The Swarm: A Novel

by Frank Schätzing

  ‘The people are listening,’ Li said firmly. ‘The world’s stopped listening to everyone else. It’s just you and the Germans.’

  ‘Which reminds me, the Germans…’ The President’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is it true what I’m hearing, that the Germans have their own mission planned?’

  Li almost fell off the treadmill. That was ridiculous. ‘Of course not. We’re in charge. The UN has handed us the reins. Sure, the Germans are co-ordinating the European effort, but we’re working together. Take La Palma.’

  ‘So why’s the CIA been telling me this stuff?’

  ‘Because Vanderbilt’s been peddling lies.’

  ‘Come on, Jude.’

  ‘He’s a game player, always has been.’

  ‘My dear Jude, when the time comes for you to take your rightful place, Vanderbilt won’t be anywhere in sight.’

  Li exhaled slowly. She’d allowed herself to get emotional. For a moment her guard had slipped and she’d given too much away. That wasn’t good. In future she’d have to watch herself. She couldn’t afford to be drawn.

  ‘Although,’ she said, with a smile, ‘I don’t really see Jack as a problem. He’s a partner.’

  The President nodded. ‘The Russians have sent us a team. They’ve been helping the CIA with detailed information from the Black Sea region. We’re in close contact with the Chinese, and the stuff about Germany is probably nothing. I don’t get the impression that they’re trying to go it alone, but you know how rumours start at times like this. We should be thankful, really. It’s a wonderful thing to see so many people from different nations uniting in God to drive the devil from the sea.’ He passed his hands over his eyes. ‘So how are we really doing, Jude? I didn’t want to ask you in front of the others in case you had to put a gloss on things. I wanted to spare you that embarrassment. I need you to be frank with me. How much longer?

  ‘Not long. We’re on the verge of a breakthrough.’

  ‘How long is not long?’

  ‘Rubin says that if all goes to plan, he can be ready in a day or two. We got lucky in the lab. The yrr are using a pheromone to communicate. We already know how to synthesise it and we—’

  ‘Skip the details. So, Rubin says he can handle it?’

  ‘He’s certain of it, sir,’ said Li. ‘And so am I.’

  The President pursed his lips. ‘I’m relying on you, Jude. Any problems with your scientists?’

  ‘No,’ she lied. ‘Things couldn’t be better.’

  Why all the questions? Had Vanderbilt…

  Get a grip, she told herself. He was only enquiring. It wasn’t in Vanderbilt’s interest to tell tales. The fat bastard had a malicious tongue, but he’d never say anything to make himself look bad. ‘I can assure you, sir,’ she said, ‘that we’re making good progress. I gave you my word that I’d settle this problem in all our interests, and I’m going to do just that. The United States will save the world. You will save the world.’

  ‘Just like in the movies, huh?’

  ‘Better than that.’

  The President nodded bleakly. Then he flashed her a smile. It wasn’t the broad grin of old, but there was still a hint of his indomitable spirit, for which she admired him. ‘God be with you, Jude,’ he said.

  He hung up. Li stayed on her treadmill. All of a sudden she doubted that she could pull it off.

  Combat Information Center

  Whatever the message had to say about the creatures in the sea, Shankar’s stomach was communicating his need of food so loudly that Crowe couldn’t bear to listen to the rumbling any longer. She sent him to get something to eat.

  ‘But I’m fine,’ he insisted.

  ‘You’ll be doing me a favour,’ said Crowe.

  ‘We don’t have time to eat.’

  ‘I know. But a couple of skeletons aren’t going to solve the problem. At least I’ve got my Lucky Strikes to keep me going. Go on, Murray. Come back fortified and see if you can belch out a few good ideas.’

  Shankar left, and she was alone.

  A bit of space was what she needed. It was nothing against Shankar - he was a brilliant scientist and a great help - but he specialised in acoustics. Second-guessing non-human thought patterns didn’t come easily to him and, anyway, Crowe always had her best ideas when she was surrounded by nothing but smoke.

  She lit a cigarette, and went through the problem again. H2O. We live in water.

