Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

Stone heard another shrill scream as the R3A4 began dragging Vedala back into the module by her wounded leg. He could only watch helplessly as it raised its disfigured fist to silence her cries.

Sophie Kline never saw the droplet of neurotoxin that glanced off her lower cheek. Absorbed through the skin, it attacked her nervous system, immediately scuttling the delicate neural connection to the Robonaut R3A4 humanoid robot. Across the module, the machine froze in place with one fist poised to strike.

“Omega,” said Stone, sadly. “The end of all things.”

Kline reflexively yanked off her goggles, eyes locking onto Stone’s. Her jaw began to work silently, trying to get out words, tendons standing out in her neck. A sliver of drool escaped her lips as she expelled a final breath.

“You,” she said.

It was over in seconds.

At UTC 17:58:11 Dr. Sophie Kline, remote scientist for Project Wildfire, expired on board the Leonardo module of the International Space Station. Official cause of death was asphyxiation due to a cutaneously absorbed nerve agent that disrupted control over autonomic functions.

Kline’s body had gone still, and the light had left her open eyes.

Scanning the smoky room, Stone saw Vedala. She was still floating near the exit to the Unity node. Behind her visor, Stone could see she was breathing hard and in extreme pain.

The Robonaut had drifted away. Frozen in its last position, it rotated in place like an abandoned sculpture, bumping gently into an infected wall gone dark and smooth as obsidian. Purplish specks had already appeared on the machine’s Kevlar-reinforced outer fabric.

Stone pushed himself up to Vedala, where she waited at the open hatch leading into the Unity node.

As he approached with his arms extended, the two scientists embraced. Up close, Vedala’s face registered shock at his shattered helmet. In the reflection of her intact visor, Stone could see his own sweaty, bloody face—and the twin trails of metallic soot streaking below his nostrils.

It was the telltale sign of infection.

“Oh, James,” said Vedala, backing away through the portal. “Oh, I am so, so sorry.”

Goodbyes

STONE LOOKED PAST HIS OWN REFLECTION AND INTO the visor of Nidhi Vedala. She was watching him, oblivious to the emergency lights and smoke. Her eyes were hard and afraid and sad.

He understood.

If the soot was on his nostrils, then he had aspirated the microparticles into his lungs. And whether this was the reverse-engineered strain or its mysterious new evolution, there could be no doubt—he had been infected.

“It’s okay,” he said, keeping his distance. “I know you’re injured, but you can still fix this. Close the hatchway. Free the other astronauts. Decouple the station from the infected modules.”

“No, James,” she sputtered. “No, it can’t . . .”

Stone took hold of the hatchway door with both hands, moving quickly, his mind still numb to what was happening.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. You know the protocol. The infection has to be quarantined.”

As he unlocked the hatch, he heard her trembling words. “Does it hurt?” asked Vedala. “Are you in pain?”

“No. I don’t feel anything yet.”

Considering this, Vedala’s brow knitted. “That’s not right. Normal onset is within a few minutes,” she said. “You should feel it by now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Stone.

Turning, he glanced back at what remained of Sophie Kline. Her corpse seemed to be staring at him, gray-blue eyes wide open, her body fusing with the writhing mass of the far wall. Tendrils of inky-violet matter had roped over her chest, as if a kraken were pulling her under the surface of dark waters.

Kline had finally become one with her creation.

But the infection had not yet reached the hatchway. There was probably still time, but not much.

“You have to go now,” Stone said. “Take care of Tupa, will you? Be sure and find him. He’s going to need you.”

Vedala nodded, swallowing tears.

Stone cleared his throat. He forced himself to speak without emotion.

“I am proceeding to close the hatch, Dr. Vedala.”

“James, no . . . there has to be another way—”

“I wish there was,” he said, tightening his grip on the hatch.

Vedala’s genius intellect was racing now, sprinting desperately through scenarios in which James Stone lived. She felt something in the back of her mind, the tickle of a thought struggling to reveal itself. But time was up.

There was no happy solution.

“Thank you, Nidhi,” said Stone, as he lowered the hatch the first few inches. His voice was clear and haunting in her helmet radio. “Thank you for everything. I would have liked it . . . if we could have had more time together.”

Over Stone’s shoulder, Vedala could see the Andromeda infection spreading molecularly through the infrastructure of the module—traveling relentlessly closer to the rest of the ISS. The remains of the Robonaut floated in a slow circle, half its golden face revealed.

“Goodbye, James,” said Vedala. “Godspeed.”

Reluctantly letting go, she began to float backward. Stone tugged on the hatchway and began to slide it down. Through its circular porthole, Vedala watched his determined face and tried to ignore the pain pulsing in her damaged knee. Braced against the wall, he dragged the hatchway closed inch by inch.

As he worked, Vedala made a final confession over the radio link. “When you joined this mission, I thought you’d been chosen because of who your father was. That’s why I hated you, even though we’d never met. But I was wrong, James. I want you to know that. It doesn’t matter who your father was—you were the right choice.”

Stone paused briefly, before making a confession of his own.

“Don’t feel too bad. I had my own reasons for coming. And Jeremy Stone was actually my adoptive father,” he said. “All of it was classified, but Stern must have known. My birth name was Jamie Ritter. Fifty years ago, I was one of two survivors of the first Andromeda incident. I was the baby.”

Stone could feel the vibration of the infection through the soles of his boots. The time for goodbyes was over. Wincing, he hauled on the lever to close and lock the hatchway.

It jammed.

Vedala had shoved the dented fire extinguisher into the gap. She planted her feet against the wall and hauled the hatchway open with both hands. Before Stone could react, she had grabbed him by the chest and yanked him into the Unity node.

“Nidhi!” he shouted, but it was too late.

A rippling swell of infected material was closing in on the hatchway, expanding in serpentine paths. Stone had no choice but to help Nidhi close and seal the hatch. Then he turned and shouted, “What the hell do you think you’re doing—”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Nidhi had pulled him to her, pressing the cool surface of her half-mirrored visor against his broken helmet. Inches away, she was grinning, her eyes bright and wet.

Vedala spoke with the calm confidence of a person who has been the smartest person in the room for her entire life, with no exceptions made for this room, thousands of miles above planet Earth.

“James, the only scenario in which you can be infected this long without symptoms is that you’re not infected. Understand?”

“I breathed it in. And I can’t have formed an immunity. It’s impossible.”

“True. But when you were a baby, your lungs were infected with AS-1. It couldn’t kill you then because your blood pH was too alkalotic-basic, from crying. But when it evolved into the AS-2 variety, your lungs remained coated with benign microparticles.”

“And . . . the Strains ignore each other,” added Stone.