Free The Swarm by Frank Schätzing Page A

there, with Tina. She’ll operate the cameras and record the footage.
    â€˜Are we ready?’ he asked her.
    â€˜Prepare to lower,’ said Lund.
    One after another the blank screens lit up. Johanson could make out sections of the stern, the boom, the sky and the sea.
    â€˜From now on we can see what Victor sees,’ said Alban. ‘There are eight separate cameras, one main camera with zoom, two piloting cameras and five others. The picture quality’s amazing - sharp images and luminous colours even several thousand metres below the surface.’
    The robot descended and the sea loomed closer. Water sloshed over the camera lens and Victor continued downwards. The monitors showed a blue-green world that gradually dimmed.
    The control room was filling with people, men and women who’d been working on the boom.
    â€˜Floodlights on,’ said the co-ordinator.
    The area around Victor brightened, but the light remained diffuse. The blue-green paled, and was replaced by artifically lit darkness. Small fish darted into the picture, then the screen filled with bubbles. Plankton, thought Johanson. Red-helmet and transparent comb jellyfish drifted past.
    After a while the swarm of particles thinned. The depth sensor recorded five hundred metres.
    â€˜What’s Victor going to do down there?’ asked Johanson.
    â€˜Test the seawater and sediment, and collect a few organisms,’ said Lund, focusing on the screen, ‘but the real boon is the video footage.’
    A jagged shape came into view. Victor was descending along a steep wall. Red and orange crayfish waved delicate antennae. It was pitch black in the depths, but the floodlights and cameras brought out the creatures’ natural colours vividly. Victor continued past sponges and sea cucumbers, then the terrain levelled off.
    â€˜We made it,’ said Lund. ‘Six hundred and eighty metres.’
    â€˜OK.’ The pilot leaned forwards. ‘Let’s bank a little.’
    The slope disappeared from the screens. For a while they saw nothing but water until the seabed emerged from the blue-black depths.
    â€˜Victor can navigate to an accuracy of within less than a millimetre,’ said Alban.
    â€˜So where are we now?’ asked Johanson.
    â€˜Hovering over a plateau. The seabed beneath us contains vast stores of oil.’
    â€˜Any hydrates?’
    Alban looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Sure. Why do you ask?’
    â€˜Just interested. So it’s here that Statoil wants to build the unit?’
    â€˜It’s our preferred site, assuming there aren’t any problems.’
    â€˜Like worms?’
    Alban shrugged.
    The Frenchman seemed to have an aversion to the topic, thought Johanson. Together they watched as the robot swept over the alien world, overtaking spindly legged sea spiders and fish half buried in the sediment. Its cameras picked up colonies of sponges, translucent jellyfish and miniature cephalopods. At that depth the water wasn’t densely populated, but the seabed was home to all kinds of different creatures. After a while the terrain became pockmarked, coarse and covered with what appeared to be vast whip marks.
    â€˜Sediment slides,’ said Lund. ‘The Norwegian slope has seen a bit of movement in its time.’
    â€˜What are the rippled lines here?’ asked Johanson. Already the terrain had changed again.
    â€˜They’re from the currents. Let’s steer round to the edge of the plateau.’ She paused. ‘We’re pretty close to where we found the worms.’
    They stared at the screens. The lights had caught some large whitish areas.
    â€˜Bacterial mats,’ said Johanson.
    â€˜A sure sign of hydrates.’
    â€˜Over there,’ said the pilot.
    The screen showed a sheet of fissured whiteness - deposits of frozen methane. And something else. The room fell silent.
    A writhing pink mass obscured the hydrate. For a brief moment they saw individual