The Andromeda Strain (32 page)

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

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,0. X,4,0

PRINT AS

ITEM FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS VERBATIM 778–778

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 here 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?”

“That is correct. We require—”

“Dr. Hall,” Smithson said, still drawling, “perhaps you’d identify yourself and your agency.”

It occurred to Hall that there was probably a legal problem involved in Officer Willis’s death. Smithson might be worried about that.

Hall said, “I am not at liberty to tell you exactly what it is—”

“Well, look here, Doctor. I don’t give out information over the phone, and especially I don’t when the feller at the other end won’t tell me what it’s all about.”

Hall took a deep breath. “Dr. Smithson, I must ask you—”

“Ask all you want. I’m sorry, I simply won’t—”

At that moment, a bell sounded on the line, and a flat mechanical voice said:

“Attention please. This is a recording. Computer monitors have analyzed cable properties of this communication and have determined that the communication is being recorded by the outside party. All parties should be informed that the penalty for outside recording of a classified government communication is a minimum of five years’ prison sentence. If the recording is continued this connection will automatically be broken. This is a recording. Thank you.”

There was a long silence. Hall could imagine the surprise Smithson was feeling; he felt it himself.

“What the hell kind of a place are you calling from, anyhow?” Smithson said, finally.

“Turn it off,” Hall said.

There was a pause, a click, then: “All right. It’s off.”

“I am calling from a classified government installation,” Hall said.

“Well, look here, mister—”

“Let me be perfectly plain,” Hall said. “This is a matter of considerable importance and it concerns Officer Willis. No doubt there’s a court inquiry pending on him, and no doubt you’ll be involved. We may be able to demonstrate that Officer Willis was not responsible for his actions, that he was suffering from a purely medical problem. But we can’t do that unless you tell us what you know about his medical status. And if you don’t tell us, Dr. Smithson, and tell us damned fast, we can have you locked away for twelve years for obstructing an official government inquiry. I don’t care whether you believe that or not. I’m telling you, and you’d better believe it.”

There was a very long pause, and finally the drawl: “No need to get excited, Doctor. Naturally, now that I understand the situation—”

“Did Willis have an ulcer?”

“Ulcer? No. That was just what he said, or was reported to have said. He never had an ulcer that I know of.”

“Did he have any medical problem?”

“Diabetes,” Smithson said.

“Diabetes?”

“Yeah. And he was pretty casual about it. We diagnosed him five, six years ago, at the age of thirty. Had a pretty severe case. We put him on insulin, fifty units a day, but he was casual, like I said. Showed up in the hospital once or twice in coma, because he wouldn’t take his insulin. Said he hated the needles. We almost put him off the force, because we were afraid to let him drive a car—thought he’d go into acidosis at the wheel and conk out. We scared him plenty and he promised to go straight. That was three years ago, and as far as I know, he took his insulin regularly from then on.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Well, I think so. But the waitress at that restaurant, Sally Conover, told one of our investigators that she figured Willis had been drinking, because she could smell liquor on his breath. And I know for a fact that Willis never touched a drop in his life. He was one of these real religious fellows. Never smoked and never drank. Always led a clean life. That was why his diabetes bothered him so: he felt he didn’t deserve it.”

Hall relaxed in his chair. He was getting near now, coming closer. The answer was within reach; the final answer, the key to it all.

“One last question,” Hall said. “Did Willis go through Piedmont on the night of his death?”

“Yes. He radioed in. He was a little behind schedule, but he passed through. Why? Is it something about the government tests being held there?”

“No,” Hall said, but he was sure Smithson didn’t believe him.

“Well, listen, we’re stuck here with a bad case, and if you have any information which would—”

“We will be in touch,” Hall promised him, and clicked off.

The girl at the switchboard came back on.

“Is your call completed, Dr. Hall?”

“Yes. But I need information.”

“What kind of information?”

“I want to know if I have the authority to arrest someone.”

“I will check, sir. What is the charge?”

“No charge. Just to hold someone.”

