8

See part one for explanation and disclaimers. I don't own 'Dinotopia', James Gurney does. Hallmark still owns the characters and I'm still not profiting from this. Hope you're enjoying this. Still recommended for teens and up for action/violence and mild language.

The problem with the theory of growing wiser with age was that, in the interim between "youth" and "wisdom", there was plenty of time to really screw up your life, especially where your children were concerned. Frank Scott was beginning to understand this towards the end of his fourth decade on the planet. He was feeling the 'older' part, particularly since landing on this island-that-time-forgot, but he wasn't sure how quickly the 'wiser' part was coming along.

Karl didn't make things easier…in fact there were times that Frank was almost positive his older son went out of his way to drive him crazy.

"This is another whim, Karl. This is another 'dad hates it, so it must be a good idea' Karl special."

"You might not believe it, Dad, but I don't plan my every move in life just to piss you off."

"What do you expect? You want me to be thrilled that my son's flying around on some overgrown lizard with nothing but that flimsy uniform between him and the ptera-whatever-you-call-them? Should I dance for joy that you're using yourself as live bait for the T-Rex? I spent two months in that cave thinking you and Jack drowned. I didn't get you back so you could risk your life for this place."

"This place, this job, is important, Dad. It's important to me. You don't even want to try to understand."

"I understand that you think you're going to stay committed to this, Karl, but I know you. In a couple of months, you're going to realize that dino-riding doesn't make your happy and move on to the next big obsession. I just don't want you getting killed for your hobby in the meantime."

'Hobby!' "No, you're the one who can't handle sticking with something, Dad. You want to know why none of those sports, those 'extreme weekends', the summer camps, the 'guys' nights out', the chasing girls in ever port, none of that stuff ever made me happy? Because that's the stuff that's important to you and Jack, not to me. I hate sports, I hate camping…I'm a nerd. I like reading my books and my science projects and 'Buck Rogers' marathons on the Sci-Fi channel. I don't want to be a jock, or a skirt chaser, or anything of those things you are. I for sure wouldn't knock up a girl and then ditch her and go knock up another girl. And I really don't need to have you give me that disappointed look you give me every time I never measured up to your expectations."

"Don't act like a martyr, kid, you weren't the easiest person to get along with. I tried being friends with you and all I got was the back of your head while you had your nose stuck in those books and those science projects…"

"You have to have something in common to be friends."

"Thank you Dr. Phil. I was there for the important stuff. Could you ever not call me if you needed me? I was there when your mother died."

"I could've gone to live with grandma and grandpa." It would have been better than dealing with his father's "grief through denial" attitude and Jack's…well, Jack's complete absence due to his equal inability to cope the minute life got difficult.

"Like hell you could have. You're my son, my responsibility."

"Well, I'm staying with the corps even if you don't approve as usual. I'm not your 'responsibility' any more."

"You're still my son, aren't you?"

Frank had become a master of sticking his foot in his mouth when trying to communicate with his older son. He'd never had a problem talking with Jack, and, hell, for that matter, Frank could communicate with the outsider kid better than he could with Karl. Carol had known how to keep some sort of truce between her son and his father, but, without her help, Frank was fumbling along as best he could. Frank was stubborn and kept trying, but, unfortunately, Karl had inherited his father's obstinacy and gave it back in spades when he got his mind set to doing something. The kid worried him, though. Karl spent his life bouncing from one obsession to the next, one friend to the next, one club to the next, never settling anywhere and never finding his niche. Frank knew the kid was unhappy in the corps and was probably sticking it out only for Marion's sake, being so set on impressing her.

Whatever it was that Karl was looking for, whatever he felt was missing from his life, his father sure hoped Marion could fill up the void because Frank was damned if he knew how to do it.

Karl had been right about one thing: Frank's parenting skills had been somewhat wanting for the first few years of the boys' lives. He knew he'd been irresponsible back then, had still had a wandering foot that itched, a sex drive that wouldn't be satisfied by just one woman when there was a world full of lovely ladies out there, and parenting skills that were lacking at best. He'd been so enthralled with the idea of having a son that when he'd finally started hanging around with Karl, he'd had started imposing all the things he wanted his oldest son to be onto the boy's shoulders. Frank had rebelled when his own father had tried to mold him in his own image, but somehow he still managed to be surprised when Karl reacted the same way to Frank's efforts.

