The Swarm

by Frank Schätzing

Anawak nodded.

  'I think you couldn't be more wrong. For years you retreated into yourself, dragging around all your baggage. That iceberg you were floating on – it was you. An icy, unapproachable block. But out there the block began to melt. The ocean you're sinking into isn't the kingdom of the yrr. It's our world. That's where you belong. That's the adventure in store for you. Friendship, love, hostility, hatred and anger. Your role isn't to play the hero. Those roles were handed out a long time ago, and they're for dead men. You belong in the world of the living.'

  Night

  They all rested in different ways. Crowe's small, delicate form was swaddled in blankets, with just her steel-grey hair protruding at the top. Weaver lay naked on top of the sheets, sprawled on her front, head to one side, pillowed on a forearm. Her chestnut hair covered her face, so that only her parted lips could be seen. Shankar was a restless sleeper who couldn't stop rearranging his bedclothes, muttering and giving the occasional muffled snore.

  Rubin was mostly awake.

  Greywolf and Delaware didn't sleep much either, but that was mainly because they were otherwise engaged. Two cabins further along, Anawak was asleep on his side in a T-shirt. There was nothing remarkable about Oliviera's sleeping patterns.

  Johanson lay on his back, arms outstretched. Only the beds in flag and officer accommodation allowed an expansive position like that. It suited the Norwegian so well that a former lover had once woken him to tell him that he'd been sleeping like the lord of the manor. He slept like that every night- a man who looked as though he wanted to embrace life, even when his eyes were closed.

  The sleeping or waking bodies filled a row of brightly lit screens. Each monitor showed an individual cabin. Two men in uniform were watching them, while Li and Vanderbilt hovered in the background.

  'Regular angels, wouldn't you say?' said Vanderbilt.

  Li's expression didn't flicker as she watched Delaware and Greywolf. The volume was turned down, but faint sounds of their love-making penetrated the cool air of the control room.

  I'd go for that little beauty,' said Vanderbilt, pointing at Weaver. 'Nice ass.'

  'Fallen for her, have you?'

  Vanderbilt grinned. 'Oh, please.'

  'You should turn on the charm,' said Li. 'You're carrying around at least two tonnes of it.'

  The CIA agent mopped the sweat from his forehead. They watched for a while longer. Li didn't care if the people on the screens were snoring or turning cartwheels. They could hang upside-down from the ceiling for all she cared.

  The main thing was that she knew where they were, what they were doing and everything they said.

  'Carry on,' she said. On her way out she added, 'Remember to keep looking in all of the cabins.'

  13 August

  Visitors

  The message had been beamed non-stop into the depths – as yet to no avail. At seven o'clock they'd been jolted out of bed by the alarm call, but almost no one felt properly rested. Most nights the gentle rocking motion of the enormous vessel lulled them to sleep. The air-conditioning hummed softly in the cabins, keeping the temperature agreeably constant, and the beds were comfortable. They might have slept soundly, but for the suspense. Instead they'd dozed fitfully. Johanson had lain awake imagining the effect of the message on the Greenland Sea, until nightmare visions haunted him.

  That they were in the Greenland Sea at all, and not thousands of kilometres further to the south, was due only to his intervention, with the support of Bohrmann and Weaver. If it had been up to Rubin, Anawak and some of the others, the attempt to make contact would have been launched over the site of the volcanoes in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Rubin's reasoning was based on similarities between the crabs of that region and those that had invaded New York and Washington. Besides, it was one of the few places in the depths that provided the right conditions for sophisticated life-forms to flourish. In that respect, the habitat in the hydrothermal vents was ideal. Hot water rose up from huge chimneys of rock on the seabed, drawing with it minerals and life-giving nutrients from the heart of the volcanoes. Worms, mussels, fish and crabs inhabited the vents in conditions not dissimilar to those of an alien planet. Why shouldn't the yrr live there too?

