The Andromeda Strain - Crichton Michael - Страница 37

"They don't know what the hell to make of it," Robertson admitted. "And there's something else. They found a few pieces of bone that have been identified as human. A bit of humerus and tibia. Notable because they are clean- almost polished."

"Flesh burned away?"

"Doesn't look that way, " Robertson said.

Stone frowned at Leavitt.

"What does it look like?"

"It looks like clean, polished bone," Robertson said. "They say it's weird as hell. And there's something else. We checked into the National Guard around Piedmont. The 112th is stationed in a hundred-mile radius, and it turns out they've been running patrols into the area for a distance of fifty miles. They've had as many as one hundred men west of Piedmont. No deaths."

"None? You're quite sure?"

"Absolutely."

"Were there men on the ground in the area the Phantom flew over?"

"Yes. Twelve men. They reported the plane to the base, in fact."

Leavitt said, "Sounds like the plane crash is a fluke."

Stone nodded. To Robertson: "I'm inclined to agree with Peter. In the absence of fatalities on the ground…"

"Maybe it's only in the upper air."

"Maybe. But we know at least this much: we know how Andromeda kills. It does so by coagulation. Not disintegration, or bone-cleaning, or any other damned thing. By coagulation."

"All right," Robertson said, "let's forget the plane for the time being."

It was on that note that the meeting ended.

Stone said, "I think we'd better check our cultured organisms for biologic potency."

"Run some of them against a rat?"

Stone nodded. "Make sure it's still virulent. Still the same."

Leavitt agreed. They had to be careful the organism didn't mutate, didn't change to something radically different in its effects.

As they were about to start, the Level V monitor clicked on and said, "Dr. Leavitt. Dr. Leavitt."

Leavitt answered. On the computer screen was a pleasant young man in a white lab coat.

"Yes?"

"Dr. Leavitt, we have gotten our electroencephalograms back from the computer center. I'm sure it's all a mistake, but…"

His voice trailed off.

"Yes?" Leavitt said. "Is something wrong?"

"Well, sir, yours were read as grade four, atypical, probably benign. But we would like to run another set."

Stone said, "It must be a mistake."

"Yes," Leavitt said. "It must be."

"Undoubtedly, Sir," the man said. "But we would like another set of waves to be certain."

"I'm rather busy now," Leavitt said.

Stone broke in, talking directly to the technician. "Dr. Leavitt will get a repeat EEG when he has the chance."

"Very good, Sir," the technician said.

When the screen was blank, Stone said, "There are times when this damned routine gets on anybody's nerves."

Leavitt said, "Yes."

They were about to begin biologic testing of the various culture media when the computer flashed that preliminary reports from X-ray crystallography were prepared. Stone and Leavitt left the room to check the results, delaying the biologic tests of media. This was a most unfortunate decision, for had they examined the media, they would have seen that their thinking had already gone astray, and that they were on the wrong track.

X-RAY CRYSTALLOGRAPHY ANALYSIS SHOWED THAT the Andromeda organism was not composed of component parts, as a normal cell was composed of nucleus, mitochondria, and ribosomes. Andromeda had no subunits, no smaller particules. Instead, a single substance seemed to form the walls and interior. This substance produced a characteristic precession photograph, or scatter pattern of X rays.

Looking at the results, Stone said, "A series of six-sided rings."

"And nothing else," Leavitt said. "How the hell does it operate? "

The two men were at a loss to explain how so simple an organism could utilize energy for growth.

"A rather common ring structure," Leavitt said. "A phenolic group, nothing more. It should be reasonably inert."

"Yet it can convert energy to matter."

Leavitt scratched his head. He thought back to the city analogy, and the brain-cell analogy. The molecule was simple in its building blocks. It possessed no remarkable powers, taken as single units. Yet collectively, it had great powers.

"Perhaps there is a critical level," he suggested. "A structural complexity that makes possible what is not possible in a similar but simple structure."

"The old chimp-brain argument," Stone said.

[GRAPHIC] (Caption: Electron-density mapping of Andromeda structure as derived from micrographic studies. It was this mapping which disclosed activity variations within an otherwise uniform structure. Photo courtesy Project Wildfire)

Leavitt nodded. As nearly as anyone could determine, the chimp brain was as complex as the human brain. There were minor differences in structure, but the major difference was size- the human brain was larger, with more cells, more interconnections.

