Unfortunately, the dinosaurs didn’t have their pheromone translators turned on, so they couldn’t hear her. In fact, even if they had heard her, they wouldn’t have believed her. Right then, their hatred was all-consuming. The dinosaurs swatted and pinched the ants on the console with their claws, muttering through gritted fangs, ‘Lay mine-grains, will you? Destroy our machines, will you?’ The white surface of the console was soon covered in small black smears, the crushed remains of the ants.

*

‘Supreme Consul, I have to report that the dinosaurs in the signal station attacked the repair team. We were wiped out on the console,’ a surviving member of the team informed Kachika.

They were standing beneath a small blade of grass fifty metres from the station. Most of the members of the Ant Federation’s high command were also present.

‘Send in a larger repair team!’

*

‘Yikes, ants!’ shouted a dinosaur sentry standing guard on the front step of the signal station.

His cry drew several other dinosaur soldiers and their lieutenant outside.

A mass of ants was swarming up the step, four or five thousand by the look of it, like a swath of black satin slowly gliding towards them. A number of individual ants broke from the mass, waving their antennae at the dinosaurs, as though shouting something to them.

‘Get a broom!’ the dinosaur lieutenant hollered.

A soldier immediately fetched a large broom, and the lieutenant snatched it from him and made a few savage passes over the step, sweeping the ants into the air like so much dust.

*

‘Madam Supreme Consul, we must find a way to communicate with the dinosaurs in the signal station and explain our intentions,’ said Professor Joya.

‘But how? They can’t hear us. They won’t even turn on their translators.’

‘Could we phone them, perhaps?’ an ant suggested.

‘We tried that earlier. The dinosaurs’ entire communication system is down. It’s been completely disconnected from the Ant Federation’s telephone network. We can’t get through to them.’

Field Marshal Jolie interjected. ‘I suggest we look back to what our ancestors used to do,’ she said with quiet authority. ‘In bygone years, before the Steam-Engine Age, they would communicate with the dinosaurs by arranging themselves in different formations, to make characters. You should all be familiar with this ancient art, no?’

Kachika sighed. ‘What’s the use of telling us this? That art has been lost.’

‘No, Kachika, it has not.’ Jolie drew herself up as tall as her diminutive height would allow. ‘The unit currently under my command has been trained to form characters. I wanted the soldiers to remember the glorious achievements of our ancestors and to experience for themselves the collective spirit of the ant world. I had hoped to surprise you all during this year’s military parade, but now it seems this training can be put to practical use.’

‘How many troops are assembled here at present?’