Decipher (43 page)

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Authors: Stel Pavlou

BOOK: Decipher
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“Seawolf Class?”
“Uh, yes, sir. Jackson says he'll give us the
Virginia
in the South Atlantic for two hours.”
“That's all they're asking for anyway, right?”
Roebuck confirmed that with an apologetic nod. His ass was on the line here backing this plan. Taking so many submarines out of the patrol loop for two hours at once was an incredible risk.
“The
Louisville,
the
Olympia
, the
Charlotte
and the
Jefferson City
are all on patrol somewhere in the Pacific. Fleet Commander won't say where but he assures me they can sweep pretty much the entire area Ralph asked us to check.
They're the older Los Angeles Class. And the
Trepang
's in the Indian Ocean.”
“The
Trepang?
That old Sturgeon Class training ship?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Damn, I remember that boat. Jesus, she must be damn near forty or fifty years old by now.”
“They say they're up to the job. We also got a Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine, the
Kentucky
. And the
Dolphin's
standing by.”
The
USS Dolphin AGSS-555,
was one of a kind of research submarine used by both the navy and civilian agencies alike. She had an unmatched world depth record for operational submarines. And right now she was right under the Arctic ice cap, just southwest of the North Pole, looking for a sunken site. She was already part of this wild-goose chase so it didn't make much difference calling her in.
“Ten ships,” Gant concluded. “That's a lot of ships. Dower's gonna be pissed tryin' to get this authorized. I'll call it through,” he said.
“What time shall I tell 'em to expect an answer, sir?” Roebuck indicated the team back in the belly of the plane.
“Two hours,” he replied. “Which means we'll be on the ground.”
Roebuck headed back as the pilot up ahead called for the Major's attention. Out through the windows a vista of low cloud cover was rearing up at them, at speed.
“It looks like some extreme weather out there. You want us to avoid it, we can avoid it.”
“Negative,” Gant sighed, handing the sheet of information Roebuck had given him to the young communications engineer, Joe Dodson. “We don't have the time.”
“Understood.”
Dodson gave the sheet of information the once-over. A moth-eaten photograph of some odd design. A sheet of paper stapled to the top with rows of numbers and some familiar-looking squiggles underneath, while scrawled in pen next to them were a set of coordinates, oceanic depth ranges and acoustic frequencies to be transmitted to each of the ten submarines for them to institute a search.
“Uh, Major?” Dodson asked innocently, trying to get the
marine's attention while he discussed the weather situation with the pilots. “You want me to work out these little wave files and send them over too?”
Gant misheard the man and asked him to repeat what he'd just said. Dodson ran his fingers along the series of Atlantis glyphs but hadn't even remotely registered they were letters to an alphabet.
“These little waves. You want me to match 'em in the computer and tell the subs what frequency they are?”
Gant didn't say anything. Just grabbed the young man by the scruff of his collar and yanked him to his feet.
 
