CONTROL ROOM

Li listened as Weaver told Anawak about Johanson's dilemma. She sat perfectly still in front of the monitors. Quite the lovely couple, she thought.

She was less amused by the topic of their chat. Rubin had endangered the entire mission. She could only hope that Johanson wouldn't remember any more of the details that should have been wiped forever from his brain. But Weaver and Anawak were gossiping about it.

Come on, kids, she thought, why waste your time on rubbish like that? It's just a horror story from Uncle Sigur. You could always hop into bed together. A blind man could see that you want to. But you're too inept to make a move. Li sighed. She had been forced to witness so many clumsy attempts at intimacy since men and women had started serving together in the navy. It was always so obvious. Tedious and vulgar. Sooner or later everyone wanted to jump into bed with each other. Surely they could have come up with something better to do than trying to get inside Johanson's head?

'We're going to have to get used to the idea that Rubin's cover could be blown,' she said to Vanderbilt.

The CIA boss was standing behind her, mug of coffee in hand. They were alone in the room. Peak was on the well deck, trying to chivvy along the clean-up operation and vet the state of the equipment.

'Then what?'

'There'll be an obvious decision to take.'

'We're not ready to do anything of the kind. Rubin's still busy. Besides, it would be nice not to have to.'

'What's wrong, Jack? Don't tell me you've got scruples.'

'Take it easy, honey. This is your damn plan, but it's my responsibility to make certain it works. My scruples won't get in the way. You can depend on that' He chuckled. 'After all, I've got my reputation to think of.'

Li turned to face him. 'You have?'

Vanderbilt slurped his coffee noisily. 'You know what I like about you, Jude? You're so darned nasty. You make me feel like a nice guy – and that's really saying something.'

COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER

Crowe and Shankar couldn't make sense of it. The computer screen was covered in labyrinthine images. Parallel lines suddenly diverged, moving outwards, arching into curves, then uniting into one. Large empty spaces of varying sizes yawned between them. A series of similar images made up the Scratch signal. They looked as though they should fit together in one big picture, yet somehow they didn't. The lines didn't match. And, so far, Crowe didn't have a clue as to what they might mean.

'Water is the baseline information,' pondered Shankar, 'and each of the water molecules is coupled with ancillary data. But what could they be describing? Something to do with water?'

'Such as?'

'Temperature.'

'I guess, or salinity.'

'Or it might have nothing to do with physical or chemical properties. The data might be describing the yrr. The lines could be population densities.'

'You mean they'd be telling us where they live?'

Shankar rubbed his chin. 'Doesn't seem likely, does it?'

'I don't know, Murray. Would we tell them where our cities are?'

'No, but the yrr don't think like us.'

'Thanks for reminding me.' Crowe produced a wreath of smoke. 'OK, let's start again. Water. That part of the message is straightforward enough. Water is our world.''

'Which corresponds exactly to the message we sent them.'

'True. We told them that we live on land. Then we described our DNA and our body shape.'

'Supposing they've responded point by point,' said Shankar. 'Could the lines represent their shape?'

Crowe pursed her lips. 'They don't have one – I mean, it hardly characterises them. They've got more of a definable shape when they're a collective, but that makes it even harder to pin them down: yrr-jelly has thousand of shapes, and none to call its own.'

'So shape's out. What other pieces of information might be of interest. Size of population?'

'Murray! There'd be so many zeros behind that number you could scrawl it all over this ship and still run out of space. Besides, they're continually dividing or dying … I bet even they don't know how many of them there are.' Crowe waggled the cigarette between her teeth. 'Individual amoebas don't matter. What counts is the whole. The idea of the yrr, if you like. The essence of yrr. The yrr genome.'

Shankar peered at her over the rim of his glasses. 'We only told them that our biochemistry was based on DNA. You'd expect them to tell us, "Ours too". Surely they wouldn't have sequenced their genome for us?'

'They might have done.'

'But why?'

'Because it's pretty much the only defining statement they could make. DNA and aggregation are at the heart of their existence. Everything else is based round that.'

'Fine, but how could they describe it, if it's constantly changing?'

Crowe was back to staring helplessly at the lines. 'What about the map idea again, then?'

'A map of what?'

'Who knows?' She sighed. 'Let's take it from the beginning again. H2O. We live in water…'

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Li had set the treadmill to maximum speed. Under normal circumstances she would have done her bit for team spirit and worked out in the gym. On this occasion, though, she didn't want to be disturbed. It was time for her daily satellite consultation with Offutt Air Force Base.

'How's morale, then, Jude?'

'Excellent, sir. The attack was a serious blow, but we're in control of the situation.'

'And everyone's still motivated?'

'More than ever before.'

'Well, I'm concerned.' The President was sitting all on his own in the war room at the air-force base. 'Boston's been fully evacuated. We've had to write off New York and Washington. And there's a new wave of horror stories from Philadelphia and Norfolk.'

'I know.'

'This country's going to hell, Jude. There isn't a single person in the world who doesn't seem to know about the creatures in the sea. Someone couldn't keep their mouth shut, and I'd like to know who.'

'What does it matter, sir?'

'What does it matter?' The President slammed his hand on the desk. 'The United States of America has agreed to lead this operation. I'm not about to tolerate some asshole from the UN taking matters into his own hands. They're all so busy trying to push their ridiculous little countries to the forefront. Have you seen what's going on out there? Things are escalating beyond our control.'

'I know exactly what's going on.'

'It could be that one of your guys has talked.'

'With all due respect, sir, there's no reason why other people shouldn't have arrived at the yrr hypothesis on their own. Besides, from what I've heard, the hulk of speculation still centers around natural disasters and international terrorism. Only this morning some scientist from Pyongyang said-'

'I know what he said.' The President brushed aside her point. 'He said we were the bad guys. Apparently we're skulking round in silent submarines attacking our own cities so we can pin it on the Commies.' He leaned forward. 'Well, they can say what they like. I don't give a damn about being popular. I just want to see this problem solved. I need some options, Jude. There isn't a single country left with the strength to help anyone else. Even the United States of America has been forced to beg for aid. We're being invaded and poisoned. The population is fleeing inland. I'm having to shelter in this goddamn security bunker like some kind of mole. We've got anarchy and looting on the streets, the military and security forces are hopelessly overstretched, and all we can offer our citizens is contaminated food supplies and drugs that don't work.'