Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time

Indeed , Bianca agrees, with a stance that suggests this topic is not a new one.

I would have thought they would prove insufficient for the complexity of such work , Portia assays.

A common misunderstanding. If well coached and born with the pertinent Understandings, then they are quite able to deal with the more routine tasks. I did once employ females, but that results in so much jostling for status and having to defend my preeminence; too much measuring of legs against each other – and me – to get the work done. So I settled on this solution.

But surely they must be constantly trying to court you , Portia replies perplexedly. After all, what else did males actually want out of life?

You have spent too long in the peer houses of the idle , Bianca reproaches her. I choose my assistants for their dedication to the work. And if I do accept their reproductive material from time to time, it’s only to preserve the new Understandings we come up with here. After all, if they know it, and I know it, the chances are good that any offspring should inherit that Understanding as well.

Portia’s discomfort with this line of reasoning is evident in her shifting stance, the rapid movement of her palps. But males do not—

That males can transmit to their offspring knowledge that they learn during their lives is an established fact, as far as I am concerned. Bianca stamped harder to impose her words over Portia’s. The belief that they can only pass on their mothers’ Understandings is without foundation. Be glad for our peer group that I at least comprehend this – I try to choose mates who hatched from our own crèche, as they’re more likely to already possess worthwhile Understandings to pass on, and the cumulative effect is to compound and enrich our stock overall. I believe this will become common practice, before either of us pass on. When I have time, I will start trading on the Understanding of it to those few in other peer groups who are likely to appreciate the logic.

Assuming either of us is granted so much time , Portia tells her forcefully. I will not be remaining in Great Nest long, sister. How can I help you?

Yes, you were at Seven Trees. Tell me of it.

Portia is surprised that Bianca knows even that much of Portia’s comings and goings. She gives a creditable report, focusing primarily on matters military: the tactics used by the defenders, the weapons of the enemy. Bianca listens carefully, committing the salient details to memory.

There are many at Great Nest who believe that we cannot survive , Bianca tells her when she is done. No peer group wishes to attract general scorn by being the first to abandon us, but it will happen. When one has gone, once that gap has been bridged, there will be a general rush to leave. We will destroy ourselves, and lose all we have built.

It seems likely , Portia agrees. I was at temple earlier. Even the priestess seemed distracted.

Bianca huddles against the ceiling for a moment, in a posture of disquiet. It is said that the message is contaminated, that there are other Messengers. I have spoken to a priestess who said that she felt a new message within the crystal at the wrong time, and without meaning – just a jumble of random vibrations. I have no explanation for that, but it is concerning.

Perhaps that message is meant for the ants. Portia is staring down at the scuttling insects below. The sense-image of ‘a jumble of random vibrations’ seems apposite.

You are not the first to suggest it , Bianca tells her. Thankfully, my own thoughts on message and Messenger are just that: my own – and they do not prevent me from working towards the salvation of our nest. Come with me. I have researched a new weapon, and I need your assistance in deploying it.

Portia feels a sudden hope for the first time in many days. If any mind can find a way forward, it is Bianca’s.

She follows the alchemist to the animal pens, seeing within them an unruly throng of ant-sized beetles – twenty centimetres at most. They are a dark red in colouration and most remarkable for their antennae, which spread out into a disc of fine fronds like circular fans.

I have seen these before? Portia says uncertainly with hesitant movements.

Great confronter of our enemies as you are, it seems likely , Bianca confirmed. They are a species of unusual habits. My assistants have gone into the colony below, at some risk to themselves, to find them. They live amongst the ants and yet remain unmolested. They even eat the ants’ larvae. My assistants’ reports indicate that the ants themselves are persuaded to feed these creatures.

Portia waits. Any communication from her at this juncture would be futile. Bianca has this entire encounter already planned out, point by point, to a successful conclusion.

I need you to gather capable and trusted warriors, perhaps twenty-four , Bianca instructs her. You will be courageous. You will test my new weapon, and if it fails you are likely to die. I need you to confront the colony marching against us. I need you to walk right into the heart of it.

Infiltrating an ant colony is no longer just a case of taking some heads and stolen scent glands. The super-colony has developed its defences: a blind chemical arms race run against the spiders’ ingenuity. The ants now use the chemical equivalent of shifting cyphers that change over time, and in different detachments of the sprawling colony, and Portia’s kin have been unable to keep up. The chemical weapons the spiders use to disrupt and confuse their enemies are shortlived, and barely an annoyance in the face of the sheer scale of the enemy.

The increased security of the colony has had a catastrophic impact on a number of other species. Ant nests are ecosystems in their own right, and many species live in uneasy communion with them. Some, like the aphids, provide services, and the ants actively cultivate them. Others are parasitic: mites, bugs, beetles, even small spiders, all of them adapted to steal from the ants’ table or to consume their hosts.

The majority of such species are gone from the super-colony now. In adapting to defend against the external enemy, the increased chemical encryption used by the ants has also unmasked and eliminated dozens of unwelcome guests within the ants’ domain. A very few, however, have managed to survive by ingenuity and superior adaptation. Of these, the Paussid beetles – Bianca’s current area of study – are the most successful.

The Paussids have dwelt within ant nests for millions of years, utilizing various means to lull their unwitting hosts into accepting them. Now the nanovirus has been working with them and, although they are not as intelligent as Portia, they still have a certain cunning and the ability to work together, and utilize their versatile pheromonal toolkit with considerable insight.

Each individual Paussid has a suite of chemicals to manipulate the ants around it. The individual ants – sightless and living in a world entirely built on smell and touch – can be fooled thus. The Paussid chemicals artfully create an illusory world for them, guiding their hallucinations to induce suborned units of the ant colony to do their bidding. It is fortunate for Portia and her people that the Paussids have not yet quite reached a level of intellect that would allow them to look beyond their current existence as a self-serving fifth column amongst the ants. It is easy to envisage an alternate history where the advancing ant colony became merely the myriad-bodied puppet of hidden beetle overlords.

The changing chemical codes of the colony provide a constant challenge to the Paussids, and individual beetles exchange chemicals continuously to update one another with the most efficient keys for unlocking and rewriting the ants’ programming. However, the simple feat of living undetected amongst the ants is left to the Paussid’s secret weapon: a refinement of their ancestral scent that Bianca has detected and become fascinated by.