Back in the transit capsule, the team prepared to disembark. A small propellor pushed it into another steam cannon. This time, Cliff readied himself by grasping the handholds and tensing his body. When Lasqui pressed the launch button, he sank deep into the cushion, feeling every vertibra's own voice of pain. When the acceleration stopped, the springyness of his mattress launched him forward to smack into the far wall exactly as the first time. As before, he regain consciousness to the laughter of the rest of the team who somehow managed not to be thrown from their seats.

"Curse Jules Verne," he muttered as he climbed back into his seat.

Lilili's role in the team was perfumologist. This may seam to be an unimportant position until one realizes the many uses of scents in the field of espionage. For example, the smell of burning plastic could cause a panic aboard an airliner, allowing for the swapping of briefcases. With her compact chemistry set, she could quickly whip up almost any smell required by the mission. The task of preparing the "reset" pheremone now fell to her. She memorized the recipe at once and set about to mixing her ketones, ambergris, essencial oils. Cliff was astounded to watch her deftly manipulate the equipment without any hands.

Meanwhile, Twake studied the massive book. His eyes widened as he learned many mysterious facts. The wealth of knowledge possessed by the ancients is always occasion for amazement.

Formicarium, staffed by Myrmacologists Holldobler and Wilson: resident human servants we allow them to serve us and tend to the ants instruments: myrmacoscope formicidan suits subfamilies specialize in different parts of the process Aenictinae Aenictogitoninae Aneuretinae: Y-combinators Apomyrminae Armaniinae*: assemblers Cerapachyinae Dolichoderinae*: conditional executors Dorylinae: comments Ecitoninae Formiciinae Formicinae*: data structures Leptanillinae*: disassemblers Leptanilloidinae Myrmeciinae Myrmicinae*: data carriers (leafcutters, seed gatherers) Nothomyrmeciinae Paleosminthurinae Ponerinae*: compilers Prionomyrmecinae: metadata Pseudomyrmecinae Sphecomyrminae

The tunnel they passed through headed not back to Serpentopolis, but to the tiny nation of Luxembourg. Here was the well-known Master Hive that controlled all other hives. The Avian scientists had set up an observation post here called Formicarium Prime.

The transit capsule arrived in a sponge-dock and everyone disembarked. Cliff, never finding it any easier, vowed to go on a diet.

They boarded an elevator and reached the observation deck, a huge white room filled with banks of tiny control panels manned by many, many birds. The birds all stopped and stared as the team stepped out of the elevator. Cliff almost had a panic attack as the last time a flock of birds stared at him made a flashback.

A very wide bank of windows on one side of the lab looked down upon a dark chamber. Floodlights illuminated the floor of this chamber which seemed to be a black, roiling sea.

"Why is it moving?" Cliff asked.

Noella walked over and put her hand on his shoulder. "Hi, I hitched a ride with another group of snakes. Take a look through these binoculars."

Cliff did, and nearly dropped them.

"These are all the ants?"

"In the master hive, yes."

"They sure look busy!"

Twake fluttered onto Cliff's shoulder. "They should. They have accelerated their performance ten-fold. At this rate they will be done in two and a half days. Good thing we arrived with the pheremone in time."

Through the window, he could see a billion ants struggling with blocks of sand cemented together, systematically piecing together a 3-d tangram the size of an ice cream truck. It was nearly complete as a big cube with only a few odd pieces left around, slowly being turned around. The memory ants pushed pebbles around. At intervals, a voice described a new change in state.

"PERMUTATION 38,117,031,973 REACHED"

This was accompanied by a loud bell sound and a change in a large digital display. The symbols were avian, but Cliff still grasped the importance. When the bell rang, all the birds would cringe.

A high-ranking seagull flew to a podium and squawked into a microphone. "Are the arthronauts ready?"

A team of birds, snakes, and cats strode into the room wearing silvery costumes that resembled biohazard pressure suits. Each had a head-mounted nozzle connected to a sophisticated backpack. Into each backpack, Lilili inserted a vial from her preparation bag.

"Here is the batch of Reset Pheremone I just prepared. Spray it toward the ceiling and let it catch the prevailing air currents to be spread around the Hive. If we spray the aerosol in each of the eight main galleries, it will spread to fill the whole volume in approximately three seconds."

"Then, providence be with us," said the seagull boss, "the ants will be momentarily pacified long enough to go in and change the calculation registers. That is when our computer programming team will enter. If anything goes wrong, you can retreat through the airlock and be back inside here in under a minute. Is everything ready?"

"All systems ready, sir."

"It is customary to dispense avian excrement upon your heads, but given our cultural differences, I will just wish you good luck."

The arthronauts had trained for many weeks on this mission. They knew all about the architecture of ant hives, having studied sonographic maps of the Master Hive. As they climbed down the ladder, each was fully conscious of the fact that at best their defense ant suit would protect them for only a few minutes under a full onslaught of biting mandibles and formic acid stings.

The team leader, a cat named Vascobar, checked his ant-reading instrument. "There is a lot of activity, as expected. Fantastic number of ants racing around, an ocean of them. Their antennae wagging in the air are generating air currents, circulating the air. Temperature rising as we approach. Following the paths of least activity as per the maps."

They walked very, very slowly, fanning out to their positions. There were eight large tunnels leading out of the calculation room. Each positioned him or herself in one of these galleries and prepared to dispense the aerosol.

"At positions," said the team leader. "Ants are starting to register our presence. We have about thirty seconds before they react. On my mark, open your nozzles. Ten... nine..."

"Wait!" said Lilili. "Something is wrong. The pheremone vials are still in my bag. Get them out of there!"

The bird communications officer was about to shout the abort order when Bismarck leapt up to knock the bird out of the way.

"Cat, what are you doing?" cried Twake.

"three... two... one... MARK."

Clouds of gas squirted into the hive galleries, filling every chamber. The ants stopped everything they were doing.

"Ant activity stopped!" shouted a bird operator.

"Well, that's good," laughed the seagul boss. "Whew! I thought for a second there..."

The boss was interrupted by an alarm. Klaxons began to flash and a piercing bell rang. The control boards lit up. "What is going on?"

"Sir, the ants have just been exposed to pepper spray. They are reacting with violence levels off scale."