The Swarm

by Frank Schätzing

  'She's right,' said Ford. 'Animals only hurt themselves for the survival of the species or to protect their young.' He removed his glasses and polished them. 'How about we let our imaginations run wild for a minute? What if the whole thing was a protest?'

  'A protest against what?'

  'Whaling.'

  'Whales protesting against whaling?' exclaimed Delaware.

  'Whalers have come under attack in the past,' said Ford, 'usually because they were hunting calves.'

  Anawak shook his head. 'You can't seriously believe that.'

  'It was just an idea.'

  'Not a plausible one, though – it's not even proven that whales know what whaling's about.'

  'You mean they don't know they're being hunted?' said Delaware. Crap!'

  'I meant that they may not see a pattern,' Anawak retorted. 'Pilot whales always strand themselves on the same stretch of coastline. In the Faroe Islands whole herds are rounded up by fishermen and killed with metal gaffs. It's a bloodbath every time. Then there's Futo in Japan, where countless dolphins and porpoises are slaughtered each year. It's been going on for generations, so they must know what awaits them. But why go back for more?'

  'It doesn't seem very smart,' agreed Ford. 'But we're still pumping greenhouse gases into the air and chopping down rainforests, even though we know we shouldn't. And that's not very clever either.'

  Delaware frowned and scraped up the last of her chocolate mousse.

  'It's true, though,' said Anawak.

  'What?'

  'Licia's point about the whales getting hurt when they launched themselves at the boats. I mean, if you decided to take out some humans, you'd find yourself a cosy niche with a good view, then point the gun and fire, making sure you didn't shoot yourself in the process.'

  'Unless something affected your judgment.'

  'Hypnosis?'

  'Perhaps they were ill – or just confused. That's it! They're confused.'

  'Or maybe they've been brainwashed.'

  'Come on, guys, cut it out.'

  They all fell silent, immersed in their thoughts. The background noise grew louder and snatches of conversation drifted over from neighbouring tables. The situation at sea still dominated the media and a strident voice was linking the attacks along the west coast to accidents in Asia. Some of the worst shipping disasters in decades had just occurred in the Malacca Strait and Japan. Everyone in the restaurant was speculating and hypothesising, their appetites undiminished.

  'Suppose toxins are responsible,' said Anawak at last. 'PCBs and so on. What if something's driving them mad?'

  'Mad with rage more likely.' Ford was fooling around again. 'They're up in arms about the Icelanders who want new whaling quotas, the Japanese who can't stop eating them, and the Norwegians who don't give a damn about the IWC. Christ, even the Makah want to hunt them again. Hey, there's our answer!' He grinned. 'They must have read it in the paper.'

  'For someone who's head of a scientific think-tank,' said Anawak, 'you don't seem to be taking this seriously. You've got an academic reputation to keep up, remember.'

  'The Makah?' echoed Delaware.

  'The Makah are part of the Nuu-chah-nulth people,' said Ford. 'Indians from the west coast of Vancouver Island. They want to start whaling again. They've been campaigning for years for legal recognition.'

  'No way! Are they crazy?'

  'Your civilised outrage is all very commendable, Licia, but the Makah haven't hunted whales since 1928.' Anawak yawned. He could barely keep his eyes open. 'In any case, it wasn't them who pushed grey whales, blue whales and humpbacks to the brink of extinction. For the Makah it's a question of preserving their culture. They say that the art of traditional whaling will soon be forgotten.'

  'They could always try shopping like everyone else.'

  'I hope you're not spoiling Leon's noble plea for tolerance,' said Ford, refilling his glass.

  Delaware stared at Anawak. Oh, no, he thought. He looked like an Indian, anyone could see that, but she was about to draw the wrong-conclusions. He could hear her question gather steam. He'd be forced to explain himself and he hated doing that. It only Ford hadn't mentioned the Makah…

  He caught the other man's eye.

