The Swarm

by Frank Schätzing

  Roscovitz opened the pods, they lifted themselves out of the boat and jumped on to the jetty.

  Floyd Anderson was waiting for them. 'How was it?' he asked. He didn't seem to care.

  'Fun.'

  'Well, folks, the party's over.' The first officer watched the second boat surface. 'As soon as you guys stick your heads under water, stuff happens. We've picked up a signal.'

  'What?' Crowe joined them. 'What kind?'

  'We were hoping you could tell us.' Anderson stared straight past her. 'It's loud, and it's coming from somewhere nearby.'

  COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER

  'A low-frequency signal,' said Shankar. 'Same pattern as Scratch.'

  Shankar and Crowe had rushed to the CIC. In the meantime they'd received confirmation from the onshore station. According to their calculations, the noise was coming from the vicinity of the Independence.

  Li walked in. 'Can you make any sense of it?'

  'Not right away.' Crowe shook her head. 'We'll need some help from the computer. We'll get it to break down the signal and start looking for patterns.'

  'Call me some time next year.'

  'Is there a problem?' Shankar growled.

  'I was just wondering how you intended to decipher it in a viable timescale, when your guys at NOAA have been puzzling over Scratch for years.'

  'And you're asking that now?

  'Come on, children.' Crowe scrabbled around for her cigarettes and lit up. 'I keep telling you that communicating with an alien species is an entirely different matter. Yesterday's signal was probably the first human message that the yrr have been able to decode. They'll reply in a similar format.'

  'You really think they'll use the same coding?'

  'Well, if the yrr exist, if this is a message, if they understood our code, and if they're interested in talking to us – then, yes, I do.'

  'Why are they using the infrasound spectrum and not a frequency we can hear?'

  'Why shouldn't they use infrasound?' Crowe asked, surprised.

  'You'd think it would be diplomatic.'

  'If a Russian were to address you in bad English, would you reply to him in Russian?'

  Li shrugged. 'OK, whatever. But what now?'

  'We'll stop transmitting our message. That'll signal to them that we've picked up their transmission. We'll know soon enough if they've been using our code. They'll have tried to make it easy to decipher. Whether we're smart enough to grasp what they're telling us is another matter.'

  JOINT INTELLIGENCE CENTER

  Weaver was attempting the impossible. She was trying to disregard all the existing research about the evolution of intelligent life – and, at the same time, confirm its findings.

  Crowe had explained that every theory on the existence of alien civilisations hinged on the same set of questions, including: how big or small could intelligent life-forms be? In SETI circles, where the focus was on interstellar communication, people were busy hypothesising about beings whose gaze was turned towards the skies – extra-terrestrials who had entertained the possibility of other worlds and had decided to make contact. Such beings would almost certainly live on dry land, so there were clear limitations governing their size.

  Astronomers and exobiologists had recently come to believe that a planet would have to possess no less than 85 per cent and no more than 133 per cent of the Earth's mass to generate surface temperatures conducive to the development of intelligent life within one to two billion years. The dimensions of this hypothetical planet had implications for its gravitational field, which in turn allowed certain conclusions to be drawn about the anatomy of any beings that might live there. Theoretically a living creature could grow infinitely large on an Earthlike planet. In practice, though, it would be limited by the ability of the body to bear its own weight. Dinosaurs, of course, had developed extraordinarily large bones, but their brains had failed to keep up. They were designed for lumbering, eating and not much else. Accordingly, there was a rough rule of thumb: intelligent non-stationary life-forms were unlikely to grow more than ten metres tall.

  The more interesting question was how small they could be. Could ants develop intelligence? And how about bacteria? Or viruses?

  SETI researchers and exobiologists had good reason to want to find out: it was almost certain that the Earth's corner of the galaxy was free from other humanoid civilisations, at least within its own solar system, which left scientists clinging to the hope that Mars or one of Jupiter's moons would be home to a few stray spores or some single-cell organisms. They started to search for the smallest viable unit of life, which inevitably led them to complex organic molecules – the smallest self-contained units capable of storing and using information. But could a molecule like that develop intelligence?

  The answer was a decisive no.

  But the individual neurons of a human brain weren't intelligent either. For humans to attain the brain-to-body ratio that made them intelligent, it took one hundred billion neurons each. It was conceivable that an intelligent organism smaller than a human could make do with fewer cells, but there was no altering the size of the molecules of which the neurons were composed – and without a critical mass of neurons, there could be no intelligent spark. That was the limiting factor for ants, who seemed to possess non-conscious intelligence but whose brains could never attain a higher neural capacity because they lacked sufficient cells. In fact, since ants didn't breathe through lungs but absorbed oxygen through their body surface, their growth was inherently restricted. Their respiratory system would fail if they exceeded a certain size, so their brains had no chance to develop any further. In evolutionary terms, ants and their fellow insects had reached a dead end. Scientists had therefore concluded that the smallest possible size for an intelligent life-form was roughly ten centimetres, which meant the chances of encountering a scuttling Aristotle were practically nil. Single-cell intelligence seemed out of the question.

