The Swarm: A Novel

by Frank Schätzing

  ‘An ultramodern tanker explodes because of jellyfish in her seachests?’ asked Roche.

  It was funny, really, thought Peak. All these high-powered scientists sitting there like disappointed children because the high-tech world had let them down.

  ‘Tankers and freighters are made up of one part technology, the other ancient history. Diesel and rudder engines might be sophisticated machines, but in general they’re only used to turn a propeller or move a blade of steel. The navigation system has GPS, but the cooling system relies on a hole in the hull. And why not? The ships float, don’t they? It’s as simple as that. Now and then a sea-chest gets blocked by a bit of seaweed, but it soon gets cleaned out. If one hole’s clogged, there’s always another. Nature’s never launched an attack on sea-chests before, so why change their design?’ He allowed a pregnant pause. ‘You see, Dr Roche, if tiny insects launched a concerted attack on your nostrils, your finely tuned, highly complex body would be in danger of collapse. Have you ever stopped to think about that? And that’s exactly the problem with all these attacks. No one imagined that such things could happen.’

  Johanson had stopped paying attention. He knew the next chapter inside-out. He and Bohrmann had structured the material in preparation for the meeting. It focused on worms and methane hydrates. As Peak carried on talking, Johanson transferred some ideas to his laptop.

  Changes in the neural system caused by…

  By what exactly?

  He had to think of a name for it. It was annoying to keep describing it in full. He stared at the screen in concentration. Did the committee have access to his laptop? Suddenly he suspected that Li and her gang were spying on his thoughts, and he resented the idea. It was his theory and he’d confront the committee with it when he deemed it time.

  It was pure coincidence that his left hand brushed the keyboard and his middle and ring fingers formed a word. Although it wasn’t really enough to be a word. Three letters appeared on the screen: Yrr. Johanson was about to delete them, but stopped himself. Why not leave them? Any word would do. And this word would be better than a real word because no one could decipher it. Besides, he wasn’t even sure what it described. There wasn’t a term for it, so an abstract word would do fine.

  Yrr.

  He’d stick with yrr for the moment.

  That was the third pencil Weaver had chewed since the presentation had begun.

  ‘Maybe that’s the kind of havoc that the Great Flood wreaked as well.’ Peak was just coming to the end of a lengthy digression. ‘Descriptions of floods occur in many religious stories and myths. The earliest verifiable description of a tsunami tells of a natural disaster that hit the Aegean in 479 BC. More recently, in 1755, sixty thousand people died in Lisbon when Portugal was pounded by ten-metre waves. Reliable evidence also exists for the damage caused by the Krakatoa eruption in 1883. The summit of the volcano was blown off, prompting the underwater caldera to collapse in the magma. Two hours later, waves reaching heights of forty metres swept into the coasts of Sumatra and Java, laying waste to three hundred villages and killing nearly thirty-six thousand people. In 1933 a much smaller tsunami hit the Japanese town of Sanriku, flattening the north-east of Honshu. The outcome? Three thousand people dead, nine thousand buildings destroyed and eight thousand boats lost at sea. But none of those incidents was anything like as devastating as the recent tsunami in northern Europe. The North Sea states are all highly developed industrial nations. Two hundred and forty million people live there, the majority near the coast.’

  There was a deathly hush.

  ‘Geologically, the whole area was transformed in a flash. It’s too soon to predict the consequences for humanity, but economically the effects have been calamitous. Some of the most pivotal international ports suffered serious damage or were destroyed. Less than a fortnight ago Rotterdam was still the biggest maritime trading centre in history, while the North Sea was a major repository of the world’s fossil fuels. Approximately four hundred and fifty thousand barrels of oil were being extracted from the North Sea every day. Half of Europe’s oil reserves were located off the coast of Norway, a significant proportion off the coast of Britain, not to mention the region’s share of the world’s natural gas. And yet the entire industry was destroyed within hours. Initial estimates place the death toll at two or three million, but there are at least as many again who are injured or homeless.’

  Peak recited the figures as though he were reading the weather forecast.

  ‘The question is, what caused the slide? The polychaetes are undoubtedly the most striking example of mutation that we’re up against. Nothing even begins to explain how billions of worms teamed up with bacteria and swarmed over the slope. Besides, Dr. Johanson and our friends at the Geomar Centre in Kiel believe that we still don’t have the full story. There’s no doubt that the invasion of worms destabilised the hydrates, but a catastrophe of that magnitude just doesn’t make sense. There must be another factor. The wave was only the most visible part of the problem.’

  Weaver stiffened. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. A long-distance satellite image was taking shape on the screen. The contrast had been altered and the contours were hazy, but she recognised the vessel straight away.

  ‘You’ll see what I mean from these pictures. The boat had been placed under satellite surveillance…’

  What? Weaver couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Bauer, under surveillance?

  ‘It was a research vessel, the Juno,’ said Peak. ‘The images were taken at night by a military recon satellite, EORSAT. Luckily the visibility was good and the sea was calm, which isn’t often the case in these waters. The Juno was off the coast of Spitsbergen at the time.’

  The washed-out glow of the vessel’s lights stood out against the darkness of the sea. Then light dots appeared in the water, multiplying rapidly until the sea seethed.

  The Juno tipped from right to left, heeling…

  Then she sank like a stone.

  Weaver froze. No one had prepared her for that. Now at last she knew where Bauer had got to. The Juno was lying at the bottom of the Greenland Sea. She thought of the worrying indications of his research, his fears and concerns, and it dawned on her that she was the only person left who knew the details of his work. Bauer had left her his scientific legacy.

  ‘It was the first time,’ Peak was saying, ‘that we’d actually witnessed the phenomenon. Of course, we’d known for some time that methane blowouts were occurring in the area, and yet—’

  Weaver raised her hand. ‘Did you anticipate this would happen?’

  Peak fixed her with his eyes. His face was so still that it looked almost carved. ‘No.’

  ‘What did you do when you saw the Juno sinking?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You mean the region and the boat were under satellite surveillance, and you couldn’t do a thing?’

  ‘We were gathering data by tracking different boats. It’s impossible to be everywhere at once. There’s no way we could have guessed that precisely this vessel—’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ Weaver interrupted forcefully, ‘but surely you were aware of what happens in a blowout? The Bermuda Triangle’s right on your doorstep.’

  ‘Ms Weaver, we—’

  ‘Let me put it another way. You knew blowouts were causing boats to disappear. And you knew that methane was being released into the Arctic. Didn’t you have an inkling of what was going to happen to the shelf?’

  Peak stared at her. ‘What are you trying to suggest?’

  ‘I want you to tell me if there’s anything you could have done!’

  Peak’s expression didn’t alter. His eyes were still fixed on Weaver. It was uncomfortably silent. ‘We misjudged the situation,’ he said eventually.

  Li was all too familiar with this kind of scenario. Peak would be forced into admitting that their aerial recon hadn’t delivered. There was no denying that they’d noticed a rise in the number of blowouts occurring near Norway
, but they’d been registering all kinds of other phenomena too. The worms had come as a surprise.

  She stood up. It was time to lend a hand. ‘We couldn’t have done a thing,’ she said calmly. ‘Besides, Ms Weaver, I would be grateful if you could listen to what the major has to say, instead of jumping to conclusions. Bear in mind that the scientists in this room were selected for two reasons: their expertise, and their familiarity with what’s going on. Some of our delegates were directly involved in the events you refer to. What could Dr Bohrmann have done to prevent the disaster? What could Dr Johanson or Statoil have done? What could you have done, Ms Weaver? Having cameras in the sky doesn’t mean that we have some omnipresent taskforce to rescue people anytime, anyplace, no matter what the danger. Would you prefer us to close our eyes instead?’

  The journalist frowned.