There was a moment while she looked over at her computer console.

“Dr. Hall, you may authorize an official Army interview with anyone involved in project business. This interview may last up to forty-eight hours.”

“All right,” Hall said. “Arrange it.”

“Yes sir. Who is the person?”

“Dr. Smithson,” Hall said.

The girl nodded and the screen went blank. Hall felt sorry for Smithson, but not very sorry; the man would have a few hours of sweating, but nothing more serious than that. And it was essential to halt rumors about Piedmont.

He sat back in his chair and thought about what he had learned. He was excited, and felt on the verge of an important discovery.

Three people:

A diabetic in acidosis, from failure to take insulin.

An old man who drank Sterno and took aspirin, also in acidosis.

A young infant.

One had survived for hours, the other two had survived longer, apparently permanently. One had gone mad, the other two had not. Somehow, they were all interrelated.

In a very simple way.

Acidosis. Rapid breathing. Carbon-dioxide content. Oxygen saturation. Dizziness. Fatigue. Somehow they were all logically coordinated. And they held the key to beating Andromeda.

At that moment, the emergency bell sounded, ringing in a high-pitched, urgent way as the bright-yellow light began to flash.

He jumped up and left the room.

26
The Seal

IN THE CORRIDOR, he saw the flashing sign that indicated the source of the trouble: AUTOPSY. Hall could guess the problem—somehow the seals had been broken, and contamination had occurred. That would sound the alarm.

As he ran down the corridor, a quiet, soothing voice on the loudspeakers said, “Seal has been broken in Autopsy. Seal has been broken in Autopsy. This is an emergency.”

His lab technician came out of the lab and saw him. “What is it?”

“Burton, I think. Infection spread.”

“Is he all right?”

“Doubt it,” Hall said, running. She ran with him.

Leavitt came out of the MORPHOLOGY room and joined them, sprinting down the corridor, around the gentle curves. Hall thought to himself that Leavitt was moving quite well, for an older man, when suddenly Leavitt stopped.

He stood riveted to the ground. And stared straight forward at the flashing sign, and the light above it, blinking on and off.

Hall looked back. “Come on,” he said.

Then the technician: “Dr. Hall, he’s in trouble.”

Leavitt was not moving. He stood, eyes open, but otherwise he might have been asleep. His arms hung loosely at his sides.

“Dr. Hall.”

Hall stopped, and went back.

“Peter, boy, come on, we need your—”

He said nothing more, for Leavitt was not listening. He was staring straight forward at the blinking light. When Hall passed his hand in front of his face, he did not react. And then Hall remembered the other blinking lights, the lights Leavitt had turned away from, had joked off with stories.

“The son of a bitch,” Hall said. “Now, of all times.”

“What is it?” the technician said.

A small dribble of spittle was coming from the corner of Leavitt’s mouth. Hall quickly stepped behind him and said to the technician, “Get in front of him and cover his eyes. Don’t let him look at the blinking light.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s blinking three times a second,” Hall said.

“You mean—”

“He’ll go any minute now.”

Leavitt went.

With frightening speed, his knees gave way and he collapsed to the floor. He lay on his back and his whole body began to vibrate. It began with his hands and feet, then involved his entire arms and legs, and finally his whole body. He clenched his teeth and gave a gasping, loud cry. His head hammered against the floor; Hall slipped his foot beneath the back of Leavitt’s head and let him bang against his toes. It was better than having him hit the hard floor.

“Don’t try to open his mouth,” Hall said. “You can’t do it. He’s clenched tight.”

As they watched, a yellow stain began to spread at Leavitt’s waist.

“He may go into status,” Hall said. “Go to the pharmacy and get me a hundred milligrams of phenobarb. Now. In a syringe. We’ll get him onto Dilantin later, if we have to.”

Leavitt was crying, through his clenched teeth, like an animal. His body rapped like a tense rod against the floor.

A few moments later, the technician came back with the syringe. Hall waited until Leavitt relaxed, until his body stopped its seizures, and then he injected the barbiturate.