Dinotopia - Dinotopia Lost

by Alan Dean Foster

  XII

  it took some time to find a translator. Though the farmers of the Northern Plains had long ago learned to communicate with their dinosaur helpmates by means of commands and gestures, there was still plenty of need for translators to help with the more complex elements of the massive evacuation. Long hours passed before Dr. Toranaga’s call for linguistic assistance was answered.

  Will was deep in the throes of a nap when a horn blast sounded from below. Rising from his hammock, he walked to the nearest wall and peered over the side. Down on the ground he saw Skowen, the male nurse, conversing with several other humans as well as a male Protoceratops. The latter made the best translators, being able to speak nearly all of the dinosaurian dialects as well as fluent Human. They had a feel for language, and many of them entered enthusiastically into the highly respected profession. Will had once listened to a biologist lecture on the unique positioning of the larynx in the protoceratopsian throat.

  Will noted that the hog-sized male wasn’t very big, even for one of his modestly proportioned tribe. It was difficult to tell from a distance, but to Will he appeared even smaller than Will’s old friend Bix. His opinion didn’t change as he watched the yellowish, rust-tinged quadruped step into the empty basket-elevator. The sauropod on lift duty promptly lurched forward, away from the trunk of the sequoia, and the newly arrived translator began a slow ascent toward the infirmary.

  Will looked on as the Protoceratops was greeted by the nurse in the sari. It trundled along in her wake as she led it toward Dr. Toranaga’s office. His early estimates of its size proved correct. Standing on hind legs, its beak would barely have come up to Will’s nose.

  In the company of Hapini, the nurse, it ambled into the infirmary proper, surveying its surroundings with a curious glance. To Will’s considerable surprise, it fixed its eyes on him and barked sharply in his direction. Its Human was fluid and easily understood.

  “I know you.”

  Will studied the simple, frill-backed face; the bright, intelligent eyes; and the beaked, parrotlike mouth. There was a notch missing from the upper right side of the frill—a consequence, perhaps, of some excessive juvenile frolic.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember ever having met you,” Will replied honestly.

  “Didn’t say we’d met.” The Protoceratops’s manner was somewhat brusque. “Said I knew you.”

  Will stiffened slightly in response to the unexpected tartness of the other’s tone. “Then you have the advantage of me.” He was not intimidated. Judging from its size and inflection, the translator was no older than himself. A linguistic sage like Bix the new arrival was not.

  It wasn’t the most auspicious of first encounters.

  “You’re Will Denison, aren’t you?” chirped the Protoceratops. He spoke as he ambled over to examine the sleeping struthie.

  “That’s right.” Will trailed translator and nurse.

  “I’ve heard of you. You’re well-known to the protocer-atopsian tribe.”

  “Really?” Will beamed.

  “Yes.” Putting his forefeet up on the side of the nest-bed, the young translator studied the softly breathing patient. “You’re the one whose father nearly broke the leg of the famous translator Bix with a rock.”

  Will bristled. “That was an accident! We’d just been shipwrecked, we didn’t know where we’d fetched up or what was likely to happen to us, and we knew nothing of the inhabitants of Dinotopia or how special they were. To my father,

  Bix looked like a potentially dangerous animal. He had only his own personal experiences to go on.”

  “That’s no excuse,” snapped the Protoceratops. “By the way, my name is Chaz.”

  “I’m gratified to make your acquaintance,” Will replied dryly, employing a more formal greeting than he’d planned. “You shouldn’t judge how others react in a difficult situation unless you’ve been in one yourself.”

  “I hope not to be.” The Protoceratops still refused to look in his direction. Or perhaps, Will thought, it was simply deciding how best to open communications with the recovering Struthiomimus.

  “Anyway, I didn’t throw any rocks.”

  “You could have. Bet you would have if your father hadn’t done so first.”

  “Now, look here—” Will began. His ready retort was interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Toranaga.

