Read Online The Swarm by Frank Schätzing - Free Book Online Page A

passing a group ofoil workers whom Jörensen greeted. Their footsteps echoed in the steel stairwell.
    â€˜Right, this is the end of the line. You’ve got a choice. Either we go left, grab a coffee and chat for half an hour, or right, to the boat.’
    â€˜Coffee sounds good,’ said Johanson.
    â€˜We haven’t time.’ Lund told him.
    â€˜The Thorvaldson won’t leave without you,’ said Jörensen. ‘You could easily—’
    â€˜I don’t want to have to race there. Next time I’ll stay longer, I promise. And I’ll bring Sigur too. It’s about time someone played you into a corner.’
    Jörensen laughed, and Lund and Johanson followed him outside. Wind blasted their faces. They were at the bottom edge of the accommodation module, standing on a thick steel grating, through which they caught glimpses of billowing waves. A constant hissing and droning filled the air. Jörensen led them towards another short gangway. An orange launch was suspended from a crane. ‘What are you doing on the Thorvaldson? ’ he asked casually. ‘I heard Statoil might be building further out.’
    â€˜It’s possible,’ said Lund.
    â€˜A new platform?’
    â€˜Not necessarily. Maybe a SWOP.’
    Single Well Offshore Production Systems were enormous vessels similar to tankers with their own oil-recovery facility, used in depths of more than three hundred and fifty metres. A flexible flowline kept the vessel in position over the well while the oil was pumped into the hold, which served as a temporary storage tank.
    They got into the launch. It was spacious inside, with several rows of benches. Apart from the helmsman they were the only ones on board. The boat jerked as the crane lowered them into the sea. Cracked grey concrete flashed past the side windows, then they were bobbing on the waves. The crane detached itself from the boat and they motored away from the platform.
    The Thorvaldson was now in view, recognizable, like most research vessels, by its boom, used for manoeuvring submersibles and other equipment into the water. The launch drew up alongside it and docked. Johanson and Lund climbed up a steel ladder, fixed securely to the vessel. As he struggled with his suitcase, it occurred to Johanson thatmaybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to pack half of his wardrobe. Lund, who was ahead, glanced round. ‘You thought you were here for a holiday, did you?’ she asked.
    Johanson sighed. ‘I was beginning to think you hadn’t noticed.’
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    Every large landmass in the world was bounded by a relatively shallow strip of water, no more than two hundred metres deep, known as the continental shelf. Technically, it was the underwater continuation of the continental plate. In some parts of the world it extended only a short way into the sea, but in others it continued for hundreds of kilometres until it dipped towards the ocean’s floor, either falling away sharply or inclining gently in a terraced slope. The depths beyond the shelf were an unknown universe, more mysterious to science than outer space.
    The shelf regions, however, had long been conquered by mankind. Humans were land animals, but needed water to survive, which was why two-thirds of the world’s population could be found within sixty kilometres of the shore.
    While oceanographic charts showed the shelf around Portugal and northern Spain as a narrow strip of seabed, the perimeter of the British Isles and Scandinavia extended into the water for some distance, so that the two regions merged together to form the North Sea, a relatively shallow expanse of water that averaged between twenty and 150 metres in depth. In its present form it dated back barely ten thousand years, and at first glance there was nothing remarkable about it, with its complex currents and fluctuating water temperatures. In the world economy, though, it played a central role. The North Sea was