

~~*~~

Prologue

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I run the entire agency now, and am a court advisor to the Queen. I’ve got three years left, and then I think I’ll retire. The wife and I want to move downcliff a bit; you know, a little out of the way, closer to the sea, nearer to Purple Rock.





You’re human, right? You’re reading this on one of your fancy electronic devices. You’re wondering what I am if I’m not human.





I’m an ant.





You’re thinking: No way! You’re thinking: Ridiculous! You’re thinking I’m tiny, and red or black. You’re thinking I’ve got antennae and nasty pincers, that I am utterly mindless, that I’m basically little more than an extension of our Queen, who does nothing besides give orders and lay millions of eggs.





You’re thinking that because I’m an ant, I don’t have any kind of intelligence. You’re thinking that I live in some dusty mound somewhere, and that I pester human picnicgoers. Maybe you’re thinking about how as a young girl or boy you used to stick what you call “firecrackers” (and we call weapons of mass destruction) into ant mounds and light them. Maybe you thought that funny.





Let me back up a little and adjust my antennae. I’m not being “real” enough with you lot.





So here it is. You are a nasty lot, you naked apes. You know that?





You think you’ve got this world figured out. You think there isn’t anything left to discover on it. It’s yours. You own it. You can do with it whatever you please.





Because of that attitude, you’re well on your way to destroying it. That’s what your “ownership” means. You’re crappy stewards. You simply don’t deserve to be this world’s dominant species.





Which is, ultimately, what this story is about. It’s about how we finally tipped the balance against you. It’s about how by way of a very daring mission we began the process of removing you naked apes from the power you have more than sufficiently demonstrated you don’t deserve. It’s about how my Queendom—my particular ant species—dared to stand up against you—and won; how we, tiny, hateful insects that you see us as, drove your exalted leader crazy, and as a result started a revolution that even as I write this is uplifting your true heroes and casting your disturbingly large number of very real villains back into darkness, where they belong honeyless forever and ever. It’s about how my Queendom saved the world—from you.





But it’s also about my young friend, Andalusia . There were many heroes from the Queendom who undertook our mission, one that I was on, but she’s the hero’s hero.





I miss her. I miss all those who gave their lives to see the mission through, and to help her.





Of course, her real name wasn’t Andalusia --Andy. Your mouths couldn’t pronounce her real name. It goes without saying that we don’t speak English. Our language is much richer, much more emotive, much more expressive than this verbal refuse!





But I digress.





This story is about our mission and the heroes sent to save the earth from you apes. It’s about how my friend Andy and our brave scouts and warriors and flyers and spies, and yes, I, won.





I witnessed it all. I was part of it all.





. I watch you. That’s one of my jobs. I joined the CSA—Central Scout Agency—a year before I was eligible (I faked the leafwork), and have been with them ever since. I lied on my application form. Somehow the leafwork got through.This is our story.