I was accused of high treason against the empire, in that I had assisted in the escape of a Cupian slave, had uttered a forged pass, had obstructed the highway, had nearly run down a pinqui, and had—presumably—slandered the Formians to a member of the royal house of Cupia.
Doggo said that I clearly had no defense, as all the items, except the slander, were easily provable; but that he should attempt to argue that the accusations were void for inconsistency, due to the fact that the same person was described in them as being both a slave and royalty. So far as I was concerned, this line of defense seemed absolute bunk, but no more so than many equally silly sounding legal rules on earth.
The trial was to take place at the Imperial City before Queen Formis and the Council of Twelve, for apparently I had committed a most important and serious crime. In case of conviction, which seemed certain, Her Majesty would have the choice of two punishments. First, laying eggs in me, Or secondly, casting me into “The Valley of the Howling Rocks.” Both sounded very interesting and were reserved for the worst criminals.
All of the ant-men of the entire nation of Formia are raised from eggs laid by the ruling monarch. The vocation of any given ant-man is determined long before he is hatched, or even before his egg is laid.
From an elaborate system of records, kept in the Imperial City, the Council of Twelve is able to determine, as to each batch of eggs, whether it should produce professors, farmers, laborers, officers, soldiers, servants, or what; and the eggs are accordingly laid in appropriate food. Sort of “tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”
The young ants, when fully grown and in the cocoon stage, are transported by truckloads to the part of the empire where they are to be trained and where their life is to be spent. Thus the pupae for soldiers and officers are sent to Wautoosa, for instance.
Not only is occupation determined in advance, but so also, to a large extent, is sex. Thus only enough males are produced to supply the queen’s harem, the rest of the royal offspring being sexless females. Whenever a queen dies, the council immediately chooses several likely larvae and changes their food so as to produce fully developed females; the first of these to reach maturity being queen, and the rest being killed.
The food chosen for the production of the higher classes of ant-men consists of condemned criminals. This was where I came in.
At this point in the explanation an idea occurred to me.
“Do you really mean to say, Doggo,” I gasped, “that you are a lady and not a man—that the whole nation of Formians are females?”