“Tell him what you told me.”
Scott looked up startled as the young airman standing in front of him wiped at his nose like a schoolkid hauled in front of the teacher.
“All I said was these little symbols look like wave files; did he want me to work out the frequencies and send the information onto the submarines? I thought it was important.”
Gant jabbed his finger at Scott eagerly. But it looked more like a threat. “Does
this
help you?”
But all Scott could manage was to let his jaw flap open and closed like a goldfish. Hackett took control. “What do you mean by wave files?”
“On a computer,” Dodson explained, exasperated, “when you record an audio signal you can display it any number of ways. Like a wavy line, or a series of spikes. Things like clicks produce very small wave files because the sound is so short. That's what these look like. Tiny snatches of sound displayed as a wave across the top and the corresponding spike data across the bottom, simply turned on its side. That's all I meant.”
Scott grabbed up one of the photographs again. Stared at it. Jesus. Could it be? Sarah scooted up to take a look too. They eyed each other. Everyone was waiting on Scott's response. If this was a plausible theory to work from it could only go ahead on his say-so. Scott leaped to his feet, frantic.
“Somebody grab a computer with a microphone, quick! These aren't just phonetic symbols! They don't
represent
sounds! They
are
sounds!” He confronted Dodson. “Kid,
you're a fucking genius. Let me shake your hand. What's your name?”
“Uh, Joe,” the communications engineer replied, taken aback. “Joe Dodson.”
“Joe? Good to meet you, Joe. Short for anything, Joe?”
“Yeah, Joseph.” Scott started laughing as Matheson set up his computer. “What's so funny?”
“Joseph,” Scott said. “That's what's funny. In the Old Testament, Joseph and his coat of many colors was made Vizier to the Pharaoh and given the name Zaphenath-Paneah!” Dodson looked blank. “Which in Hebrew means: ‘Decoder of the Code'!”
“Do it again,” Pearce urged, scowling at no one in particular as the background noise ruined the take. He adjusted his headphones as Sarah moved the microphone back.
“Okay, okay,” she agreed irritably, taking a drag on her cigarette first. “Buh … buh …”
It was like someone was throwing bricks at the outer skin of the aircraft, listening to the constant shakes, rattles and metallic groans as the airframe fought the elements. Sarah took another breath and tried to match her vocal sounds to the Atlantis glyphs. They had decided each glyph must represent a human vocal sound. And after some trial and error had actually gotten some of Sarah's sounds to match up with the glyphs. Each time she spoke the computer analyzed the shape of the sound wave and compared it to each glyph. It was slow going. But at least it was going.
Scott paced back and forth impatiently, deep in thought. String enough of these sounds together and theoretically they were going to start forming sentences. But what language was it going to turn out to be? One thing was certain, it wasn't going to be English.
At this stage of text retrieval Scott should be seeing repeated
components, ascertaining groups of glyphs that seemed to repeat within the text. By now he should be determining what these repeated groups might be. Conjunctions, for example, like the word “and.”
But there were no repeated components. Whatever text Scott studied, be it a stream of glyphs from Giza or a segment from the node photographs, nothing made sense. All he seemed to find was a random stream. So unless this ancient race spoke in a vocabulary that consisted of exceptionally long words, all they were going to get was a random stream of noises.
Frustration was such an undervalued word.
Hackett folded his arms as he, Matheson and November sounded out the anthropologist's dilemma. “In a syllabic script,” Scott explained, “vowels stand alone only at the beginning of a word. After that they're always paired with a preceding consonant. Consonants are never on their own. It's a statistical godsend. But I'm not detecting that here. It's also gonna be a matter of time before I determine whether voicing is marked in the bilabial and palato-velar stops.”
“Huh?”
“In some languages like Linear B the same glyphs used to represent the sounds pi, pa and po, are also used for bi, ba and bo. It's more economical. Most cultures, with the exception of maybe Chinese, are as economic with their writing as possible. Maximum information delivered with minimum effort. But a collection of sounds … ?”
“Richard,” Matheson urged. “What's the problem here?”
“The problem?” Scott seemed almost amused. “What I do for an occupation is play three-dimensional mindgames. Word puzzles. My expectations may be all wrong. How this language is written may bear no relation to how it is pronounced. I may simply not be able to understand a spoken word of it.”
And then he realized. Sarah was looking up at him and smiling.
“We're ready,” she said tantalizingly. “All matched and ready. Wanna hear?”
Scott handed Pearce the “sentence” he wanted translated. “Those five sites by the way?” Pearce told him. “No match. They remain a mystery, so we got fifty-five glyphs that visually
match. Just so you know.” He punched in the glyphs and waited for the computer to string them into an extended audio file.
It was disjointed, and odd hearing it in Sarah's voice. It was: “Dee—juh—kho—meh …”
Which in English meant: “Pure gibberish …” Scott proclaimed, hanging his head in exasperation, his worst fears confirmed. “Pure and utter gibberish.”
Gant strode purposefully up the metal gangway and crouched down by the navigation array. Across from him, communications engineer Joseph Dodson waited for his orders, and at Gant's instigation keyed his console at the rear of the cockpit once more and broadcast a message on all known Chinese channels. But he did so, this time, in English. The whole flight he'd been broadcasting this message, to no avail. Perhaps his Chinese simply wasn't good enough.
“This is the United States Marine Corps speaking on behalf of the United Nations. We have been asked to transport a United Nations Inspection Team to the Antarctic region known to contain a Chinese military installation. We request safe passage to deliver this inspection team. Over. I repeat, delivery of this United Nations Inspection Team requires safe passage and your immediate acknowledgment is required. Over!”
Dodson, a thin young man, sat back in his chair and wiped away the sweat beading across his top lip. He turned to Gant looking somewhat pale. “Shall I keep trying, sir?”
Gant was about to answer when suddenly from up ahead an alarm sounded and red warning lights flashed across the board. The co-pilot in the front left seat inclined his head back. “Major, Chinese anti-aircraft systems just locked onto us. Shall I take evasive action?”
Gant was on his feet, thinking quickly. “Negative, negative. We don't want to do anything to jeopardize this mission.
You start doing fancy military maneuvers and they're gonna know we're up to something. Just fly straight and true.”
The co-pilot watched his captain struggle with the controls as he fought the buffeting of severe winds and stuck his hands on the yoke to help out. “We'll try our best, sir,” was all he said.
The dark-haired communications engineer scratched at his five o'clock shadow nervously. “I could try 'em again, sir. The Chinese, I could—”
And then came the familiar whistle and whine of an untuned radio message trying to get through. Dodson's fingers flew across the keys as he zeroed in on the communique.
“Put it on speakers,” Gant ordered. “I want everyone to hear this.”
 
