The Raid on the Termites
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Denny bounded free and again sent the length of his spearinto the body.]
The Raid on the Termites
_A Complete Novelette_
By Paul Ernst
Armed with splinters of steel, two ant-sized men dare the formidable mysteries of a termitary.
CHAPTER I
_The Challenge of the Mound_
It was a curious, somehow weird-looking thing, that mound. About a yardin height and three and a half in diameter, it squatted in the grassygrove next the clump of trees like an enormous, inverted soup plate.Here and there tufts of grass waved on it, of a richer, deeper color,testifying to the unwholesome fertility of the crumbling outer stuffthat had flaked from the solid mound walls.
Like an excrescence on the flank of Mother Earth herself, the moundloomed; like an unhealthy, cancerous growth. And inside the enigmaticthing was another world. A dark world, mysterious, horrible, peopled byblind and terrible demons--a world like a Dante's dream of a secondInferno.
Such, at least, were the thoughts of Dennis Braymer as he worked withdelicate care at the task of sawing into the hard cement of a portion ofthe wall near the rounded top.
His eyes, dark brown and rimmed with thick black lashes, flashedearnestly behind his glasses as they concentrated on his difficult job.His face, lean and tanned, was a mask of seriousness. To him, obviously,this was a task of vital importance; a task worthy of all a man'sability of brain and logic.
Obviously also, his companion thought of the work as just something withwhich to fill an idle afternoon. He puffed at a pipe, and regarded theentomologist with a smile.
To Jim Holden, Denny was simply fussing fruitlessly and absurdly with anordinary "ant-hill," as he persisted in miscalling a termitary. Playingwith bugs, that was all. Wasting his time poking into the affairs oftermites--and acting, by George, as though those affairs were of supremesignificance!
He grinned, and tamped and relighted the tobacco in his pipe. Herefrained from putting his thoughts into words, however. He knew, ofold, that Denny was apt to explode if his beloved work were interruptedby a careless layman. Besides, Dennis had brought him here rather underprotest, simply feeling that it was up to a host to do a littlesomething or other by way of trying to amuse an old college mate who hadcome for a week's visit. Since he was there on sufferance, so to speak,it was up to him to keep still and not interrupt Denny's play.
The saw rasped softly another time or two, then moved, handled withsurgeon's care, more gently--till at last a section about as big as thepalm of a man's hand was loose on the mound-top.
Denny's eyes snapped. His whole wiry, tough body quivered. He visiblyheld his breath as he prepared to flip back that sawed section ofcurious, strong mound wall.
He snatched up his glass, overturned the section.
Jim drew near to watch, too, seized in spite of himself by some of thescientist's almost uncontrollable excitement.
Under the raised section turmoil reigned for a moment. Jim saw a hordeof brownish-white insects, looking something like ants, dashingfrenziedly this way and that as the unaccustomed light of sun andexposure of outer air impinged upon them. But the turmoil lasted only alittle while.
Quickly, in perfect order, the termites retreated. The exposed honeycombof cells and runways was deserted. A slight heaving of earth told howthe insects were blocking off the entrances to the exposed floor, andmaking that floor their new roof to replace the roof this invading gianthad stripped from over them.
In three minutes there wasn't a sign of life in the hole. Theobservation--if one could call so short a glimpse at so abnormallyacting a colony an observation--was over.
* * * * *
Denny rose to his feet, and dashed his glass to the ground. His face wastwisted in lines of utter despair, and through his clenched teeth thebreath whistled in uneven gasps.
"My God!" he groaned. "My God--if only I could see them! If only I couldget in there, and watch them at their normal living. But it's alwayslike this. The only glance we're permitted is at a stampede followingthe wrecking of a termitary. And that tells us no more about the realnatures of the things than you could tell about the nature of normal menby watching their behavior after an earthquake!"
Jim Holden tapped out his pipe. On his face the impatiently humorouslook gave place to a measure of sympathy. Good old Denny. How he tookthese trivial disappointments to heart. But, how odd that any man couldget so worked up over such small affairs! These bugologists were queerpeople.
"Oh, well," he said, half really to soothe Denny, half deliberately todraw him out, "why get all boiled up about the contrariness of ordinarylittle bugs?"
Denny rose to the bait at once. "Ordinary little bugs? If you knew whatyou were talking about, you wouldn't dismiss the termite so casually!These 'ordinary little bugs' are the most intelligent, the mostsignificant and highly organized of all the insect world.
"Highly organized?" he repeated himself, his voice deepening. "They'relike a race of intelligent beings from another planet--superior even toMan, in some ways. They have a king and queen. They have 'soldiers,'developed from helpless, squashy things into nightmare creations withlobster-claw mandibles longer than the rest of their bodies puttogether. They have workers, who bore the tunnels and build the mounds.And they have winged ones from among which are picked new kings andqueens to replace the original when they get old and useless. And allthese varied forms, Jim, they hatch at will, through some marvelouspower of selection, from the same, identical kind of eggs. Now, I askyou, could you take the unborn child and make it into a man with fourarms or a woman with six legs and wings, at will, as these insects, ineffect, do with theirs?"
"I never tried," said Jim.
"Just a soft, helpless, squashy little bug, to begin with," Denny wenton, ignoring his friend's levity. "Able to live only in warmcountries--yet dying when exposed directly to the sun. Requiring a verymoist atmosphere, yet exiled to places where it doesn't rain for monthsat a time. And still, under circumstances harsher even than those Manhas had to struggle against, they have survived and multiplied."
"Bah, bugs," murmured Jim maddeningly.
* * * * *
But again Denny ignored him, and went on with speculations concerningthe subject that was his life passion. He was really thinking aloud,now; the irreverent Holden was for the moment nonexistent.
