Chapter 9

28 Librae System
Research Station, Zene
15/15/41 NR 1410 Hours

The carved rock panel’s image hung in the holo display, magnified to three times its original size. Luisa stopped and peered at a series of lines and circles in the upper right corner of the panel. The image was overlaid with blue guide lines, enhancing the carvings. “This is the star map?”

Adam nodded. “Yes. We are here,” his eyes unfocused as he concentrated on manipulating the holographic controls and a blinking red cursor popped into existence over one of the circles in the drawing. “This is Ten Ceti,” the cursor moved up in the drawing, “and this is Delta Volantis. Further on, here is Xi Pegasi, and Sol is ... here.”

Luisa reached out to the drawing and traced the glowing lines with her finger. “Okay, Ten Ceti’s here, we’re here. So, this is Beta Mensae, and this has to be Theta Coronae Australis. But where are all these other systems?” She followed the delicate web of lines with her finger. “Oh, wait. If this is Sol, then here is Zeta Pictoris...” She broke off and turned to Adam with wide eyes. “We have a way out of here, don’t we?”

“Well, yes, if we can figure out their coordinate system. According to this map, there is another system beyond Beta Mensae. And, there’s more.” The scientist shifted the display slightly and focused it on another section of the drawing. “This is interesting. According to this, there’s another Earthlike planet close by. The same symbols are used to refer to Sol and to Xi Pegasi, so we think this system is habitable, too.”

“Could the systems have something else in common?” She nibbled at her fingernail as she thought.

“Yes, that’s certainly possible.” Adam shrugged lightly. “Until we can correlate these symbols to something concrete, it’s impossible to be certain of their meaning. The symbols look an awful lot like the Egyptian hieroglyphs for trees and animals, though.”

“Where is this other habitable system?”

“Right ... here.” Adam highlighted another circle. “It’s past Theta Coronae Australis. I think it’s a hidden wormhole, and so is the connection to the system beyond it. The lines end in these little symbols, see? They’re the same over here, at Xi Pegasi to Sol.”

“Yes, I do. So, how do we get there, and how did they locate it?”

“We found the Sol to Xi Pegasi wormhole, didn’t we? And, we can transit in both directions now, right?” Adam grinned at her.

“Yes and yes.” She scowled. “But, the first incident was blind luck, and the Terrans had the approach and exit vectors after they transited once. It’s a whole different exercise to find a hidden terminus with coordinates alone. Even you Genevans couldn’t find the Sol wormhole again.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Adam conceded. “Our next trick, then, is to decipher that coordinate system. We’ve been running value substitution programs, but we haven’t gotten any results as yet.” Adam pointed at another section of the drawing. “We think this section is the map key.” He indicated another portion of the drawing.

Luisa peered at the maze of symbols. “I’ll take your word for it.” She frowned in thought. “With the computer support you have, shouldn’t you have decoded this by now?”

“No.” Adam highlighted a group of symbols. “Look at these. Now, if these are precursors to Egyptian hieroglyphs, then they represent phonemes, or sounds that make up a language. They could also represent entire words or even ideas, like Chinese hanzi. And, even in hanzi, it sometimes takes more than one symbol to form certain words. The daily language uses something like five or six thousand characters, and the dictionary runs to over fifty thousand characters.”

“Well, if they’re humans, can’t we use Egyptian to figure it out?”

“We have analyzed the symbols using everything we have, and so far we’ve not turned up anything useful. There are still unknown languages from ancient Earth, and at least one book written a few centuries ago that has never been deciphered. There are even buried treasures protected by ciphers no one ever decoded.” Adam waved a hand at the image. “I’m fairly sure the artist meant for us to use this information, but we have nothing but the map, so far.”

Luisa pointed to the map. “How about the coordinates? Since they have to be numbers, isn’t that easier to figure out?”

Adam smiled crookedly. “Are those numbers base ten, base six, or base twelve? How many degrees are in their circles, three hundred and sixty, or six hundred? Those are just two of the details we don’t have.”

“This will be harder than I thought,” Luisa sighed. “When I heard about this map, I thought we were home free.” She turned away from the scientist. “Aaron and I thought we could save our people.” She blinked on sudden tears. “He died with that belief – that his death would make a difference. Now, we’re trapped; cornered like animals.”

“I’m sorry. Admiral Peters was well respected, and he bought us the one thing we most desperately need – time.”

Luisa nodded. “Thank you. I just hope that he bought enough time for you and your team to find those wormholes.”

“We will do our best, Commander. I promise you that.”

28 Librae System GMS Alan Dean Foster 01/12/42 NR 0335 Hours

Luisa stirred in her sleep as her comm’s attention chime sounded for the third time. Sleep had been a precious commodity over the last few days. The nightmares had been less frequent, but she found it difficult to rest, especially now that she had nothing to do but wait for Adam Thomas’ team to decipher the star map. She moaned into her pillow and raised her head against the point seven gee gravity. The Foster was still in orbit around Zene, since there was simply nowhere else to run. The ship had begun to rotate on its short axis, providing spin generated gravity to the accommodations section. Weighing nearly twice as much as she was accustomed to was uncomfortable for the Martian, and so was being awakened in the middle of the night.