"What about jumping beans?" asked Alice.

"Don't talk to me about jumping beans," replied the termite, angrily.

"So, this Captain Ramshackle asks the Queen a question, and all you termites answer it."

"That's correct."

"Where does Captain Ramshackle live?" shouted Alice, loudly. (She had to shout this question out loudly, because the noise of six times a trillion termite legs, all of them running, can make a fearsome thundering.)

"Captain Ramshackle", began the termite, mysteriously, "lives outside the mound." She said these last three words very mysteriously indeed. In fact, she said them mysteriously mysteriously.

Alice was rather excited by this news. "Does that mean," she shouted, "that I can get outside of the mound?" Alice was excited because she was almost certain that Whippoorwill had found his way out of the termite mound by now.

"Why, that's exactly where you're going," answered Miss Computermite, "because this is how we tell Captain Ramshackle the answers to his questions: we march out from the mound so that the Captain can study our formation and, by studying our formation, by noting which termites are here and which are not here, the Captain can find out the solution to his latest question."

"But I thought you said that this latest question didn't have an answer?"

"It doesn't, and that's why I'm scurrying around even more than is usual. I'll tell you one thing though…"

"And what's that?" shouted Alice, grateful to know that Miss Computermite was only going to tell her one thing: Alice had learned more than enough things already that afternoon.

"Why, only that you're a part of the answer, Alice; otherwise, why are you running so very quickly?"