The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton Page B

and Stone held the Scoop satellite—strange trophies, Stone thought, from a very strange town. The baby was quiet now; he had finally tired of crying and was sleeping fitfully, awakening at intervals to whimper, then sleep again.
    The helicopter descended, spinning up swirls of dust. Burton wrapped the blankets about the baby’s face to protect him. The ladder came down and he climbed up, with difficulty.
    Stone waited on the ground, standing with the capsule in the wind and dust and thumpy noise from the helicopter.
    And, suddenly, he realized that he was not alone on the street. He turned, and saw a man behind him.
    He was an old man, with thin gray hair and a wrinkled, worn face. He wore a long nightgown that was smudged with dirt and yellowed with dust, and his feet were bare. He stumbled and tottered toward Stone. His chest was heaving with exertion beneath the nightgown.
    “Who are you?” Stone said. But he knew: the man in the pictures. The one who had been photographed by the airplane.
    “You …” the man said.
    “Who are you?”
    “You … did it …”
    “What is your name?”
    “Don’t hurt me … I’m not like the others …”
    He was shaking with fear as he stared at Stone in his plastic suit. Stone thought, We must look strange to him. Like men from Mars, men from another world.
    “Don’t hurt me …”
    “We won’t hurt you,” Stone said. “What is your name?”
    “Jackson. Peter Jackson. Sir. Please don’t hurt me.” He waved to the bodies in the street. “I’m not like the others …”
    “We won’t hurt you,” Stone said again.
    “You hurt the others …”
    “No. We didn’t.”
    “They’re dead.”
    “We had nothing—”
    “You’re lying,” he shouted, his eyes wide. “You’re lying to me. You’re not human. You’re only pretending. You know I’m a sick man. You know you can pretend with me. I’m a sick man. I’m bleeding, I know. I’ve had this … this … this …”
    He faltered, and then doubled over, clutching his stomach and wincing in pain.
    “Are you all right?”
    The man fell to the ground. He was breathing heavily, his skin pale. There was sweat on his face.
    “My stomach,” he gasped. “It’s my stomach.”
    And then he vomited. It came up heavy, deep-red, rich with blood.
    “Mr. Jackson—”
    But the man was not awake. His eyes were closed and he was lying on his back. For a moment, Stone thought he was dead, but then he saw the chest moving, slowly, very slowly, but moving.
    Burton came back down.
    “Who is he?”
    “Our wandering man. Help me get him up.”
    “Is he alive?”
    “So far.”
    “I’ll be damned,” Burton said.
    They used the power winch to hoist up the unconscious body of Peter Jackson, and then lowered it again to raise the capsule. Then, slowly, Burton and Stone climbed the ladder into the belly of the helicopter.
    They did not remove their suits, but instead clipped on a second bottle of oxygen to give them another two hours of breathing time. That would be sufficient to carry them to the Wildfire installation.
    The pilot established a radio connection to Vandenberg so that Stone could talk with Major Manchek.
    “What have you found?” Manchek said.
    “The town is dead. We have good evidence for an unusual process at work.”
    “Be careful,” Manchek said. “This is an open circuit.”
    “I am aware of that. Will you order up a 7–12?”
    “I’ll try. You want it now?”
    “Yes, now.”
    “Piedmont?”
    “Yes.”
    “You have the satellite?”
    “Yes, we have it.”
    “All right,” Manchek said. “I’ll put through the order.”

8

Directive 7–12

    DIRECTIVE 7–12 WAS A PART of the final Wildfire Protocol for action in the event of a biologic emergency. It called for the placement of a limited thermonuclear weapon at the site of exposure of terrestrial life to exogenous organisms. The code for the directive was Cautery, since the function of the bomb was to cauterize the infection—to burn it