The Swarm: A Novel

by Frank Schätzing

  ‘Stanley?’

  ‘What’s up?’

  The promptness of the answer soothed him.

  ‘It’s about time we saw something, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’ve got to be patient, buddy. Look at the display. We’ve only gone two hundred metres.’

  ‘Oh. Of course. No problem.’

  Bohrmann didn’t dare ask Frost whether he was sure that the track-hounds had been properly programmed, so he kept quiet and tried to stifle his mounting anxiety. He almost wished a few more jellyfish would show themselves, but there was nothing to be seen. The robot hummed busily. All of a sudden Bohrmann felt a change of direction.

  There was something ahead. Bohrmann screwed up his eyes and made out a distant glow. At first it was just a faint patch of light, then a hazy rectangle.

  He could barely contain his relief. Good dog, he felt like saying. There’s a good boy.

  How small the lighting scaffold looked.

  He was still puzzling over its size as the distance decreased and the glow brightened, separating into individual floodlights along the unit’s frame. They continued towards it, and suddenly it was above them, a canopy of light overhead. Of course, they were above and it was below, but the head-first dive had turned everything upside-down. Next the terrace appeared, and it, too, was suspended in the sky. For a moment Frost became visible, a shadow being pulled by a torpedo on a leash, rushing towards a football field of light. Now the view opened up before them: the terrace, the snake-like body of the tube towering out of the darkness, the lumps of rock blocking its mouth…

  And the writhing mass of worms.

  ‘Turn off your trackhound before you crash into those lights,’ said Frost. ‘We can swim the last few metres.’

  Bohrmann flexed the fingers of his free hand and tried to get the manipulator to hit the right button. The first attempt failed, and he sped past Frost, who’d slowed down.

  ‘Gair-hard? Where do you think you’re going?’

  He tried again. The manipulator slipped. Finally he succeeded, kicked his fins a few times and realigned himself on the horizontal. The scaffold was very close, stretching out seemingly endlessly in all directions. After a few seconds Bohrmann recovered his sense of up and down, and the scaffold and the terrace were beneath him.

  Kicking evenly, he swam to the wedged tube and sank alongside it. The scaffold was now fifteen metres above his head. Within an instant the worms were swarming over his fins. He had to force himself to ignore them. They didn’t stand a chance against the suit. They were revolting, of course, but no more. Worms could never pose a danger to a creature of his size.

  Or could they? After all, these worms weren’t even meant to exist.

  The trackhound had sunk on to the terrace alongside him. Bohrmann parked it on a ledge of rock and looked up at the tube. Man-sized chunks of black lava blocked the propellers - nothing they couldn’t handle, though. More worrying was the larger splinter of lava that was squashing the tube against the side. It looked at least four metres high. Bohrmann doubted that he and Frost would be able to shift it, even though things weighed less under water and lava was porous and relatively light.

  Frost joined him. ‘Disgusting,’ he said. ‘Those sons of Lucifer are everywhere.’

  ‘What’s everywhere?’

  ‘Worms of course! I suggest we deal with the smaller chunks first and see how far we get. Van Maarten?’ he called.

  ‘Over.’ There was a tinny quality to the man’s voice. Bohrmann had forgotten that they could communicate with him, too.

  ‘We’re going to tidy up a bit down here. We’ll start by clearing the propellers. If we’re lucky, the tube might be able to work its own way free.’

  ‘OK. Are you all right, Dr Bohrmann?’

  ‘Never been better.’

  Frost pointed to an almost spherical chunk of lava that was blocking the swivel joint of one of the propellers. ‘We’ll start with that.’

  They got to work, and after a good deal of pushing and shoving, the rock came unstuck, freeing the propeller and squashing hundreds of worms.

  ‘OK,’ said Frost.

  They moved two more boulders, but the next was larger. After a concerted effort they tipped it to one side.

  ‘See how strong we are down here,’ said Frost, enthusiastically. ‘OK, Jan,’ he said to van Maarten, ‘we’ve only got one propeller to go. They don’t look damaged. Can you rotate them? Don’t turn them on, just rotate them.’

