Dinotopia - Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster
Well, he would find out soon enough. Presently it was the meteorological station and its readings that intrigued him. A really serious storm might interrupt his training, though as Nal-lab had once told him, “Sometimes the inimical is more instructive than the benign. In between screams, try to pay attention.” Reaching a decision, he swung out of the hammock and left the guesthouse. A flying fox was utilized to cross long distances between trees, and it was this device he settled into in order to travel directly to the weather tree. A woven wicker chair was suspended from an overhead cable fashioned of fine strands of strong rope. Settling into the seat, he proceeded to pull himself along hand over hand, his legs dangling in open space. The hard ground lay seventy feet below.
Climbing out of the suspended chair, he walked along a branch lined with handrails until he was standing near the trunk. Tilting back his head, he was able to make out an ascending series of ladders and rope tunnels. These vanished into a smear of rust-colored bark and green needles. The weather platform was firmly secured to the tree’s crown, more than four hundred feet above the ground.
Two older men were working nearby, repairing rigging. A third sat in an open-sided shed, recording information in a thick book. Sensing the eyes of the first two on him, Will walked over to the side of the shed. Looking up, the inscriber noticed the emblem sewn into the shoulder of his visitor’s shirt and smiled politely.
“Something I can do for you, apprentice?”
Will returned the smile and gestured upward. “Is weather-caster Linyati taking the evening’s readings?”
The recorder nodded. “Yar, he’s up there, like a bird in its nest. He’ll be down soon, if you want to talk to him.”
“No.” Will tilted his head as far back as it would go in a
futile attempt to penetrate the grandfather redwood’s upper recesses. “I want to go up.”
“D’you, now, lad?” The wizened scribe scrutinized his young visitor closely. “Have you done it before, then?”
“This’ll be my first time.”
“I see. If you don’t mind my asking, what d’you want to go to the top of a mere tree for, you bein’ a skybax rider already and all?”
Will smiled at him. “Because I haven’t done it before.” “Obviously not afraid of heights,” the oldster murmured. “Climbing’s not the same as lying athwart a soft saddle, though. If you fall, the tree won’t dive down to catch you.”
“I know. That’s another reason why I want to do it.”
The recorder grinned. “Have at it, then, apprentice, and good luck to you.”
Will reached for the first rung of the bottom ladder and paused. “Linyati won’t mind, will he?”
“Mind?” The recorder swirled his pen in its shallow jar of ammonite ink. “He never gets any company up there.”
“Some people don’t like company.”
Mildly irritated, the old man gestured with his free hand. “D’you want to talk or climb? Get along up with you, apprentice! What d’you think, that Tswana’s a rogue from the Rainy Basin? He’ll be glad of the visit.” With that the scribe returned his attention to the work at hand.
Will nodded, took a deep breath, and resumed his ascent, careful always to keep at least one hand or foot on the guide ropes at all times.
In places he climbed through a tunnel of cables that swayed with his weight. As he moved higher the wind strengthened, until the oppressive humidity of the past few days was reduced to a discomfiting memory. This was fortunate, because he was sweating heavily. Peering down, he discovered he could no longer see the ground, or even the recorder’s perch: only a confusing tangle of leaves and branches. Someone afraid of heights could never have done it. Accustomed to executing complex maneuvers on the back of a giant Quetzalcoatlus, Will was in his element.
Six years ago almost to the day, he’d astounded the crew of a transoceanic sailing craft by scampering boyishly to the top of the mainmast at the height of the howling storm that had eventually cast him and his father adrift on these dinosaurian shores. The weatherwood was taller than that mast, but much steadier.
At last he could see the observation platform, constructed itself of sturdy redwood planks, and climbed the last few woven rungs to the top. Few needles brushed his cheeks now, and branches were sparse. Emerging onto the rough-hewn surface, he straightened as he hailed the weathercaster.
Linyati turned to greet his visitor, a broad grin creasing his dark face. “Will Denison, isn’t it?” He extended a hand palm out, which Will grasped in his own. “I’m Linyati, six mothers Tswana,” he said in the traditional Dinotopia greeting. I’ve heard of you.”
“And I of you.” The weathercaster wasn’t much older than himself, Will decided. Mid- to late-twenties, perhaps.
Linyati chuckled. “I’d heard you were a quick study. Pick up names as well as information, do you?”
Will shrugged, at once embarrassed and flattered. “When your father is a scientist you learn to remember everything.” Gratefully he turned his face to the cooling breeze. It was much more comfortable up here atop the canopy than down on the ground.
In the distance the high peaks of the Backbone Mountains were clearly visible. Beyond, thanks to Dinotopia’s pristine, unpolluted air, he could just make out the snowcapped crags of the higher Forbidden Mountains, hovering like pale dreams at the edge of perception.
A speck of wind-borne dust landed in his left eye and he turned away, blinking. “What do the readings say?”
Linyati glanced down at his writing tablet. Shipwrecked Chinese had introduced the art of papermaking to Dinotopia hundreds of years before it reached Europe. Their descendants had raised it to an art form. Papermaking parties were an important social event among many notable families. Nor was anyone who wanted to participate left out. Dinosaurs shared enthusiastically in the pulping process.