  ‘We didn’t come here today to start apportioning blame,’ Li said, before Weaver had a chance to reply. ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone - that’s what I was taught, and that’s what it says in the Bible. And the Bible often gets it right. We’re here to avert any future disasters. Perhaps we can move on…’

  ‘Hallelujah,’ Weaver murmured.

  Li allowed the room to fall silent.

  Then she smiled. Time for a sweetener. ‘We’re all on edge,’ she said. ‘I understand how you must be feeling, Ms Weaver. Major Peak, if you could continue…’

  For a moment Peak had felt flustered. Soldiers never expressed criticism or doubt in that tone. He didn’t have anything against criticism or doubt per se, but right now, when he couldn’t reassert his authority with an order, he resented being challenged. He felt a wave of dull hatred towards the journalist. How the hell was he going to keep a check on all those damn scientists?

  ‘What we just witnessed,’ he said, ‘was the release of large quantities of methane from the seabed. Now, much as I regret the death of those on board the boat, the escape of the gas poses much wider problems. In the course of the underwater slide, the amount of gas released into the atmosphere was a million times greater than it was during the sinking of the Juno. We’ve seen case scenarios for what would happen if the remainder of the world’s underwater methane reserves were to escape in a similar way. It amounts to a death sentence. The equilibrium of the atmosphere would be fatally unbalanced.’

  He paused. Peak was a tough character, but even he was scared as hell by what came next. ‘I have to tell you,’ he said slowly, ‘that worms have been found in the Atlantic and Pacific. To be more specific, they’re present on the continental slopes off the coasts of North and South America, western Canada and Japan.’

  No one breathed.

  ‘That was the bad news.’

  A cough shook the room like a minor explosion.

  ‘The good news is that the infestations haven’t reached anything like the levels that were recorded near Norway. The organisms are clustered in isolated patches. For the time being there’s no risk of serious damage occurring. However, we have to assume that somehow, at some point, the assault will intensify. Our sources indicate that smaller groups of worms were found last year near Norway, on a site earmarked by Statoil for the construction of a processor.’

  ‘My government has been unable to verify that claim,’ a Norwegian politician called from the back.

  ‘Sure,’ Peak sneered. ‘Conveniently enough, almost everyone involved in the project is dead. We’ve had to rely entirely on Dr Johanson and the scientists in Kiel for information. But this time we’ve got a head start. And it’s our responsibility to use it. We’ve got to fight those goddamn worms.’

  He stopped short. Goddamn worms. That didn’t sound good. Too emotional. He’d tripped at the final hurdle, so to speak.

  ‘God help us but you’re right,’ a voice thundered.

  A man of startling appearance had risen to his feet. He towered up like a rock, tall and solid. He was clad in orange overalls, and wiry black hair spiralled out from his baseball cap. A pair of oversized shades balanced precariously on his small nose, which curled up sharply in an attempt to avoid his wide frog-like mouth. As his broad mouth opened and his colossal chin sank down, it was impossible not to be reminded of The Muppet Show.

  Dr Stanley Frost, said the giant’s name badge. Volcanologist.

  ‘I read through the documents beforehand,’ he boomed, as though he was preaching, ‘and I don’t like what I see. You’re interested in continental slopes near highly populated areas.’

  ‘Sure, it replicates the Norwegian pattern. In the beginning a few worms, then hordes.’

  ‘It’s a mistake to focus on those regions.’

  ‘Do you want another Europe?’

  ‘Oh, please, Major Peak! Did I say you should stop monitoring those areas? Lord, no. All I’m saying is that focusing on those areas would be an almighty mistake. It’s too obvious. The devil’s ways are more sinister.’

  Peak scratched his head. ‘Could you be a little more precise, Dr Frost?’

  The volcanologist took a deep breath. His chest expanded. ‘No.’

  ‘Have I understood you correctly?’

  ‘I sincerely hope so. I need to look into it some more. I don’t suppose you’d want me to cause unnecessary alarm…Just remember what I said.’

