When the touring beetles came to the Egyptian Rooms, they began to quiet down, entranced by art most congenial to coleopts by reason of its antiquity and dry yet vivid precision. They delighted in the tiny, toy-like tomb ornaments and traced out the colorful murals and even tried to decipher the cartouches and other hieroglyphs by walking along their lines, corners and curves. The absence of the Egyptian delegation was much regretted. They would have been able to answer many questions, although the scribe beetle waxed eloquent and performed prodigies of impromptu scholarship.
But when they entered the room with the sign reading SCARABS, their awe and admiration knew no bounds. They scuttled softer than mice in feather slippers. They drew up silently in front of the glass cases and gazed with wonder and instinctive reverence at the rank on rank of jewel-like beetle forms within. Even the scribe beetle had nothing to say.
Meanwhile, back at the talkative grassblade, the top half, who was in fact a purple boy tiger beetle named Speedy, said “Well, they’re all off to a great start, I don’t think. This promises to be the most fouled-up convention in history.”
“Don’t belittle,” reproved the bottom half, who was in reality a girl American burying beetle named Big Yank. “The convention is doing fine—orderly sessions, educational junkets, what more could you ask?”
“Blat, blat, go the Blattidael” Speedy commented sneeringly. “The con’s going to hell in a beetle basket. Take that sneaky click beetle who’s general secretary—he’s up to no good, you can be sure. An insidious insect, if I ever knew one. An eyed elater—who’d he ever elate? And that potato bug who’s president—a bleedin’ plutocrat. As for that educational junket inside the museum, you just watch what happens!”
“You really do have an evil imagination,” Big Yank responded serenely.
Despite their constant exchange of persiflage, the boy and girl beetles were inseparable pals who’d had many an exciting adventure together. Speedy was half an inch long, a darting purple beauty most agile and difficult for studious gunboats to catch. Big Yank was an inch long, gleaming black of carapace with cloudy red markings. Though quick to undermine and bury small dead animals to be home and food for her larvae, Big Yank was not in the least morbid in outlook.
Although their sex was different and their companionship intimate, Speedy and Big Yank had never considered having larvae together. Their friendship was of a more manly and girlish character and very firm-footed, all twelve of them.
“You really think something outr is going to happen inside the museum?” Big Yank mused.
“It’s a dead certainty,” Speedy assured her.
In the Scarab room silent awe had given way to whispered speculation. Exactly what and or who were those gemlike beetle forms arranged with little white cards inside the glass-walled cases? Even the scribe-beetle guide found himself wondering.
It was a highly imaginative twelve-spotted cucumber beetle of jade-green who came up with the intriguing notion that the scarabs were living beetles rendered absolutely immobile by hypnosis or drugs and imprisoned behind walls of thick glass by the inscrutable gunboats, who were forever doing horrendous things to beetles and other insects. Gunboats were the nefarious giants, bigger than Godzilla, of beetle legend. Anything otherwise nasty and inexplicable could be attributed to them.
The mood of speculation now changed to one of lively concern. How horrid to think of living, breathing beetles doped and brainwashed into the semblance of death and jailed in glass by gunboats for some vile purpose! Something must be done about it.
The junketing party changed its plans in a flash, and they all scuttled swifter than centipedes back to the convention, which was deep into such matters as Folk Remedies for DDT, Marine Platforms to Refuel Transoceanic Beetle Flights, and Should There Be a Cease Fire Between Beetles and Blattidae? (who still went “Blat, blat!”).
The news brought by the junketters tabled all that and electrified the convention. The general secretary eyed elater was on his back three times running and then on his feet again—click, click, click, click, click, click! The president Colorado potato beetle goggled his enormous eyes. It was decided by unanimous vote that the imprisoned beetles must be rescued at once. Within seconds Operation Succor was under way.
A task force of scout, spy, and tech beetles was swiftly sent off and dispatched into the museum to evaluate and lay out the operation. They confirmed the observations and deductions of the junketters and decided that a rare sort of beetle which secretes fluoric acid would be vital to the caper.
A special subgroup of these investigators traced out by walking along them the characters of the word Scarab. Their report was as follows:
“First you got a Snake character, see?” (That was the S.)
“Then you get a Hoop Snake with a Gap.” (That was the C.)
“Then Two Snakes Who Meet in the Night and have Sexual Congress.” (That was the A.)
“Next a Crooked Hoop Snake Raping an Upright or Square Snake.” (The R.)
“Then a repeat of Two Snakes Who Meet in the Night, et cetera.” (The second A.)
“Lastly Two Crazy Hoop Snakes Raping a Square Snake.” (The B.)
“Why all this emphasis on snakes and sex we are not certain.”
“We suggest the Egyptian delegation be consulted as soon as it arrives.”
Operation Succor was carried out that night.
It was a complete success.
Secreted fluoric acid ate small round holes in the thick glass of all cases. Through these, every last scarab in the Egyptian Rooms were toted by carrying beetles—mostly dung beetles—down into deep beetle bunkers far below Manhattan and armored against the inroads of cockroaches.
Endless atempts to bring the drugged and hypnotized beetles back to consciousness and movement were made. All failed.
Undaunted, the beetles decided simply to venerate the rescued scarabs. A whole new beetle cult sprang up around them.
The Egyptian delegation arrived, gorgeous as pharaohs, and knew at once what had happened. However, they decided to keep this knowledge secret for the greater good of all beetledom. They genuflected dutifully before the scarabs just as did the beetles not in the know.
The cockroaches had their own theories, but merely kept up their picketing and their chanting of “Blat, blat, go the Blattidae.”
Because of their theories, however, one fanatical Egyptian beetle went bats and decided that the scarabs were indeed alive though drugged and that the whole thing was part of a World Cockroach Plot carried out by commando Israeli beetles and their fellow travelers. His wild mouthings were not believed.
Human beings were utterly puzzled by the whole business. The curator of the Met and the chief of the New York detectives investigating the burglary stared at the empty cases in stupid wonder.
“Godammit,” the detective chief said. “When you look at all those little holes, you’d swear the whole job had been done by beetles.”
The curator smiled sourly.
Speedy said, “Hey, this skyrockets us beetles to the position of leading international jewel thieves.”
For once Big Yank had to agree. “It’s just too bad the general public, human and coleopterous, will never know,” she said wistfully. Then, brightening, “Hey, how about you and me having another adventure?”
“Suits,” said Speedy.
WHEN BRAHMA WAKES