The Swarm (2 page)

He was on his own.

For a moment he was still. Silently he petitioned St Peter to bring him
home safely with a boat full of fish. Then he filled his lungs with the salty air, pulled out his
calcal
and let it slip into the water. Gradually the web of net and hooks disappeared into the glassy depths until only the little red buoy was visible, floating alongside the boat.

What had he been worrying about? It was a fine day and, besides, Ucañan knew exactly where he was. Not far from here a jagged range of fossilised white lava rose up from the seabed, almost to the surface. Sea anemones, mussels and crabs had made it their home, while countless little fish inhabited its chasms and hollows. Some of the bigger fish came there to hunt, but it was too dangerous for the trawlers: they might rupture their hulls on the sharp peaks of rock. In any case, they were after bigger catches. But for a daring fisherman astride his
caballito
there was more than enough.

For the first time that morning Ucañan smiled. His boat swayed back and forth on the swell. Out here, far from the coast, the waves were bigger, but he was comfortable on his raft of reeds. He stretched out his arms and squinted at the sun as it cast its pale yellow light over the mountains. Then he picked up his paddle and, with a few quick strokes, steered the
caballito
into the current. He squatted and prepared to spend the next few hours watching the buoy as it bobbed up and down not far from the boat.

 

In just over an hour he had caught three bonitos. Their plump bodies were piled up in the stern, glistening in the sun.

Ucañan felt jubilant. That was more than he'd caught during the past four weeks. There was no real need for him to stay any longer, but now that he was here he might as well wait. The day had got off to an excellent start: perhaps it would end even better.

In any case, he had all the time in the world.

The
caballito
was drifting leisurely along the edge of the underwater rocks. He let the rope slacken and watched as the buoy skittered away. Every now and then he scanned the water for the lighter patches where the lava reached the surface. He needed to keep the net out of danger. He yawned.

He felt a gentle tug on the rope.

A split second later the buoy disappeared in a flurry of motion. Then it shot up, danced wildly on the surface and was wrenched under again.

Ucañan seized the rope. It strained in his hands, tearing his palms. He
cursed. Within seconds the boat was tilting dangerously. He wobbled and let go. Deep beneath the surface of the water, the buoy flashed red. The rope hung vertically below it, taut as a wire, dragging the
caballito
down by its stern.

Something must have swum into the net. Something big and heavy. A swordfish, perhaps. But swordfish were faster than that. A swordfish would have sped off, taking the
caballito
with it. Whatever was trapped in the net seemed determined to dive to the seabed.

Ucañan made a grab for the rope. The boat jolted again, pitching him into the waves. Spluttering, he rose to the surface–in time to see the
caballito
disappear underwater, its bow pointing upright into the air. The bonitos drifted into the sea. He seethed with rage - he couldn't even dive after them. He had to save himself and his boat.

The morning's catch, all wasted.

The paddle was floating a short distance away from him, but Ucañan didn't have time to go after it now - he could fetch it later. He flung himself over the prow but the boat was being pulled inexorably into the depths. In a frenzy he hauled himself towards the stern. With his right hand he fumbled for what he needed. Blessed St Peter - his knife hadn't been washed away and neither had his diving mask, his most precious possession, apart from the
calcal
.

He sliced through the rope, and the
caballito
shot to the surface, spinning giddily. Ucañan saw the sky circle above him and his head plunged back into the water. Then he lay coughing on the little reed craft. The boat rocked gently in the waves as though nothing had happened.

He sat up in confusion. The buoy was nowhere to be seen, but the paddle was drifting nearby. With his hands he steered the
caballito
towards it, hauled it on board and laid it in front of him. Then he looked around him.

There they were: light patches of lava in the crystal water.

He'd drifted too close to the underwater rocks, and his
calcal
had snagged. No wonder he'd gone under - he shouldn't have been day-dreaming. Now he knew where the net and the buoy were: they were tied together, so if the net was caught on the lava, the buoy couldn't rise to the surface. Yes, that was what had happened. Still, Ucañan was shocked by how violently he'd been pulled underwater - he was lucky to have survived. But he'd lost his net.

Paddling swiftly, he steered the
caballito
to the site of his accident. He peered into the depths, straining to see the net through the clear blue water. There was no sign of it or the buoy.

Was this really the right spot?

