The scowl on his face broadened into a smile and he dropped the broom. Then he set down one of the strips of glow-lizard jerky in the middle of the colony and swished the other tantalisingly. Crouching down in front of the tablet, he gestured at the three large characters and the line of small characters and tried to communicate his idea. It took the ants a while to catch on, but eventually they waggled their feelers in emphatic confirmation: yes, they could carve characters that were smaller still. Immediately, they flooded onto the blank part of the tablet and set to work. Soon they had carved a line of even smaller characters, each about the size of the letters in the title on this book’s cover. As the ants were illiterate, they were simply reproducing the shapes of the characters.

Kunda rewarded them with the remaining strip of jerky. Then he hacked off the section of the tablet carved with the smallest characters, tucked it under his arm and gleefully lolloped off to see the city prefect.

Because of Kunda’s low status, the guards stopped him on the steps of the colossal stone mansion that housed the prefect’s office. The guards were imposing, powerfully built dinosaurs and Kunda quickly lifted up the section of the tablet for them to see. They inspected it. Within moments, their expressions had morphed from surprise to awe; it was as if they were in the presence of a sacred relic. Turning their gaze back to Kunda, they gaped at him for a long time, as though he were a great sage, then let him pass.

‘What’s that you’ve got there – a toothpick?’ the prefect asked when he saw Kunda.

‘No, sir, this is a tablet.’

‘A tablet? Are you an idiot? You couldn’t fit half a character onto that piddly piece of wood.’

‘It’s hard to believe, I know, sir, but there are actually more than thirty characters on this self-same piddly piece of wood.’ Kunda passed it over.

The prefect gazed at the tablet with the same wonderment as the guards. After a long time, he looked up at Kunda. ‘I don’t suppose you carved this yourself?’

‘Of course not, sir. A gang of ants did it.’

Boulder City’s municipal officials gathered round and the tablet was passed from claws to claws, much like we might hand round an ivory figurine to be admired. These dinosaurs constituted the city’s ruling class and they now launched into fervent discussion.

‘Incredible – such tiny characters…’

‘… and totally legible too.’

‘Over the millennia, so many of our ancestors have tried to write like this, but to no avail.’

‘Those itsy-bitsy bugs really are quite capable.’

‘We should have known they’d be good for more than medical care.’

‘Just think of all the materials we’ll save…’