Lord Byron's Novel (19 page)

S

From: “Thea”

To: “Smith”

Subject: RE:Re:codes

man have to invent the wheel with you here all you do is assign a pair of numbers for every letter and so every 2 numbers are 1 letter its one of the giveaways you look to see is every line an even number and hers are

you also make the lines an arbitrary length broken into regular units adas are ten digits so five letters that way the decipherer cant tell the word lengths and you cant look frinstance for singletons which wd have to translate to i or a why you guessed it the only 1 letter words in english which wd give you a clue you couldnt look for two letter words either which there are only a few of like of and am babbage wrote down whole dictionaries of words of different lengths words of two letters words of three letters so you cd try them all out its called the brute force method you just keep trying

guess whats good at the brute force method a computer

t

From: “Smith”

To: “Thea”

Subject: Babbage

Okay. I’ve been doing Babbage too. I think he’s very strange and wonderful, like the world’s greatest nerd, god of the nerds, but stranger even than that. He’s in this somehow, he’s got to be. You know he had a portrait of J. M. Jacquard, the punch-card loom inventor, on his wall that was woven by a loom using punch cards—it was so finely detailed that people thought it was done in oils. Like, here’s what punch cards can do.

After Ada was dead, he wrote a sort of autobiography, called
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher,
and guess what—on the title page is a quote
from Byron,
and here it is:

Is this a hint? Or am I now totally paranoid and seeing connections everywhere? He used to call Ada his fairy, and she went along with that. His fairy friend, his fairy helper.

btw his wife’s name was Georgiana. So okay, whatever. But here’s something else: Babbage knew Isambard Kingdom Brunel. When Byron King, Lord Ockham, died—remember, he’s Ada’s son who kept all this stuff in his chest—he was working at the shipyard owned by Brunel on the Isle of Dogs, where the “Great Eastern” was being built. So what if maybe Babbage got him the job?

Am I learning things or just going crazy?

Smith

From: “Thea”
To: “Smith”
Subject: RE:Babbage

whos brunel whats great eastern what isle of what dogs who cares

t

From: “Smith”
To: “Thea”
Subject: RE:Re:Babbage

Sorry. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the biggest Victorian engineer. He built huge things made of iron. Bridges and ships. The biggest ever up to that time. The Great Eastern was a ship, a paddle-wheel steamship, the biggest ever built. He had a factory or a works as they say at this place in London called the Isle of Dogs, I don’t know why it’s called that, why don’t you LOOK IT UP.

Here’s a link to a picture of Brunel: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ programmes/greatbritons/gb_brunel_isambard.shtml

Check out the cigar and the plug hat and the thumb in his waistcoat pocket. The HUGE chains hanging behind him are the chains of the “Great Eastern.” It was made
for the American trade
. Oh my god. I am paranoid, I do see the signs everywhere. But what if they’re there?

S

From: “Thea”
To: “Smith”
Subject: program

you see signs and you are a nutcase but you know what they say paranoids have enemies too wont know till we know cant take long once we get it set up but i just thought once you change letters into a string of numbers then you could even run a math program to transform the string i just thot of this hm like every line cd be multiplied by a key number or could be the result of some arithmetical operation or even algebraic to keep all the lines a consistent length you wd use modulo arithmetic the modulo wd be the same as the line length wow

which might mean this really is a program meant to run on a computer like the analytical engine was gonna be like she said it would weave algebraic patterns just as a jacquard loom weaves colored threads or something right

i like this i like it a lot theres problems but im thinking thinking

From: “Smith”
To: “Thea”
Subject: RE:program

Okay T. So what you’re saying is that what she could have done was to set out this table, which if you use it right can be used to punch a series of cards, like the Jacquard loom cards? Which you can then run on the Analytical Engine (which she was sure would be built somewhere somehow at some time) and the Engine would translate the punch cards into printed papers with the writing on them. Each punch card would have enough holes for the whole alphabet plus punctuation, like punch cards for computers when we were kids, and some way to make the machine store the numbers in order in the memory. Sure. Then last instruction, each card would force the computer, I mean the Engine, to print out a number, which corresponds to a word in 01-02-03 = a-b-c cipher, or maybe a word-plus-punctuation, and print it. Okay.