  After a few seconds, the tube started to purr. One of the turbines was rotating on its shaft. Then the others began to turn.

  ‘Good,’ shouted Frost. ‘Now try to switch them on.’

  Having retreated to a safe distance a few metres away from the tube, they watched the propellers start up.

  The tube juddered.

  ‘No go,’ said van Maarten.

  ‘I can see that.’ Frost scowled. ‘Turn them the other way.’

  That didn’t work either, and silt was being churned up, making the water murkier by the second.

  ‘Stop!’ Bohrmann waved his segmented arms about. ‘Hey guys, that’s enough now! There’s no point. You’re only getting mud in our eyes.’

  The propellers slowed to a halt. The cloud of silt dispersed, leaving muddy streaks in the water. They could barely make out the mouth of the tube.

  ‘Great.’ Frost opened a flat box on the side of his exosuit and took out two pencil-sized objects. ‘That huge chunk of rock is what’s causing the problems. I know you’re not going to like this, Gair-hard, but we’re going to have to blow the damn thing up.’

  Bohrmann’s gaze shifted to the worms. They were rapidly reclaiming the freshly vacuumed terrace. ‘It’s a big risk,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll use a small charge. We’ll place it at the bottom of the rock, where the tip’s digging into the terrace - blast its legs off, so to speak.’

  Bohrmann pushed off, floating a metre or so upwards, then heading for the rock. It got muddier and murkier as he approached. He switched on his head torch and sank into the cloud of sediment. He lowered himself carefully, dropped on to his knees and manoeuvred his helmet as close as possible to the place where the rock was embedded in the ground. He used his two manipulators to sweep away the worms. Some lunged at him and tried to bite the articulated limbs. Bohrmann shook them away and examined the sediment. He found thin veins of dirty white hydrate. When he poked at them with the manipulators, the surrounding lava splintered and tiny bubbles spun towards him.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Bad idea.’

  ‘Do you have a better one?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll use more of the explosive, look for dents or cracks in the lower third of the boulder, and blow it up from there. With a bit of luck the top will fall off and we won’t disturb the terrace beneath it.’

  ‘OK.’

  Frost swam through the cloud towards him. They rose up a little, and visibility improved. Working systematically, they searched the rock for suitable spots. Eventually Frost found a deep groove in the lava and filled it with something that looked like firm grey Plasticine. He poked a pencil-thin cylinder inside it.

  ‘That should do the trick,’ he said. ‘Expect some flying debris. Let’s get out of the way.’

  They started up their trackhounds and hitched a ride to the edge of the illuminated zone where, after a few metres, the terrace ended in darkness. The shower of particles wasn’t too bad there, so the light waves weren’t being deflected by algae or other floating matter, yet the transition into darkness was abrupt. Light disappeared under water in a sequence determined by its wavelength - first red, after two or three metres, orange, then yellow. After ten metres only green and blue were left, until they, too, were absorbed or scattered as the water swallowed any vestige of light. After that the world ceased to exist.

  Bohrmann was reluctant to venture from the relative safety of the illuminated zone into nothingness. He noticed with relief that Frost didn’t appear to think that they needed to retre
at any further. At the edge of the gloom, where the blue gave way to inky black, he could see what appeared to be a crevice in the flank. Maybe it was a cave. He imagined how the stone had tumbled into the depths in a stream of red hot lava, slowly cooling and setting in curious shapes. Suddenly he felt cold inside his suit - cold at the thought of spending a lifetime in the depths.

  He looked up towards the lighting scaffold. There was nothing to be seen apart from a blue aura around the white floodlights.

  ‘OK,’ said Frost. ‘Let’s get this done with.’ He activated the fuse.

  A torrent of bubbles poured forth from the rock, mixed with splinters and lava dust. There was a rumbling noise inside Bohrmann’s helmet. A dark ring spread outwards, followed by more bubbles, as the debris dispersed in all directions.

  He held his breath.

  Slowly, very slowly, the top half of the rock began to topple.

