“What is it you’re seeing?” Sam asked.

“The worms. They were looking right at you.”

“I was the guy cooking them,” Sam said. “For all the good it did.”

Astrid twisted around to look up at him.

“Oh, I know that look,” Sam said. “Go ahead, genius, tell me what it is I missed.”

“With what are they looking at you?” Astrid asked.

Sam took a beat. Then, “They don’t have eyes.”

“No. I just checked again. They don’t have eyes. But somehow, in the middle of being levitated in midair and getting hit with blasts of light energy, they all twist around in midair to stare—at least it looks like they’re staring—in the same direction. At you.”

“Great. So somehow they can see. I think what matters is that I killed a bunch of them and they didn’t get the message.”

Astrid shook her head. “I don’t think you did anything to them. I’m not sure it’s ‘them.’ What if they’re like ants? I mean, what if there really aren’t individual worms? What if they’re all part of one superorganism? Like a hive.”

“So there’s a queen worm somewhere?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s not so hierarchical, less differentiated.”

Hunger, Chapter 15