by JC Ryan
"I'm thinking along the same lines. But, I think we have to start somewhere with a more compact chart of the syllables. Raj, did you run a comparison of the number of instances of each separate formula against the Linear A and Linear B languages?"
"Yes, I did, although Daniel could not explain to me why we should be using a Greek dialect."
"Nor can I. It's a gut feeling, based on the fact that we think it's a syllabary we're dealing with, but that's Linear B. As of yet, no one has translated Linear A. It's an unknown language, called Minoan only because of the location of the first place archaeologists found it. It does seem to share some characteristics of Linear B, though. I'm thinking we can use it as our Rosetta Stone if my gut feeling is correct."
New understanding bloomed in Sarah's eyes, as she was a little more familiar with the scholarship around the ancient languages than the rest. "You're thinking, compare the formulas with the highest number of instances with the corresponding Linear A symbols, and try them as a direct correspondence."
Sinclair looked at her with approval. "Yes, my dear, exactly. Now, when researchers have previously compared Linear A texts with known word values for Linear B, which as Raj said was an early form of Greek, they haven't had much luck. It produces unintelligible words. Clearly, it's a link to a language we don't know, but we have our ways of cracking a language like that if we have a large enough data set. Yours is huge." Sinclair turned to Raj with admiration. "Son, you have done an outstanding job on a very tedious task. Congratulations, your work will probably have been key to our successfully translating what these ancients had to say to us."
Raj, though excitable and demonstrative in the presence of good friends, was more reserved among these near-strangers. He showed his pleasure at the compliment, however, by blushing and lowering his eyes. Sarah thought it was charming. She was beginning to warm to this strange friend of Daniel's.
Sinclair had continued to talk, and Sarah schooled herself to pay attention. "Now, once we have the syllables, we'll have to arrange the data in some way. I suggest that the Fibonacci numbers that are found everywhere in the pyramid are an indication that they should be used somehow, beginning with the fact that the pyramid has eight sides, rather than the normal four."
His words electrified those who heard him. Eight! How could they have missed the significance of that? Of course it meant something! Eight was a Fibonacci number, probably THE most important one. If that were the case, they should arrange the values in their original order, but broken in lines and columns of eight, at least for a start.
Raj's fingers flew over the keyboard as he performed the first task Sinclair had asked of him, that of determining the Linear A symbols that should correspond with the block values as they had calculated them. Hoping that they hadn't performed too many calculations, or followed that notion down a wrong trail, he made the two-step comparisons as quickly as the laptop could work. In far less time than anyone but he and Sinclair expected, they were looking at a chart of about two hundred signs that corresponded with the same number of values in the blocks. However, there were hundreds of signs left over, as well as an approximately equal number of block values. These they would set aside until they had dealt with what was already known. Quickly, Raj added the corresponding signs and meanings from Linear B. Eighty-seven of the signs were syllabary in nature, building blocks of other words. A hundred more were ideograms, signifying objects. Commodities, probably, Sinclair explained, but it gave them a group of nouns--the names of everyday objects--to work with, and that was a start.
Sinclair had Raj add a column with the transliterated pronunciation of the syllables and the English name of the objects corresponding with the Linear B ideograms. The makeshift Rosetta Stone emerged as he watched, fascinated, muttering the Greek sounds under his breath. Time stopped for the others, though in fact the progress was rapid, thanks to the powerful server and Raj's expertise in using the Oracle sort functions. When they came to the end of the known symbols, everyone heaved a sigh as if they had been holding their collective breath. Only Sinclair, his eyes dancing down the column of Greek syllables, was too wrapped up in memorizing the pyramid values associated with them to realize they had reached a climax of sorts.
Raj broke the silence. "What would you like me to do next, sir?"
Absently, still intent on his memorization task, Sinclair said, "Call me Sinclair." Then he looked up, smiled and said, "Sorry, I was woolgathering. What did you ask me?"
"What would you like me to do next?" Raj replied.
"Can you bring up on the left-hand screen the stone values arranged in their natural order, but grouped in rows and columns, as we talked about? And leave this chart up on the other; I want to be able to compare the values with the syllables easily."
"Yes, of course, just a moment." Raj answered, bringing up the base data set on the left-hand screen. He selected a block of about five hundred values in their natural order, that is, as they lined up in the construction of the pyramid, and then gave a couple of new commands. The screen refreshed and in place of the original long column a set of values appeared in an eight-by-eight grid. Sinclair ran his eyes over it, flicking now and then to the left side of the screen where the syllabic comparisons still showed. His eyes widened as he studied, then a grin spread over his face and he exclaimed, "Jaysus!", then immediately apologized when he saw Martha’s hand fly to her mouth.
"What is it, Sinclair?" Sarah ventured.
"I know now why no one could make anything of it before." Sinclair mused, running his finger back and forth over the natural-order text lines without touching the screen.
Impatient, Daniel started to say something, but Sarah put her hand on his arm, seeing that Sinclair was still thinking about his discovery, whatever it was, and would clue them in when he had come to a conclusion.
