Last Dance of the Dimetrodons
A
mountain in Laurasia, in the time before grass
The high valley class was a long climb for two small hatchlings and
Nesta was swaying with impatience as she fell further behind her
sister, when suddenly she saw Grace clamber over the lip of a corrie
and wave her dorsal sail in a happy dance of arrival - they were there!
By the time Nesta caught up Grace was already exchanging gossip in
intricate movements with her friends, before settling in the front row
as Master Turner began to perform the lecture.
His every gesture was precise and elegant as he danced the story of the
fossils found in these mountain rocks, and of course at the climax he
came exactly to the flourish that revealed a fish skeleton, still
embedded in the layered rock but clearly visible once he drew their
attention to it. Grace knew from other classes that land and sea had
changed places in the past, but she still wriggled a sedentary dance of
delighted surprise to see the proof of an image in the stone.
Then, from the distance, came the cry of a sauropsid, unmistakable as
the sound of a hunting predator. Master Turner did not pause in his
narrative, but began to weave into it another thread, knowing that even
these young hatchlings could follow many strands of simultaneous
meaning. He mimed that it must be a captive beast in a nearby fighting
class, where other hatchlings would be learning to distract and confuse
the dangerous reptile with complex motions of their sails, and to
strike and rake at the edge of balance. No single beast was a threat to
them while accompanied by the adult dimetrodon, and no packs could pass
the guards who protected the Valley of Learning.
Meanwhile, in his main thread Master Turner showed the details of the
fish anatomy, explaining how it had changed over time as it evolved
through stages into their own intelligent species. The rigid bones
locking head to shoulders had been replaced by a flexible neck, so the
head could move to convey exquisite shades of meaning. The cold body
had become warmer and more active, able to sustain long complex
choreography. The muscular but clumsy fins had become four fully
articulated legs, able to position the whole body while making the most
subtle independent gestures.
Everything was clear, the long slow progress from animal to sentience
was driven by the need to communicate, to portray thought as movement
of the body so it would pass into other brains - to dance. Producing
and perceiving this rich mixture of movement as meaning had in turn
driven the development of the brain, a runaway cycle of advancement to
the apex of life.
More baying reached the class, but now it was closer, and what was much
worse - it sounded like several different creatures. At this the Master
did interrupt his story, and with a few quick moves dispatched two
hatchlings to run down the valley and bring back more teachers. At the
same time he began to calm the hatchlings, but they saw uncertainty in
his dance of comforting, as he considered whether to move them or try
to defend the rocky corrie.
Suddenly the baying was much closer and now clearly a large pack - the
valley guards must have been overcome or bypassed - and Master Turner
gave raw and ancient alarm signals. They cut through all the
hatchlings' learned semantics to the original vital meanings their
ancestors had first danced out and never forgot -
Predators! Adults Fight! Hatchlings
Scatter!
Nesta ran at once, Grace hesitated for a moment as she saw Master
Turner was going to face the reptile jaws while the others fled, but
his sail was waving in angry threat and he now danced the ultimate
alarms that her instincts could not ignore: she ran too.
Down the valley, now the lizards' baying was mixed with cries of their
wounded pain, they had reached Master Turner and were paying heavily to
bring him down. The hatchlings ran so quickly that only the sails on
their backs were free to gesture their distress in panic ripples.
By the time the hatchlings met their other teachers and guards
the hunters' cries had changed, they were feeding now. Grace found
Nesta and comforted her behind a boulder while the adults battled the
sauropsid pack in a dance to the death.
When Nesta calmed enough to make meaningful movements she signed that
leaving their brood areas to study was too dangerous, and that she
would never allow her own hatchlings to take such risks. But Grace
danced around her in sharp contradiction, negating her caution signs
with sweeping chops of denial. She was inspired rather than discouraged
by Master Turner's sacrifice, she would forgo the life of egg laying
and raising hatchlings and instead become a teacher and scholar
herself. Her offspring would be the dance of ideas.
And
so intelligence began to fade from the Earth, as it had before, as it
would again, and again, and again.