Dawn of the Dragon: Dragon World, #2

1: A Child Is Born

There was warmth, security, a sensation of floating. There was a glowing light all around. Then there was darkness and then the glowing light returned.  Were there noises, indistinct rumblings that rose and fell?  In later years he could not be sure.  He wanted to believe those earliest of memories were true but when he was very young he had asked his mother what it had been like during those times and now his memories of her stories mingled with his own memories and he could not be sure.

Suddenly, there was light and noise.  And something new, for the first time there was discomfort: he was wet; he was cold; the light was too bright and he cried out.  He did not know he was capable of making sounds.  Later, his mother told him he was so loud that others came to watch, laughing happily at his baby noises.  His head appeared first, his mother later told him, and the onlookers noticed that the feathers on top of his head, which they expected to be the same brown color as the dead leaves on the forest floor, were tinged with red.  One of them claimed the unusual coloration was a bad sign and that the offending feathers should be removed, she told him years later.  But there was defiance in his mother.  She ignored the unsolicited advice and called him Red Top, proclaiming her son’s differentness to the world instead of trying to hide it. His mother’s name was Mud Wasp and he loved her very much and he missed her terribly when one day she was taken from him.

The birthing process continued as Red Top struggled to free himself from his pale blue egg.  On this matter he had to depend on his mother, for he had no recollections of his own.  Mud Wasp told him that after his head and arms were out he stopped moving for a time while the liquid contents of his egg leaked into the sand. Some silly old fool said you were weak and were going to die, but I knew you just needed to rest for awhile. Then, someone else said I should help you remove the rest of the egg but that can bring bad luck to a male later in life. It can take away his warrior strength. Besides, I knew you would do it on your own, and you did. Years later, when he asked his mother how long the whole process had taken, she raised both arms to the sky and spread the three claws on each hand as much as she could, keeping her hands side by side. When the sun had moved across the sky that much, she said, indicating the distance from the leftmost claw to the rightmost, my son Red Top had been born.

As was the custom, Mud Wasp had prepared a hole in the sand into which she had poured ashes from a fire made sacred by burning special forest herbs along with twigs and branches. Diligently she checked the temperature of the ashes, gathering up those that were warm but no longer hot and with these she dusted her damp, newborn child to dry him and keep him warm and infuse his life force with the power of the magical plants from the forest. The first application of ashes quickly turned into a sticky black paste because his feathers were soaked from being in the egg.  She tenderly pulled and squeezed the paste off as best she could and then applied new ashes.  After several applications, the baby was warm again, and dry.  No mother in the village could have done better for her son.

I wish you could have seen yourself, Mud Wasp said. People were laughing at you because you looked so funny. I had scooped out a little hole in the sand and put you in it with warm ashes. The only thing sticking out of the ground was your neck and head and you were all gray except for the top of your head, which was red, and your golden eyes. You turned your head this way and that, peering first at one person and then another and everybody laughed when you turned your head, because you looked just like a little adult.  But then the other egg started hatching and they forgot about you.  But I did not forget.

The earliest memory Red Top had that he was sure was entirely his own and not something that might have gotten mixed up with one of his mother’s stories was of a meal of a liquidy raw egg Mud Wasp had shared with him.  Some forest creature’s nest had been raided and Mud Wasp end up with several leathery light-brown eggs. She picked one up and punctured it with one of her claws, sucking the syrupy contents out of the hole. She looked down when Red Top began squealing with hunger and when she saw his golden eyes staring into hers, she placed her sticky claws near his lips so that he could lick them clean.

Another time there was a meal of some vegetable matter that Mud Wasp had prepared for him in the form of a sticky clump of paste.  Red Top no longer remembered exactly what it was but he recalled they were outside.  She fed him from the clump she held in one hand by pulling off bits with the claws of the other hand but he became impatient with the slow process. She picked him up and carried him over to a rock where she set him back down. She pointed to a depression in the rock and then blew on it to remove debris. Then she placed the clump of food in the depression and held Red Top so that he could eat as much as he wanted from the improvised bowl.

One afternoon, the sky became dark, the temperature fell and the wind began to blow so hard the leaves on the trees turned their shiny sides up. It began to rain, a few cold drops at first but soon it turned into a violent storm with rain coming down in sideways sheets. Mud Wasp and Red Top ran into the nearest shelter in the village, a lodge not their own because theirs was too far away. Red Top cried out when he saw flashes of bright lightning. He squeaked and squealed in terror when the first thunderclaps assaulted his ears. He expected to be shushed by adults he did not know well but he saw that they were cringing from the storm too. It was the first time he had ever seen adults be afraid.

