The Forward Sensor Room (Part III)

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Frustrated with the badgering he’d received from planet-side, Sal poked at the console in front of him in an attempt to isolate the fleeting malfunctions that had interrupted his language deciphering routines. The errors pointed to outside interference however if it was their Bynar visitors then they had cleverly disguised their intrusion. Regardless, he documented his findings. Perhaps he’d run it by Pher later, he thought. This was, after all, a security issue.

 

 

 

His curiosity of his results thus far was too great and Sal began poking around that data. The symbols had been broken down into two groups of complexity and one group most definitely of a form of punctuation. The first 20 simple characters also were associated with the 20 amino acids. He was wondering whether the Zoalus had established its alphabet based on this coincidence then dismissed it. ‘They were simply enumerating the acids sequentially using their alphabet, A through Z methodology’, he thought to himself.

 

 

 

Another item that kept reappearing was a mandala-like shape that contained all 50 of the characters. It was divided into 64 wedges. Sixteen of these wedges contain a binary sequence of the two most complex characters. The other wedges simply contained one of the other 48. The computer had not attached any meaning to this arrangement but gave references to several cultures that had used mandala-like symbolism to describe such concepts as ‘Life’, ‘Space-Time’ and ‘Metaphysical Realities’. Again, Sal determined that this was more coincidence than significance but thought the crew would enjoy the beauty of the artwork.

 

 

 

The language itself seemed to be associated with the complexity of each symbol. The more simple symbols were strung together in longer sequences, some numbering in the 40 to 50 character range, where the more complex symbols were a part of shorter, more compact sequences of three or four characters in length. Although the symbols most likely originated from an ancient representation of some items the people found in nature, their original meanings were lost forever.

 

 

 

There were also several examples of these textual streams used in diagrams and line-drawings of various alien objects. It was sketchy at best but the computer had established such concepts as ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘family’ and ‘God’. He was looking for concepts that might help them to determine who these people were and what’s more, where they went; why they suddenly disappeared without a trace. The analysis was definitely incomplete and Sal had his work cut out for him.

 

 

 

After separating and saving off a few select items for his report to Manning, Sal reinitiated his deciphering routines. The Bynars appeared to be behaving themselves, occupied by Troy’s clever diversions and so Sal turned to preparing his report. He sipped his cold tea and tapped feverously at the console. Every so often, he’d look up, glance at the monitor in the science lab and then at the orbital status displays. It became routine for a period of time and he was able to focus on his work. He wondered how long the administrators on the planet would wait for a message from Troy but what he really wanted was to hear from Manning, to inform him of their unexpected guests. He had his suspicions but this was Manning’s ship. He alone would have to make the decision as to how to handle their return. Sal knew that Troy’s action was simply following his lead and containing the Bynar, preventing them from leaving.