The Swarm: A Novel

by Frank Schätzing

  ‘I know.’ Johanson grinned. ‘You’re no good at this kind of thing. Me neither. The more I like someone, the more of a mess I make of telling them. But I’ve never made more of a mess than the one I made with you.’

  ‘Was that a compliment?’

  ‘The best.’ He closed the door. The pilot set the blades in motion, and the Bell lifted into the air, dipped its nose and flew out towards the fjord, leaving the research centre behind. Johanson made himself comfortable in the cabin, and tried to look out of the window, but there wasn’t much to see. Trondheim was veiled in mist, and the lakes and mountains passed in a monotony of grey.

  The uneasy feeling was back.

  It’s only a ride in a helicopter, he told himself. No need to worry. He had methane and monsters on the brain, that was all. And the weather didn’t help. Maybe he should have had a decent breakfast. He pulled Walt Whitman out of his bag and started to read.

  The rotors throbbed dully above him. His coat, with his mobile in the pocket, lay crumpled on the seat behind him. He didn’t hear it ring.

  Thorvaldson, Norwegian Continental Slope

  Stone had decided to say a few words before he climbed aboard. The cameraman would film him while the other guy took stills. He meant the entire operation to be documented properly. Clifford Stone was a professional; a man who never shirked his duties. This would serve as a reminder.

  ‘A little further to the right,’ said the cameraman.

  Stone moved, ushering a pair of technicians out of the frame. Then he thought better of it and beckoned them back. ‘Stand behind me,’ he said. ‘A little to the side.’ He didn’t want people thinking there was anything amateur or gung-ho about this mission.

  The cameraman cranked up the tripod.

  ‘Are we ready yet?’ yelled Stone.

  ‘Just a moment. It’s still not right. You’re in the way of the pilot.’

  Stone took another step to the side. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘OK,’ said the cameraman. ‘We’re rolling.’

  Stone looked into the camera. ‘In a few minutes we’ll be beginning our descent, with the aim of establishing what’s happened to the prototype. At present it looks as though the unit has, er, moved from its original, er, its original…well, from the place where it…Oh, bother.’

  ‘Not to worry. Start again.’

  This time everything worked fine. Stone explained in a business-like manner that over the next few hours they would be searching for the prototype. He gave a short summary of the information they had so far, mentioned the changed morphology of the slope, and said that the unit must have subsided due to local destabilisation of the seabed. It all sounded very earnest. Perhaps a little too earnest. Normally famous explorers had something clever to say at the start or the end of their mission, Stone thought. Something that summed it up perfectly. One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. Now, that had been inspired. Of course, Neil Armstrong would never have come up with a line like that himself. They must have made him practise it beforehand, but all the same…Julius Caesar: I came, I saw, I conquered. Had Columbus made a famous quip? Or Jacques Piccard?

  He racked his brains. He couldn’t be expected to come up with everything himself. Bohrmann’s contemplations on submersibles would strike the right note. He cleared his throat. ‘Of course we could have sent a robot down,’ he said, ‘but it wouldn’t be the same. I’ve seen plenty of video images - footage recorded by robots. Incredible stuff.’ Hmm, how did the next bit go? ‘But actually sitting in the submersible, being down there on the seabed, seeing it all in 3-D - it’s hard to imagine. There’s nothing quite like it. And, er, besides…besides, there’s no doubt that it gives us an, er, a better view - better insight into what’s going on down there and, uh, what we can do to help.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Alban, softly, in the background.

  Stone turned round, crawled beneath the submersible, and scrambled through the hatch. The pilot reached over, but Stone ignored the helping hand, pulled himself up and sat down. It was a bit like being in a helicopter. The weirdest thing was the sensation that he was still outside. The only difference was that he couldn’t hear the bustle on the deck. The acrylic bubble was several centimetres thick and hermetically sealed.

  ‘Do you want me to go over anything again?’ Eddie enquired.

