The Andromeda Strain

by Michael Crichton

“Speaking of caution,” Hall said after a pause, “I was reading in the file. Something about an atomic self-destruct device—” “What about it?” “It exists?” “It exists.” Installation of the device had been a major stumbling block in the early plans for Wildfire.

No atomic device had been put in private hands before. Stone argued that in the event of a leak in the Wildfire lab, there might not be time to consult with Washington and get a Presidential detonate order. It was a long time before the President agreed that this might be true.

In fact, the electronic body analyzer had been developed by Sandeman Industries in 1965, under a general government contract to produce body monitors for astronauts in space.

The arguments and counter-arguments were complex, but boiled down to a simple substrate: whenever a worker would announce that he had found a fossil, or a proteinaceous hydrocarbon, or other indication of life within a meteorite, the critics would claim sloppy lab technique and contamination with earth-origin matter and organisms.

Leavitt’s Rule of 48 said simply, “All Scientists Are Blind.” And Leavitt had invoked

rule when he saw the reception Karp and others received. Leavitt went over the reports and the papers and found no reason to reject the meteorite studies out of hand; many of the experiments were careful, well reasoned, and compelling.

And if there were organisms out there, and if they had departed from the baking crust of the earth long before the first men appeared, then they would be foreign to man. No immunity, no adaptation, no antibodies would have been developed. They would be primitive aliens to modern man, in the same way that the shark, a primitive fish unchanged for a hundred million years, was alien and dangerous to modern man, invading the oceans for the first

He put the dead rats to one side, and then made his crucial mistake. Burton did not autopsy the anticoagulated rats.

There a sliver of paper from the edge of the roll had peeled away and, curling upward, had lodged between the bell and striker, preventing the bell from ringing. It was for this reason that no MCN transmissions had been recorded. Neither machine nor man was able to catch the error.

scientific research was much like prospecting: you went out and you hunted, armed with your maps and your instruments, but in the end your preparations did not matter, or even your intuition. You needed your luck, and whatever benefits accrued to the diligent, through sheer, grinding hard work.

It was a long-standing problem. Early in planning Wildfire, the question had been posed: How do you study a form of life totally unlike any you know? How would you even know it was alive? This was not an academic matter.

Biology, as George Wald had said, was a unique science because it could not define its subject matter. Nobody had a definition for life. Nobody knew what it was, really. The old definitions—an

The house became a different organism altogether. And from that to the Wildfire organism was but a single step, a single leap of the imagination

his mind, again and again. Because he was missing something. And that something was bothering him. At the time, while he had been inside Piedmont itself, it had bothered him.

Then he had

forgotten, but his nagging doubts had been revived at the noon conference, while Hall was discussing the patients. Something Hall had said, some fact he had mentioned, was related, in some off way, to the birds. But what was it? What was the exact thought, the pr...

often argued that human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable.

After a time he gave up; he did so before he came upon the reprinted news item concerning the peculiar death of Officer Martin Willis, of the Arizona highway patrol.

but it could not be discounted now. “Do you suppose,” Stone said, “that it is already developing into some kind of organ of communication?” “Perhaps the cultures will tell us more,” Leavitt said. “Or X-ray crystallography,” Stone said. “I’ll order it now.”

“Yes. A polymer, depolymerized. It was broken down. Now that’s no vibration effect. It’s a biochemical effect, purely organic.” Slowly, Manchek began to understand. “You mean something tore the plastic apart?” “Yes, you could say that,” the biochemist replied. “It’s a simplification, of course, but—” “What tore it apart?”

The biochemist shrugged. “Chemical reaction of some sort. Acid could do it, or intense heat, or …” “Or?” “A microorganism, I suppose. If one existed that could eat plastic. If you know what I mean.” “I think,” Manchek said, “that I know what you mean.”

“My God,” he said. He drew out one of the rats from cold storage and cut it open. It bled. Quickly he incised the head, exposing the brain. There he found a large hemorrhage over the gray surface of the brain. “You’ve got it,” Hall said. “If the animal is normal, it dies from coagulation, beginning at the lungs. But if coagulation is prevented, then the organism erodes through the vessels of the brain, and hemorrhage occurs.”