He was supposed to be better at dealing with his sons by now, wasn't he?

Despite many invitations to the tavern, Frank hadn't seen Karl in the last few weeks, not since that argument. Frank half-expected that Jack would let it slip that their father was staying at Flippeau's that evening and Karl would high-tail it back to Canyon City without ever stepping foot in the house. As another hour ticked by with no sign of his sons, Frank began seriously considering taking a "bus" (Lord give him strength living in a place where heaping people onto the backs of giant dinosaurs and proceeding at a snail's pace through the forest constituted 'public transportation') to Canyon City.

Then he heard the tavern door creak open. Frank didn't need to ask who it was---the squeal of joy from Twenty-Six and the speed at which the baby casmasaur launched herself from her bed beneath the table and charged across the room to greet the newcomer told him who had arrived. Jack let out a bark of annoyance and pain—undoubtedly nipped again---and a familiar voice mumbled something meant to sooth ruffled baby dinosaurs in response.

The tiny dinosaur's body already had some weight and muscle to it, and she nearly knocked Karl down like a bowling pin when she attempted to wrap herself around his legs. "Easy there, Dino! I'm glad to see you, too," Karl smiled. He scooped up Twenty-Six and tucked her under his arm before she tried to head-butt his leg with that thick skullcap of hers to get his attention. "What's the matter, girl? Jack did you leave her alone all day again?"

Jack craned his neck, spying the figure approaching from the living room before his brother did. "No! I left her with her grandpa."

At that, Karl suddenly looked up from the baby casmasaur he was holding and froze. He didn't have time to react, much less put down Twenty-Six and head back out the door, before he heard a response to Jack's words:

"For the last time, I am not her 'grandpa'," Frank insisted.

Karl tensed involuntarily at Frank's voice. It was amazing how his dad's mere presence could still twist him in knots as an adult the way it had when Karl was a kid. He gave Jack a withering glare. "You are so dead," he whispered.

"Oops, look at that, forgot to feed Twenty-Six. I'd better get to it." Jack bolted for the safety of the guest room, getting out of the line of fire, but forgetting to take the dinosaur with him.

Karl resigned himself to the inevitable. "You two tricked me."

"That's a helluva greeting," Dad countered.

"I'm kind of in the middle of something."

"So Jack tells me. Sit down for one minute, kid, you look like you're going to fall over. Have you slept---"

Karl turned towards the door. "I really don't have time…"

"Make time." Frank kicked a chair from the small dining table towards his son to press his point. Karl balked, but grudgingly sat…or rather, sagged…onto the seat. Frank sat across the table from him. "I realize that you're a skybax rider now, but that doesn't mean you can't visit your family."

"Can we not have this argument again?" Karl asked. He hadn't been to the tavern in a couple of months, even though there was a room upstairs for his use any time he felt like staying. Karl preferred his quarters at the riders' base for just this reason---too much time together invariably lead to another row between the two of them.

Well, that wasn't going to happen this time. Karl was resolved to be in and out in only the time it took for Frank to say him whatever had made him come all the way to Flippeau's house from the tavern.

"I'm not arguing. I'm just saying I'd like to see my oldest son once in awhile. You're never around."

"Like father, like son, right?"

"Now who's starting an argument?" Frank fired back. Karl held up both hands and Frank relented. "So, you had another run in with Barrett yesterday?"

"Yeah, your buddy robbed the Sanctuary. He took off with Marion's sunstone medallion. Nice patrons, by the way, Dad. So, like I said, I'm in kind of a rush to find him---"

"Sit down!" Frank commanded and Karl plopped back into the seat at once. "Do me a favor: When I tell you what I'm going to tell you, don't try to charge in by yourself like James Bond or Batman and take on a whole pack of Outsiders by yourself. I'm not going to tell you if it means you getting yourself killed. You're supposed to be the sensible one in the family, so be sensible and get help. Agreed?"

Karl shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

"Karl…"

"Fine. Agreed."

