The Andromeda Strain (34 page)

“Yes,” said Hall. “It’s past my bedtime.”

On a normal day, he would now be driving home on the expressway. So would Leavitt: going home to his family in Pacific Palisades. The Santa Monica Expressway.

He saw it vividly for a moment, the long lines of cars creeping slowly forward.

And the signs by the side of the road. Speed limit 65 maximum, 40 minimum. They always seemed like a cruel joke at rush hour.

Maximum and minimum.

Cars that drove slowly were a menace. You had to keep traffic moving at a fairly constant rate, little difference between the fastest and the slowest, and you had to …

He stopped.

“I’ve been an idiot,” he said.

And he turned to the computer.

In later weeks, Hall referred to it as his “highway diagnosis.” The principle of it was so simple, so clear and obvious, he was surprised none of them had thought of it before.

He was excited as he punched in instructions for the GROWTH program into the computer; he had to punch in the directions three times; his fingers kept making mistakes.

At last the program was set. On the display screen, he saw what he wanted: growth of Andromeda as a function of pH, of acidity-alkalinity.

The results were quite clear:

ACIDITY OF MEDIUM AS LOG H – ION CONCENTRATION

CORRECTED FOR SKEW
MEANS, MODES, S.D. FOUND
IN CORREL/PRINT
MM –76
CALL COORDINATES
O,Y,88,Z,09.

REVIEW CHECK

END PRINT

The Andromeda Strain grew within a narrow range. If the medium for growth was too acid, the organism would not multiply. If it was too basic, it would not multiply. Only within the range of pH 7.39 to 7.42 would it grow well.

He stared at the graph for a moment, then ran for the door. On his way out he grinned at his assistant and said, “It’s all over. Our troubles are finished.”

He could not have been more wrong.

28
The Test

IN THE MAIN CONTROL ROOM, Stone was watching the television screen that showed Burton in the sealed lab.

“The oxygen’s going in,” Stone said.

“Stop it,” Hall said.

“What?”

“Stop it now. Put him on room air.”

Hall was looking at Burton. On the screen, it was clear that the oxygen was beginning to affect him. He was no longer breathing so rapidly; his chest moved slowly.

He picked up the microphone.

“Burton,” he said, “this is Hall. I’ve got the answer. The Andromeda Strain grows within a narrow range of pH. Do you understand? A very narrow range. If you’re either acidotic or alkalotic, you’ll be all right. I want you to go into respiratory alkalosis. I want you to breathe as fast as you can.”

Burton said, “But this is pure oxygen. I’ll hyperventilate and pass out. I’m a little dizzy now.”

“No. We’re switching back to air. Now start breathing as fast as you can.”

Hall turned back to Stone. “Give him a higher carbondioxide atmosphere.”

“But the organism flourishes in carbon dioxide!”

“I know, but not at an unfavorable pH of the blood. You see, that’s the problem: air doesn’t matter, but blood does. We have to establish an unfavorable acid balance for Burton’s blood.”

Stone suddenly understood. “The child,” he said. “It screamed.”

“Yes.”

“And the old fellow with the aspirin hyperventilated.”

“Yes. And drank Sterno besides.”

“And both of them shot their acid-base balance to hell,” Stone said.

“Yes,” Hall said. “My trouble was, I was hung up on the acidosis. I didn’t understand how the baby could become acidotic. The answer, of course, was that it didn’t. It became basic—too little acid. But that was all right—you could go either way, too much acid or too little—as long as you got out of the growth range of Andromeda.”

He turned back to Burton. “All right now,” he said. “Keep breathing rapidly. Don’t stop. Keep your lungs going and blow off your carbon dioxide. How do you feel?”

“Okay,” Burton panted. “Scared … but … okay.”

“Good.”

“Listen,” Stone said, “we can’t keep Burton that way forever. Sooner or later—”

“Yes,” Hall said. “We’ll alkalinize his blood.”

To Burton: “Look around the lab. Do you see anything we could use to raise your blood pH?”

Burton looked. “No, not really.”

“Bicarbonate of soda? Ascorbic acid? Vinegar?”

Burton searched frantically among the bottles and reagents on the lab shelf, and finally shook his head. “Nothing here that will work.”

Hall hardly heard him. He had been counting Burton’s respirations; they were up to thirty-five a minute, deep and full. That would hold him for a time, but sooner or later he would become exhausted—breathing was hard work—or pass out.

