Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'Exactly. They've got repair inhibitors – biological bouncers, if you like – which protect the clusters from repair enzymes. So, in the course of the repairs, the core genetic information is preserved, while other sequences are free to mutate continuously. Impressive, eh? Each yrr is an ever-evolving brain.'

'But how do they communicate?'

'Like Sue said, from cell to cell. Via ligands and receptors. The ligand – the signal transmitted from the other cells – reaches a receptor and sets off a chemical cascade towards the nucleus. The genome then mutates and passes on the signal to the surrounding cells. It happens almost instantaneously. That pile of jelly is thinking at the speed of a superconductor.'

Anawak gave a low whistle. 'So it's a brand new biochemical set-up.'

'Or a very old one. It may be new to us, but it's probably been around for millions of years. Maybe as long as life itself. It's a different evolutionary system running parallel to our own.' Johanson gave a short laugh. 'And it's highly effective.'

Anawak rested his chin on his hands. 'So, what now?'

'Good question. I don't think I've ever felt so directionless. I've got all this information and I don't know what to do with it. Right now it just confirms our fears – we've got almost nothing in common with the yrr.' He stretched and yawned. 'Who knows whether Crowe's attempts at communication will pay off? Seems to me that they're happy to chat to us while merrily plotting our doom. Maybe they don't see that as a contradiction. Either way, it's not my idea of conversation.'

'We've got no choice. We have to find a way of making ourselves understood.' Anawak sucked in his cheeks. 'And while we're on the subject – do you think we're all pulling together?'

Johanson stiffened. 'Why do you ask?'

'Well…' Anawak frowned. 'OK, don't be mad at her, but Karen told me what you saw – or what you thought you saw – the night of your mysterious accident.'

Johanson gave him a hard look. 'And what does she think?'

'That you did see Rubin.'

'I thought so. And you?'

'I don't know.' Anawak shrugged. You're Norwegian. You guys believe in trolls.'

Johanson sighed. 'If it hadn't been for Sue, none of this would ever have come back to me,' he said. 'She jogged my memory. That night when we were sitting on the hangar deck, I thought I saw Rubin, even though he was supposed to be in bed with a migraine. Just like he's supposed to have a migraine now. Ever since then, bits and pieces have been coming back to me. I'm starting to remember things – things I can't have made up. Sometimes it feels as though I'm on the verge of seeing everything, and then… I'm standing in front of an open door, looking into the light. I step inside – and it all goes black.'

'What makes you think you didn't dream it?'

'Sue.'

'But she didn't see anything.'

'And Li.'

'Why Li?'

'We were chatting at the party and she was a bit too concerned about the state of my memory. I got the feeling she was trying to gauge how much I knew.' Johanson looked at Anawak. 'You wanted my opinion. Well, I don't think we're pulling together. I never have done, not even in Whistler. There's always been something funny about Li, but now there's Rubin and his migraines too. I don't know what to make of it, but something tells me it doesn't add up.'

'Male intuition…' Anawak grinned nervously. 'So, what does Li want from us?'

Johanson glanced at the ceiling. 'You'd have to ask her.'

CONTROL ROOM

At that moment Johanson was looking straight into Vanderbilt's eyes through one of the hidden cameras, although he didn't know it. The CIA agent had taken over from Li at the desk. He heard Johanson say, 'You'd have to ask her.'

'Smart bastard,' Vanderbilt murmured. Li was in her cabin. He called her on a secure line.

She appeared on the screen.

'I told you those drugs were a risk,' said Vanderbilt. 'Johanson's recovering his memory.'

'So what?'

'Aren't you worried?'

Li gave a thin smile. 'Rubin's been working very hard. He was here just now.'

'And?'

'It's brilliant!' There was a glint in her eyes. 'I know we're not particularly fond of the shit, but I have to say he's excelled himself.'

'Has he trialled the stuff.'

'On a small scale. But the scale doesn't matter: it works. In a few hours I'm going to call the President. Then I'll take Rubin for a dive.'

'You want to do it in person?' exclaimed Vanderbilt.

'Well, there's no way we're going to fit inside a boat like that,' said Li, and hung up.

WELL DECK

The electrical systems filled the Independence's empty hangars and decks with an eerie buzz, causing the bulkheads to quiver imperceptibly. They could be heard in the hospital and the deserted officers' mess, and anyone pressing their fingertips to the lockers in the troop-berthing area could feel their faint vibration.

They even penetrated into the bowels of the vessel, where Greywolf was lying near the edge of the embankment, staring at the steel girders on the ceiling. He felt overwhelmed with grief and the conviction that he had done everything wrong. He hadn't even been able to save Licia. He'd tried to protect her and failed.

The only time when he'd ever been truly proud of himself was when he'd rescued that kid. He'd done a good job on the Lady Wexham . He'd helped a crowd of people, and he'd won back Leon as a friend. A photographer had taken a picture, and the next day the newspaper had immortalised the moment.

But the whales were still rampaging, the dolphins were suffering, nature was in agony – and Licia was dead.

Greywolf felt empty and useless. He wasn't going to talk to anyone about it: he was just going to do his job until the nightmare was over.

And then…

Tears welled in his eyes.

THE BIG PICTURE

'See this sphere?' said Crowe. 'That's planet Earth.' She'd blown up some printouts and pinned them to the wall. She walked slowly down the line. 'These markings baffled us at first, but now we think they're the Earth's magnetic field. The blank spaces are definitely continents. Once we'd worked that out, we'd basically cracked it.'

Li frowned. 'Are you sure? Those so-called continents don't look much like the continents I know.'

Crowe smiled. 'They're not supposed to. They're the continents a hundred and eighty million years ago. Just one big land mass – Pangaea, the supercontinent. The lines probably correspond to the magnetic field back then.'

'Have you checked that out?'

'It's difficult to reconstruct the field lines, but the configuration of the continents is easily verified. At first we didn't know what they'd sent us, but once we realised it was a map of the world it all fell into place. It's actually quite straightforward. They used water as the baseline for the message, and paired each water molecule with geographical data.'

'But how would they know what the Earth looked like all that time ago?' Vanderbilt said.

'They remember it,' said Johanson.

'But no one can remember the prehistoric era. Only single-cell organisms-' Vanderbilt broke off.

'Exactly,' said Johanson. 'Only single-cell organisms and the first multicellular life-forms. Last night the final piece of the jigsaw fell into place. The yrr have hypermutating DNA. Let's say they gained consciousness at the beginning of the Jurassic era. That's two hundred million years ago, and they've been storing knowledge ever since. You know the classic lines you get in sci-fi? Whatever it is, it's coming our way , or Get me the President on the line .' Well, there's always the one about the enemy being superior, though by the end of the story you mostly feel cheated. This time you won't. The yrr are superior.'