  ‘Yes!’ shouted Frost. ‘Thank you, God!’

  The rock was tipping faster now, pulled over by its own weight. It broke half-way down, dropping on to the terrace next to the pipe and creating another, larger cloud of sediment. Despite his body armour, Frost managed to jump up and down and waggle his arms. He looked like Neil Armstrong taking a giant leap for America on the surface of the moon.

  ‘Hallelujah! Hey, van Maarten! We knocked the damn thing down. Give the tube another try!’

  Bohrmann hoped with all his heart that the explosion wouldn’t result in any more landslides. Through the swirling sediment he heard the propellers start up, and suddenly the tube moved. It crinkled up, then its far end rose like the head of a gigantic worm, lifting slowly out of the cloud. The mouth swivelled round, pointing straight at them, then turned in the other direction, as though it were surveying its surroundings. If Bohrmann hadn’t known better, he would have thought they were done for.

  ‘It’s working!’ yelled Frost.

  ‘You guys are the best,’ van Maarten said drily.

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ agreed Frost. ‘Now switch it off before it eats us. We’ll check out the site again, and then we’re coming up.’

  The tube lifted a little, then its mouth drooped and it dangled lifelessly amid the light. Bohrmann set off. He glanced over at the scaffold, then back again. Something didn’t look right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  ‘A shady business,’ said Frost, jerking his head towards the gloomy cloud. ‘Go ahead, Gair-hard. You’ll be able to make more sense of it than I can.’

  Bohrmann switched on his trackhound’s floodlight. Then he thought better of it and switched it off.

  Was he seeing things?

  He glanced at the scaffold again. This time his eyes lingered. It seemed that the floodlights were more powerful than before, but that was impossible: they’d been on full beam throughout the operation.

  But the glow wasn’t coming from the floodlights. It was coming from the blue aura. It was getting bigger.

  ‘Do you see that?’ Bohrmann jerked his arm towards the scaffold. Frost’s eyes followed the movement.

  ‘I can’t see—My God.’

  ‘The light,’ said Bohrmann. ‘The blue glow.’

  ‘By Ariel and Uriel,’ whispered Frost, ‘you’re right. It’s spreading.’

  A blue-violet halo had formed round the scaffold. Distances were hard to judge under water, particularly since the refractive-index made everything look a quarter closer and a third larger than it was - but the source of the blue glow was clearly a good deal further away than the lighting unit. Although the glare of the halogen lamps was shining into his eyes, Bohrmann was almost certain he’d seen flashes. Then the blue paled, the light faded and went out.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ said Bohrmann. ‘We should go back.’

  Frost didn’t answer. He was still staring at the scaffold.

  ‘Stan? Are you listening to me? We should—’

  ‘Don’t do anything hasty,’ Frost said slowly. ‘We’ve got company.’

  He pointed to the top of the scaffold. Two long shadows were patrolling the length of the frame. Blue bellies flashed in the light. Then they were gone.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Don’t panic, kiddo. Turn on your POD.’

  Bohrmann pressed the panel at the front of his exosuit.

  ‘I didn’t want to alarm you,’ said Frost. ‘I thought if I told you what they’re for, you might get nervous and keep looking around for—’

  Two torpedo-shaped bodies shot out from behind the scaffold. Bohrmann saw a pair of oddly formed heads. The creatures were coming straight for them, travelling at tremendous speed, teeth grinning in their open jaws. Fear clutched his heart. Bohrmann pushed off from the terrace, moving backwards and shielding his helmet with his hands. None of the movements made sense, but his civilised, scientific mind had yielded to primeval instinct. He cried out.

  ‘They can’t hurt you,’ Frost said firmly.

  The creatures were almost upon him when they banked. Bohrmann gasped for air and tried to fight back his panic. Frost swam to his side. ‘We tested the PODs in advance, you know,’ he said, ‘and they definitely work.’

  ‘What the hell is a POD?’

  ‘A Protective Ocean Device. The best shark deterrent there is. It emits an electromagnetic field that acts as a barrier and keeps the sharks at a distance of five metres.’

