"At least we're going in the right direction," Marco pointed out.
I moved closer to the invisible wall of snapping, humming power. Suddenly I realized my legs were just motoring away but I wasn't going anywhere.
"We will have to dig under it," Ax said. "It will stop at the top layer of dirt. "
"Does someone know how to make these pathetic bodies dig?" Rachel asked snappishly.
I flattened myself down and tried wiggling between two big grains of dirt. It didn't work.
Then I sensed one of those hugely long logs suspended in the air not far away. A pine needle.
I shuffled over toward it. The pine needle was close to the ground, but there was still plenty of room for me beneath it.
"Hey!" I yelled, genuinely excited. "Find a pine needle or something that crosses the line. I think maybe there's no force field directly beneath them."
"Yes," Ax agreed. "The pine needle may cast a shadow in the force field. " I reached up for the pine needle with my antennae and felt my way along beneath it. I could feel the tingly edges of the force field on either side of me. But the pine needle did cast a sort of shadow. And within that shadow, I could squeeze through.
"I'm through!" I said. At the same time, I became aware that the vague, far-off "voice" I'd heard calling to me was much stronger.
For a weird moment I actually thought it was my mother's voice. And I wanted to go toward it.
I moved my six legs and headed across the landscape of dirt boulders. I was sure where I was going now. I could hear the voice in my head. I could hear the call.
48 My termite body seemed to be moving on its own now. It was like I was a passenger in a car that someone else was driving.
"Is everyone through?" I asked.
"Yes," Rachel said.
She sounded distracted to me. Like she was listening to someone else and didn't want me interrupting. But that was okay, because I didn't really want to talk to her, either.
I quickly covered the ground to the building. I didn't see that it was the building, you understand. I just knew. And the terrible thing is, I never even paused to wonder how I knew.
"What are we . . . " Marco's voice. He didn't finish his thought. I didn't care.
"Guys?" Rachel asked. "Um . . . "
The opening was just ahead. I knew it was there. I knew that other soldier termites would be guarding the entrance.
I felt no fear.
I clambered up from the dirt into the tunnel opening. Familiar smells. Smells I knew. Home.
Home. My place. Where I was from, and where I belonged.
I smelled the other soldiers with my antennae. They touched me with their antennae, as I did to them.
We were of the colony.
Thecolony.
49 Chapter THiRTEEN
I raced swiftly down the tunnel. It headed upward at a sharp angle, but the angle meant little to me. I weighed practically nothing. A worker was ahead of me. It extruded a pellet of digested cellulose. Wood pulp. I quickly gobbled it up.
Within the wood pulp food there were messages. Hormones passing through the colony, containing information. Vague orders. Indistinct yet powerful instructions.
I was now caught up in a rush of workers off to obey the voiceless voice in their heads. Some were off to chew a new tunnel. Others were off to the egg chamber to rotate the eggs.
And I had my orders, too.
I raced along tunnels lined with chewed and digested wood pulp. Tunnels cut through the dried wood that supported the building.
I felt side tunnels open on one side, then the next. A tunnel above. Air flowed faint -- but fresh -- actually creating a tiny breeze.
There was no light. None. But it didn't matter because I was blind. I was blind, but I was not lost.
What am I doing?an alien voice asked.
I ignored it.
NO!the voice cried.
I had heard the voice before. But it came from far away and it spoke a language I didn't understand.
NO! NO! NO! Let me go!
I felt a queasy, sickening feeling inside me.
But still I powered down the tunnel, turning here, turning there. Always moving toward a goal. There was a powerful smell. It was growing stronger and stronger.
I went to it. I had to go to it. NO! Let me go! Let me go!
Down the black tunnels. Over and through the packed rush-hour streams of workers. To the center. To the core. To the heart. Help me! Help me!the voice screamed.
The voice ... my voice.
The faint, failing voice of the human named Cassie.
Me.
Me!
50 Ahhhhhhhhh!
Suddenly, I was Cassie again. I knew my name. I knew who I was.
But it no longer mattered. The termite body was out of my control. A stronger will than mine was guiding it.
The termite suddenly emerged into a vast, open space. A space that in reality was no more than two or three inches across. And yet it felt like an auditorium to me.
Suddenly I knew who had seized control of the termite brain.
I knew who had brushed my human mind aside.
She was vast. Huge beyond belief. At one end I sensed the termite head and useless, waving termite arms. From that small head and body there extended a monstrous, pulsating sack. As big as a blimp.
At the far end was a double row of sticky, slimy eggs, to be picked up and carried away by worker termites.
The queen.
I was in the chamber of the termite queen.
Thequeen!
I could feel her power. This was her world. These were all her slaves. More than slaves -- they had no will of their own.
I knew who I was again. But I felt weak and pathetic. I was unable to control the termite body I was in. That body belonged to her.
She had orders for me -- protect the egg-carrying worker termites. The orders came in smells and vague feelings, but they were impossible to refuse.
"Rachel," I called. "Marco. Ax. "
"I . . . " It was Rachel's thought-speak voice. "I ... I ... Oh, no. No! No!"
"Rachel! It's the queen. She's controlling you," I said.
"I can't... my body ... it just. . ."
"Marco! Marco can you hear me? Marco!"
"She's got me. I can't say no. I can't stop!" he cried in anguished response.
My own body motored away on its six legs. I fell in step behind two workers. Each was 51 carrying one of the gooey, precious eggs. I had to protect them. There might be enemies. We walked along the grotesque length of the queen. Toward her head.
Ants. They were the enemy. Sometimes they came. Sometimes they poured down the tunnels, looking for the eggs, to carry them off for food.
Sometimes they attacked the queen herself. The soldiers fought them. The soldiers sometimes died fighting them.
"The queen!" Rachel's voice said. "The only way . . . destroy the queen. " It was like an electric jolt in my mind! Get rid of the queen! Yes. The only way. They wouldn't be expecting that. There would be no one to stop me!
But my body was not my own. I could not make it...