by Phil Wheeler
As he bent to the task he again thought about his rash decision of yesterday morning, it was truly out of character for him, but he decided that given the same situation he would do the very same thing again. Funny, this was a decision more along the lines that his friend, Robert, would make. He was the one who was impulsive, jumping to quick decisions. It had been five years since their introduction to each other, and they had become close friend in spite of their differences. They were both highly intelligent, but Robert mostly kept his intellect under wraps, only bringing it out in his work environment, while he had chosen a more openly intellectual path. Still, there was no doubt of the equality of the two minds. Dylan's thoughts drifted back to the evening that they had been introduced at a party for the institute his then female companion had worked for. It was funny, but five years later he could remember every detail of that evening, except for the girl’s name.
“Dylan, I'd like you to meet my boss, Donald Mason, founder and driving force of SETLE, and a co-worker, Robert Fuller”
Dylan's hand clasped the proffered handshake of first one, than the other of the two men standing in front of him. Both men were impressively tall, topping Dylan's own 6 feet two inches by 4 more, but that was where the similarities had ended. The one, Fuller, was long and gangly, with huge hands and a head that could have fit right in with those on Mt. Rushmore without any magnification in size. The features reflected a hint of Native American ancestry, especially in the high cheekbones and prominent nose, and the head was topped with a closely cut flat top that had been out of style since before the passing of Elvis. His clothes were nice, but not overly current, and his smile was somewhat lop-sided. Dylan guessed him at about 275 lbs., give or take a few beers, and a good portion of that weight was in view front and center.
In large contrast was Donald Mason, the man introduced as the boss. He was as tall as Robert, but the suit was in the thousand dollars plus range, and hung on him like he was a runway model introducing the fall line. He was trim and athletic, and if there was an ounce of fat anywhere on his body it would be greatly surprising. Dylan had been sure that six-pack abs were concealed under that suit, as opposed to Fuller's beer keg ones plainly in view. He looked to be in his early 60's, but that was only surmised because of the thick, slightly graying hair, kept close clipped, and a few wrinkles that added, rather than distracted, from the overall look. Donald Mason looked like he was, a powerful man at the height of his powers.
During the course of the evening, Dylan had learned quite a bit about both men and their work at SETLE, an acronym for the Search for Extraterritorial Life on Earth. Robert was a linguistics and cryptology wiz specializing in ancient languages that nobody else could decipher. As gregarious as he was large, Robert had, at first, struck Dylan as kind of an obnoxious dope, telling bad jokes and always wanting to be the center of attention. He smiled to himself, that opinion hadn't really changed much, except for the fact that Robert had proven to be an insecure but good man with a heart as big as his head, and a genuine and treasured friend.
Mason, on the other hand, remained somewhat more of a mystery. Quiet, he preferred to listen, and direct from afar. He was a 5-year immigrant to the United States, having come from Ireland, and was dedicated to his institute. He firmly believed that aliens were part of our everyday world without ever giving the impression of being an out-n-out nut. As the night wore on, Dylan found himself attracted to Mason's world and the dedication that he showed, while rejecting the premise. They had also become friends, though not as social or as close as he and Robert.
Donald Mason was founder of SETLE, and funded research into just about every venue that could be thought of regarding the idea of aliens. So far, all the work done by the group, rather than proving the existence of ET, seemed to disprove it, but he supported some very interesting projects, one of which was the work that Robert Fuller performed for him.
Robert was a genius at figuring out obscure languages, and was working on something called the Voynich Manuscript; a remarkable manuscript dating from 15th century Italy, and comprised of about 240 vellum pages, most with illustrations. According to Robert, much of the manuscript resembled herbal manuscripts of the time period, seemingly presenting illustrations and information about plants and their possible uses for medical purposes. However, Robert had said, it was interesting to note that most of the plants did not match known species, and the manuscript's language had not yet been decoded. That was Robert's task – to break the code. So far, the text had proven more than a match for Robert's skills, but he was confident that it was only a matter of time before it fell to him. It was all rather fascinating, and over the next five years their shared love of finding out the possible in the impossible had made them friends.
Dylan looked at his watch. The remaining intruders would have to wait, because pizza and beer would be arriving soon. He walked back to the house, quickly washed up, and awaited the arrival of his friend. He hadn't sat more than 5 minutes when the doorbell rang and he heard a voice call out, “Open up, it's the police”
“Pizza's here”, Dylan said to himself. He got up from his chair, walked to the front door, and opened it to reveal the smiling face of Robert Fuller - friend, pizza delivery boy, failed comedian - carrying two pizzas and a 6-pack of Blue Ribbon.
“Com'on in, Robert. I'm starved”
It was Friday night and that meant pizza. “Here we go, said Robert, “one sausage and mushroom for me, and one sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, black olive, and – ugh – anchovies for you. How DO you eat those things?” Robert's face was crunched up like he had just smelled a skunk.
“It's an acquired taste.” Dylan loved the salty, fishy taste of anchovies, and just laughed at his friend’s obvious disgust at his culinary peculiarities.
“The Indians won yesterday. Beat Detroit 5 to 1. They look good so far.”
He looked at his friend. This was an old conversation; Robert loved baseball and loved the Cleveland Indians. Dylan wasn’t just not a fan, he couldn’t care less. Soccer was his sport, and the University of Akron Zips was his team. “Have a seat and give me a beer.”
Grabbing the proffered pizza box he opened the lid and inhaled the wonderful aroma of fresh, hot pizza assaulting his nose. He picked up his first piece, sat down in his recliner, and sunk his teeth into the gooey mass of goodness. As he relaxed in this chair, Dylan eyed Robert, “I'd rather watch paint dry than baseball.” The first salvo of the night had been fired.
“Oh, I forgot, you're a soccer guy. Of course, I don't see a lot of point in watching a bunch of guys running around in shorts, and kicking each other.”
“Soccer players are athletes, and what are baseball players? They're a bunch of over-paid primadona’s who get millions for failing 70% of the time.” Dylan returned fire.
“Yeah, and soccer players are a bunch of field fairies. Let one of them try and hit a fastball tailing in on them at 100 miles per hour.” Robert was warming to the task.
“Baseball is composed of athletic savants. What other sport pays its players to stand around in the grass for 3-plus hours and scratch themselves?”
“Soccer is boring”, came the old argument from Robert, “You play for 2 hours, and you're lucky if one goal is scored between them.”
“And you think a 0 – 0 pitchers dual is entertaining. Soccer is constant action. It's never dull.”
The argument continued for a while, until both depleted their arsenal of personal attacks. Finally, Dylan changed the subject. “I have some news. I'm leaving for Japan in a week.”
Robert stopped the piece of pizza halfway to his mouth. Carefully placing it back into the box, he sat back in his chair and looked at his friend. “I'm sorry, but I thought that I heard you say you were leaving for Japan in a week.”
“I did. I've accepted an offer to work in Japan with Samuelson Ltd.”
“So you just decided to pick up and go?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with my friend?”
Dylan didn't say anything; he just smiled self-conscientiously.
“You know, I'm the one that jumps before looking, not you. There has got to be more to this.” Robert was looking at his friend with growing concern. “What aren't you telling me?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you serious? You don't do anything without analyzing the crap out of it, and you're anal-retentive about your routines. How will you survive in a foreign country?”
“Gathering as much dignity as he could muster, Dylan said. I don't know what you are talking about.”
“Dylan, of all the people that I know you are the most altruistic, naive, and trusting. I know you don't care about money, so there has to be something.” He smiled at his friend, “Don't tell me, there was this geeky girl, and she batted her eyes at....” He stopped talking when he saw the look in his friend’s eyes. “Holy crap, there was a girl; I can see it in your eyes. Don't tell me you're in love.”
“I am not in love with her.”
Robert leaned back in his chair. “So you spend, what, a day and a half with her and decide that you want to go to Japan, then you tell me that you aren't in love with her. Have I summed it up for you?”
“Pretty much.”, said Dylan, looking out the window to cover his embarrassment.
Robert's head moved back and forth in a disbelieving shake, “Boy, you got it bad.”
Dylan tried to look nonchalant, but he knew his face was starting to turn red. Trying to change the subject, he said, “So, how is your translation going?”
“Robert started to laugh. “You are not getting out of this that easy. What's her name?”
“Her name is Tomiko. It’s just that....”
“It's just what?”, said Robert.
“She is the most beautiful, intelligent and exciting woman I have ever met, and I am having a hard time thinking of anything else. It's like she is inside my head.”
“So, go for it.”
“She's the head of Samuelson Ltd, so I don't have a ghost of a chance with her. Look, I don't want to talk about this – I'm going to Japan so my power supply can be massed produced. That's all.” Dylan glared at Robert, then he said, “Can we drop it?”
Robert sat on the couch across from his friend, searching his face. He could see that Dylan was really embarrassed by the conversation so he decided to change the subject and not provoke him any longer. He handed Dylan another cold beer. “I've had a breakthrough with the Voynich Manuscript.”
“Oh ya, what kind?”, came the pizza-muffled response from Dylan.
“Do you know what the Rosetta stone is?”
“Some kind of stone tablet that was used somehow to decipher some ancient language?”
“Close”, replied Robert, “The Rosetta Stone is a stone with writing on it in two languages - Egyptian and Greek, using three scripts - hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. It was found in 1799 by a group of French soldiers while they were rebuilding a fort in Egypt. It was believed to be carved in 196 B.C.”
Dylan looked at his friend, he knew better than to interject too much when Robert was on a roll - “And?”
“and”, said his friend, “Jean-Francis Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphs in 1822. He could read both Greek and Coptic, and was able to figure out what the seven demotic signs in Coptic were. By looking at how these signs were used in Coptic he was able to work out what they stood for. Then he began tracing these demotic signs back to hieroglyphic signs. By working out what some hieroglyphs stood for, he made educated guesses about what the other hieroglyphs stood for. He eventually deciphered the whole stone, it unlocked Egyptian hieroglyphics.”
“What does this have to do with the manuscript, it isn't written in ancient Egyptian glyphs, is it?”
“No.” Robert leaned forward in his chair. “What do you know about encryption and cyphers?”
“No much. I know that some, like replacing every occurrence of the letter e with the letter x, are simple ones. I know that there are complicated ones, as well.”
“Exactly. Encryption is taking a readable document and transforming it into an unreadable one. Your example of replacing letters is considered a simple cypher. Suppose we replace a with p, b with c and so on. The complete list of transpositions can be put into a table and used to encrypt or decrypt any message. The table is known as the key, and if you have the key you can read the message. Are you with me?”
“Sure. The key is the key.”
“Now, there is only one known cipher that is provably unbreakable; it is called an OTP, for one-time pad. Each letter is transposed to another letter at random. The transposition distance for each letter is the key. The sequences of distances have to be as long as the message, and can't repeat.”
Dylan was puzzled. “Wouldn't that make the key as long as the message?”
“Yes – and no. Suppose someone used OTP as a way of encoding another key?”
Dylan washed down his mouthful of pizza with a couple of swigs of beer, and looked across at his friend. “You would need the original OTP key to decrypt the second key. Wouldn't that make the second key easy to get?”
“Not if the OPT key was written on stone and was buried under water, hidden for thousands of years, and only recently discovered.”
“And this stone could help you figure out your manuscript? Where did you find something like that?”
“At the Yonaguni memorial in Japan.”, beamed Robert.
“Yonaguni, I saw something on History Channel about that, something to do with Atlantis and ancient aliens should be right up your ally.” Dylan smiled at his friend. “So, what do you got?”
“Divers at the site have found what looks like a passageway in about 30 feet of water. At the end of the passageway is a wall with two columns of script. When I saw a picture of it I knew that it was an OTP encryption key for the first page of the Voynich manuscript. I acquired clearer pictures and used it to start decrypting the rest of the text. It was my Rosetta stone, and I am already working on a complete translation.”
Dylan was impressed, “That is great news. Found anything interesting so far?”
“Yes. For one, that the Voynich Manuscript seems to be much older than the 15th century, and much more than a botanical guide. There seems to be a lot of science and physics involved, and two words keep coming up in conjunction with each other that I can only translate as Torsion and Field. I looked it up on the internet and, aside from some references to Adobe apps, found very little of any real help. What do you know about it? After all, you're the rocket scientist.”
“That's physicist, and it isn't my field of expertise, but I do know a little about it, yes.”
“Well, I don't, and, other than Wikipedia, you’re my only resource. What is it talking about?”
Dylan thought for a moment before speaking, “A torsion field is a subtle energy field, separate and distinct from classical Electric, Magnetic, and Gravity fields. Generators for classical fields can be shielded against electro-magnetic fields, but the torsion field can still manifest itself through such shielding. Torsion field emanations can travel at velocities 100's of times the speed of light, and can interact with laser beams to change frequency. They can affect biological processes, and have been noted to affect gravity. As they relate to traversing space, a torsion field can reduce the time that it takes to travel across the galaxy from light years to days.
“Ok”, said his friend, “what does that mean to a laymen like me? Please translate.”
“Think of it like this. Imagine a rubber ball made up of an infinite number of lines called radii. In classical geometry, a radius of a circle or sphere is any line segment from its center to its perimeter. Each radius within the rubber ball represents time and distance in all their dimensions. Each point of a radius represents a star
ting or ending point for a single journey. Regardless of which direction you travel the time needed to get from the starting point to the ending point remains the same because the distance is the same.
Now, imagine that same ball stretched and twisted internally into a long spiral. To someone standing outside the ball the distance and time from the center to a point on the parameter would appear to be a constant regardless of the ending point chosen. To someone within the spiral ball, the distance from the center to a point on the parameter would seem faster or slower, depending on where the point touched the parameter within the spiral. If you were inside the ball, each radius would appear to be of different lengths, but they are still a radius so the distances from start to finish must remain equal or they would no longer be considered a radius. It is the effect of time, itself, that is different. Each radius, beginning to end, is equal but the effect of going from point A to point B now has changed within the scope of the rubber ball. Time could effectively speed up for someone traveling within the ball. They would be able to travel faster than the speed of light because they were not governed by the same laws of physics inside the ball as they would be outside it. The effect of a Torsion Field is to twist time, slowing it down or speeding it up in relation to other radii, depending on where they fall within the twist.”