  “I would prefer that you youngsters work out any personal problems later, please. At the moment we should concern ourselves with the status and well-being of the patient.”

  “How is she doing, sir?” Will was thankful for the doctor’s arrival.

  “A great deal better, I am happy to say. Her strength is returning rapidly. Good food and plenty of rest is often the best medicine.” He eyed the round bed thoughtfully. “She has been asleep for some time. I think we would not be remiss in awakening her.” Leaning forward over the bed, he began to stroke the struthie’s face, bringing his palm down from the forehead, between the eyes, and ending with a caress of the graceful snout. Following the third such stroke, the patient blinked, let out a startled whoop, and straightened her neck, her head swiveling to look in all directions.

  As the doctor stepped back, the translator moved to the head of the bed.

  “Let her get her bearings first,” Will suggested.

  The little dinosaur finally looked over at him. “Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?”

  “No, of course not. I’m just concerned for her comfort.” Will was by now thoroughly irritated with this patronizing Protoceratops. He was almost as arrogant as ... as ...

  As a certain strutting skybax rider? Nonsense, Will told himself. He wasn’t arrogant. Merely confident. Who was it who had told him that the line between the two was a thin one?

  No matter. He was caught up in the reaction of the struthie. As her initial panic subsided, her gaze became open and comprehending. There was none of the delirium that had characterized her previous wild ramblings.

  “I am Kano Toranaga,” the doctor gently informed her. “I have been seeing to your care these past several days.” As Chaz translated, the young patient relaxed enough to reply. The Protoceratops listened briefly.

  “She wants to know where she is.”

  “Well, tell her, tell her,” Toranaga urged him.

  Chaz nodded briefly and explained to the patient that she was in Treetown infirmary and under medical care. This prompted a rapid-fire and extended response. She rambled on until Toranaga and Chaz finally succeeded in calming her.

  Will could barely contain his curiosity. “Well? What’s she saying?”

  Chaz favored him with a silent glare before addressing himself to the doctor. “She says she was trying to get to Bent Root but couldn’t find her way and ended up here. She’s happy enough to be in Treetown, though. In fact, she’s glad to be anywhere. She doesn’t remember arriving and does not recall how she came to be in this place.”

  “That can be explained to her later.” Toranaga was gazing reassuringly at his anxious young patient. “I need to know what happened to her. What is a young Strutbiornimus doing alone and debilitated out in the mountains? Did she become separated from her friends and family, or has some misfortune befallen them?”

  Chaz acknowledged the series of queries and put them to the struthie. This time she responded more slowly. “Come on, come on,” Will urged him impatiently.

  “Do not interrupt my train of thought. Struthine is not an easy tongue.” This was said, for a change, without any hint of rancor. Will forced himself to wait as silently as the nurse and doctor.

  Only when the patient was finished did Chaz lower his forelegs from the edge of the bed and turn to his expectant audience.

  “It’s a very strange story she tells.”

  “Sure you got all the details right?” Will pressed him.

  Few dinosaurs possess the flexibility of face required to produce varied expressions, but the translator managed to summon up a withering stare without much difficulty.
>
  “Yes, I’m sure.” In a less frosty tone he continued. “Her name is Keelk. She says that her family was captured and made prisoners by a group of strange humans.”

  Toranaga frowned. “Captured? Prisoners? All part of some game, surely.”

  “No.” The frilled head swung back and forth. “It’s not a game. They were bound and hobbled so they couldn’t run away, and pulled along by ropes.” The translator glanced back in the struthie’s direction. “She thinks, or at least her parents think, that these strange humans are all new arrivals to Dinotopia, but that they’re not dolphinbacks. Nor have they been shipwrecked in the manner of the Denisons.” He didn’t look at Will.

  “She says,” he continued, “that the clothing, equipment, and attitudes of these humans are intact and undamaged, which suggests that they somehow made a safe and successful landing on our shores.”

  The nurse couldn’t keep herself from commenting. “That is impossible.”

