Greywolf hoisted Rubin into the air. The man's face was turning blue.

'That's enough, O'Bannon!'

Li strode out of the tunnel, surrounded by a group of soldiers.

I'll kill him,' Greywolf said calmly.

The commander in chief took a step forward and placed her hand round Greywolf's right wrist. 'No, you won't. I don't care what your grudge is against Rubin. His work is essential.'

'Not any more.'

'O'Bannon! Don't put me in the regrettable position of having to hurt you.'

Greywolf's eyes fixed on Li. He'd evidently decided that she meant what she said because he put Rubin down. The biologist fell to his knees, choking and spitting.

'Licia died because of him,' Greywolf said dully.

Li nodded. Suddenly her expression changed. 'Jack,' she said, almost gently, 'I'm sorry. I promise that she won't have died in vain.'

'People only ever die in vain,' he said wearily. He aimed away. 'Where are my dolphins?'

LI MARCHED ALONG the jetty with her men. Why hadn't Peak armed the squad with explosive ammunition from the start? Because no one could have predicted what would happen? Bullshit. It was exactly what she'd predicted – trouble. She hadn't known what form it would take, but she'd known it was coming. She'd expected it long before the scientists had arrived at the Chateau, and she'd prepared herself accordingly.

Only a few puddles remained in the basin. It was a scene of utter devastation. At the bottom of the pool, four metres below the jetty, lay the corpse of the orca, and the motionless bodies of some soldiers sprawled nearby. Three of the dolphins had disappeared. They'd probably left the boat while the sluice was still open.

'What a goddamn mess,' she said.

The shapeless mass at the bottom of the basin was barely moving. It was now white. The last few drops of water lingered around its edges, and the jelly sprouted tendrils that slid over the basin. The thing was dying. For all its unnerving ability to change shape and cast tentacles into the air, there was nothing it could do now. The surface of the mound was already showing signs of dissociation. Li had to remind herself that the stranded colossus wasn't a single organism but a conglomerate of billions of amoebas. Rubin was right; they had to save as much of it as possible. The faster they acted, the more of it would survive.

Anawak joined her without a word. Li continued to scan the wreckage in the pool. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a movement at the bottom of the basin. She walked to the end of the jetty and climbed down a ladder. Whatever had caught her attention was now hidden from Anawak's view. She made her way past Roscovitz's dangling body, or what was left of it. Anawak heard her cry out. She darted round the mound of jelly. Anawak came running and almost stumbled over Browning. The technician was staring at them from under the dissolving mass.

'Give me a hand,' said Anawak.

Together they pulled the body from under the creature. The jelly clung stubbornly to its legs, unwilling to let it go. It struck Li that Browning's corpse was unusually heavy and the dead woman's face looked almost varnished. Li bent down to take a closer look.

Browning sat up.

'Shit!'

Li jumped back, and watched as Browning's face twitched. The mouth contorted in a grimace. The technician flung up her arms and fell backwards. Her fingers clawed at the ground. Her legs kicked out, her back arched and she banged her head from side to side.

'But that's impossible – impossible…'

Li was tough, but she was filled with horror. She continued to stare at the living corpse. Anawak crouched beside Browning's body. 'Take a look at this, Jude,' he said softly.

She fought back her revulsion and took a step forward.

'See,' he said.

She peered more closely. The shiny coating on Browning's face had begun to dribble away, and in a flash Li realised what it was. Dissociating jelly ran over the technician's shoulders and neck, disappearing into her ears. 'It's inside her,' she whispered.

'The jelly's trying to control her.' Anawak nodded. His face was ashen – a dramatic transformation for an Inuk. 'It's probably spreading through her body and acquainting itself with the structure. But Browning isn't a whale. The residual electricity in her brain is reacting to the jelly's attempt to take charge.' He paused. 'It'll be over in a moment.'

Li said nothing.

'It's trying out all the functions in her brain,' said Anawak, 'but it doesn't know how humans work.' He stood up. 'Browning's dead, General. What you're seeing is the final stage of an experiment gone wrong.'

HEEREMA, La Palma, Canary Islands

Bohrmann was looking skeptically at the pressure suits in the dive station – two silvery body pods with helmets and in-built dome ports, segmented arms and legs, and manipulators for hands. They were hanging like puppets in a large open steel container, staring fixedly into space. 'I didn't know we were going to the moon,' he said.

'Gairhard!' Frost laughed. 'You'd be surprised. At four hundred metres below sea level you might as well be. Anyway, you volunteered to come along, so you'd better not start complaining.'

Originally Frost had asked van Maarten to accompany him but, as Bohrmann had pointed out, the Dutchman knew more than anyone else about the Heerema and would be needed on board. It was a silent admission that the dive could go wrong.

'Besides,' Bohrmann had added, 'I don't want to have to watch while the two of you mess around down there. You might be excellent divers, but I'm the one who knows about hydrates.'

'That's why we need you here,' Frost had argued. 'You're our resident expert. If anything were to happen to you, we'd be stuck.'

'Hardly. You'd have Erwin, remember? He knows at least as much as I do – probably more.'

Suess had just flown in from Kiel.

'You do realise that this is a deep-sea dive and not a day out at the pool,' said van Maarten. 'Have you dived before?'

'On numerous occasions.'

'I mean, have you ever dived to any depth?

Bohrmann hesitated. 'I went to fifty metres once. Just regular scuba, though. But I'm in great condition. And I'm not stupid.'

Frost thought for a moment. 'Two strong men should do the trick,' he said. 'We'll take an explosive charge and-'

'An explosive charge?' Bohrmann was horrified. 'That's exactly the kind of thing I mean!'

'OK, OK!' Frost held out his hands in surrender. 'I can tell we're going to need your help – you're in. But don't come crying to me when you decide you don't like it.'

Now they were gathered in the starboard-side pontoon, eighteen metres below the ocean's surface. The rest of the pontoon had been flooded, but there was a small compartment that van Maarten had kept dry. It was accessible from the main platform via ladders, and had been used to launch the robot. Before the operation had begun van Maarten had realised that at some point it might be necessary to send down divers to depths of several hundred metres, and with that in mind, he'd ruled out conventional divesuits. He'd ordered the equipment from a firm with a reputation for pioneering dive technology – Nuytco Research in Vancouver.

'They look heavy,' said Bohrmann.

'Ninety kilos each. They're mainly titanium.' Frost ran his hand affectionately over the dome part of one of the helmets. 'Yeah, exosuits are pretty darned heavy – not that you'll notice when you're under water, of course. You can move up and down the water column as often as you please. You've got your own oxygen supply, and you're cocooned in the suit, so there's no risk of nitrogen bubbles forming in your blood, and you don't have the hassle of decompression chambers.'