Ants

Calling Mrs. Honeydew. Mrs. G. Honeydew please contact the purser at your earliest convenience…

“They’ve been paging that woman all morning, Conan. I think they’ve lost her.” Glory popped a piece of salmon into her mouth and chewed for a moment, looking out at the infinite blackness of space.

They were on a huge bed in the Honeymoon Suite, a transparent dome raised above the superstructure of the Pharaoh’s Star, the most luxurious space clipper of the fleet. The view made Glory shiver. She waved a hand and the dome became opaque. “But I don’t see how you lose a passenger on a space liner. I think it’s awful. Surely it can’t happen.”

Conan made no reply; he was intently studying his salad.

She took a sip of champagne and changed the subject. “Conan, do you think that’s true about Earth?”

“Probably.” He was searching his plate for the usual complement of plum tomatoes and finding none. This was their seventh consecutive lunch in bed and he had been seeing the same salmon salad each day – Glory’s first choice from the vast menu, neither of them having any interest in eating when more pleasant duties called – but today there was something missing.

“Mother says it is.”

“Hmm.” Glory’s mother, now his mother-in-law, was the family’s self-appointed expert on everything. Conan was still feeling his way in that particular field of thorns. He frowned and abandoned the hunt for the tomatoes and went to work on the salmon steak.

“The government denies it,” Glory continued. “But I notice they are no longer on Earth. They relocated to the Moonbase two months ago.”

“Refurbishment.”

“Hmmph. How do you refurbish an entire planet? Mother says it can’t be done and I think it’s true. I think we really did it; we really destroyed it.”

Conan glanced up and noted the perturbed look in the green eyes, but he knew it would soon pass. Glory liked to display her wide range of designer expressions but none were to be taken seriously.

“Mother says that rip dot com says the atmosphere is so toxic now that just 1% more and it will tip over forever. One more rainy season, Conan. Think of that. One more rainy season and the soil will be totally incapable of supporting any life except for things that grow on rocks. And cockroaches.”

Conan pushed his tray away. Glory was everything a man could want in a corporate wife – blonde, beautiful, sexually vivacious, meticulously spoilt, but a mental lightweight. Glory’s father owned Gallatrex. Conan had needed to skip a few rungs of the corporate ladder. It was a strategically and tactically sound merger, Conan not being inclined to over-exert himself even in the pursuit of wealth and power, and Glory needing to escape her father’s financial dictatorship. However prolonged conversations were counter-productive to his peace of mind and their present state of blissful harmony.

Gifts and sex, he’d learned, were the two best distractions and for the moment he’d run out of gifts.

“Perhaps she’s right,” he said turning on his side and slipping a naked leg between hers. That was usually enough for Glory to leave off whatever she was mentally mauling and resume the honeymoon but this time she was oblivious to the maneuver.

“Well, no one can breathe down there any more,” she continued. “Unless it’s in a dome. That’s why we’re leaving.”

Now she had tightened her lips, one eyebrow cocked cynically in a junior version of her mother’s signature expression. He couldn’t let this comment pass without surgery. “We are leaving,” he said, “because I’ve been promoted to your father’s Board.” He didn’t need to mention the astronomic salary that went along with it: Glory knew that to the last credit. “The youngest Board appointee in history.”

He liked saying that.

“Therefore this is an evolutionary step. A vital evolutionary step – for both of us. And our honeymoon, of course.” He slid his hand down her stomach and moved his leg higher.

Glory smiled. She liked him when he was being pompous; it was cute coming from a twenty-two year old. In a year, or less, it would probably just strike her as pompous, so better to enjoy it while she could. She also liked him doing what he was doing down there with his hand…

She was torn between forwarding mother’s propaganda program and enjoying herself. She decided mother could wait, nudged her tray so it sailed across the room to dock in a wall slot and ran a hand over his groin, pleased with the immediate response. The one thing she really liked about Conan, more than his square-jawed good looks and the fact that he was taking her away from father, was that he was always ready for sex – and he wasn’t stingy with presents. She needed to nurture those qualities until there were more attractive and exciting alternatives at hand. She disentangled her legs and slipped off the bed. “I’ll just go do my teeth, and then we’ll get back to work.”

She skipped into the bathroom and waved the door closed. Work was their euphemism for their joint contribution to the continuation of the species – not that she planned to distend her lovely body with a pregnancy; no, that could be done in-vitro later – but it was the thought that counted after all, and in this instance the thought included a lot of wrestling, writhing, giggling, moaning, and chewing on tumescent body parts. Especially hers.

While the little cleansing nanobots fizzed about her mouth, she examined herself in the full-length mirror. All things considered, as mother would say, she was stunningly beautiful. Heart shaped face, soft blonde curls, pert pink lips, startling green eyes. And then the body: wonderful, full, gravity defying breasts; a flat stomach that invited the eye to her delectable mons; superb buns above legs that went forever, and all covered with pale, flawless skin. Conan was lucky to have her.

He was attractive in his own way, too: blue-black hair, piercing blue eyes, athlete’s physique, and that lovely big dongle. Physically they were made for each other. Emotionally she would have preferred someone not quite so career-oriented, and more interested in her. Still, Conan would certainly do for the time being…

“Conan,” she said as she walked back into the bedroom, “do you know what I’d really like if you’re thinking of giving me another little present? Now that we can afford it – ” He was hanging over the side of the bed, buttocks in the air. “What are you doing?”

“Looking at something.”

She threw herself down beside him and followed his gaze. A small black dot was moving in a straight line across the pale carpet.

“That’s an ant!” she declared.

Conan grunted in the negative. “Impossible. No insect could pass through the sterilization fields on the gangways. It must be a maintenance bot.”

“That looks like an ant to me,” Glory insisted, trying to remember when she had last seen one in the flesh. “We should tell someone.”

