Empire of the Ants Read Online Free PDF Page B

himself." You'll see, you'll get far more satisfaction out of it that way'
     
    With all that meat on their backs, the way home seemed longer than the way out. The troop kept up a good pace in order not to be overtaken by the rigours of night.
    Ants are capable of working twenty-four hours a day from March to November without rest but a drop in temperature sends them to sleep. That is why expeditions rarely stay away for more than a day.
    The russet ant city had discussed the problem at length. It knew that it was important to extend the hunting territories and find out about distant countries, where there are different plants and animals with different customs.
    In the eight hundred and fiftieth millennium, Bi-stin-ga, a russet ant queen of the Ga dynasty (an eastern dynasty that had vanished a hundred thousand years earlier), had had the mad ambition of discovering the 'limits' of the world. She had sent hundreds of expeditions to all four points of the compass. None had ever returned.
    The present queen, Belo-kiu-kiuni, was not so greedy. She was content to discover the little golden beetles that looked like precious gems (and were found in the deep south), or to observe the carnivorous plants which were sometimes brought back to her alive with their roots and which she hoped some day to tame.
    Belo-kiu-kiuni knew that the best way to find out about new territories was to extend the Federation with more and more long-distance expeditions, more and more daughter cities, more and more advance posts, and death to anyone who tried to stop the advance.
    Admittedly, it would take a long time to conquer the edge of the world but this policy of small stubborn steps was in perfect harmony with the ants' general philosophy of 'slowly but surely'.
    Today, the Federation of Bel-o-kan comprised sixty-four daughter cities; sixty-four cities which shared the same scent; sixty-four cities linked by a network of one hundred and twenty-five kilometres of hollowed-out trails and seven hundred and eighty kilometres of scent trails; sixty-four cities which stuck together in time of war and famine.
    The concept of a federation of cities meant that some of them could specialize. Belo-kiu-kiuni even dreamt of the day when one of the cities would deal in cereals, another supply meat and a third would concern itself only with war.
    They still had a long way to go.
    In any event, it was a concept which fitted in well with another principle of the ants' overall philosophy, 'the future belongs to specialists'.
    The explorers were still a long way from the advance posts so they decided to increase their pace. When they passed near the carnivorous plant again, a warrior proposed that they dig it up by the roots and take it back to Belo-kiu-kiuni.
    They conferred by putting their antennae together and sending and receiving minute volatile scent molecules called pheromones. These were actually hormones which escaped from the ants' bodies. Each molecule could be pictured as a fishbowl, with each fish a word.
    By means of pheromones, the ants could express virtually any shade of meaning. If the agitation of their antennae was anything to go by, the debate was becoming heated.
    It's too big to carry.
    Mother isn't familiar with this kind of plant.
    We may suffer losses and there won't be as many of us to carry the booty.
    Once we've tamed carnivorous plants, they'll be weapons in their own right and we'll be able to hold a front simply by planting them in a row. We're tired and it'll soon be dark.
    They decided to abandon the idea, skirted round the plant and continued on their way. As the group was drawing near a flowery thicket, the 327th male, who was bringing up the rear, spotted a red daisy. He had never seen one like it before and immediately made up his mind to have it.
    We didn't get the Venus's fly-trap but we are taking this back.
    He let the others get ahead a little and cut the flower off by the stem. Snip! Then, holding his discovery tightly, he