“There’s a storm coming. No question about that.” Linyati flipped pages. “A big storm. What we’re trying to decide is just how big.”
Will looked to the north. Even from the weather platform you couldn’t see the ocean from mountain-locked Treetown, though it was possible to do so from Bent Root.
“Obviously the master weathercasters think it’s big enough to warrant a mass evacuation of the Northern Plains. Is the danger really that great?”
“It’s a traditional precaution,” Linyati explained. “Why do you think there are no large towns in the Northern Plains, no permanent settlements?” He shrugged. “It may be nothing will happen. There will certainly be heavy rain and localized flooding, and probably some wind damage. Anything more extensive is hard to predict, which is why the guild wants the information on local conditions continuously updated.” He tapped his tablet with a stylus. “That’s my job, and the job of other observers.”
“What happens if it turns out to be a really big storm?” Linyati lost his smile. “If it’s a once-in-a-generation Norther, then you’ll surely see something.”
“What?”
“Hard to say.
Will made a face. “For a follower of a supposedly scientific discipline, you’re not very specific.”
“It’s hard to be specific where the weather is concerned, and I’d rather not commit myself. Not for a week or so, anyway. Come back then and ask me again.”
“The last six-year storm was what shipwrecked my father and I on the northwest coast near the Hatchery. It’s hard to imagine a storm bigger than that one.”
Linyati’s smile returned. “You may think you’ve seen a major storm. A six-year tempest is something, to be sure. A once-in-a-generation storm is, well, something else.”
“Have you been through one of those?”
“No, but I’ve read about them. Let us pray it will not be so.” His attention dropped to his tablet. “The signs are not good.”
Will would have pressed the observer further, but Linyati had asked him to wait a week. It would have been impolite to continue.
“You’re a skybax rider, I see.” Linya
hundred-foot drop on the other side. “That’s right. Fully qualified apprentice.”
“I thought as much.” Moving to a strange instrument situated in the center of the platform, Linyati began to check the fluid levels in multiple glass vials. The device allowed weathercasters to monitor changes in atmospheric pressure, making sure to allow for Treetown’s altitude in their calculations.
“Your avocation explains how you were able to make the climb up here.” Linyati jotted numbers on his tablet. “The height is too much for most people.”
“It’s something that’s never bothered me,” Will replied. “I’ve always been lucky that way. Back in Boston I used to climb out on top of the highest church steeples.” He chuckled at the memory, part of an earlier life already half forgotten. “The deacons would call the police, and I’d run away over the rooftops before they could catch me.”
“Everyone has his own fears,” Linyati added. “In my family, there are old stories of giant crocodiles overturning dugouts and eating fishermen. Can you imagine what my ancestors must have thought when they fetched up here and saw their first dinosaurs?” He laughed gently at the memory.
“My father and I were afraid, too, when we had our first encounter. That was before we came to know dinosaurs. Funny how intelligence changes your perception of someone, even if that someone has spikes and claws and weighs as much as a fishing schooner.” Will thought of his genial, patient skybax, the great-winged Cirrus. “Or looks at first like a gargoyle set free from the top of some cathedral.” “Dinotopia teaches everyone to look beneath the surface.” Linyati shifted to the other side of the barometric device. “It’s what’s inside that makes a person, even if that person weighs fifty tons.
“Fortunately, my ancestors encountered civilized dinosaurs right away. Can you imagine their reaction if they’d come first upon the carnosaurs of the Rainy Basin? An allosaur would munch crocodiles for breakfast.”
Will nodded agreement as he looked back out over the treetops. “However big it’s going to be, when do you think the storm is going to hit?”
“Can’t say. Despite what you may think, weathercasting isn’t an exact science yet, though we hope that someday it will be.” He raised his eyes to the clear blue sky. “If only we could look down from higher up than the mountaintops. Attach a telescope to a balloon, perhaps, and somehow relay what it sees back to the ground.” He lowered his gaze. “An unworkable notion, of course.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Crossing his forearms on the railing, Will rested his chin on the support they formed. “My father thinks that through science a great many things are possible. Maybe even a flying telescope.” A glimmer of excitement sparked his suggestion. “What if I were to take one up on a skybax?”
Linyati considered. “You know, you may have something there, young Denison. As you are aware, the winds that circle Dinotopia are treacherous, but who knows? In my family there is a saying: ‘It is better to have the wit of a mongoose than the heart of a lion.’ I will pass your idea along to my superiors.”
Will wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or not. Didn’t he also have the heart of a lion? Putting the question aside, he and Linyati fell to discussing how a covey of specially trained skybax riders equipped with proper instruments might add to the body of Dinotopian meteorological knowledge.
“Sky galleys are not as agile as the skybax,” Will noted, “but they can stay up longer. What if you could send one really high?”
“What about the winds higher up?” Linyati argued. “How would you control such a craft, and what would happen when the air grew too thin to breathe?”
“My father has devised machinery that allows you to breathe underwater. Surely such equipment would work just as well at altitude?”
