How It Works

"Hey, Bink! Did you hear that the Beta Mound is dead?"

Binky almost dropped her end of the grasshopper leg that she and Gladys were anthandling over the heaped sand and into the hole.

"You mean the Zeta Mound, don't you?" she replied.

"Nope. Beta," said Gladys. "Zeta was last week."

Binky plumbed her memory. "Hmm. Weren't they just bragging about having found a great new Source?"

"'Sright," piped Mabel, who was bringing up the rear, hauling one of those big eye-things. "Neat and easy, they said. No more chancy scavenging, they said. It was going to make them the biggest mound in the area."

"Didn't Zeta say the same thing?" asked Binky. "I mean, they'd just found this great new Source, and their Queen really loved it, and they were going to expand like heck?"

"Can't remember," said Gladys. "We ants aren't known for our long-term memory."

"We're just talking about one week," noted Binky. "What about short-term memory?"

"What were we discussing?" asked Mabel.

At that point, Olive appeared with a piece of grasshopper thorax. "Guess what?" she said.

The entire antly assemblage looked at her expectantly.

"Now, we've found a new Source!" said Olive excitedly. "It's our turn to be the biggest mound!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," cautioned Binky. "Think about this: How many mounds have died in the last month? Four?"

"Dunno," said Mabel. "One? Two? Many? Can't count past two."

"We ants aren't known for our mathematical expertise," added Gladys.

"Ok," sighed Binky. "You can trust me on this: Several mounds have died in the past few weeks, and some of them, at least, had just found a new food Source. I'd bet it was all of them."

"Really?" said Olive. "Lucky coincidence for us, then, that they all died out, huh?"

The other ants shook their inconsiderable heads in agreement.

"You're not following me," said Binky. "I think there's a connection between the new Sources and the death of the mounds."

There was a universal, "Huh?"

"The Sources were bad, the workers brought the bad food to the Queens, and the Queens died," theorized Binky. "See?"

"Gwan," said Gladys. "Pull the other five!How could all the Sources be bad? One, maybe, but surely not all."

"But," said Binky, pausing for effect, "what if they were deliberately poisoned?"

"Impossible," said Mabel, and the others nodded agreement.

"Not impossible," countered Binky. "And I know who did it! It was those big, ugly, two-legged things that sometimes tromp on our mounds. They want all of us dead! It all fits! What do you think?"

There was no answer. No one spoke or moved. Binky looked at her friends. Their faces were masks of uncomprehending horror.

Finally, Olive stirred. "Right," she mumbled. "Time to fetch food from the new Source."

"No!" cried Binky. "We mustn't! Haven't you heard what I said? That Source is probably poisoned! If we use it, we'll kill the Queen. The mound will die."

"No," said Mabel. "That's not how it works. We search for food. When we find it, we take it to the Queen. She eats it. The mound prospers. That's how it works. That's how it has always worked."

"But it's not working that way now," insisted Binky. "And it really isn't that difficult a problem. All we have to do is stay away from that new, easy -- too easy -- Source and use other Sources. Why, we haven't even finished with that grasshopper yet!"

"That's too hard," complained Mabel. "It's too hard to understand and too hard to think about. The world is the way it always has been. It has to be!"

"Wait, wait !" stammered Binky. "Don't you understand that this was how the other mounds died?"

"We ants aren't known for our understanding," said Gladys.

"But the Source has been poisoned!" insisted Binky.

"Then we'll just have to do our jobs better," said Mabel. "Keep the line straighter. Work a little harder. Not talk so much! "

"Time to fetch food from the new Source," said Olive.

And the workers went forth.