Sinclair, unaware of the agitation of the others, finished traversing the lines with his finger and nodded with satisfaction. "We always thought this was a progression from early right-to-left writing, like Phoenician." Shaking himself out of his solitary ramblings, he addressed the group. "Or Hebrew. Everyone understands that not all languages are written left-to-right like modern English or Romance languages, yes?" Seeing everyone nod, he went on. "At some point, Greek began to be written in a pattern called Boustrophedon. That meant, the first line was written right-to-left, and then the second went left-to-right, with all the words in a mirror image of how they would have been written on odd lines."
Various expressions met his words as the others struggled to visualize what he meant. In an effort to clarify, Sinclair again pointed at the screen, demonstrating that the words would be read as he had described, first traveling from right-to-left, and then reversing the direction on the next line, so that his finger zig-zagged as it progressed down the rows. Comprehension dawned on each face, seconds apart, as each got it.
"What does it mean?" Daniel asked first.
"It means that when other researchers tried to make Linear A manuscripts make sense, they assumed right-to-left for each line of script, because it was thought to be older than Linear B, and Linear B was still written that way. It was only later, as Greek developed, that their script took on this pattern. But what we have here is proof that Boustrophedon was actually a return to an old pattern, rather than development of the new."
Fascinating as this was, Daniel had a burning question. "But, how do you know that, when you haven't translated the message yet?"
Sinclair looked surprised. "Oh, didn't I say? Sorry. And, forgive me, I haven't fully wrapped my head around the fact that we have a Linear A-like script transliterating the ancient Sumerian, but this first part is an index of the subjects that are covered in the code, and where you'll find each." He pointed to the lines of values, reading now as if it were nothing to him to transliterate twice and then translate as he went.
"See here, mathematics, history, astronomy..."
His words were drowned by the others shouting in amazement. Sarah's scr
eam brought Luke running, gun drawn, to the dining room where they were working, to behold Daniel and Sarah dancing in a circle, with Raj staring at Sinclair as if he had seen a ghost, his mouth open, and pounding Sinclair on the back violently.
"What is it?" cried Luke? His initial impression was that Raj was giving Sinclair some weird kind of CPR, while Daniel and Sarah had lost their minds. Finally, he went to stand directly in front of Sarah and shout in her face. "SARAH!"
That served to bring the chaos to an abrupt end as Sarah looked at Luke sheepishly. "Yes, Uncle Luke?"
With some asperity born of the fright he'd received, Luke answered, "What the hell going on in here? Who's hurt?"
"No one," a calmer Daniel said, taking Sarah into his arms and hugging her tightly. "I'm sorry, Luke. We just had some amazing news. Sinclair here has cracked the code!"
Luke’s calm reception of that news served to settle the others down. Quietly he asked, "Well? What does it say?"
Everyone turned to Sinclair, who was finally catching his breath now that Raj had stopped pounding him on the back. "It says there's a library of subjects that the builders knew something about, and it tells how to find the messages. That's as far as I got before the bedlam set in." Despite being manhandled by Raj, Sinclair seemed to have recovered his good nature. "Let's see what we can make of the rest of it. Let me work in peace for a few minutes."
Martha was sitting in a chair tears running down her cheeks as she said to herself, “Mark my dear where are you? How I wish you could be here to see what you have started.”
Sinclair noticed Martha crying and walked over to her. He put his arm around her apologizing again for his outburst, but she only shook her head. She didn’t ask him to remove his arm, though, finding it very comforting. Since her husband’s death, she missed physical contact, and enjoyed every hug she got.
Martha and Sarah decided it was a good time to fix lunch for the group while they waited for Sinclair to announce that he had more translated. Later, munching on their sandwiches and salad as they stood or sat around the dining table, far enough from the computer equipment to keep Raj happy, the others excitedly discussed what the next move should be. Obviously, there must be more to the message as it was currently arranged that Sinclair hadn't had the chance to see. Raj had only selected a small sample, after all. From time to time one or the other of them paused in their thinking and talking to look at Sinclair in awe and remark again how amazing it was that he could just perform all those mental gymnastics, reading it as if it were written in English. Daniel, realizing that Sinclair had memorized the values and their corresponding syllables in less than half an hour, resolved never again to judge a person's ability to assimilate new information by their age. Even if Sinclair was a genius as he and Sarah had decided, it was a remarkable achievement.
Modestly, Sinclair waved away their awe, and said, "I'll admit that it would be easier if we did some more comparison charts and wrote the syllables in Arabic script."
Raj answered, "That's no problem. I'll do it while you are eating." Setting his lunch aside, he went back to the keyboard and entered a few more commands. "Do you want the Sumerian form of the Arabic script? It is the most ancient I have loaded in the database."
"Yes, that will do. I suspect we're dealing with something even more ancient, which is what made me think to use Sumerian as I pronounced the sounds we related to each value. What a jumble though! This will turn the linguistics community on its head and wipe out several theories of how language developed in the region."
Looking at Sinclair, Daniel said, "I'll bet everything you need to prove it is hidden somehow in that code. How fast can we translate all of it?"
Sinclair shook his head. "Not fast. I mean, it won't take long to translate enough to convince even the worst skeptic that we're onto something, but to get it all done...it just depends on how much there is. How many Fibonacci numbers have you determined to be represented in the stone values?"