The storm passed quickly and Mud Wasp carried him outside to play in one of the many muddy puddles that had formed in the cleared area of the village where the lodges stood.  The clouds parted, blue sky appeared again, and he felt the warmth of the late afternoon sun on his face as he splashed about in a puddle.  Mud Wasp had produced her first egg the year before, a female named Talking Rain.  Mud Wasp had laid only one egg that year but there were two eggs in the next.  Later the same day that Red Top was born, a brother named Crooked Tooth was also born. Red Top and Crooked Tooth were essentially the same age but it was customary to refer to Red Top as the older brother as he had emerged from his egg first, however slight the interval. The three siblings quickly formed strong attachments to one another. Talking Rain being a year older and much more coordinated, endeavored to teach her younger brothers how to make mud pies, and the three infants played together joyfully until Mud Wasp carried them inside at the coming of evening.

The time came when Red Top found himself able to waddle several steps at a time.  Inside he could often make it from one side of his mother’s small lodge to the other without falling down, but outside he fell down when he tried to go too fast, which was most of the time.  Soon after he acquired this new ability, Mud Wasp held one of his small hands and led him along a trail into the forest away from the village.  Red Top had never left the village before.  Soon he became tired and started to cry.  She stopped and reached down to pick him up.  He expected that she would hold him in her arms as she had done many times before but she surprised him by saying, Listen, Baby Red Top, I want you to try to hold on by yourself this time.  He looked up at her questioningly, unable to form his own words yet.  Mud Wasp lifted her son up and placed him on the upper portion of her thick tail where it connected to her lower abdomen.  She placed his small legs around her tail and twisted his little tail around hers. After several years the soft brown baby feathers that covered the entire body were replaced with green feathers on the back of the head, upper arms and legs and tail, and the torso.  The green feathers of adults were short except for a line of long decorative ones running from the back of the head, onto the neck, then the spine, and then halfway down the tail.  Mud Wasp gently squeezed his hands around a clump of the long feathers on the upper part of her tail.

Are you ready, Little One? she asked, holding herself erect again while looking down at him. Red Top looked up at her trustingly.

I will take Red Top for a ride! she laughed.  Hold on!  Mud Wasp lifted her tail off the ground and began walking along the path.

The ride was great fun and Red Top chirped with happy excitement. But then his weight shifted to the right and he almost fell off. He squealed in terror and Mud Wasp immediately stopped. She repositioned him and once more squeezed his hands around clumps of her feathers.

Let’s change things a little bit, Mud Wasp said encouragingly. I will walk slower next time and you need to try to hold on tighter.

Red Top was fearful now and gripped his mother’s feathers as hard as he could while she walked slowly along, trying to minimize the swaying motion of her tail.  Soon Red Top became more confident and began to enjoy the trip again.  This was a great adventure.  It wasn’t long before he was squeaking and chirping like a happy little bird.

Red Top looked from side to side, unable to decide what to pay attention to next; everything was fresh and exciting: the great trees that made a green sky above; long, twisting vines; brown aerial roots that grew toward the ground in a living tapestry; brightly colored flowers all around; long and graceful palm fronds bigger than his mother; rich, exotic smells; strange cries coming from unknown beasts.  Every time his mother pushed through another leafy curtain a new world was revealed.  By now he hardly noticed the three ring-scars on his mother’s lower left leg, below where the feathers stopped and scales began.  The scars had always been there; he accepted them without thought.  One day he would think about them and learn what they meant.

After a seemingly long while, mother and child came to what appeared to Red Top’s eyes to be a wide, powerful river.  He had never seen flowing water before.  In later years he realized that the walk had been very short and the river was just a small creek that sometimes dried up in the dry season of late summer. But that first time was very exciting and he dabbled cautiously at the edge of the cool water, although he was fearful of the depth.

The sun moved across the sky while Mud Wasp allowed him to play. He gained confidence as he ventured into the stream and nothing untoward happened. Soon he was gleefully slapping the water with his tail.

Red Top, she called out to him. I am going to collect roots and berries in the forest. I will bring back good things for us to eat. I want you to stay here by yourself for a little while.  Do not be afraid.  Be brave today and be brave tomorrow and then one day you will be a brave warrior and the whole village will be proud of you.  I will be proud of you, too.  Being brave is the most important thing you can do in your whole life.

Bwave? he asked, looking up at her.

Yes, brave! she laughed, delighted that he was trying to speak. So, you be brave now, all by yourself for a little while. When the sun moves this far, she said, indicating the distance by holding two claws slightly apart in front of his eyes, I will come back for you, Red Top. I will always come back for you.

Mud Wasp had brought along two baskets made of interwoven reeds.  One had a wide opening and two handles; it was for carrying forest produce back to the village.  The other had a narrow opening and a single extended handle about as long as the basket itself and which ended in a tight curve, forming a hook. This second basket was called a baby basket and she scooped Red Top up and stuffed him into it. This was not new to him. He had already spent a lot of time in the baby basket.  She lifted up the basket with Red Top inside and hung it from a branch so that he dangled from it safely above the ground.  There were fearsome creatures that prowled the forest which surrounded the village.  Most of them had learned to avoid approaching the village too closely.  Some of those that hadn’t learned the lesson had been killed by the villagers, many of whom were dangerous predators themselves.  In fact, the species into which Red Top had been born happened to be the most dangerous predator on the planet.

2: The Secrets That We Keep

You two are doing it again.

Doing what? Dan Dent said innocently. We’re just sitting here.

That’s the whole problem, Amanda said. I know you guys are talking about something but as soon as I walk into the room you clam up and all of a sudden you’re both ‘just sitting’ there. Were you talking about me?

Paranoid much?

How about you just answer the question, okay?

If it makes you happy, sure; we were not talking about you.

Then what?

Clams, Dent asserted. We were talking about clams. Thus the clamming up, as you put it.

Clams, Amanda repeated, crossing her arms and fixing her brown eyes on his blue ones. You expect me to believe you were talking about clams just as I walked in.

I expect you to believe it because it’s true.

Is it now?

Indeed it is.  As true as the day is long. Whatever that means.

How about it, Professor Finney?  You and your little graduate student were talking about clams just now?  Amanda looked at the older man.

I know that paper is around here somewhere, Finney muttered nervously, looking down at his desk and making a show of searching for something.  Never can find things when I need them.

Doesn’t look like your mentor is willing to back up your lie, Amanda said.  Too bad for you.

There’s nothing to back up because it’s no lie, Dent said.  As you know, the good Professor here is a leading expert on the tiny ostracod, but it’s a bit of a dry subject, and he’s thinking about switching to the fossil clam, a much more interesting creature.  Why, just before you came in he had gotten me so excited about my possible future in the world of prehistoric clammology that I was literally left speechless.  It was while I was in that speech-free state that you entered the room, volunteered your astute observation that no conversation was ongoing, made the usual female assumption that two guys talking followed by not talking must have been talking about her, and came to your amusing but incorrect conclusion.

I see, Amanda said slowly.  And now, how about the truth?

Dent looked at Finney, who shrugged.

It’s up to you, Dan, the older man said. I trust her if you trust her.

It’s up to you, Professor, Dan said in response. You’re the one with the weird theory.

You’ve pretty much adopted the theory, my young friend.  Your call.

Okay, Dent said, turning to his girlfriend. Can you keep a secret? And are you sure you want the truth? Sometimes it’s better to live with a comfortable lie than an uncomfortable truth.

Yes, I can keep your secret, whatever it is, and no, you don’t have to be so melodramatic. What kind of secret can two boring geology geeks have, anyway?

Paleontology, Dent corrected.

Whatever.

Dent took a deep breath. Okay. The Professor, here, has conjured up this wacky belief that once, a long, long time ago, there was an intelligent species of dinosaur.  He thinks he’s found some evidence in support of that idea and he’d like to find some more.

Dan Dent stopped speaking and Amanda looked at him expectantly. Apparently nothing more was forthcoming from her boyfriend. And? she prodded at last.

That’s pretty much it.

That’s it? He thinks there used to be smart dinosaurs and he’s talked you into believing it too and that’s the big secret?

Yup.

Why is that a big secret?

That idea doesn’t bother you? Dent and Finney looked at each other.

No. Why should it?

You’re down with the basic idea?

Works for me, Amanda said. What’s the big deal? Is somebody going to waterboard you for believing that? I didn’t realize paleontology was such a high-stakes game. Bunch of rocks, right? Who cares?

Finney looked up again. I didn’t realize waterboarding was an option. I believe I would choose that over the alternative.

Do they let us choose? Dent asked.

What alternative? Amanda asked. Who is this ‘they’ you two are talking about?

Dent scratched his beard thoughtfully. I didn’t realize you would convert so easily, Amanda. I was expecting a big argument. I assumed you would think the idea is silly or stupid. See, that’s what the Professor and I are afraid of, being laughed at. In science, that’s bad, real bad, being laughed at. In science, your reputation is everything. If you get a reputation as a crank, you’re pretty much done for. We’d be laughed at every time we show our faces at a conference.

Finney interrupted. That’s if we even get invited to go. Generally speaking, cranks aren’t on the A-list as far as seminars and conventions are concerned.

