Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'They can't hurt you,' Frost said firmly.

The creatures were almost upon him when they banked. Bohrmann gasped for air and tried to fight back his panic. Frost swam to his side. 'We tested the PODs in advance, you know,' he said, 'and they definitely work.'

'What the hell is a POD?'

'A Protective Ocean Device. The best shark deterrent there is. It emits an electromagnetic field that acts as a barrier and keeps the sharks at a distance of five metres.'

Bohrmann tried to recover from the shock. The creatures had swum in a wide arc round the back of the scaffold. 'They were closer than five metres,' he said.

'They'll have learned their lesson now. Sharks have highly sensitive electro-receptive organs. The electromagnetic field over-stimulates their sensors and interferes with their nervous system. It causes them unbearable muscle spasms. During the trial run, we used bait to attract white and tiger sharks, then activated the POD. They couldn't get through the field.'

'Dr Bohrmann? Stanley?' That was van Maarten's voice. 'Are you OK?'

'Everything's fine,' said Frost.

'Well, POD or no POD, it's time for you to leave,' said van Maarten.

Bohrmann's eyes scanned the scaffold. He'd known much of what Frost had told him. Distributed around the front of a shark's head were ampullae of Lorenzini, small canals that detected even the weakest electrical pulses, such as those produced by other living creatures. What he hadn't realised was that a POD could sabotage the sensors. 'Those were hammerheads,' he said.

'Great hammerheads. About four metres long, I'd say.'

'Shit.'

'PODs work especially well on them.' Frost chuckled, 'with their rectangular heads, they've got more ampullae than any other species.'

'What now?'

He saw a movement. Out of the darkness behind the scaffold the two sharks came back into view. Bohrmann stayed still. He watched the sharks attack. Without swinging their heads as sharks usually do when they are tracking a scent, they shot purposefully through the water and stopped suddenly as if they'd hit a wall. They turned in confusion and swam away, then came back and circled the divers, but at a respectful distance.

It worked.

Their body shape was like that of any other shark. It was the head that had given the species its name. It extended on each side in flat wings, with the eyes and nostrils at the far ends. 'The front edge of the hammer was as smooth and straight as a blade.

Slowly Bohrmann composed himself. The creatures wouldn't even be able to harm them through their suits. But he was keen to get out of there.

'How long will it take us to get back?' he asked.

'Same as it took to get down. We'll swim past the scaffold, activate the hounds, and hold tight for the ride.'

'OK.'

'Don't activate anything until we get there. I don't want to see you on a collision course with the floodlights again.'

'How long will the deterrent last?'

'The PODs have at least four hours' worth of battery.' Frost rose through the water, kicking evenly with his fins, holding the console of the trackhound in his right-hand manipulator. Bohrmann followed.

'Well, so long, guys,' said Frost. 'It's too bad we've got to leave.'

The sharks gave chase, but their mouths started to twitch and their bodies contorted. Frost laughed and carried on paddling towards the lighting unit. Against the backdrop of the vast, glowing scaffold, his silhouette looked small and blue-tinged, its contours illuminated.

Bohrmann thought of the blue cloud that had appeared in the distance.

In the shock of the moment he'd forgotten that it had appeared immediately before the sharks had arrived. The same phenomenon had been responsible for the change in the whales and probably for a string of other anomalies and catastrophes. It meant they weren't dealing with ordinary sharks.

Why had the sharks been there in the first place? They had excellent hearing. Maybe the explosion had attracted them. But why were they on the attack? Neither he nor Frost was giving off a scent. They bore no resemblance to prey. In any case, sharks didn't usually attack humans in the depths.

They were approaching the uppermost edge of the scaffold.

'Stan? There's something wrong with them.'

'They won't hurt you.'

I'm telling you, they're not normal.'

One of the sharks turned its broad flat head and swam off to the side.

'You may have a point,' mused Frost. 'It's the depth that bothers me.

Great hammerheads have never been known to go deeper than eighty metres. It makes you wonder what they're-'

The shark turned. For a moment it stopped, head raised slightly and back arched, the classic attack position. Sweeping its tail powerfully it raced towards Frost. The volcanologist was so surprised that he didn't try to fend it off. The shark reared up briefly and violently, then swam into the electromagnetic field and rammed Frost with its flank. Frost twirled like a spinning top, arms and legs splayed.

'Hey!' The console slipped away from his articulated grasper. 'What in God's name-'

A third body shot over the scaffold, appearing from nowhere. It sped over the line of floodlights with eerie elegance. A tall, dark dorsal fin, and a hammer-shaped head.

'Stan!' screamed Bohrmann.

The latest arrival was enormous, much bigger than the other two. Its hammer lifted upwards as it opened its jaws and grabbed Frost's right arm and tugged.

'Shit!' he yelled. 'You evil bastard, let go of me, you-'

The hammerhead wrenched its huge rectangular head from side to side, using its tail to steady itself It had to be six or seven metres long. Frost was shaken like a leaf His suited arm had disappeared up to the shoulder into the shark's gullet. 'Beat it!' he screamed.

'For God's sake, Stan,' yelled van Maarten, 'punch it in the gills. Try to hit its eyes.'

Of course, thought Bohrmann. They're watching us. They can see everything.

Bohrmann had sometimes wondered what it would be like to encounter a shark, be attacked, or see it go for someone else. He was neither particularly brave nor especially fearful. Some would have deemed him an adventurer. He might have described himself as a man who was not afraid to take risks, but who didn't go looking for them. Now, faced with the huge predator, it didn't matter how he or anyone else had judged him in the past.

Bohrmann didn't flee from the shark. He swam towards it.

One of the smaller creatures approached him from the side. Its eyes twitched and its jaws jerked open. It evidently required great effort for it to swim into the electric field. It accelerated and rammed into Bohrmann.

He was thrown to one side and fell through the water towards the scaffold. All he could think about was not letting go of the console. Come what may, he had to hold on to it. Without its homing program, he'd be doomed to swim around blindly in the dark until his oxygen ran out.

Assuming he lasted that long.

A sudden surge of pressure caught him and pushed him downwards. The tail of the big shark thrashed above his head. Bohrmann tried to regain control of his movements, and saw the two smaller sharks swim towards him in formation, jaws snapping. They were so close to the scaffold that their natural colours were illuminated in the blue. Bronze skin stretched over their backs towards their white bellies. Their gums and gullets had the orange-pink glow of freshly filleted salmon. Distinctive triangular daggers lined their upper jaws, with pointed teeth stacked below – five rows like sharpened steel, positioned one after the other, ready to tear into anything that came within their reach.

'G-a-i-r-h-a-r-d!' screamed Frost.

Squinting into the halogen lights, Bohrmann watched Frost raise his free arm and rain blows on the head of the shark. Then, in a single violent shake of its head, the shark ripped the arm from the exosuit and cast it aside. Fat oxygen bubbles escaped from the tear. The jaws opened and snapped shut on Frost's unprotected arm, biting it off at the shoulder joint.