Лю Цысинь - Of Ants and Dinosaurs

‘We’ve heard all this before,’ sneered Laurasian president Dodomi, a mountainous Tarbosaurus . His lip curled contemptuously.

‘It’s your insatiable consumption of natural resources that’s at the root of all this,’ Kachika continued, waggling her antennae at Dodomi. ‘The amount of food just one of you gets through in a single meal is enough to feed a large city of ants for an entire day. It’s simply not fair.’

‘You’re talking twaddle, little bug,’ boomed the Gondwanan emperor, a powerful Tyrannosaurus named Dadaeus. ‘We can’t help being so big. Would you have us starve? To survive, we must consume, and for that we need heavy industry and energy.’

‘Then you should use clean, renewable energy.’

‘That’s just not possible. Those little pinwheels and solar cells you ants rely on couldn’t even power one of our electronic wristwatches. Dinosaur society is energy hungry. We’ve no choice but to use coal and oil – and nuclear power, of course. Pollution is unavoidable.’

‘You could reduce your energy consumption by controlling the size of your population. The global dinosaur population is now in excess of 7 billion. It cannot be allowed to get any bigger.’

Dadaeus shook his monstrous head and rolled his monstrous eyes. It was indeed a quite monstrous sight. ‘The urge to reproduce is the most natural instinct of every lifeform,’ he growled. ‘And growth and expansion are intrinsic to the advancement of civilisation. To survive, to maintain its strength, a country must have a sufficiently large population.’ Then he threw down the equivalent of a dinosaur’s clawed gauntlet. ‘If Laurasia is willing to smash its eggs, we dinosaurs of Gondwana will smash an equal number of ours.’

Dodomi, President of the Laurasian Republic, was quick to respond. ‘But, as you well know, Your Majesty, Gondwana has nearly 400 million more dinosaurs than Laurasia—’

‘And as you well know, Mr President, Laurasia’s population growth rate is three percentage points higher than that of Gondwana,’ replied Dadaeus.

‘Mother Nature will simply not allow you insatiable beasts to multiply unchecked. Will it take a disaster to bring you to your senses?’ said Kachika, one antenna pointing at Dodomi, the other at Dadaeus.

‘A disaster, huh?’ Dodomi guffawed. ‘Dinosaurkind has survived for tens of millions of years. There are no disasters we haven’t already seen!’

‘Exactly. We’ll worry about that when it happens,’ Dadaeus said, gesticulating airily with his claws. ‘It’s dinosaur nature to let things run their course. Our kind takes life as it comes and fears nothing.’

‘Not even all-out nuclear war? When that final moment of ultimate destruction arrives, I cannot see what route will be left open to you.’

‘Well, little bug, on this point we are agreed.’ Dadaeus nodded. ‘We don’t like nuclear weapons either, but Laurasia has deployed so many that we have no choice. If they destroy their weapons, we’ll follow suit.’

‘Ha ha. That’ll be the day!’ Dodomi wagged a pudgy digit at Dadaeus and sniggered. ‘You surely can’t believe we’ll fall for that old chestnut, can you?’

‘It goes without saying that you Laurasians should be the first to destroy your nuclear weapons, since you invented them.’

‘But it was the Gondwanan Empire that made the first intercontinental missiles—’

Kachika cut them off with a wave of her antennae. ‘What does it matter who did what centuries ago? We need to face the reality of what’s happening here and now.’

‘What’s happening here and now is that Laurasia is entirely dependent on its nuclear weapons. Without them, it wouldn’t stand a chance,’ said Dadaeus. ‘Do you remember the Battle of Vella Flat? The first emperor of Gondwana led 2.5 million Tyrannosauruses against 5 million Tarbosauruses in Antarctica and put them to rout. The evidence is still there at the South Pole for all to see, commemorated with a magnificent mound of Laurasian skeletons!’

‘In light of which, Your Majesty will then certainly remember the Second Devastation of Boulder City,’ Dodomi fired back. ‘400,000 pterodactyls of the Laurasian Airforce flew low over Gondwana’s capital and dropped more than a million incendiary bombs. By the time the Laurasian Army entered the city, the Gondwanans had been cooked to perfection!’

‘My point exactly! You Laurasians are cowards, always carrying out sneak attacks with aerial and long-range weapons but never having the courage to fight face to face! Hmph. You really are vile, pitiful worms.’

‘Well then, Your Majesty, why don’t we give everyone here the chance to see for themselves which one of us is the pitiful worm?’ And with that, Dodomi leapt onto the great roundtable, brandishing his razor-sharp claws as he flew at Dadaeus.

The Gondwanan emperor immediately jumped onto the table to meet him. The other dinosaurs did not intervene, only cheered excitedly from the sidelines. Blows were regularly exchanged at international meetings in the dinosaur world. The ants, too, had become inured to this sort of spectacle. Being wise to the possible consequences, they hurriedly scurried beneath the sturdy crystal platter to avoid being flattened beneath the dinosaurs’ feet.

Observed through the prism of the crystal platter, the brawling dinosaurs looked like spinning mountains, and the surface of the roundtable shuddered violently. Dadaeus had the advantage in terms of weight and strength, but Dodomi was more agile.

‘Stop fighting! What’s wrong with you?’ the ants shouted from beneath the platter, their voices amplified by the translation system.

The two dinosaurs paused and, breathing heavily, retreated from the tabletop and returned to their seats. They were both covered in long, jagged scratches. They stared hatefully at each other.

‘Right,’ said the secretary-general, ‘let’s move on to the next item on the agenda.’

‘No!’ Kachika said firmly. ‘There will be no further items discussed at this summit. Given that this vital matter concerning the very existence of our world remains unresolved, all other topics are rendered meaningless.’

‘But, Madam Supreme Consul, every Dinosaur–Ant Summit of the last few decades has included a discussion about environmental pollution and the nuclear threat, and nothing has ever come of it. It has become routine, nothing but a ritual, a waste of everyone’s time and patience.’

‘But this time is different. Please believe me when I say that the most important issue facing civilisation on Earth will be resolved at this meeting.’

‘If you are so certain, please continue.’

Kachika was silent for a moment. When the hubbub in the hall had subsided, she said solemnly, ‘I will now read Declaration Number 149 by the Ant Federation. “In order that civilisation on Earth may continue, the Ant Federation makes the following demands on the Gondwanan Empire and the Laurasian Republic.

‘“One: halt all reproduction for the next ten years to effect a net reduction in the dinosaur population. After ten years, the birth rate must be kept lower than the death rate to ensure that the population continues to decline, and it must remain low for a century.

‘“Two: shut down one-third of all heavy-industry enterprises immediately, and over the next ten years shut down another third as the population declines. Environmental pollution must eventually be reduced to a level that Earth’s biosphere can withstand.

‘“Three: immediately commence total denuclearisation. The destruction of nuclear weapons must be conducted under the supervision of the Ant Federation, with all nuclear warheads launched into space using intercontinental missiles.”’