It would be a lot better to be waterboarded, Dent continued. An hour of choking and puking and then they get bored with it all and let you go home. But they can laugh at you forever.

Who is ‘they’?

Everybody else in the field. All the normal scientists who don’t believe in intelligent dinosaurs.

Screw ‘em, Amanda said.  "I don’t see why you’re so worried about these other paleontologists anyway.  Aren’t they the same geniuses you told me about who put three fingers on Tyrannosaurus and then later it turned out it really only had two?"

Claws, Dent corrected.  Yeah, there’s only two of them.

Fingers, claws, whatever.  Stop mansplaining to me.

I wasn’t mansplaining.

Saying you’re not mansplaining is itself mansplaining.

I don’t believe that is so, Dent said uncertainly. I may have to look that up and get back to you.

What’s this? A mansplainer needs to look something up? Color me surprised.

You kids got me on that, Finney said. What is mansplaining?

It’s what men do to women, Professor, Amanda said.  Some men. Especially know-it-all grad students.

That’s a description, not an explanation, Dent said.  "Let me provide a real explanation.  Mansplaining is a portmanteau of man and explain.  It is used in situations where a man condescendingly and arrogantly explains something to a woman with the unspoken assumption that he must be right—even if he’s wrong—just because he’s a man.  And that the woman needs to hear his long-winded bloviation because she will be improved thereby.  Because a woman’s life is always improved by listening to the men around her."

That was good, Dan, Amanda said. Too bad you had to mansplain me while informing the Professor.

What do you mean?

Amanda answered in a mocking, husky male voice.  "That’s a description, not an explanation.  Let me provide a real explanation."

Hey, is it my problem if you don’t know the difference between a finger and a claw?  Or a description and an explanation?

So what is the difference between a finger and a claw?

Well, a finger is a finger, but a claw is sharp. It can cut things, scratch things.

Like a fingernail. Amanda smiled.

Are you saying that women have claws? Life is beginning to make more sense all of a sudden.

Amanda bared five pink fingernails in front of Dan’s face in the manner of a cat.  "Keep that in mind the next time you’re tempted to mansplain something to me.  Now, let me get back to all these other paleontologists you two are so worried about, the ones that screwed up the first Tyrannosaurus skeletons.  These are also the same people who said that big ugly fish in the Indian Ocean was extinct for millions of years when really it was there all the time, right?"

The coelacanth.  That was a different mistake by different people, but, yeah, I know what you’re saying.

"Latimeria chalumnae," Finney added helpfully.

Be careful when Amanda is in the room, Dent warned.  You just came awful close to mansplaining right then.  In fact, I think anytime a man introduces Latin into the conversation with a female present, that is automatically considered mansplaining.

"Au contraire," Finney responded.

French is just as bad.

"Nyet, nyet."

Russian, too, Dent said. Wait, is Russian okay? I’m confused.

Russian may be the ultimate mansplaining language, Amanda said.  I’ve heard Russian men are as arrogant as they come.  But it’s okay for the Professor to say whatever he wants.  Because he’s not a mansplainer.

I’m not sure why he gets a pass, Dent complained.

Maybe one day you’ll figure it out. If you can’t, I’ll be glad to mansplain it to you. All you have to do is ask. But you wouldn’t ask a woman, would you? Mansplainers don’t do that sort of thing.

Finney gave up trying to return to work.  "Amanda, the problem from my point of view with the intelligent dinosaur question is that there is a very real risk that your boyfriend and I will end up being treated like the paleontologists who made the mistake about the number of claws on the Tyrannosaurus and the extinct coelacanth which turned out to be not really extinct.  Only it would be worse for us because those two mistakes were rather small and easily made given what was known at the time and everyone realized that after the fact.  Everyone makes small mistakes from time to time.  But what I’m proposing—what Dan and I are proposing—is going to go off like a flashbang grenade in a nursing home.  It’s going to attract a lot of attention and everyone’s going to want to know why we’re tossing grenades into nursing homes.  This theory has implications for fields far beyond paleontology.  If we’re right it will change the way people think about dinosaurs, evolution in general, even human evolution, astrobiology, philosophy, religion, you name it.  Our theory, at least on the face of it, smacks of UFO nuttiness.  Being perceived as a nut or a crank in any field is a bad thing and in science it’s a really, really bad thing."

Why do you believe it, then? Amanda asked. If it’s such a risky business, why not just skip over it and go on to something else?