  The message looked like a woven design on a rug. A repeating pattern of H2O. The same motif again and again, yet each molecule of H2O was linked to an ancillary piece of data. Millions of pairs of data, one after the next. In graphic form, they appeared as lines. The obvious assumption was that the ancillary data described a characteristic of water or of something that lived in the water.

  What would a yrr have to say about itself?

  Water. But what else?

  Crowe turned it over in her mind. Suddenly she thought of an analogy. Two statements. First statement: this is a bucket. Second statement: this is water. When you add them together: this is a bucket of water. The water molecules would all look identical, but the same wasn’t true of the data on the bucket. The data describing the bucket would differ according to its form, texture and markings. A description of a bucket, broken down into thousands of individual statements, would be anything but uniform. Stating that the bucket was full of water would be easy. You just took each of the individual bucket statements and attached an ancillary statement: water.

  Or, to put it another way, the statement H2O could be coupled with data describing something with no intrinsic connection to water. Like a bucket, for instance.

  We live in water.

  But where in the water? How could you describe the location of something that was devoid of fixed shape?

  By describing what delimited it.

  Coastlines and seabeds.

  The empty spaces were the continents, bordered by coastlines.

  Crowe’s cigarette almost fell to the floor. She started punching commands into the keyboard. Suddenly she knew why the lines didn’t make a picture: they weren’t describing two dimensions, but three. You had to bend them to make them fit. Bend them until they turned into something three-dimensional.

  A globe.

  Planet Earth.

  Lab

  Johanson was still working on the tissue samples they’d taken from the yrr. After twelve hours of intensive work Oliviera had given up - she couldn’t keep her eyes open, let alone look down a microscope. Over the past few nights she’d only had a few hours’ sleep. Slowly but surely the mission was taking its toll. Their work was advancing in leaps and bounds, but the pressure was getting to them. Everyone responded differently. Greywolf had retreated to the well deck, where he took care of the three remaining dolphins, monitored the data from their sensors and kept himself to himself Some of the team were visibly tetchy, while others reacted more stoically. In Rubin’s case, the stress seemed to take the form of migraines - which meant that once Oliviera had withdrawn for some hard-earned sleep, Johanson was left on his own in the half-light of the lab.

  He’d switched off the main lights, leaving just the desk lamps and computer screens to brighten the gloom. The chamber hummed softly, generating a barely perceptible blue glow. The layer of jelly lay motionless at the bottom. The organism looked dead, but Johanson knew better.

  If the jelly was glowing, the yrr were alive.

  Footsteps rang out on the ramp. Anawak poked his head round the door. Johanson looked up from his work. ‘Leon, good to see you.’

  Anawak pulled up a chair, and sat down on it back to front. He rested his arms on the top. ‘It’s three in the morning,’ he said. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Working. You?’

  ‘Can’t sleep.’

  ‘I think we’ve earned ourselves a drink. A glass of Bordeaux?’

  ‘Oh, um…’ Anawak looked embarrassed. ‘Thanks for offering, but I don’t touch alcohol.’

  ‘Never?’


  ‘Never.’

  ‘That’s funny.’ Johanson frowned. ‘I usually notice stuff like that. I guess we’re all pretty distracted at the moment.’

  ‘You could say that.’ Anawak paused. ‘How’s it shaping up?’

  ‘Fine. I solved your problem.’ He said it almost casually.

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘The one you and Karen were working on. Memory via mutating DNA. Well, you were right. It’s possible, and I’ve found out how.’

  Anawak stared at him incredulously. ‘I can’t believe you’re not jumping up and down.’

  ‘I’d turn a few cartwheels if I had enough energy. But you’re right: we should celebrate.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to tell me how it works?’

  ‘You remember those hypervariable segments? They’re clusters. The genome is covered with clusters that code different proteins. They’re…Does this mean anything to you?’

  ‘You’ll have to help me out a little.’

  ‘Clusters are a sub-class of gene. They’re genes that take care of a particular function, like producing certain substances or coding receptors. If a section of DNA contains a high concentration of genes that serve the same function, you get a cluster. The yrr-genome has masses of them. And this is where it gets interesting: the yrr-cells are repairing themselves, but the repair process doesn’t occur globally across the whole genome. The enzymes don’t scan the DNA from top to bottom for mistakes, they react to specific signals. They’re a bit like trains. If the signal tells them to go, they start the repair mechanism. But if the signal says stop, they don’t go any further because otherwise they’d run into—’

  ‘The clusters.’