They watched in silence until it disappeared. Conan moved back to the pillows. “To tell someone we’d have to see someone.” He pulled her down beside him and turned his attention to her nipples…

For the evening meal they decided to venture out of the suite.

Usually this required a period of dressing, undressing, dressing and undressing again, which as a rule evolved into foreplay and meant the abandonment of the plan. On this occasion they made it down to the First Class dining room as it was about to close. Glory looked about at the fifty or so tables scattered among floating islands of ferns and orchids and whistled softly. “Live waiters.”

Conan nodded. “Read the brochure. All the food is grown on board hydroponically and prepared by human hand.”

Glory pointed her nose at a large oval table raised higher than the others. “That must be the Captain’s table.”

He nodded at another, raised almost to the same height and occupied by a very large woman with a square, masculine face. “And that would be the Olympus table. I tried to book the suite for us but it is permanently reserved.”

Glory studied the object of their attention with disapproval. “Who is she?”

“Mrs. Larval. Widow of the Founder of Larvals. They built and own this Clipper.”

She frowned. “I thought father owned it.”

“She’s the majority shareholder. She lives on board.”

“What? And cruises back and forth between Earth and Arcadia? How boring. Why doesn’t she just live on Arcadia?”

“Go and ask her.”

She ignored his advice and resumed her survey of the dozen other diners in the room. Mother had said the Clipper was the most suitable way to spend the honeymoon, lots of time to bring Conan into line, but now that they were out of their cabin she couldn’t help but be disappointed by her fellow travelers. “Average age between ninety and one hundred and twenty,” she reported in a whisper. “All extensively rebuilt and showing it. They call these cruises the last fling, don’t they? Go on a cruise and drop dead. Another sign that Earth has had it, if you ask me. More rats leaving the ship. Geriatric rats.”

“If you want young we can go to the other dining room,” Conan offered, knowing she would not be seen dead on the lower decks.

Glory shook her head. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s go back to bed and order room service. And get back to work.”

Glory took a sip of wine and nestled back onto the bolsters.

“Mother says that rip dot com says the human race is facing extinction.” She drew quotation marks in the air with a free finger. “’Materialism has destroyed us as surely as it has destroyed our home planet’.”

Conan had been trying to read an article about himself entitled The New Facilitators in which the author had spelled his name with two ‘o’s. He wiped the screen. The only downside to sex with Glory was that she launched into these awful speeches before the sweat had even dried. He knew where the scheme was headed: he was being groomed to become her mother’s pawn on the Gallatrex Board: a dangerous position to be in, sandwiched between two in-laws, and one he had to manage with care. He fell back onto the bed. “Rip dot com is the Cosmic Conscience?”

“Mother says they make sense. Really, Conan. They do make sense.”

He yawned his boredom and closed his eyes. “You don’t need to defend them.”

“I wasn’t defending them. But mother says RIP says we have abandoned our right to dominate life in our environment. Mother says that rip dot com says that evolutionarily we were supposed to develop into Homo Novis, but we’re stuck in an evolutionary cul de something – Oh god, what’s that? Look, Conan! Do you see that? What is it?”

She was pointing at a threadlike blemish on the dome above them. Her finger traced a thin black line that went all the way from one side to the other. “Is it a crack? God, tell me it isn’t a crack!”

“It’s not a crack,” Conan replied. He considered it for a moment and then rose to his feet and bounced gently upward for a better view. “It’s a line of those robotics. But they don’t move like robotics. They actually look like… ants.”

“But you said it couldn’t be ants.”

“I said it was improbable, not impossible.” He went up on his toes again and aimed a finger at the thread.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to catch one – Ouch! Fuck! They bit me.”

A black knot had formed in the line and just as quickly dispersed. The procession disappeared into the carpet in less time than it took him to complete his next sentence: “Ants can’t move that fast.”

“My brave baby,” Glory crooned as she reached for his wounded finger. “Savaged by nasty space ants. Does it hurt?”

“Not really.” He peered at the empty ceiling. “It tingles.”

“Conan, can we complain? It’ll be fun!”

“They’re certainly maintenance bots …”

“Conan, you said they were ants. I say they’re ants. So they’re ants until proven otherwise. Let’s complain!”

“Mrs. Burchell, it is a physical impossibility.”

Captain Pedicel, resplendent in his bemedaled scarlet mess jacket, said everything with a gleaming, toothy grin that the six other diners all unconsciously mimicked. Glory thought he looked like something from a costume party and she wanted to punch him. “One attacked my husband,” she said. “Show them Conan. Conan, show him your finger.”

Conan looked back from whatever distant vista he had been contemplating and extended his finger. It was pink at the tip, and slightly swollen. Captain Pedicel leaned away to better focus.

“Interesting,” he said, nodding his gleaming, bald head. “It is highly unlikely that an ant – if such a thing were possible on the ship and it isn’t – attacked Mr. Burchell. To my knowledge, and I admit in the matter of ants it is slight, they are not aggressively disposed. Hardly of the predator mindset. More likely, my dear, to carry off that delicious bread roll on your plate. Heh, heh.”

“Well, I saw them too,” came a loud voice to Pedicel’s right. His searchlight-grin dimmed: Mrs. Larval, his permanent guest. “A bunch of them,” she continued loudly. “In my bathroom. And I know an ant when I see one, Pedicel. And they weren’t after bread rolls.”

“Extraordinary indeed. But I am sure there is a simple explanation satisfying not only the laws of physics but your powers of observation. I will put the problem to my engineering staff and have an answer by the time we all reconvene. In any event, I can assure you that there are no insects of any kind on my ship, so this diverting conversational avenue is unfortunately exhausted.” He smiled around the table. “What else shall we discuss?”

“It isn’t exhausted because we’re telling you there are.” Mrs. Larval twitched a conspiratorial eyelid at Glory. “And considering the cost of our berths, it would be polite if you peeled back your ears and listened. Or,” she continued archly, “should we be talking to someone more qualified to deal with our complaint?”

