The Swarm

by Frank Schätzing

  Li chuckled to herself 'No, Jack. Those are waves in the background. It's a snapshot taken from below. We're looking at the surface – from the perspective of the depths.'

  'Huh? What about that black thing, then?'

  'Easy. That's us. It's our ship.'

  HEEREMA, La Palma, Canary Islands

  Maybe they shouldn't have allowed themselves to celebrate so soon. Over the past sixteen hours the tube had been in constant operation, sucking up pinkish creatures by the tonne. The worms didn't seem to take too kindly to the rapid change of scene. Most had exploded in transit, while the remainder writhed in their death throes, jaws twitching. Frost had run out on deck as soon as the first polychaetes spurted out of the tube into enormous nets stretched beneath it. As the water drained through the mesh, giant slides conveyed the bodies into the bowels of a freighter moored alongside the Heerema and whose load was growing steadily. Frost had plunged his hands into the mass and returned to the control room, covered with slime but brandishing a dozen corpses, which he waved triumphantly in the air. 'The only good worm is a dead one,' he veiled. 'Yeee-haa!'

  They'd all clapped, including Bohrmann.

  After a while the swirling sediment had settled, and a view of marbled lava had appeared on their screens. Isolated strings of bubbles were rising from the surface of the rock. The cameras on the lighting scaffold zoomed in, showing Bohrmann the true nature of the marbled pattern. 'Bacterial mats,' he said.

  Frost turned. 'What does that mean?'

  'It's hard to say.' Bohrmann rubbed his knuckle against his chin. 'Provided they've only colonised the surface, there won't be any danger. I can't tell how many bacteria will have worked their way through the sediment. See those dirty grey lines? That's the hydrate.'

  'At least it's still there.'

  'Some of it. But who's to say how much was there in the first place and how much has dissociated already? The escaping gas hasn't reached critical proportions yet. For the moment I'd say we haven't been entirely unsuccessful in our efforts.'

  'A double negative is as good as a yes.' Frost got up. I'll make us some coffee.'

  After that they'd waited for hours, watching the tube graze the plateau until their eyes were sore. In the end van Maarten had dispatched Frost to bed – he and Bohrmann had barely slept for three days. Frost had protested, but his eyes were closing, and he wobbled out unsteadily to his cabin.

  Bohrmann stayed behind with van Maarten. It was 23.00 hours.

  'It's your turn next,' said the Dutchman.

  'But I can't.' Bohrmann passed his hands over his eyes. I'm the only one who knows enough about hydrates.'

  'We know enough.'

  'It won't take long now anyway.' Bohrmann was drained. The operating team had been relieved three times already. In a few hours Erwin Suess would be arriving by helicopter from Kiel. He had to hold out until then.

  He yawned. A soft hum filled the air. The lighting scaffold and the tube had worked their way slowly but surely towards the north. If the readings from the Polarstern expedition were correct, the infestation was restricted to this terrace. He knew it would take at least another couple of days to vacuum the worms up entirely, but hope was stirring inside him. The methane content of the water was above average, but there was no real cause for concern. If they could get rid of the worms and the bacteria, there was a chance that the partially eroded hydrates might restabilise.

  Eyelids drooping, he gazed at the screens. It took him a while to grasp what he was seeing. The picture had changed. 'Something's glittering down there,' he said. 'Move the tube.'

  Van Maarten squinted. 'Where?'

  'Look at the monitors. There was a flash in the water. Look – there it is again!'

  Suddenly he was wide awake. Something was amiss, and the footage from the scaffold now confirmed it. The cloud of sediment had swollen. Bubbles and dark clumps of matter were spinning around and drifting towards the tube.

  The cameras filmed nothing but darkness, then the tube jerked to one side.

  'What the hell's going on down there?'

  The operator's voice came through the speakers: 'We're sucking up large chunks of something. The tube's becoming unstable. I don't know if-'

  'Move the tube!' shouted Bohrmann. 'Get away from the flank.'

  This can't be happening, he thought. It was the Sonne all over again. Another blow-out. They'd lingered too long over the same section of terrace and the plateau had come loose. The vacuum was tearing up the sediment.

