Frank Schatzing - The Swarm

'Stone didn't deign to reply. He sat up straight and looked for signs of hydrates, but there were none in sight, just a few lonely worms. A large flattish fish, resembling a plaice, was lying on the bottom. As they drew closer it took off sluggishly, churning up sediment.

How unreal it was to be sitting there, while the equivalent of 100 kilograms of water pressed on every square centimetre of the acrylic hull. Everything about the situation was artificial: the dark shadow edging forward over the illuminated area of the seabed as the Deep Rover drifted over the shelf; the pitch-blackness beyond the scattered light; the electronically regulated pressure inside the capsule; the cabin air, maintained by a constant stream of oxygen and the chemical breakdown of excess carbon dioxide.

Nothing in the depths invited man to linger.

Stone swallowed. His tongue stuck to his palate. He couldn't help remembering that they hadn't drunk anything for hours before the expedition. In the event of an emergency, they had human range extenders on board, special urine bottles in case they really had to go. But anyone using the submersible was advised to empty their bladder beforehand. Since early that morning he and Eddie had eaten only peanut-butter sandwiches and rock-hard chocolate and cereal bars. Dive meals. Nutritious, filling and dry as Sahara sand.

He tried to relax. Eddie made a brief report to the Thorvaldson . Occasionally they saw mussels or a starfish. The pilot gestured towards the water outside.

'Amazing, isn't it? We're below nine hundred metres now, and it's dark, but there's still light down here. They call it the dysphoric zone.'

'Can't light penetrate to a thousand metres, providing the water's clear?' asked Stone.

'Sure, but you wouldn't be able to see it. We're as good as blind as soon as it gets below a hundred and fifty, or even a hundred. Ever been deeper than a thousand?'

'No. Have you?'

'A few times.' Eddie shrugged. 'There's bugger-all to see, though. It's just like here. The light's more my thing.'

'So you don't want to try for the record, then?'

'There's no point. Jacques Piccard made it to 10,740 metres and, sure, scientifically speaking, it was a breakthrough, but there'd have been nothing to look at.'

'How do you know?'

'I don't. I just can't believe there would be. I mean, the abyssal plains aren't especially interesting. I like to see the benthos.'

'Didn't Piccard get to 11,340 metres?'

'Oh, that old chestnut.' Eddie laughed. 'That's what they say in all the books, but it's wrong. A discrepancy on the depth gauge. It was calibrated in Switzerland for freshwater usage, and fresh water's not as dense. So the one and only time they took a sub to the deepest spot in the ocean, they measured the depth wrong. Now if they'd-'

'Look. Over there!'

The beam of light in front of them was swallowed by darkness. As they drew closer they could sec that the seabed dropped off abruptly. The light was lost in the abyss.

'Stop here.'

Eddie's fingers flew over the controls. He counterbalanced the thrust, and the Deep Rover came to a halt. Then it started to spin.

'Current's pretty strong here,' said Eddie. The submersible kept turning until the floodlights lit the edge of the precipice. 'Looks like something caved in, not long ago either. I'd say it's pretty fresh.'

Stone's eyes roamed around nervously. 'Any clues from the sonar?'

'There's a drop of at least forty metres. Can't tell what's on the other side.'

'You mean the plateau-'

'There is no plateau. It's fallen through.'

Stone chewed his lip. They had to be really close to the processor now. But there hadn't been a precipice here last year. Then again, it probably hadn't been there a few days ago either.

'Let's go down,' he decided. 'We'll take a look at where it goes.'

The Deep Rover gathered speed and sank down over the precipice. It was only a couple of minutes before the seabed emerged in the floodlights. It looked like a bomb site.

'We need to ascend a few metres,' said Eddie. 'Those crevices look nasty. We could easily fall down.'

'Sure, just a sec- Shit! Straight ahead.'

A torn pipe, one metre in diameter, came into view. It ran diagonally across enormous chunks of stone and disappeared beyond the floodlights. Thin black threads of oil were rising from it, climbing towards the surface in taut columns.

'It's a pipeline!' Stone was appalled. 'Oh, God.'

'It used to be a pipeline,' said Eddie.

'Let's follow it.' Stone knew where the pipeline would lead – or, rather, where it originated. They were on the site of the unit.

But the processor was gone.

A fissured wall loomed ahead. Just in time Eddie jerked the submersible up. The wall seemed to extend forever, but soon they were up and over it with just centimetres to spare. It was only then that Stone realised it wasn't a wall: it was a vast expanse of seabed, rising vertically through the water. Beyond it, there was another steep drop. Particles of sediment drifted through the beam of light, clouding their vision. Then the floodlights caught a stream of bubbles shooting frantically towards the surface, spraying from the gaping edges of a hole. 'Holy shit,' whispered Stone. 'What happened here?'

Eddie banked to avoid the column of bubbles. For a moment they lost sight of the pipeline, then it pushed its way back into the light. It led downwards.

'Damned current,' said Eddie. 'It's pulling us into the blow-out.'

The Deep Rover spun.

'Keep following the pipeline,' commanded Stone.

'That's madness. We need to ascend.'

'The processor's right here,' insisted Stone. 'We'll see it any second now.'

'Like hell we will. There's nothing left to see.'

Stone was silent. Ahead, the pipeline curved upwards, as if it had been uprooted by a giant hand. It ended in a twisted stump, the warped steel curled in weird-looking sculptures.

'Still want to go on?'

Stone nodded. Eddie manoeuvred the submersible alongside the pipe. For a moment they hovered above the serrated opening, as though in the clutches of a gaping maw.

'Any further and there'll be nothing beneath us at all,' said Eddie.

Stone clenched his fists. Alban had been right. They should have sent a robot first In that case, giving up now would be truly absurd. He needed to know what had happened. He had no intention of returning to Statoil without a full report. He refused to let himself be humiliated again by Skaugen.

'Keep going, Eddie.'

'You're crazy.'

On the other side of the twisted pipe, the fissured seabed slanted steeply downwards. The clouds of sediment thickened. Now the strain was telling on Eddie too. At any moment a new obstacle might appear in their path.

Then they saw the processor.

In fact, all they could see were some struts, but Stone knew right away that the Kongsberg prototype was gone, buried under the rubble of the broken plateau, more than fifty metres deeper than it had originally been built.

He peered closer. Something detached itself from the metal struts and came towards them.

Bubbles.

It reminded Stone of the colossal vortex of gas that they'd seen on the Sonne- of the blow-out when the video-grab had plunged through the hydrates.

Suddenly he was filled with panic. 'Move!' he yelled.

Eddie released the remaining weights. The submersible jerked upwards and shot through the water, followed by the vast bubble. Then the maelstrom engulfed them and they fell back down. 'Shit!'

'What's going on down there?' It was the tinny voice of the technician on the Thorvaldson . 'Eddie? Answer me! We've got some funny readings up here. A whole load of gas and hydrates is surfacing.'

Eddie pressed the transmission button. 'I'm throwing off the outer hull. We're on our way up.'