Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

“Come on,” called Brink, the dense jungle muffling his words. “We’ve wasted too much daylight already.”

Second Camp

OVER THE REST OF THE SECOND DAY’S MARCH, THE Wildfire field team followed their expert Matis guides past the corpse perimeter and deeper into the thirty-mile circular quarantine zone around the anomaly. They were glad to leave behind the smell of death, and the unsettling remains of the fallen monkeys. Under the canopy of pristine rain forest, the team must have felt vulnerable, effectively invisible to satellite imagery or surveillance aircraft, and cut off from radio contact.

Rendezvous was at noon the next day—in eighteen hours—and the team was on schedule.

Their progress had been aided by the canary drones employed by Dr. Stone, which were primarily engaged in topographical exploration and environmental toxin screening in an area a few hundred yards ahead of the group. However, because the canaries were so employed, very little video footage exists of the interpersonal interactions that occurred during this portion of the journey.

Instead, the events of the afternoon have been reconstructed through postevent interviews with survivors, the logbook of Dr. Stone, and a cache of information inadvertently collected by the sensor array of the PhantomEye drone.

Approximately twelve miles from destination, the group continued following Sergeant Brink as he cut a brisk, winding path across river tributaries and around rugged hillsides—moving as fast as possible, given the harsh terrain and constant obstacles. As the team marched single file in the footsteps of their advance scouts, the jungle floor was stamped by many feet, deteriorating from a barely cleared trail littered with foliage to a red mud slick that had the scientists occasionally scrambling along on all fours.

The brutal pace was intentional; Brink could sense that the group (including his team of Matis frontiersmen) had been spooked by the strange events of the day. The sergeant felt that physical exertion would help abate the growing fear and distract the group from ruminating on negative possible outcomes. It was a good instinct, and an approach commonly and successfully employed among soldiers.

Moving quickly had the added bonus of reducing the number of questions voiced by the breathless scientists. In particular, Brink seemed irritated by the persistent comments of James Stone.

In a partial video segment captured by a far-off canary, Stone could be seen pulling Brink aside at the top of a small ridge. From a distance, the two had an emphatic exchange, bordering on an argument. It appeared the men nearly came to blows on the ridge, before Stone stomped away angrily.

As shadows began to grow in the high canopy, the air seemed to shimmer with waves of dusky sunlight, filtering through endless leaves and vines. Reaching an area of high ground, Brink turned to the Matis and declared the day’s march over.

“Ten-mile perimeter,” he said. “We stay here tonight. Be at the destination by noon tomorrow.”

The nervous guides immediately set about hacking at the jungle, establishing the night’s camp with quiet urgency. Within minutes, however, they discovered that the clearing was infested with tracuá —a local breed of small, voracious carpenter ants who are known to vigorously defend their territory. A familiar nuisance to the Matis, the ants were pervasive in many parts of the forest. Their bites felt like wasp stings, and they were quite capable of traversing cordage to invade hanging hammocks. The insects began to emerge in the gloom, slowly at first, but in rapidly growing numbers.

Dr. Vedala exhibited immediate skepticism regarding the camp selection, noting that there was still at least an hour of fading daylight remaining in which to choose another site. Her concerns were summarily ignored by Sergeant Brink, who considered the ants a trifling annoyance. The dismissive interaction further added to the tension and fear enveloping the team.

As the canary drones returned from scouting and converged on the campsite, their video feeds revealed lines of worry and tension on the faces of every field team member, save one.

James Stone was working intently.

The roboticist had unpacked his PhantomEye drone again, extended the four rotors, and switched in a fresh battery. Within minutes he had sent the humming black drone up into the jungle, letting it pick its way forward through stripes of shadow and light. Accelerating through tangled vines and tree limbs, the AI-enabled drone employed a high-fidelity laser rangefinder to avoid obstacles and accelerate to fully autonomous speeds of up to fifty miles per hour.

At that rate, it should have been able to scout their destination within twelve minutes.

Swatting at biting ants, trying to ignore the wild hacking of the Matis’s machetes and the grumbling complaints of his fellow scientists, Stone studied the monitor hanging from his neck. The image showed a real-time, gyro-stabilized video feed of the drone’s progress. In the last glow of daylight, Stone was hoping to catch an actual glimpse of the mysterious anomaly.

Nine minutes into its journey (still two miles from its destination) the PhantomEye reported a gyroscopic exception and dropped out of radio contact. Stone’s frantic efforts to reconnect with his precious robot were unsuccessful, and the entire hundred-thousand-dollar unit was lost.

It would never be recovered.

Cursing and typing, Stone found he had been left with only a data log of the drone’s final moments. A quick forensic analysis determined that the PhantomEye had lost stability as it was crossing a stream. It had flipped violently and likely splashed into the water.

Noticing Stone’s distress, Harold Odhiambo made his way over.

The Kenyan was worried, having noted that although the Matis guides were finished clearing the camp, they had now moved on to cutting large branches, sharpening them, and placing the jagged stakes along the camp perimeter. Indeed, it appeared to Odhiambo that the Matis were preparing for war.

“A collision?” asked Odhiambo, squatting beside Stone.

“Possible, but not likely,” said Stone, his face illuminated by the glow of the monitor. “It was over a river—the only real clear place around. And it was navigating the jungle fine up until then. Look.”

Stone moved through each frame of the saved video feed. In the final second, the image shuddered violently. After that, the screen devolved into a blur as rotor stabilization failed and the drone began to spin.

“The failure comes out of nowhere. Like it was hit by something,” mused Stone.

“A bird strike?” asked Odhiambo.

“Could be,” said Stone, continuing to advance frame by frame through the swirl of river and jungle. The image on the monitor was nonsensical at this point, just a meaningless smear of color.

Stone shook his head in disgust.

“Wait,” urged Odhiambo. “Stop there.”

Puzzled, Stone stopped the frame.

“Go backward, please,” asked the Kenyan. “Again.”

As Stone moved back a single frame, he saw it, too—a reddish oval hidden among the trees. Peng and Vedala had silently joined them. Now the entire field team watched as Stone zoomed in on the red blur.

“It looks like a face,” he said, confused. “But something is wrong with it. Could it be an optical illusion?”

Though pixelated in its enlarged form, the face—if that’s truly what it was—seemed distorted. The features were almost demonic, eyes burning black and bright. The skin was reddish, as if coated in blood.

“This is most certainly what destroyed your drone,” said Odhiambo.

“What’s out there?” asked Stone, eyes lifting beyond the bright, fresh-cut tips of wooden stakes ringing the perimeter. Peng and Vedala stood a bit closer, the four of them small in the darkening woods.