Empire of the Ants (19 page)

They licked their wounds. A few naive youngsters held in their mandibles one, two or three of their legs which had been torn off in combat and which they had miraculously recovered. They had to be told they could not be stuck back on.

In the big wrestling hall on the forty-fifth floor of the basement, soldiers re-enacted the successive episodes of the Battle of Poppy Hill for the benefit of those who had not been there. One half played the part of the dwarves, the other the russet ants.

They mimed the attack of the Forbidden City of La-chola-kan; the russet charge; the struggle with the infected heads; the false flight; the entry of the tanks; their rout by the dwarf squares; the assault on the hill; the lines of gunners; and the final fray.

There were many workers there. They commented on each scene of the re-enactment. One point in particular held their attention, probably because their caste played a part in it. They felt the tank technique should not be abandoned but used more intelligently and not just in frontal charges.

103,683rd had got off lightly compared with the other survivors of the battle. She had only lost a leg, a trifle when you have six of them at your disposal. It was hardly worth mentioning. The 56th female and 327th male, who had been unable to take part in the war, drew her aside and made antenna contact.

Has there been any trouble here?

No, the rock-scented warriors all took part in the fighting. We stayed inside the Forbidden City in case the dwarves got this far. How about out there? Did you see the secret weapon?

No.

What do you mean, no? There's been talk of a mobile acacia branch.

103,683rd explained that the only new weapon they had been confronted with was the dreadful
alternaria
but that they had found a means of protecting themselves against it.

It can't be that that killed the first expedition,
remarked the male.
Alternaria
takes a long time to kill. Besides, he was certain none of the bodies he had examined bore the least trace of the deadly spores.
What now?

Disconcerted, they decided to prolong their AC. They really needed to think things through. Ideas and opinions bubbled up again:

Why had the dwarves not resorted to the weapon that had wiped out the twenty-eight explorers? After all, they had done everything in their power to win. If they had possessed such a weapon, they would not have hesitated to use it. But what if they did not possess it? It might be pure chance that they always arrived before or after the secret weapon had struck.

This hypothesis seemed to square fairly well with the attack on La-chola-kan. As for the first expedition, traces of dwarf passport scents might very well have been left to lead the Tribe down the wrong trail. In whose interest would it have been to do that? If the dwarves were not responsible for all the trouble, then who was? It must be the other implacable adversary, the hereditary enemy, the termites.

There was nothing fantastic about the suspicion. For some time, isolated soldiers from the big termite hill in the east had been crossing the river and stepping up their incursions into the federal hunting grounds. Yes, it was surely the termites. They had managed to set the dwarf and the russet ants at one another's throats. That way, they got rid of both without striking a blow. With their enemies much weakened, all they had to do was grab the anthills.

And the rock-scented warriors? Mere mercenary spies in the service of the termites.

The more their common-thought circulated between their three brains, the more subtle it became and the more convinced they were that it was the termites of the east who possessed the mysterious 'secret weapon'.

But they were disturbed and torn from their conference by the Tribe's general scents. The city had decided to turn the interwar period to good account by bringing forward the Festival of Rebirth. It would take place the next day.

All castes to their places! Males and females, to the gourd rooms to fill up with sugar! Gunners, reload your abdomens in the organic chemistry rooms!

Before leaving her companions, the 103,683rd soldier let out a pheromone:

Enjoy
your copulation! Don't worry, I’
ll carry on with the investigation. When you're in the sky, I'll set out for the big termite hill of the east.

They had hardly separated before the two killers appeared, the big brute and the little one with the limp. They scraped the walls and recovered the volatile pheromones of their conversation.

After the tragic failure of Inspector Galin and the firemen, Nicolas had been put in an orphanage only a few hundred metres from the rue des Sybarites.

Besides actual orphans, children who had been rejected or abused by their parents were also packed in there, the human race being one of the few species capable of abandoning or mistreating its offspring. Young human beings spent testing years there, being kicked around for their own good. As they grew up they grew tough, and most of them ended up joining the regular army.

The first day, Nicolas stayed on the balcony, looking dejectedly at the forest. The next day, though, he went back to his safe television routine. The set was installed in the dining room and the supervisors were glad to get rid of the 'trouble-makers' by letting them watch it mindlessly for hours. In the evening, Jean and Philippe, two other orphans, questioned him in the dormitory:

'What's up with you?'

'Nothing.'

'Go on, tell. No-one comes here just like that at your age. How old are you, anyway?'

'I know why he's here. His parents are supposed to have been eaten by ants.'

'Bullshit. Who told you that?'

'Someone, so there. We'll tell you who if you tell us what happened to your parents.' 'Get stuffed.'

Jean, the bigger of the two, grabbed Nicolas by the shoulders while Philippe twisted his arm behind his back.

Nicolas lashed out and pulled himself free, then chopped Jean over the back of the neck (as he had seen done on television in a Chinese film). Jean started to cough and Philippe returned to the attack by trying to strangle Nicolas, who elbowed him in the stomach. He doubled up on his knees while Nicolas, freed of his aggressor, once more confronted Jean by spitting in his face. Jean dived and bit Nicolas s calf until it bled. Then the three young human beings rolled under the beds fighting like fishwives until

Nicolas was finally bested.

'Tell us what happened to your parents or we'll make you eat ants.'

