Joya fell silent for several seconds. Then she conspiratorially moved her face very close to Kachika’s so that their antennae crossed and their eyes were nearly touching. ‘That is the crux of the matter, Supreme Consul. Are nuclear bombs really the most powerful weapons on Earth?’

‘Professor, that’s common knowledge!’

Joya pulled her head away and dipped her antennae. ‘Quite right, it is common knowledge. And that is the fatal flaw in ant thinking. We concern ourselves only with things that are already known, whereas the dinosaurs are constantly exploring new and uncharted territory. As you are aware, through their astronomical observations, the dinosaurs learnt of the existence of distant celestial objects called quasars. These can radiate more energy than an entire galaxy of stars; in comparison, nuclear fusion is less luminous than a firefly. The dinosaurs also discovered that when matter falls into an interstellar black hole, it emits extremely strong radiation, generating energy at a far greater rate than nuclear fusion.’

‘But these objects you speak of are thousands of light-years away. They have no bearing on reality.’

‘Then let me remind you of something that does have a direct bearing on reality. Do you remember the new sun that suddenly appeared in the night sky three years ago?’

Kachika and Jolie remembered, of course. The incident had left a deep impression on all of them. It had been a normal cold winter’s night when suddenly a new sun had appeared in the sky over the Southern Hemisphere. In an instant, Earth became as bright as day. The light of the sun was so intense that looking straight at it caused temporary blindness. Twenty seconds later, the sun winked out again, but not before its radiant heat had turned the frigid winter’s night into a sweltering summer’s day. The effects were catastrophic. The rapid thawing of snow unleashed flash floods that inundated many cities. The event rocked the ant world. But when they asked the dinosaurs what had happened, the dinosaur scientists offered no explanation and the incurious ants soon forgot about it.

‘At the time, the only definite conclusion that could be drawn from our own observations was this: the new sun appeared approximately one astronomical unit from Earth, or roughly the same distance as that between Earth and the sun presently in the sky. Based on the distance and the amount of radiation received on Earth, we were able to infer the luminosity of this new sun. If such a vast quantity of energy had been generated through nuclear fusion, there should have been a relatively large celestial object there. But astronomical observations taken since have revealed that no such object exists. In other words, it’s possible that higher-energy processes than nuclear fusion exist in this solar system.’