Empire of the Ants (3 page)

The whole city was awake now. The corridors were full of thermal messenger ants hurrying to warm up the Tribe but motionless citizens were still to be found at some crossroads. They failed to move even when the messengers shook and pummelled them.

They would never move again. They were dead. Hibernation had proved fatal for them. Having a practically non-existent heartbeat for three months is a risky business. They had not suffered. They had passed from sleep to death when a sudden draft enveloped the city. Their bodies were taken out and thrown on the rubbish heap. That was how the city disposed of its dead cells each morning, along with any other rubbish.

Once the arteries had been cleansed of their impurities, the insect city started to hum. All around, legs scurried and jaws dug. Everything began again as before, before the anaesthetizing winter.

As the 327th male was dragging along a twig a good sixty times his own weight, he was approached by a warrior over five hundred days old. She tapped on his head with her club-segments to attract his attention. He raised his head and she put her antennae close to his.

She wanted him to stop repairing the roof and go on a hunting expedition with a group of ants. He touched her mouth and eyes.
What hunting expedition?

The other ant let him sniff a scrap of dried meat she was hiding in a fold of her thorax joint.

Apparently, someone found it just b
efore the winter in the western
region at an angle of 23° to the midday sun.

He tasted it. It was obviously a beetle. A chrysomelid beetle, to be precise. How odd. Beetles were normally still hibernating. As everyone knew, russet ants woke up when the air temperature was 12°, termites when it was 13°, flies when it was 14° and beetles when it was 15°.

The old warrior was not put out by this argument. She explained that this piece of meat had come from an extraordinary region artificially heated by an underground spring. There was no winter there. It was a microclimate which had developed its own fauna and flora.

The Tribe's city was always very hungry when it woke up. It needed protein quickly to start working again. Heat alone was not enough.

He agreed.

The expedition consisted of twenty-eight ants of the warrior caste. Most were sexless old ladies, like the one who had solicited his help. The 327th male was the only member of the sexual caste. He scrutinized his companions from a distance through the grid of his eyes.

With their many-faceted eyes, ants do not see the same image repeated thousands of times but a single latticed image. They find it hard to make out detail but can perceive the slightest movement.

The explorers of this expedition all seemed accustomed to long journeys. Their heavy bellies were gorged with acid. Their heads were bristling with the most powerful weapons. Their cuirasses bore the scars of mandible bites received in combat.

They had been walking in a straight line for several hours and had passed several Federation cities standing high against the sky or under trees. These were daughter cities of the Ni dynasty: Yodu-lou-baikan (the biggest cereal producer), Giou-li-aikan (the killer legions of which had defeated a coalition of the termite hills of the south two years previously), Zedi-bei-nakan (famous for its chemical laboratories which produced hyper-concentrated combat acids) and Li-viu-kan (the ladybird alcohol of which had a much sought after taste of resin).

For russet ants do not only organize themselves into cities but also into coalitions of cities. There is strength in union. In the Jura, there have been federations of russet ants comprising fifteen thousand anthills, covering an area of eighty hectares and with a total population of over two hundred million individuals.

As yet, Bel-o-kan was nowhere near so large. It was a young federation, the original dynasty of which had been founded five thousand years previously. Local legend had it that a young queen blown astray by a terrible storm had ended up here long ago. Failing to reach her own federation again, she had created Bel-o-kan, and from Bel-o-kan was born the Federation and the hundreds of generations of Ni queens who formed it.

Belo-kiu-kiuni, meaning lost ant', was the name of that first queen but also the name taken by all the queens who occupied the central nest.

For the time being, Bel-o-kan only consisted of a large central city and sixty-four federated daughter cities scattered in the neighbouring vicinity. But it was already making itself felt as the foremost political force in that part of the Forest of Fontainebleau.

Once they had gone beyond the allied cities, and in particular La-chola-kan, the most easterly Belokanian city, the explorers arrived at some small mounds, the summer nests or 'advance posts'. They were still empty but 327th knew that hunting and wars would soon fill them with soldiers.

They carried on in a straight line. The troop made its way through a vast turquoise meadow and down a hill edged with thistles. They left the hunting territories behind. Far away to the north, they could already make out the city of their enemies, Shi-gae-pou. But its occupants would still be asleep at that hour.

They pressed on. Most of the animals around them were still in the grip of their winter sleep. Here and there, a few early risers poked their heads out of their burrows. As soon as they saw the russet armour, they took fright and hid. Ants are not especially well-known for their conviviality, especially when advancing in formation, armed to the antennae.

The explorers had now reached unknown territory. There was no longer a single daughter city or advance post on the horizon or even a path dug by pointed fee
t, just a trace of an old scent
trail to show that Belokanians had passed that way before.

They hesitated. The tall foliage ahead did not appear on any olfactory map. It formed a dark roof no light could penetrate. The plant mass strewn with animal presences seemed to be lying in wait for them.

How could he warn them not to go down into the cellar? He put down his jacket and kissed his family. 'Have you finished unpacking everything?' 'Yes, Dad.'

'Good. By the way, have you noticed that door at the far end of the kitchen?'

'That's just what I wanted to talk to you about,' said Lucie. 'It must be a cellar. I've tried to open it but it's locked. There's a big crack in it. You can't see much but it looks as if it goes down a long way. You'll have to break the lock. There must be some point in having a locksmith for a husband.'

