Them! Page #3

-lt's possible.

Look, if we run into thousands

of the thing you killed yesterday.. .

...it'll take a bomber squadron,

plus an infantry regiment to mop up.

How could we keep that a secret?

You're jumping to conclusions, General.

There may not be nearly so many

of these creatures as you suppose.

l'm not supposing anything

after looking at that carcass.

What l can't understand is

why no one has seen them until now.

For one reason, l don't believe

these creatures developed until recently.

For another, their being here.. .

...in these hundreds of thousands

of square miles of desert is.. ..

No, that isn't it.

-Could l speak to my daughter, please?

-Of course.

Thank you.

Hello, Pat?

-Pat? You there?

-That's not the way to put in a call, Doctor.

We're Search Able, call Search Baker.

-Right, General?

-Right.

Search Able to Search Baker.

Say, ''Over."

Then say, ''Over."

Over!

Medford and Baker to Medford and Able.

Go ahead, Dad. Over.

Have you found anything yet?

Say, ''Over."

-l just said it.

-l know. Say it again.

Over!

Baker to Able:
Not yet.

We're about three quarters

of the way across our sector.

We're now at coordinates:

Charlie-6. Over.

Don't pass anything up.

Let me know when you find anything.

lf you're finished say, ''Over and out."

-She knows l'm through talking.

-l know she does.

lt's a rule. You've got to say it.

Right, General?

-Right, Sergeant.

-This is ridiculous.

-Lot of good your rules will do--

-Over and out.

Now you're happy.

Real calm fellow, isn't he?

Worried about him?

A little. He's not a young man.

He shouldn't have made this trip, but.. .

...he's a scientist and this is

a scientist's dream come true.

Hold it!

Fly back over it

and get as close as you can.

You've just found your missing persons.

Look, Dr. Medford.. .

...you're being inconsistent.

First, you insist it's top secret.

Nobody else must know or do anything

about getting rid of these big ants.

Correct, General.

Absolute secrecy is imperative.

But then you turn around and say

that time is the most important thing.

l've been told to take orders from you

and give you what you ask for.

But if time is that important, why not let

me go in tonight with some bombers.. .

...and wipe out that nest.

lf you'll just calm down, General,

l'll explain.

Doctor, please put up that chart.

Time is important,

more so than you realize.

But bombing that nest tonight

would only aggravate our problem.

The reason none of them have been seen

during the day.. .

...even by the police spotting planes,

is because they hate the heat of the desert.

They forage between sunset and dawn,

when it's cool.

So half the colony wouldn't even be inside

the nest tonight.

Our best chance will be during

the hottest part of the day tomorrow.

This illustrates a typical ant nest.

Observe the details.

Here is the entrance.

These are tunnels, corridors,

and food chambers.

Note the wonderful

and intricate engineering.

Water traps,

so that none will drown during rains.

This is somewhat oversimplified, l admit.. .

...but it will give you an idea

of what we are up against.

Do you know that some species

of desert ants dig down.. .

...as deep as 30 feet or more?

That nest we found today

might go down hundreds of feet.

We can pinpoint that opening at the top.

Seal it up for good.

The creatures would only tunnel out

somewhere else.

We don't want that nest damaged.

Not yet.

What do we do?

First, we wait until noon tomorrow.

By that time,

all of them should be within the nest.

To keep them confined in there

is our next problem.

We have two possibilities:

First would be to flood the nest.

Ants will not come through deep water.

They breathe through their sides.

Excuse me, Doctor, there's no water line

within 20 miles of that place.

That's why you asked me to check

our meteorological station.

Any chance of getting cloud formations?

Nothing that would make cloud seeding

pay off.

Nobody's had any luck

in making rain in this part of the desert.

The second possibility?

Enough heat to drive the ants deeper down

into the nest, and hold them down.

But no bombing?

What about phosphorus? We can lay it

over that mound with bazookas.

That would keep the surface area hot.

What happens after that?

We then drop cyanide gas

into the opening and kill them.

How can you be sure you'll get all of them?

We go down into the nest and find out.

Don't forget to tap me

when you get that wired, General.

Don't rush me. l'm doing this by the book.

lt's the first time

l ever loaded one of these babies.

That makes us even. This is the first time

l've ever given orders to a general.

We should've waited for it to cool more.

We don't dare lose time getting cyanide

into that nest.

Marvelously made.

Marvelous. Tell me,

you only saw the one live ant?

He seemed to be trying to get out,

rather than get us.

He stopped moving when the gas hit him.

Then he dropped out of sight.

Didn't see or hear a thing from then on.

You think they're all dead down there?

l think so. You used enough gas.

All parts of the nest should have been

thoroughly saturated by now.

Good. lf l can still raise an arm

when we get out of here.. .

...I 'll show you how well

saturated l can get.

l'm with you.

lf l were a younger man, l.. ..

What are you made up for?

l'm going with you and Ben.

No, you're not.

Someone with scientific knowledge

has to go.

My father is physically unable to do it.

That leaves me.

That leaves you here. We don't know

what we'll find down there.

One thing for sure,

it's no place for you or any other woman.

She wanted to go, Robert.

As a scientist, l couldn't forbid her.

-A trained observer has to go into the nest.

-What for?

There are more important things

than finding dead ants.

-You wouldn't know what to look for!

-You tell us what.

There's no time to give you a course

in insect pathology!

So let's stop talking and get on with it.

Okay.

Don't worry, Dad.

Good luck, Sergeant.

You come last, Pat.

Throw us the rest of the stuff down

when l signal.

Hold it.

They're dead,

or they would have attacked us right away.

Look. Held together with saliva.

Spit is all that's holding me together

right now, too.

How come the gas didn't knock them off?

The chamber looked caved in,

maybe from the bombing.

Sealed up that way,

the gas couldn't reach them.

lf we run into any more live ones,

we're getting out of here.

This is it!

The queen's chamber, and the eggs.

-This is what l was afraid of.

-What's the matter, Pat?

They're empty.

-What came out is dead, right?

-Not the ones that hatched from these!

Now destroy everything in here. Burn it!

-What?

-l said burn it. Burn everything!

Very strange.

Most unusual.

There were no larvae or pupae

in the egg chamber.

They all seemed to hatch

directly from the eggs.

l attribute it to the mutation process.

That's the logical conclusion.

You feel sure those two have gone.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes