Chapter 2: Back in Office

There were over 200 e-mails waiting for me in the office. I did not go through all of them before my first office hours of the year. As usual, there were last minute course changes, questions about last semester's grades, and so on. None of those were as annoying as department memos. As in "all computer equipment and supplies over $25 has to be approved in advance by the department head or his assistant". Argh!

I had been a bit of a prodigy, and was currently the youngest Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology. There were a couple of post-docs younger than I, but I was still pretty junior. I specialized in deciphering ancient script, but had to teach whatever courses were available. I did pitch in for a graduate seminar in cryptography in the Computer Science Department, but I considered that more fun than work.

I skipped lunch, but still, by the time I finished dealing with electronic and paper mail, it was late afternoon. I responded to the most urgent ones, sorted the ones that required follow-up into folders, and discarded more than half.

I gave a call to the department of Physics. After a few more calls, I found the head of a lab that should have access to radiation sensors. He, of course, had left the office already. I would have to follow up tomorrow. I was really impatient to start working on Colt's journal, but the fears of radiation had me spooked. It now resided, wrapped in foil and several plastic bags, in the farthest corner of my office – probably too close if it was seriously active, but it was well over a hundred years since Colt wrote that strangely glowing signature. Or was it possible that it was some prank, perhaps a recent owner playing with some radioactive ink?

Caroline was busy tonight, getting the materials ready for the spring semester. I thought she was teaching something on derivatives.

I didn't feel like eating dinner alone in my apartment. I called Brenda to see if she was interested. Luckily, she was available for dinner.

Brenda worked in the registrar's office. She was a good-looking woman in her late forties, tall and trim. She had divorced years before, and, according to her, was looking for husband number two. I had my doubts. She had a biting wit that occasionally overflowed into bitterness, and she was very fond of her independence.

"Hi, Mitch. I see you did not freeze in the cold white north. You do look rather pale, though. Why you go north in winter I will never understand."

We both settled for draft beer with our dinners. I took a long drink before responding.

"I like spending time with my friends who are into cross-country and snow-shoeing. I like the snow myself, especially as it gives you an excuse to sit in front of the fireplace, drink, read, swap tall tales, drink, eat, and let's see ... drink! I see you are nicely tanned. I gather you went somewhere south for the winter break?"

"Oh yes! The islands in winter is the place for me. And I have no problems finding drink there. And some good-looking men in swimming trunks, oo-la-la!"

Brenda wiggled her eyebrows. She seemed to be able to find male company on her vacations, based on her stories and pictures she shared. I hadn't seen her in a steady relationship here, though.

"Of course, a good-looking woman like you – you probably had a choice of swains. Maybe one for the morning, and one for the afternoon?" I asked, trying to wiggle my own brows. We often had some gentle flirting going, but nothing serious. She was two decades older, and I don't think either one of us was particularly interested beyond occasional companionship, complaining about the administration, and, let's be honest, gossip. Brenda usually had all the best gossip.

"I will have another glass," Brenda said to the waiter, and waited until he left.

"We had another girl raped over the break." Her manner was much grimmer now.

"Valium, again?"

"Yes! Probably the same bastards! The poor freshman girl was afraid to report it to the police until her dorm supervisor came with her. If I ever catch whoever is spiking these girls, they will never need to worry about their sex life!"

"Are the police getting anywhere? I assume the town cops are involved?"

"Who knows? I doubt it – it was the usual story, a party, with everybody coming and going. The girl doesn't remember anything. I hate this. Everybody in the office is scared; one of the girls even asked me if I was sure I wanted to go out with you tonight!"

I knew the registrar's office was staffed mostly with women, some of them part-time students. Brenda was really angry.

"This is a good school, but we have over ten thousand students. In any large-enough population there will be some criminals," I offered without much enthusiasm.

"And it may not be a student, either," Brenda muttered darkly.

We did switch to other topics, but the rape cast a pall on the conversation. It was the second this school year, and I suspected there may have been others, not reported.

The classes started on Tuesday; luckily I had none in the morning, and was able to get to the physics lab early enough. To my distinct relief the journal didn't emit any strong radiation. The lab supervisor had a number of instruments, and I ended up pretty confident that if any alpha, beta, gamma, X-ray or neutron radiation was present, it was pretty close to background levels.

The lab also had some ultraviolet photography equipment. No unusual pattern was radiated or reflected in ultraviolet from the last page, where I continued to see F. Pitt Colt as though written in invisible ink.

I also doubted that you could formulate an ink that could emit infrared or microwave radiation – especially after a hundred years. At this point I was becoming pretty convinced that the strange colors I was seeing – the tints – were some form of interaction not easily detected by scientific instruments. The possibility remained that it was neutrinos or some other rare particle, but I could not figure out how something that actively emitted neutrinos would not also emit other, easily detectable, particles. And besides, what mechanism in my eye could detect neutrinos with such resolution, when the most modern detectors required hundreds of feet of material to detect the elusive things?!

I was at a stand-still with my investigation of the tints, so I needed to focus on the content of the journal itself.

The afternoon classes dragged on. The students, fresh from the winter vacation, had problems concentrating. Nevertheless, there were a few interesting questions about reconstructing a language from its descendants.

Afterwards I had a meeting with Charles Dreenk, the department head. After a brief discussion of research projects and articles in progress, Dreenk returned to his usual theme.