Empire of the Ants (6 page)

Very close now to his goal, he presented his ID to the doorkeeper ants, then entered the final corridor leading to the royal chamber.

He stopped on the threshold, overcome by the unique beauty of the place. It was a large circular room built according to very precise architectural and geometrical rules handed down by queen mothers to their daughters, antenna to antenna.

The main vault was twelve heads high by thirty-six in diameter (the head was the federal unit of measurement, a head being equivalent to three normal human millimetres). A few cement pilasters supported this insect temple. With its concave floor, it was designed so that scent molecules emitted by individuals would bounce off the walls for as long as possible before being absorbed. It was a remarkable olfactory amphitheatre.

A fat lady was lying on her stomach in the centre, now and then waving a leg at a yellow flower. The flower sometimes snapped shut but not before the leg had been withdrawn.

The lady was Belo-kiu-kiuni.

Belo-kiu-kiuni, the last russet ant queen of the central city.

Belo-kiu-kiuni, the sole egg-layer, who had engendered all the minds and bodies of the Tribe.

Belo-kiu-kiuni, who had already been reigning at the time of the great war against the bees, the conquest of the termite hills of the south, the pacification of the spider-infested territories and the terrible war of attrition forced on them by the oak wasps. Since the previous year, she had also co-ordinated the cities' efforts to resist the pressure of the dwarf ants on the northern frontiers.

Belo-kiu-kiuni, who had beaten all records for longevity.

Belo-kiu-kiuni, his mother.

This living monument was there beside him as before. Except that now she was being moistened and caressed by twenty or so servile young workers, when it had once been he, 327th, who had cared for her with his clumsy little legs.

The young carnivorous plant snapped its jaws and Mother gave a little scented moan. No-one knew why she had such a passion for predatory plants.

327th drew nearer. Seen close up, Mother was not very good-looking. Her head was elongated at the front with two enormous globular eyes which seemed to look all ways at once. Her infrared simple eyes were squeezed into the middle of her forehead. Her antennae, on the other hand, were set far too far apart. They were very long and light and vibrated in short, controlled bursts.

Belo-kiu-kiuni had woken a few days earlier from the long sleep and laid ceaselessly ever since. Her abdomen, ten times the normal size, was shaken by continuous spasms. At that very moment, she released eight scrawny eggs. Pale-grey and iridescent, they were the latest generation of Belokanians. The round, sticky future escaped from her entrails and rolled into the room, where the nurses immediately took charge of it.

The young male recognized the eggs' scent. They were sterile soldiers and males. It was still cold and the gland for producing 'daughters' had not yet been activated. As soon as the weather was right, Mother would lay eggs of every caste according to the city's precise needs. Workers would come and tell her there was a shortage of cereal crushers or gunners and she would supply them to order. It also sometimes happened that Belo-kiu-kiuni left her chamber to go and sniff the corridors. Her antennae were sensitive enough to detect the slightest shortfall in any caste and she immediately made up the strength.

Mother gave birth to five more puny individuals then turned to face her visitor. She touched him and licked him. The moment of contact with royal saliva is always quite extraordinary. The saliva is not only a universal disinfectant but also a panacea for all wounds except those inside the head.

If Belo-kiu-kiuni was incapable of recognizing a single one of her innumerable offspring personally, she showed by licking him that she had identified his scents. He was hers.

The antenna dialogue could commence.

Welcome to the Tribe's genitals.
You le
ft me but you can't help coming
back.

It was a mothers ritual greeting to her children. Having communicated it, she sniffed the pheromones of the eleven segments with a composure that impressed the young 327th. She already knew why he had come. The first expedition sent west had been completely wiped out. There had been scents of dwarf ants in the neighbourhood of the catastrophe. They had probably discovered a secret weapon.

I
was the exploring
leg

I was the eye on the spot

Now I'm home,
I’
m
the nerve stimulus.

True enough. The only trouble was, he had not managed to stimulate the Tribe. His scents had convinced no-one. He felt that only she, Belo-kiu-kiuni, would know how to get the message across and raise the alarm.

Mother sniffed him more attentively. She picked up the slightest volatile molecules coming from his joints and legs. Yes, there were traces of death and mystery. It might or might not mean war.

She indicated to him that she had no political power anyway In the Tribe, decisions were made by constant consultation, through the formation of working parties which chose their own projects. If he wasn't capable of generating one of these nerve centres - in short of forming a group — his experience was useless.

She couldn't even help him.

The 327th male persisted. For once, as he was talking to someone who seemed willing to hear him out, he emitted the most seductive molecules with all his might. According to him, the catastrophe was a matter of priority. Spies should be sent immediately to try to find out about the secret weapon.

Belo-kiu-kiuni replied that the Tribe was collapsing under the weight of
'matters of priority'. Not only was the spring awakening not yet totally complete but work on the city's skin was still in progress. And as long as the last layer of twigs had not been laid in place, it would be dangerous to go to war. On top of this, the Tribe was short of protein and sugar. Lastly, it was already time to think about preparing for the Festival of Rebirth. All this would take up everyone's energy. Even the spies were overworked, which would explain why his message of anguish couldn't be heard.

There was a pause. Only the sound of the workers' labia licking Mother's shell could be heard. She had started playing with her carnivorous plant again, contorting herself until her abdomen was wedged under her thorax and her two front legs were left dangling. When the plant's jaws clamped shut, she withdrew her leg promptly before taking him to witness what a formidable weapon it might make.

