Empire of the Ants

by Bernard Werber

  She remembered. It was Zoubi-zoubi-ni who had spoken first. She had related that several of her expeditions had been subjected to showers of pink balls, which had caused over a hundred deaths.

  Her other sisters had outdone one another with lists of those killed or maimed by the pink balls or black slabs.

  Cholb-gahi-ni, an old mother, remarked that, according to the evidence, the pink balls only seemed to move in herds of five.

  Another sister, Roubg-fayli-ni, had found a motionless pink ball nearly three hundred heads below the surface. The pink ball was connected to a soft substance which had quite a strong smell. They had burrowed into it with their mandibles and finally come out onto hard, white stems, as if the animals had shells inside their bodies instead of outside.

  By the end of the meeting, the queens had all agreed that such things were beyond their understanding and decided to observe absolute secrecy in order to avoid panic in the anthills.

  Belo-kiu-kiuni, for her part, quickly decided to set up her own 'secret police', a work group formed of fifty or so soldiers at that time. Their mission was to eliminate anyone who witnessed the pink balls or black slabs in order to avoid panic in the city.

  But one day something incredible had happened.

  A worker from an unknown city had been captured by her rock-scented warriors. Mother had spared her because she had told them the strangest thing they had ever heard.

  The worker claimed to have been kidnapped by pink balls. They had thrown her into a transparent prison along with several hundred other ants. They had been subjected to all sorts of experiments. More often than not, they were put under a bell-jar and received very concentrated scents. It was very painful at first but the scents were gradually diluted and the smells had then turned into words.

  In the end, with the aid of the scents and bell-jars, the pink balls had talked to them, presenting themselves as giant animals who called themselves 'human beings'. They had told her that there was a passage in the granite under the city and said that they wanted to speak to the queen. She could be sure that no harm would be done to her.

  It had all happened very quickly after that. Belo-kiu-kiuni had met their 'ambassador ant', Doc-tor Li-ving-stone, a strange ant ending in a transparent intestine, but one you could talk to.

  They had had a long conversation. To begin with, they could not understand one another at all but manifestly shared the same exhilaration and seemed to have so much to say to one another.

  The human beings had subsequently fitted the earth-filled chest at the end of the shaft and Mother had sown this new city with eggs. In secret, without her other children knowing.

  But Bel-o-kan 2 was more than the city of the rock-scented warriors. It had become the link-city between the ant world and the human world. Doc-tor Li-ving-stone (a ridiculous name if ever there was one) was always to be found there.

  extracts of conversations: Extract of the eighteenth conversation with Queen Belo-kiu-kiuni:

  ant: The wheel? It's incredible we've never thought of using the wheel. When I think we've all seen dung beetles pushing along balls of dung and none of us has ever come up with the wheel. human being: How do you intend to use this information? ant: I don't know yet.

  Extract of the fifty-sixth conversation with Queen Belo-kiu-kiuni: ant: You sound sad.

  human being: My scent organ must be badly tuned. Since I added emotive language, the machine seems to be misfiring. ant: You sound sad.

  human being: . . .

  ant:Aren't you emitting any more?

  human being: I think it's just a coincidence but I really do feel sad.

  ant: What's the matter?

  human being: I used to have a female. Male human beings live a long time so we live in couples, one male and one female. I used to have a female but I lost her a few years ago. I loved her and I can't forget her.

  ant: What does Hove' mean?

  human being: Possibly that we had the same scents.

  Mother remembered the end of the hu-man Ed-mond. It had happened during the first war against the dwarves. Edmond had wanted to help them and had left the underground room. But he had manipulated so many pheromones that he was completely drenched in them. Without knowing it, he passed in the forest for a russet ant of the Federation. When the wasps in the fir tree (with whom they were at war at the time) spotted his passport scents, they all pounced on him.

  They killed him because they mistook him for a Belokanian. He must have died happy.

  Later, Jonathan and his community had resumed contact.

  He poured a little more mead into the glasses of the three newcomers, who were asking him endless questions:

  'Is Dr Livingstone capable of retranscribing our words up there, then?'

  'Yes, and we can listen to theirs. Their answers appear on this screen. Edmond well and truly succeeded.'

  'But what did they say to each other? What do you say to each other?'

  'Hmm. After his success, Edmonds notes become a little vague, as if he didn't want to keep note of everything. Let's just say that, in the early days, they described themselves and their worlds to one another. That's how we learnt that their city is called Bel-o-kan and that it is the hub of a federation of several hundred million ants.' 'Its incredible!'

  'Both parties subsequently decided it was too early for the information to be circulated among their populations and agreed to keep their "contact" absolutely secret.'

  'That's why Edmond was so insistent about Jonathan making everything himself,' put in a fireman. 'He didn't want people to find out too soon. He couldn't bear to think what the television, radio and newspapers would make of it. Ants would become all the rage. He could already picture the adverts, key-rings, T-shirts and rock shows and all the rest of the crap they'd churn out.'

  'Belo-kiu-kiuni, their queen, for her part, thought her daughters would want to fight the dangerous foreigners straight away,' added Lucie.

