The visi-screens now showed the second wave of the assault: endless columns of workers, their mandibles twitching with eagerness to devour, bustling along the logs, kept in line by two rows of warriors to their right and left. The noises they produced in the loudspeakers were as of some big cattle-drive.
With no interruption in the lengthening line the third wave followed: the virgin nurses, the frustrated mothers carrying the whitish larvae, like babes in arms, carrying them with the indomitable determination to preserve their lives which human nurses showed in the Second World War as the bombs crashed into maternity wards. And then at last the heavy rearguard: the holiest of holies, the living spirit of the hive, the queen. Majestically she was carried on her warrior's backs; enormous as she loomed on the visi-screen, the white of her uncouth body was hardly visible, swarmed over as she was by her fanatical courtiers which, licking and caressing, kept her covered as by a shield. Her consorts trotted meekly in her trail; unhappy little men, rudely aroused from their harem sinecure, jealously guarded and prodded on by the queen's countless ladies in waiting and the palace guard.
Things moved very fast now; Lee's quick pencil strokes could hardly follow the events:
10:30 a.m. The foremost columns are now out of reach of the visi-screens. But I can see them moving along the logs with the naked eye. Interesting new fact: the crossbreeds from the most belligerent species are far and ahead of the rest. They don't take time out to drive tunnels. But even the tunnels of the more pacific strains are forging ahead at an extraordinary rate; six feet across the floor already....
10:40: "Bellicosus" has reached the south wall; it is now moving along the wall toward the "Lignin-Filler-Spout." There is no hesitancy as they change direction at the angle of 90 degrees. The Queens are now coming up at a very rapid rate from the mounds farthest to the rear. It's fortunate we have these differences in behaviorism and temperament because otherwise a terrific traffic jam would occur at the "Filler-Spout"....
10:50: "Bellicosus" is now ascending to the "Filler-Spout." The warriors have ringed the pipe. With their body-tremors they are giving the "come-on" signal to the workers. The workers are piling in—an average batch—about 65,000. It's a good thing that there is an air space in these horizontal nerve-path pipes. That gives them a chance to march along the ceiling and work down from there....
11:00: There are now a score of columns converging at the "Filler-Spout." Amazing that even under such provoking conditions "ant-termes" won't fight. The warriors act like the most accomplished traffic-cops; it's marvelous how they keep their columns in order and keep them moving side by side into The Brain....
11:10: The first million, I should say, is now well inside the "Filler-Spout." They're marching at a rate of at least 300 yards per hour; amazing speed; I never saw them move that fast before. Even so I won't have time to watch the outcome of the experiment. I've put everything I had into this thing. 500 hives—that would make it 35 million individuals of the species at a conservative estimate. It's the biggest mass-migration I've ever seen, but will it be big enough to do the trick?
11:20: The foremost columns must have reached the neighboring apperception centers to the right and left of mine by now. But they won't stop; I know that from experience in Australia. To them it's just like any other "hollow tree"; they'll drive right on to the top; they won't bivouak before they are completely exhausted. That won't be before five or six hours. At the rate of 900 feet per hour that would make it almost a mile, covering the whole "occipital region" of The Brain. And then they are going to feast; boy, will they be ravenous....