The Meeting
"OK, let's try to make this an early evening; shall we?"
“Does that mean we‟re not ordering Pizza, this time?”
"Yes, goddamit,” Doug snapped, “I don‟t see why we can‟t wrap this meeting up before 7.”
Bryan felt slightly oppressed by the faint smell of ozone in the small conference room. At first, he
thought it came from the samples arrayed in the open case in the middle of the table, or perhaps from the
some exotic chemical solution that had been used to treat the rocks and separate the thin layers into “scrolls”.
Noticing the greenish swaths of light that illuminated dust motes to his right, he became conscious of the
annoying, whirring noise from the overhead projector sitting on the table, between him and the speaker, and
realized that the smell‟s origin probably was far more mundane. Cocking his head and pretending it was just
the noise, he quietly moved to the other side of the table and into the empty seat on Doug‟s left.
Glancing up at his old friend and former colleague, who was irritably trying to call the meeting to
order, Bryan stifled the thought that, in the years since they had last worked together, Doug‟s bushy beard
had become nearly white enough for him to stand in for any of the Santa Claus figures he had passed on the
sidewalks of Antigonish, on his way to the campus.
“Gentlemen and lady,” Doug said, nodding faintly to Alice Warren, the group‟s cryptography expert
and only distaff member, “this final meeting of the analysis committee is hereby called to order.”
As eyes around the table turned from familiar faces and nods to studying Bryan, who began to feel
distinctly like an intruder, Doug continued. “I have taken the liberty of inviting an outside expert to this
meeting. Dr. Stewart is a mathematician and a former colleague of mine at Brookhaven. One of his areas of
expertise is Chaos Theory, and I‟d particularly like to have him review what we‟ve done there and see if he
can offer any new insights or suggestions. Given the fact that we seem to be at an impasse, overall, I thought
a fresh view wouldn‟t hurt. If there is no objection, I‟d like to have him sit in on this review as a way of
brining him up to speed; he is not expected to participate.”
Largely obscured by the projector, a wizened figure at the other end of the table, whose name Bryan
never learned, croaked a question: “has he signed the nondisclosure forms?”
“Oh, yes,” Doug assured. (Forms? What forms, Bryan wondered.) “In fact, his papers are now
being processed for a temporary appointment on the staff.” (Huh?) Bryan attempted to catch Doug‟s eye, if
only for a clue about how he should react to this unexpected news. However, Doug was managed to avoid
eye contact with anyone in the room as he continued. “I was merely asking if the group has any objection to
his sitting in on this restricted meeting.”
No objection was voiced, although a subtle staring contest seemed to be unfolding between the two
ends of the table. However, nothing overt or certain was evident.
“First, let‟s have Harvey summarize where we‟ve gone so far, in our attempts to analyze what is in
the scrolls and in fulfilling our main charge from our sponsors: to make recommendations for how to begin
the „translation‟ process.”
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Bryan was not certain, but he thought he heard one or two barely-suppressed chuckles from
somewhere around the table. A moment late, there was a sound from acerbic gentleman at the end, which
might have been either a “Harrumph” but just as easily could have been a cough.
A thin, dapper man, the only one with a necktie still in place, rose and unveiled the first overhead
with a dramatic swish of the opaque cover sheet that Bryan nearly mistook for the flourish of a matador‟s
cape.
Harvey, whose jet black mustache somehow made his hair appear to be more graying than it was,
seemed to tower over the table when he spoke, despite the short stature that Bryan only discovered later,
when they both stood. He was a pleasant, witty fellow, who seemed to exude great confidence without
managing to appear domineering. Turning on the projector, he gave a concise summary of all the previous
failures.
The screen brightened with a bizarre pattern of splotches that became no more meaningful when
Harvey adjusted the focus, nor when someone belatedly turned off the fluorescents.
“This is a typical foil, said the Matador. We‟ve scanned the patterns from hundreds of them, now,
digitized the Hell out of them, and so forth. We‟ve also examined the interior for sublayers, the crystal
structures, the chemical composition, impurities, isotope ratios – you name it. And we‟ve digitized all of that
information, too. All of these patterns and data fields have been made available to the analysts as input
streams.”
The summary was very well prepared and presented. Bryan found the details somewhat more
entertaining, but no more enlightening and no less disappointing than what he had already learned from
Douglas.