  'Let's talk about it some other time,' Ford said hastily. Before Delaware could argue, he went on, 'The toxins theory is something we should talk about with Oliviera, Fenwick or Rod Palm, but I don't buy it. The pollution stems from oil spills and chlorinated hydrocarbons. We know what that leads to: damaged immune systems, infection and premature death – but not madness.'

  'I thought all the orcas on the west coast were supposed to be dead in thirty years?' Delaware piped up.

  'Thirty to a hundred and twenty, if we don't do something about it. But it's not just the chemicals. The orcas are being deprived of their main prey, so they either die of poisoning or they're forced to find new waters. And because they're hunting in areas they're not familiar with, they get caught in nets. The odds are stacked against them.'

  'Actually, forget the toxins theory,' said Ford. 'If it were just the orcas, I'd say you were on to something – but when orcas and humpbacks join forces like that … I don't think so, Leon.'

  Anawak thought for a moment. 'You know my stance on whales,' he said softly. 'I'm usually the last person to read intentions into animal behaviour or to talk up a creature's intelligence. But. . . don't you have the feeling they wanted to get rid of us?'

  He'd expected vehement protests, but Delaware nodded. 'Yes. Except the residents.'

  'Because the residents haven't gone wherever the others have been or experienced whatever it is that has changed them. Those whales that sank the freighter… We'll find the answer out to sea.'

  'Christ, Leon.' Ford gulped some wine. 'It's like a horror movie. Go forth and kill humanity.'

  Anawak didn't reply.

  THAT NIGHT, as he was lying awake in his Vancouver apartment, Anawak played with the idea of tagging a whale. The creatures were still in the grip of whatever had possessed them, so if he could fit one with a transmitter and a camera, maybe it would provide them with the answers they so desperately needed.

  But how could he tag a rampaging humpback, when even the calmest of whales seldom stayed still?

  And there was the problem of the skin.

  Tagging a whale and tagging a seal were two entirely different propositions. Seals could be caught on land while they were resting. The tag's biologically degradable adhesive would stick to the fur and dry quickly. After a set period of time it was designed to fall off. Later in the year, when the animal moulted, the last traces of glue would disappear.

  But whales and dolphins didn't have coats. It was hard to imagine anything smoother than the skin of an orca or a dolphin. It felt like a freshly peeled boiled egg, and was covered with a thin layer of gel that decreased water resistance and kept out bacteria. The top layer was continually being replaced. When the animal breached, it shed its skin in long thin strips, ridding itself of parasites and tags in the process. The skin of grey whales and humpbacks was scarcely any easier to deal with.

  Anawak got out of bed and felt his way to the window. His apartment was in an old block with a view of Granville Island. He gazed out at the cityscape, glittering in the night, and started to tick off the options. There were tricks he could use, of course. American scientists had taken to attaching tags and depth-time recorders with suction cups. With the help of a long pole, they could affix them to nearby whales or bow-riding dolphins without leaving the boat. But even suction cups only withstood the force of the water for a few hours at most. Other scientists had tried bolting the tags to the dorsal fins. Either way, he'd still have to approach the whale without being sunk.

  Maybe he could stun it…

  No, that was far too complicated. In any case, they'd need more than just a tag. They'd need pictures as well. Satellite telemetry plus video footage.

  Then he had an idea. It would require a good marksman…

&nb
sp; Anawak rushed to his desk, logged on to the web and started calling up sites. Another possibility had occurred to him, a technique he'd read about. He rummaged through a drawer, sifting through piles of notes, until he found the web address of the Underwater Robotics and Application Laboratory in Tokyo.

  They'd have to cobble two methods together. The emergency committee would have to come up with the money, but right now it was prepared to do anything that might solve the problem.

  He didn't fall asleep until the early hours of the morning. His last thoughts were devoted to the Barrier Queen and Clive Roberts. That was another mystery. The MD had never called back, although Anawak had chased him several times. He hoped Inglewood had at least sent the samples to Nanaimo. Where was that report? He wouldn't let them fob him off. There was so much to do.

  I'll have to get up and make myself a list, he thought. Then he dozed off, utterly exhausted.