Pedicel dropped his napkin onto the table in capitulation. This was not the first, and would not be the last battle of wits between them – battles that it ill-behooved him to win if he wanted to keep his commission. “Of course, I am at your service. What may I do to oblige?”

“That’s better. You can come to our cabins and see for yourself.” She summoned a waiter to move her chair. The group all began to rise. “Not all of you, my dears. Just those who’ve made sightings. Come on, Pedicel.”

“It’s going to rain,” said Mrs. Invicta, a little nonagenarian seated at the end of the table.

Pedicel jerked his head at the sound. “What did you say, madam?”

Mrs. Invicta blushed under the gaze. “My father always told us that if the ants were scurrying about it would soon rain.”

The party – Mrs. Larval leading, Captain Pedicel, Conan and Glory following, set off to Mrs. Larval’s stateroom. There were no ants to be found either in the vast suite or in the enormous bathroom.

“Obviously they’re now hiding,” Mrs. Larval asserted.

“Extraordinary,” said the Captain. “Prescient, clandestine ants.”

“We’ll proceed to Mrs. Burchell’s suite.” Mrs. Larval swept out into the passageway. Glory held Conan back at the door.

“Conan, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t you want to do this? Is this below your dignity or something? I think it’s fun.”

“Oh, yes,” he nodded. “It’s great fun.”

She pouted. “Conan, you don’t think it is.”

Mrs. Larval called her at that moment: “Please lead the way, Mrs. Burchell. We must resume the hunt!”

Glory frowned her displeasure and they all trooped off to the Honeymoon Suite. There were no ants to be found there either.

“They live under the carpet,” Glory informed them.

“That carpet is 100% artificial fiber.” Pedicel nudged at the thick cream pile with his polished toe. “The floor beneath is polysteel. There is nothing to harbor an ant.”

“Tell the ants that,” Glory said. “That’s where they are.”

Pedicel now tasting victory called the Ship’s Engineer to raise the carpet. The group stood in a semicircle, reflected in the pristine surface. “We are looking for ants, Mr. Campanotus.”

The engineer blinked, sniffed at the idea, and found it wanting. “No ants on the Pharaoh’s Star, Captain. Absolutely impossible.”

“Precisely what I have been explaining to our small safari here.” He gave them each a blaze of dentine. “May I suggest we return to the dining room and complete our meals?”

“We’re not going to let this rest here,” said Mrs. Larval, and she stormed off.

“Mrs. Burchell?” Pedicel held out his arm to Glory who ignored it. “Ah, I understand. More important things to do than eat…”

“He’s a prick,” Glory opined when the door closed.

Conan had gone to stand before the transparent dome and gaze at the darkness beyond. “His doom approaches.”

“What does that mean?” She’d had enough of his snooty behavior and moody silences during the meal and now he was saying what?

He turned. “What does what mean?”

“What you just said, ’His doom approaches’?”

“Did I? I said that?” He shrugged as if awakening from deep thought. “No idea.”

“Ants!” Captain Pedicel threw himself into his chair on the bridge. He glared about at the silent officers until one fidgeted. “What is it, Eciton?”

“HQ replied to your query re the missing passenger, Mrs. Honeydew, sir. She definitely boarded, sir. The iris scan was done at 0234 hours and, she was logged through the sterilization chambers at 0245, sir.”

“In which case she is obviously on the ship. Why can’t you morons keep track of the damned passengers?”

“We’ve looked everywhere, Captain.”

“Obviously not! Go and look with your eyes. Don’t trust the blasted computers. Exercise your optic nerves. Get a little dirt on your prissy uniforms. Search the entire ship and find the woman!”

Pedicel loved being a captain but despised the effete world of the clipper. He longed for the grand old days piloting Space Guard corvettes into rebel infested sectors, blasting the vermin into the next universe, and commanding tough crews steeped in the tradition of the Naval League. Here he was being hen-pecked to death by a bitter old shrew and surrounded by subordinates who couldn’t take a piss without a computer program.

“We may have lost another one, sir.” That was the Executive Officer, Mr. Harvester, standing well back from the expected explosion.

“What?”

“A Mr. Atta, sir. The computer says he hasn’t passed any bio-ID panels for the past two days. Didn’t eat, not in his suite, didn’t disembark –”

“I know he didn’t disembark, you cretin. We’ve been in transit through the vacuum of space for the past week. How would he disembark?”

“Lifeboat?” Ensign Clavata spoke up, fatally mistaking rhetoric for interrogative.

Pedicel glared at the small officer. “We would know if a lifeboat had been launched, don’t you think, Ensign? Do any of you have any intelligent suggestions?”

Harvester cleared his throat; he knew the computers were incapable of error but felt the untruth forced out of him. “You’re right sir. It must be a computer malfunction. We will organize a physical search.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“And?”

“And we will find them.”

“And look in the cargo hold,” Pedicel barked at their disappearing backs.

“Did you see this notice on the Ship’s News?” Glory asked. “Look. Read that.”

Conan read aloud: “’The captain would like to inform all passengers that there are no insects on board the Pharaoh’s Star. Rumors have been spread to the effect that ants have appeared in some cabins; however this is not the case. It is not possible for an ant to be on the Clipper. In the highly remote event of an ant being able to board the Clipper, this would be an extremely isolated instance and present absolutely no cause for alarm. Please rest assured that no ants could possibly be aboard this state-of-the-art vessel, flagship of the fleet…etcetera etcetera’. Either Mrs. Larval has been waging guerilla warfare or there have been other sightings.”