Burton sighed. “Then we’re back where we started.” “Not quite. Because Jackson and the baby both survived. They didn’t hemorrhage—as far as we know—they survived untouched. Completely untouched.” “Meaning?” “Meaning that they somehow prevented the primary process, which is invasion of the organism into the vessel walls of the body. The Andromeda organism didn’t get to the lungs, or the brain. It didn’t get anywhere.”

“But why?” “We’ll know that,” Hall said, “when we know why a sixty-nine-year-old Sterno drinker with an ulcer is like a two-month-old baby.” “They seem pretty much opposites,” Burton said. “They do, don’t they?” Hall said. It would be hours before he realized Burton had given him the answer to the puzzle—but an answer that was worthless.

Using the GROWTH/TRANSMATRIX program, the computer did not print out results from all possible growth combinations. Instead, it printed out only significant positive and negative results. It did this after first weighing each petri dish, and examining any growth with its photoelectric eye. When Stone and Leavitt went to examine the results, they found several striking trends. Their first conclusion was that growth media did not matter at all—the organism grew

equally well on sugar, blood, chocolate, plain agar, or sheer glass. However, the gases in which the plates were incubated were crucial, as was the light. Ultraviolet light stimulated growth under all circumstances. Total darkness, and to a lesser extent infrared light, inhibited growth.

He thought about this for a moment, and then it hit him. It hit Leavitt at the same time. “Good Christ.” Leavitt was already reaching for the phone. “Get Robertson,” he said. “Get him immediately.” “Incredible,” Stone said softly. “No waste. It doesn’t require growth media. It can grow in the presence of carbon, oxygen, and sunlight. Period.” “I hope we’re not too late,” Leavitt said, watching the computer console screen impatiently.

Stone nodded. “If this organism is really converting matter to energy, and energy to matter—directly—then it’s functioning like a little reactor.” “And an atomic detonation …” “Incredible,” Stone said. “Just incredible.” The screen came to life; they saw Robertson, looking tired, smoking a cigarette. “Jeremy, you’ve got to give me time. I haven’t been able to get through to—”

“Listen,” Stone said, “I want you to make sure Directive 7–12 is not carried out. It is imperative: no atomic device must be detonated around the organisms. That’s the last thing in the world, literally, that we want to do.” He explained briefly what he had found. Robertson whistled. “We’d just provide a fantastically rich growth medium.” “That’s right,” Stone said. The problem of a rich growth medium was a peculiarly distressing one to the Wildfire team. It was known, for...

This never happens, for a perfectly simple reason: growth cannot continue indefinitely under “ideal circumstances.” Food runs out. Oxygen runs out. Local conditions within the colony change, and check the growth of organisms. On the other hand, if you had an organism that was capable of directly converting matter to energy, and if you provided it with a huge rich source of energy, like an atomic blast … “I’ll pass along your recommendation to the President,” Robertson said. “He’ll be pleased to know he made the right decision on the 7–12.” “You can congratulate him on his scientific insight,” Stone said, “for me.”

of, but the material that was destroyed was a plastic of some kind. It was depolymerized.” “What does the post team make of that?” “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.”

“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 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

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.

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.

diseases. Stone was right: the forty volunteers each had died of obscure and horrible diseases no one had ever seen before. One man experienced swelling of his body, from head to foot, a hot, bloated swelling until he suffocated from pulmonary edema. Another man fell prey to an organism that ate away his stomach in a matter of hours. A third was hit by a virus that dissolved his brain to a jelly.

Hall shook his head. Always, he came back to the baby, who was normal, not acidotic. He sighed.

But the body could compensate. By breathing rapidly. Because in that manner, the lungs blew off carbon dioxide, and the body’s supply of carbonic acid, which was what carbon dioxide formed in the blood, decreased. A way to get rid of acid. Rapid breathing.

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:

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.