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.
There was still noise corruption, still untranslatable sounds, but the essential sense of it was there, and now computers rigged in series with gigabytes of capability were sharpening it all the time. There were extrapolations and guesses, but at the end there was a message: Leg-bone shattered I cannot leap. Little time left. May Hero Death be mine! But life is end and time reflection.
Arriragh kharzz uru… Let avenging sons preserve bone in worship-shrine! And Patriarch, I demand, grant Full Name again: Skragga-Chmee! If I not Conquest Warrior High, I have great Conquest discovered. From my nneiierkrew glory for my House and the Patriarch.
The translator stumbled for a moment. The next sound was something like a live power cable dropped into water. Again, it could have been molecular or electronic distortion or an attempted simulacrum of nonhuman speech. Then the translation resumed: Sons know I have drawn off hunt, as plan. Sons will come when torn to pieces usurper Tskrrarr-Nig and regain estates on Skrullai and Name. I details of my course left. Kz'eerkti! The Kzinti come upon you!
I have hunt well. Hot. Riper world for Conquest than any I have heard ancient tales. Great hunting territories each my son. ArrearrrLLaghh Karssht Krrar RsssRRLaghh… Preserve and honor bone Skragga-Chmee.
What hunting has been! I live as Fanged Gold mean kzintosh live, even… I the noble Kzrral'eeAHrawl kill I need no weapon but Sire's w'tsai. Until today. May Fanged God's curse on Tskrrarr-Nig and his seed! May the God vomit forth his Soul!
Sight fail. Moment I trigger self-destruct Distant Prowler. Gravity-motor and armory will not fall to tool-using kz'eerkti's hands.
I do kz'eerkti service, preserving them for Patriarchy. Kz'eerkti population grow fast… Survey before landing I see kz'eerkt-bands fighting in eights of places.
The computer adjusted at this point. It noted that an analogue had been identified and that the sound 'kz'eerkt' was replaced by the word 'monkey'. The translation seemed to be getting better now.
Passing over oceans I see monkey-ships carry primitive guns as though even fight on sea! Toothsome good sport clever slaves, but if discover weaponry Distant Prowler with chemical rifles, the next heroes reach this planet find smoking craters. Should monkeys find gravity polarizer, the God's joke. But they will not.
Red-clad monkeys in white helmets hunters, one who leads chief. He will enter cave, I am sure. If he thinks I already dead, may lure him my claws.
I retreat to program self-destruct. My sons, that why I broke off battle when I knew wounds mortal! Not coward.
No way leave my sons clearer trail this place, they know my route to this system… planet with rudiments of industrialization only radiation signature of self-destruct will bring them to this place. My seed mighty hunters! Dying, I demand Honor's Name Conquest Warrior finds this message convey message sons of Skragga-Chmee, usurped Lord of R'kkia on Skrullai! Demand, too, Honor's Name, sons Warrior reward.
There was another gap. The screen adjusted as a new stream of data was fed in. The next words, the last words, were close to ordinary English.
Much pain. Hear monkeys and slave-beasts approach – I do not think I can say more.
Avenge me. Honor my bones. Warrior's sons…
As I had predicted. It was the only way they could have fitted everything more or less together, once the tiger-man relics were found and identified, as, we now saw, they had been meant to be found and identified by someone like me.
The hoaxers had thought further ahead to get the details right than I had given them credit for. Even the impossible speed and maneuverability of the supposed alien ship had been accounted for, in a sense, by the reference to a technology of gravity control.
Even the Angel's Pencil's supposed fluke destruction of such a supposedly impossibly superior 'enemy' could be explained away according to the scenario the hoaxers had concocted: Such 'enemies', though technologically superior, might be taken by surprise, once, by a reaction-drive used as a makeshift weapon if they themselves had never needed to develop such a clumsy and primitive means of propulsion.
'You've wrapped it up,' said Alfred O'Brien. 'But tanj! It was a set of twisted minds that packaged this idea.”
And a twisted mind that unraveled it, he didn't need to say.
'What will we do next?' I asked him.
'It'll move to another level for executive action. There'll be no interrogations. Nothing to cause any trouble with the Belt.' 'Shouldn't they make reparation, if they are parties to it? This must have all cost a lot of time and money.' 'No! That decision has been made at the highest level and its quite unequivocal. If there is Belt involvement we don't want to know. There must never be an excuse for another conflict! Now that the problem's solved, no incidents.' He looked straight at me, and spoke in a voice I had never heard before, a voice gray as ash. 'Not when thousands of ships are powered with fusion-drives.' I thought I saw him shudder, and when the import of his words sank into me I shuddered too. Perhaps for the first time I truly understood what ARM's work and the program were for.
Then he continued in his normal voice.
'The Vaughn-Nguyens will have total memory-wipes and that will be the end of it. Into the Black Hole. The lot.' 'The Angel's Pencil?' 'Too far away for us to do anything. Well simply block its transmissions. End of story. You've done well, Karl.
'You had better keep your present operating code for a few days,' he continued. 'You may need to access the
