"But this is about ants, Chief," Pringle answered. Then shrewdly, "But first you gotta promise, Chief." "All right, I promise," the Chief acceded testily. "It's about ants," Kenzie repeated stubbornly. The Chief winced, but he held his peace. "They're intelligent," Kenzie said profoundly, and stopped. "I know," the Chief prompted. "I know, Kenzie boy. You've been saying that all along." "I communicated with them," Kenzie said flatly. "You what?" The Chief's eyes bugged out. I guess mine did too. "Sure," Kenzie answered. "After a fashion, that is. In their anthers they've got a chitin cell diaphragm. Modified cellular structure. They communicate with a sort of microwave. Roughly you might say it generates and radiates like our brain wave. Roughly, very roughly. This chitin diaphragm picks up the microwave like our ears pick up sound. Roughly, that is." "But that's wonderful," the Chief glowed. It didn't take much imagination to see him in the General Manager's office explaining how his multiwhoozits gadget worked. Maybe nothing immediately commercial about it, but when the publicity office got hold of it--man, it would mean plenty of free publicity for the Company. And how Old Rock Jaw loved free publicity! "We tuned in on them," Kenzie was saying. "By putting different kinds of food around, and by making different kinds of disturbances, we worked out a crude sort of vocabulary." "You did--" the Chief exclaimed. "Nothing fancy, you understand," Kenzie belittled his achievement. "But enough so when we broadcast a sugar wave, they came running to the surface to see where it was. When we broadcast a water wave, they rushed to the ant nursery and started carrying eggs to high ground." "Glory be--" the Chief breathed. In his eyes there was the vision of world renowned scientists patting him on the back. Maybe even more important, Old Rock Jaw was actually smiling, and telling him he could have unlimited funds in his budget. "Sure," Kenzie said bitterly. "Sure that was all very fine. Big shots, we were going to be, Pringle and me. First time in history man had talked with an insect. Maybe even get our pictures in the paper, same as if we'd murdered somebody. Fame!" "Yeah," Pringle chimed in. "First step in learning how to communicate with an alien mind. Nuts!" "I don't get it," the Chief stammered. "What's wrong with that?" "Well, we went on perfecting the vocabulary," Kenzie said. "You know. Fining it down. Had the little beggars practically standing on their heads at times with our wave." He grinned at the memory and seemed to shake off some of his lethargy. "You shoulda been here the night Pringle had them marching in formation." His face fell again. "We kept on improving the gadget," he said with hangdog attitude. "We still hadn't made direct communication, you understand. Nothing like 'How do you do, Mrs. Ant? This is Kenzie MacKenzie, human, talking.'" Then he sneered at his memory.