The only thing they knew for certain was that the signal was extremely important. The intense expression on the emperor’s face as he watched the signal being sent told them that much. But of course there was no way they could possibly have imagined what was really at stake – that this signal deferred Earth’s death sentence by one more day.
Today, however, their routine of the last two years was disrupted because the signal transmitter had broken down. Given that the station had been outfitted with equipment of the utmost reliability and employed a high degree of redundancy, with multiple backup systems, it was obvious that this total operational failure was neither accidental nor the result of normal wear and tear.
The engineer and the technician immediately began to look for the source of the problem. They quickly discovered that several wires had been cut – wires that only ants could reconnect. They attempted to phone their superiors to request an ant repair team, but the line was dead. As they continued to investigate, they found more severed wires. The appointed time for the emperor’s transmission order was now rapidly approaching, so the dinosaurs had no choice but to try and do the reconnection themselves. Unfortunately, though, their bulky claws made that impossible.
The five dinosaurs grew frantic with worry. Although the phone line was out of action, they felt sure that communication would soon be restored and the emperor would pop up on the screen when the countdown reached forty-four hours. To them, his daily appearance on the screen was as inevitable as the rising of the sun. Today, however, the sun rose but the emperor did not materialise. For the first time ever, the countdown got to forty-four hours and then carried on.
After a while, the hordes of dinosaurs fleeing Boulder City began to pass by the signal station. It was from these badly shaken refugees that the station team learnt of the situation in the capital. The ants had disabled all of the machinery in the Gondwanan Empire with their mine-grains, including the signal station’s transmitter, thereby paralysing the dinosaur world.
The members of the station team were nothing if not conscientious and they kept on with their attempts to reconnect the severed wires. But it was an impossible task. Most of the wires were in places that the dinosaurs’ stubby claws simply could not reach. As for the few exposed wires they could get to, the ends kept slipping from their clumsy fingers and could not be joined together.
‘Those blasted ants!’ The engineer sighed and rubbed his aching eyes but then quickly did a double-take. There were ants right in front of him!
It was a small contingent of about a hundred or so, rapidly advancing across the white surface of the operator console. Their leader was shouting to the dinosaurs, ‘Hello! We have come to help you repair the machines. We have come to help you reconnect the wires. We have come—’
Unfortunately, the dinosaurs didn’t have their pheromone translators turned on, so they couldn’t hear her. In fact, even if they had heard her, they wouldn’t have believed her. Right then, their hatred was all-consuming. The dinosaurs swatted and pinched the ants on the console with their claws, muttering through gritted fangs, ‘Lay mine-grains, will you? Destroy our machines, will you?’ The white surface of the console was soon covered in small black smears, the crushed remains of the ants.
‘Supreme Consul, I have to report that the dinosaurs in the signal station attacked the repair team. We were wiped out on the console,’ a surviving member of the team informed Kachika.
They were standing beneath a small blade of grass fifty metres from the station. Most of the members of the Ant Federation’s high command were also present.
‘Send in a larger repair team!’
‘Yikes, ants!’ shouted a dinosaur sentry standing guard on the front step of the signal station.
His cry drew several other dinosaur soldiers and their lieutenant outside.
A mass of ants was swarming up the step, four or five thousand by the look of it, like a swath of black satin slowly gliding towards them. A number of individual ants broke from the mass, waving their antennae at the dinosaurs, as though shouting something to them.
‘Get a broom!’ the dinosaur lieutenant hollered.
A soldier immediately fetched a large broom, and the lieutenant snatched it from him and made a few savage passes over the step, sweeping the ants into the air like so much dust.
‘Madam Supreme Consul, we must find a way to communicate with the dinosaurs in the signal station and explain our intentions,’ said Professor Joya.
‘But how? They can’t hear us. They won’t even turn on their translators.’
‘Could we phone them, perhaps?’ an ant suggested.
‘We tried that earlier. The dinosaurs’ entire communication system is down. It’s been completely disconnected from the Ant Federation’s telephone network. We can’t get through to them.’
Field Marshal Jolie interjected. ‘I suggest we look back to what our ancestors used to do,’ she said with quiet authority. ‘In bygone years, before the Steam-Engine Age, they would communicate with the dinosaurs by arranging themselves in different formations, to make characters. You should all be familiar with this ancient art, no?’
Kachika sighed. ‘What’s the use of telling us this? That art has been lost.’
‘No, Kachika, it has not.’ Jolie drew herself up as tall as her diminutive height would allow. ‘The unit currently under my command has been trained to form characters. I wanted the soldiers to remember the glorious achievements of our ancestors and to experience for themselves the collective spirit of the ant world. I had hoped to surprise you all during this year’s military parade, but now it seems this training can be put to practical use.’
‘How many troops are assembled here at present?’
‘Ten infantry divisions. Approximately 150,000 ants in total.’
‘How many characters can be formed with these numbers?’
‘That depends on the size of the characters. To ensure that the dinosaurs can read them from a distance, I would say no more than a dozen.’
‘All right.’ Kachika thought for a moment. ‘Form the following sentences: “We have come to fix your transmitter. It can save the world.”’
‘That doesn’t explain anything,’ Professor Joya muttered.
‘What choice do we have? It’s too many characters as it is. We’ll just have to try it – it’s better than nothing.’
‘The ants are back – and this time there are zillions of them!’
The dinosaur soldiers posted at the entrance to the signal station watched the phalanx of ants marching towards them. It measured about three or four metres square and was rising and falling with the uneven ground like a rippling black flag.
‘Are they coming to attack us?’
‘Doesn’t seem like it. Their formation is strange.’
As the ants slowly drew closer, a sharp-eyed dinosaur shouted, ‘What the…? Those are characters!’
Another dinosaur read haltingly: ‘We… have… come… to… fix… your… trans… mitter… it… can… save… the… world.’
‘I’ve read about this!’ one of them exclaimed. ‘In ancient times the ants communicated with our ancestors like this. And now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Amazing!’
‘Bullshit!’ The lieutenant flashed a claw. ‘Don’t fall for their tricks! Go and fill some bowls with boiling water from the water heater and bring them here.’
‘Lieutenant,’ a sergeant ventured timidly, ‘don’t you think we should talk to them first? Maybe they genuinely are here to fix the transmitter. The engineer and the others inside are in really desperate need of help.’
The dinosaur soldiers all began to talk at once: