"Some have not descended very far," Chiun sniffed.
"Chiun's people think they're descended from the Great Bear that came down from the sky, or something," Remo explained.
"Bears are mammals, too," Nancy said. "But that still doesn't explain why neither of you are sweating in this heat."
"Chiun can explain it better than me."
"We do not sweat because we understand that we do not have to sweat," Chiun said flatly.
"You have to sweat."
"Enemies can smell sweat. To sweat is to die."
"That's a very mammalian sentiment," Nancy said dryly, "but that doesn't change the basic fact that you have to sweat in order to cool your body."
"We sweat when we wish to," Chiun allowed. "In private."
"Sweating is optional," Remo added.
"Are you saying you can stay cool without having to sweat?"
"That's about the size of it," Remo said.
"What you are describing is supermammalian physiology," Nancy said slowly.
In the front seat, Remo and Chiun looked at one another, lifted doubtful eyebrows, and said nothing.
"That would be an amazing adaptive response," Nancy went on.
Remo shrugged. "Hey, what do you expect? We mammals outlived the dinosaurs, didn't we?"
"An accident."
"My foot. Dinosaurs died out for two reasons. They were too slow and too stupid."
"Wrong."
Remo snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah, right. Three reasons. It got too cold. They were cold-blooded. So they couldn't stay warm when the ice age came."
"Wrong again."
"Okay," Remo said sourly, "let's hear your theory."
"It's not my theory. But never mind that. It boils down to an asteriod or comet strike. It threw up dust particles that blocked out the sunlight, killing off the plants that the herbivores subsisted on, and when the carnivores that ate the herbivores had no food source, they died out, too."
"Prove it."
"Geologists have discovered a worldwide layer of iridium deposited in the earth's soil about sixty-five million years ago, coinciding with the end of the Cretaceous, when the dinosaurs began dying off. Iridium is rare on earth, and could only have gotten into the soil from an extraterrestrial object striking the planet and dispersing the particles in the atmosphere. There's a 110-mile crater down in the Yucatan Penninsula called Chicxulub, which is the probable impact point. If you don't believe me, you can look it all up."
"Anything else I should know while my childhood memories are burning to the ground?" Remo said glumly.
Nancy smiled. "Let me see. We now think dinosaurs were smarter than previously believed. And faster. Much faster."
"That thing back there obviously excepted."
"Well, we haven't seen it gallop, but it is possible."
Remo snorted. "Give me a break. It's too fat to gallop."
"You are out of date, aren't you? Apatosaurus is much more agile than the old Brontosaur was thought to be. According to tendon scars found on their fossil skeletons, they could rear up on their hind legs to reach food in the tall conifers and ginkgo trees of the Upper Jurassic."
"Crap. Crap and double crap. That thing would have trouble getting out of bed. It's the original 'I've fallen down and I can't get up' dinosaur. That's why there are no more dinosaurs. They were slow and dumb. Mammals beat them at the evolution game."
"Wrong again. Dinosaurs may have been superior to mammals. At their height, they occupied every ecological niche above the size of a chicken. If not for a cosmic accident, they would still be dominant."
"I don't believe it."
"I don't believe you," Nancy shot back. "You're a grown man and you have the belief system of an eleven-year-old boy."
"I do not believe either of you two," Chiun sniffed. "You are both carrying on like two children, and making less sense. And I do not understand half the words you are speaking."
"Well," Remo said defensively, "any way you slice it, it's not a dragon."
"In that," Nancy said, "you and I are in rare agreement."
"It is an African dragon," said Chiun. "There are Chinese dragons, and English dragons, and African dragons. The meat that sheathes its mighty bones is not important. Only the bones themselves."
"And you may not have one," Nancy said quickly. "Get that through your sweet little skull, please."
"Ingrate."
"What about the one whose name I can never remember," Remo said suddenly. "The lizard with the sail on his back."'
"Dimetrodon?"
"That's him. He was a lizard, right?"
"Oh, I wish you hadn't brought Dimetrodon up."
"Why not?"'
"He's not even considered a dinosaur anymore."
"What was he-blackballed for biting?"
"No, he was an early mammal-like reptile."