  ‘No.’ Eddie had shown him the ropes earlier, in his characteristically thorough, unflappable way. Stone glanced at the small computer console in front of them. His right hand slid down to touch the controls on the side of his seat. On the deck outside the photographer was taking pictures and the cameraman was filming.

  ‘Great,’ said Eddie. ‘Let the fun begin.’

  The submersible was jolted sideways. Suddenly they were suspended above the deck, gliding over it, until the choppy sea appeared below. There was quite a swell. For a moment they hung motionless. Then Alban gave the thumbs-up. Stone nodded at him. Over the next few hours they’d communicate via underwater telephone. There wouldn’t be any optical fibre between the submersible and the ship; just sound waves. As soon as the boom released them, they’d be out there on their own.

  Stone’s stomach churned.

  There was another jolt, then a clunk above them as the cable was released. The submersible sank down, rose on a wave, then water flooded into the tanks as Eddie opened the valves. The Deep Rover sank like a stone, descending thirty metres every minute. Apart from two positioning indicators on the battery pods, all the lights were switched off. Saving power was vital: they would need it later.

  There were barely any fish to be seen. After a hundred metres the deep blue water darkened to a silky black.

  On the other side of the hull something flashed, like a firecracker. One flash at first; then more.

  ‘Luminescent jellyfish,’ said Eddie. ‘Pretty cute, huh?’

  Stone was fascinated. He’d done a few dives before, but never in a Deep Rover. It really did feel as though nothing separated them from the sea. Even the red flashes from the lights on the console seemed at one with the shoals of glowing organisms outside. The thought of building a processor in this alien universe suddenly seemed so absurd that he almost laughed out loud.

  While the submersible sank, the air inside it grew cooler, but it was perfectly pleasant. In comparison to Alvin, MIR or Shinkai, which could go down to six thousand metres, the Deep Rover’s system of temperature regulation was luxurious. To be on the safe side, Stone had worn a warm jumper and a pair of thick socks - shoes weren’t allowed in submersibles to protect the instruments from accidental kicks. Eddie looked focused, but relaxed. Now and then a noisy voice came through the loudspeaker: technicians calling to check on them. You could hear the words but the sound was distorted as it mingled with thousands of other noises in the sea.

  They were falling and falling.

  After twenty-five minutes Eddie turned on the sonar. The sphere was filled with a soft whistling and clicking, mixed with the gentle hum of the electrics.

  They were approaching the seabed.

  ‘Popcorn and drinks at the ready,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s show-time.’

  He switched on the floodlights.

  Gullfaks C, Norwegian Shelf

  Lars Jörensen stood on the top platform of the metal staircase that led from the helipad to the accommodation module below and gazed down at the derrick, his arms resting on the rails. The white tips of his moustache quivered in the wind. On clear days the derrick seemed in touching distance, but now it was retreating out of sight. As the mist from the approaching storm thickened, it seemed more illusory by the hour, as though it were trying to disappear entirely and fade into memory.

  Since Lund’s last visit, Jörensen had lapsed into melancholy. He kept wondering what Statoil might be planning for the slope. It had to be an automated system. Maybe they’d use a production vessel too…Lund had obviously thought she’d succeeded in fobbing him off, but Jörensen wasn’t stupid. He could even appr
eciate why they were doing things as they were. After all, it made sense to save labour by swapping people for machines. Machines didn’t require nice hot meals. They didn’t sleep, they worked in hostile environments and they didn’t expect to be paid. They never complained, and if they were getting on a bit, you could throw them away without having to provide for them. But robots couldn’t respond intuitively or provide an adequate replacement for human eyes and ears. If you took away the humans you avoided human failure, but if the machinery stopped working without humans to fix it…It made him think of the disaster movies he watched on late-night TV, when the sea outside was crashing on the platform. Man would be powerless to act. Machines had no regard for life and the natural world around them. They didn’t care about the welfare of their creators, who’d chosen to exclude themselves from the design. Humanity and compassion were absent in a robot.

  Little by little the light was fading. The sky turned a deeper shade of grey as the drizzle set in. What a foul day, thought Jörensen.