  Johanson had accepted most of their arguments, but two factors prevented him backing their conclusion. First, although the hydrothermal vents were the most favourable place for life in the deep sea, they were also the most lethal. Molten rock was regularly cast out of the volcanoes as the ocean plates shifted apart. During such eruptions the deep-sea biotope could be wiped out entirely, although it didn't take long for new life to establish itself. All the same, it was hardly an environment that a complex, intelligent civilisation would choose as its home.

  Second, the chance of making contact with the yrr was greater, the closer they got to them. Exactly where that might he was a matter for debate. All the various theories were probably right to a degree. There was reason to believe, for example, that they might live in the benthic zone at the very bottom of the ocean. Many of the recent anomalies had occurred in the immediate vicinity of deep-sea trenches. Yet there was also evidence to suggest that they resided in the vast ocean basins of the abyssal plains. And Rubin's suggestion that they might inhabit the oases of life in the middle of the Atlantic couldn't be rejected. In the end Johanson had proposed that they shouldn't focus on where the yrr might live, but on places where they had to be present.

  The cold water in the Greenland Sea had stopped plummeting into the depths. As a result, the Gulf Stream had halted. There were only two possible explanations for the phenomenon: either the water had warmed, or an influx of fresh water flowing southwards from the Arctic had diluted the salt-laden current so it could no longer sink. Both explanations presupposed intense activity at the site of the convective chimneys. Somewhere in the Arctic Ocean the yrr were providing the impetus for radical changes in the sea.

  Somewhere not far from the vessel.

  Lastly, there was the safety aspect. Even Bohrmann, who had got into the habit of expecting the worst, was forced to concede that the risk of a methane blow-out in the Greenland Basin was relatively small. Bauer's ship had come to grief near Svalbard, at a site where vast deposits of hydrates lined the continental slope. By contrast, 3500 metres of water separated the Independence from the seabed. At that depth there was relatively little methane, certainly not enough to sink a vessel of that size. To be on the safe side, the scientists had taken regular seismic readings as they crossed the Arctic Ocean, selecting a position that seemed mainly hydrate-free. Stationed on the open water, the Independence would be safe from the mightiest tsunami – unless, of course, La Palma collapsed into the sea.

  But then it would all be over anyway.

  Inside the cavernous messroom, the scientists were having breakfast. Anawak and Greywolf were missing. After the alarm call Johanson had spent a few minutes talking on the phone to Bohrmann, who'd arrived in La Palma and was preparing to deploy the suction tube. 'The Canaries were a time-zone behind the Arctic, but Bohrmann had been up for hours already.

  'A five-hundred-metre suction tube doesn't take care of itself,' he'd said.

  'Don't forget to vacuum in all the corners,' Johanson had advised him.

  He missed Bohrmann, but there no shortage of interesting people on board. He was chatting to Crowe when first officer Floyd Anderson walked in, holding a pint-sized insulated mug emblazoned 'USS Wasp LHD-8.' He walked over to the coffee machine and filled it. 'We've got visitors,' he bellowed.

  Everyone turned.

  'We've made contact?' asked Oliviera.

  'We can't have. I'd know.' Crowe picked up a slice of toast and took a bite. Her third or fourth cigarette was smouldering in the ashtray. 'Shankar's in the CIC. He'd have called.'

  'Well, what is it? An alien landing?'

  'Why don't you take a look from the roof?' Anderson said cryptically.

  FLIGHT DECK

  The cold air clung to Johanson's face like a mask. The sky was suffus
ed with white. Grey waves rose with spray-crowned crests. A wind had blown up overnight and was raining minute crystals of ice across the deck. Johanson spotted a group of muffled figures on the starboard side of the ship. As he got closer, he identified Li, Anawak and Greywolf. At the same time he saw what was holding their attention.

  Not far from the Independence the dark outlines of sword-like fins cut through the water.

  'Orcas,' said Anawak, as Johanson joined them.

  'What are they doing?'

  Anawak squinted at him through the shower of ice. 'They've been circling the vessel for the past three hours. The dolphins alerted us. I'd say they're watching us.'

  Shankar ran over from the island to join them.

  'What's going on?'

  'We seem to have caught someone's attention,' said Crowe. 'Maybe it's a response.'

