The Swarm

by Frank Schätzing

  The jelly shot away from the crab, but chose the wrong direction. It hit the back of the basket with a thud. Contracting into a trembling ball, it flitted unsteadily back and forth beside the rear mesh. Its confusion, if that was what it was, lasted only a second.

  'It's trying to escape!'

  Johanson reversed the Spherobot away from the basket. It hit the side of the cage and then it was out. Its arm grabbed the flap and slammed it shut.

  The thing flattened itself into a sheet and rushed towards the flap, recoiling within centimetres of hitting it, and changing shape once more. This time its edges extended on all sides until it was suspended in the water like a transparent bell, filling half of the basket. The creature morphed. For a few seconds it looked like a jellyfish, then rolled itself up. It was shaped like a ball again.

  'Unbelievable,' whispered Rubin.

  'Look at that,' exclaimed Oliviera. 'It's shrinking.'

  The sphere was slowly decreasing in size and losing its transparency. The milky colour became more pronounced.

  'Its tissue is contracting,' said Rubin. 'It can change its molecular density.'

  'Does it remind you of something?'

  'Early types of simple polyps.' Rubin thought. 'The Cambrian. A number of modern-day organisms have similar properties. Most squid contract their tissue, but they don't change shape. We need to catch a few more and see how they react.'

  'Next time I won't be fast enough,' Johanson said. 'If I open the basket, this one will escape. They're too quick for me.'

  'Fine. Well, I guess one is enough for observation purposes.'

  'Oh, I don't know,' said Oliviera. 'Observing them is all very well, but I want to examine the stuff, not just its disintegrating remains. Maybe we should freeze the thing and slice it up.'

  'Absolutely.' Rubin was staring at the screen in fascination. 'But not right now. Let's observe it for a bit.'

  'But we've got the other two as well. Can anyone see them?'

  Johanson switched on all the other screens. The inside of the tank appeared from various angles.

  'Vanished.'

  'They've got to be in there somewhere.'

  'OK, let's crack open a few more,' said Johanson. 'That's what we'd agreed to do anyway. The more gunk there is floating around in the tank, the more chance we have of spotting it. We'll leave our PoW in the cage – we can deal with him later.'

  THEY OPENED A DOZEN or so crabs without making any attempt to catch the jelly-like beings, which darted away as soon as the shells broke open.

  'Well, they're certainly not affected by the Pfiesteria,' said Oliviera.

  'Of course not,' said Johanson. 'The yrr will have made sure that neither organism can harm the other.

  'Do you think the jelly is another genetic mutation?'

  'I don't know. It could be natural – but then again, it might be engineered.'

  'Perhaps it's the yrr.'

  Johanson rotated the Spherobot so that the camera was pointing at the basket. He stared at the captive. It had kept its spherical shape and was lying like a glassy white tennis ball on the floor of the cage.

  'These things?' Rubin said in disbelief.

  'Well, why not?' said Oliviera. 'We've found them in whale brains, they were underneath the mussels on the Barrier Queen, they were in the blue cloud. They're everywhere.'

  'The blue cloud. How does that fit in?'

  'It must have some kind of function. The things hide inside it.'

  'Well, I'd say the jelly is like the worms and the other mutations. It's a biological weapon.' Rubin pointed to the motionless ball in the cage. 'Do you think it might be dead? It's not moving. Maybe the tissue contracts when it's dying.'

  At that moment a whistling noise came through the loudspeakers overhead and Peak's voice boomed, 'Good morning, everyone. Now that Dr Crowe is here and the team is complete, there'll be a meeting at ten thirty on the well deck. We'll be introducing you to the submersibles and other equipment, so we'd appreciate your attendance. And don't forget that our daily meeting will take place as usual at ten in the Flag Command Center. Thank you.'

  'Good thing he reminded us,' Rubin said. 'I've got no sense of time when I'm busy in the lab.'

  'I wonder if there's any news from Nanaimo.' Oliviera sounded bored.

  'Why don't you ring Roche?' Rubin suggested. 'You can tell him about our progress. Maybe he'll have something to show for his efforts too.' He prodded Johanson. 'And maybe we'll get to hear before Li. Then we can show off at the meeting.'

