Andromeda Breakthrough

Fred Hoyle & John Elliot
Andromeda Breakthrough (1965)

Andromeda Breakthrough, a sequela de A For Andromeda, nasceu da série televisiva de 1962, com o argumento adaptado para novela, publicada em 1965 nos EUA e em 1966 no Reino Unido. Enquanto A For Andromeda é uma narração completa, apesar do final aberto, Andromeda Breakthrough é nitidamente um “volume II”, que se inicia praticamente no mesmo ponto em que tinha terminado o livro anterior – o incêndio da base de Thorness.
A história prossegue com as mesmas personagens e são inúmeras as referências aos factos passados no livro anterior. A trama de espionagem, que estava anteriormente em segundo plano, emerge neste livro. Uma poderosa multinacional, com métodos obscuros e o curioso nome de Intel, que tentava apropriar-se do segredo de Andrómeda, entra agora em força, e ficamos a saber que toda a informação que permitira construir o super-computador, e se acreditava estar irremediavelmente destruída, fora, afinal, clandestinamente duplicada. Um novo super-computador tinha sido construído secretamente em Azaran, um pequeno Estado do Golfo Pérsico, e algumas pessoas determinantes do projecto de Thorness foram levadas para lá, coagidas a finalizar o trabalho e pôr o super-computador em acção – entre elas John Fleming e Andre –, sob supervisão da Intel.
Daqui poder-se-ia supor que o pesadelo tecnológico entraria, uma vez mais, em marcha, mas Andromeda Breakthrough, não cai na armadilha de voltar à mesma história de A For Andromeda.
Os 12 capítulos deste livro têm terminologia meteorológica; ficamos a saber que em Thorness fora acidentalmente libertada uma bactéria, que, chegada aos oceanos, reproduzia-se prodigiosamente e retirava nitrogénio da atmosfera, provocando baixas pressões e tempestades, antes de acabar por tornar a atmosfera irrespirável. É contra esta ameaça que os protagonistas recorrem ao super-computador, para a síntese de um antídoto, antes que o tempo se esgote. E, deste modo, a tecnologia hostil que se vislumbrava no livro anterior, é aqui de certo modo dissipada e torna-se na aliada indispensável para a resolução do problema. Este livro foi publicado em tradução portuguesa, sob o título Nova Ameaça de Andrómeda, que li em 1982.

"Found anything?" Fleming asked.
"Not much. I now know what it does." She removed a test tube clamped vertically with its mouth over one of the tubes from the tank. "It absorbs nitrogen. You'd find less than 3 per cent in this sample from the air just above water surface. It also takes up some oxygen, not much—but see for yourself."
She turned to a filing cabinet and withdrew an untidy sheaf of papers. "Just glance over those formulae, will you, John? Tell me if you've seen anything like them before."
He studied the data in silence. "I said it looked familiar. It still does." He handed the papers back.
"It's another synthesis," she murmured.
He was really alarmed. "Not another one starting?" he exclaimed.
"No," she reassured him. "We worked back to this a long way. Yesterday evening I was on familiar stuff. It came out of the computer at Thorness—oh, it must have been more than a year ago, when I began the D.N.A. synthesis."
"It's part of that?" he asked in a low voice. "Part of the programme which constructed the girl?"
"No. It came up quite separately." Dawnay was firm about it. "I based an experiment on it; one had to at that stage when we were still groping in the dark, really." She moved to the tank and looked with despair down at the opaque, sullen fluid at the bottom. "I actually made some of these bacteria."
"What happened to them?"
She answered with an obvious effort. "They seemed harmless, pointless. Another failure. I kept them in a whole range of cultures for a week. They did not die, but they did not develop. Just multiplied. So the tubes were washed out and sterilised."
He started towards her. "Don't you realise...?"
"Of course I do," she said sharply. "The bacteria went down the sink, into the drain, from the drain to the sewer, and into the sea."
"Which is precisely what that bloody machine intended should happen! But an ounce or so is the most it can have been. It can't have spread the way it has."
"Not impossible," she said. "I've tried to fix the date more or less exactly when I abandoned that line of research. It's an academic point really. But I'm certain it is a year ago at least. With this tank fixed up I have been able to calculate the rate of growth. It's fantastic. No virus or bacteria so far known has a rate even comparable to it. And now the buildup's greater. You can envisage the sort of progression now that it's invaded all the main oceans."
"How long," he asked, "will it take...?"
She looked up at him. "Possibly another year. Probably less. All sea water will then reach maximum saturation."
Fleming studied the wall-graph which recorded hour by hour the nitrogen content in the air of the tank. "It does nothing but absorb nitrogen and some oxygen?" he asked.
"Not so far as I've discovered," she replied. "But the sea normally absorbs nitrogen very, very slowly. Plankton and so on. Any artificial fertiliser manufacturing plant takes out in a week as much as the sea absorbs in a year. It hasn't mattered. There's plenty. But this bacteria could easily absorb all the nitrogen in the world's atmosphere. That's what's happening now. It's bringing down air pressure. In the end there'll be no nitrogen and therefore no plants. When the pressure really drops off the scale there won't be any way for us to absorb oxygen, and then there'll be no more animals."
"Unless—" Fleming began.
"There's no unless."

