Empire of the Ants

  She went into the kitchen, had a quick look at the kettle and came back with six matches. Jonathan hesitated for a moment. It seemed feasible. He tried arranging the six little sticks in various ways but was forced to give up after a few minutes.

  'How do you do it?'

  Grandmother Augusta concentrated.

  'Well, I don't think he ever told me, actually. All I can remember is the clue he gave me: "You have to think about it differently. If you think about it in the usual way, you don't get anywhere." Can you imagine, a kid of eleven coming out with things like that? Ah, I think I can hear the kettle whistling.'

  She came back carrying two steaming cups of herb tea.

  'You know, I'm really pleased to see you taking an interest in your uncle. Nowadays, when someone dies, people forget they ever existed.'

  Jonathan put the matches aside and took a few sips of herb tea. 'What happened after that?'

  'I can't remember. Once he started studying science at university we didn't hear from him any more. I heard vaguely from your mother that he got a brilliant doctorate, worked for a food manufacturer, left to go to Africa, then came back and lived in the rue des Sybarites, where nothing more was heard of him until the day he died.'

  'How did he die?'

  'Oh, don't you know? It's quite incredible. It was in all the papers. He was killed by wasps, would you believe it!' 'Wasps? How did it happen?'

  'He was walking by himself in the forest. He must have accidentally disturbed a nest. They all rushed to attack him. The pathologist claimed he'd never seen so many stings on one person. He had over 0.3g of poison per litre of blood when he died. It was unheard of.' 'Where's he buried?'

  'He hasn't got a proper grave. He'd asked to be buried under a pine tree in the forest.'

  'Have you got a photograph of him?'

  'Yes, look, over there on the wall above the chest. Your mother, Suzy's, on the right (have you ever seen such a young-looking picture of her before?) and Edmonds on the left.'

  He had a receding hairline, a small pointed moustache and lobeless ears that extended above his eyebrows. He was smiling mischievously and looked quite a devil.

  Beside him, Suzy was resplendent in a white dress. She had married a few years later but had insisted on keeping her maiden name, Wells. As if she wanted her husband to leave no trace of his name on her offspring.

  Moving closer, Jonathan saw that Edmond was holding two fingers up above his sister's head.

  'He was always playing jokes on people, wasn't he?'

  Augusta did not answer. Her eyes had misted over with sorrow as she looked at her daughter's radiant face. Suzy had died six years earlier. A fifteen-tonne lorry in the hands of a drunken driver had pushed her car into a ravine. She had taken two days to die. She had asked for Edmond but Edmond had not come. Yet again, he had been elsewhere.

  'Do you know anyone else who could tell me about Edmond?'

  'Mmm. He used to see a lot of one of his childhood friends. They went to university together. He was called Jason Bragel. I must still have his number.'

  Augusta quickly consulted her computer and gave Jonathan his address. She looked at her grandson affectionately. He was the last survivor of the Wells family. A good boy.

  'Drink up now or your tea'll get cold. I've got some little sponge cakes as well, if you like. I make them myself with quails' eggs.'

  'No, thank you, I'll have to be going. Come and see us in our new flat one day. We've finished moving in.'

  'All right. Wait a minute, though. Don't go without the letter.'

  She delved frantically among tin boxes in the big cupboard and at last came up with a white envelope bearing the words 'For Jonathan Wells' written in a feverish hand. The flap of the envelope had been stuck down with several layers of sticky tape so that it could not be opened by mistake. He tore it open carefully. A crumpled page from an exercise book fell-out. He read the only sentence written on it:

  ‘ABOVE ALL, NEVER GO DOWN INTO THE CELLAR!'

  The ant's antennae were trembling. She was like a car that had been left out in the snow too long and would not start. The male had several tries. He rubbed her and bathed her in warm saliva.

  Life flowed back. At last the motor started again. A season had gone by. Everything was beginning anew as if it had never slept the deathlike sleep.

  He rubbed her again to generate some calories. She was all right now. He carried on with his efforts and the blind worker pointed her antennae in his direction. She wanted to know who he was.

  She touched the first segment of his head and read his age: a hundred and seventy-three days. On the second, she discovered his caste: a reproductive male. On the third, his species and city: a russet ant from the mother city of Bel-o-Kan. On the fourth, she discovered the clutch number by which he was known: the 327th male laid since the start of autumn.

  She ceased her olfactory decoding at this point. The other segments were not emitters. The fifth acted as a receiver for trail molecules. The sixth was used for simple dialogues. The seventh made more complex sexual dialogues possible. The eighth was intended for dialogues with Mother. The last three, finally, could be used as small clubs.

  There, she had examined the eleven segments of the second half of the antenna but it had nothing to tell her. She moved off and went in turn to warm herself on the roof of the city.

  He did likewise. He had finished his task as thermal messenger and it was time to get down to repairs.

  When he reached the top, the 327th male assessed the damage. The city had been built in the shape of a cone to offer less resistance to the elements but the winter had been destructive. The wind, snow and hail had torn away the first layer of twigs. Some of the entrances were blocked with bird droppings. He must start work at once. 327th bore down on a big yellow stain and attacked the hard foul matter with his mandibles. Through it he could see the outline of an insect digging towards him from the inside.

  The spyhole had got darker. Someone was looking at him through the door. 'Who's there?'

  'Mr Gougne. I've come about the binding.'

  The door opened a crack and Gougne looked down on a fair-haired ten-year-old boy, then noticed even further down a tiny dog which poked its nose between the boy's legs and started to growl.

  'Dad's out.'

  'Are you sure? Professor Wells was supposed to come and see me and . . .'

  'Professor Wells is my great-uncle. He's dead, though.'

  Nicolas tried to shut the door but the man stuck his foot inside the door-frame and insisted.

  'I'm very sorry to hear about the Professor's death but are you sure he didn't leave a big file full of papers? I'm a book-binder. He paid me in advance to bind his working notes in a leather cover. I think he was hoping to make them into an encyclopedia. He was supposed to call me but I haven't heard from him for a long time.'

  'He's dead, I tell you.'

  The man stuck his foot further into the flat, pressing his knee against the door as if he were going to push the little boy out of the way. The tiny dog started to yap furiously. He stood still.

  'You must understand I'd be very unhappy not to stick to the deal, even posthumously. Please check. There really has to be a big red file somewhere.'

  'Did you say it was an encyclopedia?'

  'Yes, he used to call it the Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge when he was talking about it, but I'd be surprised if that's written on the cover.'

  'We'd already have found it if he'd left it at our house.'

  'I'm sorry to insist, but. . .'

  The toy poodle began to bark again. The man started back just enough for the boy to slam the door in his face.

  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 fat
al 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 before 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 feet, 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 cellar. We mustn't talk about it anymore 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 y
our 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.