Now, let‟s consider the various approaches that were used to analyze these inputs; this is a list of...”
(Another scene is interpolated, here)
(e.g. spies break in and steal some scrolls.)
The Meeting (continued)
“We need to hear, once more, from each of the specialty areas, and to see if there is anything further.
Then I‟ve got to write a concluding summary, and make sure we don‟t get criticized for leaving out
something important.” Doug had resumed the floor, now seeming far less weary than earlier, undoubtedly
due to having been allowed to rest during Harvey‟s not-quite-tedious synopsis. “Was there anything from
the regression work?”
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“No, nothing at all,” mumbled Eric, a thin, almost scrawny, young man with an uncanny
resemblance to Bill Gates, except for his sparse red beard.”
“And the other mathematical analysis,” Doug prompted. “Nothing further?”
“No, we‟ve had no luck using the patterns as input for everything from, from polynomials to Fourier
coefficients to ???, and even as chaotic attractors. But the damned regression tests were even more
disappointing! Nothing at all has been productive over anything more than a few bands, and whatever looks
coherent in one patch just fails miserably in another. Sure, you can force all sorts of interesting stuff out of
almost any isolated section, but when the same approach is used elsewhere, it‟s just garbage.” Shaking his
head morosely, he began masticating the knuckle of his thumb, and slouched even deeper in his chair.
Observing his hurt, puppy-dog expression, Alice had to consciously resist the urge to get up and
either cradle him in her arms or find a stuffed animal to distract and console him. By contrast, the male
attendees pointedly looked away, seemingly wishing they were in a different room.
“And there‟s nothing further from Cryptography, either,” Doug sighed.
When there was no response, he caught Alice‟s eye and arched one bushy eyebrow.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, finally. “Arnold flew home, this morning, but I have his full written report.
When I requested a summary for this meeting, he gave it verbally. He said „nichevo.‟ When I made a face,
he translated into Spanish, „nada,‟ and made me promise that I would quote him, verbatim.” Grimacing, she
turned and asked the air over her left shoulder, “Y‟ happy, Arnold?”
“Sounds like Arnold. That‟s the least cryptic thing he‟s said all year.”
“Let‟s keep on track, here,” Doug snapped again. “After we finish this, I have to write a concluding
summary. I don‟t want to leave out something important. What about the astronomy comparisons and other
patterns? Charles.”
Charles looked like he always wore a lab coat, which was correct. His task was to seek matching
patterns among various scientific phenomena and representations, “including, but not limited to, apparent
constellations and star patterns that might be seen from other points in the universe, which might be the
origin of the capsule”.
Since nobody had even the slightest information about where the capsule came from, other than an
estimate of its maximum age, this meant calculating how the heavens would have appeared in the skies of a
planet circling some star (in any direction), adjusting back in time for probable time of travel (at unknown
speed), within a radius of hundreds of millions of light years. In addition, there were certain natural patterns
to be compared, such as decay schemes for various radionuclides, crystallographic structures and possible
mosaics, electromagnetic fields of galaxies, and anything else Charles and his colleagues could think of to
find a possible match with even one of the patterns on the scrolls. With unbounded fields of science and the
entire known universe to choose from, they could not come up with even a single match that was convincing.
“So, we seen to be at an absolute dead-end, then,” Doug resumed. “As far as interpreting the patterns
as some sort of intelligible message. Lot‟s of nice patterns, which look like Rorschach blots, but nobody has
the slightest clue about what to make of them."
“What we need is a xeno-psychologist – to analyze alien scribblings.”
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“Yes, well, the human shrinks came up completely dry. One of them was certain the patterns were
actually generated by a machine. Another thought they were random noise, probably radio static.”
“They may be correct, but I truly hope there‟s something more there,” Doug admitted, party as a
segue back to the agenda, but also to lighten the mood a bit after allowing his own frustration color his initial
snappiness.
After a few more reports, chronicling the exhaustion of some truly brilliant hypotheses, a few idiotic
ones, and many that were somewhere in between, the meeting wound down to its inevitable and
disappointing conclusion. The unspoken thought of all was that humans might never know what it was that
the capsule makers were trying to tell us. Not even the dour spectre at the foot of the table seemed to have
the temerity to voice such a depressing but inescapable notion.
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