Daniel looked to Raj for confirmation before answering, "As far as I know or recall, all of them are Fibonacci numbers."
Sinclair gave an exaggerated slump, as if the idea were overwhelming, then straightened with an excited gleam in his eye. "In that case, using each number as a skip sequence, there could logically be hundreds of different texts in the same stones. Of course, it would require the use of a computer to arrange the stones in such a way that the texts would all make sense, and we're talking about a more than 6000-year-old civilization, so most likely they didn't have anything like our computers. But even a few different starting points or skip sequences would represent hundreds of hours to translate, if I'm working alone. Have you considered bringing in another linguist or dozen?" Sinclair asked, with a whimsical smile.
Daniel's answer was more serious. "No, we actually hadn't thought that far ahead. Bad oversight again. We'd better keep at the first message. I mean, finish the one you started, and meanwhile Raj could create reports for the next several numbers as skip sequences and you could take a look at the first few lines to see if we're on the right track."
Daniel's suggestion met with the approval of the others, so Sinclair asked Raj to print out what he had and then create the next couple of thousand rows, or however many it would take to exhaust the data, for him to work on when he finished the first set. After that, Raj would use the next Fibonacci number to create a report that would pick out every thirteenth value and so forth, working his way through the entire sequence until the numbers grew too large to make sense for the volume of data they had.
Soon the room fell mostly silent, only now and again one or the other making a remark, as Sinclair worked with Sarah hanging over his shoulders and Daniel reading upside down from across the table. Raj continued to set up sequence reports until he grew tired of doing it one by one and wrote a program to go through the steps. It was when he remarked that the data set seemed to be shrinking with each iteration of the program that Martha, who displayed astounding general knowledge for someone who did a degree in home economics more than 30 years ago and have been a housewife most of her life, had a brainstorm.
"Of course! As the Fib numbers get higher, we skip more and more symbols. The higher we go, the shorter the text will be that corresponds to that number in the sequence!"
"Begorrah, she's right!" exclaimed Sinclair, looking at Martha with not only surprise but respect and prompting Sarah to snigger. "What?"
"I just love it when you go all Irish on us," Sarah teased. "I can't resist a man with an accent."
Sinclair shot a good-natured grin at Daniel and said, "Better watch out, Danny Boy, I'm beating your time with your girl."
Daniel answered with a grin of his own. "Speaking of beating..." Prompting Sinclair to hold up his hands in surrender. The comic relief served to break the silence that had prevailed since the last spate of conversation.
Daniel was the one to ask Raj what number he was working on.
"One-hundred and forty-four," was the laconic answer.
"Hey," said Martha. "Let's see what that one says."
So far, the initial sequence, the one that used all the stones without skipping any, had revealed nothing but a list of subjects with corresponding numeric values that they couldn't quite see the reason for, and Sinclair hadn't reached the end of that grid yet. Martha's suggestion was tantamount to saying they should skip to the end of the book to see how it turned out, but the others were eager enough to get more information that they all agreed. Quickly, Raj printed out his latest grid and they all held their breath as Sinclair began to translate.
"Ye who have found the key, hear our chronicle. Know that in the year... of The Tenth Cycle" Sinclair stopped, puzzled. "There's what may be a numerical notation here, but I don't understand it."
"Maybe they give a clue later on. Let's go on and figure out when later." Daniel said.
"Okay. In the year unknown, the Supreme Council of Knowledge, commissioned the least of their number, I, Zebulon, to build this monument and rec
ord our history for Those Who Come After. In all the cycles, this has never been attempted before."
"Holy shit!" Daniel exclaimed, prompting a quelling look from both Sarah and Martha.
Another little commotion ensued but Sinclair held up his hand to calm them down before they went completely off the handle. He went on after the interruption. "We of the Tenth Cycle believe that we have achieved more than any Cycle before us, and, knowing our fate, wish to leave evidence of our knowledge. With this knowledge, perhaps you, our children, may continue our progress and stop the cycles of destruction that have held our kind to less than our full potential for ..." Again, Sinclair paused, "Some number again, I can't make it out. Then, 'years.' Good heavens, this is maddening."
Daniel looked up at the others. "This is already explosive information. There's some sort of cycle of destruction, just as Sarah's friend Ahmed and his colleagues believe. We need to find out where we are in it. Sinclair, as you read on, do you see anything that gives a clue as to how to read these numbers?"
"Not yet, but let me keep reading. ‘We leave this monument for your enlightenment. However, our leader has decreed that it must be coded in such a way that it may not be read until you have achieved a measure of civilization to equal our own. Know this: if wars still disturb the peace of your world, you will not be able to escape the destruction that will come in the fullness of your cycle. You must cease fighting amongst yourselves and work together on the answer. Only then will mankind achieve the shared knowledge to avoid the same fate as those who have gone before you.’"
As Sinclair's voice trailed off, the others looked at each other in consternation. War was definitely a part of their world, and no one saw a way to bring it to an end permanently. In fact, these five people couldn't see a way to end any small skirmish, much less the wars that dotted the globe in every corner. Their mission had just become larger than they had ever dreamed.