Discovery

by Douglas E Roff

  “I have a Dad and he’s not you, thank God. “’Old man’ was the nicest thing I could think of to call you, so that’s what I’m going with. You know, Adam used to call you his ‘crazy old man’ all the time but that sounded more like an apt description than an endearing nickname. So be happy it isn’t worse, old man.”

  “Sadly, I couldn’t be more delighted, which, I guess, only proves your point. And Adam’s.”

  Bitsie interrupted, “Can we wind up story time with you two for now and get down to business? Or do you need more time to reminisce? Maybe a story about your last family get together with Adam. Oh, that’s right, he didn’t show.”

  “Jeez girl, what’s it like having to wake up every day and be you, Bitsie. Maybe you can get past seventh grade and get started with the grown-up business at hand.”

  Bitsie ignored Hannah, then began, “I have already done a thorough inventory of the materials secured by Adam in Tucson, which were sealed in six forty-foot, ocean going containers and stored in a temperature-controlled warehouse.”

  Edward interrupted, “Which are now located where?”

  “In a secure building across the river in Vancouver, Washington. I haven’t digitised any of the primary source documents yet, per your instructions Edward. I have digitised and uploaded to a Stage One computer some of the contents of the first three boxes in crate one of container one. That includes the Book, Beneviste’s Diary, the Master Inventory List we found and a few of the individual ‘box content descriptions’. Beneviste prepared and secured an inventory list in an envelope taped to the top of each box. The dude was thorough and exceedingly well organized.”

  “How many boxes are there?” Edward asked.

  “Well over five thousand, if I had to guess. All documents are in numbered and inventoried plastic, stackable bankers’ boxes. The content descriptions are in English and three other modern languages, together with a language I don’t recognize. Then there are the wavy lines and symbols within rectangles pasted on each box. I have no clue what they are.”

  “Have you followed up identifying the unknown language we’re dealing with yet? I mean with Evans?” Edward asked. Dr. Adrian Evans was an old friend and fellow anthropologist who had worked with Edward many times over the years. He was a linguistic anthropologist and a good one.

  “I sent some digital samples to him at Berkeley. Maybe he can tell us which dead language it is.”

  “Or new language. Have you run it through any of our own translation programs yet?”

  “Nope. Waiting for you to give permission, since that takes me perilously close to NSA computer resources. I assume we still believe they’re monitoring us? When you give the word, I can get started. Don’t expect any startling result though. The written script is quite unusual and unique.”

  “How many other boxes have you opened?”

  “Just the ones you authorized, the ones I uploaded to staging computer. But I did break the seals on a few more boxes just to see what was inside. But we haven’t touched the actual books and documents which are individually sealed, except for boxes one, two and three. Box one had the good stuff and the Master Inventory List along with manuscripts that look like summaries of something. Some docs use Roman script, some that look like Arabic script, some have characters like Chinese and a few have those rectangles with the four parallel wavy lines. Not sure what any of that is.”

  Edward thought pensively, then said, “I think we should move everything up to Barrows Bay as soon as possible. Right away in fact. I’ll feel better when these materials are out of storage here and safely delivered to the Institute. I’ll assemble a team to digitize the materials in Barrows and begin the physical document review and analysis. If we decide to upload any of this stuff to the DL Main, we can do that later. For now, let’s get this out of Portland and away from any connection to the DataLab Project. It’s the only connection anyone has to these materials and what happened to them. Let’s attenuate that connection right now.”

  “As you wish.” Bitsie continued, “But as you can imagine, we have made almost no inroads whatsoever into translating or even reading any of the content so far. And I haven’t even broken the seals to verify inventory on most of the rest.”

  Bitsie continued, “Within the five thousand plus boxes, assuming they are all like the first four or five, all the contents are individually vacuum sealed and numbered. Inside each box is a document summary of some sort, at least that’s what we think. These document summaries have document numbers and corresponding descriptions but they all appear to be in that same unknown language we have yet to identify. I assume that each number, and the corresponding description, relates to a sealed book or document. As I said, except for the few authorized by Edward, no individually vacuum sealed documents have yet been unsealed. The Book, the Diary and a few other items that were in box number one are the only things we have looked at in any detail.”

  “Who else has seen it?”

  “You and me. That’s all.”

  “Not Tony?”

  “Nope. Said he was only interested if it had dirty pictures. I think he’s secretly reading Romance novels again.”

  Tony smiled, “You’d like them, Bitsie. Hot steamy women in sexually compromising positions.”

  Bitsie smiled at Tony; she truly loved him, at least as much as she could. Pity, she thought, he’s both married and male. What a waste.

  “Ladies,” Edward said, suppressing a smile. “Let’s move on.”

  Bitsie continued, “As I said, we have uploaded to Staging One the Diary, some other materials and the Book, the summaries of which I’ve now read two or three times. I believe you have too, Edward. Correct?”

  “Yes, and this seems to be about as far as we have gotten except for a few box descriptions. What can you tell us about that?”

