In everyone’s life, there are crucial moments that seemed unimportant at the time, but that one looks back on as life-changing events. One of those moments in my life was my first encounter with a highly unusual aircraft. I can look back on it now and see that it ultimately led to the best thing that ever happened to me. But I still wish I had followed my instincts and quit my job, rather than fly that plane.

On that fateful day, I had my first meeting with Naughtenny Moore’s latest client, a film maker named Dino Caproni. He wanted to make a documentary about Cretaceous Argentina, home of Giganotosaurus, the largest carnivorous dinosaur, and Argentinosaurus, the largest dinosaur. He was the heir to a very successful aircraft company, and promised to give the firm its biggest payment yet. However, the offer came with one important string: He would make the film from one of his company’s own planes. I was offered the honor of flying it.

Man, I wish I had quit my job!

I was standing in the company garage along with Carlos, Dianna and Dino, waiting for the plane to arrive, when I looked up and saw a flying saucer descending from the sky. It descended slowly, silently, almost vertically, as if it were being lowered by an invisible pulley. Its mirror-like surface made it shimmer like a disco ball. Dianna, Carlos and I stared in silent shock. I, with my training in aeronautics, had more reason to be startled than they did. Everything I knew about aircraft told me that what I saw was impossible. The craft was moving very slowly, I judged no more than 30 kilometers per hour, and at an angle of over 30 degrees. By all rights, it should have fallen out of the sky. For a moment, I thought that it might be a hovercraft, held aloft by a downward-pointing jet engine. But I already knew that was impossible. It was much too quiet. As we gaped, and Caproni looked on in silent glee, the plane touched down on a maintenance road and rolled for no more than ten meters before coming to a stop.

I ran forward to examine the strange craft. The first thing I noticed was that the skin of the craft was transparent plastic, ten meters wide, and a little short of two meters high. The second thing I realized was that it was not a “flying saucer” in the truest sense. Its shape was more like an egg, with the big end in front. Two vertical fins projected from the dorsal surface. A ducted propeller was in the rear. There was no discrete fuselage. The cockpit was in the center of the craft, and a protruding blister at the front contained space for recording equipment and for two observers, lying on their bellies. The only person in the craft at the moment was a pilot. I noted that he did not look happy.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Caproni. “Aeronautic engineers, they say ‘flying saucer’ not practical. And they mebee right, for most things. But for observation plane, flying saucer ideal. It go real slow, it go straight up or straight down, it practic’ly float in place. Only helicopter do that better, but de helicopter be more expensive, stay up not so long and scare all de animals away with de noise. For de intimate quality I want in my film, de Gossamer Starship is the only way. And I dink you mebee de best man to fly it.”

“Why is that?” I said warily.
“Well, de Starship, she be a great plane. But, she got no tail, and most pilots, dey used to tails, and when dey fly Starship, dey say, “I can’t fly it! It no good!” He glanced pointedly at the pilot who had just vacated the plane. “But you, I know you good pilot, no need tails.”
“I would think you could find someone at least as qualified,” I said.
“Mebee, but where, and for how much? You already work for company, you good wid planes. An’ besides, how many oder people can say dey win dogfight?”
“Do what?” Di said.

“When I was flying planes for the Columbian government, I once survived an attack from a hostile aircraft,” I said. “I can tell you about it some other time. Well, Mr. Caproni, let’s go ahead and get this over with.”

The Gossamer Starship took off after a short run down the runway. As we lifted, I made a grudging mental note that it would be easy to take off in the field, where runways were whatever we could find or make in the dirt. I soon found that it handled well, too, though anyone not experienced with tailless airplanes would have had a hard time. With Dino’s encouragement, I attempted the steep dives that he said it was capable of. It performed excellently. The transparent hull took a little getting used to, but soon I went from nervousness to a kind of euphoria. Together with the low speed and steep ascents and descents, the transparent hull encouraged the feeling that I was truly floating. I soon found myself attempting things beyond what Dino suggested. I did maneuvers which, in any other plane, would have brought me crashing into the ground. By turning into the wind, I even managed to hover in place. “Beautiful! Beautiful!” Caproni gushed.

After I landed, I personally shook Caproni’s hand. “This is the best plane I’ve ever flown!” I said. Looking back, I’m not sure why I felt the way I did. It was mainly the downright ethereal quality of the plane. I think I was also infected with Caproni’s perpetual enthusiasm. I think my mood was encouraged by Dianna’s newly bare ring finger.

