Of Ants and Dinosaurs

by Cixin Liu

  The black square broke apart and rapidly re-formed as a line of dinosaur-sized text: ‘Perhaps the colour of the floor is to blame. You should really use white marble here, so that you can see me. Her Imperial Majesty Lassini, Sovereign of the Formican Empire, presents her compliments to His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Urus.’

  Urus smiled and nodded. ‘Well now, my compliments also to Her Imperial Majesty. I presume the imperial emissary has already notified you regarding the agenda of this summit?’

  Craning her neck in the direction of the dinosaur emperor towering before her, Queen Lassini inclined her antennae and gave her answer in the form of a pheromone. When the commanders in the front row received the chemical signal, they swiftly relayed the instructions to the phalanx behind them. The disciplined soldiers of the word corps changed formation like a well-oiled machine, arranging themselves into the queen’s words in the blink of an eye: ‘The aim of this summit is to settle the religious dispute between our two worlds. This problem has plagued us since the reign of the late emperor, and now it has become the most serious crisis yet faced by the dinosaur–ant alliance. I expect Your Majesty is aware that Earth stands on the brink of disaster as a result.’

  Urus nodded again. ‘I am indeed aware of that. No doubt Your Majesty is similarly cognisant that the resolution of this crisis presents us with a considerable challenge. Where do you propose we begin?’

  The queen thought for a moment before she replied, and the word corps rearranged themselves across the marble floor at lightning speed: ‘Let us begin with the point we are agreed upon.’

  ‘Very good. Dinosaurs and ants are agreed that this world can have only one God.’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

  Both rulers fell briefly silent, then Urus said, ‘We should discuss what God looks like, even though we have been over this a thousand times before.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lassini said, ‘that is the crux of the conflict and the crisis.’

  ‘God undoubtedly resembles a dinosaur,’ said the dinosaur emperor. ‘We have seen God through our faith, and God’s image embodies all dinosaurs.’

  ‘God undoubtedly looks like an ant,’ said the ant queen. ‘We have also seen God through our faith, and all ants are reflected in God’s image.’

  Urus smiled broadly and waggled his mammoth head. ‘Queen Lassini, if you were the least bit logical or had a smidgen of common sense, this problem would be sorted in a jiffy. Do you truly believe that God could possibly be a dust-mote speck of an insect like you? That such a God could create a world as vast as this?’

  ‘Size does not equal strength,’ Lassini replied. ‘Compared with mountain ranges or oceans, dinosaurs too are mere “dust-mote specks”.’

  ‘But the fact is, Your Majesty, that we dinosaurs are the fount of original thought, the purveyors of creativity. And when all is said and done, you ants are nothing but tiny cogs in a highly efficient machine.’

  ‘The world cannot have been created by thought alone. If it were not for our expertise, most dinosaur inventions and innovations could not have been realised. The creation of the world was clearly a precise and meticulously executed undertaking. Only an ant God could have accomplished it.’

  Urus burst out laughing. ‘What I find most intolerable about you ants is your pitiful imaginations! Those bite-sized brains of yours are obviously only fit for simple arithmetical thinking. You truly are no more than desperately dogged cogs!’ As he spoke, he bent his face low to the ground and whispered to the ant queen, ‘Let me tell you, when God created the world, no action was required. God simply gave form to thoughts and – whoosh! – those thoughts became the world! Ha ha ha!’ He straightened up and guffawed again.

  ‘Sir, I did not come here to discuss metaphysics with you. This drawn-out dispute between our two worlds must be resolved at this meeting.’

  Urus threw up his claws and boomed, ‘Ah-ha! Result! Here is the second point upon which we are agreed! Yes, we must come to an accord this time round. Your Majesty, you may propose your solution first.’

  Lassini gave her answer without hesitation. In order to convey the solemnity of her pronouncement, the word corps added a border around her words: ‘The Saurian Empire must immediately demolish all churches consecrated to a dinosaur God.’

  Urus and the other ministers in the room eyeballed each other then erupted into a great cacophony of chortles. ‘Ha ha, big words from a bitsy bug!’

  Lassini continued undeterred. ‘The ants will suspend all work in the Saurian Empire and withdraw completely from every dinosaur city. We will not return or resume work until your churches have been demolished in accordance with our demands.’