  “Pasted across the seal running down the middle on the top of each box was an envelope, sealed and affixed to the top of each box. As I said, the only ones opened so far were on the first few boxes. The contents of each envelope, which, as I mentioned earlier, are written in English along with at least three other languages, seems to generally describe what is in the box and where it comes from, meaning the ‘source library’. There is a legend, color coded, to indicate which source library.”

  “Are you saying there are more materials somewhere else or are these materials really everything?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Edward. I’d say there are more materials at other libraries and these books and documents that we now have somehow represent important items that have been collected over some period of time. But what they are, what they mean and how important they are, I haven’t a clue.”

  “Can you tell how many other libraries there are, apart from this one?”

  “Not definitively but from what I see there are seven total actual libraries plus this ‘movable’ collection. So there appear to be at least seven more libraries, referred to in the Book and the Diary as the ‘Septum Magnus’. So, it would appear there is a ‘Great Library’, plus six lesser libraries.”

  Bitsie paused her description, then continued, “Could be one on each continent, depending on your definition of ‘continent’. Not sure why there would be a library in Antarctica though, if that is indeed what the number means. Probably just a coincidence; however, it may only imply some geographic distribution and regional centralization. There could be even more libraries; we simply don’t understand the significance of what we now have. At least not yet anyway.”

  “OK, Bitsie. Then what do we know?

  Chapter 45

  “OK, what I have assembled is the following. Each of you has a computer disc in front of you that should not, under any circumstances, leave this building. At least not at present. Each disc contains a copy of all volumes of the Beneviste Diary, the Book of Gensarii and the letters written but never delivered by Thomas to his wife. Together these documents should give you a good overall first impress
ion of what we’re dealing with here. These documents, in and of themselves, don’t prove the truth or falsity of any claims made about the existence of these beings.”

  “And by ‘context’, what exactly do you mean?” asked Edward.

  “Well, first off are the languages, particularly the written characters and symbolism employed. Perhaps when we understand their origins and meaning we can begin to arrange these items in some sort of logical and/or chronological order. In other words, we may be able to determine age and possibly provenance.”

  “You mean whether they are truly ancient languages or were forged just last year,” asked Hannah. “Correct?”

  “Precisely. Once these and other details provided can be verified, we can begin to assemble the data, both pro and con, about the underlying claims. All these materials relate, of course, to the primary source documents that we also possess but haven’t yet begun to process. Many of those documents are likely written in verifiably older dialects of modern languages. By comparing the dialects employed in those dated documents against known scholarship by linguists of those dialects, and which we can prove were known to be employed at the time, we can begin to infer some level of authenticity.”

  Hannah spoke up, “But it still doesn’t prove anything conclusively. These materials could still be fakes. Excellent fakes, but fakes nonetheless.”

  “That is correct”, said Bitsie. “We will then attempt to authenticate and date each document using standard tests that are regularly employed in the industry. That would include various methods of document authentication such as carbon dating, an examination of paper and ink, stylistic similarities to known works of the same era or age, vocabulary, grammar and errors, if any. Even the chemical composition of the paper, papyrus, parchment or vellum. There are any number of specific tests that can be employed to create a high level of confidence that the age of a document, or at least the medium it is printed on, is authentically old.”

  “Still, that method cannot completely rule out forgeries.” This time it was Edward making the same point as Hannah, less for the point made itself, and more to emphasize that the process, though thorough, must still be both scientifically and anthropologically bullet proof. “All factors will need to be weighed and considered.”

  Bitsie replied, “All factors do need to be considered, and no, forgeries cannot ever be ruled out, even given strong evidence to the contrary. But when you have this high a level of specificity and the sheer volume of documentary evidence in our possession, forgery begins to look somewhat less likely.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Forging a single source document is clearly possible and the results of forensic examination may either be inconclusive or just plain wrong. But when you have thousands of source documents, all of which are verified repeatedly using these methods, the vastness of the undertaking boggles the mind. The resources required to potentially forge a million such documents would be astronomical. And then, to what end?”

  “Making money? Old documents would be valuable, wouldn’t they?” asked Tony.

  “Old doesn’t necessarily mean valuable. Rarity is normally a far more accurate measure of value.”

  “In what way?” Tony was curious.

  “If you have a hand written and authenticated document written and signed by an important historical figure, then yes. A shopping list from some distant relative thirty generations back may not have any value, except as a memento to you. And in the world of historical documents, it is unlikely to be valuable even though old. And, perhaps, even though very, very old. By contrast, a document signed by a historical figure a hundred years ago may be extremely valuable due to rarity and other circumstances.”

  Hannah said, making the obvious point, “Even so, it still proves nothing about the assertions made in those documents. Even if the documents are old and verifiably so, the underlying truth of the assertions still cannot be inferred from them. That remains an open question. Correct?”

  “That is totally correct. Our task is to do all the prep work, not to verify the truth of the underlying assertions but to establish the potential inauthenticity of the underlying documents. If they are all forgeries, we can stop there. If they’re not, we can decide to go further. Then our next task is to verify the assertions made by other means and methods.”

