Apple Monster's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Apple Monster walked back from the road with an empty feeling in his chest. He had gone looking for a hose long enough to reach the far side of the yard. He had two. Neither would be enough to soak six feet of clay before the fire broke through. He stopped at the edge of the flour line and looked at the ants still streaming past his boots. He hated them yesterday. Today he needed them. The Queen watched him from her rock. She did not speak. She waited. "I can't dig fast enough," he said. "The ground's too hard. If I trench from above, I'll hit the fire before I hit the water table." "You want a break line," the Queen said. "A gap the fire cannot cross." "Yes. Between the burn and the roots. But I need it dug from below. Sideways. Under the tree." She was quiet. Her antennae moved once. "My workers dig sideways. That is what we do." He crouched so his eyes met hers. The words stuck in his throat. He had sprayed poison on her sisters two days ago. He had stood over her split mound with a shovel. "I'm asking," he said. "Will you dig a trench under my tree? A wet one. I'll pour water down from above as fast as you open the channel. It cuts the fire off from the roots." She tilted her head. "You are asking me to send workers toward the heat." "Yes." "To save your tree." "To save your path north too. If the tree burns, the fire has nothing to stop it above ground." She considered him a long moment. "That is true." She tapped the rock twice. A different sound this time, longer. The column around the trunk shifted. Hundreds of workers peeled off and gathered at the base of the tree in a dark ring. "Pour when I signal. Not before. If you flood us early, we drown." "I won't." He ran the hoses out and coupled them at the spigot. He stood by the tap with his hand on the valve and watched the ring of ants sink into the grass. The soil went soft under them. A thin dark seam opened along the root line, then another. The Queen lifted one leg from her rock. "Now." He turned the valve full open. Water rushed down the hose and into the seam. It vanished into the dirt. Steam hissed up from the far end near the fence. The ground gurgled. He kept the valve open until the seam ran clear and cool. The Queen climbed onto his boot. Her workers came up out of the wet soil in long wet lines, carrying their eggs. "It holds," she said. "For now." Apple Monster sat down in the mud. His tree was still green. The fire was still burning. But the roots had a wall between them and the heat, and he had not built it alone.