The Dinosaur Feather(30)

Clive devoured the new journals, convinced that his opponents would go straight for the anatomical discussion. However, apart from two responses written by minor scientists, none of his opponents criticized Clive’s anatomical arguments; instead they focused solely on poor editorial control whose lethargy had allowed Clive Freeman’s original contribution to be published, thus causing a deeply regrettable undermining of the general credibility of the journals. The nature of the relationship between birds and dinosaurs isn’t a subject worthy of a serious medium, because there is nothing to discuss. Birds are present-day dinosaurs. The end.

In thirty-seven different publications.

Clive was consumed by a boiling rage. They were accusing him of incompetence. They were accusing him, Clive Freeman, a world-famous paleobiologist and a professor at the University of British Columbia, of scientific incompetence.

The most arrogant response came, not surprisingly, from Lars Helland who, on this occasion, listed an unknown, Erik Tybjerg, as his coauthor. This undoubtedly meant that Helland had told one of his PhD students to write his contribution. But the worst was yet to come.

The ultimate insult was that Helland’s reaction appeared in Scientific Today.

Clive called Jack immediately to request a meeting.


When Clive saw Jack three days later, he was suffering from an upset stomach. They had arranged to meet at a bar across the street from the office of Scientific Today, and Jack was already there when Clive arrived. He was wearing dark trousers and a thin T-shirt, and a newspaper rested on his casually arranged legs. Clive’s stomach lurched when Jack looked up, and he stared at Jack’s lips. Clive slammed the journal on the table.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded.

“Clive, there are five other people on the editorial committee besides me,” Jack said quietly.

Clive turned on his heel and left.


In the autumn of 2001 Clive was a guest speaker in Chicago. Normally, he kept strictly to material from The Birds, but the American audience was remarkably receptive, and Clive expanded on his feather argument. Asymmetrical feathers were linked to flight in present-day birds, and dinosaurs hadn’t had feathers—obviously—first, because they didn’t fly, second, because they were cold-blooded animals, and third: “Can you imagine Jurassic Park—with chickens?”

His joke brought the house down. Clive concluded with a challenge: “Show me a feathered dinosaur, and I will personally beg forgiveness from every advocate of the dinosaur theory!” He flapped his arms like a bird trying to take off. The laughter refused to die down.

That night, Clive drank too much white wine before he staggered back to his hotel room. The next morning, he woke up with a dreadful taste in his mouth and grabbed a soda from the minibar. While he was drinking it, he switched on the television and found CNN. For a fraction of a second, he thought he must be the victim of a cruel hoax. To the right of the anchor was a huge photograph, which, to Clive, looked like a dinosaur with clearly visible feathers.

At that moment, the anchor cut to a CNN reporter who announced, with cracked lips as though he had trekked all the way to Asia, that he was in the Liaoning Province in northeastern China.

“This is a sensation,” the reporter panted. “Early this morning farm workers discovered what might be the world’s first feathered dinosaur. Tonight, the first experts have already reached the area, and a few minutes ago they confirmed that the newly discovered fossil is not a prehistoric bird but a predatory dinosaur belonging to the Theropod family. The animal is believed to have lived between 121 and 135 million years ago, and the exciting feature is that it has fossilized but extremely well-preserved feathers running down in a ridge from its head and along its back. The tantalizing questions here in northeastern China are these: were dinosaurs able to fly and were they warm-blooded, or are these feathers astonishing proof that feathers weren’t only used for flying but also for insulation? We’ll know more once the experts have had a chance to examine this thrilling discovery in detail. Back to the studio.”

Clive stared at the screen for nearly twenty minutes. Then he crushed his soda can.

Kay greeted him with a nervous smile when he came back to Vancouver. The telephone had rung constantly all morning and please would he call . . . and she reeled off the names of everyone from his colleagues at the department to national television stations. Jack hadn’t called.

Clive made himself a sandwich, gave Kay’s cheek a reassuring pat, and went to his study. Calmly, he ate his sandwich. The discovery in China was obviously a prehistoric bird, not a dinosaur. Dinosaurs didn’t have feathers. He downloaded forty-eight e-mails and skimmed through them. With irritation, he opened one from Lars Helland. Typical. The Danish scientist just had to put his oar in, in his usual affable manner, of course, so that it might be mistaken for good-natured banter. Clive deleted the e-mail.