Майкл Крайтон - The Andromeda Evolution

Yet there was only a single ground-based observer—the boy called Tupa.

After the climber had ascended, the boy had managed to squeeze out of the half-finished tunnel in the spire wall. Dropping thirty feet into the lake, he swam to shore. He found nobody there, so he waited.

And he watched.

According to the boy’s eyewitness account, the silver tether in the sky began to swing. A dark dot fell down along it, followed by a blackness. From the top down, the silver tether was darkening. Then an orange spot flashed in the sky, leaving pale smoke on the wind. The black upper ribbon rose into the heavens. The bottom portion fell slowly, draping itself harmlessly over miles and miles of tropical wilderness.

Tupa watched this in awe.

And then, by his own account, he put his face in his hands and he cried.

The boy was ten years old. He was utterly alone. And he had just witnessed what was surely the death of the only person he had grown to trust.

Four minutes later, through eyes blurred with tears, Tupa was also the first to observe what looked like a small red-and-white cloud. The strange thing was falling slowly toward the earth, rotating lazily in the air.

And hanging beneath it, Tupa saw the silhouette of a person.

THE VOICE SEEMED to be coming from very far away.

“Jahmays,” it said, the sound muted, barely audible.

James Stone cracked open his eyes and saw his own face reflected faintly from the interior of his helmet. He winced at the sight of a nasty blister growing on his forehead. And then, incredibly, he smiled. Looking past his own reflection, he could now see the upside-down, grinning face of Tupa.

Groaning in pain, Stone reached up and detached the charred helmet. The boy helped him wrench the equipment off his head, and he felt the familiar warm wash of humid jungle air on his skin. The red-and-white parachute lay twisted about him like a burial shroud, along with torn branches and shredded vines.

Stone sucked in a breath of fresh air and held it in his aching lungs. He wiggled his fingers and toes. Finally, he exhaled and closed his eyes for a long moment.

He felt a small hand take his.

“Jahmays,” said Tupa, his voice clear and bright.

“Tupa,” croaked Stone.

On his knees, the boy leaned over and pressed his forehead to Stone’s briefly. Then the boy sat up and began pointing at the sky and speaking rapidly in his own language. His initial description of what had happened was punctuated with gestures, enthusiastic gymnastics, and an array of sound effects that would be familiar to just about any ten-year-old in the world.

“Tupa,” repeated Stone. “Good to see you, buddy.”

JAMES STONE HAD lived his entire life in the shadow of his famous father. He had never married and never had children. Instead, he had devoted himself single-mindedly to upholding the high expectations of his family legacy.

Stone had believed that joining the Wildfire field team would be the definitive adventure of his lifetime. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

The following partial document, shared with the permission of Dr. James Stone and Dr. Nidhi Vedala, says more than any historian could explain.

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

FAMILY LAW DEPARTMENT

In the Matter of the Adoption of:

TUPA,

A Minor Child.

Case No. [Redacted]

PETITION FOR ADOPTION

Authority: P.L. 21.13 5 (1 ) ,(2 ) (d),

P.L. Ch. 109; P.L. 109.41 0 (4)

Petitioners, James Stone and Nidhi Vedala, married, respectfully petition to adopt this child as follows . . .

Epilogue

ON THE OFFICIAL RECORD, THE HIGHLY IRREGULAR orbital path of the International Space Station was attributed to an emergency avoidance maneuver necessitated by a debris field, coupled with a training exercise exploring emergency preparedness in the event of an extreme shift in the Van Allen radiation belts.

Soon after the incident, the National Indian Foundation of Brazil received a large grant from an unknown benefactor. As a result, a vast swath of the Amazon was marked for conservation and its perimeter effectively quarantined. An international coalition of researchers was approved to study the area.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, housed at Peterson Air Force Base, trained its ground- and satellite-based radar networks on the pair of cargo modules that had been decoupled from the International Space Station. Initial readings showed a nonreturn, nonthrusting escape trajectory out of the ecliptic plane. Telescopic measurements taken from the ISS (itself now on a return trajectory) indicated that the object was rapidly spinning on every axis—completely out of control.

As expected, the modules had been flung away from the planet and were headed toward deep space, forever.

Within minutes, however, total rotational deceleration was observed on all three axes—a maneuver normally possible only through a complex and fuel-hungry “de-spin” procedure. The trajectory of the debris began shifting back toward the ecliptic plane—as if it were being guided. Without onboard fuel, the only explanation was that a mass shift maneuver was taking place. By redistributing interior mass, it is possible to make course corrections without fuel.

This behavior was officially attributed to an outgassing of atmosphere still contained in the module, via punctures caused by impact with a micrometeoroid swarm. Unofficially, it was clear that the infected debris was steering itself.

In the last few images snapped before distance rendered visible light useless, only an amorphous shape was seen, markedly different in each snapshot. Etched hexagonal patterns were visible on the object surface. When it was last detected, the mass was predicted to be on an intercept trajectory with the gas giant Saturn.

What exactly happened after the debris impacted Saturn is unknown.

However, a cluster of news articles released soon after this event are worth noting. Both scientific journals and the popular press reported on a bizarre curiosity, without drawing conclusions. One such article is excerpted below:

SWIRLING HEXAGONAL STRUCTURE S P O T TED ON SATURN

SOURCE: EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY

The twenty-year Cassini space mission has culminated in the detection of a massive hexagonal storm front swirling around the north pole of the planet Saturn, scientists confirmed today.

In a study based on imagery captured by the $4 billion USD Cassini space probe, which was intentionally crashed into the planetary surface soon after reporting its data, researchers hypothesize that the 32,000-kilometer-wide weather structure is generated by a jet stream of air moving through the dense clouds of Saturn’s upper atmosphere, and fueled by the rotation of the planet.

“The hexagon is simply a byproduct of weather patterns,” Dennis Verulam, of the Cassini imaging team, said of the bizarre finding.

Although researchers are certain of their findings, there is still one aspect of the hexagonal vortex that remains a mystery—it seems to be growing larger.

IN A SPARSELY attended classified closed session of Congress, key participants in the second Andromeda incident were called before the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. General Rand Stern was questioned by Congresswoman Laura Perez on the outcome of the event. With a major disaster averted, the main focus was now on “getting back to normal.” This seemed a possibility, for the most part.

A partial transcript of the conference follows: