'You're the only one who's interested in domination, you poor fool. How are you going to deal with the worms and stop the-'
'We'll poison them all. Once the yrr are out of the way, we'll be able to do what we like down there.'
'You'll be poisoning humans.'
'Well, here's a thing, Sigur. Destroying humans is an opportunity in itself. It would do the planet a favour if there was a little more air to go round.' Li's eyes narrowed. 'And now get out of my way.'
Johanson didn't move. He clung to the chain, and shook his head slowly. 'I've sabotaged the boat,' he said.
'I don't believe you.'
'Then you'll have to take your chances.'
Li nodded. 'I will.'
Her arm jerked up and she fired. Johanson tried to dodge sideways. He felt the bullet perforate his sternum and a wave of pain washed through him.
She'd shot him, the bitch.
His fingers let go of the chain. He wobbled, tried to say something, then fell belly first into the pilot's pod.
Deck Elevator
The instant he saw Crowe leaping towards him Anawak was seized with doubt. Arms flailing, Crowe had launched herself too far to the left. He ran sideways, arms outstretched, hoping that the impact wouldn't pitch them into the sea.
For all her daintiness, Crowe still hit him like a speeding bus.
Anawak toppled backwards, Crowe on top of him. They were sliding down the slope. He heard her screaming and his own voice joined in. The back of his head banged on the asphalt, as he tried to brace his heels against the surface. It was the second time in one day that he'd had a bad experience on the elevator, and he hoped it would be the last- whatever the outcome.
They stopped just short of the edge.
Crowe stared at him. 'Are you OK?' she asked hoarsely.
'Never better.'
She rolled off him, tried to stand up, then pulled a face and slumped down.
'No go,' she said.
Anawak jumped up. 'What's wrong?'
'My right foot.'
He knelt down next to her and felt her ankle.
Crowe groaned. 'I think it's broken.'
Anawak paused. Had he imagined it or was the ship tipping forward?
The platform squealed.
'Put your arm round my neck.'
He helped Crowe to her feet. She could hobble along beside him at least. They made their way awkwardly into the hangar. They could barely see what was in front of them. And the deck was even steeper than before.
How the hell are we going to get down the ramp? thought Anawak. It must be like a precipice now.
Suddenly he was filled with rage.
They were in the Greenland Sea, in the Arctic, his territory. He was an Inuk through and through. He'd been born in the Arctic, and he belonged there. But he wasn't going to die there, and neither was Crowe.
'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get moving.'
Deepflight 3
Li ran to the control desk. She'd wasted too much time. She should never have allowed herself to be dragged into such a ridiculous discussion.
She raised the Deepflight, then swung it over the jetty until it was hanging directly above her. She immediately spotted the two empty tubes. The larger torpedoes were in their usual position, but the smaller ones had been dismounted to make way for the radioactive cylinders. Excellent. With weapons like these, the Deepflight was handsomely armed.
Quickly she pushed the cylinders into the tubes and locked them into place. The system was foolproof As soon as they were fired, a detonator would ensure that the contaminated pheromone sprayed out at high pressure, ideally over the blue cloud. The sea would disperse it, and the yrr would take care of the rest. That was the best thing about the plan; Rubin's use of programmed cell death. Once the yrr had been contaminated, the collective would destroy itself in an incredible chain reaction.
He had done well.
She double-checked that the cylinders were firmly in place, manoeuvred the Deepflight back over the sluice, and lowered it until it was bobbing on the water. There was no time to put on a wetsuit. She'd just have to be careful. She raced down the ladder to the boat and clambered on board. The Deepflight rocked. Her gaze fell on the open pilot's pod; where Johanson was lying prone and inert.
That stubborn old fool. Why couldn't he have toppled to the side and fallen into the sluice? Now she had to dispose of a body too.
Suddenly she felt almost sorry. In a way she'd liked and admired the guy.
Under different circumstances she might…
The vessel rumbled.
It was too late to dispose of him. And, besides, it made no difference. The boat could be steered just as well from the co-pilot's pod. It simply meant transferring the controls. And she could always get rid of Johanson later, once the boat was under water.
There was a loud sound of breaking steel. Li crawled inside hastily and closed the pods. Her fingers sped over the controls. A low hum filled the air, as rows of lights and two small screens lit up. All the systems were ready. The Deepflight lay calmly on the dark green sea, ready to drop through the three-metre sluice into the depths. Li felt euphoric.
She'd done it.
Refuge
Johanson was sitting by the lake. The water lay still before him, covered with stars. He'd been longing to return there. He looked at the landscape of his soul and was filled with joy and awe. He felt strangely disembodied, with no sensation of warmth or cold. Something had changed. He felt as though he were the lake, the small house beside it, the silent dark forest all around him, the noises in the undergrowth, the dappled moon… He was everything, and everything was in him.
Tina Lund.
