“It’s hard to believe that termites cost millions of dollars every year by their devastation of telephone and telegraph poles in the United States.  This is the central research laboratory of the Continental Telephone Company.  Scientists are employed by this firm to develop chemical preservatives for telephone poles in defense against woodpeckers, carpenter ants, and termites.”

Unless one of these termites is the size of a bus, this is shaping up to be dullest episode ev– hey, what is Truman Bradley doing in the story?  No, I guess they hired an actor who looks exactly like the series narrator, Truman Bradley.  Guess that’s going to happen occasionally when every part’s casting call is for “40 year old white guy.”

Bill Twining has come to the telephone company about a job.  Pat Hastings asks him what he was doing during the gaps on his resume.  He says, “Fishing.”  Dude, always say “Consulting”!  However, this seems to satisfy Pat’s rigorous screening process, so she hires him to join her working for Dr. Clausen, heir to the pickle fortune. ^[1]

Clausen tells him Pat’s father, Dr. Hastings, mans the termite research outpost in Peru.  He had asked for an electronics expert to be sent down.  The last “chemical shipment” that came from him was accompanied by moldy, unreadable notes.  Pat ran an analysis on the solution, assuming it was a new insecticide.

She produces a beaker of river clay and adds water.  When she adds the solution her father shipped to them, it causes “complete molecular dissociation!”  What this means to a layman is that clay was broken down into its elements; what means to a scientist is probably a hearty guffaw.  Not only has the clay broken down into 15% iron, 7% aluminum ^[2], and 20% silicon ^[3], the materials have sorted themselves out by atomic weight like a geologic pousse-café.

Clausen explains that this could revolutionize mining.  We could extract all the minerals we need from common dirt by mixing it with this solution.  Unfortunately, they don’t know what is in the solution.  Er, so exactly what kind of analysis did brainiac Pat do on it earlier?  Dr. Hastings has been incommunicado for 3 weeks, so Pat and Bill get a couple of pith helmets from the supply cabinet and head for Peru.

They arrive at the outpost, which is a tent in the jungle.  They immediately find the generator has been stripped for parts.  Pat, quite the detective, notices that Dr. Hastings had not changed the calendar in 22 days; but maybe he just had the hots for Miss October. ^[4]  Not only that, she knows her father had 3 pairs of glasses and all 3 are there in the tent.

Bill repairs the radio.  Radio Lima confirms that Dr. Hastings did not go there for supplies or to renew his Playboy subscription.  Pat wonders if an animal could have carried him off.  Bill assures her there was no sign of a struggle.  “What about a giant anaconda?” she asks.  He says there’s no time for such shenanigans.  Bill says he will beat the bushes, and then search the area for Dr. Hastings.  He suggests Pat search the tent for clues about her father’s research, and maybe do a little vacuuming.

Bill returns, having not found Dr. Hastings.  Pat’s search turned up a coil that produces a high-frequency field but, to be fair, she had a much smaller area to search.  They take Dr. Harding’s equipment outside.  Bill uses the coil to detect electronic activity in the area.  He is such a brainiac that he is able to triangulate the location with just two bearings.  The signal is coming from 50 feet inside a nearby hill.

On top of the hill, they find a crevice which leads to a crevasse.  There is a ladder which leads down to a cave where Dr. Harding has more equipment and Playboy calendars.  They spot two viewing devices.  The viewers provide a magnified look into an ant colony, but housing termites.  So I guess you’d call it an ant-colony-except-with-termites.  Pat says they are just about the most ancient species of life.  Dr. Hastings’ discovery was a species of termite that secretes the solution he shipped back to the lab.

They notice a tunnel that was not in Dr. Hastings’ notes and conclude that the termites swarmed the area to create it.  Pat grimaces as she realizes her father was “eaten alive by termites.”  Bill says, “It must have happened while he was asleep”  (i.e. he was sleeping like a log).  He further concludes the termites were attracted by the Doctor’s morning wood from dreaming about Bettie Page, but is too much of a gentleman to say so.

Pat continues her father’s research, but the termites begin to swarm again.  She and Bill flee the cave.  It collapses, but Pat is happy that her father will be remembered in scientific journals for the discovery of this new solution, and in Ripley’s for being eaten alive by termites.

The synthesized solution will revolutionize mining and mineral extraction — increasing production, lowering cost, and making melodramatic movies about trapped miners a thing of the past.  At least until the inevitable spill destroys the planet like Ice-Nine, leading to the inevitable New York Times headline: TRUMP DESTROYS EARTH.

Meh.  The shots of the termites were probably cool for kids in the ’50s.  Not so much for their parents who didn’t sleep a wink and called the exterminator the next day.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] Ach du lieber!  Pickles have their own web-page!  I feel a little better about the digital real estate I’m squandering.
• ^[2] What, no bauxite?  Finally, my geology class pays off!
• ^[3] Where did they get this “clay” from, a freakin’ meteorite?  And we’re light on the composition, too.  Maybe the other 58% was Pyrex, because that beaker didn’t go anywhere.
• ^[4] This theory is implausible because any guy alone in the jungle in 1955 would still have his calendar showing January:  Bettie Page!