Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

“How?”

“The new infection . . . it’s another response to stimulus.”

“You mean Andromeda responded to being reverse engineered?”

“Exactly.”

“And what makes you so damned certain?”

“Because it was too easy ,” said Stone. “Andromeda is the most advanced technology we’ve ever seen. It’s ancient, sent here from the stars. Kline may be brilliant, but I don’t believe the microparticle could have been reverse engineered unless it allowed itself to be.”

“I see. And what do you think it’s evolving into now?” asked Vedala.

“It doesn’t matter, Nidhi. It’s self-replicating, and we have no way to stop it. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to ever find out.”

The light of the satellite phone pulsed as Stern spoke again, urgency in his voice. “Can you identify it? How we can stop it from spreading?”

“Whatever it’s becoming,” Stone said to Vedala, “it’s already consuming the International Space Station. If we don’t go up there and find a way to stop it, it will eventually climb down the tether and infect our planet.”

Vedala considered before replying, “There’s another solution. The military can sever the tether. Hit it with a missile.”

Stone shook his head. “Even if we could convince them to try, it wouldn’t work. The ISS is moving at well below escape velocity, and there are thousands of miles of tether above us. If we sever the line down here, the sheer weight of it will slowly drag the space station into destructive reentry.”

“Which would spread burning Andromeda material across the planet,” finished Vedala.

“Cut the tether and the infection falls. Wait, and the infection will come down the tether. Like I said, we have to go up. If Kline made this substance, maybe we can force her to unmake it,” said Stone.

“Or I can do it for her, using her own tools,” added Vedala.

Stone nodded. “There is no other choice.”

Vedala considered this for a moment, chewing her lip. She took a deep breath and gazed up the spire. Then she spoke into the satphone.

“General,” she said, “I need you to listen to me very carefully.”

Mission Preparation

STONE FELT ENERGIZED, BUT ALSO ODDLY DISSOCIATED. The shining steel climbing platform rested silently on its roost like science fiction come alive. The technical challenge was how to activate and operate this unprecedented machine.

The personal challenge was finding the guts to go up.

“This control panel works,” called Vedala. “And I did my best to cut off Kline’s remote access. But the ISS is barely beyond geostationary orbit, which only cancels out the weight of the tether. Think of it as a teeter-totter with the fulcrum at geostationary orbit. The weight of the tether is on one side, and the ISS on the other. The ISS is much heavier, so it can sit close to the fulcrum. But until it moves farther away, there just isn’t much lift capacity. For now, this space elevator isn’t fully operational.”

“Emphasis on fully, Doctor,” said Stone. “The lift capacity is proportional to the distance of the counterweight beyond geostationary orbit. Stern said the ISS was at about twenty-five thousand miles up, so it can carry some weight.”

“The question is, how much?”

“I don’t know. But it will be a ratio of the lift weight versus the counterweight. If the ISS is five hundred tons, and essentially at geostationary . . . I’d give us one percent, or maybe half that. About two and a half tons.”

Surveying the platform, Vedala shook her head.

“Then we’re grounded,” she said. “The motors alone weigh a ton. And with the metal platform, the rollers, and the infrastructure . . . it’s not even close.”

“You’re right, it isn’t,” said Stone, leaning over and rummaging in a crate. “Not unless we make a few deletions.”

“We’d have to strip it down to a metal catwalk and the motors,” said Vedala, inspecting the climber. “That leaves no room for life support. The vacuum will kill us, if the cold doesn’t get us first.”

Stone was staring at her carefully, gauging her reaction. Under one arm, he was now cradling a bulbous white helmet. With his other hand, he had pulled a Z-3 space suit out by its neck, spilling packing peanuts across the floor.

“Luckily, we have two spacecraft right here,” he said.

“No,” said Vedala, eyeing the suit.

“I’m afraid yes,” replied Stone.

A half grin had settled into his thinly bearded cheek. His eyes shone with excitement and fear. Leaning over the suit, he began brushing it off.

“We won’t have much shielding,” he added, “but we’ll be warm and we’ll be able to breathe. The faster we go, the better, since we’ll have to travel right through the Van Allen radiation belt.”

Vedala paused, watching him to see if he was serious. He was.

Slowly, she also began to smile. Stone’s excitement was contagious. She stared at the helmet with an almost sickening thrill building in her stomach.

“This is doable, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Technically, it’s doable,” he replied, looking up at her. “It’s insane. But it’s doable.”

“Then that’ll have to be enough,” said Vedala, putting a hand on Stone’s shoulder. “We’re all that’s left of Project Wildfire, Dr. Stone. Let’s go finish our mission.”

AS VEDALA ACTIVATED the control panel, Stone began to shove cargo boxes off the climbing platform, delighting Tupa, who nimbly avoided the wreckage as each wooden crate crashed to the ground. Once the platform was empty, Stone sparked a portable acetylene torch he had discovered in a tool crate, pulling a pair of welder’s goggles over his eyes.

It was time to make those deletions.

With a few precise cuts, Stone began stripping off chunks of nonessential infrastructure. A haze of smoke from the torch soon rose, and a pile of twisted metal began to build around the robotic climber. Stone was careful to stay away from the motors and the central infrastructure, but everywhere else he was ruthlessly efficient.

As he worked, Stone was wondering what they would find at the other end of the tether. Hopefully, a makeshift docking bay. If that hadn’t been constructed yet, they could end up climbing straight to their deaths—in a collision with the ISS that would likely kill them, Kline, and the rest of the astronauts on board. Or perhaps they’d suffocate in their suits while searching for a way in.

It was a risk they’d have to take.

The ribbon at the top of the spire continued to make its curious singing sound as they worked.

“What do you think that noise is?” asked Stone.

“Probably the sound of the tether growing,” replied Vedala. “From a nanotech perspective, the closest analog is bird bones. It’s amazing, really. Their bones naturally deposit calcium where the stress is greatest. Keeps them light and strong. My guess is the Andromeda material is doing the same thing. Self-replicating in places where the stress is tearing it. That would be the middle of the tether. As the particles self-replicate under extreme stress, the entire ribbon vibrates. Basically, we’re hearing the longest guitar string ever made.”

Ultimately, it was decided to remove even the heavy metal casings from the motors. The platform was reduced to the rolling-pin climbing mechanism, an exposed electrical motor, and a narrow skirt of metal grating.

By this time, Vedala had worked through the operation of the control panel. It was exceedingly simple. A lever to activate power to the climber and then a launch button to send it up to the ISS. Vedala theorized that Kline had designed it to be basic enough for an amateur to operate.

And she planned to test that theory.