Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'Fine. Well, I guess one is enough for observation purposes.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Oliviera. 'Observing them is all very well, but I want to examine the stuff, not just its disintegrating remains. Maybe we should freeze the thing and slice it up.'

'Absolutely.' Rubin was staring at the screen in fascination. 'But not right now. Let's observe it for a bit.'

'But we've got the other two as well. Can anyone see them?'

Johanson switched on all the other screens. The inside of the tank appeared from various angles.

'Vanished.'

'They've got to be in there somewhere.'

'OK, let's crack open a few more,' said Johanson. 'That's what we'd agreed to do anyway. The more gunk there is floating around in the tank, the more chance we have of spotting it. We'll leave our PoW in the cage – we can deal with him later.'

THEY OPENED A DOZEN or so crabs without making any attempt to catch the jelly-like beings, which darted away as soon as the shells broke open.

'Well, they're certainly not affected by the Pfiesteria ,' said Oliviera.

'Of course not,' said Johanson. 'The yrr will have made sure that neither organism can harm the other.

'Do you think the jelly is another genetic mutation?'

'I don't know. It could be natural – but then again, it might be engineered.'

'Perhaps it's the yrr.'

Johanson rotated the Spherobot so that the camera was pointing at the basket. He stared at the captive. It had kept its spherical shape and was lying like a glassy white tennis ball on the floor of the cage.

'These things?' Rubin said in disbelief.

'Well, why not?' said Oliviera. 'We've found them in whale brains, they were underneath the mussels on the Barrier Queen , they were in the blue cloud. They're everywhere.'

'The blue cloud. How does that fit in?'

'It must have some kind of function. The things hide inside it.'

'Well, I'd say the jelly is like the worms and the other mutations. It's a biological weapon.' Rubin pointed to the motionless ball in the cage. 'Do you think it might be dead? It's not moving. Maybe the tissue contracts when it's dying.'

At that moment a whistling noise came through the loudspeakers overhead and Peak's voice boomed, 'Good morning, everyone. Now that Dr Crowe is here and the team is complete, there'll be a meeting at ten thirty on the well deck. We'll be introducing you to the submersibles and other equipment, so we'd appreciate your attendance. And don't forget that our daily meeting will take place as usual at ten in the Flag Command Center. Thank you.'

'Good thing he reminded us,' Rubin said. 'I've got no sense of time when I'm busy in the lab.'

'I wonder if there's any news from Nanaimo.' Oliviera sounded bored.

'Why don't you ring Roche?' Rubin suggested. 'You can tell him about our progress. Maybe he'll have something to show for his efforts too.' He prodded Johanson. 'And maybe we'll get to hear before Li. Then we can show off at the meeting.'

Johanson smiled back. He didn't like Rubin. The man was good at his job, but Johanson had the feeling he'd sell his grandmother to boost his career.

Oliviera went up to the radio-telephone next to the control panel and dialled the number. Thanks to the satellite dish on top of the island, the full range of telecommunication systems was available on board. No matter where you were in the ship, you could watch a wide range of TV channels, plug in your own portable TV set or radio, go online on your laptop or place a telephone call on a secure line to any city in the world. Even Nanaimo in faraway Canada was easy to reach. She talked to Fen wick, then Roche. They were working with a team of scientists all over the world. It looked as though they'd managed to stake out the spectrum of Pfiesteria mutations, but a breakthrough wasn't in sight. Instead hordes of crabs had invaded Boston. Oliviera updated them and hung up.

'What a bloody mess,' said Rubin.

'Perhaps our friends in the tank can be of some assistance,' said Johanson. 'Something must be protecting them from the algae. Let's set up a session in the containment facility. And as soon as we know what our prisoner-' He stared at the screen.

The thing in the cage had gone.

Olivera and Rubin followed his gaze.

'That's impossible.'

'How the hell did it get out?'

There was nothing to see on any of the screens, apart from water and crabs.

'They've disappeared.'

'They can't have!'

'Hang on a minute. There must be a least a dozen whizzing around in there. We're bound to be able to spot some.'

'Oh they'll be there all right. But where's the one from the cage?'

Johanson 's face brightened.

'Maybe you're right,' he said slowly. 'After all, they keep changing shape. The wire mesh is pretty fine, but probably not fine enough for something very long and thin.'

'That stuffs unbelievable,' whispered Rubin.

They started to search the tank. They assigned themselves to different monitors, so they could scour the chamber simultaneously. They zoomed in, but there was no sign of the jelly anywhere. In the end Johanson guided all the robots, one by one, out of the garage, but the beings weren't hiding there either.

They'd vanished.

'Maybe we've got a problem with the plumbing,' said Oliviera. 'Do you think they could have got stuck?'

'Impossible,' said Rubin.

'Either way,' said Johanson, testily, 'it's time for the meeting. Let's hope we have a brainwave while we're up there.'

Baffled, they switched off the lights in the chamber and walked towards the door. Rubin turned off the lab lights and started to follow the others into the passageway. He looked back and stopped.

Johanson saw him standing in the doorway, staring back into the darkness. Slowly he walked towards him, followed by Oliviera.

Through the oval window of the chamber, something was glowing.

A faint glimmer of scattered light.

Blue.

Without stopping to worry about the obstacles in their path, they ran through the dark lab towards the chamber and rushed up the steps.

The blue glow was suspended in the water. A cosmic cloud in the darkness of space – only space was a tank, and inside it was water. It covered a few square metres.

Johanson peered at it. It looked as though tiny pulses of light were flowing towards the centre of the cloud, getting faster all the time, like particles of matter near a black hole.

The cloud turned a deeper blue, then collapsed in on itself.

It was imploding, like a Big Bang in reverse. Everything was sucked towards its centre, which grew steadily brighter and denser. Flashes of light shot out, forming complicated patterns. The cloud was disappearing into its mid-point at incredible speed, drawn into a turbulent whirlpool, and then…

'This can't be happening,' said Oliviera.

On the other side of the glass there was now a spherical object the size of a football. A blue-tinged mass of matter, made of luminous pulsating jelly.

They'd found the creatures.

And they'd become one.

FLAG COMMAND CENTER

'Single-cell organisms,' Johanson said. 'They're single-cell organisms!' He was incredibly excited. Rubin shifted on his chair and nodded vigorously, while Johanson paced up and down. He could never have stayed seated at a time like this. 'Until now we've assumed that the jelly and the cloud are two separate entities, but they're one and the same. They're a network of unicellular beings. It's not just a case of the jelly changing shape – it can disintegrate entirely, and get back together in a flash.'

'The unicellular whatsits can disintegrate?' queried Vanderbilt.

'Of course not! The single-cell organisms combine to form the jelly and the cloud. When we opened the crabs, we found blobs of the jelly inside them. We only managed to catch hold of one and all the others disappeared. Then we lost the captive too. It vanished without trace. I can't believe I didn't work it out straight away. It's obvious that you can't keep single-cell organisms in a cage. And you're hardly going to see them with the naked eye! The chamber was lit internally, which meant there was no sign of any bioluminescence. We had the same problem in Norway. A huge thing appeared in front of our cameras. At the time we saw a pale surface, lit up by Victor's floodlights, but in reality it was glowing. It was glowing because it was made up of an enormous confederation of luminescent microbes. The creature we've got swimming about in the tank right now is a combined mass of jelly we let out of those crabs.'