  ‘I will also deliver an ultimatum from the Saurian Empire,’ bellowed Urus. ‘The Formican Empire must demolish all churches consecrated to an ant God by week’s end. When the week is up, the imperial army will stomp flat any ant city in which a church to an ant God still stands.’

  ‘Is this a declaration of war?’ Lassini asked calmly.

  ‘I hope it will not come to that. What a disgrace it would be for dinosaur troops to have to confront you itsy insects.’

  The ant queen did not dignify that with an answer. She simply made a sharp about-turn and pattered away. The word corps parted to let her pass, closed ranks behind her and followed her to the palace door.

  There was a general stirring now among the dinosaurs. Ants began emerging from the miniature nests that were hung about the dinosaurs’ bodies or placed on the tables before them; they spilt out in their inky-black hundreds and thousands. For although the dinosaur printing industry had been mechanised, individual dinosaurs still carried small nests with them, just as we carry pens. They relied on ants to write their personal notes and missives. The nests varied in size, and some were veritable works of art. Among dinosaurs, they had become a must-have personal ornament and a symbol of wealth and status. But the ants inside the nests were not the dinosaurs’ personal property. They had to be hired from the Formican Empire, and ultimately they answered only to their queen. Swarming down from the tables and off the dinosaurs’ bodies, these ants were now streaming across the floor to join the departing phalanx.

  ‘Good grief,’ rasped a dinosaur minister, ‘if all of you leave, how am I to draft and review documents?’

  Urus gave a theatrical flick of his claws. ‘They’ll be back to work before long,’ he said contemptuously. ‘The ant world cannot survive without us. Fret not, we will show those upstart insects who truly has God on their side.’

  At the door, Lassini turned around and spoke, and the word corps swiftly formed a line of text: ‘That is exactly what the Formican Empire intends to show you.’

  6

  The Ants’ Arsenal

  ‘What? We’re going to war with the dinosaurs? But that’s madness! They’re so big, and we’re so small…’ an ant minister exclaimed.

  In the imperial palace in the Ivory Citadel, the imperial high command had just heard the queen’s account of the Dinosaur–Ant Summit.

  ‘Our empire has come a long way. Anyone who still takes size as a measure of strength is an idiot,’ said Field Marshal Donlira, commander-in-chief of the imperial army. She turned to the queen. ‘Please rest assured, Your Majesty, that the imperial army is robust enough to defeat those clumsy beasts.’

  ‘Talk is cheap.’ The minister fixed his gaze on the field marshal. ‘We all know that you have personally led the army into countless battles and have sailed on dinosaur ships to wage war on other continents, but you were only fighting against uncivilised ant tribes then. When it comes to confronting creatures many times larger than ourselves, I doubt one of your divisions could beat even a lizard.’

  The queen dipped her antennae to the field marshal. ‘Yes, Donlira, it’s not empty talk that I want but detailed strategies and carefully conceived tactics. In one week we will go to war. So, tell me, what’s the plan?’

  ‘We have been performing medical services for the dinosaurs for more than a
millennium now,’ Field Marshal Donlira replied, ‘so we are intimately acquainted with their anatomy. The imperial army will penetrate the dinosaurs’ bodies and attack their vitals. In this kind of warfare, our petite size is to our advantage.’

  ‘How will you gain access?’ another minister asked. ‘While they’re sleeping?’

  The field marshal jiggled her antennae in disagreement. ‘No, from a moral standpoint, we cannot be the ones to start the war. This attack against the dinosaurs will be carried out on the battlefield.’

  ‘Easier said than done! On the battlefield, the dinosaurs will be awake and on the move. Will your soldiers be able to scale them? Even if they stood still to let you onto their feet, how long would it take to climb up to their noses and mouths? By the time your army gets inside them, they’ll have already trampled our capital into oblivion.’

  Instead of answering directly, the field marshal scanned the gathered members of the high command with a long, deliberate look. ‘Comrades,’ she said, ‘our most excellent Queen Lassini has long foreseen the fracturing of the dinosaur–ant alliance. Early in her reign, she ordered the imperial army to begin preparing for war with the dinosaurs. We have undertaken extensive research, as a result of which we have developed many new weapons and combat techniques. Now, if everyone will step outside, we will demonstrate two key pieces of equipment.’

