Chapter 12

The very first thing that they noticed when they emerged in their new surroundings, was the brightness of the light. Whereas a second or so before they had been standing in a relatively dimly lit room, they now found themselves in a very sterile and bright place.

The room resembled a gymnasium in its emptiness as well as its height. In one corner of the room stood Nika, completely naked and unarmed. She had not yet recognized them and her arms were outstretched while her knees were bent as if she was getting ready to fight them.

When she did recognize them, her facial expression changed from one of half anger and half fear to one of joy as well as surprise. She immediately rushed toward them with tears in her eyes. It took the three of them a couple of minutes before they could overcome their emotions and, as soon as the hugging and kissing was over, both Vincent as well as Verla began to ask her many questions.

Her story was very simple. Once she had been captured by the birdmen, they took her to their village, which was situated many miles to the south from the place she had been kidnapped. As soon as they got there, she was placed into a wooden cage. As a measure of security, they also tied her hands behind her back, so although she could walk in the cage, she couldn't use her hands at all. She remained a prisoner this way for five days, but her hands were untied twice a day when she was fed and allowed to attend her bodily needs.

On the fifth day of her captivity, she noticed that something special was going to happen since the whole village was very excited and she could see them making preparations for a celebration. In mid-afternoon, they took her out of her cage and paraded her throughout the village while every man, woman and child were made to touch her. It then occurred to her that these people had prepared something very special for her - something that she would probably not enjoy. Later, after everyone had touched her at least once, she was taken inside the mountain through large carved doors.

Once she was in the depths of the mountain, she discovered that she was in an immense room with hundreds of people assembled there. The first thought that went through her mind when she saw the inside of the large room, was that she was going to be offered as a sacrifice in front of a very tall statue of a bird. But as they walked deeper, her eyes got used to the semi darkness inside the enormous cavity and she saw the arch in front of the huge statue of the bird. She then knew that her fate was going to be anything but pleasant for sure.

The fact that she already knew the potential of the arch and the evil that it could bring, did help to boost her resistance, but at last, the physical strength of those holding her was too great and she was thrown onto the plate. She then found herself in the room where they all were at this very moment. This last event had happened just a few minutes before Vincent and Verla appeared.

Once the pleasant surprise of being reunited was no longer new and now that they had listened to Nika's story, they began to pay more attention to their surroundings. The room they were in was large indeed. The light was being diffused somewhere from the ceiling high above their head while some light seemed to be coming also from the higher portion of the walls. They couldn't actually see the light sources since it appeared to be coming from the paint or from the colors of the material of the wall itself.

There were two doors or panels in the far wall ahead of them, but close to the wall where they now stood was the receiving end of the arch from where Vincent and Verla had appeared. Both doors at the other end of the room were shut.

They slowly walked to the two doors and examined them. Both were identical except for one small difference. On the door to their right there was a small hole in the very centre of the door whereas there was no such hole in the other door. A distance of at least twenty feet separated the two doors from each other and except for the small hole in one of them, there was no other mark whatsoever on them.

To Vincent who was familiar with doors on his world, and also judging by the rectangular cracks along their contour, it was evident that they were made to open somehow, either pivoting on hinges or sliding into the wall. But no hinges or knobs could be seen. They did try to push on each one of them and they also tried to slide them using the friction of their hands, but they had the impression that the doors were part of the wall since they didn't even begin to budge while they were exerting all sorts of forces on them.

After many long minutes of trying different ways to open them, they gave up and focussed their attention on the rest of the room. On the wall opposite to the two doors, behind the arch and near a corner, was a table-like altar made of the same material as that of the walls and floor of the room. Resting on top of the flat surface of the altar was a rectangular transparent box about fifteen inches long by ten inches wide.

On closer inspection, Vincent discovered that the surface of the altar in front of the transparent box was covered with small round buttons placed in many rows. Each button was about half an inch high and the group of buttons was arranged in a triangular pattern. One button in the first row then two in the second and so on, up to twenty-two rows with twenty-two buttons in that last row. Inside the transparent box was a turquoise rod about a foot long and it was made of what appeared to be glass with an intricate design at one end and a flat portion at the other end.

Vincent noticed that the round end with the intricate design could probably fit into the hole of the door. It thus became apparent to him - since he was familiar with doors and locks on his world - that this was the key that would open that particular door. The only problem was that they couldn't open the lid of the box where the key was. Even when he hit it with the butt of his rifle he couldn't break the glass-like material. After a while he ordered the two women to stand behind him and he fired two shots at it.

When he examined the box afterward, there wasn't even a mark on it. Even though the material of which the box was made was transparent, it was certainly not glass or plastic since none of those would have resisted the penetrating capacity of a 303 high-speed slug without even sustaining a scratch.