  ‘Right. And the clusters are protected.’

  ‘You mean the yrr are able to shield part of their genome to stop it being repaired?’

  ‘Exactly. They’ve got repair inhibitors - biological bouncers, if you like - which protect the clusters from repair enzymes. So, in the course of the repairs, the core genetic information is preserved, while other sequences are free to mutate continuously. Impressive, eh? Each yrr is an ever-evolving brain.’

  ‘But how do they communicate?’

  ‘Like Sue said, from cell to cell. Via ligands and receptors. The ligand - the signal transmitted from the other cells—reaches a receptor and sets off a chemical cascade towards the nucleus. The genome then mutates and passes on the signal to the surrounding cells. It happens almost instantaneously. That pile of jelly is thinking at the speed of a superconductor.’

  Anawak gave a low whistle. ‘So it’s a brand new biochemical set-up.’

  ‘Or a very old one. It may be new to us, but it’s probably been around for millions of years. Maybe as long as life itself It’s a different evolutionary system running parallel to our own.’ Johanson gave a short laugh. ‘And it’s highly effective.’

  Anawak rested his chin on his hands. ‘So, what now?’

  ‘Good question. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so directionless. I’ve got all this information and I don’t know what to do with it. Right now it just confirms our fears - we’ve got almost nothing in common with the yrr.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘Who knows whether Crowe’s attempts at communication will pay off? Seems to me that they’re happy to chat to us while merrily plotting our doom. Maybe they don’t see that as a contradiction. Either way, it’s not my idea of conversation.’

  ‘We’ve got no choice. We have to find a way of making ourselves understood.’ Anawak sucked in his cheeks. ‘And while we’re on the subject - do you think we’re all pulling together?’

  Johanson stiffened. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well…’ Anawak frowned. ‘OK, don’t be mad at her, but Karen told me what you saw - or what you thought you saw - the night of your mysterious accident.’

  Johanson gave him a hard look. ‘And what does she think?’

  ‘That you did see Rubin.’

  ‘I thought so. And you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Anawak shrugged. You’re Norwegian. You guys believe in trolls.’

  Johanson sighed. ‘If it hadn’t been for Sue, none of this would ever have come back to me,’ he said. ‘She jogged my memory. That night when we were sitting on the hangar deck, I thought I saw Rubin, even though he was supposed to be in bed with a migraine. Just like he’s supposed to have a migraine now. Ever since then, bits and pieces have been coming back to me. I’m starting to remember things - things I can’t have made up. Sometimes it feels as though I’m on the verge of seeing everything, and then…I’m standing in front of an open door, looking into the light. I step inside - and it all goes black.’

  ‘What makes you think you didn’t dream it?’

  ‘Sue.’

  ‘But she didn’t see anything.’

  ‘And Li.’

  ‘Why Li?’

  ‘We were chatting at the party and she was a bit too concerned about the state of my memory. I got the feeling she was trying to gauge how much I knew.’ Johanson looked at Anawak. ‘You wanted my opinion. Well, I don’t think we’re pulling together. I never have done, not even in Whistler. There’s always been something funny about Li, but now there’s Rubin and his migraines too. I don’t know what to make of it, but something tells me it doesn’t add up.’

  ‘Male intuition…’ Anawak grinned nervously. ‘So, what does Li want from us?’

  Johanson glanced at the ceiling. ‘You’d have to ask her.’

  Control Room

  At that moment Johanson was looking straight into Vanderbilt’s eyes through one of the hidden cameras, although he didn’t know it. The CIA agent had taken over from Li at the desk. He heard Johanson say, ‘You’d have to ask her.’

  ‘Smart bastard,’ Vanderbilt murmured. Li was in her cabin. He called her on a secure line.

  She appeared on the screen.

  ‘I told you those drugs were a risk,’ said Vanderbilt. ‘Johanson’s recovering his memory.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Aren’t you worried?’

  Li gave a thin smile. ‘Rubin’s been working very hard. He was here just now.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s brilliant!’ There was a glint in her eyes. ‘I know we’re not particularly fond of the shit, but I have to say he’s excelled himself.’

