Cryptonomicon

by Neal Stephenson

“Wealth that is stored up in gold is dead. It rots and stinks. True wealth is made every day by men getting up out of bed and going to work. By schoolchildren doing their lessons, improving their minds. Tell those men that if they want wealth, they should come to Nippon with me after the war. We will start businesses and build buildings.”

But it is clear that the place is ultimately ruled by ants; in fact it makes the most sense to think of the jungle as a living tissue of ants with minor infestations of trees, birds, and humans. Some of them are so small that they are, to other ants, as those ants are to people; they prosecute their ant activities in the same physical space but without interfering, like many signals on different frequencies sharing the same medium. But there are a fair number of ants carrying other ants, and Randy assumed that they are not doing it for altruistic reasons.

“Lawrence!” Rudy shouts. “Yes?” “Don’t forget to destroy that sealed envelope you left in your office.” Waterhouse laughs. “Aw, I was just lying about that. In case someone wanted to kill me.” “That’s a relief.” “You know how people are always saying ‘I can keep a secret’ and they are always wrong?” “Yes.” “Well,” Waterhouse says, “I can keep a secret.”