Ever Smaller

by Albert Bleunard

  Is it not strange, in fact, to find the same practice among humans and ants for utilizing animals that secrete liquid nourishment?

  When the ants had collected a sufficient quantity of the sugary liquid they began going down again by the same route—which is to say, via the trunk of the rose-bush. The three ants that had carried the voyagers before came to find their riders. The three men clung on to the necks of their mounts, and then a vertiginous 600 meter descent of the rose-bush commenced. Heads down, with the infinite void beneath them, vertigo gripped them. Everything started spinning madly in the air. They all collected all the strength they had, and shut their eyes. Five minutes later, they found themselves lying on the ground at the bottom of the tree, fortunately safe and sound. The ants had already disappeared.

  Paradou and his companions headed back to the ant-hill. They wanted to go back into the subterranean tunnels to complete their study. As they got nearer, however, they found an extraordinary spectacle before their eyes. A long column of large red ants was emerging from the gaping opening of the ant-hill in serried ranks, all lining up in an orderly manner under the busy direction of the small black ants.

  “What does this mean?” asked Camaret.

  “The ants are setting off to war,” the optician replied. “This is an excellent opportunity to learn. Let’s follow them—we have time.”

  “The little black ones are evidently the officers,” the dentist said to the doctor, “and the big red ones are only soldiers. Admit that this is a singular inversion of our human ideas. According to Soleihas, the red ants are the masters and the black ants the slaves….”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Well, it’s truly strange to see masters so completely under the domination of their slaves.”

  “Yes,” replied the doctor, “it’s strange. Think about it, and you’ll see that the same phenomenon has occurred in humans as among the ants. It must be a law of nature.”

  They had been marching for a quarter of an hour when the column came to an abrupt halt. A small eminence rose up nearby. They climbed it, and aimed binoculars in the direction of the vanguard of the army. The battle had commenced, for the plain seemed to be covered by ants in disorder.

  “Let’s move forward,” said Soleihas to his companions. “We need to quit the rearguard and see the battle.

  They ran toward the battlefield.

  The spectacle changed as they went forward. The immobility of the rearguard was gradually succeeded by the most terrifying disorder. The large reed ants, drunk with wrath and carnage, were lashing out in all directions. Further battalions were marching into battle while other combatants were coming back. The wounded, dragged by the little black ants, were taken back to the ant-hill.

  They continued moving forward; the mêlée became increasingly confused.

  “This battle lacks noise and smoke,” Camaret suddenly observed. “Hang on—I’ll remedy that.”

  As he spoke, the headstrong dentist drew two revolvers from his pockets.

  “Stop, in the name of Heaven! Don’t shoot!” cried the doctor. “What are you trying to do, you fool? Do you want to put us all in mortal danger?”

  Camaret returned his weapons to his pockets, cursing through clenched teeth. “It would be a means of proving the superiority of humans over ants, though.”

  “It would also be a way to get us all massacred,” Paradou replied, a trifle dryly,

  They had arrived on the true battlefield, near to the ant-hill under attack. New battalions were emerging through the gaping opening of that ant-hill incessantly, coming to defend their dwelling against the invaders.

  The megacephalic ants were distinguishable in the forefront of the army, easily recognizable by their huge dimensions. Behind them, the smaller ants were resisting the formidable impact of the large red enemies with all their courage.

  But what could courage accomplish against brute force? Soon, the ranks of the megacephali were brought down and the small back ants were fleeing as fast as they could go.

  “It’s the same here as among humans,” Soleihas remarked. “Might makes right.”

  Half an hour went by in the contemplation of that sad spectacle from the top of a mound that overlooked the entrance to the ant-hill. The battalions of large red ants were incessantly renewed, ready for further carnage. The poor little black ants under attack became increasingly rare, offering less and less resistance.

  Camaret could not restrain the emotion caused by the sight of such a spectacle.

  “It’s a shame!” he finally exclaimed. “To persist like that against an enemy weaker than oneself is an abuse of one’s strength—it’s shameful. Will no one come to the aid of these sad victims, decimated in a cowardly fashion by those big red idlers? Will heaven not crush these barbarians and punish these insolent conquerors?”

  Heaven remained implacable, alas, and left the little black ants to die.

  At that moment, Paradou and Soleihas, like the dentist, would have liked to be able to become ordinary men again. How much pleasure they would have obtained from becoming godly avengers of weakness and innocence; how gladly they would have crushed every last one of the red ants under their heels. But they remained smaller than the ants!

  “It’s necessary to respect the intentions of God,” said the doctor, finally, by way of consolation. “What’s happening is probably just a necessary evil. When the victorious army goes home, the prisoners will be raised up, and will soon become the true masters of their abductors.”

  “Yes,” remarked Soleihas, “and that will be a fair return of eternal justice. Brute force sometimes has merit. Admit, though, that human intelligence often has difficulty in comprehending the extent of the Creator’s plan.”

  The struggle was now over. The victorious army went into the tunnels, deprived of their defenders.

  “Shall we go in?” asked Camaret.

