Free Once & Future King 05 - The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White Page A

the things he wanted to say. There were no words for happiness, for freedom, or for liking, nor were there any words for their opposites. He felt like a dumb man trying to shout "Fire!" The nearest he could get to Right and Wrong, even, was Done or Not-Done.
    The ant finished fiddling with its corpses and turned back down the pathway, leaving them in the queer haphazard order. It found that Arthur was in its way, so it stopped, waving its wireless aerials at him as if it were a tank. With its mute, menacing helmet of a face, and its hairiness, and the things like spurs at each leg-joint, perhaps it was more like a knight-in-armour on an armoured horse: or like a combination of the two, a hairy centaur-in-armour.
    It said "Heil, Sanguinea" once again.
    "Hail."
    "What are you doing?"
    The king answered truthfully but not wisely: "I am not doing anything."
    It was baffled by this for several seconds, as you would be if Einstein were to tell you his latest ideas about space. Then it extended the twelve joints of its aerial and spoke past him into the blue.
    It said: "105978/uoc reporting from square five. There is an insane ant on square five. Over to you."
    The word it used for insane was Not-Done. Later on, he was to discover that there were only two qualifications in the language—Done and Not-Done—which applied to all questions of value. If the syrup which Merlyn left for them was sweet, it was a Done syrup: if he had left them some corrosive sublimate, it would have been a Not-Done syrup, and that was that. Even the moons, mammies, doves etc. in the broadcasts were completely described when they were stated to be Done ones.
    The broadcast stopped for a moment, and the fruity voice said: "G.H.Q. replying to 105978/uoc. What is its number? Over."
    The ant asked: "What is your number?"
    "I do not know."
    When this news had been exchanged with headquarters, a message came back to ask whether he could give an account of himself. The ant asked him whether he could, using the same words as the broadcaster had used, and in the same flat voice. It made him feel uncomfortable and angry, two emotions which he disliked.
    "Yes," he said sarcastically, for it was obvious that the creature could not detect sarcasm, "I have fallen on my head and cannot remember anything about it."
    "I05978/UDC reporting. Not-Done ant is
suffering from concussion through falling off the nest. Over."
    "G.H.Q. replying to 105978/uoc. Not-Done ant is number 42436/ WD, who fell off the nest this morning while working with syrup squad. If it is competent to continue its duties—" Competent-to-continue-its-duties was easier in the ant speech, for it was simply Done, like everything else that was not Not-Done: but enough of this language question. "If it is competent to continue its duties, instruct 42436/wo to rejoin syrup squad, relieving 210021/WD, who was sent to replace it. Over."
    "Do you understand?" asked the ant.
    It seemed that he could not have made a better explanation of himself than this about falling on his head, even if he had meant to; for the ants did occasionally tumble off their footstools, and Merlyn, if he happened to notice them, would lift them back with the end of his pencil.
    "Yes."
    The sexton paid no further attention to him, but crawled off down the path for another body or for anything else that needed to be scavenged.
    Arthur took himelf away in the opposite direction, to join the syrup squad, memorising his own number and the number of the unit who had to be relieved.
    8
    THE SYRUP SQUAD were standing motionless round the watch-glass, like a circle of worshippers. He joined the circle, announcing that 210021/ WD was to return to the nest. Then he began filling himself with the sweet nectar like the others. At first it was delicious to him, so that he ate greedily, but in a few seconds it began to be unsatisfactory: he could not understand why. He ate hard, copying the rest of the squad, but it was like eating a banquet of nothing,