Free The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton Page B

the most superficial major artery and vein,” he said.
    “Which is?”
    “The radial. At the wrist.”
    Holding the scalpel carefully, Burton drew the blade along the skin of the inner wrist, just behind the thumb. The skin pulled back from the wound, which was completely bloodless. He exposed fat and subcutaneous tissue. There was no bleeding.
    “Amazing.”
    He cut deeper. There was still no bleeding from the incision. Suddenly, abruptly, he struck a vessel. Crumbling red-black material fell out onto the floor.
    “I’ll be damned,” Stone said again.
    “Clotted solid,” Burton said.
    “No wonder the people didn’t bleed.”
    Burton said, “Help me turn him over.” Together, they got the corpse onto its back, and Burton made a deep incision into the medial thigh, cutting down to the femoral artery and vein. Again there was no bleeding, and when they reached the artery, as thick as a man’s finger, it was clotted into a firm, reddish mass.
    “Incredible.”
    He began another incision, this time into the chest. He exposed the ribs, then searched Dr. Benedict’s office for a very sharp knife. He wanted an osteotome, but could find none. He settled for the chisel that had been used to open the capsule. Using this he broke away several ribs to expose the lungs and the heart. Again there was no bleeding.
    Burton took a deep breath, then cut open the heart, slicing into the left ventricle.
    The interior was filled with red, spongy material. There was no liquid blood at all.
    “Clotted solid,” he said. “No question.”
    “Any idea what can clot people this way?”
    “The whole vascular system? Five quarts of blood? No.” Burton sat heavily in the doctor’s chair and stared at the body he had just cut open. “I’ve never heard of anything like it. There’s a thing called disseminated intravascular coagulation, but it’s rare and requires all sorts of special circumstances to initiate it.”
    “Could a single toxin initiate it?”
    “In theory, I suppose. But in fact, there isn’t a toxin in the world—”
    He stopped.
    “Yes,” Stone said. “I suppose that’s right.”
    He picked up the satellite designated Scoop VII and carried it outside to the van. When he came back, he said, “We’d better search the houses.”
    “Beginning here?”
    “Might as well,” Stone said.
    It was Burton who found Mrs. Benedict. She was a pleasant-looking middle-aged lady sitting in a chair with a book on her lap; she seemed about to turn the page. Burton examined her briefly, then heard Stone call to him.
    He walked to the other end of the house. Stone was in a small bedroom, bent over the body of a young teen-age boy on the bed. It was obviously his room: psychedelic posters on the walls, model airplanes on a shelf to one side.
    The boy lay on his back in bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. His mouth was open. In one hand, an empty tube of model-airplane cement was tightly clenched; all over the bed were empty bottles of airplane dope, paint thinner, turps.
    Stone stepped back. “Have a look.”
    Burton looked in the mouth, reached a finger in, touched the now-hardened mass. “Good God,” he said.
    Stone was frowning. “This took time,” he said. “Regardless of what made him do it, it took time. We’ve obviously been oversimplifying events here. Everyone did not die instantaneously. Some people died in their homes; some got out into the street. And this kid here …”
    He shook his head. “Let’s check the other houses.”
    On the way out, Burton returned to the doctor’s office, stepping around the body of the physician. It gave him a strange feeling to see the wrist and leg sliced open, the chest exposed—but no bleeding. There was something wild and inhuman about that. As if bleeding were a sign of humanity. Well, he thought, perhaps it is. Perhaps the fact that we bleed to death makes us human.
    For Stone, Piedmont was a puzzle challenging him to crack its secret. He was convinced that the