Empire of the Ants (34 page)

They had had plenty of time to perfect their aquatic transport techniques. The ultimate was a floating cranberry leaf. You could travel several hundred heads on it by water, from the mushroom beds in the east to the greenfly sheds in the west, for example, simply by allowing yourself to be carried along by the current.

The ants hoped to succeed in training water-beetles one day. The big subaquatic beetles had air pockets beneath their wing-cases and swam very fast. If they could be persuaded to push the cranberry leaves along, the rafts would have a far more reliable means of propulsion at their disposal than the currents.

Chli-pou-ni herself launched another futuristic idea. She remembered the rhinoceros beetle that had freed her from the spider's web. It was the perfect war machine. Not only did the rhinoceroses have big horns on their foreheads and an armour-plated shell, but they could also fly at a spanking pace. Mother imagined a whole legion of the animals, with ten gunners perched on the head of each. She could already see these teams descending, quasi-invulnerable, on the enemy troops and drenching them in acid.

There was only one stumbling block. Like all water-beetles, the rhinoceroses were difficult to tame because you could not understand their language. Several dozen workers therefore spent their time deciphering the scents they emitted and trying to get them to understand the ant pheromone language.

The results so far were indifferent but the Chlipoukanians managed to win their favour all the same by stuffing them with honeydew. In the end, food was the most widely shared insect language.

Despite this collective dynamism, Chli-pou-ni was concerned. Three groups of ambassadresses had been sent to the Federation to get them recognized as the sixty-fifth city and there had still been no reply. Was Belo-kiu-kiuni rejecting the alliance?

The more she thought about it, the more Chli-pou-ni told herself that her spy ambassadresses must have blundered and been intercepted by the rock-scented warriors or allowed themselves to be seduced by the hallucinogenic aroma of the lomechusa on the fiftieth floor of the basement, or some such thing.

She wanted the matter cleared up. She intended neither to give up her recognition by the Federation nor to drop the investigation and decided to send 801st, her best and most trusted warrior. To make sure she held all the trumps, the queen participated in an AC with the young soldier, who then knew as much about the mystery as she did. She had become:

The eye that sees

The antenna that smells

The claw that strikes for Chli-pou-kan.

The old lady had prepared a rucksack full of provisions, including three thermos flasks of hot herb tea. The last thing they wanted was to have to hurry back up because they had neglected to take supplies into account, like that awful man, Leduc. But would he ever have found the code word in any case? Augusta allowed herself to doubt it.

Among other accessories, Jason Bragel had brought along a large canister of tear-gas and three gas masks. Daniel Rosenfeld had brought along the latest in cameras with a flash.

Now they were going round and round inside the stone merry-go-round. Like their predecessors, they found the descent brought back memories and buried thoughts; of childhood and parents; their earliest sufferings and mistakes; frustrated love; selfishness; pride and remorse.

Their bodies moved mechanically, tirelessly, as they went deeper into the flesh of the planet and their past lives. How long a life was and how destructive it could be, so much more easily destructive than creative!

Finally, they came to a door with a text written on it.

At the moment of death, the soul’
s impressions are similar to those of initiates in the ways of the Great Mysteries.

First they rush along blindly, twisting and turning, on an endless, anxious journey through the shadows.

Then, just before the end, their fear reaches its height. Bathed in cold sweat, they shiver and tremble, utterly terrified.

This phase is almost immediately followed by a return to the light, a sudden illumination.

They are surrounded by a marvellous glow and move through pure places and meadows ringing with voices and dancing.

Sacred words inspire religious respect. The perfect initiate is free to celebrate the Mysteries.

Daniel took a photo, from Plutarch.'

'It's certainly a fine piece of writing.'I know this text,' asserted Jason. 'It's'

'Doesn't it frighten you?' asked Augusta.

'Yes, but it's meant to. And anyway, it says that fear comes before enlightenment. Let's take one step at a time. If a little fear is necessary, let's be afraid.'

'Speaking of which, the rats . . .'

It was as if they had only had to mention them for them to be there. The three explorers sensed their furtive presence and dreaded feeling them round the tops of their ankle boots. Daniel took another photo and the flash revealed the repulsive image of a carpet of grey bodies and black ears. Jason quickly handed out the gas masks before generously spraying his tear-gas all round. The rats did not wait to be asked twice.

The descent began again.

'Shall we have a picnic?' suggested Augusta at last.

So they had a picnic. The episode of the rats seemed forgotten and all three of them were in high spirits. As it was rather cold, they ended their snack with a swig of brandy and some scalding hot coffee. Herb tea was normally only served at tea-time.

They dug for a long time before they were able to come up again in an area of loose earth. A pair of antennae at last emerged, like a periscope, to be flooded with unfamiliar smells.

They were out in the open and on the other side of the end of the world. There was still no wall of water but it was a world quite unlike the one they knew. Although there were still a few trees and grassy patches, the smooth, hard surface of a grey desert stretched immediately beyond and there was not an ant or termite hill in sight.

They took a few steps but huge, black things came crashing down around them, a little like the Guardians, except that these fell at random.

And that was not all. Far ahead of them stood a giant monolith so tall their antennae could not make out the top. It darkened the sky and crushed the earth.

That must be the wall at the end of the world and there's water behind it,
thought 103,683rd.