Ucañan had the sea in his bones - he'd spent all his life on the ocean - and even without technical equipment he knew that this was the place. This was where he'd cut the rope to save his boat from being ripped apart. His net was down there somewhere.

He had to go after it.

The thought of diving filled him with trepidation. He was an excellent swimmer but, like most fishermen, he had a deep-seated fear of the water. Few fishermen loved the sea, even though they took to it every morning. Some had fished all their lives and couldn't live without it - yet they had trouble living with it too. The sea sapped their strength - making them pay with their lifeblood for every catch they brought home - and leaving them washed up in the ports, withered figures hunched silently at bars, with nothing left to hope for.

But Ucañan had his mask. It had been a present from a tourist he'd taken out on his
caballito
last year. He leaned back and pulled it out, spat on the lens and rubbed it carefully so that it wouldn't cloud over. Then he dipped it into the water, pressed it over his face and pulled the strap round the back of his head. It must have cost a lot of money: the fittings were made of soft latex that moulded to his face. He didn't have any breathing equipment but he wouldn't need it. He could hold his breath for long enough to dive down and untangle the net from the rocks.

The sharks in these waters weren't usually a threat. Hammerheads, shortfin makos and porbeagles occasionally plundered fishing nets, but that was much further out. It was almost unhead of to sight a great white. Besides, he wouldn't be swimming in the open: he'd be near the rocks and the reef, which offered some protection. In any case, whatever had ruined his net, it hadn't been a shark, he thought.

It was his own fault for not being more careful.

He filled his lungs, dived into the water and sped away from the surface, body vertical, arms pressed to his sides. From the boat the water had looked forbidding, but now a welcoming bright world opened up around him. He had a clear view of the volcanic reef, which stretched into the distance, dappled with sun. There were few fish, but he wasn't looking for them. He scanned the reef for the
calcal
. He couldn't stay
down too long or his
caballito
might drift away. He'd give himself a few more seconds, then go up and try again.

He'd make ten trips if he had to. He didn't mind if it took all day. He wasn't going back without his net.

Then he spotted the buoy.

It was hanging ten to fifteen metres below the surface, suspended over a tip of jagged rock, the net directly below it. It seemed to be caught in several places. Tiny reef fish were swarming around the mesh, but they dispersed as he swam over. He straightened up, treading water as he tried to free it, his shirt billowing in the current.

The net was in tatters and he stared at it in disbelief. It had taken more than the rocks to do that. Something had been on the rampage. What, in God's name, had been here?

And where was it now?

Ucañan felt uneasy as he fumbled with the net. It would take days to repair. Now he needed to breathe. He would go back up, check on the
caballito
, then dive again.

Before he could move, a change took place around him. At first he thought the sun had disappeared behind a cloud. The light stopped dancing over the rocks; the reef and weeds no longer cast a shadow…

His hands, the net, everything around him was losing its colour and turning a murky grey. He dropped the
calcal
and looked up.

Gathered just beneath the surface of the water was a shoal of shimmering fish, each as long as his arm, stretching as far as he could see. The shock made him gasp and bubbles rose from his mouth. Where had a shoal of that size come from? He'd never seen anything like it. It seemed almost stationary, but now and then he saw the flick of a tail-fin or a flash of silver as a fish darted forward. Then, as a unit, the shoal changed course by a few degrees. The gaps between the bodies closed.

It was normal shoaling behaviour, but something wasn't right. It wasn't so much what they were doing that unnerved Ucañan: it was the fish themselves.

There were too many of them.

Ucañan swivelled round. Wherever he looked there were fish. He craned his neck. Through a chink in the mass of bodies he saw the outline of his
caballito
, a dark shadow on the rippling waves. The darkness thickened and his lungs began to burn.

Dorado! he thought in astonishment.

Everyone had given up hoping that they'd ever return. He should have been pleased to see them. They fetched a good price in the market, and a net packed full of dorado would feed a fisherman and his family for a long time.

But fear surged through Ucañan.

A shoal of that size was unreal. It filled his view. Had they destroyed his net? But how?

You've got to get out of here, he told himself.

He pushed off from the rocks. Trying to keep calm he ascended slowly and carefully, exhaling continuously. He was rising straight towards the expanse of fish that separated him from the sunlight and his boat. The shoal was motionless. A wall of indifference stared back at him through bulbous eyes. It was as though he'd conjured them out of nowhere. As though they'd been waiting for him.

