Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

Below him, Vedala was desperately trying to escape from the arm. The boom continued to swing across empty space, leaving a choice between suffocating in free fall or being eaten alive by the microparticle.

Reaching with his whole body, Stone managed to grasp the head of the camera and rip it off its mooring.

The last sight Kline registered through her camera feed was Stone’s mirrored visor. Then the video failed as he bashed the camera against the side of the ISS.

Stone couldn’t find any more cameras mounted within view. Below him, he saw the robot arm slowing down, confused, with Vedala still hanging on.

“I think she’s blind,” Stone reported over the radio. “You have to let go.”

“Roger that.”

Silhouetted against the face of the planet, Vedala’s small figure released the robot arm. Stone held his breath as her body spun slowly in space. She had executed the dismount perfectly, albeit slowly, soaring on a lazy trajectory toward the dark cylinder of the Progress cargo module. The narrow Russian module was mounted vertically at the rear of the station, sprouting two solar panels like dragonfly wings. Underneath, its engine was still spewing gas as it pushed the ISS upward.

Vedala collided with the Progress, scrabbling her fingers against the matte black fabric surface. Blind, the arm had continued on its collision course with the Wildfire module. It silently plowed into the infected surface, sending a disturbing tremor through the entire ISS. Vedala cried out, grabbing at the solar panel mounts. Dangling from the Progress module with one arm looped over a panel, she kicked her legs as bursts of jet propulsion erupted from the module’s engines, inches from her boots.

“Climb, Nidhi. Meet me at the airlock,” urged Stone. “You can do it.”

Lunging, Vedala got a hand around a window porthole and was able to pull her entire body up in the low gravity. Moving slowly and warily, she managed to ascend the module.

The robotic arm continued to sweep back and forth in a blind rage. Kline was now groping for them in the dark.

But Vedala’s size worked to her advantage. Staying low, she crawled along the strutwork until she reached Stone at the airlock—out of reach of the sightless, groping appendage below.

As she arrived, Stone reached out a gloved hand and pulled Vedala up. He leaned forward until their visors were touching. From this distance, they could see each other’s faces clearly. Both were flustered, breathing hard, their cheeks flushed with extreme overexertion.

“Great work, Dr. Vedala,” said Stone.

“Thank you, Dr. Stone,” she replied. “It’s a shame we haven’t even gotten started yet.”

Vedala turned to the airlock, examining the controls before activating the depress pump. Stone continued to scan the area for any new danger. He had learned the hard way that Kline was both devious and intelligent. Working together, the two were finally able to push the hatch open to reveal the cramped crew airlock inside.

In their elation, neither scientist noticed that the airlock was empty of the myriad items usually stored inside while it was not needed. If they had, they would have realized that it had been used by someone, and recently.

Stone’s Theory

YANKING OPEN THE EQUIPMENT AIRLOCK DOOR AFTER repressurizing, the scientists emerged into the Unity node—an American module serving as a kind of central hallway. The open space was dim and hazy, a few emergency lights blinking silently.

The layout of the ISS had been greatly simplified by Kline’s takeover.

An aft hatchway leading back to the Zvezda and the rest of the Russian portion of the station was locked shut with an improvised metal bar. Through a blur of smoke, they could see scarred metal and melted plastic. Below them, the deckside hatchway to the Leonardo module was also closed tightly—but not damaged.

“There’s been a fire,” said Stone.

“And it’s been put out,” said Vedala. “Or there’d be nothing left.”

Their helmet-mounted lights strafed the darkness as the two floated to the center of the Unity node. Across from them to the port side, the Tranquility node was deserted, its cupola windows shuttered. Only one other passage remained, leading toward the front of the station—to the American-built Destiny laboratory and the modules beyond it.

Stone tapped his helmet.

“Let’s stay suited up,” he said. “Just to be safe.”

Vedala nodded, wrapping her fingers around a blue handrail above the hatchway. For a moment, she simply rested there.

The Destiny lab, primarily occupied by American and Canadian astronauts, was cluttered with dozens of inscrutable experiments. They had all been abandoned, the detritus floating eerily in the darkness. Exploring the gloomy space, they peeked beyond into the Harmony node but found nothing in it or the adjoining Japanese and European science labs.

None of the computers or radio systems were functioning.

Returning silently to the Unity node, Stone and Vedala shared a glance. Kline had to be located below them, in the Leonardo module. The module was located directly adjacent to the Wildfire Mark IV laboratory. Having seen the Leonardo module from the outside, they knew it was most at risk of infection.

It was not clear whether Kline was aware of this fact or not.

Stone and Vedala floated together before the round hatchway leading “down” into the Leonardo module. The dark glass of the hatch’s observation portal revealed nothing about the module beyond.

It was time to face Sophie Kline.

Using the chest-mounted display and control unit, Vedala and Stone each set their suit radios from local to stationwide. They listened for a moment, hearing nothing.

“Dr. Kline?” radioed Vedala. “Are you there?”

Stone noticed the soap-bubble lens of a camera placed above the hatchway. He studied it for a long moment, considering. Finally, he nodded to Vedala and took hold of the lever to open the hatch. It would open quickly, as it was impossible for Kline to lock the door from the inside without damaging it and trapping herself.

As he laid his gloved hands on the lock bar, Stone heard a burst of static from the speaker inside his helmet. He paused, glancing at Vedala.

From the look on her face he knew she had heard it, too.

“Dr. Kline?” asked Vedala over the radio. “Can you hear me? This is Nidhi Vedala, head of the Wildfire field team and your direct superior. I am ordering you to stand down.”

The helmet radio pulsed with a gentle ripple of laughter.

In the background of the transmission, Stone caught a strange rustling sound. It evoked a mental image of desert sand, caught in the wind, rustling over endless dunes. He shuddered reflexively.

A voice began to speak—the mildly slurred words of Dr. Sophie Kline, oddly intimate coming from inside the suit helmets.

“Dr. Vedala and Dr. Stone,” said Kline. “Congratulations. You’ve just made history. The first human beings to ride a space elevator. The first of many.”

“Enough, Sophie. Can you stop this?” asked Vedala. “Or is the chain reaction spreading out of your hands now?”

“The question is not can I stop this, but do I want to? And the answer is no.”

“Dr. Kline,” said Stone. “I understand your theory about the Andromeda Strain. You’re very smart, but you’re dead wrong.”

For a moment, there was no response.

“Let me tell you a story, Jamie,” replied Kline. “Once upon a time, there was a town called Piedmont. It was a small town, and the people there were good. They cared for each other. They raised families. But one day, a thing fell from the stars. On that day the good people of Piedmont died, their blood solidified in their veins. Or they killed themselves and each other. Drowned themselves. Shot themselves. Slit their own wrists. Did you know, Jamie, that some of those poor people even abandoned their own babies in their cribs to die?”