  20 April

  Lyons, France

  Bernard Roche felt a pang of guilt for not having dealt sooner with the water samples. But how was he to know that a lobster could kill a man – and that it might kill more?

  Jean Jérôme, the chef-poissonnier at Troisgros in Roanne, had failed to emerge from his coma and had died twenty-four hours after the contaminated Brittany lobster had exploded in his face. It was still impossible to say what had caused his death, but one thing was clear his body had never recovered from a severe toxic shock. There was no real proof that the lobster or, indeed, the substance found inside it – was to blame, but it certainly looked that way. Other members of the kitchen staff had been taken ill, but the worst affected was the apprentice who had put the mysterious substance in the jar. They were all suffering from dizziness, nausea and migraines, and had difficulty concentrating. It was no laughing matter, especially for Troisgros, which was in danger of closing its doors. But what really worried Roche was the number of people who had consulted their doctors with similar symptoms since Jérôme had died. Their cases weren't nearly as critical, but Roche feared the worst, especially now he knew what had happened to the water in which the lobsters had been stored.

  For the sake of the restaurant, the press had tried to play down the story, but the incident was reported, and Roche was hearing rumours from elsewhere in the country. Troisgros was not the only establishment to have been affected. In Paris several people had died, allegedly from shellfish poisoning – but Roche suspected there was more to it than that. He'd heard similar news from Le Havre, Cherbourg, Caen, Rennes and Brest. One of his assistants had agreed to look into it and a story emerged in which the Brittany lobster played an unsavoury role. In the end Roche put aside his other work and devoted himself to analysing the water samples.

  In no time he found yet more unusual chemicals, whose presence he couldn't explain. He needed fresh samples urgently, so he made enquiries in all the relevant cities. Regrettably no one had thought to preserve the substance. The lobster in Roanne was the only one to have exploded, but elsewhere people talked about unpalatable lobsters that they'd been forced to throw away or lobsters that had been leaking before they were cooked. If only everyone had had the presence of mind demonstrated by the apprentice at Troisgros, but Roche knew that fishermen, wholesalers and kitchen staff couldn't be expected to respond like scientists. For the time being he had to rely on speculation. In his opinion the lobster had been inhabited by two separate organisms. First there was the jelly, which had disintegrated, leaving nothing behind.

  Then there was the other organism, which was very much alive and in plentiful supply. Something about it seemed ominously familiar.

  He stared into his microscope.

  Thousands of transparent spheres were rolling around like fast-moving tennis balls. If he was right in his assumption, inside each sphere was a coiled pedunculus – a kind of feeding tube.

  Were these the organisms that had killed Jean Jérôme?

  Roche reached for a sterilised needle and jabbed it into the tip of his thumb, producing a tiny droplet of blood. With great care he injected it on to the sample on the slide and looked through the lens. Magnified to seven hundred times their normal size, Roche's blood cells looked like ruby-red petals, each one packed with haemoglobin. They mingled with the water. The transparent spheres sprang into action, unfurling their tubes and falling on the human protoplasm. The peduncles entered the cells like miniature cannulae and the sinister micro-organisms took on a reddish hue as they sucked the blood cells dry. The assault on Roche's blood intensified: as soon as one cell was empty, the micro-organisms turned to the next, swelling all the time, as Roche had expected. Each could hold the content of ten cells. In less than forty-five minutes their work would be done. He watched, fascinated: the process was much faster than he'd believed.

  Fifteen minutes later the frenzy was over.

  Roche sat motionless next to his microscope. Then he noted, 'Query Pfiesteria piscicida!

  'Query' stood for any lingering doubt, but Roche was sure that the agent responsible for the sickness and death had been identified. What truly unnerved him was that it seemed more monstrous than Pfiesteria piscicida, which made it a double superlative, since Pfiesteria was already thought to be a monster – albeit of just one hundredth of a millimetre in diameter. It was one of the smallest predators on Earth – and one of the deadliest.

  Pfiesteria piscicida was a vampire.

