The Andromeda Strain Part 28

But the arguments for suppression seemed theoretical, and Jensen, sensing billions of dollars at hand, fought hard for a clinical test. Eventually the government, the HEW, the FDA, and others agreed with Jensen and sanctioned further clinical testing over the protests of Stone and others.

In February 1966, a pilot clinical trial was undertaken. It involved twenty patients with incurable cancer, and twenty normal volunteers from the Alabama state penitentiary. All forty subjects took the drug daily for one month. Results were as expected: normal subjects experienced unpleasant side effects, but nothing serious. Cancer patients showed striking remission of symptoms consistent with cure.

On March 1, 1966, the forty men were taken off the drug. Within six hours, they were all dead.

It was what Stone had predicted from the start. He had pointed out that mankind had, over centuries of exposure, developed a carefully regulated immunity to most organisms. On his skin, in the air, in his lungs, gut, and even bloodstream were hundreds of different viruses and bacteria. They were potentially deadly, but man had adapted to them over the years, and only a few could still cause disease.

All this represented a carefully balanced state of affairs. If you introduced a new drug that killed all bacteria, you upset the balance and undid the evolutionary work of centuries. And you opened the way to superinfection, the problem of new organisms, bearing new 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. .h.i.t by a virus that dissolved his brain to a jelly.

And so it went.

Jensen reluctantly took the drug out of further study. The government, sensing that Stone had somehow understood what was happening, agreed to his earlier proposals, and viciously suppressed all knowledge and experimentation with the drug Kalocin.

And that was where the matter had rested for two years.

Now Burton wanted to be given the drug.

"No," Stone said. "Not a chance. It might cure you for a while, but you'd never survive later, when you were taken off."

"That's easy for you to say, from where you are."

"It's not easy for me to say. Believe me, it's not. He put his hand over the microphone again. To Hall: "We know that oxygen inhibits growth of the Andromeda Strain. That's what we'll give Burton. It will be good for him-- make him a little giddy, a little relaxed, and slow his breathing down. Poor fellow is scared to death."

Hall nodded. Somehow, Stone's phrase stuck in his mind: scared to death. He thought about it, and then began to see that Stone had hit upon something important. That phrase was a clue. It was the answer.

He started to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

"I've got some thinking to do."

"About what?"

"About being scared to death."

27. Scared to Death

HALL WALKED BACK TO HIS LAB AND STARED through the gla.s.s at the old man and the infant. He looked at the two of them and tried to think, but his brain was running in frantic circles. He found it difficult to think logically, and his earlier sensation of being on the verge of a discovery was lost.

For several minutes, he stared at the old man while brief images pa.s.sed before him: Burton dying, his hand clutched to his chest. Los Angeles in panic, bodies everywhere, cars going haywire, out of control...

It was then that he realized that he, too, was Scared. Scared to death. The words came back to him.

Scared to death.

Somehow, that was the answer.

Slowly, forcing his brain to be methodical, he went over it again.

A cop with diabetes. A cop who didn't take his insulin and had a habit of going into ketoacidosis.

An old man who drank Sterno, which gave him methanolism, and acidosis.

A baby, who did ... what? What gave him acidosis?

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

Take it from the beginning, he told himself. Be logical. If a man has metabolic acidosis-- any kind of acidosis-- what does he do?

He has too much acid in his body. He can die from too much acid, just as if he had injected hydrochloric acid into his veins.

Too much acid meant death.

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.

And Andromeda? What happened to the organism, when you were acidotic and breathing fast?

Perhaps fast breathing kept the organism from getting into your lungs long enough to penetrate to blood vessels. Maybe that was the answer. But as soon as he thought of it, he shook his head. No: something else. Some simple, direct fact. Something they had always known, but somehow never recognized.

The organism attacked through the lungs.

It entered the bloodstream.

It localized in the walls of arteries and veins, particularly of the brain.

It produced damage.

This led to coagulation. Which was dispersed throughout the body, or else led to bleeding, insanity, and death.

But in order to produce such rapid, severe damage, it would take many organisms. Millions upon millions, collecting in the arteries and veins. Probably you did not breathe in so many.

So they must multiply in the bloodstream.

At a great rate. A fantastic rate.

And if you were acidotic? Did that halt multiplication?

Perhaps.

Again, he shook his head. Because a person with acidosis like Willis or Jackson was one thing. But what about the baby?

The baby was normal. If it breathed rapidly, it would become alkalotic-basic, too little acid-- not acidotic. The baby would go to the opposite extreme.

Hall looked through the gla.s.s, and as he did, the baby awoke. Almost immediately it began to scream, its face turning purple, the little eyes wrinkling, the mouth, toothless and smooth-gummed, shrieking.

Scared to death.

And then the birds, with the fast metabolic rate, the fast heart rates, the fast breathing rates. The birds, who did everything fast. They, too, survived.

Breathing fast?

Was it as simple as that?

He shook his head. It couldn't be.

He sat down and rubbed his eyes. He had a headache, and he felt tired. He kept thinking of Burton, who might die at any minute. Burton, sitting there in the sealed room.

Hall felt the tension was unbearable. He suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to escape it, to get away from everything.

The TV screen clicked on. His technician appeared and said, "Dr. Hall, we have Dr. Leavitt in the infirmary."

And Hall found himself saying, "I'll be right there."

He knew he was acting strangely. There was no reason to see Leavitt. Leavitt was all right, perfectly fine, in no danger. In going to see him, Hall knew that he was trying to forget the other, more immediate problems. As he entered the infirmary, he felt guilty.

His technician said, "He's sleeping."

"Post-ictal," Hall said. Persons after a seizure usually slept.

"Shall we start Dilantin?"

"No. Wait and see. Perhaps we can hold him on phen.o.barb."

He began a slow and meticulous examination of Leavitt. His technician watched him and said, "You're tired."

"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: [GRAPHIC: colony growth versus pH, bell shaped curve centered at pH 7.41 and dying at 7.39/7.43]

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 7.43 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 a.s.sistant 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 pa.s.s out. I'm a little dizzy now."