Li anteriormente:
A For Andromeda (1962)
Nova Ameaça de Andrómeda (1966)

A For Andromeda

Fred Hoyle & John Elliot
A For Andromeda (1962)

Fred Hoyle foi um conceituado astrónomo inglês, com importante trabalho teórico publicado e a particularidade de rejeitar a comum visão cosmogónica do “big bang”. Escreveu uma dúzia de livros de FC em co-autoria com o seu filho, Geoffrey Hoyle, mas este A For Andromeda (que teve edição portuguesa sob o título Ameaça de Andrómeda) não é um deles; John Elliot foi também escritor e produtor de cinema e televisão e, com Fred Hoyle, tinha sido o autor, em 1961, do argumento para a série de TV com o mesmo nome – uma parceria que seria mantida na sequela de 1962.
A For Andromeda é a adaptação literária do argumento; passa-se nos finais dessa década, e narra a detecção de um sinal extraterrestre oriundo da constelação de Andrómeda, a 200 anos-luz, recebido por um radiotelescópio de alto desempenho, acabado de entrar ao serviço. A mensagem, depois de descodificada, permite a construção de um super-computador, cuja concepção e capacidade são de tal modo avançados que os cientistas dedicados à tarefa não conseguem compreender inteiramente o que têm entre mãos. Uma vez posto em funcionamento, leva ao fabrico de um ser vivo rudimentar, um ciclope, e, numa segunda experiência, de uma mulher de aparência humana, a quem chamam Andromeda ou Andre, que funciona como terminal e extensão da própria máquina. Quase toda e gente vê no computador uma benesse, pelos avanços tecnológicos que poderá permitir, e o projecto é capturado por interesses militares. Apenas um dos cientistas que ajudou na construção, John Fleming, céptico desde a primeira hora, percepciona o carácter malévolo do maquinismo.
O tema do livro é hoje, com a advento da AI, mais premente do que na altura da sua publicação. Cada um dos doze capítulos tem por título uma única palavra, começada por ‘A’, e aí reencontramos a velha questão da relação entre ciência e ética: se todos os progressos científicos serão admissíveis apenas por serem possíveis, sem tomar em conta as inevitáveis consequências que implicam.

Geers held the door open as Andromeda came in, escorted by Hunter who walked beside and slightly behind her as though they were characters out of Jane Austen. Andromeda moved stiffly, but was thoroughly wide awake, her face calm, her eyes taking in everything. It was all somehow formal and unreal, as if a minuet were about to begin.
"This is the control-room of the computer," said Geers as she stood looking around her. He sounded like a kind but firm parent. "You remember I told you about it?"
"Why should I forget?"
Although she spoke in a slow stilted way, her voice, like her face, was strong and attractive.
Geers led her across the room. "This is the input unit. The only way we can give information to the computer is by typing it in here. It takes a long time."
"It must do." She examined the keyboard with a sort of calm interest.
"If we want to hold a conversation with it," Geers went on, "the best we can do is select something from the output and feed it back in."
"That is very clumsy," she said slowly.
Dawnay came and stood by her other side. "Cyclops in the other room can input direct by that co-axial cable."
"Is that what you wish me to do?"
"We want to find out," said Geers.
The girl looked up and found Fleming staring at her. She had not taken him in before, and gazed back expressionlessly at him.
"Who is that?"
"Doctor Fleming," said Dawnay. "He designed the computer."
The girl walked stiffly across to him and held out her hand.
"How do you do?" She spoke as if repeating a lesson.
Fleming ignored her hand and continued staring at her. She looked unblinkingly back at him and, after a minute, dropped her arm.
"You must be a clever man," she said flatly. Fleming laughed. "Why do you do that?"
"What?"
"Laugh—that is the word?"
Fleming shrugged. "People laugh when they're happy and cry when they're sad. Sometimes we laugh when we're unhappy."
"Why?" She went on gazing at his face. "What is happy or sad?"
"They're feelings."
"I do not feel them."
"No. You wouldn't."
"Why do you have them?"
"Because we're imperfect." Fleming returned her stare as though it were a challenge.

Li anteriormente:
Nova Ameaça de Andrómeda (1966)