up the rear, keeping an eye on his screen. In particular, he was watching for toxin alerts.

Emerging at last from behind the exposed roots of a sprawling kapok tree, Stone stopped with the rest of the group and stared in disbelief.

Ahead, he could see the dots were actually black, furry lumps—dead howler monkeys, a staggered line of them, unseeing eyes clouded, fangs bared. Beyond the howlers, Stone could make out a few woolly monkeys, covered in fine reddish fur.