And it would only take a few years to punch the 100,000 cards you would need to carry every word of the book, if it was even a medium-sized book. And she doesn’t seem to have left any instructions about how the machine could read cards she specified before she knew how the machine worked. Wouldn’t that be like writing software for a computer that hadn’t been built?

Maybe she could have used a compressed vocabulary somehow. Is that possible? Like a way of indicating by one holepunch or one instruction that a word has “a” at position five seven and nine. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe she wanted the punch cards made, and when they were all set out on a Jacquard loom, they would weave this humongous piece of fabric with the book woven into it. It would have been easier to copy it letter by letter on stones and leave them on the beach for somebody to find.

S

From: “Thea”
To: “Smith”
Subject: RE:Re:program

you do not trust me and you do not get it i can see that you will b sorry for your mockery when i get it all right and soon too

she didnt need to think anybody would punch all the cards she knew that instructions about how to punch the cards were enuf that the future wd get it from that and run it on machines that didnt exist but she knew they would someday and they do they do

btw the cloth with the book woven in it would not have to be that big or the number of cards either you are not reading your history what i read says that the silk portrait of mister or monsieur jacquard that babbage owned was made with 24000 cards and each card had 1000 hole positions so there a book is a piece of cake the real problem wd be knowing how to program cards to weave letter shapes i dont think ada did you tell me

t

From: “Smith”
To: “Thea”
Subject: ILY

I can’t find out that she knew how to program a jacquard loom. I bet she couldn’t. But listen I thought of something else. It’s so obvious. The one page of the novel we found—it didn’t end up there by chance. Ada saved it, that one page, so we could break the code. So we could know the code was a code. It should be the last page, so that you could use it to break the code with. A key. But it’s not the last page, not unless the book’s unfinished, which maybe it is, so you can’t just count back from the last letter and the last number. But I’m sure that’s what it is, and what she meant it for.

I cried when I got it. You are right. It’s in there, she put it in there and somehow her son carried it away with him, and she thought someday somewhere. You. Me. Oh my god Thea. What if it’s so.

S

From: “Thea”
To: “Smith”
Subject: RE:ILY

yes i thot the same thing last nite thinking of u

it seemed crazy to me or suspicious that she wd put the notes she made in the same trunk as the enciphered thing and the one page like you said because its much easier to break a cipher if you have a bunch of the text and so as soon as you guess that the cipher is the novel youve got all these repeating words to look for like the main guys name or other things

but then today my codes guy explained the principle of pgp that means pretty good privacy when you hide something you only need to hide it enough to keep it from the people you need to for as long as you need to like you can spell words aloud when kids are around thats pgp until they catch on so adas cipher was pgp because all she wanted was to keep it from her mom and after that she wanted it to be read she wanted us to get it she wanted it to be easy we were thinking of something hard but why it shd be easy am i right

From: “Smith”
To: “Thea”

Subject:

Thea—

Of course you’re right. Of course of course.

She was dying, Thea, and she did this last thing: she made this thing, this enciphered version of the novel her mother and her husband wanted her to destroy. She said she would destroy it, and she did. Her husband saw it burn, all of it—all but one page. Then her son came to visit, poor Lord Ockham, who never wanted to be a lord, and only wanted to run away and be with ordinary people, and do ordinary work. And she gave him these things, these papers he couldn’t read, and she didn’t tell him what they were. Plus the one saved page. And she said to him: Take them to America with you, where there aren’t any lords. Run away now and take them with you.

But Thea it isn’t so yet. It isn’t so until it’s translated or deciphered or decoded or whatever the right word is. I took it out of the box again tonight (Georgiana was asleep, she snores amazingly for somebody so small and thin) and I looked at it, and it was almost as though I could see through it to what it was inside. But it still could be nothing too.

So what’s that mean? If the code isn’t hard, or shouldn’t be hard. Does it mean a month, or a year, or an afternoon?

