“As I figure it out,” he said, “these bees can send and receive on either of two different wave lengths. One of these is about the same as that of Cupian speech, and on this the bees merely whistle, so that whistling is the only sound which you ever hear them utter. On the other wave length they talk, but as this is outside the range of your antennae, you never hear it. But they can hear you talk, when they are tuned to receive the whistles of their own breed. And I can both hear them and send to them, by tuning my artificial speech-organs to their higher wave length.”
“It sounds plausible,” Toron assented judicially.
The others were astounded.
Then tuning back to the shorter wave length, the earthman continued his conversation with the bee.
“If you Hymernians have the intelligence to understand and to talk our language, how is it that you have no more sense than to attack the ant men, whose rifles render them invincible against you?”
“I know not,” Portheris replied, “save that we cannot resist a fight. I suppose it is for the same reason that smaller insects seek a light, only to be destroyed.”
“Then if you must fight,” Cabot suggested, “why do you not fight in swarms, and thus overwhelm your adversaries by sheer weight of numbers?”
“It never occurred to any of us,” the bee answered, simply. “We are an independent race. We fight for the love of fighting, rather than any desire for victory.”
“Would you consider a project whereby you could achieve more effective battles?” Myles asked.
“Probably.”