Vincent then focused his attention on the round buttons arranged in rows. When he pressed one, it did depress half way into the table and a soft musical note was heard coming from the box. It was a sound very similar to that made by a touch-tone telephone on his world. Then after what he estimated to be eight or nine seconds, the sound stopped and the depressed button lifted itself to its initial position. When he pressed another button, the same thing happened but a different note was emitted. He then tried pressing two or more buttons simultaneously. But each time he did that only one note was heard. It appeared that the button that had been depressed first, would be the one to emit its corresponding pitch. Pressing on any other button while this one was emitting a sound did not change the pitch of the note in any way. Finally he looked at both women and he said to them,

"It is some kind of code to open the box. The only problem is that we don't know what buttons to press or what sequence to use."

"Why do we need to open the box?" said Nika.

She had probably never seen a key before and Vincent thought that her question was very logical.

"You see the rod inside the box - it will open one of the doors if we can get it out of the box."

"Then why don't we press all the buttons one after the other, then we are certain to get the right one?" said Verla.

"No this will not work. I think that we are allowed to use only a definite number of buttons and they must be the right ones."

"Then only the one that knows which buttons to press will be able to get to the rod inside?"

"Yes, this is the purpose of it. I think it was placed there as a sort of test. After all, if the builders of this place wanted to kill us they could have done it in a much easier way than starving us here. Beside, there are no bones here and I am sure that the birdmen who pushed Nika onto the plate of the arch frequently send unwilling visitors here."

"You mean," Nika said in surprise, "that the birdmen capture people only to push them through the arch? But why do they want to do that?"

"I wish that I knew the answer to that, but it seems that this is exactly what they are doing. It could be part of their religion or belief or something else."

"But what is preventing us from going back the same way we came here?" said Verla.

Vincent realized that she had a good point, but deep inside he felt certain that the arch in this room would not work both ways. To test this, he took one of the knapsacks and he threw it onto the plate of the arch. Nothing happened even after a ten second wait. To the horror of both girls he then stepped on the plate. Still the arch didn't work. He then looked at the women and said in a low voice,

"The only way we are going to get out of here is by breaking the code and using the key that is in the box."

For many hours they took turns trying different sequences with different rows of buttons, but the lid of the box never opened. At last Vincent thought of something,

"I think that I know why the box and the key were placed there. The person, or group of persons, that built this place wanted to be sure that one of the doors would be opened only by someone that came from a culture that has a sophisticated degree of technology. That is why the right combination is needed to open the box."

"But anyone that knows the right order could press the buttons," said Nika.

"Yes, that is the point, we don't know the right sequence but I am sure that this sequence is such that if you have the proper scientific background you can figure it out."

Nika stared at him for a second or so then she said,

"You do have such a background. You have all sorts of machines where you come from. I have seen some of them when I went to your house, so you should be able to open the box then."

Of course Vincent knew that she hadn't meant this as an insult, but like most of the people of her world she was used to saying what was in her mind so he didn't take any offence because of her remark. Deep down he knew that she was right. If any of them could break the code he was the one since he had the necessary background - and this tremendously increased the pressure on him. He had to solve this puzzle. He knew that their lives depended on it.

He decided that they all should take a break for a while so that they could proceed later to examine the problem in a new frame of mind. They ate a little then they stretched on the floor for a couple of hours. Food and water were not a problem yet; they still had a few days supply left. But Vincent had a feeling that they should leave this place as soon as possible. The fact that there were no traces of the previous visitors was proof enough that someone or something did come into the room once in a while to remove remaining visitors or whatever was left of them after some unknown length of time. He was perfectly aware also that if he, with all of his background from his so called more advanced civilization, - advanced at least compared to what he had seen on this world so far - could not solve the problem of the code, then it would certainly be impossible for any native of this world to do so.

He had a deep feeling that their time in this room was limited and if they did not solve the problem soon they would be forced out of the room somehow. That second door, the one without the hole, the one that could not be opened with the key, was most probably used for this purpose. He didn't bother to tell this to the women of course since there was no reason to scare them. Still, the faster they could get the door open the better it would be for them.

While he was having these unpleasant thoughts, Nika and Verla were busy pressing different buttons in front of the table and trying different sequences so as to get the transparent box open. Slowly Vincent began to walk toward them. While he was approaching them, the answer, or at least part of it came to him.

Yes, he could see it now. Those rows of buttons represented numbers. All he had to do was to choose the row that contained ten buttons. He tried to explain what he had in mind to the women but since they had no notion of written numbers they had much trouble to follow his explanations.

"You see, that row of ten buttons here is for us. There is no use trying the other rows because we will never get the right combination using them."

"But why were they put there then?" protested Nika.

"If they don't open the box then they are not useful," she went on to add.