From: “Thea”
To: “Smith”
Subject: RE:[ ]

maybe an hour or two maybe a day dunno

but first you have to put all the numbers in with nobody knowing what youre up to you think thats easy its not im thinking of a way but i aint got it yet

the thing to find is the key any guesses what she used even if you know just the length of the keyword you can periodize but you can do it without what you wait for when the crunching starts is just to see some sense a word or a few words then you know and babe youll see it soon as i do if i do if im not crazy and if i am i hope youll forgive me

your friend

thea

L
ONDON
!
ALI HAD
once before trod her blackened stones, and fronted the grey mobs, and avoided the haughty equipages of the world of fashion—which had, nevertheless,
anointed
him, with the mud of their passage. Then, he had walked and rode as in a dream, and as in a dream been taken to the offices of Solicitors, and the inglenooks of coffeehouses, each as unreal to him as the other. Now—the father was dead who had led him without pause or explanation along these streets, and Ali was grown, with a world of incident already stored within him, which even that
Pandæmonium
might not surpass in strangeness, or in horror. As has been said, the news of his rôle in the drama play’d upon the plains before Salamanca preceded his arrival in the city, and his progress through the streets to surrender his Person—which no appeal of Lieutenant Upward, nor of any other officer or friend, could dissuade him from—was accompanied by a small crowd, which became a large crowd, which became a Mob—some jeering, some commending loudly, some not knowing what was afoot but giving voice nonetheless. The proceeding before the Bench was brief—the Judge, aware also of Ali’s recent actions, was more inclined to permit him the extraordinary privilege of
bail,
and to accept his sureties and bonds, than the Scottish Magistrate had been. Stern was his demeanour, indeed—for the Law must regard with all gravity the murder of a Lord, whatever his character may have been (and the Judge knew the man of old)—but in not too long a time, Ali with his supporters emerged, temporarily at Liberty, to the admiring outcries of the People, as though they had had not Barabbas but the innocent Son of Man released to them.

His father’s agents raised what monies they could and
must
to support him who was, no other Claimants appearing, heir apparent of the Sanes, and little though it was, it was sufficient, for few indeed were the costs that Ali was allowed to sustain. A Club offered him a Membership—then a competing club offered another—and the first offered Rooms—and another larger ones—until Ali was ensconced in a
chambre séparée
in a respectable establishment that was not Watier’s or the Cocoa Tree, while his Father’s former agents brooded over his situation, and his claims. Lieutenant Upward, who was his chief companion, as he knew no one else in the Capital after whom he might inquire, threw himself upon the divan there provided, and lifted a glass of the Champagne also provided, to toast his now well-connected though bemused friend.

‘My Lord,’ quoth he, ‘you are splendidly bespoken. I warrant your wound and its discomforts have long since been assuaged by Honours and Pleasures, the best of medicines.’

‘I beg that you do not address me so,’ Ali said, himself remaining standing, and abstinent, as though unwilling to partake in gifts and goods he did not know how he deserved. ‘I am but myself, without additions, and
shall
be till all these proceedings be resolved. Then we shall see if, instead of a Title, I have a Number, painted across my back, on a ship of Transportation.’

‘Fear not,’ said the Military Surgeon. ‘Opinion, and the Regent, and the Generals, all are of your party; and if such are for you, who can be against you?’

Ali in some puzzlement turned away, and looked darkly, for he knew he ought to share his friend’s delight, and yet found himself unable to do so, and knew not why.

Through that day and the next, the cards of men of every party, and every quality, were dropt at his club, until it amounted to a blizzard of pasteboard. Among those come to gaze upon him, as upon a fabulous monster, were a Poet, who offer’d to write an epic of his adventures, and a Methodist, who offer’d to convert him, and a young Lady, who offer’d—Ali was not sure what, for she fainted before expressing her reasons for appearing before him. She had bribed the Porter, to be slipt in by night, in his absence—hid behind his Screen, and came forth at his return—fainted, as noted—was revived with water, and salts, and the attentions of the Military Surgeon—who argued that she might as well be entertained, once she had come round, but Ali insisted that she must be escorted out, which he did with all
tendresse
and regard, lest she, or her reputation, come to harm in that place.

He was the wonder of that nine days, which stretched to a fortnight unabated—and Ali sensed that many among those who gazed upon him, and took his hand, with ‘nods and becks and wreathed smiles’, saw in him something more, or
other,
than a British hero. ‘I know not why I am become such an object of interest, or at least of fascination,’ said Ali. ‘Does every man harbour a secret wish to murder his father?’