And that, in some subtle way, made the human brain different. (Thomas Waldren, the neurophysiologist, once jokingly noted that the major difference between the chimp and human brain was that "we can use the chimp as an experimental animal, and not the reverse.")

Stone and Leavitt puzzled over the problem for several minutes until they came to the Fourier electron-density scans. Here, the probability of finding electrons was mapped for the structure on a chart that resembled a topological map.

They noticed something odd. The structure was present but the Fourier mapping was inconstant.

"It almost looks," Stone said, "as if part of the structure is switched off in some way."

"It's not uniform after all," Leavitt said.

Stone sighed, looking at the map. "I wish to hell," he said, "that we'd brought a physical chemist along on the team."

Unspoken was the added comment, "instead of Hall."

Tired, Hall rubbed his eyes and sipped the coffee, wishing he could have sugar. He was alone in the cafeteria, which was silent except for the muted ticking of the teleprinter in the corner.

After a time he got up and went over to the teleprinter, examining the rolls of paper that had come from it. Most of the information was meaningless to him.

But then he saw one item which had come from the DEATHMATCH Program. DEATHMATCH was a news-scanning computer program that recorded all significant deaths according to whatever criterion the computer was fed. In this case, the computer was alerted to pick up all deaths in the Arizona-Nevada-California area, and to print them back.

The item he read might have gone unnoticed, were it not for Hall's conversation with Jackson. At the time, it had seemed like a pointless conversation to Hall, productive of little and consuming a great deal of time.

But now, he wondered.

PRINT PROGRAM

DEATHWATCH DEATHMATCH/998

SCALE 7,Y,O. X,4,0 PRINT AS

ITEM FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS VERBATIM 778778

BRUSH RIDGE, ARIZ.- An Arizona highway patrol officer was allegedly involved in the death today of five persons in a highway diner. Miss Sally Conover, waitress at the Dine-eze diner on Route 15, ten miles south of Flagstaff, was the sole survivor of the incident.

Miss Conover told investigators that at 2:40 a.m., Officer Martin Willis entered the diner and ordered coffee and donut. Officer Willis had frequently visited the diner in the past. After eating, he stated that he had a severe headache and that "his ulcer was acting up." Miss Conover gave him two aspirin and a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda. According to her statement, Officer Willis then looked suspiciously at the other people in the diner and whispered, "They're after me."

Before the waitress could reply, Willis took out his revolver and shot the other customers in the diner, moving methodically from one to the next, shooting each in the forehead. Then, he allegedly turned to Miss Conover and, smiling, said "I love you, Shirley Temple," placed the barrel in his mouth, and fired the last bullet.

Miss Conover was released by police after questioning. The names of the deceased customers are not known at this time.

END ITEM VERBATIM END PRINT END PROGRAM

TERMINATE

Hall remembered that Officer Willis had gone through Piedmont earlier in the evening- just a few minutes before the disease broke out. He had gone through without stopping.

And had gone mad later on.

Connection?

He wondered. There might be. Certainly, he could see many similarities: Willis had an ulcer, had taken aspirin, and had, eventually, committed suicide.

That didn't prove anything, of course. It might be a wholly unrelated series of events. But it was certainly worth checking.

He punched a button on the computer console. The TV screen lighted and a girl at a switchboard, with a headset pressing down her hair, smiled at him.

"I want the chief medical officer for the Arizona highway patrol. The western sector, if there is one."

"Yes, sir," she said briskly.

A few moments later, the screen came back on. It was the operator. "We have a Dr. Smithson who is the medical officer for the Arizona highway patrol west of Flagstaff. He has no television monitor but you can speak to him on audio."

"Fine," Hall said.

There was a crackling, and a mechanical hum. Hall watched the screen, but the girl had shut down her own audio and was busy answering another call from elsewhere in the Wildfire station. While he watched her, he heard a deep, drawling voice ask tentatively, "Anyone there?"

"Hello, Doctor," Hall said. "This is Dr. Mark Hall, in…Phoenix. I'm calling for some information about one of your patrolmen, Officer Willis."

"The girl said it was some government thing," Smithson drawled. "That right?"