The Tenth Cycle: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 1) (36 page)

With some asperity born of the fright he'd received, Luke answered, "What the hell going on in here? Who's hurt?"

"No one," a calmer Daniel said, taking Sarah into his arms and hugging her tightly. "I'm sorry, Luke. We just had some amazing news. Sinclair here has cracked the code!"

Luke’s calm reception of that news served to settle the others down. Quietly he asked, "Well? What does it say?"

Everyone turned to Sinclair, who was finally catching his breath now that Raj had stopped pounding him on the back. "It says there's a library of subjects that the builders knew something about, and it tells how to find the messages. That's as far as I got before the bedlam set in." Despite being manhandled by Raj, Sinclair seemed to have recovered his good nature. "Let's see what we can make of the rest of it. Let me work in peace for a few minutes."

Martha was sitting in a chair tears running down her cheeks as she said to herself, “Mark my dear where are you? How I wish you could be here to see what you have started.”

Sinclair noticed Martha crying and walked over to her. He put his arm around her apologizing again for his outburst, but she only shook her head. She didn’t ask him to remove his arm, though, finding it very comforting. Since her husband’s death, she missed physical contact, and enjoyed every hug she got.

Martha and Sarah decided it was a good time to fix lunch for the group while they waited for Sinclair to announce that he had more translated. Later, munching on their sandwiches and salad as they stood or sat around the dining table, far enough from the computer equipment to keep Raj happy, the others excitedly discussed what the next move should be. Obviously, there must be more to the message as it was currently arranged that Sinclair hadn't had the chance to see. Raj had only selected a small sample, after all. From time to time one or the other of them paused in their thinking and talking to look at Sinclair in awe and remark again how amazing it was that he could just perform all those mental gymnastics, reading it as if it were written in English. Daniel, realizing that Sinclair had memorized the values and their corresponding syllables in less than half an hour, resolved never again to judge a person's ability to assimilate new information by their age. Even if Sinclair was a genius as he and Sarah had decided, it was a remarkable achievement.

Modestly, Sinclair waved away their awe, and said, "I'll admit that it would be easier if we did some more comparison charts and wrote the syllables in Arabic script."

Raj answered, "That's no problem. I'll do it while you are eating." Setting his lunch aside, he went back to the keyboard and entered a few more commands. "Do you want the Sumerian form of the Arabic script? It is the most ancient I have loaded in the database."

"Yes, that will do. I suspect we're dealing with something even more ancient, which is what made me think to use Sumerian as I pronounced the sounds we related to each value. What a jumble though! This will turn the linguistics community on its head and wipe out several theories of how language developed in the region."

Looking at Sinclair, Daniel said, "I'll bet everything you need to prove it is hidden somehow in that code. How fast can we translate all of it?"

Sinclair shook his head. "Not fast. I mean, it won't take long to translate enough to convince even the worst skeptic that we're onto something, but to get it all done...it just depends on how much there is. How many Fibonacci numbers have you determined to be represented in the stone values?"

Daniel looked to Raj for confirmation before answering, "As far as I know or recall, all of them are Fibonacci numbers."

Sinclair gave an exaggerated slump, as if the idea were overwhelming, then straightened with an excited gleam in his eye. "In that case, using each number as a skip sequence, there could logically be hundreds of different texts in the same stones. Of course, it would require the use of a computer to arrange the stones in such a way that the texts would all make sense, and we're talking about a more than 6000-year-old civilization, so most likely they didn't have anything like our computers. But even a few different starting points or skip sequences would represent hundreds of hours to translate, if I'm working alone. Have you considered bringing in another linguist or dozen?" Sinclair asked, with a whimsical smile.

Daniel's answer was more serious. "No, we actually hadn't thought that far ahead. Bad oversight again. We'd better keep at the first message. I mean, finish the one you started, and meanwhile Raj could create reports for the next several numbers as skip sequences and you could take a look at the first few lines to see if we're on the right track."

Daniel's suggestion met with the approval of the others, so Sinclair asked Raj to print out what he had and then create the next couple of thousand rows, or however many it would take to exhaust the data, for him to work on when he finished the first set. After that, Raj would use the next Fibonacci number to create a report that would pick out every thirteenth value and so forth, working his way through the entire sequence until the numbers grew too large to make sense for the volume of data they had.

Soon the room fell mostly silent, only now and again one or the other making a remark, as Sinclair worked with Sarah hanging over his shoulders and Daniel reading upside down from across the table. Raj continued to set up sequence reports until he grew tired of doing it one by one and wrote a program to go through the steps. It was when he remarked that the data set seemed to be shrinking with each iteration of the program that Martha, who displayed astounding general knowledge for someone who did a degree in home economics more than 30 years ago and have been a housewife most of her life, had a brainstorm.

"Of course! As the Fib numbers get higher, we skip more and more symbols. The higher we go, the shorter the text will be that corresponds to that number in the sequence!"

"Begorrah, she's right!" exclaimed Sinclair, looking at Martha with not only surprise but respect and prompting Sarah to snigger. "What?"

"I just love it when you go all Irish on us," Sarah teased. "I can't resist a man with an accent."

Sinclair shot a good-natured grin at Daniel and said, "Better watch out, Danny Boy, I'm beating your time with your girl."

Daniel answered with a grin of his own. "Speaking of beating..." Prompting Sinclair to hold up his hands in surrender. The comic relief served to break the silence that had prevailed since the last spate of conversation.

Daniel was the one to ask Raj what number he was working on.

"One-hundred and forty-four," was the laconic answer.

"Hey," said Martha. "Let's see what that one says."

