‘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.