They want to trap me. They're trying to cut me off from my boat
.

Terror swept through him. His heart was racing. He forgot about controlling his speed, about the ruined net and the little red buoy. He even forgot his
caballito
. All he could think of was breaking through the dense mass of fish and reaching the surface, seeing the light, going back to where he belonged, finding safety.

The shoal parted.

From its midst something writhed towards Ucañan.

 

After a while the wind got up.

It was still a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. The swell had risen, but it was nothing a man in a boat couldn't handle.

But there was no one for miles.

Only the
caballito
, one of the last of its kind, drifted on the open sea.

Trondheim, Norwegian coast

On the face of it, the city was too cosy for a university or a research institute. In districts like Bakklandet or Møllenberg it seemed almost inconceivable that Trondheim could be a capital of technology. Its old timber houses, parks, rustic churches, colourful water warehouses on stilts, picturesque gardens and courtyards belied the advance of time and knowledge, but the NTNU, Norway's principal university for the sciences, was just round the corner.

Few cities combined past and future as harmoniously as Trondheim, which was why Sigur Johanson felt privileged to live there. His apartment was in old-fashioned Møllenberg, in Kirkegata Street, on the ground floor of an ochre-coloured house whose pitched roof, white steps and lintel would have captured the heart of any Hollywood director. Johanson was a marine biologist and a thoroughly modern scientist, but nothing could persuade him of the merits of his times. He was a visionary and, like most visionaries, he combined his love for the radically new with an attachment to the ideals of the past. His life was defined by the spirit of Jules Verne, whom he admired for his old-fashioned chivalry, his passion for the seemingly impossible and his celebration of technology. But as for the present…the present was a snail, its shell piled high with practical problems and the vulgar business of everyday life. There was no real place for it in Sigur Johanson's universe. He served it, knew what it expected from him, enriched its store of knowledge, and despised it for the uses that it put it to.

It was late morning by the time he steered his jeep along the wintry Bakklandet road, past the shimmering waters of the Nid towards the university campus. He was on his way back from a weekend spent deep within the forest, visiting isolated villages where time had stood still. In summer he would have taken the Jaguar, with a picnic hamper in the boot: freshly baked bread, goose-liver pâté wrapped in silver foil from
the deli, and a bottle of Gewürztraminer - a 1985, if he could find one. Since he had moved from Oslo to Trondheim, Johanson had hunted out the quiet spots, far from the hordes of tourists and day-trippers. Two years ago he'd come across a secluded lake, and beside it, to his delight, a country house in need of renovation. It had taken a while to track down the owner - he worked in a managerial capacity for Statoil, Norway's state-run oil company, and had moved to Stavanger - but when Johanson finally found him, the deal was quickly done. Pleased to be rid of the place, the owner had sold it for a fraction of its value. A few weeks later a team of Russian immigrants had restored the dilapidated house. They didn't charge much, but transformed it into Johanson's ideal of a proper country residence - a nineteenth-century
bon vivant
's retreat.

During long summer evenings he sat on the veranda, which looked out over the lake, reading visionary writers like Thomas More, Jonathan Swift or H. G. Wells, and daydreaming to Mahler or Sibelius. The house had a well-stocked library. He owned nearly all of his favourite books and CDs in duplicate - he wanted them with him wherever he was.

Johanson drove on to the NTNU campus. The main university building lay straight ahead, covered with a dusting of snow. It was an imposing, castle-style edifice, dating to the turn of the twentieth century, and behind it lay lecture halls and laboratories. With ten thousand students, the campus was almost a town in itself. It hummed with activity. Johanson sighed in contentment. He had enjoyed his time at the lake. Last summer he'd spent a few weekends there with a research assistant from the cardiology department, an old acquaintance from various conferences. Things had moved swiftly, but he'd ended the relationship. He hadn't been in it for the long term - and anyway, he had to face facts: he was fifty-six, and she was thirty years younger. Great for a few weeks, but unthinkable for a lifetime. In any case, Johanson didn't allow many to get close to him. He never had.

He left the jeep in its bay and headed for the Faculty of Natural Sciences. As he entered his office, Tina Lund was standing by the window. She turned as he walked in. ‘You're late,' she teased him. ‘Let me guess - too much red wine last night, or was someone reluctant to let you go?'