Around the green metallic skin of the aircraft, and in and out of the ribs of the fuselage it echoed, the tinny voice of a distant Chinese officer with a mercilessly terrible English accent, cutting in over the din of the torrential ice storm that pounded the outer body like a hail of bullets.
“On behalf of the People's Republic of China, the People's Army respectfully declines safe passage for your aircraft and declines the invitation of the United Nations to inspect our facility. You are instructed not to descend from your present altitude. Any attempt to do so will be seen as an act of aggression and you will be fired upon. Attempt no landing at
Jung Chang
. You will be given five minutes to contact your superiors. However, after that time if you have not deviated from your present flight path you will be fired upon. These instructions shall not be repeated and no dialogue shall be entered into. Over and out.”
Both the team and the marines were pale. Matheson couldn't stop his foot from shaking. “Jesus fucking Christ, we really are in the middle of World War fucking Three!”
And then came the confirmation they were all dreading. Gant's voice, firm over the intercom. “Okay, everyone. Suit up. We'll be over the drop zone in two minutes.”
Scott was the first to get unsteadily to his feet. He gripped the handrail with white knuckles before helping Sarah up, and that was when they heard it. It started off as a low rumble,
the groan of electric motors kicking into life, like the landing gear being lowered. But then came the clank. Loud and sharp. Locks being released.
And then came the shaft of light:
A thin sliver at the top of the rear cargo ramp. A white band through which the shatteringly loud roar of the world outside was invading in all its dazzling brilliance.
Scott threw an arm over his eyes as they instinctively welled up with tears. Sarah reacted by pulling her face mask into position and fastening her hood. “Goggles,” she said, muffled through the thick clothing. “Goggles.”
Scott snapped his sunglasses over his eyes and felt for the briefest moment a little safer. But the moment was short-lived as Roebuck came up behind him and clipped on. Scott whirled. All the marines were clipping onto their live cargo. They had suited up into thin white nylon camouflage over the top of their insulated jumpsuits. It meant on the ground they would virtually be invisible amid the snow, while up here they looked like ghosts.
“Okay, Professor,” Roebuck said briskly. “I just gotta clip us onto the line overhead and we're all set. If you can just step up to this point here for me—atta boy.”
 
It was like a gangplank out to oblivion, the six short steps before him. Every time the plane lurched Scott would tense up, petrified he was about to topple out. But every time Roebuck sensed the anthropologist's movement he pulled him back. “It's okay, Professor, I gotcha!”
“You know, the fabled Inca homeland of Aztlan means ‘the place of whiteness'!”
“No, I didn't know that.”
“Oh yeah!” Scott spouted nervously, watching the spectacular low stormcloud and blizzard rush off into the distance, caught up in the C-130's slipstream. “There's this Chilean legend about a magic city on the borders of a mountain lake, the whereabouts of which no one knows. The city's streets and palaces were made of solid gold. And this golden city, known as the city of kings, would become visible at the end of the world.”
A single shrill klaxon burst accompanied a red warning light just overhanging the ramp. It blinked three times before
settling on steady illumination. Scott felt his stomach chum over. That was his cue to take three steps forward onto the vibrating metal ramp. He could feel Roebuck shuffling behind him.
 
Gant had his arm wrapped gently around November as they edged forward at the rear of the line. Two marines had the nuclear warhead in its box, in front of them, a sled fastened on top. While farther down the line stood Hackett, who was still engaged in hooking up with his marine.
“The visibility out there is appalling, Major!” November complained. “Y'can't see your hand in front of your face! How're we supposed to find each other when we land?”
Gant tugged at the hooks of the harness on her back. “This one right here,” he explained, “is attached to an expandable tether, which in turn is attached to me. Even though I'll be releasing you when we land so we don't wind up piled on top of each other, we'll never be more than six to ten feet apart.”
“What about the others?”
“We all have beacons,” he reassured her.
Hackett squirmed with his assigned partner. “I know you have to hug me,” the physicist joked. “But do you have to be so tight?”
“Sir, it's for your own safety.”
Hackett eyed him up and down. “My mother always warned me that all the nice boys love a sailor. That apply to marines?”
The marine confronted his CO. “Sir, do I have to be partnered with this geek?”
Gant scowled. “Eyes front, soldier!”
 