  No, it wasn't a blow-out. It was worse than that.

  The tube tried to retreat from the billowing sediment. The cloud bulged, then seemed to explode. A wave of pressure rocked the scaffold. The picture juddered up and down.

  'It's a landslide,' screamed the operator.

  'Stop the pump!' Bohrmann sprang to his feet. 'Get away from the terrace!'

  He watched as lava boulders crashed down on to the terrace. Somewhere within the fog of sediment and debris the tube was still moving, almost hidden.

  'The pump's off,' said van Maarten.

  Eyes wide with horror they watched the progress of the slide. Debris continued to shower from above. If the cracks were to spread through the almost vertical flank, ever larger boulders would detach themselves from the volcano. Lava was porous: within minutes a small slide could become an avalanche, prompting the scenario they'd been trying to prevent.

  We should accept our fate, thought Bohrmann. We haven't got time to get away.

  He pictured the dome of water stretching six hundred metres into the sky…

  The clatter of rocks stopped.

  There was a long silence. No one said anything as they stared at the monitors. The terrace was enveloped in a haze of sediment that scattered the light from the halogen bulbs.

  'It's stopped,' said van Maarten. There was an almost imperceptible shake in his voice.

  'Yes.' Bohrmann nodded. 'Apparently.'

  Van Maarten radioed the operators.

  'The scaffold shook all over the place,' said the guy in charge of the lighting unit. 'We've lost one of the floodlights. The others are bright enough, though.'

  'And the tube?'

  'Seems to be stuck,' came the verdict from the other crane. 'The system's processing our commands, but it's unable to react.'

  'I guess the mouth must be buried under rubble,' said the scaffold operator.

  'How much debris do you think will have fallen?' asked van Maarten.

  'We'll have to wait for the cloud to settle,' said Bohrmann. 'But it looks as though we've escaped with a bruising.'

  'OK, then, we'll wait.' Van Maarten leaned into the microphone. 'Don't attempt to free the tube. You can all have a coffee break. I don't want anyone causing any more damage. We'll wait for a while, then reassess.'

  THREE HOURS LATER they could vaguely make out the mouth of the tube.

  Frost had rejoined them, his hair springing out from his head in an unruly mop of wiry curls.

  'It's trapped,' said van Maarten.

  Frost scratched his head. 'But I don't think it's broken.'

  'The propellers can't turn.'

  'How are we going to free them?'

  'We could always send down a robot and try to shift the debris that way,' Bohrmann suggested.

  'For the love of God,' protested Frost, 'that would take forever. And things were going so well.'

  'We'll just have to hurry.' Bohrmann turned to van Maarten. 'How quickly can we get Rambo ready?'

  'Right away.'

  'Let's go, then. We'll give it a shot.'

  Rambo owed its name to the Sylvester Stallone films. The ROV looked like a smaller version of Victor, and came equipped with four cameras, a set of thrusters at the stern and on its sides, and two powerful articulated arms. It was suitable for depths of up to eight hundred metres, and was popular in the offshore industry. Within fifteen minutes it was ready to go. Soon it was descending along the flank of the volcano towards the terrace, attached to its control syst
em via an electro-optical tether. The lighting scaffold came into view. The robot sank further, accelerated and manoeuvred its way towards the trapped tube. Seen in close-up, it was obvious that the propellers and the video system were still intact, but the tube was well and truly jammed.

  Rambo's articulated arms started to shift the debris. At first it seemed that the robot might succeed. It lifted the rocks one by one until it came to a sharp splinter of lava that had bored its way into the sediment and was sticking out diagonally, pressing the tube against a ledge. Its arms extended and contracted, twisting and trying to dislodge the splinter.

  'It's not a job for a robot,' said Bohrmann. 'They can't generate momentum.'

  'Great!' spat Frost.

  'What if the operator were to reel in the tube?' suggested Bohrmann. 'That's bound to create enough tension to free it.'

  Van Maarten shook his head. 'It's too risky. The tube might tear.'

  They kept trying for a while, getting the robot to ram the rock from every possible angle, until eventually it was obvious that Rambo couldn't help. And in the meantime, worms were invading the surface that had been cleared, swarming out of the darkness from all directions.