  'No, the two civilizations aren't yet ready to know and understand one another. Ants aren't fascists, anarchists or royalists. They're ants, and everything about their world is different from ours. That's what gives it its richness.'

  Superintendent Bilsheim was the author of this impassioned declaration. He had certainly changed a great deal since leaving the surface and his boss, Solange Doumeng.

  'The German and Italian schools,' said Jonathan, 'make the mistake of trying to understand them in "human" terms, which can only lead to a crude analysis. It's as if they were trying to understand our lives by comparing them with theirs, myrmecomorphism, as it were, when the minutest details about them are fascinating. We don't understand the Japanese, Tibetans or Hindus, but we are enthralled by their culture, music and philosophy even when they are deformed by our Western minds. And it's abun-dandy clear that the future of our Earth lies in hybridization.'

  'But what can the ants possibly bring us in the way of culture?' wondered Augusta.

  Without replying, Jonathan made a sign to Lucie, who disappeared for a few seconds and came back with what looked like a pot of jam.

  'Look, this alone is a treasure. Greenfly honeydew. Go on, taste

  it.'

  Augusta risked a cautious finger.

  'Mmmm, its very sweet but its delicious! It doesn't taste a bit like the honey of bees.'

  'You see! Haven't you ever wondered how we've managed to feed ourselves every day trapped down here?'

  'Well, as a matter of fact, I have . . .'

  'It's the ants who feed us with their honeydew and flour. They stock supplies of it for us up there. But that's not all, we've copied their agricultural technique for growing agaric mushrooms.'

  He lifted the lid of a big wooden box. Underneath it, white mushrooms were growing on a bed of fermented leaves.

  'Galin is our great mushroom specialist.' He smiled modestly.

  'I still have a lot to learn.'

  'But mushrooms and honey . . . you must be short of protein?'

  'Max deals with
protein.'

  One of the firemen pointed to the ceiling.

  'I collect all the insects the ants put in the small box to the right of the chest. We boil them to remove the cuticles. Otherwise, they're like very small shrimps. They look and taste like them, too.'

  'So long as we're careful,' added a policeman, 'we've got everything we need here. The electricity is produced by a mini-atomic power station that'll last five hundred years. Edmond installed it a few days after he arrived. Air comes in through the ventilation shafts, food reaches us from the ants, we've got a source of fresh water and something fascinating to do, too. We feel as if we're pioneering something very important.'

  'We're like astronauts living permanently in a base and sometimes talking to neighbouring extraterrestrials.'

  They laughed and their spines tingled with good humour. Jonathan suggested they return to the lounge.

  'You know, I spent a long time trying to find a way to get my friends to coexist around me. I tried squats and communities of various kinds but I never succeeded. I ended up thinking I was an idealist, not to say an idiot. But here . . . things are happening here. We're obliged to live together, to complement one another and think as one. We have no choice. If we don't agree, we'll die. And there's no way out. Now I don't know if it comes from my uncle's discovery or what the ants are teaching us simply by existing above our heads but for the time being our community is getting on like a house on fire.' 'It's working, in spite of us.'

  'We sometimes get the impression we're generating a common fund of energy we can all draw on freely. It's odd.'

  'I've heard of it happening in other communities,' said Jason. 'There's a common spiritual capital, like a bowl they all pour their strength into to make a soup that feeds them all. As a rule, there's always one thief who uses the others' energy for personal ends.'

  'We don't have that kind of problem here. You can't have personal ambitions when you're living in a little group under the ground.'

  There was silence.

  'And then, we talk less and less. We don't need to any more to understand one another.'

  'Yes, things are happening here. But we can't yet understand or control them. We haven't arrived yet, we're only halfway there.'

  There was again silence.

  'Well, then, I hope you'll be happy in our little community'

  801st arrived in her native city exhausted but triumphant. She had done it!

  Chli-pou-ni immediately engaged in an AC with her to find out what had happened. What she heard confirmed her worst fears regarding the secret hidden under the granite slab.

  She immediately decided to send her forces to attack Bel-o-kan. Her soldiers spent the night equipping themselves. The brand new rhinoceros flying-legion was ready for action.

  103,683rd suggested a plan. While part of the army made a frontal attack, twelve legions would secretly skirt round the city to attempt an assault on the royal stump.

  the universe tends: The universe tends towards complexity. From hydrogen to helium and from helium to carbon, everything evolves in the direction of ever greater complexity and sophistication.

  Of all the known planets, the Earth is the most complex. Its position allows its temperature to vary. It is covered in oceans and mountains. But if it has a practically inexhaustible range of life forms, two of them, ants and men, tower above the rest by their intelligence.

  It is as if God had used the planet Earth to carry out an experiment. He set two species, with two quite contradictory philosophies, on a race for consciousness to see which would go faster. The aim was probably to achieve planetary collective consciousness: the union of all the brains of the species. To my mind, that is the next step in the adventure of consciousness, the next level of complexity.