That’s a fair question. I like your use of the word ‘business.’ A lot of people don’t appear to have any idea what the real business of science is. They think that an atlas is science or some particular technology is science. Science isn’t what’s in an atlas or a Wikipedia entry, though science may have been used to produce the underlying information. Science and technology are different animals, though more and more they work hand in hand, science pulling technology forward, followed by technology pulling science along, and so on and so forth. But neither of those things gets at what the business of science is all about. Finney paused to think about how to summarize what he was trying to say.

So, what is the business of science?

Glad you asked. I was just about to go into that. Say, would that have been mansplaining, if I started answering your question before you asked it?

It might be, Amanda answered.  Especially with Dan.  Not with you, Professor Finney.

Now wait a minute, Dent complained.  How can the same thing be mansplaining if I do it but not mansplaining if he does it?  Sounds like a rampant ‘ism’ of some sort.  Maybe professor-ism.  Somebody needs to mansplain that to me.

It’s simple, Dan, Amanda said sweetly.  You’re a notorious mansplainer and the Professor is not.  See how simple that is?  No ‘isms’ needed.  Go on, Professor Finney.

Sure. To me the business of science comes down to one core value: the pursuit of truth. We scientists have offended religionists from time to time but for the most part we haven’t done so intentionally. It’s just that the pursuit of truth took us down a certain path. There we were innocently walking along, thinking, our hands clasped behind our backs, when all of a sudden we looked up and found ourselves surrounded by angry church people who said we shouldn’t be there. No offense was intended; the path simply led that way. A lot of the offense has been among scientists themselves. The history of science is full of examples where Young Turks trampled the beloved theories of famous men. Scientists are people, too. No one likes to have a treasured belief attacked, especially if you have helped create that belief and part of your reputation resulted from said creation. The natural impulse among the old guard is to man the gates to try to keep the Young Turks out. To answer your question about why Dan and I don’t just move on to something else, it comes down to this. We think we’ve found a new truth. To abandon the pursuit of additional knowledge pertaining to that truth would be to abandon the fundamental business of science.

Dan Dent began whistling the score of the original Star Trek television series.  Finney and Amanda looked at him.  To boldly go where no paleontology professor has gone before, he said innocently.

If I may finish up, Finney said. It would be like UPS deciding not to deliver boxes anymore because they’ve become afraid for some reason, afraid of delivering to bad neighborhoods or something. But they can’t just decide to not go to certain addresses because if they did they wouldn’t be in the shipping business any longer.

Maybe like new addresses opening up in Baghdad after the Iraq War, Amanda ventured. People start addressing boxes to downtown Baghdad but the drivers don’t want to go there because they don’t want to get blown up.

Sort of, Finney nodded. Dan and I have a theory and we have one piece of evidence and we have a line of reasoning. You know what the theory is—intelligent dinosaurs—the evidence is subject to interpretation, and the line of reasoning makes sense or doesn’t make sense, depending on your point of view.  Honestly, my point of view changes depending on whether the sun is up or it’s the middle of the night.  In the daytime, I’m comfortable with the line of reasoning but sometimes late at night I began to question it, as well as myself, and I wonder if I’m turning into a UFO nut in my early old age.

You’re not old, Professor, Amanda said. Tell me what the line of reasoning is. I want to hear it.

I don’t mind doing that but why don’t I let Dan explain it instead? He knows the rationale as well as I do and explaining and defending theories is a large part of what he’s going to have to do for the rest of his professional career. Dan?

Fine and dandy, Dent said. But first I’m going to have to get a signed waiver from the woman in the room.

Say what? Amanda asked in surprise.

You heard me.  A waiver.  A waiver that releases me from all liability and protects me from accusations that what you are about to hear is mansplaining instead of just regular explaining.

Here’s your waiver, Danny Boy, Amanda said, raising one of her middle fingers.

Not good enough.  Needs to be in writing.

I don’t know how to put a flipped bird in writing. The Professor is your witness.  That will have to do.

Dan Dent removed his glasses and wiped the nose pads, frowning in concentration. Okay, he said, I’m going to hit you with everything at once, fast. I don’t want to get bogged down in the details, at least not at first. Otherwise we’ll be at this all day. That way you can see the whole enchilada all at once. If I’m going too fast or you have any questions about one particular point, just stop and ask me.

Amanda nodded.

Okay. A long time ago, when the professor was a little boy, way back in the 1860s—

The 1960s, Finney corrected.

