The Unearthing
Page 35
“Most importantly, I think I’ve cracked the Ship’s periodic table of elements.”
“And what have you found?” Bloom asked.
“All the elements we’ve been able to predict are present. However, many of the new elements reported on the Ship’s table can only exist when fused with lesser elements, creating, perhaps, some of the alloys Mister Paulson reports having identified but not yet classified,” N’banga said. “Other elements, only a very small number, can only exist in spacetime states in which the known laws of physics break down completely: higher dimensions in spacetime, within the destructive environment of a black hole, et cetera. But there are still other elements on the table, by far the vast majority of the new elements, that don’t work under either condition. I have ideas about what specific conditions would allow for these elements to exist, but I have to model out the equations.”
“You’ve been busy,” Bloom observed.
“I’ve had the help of some of the best minds around,” N’banga acknowledged. Bloom smiled. Andrews cleared his throat.
“Tell me Matthew, what do you make of the fact that the number of elements reported on the Ship’s table is a prime?” Andrews asked, “Specifically, two-hundred and twenty-seven elements? And that two hundred and twenty seven is the fifty-ninth prime number and that fifty-nine is itself a prime number?”
“Fifty-nine is the seventeenth prime number,” N’banga replied, after a moment’s reflection. “And seventeen is also a prime number. It is the seventh prime number and seven is also a prime number,” He paused. “However, seven is the fourth prime number on the list and four is not a prime number as it is divisible by more than just one and itself. Therefore, I think the significance of there being two-hundred and twenty-seven elements on the periodic table is that it makes for an excellent intellectual exercise for paranoid and obsessive mathematicians.” Everyone, Andrews included broke up laughing at this observation.
“That about wraps up this meeting kids,” Bloom said, “Let’s go make ready to go down, into the Ship.”
♦♦♦
They stood on the edge of the Ramp leading towards the Pyramid. Doctor N’banga looked out, awestruck by the sight before him, his equipment pack slung forgotten over one shoulder. The golden surface of the Ship was spread out across the horizon, shining brilliantly in the morning sun; the Shipsong a loud, crystalline chorus of alien canting echoing in the air.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Doctor Andrews remarked, standing beside his old friend, “None of us here can get enough. Everyone on the base spends much of their free time just watching it, listening to it.”
“I’ve seen images,” N’banga said, shaking his head, “Three-D’s, also; but nothing…nothing compares to this. Nothing could have prepared me for this. The…immensity of it…Dear God in Heaven, Michael; wars have been waged over less!” After a moment’s contemplation, he added: “And one war was indeed waged over it.”
“You should have been here when we did the flyover,” Andrews said, “Back before they had dammed up the Rio Salado. There was a waterfall.” N’banga looked at him, grinning dubiously.
“A waterfall?”
Andrews nodded. “Ten kilometre drop. Not nearly as impressive as Victoria Falls mind; but still quite spectacular.”
“I can imagine,” N’banga said, “Do you think they could arrange another flyover? I would love to see it from the air.”
“There are two flights every hour,” Andrews replied, “They barely have time to refuel before taking off again.” N’banga grinned.
“Come along, then,” Andrews said, “The transports are loaded and waiting.”
♦♦♦
The transports rolled to a halt a few meters from the Pyramid. Benedict left to confer with his security crew, already in place within the Ship. Support personnel unloaded cargo from the transports and began hauling it into the Pyramid. The senior members of the SSE gathered together in a tight knot save for Doctor Cole, who was working with her medical staff in their efforts to re-equip the infirmary.
“This trip down is basically to continue working in the Language Lab,” Bloom said, “However, there are a couple of other jobs that need doing. First, I want everyone within the Ship to be recording video and audio on their headsets. Doctor Kodo, after looking over the images taken on our last descent I’ve seen some structures within the Ship that I want us to take a look at. Based on what you and Doctor Cole report, I think they might be points where the biological and mechanical components of the Ship meet. And Peter, Major Benedict will need your help setting up a proper Ship-to-surface communications relay. Sonia, the rest of the show is yours. Let’s go start talking to the Ship.”
♦♦♦
N’banga’s first descent into the Ship was as astounding and humbling an experience for him as it had been for all members of the SSE. Even now the veterans of the Expedition were as awestruck as N’banga as the lift car dropped from the outer hull down through the airframe. The cavernous gap between inner and outer hulls revealed a cityscape of structures woven into the inner and outer hulls, the airframe and the space between. Bejewelled with shimmering lights, the wondrous structures held their awe until at last the inner hull rose up to meet and consume them.
