Sapienophobia

Chapter 8

The similarities between the deer and the insects were sparse.

For one, it wasn't difficult to observe them. If they even noticed my presence, they certainly didn't care unless I interrupted their scavaging. Half of them lacked eyes to see and those who didn't weren't going to bother using them on me.

The ants were the smallest, save for some baby spiders so I began with them. They were predators in their meager communities but disregardable prey to everything else.

They marched to and from their hills, red specks on a mission. Their foraging route was organized in two-way paths like roads. I was amazed by their likeness to the intersections in town.

I wonder how many 'inventions' made by humanity are just adaptations of animal habits to suit people.

I knew that ants worshipped their queen so I wanted to see what they would do if I removed her. I didn't plan on killing her in the beginning, of course, but they wouldn't know that. Would they run away now that they had no reason to stay? Would they continue without her? Stomping around to reveal her hiding place only got me itchy bumps on my ankles. Unfortunately, that meant I would have to set the hill aflame or drown her out. I remembered to fill my water bottle high from town for that experiment because I still hadn't found the water body where my bounty should be.

I was nearing the two and half week interim towards the deadline Vera set. Early on, I came to terms with the fact that I was going to procrastinate on finding Sod until the final week. The wait in between only escalated my anxiety as it stretched out the days.

An unsteady hand poured water over the mound.

Now, show me an evasion only land bugs could scrounge. What will you do now that you've lost everything that's worth anything to you?
The collateral workers that got caught up in my flood squirmed and spun atop the water.
Good attempt! Keep floundering and you might make it to the edge!

I supposed that meant ants were buoyant, I had assumed that they were dense and would panic on their proportional seafloor.

I still hadn't spotted the queen but there was no way she wasn't a member of my natural disaster victims.

She must be indiscernible from her subjects to everyone other than her subjects.
I see, blending in makes it difficult for threats to target you. Too bad my bounty only has one hunter on him. I'll consider using that if I'm ever in a horde scenar-
They stopped. The workers and the bigger fighter ones too. They thrash around it in the water a bit then stop, one after the other...
Why? The queen is surely dead under all this debris so you give up on life?!
No, wait, try to understand. Serving their queen is their life purpose; without that, what do they live for?
Just because one doesn't have a reason to live doesn't mean they should die. They don't have a reason for that either.
They failed to protect their life's work.
Living is their life's work.
Maybe I can't make proper deductions. Maybe ants just can't hold their breath or swim for that long.

I scoured my scene for ants untouched by the water. I recognized four but they practically dove into the streams in pairs.

Yeah, they're suicidal. I think I've learned enough from you guys.

All in all, not a very educational species.

So I turned to their exceptionally distant, winged cousins, the moths. Wasps and bees are more closely related to ants, taking their anatomy and habits into account but I classified them as unimportant because I didn't wish to learn more of the same things.

Granted, moths are notorious for flocking to their deaths but when not lured by the glimmer of a flame, the creatures could be quite perceptive. They were the only species to cling to me as I walked as if I had honey on my clothes.