  The ants of the high command duly pattered out onto the plaza outside the palace. Two dozen soldier ants carried forward a peculiar piece of kit: a small catapult affixed to a long base. They pulled the catapult’s elastic cord taut and hooked its pocket onto a mechanism at the far end of the base. Then they climbed into the pocket and clung tightly to one other, forming a black projectile. A soldier ant stationed beside the base pulled a tiny lever, releasing the pocket from the mechanism and twanging the black projectile a full twenty metres into the air. When the projectile reached its maximum height, it swiftly dispersed, and the two dozen soldier ants went fluttering through the air overhead, their glossy black bodies glittering in the sunshine.

  ‘This piece of equipment is called a Formican slingshot, and it is the solution to the problems cited by the honourable minister,’ explained Field Marshal Donlira.

  ‘Looks like useless acrobatics to me,’ muttered one of the ministers.

  ‘The imperial army is meant to be take offensive action,’ another minister said. ‘That’s the strategic principle on which it was founded. In the past, you have stated that its operational objective is “Attack! Attack! Attack!”. Now it seems this has changed to “Defend! Defend! Defend!”.’

  ‘Offensive action is still the strategic principle of the imperial army,’ replied the field marshal.

  ‘But how can it be? Even if these little gadgets of yours really do work, we obviously can’t use them to attack Boulder City. We’ll have to wait for the dinosaurs to attack our capital.’

  ‘Please bear with us, Minister,’ the field marshal said. ‘We will now demonstrate a weapon that can be used to initiate offensives against dinosaur cities.’

  She waggled her antennae and several soldier ants brought over a number of yellow pellets resembling grains of rice. One of the soldiers swivelled round and sprayed a drop of formic acid on one of the pellets. A minute later, the pellet caught fire in a blinding flash of white light. The violent blaze lasted for ten seconds and then died out.

  ‘This weapon is called a “mine-grain”. It’s an incendiary device with a fuse that is activated by formic acid. It can be set to ignite at any point from a few seconds to a few hours after it’s triggered. Once the formic acid has eaten through the outer shell, the device combusts, producing temperatures high enough to ignite any flammable material.’

  The assembled officials shook their antennae in disbelief. ‘It’s a child’s toy!’ grumbled one. ‘Even if one of these things went off on the forehead of the dinosaur emperor himself, it would do him no more harm than a cigarette burn. This thing can destroy Boulder City? You are surely having a laugh, Field Marshal.’

  ‘Just you wait and see,’ the field marshal replied confidently. ‘All will be revealed shortly.’

  7

  The First Dinosaur–Ant War

  Rain had bucketed down all night, but at dawn the heavy black clouds parted to usher in a bright, sunny morning. The sky was cloudless and the air was clear. In the light of the rising sun, the land looked vivid and sharply defined, as though nature had set the stage for the battle that would decide the fate of Cretaceous civilisation.

  Battle was joined on the wide plain between Boulder City and the Ivory Citadel, with each settlement only just visible on its respective horizon. 2,000 dinosaur soldiers formed a phalanx facing the Ivory Citadel; to the ants, it seemed like a sky-high wall had been raised. Unlike in past battles, waged against their own kind, the dinosaur soldiers were neither wearing armour nor carrying weapons. They’d been told that all they’d need to do would be to march across the ant city in formation. Opposite the dinosaurs, 10 million ants from the Ivory Citadel were massed in more than a hundred brigades, carpeting the ground in black.

  A Tyrannosaurus stationed at the head of the dinosaur phalanx broke the silence. It was Major General Ixta, and his voice was like a sudden clap of thunder on the horizon. ‘Little bugs, only ten minutes remain until the empire’s deadline expires. If you return to the Ivory Citadel right now, destroy all your churches, and then come back to Boulder City and resume work, I can grant you more time. Otherwise, the imperial army will begin its assault.’