Man, I wish I had quit!

That evening, Dino treated the staff to a dinosaur movie marathon, played on the Ora’s built-in video system. They were all very old, with the youngest being a little shy of 90 years old. Most featured dinosaurs created from small models, animated, and then projected against live-action footage to look like full-sized creatures. One was made by the even more primitive method of slapping artificial protuberances on dime store reptiles. Dino skipped to the next film after Carlos and the other paleontologists threw things at the screen.

We all watched with interest, sometimes bemused, sometimes perplexed, and sometimes thrilled with genuine wonder. The best were the two oldest: The Lost World and King Kong. Dino said that they had been made by an animator named Willis O’Brien. The models weren’t that good, especially in the former film, and much of the action was scientifically ludicrous. But I was very impressed, sometimes even unnerved, by the vivid aliveness conveyed through those silly-looking models. O’Brien’s dinosaurs were not impersonal, stone-faced monsters that devoured extras on cue. They were characters that did everything a living animal would. They scratched themselves; they snarled and lashed their tails; they would retreat, as well as attack; they even sneered at each other. At times, I couldn’t help feeling as if O’Brien had really seen the living animals, and then done the best he could to show them within the limitations of his medium.

King Kong got the most reactions. It was a story about an island infested with Mesozoic monsters, and ruled by a twenty-foot-tall ape called Kong. A mildly insane film maker went to the island, accompanied by a band of sailors and one beautiful woman. The woman, naturally, fell into the hands of the ape, first on the island and then in New York City. The paleontologists loved the dinosaur sequences set on the island, usually cheering for the dinosaurs and booing when they were defeated by the humans or the gorilla (though the one mammal specialist felt obliged to cheer for his own kind). Carlos led the wild cheering during an on-screen sauropod attack. While the humans were following Kong in a raft, a swimming sauropod sank their boat, killing four swimmers in the water and chasing the survivors onto land. When the slowest member of the group tried to take refuge in a tree, the sauropod sneered and plucked him out of the tree. The scene ended with the triumphant sauropod with its head to the ground, apparently feeding on its victim. The paleontologists loudly debated the merits of the scene. “It’s plausible enough,” Carlos opined. ‘Sure, sauropods were herbivores, but they still might bite someone to death as a matter of territoriality.”

The paleontologists really went wild over a wrestling match between the title ape and a carnosaur. The combatants punched, grappled and tossed each other in maneuvers that would have killed real animals of their size several times over. Of course, everyone but the mammalogist cheered for the dinosaur. When the dinosaur sprang back to its feet after being tossed, with its tail lashing defiantly, Carlos called out, “Yeah! Show that monkey who’s boss!” Even the mammalogist groaned when the gorilla killed the dinosaur by reaching into its mouth and breaking its jaws. “If that had really happened, the gorilla would have lost his fingers,” Carlos griped.

“You know something?” Carlos said to me after the film. “This expedition is shaping up to be just like King Kong. Think about it. We’re led by a crazy film maker. We’re going to a land filled with dinosaurs. We even have a beautiful damsel and a handsome adventurer.”

“Yeah? Well, we also have a big monkey,” I told him. “Just look in the mirror.”
“Ouch! Harsh, harsh. Too far, Ted,” Carlos said. He seemed to be waiting expectantly for further comment.
Finally, I said, “Look, are you insinuating something?”

“Insinuating? I’m flat out saying it,” Carlos said. “I know how you feel about her.”
“Well, I don’t know what you mean,” I said, feeling flustered.
“The gentleman doth protest too much,” Carlos said, feigning an English accent. “Would you know what I was talking about if I told you she felt the same way?” He laughed. “She thinks about it, too. Not as much, maybe, perhaps not even consciously, but the feeling is there. If you asked her, I think there’s a very good chance she would say yes.”

“Oh, shut up!” I said. “You’re being ridiculous. Besides, even if we did, we couldn’t. We’re professionals and coworkers. And I can’t very well make a move now. She’s hurting. That would be taking advantage of her when she’s vulnerable.”
“Maybe so,” said Carlos. “But that doesn’t mean she’d say no. C’mon. I’m sure I’m not saying anything you haven’t already thought about. You should be asking yourself, why not?”

“You’re imagining things, Carlos,” I said as I walked to my car. He just laughed. On the drive home, and all through the rest of the night, I furiously pondered everything he had said.