  'I don't like the look of this,' said Bohrmann. 'Especially not here, where the rock's so unstable.'

  Frost frowned. 'I'll do it.'

  Bohrmann looked at him questioning.

  'I'll take a dive.' Frost shrugged. 'If Rambo can't do it, only we can. It's four hundred metres. The pressure suits can handle that.'

  'You want to go down there?' Bohrmann said.

  'Sure.' Frost stretched his arms until they clicked. 'Is there a problem?'

  15 August

  Independence, Greenland Sea

  The yrr's reply prompted Crowe to send a second, infinitely more complex message into the depths. It contained information about the human race, its evolution and culture. At first Vanderbilt wasn't too happy about this, but Crowe persuaded him they had nothing to lose. The yrr were on the brink of victory. 'Our only chance,' she said, 'is to convince them that we deserve to live. And the only way we can do that is by telling them about us. Maybe there'll be something they haven't already taken into account. Something that will make them reconsider.'

  'Shared values,' said Li.

  'Or just the tiniest overlap.'

  Oliviera, Johanson and Rubin had shut themselves into the lab to get the blob of jelly to dissociate. They kept in constant communication with Weaver and Anawak. Weaver had endowed her virtual yrr with electronic DNA and pheromones. It seemed to work. On a theoretical level they'd demonstrated that the aggregation of single-cell organisms relied on a pheromone, but in practice the jelly was disinclined to prove it. The being, or collection of beings, had turned into a flat sort of pancake and sunk to the bottom of the chamber.

  On 02 level, Delaware and Greywolf were busy monitoring the footage from the dolphins' cameras, but there was nothing to be seen on the screens apart from the Independence's hull, a few fish, and the mammal fleet – dolphins filming each other. When they weren't in the CIC, they were down on the well deck, where Roscovitz and Browning were still hard at work, repairing the Deepflight.

  Li was aware that even the best minds could seize up or get stuck in a rut if they weren't distracted from their work. She asked for the latest data on the weather forecast and double-checked its reliability. There was every indication that low winds and smooth seas would prevail until the next day. The water was noticeably calmer than it had been that morning.

  With that knowledge, she summoned Anawak for a chat, and discovered to her astonishment that he knew next to nothing about Arctic cuisine. The responsibility was delegated to Peak, who, for the first time in his military career, found himself in charge of catering.

  He made a series of phone calls and two helicopters set out for Greenland late that afternoon, Li announced that the head chef had invited them all to a party at nine o'clock that evening. The helicopters returned, bearing all the ingredients for a Greenland feast. Tables, chairs and a buffet were set up on the flight deck next to the island. A stereo system was carried outside and heaters were positioned around the perimeter to keep out the cold.

  The bustle in the kitchens became a whirlwind of activity. Pots and pans were filled with caribou; seal stock was converted into soup; maktaaq – narwhal skin – was cut into strips, and eider-duck eggs put on to boil. The Independence's baker turned his hand to bannock, a tasty variety of flat bread, whose preparation was at the centre of numerous annual baking competitions. Arctic char and salmon were filleted and fried with herbs; frozen walrus became carpaccio; and mounds of rice were poured into water. Peak, who knew nothing about cooking, had trusted the advice of locals. Only one regional delicacy had failed to make the cut. No matter how much anyone extolled the virtues of raw walrus gut, Peak had decided it was one experience he was prepared to forgo.

  He'd arranged for a skeleton crew to man the bridge, the engine room and the CIC, so at nine o'clock sharp almost everyone made their way to the deck – sailors, scientists and military – claimed their welcome drink, an alcohol-free cocktail, and waited for the buffet to open. Soon scientists were talking to soldiers, soldiers to sailors and sailors to scientists.

  It was a strange party that Li had arranged, with the steel tower of the island behind them and the lonely expanse of the sea all around. In the distance they could see surreal peaks of retreating mist, and the red ball of the sun low on the horizon. The clean air felt invigoratingly cold, and a deep blue sky stretched high above.