  The orcas kept a respectful distance from the vessel. There were hordes of them – hundreds, thought Johanson. They were swimming at a steady speed, their shiny black backs rising occasionally above the waves. There was no denying that they looked like a patrol.

  'Are they infected?'

  Anawak wiped water out of his eyes. 'We don't know.'

  'Tell me,' Greywolf rubbed his chin, 'if this stuff is controlling their brains, has it occurred to you that it might be able to see us? Or hear us?'

  'You're right,' said Anawak. 'It's in control of their sensory organs.'

  'Exactly. It means that gunk has eyes and ears.'

  They stared out to sea.

  'Either way,' said Crowe, drawing on her cigarette and exhaling into the icy air, 'it's started.' Wisps of smoke rose above their heads.

  'What has?' asked Li.

  'They're sizing us up.'

  'Let them.' A thin smile formed on Li's lips. 'We're ready for anything.'

  'For everything we've anticipated,' said Crowe.

  LAB

  As he headed below deck with Rubin and Oliviera, Johanson asked himself whether a psychosis could forge its own reality. He'd started the ball rolling. Of course, if he hadn't come up with the theory, someone else would. But the fact remained that they were creating information on the basis of a hypothesis. All it took was for a pack of orcas to circle the Independence, and everyone saw the eyes and ears of aliens. In fact, they were seeing aliens everywhere. That was what had prompted them to send the message in the first place, and it was why they were expecting an answer.

  The fifth day. We're not really making any progress, he thought, in frustration. We need something to show us we're not completely off-course, that we haven't been blinded by a theory.

  Footsteps echoing, they made their way down the ramp, past the hangar bay and deeper into the vessel. The steel door to the lab was locked. Johanson tapped in the combination code and the door opened with a soft hiss. He made his way along the bank of switches, aiming on the strip-lights and the desk-lights, flooding the islands of benches and equipment in a cold white glare. The deep-sea simulation chamber hummed in the background.

  They climbed on to the walkway and peered through the large oval window. It gave a full view of the inside of the tank. The beam of the internal floodlights picked out small white carapaces and spindly legs scurrying over the artificial seabed. Some of the crabs were moving hesitantly, as though they'd lost their way, scuttling in circles or stopping to consider where they wanted to go. Towards the bottom of the tank, the water obscured the details, but underwater cameras took close-up footage and beamed it on to the monitors at the control desk next to the chamber.

  'No real change since yesterday,' said Oliviera.

  Johanson scratched his beard. 'We should open some up and see what happens.'

  'Crack open some crabs?'

  'Why not? We've already established that we can keep them alive in the pressure lab.'

  'We've established that we can keep them in a vegetative state,' Oliviera corrected him. 'We don't yet know if they're really alive.'

  'The jelly inside them is,' Rubin said thoughtfully, 'but the rest of the crab is no more animate than a car.'

  'I agree,' said Oliviera. 'But what's the deal with the jelly? Why isn't it doing anything?'

  'What were you expecting it to do?'

  'Run around.' Oliviera shrugged. 'Shake its pincers at us. I don't know. Leave the shell, maybe. Those creatures are programmed to march ashore, wreak havoc and die, so this situation puts them in an awkward position. No one's here to give them new orders. They're basically on stand-by.'

  'Exactly,' said Johanson, impatiently. 'They're just like battery-operated toys. I agree with Mick. The crab bodies are equipped with just enough nervous tissue to make a dashboard for their drivers. I want to tempt them out of their shells. I want to know what happens if you force them out of their armour in a deep-sea environment.'

  'OK.' Oliviera nodded. 'Let's stir things up a bit.'

  They left the walkway, clambered down the ladders and walked over to the control desk. The computer enabled them to operate various robots inside the tank. Johanson selected a small, two-piece ROV-unit named Spherobot. A bank of high-resolution screens sprang to life above a console with two joysticks. One showed the inside of the tank. Everything looked elongated and hazy. Spherobot's wide-angle lens was able to survey the whole interior of the tank, but as a result the camera provided a fisheye view.

  'How many shall we open?' asked Oliviera.