  For some time now the sea had smelt as though it was full of chemicals and, to make matters worse, the weather was even gloomier than his mood. We’re working on a wreck, he thought, a ghost town in the water, filled with zombies. When the oil ran out, a skeleton without purpose would remain. The oil-workers were being laid off, the platforms discarded, and the future of the industry was a picture on a screen - video footage from a world they couldn’t reach, no matter what went wrong.

  Jörensen sighed.

  In the old days, he thought, there had been the magical moment when men flung their arms round each other, dripping with shiny black oil, a fountain cascading from the sandy ground beside them, promising riches beyond their wildest dreams. Like with James Dean in Giant. Jörensen loved that film. To him, the scene where Dean struck oil was far better than the one in Armageddon, even though Bruce Willis was on a real oil-rig and Dean in the Texan desert. Watching the oil-spattered Dean laugh and jump around reminded him of sitting on his grandfather’s knee, listening to stories of when he was young and everything was better.

  Now he was a grandfather too.

  Just a few more months, Jörensen told himself, and he’d be gone. Finished. Past it. He was luckier than the youngsters, though. No one was going to streamline him out of existence: he’d leave of his own accord, and get a pension with it. He felt almost guilty about clearing off before the oil platforms’ final hour. But it wouldn’t be his problem. He’d have other things to think about.

  He heard a noise approaching from the distant coast. The rhythmic throbbing grew louder, becoming the roar of a helicopter. Jörensen craned his neck. He knew all the helicopters that flew around here. Despite the distance and the poor visibility he spotted a Bell 430 pass over Gullfaks and disappear into the mist. The beat of the rotors quietened to a hum and eventually fell silent.

  Fine drops of rain covered the platform, like a sparkling layer of dust. Maybe he should go inside. He had an hour to kill. He didn’t often have free time and he could watch TV, read or play chess. But he didn’t feel like entering the module.

  On the other side of the platform, the flame was burning gently from the tip of the steel boom. The beacon of the lost. Hey, that sounded almost like a film. Not bad for a decrepit old man who’d spent his whole life on a platform, watching helicopters and ships.

  Maybe he should write a book in his retirement. About an era that would be forgotten in a few decades’ time. The era of the oil-rigs.

  He’d call it The Beacon of the Lost.

  Granddad, tell us a story.

  Maybe it wasn’t such a bad day after all.

  Kiel, Germany

  Gerhard Bohrmann felt as though he was sinking in quicksand. He kept dashing between Mirbach and Suess, who were busy running new scenarios through their computers, coming up with ever more disastrous results. Every few minutes he tried to call Johanson, who wasn’t answering his phone. He even called Johanson’s secretary at the NTNU, who told him that Dr Johanson was away and wouldn’t be back for some time. He’d apparently been released from his position to attend to other business - on behalf of the government, Bohrmann assumed. He tried Johanson’s home number, then his mobile again. No joy.

  In the end he consulted Suess.

  ‘There has to be someone in Johanson’s circle who could take a decision,’ Suess said.

  ‘Only the Statoil lot - in which case we may as well keep it to ourselves. And, anyway, about this confidentiality business, what if there is a Storegga Slide? It’ll look pretty bad if we’ve kept it quiet.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘I wouldn’t take it up with Statoil.’

  ‘OK.’ Suess rubbed his eyes. ‘You’re right. We’ll contact the Ministry for Science and Technology and the environmental authorities.’

  ‘In Oslo?’

  ‘And in Berlin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam - London, too. Have I forgotten anyone?’

  ‘Iceland.’ Bohrmann sighed. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Suess stared out of his office window across the Kiel Firth to the warehouses, silos and giant cranes that loaded the ships. The contours of a naval destroyer merged with the grey of the clouds and water.

  ‘What do the simulations have to say about Kiel?’ asked Bohrmann. It was odd that he hadn’t thought of it before.

  ‘It could be OK.’

  ‘I guess that’s some comfort.’

  ‘Call Johanson anyway. Just keep trying.’

  Bohrmann nodded and left the room.