Whatever, Dan said.  Nineteenth century, twentieth century.  Whichever it was, it was a helluva long time ago.  The dinosaurs had died out not long before he was born and people were just then learning about them.  Some of that early information—we now believe—was wrong.  People used to believe that dinosaurs were all big, slow-moving, small-brained, and cold-blooded.  The part about them being big—some of them, a lot of them, not all of them—is correct, but the rest of those early beliefs have pretty much been chucked out, based on new evidence and new thinking about that evidence over the last several decades.  Today, we believe that many dinosaurs were warm-blooded and fast-moving, more bird-like. In fact, birds and dinosaurs are now believed to be the same thing. That being the case, dinosaurs did not actually go extinct, not all of them anyway. Thousands of species survive today as birds. Now when paleontologists talk about the extinction of the dinosaurs, they’re talking about only the non-avian dinosaurs.  The bird link is very important.  Whatever we can find out about birds must hold true for dinosaurs, because we’re just using two different words for the same class of animal.  For purposes of the Professor’s theory, there are a couple of points that are highly pertinent.  First, there’s the warm-bloodedness connection.  Second, while a lot of birds have physically small brains—witness the word birdbrain—some birds are very smart.  We think—the Professor and I—that birds might actually get more thinking done per gram of brain tissue than mammals.  That means the brains don’t have to be the same size as mammal brains to be functionally equivalent.  Crows have demonstrated that they can count up and down and remember the count over a period of time.  A related type of bird called the Clark’s nutcracker buries thousands of nuts in the summer and eats them in the winter; it is able to remember ninety percent of its hiding places from months before. A researcher at MIT worked with an African grey parrot for years at the end of which time it had learned over a hundred words and she concluded that that species of parrot is one of the smartest on the planet, as smart as dolphins and apes.

Dent paused. Am I hitting you with too much too fast?

No. Go on.

Are you okay with what I’ve said so far?

Sure.  So far.

Okay.  So what I just said is the outline supporting the feasibility of the basic idea.  Now what I want to do is go over the Professor’s answers to my initial objections. The first objection I had was the lack of evidence. Evidence is very important in science. It’s the currency of the scientific economy. In the rest of the world we have dollars and pounds and marks and drachmas and pesos and rubles. In science there is only evidence. An interesting theory is interesting but without evidence, you’re broke. So, naturally, when the Professor hit me up with this wild theory about how there used to be smart dinos, smart enough to develop a technological civilization, I asked him where the proof was. If these creatures really existed, if they chipped stone tools or built radios or whatever, then we ought to eventually find stone tools and radios in the same layer of rocks where we find their bones.

Makes sense, Amanda said. So I guess you guys haven’t found any radios yet, huh?

Dent quickly glanced at Finney before looking away. No, no radios.

What’s this? Amanda said sharply. I saw you two look at each other just then. Have you actually found something?

Dent cleared his throat. You know, Amanda, digressions in a discussion such as this one can really eat up a lot of time.  I’d like to just carry on to the end if I may.

But you said I could ask questions.

"I did say that but I was referring to questions, not question questions."

Amanda pursed her lips.  "What are you saying?  Are you trying to say you’ve found a radio but it’s not a radio radio?"

The room fell silent. Dent adjusted his glasses. Finney stared fixedly at his desk.

If you’ve found something I’d like to see it.

Neither man spoke.

I don’t like it when boyfriends keep secrets from me.

I don’t like it when I’m mansplaining and I keep getting interrupted with digressions.

Screw it, Amanda said. Just go on then. I don’t need to see whatever you’ve got right now. Tomorrow will be fine.

Tomorrow, Dent repeated.

Sometime, Amanda said. Don’t you trust me? Are you afraid a woman can’t keep a secret? Is that what your problem is?

I never said that.

But you were thinking it, weren’t you?

How do you know what I was thinking?

Woman’s intuition.

Got any evidence that woman’s intuition is a real phenomenon that actually exists? Because as you may have heard, evidence is the only currency that’s any good in science. Without it, you’re broke.

Oh, please. You’re an open book.

An interesting book, I hope.

Sort of.  Not a page-turner.

Finney looked up. Is he a comic book? That would explain a lot.

"He’s a how-to book, Professor.  Lying for Dummies."

Amanda, if you really can keep a secret, we do have something we could show you.  Not right now, though.  And it’s really important that you keep the knowledge to yourself.  I’d like to show the evidence to other researchers and ultimately write up a paper for submission to a professional journal but I’m nowhere near ready.  How about if you just let Dan get back to his explanation for the time being?

Works for me.  See how easy that was, Dan?  The Professor is reasonable, I’m reasonable; you’re not reasonable, I’m not reasonable either.