  Johanson's hands flitted over the keyboard, and the angle of the camera shifted upwards by a degree. 'Well, in a good plateful of scampi there's usually at least a dozen.'

  ONE OF THE WALLS inside the tank resembled a two-storey garage in which all kinds of deep-sea equipment was stored. Underwater robots of different types and sizes were there, ready to be operated from the control desk. There was no other way to intervene in the artificial world of the chamber.

  Johanson activated the controls, and powerful lights flared up on the underside of a robot. Two rotors turned. A box-shaped sled the size of a shopping-trolley floated slowly out of the garage. The top half was packed with machinery, and the rest was made up of an empty basket with fine wire-netting sides. It glided towards the artificial seabed and stopped in front of a small group of motionless crabs. Curved eyeless shells and powerful pincers came into view.

  'I'm going to switch to the camera on the globe now,' said Johanson.

  The hazy image was replaced by a high-resolution close-up.

  Floating above the crabs, the sled released a shiny red ball, no bigger than a football. It was easy to see how the Spherobot had acquired its name. The ball floated into the water, a single cable linking it to the sled, the shiny eye of its camera pointing straight ahead. It brought to mind the flying robot in Star Wars that sparred with Luke Skywalker as he learned to use his light saber. In fact, the Spherobot, with its six miniature thruster pods, was a detailed re-creation of its cinematic predecessor. It travelled a short distance through the water, then sank slowly until it was hovering just above the crabs. They paid no attention to the strange red ball, even when its underside slid open and two slim articulated arms unfolded from inside.

  At the end of each arm, an arsenal of equipment began to rotate. Then a robotic grasper protruded from the left arm and a saw from the right. Johanson's hands held both joysticks and shifted carefully forwards, the arms of the robot following each move.

  'Hasta la vista, baby,' said Oliviera.

  The grasper reached down, grabbed a crab by the middle of its shell and lifted it in front of the camera lens. On the monitor, the creature took on monstrous proportions. Its jaws moved, and its legs kicked, but its pincers dangled limply. Johanson rotated the grasper in a full circle and carefully watched the reaction of the spinning crab.

  'Normal motor activity,' he said. 'Its legs are moving fine;

  'But it's not responding like a crab,' said Rubin.

  'No, it hasn't splayed its pincers or made any obvious show of aggression. It's just a machine.' He moved the second joystick and pre
ssed the button on the top. The circular saw started to rotate and the blade cut into the side of the shell. For an instant the crab's legs twitched wildly.

  The shell broke apart.

  A milky substance slid out and hovered, trembling, over the debris of the crab.

  'Oh, my God,' said Oliviera.

  It looked like nothing they'd ever come across. It bore no resemblance to a jellyfish or a squid, but seemed entirely without form. Waves passed through the fringes of the substance, and the creature billowed and flattened. Johanson thought he saw a flash of light shoot out from its centre, but in the harsh glare of the tank it might have been an optical illusion. He was still thinking about it when the creature regrouped into something snake-like and shot away.

  Johanson swore, picked up the next crab and cut it open. This time everything happened even faster, and the jelly-like inhabitant of the carapace fled before they had a chance to see it.

  'Wow!' Rubin was clearly excited. 'This is crazy! What the hell is this stuff?'

  'Something slippery, 'Johanson said, through gritted teeth. 'How the hell are we supposed to stop it getting away?'

  'What's the problem? It's got nowhere to go.'

  'Well, you try searching the chamber for two shapeless, colourless objects no bigger than a tennis ball!'

  'You could open the next one inside the sled basket,' said Oliviera.

  'There's no netting at the front. It will get away.'

  'No, it won't. The basket closes. You'll just have to be quick.'

  Johanson grabbed another crab, spun the Spherobot by 180 degrees and guided it back towards the sled until it was close enough to extend its articulated arms inside the basket. Once they were in, he set the edge of the circular saw against the crab. The shell burst open.

  Nothing happened.

  'Was it empty?' asked Rubin.

  They waited a few seconds, then Johanson guided the spherical robot slowly inside the basket.

  'Shit!'