Part 4 Summary

Chapter 22: Now that they know directive 7-12 was not invoked, the men are under extreme pressure to come up with a cure for Andromeda. They rush to check the now available results from the spectrometer chemical analysis and the amino-acid analyzer. The spectrometer shows that the black rock contains hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, sulfur, silicon and selenium, with traces of other elements. This tells the team that it is not a rock at all. It resembles earthly organic life, and is also similar to the composition of plastic. The green spot contains hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in roughly the same proportions as 99% of earth life organisms. This is encouraging to the men, as it makes Andromeda seem rather similar to earth life in composition.

However, the amino-acid analysis tells a very different story. Neither the rock nor the green matter contains any amino...