Juli Pinson, a nineteen-year-old student who has failed her graduation exam for the third year in a row, finds in the forest, in a cave, the third volume of "The Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge" by Edmond Wells. From it she learns how complex and unusual the world of ants is—and how much one can learn from them. Meanwhile, specimen No. 103 from Bele-o-Kan, the ant city, tries to understand people. What will happen when two civilizations finally hear one another?