‘It is more to the point that you are a Turk,’ said his friend the Lieutenant, ‘and not a Christian, and yet are on the way to the House of Lords, where you may give your maiden speech upon the beauties of the Koran, or the necessity for English girls to go veiled. Anything
contradictory
interests us, be it a mermaid or a mechanical man.’

‘I am not mechanical,’ said Ali, ‘nor am I a Turk.’ And he observed, with some bitterness, the light wave of the Military Surgeon’s hand, and the airy lift of his brows, in dismissal of this tiresome objection. Just at that moment, the door was again knocked upon, and the porter announced another gentleman, and the name immediately relieved Ali’s dark mood, and brought a smile to his lips—who thought he had no real Friend among the million! ‘’Tis the Honourable!’ cried Ali, and hastened to bring within the gentleman who loitered somewhat bashfully upon the threshold.

‘Heigh-ho, the Hero,’ said the gentleman, and fell into Ali’s embrace. He was a small figure, almost
miniaturised
and yet perfect in all his parts, like a piece of clockwork; his dress was of the sort called
exquisite
in that day, which meant a vast expenditure on very white linen, and an inconvenient constriction of black broadcloth about the waist and other parts. It was, to be particular, Mr Peter Piper, who had been up at the Athens-upon-the-Fens when Ali had briefly resided there, and who had had every intention, Ali had heard, of remaining there, and sitting for a Fellowship, but had not—for he had seen more scope for his talents in the Clubs and at the baize tables of the City. The gentleman who now drew back and made an ironic
leg
before Ali was a figure such as was common in the days of the
Regency
of our present Monarch, indeed some were among the dearest friends of that Prince—he privately preferred their company and conversation to that of sober counsellors, or reverend Bishops—and so did I. And why ‘Honourable’, the epithet by which he was known to all his intimates? The exact reasons were somewhat lost in the mists of Time—but it seemed that, once on a time, his name had appeared on a list—a subscription, or an invitation, or a register—decorated with the names of
Lord
this and
the Earl of
that, his own appearing with a simple Esq appended. Given the list to look over, he had himself added ‘the Honourable’ to his name, to which addition he believed he had a claim, as being the third son of a Baronet (however King-of-arms might view the matter). His contention was, that he had only desired that the list be
corrected
and not appear with errors upon it, but—as so many of our little acts of vanity or even of self-preservation reverse themselves upon us—on this petard of his own devising, Mr Peter Piper was hoist—he was for a time a general butt, and no one afterward forgot it.

‘I happened,’ he now said, ‘to be present at the Bench, when your case was heard. No—I lie—for ’twas no accident I came there, but to view the wonder all men spoke of, and every paper lauded—or deplored, as did a few—and to see with mine own eyes if it were truly my old Companion. And lo! It was! Unchanged—unmarked, by the sorrows and hazards through which he had passed—there stood he—my Ali! And was his head down? It was not! Was his eye subdued? It was not! And with good reason too, as it soon appeared. Wise Solon who sat that day! A gentleman beside me—come to witness this extraordinary proceeding, even as I had—gave me three to one about your chances of being bailed—’twould have been higher, but something about
you
impressed even him—and I was able to collect a nice sum—yet for me the outcome was never for a moment in doubt.’

This was double or treble the words Ali had ever heard the Honourable to express without a pause, for he was in general a man who ‘says less than he knows’, &c., even in drink, and was known for his self-possession.

‘I have brought you, in this connexion,’ said he then, ‘a gift beyond price, which awaits in the foyer beyond, and if he don’t come bursting in as my prologue continues, I’ll be swanned. He is one you would be very wise to speak to, and even wiser to attend to. No—allow me to admit him—why, here he comes, pat, like the catastrophe in the old play!’

Even before Ali could assent to an interview, the man was in the room, or
in possession
of it, for he was a large and comfortably furnished gentleman, ‘round belly with good capon lined’, and the sort of man who made himself at home wherever he stood.

‘May I present Mr Wigmore Bland, of the Temple, Barrister,’ said Mr Piper, bringing forward the man, whose slight bow and eager hand Ali took as he must—for they were not to be refused. ‘I was before the Bench on another matter,’ said Mr Bland, in a voice rich as plum-cake, ‘which was recessed so that I might attend your Lordship’s case, and its disposal.’

