The Petrified Ants - By Kurt Vonnegut Page 0,2

had been sunk a half mile deep on the site of a radioactive mineral water spring. Borgorov’s enthusiasm for the hole didn’t seem in the least diminished by the fact that it had produced no uranium worth mining.

Peter studied Borgorov with interest. He seemed a pompous ass of a young man, yet his name merited fear and respect whenever it was mentioned in a gathering of miners. It was said, not without awe, that he was the favorite third cousin of Stalin himself, and that he was merely serving an apprenticeship for much bigger things.

Peter and his brother, Russia’s leading myrmecologists, had been summoned from the University of Dnipropetrovsk to see the hole—or, rather, to see the fossils that had come out of it. Myrmecology, they had explained to the hundred-odd guards who had stopped them on their way into the area, was that branch of science devoted to the study of ants. Apparently, the hole had struck a rich vein of petrified ants.

Peter nudged a rock the size of his head and rolled it into the hole. He shrugged and walked away from it, whistling tunelessly. He was remembering again the humiliation of a month ago, when he had been forced to apologize publicly for his paper on Raptiformica sanguinea, the warlike, slave-raiding ants found under hedges. Peter had presented it to the world as a masterpiece of scholarship and scientific method, only to be rewarded by a stinging rebuke from Moscow. Men who couldn’t tell Raptiformica sanguinea from centipedes had branded him an ideological backslider with dangerous tendencies toward Western decadence. Peter clenched and unclenched his fists, angry, frustrated. In effect, he had had to apologize because the ants he had studied would not behave the way the top Communist scientific brass wanted them to.

“Properly led,” said Borgorov, “people can accomplish anything they set their minds to. This hole was completed within a month from the time orders came down from Moscow. Someone very high dreamed we would find uranium on this very spot,” he added mysteriously.

“You will be decorated,” said Peter absently, testing a point on the barbed wire around the opening. His reputation had preceded him into the area, he supposed. At any rate, Borgorov avoided his eyes, and addressed his remarks always to Josef—Josef the rock, the dependable, the ideologically impeccable. It was Josef who had advised against publishing the controversial paper, Josef who had written his apology. Now, Josef was loudly comparing the hole to the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Colossus of Rhodes.

Borgorov rambled on tiresomely, Josef agreed warmly, and Peter allowed his gaze and thoughts to wander over the strange new countryside. Beneath his feet were the Erzgebirge—the Ore Mountains, dividing Russian-occupied Germany from Czechoslovakia. Gray rivers of men streamed to and from pits and caverns gouged in the green mountain slopes—a dirty, red-eyed horde burrowing for uranium …

“When would you like to see the fossil ants we found?” said Borgorov, cutting into his thoughts. “They’re locked up now, but we can get at them anytime tomorrow. I’ve got them all arranged in the order of the levels we found them in.”

“Well,” said Josef, “the best part of the day was used up getting cleared to come up here, so we couldn’t get much done until tomorrow morning anyway.”

“And yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, sitting on a hard bench, waiting for clearance,” said Peter wearily. Instantly he realized that he had said something wrong again. Borgorov’s black eyebrows were raised, and Josef was glaring. He had absentmindedly violated one of Josef’s basic maxims—“Never complain in public about anything.” Peter sighed. On the battlefield he had proved a thousand times that he was a fiercely patriotic Russian. Yet, he now found his countrymen eager to read into his every word and gesture the symptoms of treason. He looked at Josef unhappily, and saw in his eyes the same old message: Grin and agree with everything.

“The security measures are marvelous,” said Peter, grinning. “It’s remarkable that they were able to clear us in only three days, when you realize how thorough a job they do.” He snapped his fingers. “Efficiency.”

“How far down did you find the fossils?” said Josef briskly, changing the subject.

Borgorov’s eyebrows were still arched. Plainly, Peter had only succeeded in making himself even more suspicious. “We hit them going through the lower part of the limestone, before we came to the sandstone and granite,” he said flatly, addressing himself to Josef.

“Middle Mesozoic period,