Майкл Крайтон: The Andromeda Evolution

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Also by Michael Crichton

FICTION

The Andromeda Strain

The Terminal Man

The Great Train Robbery

Eaters of the Dead

Congo

Sphere

Jurassic Park

Rising Sun

Disclosure

The Lost World

Airframe

Timeline

Prey

State of Fear

Next

Pirate Latitudes

Micro

Dragon Teeth

NONFICTION

Five Patients

Jasper Johns

Electronic Life

Travels

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, notes, and bibliographic citations are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE ANDROMEDA EVOLUTION. Copyright © 2019 by CrichtonSun LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

CrichtonSun ™ and the CrichtonSun ™ logo are trademarks of CrichtonSun LLC.

Illustrations here, here, and here by Alexis Seabrook

Photograph details here © Shutterstock

Cover design and illustration by Will Staehle

Cover photograph © JoyImage/Shutterstock

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wilson, Daniel H. (Daniel Howard), 1978– author. | Crichton, Michael, 1942–2008.

Title: The andromeda evolution / a novel by Daniel H. Wilson.

Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Harper, [2019]

Identifiers: LCCN 2019023408 (print) | LCCN 2019023409 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062473271 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780062473288 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062956668 (international edition)

Subjects: GSAFD: Science fiction.

Classification: LCC PS3623.I57796 A85 2019 (print) | LCC PS3623.I57796 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023408

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023409

Digital Edition NOVEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-247328-8

Version 10172019

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-247327-1

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*Arthur Manchek, who first held this post, was also said to slow down as the world moved faster, appearing to grow more disinterested as those around him became overexcited. It was an ability he had honed over the years to maintain a clear head in an emergency, and one he prized in his recruits.

*Officially, the damage was attributed to an accidental deployment of the micro-meteoroid shield during launch.

*Though never fully substantiated, several declassified CIA reports from the early 1970s independently reference a small Siberian town called Verlaik. Reports indicate that residents there came into accidental contact with a microparticle captured from the upper atmosphere by the Russian Sovok space program. Despite these mentions, further evidence of the town’s existence has been impossible to verify.

*This patent would eventually prove very effective at coating the inside of ketchup bottles, potentially solving a small but widespread problem forever.

*Based on modern genetic variance, it is estimated that an ancient and catastrophic near-extinction event reduced the human population to a mere six hundred individuals. This tiny group of shared ancestors went on to give rise to all of us in our billions.

*When rubbed in the eyes, the sananga root enhances color perception and visual acuity—useful for hunting and warfare. Although modern science does not yet understand the underlying mechanism of its action, spoken-word records indicate that the root has been in use by indigenous Amazonians for over two thousand years.

*Surprisingly, US Navy surface ships still allow smoking and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future due to a federal law that requires all navy ships to sell cigarettes and tobacco—a result of the tobacco industry’s intense lobbying in the 1990s. Banning smoking on board US Navy ships will at some point literally require an act of Congress.

*The canary drone fit into a mythology prevalent across many tribes of Brazil. Saci Pererê of Tupi-Guarani folktales is a mischievous child spirit in a red cap with a glowing pipe. He is famous for transforming into an elusive bird—the matitaperê , whose calls are notoriously hard to track down. Tupa seemed to associate the steady red glow of the drone’s battery LED with that of a pipe, and its hovering flight matched well enough with the bird form.

*Recent studies of intuition at Oregon Health & Science University have shown the strong influence of nonconscious knowledge on decision-making, as described in a study headed by Dr. Anna Long, and published as “Assessing Intuition: Exposing the Impact of Gut Feelings,” Journal of Social Psychology 13, no. 7 (2016): 117–21.

*The brain-computer interface embedded in Kline’s motor cortex continued to record and send data to Mission Control. It was not as simple to remove.

*Forensic identification of the workers’ remains traced them to an independent hydroelectric firm run by Germans, operating out of Mexico City, and known for working abroad on off-the-grid sites. No workers had yet been reported missing.

*Top-secret institutional knowledge of Andromeda necessitated the design and construction of Apollo-era mobile quarantine facilities, to ensure that astronauts returning from lunar missions did not trigger new infections.

*This was a dangerous decision, as ground-based experts are responsible for monitoring and running nearly every aspect of the day-to-day ISS operations. Indeed, the ISS is perfectly fine running with zero crew, and it has been noted that with fewer astronauts, it actually stays much cleaner.