Johanson grinned. Lund worked for Statoil and seemed to have spent most of her time lately at one or other of the SINTEF institutes. The
SINTEF Group was one of the biggest independent research organisations in Europe, and the Norwegian oil industry in particular had benefited from its groundbreaking innovations. The close links between SINTEF and the NTNU had helped to establish Trondheim as a centre of technological excellence, and SINTEF centres were dotted throughout the region. Lund had risen swiftly through the Statoil ranks and was now deputy director of exploration and production. She had recently set up camp at Marintek, the SINTEF centre for marine technology.

Johanson surveyed her tall slim figure as he took off his coat. He liked Tina Lund. A few years ago they'd nearly got together, but instead they'd decided to stay friends. Now they just picked each other's brains and went out for the occasional meal. ‘An old man like me needs his sleep,' he said. ‘Coffee?'

‘Sure.'

He popped into the adjoining office, where he found a fresh pot. His secretary was nowhere to be seen.

‘Milk, no sugar,' Lund called.

‘I know.' Johanson poured the coffee into two mugs, added a splash of milk to one, and returned to his office. ‘I know all about you, remember?'

‘You didn't get that far.'

‘Heaven forbid! Now, take a seat. What brings you here?'

Lund picked up her mug, but remained standing. ‘A worm, I think.'

Johanson raised his eyebrows and took a gulp of his coffee. ‘What do you mean, you
think?
'

She picked up a small steel container from the windowsill and placed it in front of him on the desk. ‘See for yourself.'

Johanson opened it. The container was half filled with water. Something long and hairy was writhing inside. He examined it carefully.

‘Any idea what it is?' she asked.

He shrugged. ‘Worms. Two big ones.'

‘We'd worked that out, but what species?'

‘Ah! So that's why you need a biologist. They're polychaetes - bristleworms.'

‘I'm familiar with polychaetes…' she hesitated ‘but could you take a proper look and classify them?'

‘Hmmm.' Johanson peered into the container. ‘As I said, they're bristleworms. Nice ones too. The ocean floor is covered with creatures like them. No idea what species, though. What's the problem with them?'

‘If only we knew.'

‘What
do
you know?'

‘We found them on the continental slope, seven hundred metres down.'

Johanson scratched his chin. They must be hungry, he thought. He was surprised they were still alive: most organisms didn't take kindly to being hauled up from the depths.

He glanced up. ‘There's no harm in taking a look at them. I'll be in touch tomorrow.'

‘Great.' She paused. ‘You've noticed something odd about them, haven't you? I can tell by the way you're looking at them.'

‘Perhaps.'

‘What is it?'

‘I can't say for sure. Taxonomy isn't my speciality. Bristleworms come in all shapes and colours and I'm not familiar with them all, but these…'

Lund flashed him a smile. ‘Why don't you look at them now? You could tell me your findings over lunch.'

‘I do have a job to get on with, you know.'

‘Well, you can't be too pushed at the moment - judging by the time you rolled up this morning.'

How irritating; she was right.

‘OK.' He sighed. ‘We'll meet at one in the cafeteria. Were you planning on a long-term friendship with them, or can I cut them up?'

‘Do whatever it takes, Sigur. I'll see you later.'

She hurried out. Johanson watched her go. Perhaps the two of them could have made a go of it, he thought. But Tina Lund lived life at a sprint. She was much too hectic for someone like him.

He sorted his post and caught up on some phone calls. Then he picked up the container and carried it into the lab. There was no doubt that they were polychaetes, members of the
Annelida
phylum. Segmented worms, like the common earthworm. They weren't complex, as far as organisms went, but they fascinated zoologists: polychaetes were among the oldest known organisms. Fossil records showed that they'd survived, practically unchanged, since the Middle Cambrian era, more than 500 million years ago. A few species were found in fresh water or on marshy ground, but the seas and oceans teemed with them. They aerated the sediment and provided fish and crabs with a rich source of nutrition. Most people found them repellent, but Johanson saw them as the survivors of a lost world: he found them exceptionally beautiful.

