Part 5 Summary

Chapter 30: Hall comes to and finds a concerned female staring down at him. She tells him he had gone about forty seconds without breathing before they were able to intubate him and put him on a respirator. That was fifteen minutes ago. The ligamine has now worn off. She tells him that according to predictions, the Andromeda strain is over Los Angeles by now. Later, Stone tells him that Andromeda has spread around the globe, but it is having absolutely no effect on anyone. Stone tells him he turned the key with about thirty-four seconds to spare. Hall says, "Plenty of time. Hardly even exciting." (page 282) But Stone informs him that from Stone's perspective it was quite exciting, because the air supply on Level V gets evacuated when the countdown reaches thirty seconds. Hall saved them all with four seconds to spare. Stone...