  Johanson smiled back. He didn't like Rubin. The man was good at his job, but Johanson had the feeling he'd sell his grandmother to boost his career.

  Oliviera went up to the radio-telephone next to the control panel and dialled the number. Thanks to the satellite dish on top of the island, the full range of telecommunication systems was available on board. No matter where you were in the ship, you could watch a wide range of TV channels, plug in your own portable TV set or radio, go online on your laptop or place a telephone call on a secure line to any city in the world. Even Nanaimo in faraway Canada was easy to reach. She talked to Fen wick, then Roche. They were working with a team of scientists all over the world. It looked as though they'd managed to stake out the spectrum of Pfiesteria mutations, but a breakthrough wasn't in sight. Instead hordes of crabs had invaded Boston. Oliviera updated them and hung up.

  'What a bloody mess,' said Rubin.

  'Perhaps our friends in the tank can be of some assistance,' said Johanson. 'Something must be protecting them from the algae. Let's set up a session in the containment facility. And as soon as we know what our prisoner-' He stared at the screen.

  The thing in the cage had gone.

  Olivera and Rubin followed his gaze.

  'That's impossible.'

  'How the hell did it get out?'

  There was nothing to see on any of the screens, apart from water and crabs.

  'They've disappeared.'

  'They can't have!'

  'Hang on a minute. There must be a least a dozen whizzing around in there. We're bound to be able to spot some.'

  'Oh they'll be there all right. But where's the one from the cage?'

  Johanson 's face brightened.

  'Maybe you're right,' he said slowly. 'After all, they keep changing shape. The wire mesh is pretty fine, but probably not fine enough for something very long and thin.'

  'That stuffs unbelievable,' whispered Rubin.

  They started to search the tank. They assigned themselves to different monitors, so they could scour the chamber simultaneously. They zoomed in, but there was no sign of the jelly anywhere. In the end Johanson guided all the robots, one by one, out of the garage, but the beings weren't hiding there either.

  They'd vanished.

  'Maybe we've got a problem with the plumbing,' said Oliviera. 'Do you think they could have got stuck?'

  'Impossible,' said Rubin.

  'Either way,' said Johanson, testily, 'it's time for the meeting. Let's hope we have a brainwave while we're up there.'

  Baffled, they switched off the lights in the chamber and walked towards the door. Rubin turned off the lab lights and started to follow the others into the passageway. He looked back and stopped.

  Johanson saw him standing in the doorway, staring back into the darkness. Slowly he walked towards him, followed by Oliviera.

  Through the oval window of the chamber, something was glowing.

  A faint glimmer of scattered light.

  Blue.

  Without stopping to worry about the obstacles in their path, they ran through the dark lab towards the chamber and rushed up the steps.

  The blue glow was suspended in the water. A cosmic cloud in the darkness of space – only space was a tank, and inside it was water. It covered a few square metres.

  Johanson peered at it. It looked as though tiny pulses of light were flowing towards the centre of the cloud, getting faster all the time, like particles of matter near a black hole.
/>   The cloud turned a deeper blue, then collapsed in on itself.

  It was imploding, like a Big Bang in reverse. Everything was sucked towards its centre, which grew steadily brighter and denser. Flashes of light shot out, forming complicated patterns. The cloud was disappearing into its mid-point at incredible speed, drawn into a turbulent whirlpool, and then…

  'This can't be happening,' said Oliviera.

  On the other side of the glass there was now a spherical object the size of a football. A blue-tinged mass of matter, made of luminous pulsating jelly.

  They'd found the creatures.

  And they'd become one.

  FLAG COMMAND CENTER

  'Single-cell organisms,' Johanson said. 'They're single-cell organisms!' He was incredibly excited. Rubin shifted on his chair and nodded vigorously, while Johanson paced up and down. He could never have stayed seated at a time like this. 'Until now we've assumed that the jelly and the cloud are two separate entities, but they're one and the same. They're a network of unicellular beings. It's not just a case of the jelly changing shape – it can disintegrate entirely, and get back together in a flash.'