‘You address me thus prematurely,’ Ali said, ‘as I have tried to tell these gentlemen.’

This animadversion Mr Bland turned aside with a wave of a hand large & pink. ‘Allow me to suggest to your Lordship that your rights in the matter, and your freedom, may easily be assured. The case seems to me to present few difficulties, and I make bold to offer my services in addressing them.’

‘He has saved many from conviction,’ Mr Piper put in brightly, ‘and many of those were completely innocent of any crime.’

There was nothing for it, then, but that Ali should invite the Barrister to enter in, and take wine, and hear the particulars of what had passed on that night in Scotland and pursuant, insofar as Ali could remember them—for it is difficult to
remember
clearly what we cannot
understand
. Mr Bland produced from within his coat a great Note-book, which he opened with the air of one about to read Gospel truths, but only proceeded to fill pages with the answers to questions he put to Ali. He knitted his brows in grave attention to Ali’s answers, and nodded like a great bell tolling, and tapped his stick upon the floor in dismay at the
injustice
done to the man he regarded already as his client.

‘I cannot pay your fees,’ Ali made clear to him. ‘If we should miscarry, and I lose my case, you will see nothing; likewise if I—if
you
—should be victorious, and I go free—for I have no incomes that are not pledged, and no properties which are not mortgaged already.’

‘No more of that,’ said the Barrister kindlily, ‘for I ask nothing of you. Believe me, Sir, there is profit assured, beyond ready money. Yours is the most
interesting
case to come before the Bench in many moons, and will be followed eagerly in all the papers—’twill be the talk of all the Clubs, and Balls—it may excite a question in Parliament, for aught I know. And if I am successful in your defence—as I have no doubt I shall be—why, only think how many must hear of the fact, and how many with pockets deeper than your own—as innocent as yourself, and as wrongly accused—in their own eyes—will be eager to engage my services! Sir, I do not brag—nor do I rate myself at any more than my worth—for that may be easily measured, in the proportion of cases in which I have secured a verdict of
Not guilty
for gentlemen in situations like your own.’

Ali looked darkly—tho’ it nothing discomfited his aspiring champion—as he thought that he did not know, nor had ever heard tell, of any gentleman in
circumstances like his own
. Nevertheless the contract was entered upon, and to Scotland when Assizes loom’d Ali proceeded in the comfortable Coach and Four which Mr Bland’s extensive practice had bestow’d upon him. The conversation therein turned in large part upon the trial to come.

‘Of course I shall speak in my own defence,’ said Ali.

‘With permission, but you will speak nothing at all, my Lord,’ quoth Lawyer Bland. ‘The Prosecution of the case have no right to compel your testimony, and must prove their case without your help. You need not appear before the Jury at all. We are in a new Age, Sir, and the way to the gallows, or the ship of Transportation, is a longer one, and not so plain now as once it was, or as the Prosecutors would like it.’

‘I wish the truth to be known, and the facts to come out,’ Ali protested. ‘I am innocent, and will declare as much.’

‘Sir, the Truth is not material; as for your Innocence, I am happy to believe it, yet it too is immaterial, as far as a successful
defence
be concerned. I beg you to leave all things to me.’ And with that, he turned to other matters, and pointed out to Ali the beauties of the landscape thro’ which they passed, which was
picturesque
indeed, and a credit it was to Mr Bland that he admired it.

The case, when at length it came before a Jury and Judge, was attended by all the late Lord Sane’s tenants and liegemen, who were about evenly divided (so it seemed to Ali, as he pass’d among them, to stand in his place in the Dock) between those who desired to see
him
hanged, and those glad to know that the old Lord had been, and incurious as to the question, by
whom
. The Officers of the Law, somehow shrunken, to Ali’s view, from the minions of majesty who had taken him into custody so long ago, once again told their tale, and how they had intelligence of a high crime—this
intelligence,
as it now appeared, was a certain ragged urchin of the town, who had a Penny from a man to summon the Law, but could nothing more remember—and loud was the laughter when Mr Wigmore Bland questioned the small person, and got in reply but
‘a Penny’,
and
‘a Mon’,
and nothing more.