Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'Harpoon guns? Now, there's a thing,' Bohrmann said caustically.

'Frost was convinced you wouldn't need them.'

'Evidently.'

Something rammed Bohrmann in the chest, pushing him deeper into the crevice. He was so surprised that he forgot to scream. In the dim light he saw the hammer. It had hit him vertically. The shark was trying to enter the crack on its side.

Why you clever little thing, he thought grimly. His heart was in his throat. I'm going to make you pay.

He rained blows on the hammer, careful not to let go of the hound. He could vaguely see its jaws opening and closing. The rectangular head was beating up and down, but Bohrmann was out of reach of its jaws. Its eye was rolling. Bohrmann raised one of the manipulators and let the console slam down on top of it.

The shark flinched.

It's not going to be able to get itself out of here, Bohrmann realised. He channelled his strength into pressing the trackhound against the shark's skull. Surely the creature couldn't be jammed. How much power did the jelly have over it? It was obviously controlling its behaviour, but could it teach it to swim backwards?

Evidently it could. The hammer withdrew from the crack.

Bohrmann waited.

Something shot out of the cloud. A hammer came at him horizontally. One of the smaller sharks. Its head crashed into the domed visor of his helmet. Its jaws opened. Rows of teeth scraped against the Plexiglas. The shark's body obscured the light to such an extent that Bohrmann could barely see, but what he could see was enough. He tried to push himself further inside the crack and suddenly the walls of the crevice seemed to give way. He toppled backwards into nothing.

Pitch blackness.

The left manipulator moved erratically over the console. The switch for the trackhound's floodlight was just above the homing button. He'd had it a moment ago…

There!

The floodlight lit up. The wandering shaft of light revealed that the back of the crevice had widened into a spacious cave. He shone the beam at the opening and saw the head of the shark. The hammer was shaking back and forth but the shark didn't advance.

It was stuck.

Bohrmann raised his arm and showered blows on the box-like head. The shark had to be at least half-way into the cave. Suddenly he realised that it wasn't a good idea to wound the shark enough to make it bleed. Instead he used all his weight to push against it, but in the water it wasn't nearly enough. He pushed off and hurled himself against the twitching head, banging into it with his chest, shoulders and arms until the shark gradually retreated. The beam from the trackhound wandered all over the place, illuminating the pink gullet and flapping gills.

I don't care how you get out of here, thought Bohrmann. But I want you out now. This is my cave, so piss off!'

'Piss off!'

'Dr Bohrmann?'

The shark disappeared.

Bohrmann slumped down. His arms trembled. Suddenly he felt overwhelmed with exhaustion and sank to his knees.

'Dr Bohrmann?'

'I don't need you bugging me, van Maarten.' He coughed. 'Do something to get me out of here.'

'We'll send down the robots and the men right away.'

'Why robots?'

'We're sending down anything that might scare the sharks or distract them.'

'They're not sharks. They only look like sharks. They can recognise a robot – and they know exactly what we're trying to do.'

'The sharks know?'

Frost evidently hadn't told van Maarten the whole story.

'That's right. They're no more sharks than the whales are whales. Something's controlling them. The men should be on their guard.' He had to cough again, this time more loudly. 'I can't see a bloody thing in this cave. What's going on out there?'

For a moment van Maarten was silent. Then he said, 'Oh, God…'

'Talk to me!'

'There's more of them – dozens, hundreds! They're smashing up the floodlights.'

Of course they are, thought Bohrmann. That's the whole point.

They're trying to stop us cleaning up the worms. That's what this is about.

'Then forget it.'

I'm sorry?'

'I said forget the rescue operation, van Maarten.'

There was so much noise inside Bohrmann's helmet that he had to get van Maarten to repeat his answer a second time: 'But the men are ready.'

'Tell them that intelligent predators are lying in wait for them. The sharks are intelligent. The stuff in their heads is intelligent. You're not going to achieve anything with two divers and a decoy. Think of something else. Like you said, I've got enough oxygen for two days.'

Van Maarten hesitated. 'OK. We'll keep an eye on things. Maybe the sharks will disperse in the next few hours. Do you think you're safe for the moment?'

'How the hell do I know? I'm safe from ordinary sharks, but these guys are unbelievably resourceful.'

'We're going to find a way, Gerhard. We'll have you out of there before your oxygen runs out.'

'I sincerely hope so.'

Light was returning gradually to the crack, but if what van Maarten was saying was true, the lamps were about to go out.

He'd be alone in the darkness of the ocean, alone until someone declared themselves ready to brave hundreds of hammerhead sharks.

No shark in possession of its natural instincts would have swum into an electromagnetic field. A hammerhead shark would never attack two humans in exosuits, and even if it did, it would quickly lose interest. Hammerheads were known to pose a threat to humans and to be infuriatingly inquisitive, but they usually gave anything suspicious-looking a very wide berth.

They didn't normally swim inside crevices.

Bohrmann cowered inside the cave, equipped with enough oxygen for other forty or so hours. He hoped there wouldn't be a bloodbath when van Maarten's men came down, if they came down.

A bloodbath in the lightless water.

He switched off the floodlight on his trackhound to conserve its battery. He was immediately engulfed in inky black. Light shone through the crack. It was getting fainter all the time.

INDEPENDENCE, Greenland Sea

Johanson couldn't settle. He'd been down on the well deck where Li's men were preparing for the jelly to be transferred to the deep-sea chamber under Rubin's supervision. The tank had been emptied and decontaminated, and the Pfiesteria-laden crabs deposited in liquid nitrogen. The whole process was being conducted under the most stringent safety precautions. Johanson and Oliviera were planning to start the phase tests as soon as the jelly was in the tank. In the meantime, while they'd been exchanging notes and laying down the procedure, Crowe and Shankar had begun to decipher the second Scratch message.

'The shock is still with us,' Li had said, in her improvised speech. 'Every one of us has been deeply affected by what happened. Our enemy is trying to demoralise and destroys us – but we mustn't give in. I'm sure you're all asking yourselves whether this vessel is safe. Let me assure you, it is . Providing we don't give our enemy any further opportunities to come aboard, we've got nothing to fear on the Independence . All the same, speed is of the essence. It's more important than ever that we focus our energies on forcing a dialogue. We need to convince our enemy to put a stop to its campaign of terror against the human race.'

Johanson went up to the flight deck, where the kitchen staff was clearing away the remnants of the abandoned party. The sun had risen again, and the sea looked no different from usual: no blue glow, no flashes, and no luminescent vision presaging a nightmare.

He walked back to where he'd been standing before Li had presented him with a glass of red wine and tried to pump him for information about his night-time escapade. Two things had been clear to him: first, that Li knew what had happened to him; and second, that she wasn't sure how much he could remember and whether he was telling her the truth – which worried her.