  Deep Rover, Norwegian Continental Slope

  There was no sign of the vastness of the ocean when Eddie switched on the six external floodlights. The four 150-watt quartz halogen bulbs and the two 400-watt HMI lights combined to bathe an area twenty-five metres in radius in a pool of glistening light. They couldn’t make out any solid structures. Stone blinked after the long journey through the darkness. The Deep Rover was falling through a veil of shimmering pearls.

  He leaned forward. ‘What’s that? Where’s the seabed?’

  Then he saw what was spiralling round them. Bubbles were rising towards the surface, some nestling together like beads on a string, others plump and egg-shaped.

  The sonar continued to make its usual whistling, clicking noises. Eddie was frowning at the console’s LED display, which provided information on the batteries, the inside and outside temperature, the oxygen reserves, cabin pressure and so on. He called up the data from the external sensors.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he growled. ‘It’s methane.’

  The veil of pearls thickened. Eddie released two steel weights attached to the side of the pods, and pumped air into the tanks to stabilise the submersible. But instead of hovering in the water, they carried on sinking.

  ‘Bloody marvellous. It won’t let us up.’

  The seabed appeared beneath them, visible in the floodlights. It was approaching too fast. Stone caught a glimpse of the crevices and craters, then his view was filled with bubbles. Eddie swore and continued to expel water from the tanks.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Stone asked. ‘Buoyancy problems?’

  ‘More likely to be the gas. We’re in the middle of a blow-out.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Just keep calm.’

  The pilot fired up the thrusters. The submersible pushed forward through the strings of bubbles. For a second Stone felt as if he was in an elevator that was slowing as it reached the floor below. He looked at the bathometer. The Deep Rover was sinking, although the speed of its descent had slackened. But they were still hurtling towards the seabed. Time was running out.

  Stone bit his lip and let Eddie get on with his job. In such a situation it wasn’t advisable to distract the pilot. He watched as the bubbles became rounder and the veil closed in. Through the whirling water he saw the faint outline of the seabed tilt away from them, and their right pod vanished in a fierce cascade of bubbles. The submersible heeled.

  Stone held his breath.

  They’d made it
.

  The commotion of bubbles gave way to a quiet expanse of seabed. Briefly the submersible rose. Unhurriedly Eddie valved water into the ballast tanks until the Deep Rover reached a stable depth, just above the slope. ‘Panic over,’ he said.

  They were travelling at maximum speed, two knots or 3.7 kilometres per hour - slower than any jogger. But they weren’t trying to cover a great distance - in fact, they were at almost exactly the spot where Stone had built the unit. It couldn’t be much further.

  The pilot grinned. ‘I suppose we should have known this would happen, huh?’

  ‘Not to that extent.’

  ‘Who are you kidding? The sea stank like a cesspit. That gas had to be coming from somewhere. But you wanted it your way - well, now you’ve seen it.’

  Stone didn’t deign to reply. He sat up straight and looked for signs of hydrates, but there were none in sight, just a few lonely worms. A large flattish fish, resembling a plaice, was lying on the bottom. As they drew closer it took off sluggishly, churning up sediment.

  How unreal it was to be sitting there, while the equivalent of 100 kilograms of water pressed on every square centimetre of the acrylic hull. Everything about the situation was artificial: the dark shadow edging forward over the illuminated area of the seabed as the Deep Rover drifted over the shelf; the pitch-blackness beyond the scattered light; the electronically regulated pressure inside the capsule; the cabin air, maintained by a constant stream of oxygen and the chemical breakdown of excess carbon dioxide.

  Nothing in the depths invited man to linger.

  Stone swallowed. His tongue stuck to his palate. He couldn’t help remembering that they hadn’t drunk anything for hours before the expedition. In the event of an emergency, they had human range extenders on board, special urine bottles in case they really had to go. But anyone using the submersible was advised to empty their bladder beforehand. Since early that morning he and Eddie had eaten only peanut-butter sandwiches and rock-hard chocolate and cereal bars. Dive meals. Nutritious, filling and dry as Sahara sand.