We
could raise a wall
of
carnivorous plants to protect the whole
of
the north-west frontier. The only trouble is, the little monsters still can't tell the difference between people from the city and strangers.

327th returned to the subject uppermost in his mind. Belo-kiu-kiuni asked him how many individuals had died in the 'accident'. Twenty-eight, was the reply. All members of the exploring warrior caste? Yes, he had been the only male in the expedition. She then concentrated and laid twenty-eight pearls in succession.

Twenty-eight ants had died and these twenty-eight liquid sisters would replace them.

one day inevitably
: One day, inevitably, fingers will turn these pages, eyes will read these words and brains will interpret their meaning.

I do not wish that moment to come too soon. Its consequences could be terrible. And as I write these sentences, I am still struggling to keep my secret.

However, people will have to know what happened one day. Even the most carefully guarded secrets come out in the end. Time is their worst enemy. Whoever you are,
I
want firstly to greet you. When you read these words, I shall probably have been dead for ten years or even a hundred. At least,
I
hope so.

I
sometimes regret having acquired this knowledge. But I am a human being, and if
I
now feel very little solidarity with others of my kind,
I
recognize all the duties incumbent on me for having been born among you, the inhabitants of the human universe.
I
must pass on my story.

All stories resemble one another if you look at them closely.
In
the beginning, there is a subject in the making who slumbers. He undergoes a crisis which forces him to react and either change or die. The first story I am going to tell you is about our universe because we live inside it and because all things, large and small, are interdependent and obey the same laws.

When you turn this page, for example, you rub your index finger on the cellulose of the paper. The contact generates an infinitesimal, but very real, quantity of heat. In the context of the infinitely small, this heat causes an electron to jump from its atom and collide with another particle.

But this second particle is in fact so huge in comparison with the electron that the shock of collision changes it completely. Before, it was cold, empty and inert. When you turn the page, it undergoes a crisis. It is shot through with gigantic sparks. The simple gesture sets off a chain of events with unknown consequences. Worlds may be born and there may be people on them. These people may discover metallurgy, Provencal cooking and interstellar voyages. They may even turn out to be more intelligent than us. Yet they would never have existed if you had not held this book in your hands and your finger had not produced heat at that exact spot on the paper. Similarly, our universe also has a place in the corner of the page of a book or on the sole of a shoe or the froth on a glass of beer of some giant civilization.

Our generation will probably never know for sure. But what we do know is that, a long time ago, our universe, or in any case the particle that contained our universe, was cold, empty, black and still. And then someone or something caused a crisis. Someone turned a page, stepped on a stone or scraped the froth off a glass of beer. Whatever the event, it was traumatic. Our particle woke up. In our case, we know there was a gigantic explosion, which we call the Big Bang.

Every second, in the infinitely big, the infinitely small and the infinitely distant, a universe is perhaps being born, just as ours was born over fifteen billion years ago.
We
do not know the others. But as far as ours is concerned, we know that it began with the explosion of the 'smallest', 'simplest' atom, hydrogen. Imagine vast silent space suddenly woken by a titanic deflagration. Why did someone up there turn the page? Why did they scrape the froth off the beer? It doesn't really matter. The fact remains that hydrogen burnt, exploded and grilled. An immense light flashed through immaculate space. It was a time of crisis. Things that were still began to move. Things that were cold grew hot. Things that were silent hummed.

In the initial furnace, hydrogen was transformed into helium, an atom scarcely more complex. But we can already deduce from this transformation the first great rule of our universe,
more and
more complex.

This rule seems obvious. But there is nothing to prove that it applies in other universes. Elsewhere, the rule may be
hotter and
hotter, harder and harder
or
funnier and funnier.

Things get hotter here, too, and harder and funnier but that is not the initial law, just by the way. Our basic law, the one around which all others are organized, is
more and more complex.

Edmond Wells

Encyclopedia
of
Relative and Absolute Knowledge

The 327th male was wandering about in the city's southern corridors. He had not calmed down. He kept chewing over the famous saying:

I
was the exploring
leg

I was the eye on the spot

Now I'm home,

I’
m
the nerve stimulus.

Why wouldn't it work? Where was he going wrong? His body was seething with the unprocessed information. For him, the Tribe had been wounded and had not even noticed. He was the pain stimulus, so it was up to him to make the city react.

Oh, how hard it was to bear a message of suffering and keep it inside oneself, unable to find a single antenna willing to receive it. He would so like to have unburdened himself and shared the terrible knowledge with others.

A thermal messenger ant passed close by. Sensing his depression, she thought he was not properly awake and offered him her solar calories. It put a little strength back into him, which he immediately used to try and convince her.

To
arms! An expedition has been ambushed and destroyed by the dwarves.
To
arms!

But it no longer even sounded like the truth. The thermal messenger went on her way as if nothing were amiss. 327th did not give up. He ran along the corridors giving out his alarm message.

Warriors sometimes stopped to listen, and even went as far as to talk to him, but his tale of a devastating weapon was so incredible that no group capable of taking charge of a military mission formed.

He walked on, downcast.

Suddenly, as he was making his way along a deserted tunnel on the fourth floor of the basement, he heard a sound behind him. Someone was following him.