  ‘Has he trialled the stuff?’

  ‘On a small scale. But the scale doesn’t matter: it works. In a few hours I’m going to call the President. Then I’ll take Rubin for a dive.’

  ‘You want to do it in person?’ exclaimed Vanderbilt.

  ‘Well, there’s no way you’re going to fit inside a boat like that,’ said Li, and hung up.

  Well Deck

  The electrical systems filled the Independence’s empty hangars and decks with an eerie buzz, causing the bulkheads to quiver imperceptibly. They could be heard in the hospital and the deserted officers’ mess, and anyone pressing their fingertips to the lockers in the troop-berthing area could feel their faint vibration.

  They even penetrated into the bowels of the vessel, where Greywolf was lying near the edge of the embankment, staring at the steel girders on the ceiling. He felt overwhelmed with grief and the conviction that he had done everything wrong. He hadn’t even been able to save Licia. He’d tried to protect her and failed.

  The only time when he’d ever been truly proud of himself was when he’d rescued that kid. He’d done a good job on the Lady Wexham. He’d helped a crowd of people, and he’d won back Leon as a friend. A photographer had taken a picture, and the next day the newspaper had immortalised the moment.

  But the whales were still rampaging, the dolphins were suffering, nature was in agony - and Licia was dead.

  Greywolf felt empty and useless. He wasn’t going to talk to anyone about it: he was just going to do his job until the nightmare was over.

  And then…

  Tears welled in his eyes.

  The Big Picture

  ‘See this sphere?’ said Crowe. ‘T
hat’s planet Earth.’ She’d blown up some printouts and pinned them to the wall. She walked slowly down the line. ‘These markings baffled us at first, but now we think they’re the Earth’s magnetic field. The blank spaces are definitely continents. Once we’d worked that out, we’d basically cracked it.’

  Li frowned. ‘Are you sure? Those so-called continents don’t look much like the continents I know.’

  Crowe smiled. ‘They’re not supposed to. They’re the continents a hundred and eighty million years ago. Just one big land mass - Pangaea, the supercontinent. The lines probably correspond to the magnetic field back then.’

  ‘Have you checked that out?’

  ‘It’s difficult to reconstruct the field lines, but the configuration of the continents is easily verified. At first we didn’t know what they’d sent us, but once we realised it was a map of the world it all fell into place. It’s actually quite straightforward. They used water as the baseline for the message, and paired each water molecule with geographical data.’

  ‘But how would they know what the Earth looked like all that time ago?’ Vanderbilt said.

  ‘They remember it,’ said Johanson.

  ‘But no one can remember the prehistoric era. Only single-cell organisms—’ Vanderbilt broke off.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Johanson. ‘Only single-cell organisms and the first multicellular life-forms. Last night the final piece of the jigsaw fell into place. The yrr have hypermutating DNA. Let’s say they gained consciousness at the beginning of the Jurassic era. That’s two hundred million years ago, and they’ve been storing knowledge ever since. You know the classic lines you get in sci-fi? Whatever it is, it’s coming our way, or Get me the President on the line? Well, there’s always the one about the enemy being superior, though by the end of the story you mostly feel cheated. This time you won’t. The yrr are superior.’

  ‘Because their DNA stores knowledge?’ asked Li.

  ‘Right. That’s the crucial difference. Humans aren’t endowed with genetic memory. For our culture to survive, we need words, written accounts and pictures. We can’t transmit experience directly. When our body dies, our mind goes with it. We talk about not forgetting the lessons of the past but we’re kidding ourselves. To forget something you have to be able to remember it. None of us can remember the experience of earlier generations. We can record and refer to other people’s memories, but it doesn’t alter the fact that we weren’t there. Every newborn baby starts from scratch. Each of us has to touch the stove to find out that it’s hot. Things are very different for the yrr. One cell absorbs information, then divides into two - it duplicates its genome, complete with all the information stored on it. It’s like us being able to duplicate our brain and all our memories with it. New cells don’t inherit abstract knowledge - they get real experience, as though they’d been there themselves. Ever since the very first yrr came into being, they’ve had collective memory.’ Johanson turned to Li. ‘So, do you see what we’re up against?’