  “So I’ve always been taught. I am only relaying what she has said. She also says that they carry explosive tubes which shoot invisible fireworks.”

  “Guns!” Will blurted.

  Toranaga eyed him solemnly. “I have read about such devices.” He turned back to the translator. “Is there more?” “Yes. She says that these humans wear peculiar garb, that they smell strongly of the sea, and that they are all males.” “Normal enough for a ship’s crew,” Will murmured to no one in particular.

  “She says that among them are represented many of the human subtribes, and that they talk and act as if they own everything they touch. They are, of course, completely ignorant of Dinotopia and its ways. They treated her and her

  family like ignorant animals and made no effort to try and understand their speech.”

  “They couldn’t anyway,” Toranaga observed. “What about gestures? All humans understand simple gestures.”

  Chaz conveyed this to the struthie, who replied without hesitation. “She says that she and her family were tied up as soon as they were captured. You can’t make gestures with all your limbs bound. Her father, Hisaulk, can recognize a few words of Human. One word these intruders kept repeating over and over was ‘gold.’” The Protoceratops let out a derisive snort. “Why would they be obsessed with gold? Can they be preparing for some sort of festival?”

  Will had been compiling a list in his head and didn’t much care for the picture it added up to. All males, guns, acted as if they owned the place, spoke frequently of gold, the taking of prisoners ...

  “Excuse me, but I think I may know the source of these strangers’ intentions and the reason behind their unfriendly actions.”

  “Please,” murmured Toranaga expectantly, “enlighten us.” “Pm just guessing, of course.” Will hastened to qualify his thesis before delivering it. “But it sounds to me like Keelk’s family has been captured by a group of roving adventurers or brigands or pirates.”

  “Pirates? What are ‘pirates’?” Toranaga turned to his nurse. “Hapini, have you ever heard of such?”

  “No, Doctor.”

  Both of them had been born and raised on Dinotopia, Will knew. Unlike him, they had little knowledge of the outside world. Nor were they historians. He tried to explain.

  “These people are bandits, thieves.” Even thievery was a concept he was forced to elaborate on. He mentioned the recent antisocial exploits of Lee Crabb, but they had not even heard of the recent activities of Dinotopia’s resident rapscallion. Dinotopia was a big place. Still, he eventually managed to get his point across.

  “Extraordinary.” Toranaga was clearly taken with his young guest’s explanation. “Almost as extraordinary as the notion that a vessel may have landed here intact.”

  “Without talking to these people we have no wav of knowing anything for certain.” Will continued. “If they have managed to anchor here successfully, then they may believe they can also leave with whatever they can acquire. If they think that, there’s no telling what they might do.”

  Toranaga was shaking his head in disbelief. “I still don’t understand why they would imprison a family of harmless struthies.”

  “Neither do I, sir.” Will forbore mentioning that ship’s crews embarked on long voyages often kept live animals aboard as a source of fresh food. “But it’s not important. What matters is that they’re being held against their will.”

  “Yes. The situation is quite unprecedented.” The doctor considered. “Sauropolis must be notified immediately.”

  “Sauropolis!” Will exclaimed. “That’s a long way from here, sir.”

  “Not so far for a qualified skybax rider,” Chaz commented coolly.

  “There are plenty of skybax riders in Treetown,” Will shot back, “because of the evacuation. I don’t have to be the one to go.” He looked at Toranaga. “I agree that the council needs to be made aware of the situation, sir, but that will take time. Just as it will take time for them to formulate a reply and respond. In the meantime, if my supposition is correct, this struthie’s family is in grave danger. We have do to something now.”

  “We?” Chaz had no eyebrows to raise but managed to convey the expression nonetheless.

  “We will call a meeting of the local elders and those town officials who can be spared from the evacuation work,” Toranaga decided. “This is obviously a matter of some importance, but at the same time the welfare of many families cannot be imperiled so that one can be aided.”

  “I’m sure she will understand.” Chaz nodded at the struthie, who was watching them uncomprehendingly.

