had a small transponder strapped to its leg and a nearly invisible wire filament headset hovering above its head. Odin extended his hand, and the black bird caw ed its harsh call as it climbed onto his arm. It fluffed the feathers at its throat and let out a keek-keek sound.
He lifted the raven and studied it as he spoke into the phone. “Schedule the next meeting as soon as possible. Our deadline was just accelerated.”
He proceeded toward the tower steps, still holding the raven. Behind him a column of black smoke rose against the dawn light as horrified screams intermingled with the sound of approaching sirens.
CHAPTER 5
Omen
I t was war, then. She had modeled this behavior and detected the cues—but even so, the swiftness of the assault caught her off-guard. Perhaps the stigmergic propagation rate needed to be tweaked.
Professor Linda McKinney stared intently at a procession of salmon-colored, dark-eyed weaver ants, coursing like blood cells along branching pathways. They scurried against a craquelure background of mango bark on highways only they could see, surging into combat against black ants many times their size—swarming over their enemy. The video image revealed the carnage in ultrahigh resolution. The dead were piling up.
Weaver ants— Oecophylla longinoda . Along with mankind they were one of the few extirpator species on earth—meaning they deliberately sought out and destroyed rival organisms (including their own species) to maintain absolute control of their territory.
McKinney zoomed the camera in on a growing knot of weavers, watching as dozens of workers swarmed a much larger, black ant—a Dorylus major, the warrior caste of the driver army ant (which the locals called siafu ). The monstrous black ant had one of the weavers in its mandibles, but following a timeless script, the much smaller and faster weavers grabbed hold of their enemy, first immobilizing the massive intruder—and then tearing its legs off. They dropped it among the dead and moved on to their next victim.
Defeating a siafu army ant colony in battle was no mean feat. Here in Africa, even humans steered clear of siafu, which occasionally swarmed in wave fronts twenty million strong into huts and farms. Anything that could not escape their grasp would die. There were authenticated accounts of siafu killing humans who’d passed out drunk, unattended infants, and goats or cows that were tied in place. First suffocated by thousands of ants crawling into their mouth and lungs, the strangled victims would have their flesh removed in hours, leaving only bones behind. There was no stopping the swarm. You just had to get out of the way. And yet, as fearsome as they were, even siafu army ants fled from the weavers.
Weavers were so aggressive that McKinney would hear them in their multitudes, drumming their legs against tree leaves in alarm, sounding like raindrops as she walked through the mango orchards. Gathering their troops. Collectively, they dominated the treetops of Africa—while their close cousins Oecophylla smaragdina dominated the trees of Asia and Australia. What made them even more fascinating to McKinney was that their reign had already lasted more than a hundred million years. Human civilization was barely a blip on their radar screen.
Weaver society was so durable, so adaptable, that these ants had survived ice ages, extinction-level events—like the asteroid impact that doomed the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, sixty-six million years ago. In fact, more than merely surviving, the weavers had thrived. In terms of biomass, they now rivaled that of humanity itself. In numbers they were counted in trillions. They were one of the most successful and enduring species on the face of the planet. That was one of the reasons she had spent her adult life studying them. There was an ancient knowledge of sustainability here on a scale humans could only aspire to. And they were fascinating in so many other
He lifted the raven and studied it as he spoke into the phone. “Schedule the next meeting as soon as possible. Our deadline was just accelerated.”
He proceeded toward the tower steps, still holding the raven. Behind him a column of black smoke rose against the dawn light as horrified screams intermingled with the sound of approaching sirens.
CHAPTER 5
Omen
I t was war, then. She had modeled this behavior and detected the cues—but even so, the swiftness of the assault caught her off-guard. Perhaps the stigmergic propagation rate needed to be tweaked.
Professor Linda McKinney stared intently at a procession of salmon-colored, dark-eyed weaver ants, coursing like blood cells along branching pathways. They scurried against a craquelure background of mango bark on highways only they could see, surging into combat against black ants many times their size—swarming over their enemy. The video image revealed the carnage in ultrahigh resolution. The dead were piling up.
Weaver ants— Oecophylla longinoda . Along with mankind they were one of the few extirpator species on earth—meaning they deliberately sought out and destroyed rival organisms (including their own species) to maintain absolute control of their territory.
McKinney zoomed the camera in on a growing knot of weavers, watching as dozens of workers swarmed a much larger, black ant—a Dorylus major, the warrior caste of the driver army ant (which the locals called siafu ). The monstrous black ant had one of the weavers in its mandibles, but following a timeless script, the much smaller and faster weavers grabbed hold of their enemy, first immobilizing the massive intruder—and then tearing its legs off. They dropped it among the dead and moved on to their next victim.
Defeating a siafu army ant colony in battle was no mean feat. Here in Africa, even humans steered clear of siafu, which occasionally swarmed in wave fronts twenty million strong into huts and farms. Anything that could not escape their grasp would die. There were authenticated accounts of siafu killing humans who’d passed out drunk, unattended infants, and goats or cows that were tied in place. First suffocated by thousands of ants crawling into their mouth and lungs, the strangled victims would have their flesh removed in hours, leaving only bones behind. There was no stopping the swarm. You just had to get out of the way. And yet, as fearsome as they were, even siafu army ants fled from the weavers.
Weavers were so aggressive that McKinney would hear them in their multitudes, drumming their legs against tree leaves in alarm, sounding like raindrops as she walked through the mango orchards. Gathering their troops. Collectively, they dominated the treetops of Africa—while their close cousins Oecophylla smaragdina dominated the trees of Asia and Australia. What made them even more fascinating to McKinney was that their reign had already lasted more than a hundred million years. Human civilization was barely a blip on their radar screen.
Weaver society was so durable, so adaptable, that these ants had survived ice ages, extinction-level events—like the asteroid impact that doomed the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, sixty-six million years ago. In fact, more than merely surviving, the weavers had thrived. In terms of biomass, they now rivaled that of humanity itself. In numbers they were counted in trillions. They were one of the most successful and enduring species on the face of the planet. That was one of the reasons she had spent her adult life studying them. There was an ancient knowledge of sustainability here on a scale humans could only aspire to. And they were fascinating in so many other
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