She smiled and came and snuggled up in his arms. Lucie and Jonathan had been living together for the past thirteen years. They had met in the underground. A hooligan had let off some tear-gas in the carriage one day just for fun. All the passengers had immediately found themselves lying on the ground, crying and coughing their lungs out. Lucie and Jonathan had fallen on top of each other. When they had recovered, Jonathan had offered to see her home. Then he had invited her to join one of his first communes, a squat near the Gare du Nord in Paris. Three months later, they had decided to get married.

'No.'

'What do you mean, no?'

'No, we're not going to break the lock and we're not going to use the cella
r. We mustn't talk about it any
more or go near it. Most of all, we mustn't open it.'

'Are you kidding? What do you mean?'

Jonathan had not had the presence of mind to invent a logical reason for prohibiting access to the cellar and had unwittingly caused the opposite of what he wanted. His wife and son were now intrigued. What could he do? Explain to them that there was a mystery surrounding his benefactor uncle and that he had wanted to warn them that it was dangerous to go down into the cellar?

That was not an explanation. It was at best superstition. Human beings like things to be logical and there was no way Lucie and Nicolas would ever fall for it.

He mumbled: 'The solicitor warned me about it.'

'Warned you about what?'

'About the cellar being infested with rats.'

'Ugh! Rats? But they're sure to get through the crack,' protested the boy.

'Don't worry, we'll seal it off completely'

Jonathan was pleased with the effect this produced. It was lucky he had thought of the rats.

'All right, then. No-one will go near the cellar. OK?'

He made for the bathroom. Lucie immediately joined him there.

'Have you been to see your grandmother?' 'That's right.'

'Did it take you all morning?' 'Right again.'

'You shouldn't be wasting your time like that. Remember what you told the others on the farm in the Pyrenees: "Idleness is the root of all evil." You've got to get another job. Our savings are running out.'

'We've just inherited a big flat in a nice district on the edge of the forest and all you can do is talk about work. Why can't you take it easy?'

He tried to take her in his arms but she took a step backwards.

'Yes, I know but I also know I need to think about the future. I haven't got a job and you're out of work. What'll we live on in a year's time?'

'We've still got some savings left.'

'Don't be stupid, we've got enough to get through the next few months but after that. . .'

She put her hands on her hips and stuck out her chin.

'Listen, Jonathan, you lost your job because you didn't want to go into dangerous districts in the dark. I can understand that but you must be able to get another one somewhere.'

'Of course I'm going to look for a job. Just let me have a break. I promise you after that, in about a month's time, I'll have a look at the ads.'

A fair head appeared, quickly followed by a ball of fur. It was Nicolas and Ouarzazate.

'Dad, a man came while you were out. It was something about binding a book.'

'A book? What book?'

'I don't know. He said something about a big encyclopedia written by Uncle Edmond.'

'Did he, now? Did he come in? Did you find it?'

'No, he didn't seem very nice, and as there isn't a book anyway . . .'

'Good for you, son. You did the right thing.'

Jonathan was both perplexed and intrigued by the news. He ferreted about in the vast basement but drew a blank. He then stood for some time in the kitchen inspecting the cellar door with its big lock and wide crack. What mystery lay behind it?

They had to enter the undergrowth.

One of the oldest explorers suggested they adopt the 'big-headed serpent' formation as the best means of advancing in hostile territory. There was immediate consensus. They had all thought of it at the same time.

At the front five scouts, arranged in an inverted triangle, acted as the troop's eyes. With small, measured steps, they checked the He of the land, sniffed the air and inspected the moss. If all was well, they sent an olfactory message signifying 'All clear ahead', then they moved to the rear of the procession to be replaced by 'new' individuals. This system of rotation transformed the group into a sort of long animal whose 'nose' always remained hypersensitive.

The 'All clear ahead' rang out loud and clear twenty times. The twenty-first was interrupted by a sickening squawk. One of the scouts had just gone too near a carnivorous plant, a Venus s fly-trap. She had been attracted by its heady scent and her legs had got stuck in the glue.

From then on she was done for. Her contact with the plant's hairs had triggered the mechanism that activated the organic hinge. The two broad, jointed leaves closed inexorably, their long fringes acting like teeth. Once crossed, they became solid bars. When its victim had been completely flattened, the predatory plant secreted powerful enzymes capable of digesting even the toughest shells.

The ant was melting away, her whole body turning into effervescent sap. She let out a haze of distress.

But it was too late to help her. It was one of the imponderables common to all long-distance expeditions. It only remained for them to signal 'Look out, danger', in the vicinity of the trap.

They put the incident out of their minds and set off again along the scented path with the trail pheromones pointing the way. Once they had crossed the thickets, they carried on westwards, always at an angle of 23° to the sun's rays. They only stopped to rest when it got too cold or too hot. They had to act quickly if they were to avoid being caught up in a war on their return.

Explorers had returned to find their city surrounded by enemy troops before and it was never easy to force the blockade.

At last they came across the trail pheromone showing the entrance to the cave. Heat was rising from the ground. They plunged into the depths of the rocky earth.

The deeper they went, the more clearly they could discern the trickle of water. It came from a fuming, hot-water spring, from which rose a strong smell of sulphur.

The ants quenched their thirst.

At one point, they came across a strange-looking animal: it looked like a ball on legs but was really a dung-beetle pushing along a sphere of dung and sand with its eggs safe inside. Like Atlas in the legend, it was carrying its 'world' on its back. When the ground sloped down, the ball rolled of its own accord and the beetle followed. When it sloped up, it wore itself out pushing and sliding and often had to go back down to the bottom to retrieve the ball.