Free Cryptozoica by Mark Ellis

“If there were truly dinosaurs on the island instead of moving models or some other mechanical replicas that can be found at any well-financed theme park or seaside holiday town. There are similar attractions in Brighton.”
    Belleau smiled. “I’d agree entirely, if the creatures in question were fabrications. However, in the instance of Cryptozoica, the dinosaurs were indeed real animals.”
    It required a few seconds for Honoré to fully comprehend the implications of Belleau’s comment. She demanded, “Are you implying that Cryptozoica wasn’t a fraud?”
    “Hardly,” he answered calmly. “I’m implying nothing of the sort. I am announcing to you without fear of repudiation that Cryptozoica is definitely not a fraud. It is the largest of a two-island chain recorded on the old seventeenth and eighteenth century charts as the Tamtungs. Dinosaurid survivors do exist upon it. How many, the actual genus and pedigree remains to be fully documented. Honoré, we want you to be instrumental in that documentation, to tell the world about it and legitimize the discovery.”
    Honoré stared unblinkingly at the image of the bearded man on the screen. Because of the fluttering pixels and grainy reception, it was impossible to tell if Belleau was joking or merely deranged.
    “Aubrey—” She broke off and angrily began to remove the headset. “I don’t know what the bloody hell you’re trying to pull here, but I don’t appreciate it.”
    “I’m completely serious, Dr. Roxton.” Belleau’s voice came as sharp as a whip-crack over the earpiece, causing her to wince. “I can prove what I say. You bloody well know I don’t go in for practical jokes. Foolish waste of time and concentration.”
    Honoré knew he spoke the truth, but she said, “Perhaps not, but you could be the victim of one or fallen prey to a hoax. That was the general consensus of opinion in the scientific community about the Cryptozoica business, right—an elaborate hoax that didn’t quite come off? Who is reviving it now?”
    “No one, because it’s not a hoax.”  Belleau exhaled a slow, weary breath. “I’ll be blunt with you…a handful of people have always known of Cryptozoica’s existence but they also knew that it could conceivably be the single most influential discovery in modern human culture. I know it sounds fantastic, but there it is.”
    ‘It sounds more than fantastic.” Very slowly, very deliberately enunciating each syllable, Honoré said, “It sounds im-pos-si-ble. It’s ridiculous for two scientists such as ourselves to even discuss such a thing.”
    Belleau nodded. “I once felt as you did. But I came to learn that living dinosaurs are not a zoological impossibility, particularly in areas that have been geologically stable for the past sixty million years. Larger ectothermic dinosaurs would have had a more successful chance of thriving in stable, warm, equatorial regions than warm-blooded animals with faster metabolic rates. Ectothermic creatures also require only ten percent of the amount of the food taken in by fully endothermic animals.”
    “I can’t argue that,” Honoré admitted. “But determining dinosaur energetics and thermal biology without studying living models is pure pseudo-scientific speculation, the realm of cryptozoologists, not paleontologists. There’s no evidence that humanity and dinosaurs coexisted, for even a short period of time. The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event occurred 65 million years ago, long before the appearance of the most primitive hominid.”
    “One with an open mind could argue that legends and ancient works of traditional art depict dinosaurs interacting with Man,” replied Belleau. “The Ica stones found in Peru bear carvings of both humans and dinosaurs, not to mention fossilized footprints of hominid and dinosaurid that were found imbedded in rock strata from the same era. There is the carving of an apparent Stegosaur stenops found on a column in Angkor