Sapiosaurus | Out Of Time

by Lon McQuillin

  “Hmm,” said Hanrahan. “I wonder what this button does?” He reached out and pressed one of the keys. It did not go down under the pressure he applied, and nothing happened.

  “It’s broke,” said Hanrahan. “Let’s call tech support.”

  “C’mon, Barry,” said Ruggiero.

  Hanrahan turned to Mitchell and Hummford. “I think it’s obvious that the tablets have to be placed into the recesses above the keyboards. My guess is that the tablets serve as both memory and view screens. That would make the information portable.”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Mitchell, “the survey of the tool room turned up what appear to be portable viewers. Sort of like laptop computers that had receptacles just like these.” She turned to Hummford.

  “Flo, it’s your pick on where to start. Do you have any intuition on where the library starts or ends?”

  Mitchell and Hummford had taken an instant liking to each other, with Hummford seeing in Mitchell a reflection of herself, perhaps fifteen years earlier. They shared a strong enthusiasm for their respective fields of endeavor.

  “Well normally, one begins at the beginning, only we have no idea where that is. I’m going to make a guess,” she said, walking down the row of shelves to the right of the terminal. “I’m going to guess that the closest shelves have the first volumes, and that these folks read from top to bottom and left to right. Complete conjecture, of course. But if that’s the case,” she stopped at the far end of the row facing the end terminal, “then I’d say let’s start with volume one, number one.” She looked at the left-most tablet on the top shelf. “Steph, could you hand me that top left tablet?”

  At about four inches taller than Hummford, Mitchell could reach the top shelf, and she pulled out the tablet.

  “Ooph,” she said. “I’d forgotten how heavy these things are.” She handed the tablet to Hanrahan. “You kids play nice, now.”

  “Do we have to?” cackled Ruggiero.

  The four returned to the station with the sandbags, and Hanrahan examined the tablet. He could see no obvious difference between the two sides.

  “I’m guessing that the top and bottom orientation is according to the way they’re stacked on the shelves, but the question now is, which is the front and which is the back?”

  “Flip a tablet,” said Ruggiero.

  “Well, OK, how about this way?” He turned the tablet so that the writing on the spine was to the right, and held it up in front of the recess in the wall. Holding it by the edges, he moved it into position, and as it came within about an eighth of an inch, he felt the tablet tug away and snap into place. “Dick was right,” he said, turning to the others with a grin. “It’s either magnetic or electrostatic.” As he looked at them, he saw their eyes widen, and he looked back at the tablet. Its surface was no longer the dark gray that it had been. Instead, it was glowing, and a series of characters appeared in columns, in a warm white color. The columns were of uneven lengths, and there were three gold-colored characters at the lower right corner, stacked vertically.

  “Holy shit!” he said.

  “I second that,” said Ruggiero.

  “Folks, I think we’re in business,” said Hummford.

  •

  By the time Lightfoot had been able to search Northrup’s room, the C-4, detonator, Glock and ammunition clips were no longer stored in Northrup’s foot locker. Instead, they were carefully concealed behind a panel that Northrup had pried loose at the rear exterior of the portable housing unit.

  Lightfoot was, however, able to disassemble the satellite phone he found in the locker, copy the encryption software into his MessagePad’s memory, and replace the phone exactly as he’d found it. Since the opportunity presented itself, he also copied the contents of the hard drive in Northrup’s computer onto his own.

  As he left, he replaced the tell-tale that Northrup had left to tell him if anyone were to enter his room — a small piece of paper wedged just above the upper hinge of the door. Unfortunately, he had missed the second tell-tale — a strand of hair stuck between the door and the frame at the other side.

  When Northrup returned to his room that evening, he immediately noticed that the hair was missing. Checking above the hinge, however, he saw that the piece of paper was just as he’d placed it. He opened his door cautiously and peered inside. Nothing looked any different from when he had left that morning.

  He pulled his foot locker from under the cot and opened it, and again, everything looked correct.

  That night, he reported in to Billy Joe Wilder as usual.

  “How’s it going, son?” Wilder asked after opening pleasantries.

  “I’m not sure, sir. I was assigned to one of the survey teams today, so I finally got to go inside the upper pyramid.” He’d been assigned to the team that was surveying what they now called the pantry, on the guess that the hundreds of containers held food.

  “The thing is, sir, that when I got back to my room, it appeared that there’s a chance someone was in here while I was gone.” He described his tell-tales to Wilder.

  “The hair was missing, but the paper was still there.”

  “Is it possible the hair blew away, or fell out on its own?” asked Wilder.

  “Well, the shed’s enclosed, so there’s no wind, but yes, it’s possible that it might have fallen out.”

  “I take it nothing was disturbed in the room?”

  “Not that I could see, sir.”

  “What about the weapons and explosives?”

  “All that’s hidden outside the room.”

  “Good boy,” Wilder replied.

  Northrup went on to describe the interior of the Penthouse, and his activities as part of the team surveying the pantry.

  “Did you locate a place to place your charge?” asked Wilder.

