War with the Belt? It was out of the question. Space flight and war were incomprehensible. What gave this whole investigation its crazy aspect in the first place was that to think or speak of a race simultaneously warlike and scientific made no more sense than to speak or think of a square circle. But economic war? Economic… what was the word… sabotage?
And there had been that accusing look in the Military Historian's eyes. Why should that concern me? Look at what was before me: a massive, if still enigmatic, conspiracy that was quite enough to keep me fully occupied.
The Vaughn-Nguyens, whether principals or agents, had set themselves up to be investigated and to emerge with their story enhanced. The 'tiger', the provable source of the hoax and thus seeming at first a potential weakness, could be turned into a point in its favor: It would not have taken great resources of imagination to think of turning it into some sort of lost or exiled alien.
I called Bannerjee again. He thought he had begun to make a breakthrough with the language. He had identified certain frequently recurring groups of sounds and he had reasoned that anything purporting to be the records of a solitary creature stranded on an alien world would contain the word 'I'. Further, anything purporting to be the record of a space-traveling alien could be expected to make reference to space, space travel, spaceships and drives. I suggested to him that he look for the word 'bone' or 'bones', too, remembering the design I had seen.
The people who had cooked this up would want the language to be difficult – very difficult – to translate, it would have no credibility otherwise, but not quite impossibly difficult – that would defeat whatever their purpose was (Their purpose? To create a belief in aliens? Why? Why?).
There had been fads from the late twenty-first century at least about such things, claims the pyramids and Easter Island statues and circles in cornfields were made by aliens. Hadn't there been a film, suppressed centuries ago, about something called a Darth Vader? These had no foundation in any science, but they had made some people rich.
Were there still Cuthulu (was that the word?) worshipers?
Believers in old gods, not unlike the various military fant cults. Had frustrated, space-sick Arthur been involved? I was quite sure, remembering his literary collection, that even if he was not a full military fant he was on that path. Had he played a part and deliberately pointed me at the Vaughn-Nguyens? No, I had sought him out myself. Had Alfred O'Brien pointed me before that, with his quotation of the strange poem? Why? Why?
Motive? Motive? I had a teasing feeling somewhere in the back of my skull that the whole answer to the inexplicable situation was something much simpler that I was missing.
Careful. Lose the plot and I was useless. But… the museum. I suddenly knew something about the museum was important… not the British museum, with its ancient vaults, but Arthurs, with its educational displays and its ARM offices above. There was something there…
Something… I tried to let the images and associations run freely… Guthlac's dreams of space were involved, of going to Wunderland… No, not Guthlac's dreams, my own similar dreams, from long ago.
Why was that important? The museum… Wunderland. They were connected?
Wunderland, the nearest and oldest-established extrasolar colony in the Centauri system, four and a half light-years away… settled originally largely by a North European consortium, led by families from Germany, Holland, Scandinavia and the Baltic countries. German… I had learned German long ago, with the dream of Wunderland in my head.
German, and the museum with its history of space flight and science displays… space flight… they were connected… an ancient rocket in flight… a German rocket…
And now a thought came driving in from my peculiar chemistry, enigmatic still, but hard and sharp and clear: the designations of V-1 and V-2 could not have stood for 'weather rockets'.
The German word for weather was not spelled 'Vetter' but 'Wetter'. It was pronounced as if, to an English speaker, it began with a V, but it actually began with a W.
It mattered. At that moment I didn't know why. But something felt different for me.
Isolated. Childless, long celibate. Schizies are often attractive. People like me less so. A secret policeman without attachments. Resentful, more or less, of my condition. Why was I suddenly feeling… no, there was no other word for… grateful? Grateful for loneliness and lovelessness? Grateful that I had no one? Why did the world suddenly seem more… not exactly more beautiful, but more… Precious?
Leave it. Any answer would surface by itself, I had other puzzles before me.
Three British soldiers dying of cancer. But surely in those days cancer had not been a big killer? As I recalled, few people had lived long enough to develop it.
I made a cursory search to confirm my notion: old medical records in the public domain were fragmented like other historical records, but comparatively easy to access. I found in the memory banks a 'Bill of Mortality' for London in one week of 1665. Not quite contemporary but close enough, something called 'Consumption' had killed 134 people; 'Feaver', 309; 'Spotted Feaver', 101 and 'Plague' an amazing 7,165. In all, 8,297 people had died that week, of diseases ranging from 'Ague' to 'Wormes', but only one had died of 'Canker'.
Back to the British Army records. The second photograph in the colonel's book had been a group photograph: there were thirty officers lined up, all their names spelled out in the caption underneath.
Computer search again, Several of the officers (I was coming to feel familiar now with terms I had only come across in banned fiction and military-fant circles before) had died in India in the regiment. The death certificates of others were traced, following a trail through what had been the British Records Office that I was coming to know. Most had died of illnesses that no longer existed, but no others had developed cancer.
Alfred O'Brien did not call me back when I asked for clearance to access more information on the V-1 and V-2 That in itself was an answer: I knew now what they had really been.
Bannerjee called again. He had produced a display of script from a small viewing screen on the 'book'. I guessed it would be in dots and claw marks.
A few hours later I was back in the controller's office. I didn't ask about the V-rockets. There was a code we all had that certain subjects, once indicated as forbidden, were not approached again. Besides, it wasn't necessary.
"The script the Angel's Pencil sent back, have you had it translated?”
"No. What would be the point?”
"Do it.”
"It's not as if it's a real language… there's a lot of high priority work on at the moment.”
"They want us to come to the conclusion that an abnormal tiger shot in India hundreds of years ago was a lost alien and now we're running up against the same creatures in space.”
"Who are they?”
"The Vaughn-Nguyens probably remembered the old stories and had the original idea. And there must be others But I need more corroboration. And if I'm right, it'll solve the whole problem of the Angel's Pencil transmissions.”
I gave him the readouts of the hand computer from Australia. "And scan this in, too.”
He looked at it. "The same script.”
"Yes. And you know how it originated? In a computer obviously.”
"Let's find the computer. They may not have wiped the program yet.”
It took time to get the additional computer access on top of what we had already and then to stitch in to what Bannerjee's translation program had achieved, more time for the translation itself to come through. But now the translation was becoming easier with the preliminary work done and further with the great mass of material the Angel's Pencil had beamed back. Some of this, purporting to be astronomical data and navigations tables, could be converted fairly quickly. A lot was lists: allegedly weapons inventories, fire-control tables, part of what appeared to be a poem. The poem gave us more military terms. Working from these, the translation of the electronic book gave us script and spoken language together.