Aiziz led the way back to the language lab. The columnar central display had recessed itself into the dais and the wall panels ringing the room were blank. But as the SSE crossed into the chamber the language lab came back to life, the black column rising and flooding with gold runic symbols and numeric glyphs. Aiziz approached the main terminal while Andrews led N’banga behind it to the panel from which the Ship’s physics archive was accessed. Aiziz adjusted her headset, ensuring her camera boom was properly framing the scene. Over her left eye the display boom showed everything the camera was recording. Satisfied with the display, Aiziz turned her attention to the keyplate she held in her right hand. She entered a sequence, calling up her careful notations on Shiplanguage, feeding the information directly to her eye boom. Based on what she’d translated of the main display this first message was a greeting of sorts, as well as a command prompt. Given the contextual nature of Shiplanguage she wasn’t entirely confident of her translation; there were a couple of possibilities that made sense, but Aiziz believed she knew what the message said and what it was asking for. Selecting runes from her study list and double-checking the sequence, Aiziz typed a short message onto the Ship’s runic touchpad: We wish to learn your language. Suddenly the main display went blank; for a horrible minute Aiziz thought she had entered the wrong sequence of runes into the tablet before her. Then a new message in runic Shiplanguage appeared. Aiziz translated it quickly, while referring to her notes. Roughly translated, the Ship’s response said: This Emissary aspires to teach our language. The voice of the Ship burst out a new, complex chain of alien syllables. Aiziz took this to be the vocal equivalent of the written language. A half-second later the Ship printed another line of text below the first. In perfect English, the message was repeated: This Emissary aspires to teach our language.
♦♦♦
Bloom and Kodo stood in the middle of the short hall between the First Chamber and the Language Lab. There was a break in the gold mosaic along the wall: a quarter-meter wide area of grey-black that interrupted even the luminous blue band that ran across the walls. The black strip ringed the corridor, floor, walls and ceiling.
“See what I mean?” Bloom asked.
Kodo nodded. “Yeah,” He said, using a laser pointer to trace a line where the gold wall and grey-black material wove together, “This is almost identical to a graft-point between living tissue and a prosthetic limb. You can only see where it interweaves under magnification.”
“I think it serves as some sort of stress joint,” Bloom said, “A flexible zone to channel through shock to the hull, disperse torsion stress, that sort of thing.”
“That makes sense; my dad was an architect. I know a little about expansion joints, that sort of thing.” Kodo
looked down the hall, “I think I’ve found something else over here,” He used the pointer to trace around an area above the blue energy line. On their eyepieces, the detail surrounding the area blurred and faded, so bringing the traced section into sharp, clear focus.
“This segment is a shell of polymerized cells,” Kodo explained, “They blend in almost perfectly with the surrounding metal of the wall. You can just see where their colouring is slightly different and their patterning doesn’t quite match that of the surrounding wall.”
“They’re definitely not superfluous or decorative,” Bloom said, “Look there: what is that?” She took Kodo’s pointer and highlighted a subtle curvature on the lower end of the section of cells that Kodo had identified. It sloped down along the wall, towards the band of energy.
“I hadn’t noticed that!” Kodo exclaimed, reaching to touch it, “It seems to be coming out of the wall, but it isn’t a component. It looks like a pipe; a conduit. Look where it meets the cells. There are thin veins of blue.” Bloom leaned closer to the wall. Indeed there were glowing lines of blue, less than a millimetre wide snaking through the pipe-like structure up into the patch of polymerized cells. In the center of the cell body she saw a dull, blue spot, slightly recessed.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing it out to Kodo. He took a sudden look around the hallway, his eyes widening in shock.
“Oh, my God,” He said.
“What?”
“Look,” Kodo said, “Now that we’ve found one of these things, look how many there really are.” Bloom looked around. Plainly visible now along both walls down the entire length of the corridor were off-colour patches of polymerized cells, each with a dull blue orb nested in its center.
“God,” Bloom said in wonder, “I’d love to know what they are.”
“You and me both,” Kodo replied, “I’m going to want to take some samples down here. Run a biopsy on one of these structures; see what the whole thing looks like from the inside out.”
“I think we’ll hold off on that,” Bloom cautioned, “Wait and see if the World Ship Summit clears such an act. I don’t want the Ship to think we’re attacking it.”
“Attacking it?” Kodo asked, incredulous, “Are you kidding, Colonel? The Ship’s almost thirty-two kilometres across. A vessel this size isn’t going to notice the loss of a few hundred cells. It’d be like having a mosquito bite you in your sleep: you just wouldn’t notice.”
“No, but what happens if the Ship wakes up and decides to swat the mosquito?” Bloom countered, “We’ve seen that the Ship has a pretty big hand. I don’t want to have it coming at me.” Kodo frowned, as he looked around the hall.
“Look Doctor Kodo,” Bloom said, “I can clear PET and CT scans, even MRIs, if you want them. But I don’t think we should take invasive action without the World Ship Summit’s approval. Not given the power that the Ship’s demonstrated.” Bloom’s linx chimed.
“Bloom here,” She said, toggling open the channel.
“Colonel it’s Doctor Aiziz; we’ve begun a direct dialogue with the Ship.”
♦♦♦
Paulson and Benedict were crouched over a pile of photonic systems components, making modifications to a high-power microwave relay. They were in the Pyramid, trying to align their relay with its twin in the First Chamber and complete a signal network between the Ship and Fort Arapaho.
