dragon histories

An X-ray beam inside the ancient stone spreads out, reflects a fan of angled peeks inside the fossil Archaeopteryx, at feathers anchored to its hollow bones. A flock of robots wavers in the sky. Their plastic exoskeletons owe much to this clawed beast no human hand may touch. Far from the first of vertebrates to fly, it seized a happy accident's design, leapt from a limb and, reaching, did not fall - spread wings which are but ghostly shadows now. Will our experiments leave such a sign, set down in text or chipped from limestone wall, when dragons turn to ask their histories - how?