Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'Cape Dorset.' Anawak hesitated. 'A shaman gave it to me.'

'You, of all people, accepted a gift from a shaman?'

'He's my uncle.'

'And what did he tell you about it?'

'Not much. He said the bird spirit would guide my thoughts when it was time. And that I may need someone to tell me what it sees.'

Greywolf was silent for a while. Then he said, 'There are bird spirits in almost every culture. Thunderbird is an ancient mythological figure. It's part of creation, one of the spirits of Nature, a higher being. But bird spirits have other meanings too.'

'They're linked to heads, aren't they?'

'In ancient Egyptian art you often see bird-like headdresses. For the ancient Egyptians, the bird represented man's consciousness. It was trapped inside the head, like in a cage. If your head was open, the bird would fly away, but you could still entice it back. Then your consciousness would return.'

'So whilst I'm asleep my consciousness is soaring.'

'Your dreams are more than stories: they show you what your consciousness is seeing in higher worlds that are otherwise closed. Have you ever seen an Indian chief's feather headdress?'

'Only in Westerns.'

'Well, the headdress signifies that the chief's spirit is inscribing stories in his head. That's what the feathers are for. In other words, his head is full of good ideas, and that's why he's chief.'

'His mind soars.'

'With the help of the feathers. Most tribes have a single feather, but it means the same thing. The bird spirit represents consciousness. That's why the worst thing that can happen to an Indian is to lose their scalp, or headdress. It means being separated from their consciousness – possibly for good.' Greywolf frowned. 'If you were given this sculpture by a shaman, he must have been alluding to your consciousness, the power of your ideas. You should use your mind but you have to open it first. Your spirit needs to go on a journey, and that means it has to join with your unconscious.'

'Why don't you wear feathers in your hair?'

Greywolf grimaced. 'Because, as you pointed out, I'm not a true Indian.'

Anawak was silent.

'I had a dream in Nunavut…,' he said eventually.

Greywolf listened intently to the story of the iceberg. 'I knew I'd end up sinking into the sea,' Anawak concluded 'but the thought of drowning didn't scare me,' he concluded.

'What did you expect to find down there?'

'Life,' Anawak said.

Greywolf looked at the green marble figurine resting on the palm of his enormous hand. 'Tell me honestly, Leon, why did they ask me and Licia to come on board?' he asked abruptly.

Anawak gazed out at the ocean. 'Because we need you here.'

'No, you don't, not really. I'm pretty good with dolphins, but there's no shortage of dolphin-handlers in the US Navy. And Licia doesn't have any particular role.'

'She's an excellent assistant.'

'Have you asked her to help you? Do you need her?'

'No.' Anawak stared up at the sky. 'You're here because I wanted you.'

'But why?'

'You're my friends.'

For a while there was silence again.

'I guess we are.' Greywolf nodded.

Anawak smiled. 'I've always rubbed along fine with everyone, but I can't remember having proper friends. And you can bet I never thought I'd be friends with an argumentative smart ass student- or with someone twice my size and full of crackpot ideas, whom I practically came to blows with.'

'That argumentative student did exactly what friends do.'

'Which is?'

"Look an interest in your life. You and I have always been friends though. If you ask me…' Greywolf lifted the sculpture and grinned.'. . . Our heads were just closed for a while.'

'What do you suppose made me dream all that stuff? It keeps coming back to me, and it's not as though anyone could accuse me of having mystical tendencies. But something happened in Nunavut, and I can't explain it. By the time we were out there on the land and I had that dream, something had changed.'

'What do you think it means.'

'Well, we're being threatened by deep-sea creatures, aren't we? Maybe it's my job to go down there and-'

'Save the planet.'

'OK, forget it.'

'Do you want to know what I think?'

Anawak nodded.

'I think you couldn't be more wrong. For years you retreated into yourself, dragging around all your baggage. That iceberg you were floating on – it was you. An icy, unapproachable block. But out there the block began to melt. The ocean you're sinking into isn't the kingdom of the yrr. It's our world. That's where you belong. That's the adventure in store for you. Friendship, love, hostility, hatred and anger. Your role isn't to play the hero. Those roles were handed out a long time ago, and they're for dead men. You belong in the world of the living.'

Night

They all rested in different ways. Crowe's small, delicate form was swaddled in blankets, with just her steel-grey hair protruding at the top. Weaver lay naked on top of the sheets, sprawled on her front, head to one side, pillowed on a forearm. Her chestnut hair covered her face, so that only her parted lips could be seen. Shankar was a restless sleeper who couldn't stop rearranging his bedclothes, muttering and giving the occasional muffled snore.

Rubin was mostly awake.

Greywolf and Delaware didn't sleep much either, but that was mainly because they were otherwise engaged. Two cabins further along, Anawak was asleep on his side in a T-shirt. There was nothing remarkable about Oliviera's sleeping patterns.

Johanson lay on his back, arms outstretched. Only the beds in flag and officer accommodation allowed an expansive position like that. It suited the Norwegian so well that a former lover had once woken him to tell him that he'd been sleeping like the lord of the manor. He slept like that every night- a man who looked as though he wanted to embrace life, even when his eyes were closed.

The sleeping or waking bodies filled a row of brightly lit screens. Each monitor showed an individual cabin. Two men in uniform were watching them, while Li and Vanderbilt hovered in the background.

'Regular angels, wouldn't you say?' said Vanderbilt.

Li's expression didn't flicker as she watched Delaware and Greywolf. The volume was turned down, but faint sounds of their love-making penetrated the cool air of the control room.

I'd go for that little beauty,' said Vanderbilt, pointing at Weaver. 'Nice ass.'

'Fallen for her, have you?'

Vanderbilt grinned. 'Oh, please.'

'You should turn on the charm,' said Li. 'You're carrying around at least two tonnes of it.'

The CIA agent mopped the sweat from his forehead. They watched for a while longer. Li didn't care if the people on the screens were snoring or turning cartwheels. They could hang upside-down from the ceiling for all she cared.

The main thing was that she knew where they were, what they were doing and everything they said.

'Carry on,' she said. On her way out she added, 'Remember to keep looking in all of the cabins.'

Visitors

The message had been beamed non-stop into the depths – as yet to no avail. At seven o'clock they'd been jolted out of bed by the alarm call, but almost no one felt properly rested. Most nights the gentle rocking motion of the enormous vessel lulled them to sleep. The air-conditioning hummed softly in the cabins, keeping the temperature agreeably constant, and the beds were comfortable. They might have slept soundly, but for the suspense. Instead they'd dozed fitfully. Johanson had lain awake imagining the effect of the message on the Greenland Sea, until nightmare visions haunted him.

That they were in the Greenland Sea at all, and not thousands of kilometres further to the south, was due only to his intervention, with the support of Bohrmann and Weaver. If it had been up to Rubin, Anawak and some of the others, the attempt to make contact would have been launched over the site of the volcanoes in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Rubin's reasoning was based on similarities between the crabs of that region and those that had invaded New York and Washington. Besides, it was one of the few places in the depths that provided the right conditions for sophisticated life-forms to flourish. In that respect, the habitat in the hydrothermal vents was ideal. Hot water rose up from huge chimneys of rock on the seabed, drawing with it minerals and life-giving nutrients from the heart of the volcanoes. Worms, mussels, fish and crabs inhabited the vents in conditions not dissimilar to those of an alien planet. Why shouldn't the yrr live there too?