Chapter 1162
They waited for everyone to arrive at the ship, then made their way to the second colony. Crossed Antennae thought things were going well. Obviously they’d only found one, but it had been fairly simple. They’d survived even after the planet was taken over, as they were focused on hiding instead of doing something stupid like fighting. Revealing themselves would be terrible.
The area was a bit too sandy for Crossed Antennae’s liking, but that was the fault of human cultivators. The void ants didn’t get to pick where the humans wanted to go. It took some better engineering to make a nest in subpar materials, but the void ants could do it.
Crossed Antennae found the nest in perfect condition, except that it was empty. Well, not quite empty. The inhabitants had clearly left in a hurry, as they left behind all of their food. And quite tellingly, other materials as well. Careless. It wouldn’t look like a regular ant nest, especially not with the construction.
“We’ll do a thorough inspection,” she said. “If there’s really nobody here, take everything and head back to the ship after dismantling it.” Their reinforcements would be a dead giveaway that something was up if humans found the nest, and it would last for years without any maintenance. Not that void ants let anything go nearly at long somewhere they actually lived.
After assigning workers to that task, Crossed Antennae thought it would be trivial to track down the nest. After all, they could just follow the various trails that led out from the nest. She sent out a few thousand individuals to explore down various paths to determine which ones were oldest.
Half an hour later they reported back. Most of the trails were older, obviously, but the group that found a newer trail was concerned. They couldn't really explain it.
“The trail… ends.”
“What, did they get crushed? Exploded?” Crossed Antennae asked. “Maybe they got picked up.” She hoped it was not that last one.
“You should smell for yourself.”