“You are!” incredulously, from her husband.

“Yes!  I’ve got a darned sight more sympathy for those bees than for the humans!  The ’fraid-cats!” disgustedly.

“But listen,” protested Van Emmon.  “We can’t stand by and let those cold-blooded prisoners keep human beings, like ourselves, in rank slavery!  Not much!”

Evidently he thought he needed to explain.  “A human is a human, no matter where we find him!  Why, how can those poor devils show what they’re good for if we don’t give ’em a chance?  That’s the only way to develop people—­give ’em a chance to show what’s in ’em!  Let the best man win!”

Billie only closed her mouth tighter; and Smith decided to say, “Billie, you don’t need to stand by your guns just because the Sanusian working class happens to be insects.  Besides, we’re three to one in favor of the humans!”

“Oh, well,” she condescended, “if you put it that way I’ll agree not to interfere.  Only, don’t expect me to help you any with your schemes; I’ll just keep an eye on Supreme, that’s all.”

“Then we’re agreed.”  The doctor put on his bracelets.  “Suppose we go into the trance state for about three minutes—­long enough to learn what’s going on to-day.”

Shortly Billie again using the eyes and ears of the extraordinarily capable bee who ruled the rest, once more looked down upon Sanus.  She saw the big “city,” which she now knew to be a vast collection of hives, built by the humans at the command of the bees.  At the moment the air was thick with workers, returning with their loads of honey from the fields which the humans had been compelled to cultivate.  What a diabolical reversal of the accepted order of things!

The architect had time to note something very typical of the case.  On the outskirts of the city two humans were at work, erecting a new hive.  Having put it together, they proceeded to lift the big box and place it near those already inhabited.  They set it down in what looked like a good location, but almost immediately took it up again and shifted it a foot to one side.  This was not satisfactory, either; they moved it a few inches in another direction.

All told, it took a full minute to place that simple affair where it was wanted; and all the while those two humans behaved as though some one were shouting directions to them—­silent directions, as it were.  Billie knew that a half-dozen soldier bees, surrounding their two heads, were coolly and unfeelingly driving them where they willed.  And when, the work done, they left the spot, two soldiers went along behind them to see that they did not loiter.

As for the doctor, he came upon Rolla when the woman was deep in an experiment.  She stood in front of a rude trough, one of perhaps twenty located within a large, high-walled inclosure.  In the trough was a quantity of earth, through the surface of which some tiny green shoots were beginning to show.