With Daba in the lead, the expedition proceeded gingerly down the slick walls of the respiratory tract. When the wind was with them, they hurried forward several steps; when the wind was against them, it was impossible to walk, and they could only flatten their bodies and grip the wall tightly. They had not descended very far, however, before the tickle of their legs began to irritate the respiratory tract. With a slight cough, the dinosaur put an end to the ants’ first expedition. A hurricane of unimaginable force spiralled up from the bottom of the tunnel, sweeping the expeditioners off their feet and jetting them across the isthmus of the tongue at lightning speed. Some of them were hurled headlong into the dinosaur’s huge teeth, while others were blown straight out of its mouth.

Daba lost one of her middle legs in the failed expedition, but, unperturbed, she quickly organised a second attempt. This time she decided they would tackle the oesophagus instead. The preliminary stages went smoothly. The ants entered the oesophagus and began the long march down the seemingly endless and terrifyingly loud passage. Its creepy darkness was the least of their troubles, however, for the Tyrannosaurus had stopped beside a stream and now took a sip of water. The first the explorers knew of this was when they heard a great roar building behind them, a roar so loud that it rapidly drowned out the noise ahead of them. Daba immediately ordered the team to a halt, but before she could even begin to work out what was happening, a wall of water came cascading down the tunnel, hurtling past the ants, flinging them into its churn and propelling them at terrific speed all the way down the oesophagus and on towards the dinosaur’s stomach.

Dazed and disoriented, Daba landed heavily and sank into something pulpy. She paddled her legs as hard as she could in a desperate bid to escape the ooze, but she couldn’t move at all in the sticky substance. Thankfully, the floodwaters were still pouring down, thinning the slurry and tumbling everything around, so when things finally began to settle, she was able to float to the top. She had another go at walking. The sludge beneath her was soft and watery, but solid chunks of varying sizes and shapes bobbed along on the surface, making it possible for her to crawl from one to the other. She made slow progress, the slime sucking at her feet, but at last she reached the edge of the slurry pit.