  He'd read a lot about it. Scientists' acquaintance with it was relatively new. It had started in the 1980s with the death of fifty fish in a laboratory at North Carolina State University. At first there was no apparent problem with the water in which they were swimming: the aquarium was swarming with tiny unicellular organisms, but that was nothing new. So the water was changed and new fish brought in. They didn't last a day. Something was exterminating them with incredible efficiency. It killed goldfish, striped bass and Nile tilapia in hours, sometimes minutes. Time and again the researchers watched as the fish twitched, then died an agonising death. Again and again the mysterious micro-organisms appeared out of nowhere, then vanished just as fast.

  Slowly they pieced things together. A botanist identified the sinister organism as a new species of dinoflagellate. Numerous types had been categorised, some of which were harmless, but others had been exposed as living sacs of poison. They were known to have contaminated mussel farms, and certain species were responsible for the feared 'red tides' that turned the water red or brown. Shellfish were affected too. But these dinoflagellates were nothing compared to the newly discovered organisms.

  Pfiesteria piscicida was different from other members of its order. It actively attacked. In some ways it resembled a tick – not for its appearance, but for its extraordinary patience. It lurked in the sediment of riverbeds or seas, seemingly lifeless. Each individual was encased in a protective cyst, and survived for years without food. All it took was a shower of secretions from a passing shoal of fish to trigger its appetite.

  A lightning attack ensued. The algae cast aside their cysts, rising through the water in billions. Each cell was driven by a pair of flagella, one of which rotated like a propeller while the other steered. As they settled on a fish, the cells released their toxins, paralysing the creature's nervous system and burning coinsized holes in its skin. The peduncles shot into the wounds and sucked the lifeblood from the victim. Then they sank back to the seabed and retreated into their casing.

  By and large, toxic algae were seen as normal, like poisonous toadstools in a wood. People had known of the phenomenon since Biblical times. Exodus contained a description that seemed to fit perfectly with the red tides: 'And all the water in the Nile turned into blood. And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile…' For a fish to be killed by a single-cell organism was clearly nothing new. But the method and the degree of brutality were. It seemed as though the planet's water had been seized by a terrible sickness and, for the moment, the most spectacular symptoms bore the name Pfiesteria pisc
icida. Toxins were killing marine life, coral was succumbing to new forms of disease, and beds of algae had become infected. But all of this was merely a reflection of the true state of the seas, which were suffering the consequences of overfishing, chemical dumping, the urbanisation of coastal regions, and global warming. No one could agree on whether the invasion of killer algae was a new development or a periodic occurrence, but there was no doubt that it was spreading across the globe to an unprecedented extent and that Nature had once again demonstrated her infinite creativity in producing new species. In Europe people congratulated themselves that Pfiesteria had not yet reached their shores, but thousands of fish were dying off the coast of Norway, and the Norwegian salmon farmers were facing financial ruin. This time the killer organism was Chrysochromulina polylepis, a kind of baby brother to Pfiesteria. No one dared speculate what might come next.

  And now Pfiesteria piscicida was attacking Brittany lobsters.

  But was it really Pfiesteria piscicida?

  Roche was plagued by doubt. The organism was far more aggressive than he'd expected. The real puzzle, though, was how the lobsters had survived. Had the algae come from inside them? Was it mixed with the jelly-like substance? The jelly had decomposed on contact with air; he was sure it was a distinct phenomenon, something new. But had the algae and the jelly both been hidden in the lobster? And, if so, what had happened to its flesh?

  Was it really a lobster at all?

  Roche was stumped. But of one thing he was certain: the substance, whatever it might be, had entered Roanne's drinking water.

  22 April

  Continental Margin, Norwegian Sea

  At sea the world was just water and sky, with little to tell them apart. There were no visual markers, which meant that on clear days, the sense of infinity could suck you into space, and when it was wet, you never knew if you were on the surface or somewhere beneath it. Even hardened sailors found the monotony of constant rain depressing. The horizon dimmed as dark waves merged with banks of thick grey cloud, robbing the universe of light, shape and hope in a vision of desolation.