  “There’s no need,” Soleihas replied. “The invaders will limit themselves to capturing young ants and transporting them to their own abode.” He pointed into the distance. “Wait, here’s another, more interesting spectacle. Look at all the ants deserting their hearth and running away into the plain.”

  Indeed, aiming their binoculars in the direction indicated by the optician, they perceived all the vanquished ants fleeing in disorder through an opening into the ant-hill sufficiently remote from the one penetrated by the victors. The latter had already perceived this stratagem, for a large number of red ants were racing to intercept the runaways. Our three companions followed them at a run, curious to witness the new spectacle that was in preparation.

  When they had reached the second entrance to the ant-hill the battle had recommenced on that side with as much ardor as before, but the struggle had changed its character and its objective. Each of the black ants was clutching a young one in its mandibles, which it was attempting thus to preserve from the cupidity of the enemy. The chances of combat were much more unequal than before. Before the impetuous attack of the large red ants, the poor little black ants were driven back and obliged to abandon their precious burdens. Those which tried to resist were pitilessly slain.

  After a few moments, the victory of the large red ants was complete. Corpses of little black ants were lying on the ground everywhere.

  “It’s over,” said Soleihas. “We can go back to our glass plate now. This spectacle has sickened me.”

  “Yes,” the doctor replied, “I feel the same as you. Come on, my friends, let’s take a short cut. This is the way we need to go.” And he pointed toward a large clump of trees that were visible in the distance.

  They set off, therefore, toward the indicated objective. They had to cross a part of the battlefield. The frightful state of the victims testified to how terrible the struggle had been. Strangely enough, the majority had severed necks. Ants, in fact, make use of their mandibles as a murderous weapon. They hurl themselves upon the back of their enemies, knock them down and slice through their necks with their mandibles.


  They had only covered a few hundred meters when they arrived at a place where the battle was still going on. In a narrowly-restricted space between two piles of rocks, they perceived a dozen black ants, carrying young ones between their mandibles, pursued by two large red ants. The black ones, sensing that they had the numerical advantage, were audaciously standing up their enemies.

  The humans drew nearer just as the large red ants precipitated themselves on to the black ones and seized two of them, immediately setting about slicing through their necks. At that sight, Camaret was gripped by fury. With lightning speed, he pulled his revolver out of his pocket and discharged two shots at the red ants. The action had been so rapid that he doctor and the optician had not been able to prevent it.

  “Reckless fool!” cried the doctor. “Let’s get away, quickly.”

  It was already too late. They saw ants arriving from every direction. They could not hope to match them for speed.

  “Back up against the rocks,” said Paradou. “With our weapons, we can stand up to the ants.”

  “Perhaps the danger’s not s great as you fear,” observed the optician. “We don’t know that these ants have any hostile intentions with regard to us.”

  Alas, that was quickly settled. The ants surrounded the two that had been wounded by Camaret’s bullets, and a keen agitation was soon manifest within the group.

  “This is the decisive moment,” said the doctor. “We’ll soon find out what the intentions of the ants are in our regard.”

  All of a sudden, the enormous insects rushed upon the three humans. From their hectic manner, the disordered movements of their antennae and the quivering of their bodies, it was easy to deduce how irritated they were.

  Backed up against a rock, the three friends awaited the impact of the enemy. They all held revolvers in both hands.

  Unaware of the destructive power of human weapons, the insects arrived unsuspectingly, certain that they could massacre the imprudent individuals who had dared to attack them in the blink of an eye. Three shots rang out and three ants—the ones in the vanguard—fell to the ground.

  There was a momentary pause in the progress of the assailants. Alarmed by the death of their comrades, they hesitated, and even seemed inclined to flee.

  “I can see a cave!” Camaret shouted. “Let’s take refuge inside.”

  That circumstance was providential. In the open, defense was impossible.

  The cave that the dentist had just perceived was about 50 paces away to the right. In their anxiety, the three men had not noticed it before. The ants were still immobile. Paradou and his companions ran along the rock face and reached the entrance to the cave. At the same moment, the ants raced forward again. Three shots rang out and three ants fell to the ground. Each bullet, easily penetrating the heads of the insects, had smashed their brains. To compound the irritation, the ant battalion was now passing over the dead bodies of their comrades, and fell upon the humans furiously.

  The latter had had time, however, to get inside the cave. The entrance was too narrow and would be easy to defend. The ants could only get through two at a time with difficulty.

  Our three friends scarcely had time to make these reflections. As soon as they had entered the cave, they perceived two enormous ants’ heads in the opening. Two shots rang out and two cadavers fell to the ground at the entrance to the grotto.

  That barrier was an obstacle to the invasion of other ants. Two more heads showed themselves above the cadavers; two further bullets broke those heads and two more corpses increased the solidity of the rampart.

  This time, no more were seen.

  The three friends began to breathe again.

  “I think we can now rest easy,” said the optician, while reloading his revolver. The ants will go away. All the same, my dear Camaret, you’ve put us in a critical situation with your over-exaggerated sensitivity.

  “One is always punished, alas,” the skeptical dentist replied, “for a good deed. And here’s more proof of it.”

  The danger was far from being over, as Soleihas had thought. A few minutes after this brief respite, the doctor uttered a cry of fright.

