Mankind’s singularity on Earth.
God created this planet for humans, for God’s own people, whom He entrusted with the task of subduing the Earth. Even if the universe were riddled with civilisations, and other intelligent beings came down to Earth, it wouldn’t change a thing. Earth belonged to mankind, and the alien species had their dominion elsewhere. At home on their planet, each of God’s species was God’s chosen race.
But now the last bastion has fallen. The yrr have destroyed Christianity’s last remaining big claim. It’s not just the supremacy of mankind that’s in question: it’s the nature of God’s plan. But suppose we were to resign ourselves to the idea that God created two equal races on Earth: the yrr would either have had to experience the Passion or live according to God’s laws. Failing that, they must have sinned without redemption - but then they should have felt the fury of God’s wrath.
Needless to say, the yrr don’t live within God’s tenets. For reasons of biology, they break the Fifth Commandment all the time. That leaves three possible explanations: (a.) God doesn’t exist: (b.) He’s not in control; or (c.) He approves of the yrr - which would mean that we’ve been labouring under a delusion that’s as ancient as mankind. We weren’t the ones who were chosen after all.
These are the kind of paroxysms that are shaking Christianity - not to mention Judaism and Islam. Each religion is trying to define, analyse and interpret what has happened, yet at the same time their very basis is collapsing, taking with it our crumbling economies, which relied on God’s capital more heavily than we thought. At the same time, Buddhism and Hinduism, whose teachings have always accepted man’s co-existence with other life-forms, are attracting people in their droves. Esoteric practices are booming, new religious movements are emerging, and traditional tribal religions are flourishing. Of all the old sects Mormonism is proving the most resilient, for the Mormon God provides for many different worlds. But even the Mormons can’t explain why God raised two children within the same nursery.
In one recent development, a Catholic bishop has set sail with a delegation from Rome, sprinkling the waves with holy water and ordering the devil to depart. It’s extraordinary: the very species that has systematically scorned God’s principles and defiled His creation sends a so-called representative of the faith to take the enemy to task. We’ve got the cheek to cast ourselves as the prosecuting counsel for a Creator whose instructions we ignored. It’s as though we’re trying to preach the Gospel to our Maker in the hope that He might spare us.
The world is collapsing.
The UN has revoked the United States of America’s leadership mandate. A futile gesture. Anarchy has broken out in many states. Wherever you turn, marauding masses are roaming the Earth. Armed conflicts are spreading. The weak are attacking the weaker. As creatures of animal instinct, it’s not in our nature to take pity on others. Those who stumble are preyed on, and the plunder continues unchecked. The yrr didn’t merely destroy our cities: they laid waste to us internally. We roam the Earth with nothing to believe in, abandoned savage children in search of a new beginning, but regressing all the time.
Yet there is also hope, the first signs that we’re starting to re-evaluate the role of mankind on this planet. People are learning to grasp the diversity of nature, to understand its unifying principles and to sweep away the hierarchies and see the real connections. After all, the connections are what are keeping us alive. Has mankind ever considered the psychological impact of an impoverished planet on future generations? For all we know, the health of our psyche may depend on the existence of other animal species. Our minds yearn for forests, coral reefs, seas full of fish, fresh air, clean rivers and oceans. If we continue to damage the Earth and destroy the diversity of nature, we’ll be destroying a complex system that we can’t explain, let alone replace. What mankind separates can never be rejoined. Is there any part of the vast web of nature that we could live without? Who can tell? The secret of nature’s connections depends on them staying intact. Humanity has overstepped the mark once already, and was almost excluded from the web of life. For the moment there’s a truce. Whatever conclusions the yrr may be coming to, we’d do well to make their decision as straightforward as possible. They won’t fall for Karen’s trick a second time.
Today, a year after the vessel sank, I open the newspaper and read: ‘The yrr have changed the world for ever.’
Have they?
They played a decisive role in our fate, yet we know virtually nothing about them. We think that we understand their biochemical make-up, but is that really knowledge? We haven’t seen them since. Their signals still echo through the oceans, although we can’t understand them as they’re not meant for human ears. How does a mass of jelly create noise? How does it receive it? Just two among millions of futile questions. Only we can provide the answers. The onus lies with us.
Perhaps it’s time for humanity to enter a new phase of evolution and finally reconcile our primordial genetic inheritance with our development as a civilised race. If we want to prove ourselves worthy of the gift that is the Earth, it isn’t the yrr we should be studying but ourselves. Amid our skyscrapers and computers we’ve learned to disavow our nature, but the path to a better future lies in knowing our origins.
No, the yrr haven’t changed the world. They’ve shown us how it really is.
Nothing is as it was. Although, come to think of it, I haven’t stopped smoking.
We all need continuity of some kind, don’t you think?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Most books numbering over 800 pages, crammed full of scientific fact and learning, draw on the wisdom of a host of clever people, and this book is no exception. I would especially like to thank:
Prof Uwe A. O. Heinlein, Miltenyi Biotec for lessons about the yrr and thinking genes, and for drops of enlightenment found at the bottom of a good glass of wine.