He looked around the lab from his vantage point. And it was while doing this that he noticed the rat. A black Norway, sitting calmly in its cage in a corner of the room, watching Burton.

He stopped.

“That rat …”

It was breathing slowly and easily. Stone saw the rat and said, “What the hell …”

And then, as they watched, the lights began to flash again, and the computer console blinked on:

“Christ,” Stone said.

“Where does that gasket lead?”

“It’s one of the core gaskets; it connects all the labs. The main seal is—”

The computer came back on.

They looked at the screen in astonishment. “Something is wrong,” Stone said. “Very wrong.”

In rapid succession the computer flashed the number of nine more gaskets that were breaking down.

“I don’t understand …”

And then Hall said, “The child. Of course!”

“The child?”

“And that damned airplane. It all fits.”

“What are you talking about?” Stone said.

“The child was normal,” Hall said. “It could cry, and disrupt its acid-base balance. Well and good. That would prevent the Andromeda Strain from getting into its bloodstream, and multiplying, and killing it.”

“Yes, yes,” Stone said. “You’ve told me all that.”

“But what happens when the child stops crying?”

Stone stared at him. He said nothing.

“I mean,” Hall said, “that sooner or later, that kid had to stop crying. It couldn’t cry forever. Sooner or later it would stop, and its acid-base balance would return to normal. Then it would be vulnerable to Andromeda.”

“True.”

“But it didn’t die.”

“Perhaps some rapid form of immunity—”

“No. Impossible. There are only two explanations. When the child stopped crying, either the organism was no longer there—had been blown away, cleared from the air—or else the organism—”

“Changed,” Stone said. “Mutated.”

“Yes. Mutated to a noninfectious form. And perhaps it is still mutating. Now it is no longer directly harmful to man, but it eats rubber gaskets.”

“The airplane.”

Hall nodded. “National guardsmen could be on the ground, and not be harmed. But the pilot had his aircraft destroyed because the plastic was dissolved before his eyes.”

“So Burton is now exposed to a harmless organism. That’s why the rat is alive.”

“That’s why Burton is alive,” Hall said. “The rapid breathing isn’t necessary. He’s only alive because Andromeda changed.”

“It may change again,” Stone said, “and if most mutations occur at times of multiplication, when the organism is growing most rapidly—”

The sirens went off, and the computer flashed a message in red.

GASKET INTEGRITY ZERO. LEVEL V CONTAMINATED AND SEALED.

Stone turned to Hall. “Quick,” he said, “get out of here. There’s no substation in this lab. You have to go to the next sector.”

For a moment, Hall did not understand. He continued to sit in his seat, and then, when the realization hit him, he scrambled for the door and hurried outside to the corridor. As he did so he heard a hissing sound, and a thump as a massive steel plate slid out from a wall and closed off the corridor.

Stone saw it and swore. “That does it,” he said. “We’re trapped here. And if that bomb goes off, it’ll spread the organism all over the surface. There will be a thousand mutations, each killing in a different way. We’ll never be rid of it.”

Over the loudspeaker, a flat mechanical voice was saying, “The level is closed. The level is closed. This is an emergency. The level is closed.”

There was a moment of silence, and then a scratching sound as a new recording came on, and Miss Gladys Stevens of Omaha, Nebraska, said quietly, “There are now three minutes to atomic self-destruct.”

29
Three Minutes

A NEW RISING AND FALLING siren came on, and all the clocks snapped their hands back to 1200 hours, and the second hands began to sweep out the time. The stop-clocks all glowed red, with a green line on the dial to indicate when detonation would occur.

And the mechanical voice repeated calmly, “There are now three minutes to self-destruct.”

“Automatic,” Stone said quietly. “The system cuts in when the level is contaminated. We can’t let it happen.”

Hall was holding the key in his hand. “There’s no way to get to a substation?”

“Not on this level. Each sector is sealed from every other.”

“But there
are
substations, on the other levels?”

“Yes …”

“How do I get up?”

“You can’t. All the conventional routes are sealed.”

“What about the central core?” The central core communicated with all levels.

Stone shrugged. “The safeguards …”

Hall remembered talking to Burton earlier about the central-core safeguards. In theory, once inside the central core you could go straight to the top. But in practice, there were ligamine sensors located around the core to prevent this. Originally intended to prevent escape of lab animals that might break free into the core, the sensors released ligamine, a curare derivative that was water-soluble, in the form of a gas. There were also automatic guns that fired ligamine darts.