If you say so.  To get back to the argument, one big reason there’s not a ton of debris lying around from this previous society is that, assuming it existed, it was a very, very long time ago.  It turns out that there really isn’t very much we humans have made with the express purpose of having it last a long time that has actually persisted in the environment.  Everything tends to disappear in centuries or millennia and with the dinosaurs we’re talking tens of millions of years.  Humans have made artifacts that by accident have lasted a long time, such as shaped stone tools, but except for the pyramids and similar large stone-construction projects, everything else has disappeared.  The oldest known artifact that seems to have been built with longevity as one of its design goals is a place in Turkey called Gobekli Tepe.  Gobekli Tepe is believed to be about 11,000 years old.  It’s older than the pyramids or Stonehenge.  But how old is it, really, compared to the youngest possible non-avian dinosaur?  The answer is straightforwardly computed by dividing 65,000,000 into 11,000.  The result is about one-hundredth to two-hundredth of one percent. Flipping that fraction reveals that for Gobekli Tepe to still be around in 65,000,000 years, it will have to last thousands of times longer than it already has. Not thousands of years more, mind you, but thousands of times. So from this you can see the problem with expecting something smaller and more fragile like a radio to last for 65,000,000 years.

But there are lot of dinosaurs bones that have been lying around for that length of time, Amanda observed.  You told me yourself there are so many bones that curators can’t possibly display every skeleton, and that museum basements are chockablock with specimens.

True.  But you need to keep in mind that the dinosaurs lasted in the fossil record for about 150 million years. While only a tiny fraction of animals ever turn into fossils, huge numbers of animals lived and died during that time, and what you have to do is multiply a small fraction by a very, very large number. The result is another big number and that’s why we keep finding new fossils and that’s why museum basements are stuffed with boxes of fossil bones. On the other hand, our civilization has developed in the blink of an eye, geologically speaking, and although people talk about how we’ve filled up the planet with our trash, the truth is that we haven’t, really. Moreover, the vast majority of what we have manufactured won’t last very long, as far as the life of the planet is concerned. We humans are important to ourselves but any geologist or paleontologist or astronomer will tell you that we have yet to prove to the universe that we are anything other than a very transient phenomenon: we are but the blink of a firefly; a meteor that flashes across the sky; a leaf that flutters to the ground. Not nothing, exactly, but next to nothing.

Dust in the wind, Amanda said.

Dust in the wind, Dan agreed.

No one said anything for several seconds until Amanda spoke up. That makes sense. Sixty-five million years is a long time. Most people don’t think in those terms usually; I don’t.

Yup.  A long time indeed, Dan said.  But there’s one more big piece to the puzzle.  And that has to do with the fact that species come and go.  Extinction has been and is an ongoing and normal biological process.  This has nothing to do with the fact that we as a species are forcing other species to the brink.  Long before we showed up successful plants and animals have been forcing less successful plants and animals over the evolutionary cliff.  We don’t know how long any particular species hangs around.  I’m sure it varies tremendously.  So for the next calculation we have to pick a number out of the air.  Let’s go with five million years.  If we assume the average species lasts five million years before it goes extinct, and we combine that with the number of different types of birds there are in the world today—birds being modern dinosaurs—and we divide 150,000,000 years by 5,000,000 years and multiply through, we come up with an estimate of how many total dinosaur types there were during the entire 150,000,000 year span of time we call the Age of Dinosaurs.  I’ll spare you the mental effort and just say that the number you come out with is 30,000; that’s the total number of types of dinosaurs that one would have expected to evolve and then disappear during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, the three blocks of time that make up the Mesozoic Era, or Age of Dinosaurs. For technical reasons we are talking about groups of related species—called genera—not individual types, but that doesn’t change the analysis.

How many types of dinosaurs have been found so far? Amanda wondered.

Great question. About 500.  That’s the key number, and the numerator into which the 30,000 needs to get divided.  The resulting percentage is a number less than two: in other words, even though people have been digging for dinos for over a hundred years now, we’ve discovered less than two percent of what’s likely out there.

Dent paused, looking at Amanda expectantly.

That’s it?

Pretty much.  The theory is that there was at least one species of intelligent dinosaur.  The species has not been discovered because most species have not been discovered yet.  And any artifacts they may have created have failed to last for 65,000,000 years.  Those three points, I think, are the gist of the Professor’s idea.

Well, there’s a fourth thing, Amanda corrected, the radio you guys won’t let me see.

Dan Dent shrugged.

So, what do you think, Amanda? Finney asked. Good theory, lousy theory, crazy theory?

It all makes sense to me.  I don’t have a problem with it.  I know my opinion doesn’t count as evidence to other scientists and you two need to find more radios or whatever, but once you think about it a little, it’s not that strange of an idea that we’re not the first intelligent species on earth.  What’s strange to me is that so many people have the arrogance to think that we are.

Sounds like you did a decent job explaining, Dan, Finney said. I just wish our fellow paleontologists would be so easily convinced.