  However, the two leading species have developed along parallel lines:

  To become intelligent, man developed a monstrous brain like a big, pink cauliflower.

  To achieve the same result, ants preferred to use several thousand small brains united by very subtle communication systems.

  In absolute terms, there is as much matter or intelligence in the ants’ pile of shredded cabbage as in the human cauliflower. It is a fight with equal weapons.

  But what would happen if, instead of running parallel to one another, the two forms of intelligence co-operated?

  Edmond Wells, Encclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge

  The only things Jean and Philippe really liked were the television and, at a pinch, pinball machines. They had even lost interest in the brand new miniature golf course built recently at great expense. As for walks in the forest, if a supervisor made them get some fresh air, they thought it was the pits.

  They had certainly had fun killing toads the previous week but the pleasure had been a bit short-lived.

  Today, at any rate, Jean seemed to have found something really worthwhile to do. He dragged his friend away from the group of orphans stupidly picking up dead leaves in order to make silly pictures and showed him a kind of cement cone. A termite hill.

  They immediately started to kick it to pieces but nothing came out. The termite hill was empty. Philippe leant over and sniffed.

  'Its been smashed up by the roadmender. Look, it stinks of insecticide. They're all dead inside.'

  Disappointed, they were about to rejoin the others when Jean spotted a pyramid half-hidden under a shrub on the other side of the little stream.

  That was the one! A really impressive anthill with a dome at least a metre high! Long columns of ants were going in and out, hundreds and thousands of workers, soldiers and explorers. DDT had not yet passed that way.

  Jean was hopping with excitement.

  'Hey, look at that!'

  'Oh no, you don't want to eat ants again, do you? The last lot were disgusting.'

  'Who said anything about eating them? That's a city you're looking at. That little bit sticking out there is like New York or Mexico all by itself. Remember what they said on television? It's teeming with ants inside. Look at the silly buggers slaving away.'

  'Yeah, and look how Nick disappeared after he got interested in ants. I bet there were ants in his cellar and he got eaten by them. I don't like being near that thing, I can tell you. It gives me the creeps. I saw some of the filthy things coming out of one of the holes on the miniature golf course yesterday. Maybe they were hoping to build a nest at the bottom of it. Stupid bloody things!'

  Jean shook his shoulder.

  'You don't like them and neither do I. Let's kill them! Let's pay them back for Nick!'

  Philippe thought about it. 'Kill them?'

  'Yes, why not? Let's set fire to the city. Can you imagine Mexico in flames just because we feel like it?'

  'OK, we'll set fire to it. Yeah, for Nick.'

  'Wait, I've got a better idea. We'll stick weed-killer inside it. That way, we'll really see some fireworks.'

  'Great!'

  'Listen, it's eleven o'clock, meet me back here in exactly two hours. That'll keep the supervisor off our backs and everyone will be in the dining hall. I'll go and get the weed-killer. You get hold of a box of matches, they're better than a lighter.' 'OK!'

  The infantry legions were advancing at a good pace. When the other federal cities asked where they were going, the Chlipoukanians replied that a lizard had been spotted in the western region and that the central city had requested their assistance.

  The rhinoceros beetles were buzzing overhead, barely slowed by the weight of the gunners bobbing about on their heads.

  'I've brought some meths to make it burn better,' announced Philippe.

  'Great,' said Jean, 'and I've bought the weed-killer. They wanted twenty francs for it, the mean sods.'

  Mother was playing with her carnivorous plants. Considering how long they had been there, she wondered why she had never used them to make a protective wall, as she had first intended.

  Then she thought about the wheel again. How could they use such a brilliant idea? Perhaps they
could make a big cement ball and push it along in front of them to crush their enemies. She would have to put the project in hand.

  'There, it's all in, the meths and the weed-killer.'

  While Jean was speaking, an exploring ant climbed up his leg. She tapped the material of his trousers with the ends of her antennae.

  You seem to be a giant living structure. Can you give me your identifications?

  He caught her and squashed her between his forefinger and thumb. Phut! The yellow and black juice ran between his fingers. 'That's one less to worry about,' he announced. 'Mind out of

  the way now, this is going to make the sparks fly'

  'There's going to be one hell of a blaze,' giggled Philippe.

  'How many of them do you think there are in there?'

  'Millions, probably. One of the villas round here is supposed to have been attacked by ants last year.'

  'We'll pay them back for that too,' said Jean. 'Go and take cover behind that tree over there.'

  Mother was thinking about the human beings. She must remember to ask them more questions next time. How did they use the wheel, for example?

  Jean struck a match and threw it at the dome of twigs and pine needles. Then he started to run to avoid being hit by fragments.

  At last, the Chlipoukanian army caught sight of the central city. How big it was!

  The flying match began its downward curve.

  Mother decided to speak to them without delay. She must also tell them she could increase the amount of honeydew on offer without any difficulty. The yield promised to be excellent this year.

  The match fell on the twigs of the dome.

  The Chlipoukanian army was close enough. It prepared to charge.

  Jean dived behind the big pine tree where Philippe was already sheltering.