“I really wish James were here,” Paulson said, “He’s the real tech hound. He’d have had this whole relay up and running, by now.”
“That’s James Johnson?” Benedict asked, “He’s the one who sent the signal from Laguna to INN about the Unearthing, right?”
“Yeah,” Peter replied, “But it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference if Concord Three hadn’t sent that signal.” Benedict smiled.
“I hear they only got out a partial feed,” He said.
“That’s not what I heard,” Paulson said, “But no, James did get a good, strong signal out to INN; and he cracked into a portable US Army Grid backbone to do it.”
“That’s no easy feat,” Benedict said, as they completed calibrations on the microwave relay’s signal beacon, “In fact, before your friend James did it, there were experts who would have said it was impossible. It sounds to me like you miss him.”
“I miss him a lot,” Peter affirmed, “I haven’t spoken to him since the Prof’s funeral. I tried linxing him, but he hasn’t been getting back to me.” They worked in silence a few more minutes before standing up. Benedict checked the beacon with a handheld device.
“This looks okay,” He said, “There are a few more adjustments that need to be done on the one downstairs, though. Let’s pack up our tools and go.” They put away their equipment and stepped into the waiting lift car. The crystalline egg sealed itself and began its descent to the First Chamber. Paulson’s face was troubled with grief, as they crossed the cavernous gap of the airframe into the Ship.
Peter remembered the first time they’d dropped into the Ship; the SSE newly-formed, still not quite gelled as a group. James had stared out the crystal walls of the lift car at the gargantuan airframe with as much humbling awe and wonder as any of them. But in James’ eyes Peter had seen a glare; a fire of anticipation, desire. And that night the Prof had died, shot and killed by Francis George Franck. Whatever ambition the Ship had stirred in James’ soul, the Prof’s murder snuffed it. Peter heard from Laura Echohawk after one of his many linxes to James had gone unanswered. James wasn’t doing too well since the attacks by the United Trinity Observants. He was hitting hard drugs, suffering panic attacks, withdrawing…Peter’s friend was lost and there was nothing he could do to help.
The lift car sank into the inner hull, halting inside the First Chamber. The crystalline wall parted to allow Peter and Benedict to exit. Doctor Cole, on constant vigil within the infirmary stepped up to meet them.
“You’re just in time, gentlemen,” She said, “Doctor Aiziz has just entered into direct communication with the Ship.”
♦♦♦
The senior members of the Ship Survey Expedition were gathered around the central column in the Language Lab. Aiziz stood with her back to it, seven pairs of eyes focused on her. Even to such a familiar group of people as her colleagues in the SSE, speaking to a group was terrifying.
“I have spent the last little while learning from the Ship the meanings and contexts of many of the runes in Shiplanguage,” She said, her voice faltering, “We have the whole runic alphabet already, as found on the Codex in the First Chamber. There are two hundred and twenty-seven runes in Shiplanguage.”
“That’s the same number of elements on the Ship’s periodic table,” N’banga added.
“Yes,” Aiziz said, “Fortunately for us, the periodic table is represented by its own, different set of symbols. Otherwise Shiplanguage might become impossibly confusing.”
“How are you managing to learn the definitions of the runes?” Bloom asked.
“The Ship generates pictographs beside each rune, the meaning of which becomes clear with examples. The only complexity is with certain abstract concepts that the Ship does not express the same way we do. However, we are able for the most part to work around them.”
Aiziz referred to a handheld console and continued: “We believe the individual runic meanings that we’ve missed will become evident as we continue to communicate with the Ship. Professor Andrews has worked out a method of determining the context and meanings of the runes. Professor?” Aiziz stood aside as Andrews came to stand in front of the black dais. He sent a file to everyone’s console.
“The Ship has provided us with equations that allow us to determine the definition of each of the two hundred and twenty-seven runes, according to their numeric value between one and two hundred and twenty-seven,” Andrews said, “The placement of any given rune within a Shiplanguage sentence, which contains between three and eleven runes, and the numeric value and placement of the runes immediately adjacent to each particular rune determine the
meaning and context of said rune, therefore determining the meaning of the sentence when viewed as a whole. You can see by the arrows on the diagram I’ve sent you which runes in which order affect the context and meaning.” Here Andrews paused, so they could study the diagram in question:
“Shiplanguage is complex and highly evolved. However it is also easily translated, once the rules governing the definitions of the runes themselves are compiled.” Andrews concluded.
“We are also aided by the fact that the Ship seems to have already mastered several Earth Languages.” Aiziz said.
“It’s what?” Bloom demanded.
“The Ship has mastered English, German, Japanese, Farsi, and Cantonese and Spanish,” Aiziz replied, “They represent the six most important languages on the planet for commerce and diplomacy. However the Ship wishes us to demonstrate a mastery of Shiplanguage before entering into a full dialogue with us.”
“Why?” Bloom asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier for us to converse with the Ship in one of our native languages? Why make us go to the trouble of learning Shiplanguage?”