The Forager

Ch'tik approached the Queen with a hopeful scent. As usual, the Queen was surrounded by young ones who acted as both attendants and bodyguards. The Queen turned to her.

"Report, Minister of Foraging."

Ch'tik responded. "Yesterday's route turned out to be  dry. Too few of the scouting parties have returned. I'd like to call them home."

"How many losses?" asked the Queen.

"A hundred a day."

"Those are acceptable. Continue the search in that sector. What else?"

"Scouts report new food sources and water."

The Queen nodded. "Tsikti be praised. How many workers do you need?"

Ch'tik did some quick calculations based on projected returns, accounting for inevitable losses when foraging the Great Unknown. "Five thousand should do," she answered.

"Draw them to your path. May Tsikti guide you."

Ch'tik turned and made her way to the surface, engaging the drawing protocols as she went to tell others food was available and that help would be needed to retrieve it. She would lead this foraging personally. The colony desperately needed these resources.

The heat on the surface was almost unbearable. Sky-Fire was high in its cycle and the foragers would need to keep to what little shade there was.

Now that she'd completed the drawing protocols, it would take time before the entire foraging assembly was en route. Ch'tik decided to strike out early and reinforce the route scent leading to the foodstuffs to make it easier for the following wave.

"Lead on," Ch'tik said to one of the scouts who waited anxiously under a layer of tree-shed. "Take me to the water first."

A hundred sisters followed, forming an orderly and efficient line.

The forward path was long along many varied surfaces leading to a series of cool and damp enclosures. Perfect conditions for relatively safe travel. None proved a challenge.

Ch'tik connected with several scouts already on the return path to share much needed moisture and to learn what they knew. None of the scouts individually understood the entire route or obstacles, but collectively their knowledge told Ch'tik all she needed.

A final tunnel-way through the seams of great wooden beams led to an immense bright open area, so large its dimensions could not be determined by sight alone.

The broad flat surface was a smooth polished stone that cooled her body as she tread it.

After tracing and re-tracing previous scout trails several times, they found their way to a great pool of water. Chi'tik approached with care. The water's cohesiveness was a threat to her kind and many a worker had been lost for being too aggressive while acquiring it.

Ch'tik dipped into the edge of the water's surface with her mandibles and carved out a small drop. It was fresh. She siphoned what she could.

"Carefully, all. Fill your gasters and return to the colony. The Queen will be pleased," she said.

The gathered workers each took a place around the water's edge and began to take it in. As they did their hind bodies swelled, filling with the precious liquid.

More sisters joined. The take would satisfy the entire colony depending on the amount of water available here.

A gargantuan shadow crossed over the entire foraging party. Ch'tik propped her antennae and felt a dramatic change in air flow. Something was moving in their vicinity but nothing she could see. Part of the Great Unknown perhaps?

She felt several taps from nearby sisters to be alert. They sensed it too. The work continued and a few sisters began to detach, their bodies full. New sisters took their places.

Suddenly, Ch'tik felt air pressure moving fast towards them. The water line was disrupted and 20 sisters were caught, drawn into the fluid itself. There was no saving them.

One of Ch'tik's legs were crushed by a large wall of an object as it brushed by her, taking a dozen more sisters with it.

"Danger!" warned Ch'tik, but it was far too late. She'd lost sense of half the party at the water's edge. The rest scattered.

***

"Mom! The ants are in the kitchen again!" shouted the young man.

"Again?! Wipe the counter down. Be sure to put the sugar in zip-lock bags! And spray the damn poison."

***

Ch'tik limped into the Queen's chamber, her head low. One of her antennae had been badly damaged in the incident and hung ackwardly against her head.

"Report," said the Queen softly. News spread quickly. The entire colony reeked of pheremones from surviving sisters that told most of the story already.

"We lost 3000."

"What happened?"

"The Great Unknown."

The Queen contemplated this. "Someday we'll need to calculate how to defend ourselves against the Great Unknown. Perhaps if we bred enough soldiers."

"One of my foragers claims to have touched it."

The Queen's antennae perked and pointed to Ch'tik.

"Touched the Great Unknown? That's impossible."

"She claims she walked its surface and sunk her mandibles into it before she was torn away She's not expected to survive."

"And...?"

Ch'tik bristled. It's not that the Queen was insensitive. This was her own brood. But while the life of a single worker may mean little to one who bred tens of thousands, this was one of Ch'tik's foragers.

"It would take hundreds of thousands of soldiers, maybe millions, to even consider moving against the Great Unknown."

The Queen paused as she pondered this. Such an undertaking would require resources not available to her colony.

"What do you believe, Ch'tik?"

Ch'tik groomed her functional antenna with her forelegs before she answered.

"The Great Unknown is powerful beyond measure. But even its greatest blows are not enough to destroy a foraging party. But the poisoned moisture that comes from the Great Unknown can put down the whole party--indeed, an entire colony--quickly and without warning or remorse."

"Go on," encouraged the Queen.

"If the poisoned moisture can kill us so quickly, perhaps enough of it, over time, well, maybe even the Great Unknown is not entirely immune to it."

"You think the Great Unknown will destroy itself trying to kill us with its poisoned moisture?"

"We can hope."

"That does not seem practical."

The two contemplated for a time in silence as young workers around them tended to the Queen and her brood.

"We will shut down paths leading to the Great Unknown for now," said the Queen finally. "Meanwhile, I am told a new food source has been discovered by our long-range scouts. I have a thousand new hatchlings awaiting your command, Ch'tik. Lead them well."

Ch'tik turned to leave.

"Chi'tik," called the Queen.

Chi'tik paused without turning.

"I hope you're right. Maybe our children's children will see a day without the Great Unknown if Tsikti wills it."

Ch'tik made her way to the surface. A forager's wishes and a Queen's prayers were not going to feed the colony.

She would have to remind the Minister of Tunneling to prepare space for the new foodstuffs.

There was much work to do.