by Cixin Liu
For a few seconds the tyrannosaurus stared at them in blank confusion, and then it seemed to understand the ants' intention. Considering it for a moment, the dinosaur lowered its raised arm. In a flash the clouds covering the great plain of the forearm vanished from the sunlit sky. Now, the Tyrannosaur opened its jaws and lifted a claw as far as it could to its incredibly massive teeth, forming a bridge for the ants, right into its maw. For a second, the ants hesitated. In the end, it was again the mayor who first marched up into the unknown; the others followed her.
The ants had soon made their way to the tip of the claw. Standing on that smooth, cruelly pointed cone, they gazed upon the dinosaur's huge maw with deep awe. Before them lay a dark world; dim, as if covered by the blackest thunderclouds. Out of that unknowable darkness the strong, moist scent of gore blasted toward them with a great thunderous roar. As the ants' eyes adjusted to the darkness, they were able to make out a positively black shape in those murky depths. That shape was constantly moving and shifting. The ants stared at it for a long time before they finally realized that it was the dinosaur's massive throat and that the great thunder emanated from the tyrannosaur's belly. Shaken, the ants on the claw tip looked back one more time and then, one by one, descended onto the teeth. They climbed down those smooth white summits into the wide gaps between the dinosaur's fangs. With all their might, the ants began to tear at the lodged lizard-meat with their powerful pincers.
By then, the tyrannosaurus had already lifted its claw up as best it could to expose its top row of teeth. An unbroken stream of ants continued to climb along its arm, over its claw and to its teeth. There they began to devour the meat. For the nimble ants it mattered little if they were on the top or bottom row of cruel fangs. More than a thousand ants busied themselves, working in the many gaps between the dinosaur's teeth, and soon all the meat was picked clean.
The irritation in its mouth was gone, but the tyrannosaurus had not yet evolved far enough to say “Thank you”. Instead it let out a pleased sigh. The sigh's unexpected tempest blasted through the rows of its teeth, carrying every last ant with it. Like black dust, the ants fell through the air and to the ground. Light as they were, the drop did them no harm and they all landed safe and sound about a yard from the dinosaur's head. Pleased, the satiated ants made their way back to their small city. As they marched home, the tyrannosaurus, happy that it had been freed from its discomfort, rolled one more time into the cooling shade of the trees. There it dozed off into a cozy sleep.
The Earth continued to turn in peace. In silence the Sun slid off to the Western horizon, slowly drawing out the cycads' shadows. Quietly, butterflies and other small insects took wing between the trees; and in the far distance, the waves of the primeval ocean continued their endless beat against the shores of Gondwana …
No one could have known that in this moment of pure tranquility, the path of Earth's history had been changed forever.
CHAPTER
1
The Information Age
Time flew as 50,000 years rushed past and became history.
The symbiotic relationship of dinosaurs and ants continued. It grew and strengthened with every passing year and so these two species came to establish a Cretaceous civilization. This new society spanned the ages: From Stone Age to Bronze Age, from Iron Age to the age of steam, and then on to the age of electricity, and into the Nuclear Age, and finally to reach the modern Information Age.
Massive dinosaur cities had sprung up on every continent, their epic skyscrapers reaching six miles and more into the sky. Seen from the top of one of these mighty structures, the world looked much like it does to us now from an airliner's window. From up there, the clouds almost seemed to hug the earth.
The sky was always clear for the dinosaurs living in higher parts of the skyscrapers and so, when a thick sea of clouds shrouded the earth below, they had to call the doorman below to figure out whether or not they should take an umbrella to work. The dinosaurs' umbrellas were huge by necessity, easily the size of one of our party tents.
Their cars were just as massive, as big as our houses. Wherever they drove, the earth would shake. They also had airplanes the size of our supertankers. Wherever they flew, the sky would rock with thunder and the Earth below would darken with their giant shadows as they passed overhead. The dinosaurs even ventured into space, sending hundreds of satellites and spaceships into orbit. These spacecraft were, of course, just as massive as the dinosaurs themselves, large enough even to be visible from the earth below.
An immense and extremely complex network of computers linked the various parts of the dinosaur world. Of course, everything about these machines was huge as well; on their keyboards, for example, every key was as big as one of our computer monitors and their monitor screens themselves were as wide as our walls.
As the dinosaur world entered the Information Age, so too did the ant world, even if the two species came to use vastly divergent technology and very different sources of power. Unlike the dinosaurs, the ants did not use oil or coal, instead making use of wind power and solar energy. The tiny ant cities were densely packed with countless wind turbines, each much like a human pinwheel in shape and size, and all surfaces in these cities were covered in a black material. This was a coating made of solar cells. Another critical technology of the ant world was bio-engineered muscle fibers. To us, these “muscles” would have looked like coarse electric cables, but when fed with a nutritional solution, they could rhythmically expand and contract, generating power. All of the ants' cars and airplanes were powered by these muscle fibers.