" They certainly could open the box, but we will never succeed with them since there is no way for us to get the right sequence with any of them. You see, different civilizations use more or fewer units as the base for their numbers. All the numbers then use a combination of these base units. Where I come from we use the same number of units as there are fingers on both hands, which is ten. All other numbers are then written as a combination of these fundamental units, which are 0 to 9. If your world is ever permitted to develop a technology, the chances are that they will also adopt ten units for their base numbers since, like the people of my world, you have a total of ten fingers in both hands. But there is no reason to suppose that other beings from another world will have ten fingers like us. They could have two or eight or even twelve. This is why there are different rows of buttons with a different number of buttons in each row."

He doubted very much that they could understand what he was trying to explain to them, but they both seemed to be listening with great interest. Vincent then went on,

"The builders of this place must have been expecting beings from different worlds. This is why they set up many rows of buttons. Since we use numbers based on ten units and multiples of these, we will concentrate our efforts on the row with ten buttons."

Verla looked at him for long seconds and at last she said,

"Why bother with only this row if any row can open the box?"

"True, any row will open the box but for us it will be much easier to figure the right sequence if we keep on trying on that row of ten buttons. The fact that we have already decided on the right row of buttons means that we have already solved half the problem."

They both looked at him with a strange expression on their face and he could tell that they weren't convinced at all. However, they seemed willing to accept his decision.

"It also means," went on Vincent, "that whoever made this place is not interested in anyone from a non-technical civilization. In other words only those with a mathematically oriented background will be able to open the box and thus leave this place."

"What happens to those that can't unlock the door?" said Verla.

"Frankly I don't know. But I think it will be much preferable if we were to open it."

Then, talking more to himself than to his companions, he went on,

"Let me see, the sequence must be a series of numbers that anyone from a relatively technically oriented civilization must know. Something such as the speed of light maybe."

Since there were no markings on any of the buttons, he had to choose one end of the row and suppose it had the value of zero while the button at the other end would be nine. He pressed on the 'one' then the 'eight' and 'six' then on the 'zero' three times so as to represent the speed of light in a vacuum, which is 186,000 miles per second. Nothing happened. He next tried the same thing starting from the other end. Still nothing. Of course, he told himself, why should it work? Why would the unit of a mile and the length of time of a second work? This test had been prepared so that any intelligent species could pass it and not only people from Earth. Other civilizations certainly didn't use the mile and the second as their standard unit. No it had to be a number that had no unit and that was universal. It had to be a constant.

By now, Nika and Verla were watching carefully what he was doing, both knew that he was in deep concentration and they didn't try to interrupt his train of thought by asking questions. All of sudden Vincent saw something in the box that did give him a clue. The key was resting on a flat surface covered with circles of all sizes. It occurred to him that the number that they were looking for probably had to do with circles. His heart then began to beat faster. Yes, there was such a constant based on circles. It was the constant represented by the Greek letter 'pi'.

He could still remember from his high school years what his mathematics teacher had proven to the class one day using a length of string, a ruler and different cardboard circles. In fact he could still recall the words of his teacher saying - if you divide the circumference of any circle by its diameter, you will always get the same constant and the value of this constant is represented by the Greek letter 'pi'. That number 'pi' was an infinite sequence and thus it had an infinite number of digits after the decimal. Vincent still could see in his mind how his teacher had written on sections of cardboard placed around the classroom, a couple dozen digits after the 3 and the decimal representing the value of that constant. He now could even remember the first four digits after the decimal.

That value of 'pi' was 3.1416... but that did bring a new problem into play. What about the decimal? How could he represent a decimal in the sequence using only the ten buttons? He told himself that he would just forget about the decimal and press the buttons without bothering about the cumbersome decimal.

Beginning from the left, he thus proceeded to press the buttons in the sequence corresponding to the value of 'pi'. Nothing happened. Could it be, he told himself, that he needed more than five digits? Vincent certainly hoped not since he didn't remember more than the five he already had. He therefore tried the same five digits but this time starting from the other end of the row.

As soon as the last button was depressed, he expected the note to stop. But this time it persisted until he saw the cover of the transparent box slide slowly until there was just enough room for his hand to reach inside for the key.

By then both Nika and Verla seemed mesmerized by what they were seeing and neither of them could move or speak. The transparent key was much lighter than he would have imagined it to be. As Vincent slowly walked toward the proper door with the key held in front of him as if it were a trophy, both girls were eagerly following him.

Before inserting the key into the hole in the door, he looked at Nika then at Verla. He had a very serious expression of apprehension on his face. Then before actually pushing the key into the proper receptacle in the centre of the door, he told the two women to pick up the two knapsacks as well as their weapons. Then, with his rifle in his left hand, he slowly pushed the key into the hole. He didn't have to turn it. The instant it was inserted properly, he heard a low humming then he felt the door vibrate and slowly it retracted into the wall.