One day and three meals had passed since the abortive ant hunt. Conan was more or less back to normal, although Glory thought his lovemaking had become a little perfunctory. Perhaps they needed some fresh scenery…

“I think it’s time for us to make another appearance,” she declared. “We’re invited to dine at the Captain’s table tonight. Let’s do it, Conan. It will be interesting! And there’s really something not right aboard this ship. They still haven’t located Mrs. Honeydew and now they’re paging another passenger, Mr. Atta.” She paused. “And aren’t you a little bored seeing my face every minute of every hour of every day.”

“I could look at your face,” Conan said, “until the hill freezes over.”

“Hell,” Glory corrected him with a pleased laugh, even if he’d sounded a little robotic.

“What did I say?”

“You said hill – until the hill freezes over.”

“I meant hill.”

“No, you meant hell.”

Conan frowned. “Did I?”

She threw up her hands. “God, Conan! Let’s go out!”

“Captain, I have a question.”

Captain Pedicel was staring unhappily at the plate before him. “Just a moment please, Mrs. Burchell. Steward!” A young waiter appeared. “Where is the salad, man?”

The steward cast a nervous glance at the other diners. There were eight of them, including the XO, Mr. Harvester, invited on this occasion to fill out the numbers since Mrs. Larval for once had failed to appear. “We are out of lettuce, sir.”

“Impossible! As you well know, the Pharaoh’s Star grows her own lettuce hydroponically. Does it not Mr. Harvester?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Therefore, we do not run out of it.”

“No sir.”

“I am glad we agree. Now, steward, kindly bring the lettuce, like a good fellow.”

“I’ll get Chef to come, sir.”

Pedicel bared his teeth. “No, I don’t think we need to see Chef. We simply need our salads. Make it so.”

The steward cast a glance at Mr. Harvester and hurried away. Pedicel caught it and added it to his growing suspicions of dissension in the ranks. He had dealt with this kind of thing before: first came the pranks, like the nonsense about the missing passengers, now there were three of them, and the ants; followed by small acts of insubordination like this business with the lettuce – all designed to weaken discipline, but he knew precisely how to –

“Captain Pedicel, I was asking about the ants – apparently there have been other sightings.”

“Hallucinations,” he snapped, and then noticed who had spoken. “Of course, Mrs. Burchell, with the exception of your own perplexing experience, which no doubt seemed very much like a sighting. Mass hysteria is more what we are dealing with now. A phenomenon of the mind not of the sight organ.”

“I don’t think two reports would constitute mass hysteria, do you Captain?”

Pedicel turned his head in the direction of the new threat. He had not had to deal with the husband before and came alert at something in the voice. A playboy-nonentity obviously, nevertheless married to the daughter of one of the Hamptons, who owned one of the corporations that owned one of the corporations that owned a big part of the Clipper fleet. “Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words, Mr. Burchell. Let’s call it the power of suggestion, heh heh.”

“But there have been other sightings,” Glory insisted.

“Well, shall we err on the side of prudence,” said Pedicel, “and call them incidents? And of course we are talking about isolated incidents.”

“How many exactly?” Conan asked.

Pedicel was about to lie when Harvester spoke up. “Seven.”

Glory gasped her delight.

“Ants,” continued the husband, “exist in colonies. One ant would mean many ants.”

Pedicel was being assailed from every direction, but now he knew the name of the enemy. “Inconceivable that there could be any ants on the Pharaoh’s Star. If it were true it could only be the result of mischievous pranks. Or willful sabotage.” He fixed his eyes on Harvester. “Sabotage that will not go unpunished.”

“But what could they be doing here?” Mrs. Invicta piped up.

“They would be attacking us,” Glory declared, thrilled with the way it was all going and that Conan was pitching in for once. “That’s what they would be doing. Getting revenge for what we’ve done to their planet.” This was met with surprised looks all round. “As you know,” she continued quickly, “my husband was bitten by one.”

The finger in question was now bandaged with one of her scarves. She took Conan’s hand and revealed the wound. “It’s quite red and swollen, as you can see.”

The other diners craned forward for a better view. “It looks very painful,” offered an old gentleman on her right. “Did he jam it in drawer?”

“No,” Glory snapped. “It’s an ant bite. An ant attacked him. One of the ants on this ship.”

A murmur ran around the table. Captain Pedicel took advantage of the pause to gather his wits and nip the drama in the bud. “Has the Ship’s Doctor seen this, Mr. Burchell? Mr. Burchell?”

“No, he hasn’t,” said Glory; Conan was staring off again into space. “And it’s a disgrace.” That earned her some nodding heads. “He could be seriously ill.”

Pedicel smiled at the exaggeration. “Well, let us not count our casualties before the battle has been engaged. Steward, call Doctor Monomorium to the medical bay. Mr. and Mrs. Burchell, come with me.”

“It appears to be an insect bite.” It was a delightful change to be seeing some young people and Dr. Monomorium hoped his diagnosis would be to their liking. Most of his duties these days consisted of adjusting medication levels and treating indigestion.

“What else could it be?” Pedicel demanded.

“Well,” the doctor considered the wound. “It could be a pinprick, inflicted by self or another, perhaps in the course of –”

“Ahah!” Pedicel pounced.

“But it isn’t, I’m afraid. The diagnostic reader says it is an insect bite and it is never wrong. Almost certainly an ant bite – 99.8% probability. There are traces of formic acid at the site. As you know, formic acid occurs naturally in ants.”

Pedicel didn’t know any such thing and could have cared less. What he did know beyond the slightest shred of doubt was that the germ of discontent had spread very rapidly through the ranks, even to this old quack.

“As a matter of fact,” Doctor Monomorium continued, encouraged by Glory’s approving smile. “When I was a young fellow, I made quite an intensive study of ants. I admire them greatly. Fascinating creatures. Fantastic sense of organization. I could tell you some things about ants that would astound you.”

