Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

“Nitrogen. Carbon dioxide. Phosphorus. A rich variety of elements, all readily available in massive quantities,” replied Odhiambo. “A pure conversion system.”

“You mean the dirt itself . . . the air,” said Stone.

“Yes,” replied Vedala. “Our friend Tupa had it right from the start. The anomaly is eating the jungle itself.”

Fail-Safe

IT WAS NOW CLOSE TO THE END OF AN EXCEEDINGLY long day. Nidhi Vedala called for camp to be set up deep among the trees, but still in view of the anomaly. Among the remaining team members, only Peng Wu had any real training in jungle survival. She had completed her final basic training in the Xishuangbanna tropical rain forest in the Yunnan Province of southern China. Despite her academic qualifications, Peng’s skill set made her the best choice for establishing a safe campsite.

This suited Vedala fine, as she felt that at the moment the former soldier needed something to focus on. Peng had seemed especially shaken by the disturbing growth event.

Reclaiming her singed machete, Peng set about clearing a spot beyond the shriveled trees—a dozen yards or so from where the muddy river streamed out from under the anomaly. Beside the water, the team had discovered the hexagonal tunnel mouth described by Tupa. It was no longer breathing black smoke, but the dark passage remained foreboding nonetheless.

The dull thumps of Peng’s machete echoed flatly. The early evening light felt murky and thick as it wafted down through burned leaves.

The bizarre anomaly loomed in the dusk—both the bulk of the main structure and the dark column rising beyond—their metallic-looking surfaces absorbing the last of the daylight, glittering like the pebbled skin of a leviathan surfacing from impossible depths.

Since the team had been dispatched three days ago, Vedala estimated the anomaly had grown nearly twice as large. The group instinctively felt safer among the trees, well beyond the barren strip of churned red earth that separated the structure’s face from the jungle.

Alien and implacable, the anomaly seemed to exert an ill will.

As Peng worked alone, the others set about their familiar routines of science. Abandoned by their guides and unable to contact NORTHCOM, the field team was now demonstrating why it had been selected. A sense of curiosity and wonder had settled over them, despite the recent traumatic events.

The greatest mystery on earth was within arm’s reach.

Vedala obsessively ran and reran the routines to establish a satellite uplink with command and control, walking the perimeter and looking for a tree break. She was a small, determined figure beside such an imposing mass, but the expanding structure had created a maze of wreckage that was nearly impenetrable. No matter where she wandered, the connection bars on her satellite phone stubbornly refused to budge.

Meanwhile, James Stone and Tupa had become inseparable. At the tree line, Stone was shaking a canister of inhibitor spray. He aimed it at his own forearm as Tupa watched with curiosity. He pulled the tab, and a fine mist of protective sealant hissed from the canister mouth. Tupa dived back, feet scrabbling in the dirt, his fingers forming an unmistakable fanged sign.

“Jahmays!” he said, in dismay.

Laughing, Stone shook his head.

“No, not a snake,” he said. “Armor. Strong.”

A nearby canary whispered its translation. Tupa hesitantly put out his arms and allowed Stone to apply a coating. Squeezing his eyes closed and holding his breath at Stone’s direction, he looked like any child being daubed with sunscreen at the beach. When it was over, his eyes popped open and his front teeth flashed in a grin as he repeated the words back to James.

“Armor,” he said. “Strong.”

For his part, Harold Odhiambo was sitting on a shattered tree trunk, taking meticulous count of a number of complicated seismic sensors. It was tedious work, but he seemed to enjoy the slow, practiced motions, checking each sensor before slipping it into a mesh pocket on the exterior of his rucksack.

Though the others naturally shied away from the incomprehensible structure, Harold Odhiambo found its bulk oddly comforting.

The esteemed scientist had spent the last decade studying extraterrestrial geology—the inner workings of other worlds—and in this anomaly he did not see a deformity of something natural, but the beauty of truly nonhuman architecture.

As a boy growing up in Kenya, Odhiambo had always been enamored of the gigantic termite mounds that dotted the landscape of the wild plains. Fully insulated against the elements, predators, and the occasional wildfires that raced over the dry grass, each self-contained mound was built from naturally occurring materials and housed over a billion small creatures capable of operating complex societies that could and did last for millennia.

In a recurring game of make-believe, the young Odhiambo had imagined himself exploring the tiny hallways of such a megatropolis—the winding passages reflecting the utter nonhumanness of the design. As he grew into an adult and traveled the world to complete his studies, Odhiambo had watched human beings everywhere he visited continue to encroach on nature, destroying and remaking everything they touched, a wave of annihilation that impacted every possible habitat.

The more Odhiambo had seen of humankind’s scientific triumphs, the more he appreciated those termites and the enduring megacities they built. Constructed from the mud of the plains, the alien-seeming mounds thrived in balance with the ecosystem. It was a feat he had not yet seen a human civilization accomplish, except for perhaps the humans who lived in and cultivated this rain forest.

His rucksack fully loaded with sensors, Odhiambo seemed satisfied. He hopped down from the log and set out on a path along the anomaly. Surveying the ground, he stopped and crouched on surprisingly limber knees for a man of his age. He withdrew a fist-size seismic sensor from the mesh pocket and firmly pressed the barbed tip of the device into the ragged dirt. With a well-practiced motion, he twisted the top half sharply. A blue LED began to glow, and a charging sound ramped up.

As Odhiambo stood, hunched under the weight of his rucksack, the corkscrew seismic device released a burst of pent-up energy, twisting its proboscis into the ground. By the time it had disappeared under the raw dirt, Odhiambo was already moving on.

In this manner, he implanted sixteen sensors along the perimeter, focusing an extra few sensors on the “mouth” that led into darkness, near the yellowish river.

Eyes on her satellite phone, Vedala continued to pace the anomaly. She walked right past James Stone, who was busy cleaning mud from the recharging docks on his specialized backpack. As Stone worked, he demonstrated the inner workings of the instrument to Tupa, who had proven to be an astute student. Surrounded by several loitering canaries, the closest of which would occasionally offer a translation, the two of them looked perfectly content.

As Vedala passed by yet again, Stone stopped and cocked his head to listen.

“That’s the sound of interference,” he said.

“What?” asked Vedala.

“Those satphones are digital. They don’t hiss like a radio. What you’re hearing is electromagnetic interference, like from a microwave oven.”

“I’d agree with you, except what electrical source could be putting off that much interference?”

Vedala knew the answer before she finished the question, of course. She craned her neck, looking up at the greenish-black structure. Walking slowly toward it, she held the satellite phone out like a dowsing rod. She listened as the hissing grew louder. The short antenna nearly grazed the surface, and the static hissed ferociously.