Oh, don’t you fret about those stick-in-the-muds, Professor. They’re all probably just a bunch of old fossils anyway.

Dent groaned. That was bad.

I liked it, Finney said.  Of course, in the minds of many, I’ve probably turned into one of those old fossils already.  Not that I feel old, mind you.  It’s just that these days when I look in the mirror I keep seeing some old-looking stranger.

You’re not old if you keep coming up with fresh new ideas, Professor, Amanda said.

I’ve got a question about this smart dino of yours, Professor.

Sure, Amanda.  What’s the question?

Does it have a name?

Hah! Dan interjected. He’s given it a name, all right.  The first bone hasn’t been collected yet, but the critter already has a name. That’s the way science is done in the new field of cryptopaleontology. Everything is backwards. Name first, then discovery.

Don’t pay any attention to this fool, Professor.  You’ll be ready when the time comes.  What name did you give these brainy dinosaurs?

"Well, I had to mix Greek and Latin to come up with something I thought was appropriate, but I finally settled on Eomentisaurus for the genus name; that means dawn-mind-lizard.  Of course, dinosaurs weren’t lizards but I decided not to fight that battle.  For the species name I went with prodigiosus, which means wonderful.  So the full binomial name is Eomentisaurus prodigiosus."

"Eomentisaurus prodigiosus," Amanda repeated carefully.

Hey, that’s good, Dan said.  You got it right the very first time.

Yes, Finney added.  "That’s the full name.  The normal style in the professional literature would be to refer to it as E. prodigiosus for short in most references."

I like it, Amanda said. It’s not hard to say like a lot of dinosaur names.

Thanks.

"I like what it means, too: wonderful dawn mind lizard."

3: Early Years

Red Top and his sister and brother grew fast.  Food was plentiful and the village was at peace.  Their days were filled with exploring and play.  All of them could walk now and they were allowed to go where they wanted in the middle of the village.  Talking Rain was the oldest and boldest and led them from lodge to lodge, where they begged food and attention from the adults, and wrestled with other youngsters.  Red Top was an aggressive wrestler, always willing to tussle and sometimes initiating play attacks on larger playmates.  Talking Rain was very protective of her younger brothers and was quick to intervene when Red Top found himself outmatched.  The younger brother, Crooked Tooth, was more cautious than Red Top but always ready to support him.

As the sun headed for the western horizon, the three siblings would return to their own lodge, a lean-to shelter constructed of heavy logs resting against a large rock. Smaller logs and branches filled in many of the gaps in the three walls. A matting of large leaves kept out most of the weather.  A low opening in the wall opposite the rock allowed the children to walk in and out but adults had to crouch or crawl.  There was no door.  When the weather was good, cooking was done outside to keep down the smoke. When it rained the fire was brought inside and some of the matting was pulled back temporarily to let the smoke escape.  When it poured the fire was kept as small as possible but still the smoke filled up the interior, causing the children to cough and cry from the pain of burning eyes.  The floor was sand and at night the children would retire to a hollow scooped out of the sand under a slight overhang in the rock.  This made the hollow feel like a private cave.  There they felt safe and the three of them would wrap their arms, legs, and tails around one another, sleeping through the night in a tight, warm bundle.  On especially cold nights Mud Wasp would cover her children with a blanket made out of many feathers sewn to a net backing.

Red Top and Crooked Tooth began to talk more and more. Mud Wasp and the other adults encouraged them. Talking Rain had been talking for a year already. One day Mud Wasp was returning from a trip to the forest with a basket filled with food when she saw Red Top chasing another small male. She smiled, because she usually saw Red Top chasing, and not being chased. Intent on his pursuit, her son did not notice her as she stepped behind a tree to hide. When Red Top raced past, she grabbed him from behind while he squealed and his legs flailed uselessly at the air.

Pretend to be dead! she hissed into his ear, holding his little body close.

Immediately Red Top stopped making noise and his body went completely limp. His eyes closed, his mouth hung slightly open, his legs dangled, and his long tail, usually curved one way or the other, hung straight down.

Are you dead? I think you’re faking, she said, shaking him vigorously. Red Top remained motionless when she stopped.

I still think you’re faking.  Mud Wasp pursed her lips and blew air onto his closed eyelids.  When that caused no reaction she blew again, this time into one of his ears, which he had no way of protecting.  She knew it must have been painful but his body remained completely limp.

  Oh, well, I guess you really are dead.  I’ll just take you home and cook you over the fire, then.  There’s not much meat on your bones but you’ll go good with the berries I just picked.  She grabbed him in the middle of his tail with one hand and released