It was a pity that she couldn't be here too. He would have liked to grant her this restfulness, this peace. But she was dead, killed by nature's violent protest against the rot of civilisation that had spread along the coasts. Wiped away, like everything else, leaving nothing but the image in front of his eyes. The lake was eternal. This night would never end. And the solitude would give way to soothing nothingness, the final pleasure of the egotist.
Was that what he wanted?
Solitude had undeniable advantages. Time was precious, and being alone meant that you could spend it with yourself. If you listened, you could hear the most extraordinary things.
But when did solitude become loneliness?
Suddenly he felt fear.
Fear, like a pain spreading through him, eating at his chest and stealing his breath. A chill crept over him and he shivered. The stars in the lake expanded into red and green lights and buzzed with electricity. The landscape blurred, becoming shiny and rectangular. He was lying in a tunnel, a pipe or a tube.
In a flash he was conscious.
You're dead, he told himself.
No, he wasn't quite dead. But he knew he had only seconds. He was lying in a submersible bound for the depths, laden with radioactive pheromone to repay the yrr's crimes, if that was what they were, with an even worse transgression.
There were no stars in front of him; just the control panel of the Deepflight. The lights were on. He raised his eyes in time to see the well deck disappear.
They were in the sluice.
In a tremendous act of will-power he swivelled his head to the side. In the body pod next to him he saw the beautiful profile of Judith Li.
Li.
She had killed him.
Almost.
The boat sank. Steel plates and rivets flashed past. Soon the submersible would be out of the vessel. Then nothing and no one would be able to prevent Li emptying her murderous cargo into the sea.
He couldn't let it happen.
Sweating with effort he pushed his hands from under his body and stretched out his fingers. He nearly blacked out. The instruments were in front of him. He was lying in the pilot's pod. Li had transferred the controls, and was steering with the co-pilot's instruments – but that could be changed.
One push of a button and the controls would
switch to him.
Which one?
Roscovitz's chief technician, Kate Ann Browning, had shown him how to use the boat. She'd been thorough, and he'd listened attentively. He was interested in that kind of thing. The invention of the Deepflight heralded a new era of deep-sea exploration, and Johanson had always been fascinated by the future. He knew where the button was. And he knew how to use the other instruments and how to achieve what he intended. All he had to do was retrieve it from his memory.
Think.
Like dying spiders his fingers crawled over the control panel, smearing it with blood. His blood.
Think.
There it was. And next to it…
He couldn't do much now. The life was ebbing from his body, but he still had a last reserve of strength. And that would suffice.
Go to hell, Judith Li.
Li
Judith Li stared out of the view dome. A few metres in front of her she could see the steel wall of the sluice. The boat was sinking leisurely towards the depths. One more metre, and she'd start up the propeller. Then a steep course downwards and to the side. If the Independence was going to sink within the next few minutes, she wanted to be as far away from it as possible.
When would she encounter the first collective? A large one might pose a problem, she was aware of that, and she had no idea how large a collective could be. There was also the danger of running into orcas, but whatever happened she could blast her way free. She had nothing to fear.
She had to wait for the blue cloud. The right moment to release the pheromone was when the yrr-cells were on the point of aggregation.
Those goddamn amoebas were about to get the shock of their lives.
Such an odd thought. Did amoebas feel shock?
She did a double-take. A change had taken place on the control panel. One of the display lights had gone out, telling her that the controls had been…
The controls!
She was no longer in charge of the submersible. The controls had been switched to the pilot. On the monitor a display screen appeared, showing a diagram of four torpedoes; two slim ones and two larger ones.
One of the heavyweight torpedoes lit up.
Li gasped in horror. She banged on the control panel, trying to regain the use of the instruments, but the command to launch the missile couldn't be reversed. The figures on the display reflected in her deep blue eyes, running backwards in an inexorable countdown:
00.03… 00.02… 00.01…
'No!'
00.00
Her face froze.
Torpedo
The torpedo that Johanson had launched left its tube and shot forwards. It got less than three metres through the water before it hit a steel wall and exploded.
An enormous pressure wave took hold of the Deepflight. It slammed backwards into the sluice. A fountain of water shot out. While it was still spinning through the water, the second torpedo launched. With a deafening bang the well deck exploded. The Deepflight, its two passengers and its deadly cargo went up in a ferocious ball of flames that consumed all evidence that they'd ever existed. Flying debris bored its way through the decks and bulkheads, piercing the ballast tanks at the stern, allowing water to gush in. Thousands of tonnes of seawater poured into the crater that had once been the basin.
The stern plunged.
The vessel was sinking at an incredible speed.
Exit
Anawak and Crowe had just reached the top of the ramp when the shockwave from the explosion shook the vessel. Anawak was flung through the air. He saw the smoke-wreathed walls of the tunnel spinning round him, then plummeted head first inside the black maw. Crowe tumbled through the air beside him, then disappeared. The ridged steel scraped his shoulders, back, chest and butt, tearing at his skin. He sat up, flipped over and was seized by another shockwave, which catapulted him so violently that he seemed to fly back into the hangar. There was an incredible din all around him, as though the whole ship had been blown to smithereens. Plummeting downwards, he curved through the air towards the water, and vanished beneath the surface.
He kicked out with his arms and legs, fighting the current, with no idea which way was up or down. Hadn't the Independence been sinking bow first? Why was the stern full of water?
The well deck had exploded.
Johanson!
Something smacked him in the face. An arm. He seized it, gripping it tightly as he pushed off with his feet. He didn't seem to be getting anywhere. He was thrown on to his side and pushed back, as the water tugged him in all directions. His lungs felt as though he were breathing liquid fire. He needed to cough and felt nausea rising as the watery rollercoaster plunged him down again.
Suddenly he surfaced.
Dim light.
Crowe bobbed up next to him. He was still gripping her arm. Eyes closed, she retched and spat, then her head disappeared below the surface. Anawak pulled her up. The water was foaming around them. He realised that they were at the bottom of the tunnel. In place of the lab and the well deck he was in a fearsome flood tide.
The water was rising, and it was bitterly cold. Icy water straight from the ocean. His neoprene wetsuit would protect him for a while, but Crowe didn't have one.
We're going to drown, he thought. Or freeze to death. Either way, it's over. We're trapped in the bowels of this nightmarish ship, and it's filling with water. We're going down with the Independence.
We're going to die.
I'm going to die.
He was overwhelmed with fear. He didn't want to die. He didn't want it all to be over. He loved life, and there was too much to catch up on. He couldn't die now. He didn't have time. This wasn't the moment.
Agonising fear.
He was dunked under water. Something had pushed itself over his head. It hadn't knocked him very hard, but it was heavy enough to force him under. Anawak kicked out and freed himself. Gasping, he surfaced and saw what had hit him. His heart leaped.
One of the Zodiacs had been swept up by the current. The pressure wave from the explosion must have wrenched it from its mooring on the well deck. It was drifting, spinning on the foaming water, as it climbed up through the tunnel. A perfectly good inflatable with an outboard motor and a cabin. It was built for eight, so it was certainly big enough for two, and it was filled with emergency equipment.
'Sam!' he shouted.
He couldn't see her. Just dark water. No, he thought. She was here just a second ago. 'Sam!'
The water was still rising. Half of the tunnel was already submerged. He stretched up, grabbed the Zodiac, pulled himself out of the water and looked around. Crowe had disappeared. 'No,' he howled. 'No, for Christ's sake, no!'
Crawling on all fours he dragged himself to the other side of the boat and looked down into the water.
There she was! She was drifting, eyes half closed, beside the boat. Water flowed over her face. Her hands paddled weakly. Anawak leaned out, grabbed her wrists and pulled.
'Sam!' he screamed.
Crowe's eyelids fluttered. Then she coughed, releasing a fountain of water. Anawak dug his feet against the side and pulled. 'The pain in his arms was so excruciating that he was sure he would let go, but he had to save her. Abandon her, and you may as well stay behind too, he thought.
Groaning and whimpering, he pulled and tugged until all of a sudden she was with him in the boat.
Anawak's legs folded.
His strength was gone.
Don't stop now, his inner voice told him. Sitting in a Zodiac won't get you anywhere. You've got to get out of the Independence before she pulls you into the depths.
The Zodiac was dancing on top of the rising column of water as it surged towards the hangar bay. There was only a short distance to go before they were swept on to the deck. Anawak stood up and fell down again. Fine, he thought. I'll crawl. On his hands and knees he went to the cabin and hauled himself up. He cast his eye over the instruments. They were distributed around the wheel in a pattern he knew from the Blue Shark.
He could handle that.
They were shooting up the last few metres of the ramp now. Clinging, he waited until the time was right.
Suddenly they were out of the tunnel. The wave washed them into the hangar bay, which had started to fill with water.
Anawak tried to start the outboard motor.
Nothing.
Come on, he thought. Don't play around, you piece of shit. Start, goddamn it!
Still nothing.
Start, goddamn it!
All of a sudden the motor roared and the Zodiac sped away. Anawak closed his hands around the wheel. Speeding through the hangar, they veered around and shot towards the starboard elevator.
The gateway was shrinking before his eyes.
Its height was decreasing even as they raced towards it. It was unbelievable how quickly the deck was filling. Water streamed in from the sides in jagged grey waves. Within seconds the eight-metre-high gateway was just four metres high.
Less than four.
Three.
The outboard motor screamed.
Less than three. Now!
Like a cannonball they shot into the open. The roof of the cabin scraped against the top of the gateway, then the Zodiac flew along the crest of a wave, hovered momentarily in the air, and splashed down hard.
The swell was high. Watery grey monsters rose towards them. Anawak was clinging so tightly to the wheel that his knuckles blanched. He raced up the next wave, fell into the trough, rose again and plummeted. Then he cut the speed. It was safer to go slower. Now he could see that the waves were big, but not steep. He turned the Zodiac by 180 degrees, allowed the boat to be lifted on the next wave, pulled back on the throttle and looked around.
The Swarm Page 96