Like the dinosaurs, the ants also had computers, but their computers were no larger than a grain of rice. And size was not the only way in which they differed from the dinosaurs' machines; they also worked completely without microchips. Instead of circuitry, the ants' computers performed all their calculations with complex, organic chemical reactions. Furthermore, these computers were without screens, instead using pheromones to output information. Only the ants could make out these minute and complex mixtures of smells, “reading” them as data, language, and even images. The ants’ minute computers were connected to an immense network, linked-in not by glass-fiber cables or electromagnetic waves, but through pheromones. It was with these chemical scents that the ant computers communicated with each other.
The ant society of those days was very different from the ant societies we know today. In fact, it was rather similar to our human civilization. Completely unlike modern ants, the ants of the Cretaceous age were “born” by bio-engineering. The ant queens, on the other hand – so very important to ant reproduction in later eras – barely played a role in their society and held none of their later status.
The ant and dinosaur world formed a symbiotic relationship. With their awkward limbs, the dinosaurs relied on the ants' fine motor abilities. Countless ants worked in every dinosaur factory, manufacturing the smaller components, operating precision equipment and instruments, doing maintenance and repair work, as well as filling other roles for which the dinosaurs were completely unsuited. The ants also played a critical role in another vital sector of dinosaur society: All dinosaur surgery was performed by ant doctors. These doctors would physically enter the dinosaur's giant organs and operate on them from the inside using a wide variety of sophisticated medical equipment, including microscopic laser scalpels and even tiny submarines that allowed them to dredge the dinosaur's veins.
In the history of the ant world, the empire of Gondwana came to unite the dispersed ant tribes of all the continents, forming the great Ant Coalition which governed all of Earth's ants.
In sharp contrast to the ant world, the once-united Dinosaur Empire broke into two parts when the dinosaurs of Laurasia declared their independence, founding a new nation, the Laurasian Republic. Divided, both great dinosaur nations continued to expand their respective territories. After more than a thousand years of conquest, the Gondwanan Empire also occupied the lands that would become India, the Ant
arctica, and Australia. The Laurasian Republic for its part expanded its territory in the lands that would become Asia and Europe. The nations were not only divided by territory; they also differed somewhat in heritage. The Gondwanan Empire was primarily descended from tyrannosauruses, while the Laurasian Republic was primarily descended from tarbosauruses.
In the long history of these two nations’ conquests they fought an unending series of wars. In the last 200 years, however, ever since the advent of the Nuclear Age, their wars had ceased. This was entirely the result of the nuclear deterrent. Both nations had accumulated large stockpiles of nuclear weapons and if war was ever to break out between them, these bombs would transform the Earth into a lifeless, nuclear wasteland. The fear of mutual nuclear destruction held the Cretaceous in a terrifying peace, balanced on the knife's edge.
As time passed, dinosaur society rapidly expanded across the face of the Earth. Their population exploded, overcrowding all of Earth's lands, even as the strains of environmental pollution and looming nuclear war reached their tipping point. A rift began to grow between the world of the dinosaurs and that of the ants, and the dark clouds of conflict it released covered all of Cretaceous civilization like an ominous shadow.
This year's dinosaur and ant summit meeting had just come to a close. The core issue discussed had been the ant world's demand of the dinosaur world to make drastic changes. The ants insisted that the dinosaurs dismantle all their nuclear weapons, protect the environment, and control their population growth. If their demands were not met, the entire Cretaceous world would be faced with a general strike by the ants.
CHAPTER
2
The Strike of the Ants
In the capital of the Gondwanan Empire, Emperor Baltzara lay on a huge sofa in the Great Blue Hall of his towering imperial palace. He was awkwardly scratching his left eye with his claw, occasionally exhaling an agonized groan. Several dozen dinosaurs were in attendance. Present were the Minister of State, Dabor; the Defense Minister, Marshal Loragar; the Science Minister, Professor Nimican; and the Health Minister, Doctor Veyky.
Raising himself from his seat with a slight bow, Doctor Veyky addressed the Emperor. “Your Imperial Highness, your left eye has become inflamed and is in urgent need of surgery, yet we currently cannot find any ant doctors to perform the surgery. The best we can do is to keep it under control with antibiotics. But, Your Highness, if this continues, you may lose all sight in the eye.”
“Blasted!” the Emperor spat in response, gnashing his teeth. “Is there no hospital left on Earth where ant doctors still work?” he angrily asked his Health Minister.
Veyky shook his huge head. “Indeed, Your Highness, many patients in need of surgery cannot be treated. The situation has already led to social unrest.
“We will likely see much more chaos before long,” the Emperor said, turning to his Minister of State.
With a slight bow, Dabor stood to attention. “Of course, Your Imperial Highness. As of today, two-thirds of our factories have already stopped production and some cities are already suffering from blackouts. The situation is no better in the Laurasian Republic.”
“The dinosaur-operated machines and production lines have also stopped?” the Emperor inquired.
“Indeed, Your Highness,” Dabor answered. “For example, in manufacturing such as the automotive industry, when they run out of precision parts, it becomes impossible to assemble the finished products if all they have is the large components that we dinosaurs can produce. They then have no other option but to completely stop production. In other sectors, like the chemical and energy industries, the strike of the ants has caused more measured repercussions, but even their equipment failures will become increasingly frequent. We have no means to perform the necessary maintenance work. and one plant after the other will be paralyzed because of it.”