“If you are an expert, Doctor,” Pedicel sneered, “perhaps you would care to explain how an ant could survive the two sterilization chambers? Mr. Burchell claims he was bitten in his suite – the Emperor Suite – after we launched.”

Monomorium lofted his eyebrows. “Bitten after we launched, you say? I’ll admit that has me stumped. The ant is of course quite a hardy creature – and when we say ant we are of course referring to the family Formicidae not the singular specimen. A single ant survive those chambers? No, quite improbable, but perhaps an army of ants – might some survive? I couldn’t really say.”

Pedicel saw the discussion going from bad to worse. “Any number of ants would find it impossible to invade the Pharaoh’s Star.”

“Cargo,” offered Glory to the doctor, ignoring the captain. “Surely an ant could get into that.”

Monomorium shook his head. “All cargo is sterilized several times.”

“What about luggage?”

“The same.”

“Clothes that passengers are wearing when they board. Or on someone’s body. In an old woman’s hair.” They had already dealt with that possibility and Glory knew it but she liked the mood and wanted to nourish it. Monomorium shook his head again with a regretful smile.

“What about a mutated strain of ant, impervious to the sterilization?”

The doctor lifted his eyes; this was the first time the young man had spoken. He ran his gaze over the handsome face, noted the poor skin tone and the faint sheen of perspiration on the forehead. And something else in the eyes beyond the slight dilation of the pupils; they appeared older than the rest of the face, as if burdened with knowledge…

“Theoretically possible, and from a scientific point of view the only logical explanation. There is of course that new indestructible strain of cockroaches in the Amazon basin. They would constitute a precedent. Cockroaches belong to the order Blattaria, not the order Hymenoptera, still I don’t see why the same principle shouldn’t apply.” He nodded agreement with some unspoken conclusion. “In fact I am sure it would.”

“Mother says that RIP says those cockroaches will rule the planet in less than ten years.”

Monomorium smiled at her fondly; she reminded him very much of his daughter. “Well, we shall have to wait and find out if mother is right, shan’t we? But let’s treat this injury.” He touched his disk to the wound. “That will reduce the pain and infection.”

He handed Conan a strip of micro-tabs. “Take one of these every four hours. And call me in the morning.”

“Tammy Turaleda.”

Glory was cleaning her teeth. “What did you say?”

Conan was beside her, floating in the tub. “What did I say when?”

She looked down at him. “Just then. You said something.”

“Did I? I don’t think so.”

“Conan, you did. It sounded like you said ‘Tammy Turaleda’. Who is she?”

Conan frowned. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

Glory perched on the edge of the tub. “Conan, are you alright?”

He considered the question. “As a matter of fact I feel a little tired. How do I look?”

She examined him. “You look okay.” Actually his eyes didn’t look okay; they were dark and shifty. She began to suspect an old and not fully extinguished flame – called Tammy. At her insistence they had disinterred and permanently reburied Phoebe Harrington, Jane Crashaw, Laurentia Eisgold, two Benningtons and Lucy Dobel – but she had never even heard of a Turaleda family. This wild oat must have been sown outside of Conan’s social class and she didn’t like that at all – and he was lying about it. She glanced down at his penis, peeping out of the water, to see if he had been reliving old adventures but it was flaccid and surprisingly small. “Perhaps you look a little off color,” she said. “The doctor is nice, why don’t you go back and see him in the morning?”

“He said I might experience an allergic reaction to the medication. Possibly this is it. I actually feel rather tired physically, but very alert mentally.”

Glory didn’t buy that for a moment, but she replied: “Medications can do that. Let’s go to bed.”

They lay holding each other. Glory knew that they were not going to have sex and that concerned her. Something was really not right.

“Conan.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what’s happening.”

It took him a long time to answer. “I don’t know. I’m hearing voices. Voices chanting.”

She rolled over on the silken sheet. “Really? What are they saying?”

“What you said I said before: Tammy Turaleda.”

She narrowed her eyes and considered the likelihood of an elaborate lie. ”Are they chanting now?”

“No, they’ve stopped. They come and go. Now they’re back again.”

She put her head against his. “I can’t hear anything. Is it still Tammy?”

“Yes…” He shook his head. “No. Not Tammy, they’re saying Take …Take Me…Take me… to your… leader…”

“Conan!” she exclaimed. “Don’t joke around.” But to her astonishment he had moved out of her arms and began pulling on his clothes. “What are you doing?”

“You’re right. I’ll go back and see Doctor Monomorium.”

“Conan, come back to bed. I wasn’t really jealous, I was just teasing.”

He looked down at her. “It’s not about us, Glory – it’s about them.”

She closed her mouth and opened it again. “Who are you talking about?”

But he was already out the door.

The cargo bay, or what Harvester and Ensign Clavata and could see of it in the dim light, was a shambles; the deck littered with rotting vegetation.

“Looks like the hydroponic garden shat itself, sir,” pronounced Able Seaman Weaver.

Harvester raked a toe through a the greenish-black debris at his feet. “What is this?”

“Looks like old lettuce, sir. This here’s a plum tomato, I reckon.” Weaver gave the small object a kick; it skidded away across the smooth floor.

“But how could this happen without us knowing, sir?” IT Officer Forager shook his head. “The computers say it’s all systems go down here.”

Harvester raised his gaze to where two other crew members were beckoning from a shadowed corner of the bay. “Is that where you found them?”

“Yes, sir. All laid out in a neat little row.”

Harvester took a deep breath. He had just escaped from an extremely unpleasant encounter with Captain Pedicel; an unhinged and wild-eyed Pedicel who had peppered his accusations of mutiny and sedition with bursts of hollow laughter: “Very well. Lead on.”

“Aphids is what they are now, I reckon,” offered Weaver. “Human aphids. Doctor M showed me a picture once. Ants farm them. These poor bastards have been turned into a buffet.”

“Which one is this?” Harvester nodded at the closest form, swathed in a patchwork of leafy greens.

