Today, however, their routine of the last two years was disrupted because the signal transmitter had broken down. Given that the station had been outfitted with equipment of the utmost reliability and employed a high degree of redundancy, with multiple backup systems, it was obvious that this total operational failure was neither accidental nor the result of normal wear and tear.

The engineer and the technician immediately began to look for the source of the problem. They quickly discovered that several wires had been cut – wires that only ants could reconnect. They attempted to phone their superiors to request an ant repair team, but the line was dead. As they continued to investigate, they found more severed wires. The appointed time for the emperor’s transmission order was now rapidly approaching, so the dinosaurs had no choice but to try and do the reconnection themselves. Unfortunately, though, their bulky claws made that impossible.

The five dinosaurs grew frantic with worry. Although the phone line was out of action, they felt sure that communication would soon be restored and the emperor would pop up on the screen when the countdown reached forty-four hours. To them, his daily appearance on the screen was as inevitable as the rising of the sun. Today, however, the sun rose but the emperor did not materialise. For the first time ever, the countdown got to forty-four hours and then carried on.

After a while, the hordes of dinosaurs fleeing Boulder City began to pass by the signal station. It was from these badly shaken refugees that the station team learnt of the situation in the capital. The ants had disabled all of the machinery in the Gondwanan Empire with their mine-grains, including the signal station’s transmitter, thereby paralysing the dinosaur world.

The members of the station team were nothing if not conscientious and they kept on with their attempts to reconnect the severed wires. But it was an impossible task. Most of the wires were in places that the dinosaurs’ stubby claws simply could not reach. As for the few exposed wires they could get to, the ends kept slipping from their clumsy fingers and could not be joined together.

‘Those blasted ants!’ The engineer sighed and rubbed his aching eyes but then quickly did a double-take. There were ants right in front of him!

It was a small contingent of about a hundred or so, rapidly advancing across the white surface of the operator console. Their leader was shouting to the dinosaurs, ‘Hello! We have come to help you repair the machines. We have come to help you reconnect the wires. We have come—’