In a fit of fury, the Emperor roared, “Wretches!” His voice exploding like thunder. “And the Dinosaur Ant Summit has only just concluded.” Taking on a regal posture, he decreed, “We command that you immediately begin a program of emergency training for dinosaur workers in all of the Empire. Step by step, we will make them fit to operate the precision equipment formerly operated by the ants.”
“Your Imperial Highness, with all due respect, what you command cannot be accomplished,” Dabor said, lowering his head.
“Nothing is impossible for the Great Gondwanan Empire!” the Emperor declared, raising his gigantic head high. “In our Empire's grand history, the Gondwanan dinosaurs have faced much greater perils than this! How many bloody battles have we waged and won against all odds? How many fires that burned across continents have we extinguished? How many magma flows erupting from the Earth after continental shifts have we survived?” The Emperor let his bellowed questions hang in the air.
“But, Your Highness, this is different ...” Dabor spoke up, but apparently without the courage to continue.
“How is it different?” The Emperor continued his roar: “If we just put our minds and backs into it and study hard, dinosaurs will soon have nimble enough pairs of hands for the tasks! Our world cannot and will not be blackmailed by those little bugs!”
“If I may please give Your Highness a demonstration to illustrate how dire our circumstances are,” the Minister of State said. Opening his claws, he let two red electric wires drop on the sofa. “Your Royal Highness,” he continued, “I humbly ask your attempt to perform the most basic task of machine maintenance: Join these two wires.”
The claws of Emperor Baltzara's awkward hands were each almost two feet in length and wide as a cup. In his humongous eyes, these two small wires, no more than a tenth of an inch thick, seemed no bigger than a hair. The Emperor squatted on his sofa, fixing his gaze on the wires as he began his attempt to pick them up between pinched talons, but his giant conical claws, smooth and large like artillery shells, where not up to the task. Try as he might, in the end the wires would always slip between their tips. Stripping and joining the wires was completely out of the question. With a great sigh, the Emperor impatiently brushed the wires off the sofa and onto the floor.
“Please consider, Your Highness,” Dabor counseled, “that even if Your Highness should ultimately train to the point of acquiring the ability to connect wires, doing maintenance work would still remain an impossibility. Our bulky fingers are just not suited to work in precision machinery that ants squeeze into.”
“Oh,” Science Minister Nimican heaved a deep sigh, before lamenting, “eight hundred years ago, the late Emperor had already realized the danger that our reliance on the ants' skills posed. He initiated a grand effort – researching new technologies and machinery – to rid us of this dependency. Please forgive my presumptuousness, but in the two centuries under Your Highnesses’ rule, these efforts have all but ceased. We have lain ourselves on the comfortable bed of the ants' labor, all but forgetting the danger.”
“We are not lying on anyone's bed!” the Emperor shouted angrily, raising both claws. “In fact, the danger that the late Emperor was so aware of has also haunted my nightmares more often than I care to remember.” The Emperor thrust a brute claw at Nimican's chest. “But you of all should know why the late Emperor’s effort to rid us of our dependence on the ants failed and why they were abandoned; it was no different in the Laurasian Republic!”
“Of course, Your Highness,” the Minister of State nodded his head. Pointing at the wires on the floor, he turned to Nimican. “Professor, you must surely know that for a dinosaur to successfully join those wires, they would have to be around five inches in diameter! And just think, if we were to make them that thick, it would be impossible to imagine a cell phone with sapling-sized wires – or a computer, for that matter. Along the same lines, if we really wanted dinosaurs to operate and maintain our machines, half of them would have to be made at least a hundred times larger than they are now; and if we did that, they would also consume a hundred times more energy and resources. There is no way that our econom
y could sustain such a development!”
The Science Minister acknowledged the point with a nod of the head. “You are right. And even more troubling is the fact that some components simply cannot be enlarged. For example, in optical and electromagnetic communication equipment, the components needed to modulate and control the wavelengths can by no means be any larger than their current microscopic size. And how can we even imagine computers and networks without microscopic parts? Things are similar when it comes to industrial production and research in the fields of molecular biology and genetic engineering.”
The Health Minister chimed in. “It is no different for many of our treatments. Without the ants, dinosaur surgeries are unimaginable.”
“Evolution has naturally selected the alliance of dinosaurs and ants and its implications are indeed profound. Without this alliance, civilization on Earth is fundamentally impossible. There is no way that we can tolerate the ants destroying this alliance,” the Science Minister concluded.
“And what shall we do about it now?” the Emperor demanded, spreading his claws and looking at each in turn.
The Minister of Defense, Marshal Loragar, finally broke his silence. “Your Imperial Highness, there is no doubt that the Ant Coalition has many advantages on their side, but we have our own strengths. The cities of the ant world are no bigger than the toys of our children. We can simply piss them away! The Empire should make use of this power.”
The Emperor nodded, and turning to the Marshal, said, “Good! Order the General Staff Headquarters to prepare a plan of action. Let us destroy a few ant cities to give them a warning!”