  'The unicellular whatsits can disintegrate?' queried Vanderbilt.

  'Of course not! The single-cell organisms combine to form the jelly and the cloud. When we opened the crabs, we found blobs of the jelly inside them. We only managed to catch hold of one and all the others disappeared. Then we lost the captive too. It vanished without trace. I can't believe I didn't work it out straight away. It's obvious that you can't keep single-cell organisms in a cage. And you're hardly going to see them with the naked eye! The chamber was lit internally, which meant there was no sign of any bioluminescence. We had the same problem in Norway. A huge thing appeared in front of our cameras. At the time we saw a pale surface, lit up by Victor's floodlights, but in reality it was glowing. It was glowing because it was made up of an enormous confederation of luminescent microbes. The creature we've got swimming about in the tank right now is a combined mass of jelly we let out of those crabs.'

  'Well,' said Anawak, 'that would explain the shapeless creature on the keel of the Barrier Queen, the blue cloud near Vancouver Island…'

  'Of course – your URA footage of the whales… Well, most of those cells would have been floating freely in the water, but others combined to form tentacles. They must have been injecting themselves into the heads of the whales, and-'

  'Hang on a minute.' Li raised her hand. 'The jelly was already inside their heads.'

  'OK, then.' Johanson thought for a moment. 'Well, some kind of connection took place. I bet that's how the jelly finds its way inside. Maybe we were witnessing some kind of exchange: old jelly out, new jelly in. Or it could have been a kind of check-up. Maybe the gunk in the brains was handing something to the cells outside.'

  'Information,' said Greywolf.

  'Why not?' exclaimed Johanson.

  Delaware wrinkled her nose. 'You mean, they can take on any size at all? They can be as big as they need to be?'

  'Any size and any shape.' Oliviera nodded. 'To steer a crab, you need only a handful. But the thing near the whales off Vancouver Island was the size of a house so-'

  'That's why our discovery is so important,' Rubin cut in. He leaped to his feet. 'The jelly is a raw material that serves to accomplish different tasks.'

  Oliviera looked put out.

  'I've taken a close look at the footage from the Norwegian continental shelf,' he said breathlessly, 'and I think I know what happened! I'm willing to bet that this stuff was the final trigger for the collapse of the slope. We're on the verge of discovering the truth.'

  'So you've found a substance that can do all kinds of shit,' said Peak, sounding unimpressed. 'Great. And where are the yrr?'

  'The yrr-' Rubin stopped short. His self-assurance had evaporated. He glanced nervously at Johanson and Oliviera. 'Well…'

  'Do you think these organisms are the yrr?' asked Crowe.

  Johanson shook his head. 'No idea.'

  For a while there was silence.

  Crowe pursed her lips and drew on a cigarette. 'Well, we still haven't received a reply. What kind of organism would be able to respond? An intelligent being or maybe even a conglomerate of intelligent beings? What do you think, Sigur? Are those things in the tank intelligent?'

  'You know perfectly well that it's pointless to speculate,' said Johanson.

  'I just wanted to hear you say so.'

  'How are we supposed to know if they're intelligent? What would an alien intelligence make of a bunch of human PoWs who can't do maths, and are moaning in a corner or sitting around apathetically because they're cold and scared?'

  'Oh, God.' Vanderbilt groaned. 'Next thing he'll be throwing the book at us for infringing the Geneva Convention.'

  'I didn't realise it applied to aliens.' Peak grinned.

  Oliviera shot him a look of contempt. 'We're going to start running tests on the substance in the tank,' she said. 'Leon, tell me again what you saw on your solo recce in the docks.'

  'Just before they fished me out? A blue glow.'

  'You see,' said Oliviera, turning to face Li. 'You insisted on the military taking charge of everything, but your guys prodded around the Barrier Queen for weeks without any progress. They must have missed something crucial when they examined the water samples from the dock. Didn't anyone notice the glow? Or that there were single-cell organisms in the water?'

  'We tested the water,' said Li.

  'And?'

  'Nothing. Ordinary seawater.'

  'OK.' Oliviera sighed. 'Could I have another copy of the report, then? Including all of the lab results.'

  'Of course.'

