“Well, look here,” the scientist reminded the group. “These fellows are in one corner with their heads pointing one way, just as we saw in the laboratory.” He rotated the jar as had been done the day before, and the roaches raced across to resume their compass-­pointing pattern. “After all the disturbances at the colony—forest fires, the loss of the fighter roaches we burned last night—I believe these roaches here are ‘magnetized.’ That is, I think the air is carrying unusually heavy pheromones pulling all the strays back to the base.”

“My God, it’s uncanny,” Bonnie Taylor murmured.

Hubbard continued. “They have to regroup, as we would put it. I’d almost say they’re ‘rethinking’ their position.”

Elias Johnson whacked his thigh enthusiastically. “And we follow them right to the hellhole!” Spirits began to rise. “But if the radioactivity is going to be as weak as you say, Peter, how will it destroy the whole population?”

“It won’t!” Hubbard spoke forcefully. “I do have a plan to get rid of them, but let me make it plain right now that no one is going to destroy the nest until I have a chance to study what’s down there and take pictures and recover specimens for the university.”

Protest came from Elizabeth. “How can you do that without getting killed!”

Peter Hubbard gave her a pale smile. “That is my problem, then, isn’t it?”

Amos Tarbell thought again he needed to apologize for ever thinking this man a coward.

Hubbard was adding, “As soon as we’re ready to go, I’d like Amos and Russell to back me up with the dry-­ice tanks. I’ll feed these roaches our poison, take them into the woods in this jar, and let them go up there.”

The sheriff spoke in an admiring tone. “You’re taking a hell of a chance, Peter!”

“It’s the only way,” the scientist answered resolutely. He turned a stern face to the flask containing the experimental roaches. His determined thought was—you traitors are going to lead me right to Big Daddy, aren’t you?

Peter Hubbard understood fully that the only concern of his companions was the destruction of the roach nest. They could not realize the scientific significance of the fantastic discovery he expected was awaiting him somewhere in the Yarkie woods. It would indeed be a major moment for modern biology. If only half of what he suspected was true, there were lessons to be learned in phylogeny, in biochemistry, in the evolution of the nervous system, in insect sociobiology, and more.

Unfortunately, the scientist reflected, he could see no possible way of either containing the Nest, or salvaging it. Something might yet occur to him, but for the present he would have to be satisfied with his current plan simply to take out as many significant specimens as he could.