For Cretaceous civilisation, this was of immeasurable significance because it forged a bridge between their respective worlds. Over time, the ants came to understand dinosaur speech, but dinosaur anatomy meant that dinosaurs would never be able to understand the ants’ pheromone-based language. Consequently, only simple exchanges took place between the two worlds. But the ants’ mastery of written language brought about a fundamental change in this, for the ants could now communicate with the dinosaurs through writing. To facilitate this, they invented an astounding new method. Within a square patch of ground, thousands of ants would quickly arrange themselves to form lines of text. This drill composition technique grew more polished by the day. Eventually, the transition between drill formations was so swift that the block of ants resembled the instantaneous output of a computer screen.

As communication between the two worlds improved, the ants absorbed more and more knowledge and ideas from the dinosaurs, for each new scientific and cultural achievement could now be promptly disseminated throughout antkind. And so the critical defect in ant society – the dearth of creative thinking – was remedied, leading to the simultaneous rapid advancement of ant civilisation. The result of the dinosaur–ant alliance was that the ants became the dinosaurs’ dexterous hands, while the dinosaurs became a wellspring of vision and innovation for the ants. The fusion of these two budding intelligences in the late Cretaceous had finally sparked a dramatic nuclear reaction. The sun of civilisation rose over the heart of Gondwana, dispelling the long night of evolution on Earth.

5

The Steam-Engine Age

Time flew by, and 1,000 years passed. Cretaceous civilisation entered a brand-new era as the ants and dinosaurs established their own vast empires.

The dinosaur world moved into the Steam-Engine Age. Though the dinosaurs had not yet harnessed electricity, they mined minerals on a massive scale, smelted a variety of metals and powered their complex machines with huge steam engines. They constructed cities across the continent and linked them via a web of broad-gauge railways serviced by a fleet of ginormous trains. These comprised carriages the size of our five- or six-storey buildings and were drawn by steam locomotives so behemothic that they made the ground shake beneath them and left billowing clouds lingering on the horizon. There were also high-altitude transport balloons, whose shadows enveloped entire cities as they floated by, and mighty ships plying every major ocean; these too were powered by steam engines or sometimes by magnificent sails. Fleets of these ships, as high and hefty as a seaborne mountain range, carried Gondwanan dinosaurs and ants to other continents, and so their particular model of civilisation, based on the dinosaur–ant alliance, spread right across the Late Cretaceous world.