Empire of the Ants

by Bernard Werber

  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 l
ove 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.

  The race through the depths of the city.

  The hiding place full of bodies which could have been those of their 'legion'.

  The lomechusa beetle.

  The secret passage in the granite.

  As she walked along, she went over her memories and called herself fortunate. None of her sisters had had such adventures before even leaving the city.

  Madness could not be the explanation when so many individuals were involved. Could they be mercenaries spying on behalf of the termites? No, that could not be right. There were too many of them and they were too well organized.

  And anyway, one thing still did not fit: why were there food reserves under the floor of the city? To feed the spies? No, there was enough there to feed millions and, though there were a lot of them, there were not millions.

  And that surprising lomechusa beetle. It was a surface animal. It could not possibly have gone down to the fiftieth floor of the basement on its own and had therefore been taken there. But as soon as you got near the insect, you were captivated by its scent. Quite a large group would have been needed to wrap the monster in supple leaves and take it below discreetly.

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized that that suggested considerable means. In fact, when you looked closely, it was just as if part of the Tribe had a secret it was guarding fiercely from the rest.

  Her head was spinning with strange ideas. She stopped and the other ants thought she was faint with emotion before the nuptial flight. It sometimes happened; females were so sensitive. She put her antennae to her mouth and repeated quickly: the wiping out of the first expedition, the secret weapon, the killing of the thirty legionaries, the lomechusa beetle, the secret passage in the granite and the food reserves.

  Suddenly everything fell into place. That was it! She rushed back against the stream. If only it were not too late!

  education: The education of ants includes the following stages:

  From the first to the tenth day, most young ants tend the laying queen. They look after her, lick her and caress her. She in return bathes them in her nourishing, disinfectant saliva.

  From the eleventh to the twentieth day, workers are allowed to look after the cocoons.

  From the twenty-first to the thirtieth day, they guard and feed their younger sisters.

  From the thirty-first to the fortieth day, they devote themselves to domestic duties and highway maintenance while continuing to tend the queen mother and nymphs.

  The fortieth day is an important date. The workers are considered experienced enough to leave the city.

  From the fortieth to the fiftieth day, they act as greenfly keepers and milkers.

  From the fiftieth to the last day of their lives, they may engage in the most exciting occupation for a city ant: hunting and exploring unknown territory.

  N.B. From the eleventh day onwards, males and females are not obliged to work. More often than not, they remain idly consigned to their quarters until the day of the nuptial flight.

  Edmond Wells, Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge

  The 327th male was also preparing himself. Within the field of his antennae, the other males were talking of nothing but females. Very few of them had ever seen one or caught more than fleeting glimpses of them in the corridors of the Forbidden City. Many were fantasizing and imagining their heady, erotic perfumes.

  One of the princes claimed to have taken part in trophallaxis with a female. Her honeydew tasted of birch sap and her sexual hormones smelt like cut daffodils.

  The others silently envied him.

  327th, who really had tasted the honeydew of a female (and what a female!), knew that it was no different from that of workers or honey-pots. However, he did not join in the conversation.

  A risque idea had occurred to him. He very much wanted to supply the 56th female with the sperms she needed to build her future city. If only he could find her. What a pity they had not sorted out a pheromone of recognition so that they could meet up in the crowd.

  When the 56th female reached the males' room, there was surprise all round. It was quite against the Tribe's rules for her to go there. Males and females were not supposed to see one another until the time of the nuptial flight. They did not copulate in the corridors like dwarves.

  The princes, who had so badly wanted to know what females were like, now knew. As a body, they gave out hostile scents signifying that she should not stay in the room.

  She nevertheless carried on through the tumultuous preparations, jostling everyone and dispersing her pheromones for all she was worth.

  327th. 327th. Where are you, 327th?

  The princes made no bones about telling her that that was no way to go about choosing her partner. She must be patient and trust to chance. She must show a little more modesty.

  The 56th female found her companion in the end, though. He was dead. His head had been bitten off by mandibles.

  totalitarianism: People are interested in ants because they think they have managed to create a successful totalitarian system. Certainly, the impression we get from the outside is that everyone in the anthill works, everyone is obedient, everyone is ready to sacrifice themselves and everyone is the same. And for the time being, all human totalitarian systems have failed. That is why we thought of copying social insects (like Napoleon, whose emblem was the bee). The pheromones that flood the anthill with global information have an equivalent in the planetary television of today. There is a widespread belief that if the best is made available to all, one day we will end up with a perfect human race. That is not the way of things.

  Nature, with all due respect to Mr Darwin, does not evolve in the direction of the supremacy of the best (according to which criteria, anyway?). Nature draws its strength from diversity. It needs all kinds of people, good, bad, mad, desperate, sporty, bed-ridden, hunchbacked, hare-lipped, happy, sad, intelligent, stupid, selfish, generous, small, tall, black, yellow, red and white. It needs all religions, philosophies, fanaticisms and wisdom. The only danger is that any one species may be eliminated by another. In the past, fields of maize artificially designed by men and made up of clones of the best heads (the ones that need least water, are most frost-resistant or produce the best grains) have suddenly succumbed to trivial infections while fields of wild maize made up of several different strains, each with its own peculiar strengths and weaknesses, have always managed to survive epidemics. Nature hates uniformity and loves diversity. It is in this perhaps that its essential genius lies.

  Edmond Wells, Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge

  Slowly and despondently, she made her way back to the dome. In a corridor near the females' quarters, her infrared simple eyes made out two silhouettes. It was the rock-scented assassins, the big one and the little one with the limp!

  As they came straight for her, 56th whirred her wings and leapt at the neck of the lame one. They soon immobilized her but instead of executing her, they subjected her to antenna contact.

  The female was furious. She asked them why they had killed the 327th male since he would have died anyway during the fl
ight. Why had they assassinated him?

  The two killers tried to reason with her. According to them, some things could not wait, whatever the cost. It was sometimes necessary to do things that were frowned upon if you wanted the Tribe to go on working normally. She must not be naive. The unity of Bel-o-kan had to be earned and, if necessary, taken care of.

  So they weren't spies, then?

  No, they weren't spies. They even claimed to be the chief guardians of the Tribe's safety and welfare.

  The princess screamed pheromones of rage. They had killed 327th because he was a threat to the Tribe's safety. Yes, replied the two killers. She was too young now but one day she would understand.

  Understand? Understand what? That there were highly organized assassins in the very heart of the city and that they were claiming to save her by eliminating males who had 'seen things that were crucial for the Tribe's survival'.

  The ant with the limp condescended to explain. From what she said, it transpired that the rock-scented warriors were 'anti-bad stress soldiers'. There was good stress which caused the Tribe to progress and fight. And there was bad stress which caused the Tribe to self-destruct.

  There were some things it was better not to know. They caused 'metaphysical' anguish, for which there was as yet no remedy. When it was worried, the Tribe was inhibited and unable to act.

  It was very bad for everyone. The Tribe started to produce toxins which poisoned it. Its 'long-term' survival was more important than 'short-term' knowledge of the truth. If an eye had seen something that the brain knew was dangerous for the rest of the organism, it was better for the brain to put out that eye.

  The big ant joined the lame one in summing up these wise words as follows:

  We have put out the eye,

  We have cut off the nerve stimulus,

  We have ended the anguish.

  The antennae insisted that all organisms possess precisely such a safety mechanism. Those which do not die of fright or commit suicide in order to avoid facing reality.