  He raised his right forelimb and gestured nonchalantly at his troops. ‘Take a look at the 2,000 soldiers before you. They represent less than one-thousandth of the imperial army’s total strength, but they are more than capable of flattening the capital of the Formican Empire. The cities our children build in their sandpits are bigger than your Ivory Citadel. In fact, those kids could flood your entire city just by pissing on it! Ha ha ha!’

  A deathly hush settled over the battlefield. The Cretaceous sun quietly rose higher, and ten minutes soon passed.

  ‘Attack!’ boomed General Ixta.

  The phalanx began to advance. The ground trembled under the rhythmic tread of 2,000 dinosaurs, creating waves in the puddles left by the rain. The ants did not budge.

  ‘Queen Lassini and Field Marshal Donlira,’ General Ixta roared in the direction of the massed columns of ants, ‘I have no idea whereabouts you are, but if you don’t order these critters to make way, our feet will crush them to a pulp! Ha ha ha!’

  As he stared at the ant army, he noticed a distinct ripple running through their ranks. He peered more closely and saw that the ant infantry had erected countless tiny structures. To him they looked like blades of grass newly sprouted from the blackened earth. A niggle of doubt lodged in his massive dinosaur brain, but the niggle was not sufficient to give him pause, and so the dinosaur phalanx pressed on.

  A second surprising change now swept through the ant army. The smooth black pool that had blanketed the ground suddenly went lumpy and separated into a multitude of miniature spheres. Ixta was reminded of the wondrous movements of the ant word corps, and for a moment he thought the 10 million ants in front of him were about to spell out something. But the ant clumps did not reshape.

  The dinosaur phalanx continued its advance until it was just ten metres from the ants’ frontline. Only then did General Ixta realise that those blades of grass were in fact a barrage of miniature catapults, cords stretched taut, each pocket loaded with a cluster of ants!

  There now came a soft pitter-patter, like raindrops hitting the surface of a lake, as 100,000 ant projectiles were fired into the air. It was as if a cloud of flies had been startled into flight. The ground ahead of Ixta regained its ochre colour and the tiny compacted spheres soared above the first few lines of dinosaurs and then disintegrated. Each ball contained dozens of soldiers and now a shower of ants cascaded to the ground.

  The air was thick with so many falling ants that it was almost i
mpossible for the dinosaurs not to inhale them up their nostrils. As they frantically slapped at their heads and bodies, their phalanx fell into disorder.

  Some of the ants that landed on General Ixta’s head were brushed off, but others hid from his gigantic searching claws, ducking into the wrinkles of his coarse-grained skin. When his claws moved to slap at his body, several soldier ants skittered towards the edge of his brow, seeking out his eyes. Crawling across the wide crown of the Tyrannosaurus’s head was like trudging across a plateau scored with ravines. The plateau swayed back and forth like a swing, and the ants had to cling on tight to keep from being thrown off. When they reached the edge, they peered down and were met with a breathtaking sight.

  Imagine for a moment that you are standing atop the majestic peak of China’s venerable Mount Tai. Now imagine that this most holy mountain is in motion: it is striding across the earth on a pair of colossal legs. Even more terrifying, when you lift your head, you see that you are encircled by a thousand other mountains and that these are also on the move!

  The soldier ants located the dinosaur’s right eye, which was below them. The enormous eye was like a round pond that had frozen over; its translucent surface was slightly curved and sloped sharply downwards. Three of the soldier ants cautiously picked their way onto the glassy membrane. This was the dinosaur’s third eyelid – its protective nictitating membrane, to be exact – and it was as slippery as melting ice. The slightest misstep would see the ants slithering off and tumbling into the void. They began to gnaw at the wet ice with their powerful pincers, but this irritated the eye and it began to secrete tears, which surged across the frozen pond like a flash flood, flushing the three ants from the eyelid.

  Just as Ixta made to rub his eye, three other ants nipped into his nostrils. Battling their way into a screaming gale, they expertly threaded their way through a tangled forest of nose hair, making a concerted attempt not to trigger a sneeze. They advanced quickly through the nasal cavity to the back of the eyeball, tracing a route that was familiar from countless surgical procedures. Following the translucent optic nerve, they now proceeded towards the brain. Here and there a thin membrane blocked their path, but they simply chewed a small hole and squeezed through. These holes were so tiny that the dinosaur felt nothing.