'Sir…'

'God's still holding his protective hand over the West, but if you stick your feet in the water you're bound to lose your toes. The worm colonies off the coasts of America and Asia are growing, and La Palma's on the point of collapse. Regimes are crumbling. Heaven knows who's going to inherit their armaments. We're not in a position to intervene.'

'In your last speech, sir-'

'Don't get me started. I spend all my waking hours coming up with impassioned statements. But do you think the speech writers use them? I don't believe they even understand what I'm trying to communicate to this country and to the rest of the world. Make the people feel confident, I keep telling them. The American people need to see the determination of their leader, to know he'll do whatever it takes to win this war, no matter how many faces the devil might show. I want the world to take heart. I'm not saying we should give them false hope – we have to prepare for the worst – but people should know that were going to get through this. I keep explaining that to the speechwriters, but when they try to sound reassuring it comes across as insincere and overblown. You can even hear that they're afraid. Do any of them listen to me?'

'The people are listening.' Li said firmly. 'The world's stopped listening to everyone else. It's just you and the Germans.'

'Which reminds me, the Germans…' The President's eyes narrowed. 'Is it true what I'm hearing, that the Germans have their own mission planned?'

Li almost fell off the treadmill. That was ridiculous. 'Of course not. We're in charge. The UN has handed us the reins. Sure, the Germans are coordinating the European effort, but we're working together. Take La Palma.'

'So why's the CIA been telling me this stuff?'

'Because Vanderbilt's been peddling lies.'

'Come on, Jude.'

'He's a game player, always has been.'

'My dear Jude, when the time comes for you to take your rightful place, Vanderbilt won't he anywhere in sight.'

Li exhaled slowly. She'd allowed herself to get emotional. For a moment her guard had slipped and she'd given too much away. That wasn't good. In future she'd have to watch herself. She couldn't afford to be drawn.

'Although,' she said, with a smile, 'I don't really see Jack as a problem. He's a partner.'

The President nodded. 'The Russians have sent us a team. They've been helping the CIA with detailed information from the Black Sea region. We're in close contact with the Chinese, and the stuff about Germany is probably nothing. I don't get the impression that they're trying to go it alone, but you know how rumours start at times like this. We should he thankful, really. It's a wonderful thing to see so many people from different nations uniting in God to drive the devil from the sea.' He passed his hands over his eyes. 'So how are we really doing, Jude? I didn't want to ask you in front of the others in case you had to put a gloss on things. I wanted to spare you that embarrassment I need you to be frank with me. How much longer?'

'Not long. We're on the verge of a breakthrough.'

'How long is not long?'

'Rubin says that if all goes to plan, he can be ready in a day or two. We got lucky in the lab. The yrr are using a pheromone to communicate. We already know how to synthesise it and we-'

'Skip the details. So, Rubin says he can handle it?'

'He's certain of it, sir,' said Li. 'And so am I.'

The President pursed his lips. 'I'm relying on you, Jude. Any problems with your scientists?'

'No,' she lied. 'Things couldn't be better.'

Why all the questions? Had Vanderbilt…

Get a grip, she told herself! He was only enquiring. It wasn't in Vanderbilt's interest to tell tales. The fat bastard had a malicious tongue, but he'd never say anything to make himself look bad. 'I can assure you, sir,' she said, 'that we're making good progress. I gave you my word that I'd settle this problem in all our interests, and I'm going to do just that. The United States will save the world. You will save the world.'

'Just like in the movies, huh?'

'Better than that.'

The President nodded bleakly. Then he flashed her a smile. It wasn't the broad grin of old, but there was still a hint of his indomitable spirit, for which she admired him. 'God be with you, Jude,' he said.

He hung up. Li stayed on her treadmill. All of a sudden she doubted that she could pull it off.

COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER

Whatever the message had to say about the creatures in the sea, Shankar's stomach was communicating his need of food so loudly that Crowe couldn't bear to listen to the rumbling any longer. She sent him to get something to eat.

'But I'm fine,' he insisted.

'You'll be doing me a favour,' said Crowe.

'We don't have time to eat.'

'I know. But a couple of skeletons aren't going to solve the problem. At least I've got my Lucky Strikes to keep me going. Go on, Murray. Come back fortified and see if you can belch out a few good ideas.'

Shankar left, and she was alone.

A bit of space was what she needed. It was nothing against Shankar – he was a brilliant scientist and a great help – but he specialised in acoustics. Second-guessing non-human thought patterns didn't come easily to him and, anyway, Crowe always had her best ideas when she was surrounded by nothing but smoke.

She lit a cigarette, and went through the problem again. H2O. We live in water.

The message looked like a woven design on a rug. A repeating pattern of H2O. The same motif again and again, yet each molecule of H2O was linked to an ancillary piece of data. Millions of pairs of data, one after the next. In graphic form, they appeared as lines. The obvious assumption was that the ancillary data described a characteristic of water or of something that lived in the water.

What would a yrr have to say about itself?

Water. But what else?

Crowe turned it over in her mind. Suddenly she thought of an analogy. Two statements. First statement: this is a bucket. Second statement: this is water. When you add them together: this is a bucket of water. The water molecules would all look identical, but the same wasn't true of the data on the bucket. The data describing the bucket would differ according to its form, texture and markings. A description of a bucket, broken down into thousands of individual statements, would be anything but uniform. Stating that the bucket was full of water would be easy. You just took each of the individual bucket statements and attached an ancillary statement: water.

Or, to put it another way, the statement H2O could be coupled with data describing something with no intrinsic connection to water. Like a bucket, for instance.

We live in water.

But where in the water? How could you describe the location of something that was devoid of fixed shape?

By describing what delimited it.

Coastlines and seabeds.

The empty spaces were the continents, bordered by coastlines.

Crowe's cigarette almost fell to the floor. She started punching commands into the keyboard. Suddenly she knew why the lines didn't make a picture: they weren't describing two dimensions, but three. You had to bend them to make them fit. Bend them until they turned into something three-dimensional.

A globe.

Planet Earth.

LAB

Johanson was still working on the tissue samples they'd taken from the yrr. After twelve hours of intensive work Oliviera had given up – she couldn't keep her eyes open, let alone look down a microscope. Over the past few nights she'd only had a few hours' sleep. Slowly but surely the mission was taking its toll. Their work was advancing in leaps and bounds, but the pressure was getting to them. Everyone responded differently. Greywolf had retreated to the well deck, where he took care of the three remaining dolphins, monitored the data from their sensors and kept himself to himself Some of the team were visibly tetchy, while others reacted more stoically. In Rubin's case, the stress seemed to take the form of migraines – which meant that once Oliviera had withdrawn for some hard-earned sleep, Johanson was left on his own in the half-light of the lab.