Canticle Blue

63. Riddle

On the Crisopa bridge, Maire Meid asked, "Why would the beacon just stop like that?"

Cian remarked, "The timing certainly seems strange, doesn't it? At this point, we don't know much about who we're dealing with except that they're out here somewhere, and they know one letter of the Per'sa alphabet. Or, at least, they know how to duplicate a radio signal."

"Do you think we need to worry?" she asked.

Cian laughed. "Now that's a wide-open question, isn't it? If we asked Grahmen,
he would probably say 'no.'

"But, under the circumstances, I'm wondering if we should suspend the mission.
Almost all of the food in the Castel was lost, and we can't go looking for any of the supplies while the the Middi are making repairs. It would be too risky to send lianas."

Grahmen joined them on the bridge. "I agree, Cian. I think we should at least pull back from this cometary region so we can get a good look at it. I called Pa'Keh to find out if his ship's sensor array was working. He says there's no damage in the collar-drive section and that it's usable. But he needs to do some realignments. Estmere will be returning to the Castel to help. Our radio room sent a distress signal to the Colony and will be sending one in the direction of the beacon."

Maire had a suggestion. "Maybe we could turn on all our running lights to let them know we're thinking of going home."

"Good idea," Cian responded. "We ought to be able to put on quite a show, and hopefully someone will notice."

As hull repairs were being completed on the Castel, the two ships turned on all available exterior lights and slowly moved out of the debris field. As they proceeded, Estmere sent a radio message. "Ply-ship to the Crisopa bridge."

"Grahmen here, Estmere. Go ahead."

"We need to move our primary communications antenna through positional checks. This should take less than one half hour. The antenna will be offline as soon as we are given the go-ahead. We will use a secondary link in the meantime.

"Our radio room says 'proceed,' Estmere."

"Acknowledged. Please let us know when you are receiving the secondary signal."

The antenna test began, but less than halfway through it, the Crisopa radio room
called again. "Estmere, is your primary antenna still active? We're hearing what sounds like overlapping signals here. We can see it in the waveforms too."

"The primary antenna is not active," she replied. "We will stop the secondary transmission and use a contingency link."

When she did so, the Crisopa radio team quickly responded. "Crisopa to Castel. We have an anomalous C-wave text signal. The frequency is the same as before, but there are many text characters this time. Can you concur?"

"Yes, Crisopa. We can see it now as well. It is in the Per'sa language."

Grahmen broke in. "How is that possible? Is it coming from the beacon?"

"No, it is from another source," Estmere answered. "Please inform Cian."

Cian was as astonished as everyone else. "Cian to Estmere. Havilan and Ip will be
up here to look at the text in a moment. The radio room is sending it directly to the bridge. But, we're going to keep this channel open for you."

When Havilan saw the text, he said, "Ip, we won't be able to use the C-link to work out a translation. The time delays would be too great. We'll have to rely on what we know. I'm seeing four words in the message, and it's beginning to repeat. So maybe that's all they're going to send. I agree that it's Per'sa, but I can only take an educated guess at the fourth word in the transmission."

Ip replied, "I believe the translation is: 'There is a road...' The fourth word has been called "archaic" by most of our literary sources. It was rarely used in late Per'sa texts, probably because of its ambiguity. It can refer to several kinds of roads, including hidden or non-material ones. As you know, the character after 'road' is like an ellipsis in our language."

"Thank you Ip. I thought the sequence of words looked vaguely familiar. It is part of a poem by Praita Rese, isn't it?"

"Yes, and it is very old, possibly even predating the Per'sa. But it was evidently popular with them. The full couplet, in this case, would be:

There is a road
To the hidden city."

Grahmen Ravi joined their discussion. "It's one of my favorites. But, if I remember correctly, there is no ellipsis after 'road.'"

"They're presenting it to us in the form of a responsive reading," Havilan replied.

"We have no record of this couplet used as an antiphon," Ip responded. "But this certainly has the form."

Grahmen asked, "So, can we assume they want us to send them the second line?"

"I think so," Havilan answered. "To respond correctly, we would have to estimate the Per'sa time-frame for the language we're seeing now. Ip, what's the most modern form of this poem you can find which still uses this word?"

She gave them the words, and they sent a response. But the transmission stopped shortly afterward.

There was nothing left to do but wait. Cian and Grahmen urged the crew to try to get some sleep. For most of them, this was very difficult. No one had any idea what to expect.

The Meids elected not to sleep and, together with Ip, joined Grahmen in the telemetry section of the Crisopa. Maire made hot tea in one of the galleys and managed to find some cheese and crackers for everyone. Ip helped by flying from room to room—sometimes visible, sometimes not—delivering cups and plates.

The open radio channel was patched into the section intercom so any resumption could be heard by all of them at the same time. Cian tried to take the edge off tension raised by the silence. "It is a huge decision for them too, I suppose. Perhaps they were shocked by the response, in what, to them, would be ancient Per'sa text."

They waited until morning, but there was still no response. So, over breakfast, they deliberated what their next move should be. Grahmen Ravi was still convinced that whoever was sending the texts had peaceful intentions. He wanted to send them something with a required response. It would have to be something well known to the Per'sa and in keeping with their current theme.

Cian agreed. "I don't see where there would be any harm in trying that. At this point, we don't know if we're going to hear from them again anyway. I would hope they'd realize that they're not dealing with Per'sa per se, but that we're still interested in meeting them and are doing our best to respond. I wanted to point out to you guys that the time delay isn't due to distance. Their transmission stopped pretty quickly after after ours."

So they decided to try it. The message they sent was a question. And, this time, they got an answer.