The River Towers: Follow-UP

[rosetto 0]

Sal had some ideas but was not ready to present them to the group. He was not convinced that what they were dealing with was a 'defense grid' at all; not in the current technological sense anyway. There was definitely more to this puzzle and Sal 'loved' puzzles.

 

 

The analysis of this document had provided some insight into how the Zoalus language was used in an official capacity. What they were looking at was most likely a government document and anyone with experience reviewing government documents would know that it's written in a sort of legalese so that all of the bases are covered. The sentence structures are exacting and have gone through several iterations and revisions. The document contained many 'High Ordered' symbols which meant that these terms were also just as exacting. They had specific meanings so that their use could not be misinterpreted. Sal wanted some time at a console to work on his translator. This language intrigued him and he wanted to fully understand it. That wasn't going to happen as long as he was here on the surface. Still, unless they were to capture one of these droids and take it back to QoB, it was the only option available that would allow him to conduct live experimentation.

 

 

There was a strong wind whipping outside and he could presume that a storm approached. He could hear the whistling sounds because the seal on the passageway into the tower nearby had long since worn away. He suspected that this was probably the case on most of them that were still in use. His eyes were already closed as the vibrations from the wall began to soothe him mentally. Before he realized it he was in a deep state of REM.

 

 

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"Joia!"

 

He called into the empty darkness. There was no discernable echo which he took to mean that he was not inside. He could not see anything, however. There was not even an ambient light available for his pupils to absorb and his brain to collate into an image. He had to rely on his other senses to get his bearings.

 

 

The first was his sense of balance which told him that he was on a planet. This was not artificial gravity. There was an acute feeling that some people got when they were under the influence of artificial gravity. Sal had discovered this years ago back on Mars or actually from his first visits to the shipyards in orbit there. He presented it to one of his pilot friends and they told him that there were a very small percentage of people who could sense this. They said that Star Fleet was extremely interested in these people; wanted them in the fleet because they could better adapt themselves to changing gravitational environments.

 

 

"Joia!"

 

He called again and still got no answer from his daughter. He also sensed that she was in some kind of danger but he couldn't focus on exactly what that danger was. Her lack of response made him anxious and he began to run in a chosen direction even though he did not know where it would lead him. Surprisingly enough, he was not stumbling and his feet met the ground beneath him evenly with every stride. He couldn't judge how fast he was moving but knew that he was indeed running. He felt the gravity pull on him as he expanded another leg.

 

 

He checked his garb to see if there might be some kind of illuminating device on him that he could use. He was wearing a suit, a woolen suit, one of the many that hung in his closet. He usually kept his communicator in the inside right breast pocket. That would provide some ambient lighting, he thought. He reached in and it was right where he'd thought it would be and without missing a stride he pulled it out and activated it. The screen was extremely bright to him and he turned away momentarily as his eyes adjusted.

 

 

To his amazement, he WAS in a room. He stopped running and began to look around, pointing the communicator outward in every direction. While he looked at the walls that surrounded him his mind was attempting to rationalize why he had not reached any of them. They were not that far away. The walls looked peculiar, though. They seemed to extend below where he had imagined the ground to be. He had to be atop a platform high in the air. Pointing the communicator downwards he found that he was right. He was on some kind of pillar. It had rotated freely beneath him. He could walk or run in any direction and physically he would not move off of the pillar.

 

 

This was not some holo-deck trickery where most of the experience takes place in one's mind. This was physical. Just how the platform predicted his moves before he made them was unknown but it was doing it, none-the-less. He could not get any closer to any of the walls, not by walking anyway.

 

 

He turned his attention to the walls and discovered that there was writing on them. It was writing that he could interpret as if he'd learned it as a lad, but it was definitely not English. It was not the Terran alphabet or any other that he had learned of seen. He seemed to know this instinctively and it puzzled him.

 

 

Then it came to him like a suggestion from the unknown. This was the Zoalus language as it was meant to appear. The font was not as perfectly formed as it had appeared in the documents and data that he had been reviewing, but the symbols were definitely represented. He could read them clearly and distinctly but his mind was fogged by something. He couldn't focus on their meaning. There was a noise that was repeating and it was becoming increasingly irritating to him. It was like a banging sound, like pounding on sheet steel. He looked in every direction but could not tell from where the noise originated. It grew in intensity and soon that was all he could hear. His eyes were forced... open!

 

 

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It was daylight, morning and he was still curled up against the cold wall. Ethan stood over him with a smirk on his face. Sal struggled back to consciousness and rose to his feet. The rest of the group was already up and about.

 

 

[rosetto 0]

Sal shook the cob webs out of his head, got up and gathered his belongings. His was a small pack. He preferred to travel light. Coffee would be nice but he wasn't gonna get any this morning. He'd have to be satisfied with a juice-tube and he bit it open and sucked down the contents. It was concentrated and exploded into his mouth and his eyes opened quickly. Sal stuffed the empty tube back into his pack and returned to collecting his things. He had a couple of reference tabs along with his PADD. The reference tabs contained images of the mandala-like symbol as well as the phonetic analysis that he and Ethan had reworked. Sal's mind, always active, started reciting the Zoalus alphabet.

 

 

The low ordered symbols were completely phonetic and one could literally 'sound out' the sequence. He and Ethan had no idea how the sounds were assigned to the symbols but they had separated the vowel and consonant symbols based on the ability to pronounce a sequence. Like many languages, there were consonant pairs that probably merged together. These seemed to be rare in the Zoalus text. Most syllabic phrases were two or three symbols; a vowel surrounded by consonants. Sal had written a program that would synthesize a voice from a specified sequence. He could rotate through random assignments and the voice would attempt to speak the sequence using the newly selected sounds. When he wrote it, Ethan seemed a little confused, seeing absolutely no immediate use. There was no way to know which consonant sound went with which consonant symbol. The same was true for the vowels. Sal just liked that the program worked and they listened to the PADD spew out strange vocal sequences that sounded like some kind of spoken language. Then Sal could tap an icon and the whole sequence would sound completely different but still fairly organized and intelligible.

 

 

Sal thought about all of this while he finished repacking and joined the group. His thought was that maybe, just maybe, they could actually 'SPEAK' to these drones; issue commands. He knew that if they were programmed for voice commands then these commands would have to be spoken in the native language. All he had to work with was a tabulated list of words in what seemed to be an appendix. Some of these words contained High-Ordered symbols. Without a better understanding and more references, these would be impossible to pronounce correctly. He had found these after everyone else had fallen asleep. He wanted to present them to Pher before they headed out. This was on his mind as he approached the group dragging his pack to his shoulders and wearing a tired frown and slightly drooping eyes.