  All that was at the back of Weaver's mind as she sat down to program the computer to link mental capacity and single-cell organisms in a meaningful combination.

  In the hours following the discovery in the lab, the general mood was one of scepticism. Could the jelly really be intelligent? Single-cell organisms weren't capable of creativity and couldn't develop self-awareness. No one contested that a sizeable number of single-cell organisms theoretically corresponded to a brain or a body. The blue cloud filmed by the URA near Vancouver Island had evidently consisted of billions of cells – but did that mean it could think? And even if it could, how was it supposed to learn? How would the cells communicate? What had to happen for a conglomerate of cells to become a higher entity?

  How had it worked for humanity?

  Either the jelly substance was nothing more than insentient goo, or there was a trick to it.

  The jelly had steered whales and crabs.

  Computer programs developed by Kurzweil Technologies used billions of bits to simulate neurons that worked together as a brain. Artificial intelligence of one kind or another was already being used throughout the globe. AI systems were capable of learning, and there was even a sense in which they used their own creativity to further their development. None of the AI researchers claimed to have created consciousness, but their work already posed the question as to when a mass of tiny identical parts could be classed as alive – and whether life could be generated artificially in that way.

  Weaver was now in possession of one of the latest generation of artificial brains, having approached its inventor Ray Kurzweil directly. Her first move was to save a backup copy. Then she set about dismantling the original into its individual electronic components, breaking down the bridges and turning it into an unstructured swarm of tiny units. She tried to imagine breaking down a human brain. What would she have to do to get the cells to come back together and re-create the thinking whole? Billions of electronic neurons were swarming all over her computer, tiny bits of data with nothing to bind them together.

  She trie
d to imagine that they were single-cell organisms.

  Billions of single-cell organisms.

  She thought through the next steps. It would be best to stick as closely as possible to the facts as she knew them. After some reflection, she constructed a three-dimensional space and gave it the physical characteristics of water. What did single-cell organisms look like? They came in all kinds of different shapes – rods, triangles, stars, sometimes with irregular outlines, sometimes with flagella – but it made sense to settle for the simplest. She decided on spheres.

  Step by step the computer became an ocean. Weaver's virtual organisms rolled and spun through their electronic world. Maybe she should add currents, so that the virtual space mirrored the deep-sea environment. No, that could wait. First there were some major questions to address.

  So many units. How could they give rise to an intelligent being? There weren't any limitations on maximum size. None of SETI's assumptions about size was relevant to water-dwelling organisms, since the forces affecting bodyweight were different under water. An intelligent marine-based life-form could be incomparably bigger than any land-dwelling organism. SETI's scenarios barely accounted for water-based civilisations, because any such civilisation would be beyond the reach of radio waves. Besides, it seemed unlikely that an underwater species would be interested in space or other planets – unless it was planning to cross the universe in a travelling aquarium. But a water-based scenario was what she needed now.

  When Anawak arrived in the JIC thirty minutes later, she was staring at the screen, forehead knitted. She was cheered when she saw him. Since his return from Nunavut, they'd talked a lot about themselves to each other, and Anawak seemed more confident and self-assured. The dejected Inuk whom she'd found in the hotel bar had vanished in the Arctic.

  'How are you doing?' he asked.

  'My brain's in knots. Both brains, actually. I don't know where to start.'

  'What's the problem?'

  She told him what she had done so far. 'I'm not surprised you're stuck,' he said. 'You're doing a great job with the computer, but there's some biology you need to know. The brain can only think because of its structure. For the most part our neurons are pretty much identical – it's the way in which they're connected that allows them to think. It's like… Imagine a city.'

  'London.'

  'It's been shaken out of place and your job is to put the houses and streets back where they were. There are heaps of possibilities, but only one will give you London.'

  'Fine, but how does each house know where it belongs?' Weaver sighed. 'No, scrap that question. Let's not worry about how the brain cells are connected. What I don't get is how they can join together and form something that's more intelligent than the sum of their parts.'

  Anawak rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 'Think of the city again. In one of the streets a tower block is being built by a team of, say, a thousand workers. The workers are all identical – clones. Each has a specific task – a particular set of actions that he's employed to carry out. None of the workers has seen the blueprint for the building, yet together they're capable of constructing it. But imagine what would happen if you switched those guys around. There's a chain of ten builders passing bricks along the line, and you swap one for a man who tightens screws – well, you're going to cause trouble.'

  'I see. So provided they stick to their jobs, the whole thing works fine.'

  'Now, you could say that it only works because someone's been telling the workers what to do, but that someone couldn't build the block without them. Each presupposes the other. The plan gives rise to the workers' joint effort, and the workers' joint effort gives rise to the plan.'

  'Is there someone who plans?'

  'Maybe the workers are the plan.'

  'Well, in that case all the workers would have to be coded slightly differently – which, come to think of it, they are.'

  'Exactly. You see, the workers only seem to be identical. So, let's start at the beginning again. There's a plan. The units are all coded differently. What else do you need to make them into a network?'

  Weaver thought. 'I guess they have to be willing to co-operate.'

  'It's more straightforward than that.'

