Great Nest’s fluid, status-driven society strains under the approach of the ant super-colony. Males perform most labor and domesticated ants sustain industry, but the looming threat risks splintering the city or birthing authoritarian rule. Portia’s peer group holds esteem through her campaigns and, more vitally, Bianca’s maverick scholarship.

Portia answers Bianca’s summons to a secluded lab built within an ant-dug chamber, isolated by scent barriers. Bianca works with competent male assistants and argues males can pass learned Understandings to offspring, guiding her selective matings to enrich their peer group’s stock. Portia, unsettled, refocuses on the crisis.

After hearing Portia’s report on Seven Trees, Bianca warns Great Nest may collapse as panic triggers exodus. Temple priestesses have sensed corrupted, ill-timed vibrations in the crystal Message, further undermining calm. Bianca asks Portia to gather about two dozen trusted warriors for a perilous mission: penetrate the ant column itself.

Bianca explains that ant defenses now use shifting chemical codes. Most nest symbionts have been purged, but Paussid beetles endure by deceiving ants with sophisticated pheromones and sharing updated “keys.” Studying them, Bianca has devised chemical “armour” to let Portia’s team pass among ants unnoticed. The goal is not attrition—numbers make that futile—but to deliver a new, untested weapon that has worked on local nests.

Weighing terror against loyalty, Portia accepts. She recruits veteran fighters, some refusing, many committing after making their last-night preparations and deposits of eggs. Seeking composure, Portia visits the temple, troubled by the Message’s apparent corruption, then watches the stars, resolved to lead the dawn infiltration for Great Nest’s survival.