So far, the initial sequence, the one that used all the stones without skipping any, had revealed nothing but a list of subjects with corresponding numeric values that they couldn't quite see the reason for, and Sinclair hadn't reached the end of that grid yet. Martha's suggestion was tantamount to saying they should skip to the end of the book to see how it turned out, but the others were eager enough to get more information that they all agreed. Quickly, Raj printed out his latest grid and they all held their breath as Sinclair began to translate.

"Ye who have found the key, hear our chronicle. Know that in the year... of The Tenth Cycle" Sinclair stopped, puzzled. "There's what may be a numerical notation here, but I don't understand it."

"Maybe they give a clue later on. Let's go on and figure out when later." Daniel said.

"Okay. In the year unknown, the Supreme Council of Knowledge, commissioned the least of their number, I, Zebulon, to build this monument and record our history for Those Who Come After. In all the cycles, this has never been attempted before."

"Holy shit!" Daniel exclaimed, prompting a quelling look from both Sarah and Martha.

Another little commotion ensued but Sinclair held up his hand to calm them down before they went completely off the handle. He went on after the interruption. "We of the Tenth Cycle believe that we have achieved more than any Cycle before us, and, knowing our fate, wish to leave evidence of our knowledge. With this knowledge, perhaps you, our children, may continue our progress and stop the cycles of destruction that have held our kind to less than our full potential for ..." Again, Sinclair paused, "Some number again, I can't make it out. Then, 'years.' Good heavens, this is maddening."

Daniel looked up at the others. "This is already explosive information. There's some sort of cycle of destruction, just as Sarah's friend Ahmed and his colleagues believe. We need to find out where we are in it. Sinclair, as you read on, do you see anything that gives a clue as to how to read these numbers?"

"Not yet, but let me keep reading. ‘We leave this monument for your enlightenment. However, our leader has decreed that it must be coded in such a way that it may not be read until you have achieved a measure of civilization to equal our own. Know this: if wars still disturb the peace of your world, you will not be able to escape the destruction that will come in the fullness of your cycle. You must cease fighting amongst yourselves and work together on the answer. Only then will mankind achieve the shared knowledge to avoid the same fate as those who have gone before you.’"

As Sinclair's voice trailed off, the others looked at each other in consternation. War was definitely a part of their world, and no one saw a way to bring it to an end permanently. In fact, these five people couldn't see a way to end any small skirmish, much less the wars that dotted the globe in every corner. Their mission had just become larger than they had ever dreamed.

Sinclair was saying that he wanted most of all to understand the numeric notation, so they'd know when and how long the Builders' civilization had lasted. They could no longer refer to them as Egyptians, nor did anyone believe they were Minoans. That time sequence wouldn't work at all, despite the similarity of the language as Sinclair had worked it out. Even Sumerian didn't quite fit. Builders it was, at least until they discovered somewhere in the record what they called themselves. Daniel had suggested Cyclers, but everyone thought he was joking, and he didn't correct them.

Knowing they couldn't translate even a significant portion of the material, much less all of it, Sinclair resorted to skimming the first few lines, whatever it took to get the gist of the subject matter, and then labeling the printed data cube with the Fibonacci number that indicated the skip sequence. As Sarah picked up a few of the pages Sinclair had laid aside, she had an idea.

"Hey, guys? What if the numbers in the index are the same as these Fib numbers that indicate the skip sequence?"

Daniel was thunderstruck. Of course! Eagerly, he joined Sarah as they started notating an index of their own and comparing it to the presumed numerical symbols in the translated index. It soon became clear that Sarah had been correct. What a simple solution! By the time they were finished with what had been done so far, both marveled that they hadn't seen it before. Sinclair, though he continued to translate, looked over at their progress from time to time. When they announced that they thought they had it, he took the pages and looked them over.

"No doubt about it! Where's that section we read about when they started to create the record?"

"It was skip sequence one-forty-four, wasn't it? Sarah said.

"Yes, that's it, now where did that go?" Finding the page he wanted, Sinclair looked back and forth at the symbols representing the numbers they had. Then he took a fresh page, wrote the symbols from the year that dated that section and the Arabic numerals they represented below them. When he had finished, he pushed the paper toward Daniel and Sarah, an awestruck expression on his face. With trembling hands, Sarah picked up the paper and read the number.

"Twenty-five thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-two. Oh, my heavens!"

"What," Daniel said, having misunderstood what he heard. "Their civilization is about six hundred years older than ours. Can they have made that much more progress?"

"No, Daniel,
thousand.
Nearly twenty-six
thousand
years of unbroken civilization. You're thinking twenty-first century, and forgetting that we're counting from the birth of Christ, not from the beginning. I make it nearly twenty thousand years older than ours. I can't imagine what they might have known." Sarah sat down abruptly, the shock of the enormous number fully sinking in.

Martha said in a very soft voice betraying her bewilderment, "In six thousand years, we emerged from the Stone Age, began living in cooperation and specializing our work, learned to communicate with each other, fought wars, learned how to fly and how to make electricity an inextricable part of our lives. We can't even begin to assimilate all the knowledge we have, much less what would have come out of such an old civilization. Think of the progress we've made in just the past hundred or so years, and how rapidly it's advancing in the last fifteen."

Sarah said with a flash of humor, "How about a shot of tequila?"

Daniel laughed. "Sometimes too much drink is barely enough," quoting one of his favorite sources, Mark Twain. If there were ever an occasion where too much was barely enough, this was it.

The others, each reacting in his own way to the astounding number, were brought back to the present by the laugh that Daniel had provided. Sinclair suggested that a round of Irish coffee was in order. Only Raj, who was not familiar with the drink, demurred. But Sinclair insisted, and explained how it was made, then adding, "Only Irish coffee in a single drink provides all four essential food groups, alcohol, sugar, caffeine and fat."