The Raid on the Termites

e Foo

d closed their jaws, regularly, rhythmically, about sixty to the minute. Hours, the two men calculate

achinery. Clash-clash-clash. And into that savage, ti

cape! Try-t

k future or too nerve-wracked by the terrific suspense, they could s

e raised his ponderous spear and thrust the pointed end at the wall with all his strength. And for

e rasped. "God, we're caught

. The strain was telling on him more than on the less finely

m. "But I want at least a sporting

oth stared swiftl

wo nightmare guards stood motionless, as though at command.

, ready to shoot it at the horny breastplate of the nearest mo

molesting them. Instead, they were edging to one side. In a moment, as the two men moved warily to keep th

inspiring. The meaning of the move was to

e so deeply into the trap, and then had surrounded and im

d. "I'll wager we're about to meet your 'unknown intelligence,' Denny. But be it 'super-te

ended and something definite was about to happen. Which proves but once again the wisdom of the gods in not allowing man to read the futur

er and broader and glowing more brilliantly with phosph

adliness. Now and again several of the monsters appeared straight ahead, barring the avenue, and leaving no choice but to turn to right or left into

the menacing jaw-clashing began while they were still fairly far from whatever

," said Denny. "They must sense our co

them, the blind guards commenced automatically opening and closing those invulnerable jaws with the distant approach of the two men just the same. They could only ascrib

them as they rounded a corner and stepped into a corridor that no longer led downward. They knew that

e very heart of the termite mystery. He alone was going to have at least a glimpse of the baffling intelligence that science had guessed ab

th at least a margin of safety-with the blind race it housed, and walk out again whenever they pleased. But from the moment of entering they'd had no chance. They h

light, not the soft gleam of the rotting wood walls which was already paling feebly in comparison. The glare ahead of them, indeed, had something of the texture of elect

hey stumbled toward the light. But they were inexorably herded forw

was a vague but fearsome odor, indescribable, making their skin crawl. A smell of decay-of dea

e. The wasp, he knew, was not the only insect that had certain dread ways of stocking its larder and keeping the contents of that larder fresh! The termites did not cu

opped on the threshold behind them and took up their s

to. The source of the light was not apparent. It seemed to glow from walls and floor a

as they took in more comprehensively the sights i

rder, food storeroom, the chamber certainly was. But what a

e represented here. One or more of everything that crawled, flew, walked or bored, seemed gathered in this great room

ed. From them came the odor that had stopped Jim and Denny on the threshold-the strange odor of blended life and

as so many lumps of stone, they were still horribly, pitifully alive. Paralyzed, in some inscrutable termite fashion, probably fully conscious of their surroundings,

ere termites in that vast storeroom, too; but they were specialized creatures, such as t

unction was obviously that of reservoirs: their abdomens, so enormously distended as to be nearly transparent, g

y of the normal worker, they hung there to be dipped into whenever the master that re

of termite soldier such as they had not seen bef

ndibles that had escorted the pigmy men to the larder. But these ot

ed with thick horn as were the heads of the usual soldiers. Like living syringes, these heads were; per

cal corks with which one plugs a bottle. These, Denny knew from his studies, had been evolved by termite biology for the purpose of temporarily stoppin

s viewed under an entomologist's glass! And how appallingly different was the viewpoint from which they were now being observed-here where the human obs

oked about over the rows of live food, and among the termite soldiers with their odd heads, in va

growth linking them together-a large, gray-white ball borne mutually on their backs. But that was all. The listing of those two

in spite of the attempted levity of the words, was low-

s hand. And he too gazed at the maneuve

des the two that never left their stations at the door-had moved. But they had mov

surrounded Jim and Denny in a hollow square about twenty feet across. There they took up their stations,

sulted from a direct order. But where was the thing to give the command? Where was the head-general? In some far place, on his wa

he words were killed by the light that had appeared suddenly in Denn

his hand and pointing with tr

ith almost convulsive desperation till this m

o worker termites. It had been across the chamber from them when they first saw it. Now it was moving toward t

nal insect skull casing in which it had been born. Evidence that it had once been a normal, termite head was given by the fact that here a

e eyes; great, staring, dull things of the type termites have during the short-winged periods of their ex

most nonexistent chest, and tiny, sticklike legs that trailed helplessly along the floor as the

and with enormous, voracious brain that drained all sustenance constantly from the body! It was, in the insect world, a parallel to the dream that present-day Man som

t," Jim had said, with a s

of grayish-white nerve matter and intricately wrinkled cortex dependent for movement on borrowed backs and legs-and was now peering