The Swarm: A Novel

by Frank Schätzing

  ‘What would you know about it, honey?’ scoffed Vanderbilt. ‘If you’re patient enough, you can slip inside any mind you choose - even if it belongs to an amoeba. It’s just a question of time.’

  ‘No, it’s a question of being able to see things objectively,’ said Anawak. ‘And that presupposes the ability to adopt an objective point of view.’

  ‘We can do that. We’re intelligent, civilised beings.’

  ‘You might be intelligent, Jack, but you’re not capable of viewing nature objectively.’

  ‘In fact, your viewpoint is as subjective and restricted as any other animal’s,’ said Delaware.

  ‘Which particular animal did you have in mind?’ Vanderbilt chuckled. ‘A walrus?’

  Anawak gave a short laugh. ‘I’m serious, Jack. We’re closer to nature than we think.’

  ‘Well, I’m not. I’m a city boy. Never did like the country. Same as my old man.’

  ‘Makes no difference,’ said Delaware. ‘Think of how we feel about snakes, for example. We admire them as much as we fear them. It’s the same with sharks. There are all kinds of shark divinities. Man’s emotional reliance on other forms of life is inborn. It might even be genetic.’

  ‘You’re talking about tribespeople. I’m talking about city folk.’

  ‘OK.’ Anawak thought for a moment. ‘Have you got any phobias? Anything you really don’t like?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t call it a phobia, exactly…’ Vanderbilt trailed off.

  ‘An aversion, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Just the usual. I don’t like spiders.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, because…’ Vanderbilt shrugged. ‘They’re disgusting. You find them disgusting, don’t you?’

  ‘Not really, but that’s not the point. The point is, most phobias still plaguing civilised society derive from things that posed a threat to humanity in the past - before we lived in cities. Walls of rock that cave in on us, storms, floods, dark water, snakes, dogs, spiders. Why don’t we develop phobias of guns, live wires, flick knives, cars, explosives and electric sockets? They’re far more dangerous. But it’s engrained in our minds: beware of snake-like creatures and many-legged insects.’

  ‘The human brain developed in a natural, not a technological environment,’ said Delaware. ‘The evolution of our minds took place over a period of two million years, when we were living in intimate contact with our natural surroundings. It’s even possible that the prehistoric rules of survival are inscribed in our genes. Either way, only a tiny fragment of our evolution took place during the so-called civilised era. Do you really think that just because your father and your father’s father grew up in cities that all the formative information in your brain will have disappeared for good? Why are we afraid of small creatures that slither through the grass? Why don’t you like spiders? It’s because once upon a time fears like those saved our lives. Because individuals who were more susceptible to fear stayed out of danger and created more offspring. That’s why, Jack. Do you see?’

  Vanderbilt looked from Delaware to Anawak. ‘But what’s that got to do with the yrr?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s to do with the fact that they might look like spiders,’ retorted Anawak. ‘How would that make you feel? So don’t try to tell us that you’re objective. If we can’t control our aversion to the sight of the yrr - or to jelly, amoebas and toxic crabs or whatever - then we’ll never find out how their minds work. We won’t be able to. We’ll only be intent on destroying them because they’re not the same as us - and we don’t want them creeping into our caves to steal our children…’

  Johanson had extricated himself from the main group and was standing in the shadows, trying to remember what had happened the previous night. Li came over to him and handed him a glass. Red wine. ‘I thought this was a soft-drinks-only expedition,’ said Johanson, surprised.

  ‘It is.’ She clinked glasses with him. ‘But there’s no point in being dogmatic. Besides, I like to cater to the wishes of my guests.’

  Johanson took a sip. ‘Tell me, General,’ he said, ‘what kind of a person are you?’

  ‘Call me Jude. “General” is only for people who have to salute me.’

  ‘Well, I can’t work you out.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I don’t trust you.’

  Li smiled in amusement and took a sip. ‘The feeling’s mutual, Sigur. What happened to you last night? Don’t tell me you still can’t remember.’

  ‘My mind’s blank.’

  ‘What were you doing on the hangar deck? It was the middle of the night.’

  ‘Just relaxing.’

  ‘And before that you did a bit of relaxing with Oliviera.’

  ‘When you’re as busy as we are, it’s important to relax.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Li stared past him towards the water. ‘What were you talking about?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Johanson looked at her. ‘What do you want, Jude?’

  ‘To beat this crisis. And you?’

  ‘Oh, ditto,’ said Johanson, ‘but I’m not sure I want to beat it in the same way as you. What are you hoping will be left when this is over?’

  ‘The values of our society.’

  ‘Human society? Or American society?’

  Her blue eyes seemed to gleam ‘Is there a difference?’

  Crowe had worked herself into a fury. Oliviera was on hand to back her up, and a crowd had assembled. There was no doubt that Peak and Buchanan had been forced on to the defensive, but while Peak had lapsed into thoughtful silence, Buchanan was seething with rage.