"Barrett and Le Sage have got a meeting with an Outsider named Gabriel Dane sometime tomorrow. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with that necklace he stole from Marion."

Karl knew of Dane…and he knew Marion had a run in with him months back while Karl and Jack were busy dealing with Cyrus. She'd told him the entire story, and the notion of Dane mistreating her still made Karl's skin crawl. He was probably the only outsider on the island whom the skybax rider despised more than Barrett. "And you're actually telling me about it?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Frank sounded offended.

"I just meant---you always say you don't like to get into the affairs of your patrons…"

"And I don't like my patrons messing with my sons or their friends," Frank added. It was true---Frank liked Marion very much. Her welfare was important to Karl, so it was important to Frank as well. He didn't voice his other concern, but privately he was also worried about the Outsider kid. Dane was dangerous and his grudge against Barrett was common knowledge among the packs, which meant that it was also common knowledge to the proprietor of their favorite hangout. Frank doubted Barrett would fare any better against Dane on his own than Karl would. Frank would rather see the skybax riders arrest him or whatever they did than leave him to Dane's pack.

Karl actually looked pleased, just for a second or two. "Where are they meeting Dane?"

"Can't help you there. All I know is it's a beach. Barrett said it was the one where Dane gave him that scar over his eyebrow. Don't ask me what that means 'cause I don't have a clue."

"That's a lot of beaches to check." Marion might know. Karl would ask her. He and Romana had already come up empty looking for Barrett at Le Sage's that day---it wasn't like the outsider could hide that albino pterosaur, even in her castle. His instincts had been right, though, Barrett had been heading to Le Sage's. Karl must have just missed him. It was too late to go back there now, but the castle went to the top of his list of places to stakeout in the morning.

"Dane's dangerous, Karl. That's why I made you promise not to go alone. Don't mess with him unless you----well, don't mess with him period." Frank was still explaining, "I do know Dane's been spending a lot of time around Gull's Bay and Zuru. Barrett's been in that area, too. I can't say for sure, but since he made a point of taking that sunstone…and some of the things he's said around here…I think Barrett might have it in his head to try to cross the Razor Reef."

Of course. Karl should have thought about that way before now, he kicked himself mentally. Suddenly, the reason for the robbery clarified: Barrett wanted Cyrus' submarine. If Dane had found it first, then the medallion was Barrett's leverage. It would serve the obnoxious outsider right if Karl just left him to Dane, or better still let him crash into the Razor Reef…or maybe they'd all get real lucky and Dane would drop Barrett into a hole somewhere…

Frank read his mind. "You understand that would be a bad thing, right?"

"I s'pose." Karl rose from the table and headed to the door. "I guess I'll tell Romana and Marion. First thing tomorrow, we'll go get the annoying sonu---"

"Karl…"

"Kidding!" He paused in the doorway. "Thanks, Dad."

"You should come around the tavern more often. You might hear these rumors for yourself," Frank chided gently. "Besides, it would be nice to see you once in awhile."

Karl grinned this time. "We'll see." Then he was gone.

Frank sighed. I guess that's a start.

One of the things Romana Denison liked about flying was the quiet times. Certainly, there were hair-raising moments when the riders were called upon to rescue citizens from carnosaurs, which almost always meant physically putting themselves between the dangerous creatures and the bystanders to give the civilians time to escape. When called upon, Romana was afraid, of course, but she never hesitated. She was a Denison, after all. She came from a long line of skybax riders, all of whom had earned the respect and praise of their wingmates. She even used the saddle her father, a legend among the riders, had used during his time in the corps. She had been preparing all her life to accept the dangers that came with the job.

But there were other moments to off set the perilous times. Being in the sky, alone on the back of her pterosaur, with the wind making any communication between riders, other than a sort of sign language, impossible, was the time when she felt most at peace. She was away from the boisterous crowd in the common areas of the base, away from the bustle of the city, with time to think…for a great deal of thinking, in fact.

