Hundreds, indeed thousands of other termites joined with Alice in her race to find Whippoorwill. Of course these termites weren't really after the parrot at all: they were after the answer to the question that Captain Ramshackle had posed to the Queen of the Mound. Eventually Alice managed to catch up with Miss Computermite, and immediately she asked of her this question: "What is the question that you're trying to answer?"

"Oh, it's a tricky one, indeed," Miss Computermite answered whilst still running along the corridor at an alarming pace. "Captain Ramshackle wants to know which number, when multiplied by itself, will give the answer minus one. And that question doesn't have an answer!"

"But that doesn't seem such a difficult question," said Alice.

"Well, as you must surely know," the termite replied, "one times one is one, and minus one times minus one is also one, because two negatives always make a plus."

"Do they?"

"They do indeed."

"But I was taught that two wrongs do not make a right."

"That's true in real life. In computermatics, however, it's quite the opposite." And with that Miss Computermite put on an extra dash of speed.

Alice felt quite breathless from trying to keep up because she had only two legs whilst the termite had six: the only possible way she could keep up (because six divided by two equals three) was by running three times as fast as she was used to. But keep up she did. "So then," said Alice, running, "if I had two milk bottles on a table, and I took one of them away, and then I took the other away, I would then be left with one milk bottle. Is that what you're saying?"