Jean had thought that up in the heat of the moment and was quite pleased with himself. He kept the new boy pinned to the ground while Philippe ran to look for a few ants, which were quite plentiful thereabouts, and came back and waved them in his face:

'Look, here are some nice fat ones.'

(As if ants, whose bodies are enclosed in a rigid shell, could have layers of fat.)

Then he pinched Nicolas s nose to make him open his mouth and disgustedly threw in three young workers who really had better things to do. Nicolas had the surprise of his life. They were delicious.

The others were surprised not to see him spit out the disgusting food and decided to taste it in their turn.

The honey dew-
gourd room was one of Bel-o-kan’
s most recent innovations. The 'gourd' technology had been borrowed from the ants of the south who, since the weather had turned hot, were moving further and further north.

Naturally, the Federation had discovered their gourd room in the course of a victorious war against them. War was not only the best source of inventions but also the best means of circulating them throughout the insect world.

At the time, the Belokanian legionaries were horrified to see workers condemned to spend their entire lives hanging upside down from the ceiling with abdomens so swollen they were twice the size of a queen's. The southerners explained that the ants who had been 'sacrificed' in this way were living honey-pots capable of keeping incredible quantities of nectar, dew or honey-dew fresh.

In short, they only had to take the idea of the 'social crop' to the extreme to end up with that of'tanker ants', or living refrigerators. When the tips of their abdomens were stimulated, they delivered their precious juice drop by drop or in streams.

By this means, the southerners survived the great droughts that struck the tropical regions. When they migrated, they took their gourds with them and never suffered from dehydration on the journey. To judge from what they said, the honey-pots were as precious as eggs.

The Belokanians, therefore, pirated the gourd technique but saw it mainly as a hygienic way of stocking and conserving large quantities of food.

All the males and females in the city made their way to the gourd room to fill up on sugar and water. Stretching in front of each living honey-pot was a long line of winged supplicants. 327th and 56th quenched their thirst together, then went their separate ways.

When all the males and females and all the gunners had passed by, the tanker ants were empty. An army of workers hurried to restock them with nectar, dew and honeydew until the sagging abdomens were once more like little shining balls.

Nicolas, Philippe and Jean were caught by one of the orphanage supervisors and punished together. They naturally became the best of friends.

More often than not, they were to be found glued to the dining-room television. The only thing worth watching today was an episode of the never-ending series
Extraterrestrial and proud of it.

They squealed and nudged one another when they saw it was about astronauts landing on a planet inhabited by giant ants.

'Hello, we are Earthmen.'

'Hello, we are giant ants from the planet Zgu.' It was a fairly typical story. The giant ants were telepathic and sent messages to the Earthmen ordering them to kill each other but the last survivor realized what had happened and set fire to the enemy city.

The children were satisfied with this ending and decided to go and eat some sweet ants but, oddly enough, the ones they caught no longer tasted like sweets. They were smaller and tasted sour, like concentrated lemon.
Ugh!

It would all take place at midday at the highest point of the city.

At the first dawn warmth the gunners had settled themselves in the protective recesses that formed a kind of crown round the summit. With their anuses aimed at the sky, they were ready to put up an anti-aircraft barrage against the birds who would be sure to show up before long. Some of them wedged their abdomens between twigs to cushion the recoil so that they could fire two or three salvoes in the same direction without losing their aim.

The 56th female was in her chamber. She was being tended by asexual ants, who were smearing her wings with protective saliva.
Have you ever been to the Great Outside?
The workers did not answer. Of course they had already been outside but what was the point of telling her: its full of trees and grass outside? In a few minutes, the potential queen would be able to see for herself. It was just like a female to want to find out what the world was like by antenna contact.

The workers nevertheless titivated her. They pulled her legs to Umber them up. They made her contort her body to crack her thoracic and abdominal joints. They checked that her social crop was stuffed full of honey dew by pressing it to make her disgorge a drop. The syrup should enable her to keep up several hours' continuous flight.

There. 56th was ready. It was time to move on to the next.

Perfumed and bedecked in all her finery, the princess left the females' quarters. The 327th male had not been mistaken. She really was a great beauty.

She could hardly lift her wings. They had grown amazingly fast in the last few days. They were now so long and heavy that they trailed on the ground like a bridal veil.

Other females emerged from corridors. In the company of hundreds of these virgins, 56th made her way through the small branches of the dome. Some snagged themselves on twigs in their elation and their four wings got scratched, pierced or torn off completely. These unfortunates did not go any higher. They would not be able to take off anyway. They went back down to the fifth floor in frustration. Like the dwarf princesses, they would never know the flight of love but were condemned to reproduce in an enclosed room on the ground.

The 56th female herself was still intact. She skipped from twig to twig, taking care not to fall or damage her delicate wings.

One of her sisters walking by her side solicited antenna contact. She was wondering what the reproductive males they had heard so much about could be like. Drones or flies, perhaps?

56th did not answer. She was thinking about 327th again and about the mysterious 'secret weapon'. It was all over. No more work group. Not for the two of them, anyway. The whole affair was henceforth in the claws of 103,683rd.

She recalled with nostalgia all the events that had taken place.

The fugitive male who had landed in her chamber without any passports.

Their first absolute communication.

Their meeting with 103,683rd.

The rock-scented killers.