“That is Mrs. Honeydew,” said Clavata. “There is Mrs. Driver, next to her is Mr. Atta and the big one I’m sorry to say is Mrs. Larval. There’re four others that we didn’t even know were missing. The computers – ”

“The computers have been taken over.”

Harvester looked up at the IT officer. First Lieutenant Forager shrugged. “It’s the only explanation, sir. They’re incapable of error of this magnitude.”

Harvester nodded. He stepped away from the group and paced slowly along the row of green cocoons. The largest one twitched: Mrs. Larval at least was still alive, but that wouldn’t make any difference – his career, all of their careers, had come to an end. He wondered how he would explain this to Captain Pedicel, and realized he didn’t care. He hadn’t wanted to enter the cargo bay. He was not superstitious, but he had known by an instinct bred from years of service that the Pharaoh’s Star had become a cursed ship. He had not known in what form that curse would manifest itself until this moment. “Very well,” he said over his shoulder. “Let’s clean them up and take them to the medical bay.”

A muffled groan was the only response. He turned to find the members of his work party writhing on the deck; a dark mass had enveloped them. Only Clavata was still recognizable. As he knelt beside the ensign; the boyish features disappeared under a dark, moving mask. “Clavata can you hear me?”

There was no reply. Unnoticed, a black tendril reached out from the dark pool and attached itself to Harvester’s leg. He opened his mouth to speak again but a great and sudden weariness overcame him. He was barely conscious of the pinpricks on his face as he too sank slowly to the floor…

Glory had waited for an hour, and then another. And then she set out for the doctor’s office.

There were things she knew she’d eventually have to accept as the price of independence from her father, but to Glory eventually meant much later and sitting alone on her honeymoon was not one of them. And the more she’d thought about Conan’s behavior the more she knew he had been lying to her from the moment they’d boarded.

Take me to your leader! Did he think she was a complete idiot? Obviously he had the slut hidden away in another cabin and that’s where he was now. And what really upset her was that it couldn’t be about sex – she knew she was the best Conan had ever had. No this was something far more sinister and threatening. This was about love. Love that he didn’t feel for her, but for some social nonentity, some bar-girl, some nobody, who was competing on a level she wouldn’t even stoop to. Well, we’ll see about that!

After thirty minutes of stomping along corridors she realized she was lost. It took her another hour and a half to find the way back to the suite. As soon as she entered her eye went to the message on the holo screen.

“Dear Glory,” the letter began.

“I have joined the Ants.

Doctor Monomorium can explain it all better than I can and you should call him immediately.

Really. Do that.

We – the Ants – are now embarked on a re-colonization venture elsewhere than Earth, which will be soon incapable of sustaining life.

They – we – anticipate communication difficulties with whatever new life forms we – they – may encounter, and they – we –require my negotiating skills.

I am very excited to have been chosen for this higher purpose.

Your ex- husband-now-chief-Ant-spokes-entity,

Conan.

PS: You should pack immediately.

PPS: Really sorry about the honeymoon.

PPPS: Call Monomorium.”

Glory was shaking with rage by the time she reached the end of the message.

“Ants!?”

She shredded the silken sheets with her nails and broke everything she could lay her hands on. The tantrum made her feel slightly better. He’d pay for this. They had a prenuptial agreement. Daddy had lawyers who would castrate him. Daddy would fire him. She’d make him. He’d never be able to work again. That would destroy him. She picked up the handset but got a recorded message: all transmissions from the clipper were temporarily suspended.

How could he have arranged that? That slimy old doctor had obviously helped him. And helped him concoct this ridiculous story. She hit the Medical Attention Required button and folded her arms.

Harvester would be court-martialed, that went without saying; the mutiny had a leader and it was obviously that simpering coward, always jollying the junior officers along, as if they had to be cajoled to do their duties. He had the fellow’s service record up on his holo screen now. Four tours of duty in Xargo – that was clearly a forgery, undoubtedly by that weasel Forager. That was tampering with official records. He’d see them all in front of a firing squad. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. No, that wouldn’t happen, more’s the pity. But he’d have them kicked out of the Fleet. Yes, that would suffice — “What is it Eciton?” He’d been watching the helmsman’s antics out of one eye and now they had become distracting.

“Ship’s changed course, sir.”

“I gave no such order. Consider yourself on report.”

“I didn’t do it, sir. She’s changed course of her own accord, sir.”

“Ships don’t do anything of their own accord, you fool.” Pedicel pulled himself from his seat and shouldered the helmsman aside. He peered at the navigation screen. The course had been changed. “Change it back immediately.”

“I tried sir. I can’t get into the navigation program.”

Pedicel stabbed at the control panel to no avail. “Reset it.”

“Tried, sir. It won’t respond.”

“Run a damned diagnostic.”

“I did that sir. It says everything is fine.”

Pedicel ran a hand over his face. “Where’s Harvester? Get him up here.”

“He led that search party, sir. To the cargo holds. Haven’t heard from them either. Missed the last check-in. I tried raising them but…”

Pedicel wasn’t listening; he had taken a closer look at the navigation screen. “This new course takes us through the Ponz sector. Projected planet-fall is Carthaginia. Nothing there but Class B life forms and a prison settlement. This won’t do at all. Call up Fleet and get them to override it.”

“Tried that, sir. Communications are out, sir. The computer won’t let us transmit.”

“The computer is not an animate – What’s that?” He pointed a finger at the control console.

“Where sir?”

“There, dammit. On the panel in front of you.”

The helmsman smiled. “Oh, that’s an ant sir. They’re everywhere now.”

“Well, kill it!”

The young officer turned his gaze back to the little black speck. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t want to, sir. We’re all one now.”