He took a few moments to examine the pinkish bodies, with their tentacle-like growths and clumps of fine white bristle. Then he dripped magnesium chloride solution into the container to anaesthetise them. There were a number of ways to kill a worm, but the most common was to immerse them in alcohol, usually vodka or aquavit. For humans that would mean death by intoxication - not a bad way to go. But worms felt things differently and screwed themselves into a ball to die, unless you relaxed them first. The magnesium chloride slackened their muscles, so that you could do what you liked with them.

He decided to freeze one worm: it was always good to have a specimen in reserve, in case you decided to examine its DNA or do a stable isotope analysis. He fixed the other worm in alcohol, then laid it out for measuring. Nearly seventeen centimetres, he noted. Then he cut it open lengthways and gave a low whistle. ‘Well, well, well,' he murmured.

The specimen had all the classic features of an annelid worm. Its proboscis was tucked within its body, ready to unfurl and seize its prey. It was tipped with chitinous jaws and rows of minuscule teeth. Over the years Johanson had examined plenty of polychaetes, inside and out, but those were the biggest jaws he'd ever seen. As he gazed at the worm he couldn't help wondering if it was new species. Few had the luck to discover a species, he thought. His name would be immortal…

He turned on his computer to consult the Intranet, then wandered through the maze of data. The outcome was baffling. In one sense the worm was there, but in another it wasn't.

By the time he was rushing through the glass-covered walkways towards the cafeteria, he was already a quarter of an hour late. He burst into the room, spotted Lund at a corner table and went over to her. She was sitting under a palm tree, and gave him a little wave.

‘Sorry,' he said. ‘Have you been here long?'

‘Ages. I'm starving.'

‘Let's have the shredded chicken stew,' said Johanson. ‘It was good last week.'

Lund nodded: she knew she could trust his recommendation. She ordered Coke, while he had a glass of wine. When the waiter brought their drinks, she was shifting impatiently on her chair. ‘Well?'

Johanson sipped his wine. ‘Not bad. Fresh and full-bodied.'

Lund rolled her eyes.

‘OK, OK.' Amused, he put down his glass, settled back and crossed his legs. Anyone who lay in wait for him on a Monday morning deserved to be kept in suspense, he thought. ‘We'd already established that they're annelid worms, polychaetes. I'm hoping you don't need a full report because that would take weeks, if not months. For the moment I'd treat the two specimens as a mutation or a new species - or both, to be precise.'

‘That doesn't sound precise.'

‘Sorry, but that's the way it is. Where did you find them?'

Lund described the site. It was a considerable distance from the coast, on the continental slope, where the Norwegian shelf descended towards the deep ocean floor.

‘Dare I ask what Statoil was doing down there?' Johanson asked.

‘Looking at cod.'

‘Cod? Now, that
is
good news - I thought they'd died out.'

‘It's not funny, Sigur. You know how many obstacles have to be cleared before we can even think about drilling. We don't want to be accused of not doing our homework.'

‘You mean you're building a platform? But oil yields are dropping.'

‘That's not my problem,' Lund said tersely. ‘What I'm worried about is whether we can build there in the first place. It's the furthest out to sea we've ever drilled. We've got to get on top of the technological challenges
and
prove that we're respecting the environment. Which is why we're trying to find out what's swimming around down there and how the site functions ecologically - so that people like you don't complain.'

Johanson nodded. Lund was contending with the fallout from the recent North Sea Conference, at which the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries had castigated the oil industry for expelling millions of tonnes of contaminated water into the sea every day. It had lain undisturbed in sub-seabed petroleum reserves for millions of years but was now being pumped to the surface by the hundreds of offshore North Sea platforms that lined the Norwegian coast. The oil was separated from it by mechanical means, and the chemical-saturated water discharged back into the sea. No one had questioned the practice until, after decades, the Norwegian government had asked the Institute of Marine Research to undertake a study. The findings dealt a blow to the oil industry and environmentalists alike. Substances in the water were interfering with
the reproductive cycle of cod. They worked like female hormones, causing the male fish to become infertile or even to change sex. Other species were affected too. The oil companies were ordered to stop dumping the water and had no choice but to look for an alternative.

‘They're right to keep an eye on you,' Johanson said. ‘The closer the better.'

‘You're a great help.' Lund sighed. ‘Anyway, our recce of the slope took us pretty deep into the ocean. We did the usual seismic survey, then sent a dive robot down seven hundred metres to take a few shots. We weren't expecting to find worms so deep.'