'I mean the ice on top.'

Lund typed something. A map of the seabed appeared on her screen. 'See the light patches? Those are the deposits.'

'Can you point out Victor's current position?'

'About here.' She indicated an area of the map covered with light patches.

'OK. Steer it this way, along and then up.'

The floodlights found a section of seabed devoid of worms. After a while the ground sloped upwards and then the steep wall appeared.

'Take us higher,' said Lund. 'Nice and slowly.'

Within a few moments they were back to the same picture as before. Pink tubular bodies with white bristles.

'Just as you'd expect,' muttered Johanson. 'Assuming your map is right, this is the site of the main belt of hydrates. The bacteria will be grazing the methane here… and being gobbled by the worms.'

'How about the numbers? Would you have expected to see millions?'

'No.'

Lund leaned back in her chair. 'All right,' she said, to the man controlling the articulated arm. 'Let's set Victor down for a moment. We'll pick up a batch of worms and take a look at the area.'

IT WAS GONE TEN when Johanson heard a knock at his door. Lund came in and flopped into the little armchair, which, together with a tiny table, was the only comfort the cabin offered.

'My eyes ache,' she said. 'Alban's taken over for a while.'

Her gaze wandered over to the cheese and the open bottle of Bordeaux. 'I should have guessed.' She laughed. 'So that's why you rushed off.'

Johanson had left the control room thirty minutes earlier.

'Brie de Meaux, Taleggio, Munster, a mature goat's cheese and some Fontina from the mountains in Piedmont,' he said. 'Plus a baguette and some butter. Would you like a glass of wine?'

'Do you need to ask? What is it?'

'A Pauillac. You'll have to forgive me for not decanting it. The Thorvaldson doesn't have any respectable crystal. Did you see anything interesting?'

He handed her a glass, and she took a gulp. 'The bloody things have set up camp on the hydrates. They're everywhere.'

Johanson sat down opposite her on the edge of the bed and buttered a piece of baguette. 'Remarkable.'

Lund helped herself to some cheese. 'The others are starting to think we should be worried. Especially Alban.'

'So there weren't as many last time?'

'No. I mean, more than enough for my liking – but that put me in a minority of one.'

Johanson smiled at her. 'People with good taste are always outnumbered.'

'Tomorrow morning Victor will be back on board with some specimens. You're welcome to have a look at them.' She stood up, chewing, and peered out of the porthole. The sky had cleared. A ray of moonlight shone on the water, illuminating the rolling waves. 'I've looked at the video sequence hundreds of times, trying to work out what we saw. Alban's convinced it was a fish… and if it was, it must have been a manta or something even bigger. But it didn't seem to have a shape.'

'Maybe it was a reflection,' Johanson suggested.

'It can't have been – it was just a few metres away, right on the edge of the beam, and it disappeared in a flash, as thought it couldn't stand the light or was afraid.'

'A shoal can twitch away like that. When fish swim close together they can look like a -'

'It wasn't a shoal, Sigur. It was practically flat. It was a wide two-dimensional thing, sort of. . . glassy. Like a giant jellyfish.'

'There you are, then.'

'But it wasn't a jellyfish.'

They ate in silence for a while.

'You lied to Jörensen,' Johanson said suddenly. 'You're not going to build a SWOP. Whatever it is you're developing, you won't need any workers.'

Lund lifted her glass, took a sip and put it down carefully. 'True.'

'So why lie to him? Were you worried it would break his heart?'

'Maybe.'

'You'll do that anyway. You've no use for oil workers, have you?'

'Listen, Sigur, I don't like lying to him but, hell, this whole industry is having to adapt and jobs will be lost. Jörensen knows that the workforce on Gullfaks C will be cut by nine-tenths. It costs less to refit an entire platform than it does to pay so many people. Statoil is toying with the idea of getting rid of all the workers on Gullfaks B. We could operate it from another platform, but it's scarcely worthwhile.'

'Surely you're not trying to tell me that your business isn't worth running?'

'The offshore business was only really worth running at the beginning of the seventies when OPEC sent oil prices soaring. Since the mid-eighties the yield has fallen. Things'll get tough for northern Europe when the North Sea wells run dry, so that's why we're drilling further out, using ROV's like Victor, and AUVs.'

The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle functioned in much the same way as Victor, but without an umbilical cord of cable to connect it to the ship. It was like a planetary scout, able to venture into the most inhospitable regions. Highly flexible and mobile, it could also make a limited range of decisions. With its invention, oil companies were suddenly a step closer to building and maintaining subsea stations at depths of up to five or six thousand metres.

'You don't have to apologise,' said Johanson, as he topped up their glasses. 'It's not your fault.'

'I'm not apologising,' Lund snapped. 'Anyway, it's everyone's fault. If we didn't waste so much energy, we wouldn't have these problems.'

'We would – just not right now. But your environmental concern is touching.'

'What of it?' She bristled at the jibe. 'Oil companies are capable of learning from their mistakes.'

'But which ones?'

'Over the next few decades we'll be grappling with the problem of dismantling over six hundred uneconomic, out-of-date platforms. Do you have any idea what that costs? Billions! And by then the shelf will be out of oil. So don't make out that we're irresponsible.'

'OK, OK!'

'Unmanned subsea processors are the only way forward. Without them, Europe will be dependent on the pipelines in the Near East and South America.'

'I don't doubt it. I just wonder if you know what you're up against.'

'Meaning?'

'Well, massive technological challenges for a start.'

'We're aware of that.'

'You're planning to process huge quantities of oil and corrosive chemicals under extreme pressure, with little provision for human intervention…' Johanson hesitated '. . . you don't really know what it's like in the depths.'

'That's why we're finding out.'

'Like today? It's not enough. It's like Granny coming home from holiday with some snapshots and saying she knows about the places that she's been. Basically, you're interfering with a system you simply don't understand.'

'Not that again,' groaned Lund.

'You think I'm wrong?'

'I can spell ecosystem backwards. I can even do it in my sleep. Is this some kind of anti-oil vendetta?'

'No. I'm just in favour of getting to know the world around us, and I'm pretty certain you're repeating your mistakes. At the end of the sixties you filled the North Sea with platforms – and now they're in the way. You need to make sure you're not so hasty in the deep sea.'

'If we're being so hasty, why did I send you the worms?'

'You're right. Ego te absolvo.'

Johanson decided to change the subject. 'Kare Sverdrup seems a nice guy.'

'Do you think so?'

'Absolutely.'

Lund swirled the wine in her glass. 'It's all very new,' she said.

Neither said anything for a while.

'In love?' asked Johanson, eventually.

'Me or him?'

'You.'

'Hmm.' She smiled. 'I think so.'

'You think so?'

'I work in exploration. I guess I'm still feeling my way.'

It was midnight when she left. At the door she looked back at the empty glasses. 'A few weeks ago I'd have been yours,' she said, sounding almost regretful.