What about the guardians of the end of the world? asked 103,683rd.
Don't worry, you'll see them soon enough.
Is it true they've got a weapon capable of crushing a whole army at a blow?
The harvesters were surprised the strangers were so well-informed. It's true.
So 103,683rd would at last solve the mystery of the secret weapon.
That night, she had a dream. She saw the Earth stopping at right angles, a vertical wall of water filling the sky and, coming out of this wall of water, blue ants holding highly destructive acacia branches. The ends of these magic branches only had to touch something for it to be completely pulverized.
JOURNEY'S END
Augusta spent the whole day playing around with six matches. She had understood that the wall was more psychological than real. There was that famous you have to think differently' of Edmonds. Her son had discovered something for sure and he had used his intelligence to hide it.
She recalled his childhood 'dens'. Perhaps it was because they had destroyed them all that he had tried to make one that was inaccessible, a place where no-one would ever disturb him, a kind of inner place, which would project its peace and invisibility outwards.
Augusta tried to shake off her torpor. A memory from her own youth surfaced. It was a winter's night, she was very small and she had just understood that numbers below nought could exist. 3, 2, 1, 0 and then -1, -2, -3. Inside-out numbers, as if the glove of numbers were being turned inside out. So nought was not the beginning and end of everything. Another infinite world lay on the other side. It was as if the wall 'nought' had been swept away.
She must have been seven or eight years old, but she had been so overwhelmed by her discovery that she had not slept all night.
Inside-out figures. It opened up a whole new dimension, the third dimension. What a relief.
Good heavens!
Her hands were trembling with emotion and she was crying but she found the strength to pick up the matches. She made three of them into a triangle, then stood a match at each corner so that they met in a point at the top.
They formed a pyramid. A pyramid of four equilateral triangles, one as its base and three as its sides.
★ ★š ★
The eastern limit of the Earth was a staggering place. There was nothing natural or Earth-like about it. It was not as 103,683rd had imagined. The edge of the world was hard, smooth and warm and it smelt of mineral oil. And it was black, the blackest thing she had ever seen.
Instead of a vertical ocean, there were incredibly violent air currents.
They spent a long time trying to understand what was happening. From time to time, they felt a vibration. Its intensity increased exponentially, then the ground suddenly trembled, a strong wind lifted their antennae and an infernal din split the eardrums in their tibiae. It was like a violent storm but it had no sooner happened than it was over, leaving only a few whorls of dust to setde behind it.
Many harvester explorers had tried to cross the frontier but the Guardians kept watch. They had caused the noise, wind and vibration as they struck down all who tried to cross the black earth.
Had they already seen the Guardians? Before the russet ants could receive a reply, there was another roar, which gradually died away. One of the six harvesters with them asserted that no-one had ever managed to walk on the 'accursed land' and come back alive. The Guardians crushed everything.
It must have been they who had attacked La-chola-kan and the expedition of the 327th male. But why had they left the end of the world to move west? Did they want to invade the world?
The harvesters knew no more than the russet ants. Could they at least describe them? All they knew was that anyone who had gone near them had been crushed to death. They did not even know which category of living creatures to place them in. Were they giant insects, birds or plants? All the harvesters knew was that they were very fast and very powerful. It was a force quite beyond them, unlike anything they knew.
At that moment, 4,000th took a sudden, unexpected initiative. She left the group and ventured into the forbidden territory alone, cool as you please. If she were going to die anyway, she might as well try to cross the end of the world first. The others watched, aghast.
She moved slowly forward, alert for the slightest vibration, the slightest scent announcing death in the sensitive ends of her legs. There ... she had gone fifty heads, a hundred heads, two hundred heads, four hundred, six hundred, eight hundred. Nothing had happened. She was safe and sound.
The ants standing opposite applauded her. From where she was, she could see intermittent white stretches running to the left and right. Everything on the black earth was dead. There were no plants or insects. And the ground was so black it could not be real earth.
She detected plants far ahead. Could there possibly be a world after the edge of the world? She threw a few pheromones to her colleagues waiting on the bank to tell them all about it but it was difficult to communicate properly at that distance.
She turned round and the colossal noise and trembling began again. The Guardians were returning! She raced back to her companions at top speed.
They watched petrified for the brief fraction of time it took a stupendous bulk to thunder across their sky. The Guardians had passed by, giving off the smell of mineral oil, and 4,000th had disappeared.
The ants went a little closer to the edge and saw what had happened. 4,000th had been squashed so flat her body was now no more than a tenth of a head thick and seemed to be incrusted in the black ground.
Nothing was left of the old Belokanian explorer and her suffering was likewise at an end. One of the ichneumon wasp larvae had just pierced her back and was nothing but a white dot in the middle of the flattened russet body.
So that was how the Guardians of the end of the world struck. You heard a din, felt a rush of wind and everything was instantly destroyed, crushed, pulverized. 103,683rd was still analyzing what had happened when she heard another roar. Death struck even when no-one crossed its threshold, leaving the dust to settle.
103,683rd still wanted to try and get across. She thought again of Satei. It was a similar problem. If you could not get over it, you had to go under it. You had to think of the black earth as a river and the best way to cross rivers was to tunnel beneath them.
She discussed it with the six harvesters, who were immediately enthusiastic about the idea. It was so obvious they could not understand why they had not thought of it earlier. Then everyone started to dig with both mandibles.
Jason Bragel and Professor Rosenfeld had never been mad about herb tea but it was growing on them. Augusta told them everything in detail. She explained to them that her son had designated them to inherit the flat after her death and that they would probably both be tempted to explore the basement one day, just as she was. She therefore thought it better to combine their efforts for maximum efficiency.
Once Augusta had supplied them with this vital preliminary information, the three of them barely spoke. They had no need of words to understand one another. A look and a smile were enough. None of the three had ever experienced such immediate intellectual osmosis. It went beyond mere intellect, as if they had been born to complete one another and their genetic programmes fitted together and merged. It was magical. Augusta was very old, yet the others both found her extraordinarily beautiful.
They spoke of Edmond and were surprised at the warmth of their affection for him, in which there was no hint of reservation. Jason Bragel did not talk about his family, Daniel Rosenfeld did not talk about his work and Augusta did not talk about her illness. They decided to go down that very evening. They knew it was the only possible thing to do.
it was long thought: It was long thought that computers in general and artificial intelligence programmes in particular would mingle human concepts and present them from a new angle. In short, electronics was expected to deliver a new philosophy. But even when it is presented differently, the raw material remains
the same: ideas produced by human imaginations. It is a dead end. The best way to renew thought is to go outside the human imagination.
Edmond Wells, Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge
Chli-pou-kan was growing in size and intelligence and was now an 'adolescent' city. Continuing down the road of aquatic technology, the Chlipoukanians had built a whole network of canals under the twelfth floor of the basement. These waterways allowed food to be transported quickly from one end of the city to the other.
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 bac
k 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.