Dr Manfred Reitz, Institute for Molecular Biotechnology, Jena, for insights into extraterrestrial life and for inspirational yrr-sense.
Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, former cabinet minister, for packing half a century of experience into three hours, and for a thoroughly sociable meeting with poppy-seed cake.
Clive Roberts, Managing Director, Seaboard Shipping Co. Vancouver, for the advice of an expert/father-in-law and simply for being himself!
Bruce Webster, Seaboard, for his time and patience and for painstakingly answering twenty-six rambling questions.
Prof Gerhard Bohrmann, GEOMAR Kiel and the University of Bremen, for adding his own special fizz to the hydrates and for playing a leading role in methane fact and fiction.
Dr Heiko Sahling, University of Bremen, for providing dissected, fixed and all other manner of worms, and for taking part.
Prof Erwin Suess, GEOMAR, for a sun-lit lunch in the depths of the ocean and for his literary presence.
Prof Christopher Bridges, University of Düsseldorf, for assorted moments of illumination in the lightless depths.
Prof Wolfgang Fricke, Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, for two incredibly constructive days spent working on destruction.
Prof Stefan Krüger, Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, for tirelessly filtering out the errors on board the sinking ships.
Dr. Bernhard Richter, Germanischer Lloyd, for contributing via telephone to the productive disaster-based summit with Dr Fricke.
Prof Giselher Gust, Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, for her incisive thoughts and for a veritable Circumpolar Current of ideas.
Tobias Haack, Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, for labouring intellectually inside the various boats.
Stefan Endres for whale-watching, real Indians and large mammals leaping over small planes.
Torsten Fischer, Alfred-Wegener-Institute Bremerhaven, for authorizing a last-minute research trip to a research vessel.
Holger Fallei for a dry-dock Polarstern expedition that was anything but dry.
Dr Dieter Fiege, Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt,
for a day in which the worm turned - in the most constructive possible way.
Björn Weyer, defender of the fleet, for his readiness to collaborate with the enemy - on a purely fictional level.
Peter Nasse for providing invaluable contacts, for always being willing to help, and for the pleasure of one day seeing him on screen.
Ingo Haberkorn, Federal Criminal Police Office Berlin, for his in-depth crisis management of non-human atrocities and crimes.
Uwe Steen, PR division of the Cologne police force, for his help in answering the question as to who and what would respond when and how in the time of the yrr.
Dieter Pittermann for opening up the route to oil platforms and to the scientific side of Trondheim, and generally for håper det er til hjelp.
Tina Pittermann for establishing the line of communication to her father, for her grandma’s books, and for waiting patiently for the return of said books.
Tina’s grandma for the books.
Paul Schmitz for photos, beard transplants, two years of doing without music and the faultless recommendation: never get old!
Jürgen Muthmann for his insights into Peruvian fishing, for being patient with writers who don’t like to fly, and for always being close in spite of the distance.
Olaf Petersenn, my trusty editor at Kiepenheuer & Witsch, for finally adding the word cut to my vocabulary.
Helge Malchow, publisher, for engaging in a leap of faith and for publishing the longest book in the history of Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Yvonne Eiserfey, who cast her expert eye over the original German edition for splling mstakes and typos.
Jürgen Milz, my friend and business partner, for all his understanding and for his ability to keep a small ship afloat despite the hefty swell.
My gratitude as well to everyone at Hodder & Stoughton, especially my editor Nick Sayers, his assistant Anne Clarke and my publicist Henry Jeffreys. An extra thank you is due to Sally-Ann Spencer, who did more than ‘just’ translating The Swarm fabulously, to Loma Slater, for proofreading, and to Hazel Orme, for copyediting.
My sincere thanks also to Cologne’s long-serving mayor Norbert Burger for putting me in touch with Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, to Hans-Peter Buschheuer for writing to Ben Wisch, to Claudia Dambowy for medical advice, to Jürgen Streich for supplying reading material on Greenpeace, to Hejo Emons for the loan of thrilling and informative deep-sea films, for Jochen Cerhak for more of the same, and especially to Wahida Hammond for all the many kindnesses - it was about time that was said!
A special thank-you is due to my parents Brigitte and Rolf Schätzing, who can take the credit for any good points I may have, and who are always there for me, and have steered me through calm and troubled waters, always choosing the right course, even in the fog.
In the great cycle of life on Earth the end is always also the beginning. And following the same neat logic, my biggest thank-you is saved until last. In the same way as I start and end each day of my life with the most wonderful thing I could wish for, I end and begin these acknowledgements with the love of my life. According to some people, Sabina is my secret editor; others see her as my great good fortune. Both interpretations are right. This book, my love, was written for you.
Copyright
Originally published in German in 2004 as Der Schwarm by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Hodder & Stoughton, a division of Hodder Headline
The publication of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut.
THE SWARM. Copyright © 2004 by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln. English language translation copyright © 2006 by Sally-Ann Spencer. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 13: 978-0-06-081326-0
ISBN 10: 0-06-081326-1
EPub Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-180395-6
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