  At first everyone discussed anything other than the circumstances that had brought them together – but there was something awkward, almost desperate, about their determination to stick to polite conversation. As midnight approached, and dusk descended, they were on first-name terms and gathered in groups around the experts, seeking comfort where there was none to be found.

  'Seriously, though,' said Buchanan, shortly after one o'clock, 'you can't tell me you really believe all that stuff about intelligent amoebas.'

  'Why not?' said Crowe.

  'We're talking about real intelligence, right?'

  'I should think so.'

  'Well…' Buchanan fumbled for the right words '. . . I'm not saying that all intelligent beings should look like us, but you'd think they'd be more complex than amoebas. Chimps are supposed to be intelligent, aren't they? Whales and dolphins too. They're all creatures with complex bodies and big brains. Ants are too small to be truly intelligent – you said so yourself- so how's it supposed to work for amoebas?'

  'Are you sure you're not confusing two different issues?'

  'What.'

  'The truth, and what you'd like the truth to be.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'She means,' said Peak, 'that we'd prefer our enemy to be powerful and strong. In other words, if we have to concede defeat to anyone, we'd rather it was to a race of tall, good-looking creatures.'

  Buchanan slammed his hand on the table. 'Well, I don't buy it. Primitive organisms aren't supposed to rule the planet. There's no way that an amoeba can be as intelligent as man. No way. Humans mean progress, they-'

  'Progress?' Crowe shook her head. 'What do you mean by progress? Is evolution progress?'

  Buchanan looked hunted.

  'Let's see, then,' said Crowe. 'Evolution is the struggle for existence, as Darwin called it. The survival of the fittest. Whichever way you look at it, it means triumph in the face of adversity – either by succeeding over other organisms or by surviving natural disasters. Natural selection allows organisms to adapt. But does that necessarily mean organisms become more complex? And is complexity progress?'

  'Evolution isn't my field,' said Peak, 'but the way I see it, most creatures have been getting bigger and more complex throughout the course of time. Humans are the perfect example. Organisms increase in size and complexity. In my book, that makes it a trend.'

  'A trend? No. What we call history is only a passing moment in tim
e. Sure, nature is currently experimenting with complexity, but who's to say that it won't lead to an evolutionary dead end? We're vastly overestimating our own importance if we see ourselves at the forefront of any natural trend. Think of the tree of life – that diagram with branches sprouting off in all directions. Where would you see humanity on it, Sal? As a main branch or one of its offshoots?'

  'Goes without saying. A main branch.'

  'That's what I expected. It's a typically human way of seeing things. If various offshoots of a genus die out, we tend to assume that the surviving offshoot is the central branch. Why? Well, because – for the moment, at any rate – it's still there. But what if it's just an unimportant side branch that's managed to survive a little longer than the rest? Humans are the only remaining bud on an evolutionary branch that once flourished. We're the leftovers from a biological development whose other offshoots withered and died, the last survivors of an experiment named Homo. Homo Australopithecus: extinct. Homo habilis: extinct. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: extinct. Homo sapiens sapiens: still extant. We may have mastered the Earth for the moment, but evolutionary parvenus shouldn't confuse ascendancy with inherent superiority or long-term survival. We could disappear from this planet faster than we'd like to think.'

  'Maybe you're right,' said Peak. 'But you're forgetting one thing. This one surviving species is the only species with highly developed consciousness.'

  'Sure. But consider the development of consciousness within the context of nature as a whole. Can you really see any overall progress or general trend? Eighty per cent of all multicellular organisms have been far more successful in evolutionary terms than mankind, without ever being part of this supposed trend towards neural complexity. The fact that we're endowed with intelligence and consciousness is only evidence of progress from our particular viewpoint. We're just some bizarre evolutionary sideshow that's arisen against all the odds. There's only one thing that the human species has contributed to the ecosystem of this planet, and that's a whole lot of trouble.'

  'Well, I still think humans are behind all this,' Vanderbilt was saying at the neighbouring table. 'But, OK, I'm prepared to be proven wrong. If it turns out that we're not up against a human enemy, I'll be launching an operation in yrr surveillance instead. Don't you worry! The CIA will trail those unicellular slimeballs until we know exactly how their minds work and what they're planning next.'