26 April

Kiel, Germany

The metal door slid open. Bohrmann's gaze travelled up the imposing walls of the deep-sea simulation chamber. It was a way of taming the ocean, albeit in miniature. Created by man from second-hand experience, the world inside it was an idealised copy of the real thing. People knew less about reality than they did about its substitutes. Children in America drew six-legged chickens because drumsticks came in packs of six, while adults drank milk from a carton, and recoiled at the sight of an udder. Their experience of the world was stunted, but it only fuelled their arrogance. Bohrmann was enthused by the simulator and the possibilities it offered, but imitating life rather than analysing it could make science blind. Understanding the planet was no longer enough for most people; they were intent on trying to change it. In the Disneyland of botched science, human intervention was forever being justified in new and disturbing ways.

He was struck by the same thought whenever he came here: they could never tell for sure what science might achieve, only what it should never have attempted – and no one wanted to hear about that.

Two days after the accident on the Sonne, Bohrmann was in Kiel. The sediment cores and cold-storage tanks had been sent express freight to the care of Erwin Suess. He and his team of geochemists and biologists had lost no time in examining the expedition's haul. By the time Bohrmann had returned to the institute, the tests had begun. For twenty-four hours they'd been working non-stop but now their efforts had been rewarded. The simulator seemed to have revealed the truth about the worms.

Suess was waiting for him at the control panel, with Heiko Sahling and Yvonne Mirbach, a molecular biologist specialising in deep-sea bacteria.

'We've put together a computer simulation,' said Suess, 'not that we need it – it's for everyone else.'

'So this isn't purely a Statoil problem, then,' said Bohrmann.

'No.'

Suess dragged the cursor towards an icon and clicked. A computer graphic appeared on the screen. It was a cross-section of a gas pocket covered with a layer of hydrates a hundred metres thick. Sahling pointed to a thin dark line on the surface. 'This layer represents the worms,' he said.

'We'll zoom in a bit,' said Suess.

The picture changed to show a close-up of the surface and the worms took shape. Suess carried on zooming until a single specimen was in view, a cartoon-like representation, with highlighted sections.

'Those red marks represent sulphur bacteria,' explained Mirbach. 'The blue ones stand for archaea.'

'Endo and ectosymbionts,' muttered Bohrmann. 'One set colonises the inside, the other settles on the skin.'

'Right. It's a consortium. Different species of bacteria working in tandem.'

'The scientists who produced those reports for Johanson had realised that too,' said Suess. 'They wrote page after page on worms and symbiosis. But they drew the wrong conclusions. No one stopped to ask what the consortia were doing. All this time we've been working on the premise that the worms were destabilising the ice, even though we knew it was impossible. Now we know it wasn't them.'

'The worms are just transporters?' said Bohrmann.

'Right.' Suess clicked on another icon. 'Here's how you got your blowout.'

The cartoon worm began to move. The pincer-like jaws sprang open, and it burrowed into the ice.

'Now watch this.'

Bohrmann stared at the picture as Suess zoomed closer. Tiny organisms became visible, boring into the ice. Then, all of a sudden-

'Oh, my God,' said Bohrmann.

No one breathed.

'If the same thing's happening along the length of the slope…' said Sahling.

'Which it is,' said Bohrmann dully. 'It's happening everywhere simultaneously, as far as we can tell. We should have figured this out on the Sonne. The hydrates were dripping with bacterial slime.'

He wasn't surprised by what he had seen. He'd hoped his fears would prove unfounded, but the truth was worse than he'd imagined. Assuming it was true…

'Each individual process is an established phenomenon,' Suess was saying. 'It's the combined effect that's new. When you isolate the details, we've seen it all before. But put it together, and it's obvious why the hydrates would dissociate.' He yawned. It seemed inappropriate to do so after what they'd witnessed, but none of them had slept for more than a day. 'What puzzles me is why the worms are there at all.'

'It beats me too,' said Bohrmann, 'and I've been thinking about it for weeks.'

'So who do we tell?' asked Sahling.

'Hmm.' Suess tapped his lip. 'It's confidential, right – We should tell Johanson first.'

'Why not go straight to Statoil?' said Sahling.

'No,' said Bohrmann, firmly. 'Definitely not.'

'Surely they wouldn't hush it up?'

'Johanson's our best option. From what I can tell, he's not on anyone's side. We should leave it to him to-'

'We don't have time to leave anything to anyone,' Sahling broke in. 'If the situation on the slope is even half as critical as the simulation suggests, the Norwegian government should be informed.'

'But you can't tell the Norwegians without informing all the other North Sea states.'

'So much the better – and there's Iceland too.'

'Hang on.' Suess flapped a hand to quieten them. 'This isn't some kind of crusade.'

'That's not the point.'

'Oh, but it is. So far, we've only got the simulation.'

'Sure, but-'

'No, he's right,' Bohrmann interrupted. 'We can't go putting the wind up people when we're not even sure ourselves. I mean, we know what's causing it, but as for the consequences – that's just speculation. All we can say right now is that vast quantities of methane are likely to escape.'

'You must be joking,' said Sahling. 'We know exactly what'll happen.'

Absentmindedly Bohrmann stroked his moustache, which had started to grow back. 'Let's say we go public. We make all the headlines – and then?'

'What would happen if the papers announced that a meteorite was going to hit the Earth?' asked Suess.

'Is that a valid comparison?'

'I'd say so.'

'I don't think it's for us to decide,' said Mirbach. 'Let's take this one step at a time. First, we'll tell Johanson. He's the one we've been dealing with and, from a scholarly viewpoint, it's his due.'

'Why?'

'He discovered the worms.'

'Actually, Statoil found them. But whatever. We tell Johanson, then what?'

'We get the governments on board.'

'We go public?'

'Why not? These days, everything's dealt with in the open. We're told about nuclear programmes in North Korea and Iran, as well as idiots releasing anthrax – not to mention BSE, swine fever and GM food. In France, dozens or maybe hundreds of people are dying because of contaminated shellfish – and they're not trying to keep it quiet, are they?'

'But if the public hears us talking about a Storegga Slide…' said Bohrmann.

'There's not enough evidence to be sure it's really that,' said Suess.

'The simulation demonstrates how rapidly dissociation occurs. I'd say that's all we need to know.'

'But it doesn't prove what happens.'

Bohrmann was about to argue, but he knew Suess was right. If they went public before their case was watertight, the oil lobby could dismiss the matter out of hand. Their theory would collapse. It was still too soon. 'All right,' he said. 'How long till we get a firm answer?'

Suess frowned. 'Another week, I'd say.'

'That's a bloody long time,' said Sahling.

'I'd say it's pretty damn fast,' Mirbach argued. 'You can spend months twiddling your thumbs for a taxonomy report on a worm, but we-'

'It's too long in the circumstances?