  Bohrmann tried to recover from the shock. The creatures had swum in a wide arc round the back of the scaffold. ‘They were closer than five metres,’ he said.

  ‘They’ll have learned their lesson now. Sharks have highly sensitive electro-receptive organs. The electromagnetic field overstimulates their sensors and interferes with their nervous system. It causes them unbearable muscle spasms. During the trial run, we used bait to attract white and tiger sharks, then activated the POD. They couldn’t get through the field.’

  ‘Dr Bohrmann? Stanley?’ That was van Maarten’s voice. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ said Frost.

  ‘Well, POD or no POD, it’s time for you to leave,’ said van Maarten.

  Bohrmann’s eyes scanned the scaffold. He’d known much of what Frost had told him. Distributed around the front of a shark’s head were ampullae of Lorenzini, small canals that detected even the weakest electrical pulses, such as those produced by other living creatures. What he hadn’t realised was that a POD could sabotage the sensors. ‘Those were hammerheads,’ he said.

  ‘Great hammerheads. About four metres long, I’d say.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘PODs work especially well on them.’ Frost chuckled, ‘with their rectangular heads, they’ve got more ampullae than any other species.’

  ‘What now?’

  He saw a movement. Out of the darkness behind the scaffold the two sharks came back into view. Bohrmann stayed still. He watched the sharks attack. Without swinging their heads as sharks usually do when they are tracking a scent, they shot purposefully through the water and stopped suddenly as if they’d hit a wall. They turned in confusion and swam away, then came back and circled the divers, but at a respectful distance.

  It worked.

  Their body shape was like that of any other shark. It was the head that had given the species its name. It extended on each side in flat wings, with the eyes and nostrils at the far ends. The front edge of the hammer was as smooth and straight as a blade.

  Slowly Bohrmann composed himself. The creatures wouldn’t even be able to harm them through their suits. But he was keen to get out of there.

  ‘How long will it take us to get back?’ he asked.

  ‘Same as it took to get down. We’ll swim past the scaffold, activate the hounds, and hold tight for the ride.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Don’t activate anything until we get there. I don’t want to see you on a collision course with the floodlights again.’

  ‘How long will the deterrent last?’

  ‘The PODs have at least four hours�
� worth of battery.’ Frost rose through the water, kicking evenly with his fins, holding the console of the trackhound in his right-hand manipulator. Bohrmann followed.

  ‘Well, so long, guys,’ said Frost. ‘It’s too bad we’ve got to leave.’

  The sharks gave chase, but their mouths started to twitch and their bodies contorted. Frost laughed and carried on paddling towards the lighting unit. Against the backdrop of the vast, glowing scaffold, his silhouette looked small and blue-tinged, its contours illuminated.

  Bohrmann thought of the blue cloud that had appeared in the distance.

  In the shock of the moment he’d forgotten that it had appeared immediately before the sharks had arrived. The same phenomenon had been responsible for the change in the whales and probably for a string of other anomalies and catastrophes. It meant they weren’t dealing with ordinary sharks.

  Why had the sharks been there in the first place? They had excellent hearing. Maybe the explosion had attracted them. But why were they on the attack? Neither he nor Frost was giving off a scent. They bore no resemblance to prey. In any case, sharks didn’t usually attack humans in the depths.

  They were approaching the uppermost edge of the scaffold.

  ‘Stan? There’s something wrong with them.’

  ‘They won’t hurt you.’

  ‘I’m telling you, they’re not normal.’

  One of the sharks turned its broad flat head and swam off to the side.

  ‘You may have a point,’ mused Frost. ‘It’s the depth that bothers me. Great hammerheads have never been known to go deeper than eighty metres. It makes you wonder what they’re—’

  The shark turned. For a moment it stopped, head raised slightly and back arched, the classic attack position. Sweeping its tail powerfully it raced towards Frost. The volcanologist was so surprised that he didn’t try to fend it off. The shark reared up briefly and violently, then swam into the electromagnetic field and rammed Frost with its flank. Frost twirled like a spinning top, arms and legs splayed.