"And the something, the unknown intelligence, that seems to rule eachtermitary! The something that seems able to combine oxygen from the airwith hydrogen from the wood they eat and make necessary moisture; thesomething that directs all the blind subjects in their marvelousunderground architecture; the something that, at will, hatches a dozendifferent kinds of beings from the common stock of eggs--what can it be?A sort of super-termite? A super-intellect set in the minute head of aninsect, yet equal to the best brains of mankind? We'll probably neverknow, for, whatever the unknown intelligence is, it lurks in thefoundations of the termitaries, yards beneath the surface, where wecannot penetrate without blowing up the whole mound--and at the sametime destroying all the inhabitants."
Jim helped Denny gather up his scientific apparatus. They started acrossthe fields toward Denny's roadster, several hundred yards away--Jim,blond and bulking, a hundred and ninety pounds of hardy muscle and bone;Denny wiry and slender, dark-eyed and dark-haired. The sledge-hammer andthe rapier; the human bull, and the human panther; the one a studentkept fit by outdoor studies, and the other a careless, rich youngtime-killer groomed to the pink by the big-game hunting and South Seasailing and other adventurous ways of living he prefe
rred.
"This stuff is all very interesting," he said perfunctorily, "but whathas it to do with practical living? How will the study of bugs, nomatter how remarkable the bug, be of benefit to the average man? What Imean is, your burning zeal--your really bitter disappointment a minuteago--seem a bit out of place. A bit--well, exaggerated don't you know."
* * * * *
Denny halted; and Jim, perforce, stopped, too. Denny's dark eyes burnedinto Jim's blue ones.
"How does it affect practical living? You, who have been in the tropicsmany times on your lion-spearing and snake-hunting jaunts, ask such athing? Haven't you ever seen the damage these infernal things can do?"
Jim shook his head. "I've never happened to be in termite country,though I've heard tales about them."
"If you've heard stories, you have at least in idea of their deadlinesswhen they're allowed to multiply. You must have heard how they literallyeat up houses and the furnishings within, how they consume telegraphpoles, railroad ties, anything wooden within reach. The termite is aghastly menace. When they move in--men eventually move out! And theirappearance here in California has got many a nationally famous man halfcrazy. That's what they mean to the average person!"
Jim, scratched his head. "I didn't think of that angle of it," headmitted.
"Well, it's time you thought of something besides fantastic ways ofrisking your life. The termite has been kept in place, till now, by onlytwo things: ants, which are its bitterest enemies, and constantly attackand hamper its development; and climatic conditions, which bar it fromthe temperate zones. Now suppose, with all their intelligence and forceof organization--not to mention that mysterious and terrible unknownintelligence that leads them--they find a way to whip the ants once forall, and to immunize themselves to climatic changes? Mankind willprobably be doomed."
"Gosh," said Jim, with exaggerated terror.
* * * * *
"Laugh if you want to," said Dennis, "but I tell you the termite is avery real menace. Even in its present stage of development. And themaddening thing is that we can't observe them and so discover how bestto fight them.
"To get away from the light that is fatal to them, they build moundslike that behind us, of silicated, half-digested wood, which hardensinto a sort of cement that will turn the cutting edge of steel. If youpry away some of the wall to spy on them, you get the fiasco I was justrewarded with. If you try to penetrate to the depths of the mystery,yards underground, by blowing up the termitary with gun powder, the onlyway of getting to the heart of things--you destroy the termites. Straysare seldom seen; in order, again, to avoid light and air-exposure, theytunnel underground or build tubes above ground to every destination.Always they keep hidden and secret. Always they work from within, whichis why walls and boards they have devoured look whole: the outer shellhas been left untouched and all the core consumed."
"Can't you get at the beasts in the laboratory?" asked Jim.
"No. If you put them into glass boxes to watch them, they manage tocorrode the glass so it ceases to be transparent. And they can boretheir way out of any wood, or even metal, containers you try to keepthem in. The termite seems destined to remain a gruesome, marvelous,possibly deadly mystery."
* * * * *
He laughed abruptly, shrugged his shoulders, and started toward the caragain.
"When I get off on my subject, there's no telling when I'll stop. But,Jim, I tell you, I'd give years of my life to be able to do what allentomologists are wild to do--study the depths of a termite mound. God!What wouldn't I give for the privilege of shrinking to ant-size, androaming loose in that secretive-looking mound behind us!"
He laughed again, and slapped Holden's broad back.
"_There_ would be a thrill for you, you bored adventurer! There would beexploration work! A trip to Mars wouldn't be in it. The nightmaremonsters you would see, the hideous creations, the cannibalism, thehorrible but efficient slave system carried on by these blind,intelligent things in the dark depths of the subterranean cells! Lions?Suppose you were suddenly confronted by a thing as big as a horse, withfifteen-foot jaws of steely horn that could slice you in two and hardlyknow it! How would you like that?"
And now in the other man's eyes there was a glint, while his faceexpressed aroused interest.
Every man to his own game, thought Denny curiously, watching thetransformation. He lived for scientific experiments and observationshaving to do with termites. Holden existed, apparently, only for thethrill of pitting his brain and brawn against dangerous beasts, wildsurroundings, or tempestuous elements. If only their two supremeinterests in life could be combined....
"How would I like it?" said Jim. "Denny, old boy, when you can introduceme to an adventure like that ..." He waved his arm violently to completethe sentence. "What a book of travel it would make! 'The Raid on theTermites. Exploring an Insect Hell. Death in an Ant-hill....'"
"Termitary! Termitary!" corrected Denny irritably.
"Whatever you want to call it," Jim conceded airily. He dumped theapparatus he was carrying into the rear compartment of the roadster."But why speak of miracles? Even if we were sent to a modern handlaundry, we could hardly be shrunk to ant-size. Shall we ramble alonghome?"