“El Dorado? That means ‘The City of Gold,' or is it the city of the sun?” Scott gabbled breathlessly. He swallowed hard. “In the middle of the Salar de Coipasa is the village of Coipasa. And just north of it live the Chipaya Indians. Their whole language is different from both Quechua
and
Aymara! The closest linguistic language is Arabic and North African tribal languages—”
“Professor Scott?”
“Yeah?”
“You're babbling.”
Scott glanced back briefly to check on the others. Directly behind him Matheson couldn't even make eye-contact, while Pearce and Sarah shifted uneasily on their feet. Maybe he was babbling, but with good reason.
Another klaxon burst.
Scott spun his head around. Green! The light had changed to green! Scott held his breath, readied himself for the sprint forward and realized belatedly that Roebuck had already lifted him clear off his feet and was rushing them out the back.
 
Slam! Scott's tongue caught in his throat as the ripcord still attached to the C-130 viciously snatched the parachute out of the pack on Roebuck's back.
Scott had expected the cold, the sheer freezing terror sapping the very life out of his extremities. But the noise, the utter volume of powerful engines heaving an unnatural hulk through the air combined with the intensity of rushing air, plus the smell of exhaust fumes and the total power of the blizzard pounding at their helpless dangling bodies almost seemed too much to bear.
He could see nothing. No sky, no ground, just a vast wall of swirling whiteness. An emptiness and a void that even God would have trouble filling.
His entire gut seemed to have shifted to a new elevated position in his chest, just down from his windpipe, making it difficult to breathe. The rush of blood in his ears had a voice of its own, like a crowd calling for his execution, and—
Bang! His ankles ached as the sudden stress of the impact shot up his legs and turned them to jelly. The twang of a clip coming undone and a rough shove to the side and Scott found himself coming bodily into contact with the frozen wasteland. There was a compacted, polystyrene sound of snow and ice crushing beneath his weight. He made to roll but found he was skidding uncontrollably across the icy flat.
He tried to yelp but nothing came out as a set of boots landed in his path. He knocked them clean out of the way as
he crashed on through before jerking to a halt on the end of his tether.
He lay there, on his back, his chest heaving up and down as he wheezed and coughed, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. He was on the ground and he was alive! He coughed again, bringing up phlegm but it had nowhere to go and he wasn't taking his faceplate off for anything, so he forced himself to swallow it and went to sit up. In all this gear it was a struggle. As he tried to get his bearings he realized that the blizzard was blasting at such a force the snow was moving horizontally, into him and past him.
Scott groaned as he struggled to get up. But the blizzard was so unbelievably powerful it knocked him straight back on his ass. He tried again, but just couldn't get a footing. And that was when he felt it. A weak tug at the tether and a distant cry for—
“Help! Professor Scott, can you hear me?”
Scott spun around, trying to figure out which direction Roebuck was calling from, but he couldn't see a thing. Not a damn thing. He felt the tug again. That was it! That was the direction.
“Lieutenant? Hold on! I'm coming!” He tried to stand again, but the best he could manage was to crawl on all fours until—
Snap! The tether jerked so viciously at his back that it whipped him around and sent a sharp jabbing pain into his hip. He grabbed at the nylon cord and yanked it in an effort to bring on some slack, but all he managed was to get his momentum going again and he found himself rapidly sliding back the way he'd just come.
The ice was cracked and torn all around him, jutting up into the air and clawing at him as he bumped over it. He could hear a scream and then the tether yanked even harder.
Thinking quickly, Scott reached around in his pocket and jabbed the only thing he could find, his gold-plated Parker pen, a gift from his estranged wife last birthday, deep into the snow and ice. And hung on for dear life.
His legs were over a precipice, and dangling from the tether between them, approximately ten feet below, was Lieutenant Roebuck. Stranded on a cliff of blue ice, the distressed officer cried out as he tried to get a footing and struggled
to release the parachute, several cords of which were wrapped around his throat.
What he didn't know was that Scott's pen was slowly, very slowly forcing its way through the snow and ice leaving a deep scar in its wake.
And there was absolutely nothing the anthropologist could do about it.

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