  ‘We’re not the inevitable product of some superior evolutionary development, you know,’ Crowe was saying. ‘Mankind was created by chance. We owe our existence to a colossal cosmic accident: a giant meteorite hit the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs. If that hadn’t happened, maybe intelligent neosauroids would now be roaming the planet. Or maybe there wouldn’t be any intelligent life, only animals. We came into being because conditions were favourable for our evolution, not because of any logic. Who knows? Out of the millions of possible turns that multicellular life could have taken since its beginnings in the Cambrian, maybe this is the one and only pathway that could have given rise to us.’

  ‘But mankind rules the planet,’ persisted Buchanan. ‘You can’t argue with that.’

  ‘Right now the yrr rule the planet. You’ve got to face facts. We’re just one small species among the class of mammals, and there’s a long way to go before evolution could deem us a success. The most successful mammals are bats, rats and antelopes. We’re not the final glorious chapter of natural history, just a couple of pages in a very long book. There’s no trend that leads towards a golden era of nature, only selection. Over time, one of the planet’s species may have experienced a period of increasing anatomical and neural complexity, but if you look at the bigger picture, that’s not a trend, and it’s certainly not a progression. Life in general doesn’t exhibit any impulse towards progress. Nature gives us complex beings, and at the same time preserves simple ones like bacteria for over three billion years. Life has no reason to want to improve on anything.’

  ‘How does what you’re saying fit with God’s plan?’ asked Buchanan, in a tone that sounded almost threatening.

  ‘Well, if there’s a God, and if that God’s intelligent, then God must have organised the world in the way I’ve just described. We’re not God’s crowning achievement, we’re just one version of life that will only survive if we understand our place in the whole.’

  ‘And what about man being created in God’s image? I suppose you’re going to take issue with that?’

  ‘Surely it must have occurred to you that the yrr might be created in God’s image. You’re not that narrow-minded, are you?’ Buchanan’s eyes flashed dangerously, but he didn’t get a chance to speak: Crowe smothered him in smoke. ‘But it’s irrelevant anyway. God’s bound
to have created His favourite species according to the best of all possible designs. Well, compared to other species, we humans are relatively big. Is a big body a better body? You were right, Peak, about some species growing bigger through selection, but most do very well as they are - and they’re tiny. Small organisms are far more likely to survive during periods of mass extinction, which means that every few million years the larger organisms get wiped out and evolution starts again with the smallest possible species. Creatures get bigger and then the next meteorite strikes. Boom! That’s God’s plan for you.’

  ‘That’s not a plan, that’s nihilism.’

  ‘Realism, actually,’ said Oliviera. ‘The thing is, it’s the highly specialised species like humans that die out in times of environmental change. They’re unable to adapt. Koalas are complex organisms, but they only eat eucalyptus. What happens to the koalas if the eucalyptus disappears? They die too. Now, compare that to single-cell organisms: most species can live through ice ages, volcanic eruptions and shifts in oxygen and methane concentration. They can even survive for thousands of years in a death-like state and come back to life as though nothing had happened. Bacteria are everywhere - in boiling springs, glaciers, or burrowed kilometres under the earth…We couldn’t survive without bacteria, but they’d have no trouble surviving without us. We’ve got bacteria to thank for the oxygen in the air. Our supply of chemicals - oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, carbon dioxide and so on - depends on the activity of microbes. Plant and animal matter is broken down by bacteria, fungi, protozoa, microscopic scavengers, insects and worms, who feed the chemical components back into the cycle of life. It’s no different in the ocean. Micro-organisms are the dominant form of life in the water. The jelly in the lab is almost certainly older and perhaps a good deal smarter than we are, whether you like the idea or not.’

  ‘You can’t compare humans to microbes,’ Buchanan snapped. ‘Humans have a special significance. If you can’t see that, what are you doing in this team?’

  ‘I’m trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘But you’re betraying mankind.’

  ‘No, mankind is betraying the planet by attributing a disproportionate significance to certain organisms. We’re the only species to do that, you know. We try to rate everything. We have bad animals, important animals, useful animals. We judge nature by what we see, but we see only a fraction of it, and we invest that fraction with more significance than it deserves. Our focus is on large animals, on vertebrates, and mainly on ourselves. All we see are vertebrates. The total number of living vertebrate species is approximately forty-three thousand, of which six thousand are reptiles, ten thousand are birds and four thousand are mammals. But there are nearly a million scientifically classified non-vertebrate species, including two hundred and ninety thousand species of beetle alone. That’s seven times the number of vertebrates!’

  Peak looked at Buchanan. ‘She’s right, Craig,’ he said. ‘You should admit it. They’re both right.’

  ‘We’re not a successful species,’ said Crowe. ‘If you want to see a successful species, you should take a look at the shark. It’s survived in unchanged form since the Devonian, four hundred million years ago. Sharks are a hundred times older than any member of our genus, and there are three hundred and fifty different species. The yrr could be even older than that. Single-cell organisms that can think collectively would be light-years ahead of us. We’d never catch up. The only thing we could do is destroy them. But would you really want to take that risk? We don’t even know what role they play in our survival. Maybe we’d find it even harder to live without this particular enemy than we do to live with it.’

  ‘You want to protect American values?’ Johanson shook his head. ‘In that case, we’re bound to fail.’

  ‘What have you got against American values?’