As she waited outside the house, Romana's thoughts---as they frequently did lately---turned to her wingmate. They weren't romantic thoughts in any way. It was true that bonding between riders was commonplace, the byproduct of long hours or days at a time spent together on patrols and missions, and Karl had the qualities Romana would have found attractive in a prospective lover---kindness, courage, intelligence, determination, and dedication to the corps and to the island and its people. For all those things he'd earned her unwavering friendship, and she would have his back no matter what. But she'd still never quite had those feelings about her wingmate. Besides which, even if Romana had the slightest inclinations towards bonding with him, it had been apparent to her since the first day he'd arrived in Canyon City that Karl was whole-heartedly enamored of the matriarch's daughter, Marion…even if he was obviously going to need a swift kick in the seat of his pants to get him to pluck up the courage to ask her to the Dawn Festival.

No, they weren't romantic thoughts preoccupying Romana. She was worried about Karl Scott.

Like Romana, most skybax riders knew from childhood that the corps was where they belonged. The sky called to their souls, and youth was spent impatiently searching for any means to get airborne until the day came when they were finally dubbed "of the Sky" and called to Canyon City for training. A few riders, those who hadn't fully heard the call within their soul, were directed to the corps by Rosemary or Sanctuary Keepers. Such riders might start off with doubts, but with encouragement usually overcame such doubts. Invariably, the corps became their lives and they were quite happy there. The ones who couldn't get over doubts and fear were ultimately weeded out by their trainers or rejected by the pterosaurs. A prospective rider unable to find a pterosaur to accept him was dismissed from the corps. A very, very few people with such doubts had enough raw determination to make it through the training and to even find a pterosaur, but invariably they were never quite happy in the corps afterwards.

That was what had worried Romana more and more over the past few weeks since she'd become Karl's wingmate: He wasn't happy. Karl was a great rider, one of the best in fact, but his heart wasn't in it. She felt it intuitively in her own heart; she saw it in his eyes in moments when he let his guard down.

Romana suspected his family was one of the sources of his unhappiness in the corps. She knew what it was like to deal with family expectations, but in Karl's case, his father's plans for his son had never included landing on Dinotopia much less having his son occupying the single most dangerous job on the island. The harder Frank Scott tried to persuade his son to abandon the corps for something safer, the more determined Karl was to stay.

There was also Marion, and Karl's infatuation with her, to consider. It was Marion's family who placed Karl in the corps, and if it impressed the girl, then Karl would probably stay in the corps until he was old and gray, miserable the entire time. Just look how he was ready to hunt down that thief who'd made the mistake of stealing Marion's sunstone.

Romana was ready to hunt him down as well, but for her own reasons: She despised thieves. She'd been raised to do her share for the well-being of the island, to believe in the rules and tradition of the Dinotopians. Those rules and traditions, the need for everyone to work together, was what enabled people to survive on the island. A rider who didn't follow rules got other riders killed. A civilian who didn't follow the rules lived off the labors of others. Anyone who was too lazy or otherwise unwilling to pull their own weight, who didn't respect the rules of the island, annoyed her deeply. That was one reason she frequently lost her temper with Jack, who was more adept at sleeping than working. But, with Karl, it wasn't the fact that the thief defied Dinotopian law that drove him, nor was it because the medallion was a Dinotopian artifact---Karl wanted to catch the thief simply because he'd stolen from Marion.

She'd have to speak to Karl. If she didn't, she knew Udo would. But it was going to have to wait until the more important matter of retrieving the medallion was resolved. After an exhausting day of combing the island, unsuccessfully, in search of the outsider, she was ready for her bunk at the base. She lingered in Waterfall City only long enough to deliver the days reports to Waldo and Rosemary and was just climbing onto her skybax when she heard her wingmate calling her. She'd left Karl and Jack at Flippeau's and hadn't expected to see him until morning. Whatever it was must have been important.

"Romana!"

She saw Karl jogging towards her. From the look on his face, he had good news. Romana had put her troubled thoughts to rest.

"Glad I caught you." He took a minute to catch his breath. "You're not going to believe this, but I think I just got the 411 on our outsider buddy."

Another off-worlder expression, but at least it was one Romana was now familiar with. "From who?"

"My dad."

Romana couldn't hide her surprise. Karl grinned---an expression he didn't often wear these days, especially after he'd been talking to his father. "Hope you're up for a trip to the coast in the morning."

She returned his grin. "Always."