Glory was sitting on the floor amid the debris of her tantrum; body stiff, tendons taut, skin white, cheeks pinched, breathing shallow, eyes opened in an unseeing gaze: Monomorium recognized the symptoms of incipient catatonia and took his treatment disk from his coat pocket. He pressed it to the cold flesh of her arm and was rewarded with a sigh as her body relaxed and she seemed to droop into the carpet.

He left her there for the moment and looked about the large suite. He’d been inside most of the cabins at one time or another in the course of his professional duties but never in the Honeymoon Suite. Surprising that these two had chosen the Pharaoh’s Star, but just as well, all things considered…

His eye stopped at the holo screen floating above the bed. He read the message he had dictated a few hours earlier and nodded. “‘Pack immediately’ – advice to be ignored at one’s peril.”

He turned back to his young patient beginning to stir on the carpet. “Let’s get you onto the bed, shall we? Here we go. That’s right.” The color was coming back into her face and the green eyes focused weakly on his. “Where is she?”

“Where is who, child?”

“Tammy…He’s gone to her and I am not going to put up with it.”

“Ah,” Monomorium nodded his understanding. “There is no Tammy, my dear. It is as he has written there. He’s been called by a higher purpose. The ants have successfully mutated to a new evolutionary state. Humankind has reached the end of its long and winding road and now we must stand aside and let someone else take the initiative. Conan is now a part of that initiative.”

He waited patiently while she absorbed the information; apparently this was going to be easier than he had feared. After a moment she sat up, massaging her face with her hands. But when they parted, the expression was one of bitter resentment. “If you and that bastard think I believe all that garbage you’ve got another think coming. My father will crucify –.”

Monomorium sighed and applied the disk again. The young face cleared, and Glory fell back onto the bolsters.

Conan felt as if he were floating in a sea of… harmony. That was the only way he could describe it; as if he were being buoyed up by a tide of agreement. He’d never known anything like it before. His psyche was part of a vast ocean comprised of myriad flickering thoughts, ideas, data, plans, and concepts, and not one of them was in conflict with any other. And they were all focused on him.

- Where am I now?” he thought, and the answer came back to him from a hundred thousand minds:

- You’re here with us.

Physically, he could see that he was in a suite, bigger and even more elegantly furnished than the one he had shared with Glory – it had to be the Olympus Suite. He was stretched out naked on the bed. If he turned his head to either side he could view his hands, each fingertip encased in a glistening, undulating black capsule. And he didn’t mind that in the least. He felt an incredibly comforting brotherhood; a sense of oneness. And why not? After all, that was why he was there.

Conan had returned to the medical bay to find the doctor at his desk peering at his computer screen. “Ah, Mr. Burchell.” He waved the screen away. “Just taking a look that that rip dot com thingie. Is there a problem?”

“I’m hearing voices.”

“All systems are go, then. Splendid.”

“In my head.”

“Ah.” The doctor had come out from behind his desk. “I see. And what are they saying?”

“Take me to your leader.”

Monomorium had considered that for a long moment and then nodded. “You know, I wondered if you would be back. I have been pursuing a theory here in my own clumsy way and you have just confirmed it. I think we have some work ahead of us.”

It had taken hours; Monomorium drawing on his vast knowledge of antdom; interrogating in turn, Conan, and then the voices, until he had understood.

He had been selected, the doctor declared, the ants had chosen him, they wanted him to play a leading role in their evolutionary plan, an evolutionary plan he already had been imbued with – from the bite.

“Yes, it is an extraordinary, incredible, event!” Monomorium had paused in his excited pacing for a moment of reflection. “But, alas, inevitable. As a species, humanity is exhausted, hoist on our own evolutionary petard, come to the end of our genetic tether. Just look to where we have descended in our hunger for comfort and longevity. Crippled old bodies like this one, kept alive by chemicals and surgery. The feeble have displaced the vigorous and adventurous.” He resumed his pacing. “We no longer even possess the energy or will to preserve our own birthplace. We are doomed.”

“But why me?” Conan had asked, getting the discussion back onto the track. “Why did they choose me?”

“That I cannot completely explain. Except that you are still young and vigorous. And available, if we overlook your new bride.” Monomorium had paused thoughtfully again at that. Conan had thought about that too – briefly – and then he had asked: “What do I have to do?”

All he had to do, the doctor had said, was agree. The offer was on the table.

And so he had. Why disagree? Why not agree?

It had felt wonderful to think his message to the voices and receive the wave of approval that washed back over him. Now he was among the highest of the highest – not just a pawn on a corporate playing board but above even humanity, at the apex of the universe’s pecking order. And yet how perfect it was that the pecking order involved no pecking at all; that he didn’t have to peck anyone, kiss anyone’s ass, marry anyone’s daughter – all he had to do was be the vehicle that translated his brethren’s thoughts into speech.

- Do we need me to do anything now?

- Not at present, replied the hundred thousand. The time will soon come. Do you hunger? Do you thirst? We will satisfy those needs.

- No I am fine. He peered down beyond his stomach and missed Glory for the first and only time. But what if I have, um, other appetites?

- Do you experience those appetites now?

- Could be

- We will take care of everything.

A dark shape appeared in the corner of his eye, gliding over the curve of his shoulder and moving down his chest. Tiny pinpricks and then a delicious reverie descended. He closed his eyes.

Perfect.

“Captain, the computer has given the order to abandon ship.”

Pedicel peered at the face in the doorway. “Who are you?”

“I’m Bosun’s Mate Mandible, sir. Just checking all quarters sir, for the final time.”

Pedicel surveyed the empty bridge. “Where is the helmsman? Where is Harvester?”

The officer took a nervous step onto the bridge; his nostrils twitched at the acrid smell. He’d never had any direct dealings with the captain before but he’d heard all the rumors. This fellow before him didn’t look a like a ball-tearer though, he looked like a tired and defeated old man. “Sir, the computer says we have to abandon the ship now, so we’d better be going.”

