'I mean, the two of them were an item, weren't they?' he rasped. 'It must have been dreadful for him. And I was the one who insisted on opening the sluice. Of course, he shouldn't have attacked me, but I understand.'

Oliviera exchanged glances with Johanson and refrained from comment.

Huge lumps of jelly were floating in the tank, beginning to glow again. But what interested the three biologists wasn't so much the jelly as the cloud. The two and a half tonnes of organic matter that Li's men had scooped up from the well deck included large quantities of dissociated jelly. Now big clumps of aggregated matter and countless individual amoebas filled the tank, while a robot flitted among them, armed with an array of sensors that monitored the chemical composition of the water and transmitted the data to the screens on the desk. The skirt of the robot was lined with tubes that, at the push of a button, could be extended into the water, opened, closed and returned to the rosette. The entire contraption was scarcely bigger than the Spherobot. It was robust, yet manoeuvrable.

Johanson sat at the control desk like the captain of a spaceship, waiting with his hands round the joysticks. The lights in the lab had been dimmed as low as possible to allow them to see what was happening. Before their eyes, the jelly was recovering. The lumps of matter were already glowing more intensely, pulsating with currents of blue light.

'This is it,' whispered Oliviera. 'It's about to start aggregating.'

Johanson steered the robot under one of the lumps, opened a test-tube and pushed it into the substance. The edge of the tube was razor-sharp: it sliced into the jelly, collected a sample, sealed itself automatically and retreated to the rosette. The clump changed shape slightly, swathed in blue mist. Johanson waited for a few seconds, then repeated the procedure elsewhere.

Pinpricks of light sparkled inside the jelly. The clump was about the size of a fully grown dolphin. Yes, thought Johanson, as he continued to fill the test-tubes with samples, that would be right: it was exactly the size of a dolphin. Although, actually, it wasn't merely the size of a dolphin: it was the shape of one too.

At that moment Oliviera said, 'Unbelievable – it looks like a dolphin.'

Johanson almost forgot that he was supposed to be steering the robot. He watched, fascinated, as other clumps of jelly changed shape too. Some looked like sharks, others squid.

'How are they doing it?' asked Rubin.

'They must be programmed,' said Johanson. 'It's the only explanation.'

'But how do they know how to do it?'

'They must have learned.'

'How, though?'

'Just think,' said Oliviera. 'If they can copy different shapes and movements, they must be masters of disguise.'

'Oh, I don't know about that.' Johanson sounded skeptical. 'I'm not convinced that what we're seeing is mimicry. I'd say it's more a case of them, uh… remembering.'

'Remembering?'

'Well, you know what happens in our brains when we think: specific neurons light up so you get networks and connections. Patterns emerge. Our brains can't change shape, but the neural networks do. If you could read them, you could tell what a person is thinking.'

'So the jelly's thinking of a dolphin?'

'It doesn't look like a dolphin,' objected Rubin.

'Sure it-'Johanson stopped short. Rubin was right. The dolphin shape had gone. Now it was more like a skate, wings beating slowly as it ascended through the water. The tips of the wings grew slender feelers, and it turned into a snake-like creature. The jelly flew apart. Suddenly thousands of tiny fish were flitting through the water in synchrony, then the swarm came together and the jelly morphed again, accelerating through a series of changes as though it were running through a programme. In milliseconds familiar forms gave way to strange shapes. The other clumps of jelly had succumbed to the frenzy as well. They were moving towards each other. Then the familiar flashes of lightning came into play, and for one awful moment Johanson thought he saw a human body among the rapid succession of shapes.

It all streamed together, lumps of jelly and wisps of cloud.

'It's aggregating!' croaked Rubin, eyes gleaming as he stared at the display on the screen. A stream of data flowed across it. 'There's a new substance in the water. A compound!'

Johanson swooped through the imploding universe with the robot, taking samples as he went. It was like a rally. How many could he collect? When should he retreat? The mass seemed to have regained its original strength. A hub formed, then it all collapsed inwards. They'd already observed the phenomenon in miniature, but now it was occurring on a far larger scale. An organism was forming from a host of amoebas. It didn't appear to have eyes, ears or any other sensory organs, or a heart, brain or gut, yet the homogeneous lump was somehow capable of complex processes.

A giant form emerged. At least half of the jelly from the well deck had been pumped back into the sea, but what remained was still the size of a Transit van. Through the oval window of the tank they watched as the jelly clustered and hardened. Johanson whisked the robot to the edge of the activity where blue streams were racing towards the hub. Three of the test-tubes were still empty. He directed them out of the rosette and launched another foray into the mass.

It sprang back at lightning speed, sprouting dozens of tentacles and seizing the intruder. Johanson lost control of the robot. Immobilised, it was trapped in the grip of the creature, which sank towards the bottom of the tank, producing a clumpy foot on which to settle. All of a sudden it looked like an enormous mushroom with a crown of rubbery arms.

'Shit,' whispered Oliviera. 'You were too slow.'

Rubin's fingers sped over his keyboard. I've got all kinds of data coming up,' he said. 'A heady molecular mix. The jelly's using a pheromone. So I was right!'

'Anawak was right,' Oliviera corrected him. 'Weaver was right.'

'Of course. What I meant was-'

'We were all right.'

'Exactly.'

'Is it anything we've seen before, Mick?' asked Johanson, without taking his eyes off the screen.

Rubin shook his head. 'Pass. The ingredients are familiar enough but I'd have to examine the recipe. We need those samples.'

Johanson watched as a thick stem wound its way out of the creature, producing a bush of tiny feelers at its tip. The stem bent over the robot. Its feelers swept over the gadget and the test-tubes.

It looked like a structured, deliberate investigation.

'Are you seeing what I'm seeing?' Oliviera peered at the screen. 'Is it trying to open the test-tubes?'

'They're pretty well sealed.' Johanson tried to wrest back control of the robot. The tentacles wrapped round it merely tightened.

'It seems to have fallen in love.' He sighed.

The feelers continued their investigation.

'Do you think it can see it?' asked Rubin.

'What with?' Oliviera shook her head. 'It can change shape but it can't grow eyes.'

'Maybe it doesn't need to,' said Johanson. 'Maybe it literally grasps its surroundings.'

'So do kids.' Rubin glanced at him doubtfully. 'But they've got brains to store the information. How does this stuff make sense of what it's grasped?'

The creature released the robot. Its feelers and tentacles slumped down and disappeared inside the main body. The organism flattened itself, spreading until the base of the tank was coated with a thin layer of jelly.

'The ostrich approach,' joked Oliviera. 'So it knows about that too.'

'Arrivederci,' said Johanson, and guided the robot into the garage.

COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER

'What are you trying to tell us?' Crowe rested her chin in her hands. As usual, a cigarette was smouldering between the index and middle fingers of her right hand, but this time it had barely been smoked. She didn't have time to puff at it. She and Shankar were struggling to make sense of the message from the yrr.