Deep in conversation, they paid no attention to a fleeting gust of wind that whipped through the top of the redwood, rustling needles and jolting the mercury in the main thermometer. The gust was a harbinger, a scout, a forerunner of winds to come.
Far out to sea, well to the northeast of Dinotopia, the storm was gathering strength in its headlong rush southward. It was dark and intense, and it pushed heavy seas before it like the hand of an angry god. Already it was stronger than a six-year storm, stronger even than a once-in-a-twenty-year storm.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime storm, and its like had not struck Dinotopia in over a hundred years.
“I’M WORRIED ABOUT THE BOY, NALLAB.”
Hands resting on the smooth sill, Arthur Denison stood staring out the high window of the library. The ever-present rumble of falling water echoed through his head. A set of the colorful ear dampers that were part of the apparel of every resident of Waterfall City reposed untouched in his pants pocket. They came in many designs, colors, and thicknesses and were worn as much for ornamentation as for practicality. He chose not to insert them. If he wanted peace and quiet, he could always shut the window.
“What, what’s that?” The aged third assistant librarian wandered over, removing his own dampers and automatically raising his voice as he did so. Living surrounded by waterfalls, longtime residents of the city were able to adjust their voices to varying conditions as skillfully as opera singers. Within the thick walls of the library, it was rarely necessary to shout.
“I said that I’m concerned about Will.”
“Tcb, I wouldn’t worry about him.” The librarian possessed the ability to concentrate on two entirely unrelated subjects at the same time; Arthur could see him mentally filing and sorting even as he participated fully in the conversation. “He’s an unusual boy, your Will.”
Arthur turned back to the view through the window. “He’s up at Treetown, and that’s awfully close to where the storm’s supposed to come onshore.”
“If it comes onshore.” Nallab wagged an admonitory finger at his friend. “The center could miss Dinotopia entirely and then all we’ll get is some wind and a lot of rain, which we can always use.” He frowned slightly and began searching a nearby table piled high with ancient scrolls. “Now, where did I lay that Finale by Homer? You’d think that after all these centuries we’d finally have that overflow from the library at Alexandria sorted out.”
Arthur sighed and waited for Nallab to find what he was looking for. The shelves that lined the great domed room were filled to the ceiling. Many of the works he was looking at had been lost to the outside world. Others were utterly unknown, being the product not of human but of Dinosaurian origin. There was history, fiction, poetry, music: a wealth of inspiration and scholarship that would take many lifetimes just to casually peruse.
Everything was safe here, too. Unlike the ignorant and barbaric elsewhere, the citizens of Dinotopia did not burn or censor their libraries, even when they disagreed with their contents.
“I know he’s been out on his own for a while.” Arthur absently fiddled with the ends of his mustache, which in the past six years had become flecked with white. “But we’ve never been so far apart in a situation like this.”
Outside, the sky over Waterfall City was clear, with only upwellings of the omnipresent mist to occasionally mute the sunlight.
Nallab glanced up from his scroll searching and spoke in his distinctively direct manner. In the outside world it might have been taken for rudeness, but here it was understood for the honesty it represented.
“Well, then, Arthur, it’s about time he dealt with a crisis or two on his own, without your advice. How old is he now— seventeen?”
“Eighteen.”
“You don’t say, you don’t say? Excellent! One more strong back to help with the evacuation. There’s much to be done up there, you know. Just in case.”
Again Arthur turned from the window. “I understand it’s already under way.”
“Oh, yes! A necessary precaution. It’s traditional, you know.”
“Why not wait until the weathercasters know for certain?” Nallab’s perpe
“What sort of ‘things’?”
“Well, for example there is the ...” Nallab broke off, trading words for gestures. “Come with me and I’ll show you some pictures. There are excellent drawings and some fine watercolors.” He put a hand on the other man’s shoulder.
“Maybe I should go up to Treetown and see for myself?” Nallab urged his friend toward the door. “Now, Arthur, leave the boy be. He can take care of himself, and if you’re constantly looking over his shoulder, you’ll only embarrass him. Young men must learn by mistake as much as by success. You can’t understand the latter without having first experienced the former.”
Arthur Denison looked down at the man he knew to be far wiser than himself. “Nallab, he’s all I have. Through him I still feel connected to his mother.”
“I understand,” said Nallab gently. “Not to disabuse you of compassionate memories, but weren’t you and that flute player on the path to becoming more than just good friends?” “Oriana?” Arthur smiled. “She’s a fine woman. We see each other.”
Nallab’s index finger wagged again. “I think she’d be a fine match for you. High-spirited, as I recall.”
“Very high-spirited.” Arthur’s smile widened.
At that moment Enit came bounding in. The head librarian was tapping his fingers together. As they happened to terminate in long claws, this action generated a regular, almost musical clicking sound. It was a habit remaining from the days when the Deinonycbus’’s ancestors used to grasp prey instead of ideas. The long, sickle-shaped claw on his second toe tap-tapped impatiently against the floor.
“Well, what is it?” Even as he spoke to his superior, Nallab was winking at Arthur. Enit’s fussiness was a source of much good-natured humor among the library staff.