Pedicel lifted his head. “Abandon the ship? I didn’t order that.”

“No, sir. The computer did. It activated the lifeboats twenty minutes ago, sir, and mustered all the passengers in the ballroom. Now it’s giving the order to disembark.” He tapped a key on the command console. The large screen came to life with an image of the crowded ballroom. Doctor Monomorium and a young woman in a floatchair headed a long queue that included the white uniforms of the crew. Pedicel’s voice boomed out from the speakers.

“– lutely no need for alarm. Please proceed to the designated emergency points for immediate on-boarding of the lifeboats, and you will soon be on your way again to Arcadia –”

“That’s not me,” Pedicel said. “I’m not saying that.”

“No, sir. That would be the computer synthesizing your voice.”

“ – ship is now in the hands of the Recolonization Initiative Project to whom we extend our warmest wishes for a successful venture into a new and better organized future. As your Captain, nothing could please me more, dear shipmates, than to be reunited with you in that future, however duty requires that I remain here at my post. Bon Voyage to you all!”

“Oh,” said Mandible, backing out the door. “Beg pardon, Captain. I didn’t realize you were staying. Sorry about that.”

It took Pedicel a few moments to understand that he was alone again. It took several minutes more to resign himself to what was happening and when he did he settled back wearily in his chair.

Is this really where I’ve been coming to all these years? Across all those miles?

He looked about the bridge for an answer and finding none focused on a dark line threading its way up his uniform jacket. He began to lift a hand to brush it away but then let it fall. He’d killed hundreds of them, stamped thousands underfoot on the deck, but he lacked the strength now to fight any longer. He watched the head of the line disappear into the folds of flesh beneath his chin and felt the bites begin…

“Voyage over,” he murmured, and a moment later slipped away into an endless sleep.

“But what about me?” Glory had asked when the doctor came to the end of his explanation. “What do I get?”

Monomorium had remarked again at the uncanny similarity to his own daughter – or was this what young people had become these days: poor creatures obsessed only with themselves and their possessions, another unfortunate symptom of a terminal disease. But that too was about to change. Everything was about to change – and time was running out. “We’ll come to that, my dear. But first we need to get you safely off the ship.”

She’d begun to rise out of the chair; she was too strong for him to restrain so the disk had come out of the vest pocket again…

Now Glory was sitting in the floatchair while Monomorium anchored it to the floor of the First Class life-boat. She felt quite good; dreamy, thinking was an effort. “Conan’s captured by mutant ants… allowed to do that, I spose…”

Monomorium frowned at her slurred words and vacant expression. She was now on the threshold of stupor, but he’d had no choice. “Capture is not exactly the right word,” he said gently. “They persuaded him by appealing to his better nature.”

She tried to digest that and failed. “Make ‘em give him back? Not be an ant…”

“I’m afraid not. I don’t think he’ll be too unhappy, mind you. Ants are a very fair-minded lot, and he’ll be right in his element, young boardroom scallywag like him. He’s right up there, you know, the only spokes-entity they have, leading the way as they sail past us.” He paused at her expression. “I know it all seems rather mean and cold-blooded but they did try to re-educate us through that website, saw it was hopeless, and are now moving on.”

“Take my husband with ‘em.”

“So it seems.” He glanced at his watch: he had one final act to perform. He’d hoped to coax her onto a more receptive emotional plateau but this would have to do; the lifeboats were now all filled and ready for launching.

“Everything gone…gone, gone, gone…”

“Glory,” he said. “Listen to me carefully. I have to talk to you now. This is about you.” Her eyes opened. “Would you like to be with Conan?”

“Be with Conan?”

“Yes. Do you want to be with him?

“Isn’t he an ant?”

“No, he’s still Conan.”

She blinked to clear her eyes. “Be with him?”

“Yes, possibly. There’s a condition. Conan is afraid you’ll say no but he wants to at least give the idea chance.” It had in fact taken Monomorium all his powers of persuasion to get Conan to see that he had to make this gesture. “He wants me to give you something.” He opened his hand to reveal a small box.

Glory brightened. “Oh. Present.”

“Yes. Well, no, not – Glory, please don’t do that!” She’d taken the box from his hand. “There’s a message that you have to hear before you open it. Please give it back to me.”

She smiled and held it next to her ear and shook it. “It’s a present.”

“It is and it isn’t – it all depends on what you say when you’ve heard the message, which has two parts. Now please don’t fiddle with it and pay close attention.” He took a breath. “Here’s the first part. Conan said tell Glory that she can choose. She can ride the last wave of humanity onto the evolutionary rocks, or join me – us – possibly at the rank of a worker, but in the knowledge that the colony’s manifest destiny is greater than any individual’s selfish desires.”

Her eyes rounded owlishly. “Conan said that?”

“Yes,” he lied. He’d had to compose the speech himself as her husband had shown no interest, an attitude he’d found astonishing, even given his bewildered state of mind. He really didn’t understand young people any more.

Glory was eyeing him suspiciously; one eyebrow raised. “Doesn’t sound like Conan.”

“Well, the point is that you have a choice. That’s the first part. The second part of the message – ”

But Glory was no longer listening. She’d opened the box and inverted it onto her palm.

He groaned. “– is that the box contains an ant.”

She looked at him with surprise. “Ant?”

“Child,” Monomorium’s eyes were now fixed on the inverted casket, “you should have made your decision before you opened it.”

“Decision to become an ant?”

He looked up at the tone in her voice, saddened by what he saw in the green eyes. This had all been his idea. An act of compassion to heal the rupture, but apparently a misguided one. “Perhaps not,” he said, and reached out his hand. “In which case, my dear, please return the box very carefully, and whatever you do, don’t let the ant –”

“Ouch!” Glory gave a cry and shook the casket off her hand.

Monomorium sighed. “– bite you.”

END