Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

Stone’s face had gone white behind his visor, eyes fixed on the hatchway. A muscle in his jaw was twitching as he gritted his teeth.

“Nobody has called me Jamie since I was a little kid,” he said.

“I’ve done my research on you,” replied Kline. “And I know . . . this thing that fell to Earth was a sophisticated tool, designed to evolve into many forms—all with a singular purpose: to find life and to keep it on the planetary surface, forever. The Andromeda Strain has lingered in our atmosphere for eons. It’s been found everywhere in our solar system, where it waits for life to develop. When we brought it down to Earth, it killed every living thing it touched. The blood of those people triggered the Andromeda Strain to evolve. It knows we’re here, and it’s trying to trap us.

“It took fifty years, but one person learned to master the alien tools. Me.”

Stone’s eyes were welling with tears. With effort, he swallowed and regained his composure. Then he began to speak quickly and with purpose.

“Sophie, I am sorry, but you’re mistaken. The plastic-eating strain of Andromeda wasn’t a barrier to trap us. It was a test for intelligence. The goal of the Andromeda Strain isn’t just to detect life, but to detect intelligent life . You thought you were reverse engineering it, but you were taking a test. You passed, and now you’ve triggered something else . . . a new evolution.”

A sound like a sob came through the speaker, cut off quickly. Stone continued.

“Vedala’s inhibitor made me think of it. The Andromeda strains ignore each other because they’re all stepping stones on a path that’s leading somewhere. I don’t know why Andromeda is searching for intelligent life, or what it’s becoming now. But if we don’t stop this chain reaction, we are going to find out .”

Stone made his final plea: “I think you know . . . this thing has hurt us both. We don’t have to forgive, but we have to look at it objectively. Help us, Sophie,” he said. “We can’t stop what’s happened. But maybe we can isolate it.”

The speaker hissed in silence for thirty seconds. To her credit, it appeared that Kline was truly considering Stone’s words. Finally, her soft voice emerged from the sea of random static.

“This is your final warning,” she said. “Do not open that door. It would be very dangerous for you . . . and for the other astronauts on board this station.”

Stone lowered his head in defeat. Turning to Vedala, he nodded. Lips pressed tight with determination, Vedala decided to put the mission back on course.

“Dr. Kline, I’m afraid we cannot trust your judgment anymore,” said Vedala. “Consider yourself under arrest. We’re coming in now.”

Reunited

WITH A SHARP YANK, STONE CRACKED OPEN THE hatchway along its lock bar. Planting his feet on the wall, he slid the hatch up and out of the way. Swirling tendrils of smoke began to pour out of the darkness.

Clad in ponderous space suits, Stone and Vedala pulled their bodies through the short cylindrical passageway. Their external LEDs sent fingers of light ahead, illuminating very little.

The Leonardo module contained eleven hundred cubic feet of volume in a cylindrical frame that was the exact size of the Discovery shuttle payload bay in which it had been delivered. The interior walls were flat, made of express racks with rounded backs that fit into the cylindrical module like four pieces of pie. Pale white, the racks were mostly hard metal, bristling with white packing cubes and lined with blue grip bars. On the far wall, a hanging computer monitor glowed. There were no windows.

It had been a utilitarian, almost boring storage module—repurposed as a remote workstation by Kline.

But today, something had gone very wrong. The interior space was engulfed in ominous, swirling sheets of thin smoke. The surfaces of the express racks were stained with soot.

Stone noticed that the far end of the module was darker than the rest—the wall seemed to be made of violet glass. The contamination had clearly spread from the Wildfire Mark IV laboratory module to the Leonardo module, directly through the vacuum. It had come through the hull and into the interior express racks.

Luckily, the infection had begun from the far end of the module. It hadn’t reached up to the hatchway and the rest of the ISS. Not yet.

But where was Sophie Kline?

Stone felt fingers clamp tightly over his bicep. Vedala was beside him, fixed in a kind of primal fear. Following her gaze, Stone caught a glimpse of the end of the world.

“Oh, Sophie,” he said. “Oh no.”

Something that looked like Sophie Kline was stretched out against the far wall of the module. She lay on her back wearing a microphone headset, eyes closed, blond hair splayed behind her. Her arms were floating in the posture of crucifixion. Her legs were not visible—they had been partially consumed, disappearing into throbbing folds of infected metal.

She wasn’t moving.

Stone stared at the infected body, limbs frozen, fixated.

“Dr. Stone, I need you to listen to me,” said Vedala, her voice hoarse with barely contained panic. “Dr. Kline is infected with the evolved Andromeda Strain. She needs immediate medical attention. I’m going to need your help.”

When Stone did not react to her words, Vedala grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around forcibly. Clinking her helmet into his, forehead to forehead, she made eye contact.

“Dr. Stone. I need your help. Now,” she repeated.

“Yeah, yes,” replied Stone, emerging from his reverie. “Of course. But what can we do?”

Vedala turned to look closer at Kline’s body, thinking practically.

“Our only choice is to amputate her legs. If we can move her away from the infection site, maybe we can buy some time for an interrogation.”

Kline’s eyes opened.

Stone bit down on a shout of alarm. Somehow, Kline was smiling at them through what must have been excruciating pain, her cheeks smudged with soot, marine-blue eyes clear and piercing and alert.

“Very practical thinking,” said Kline. “But it’s no use. I don’t have any revelations for you.”

“Sophie,” said Stone. “You’re dying.”

In the shifting smoke, Stone saw tears shining on Kline’s cheeks. He could make out bits of black soot speckled across her lips and tongue.

“We’re all dying, Jamie. Some of us faster than others.”

“Whatever it is you’ve triggered, it’s spreading with no way to stop it,” replied Stone. “If it descends down the ribbon and reaches the planet’s surface, everyone and everything will die.”

Now Kline was staring intently at Stone.

“Maybe that will happen. Maybe not. We’ve both known death, haven’t we, Jamie? You and I see the truth of the situation. And the truth is that sending humanity to the stars is worth the risk .”

“Sophie, please,” said Stone.

“Not only am I free now,” she said, face flushed with excitement, “but we as a species have been set free.”

Only now did Stone fully understand that it was far too late to save Kline. Most likely it would never have been possible. All the momentum of her life had been carrying her forward on this path, to these final moments.

“This,” continued Kline. “This—”

Kline winced as she turned her head. Moist-looking tendrils of Andromeda were spreading radially from her trapped body, like veins under the surface of the module’s skin. “This is a last triumph over this so-called body of mine. This body that never cooperated, that always tried to fail on me. Now it’s going to become part of what I created.”

Sophie was shivering, her voice ragged.