“They live for about four hundred days. They choose a queen. She doesn't have babies, but she can give orders. She orders them all about to pick things up and bring them back. They build a mound together and inside they fill it with the best sticks and pebbles they can find. And when it's perfect, when they've built the perfect home and everything's just right, do you know what they do?” “No.” “They die.” “What?” “All of them, they just die.” Ushko peered at the mound. “Why?” “I don't know. What should they do instead?” Invent the wheel, Ushko thought. Do mathematics. Write novels. Conquer
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