  But Will, staring into that anxious, hopeful, drawn face, wasn’t so sure.

  XIII

  the assembly was held in one of the great barns that was used to shelter the local sauropods and ceratopsians from the depredations of the carnosaurs that on rare occasions succeeded in finding their way up and out of the Rainy Basin. Dr. Toranaga was in attendance, along with a number of local officials and academicians. Only a small percentage of those present were human.

  It was something to watch them discuss and debate, as for example when a maiasaurian face was thrust inches from a human one. There was no anger involved; only enthusiasm and interest. But recommendations did differ, and it took time for individual expressions of opinion to be translated into multiple tongues.

  This last task was handled by translators senior to Chaz, leaving the youngster to stand off to one side with nothing to do but observe, learn, and fidget. Will was present as well. Being the subject of much of the discussion, Keelk figured prominently in numerous gestures and contemplative glances. Now almost fully recovered, she listened to the discussion, watched the debate, and chatted exuberantly with Chaz.

  “What is she saying?” Will asked the Protoceratops.

  “That there’s too much talk and too little action.” The young translator tilted his frilled head sideways, the better to observe the much taller Strutbiomimus. “I can’t say as that I’ve ever encountered a more forceful representative of her particular kind.

  “She’s grateful for the help that’s being proposed but is afraid it may arrive too late. Until it materializes, she wants to return to the Rainy Basin to do what she can to help her family. To the Rainy Basin! By herself! Can you imagine it?”

  Will tried to picture his father as an ill-treated captive of marauding pirates. Or worse yet, Sylvia. Yes, he could understand the struthie’s motivation.

  Looking at Keelk, he whistled softly, modulating the sound with care and concluding with a descending series of clicks. She glanced over sharply and responded with a sequence of sounds he could barely make sense of, smiling with her eyes as she vocalized. He did manage to infer the impression that she was grateful for his concern.

  “Her family’s in imminent danger, and here we’ve got the usual old bunch of apatosaurs and styracosaurs and duckbills and humans bickering over what to do. Time is of the essence.” “Did you determine that for yourself,” inquired Chaz sarcastically, “or are you parroting the opin
ions of your father?” “I’m probably mimicking my father.” Will was proud to be Arthur Denisop’s son and was not in the least upset by the comparison.

  One of the senior duckbills, a wrinkled corythosaur, was speaking. “If these intruders do indeed have weapons, and contemporary weapons from the outside world at that, we don’t know what havoc they might be capable of wreaking.” “Yes,” agreed a solemn pachycephalosaur. “Though I sympathize with the plight of this young Strutbiomimus’s family, we must proceed with caution lest many others be injured.”

  “I have been checking with our local historians, and we have no choice but to move carefully.” The respected Norah, matriarch of Treetown, looked tiny, flanked as she was by the maiasaur on one side and the apatosaur on the other. “These intruders might even have with them something called a ‘cannon.’”

  “A ‘cannon’?” queried another of the humans present. “I confess I am not much of a historian. What sort of device might that be?”

  And so the conversation went, digressing into interesting but time-consuming sidelights that were certainly relevant to the matter at hand but which did nothing to accelerate the dialogue or resolve Keelk’s concern.

  “They’ll come to a decision and move,” Will remarked from the shadows, “eventually.” The young struthie chirped at him. He caught only a word or two, but Chaz translated automatically.

  “She says that something must be done right away. She can’t wait and she’s going to go back and do what she can.” “She can’t do anything by herself.” Will found himself staring into the struthie’s wide, limpid eyes, wishing he possessed even a small portion of Chaz’s skill at translation.

  “She doesn’t care.” The Protoceratops shuffled his forefeet. “She says that no matter what happens, at least she’ll be with her family. She feels that she’s discharged her obligation to her parents by coming here and reporting the situation, and that now she’s free to act as she pleases. Even if it seems foolish to us.” “She’s very brave,” Will observed.