  “The ants are demolishing the rampart,” he said, pointing at the cadavers.

  Indeed, the cadavers obstructing the entrance to the cave were gradually drawing away, pulled outside by the other ants. Soleihas launched himself on to a projection of the rock in order to look over the cadavers to see what was happening on the other side. He was gripped by fear. For as far as he could see, the plain was covered by delirious ants. They were arriving from every direction at once.

  “We’re doomed!” he cried, returning to his companions.

  “We’re saved!” relied the doctor. Taking a bottle from his pocket, he held it up and said: “This is a bottle filled with chloroform. The vapor of this liquid is deadly to insects. I’ll pour the contents over the cadavers heaped up in front of the cave, and no ants will then be able to get through to disturb us.”

  Matching action to words, he emptied the bottle over the cadavers.

  Within an instant, the liquid evaporated. The effect was instantaneous. From his observation-post, the optician saw the ants retreating precipitately, giving evidence of the most extreme terror. Others came closer in their turn, but drew away with the same signs of fright.

  “We’re saved!” he shouted. “All the ants…”

  The words caught in his throat. He had just seen his two companions fall on to the floor of the cave, inanimate.

  Immediately leaping to the ground, he tried to go to their assistance, but as he did so he felt faint, put his hands to his burning forehead, and fell backwards.

  When the three men woke up, they were under the bell-jar in Al-Harik’s laboratory, having almost regained their natural size. They had only retained a vague recollection of the tragic events and dangers of the cave; sleep had numbed their memory.

  The bell-jar rose up and the face of the aged scientist appeared.

  “This time, gentlemen,” he told them, in the half-serious, half-mocking voice that had the effect of irritating Paradou and his two companions, “you were in terrible danger.”

  “What happened, then?” asked the optician, who was still under the influence of the chloroform.

  “Recover your senses first. Come and take a turn around the garden. The fresh air will complete your revival.”

  They went into the garden. After a few circuits of the path, the open air had dissipated the malaise of the victims of anesthesia. Then Al-Harik took them to one of the edge of the lawn and told them the following story:

  “Troubled by your prolonged lateness,” he said, “I set out to search for you in the vicinity of the ant-hill. Not finding you there, I followed the column of ants, suspecting that you must have gone that way. For a quarter of an hour my search was in vain. Very anxious about your disappearance and fearful of a catastrophe inside the subterranean tunnels, I was getting ready to dig up the ant-hill when I suddenly perceived a puff of smoke escaping from the edge of one of the garden paths. That unusual phenomenon attracted my attention, and I conducted a search in that area. Kneeling down and leaning over the round I saw another puff of smoke and heard some slight sounds. In brief, I realized that dramatic events were unfolding. With the back of my hand I swept away the ants that were surrounding you and searched for you in a hole probably hollowed out by an earthworm. You were plunged in profound unconsciousness. I immediately brought you back to the bell-jar—and you know the rest.”

  Such was the tale told by the old scientist. Yes, this time, the danger run by the bold explorers had been serious. It required genuine courage to continue to continue such perilous experiments. Fortunately, the members of the Hyperpsychical society had a temper comparable to steel, and nothing could make them retreat when it was a matter of extracting the most intimate secrets of nature.

  Needless to say, when the story was over, they visited the places that had been witness to their extraordinary adventu
res with great interest. Kneeling on the edge of the lawn, they examined with the keenest curiosity a little indentation in the earth, surrounding by the pebbles of the path. Yes, that was really the location of the cave in which they had nearly gone to sleep forever, under the influence of the deleterious vapor of chloroform.

  Thus, without knowing it, they had followed the edge of the lawn, and the elevated cliff that they had skirted, within whose wall they had discovered he protective grotto, was nothing but the edge of the path. How different everything is when one is tiny!

  VII. In a Drop of Water

  “So, today we’re visiting the smallest creatures in creation?” said the doctor, as soon as he and his companions had come into the old scientist’s laboratory.

  It was the fourth day of the extraordinary experiments carried out by Al-Harik, which had been so very successful thus far. Doubt was impossible now, and the members of the Hyperpsychical Society of Perpignan were obliged to admit that they were completely convinced.

  “Yes, my dear Monsieur,” the old scientist replied, to the question the doctor had just asked, “I’m going to reduce you in an instant to a 100,000th of your present size.”

  “Which will give us a height of about 200th of a millimeter, if I’m not mistaken,” said the optician. “This time, we’ll be microscopic.”

  “But almost all microbes live in water, “Paradou observed. “We’ll be obliged to go into that liquid ourselves.”

  “We could fish for them with a rod and line,” said the dentist.

  “No, gentlemen,” Al-Harik replied. “I’ve anticipated everything. You will indeed be penetrating the interior of a drop of water.”

  “Only one drop of water!” exclaimed Camaret, utterly amazed.

  “That’s quite sufficient, in fact,” said the doctor. “In a drop of water, we can find enough to satisfy the curiosity of the most demanding naturalist. A single drop of water contains millions of microbes. Well, Monsieur Al-Harik, what means to you propose for us to go underwater?”