  “Yes sir. There are several places that would work. They’ve got enough equipment in there now that it won’t be any problem placing it in something that would be lost in the clutter.”

  “Excellent, my boy. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  “Now I want you to be especially vigilant in light of your suspicions. Your mission is far too important to let it be sabotaged.” Wilder was completely unironic.

  “I will, sir.”

  “Alright. You take care, son.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  Before going to bed, Northrup devised a set of tell-tales for the contents of his room, and then knelt and said his prayers.

  •

  An hour after Northrup went to sleep, Dan Lightfoot was in his own room, listening to the conversation between Northrup and Wilder as it came in, decoded and then re-encoded, over his own satellite phone. At the end of the playback, Gordon Winston came on the line.

  “I can’t say I’m pleased, but at least we know what we’re dealing with,” he said.

  “We’re not going to let him stay, are we?” asked Lightfoot.

  “Dan, there’s already a large ongoing stink with the religious right about this whole project. If we were to kick out their representative without showing good cause, we could have a serious reaction. These people have some powerful friends on the Hill. And unfortunately, revealing what we know would require revealing how we know it. It’s not just that our interception was illegal. The fact that we were able to is classified information.”

  “Northrup could have an accident. The shaft is 500 feet deep, for instance.”

  “No, his backers would jump all over that. What we’d need to do is catch him red-handed with weapons or explosives.”

  “If only he’d been dumb enough to mention where he hid the stuff. But at least now we have some idea of what to watch for. And from now on, either I or Fred Taylor will have our Mr. Northrup in sight at all times.”

  “Good. I’m glad the commander’s there to help you out. Alright, Dan, as always, keep me posted.”

  “Of course, Gordon. Good night.”

  As Lightfoot got ready to retire, he
started a little mind game with himself. Let’s see… If you were a package of Cemtex or C-4, where would you be hiding?

  Chapter 22

  The Tablet

  Reynolds practically ran up the steps of Town Hall, with Sinclair and Lightfoot close behind him. Running up Town Hall’s steps wasn’t really possible, given the height of each step, but the trio nonetheless moved quickly.

  They arrived in the library winded, but in time to catch the start of the show.

  Ruggiero and Hanrahan stood to either side of the terminal, taking care not to block the view of the camera focused on the display. Mitchell and Hummford stood on the outside, and Schumacher was finishing the adjustment of the overview camera.

  “Holy Chihuahua, what’d you do?” asked Reynolds, seeing the display.

  “We logged onto DinoNet,” said Mitchell, with a big smile.

  “OK,” said Hanrahan, “let’s see what this key does.” He found the key that corresponded to the top-left character in the lines displayed, and pressed it.

  A low-pitched musical chord emanated from the screen, but otherwise, nothing happened.

  “That was pretty,” he said. Mitchell and Hummford simultaneously rolled their eyes.

  “OK, let’s try this key,” he said, pressing the one that corresponded to the top character of the three at the lower left corner. Again came the low chord, but nothing more.

  “Who wrote this software?” asked Hanrahan.

  “Barry…” said Mitchell in an admonishing tone.

  He pressed the key that corresponded to the bottom character in the corner, and this time there was an instant result. The off-white characters disappeared, and were replaced by two columns of characters at the left of the screen, along with a picture to the right. The three gold characters at the lower right remained the same. The picture, however, was what made everyone watching gasp.

  It was a picture of Earth.

  But it wasn’t the Earth of the human era. The continents were different in both their shapes and relative positions. It was also obvious that this was a rendering. There were no clouds depicted.

  “They never developed space travel,” said Hanrahan.

  On a hunch, he pressed the key that corresponded to the top of the three characters again, and the image instantly switched back to the previous screen. Following another hunch, he reached up and touched the bottom character on the display itself. The image switched back to the image with the picture of Earth.

  “Hypertext.” He grinned. “Cool.”

  Curious, he touched the center character, and the screen switched back to the original image. He and Ruggiero looked at each other and smiled as they simultaneously said “Home.”

  Touching the bottom symbol to return to the Earth view, he then touched it again. The screen changed, and presented four different images, each with a vertical line of symbols running along their left sides. The first was of what appeared to be a nebula in space. The second, below it, showed a planet condensing from gases. The third, at upper right, showed a fiery ball of molten rock, and the final image showed what could only be Earth in a primeval state.

  “My god,” said Mitchell, “this is the history of Earth. And their theories appear to be the same as ours.”

  Hanrahan noticed something about the new display, and pointed at the characters at the left of the upper-left image. “These letters are gold, like the ones in the corner. Betchya these are hyper links.” He touched the characters.

  The screen switched, and what had previously been a small image of a gas nebula now filled most of the screen. The “back/home/next” characters remained at the bottom right, but five new characters appeared stacked at the upper right of the screen. At the left of the screen, nine small characters appeared, all in the warm white except for the one in the center, which was gold.

  “Oh, this is too easy,” said Hanrahan. “These have got to be playback controls.” He touched the bottom character from the group on the upper right, and the screen switched to a different view of the nebula, now more condensed. “Chapter jump,” he said.

  He touched the top character, and was instantly back at the previous scene.