  'Dr Johanson.' Shankar raised his hand. 'Do you have any explanation as to how they join together, what makes them do it?'

  'How would they manage to co-ordinate it?' It was the first time that Roscovitz had spoken. 'How the hell does that work? And what's the point? It's like one of those cells is saying, "Hey, guys, over here, we're having a party!"

  'Not necessarily,' Vanderbilt pointed out. 'The cells in our body make a pretty good job of co-operation, and no one tells them what to do.'

  'Aren't you confusing that with the CIA?' There was a smile on Li's lips.

  'Watch it, Suzie Wong.'

  'OK, guys,' said Roscovitz helplessly. 'I just drive subs for a living. I need help. Human cells stick together just fine, but that's different- we don't dissolve whenever we feel like it. And, besides, we've got a nervous system to keep us in check.'

  'The cells in our bodies communicate via chemical signals,' said Delaware.

  'But what does that mean? Are you saying we're like a shoal with everything going the same way, doing the same thing, at exactly the same time?'

  'Shoals only appear to move simultaneously,' explained Rubin. 'Shoaling behaviour is related to pressure.'

  'I know that, for Chrissakes – I was only trying to-'

  'Lateral line organs are located on the sides of the body,' Rubin continued undeterred. 'If a fish changes its position, it sends a pressure wave through the water. That wave is picked up by all the neighbouring fish, who realign their bodies until the shoal has corrected its position.'

  'I know!'

  'But of course!' Delaware's face lit up. 'That must be it!'

  'What?'

  'Pressure waves. If you had enough of these jellies, you could redirect a shoal. We kept asking ourselves what kind of spell had been cast on the fish to stop them swimming into nets – well, that could be the answer.'

  'Redirect a shoal?' Shankar sounded doubtful.

  'She's right,' Greywolf chimed in. 'If the yrr can steer millions of crabs on land and transport billions of worms to the continental shelves, you can bet they're capable of redirecting shoals. And that's easy with pressure waves. The shoal's sensitivity to pressure is practically the only thing that keeps it safe.'

  'Are you saying that those single-cell organisms in the tank use pressure waves to b
and together?'

  'No' put in Anawak. 'It has to be more complicated than that. Fish can create pressure waves, but single-cell organisms?'

  'Something must have caused them to cluster together.'

  'Hang on a minute,' said Oliviera. 'Bacteria use similar forms of communication. Take Myxococcus xanthus. Myxobacteria live in the soil. They move in loose swarms. If an individual cell can't find enough nutrients to feed itself, it gives off a starvation signal. The rest of the colony doesn't pay much attention at first, but as more and more cells start to starve, the intensity of the signal increases, until it crosses a certain threshold. At that point, the swarm draws closer together and gradually forms a complex multicellular aggregate known as a fruiting body. You can see it with the naked eye.'

  'What kind of signal?' asked Anawak.

  'They produce a chemical.'

  'Like a scent?'

  'Pretty much.'

  The discussion dried up. Everyone was frowning, pressing their fingertips together, or pursing their lips.

  'OK,' said Li. 'I'm impressed. That's a big step forward. It doesn't make sense to continue the discussion until we've had time to inform ourselves properly. What's next?'

  'I've got a suggestion,' said Weaver.

  'Let's hear it.'

  'Do you remember what Leon was saying about dolphins' brains when we were in Whistler? He was talking about military experiments and electronic implants – not just basic microchips, but networks of artificial nerve cells that re-create parts of the brain in perfect detail and communicate with each other via electrical pulses. Well, supposing the jelly is an aggregate of single-cell organisms, and supposing those organisms can take over the function of brain cells and maybe even replace them – well, they'd have to be able to communicate or they wouldn't be able to band together or change shape. Maybe they can even form an artificial brain including all of the neurotransmitters. Maybe…' she hesitated '. . . they can even replace the emotions, characteristics and knowledge of their host, and that's how they learn to control it.'

  'In that case they'd have to be capable of learning,' said Oliviera. 'But how could a single-cell organism learn?'

  'Leon and I could try to model a swarm of them electronically. We could give them various characteristics and see how long it takes for them to start acting like a brain.'