Of Ants and Dinosaurs

10 The Strike

In the capital of the Gondwanan Empire, in the Great Blue Hall of the imperial palace, Emperor Dadaeus lay on a sofa, one claw covering his left eye, emitting the occa­sional groan of pain. Several dinosaurs stood around him: Interior Minister Babat, Defence Minister Field Marshal Lologa, Science Minister Professor Niniken, and Health Minister Dr Vivek.

Rising from his seat with a slight bow, Dr Vivek addressed the emperor. ‘Your Majesty, the eye that Dodomi injured has become inflamed and requires immediate attention, but we currently cannot find any ant doctors to perform ophthal­mic surgery. Our only option is to keep the inflammation under control with antibiotics. If this continues, however, you are at risk of losing your sight in that eye.’

‘I could skin Dodomi,’ said the emperor through gritted teeth. ‘Is there not a single hospital in the entire country with an ant doctor still at work?’

Vivek lowered his head. ‘I’m afraid not, Your Majesty. There are many patients waiting in vain for urgent surgical procedures. The situation is causing a great deal of unrest.’

‘And I presume that’s not the only reason our dinosaurs are panicking,’ said the emperor gloomily, turning to the interior minister.

Babat gave a brief nod. ‘That’s correct, Your Majesty. At present, two-thirds of our factories have stopped production, and several cities have lost power. The situation in the Laurasian Republic is no better.’

‘The dinosaur-operated machines and production lines have also stopped?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty. In manufacturing sectors such as the automobile industry it is impossible to assemble the large dinosaur-made components into usable finished products without small precision parts, so production has had to be halted.’ Babat rocked back and forward nervously on his scaly heels before continuing with the bad news. ‘In other sectors like the chemical and energy industries, the ants’ strike had little impact at first, but because the ants are responsible for maintenance, whenever a piece of equipment fails, there is now nothing we can do, so more and more factories are becoming paralysed.’

The emperor stamped with rage. ‘You useless idiot! Did I not order you to have our dinosaur workforce undergo emergency training in delicate antwork, ready for this exact bastard scenario?’

‘Your Majesty, what you requested is, ah, well… impossible.’

‘Nothing is impossible for the great Gondwanan Empire! Over our long and illustrious history, Gondwanans have weathered crises much greater than this. How many bloody battles have we won against all the odds? How many continent-spanning forest fires have we extinguished? How many volcanic eruptions in the wake of tectonic shifts have we survived?’

‘But, sir, this is different—’

‘Different how? If we put our minds to it, dinosaur hands can be dexterous too. I will not have those piddling insects blackmail us and threaten our very existence.’

‘Allow me to, um, demonstrate where the difficulty lies.’ The interior minister tentatively opened his claws and placed two red cables on the sofa. ‘So, er, when it comes to the maintenance of machinery, one of the most rudimentary requirements is the ability to connect two wires – wires such as these two cables, Your Majesty. May I ask you, sir, to attempt that task now?’

Emperor Dadaeus’s clawed fingers were half a metre long and had the circumference of a large teacup. To his eyes, the two cables, just three millimetres in diameter, appeared finer than strands of hair do to us. Peering intensely at the sofa, he attempted to pinch the wires between his huge conical claws. But his claws were as smooth as artillery shells, and, try as he might, the wires kept slipping between their tips. Stripping and joining the wires was out of the question. The emperor huffed and swept the cables to the floor with an impatient wave of his clumsy claws.

‘The truth is, Your Majesty, that even if you were to master the art of wiring, you would still be incapable of performing maintenance work. Our bulky fingers simply cannot fit inside machines sized for ants.’

Science Minister Niniken gave a long, wistful sigh. ‘800 years ago, the late emperor recognised the danger posed by the dinosaur world’s reliance on the ants’ fine-motor skills. He made tremendous efforts to research new technologies and equipment, to free us from this dependency. But with all due respect, over the last two centuries, including during Your Majesty’s reign, these efforts have all but ceased. We have been lounging in a bed made for us by the ants, and we have forgotten that it’s necessary to be vigilant even during peacetime.’

‘I haven’t been lounging in anyone’s bed!’ the emperor shouted angrily, raising both sets of claws as if he was about to punch his science minister. ‘I too am haunted by the very same concerns that plagued the late emperor. My nightmares are full to the brim with them.’ He jabbed a thick finger at Niniken’s chest. ‘But you should know that his efforts to wean us off our dependency on the ants came to nothing. He failed – utterly and decisively. It was the same in the Laurasian Republic.’

‘Quite so, Your Majesty.’ The interior minister smiled ingratiatingly. Pointing to the wires on the floor, he said to Niniken, ‘Professor, as you are surely well aware, for a dinosaur to successfully join those wires, they would need to be ten to fifteen centimetres in diameter. And if they were that large, we’d be looking at mobile phones with wires as thick as saplings, and computers too, for that matter. And if we wanted our machines to be operated and maintained by dinosaurs, half of them would need to be at least a hundred times bigger than they are now, if not several hundred times bigger. Our consumption of resources and energy would increase a hundredfold, at least. There is no way our economy could withstand such a shift.’

The science minister nodded his acknowledgement. ‘You’re right. And of course some things just can’t be scaled up. In optical and electromagnetic communications equipment, for example, the wavelength of electromagnetic waves, including lightwaves, dictates the size of the components used to modulate and process them; they simply cannot be any larger. Computers and networks would be quite literally unimaginable if there were no small components. And the same applies in the fields of molecular biology and genetic engineering.’

The health minister now had his say too. ‘Because our internal organs are relatively big, it is feasible for dinosaur surgeons to operate in certain cases. But the ants’ surgical techniques are non-invasive and therefore safer and more effective. Records show that in the past dinosaur surgeons did on occasion perform invasive surgery, but the technique has been lost. To recover it, we would need to master a range of other techniques such as general anaesthesia and wound suturing. There’s also the matter of expectations and habits. Having enjoyed several millennia of ant medical care, most dinosaurs would find the prospect of being cut open during surgery absolutely unacceptable. So, at least for the foreseeable future, modern medicine cannot function without the ants.’

‘The dinosaur–ant alliance is an evolutionary choice with profound implications. Without this alliance, civilisation could not exist on Earth. We absolutely cannot allow the ants to destroy this alliance,’ the science minister concluded.

‘But what recourse do we have?’ the emperor grumbled, drumming his claws in irritation.

Defence Minister Lologa finally broke his silence. ‘Your Majesty, the Ant Federation admittedly has many advantages on its side, but we have power on ours. The empire should make use of this power.’

Dadaeus cocked his head, letting the implications percolate through his imperial brain. A decision was made. ‘Very well, Field Marshal,’ he said, ‘order the chief of staff to formulate a plan of action.’

‘Field Marshal…’ The interior minister grabbed hold of Lologa before he could leave. ‘It’s crucial that you coordinate with Laurasia on this.’

‘He’s right,’ the emperor interjected. ‘We must act in unison with them, lest Dodomi play the good dino and win the ants over to Laurasia’s side.’