  “OK, that means that this one has got to be the Play button.” He touched the last button from bottom of the group, and the response was immediate.

  The image began to move, with the cloud nebula swirling in space. At the same time, from the screen there came a sound. It was undoubtedly music, but unlike anything the humans had ever heard. It transfixed all eight of the humans in the room, both beautiful and alien; comforting and oddly disturbing.

  Reynolds looked at Mitchell, who after a moment looked at Hummford, who then looked at Hanrahan, who looked at Ruggiero, and then they all looked back at the screen, just in time for the ultimate shock.

  The music dipped in volume, and over it came a sound… a voice. It was deep, and it was guttural, and it was slightly sibilant and full of sharp stops. It was both beautiful and eerie. For more than a minute, the humans stood motionless, listening to the music and the incredible voice telling its tale.

  In the main office, a large number of the team stood or sat, watching the presentation on the monitor showing the close-up view, watching the same image and hearing the same voice, interrupted only when Hanrahan broke in with his inevitable comment.

  “Narration… Cool.”

  •

  The commercial ended, and the screen faded up on a shot of Bernard Braun.

  “In Antarctica today, the library that holds the keys to the mysteries of the Sapiosaur civilization began to yield its clues. Eric Jeffreys has the story.”

  The screen cut to a shot of Jeffreys standing in the main office at the site, with a crowd of the research team behind him, paying no attention to the camera. All were watching the monitor showing the playback from the tablet.

  “Bernard, I’m here in Antarctica at the base camp above the Sapiosaur city, and I must say, the mood here is nothing less than exuberant. These people feel that, in a way, they’ve made contact with the Sapiosaur civilization, even if it is contact in only one direction.”

  “Quiet!” said someone in the background. Jeffreys lowered his voice as he continued.

  “Scientists here have unlocked the first of over 20,000 tablets in the Sapiosaur library, and it’s apparently a history of Earth. Here’s some of what we saw only minutes ago.”

  The picture cut to the video feed of the screen close-up coming from the library, with the nebula scene showing as the music and narration played. The image changed to show small fuzzy balls swirling and colliding. Some of the balls bounced off each other, while others stuck together. After a few seconds, the music and narration went down, and Jeffreys’ spoke in voice-over.

  “What you’re seeing is actually the surface of one of the tablets. When placed in a receptacle over one of the keyboards in the library, it came to life, with the results you see here.” Jeffreys went silent for a moment, and the music and narration came back to full volume. The image changed again, now showing the nebula growing thicker. After a few seconds, the live audio dropped again, and Jefferys’ voice-over resumed.

  “Yesterday, I spoke with Florence Hummford, the linguistics expert who’ll lead the effort to translate the Sapiosaur language.” The picture cut to a head and shoulders shot of Hummford.

  “We’re hoping to find the equivalent of a Rosetta Stone somewhere among the thousands of tablets in the library. This would most likely be in the form of a children’s book, where we see a picture of a tree, and the word tree next to it.” The picture cut to the interior of the library, with the camera moving down one of the shelves. Hummford’s voice continued. “Given the fact that there are 21,827 tablets all together, this is going to take some time, at least until we know enough of their language to read the titles and be more selective. For the time being, we’ll be selecting tablets randomly, hoping we get lucky.”

  The picture cut to the shot of Jeffreys in the main office. “Now that w
e know that the tablets contain not just written words, but pictures and sound, the task of translation may be easier than previously thought.

  “This is Eric Jeffreys for CNN in Antarctica.”

  The picture cut back to Bernard Braun.

  “The live feed from the Sapiosaur library can be seen uninterrupted on CNN3.”

  •

  Sapiosaur Library Begins to Reveal Secrets

  Tablets are Audiovisual

  by Dewey Manley

  Times Science Editor

  Antarctica — The research team exploring the Sapiosaurian pyramid today successfully activated the tablets found in what has proven, as had been hoped, to be their library. The tablets, originally presumed to contain written information, instead are delivering a rich combination of words, pictures and sounds. For the first time, humans have heard the voice of a non-human intelligent being, recorded 65 million years or more ago.

  The first tablet activated, or played, is evidently a history of the planet Earth, from before it condensed from a gaseous cloud to its state at the time of the Sapiosaurs’ civilization. How much information the tablet contains is not yet known. The information is organized in a series of hyperlinks, just as one would find on the World Wide Web or on one of our own DVD-ROMs. It would appear, however, that each tablet is capable of holding many hours of full-motion video and sound, along with tremendous amounts of text.

  The job of the linguistics team here on site, led by Dr. Florence Hummford, may have become considerably easier with the inclusion of both visual and audio content. Previously, the team held no hope of learning to actually speak the Sapiosaurian language; they now fully expect to be able to do so.

  “Some of the sounds of their language are somewhat awkward for a human to make, but not impossible,” Dr. Hummford said in an interview. “If we confirm our suspicion that the sarcophagi in the main chamber actually do hold two suspended Sapiosaurs, and if we’re able to learn how to bring them back to life, I’m fairly confident that we’ll be able to greet them in their own language.”