Part 19 (1/2)
he thought. ”It's normal; I'm doing that almost every day.”
The feeling he experienced as he swung into action was strange. As he walked back and forth it felt like somnambulic walk; something his limbs did without an act of will. As his hands did things expertly and skillfully the feeling was that they were instruments automatically moved not by his own volition but by some power outside himself.
His movements were those of a child serenely at play, a child incongruously tall and gaunt and grey-haired constructing little causeways and bridges on the ground with the logs of the fireplace; a happy child engrossed in an innocent game....
It took about an hour and then causeways of fresh pulpwood were laid from every termite hill to every feeding gate, from every gla.s.s cubicle to the south wall and along the south wall to the ”Lignin-Filler-Spout”; and from the ground up to the spout a little tepee of sticks had been built.
Admiringly the grey-haired child looked at its handiwork through thick-lensed gla.s.ses. ”It's been an interesting game,” Lee thought, ”it might turn out to be a valuable new experiment. I'll sit down now and observe what happens....”
He went over to the desk again and settled down. He opened his files and laid out his charts on the desk and there were colored pencils to be sharpened for the entries. He was glad of that; his conscious mind rejoiced now over every little pursuit of routine, of normalcy, of the established scientific order of things; it concentrated on these. Pencil in hand, reclined in comfort, his heartbeat even, he kept expectant eyes upon the staggered rows of fluorescent screens, ready to note any significant developments.
He didn't have to wait long; their strange sixth sense, the telepathy of their collective brains, the spirit of the hive with the immortality of their race for its supreme law, had already told them of a promised land and of new worlds to conquer.
On the fluorescent screens Lee watched their preparations for the big drive: The nasicorn-soldiers clotting together at the exit tunnels like a.s.sault troops at the bow of invasion barges when the bottom sc.r.a.pes the landing beach; the fierce, virginal workers struggling up from the deep shelters of the nurseries, carrying in their mandibles the squirming larvae, the living future of the race. The walls of the queen's prison broken down in the innermost redoubt and the guards closing in on the idol of the race, moving the big white body like a juggernaut.
In a matter of minutes the ”activity” and ”emotionality” curves on the fluorescent screens surged to heights which Lee had never seen.
It started with the crossbreeds of ”_termes-bellicosus_,” with army-ants and devil-ants, and spread quickly all along the line of non-belligerent varieties. Famine had given them the impetus to change their mode of life; famine, the inexorable tyrant, whipped them onward into their exodus.
On the foremost fluorescent screens Lee saw it start: Small groups of warriors reconnoitering into no-man's-land and quickly darting back again.... And then the dark columns of the first a.s.sault wave descending from their city-gates, lock-stepped like Prussian guards of old, marching as if to the beat of drums. On the visi-screens which magnified them a hundred times they looked an awesome sight with the rostrums of their horns, bigger than all the rest of their bodies, swinging like turrets of battles.h.i.+ps being trained upon the enemy. From the loudspeakers which magnified all noise a hundred times, the excited tremors of their bodies, the locked steps of a million feet swelled into a vast roar sounding almost like thunder.
Jotting down observations in rapid pencil strokes, Lee thought: ”Starvation is producing very interesting results; it's a worthwhile experiment.” With all his mental energy he suppressed the silent prayer which struggled to arise from the deep of his unconscious: ”Good Lord let The Brain not realize _what_ is going on.”
The visi-screens now showed the second wave of the a.s.sault: endless columns of workers, their mandibles twitching with eagerness to devour, bustling along the logs, kept in line by two rows of warriors to their right and left. The noises they produced in the loudspeakers were as of some big cattle-drive.
With no interruption in the lengthening line the third wave followed: the virgin nurses, the frustrated mothers carrying the whitish larvae, like babes in arms, carrying them with the indomitable determination to preserve their lives which human nurses showed in the Second World War as the bombs crashed into maternity wards. And then at last the heavy rearguard: the holiest of holies, the living spirit of the hive, the queen. Majestically she was carried on her warrior's backs; enormous as she loomed on the visi-screen, the white of her uncouth body was hardly visible, swarmed over as she was by her fanatical courtiers which, licking and caressing, kept her covered as by a s.h.i.+eld. Her consorts trotted meekly in her trail; unhappy little men, rudely aroused from their harem sinecure, jealously guarded and prodded on by the queen's countless ladies in waiting and the palace guard.
Things moved very fast now; Lee's quick pencil strokes could hardly follow the events:
10:30 a.m. The foremost columns are now out of reach of the visi-screens. But I can see them moving along the logs with the naked eye. Interesting new fact: the crossbreeds from the most belligerent species are far and ahead of the rest. They don't take time out to drive tunnels. But even the tunnels of the more pacific strains are forging ahead at an extraordinary rate; six feet across the floor already....
10:40: ”_Bellicosus_” has reached the south wall; it is now moving along the wall toward the ”Lignin-Filler-Spout.” There is no hesitancy as they change direction at the angle of 90 degrees. The Queens are now coming up at a very rapid rate from the mounds farthest to the rear.
It's fortunate we have these differences in behaviorism and temperament because otherwise a terrific traffic jam would occur at the ”Filler-Spout”....
10:50: ”_Bellicosus_” is now ascending to the ”Filler-Spout.” The warriors have ringed the pipe. With their body-tremors they are giving the ”come-on” signal to the workers. The workers are piling in--an average batch--about 65,000. It's a good thing that there is an air s.p.a.ce in these horizontal nerve-path pipes. That gives them a chance to march along the ceiling and work down from there....
11:00: There are now a score of columns converging at the ”Filler-Spout.” Amazing that even under such provoking conditions ”_ant-termes_” won't fight. The warriors act like the most accomplished traffic-cops; it's marvelous how they keep their columns in order and keep them moving side by side into The Brain....
11:10: The first million, I should say, is now well inside the ”Filler-Spout.” They're marching at a rate of at least 300 yards per hour; amazing speed; I never saw them move that fast before. Even so I won't have time to watch the outcome of the experiment. I've put everything I had into this thing. 500 hives--that would make it 35 million individuals of the species at a conservative estimate. It's the biggest ma.s.s-migration I've ever seen, but will it be big enough to do the trick?
11:20: The foremost columns must have reached the neighboring apperception centers to the right and left of mine by now. But they won't stop; I know that from experience in Australia. To them it's just like any other ”hollow tree”; they'll drive right on to the top; they won't bivouak before they are completely exhausted. That won't be before five or six hours. At the rate of 900 feet per hour that would make it almost a mile, covering the whole ”occipital region” of The Brain. And then they are going to feast; boy, will they be ravenous....
11:30: About 3 million are safely inside now I should say. Don't think that I could stay at my post much longer. There's a certain extracurricular idea coming up from the subconscious like a tidal wave.
The dams of willpower don't seem able to hold back that idea; I've got to get out before it spills across the dam and floods my consciousness.
The phone rings; for once it is a welcome sound.