  ‘Nothing. But you heard what Crowe said: intelligent life-forms from other planets probably have nothing in common with humans or mammals. They may not even have DNA. Their system of values is likely to be completely different from ours. What kind of social and moral framework do you think you’re going to find in the depths? We’re talking about a species whose civilisation probably depends on cell division and self-sacrifice. How are you going to reach any kind of agreement with them, if all you’re concerned about is the preservation of values that even humans can’t agree on?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Li. ‘I know we don’t have the monopoly on ethics. But the question is this: is it absolutely necessary to understand how others think? Or wouldn’t it be better to invest all our energies in trying to coexist?’

  ‘Living in peace alongside each other?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If only we’d thought of that before,’ said Johanson. ‘I think the native peoples of America, Australia, Africa and the Arctic would have welcomed that idea. Same goes for all the animal species that we hunted to extinction. But the situation’s not that straightforward. I don’t suppose for a second that we’ll ever really understand how they think, but we’ve caused each other too much trouble not to try. Our habitat’s too small for us to keep living side by side. We need to learn to live together. And there’s no way we’ll be able to do that unless we scale back our expectations concerning humanity’s so-called God-given rights.’

  ‘How do you propose we do that, then? By adopting the customs of amoebas?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s genetically impossible, anyway. What we refer to as customs or culture is inscribed in our genes. Cultural evolution began in prehistoric times. That was when our mind was laid out. Sure, these days we design aeroplanes, helicopter carriers and opera houses, but only to continue our primitive activities on a so-called civilised plane. It’s what we’ve been doing since the first axe was bartered for a slab of meat: going to war, congregating in social units, trading. Culture is part of our evolution. It allows us to survive in a stable condition—’

  ‘Until another species with greater stability turns out to be superior. I see what you’re getting at, Sigur. It’s not something we like to dwell on, but genes are what’s allowing us to have this conversation in the first place. We’re so proud of our intellectual heritage, but it’s just the result of biology. Culture is nothing but a set of successful patterns of behaviour grounded in our struggle to survive.’

  Johanson didn’t respond.

  ‘Did I get something wrong?’ said Li.

  ‘No, I was listening in silent admiration. You’re absolutely right. Human evolution is just the interplay between genetic mutation and cultural change. We owe the growth of our brains to genetic mutations. It was biology that allowed us to speak. Five hundred thousand years ago, nature restructured our vocal apparatus and built the language centres in our cortex. And these genetic mutations fired our cultural evolution. Speech gave us the ability to express our thoughts, describe our past, discuss our future, and give voice to our imagination. Culture is the product of biological processes, and biological adaptation occurs in response to cultural change. The whole process takes generations, of course, but it happens all the same.’

  Li smiled. ‘I’m glad I passed the test.’

  ‘I never suspected otherwise,’ Johanson said graciously. ‘But you’ve pinpointed the problem: our much-vaunted cultural diversity is bounded by genetic limitations. And those limitations clearly separate our culture from the culture of non-human intelligent beings. Over time, mankind has created numerous cultures, and each is based on the imperative of keeping our species alive. We could never adopt the values of a species whose biology isn’t compatible with our own. They’re our rivals in the struggle for habitat and resources.’

  ‘So you don’t believe in the Federation, with walking electronic beehives queuing up beside us at the bar?’

  ‘Star Wars?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A great movie. No. That would only work if we could somehow suppress our instincts over hundreds of thousands of years. We’d need our genes to be
reprogrammed towards inter-species co-operation.’

  ‘Which proves that I’m right. We shouldn’t try to understand the yrr. We should find a way of leaving each other in peace.’

  ‘That’s the snag. They won’t leave us in peace.’

  ‘Then we’ve lost.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Didn’t you just say that humans and non-humans will never reach a consensus?’

  ‘The same could be said for Christians and Muslims. Listen, Jude, understanding the yrr isn’t an option. We’ll never be able to understand them. But we have to make room for what we can’t understand. That’s not the same as allowing their values to hold sway - or vice versa. The solution lies in retreat. And, right now, it’s our retreat that’s being called for. It can work, you know. It doesn’t mean we have to understand them emotionally - that would be impossible. It just means looking at things from a different, broader perspective, and we can do that by taking a step back from ourselves as a species. Because without that distance, we’ll never be in a position to present the yrr with a view of us that’s any different from the one they’ve got now.’

  ‘But we’re retreating already. We’re trying to make contact - isn’t that enough?’

  ‘And what are you hoping to gain from making contact?’

  Li said nothing.

  ‘Jude, tell me something. How is it that I hold you in such high esteem yet with so little trust?’

  The noise of the debate drifted over from the other tables. It gathered like a wave sweeping over the deck, breaking as it hit them. The scraps of conversation became raised voices, then shouting. At that moment an announcement came through the speakers: ‘Dolphin alert! Warning! Dolphin alert!’

  Li was the first to wrench her eyes from the duel. She turned her head and looked towards the dusky sea.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered.

  It had started to glow.

  Blue Cloud

  All around them the waves were tinged with luminous blue. Shimmering violet pools surfaced on the water, spreading and merging, as though the sky were pouring into the ocean.