They went a little further and came nose to nose with a group of cockroaches who had congregated on a bit of. . . something or other. Through their transparent shells, the ants could see all their insides, their organs and even the blood beating in their arteries. Hideous! As they were beating a retreat, three harvesters were crushed by a falling mass.

103,683rd and her last three friends decided to carry on in spite of everything. They passed through low, porous walls, still heading for the infinitely big monolith and suddenly found themselves in a region that was even more disconcerting. The ground was red and grainy like a strawberry. They spotted a sort of well and were thinking of going down inside it to find a little shade, when a big white sphere at least ten heads in diameter suddenly fell out of the sky, bounced and chased after them. They threw themselves into the well and just had time to flatten themselves against the sides before the sphere crashed to the bottom.

They climbed out again, panic-stricken, and made off. The ground round about was blue, green or yellow and the wells and the white spheres that pursued them were everywhere. This time, they had had enough. Courage has its limits and this world was far too different to be bearable.

They ran until they were out of breath, went back along the tunnel and quickly returned to the normal world.

civilization
(continued): Another clash of civilizations occurred when East met West.

The annals of the Chinese Empire record the arrival of a boat, probably Roman in origin, in about
ad
115. It had been battered by a storm and had run aground on the coast after drifting for days. The passengers were acrobats and jugglers, who had no sooner landed than they decided to win the favour of the inhabitants of the unknown land by performing for them. The Chinese thus watched open-mouthed as the long-nosed foreigners breathed fire, tied themselves into knots, changed frogs into snakes, etc. They had every right to conclude that the West was peopled by clowns and fire-eaters and several hundred years went by before a chance of undeceiving them presented itself

Edmond Wells,
Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge

They were in front of Jonathan's wall at last.
How do you make four equilateral triangles out of six matches?
Daniel naturally took a photo, Augusta typed the word 'pyramid' and the wall swung back smoothly. She was proud of her grandson.

They passed through and soon heard the wall move back into place. Jason lit up the sides of the passage. There was rock everywhere but it was no longer the same rock. Before the wall, it had been red and now it was yellow with veins of sulphur.

The air was still breathable, however, and they even thought they could feel a slight draught. Was Professor Leduc right? Did the tunnel come out in the Forest of Fontainebleau?

Suddenly, they came across another horde of rats, which were far more aggressive than those they had met previously. Jason knew what must be happening but did not have time to explain it to the others. They had to put the masks back on quickly and sling gas at them. Every time the wall swung back, which admittedly was not often, rats from the 'red zone' went through into the yellow zone' to look for food. Those in the red zone still got by more or less, but the migrants found hardly anything to get their teeth into and had to eat one another.

And Jason and his friends were dealing with the survivors, in other words the most ferocious. The tear-gas was totally ineffective against them and they were attacking, leaping up and trying to hang on to their arms.

On the verge of hysteria, Daniel bombarded them with blinding flashes of light but the nightmare creatures weighed kilos and were unafraid of men. Before long, they drew blood. Jason pulled out his jackknife, stabbed two rats and threw them to the others. Augusta fired several shots from a small revolver and they got away just in time.

when i was
: When I was small, I used to lie on the ground for hours wat
ching anthills.They seemed more
real
to me than the television. They held many mysteries for me. After I had wreaked havoc, for example, why did the ants bring back some of the wounded and leave the rest to die? They were all the same size. According to what criteria was one individual judged interesting and another negligible?

Edmond Wells,
Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge

They ran along a tunnel streaked with yellow until they arrived at a steel fence.

An opening in the centre made the whole thing resemble a fisherman's trap. It formed a cone which narrowed down so that an average-sized human body could get through but not come back because of the spikes round the entrance.

'Someone put it here recently'

'Hmm, it looks as if whoever made the door and trap doesn't want us to go back.'

Once again, Augusta recognized the work of Jonathan, the master of doors and metals.

'Look!'

Daniel lit up an inscription:

Consciousness ends here

Do you wish to return to the unconscious?

They stood
there gaping. 'What shall we do?'

The same thought occurred to them all simultaneously.

'It would be a shame to give up now we've come this far. I suggest we go on.'

'I'll go first,' declared Daniel, tucking his pony-tail into his collar to stop it catching on anything.

They took it in turns to crawl through the steel trap.

'It's funny,' said Augusta, 'I feel as if I've done this before.'

'Have you ever been in a trap that squeezed you and stopped you going back?'

'Yes. It was a very long time ago.'

'What do you mean by a very long time?'

'Oh, when I was young. I must have been one or two seconds old.'

Back in their city, the harvesters recounted their adventures on the other side of the world, a land of monsters where strange things happened. They told of the cockroaches, the black slabs, the giant monolith, the well and the white balls. It was all too much. There was no possibility of founding a village in such a grotesque world.

103,683rd stayed in a corner to recover her strength and think. When her sisters heard her story, they would have to redraw all the maps and reconsider the basic principles of their planetology. She told herself it was time for her to return to the Federation.

They must have gone a dozen kilometres since the trap. It was difficult to know for sure and their fatigue was beginning to tell anyway.

They came to a narrow stream with particularly hot, sulphurous water that crossed the tunnel.

Daniel stopped dead. He thought he had seen some ants floating down the stream on a leaf raft. He got a grip on himself. The smell of the sulphur dust must be making him hallucinate.