  His chin jutted out purposefully at his audience. Then he plumped down again.

  Perfect, thought Peak. One darned idiot after another.

  Vanderbilt wobbled over to the lectern. Li watched him through narrowed eyes. The deputy director of the CIA placed a ridiculously small pair of glasses on his nose, filling her with amusement and disgust.

  ‘Goddamn worms is just how I’d describe them, Sal,’ Vanderbilt said cheerily. He beamed at his audience as though he were the bearer of glad tidings. ‘But, believe you me, we’re going to fry those shits until their sorry ass starts smoking. OK, then, what have we got? Very little, so far. Our precious oil - all kaput. Not great news for junkies like us. In economic terms, it means that world production’s going to dive. Not that the OPEC camel will mind, of course. As for international shipping, well, you know all the details from Peak - nature’s dirty tricks campaign has been taking its toll. And you know what? The reign of terror’s working! Between you and me - aggressive whales and sharks, that kind of shit’s just for kids. A glorified prank, if you like. OK, so it’s a darned shame when decent American families can’t go fishing off the coast, but humanity in general won’t be losing any sleep. And, sure, it’s regrettable if some poor fisherman in a third-world country, who feeds his seventeen kids and six wives on a single sardine, has to sit on the beach because he’s scared of getting eaten. That sucks. But all the pity in the world won’t help them. Humanity’s got other problems. Rich countries have been hit. The badass fish don’t want to get caught, so they’re filling the nets with poison and trying to sink trawlers. Call them isolated cases, if you like, but there’s a whole darned lot of them. And that’s bad news for developing countries because there won’t be any handouts.’

  Vanderbilt looked at them craftily over the rim of his glasses.

  ‘You know, folks, if you wanted to annihilate the world, you could kill off two-thirds of it just by giving the biggest, richest states a good run for their money - and by that I mean pressurising them so badly that they run out of time to deal with their problems. The third world only survives because the rich states prop it up. It depends on the wrath of America - you know, all those handy little regime changes that get negotiated with the drugs tsars, and that come with economic aid. Well, those days are over. You and I might snigger at the thought of whales attacking ships - after all, the state of our economy doesn’t depend on bark canoes or little reed boats - but when you’re chomping your way through the buffet tonight, just remember: the Western standard of living is far from representative. Anomalies spell the end for the third world. El Niño spells the end. La Niño spells the end. And compared to the delights that Nature’s been throwing at us lately, one of those old-fa
shioned disasters would suit us just fine. Hey, maybe El Niño could stop by for a beer. No frigging chance. We’ve got other guests to entertain. Parts of Europe are under martial law. Do you know what that means? It’s not to stop folks wandering out at night and getting their feet wet, oh, no. Martial law means Europe can’t handle the humanitarian crisis. It means that all those aid agencies - the Red Cross, the disaster relief organisations, UNESCO - can’t keep up with the need for tents and food. It means people in civilised Europe are going to starve to death or die of infection. Plagues are raging through Europe. Europe! As if Pfiesteria cells and bacterial consortia weren’t already wreaking havoc. But, oh, no, Norway’s ravaged by cholera. Martial law means the injured won’t be treated, and honest Europeans - people who spend their Saturday nights watching quiz shows on TV - will be covered with maggot-infested sores, while flies spread disease. Feeling queasy already? That’s nothing. Things can’t get much wetter than a tsunami, I know, but what happens when it’s over? Stuff starts exploding. The fire service can’t keep up. First the coastline gets drenched, and then it bursts into flames. Oh, yeah, and another thing - the retreating tsunami messed up the cooling systems in a couple of power stations, nuclear installations that some jerk had built by the sea. So now we’ve got a nuclear disaster in Norway, and another in England. Is that enough, or is there anything else I can get you? Did I mention that the electricity was down? I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but for the moment you’ll have to do without Europe. And the third world too. Europe’s screwed.’