  “Other means? Other methods? Like what?” Tony asked.

  “A wholly separate line of inquiry unrelated to the value of the documentary evidence apart from document authenticity. Instead, it involves proving the existence of these beings. Since they are reputed to still exist today, then according to the scientific method, we hypothesize then validate through experimentation and analysis. Our task with the documentation is the prelude to further scientific inquiry.”

  “Then what happens next?” This was all new to Tony, who had an organized mind but virtually no interest in science or anthropology experiments. He was also interested because Bitsie’s work involved sophisticated predictive computer modelling, not document authentication. To him, this seemed more like Edward’s realm, or that of the newbie, Hannah.

  “Simple”, continued Edward. “We first verify that evidence exists to justify the time and expense of undertaking an inquiry. Then, step two, we seek hard scientific evidence of contemporaneous existence with us. Then, third, we ascertain who and what they are and whether they pose a threat to us. And by ‘us’ I mean human beings, homo sapiens. We simply need to get to know them and either welcome them out in the open or take some other measure if their intentions are hostile. In the end, that’s Bitsie. Tell us if they are friendly or deadly.”

  “In other words, we have just dented the fender of part one. We haven’t even begun with steps two and three. Correct?” Hannah was interested too, and like Tony, was fascinated by what Bitsie seemed to know. If Bitsie’s understanding was recent, she showed a remarkable talent for the field. Perhaps, despite Bitsie’s pithy disposition, Hannah could find a way to work with her.

  Bitsie continued, “That’s right. But we can begin the early processes of steps two and three right away. Taking step three first, we can try to understand what they are up to from their contemporary writings, including the summaries from the Book. We don’t have all the detail yet, of course, but we do have a clear exposition of who they are, what they think and what we can expect them to do next. Understanding their languages and decoding the Book should give us a great deal of new information and a firmer, deeper understanding of their current undertakings. From the summaries we have, we can learn a lot about their social and political organization, location and future plans.”

  “All leading up to official first contact?” asked Tony.

  “I would say leading up to informed first contact.” Bitsie replied.

  “Then what?”

  “Ask me when we get there. Then I’ll have a much better idea of what we think these folks are really up to.”

  ***

  Hannah asked, “And what will Bitsie be doing? I thought she was a computer nerd like Adam?” Turning to Bitsie, Hannah said, “You seem to have an excellent grasp of the Anthro issues involved but where does your field of computing fit in?”

  Both Bitsie and Edward smiled. Edward said, “Bitsie’s field of expertise is in predictive modelling. That’s what she will do, based on the field work you will do along with your team, and work others will do in translation, decryption and research into the data we have and will obtain. Based on their own Library, Bitsie will attempt to understand the Gens reaction to any given situation or set of facts. It’s only a part, but an important part, of how we will proceed down the road. We’re most fortunate that Bitsie works with us and is willing to take part in this little project. In the end, Bitsie’s work may save lives. Perhaps yours.”

  Bitsie said, “So be nice you little witch. Otherwise I may hit delete when I should hit send. I’m sure you get my drift.”

  “I get that Adam didn’t like you. I don’t either
. Now I can see why.”

  Edward interrupted, “Ladies. Put the sharp knives away, please. Bitsie will do her job and so will you Hannah. Tony will referee and tell me about any intemperate conduct – from either one of you two.”

  “What did I do?” Hannah protested.

  “Apparently, you slept with my son. Now you’re going to be punished for your choice of sexual partner. I might consider switching teams if I were you.”

  Hannah looked at Edward, then Bitsie. “Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen.”

  ***

  Bitsie continued, “I will send you updates on translations we might receive and authentications as we go, all via new secure encrypted email.”

  “New? Which one?” Edward asked.

  “Adam’s new science project – ‘EncryptoWorld 1.0’,” said Tony

  “EncryptoWorld 1.0? Really?” Hannah asked. “Sounds like the something Adam would think up. Still refusing to grow up. Sounds like a computer game.”

  Tony continued, “Says he’s created a portable hardware and a software-based system that cannot be defeated using current existing decryption technology. Says the hardware and software system components are already packaged and back in Barrows Bay with Maria, so you can pick them up when you’re ready.”

  “Why not just use the ginormous NSA servers and their top super-secret encryption technology. Wouldn’t that be safer? Not to mention cheaper?” Hannah thought the sensitivity around the NSA was pretty silly and their own efforts duplicative and unnecessary. After all, they’re supposed to be the good guys. Right?

  Edward said, “Safer as to third parties but not from the NSA. We still believe they’re monitoring all of the traffic in and out from Barrows Bay.”

  “I thought Adam busted them and set them straight,” Bitsie asked. “And they agreed: no more spying on Barrows Bay.”

  Edward said, “He busted them and warned them, but he doesn’t think it registered with the senior operations level types within the NSA who clearly have zero respect for the boy king. This is largely Adam peeing on their lawn just to show them up.”