  Suddenly she saw what he was getting at. 'Communication. A common language. A signal.'

  'And what would the signal be telling the workers in the morning?

  'Get up and go to the building-site.'

  'Anything else?'

  'Remember where you belong when you get there.'

  'Exactly. But these guys are labourers, so they don't indulge in fancy conversation. They're hard-working men. They sweat in bed, they sweat when they get up in the morning- they're sweating all day long. How do they recognise each other?'

  Weaver pulled a face. 'By their smell?'

  'Bingo!'

  'I'm beginning to worry about your imagination.'

  Anawak laughed. 'It's Oliviera's fault. She was talking about those bacteria earlier, the ones that form aggregates, Myxococcus xanthus. Remember? They secrete a scent and group together.'

  Weaver nodded. It made sense. I'll think it over while I'm swimming,' she said. 'Want to come?'

  'Swimming? Now?'

  'Yes, now,' she teased him. 'Listen, under normal circumstances I wouldn't spend the whole day cooped up in a room without moving.'

  'I thought that was normal for computer geeks.'

  'Are you saying I'm pale and flabby?'

  'I've never seen anyone paler or flabbier.' He grinned.

  She saw the sparkle in his eyes. He was small and compact, not exactly George Clooney, but right now he seemed tall, self-assured and good-looking. 'Idiot,' she said.

  'Thanks.'

  'Just because you spend half your life under water, you think anyone who works with computers must be chained to their desk. For your information, I do most of my work outdoors. I spend most of my time thinking. I grab my laptop and take off. There's no reason why you shouldn't write features from a cliff-top. Sitting here makes me tense up. I'm going to get shoulders like steel girders.'

  Anawak stood up. For a moment Weaver thought he was leaving. Then she felt his hands on her back. His fingers stroked the muscles in her neck, while his thumbs kneaded her shoulders.

  He was massaging her back.

  Weaver stiffened.

  She liked it. But did she want it?

  'You're not tense,' said Anawak.

  He was right. Why had she said it?

  She stood up abruptly and his hands dropped away. She knew she'd made a mistake. She wanted to sit down again and let him carry on. But it was too late.

  'Well, I guess I'll be going then,' she said awkwardly.

  ANAWAK

  He wondered what had gone wrong. He would have liked to join her in the pool, but the mood had changed. He should have asked before he massaged her shoulders. Maybe he'd misread the situation. You're no good at this kind of thing, he told himself Stick to your whales, you stupid Eskimo.

  He thought about going in search of Johanson and continuing their discussion about single-cell intelligence, but somehow he didn't feel like it. He decided to stop by the CIC instead. Greywolf and Delaware spent much of their time there, monitoring and evaluating audio and video output from the fleet. But there was nothing to see except images of murky water from the cameras on the hull. Things had been quiet since the whales had circled the boat that morning, and now they seemed to have gone. Shankar was sitting on his own wearing a pair of oversized headphones, listening to the depths, while a constant stream of numbers passed before him on the screen. According to one of the crew, Greywolf and Delaware were busy on the well deck, substituting MK6 for MK7.

  Anawak marched down the vehicle ramp and on to the empty hangar deck. It was cold and draughty. He'd been meaning to carry straight on, but something held him back. Although daylight was visible through the gate-like openings where the deck elevators were situated, the bay was dominated by the pale, yellowish glow of the sodium
vapour lamps. He tried to imagine what it would look like when it was full of helicopters, Harrier jets, vehicles, cargo and equipment, all packed in with just enough room to open a door, climb through a window or slip into a hatch. Jeeps and forklift trucks would rattle up and down the ramps, and once the aircraft were on the roof, hundreds of marines would sort weaponry and equipment swiftly and intently. The formidable apparatus of the Independence would pull together as one.

  The vast expanse of the bay seemed absurd in its emptiness. Useless. The booths between the ribs were unmanned. High among the steel girders on the gloomy ceiling, the yellow lamps had nothing to illuminate. Pipes ran along the walls, ending in the void. There were hazard signs everywhere, but no one to see them.

  'If things get too cosy in the gym, we sometimes shift a few of the treadmills down here,' Peak had said, as he'd shown them round the vessel in Norfolk. 'Then it's real homey.' He'd stood there frowning. 'It's too empty. I hate to see the hangar like this. There are times when I hate this whole damn mission.'

  The emptiest room, Anawak thought, is always on the inside.

  He crossed the bay unhurriedly and walked out on to the portside elevator. The platform towered above the waves like a vast balcony. It was held in place by vertical slide rails that ran up the side of the ship. Anawak peered out across the water. The wind buffeted him. A strong gust could easily have swept him off his feet and over the edge of the platform. There weren't any rails, but safety nets encircled the ship so that no one could be pitched into the sea by the wind or aircraft exhaust.

  It was still risky, though.

  Ten metres below him, the waves rose up from the ocean.

  The light was weak, but the icy rain had stopped. The sea rose and fell, slate-grey, with veins of white. A watery desert. For more than half of his life he'd lived in the temperate climate of the Canadian west coast, and now, for the second time in a few months, Fate had sent him back to the ice.