Лю Цысинь - Of Ants and Dinosaurs

The dinosaur soldiers posted at the entrance to the signal station watched the phalanx of ants marching towards them. It measured about three or four metres square and was rising and falling with the uneven ground like a rippling black flag.

‘Are they coming to attack us?’

‘Doesn’t seem like it. Their formation is strange.’

As the ants slowly drew closer, a sharp-eyed dinosaur shouted, ‘What the…? Those are characters!’

Another dinosaur read haltingly: ‘We… have… come… to… fix… your… trans… mitter… it… can… save… the… world.’

‘I’ve read about this!’ one of them exclaimed. ‘In ancient times the ants communicated with our ancestors like this. And now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Amazing!’

‘Bullshit!’ The lieutenant flashed a claw. ‘Don’t fall for their tricks! Go and fill some bowls with boiling water from the water heater and bring them here.’

‘Lieutenant,’ a sergeant ventured timidly, ‘don’t you think we should talk to them first? Maybe they genuinely are here to fix the transmitter. The engineer and the others inside are in really desperate need of help.’

The dinosaur soldiers all began to talk at once:

‘What a strange thing to say. How’s this transmitter supposed to save the world?’

‘Whose world – ours or theirs?’

‘The signal sent out by this transmitter has got to be important.’

‘For sure – why else would the emperor personally give the order to send it every day?’

‘Idiots!’ barked the lieutenant. ‘You still trust the ants even now? It was our gullibility that allowed them to destroy the empire. They are the most despicable, treacherous insects on Earth and we will never let them fool us again. Go and fetch that boiling water. Double-quick!’

The five dinosaur soldiers raced off and within minutes were back with bath-sized vats of boiling water gripped between their claws. They fanned out in a long, steamy row, advanced rapidly and on the count of three hurled the boiling water over the ant formation. Scalding spray flew in all directions, generating voluminous clouds of hissing vapour. The black line of text on the ground was washed away, and more than half of the ants were boiled alive.

‘Communicating with the dinosaurs is impossible,’ Kachika said with a deep sigh as she watched the steam billowing up in the distance. ‘Our only remaining option is to take the signal station by force. Then we can repair the equipment and send the interrupt signal ourselves.’

‘Ants taking a dinosaur structure by force?’ Field Marshal Jolie stared at Kachika as though she were a being from outer space. ‘From a military point of view, that’s utter madness.’

‘It cannot be helped. This is a mad world. The building is isolated and relatively small. There will be a brief gap before any dinosaur reinforcements arrive. If we marshal as many of our forces as we possibly can, there’s a chance we’ll be able to capture it.’

‘What’s that over there? They look like ant super-walkers!’

Hearing the sentry’s shout, the lieutenant raised his telescope and scanned the distant wasteland. There appeared to be a long procession of black objects in motion. A closer look confirmed the sentry’s suspicion.

Most ant vehicles were very small, but to meet the specialised needs of the military the ants had also developed some comparatively large transporters called super-walkers. These were only about the size of one of our pedicabs, but to ant eyes they were positively Brobdingnagian, similar to how a 10,000-tonne freighter looks to us. As their name suggested, super-walkers had no wheels but moved around by means of six mechanical legs that walked in an ant-like fashion. This allowed them to traverse difficult terrain with ease and speed. Each super-walker could carry hundreds of thousands of ants.

‘Open fire on those walkers!’ the lieutenant ordered.

The dinosaur soldiers used their lone light machine-gun to strafe the column of walkers in the distance. Plumes of dust spiralled into the air where the bullets raked the ground, and one of them hit the walker at the head of the convoy, breaking a front leg and toppling it. As the walker’s five remaining legs pawed at the air, countless strange black balls began tumbling out of a hatch in the side of its hull. Each was about the size of one of our footballs and was composed entirely of ants. As soon as the balls hit the ground, they dispersed, like coffee granules dissolving in water.

Another two super-walkers were felled, but the bullets that penetrated their holds killed very few ants. A seemingly infinite parade of black balls rolled to the ground, releasing mass after mass of resolute soldier ants.

‘If only we had an artillery gun,’ moaned one of the dinosaur soldiers.

‘Yeah, or some hand-grenades.’

‘A flamethrower would do it…’

‘Enough! Quit jabbering and get a count on those walkers.’ The lieutenant lowered his telescope and pointed straight ahead.

‘Holy smoke, there must be two or three hundred of them…’

‘Looks like every last super-walker stationed in Gondwana is on its way here.’

‘Which means we’re looking at upwards of 100 million ants,’ said the lieutenant. ‘There’s no question about it – the ants intend to storm the signal station.’

‘Lieutenant, let’s run over there and smash those ridiculous walkers!’

‘That won’t work, soldier. Our machine-gun and rifles are useless against them.’

‘We still have petrol for the generator. Let’s burn them!’

The lieutenant shook his head calmly. ‘We don’t have enough petrol to destroy all of them. Our priority is to protect the signal station. Here’s what we’ll do…’

‘Supreme Consul, Field Marshal, our reconnaissance aircraft report that the dinosaurs are digging two rings of trenches around the signal station. They are redirecting water from a nearby stream into the outer trench. They have also rolled out several large fuel drums and are pouring petrol into the inner trench.’

Kachika did not hesitate. ‘Commence the attack immediately!’ she yelled.

The ants advanced in a dense, inky swarm, like an ever-expanding shadow cast upon the ground by a stormcloud in the sky. The sight struck terror into the dinosaurs at the station.

When the vanguard reached the outer moat, the ants on the frontline did not stop but crawled straight into the water. The ants behind them stepped over their comrades’ bodies and crawled a tiny bit further out onto the water. Soon, a thick black film had formed on the surface of the water and was spreading rapidly towards the other bank.

The dinosaur soldiers had donned sealed helmets to prevent the ants from slipping into their bodies. They stood ranged along the inner bank, dumping shovelfuls of soil and basin after basin of boiling water on the ants, but to no avail. The black film soon covered the entire surface of the water and great waves of ants washed across it like a dark tide. The dinosaurs were forced to retreat behind the inner moat, setting alight the petrol that filled it as they went. A ring of raging flames swiftly shot up around the signal station.

As the swarm approached the burning trench, the ants piled on top of one another, forming a living embankment. The dinosaurs tried battering this ant wall with machine-gunfire, but the bullets sank into it without a sound, as though swallowed by a black sand dune. Next they tried chucking rocks at it, and though these struck home with dull thuds, the holes they opened up were quickly refilled with replacement ant contingents. Despite the bombardment, the embankment continued to grow.