“The odds are we decoded it correctly,” said Zack “but we just need to make sense of it. I think it’s a skip-sequence grid.”
“Explain.”
“It’s about laying all the letters out and then picking a skip sequence number that allows us to read the hidden message,” said Zack.
He went on to demonstrate by drawing the following letters in the air on their shared terminal
aznasizoztehheoawnggi
“Now that’s a string of letters that doesn’t make sense, right?”
“Right,” said Nizhoni.
“But look what happens if I take a skip sequence of ‘3’, that is take every third letter,” said Zack.
The letters changed to this:
az N as I zo Z te H he O aw N gg I
“My name,” said Nizhoni.
“Exactly,” said Zack. “No encryption, but encoding with a skip sequence of 3.”
“Ok, I get it,” she said, “but is that the case here?”
“Yes,” said Zack. “I did some initial analysis, and tried many skip sequence numbers. I got plenty of results, but couldn’t make sense of them. There might be some connections between them, but I can’t find it.”
“Show me the words,” she said, and a long list of words appeared on the air in front of her.
“Oh,” said Nizhoni. “That’s a lot of words!”
“Yep” said Zack “so how do we figure out what they mean”
*
“Nizhoni told you what she and Zack are doing?” said Fintan, more of a question than a statement. He and Ayako were poking around the debris of various pieces of broken equipment.
“A little,” she answered. “Trichallik has them flying around outside looking for stuff. It doesn’t make much sense.”
“How is that a science project?”
Ayako shrugged. “She has no idea, and frankly, neither do I.”
Fintan sighed unhappily.
“They have no control over it,” said Ayako, “so let’s not hold it against them.”
“Yeah,” said Fintan, “I suppose you’re right.”
“I looked at the data from yesterday’s test flight,” she said “and was able to derive some useful information. I think I’ve figured out how we can change it so you won’t crash again.”
She paused for a moment.
“How are you feeling by the way?”
He laughed. “Just don’t ask me to run for a little while, ok?”
She returned his laugh. “I bought you a gift in the rec store by the way.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. It’s for luck. You can wear it before today’s test flight”
“Wow, thanks,” said Fintan. “What is it?”
She held up an athletic cup.
*
“I keep seeing the same words repeated over and over again,” said Zack
“Woman”, “Third”, “Dine”, “Spider”, “World” and “Rock” he listed out. “These words occur more than any others, it’s like the messenger is trying to call attention to them.”
Nizhoni looked over the words. Then something seemed to come alive in her eyes and she rearranged them in the air. She put ‘Spider’ and ‘Rock’ together, as well as ‘Third’ and ‘World’.
“I was wondering about that” said Zack. “I remember you spoke about the ‘Fifth’ world once, but ‘Fifth’ isn’t showing up here.”
“Spider Rock,” said Nizhoni. “I know this place.”
“It’s a place? I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not just a place,” said Nizhoni. “It’s a sacred place. Our history tells us that it is where our people emerged from the Third World into this one.”
“ ‘Third’ and ‘World’ are on the list too,” said Zack. “But what about Dine?”
“It’s Diné,” said Nizhoni, pronouncing it Din-Uh. “It means ‘people’ in my language. It’s what we Navajo call ourselves.”
“Hmm,” said Zack. “You’ve given me an idea.”
He called up the full string of letters again. “All these words came when I used a skip sequence of only 4. I expected it to be a much bigger number, with a harder to find sequence.”
He animated taking every fourth letter and forming words from them.
“Is this number significant to you in any way?” said Zack
“Yes,” she said. “It is.”
She didn’t elaborate, and Zack didn’t force the issue. Instead he rearranged the words by taking every fourth one.
PROCEED TO SPIDER ROCK. THE DINÉ LEGEND OF SPIDER WOMAN AND THE LOST WARRIOR.
“I know that legend,” said Nizhoni. “It’s about a Navajo warrior who was being chased by his enemies. He got to Spider Rock, and Spider Woman lowered silk down to him. He climbed up and she fed him on eagles’ eggs until he was satisfied. From there she lowered him down on a silk rope. From her he learned the art of weaving.”
“And Navajo weaved rugs are so famous that even I have heard of them,” said Zack. “But what does all this mean?”
“That we have to go to Spider Rock,” said Nizhoni. “And maybe find our next clue.”
*
“Are you ready Fintan?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he answered. “And I’m wearing my good luck charm.”
“Too much information, Fintan!” said Ayako.
He laughed. “Taking it up slowly now.”
The ship lifted off slowly. It then started spinning.
“It’s looking smoother,” said Ayako. “Take the speed up a little.”
The ship’s spinning got a little faster. “Still stable,” said Fintan. “Looking good.”
“Ok,” said Ayako “Let’s try moving her a little forward.”
The ship moved forward a few feet, stopped and continued to hover above the ground as it spun.
“How does it feel?” asked Ayako
“Good,” said Fintan. “It’s hard to control, but I think I can reprogram and tweak it a bit.”
“Excellent,” said Ayako. “And we still have a couple of days to spare, what ever will we do in our spare time?”
“I guess romantic dinners and walks by the river are out of the question?”
“Dream on.”
*
As the saucer flew, from Area 51 to Spider rock was about 400 miles. They took it low and fast to avoid being chased by any more air force patrols.
“This route takes us past the Grand Canyon, doesn’t it?” said Zack, checking his map.
“Yes,” said Nizhoni.
“I’ve never seen it, can we take a look?”
“We’ll do more than that, we’ll fly straight through it. It will make a great hiding place.”
“Oh sweet! This rocks. Ha. Rocks, get it. Rocks.”
She didn’t answer them, but continued to lead. They crossed over the Muddy mountains to reach Lake Mead where she lowered their altitude so they were flying just a few feet above the water.
From there she turned northwest to follow the lake.
“It’s not a straight line,” said Nizhoni, “but it will give us a lot of cover.”
She dialed up the speed, and activated the collision avoidance system. Zack did likewise.
An outside observer would have seen two disks, flying at close to 800 miles per hour whispering across the water.
“No sonic boom,” said Zack. “When a flying object crosses the speed of sound, about 740MPH if I remember, it creates a thunder-like boom.”
“I guess nobody told the gods we’re crossing that barrier,” said Nizhoni.
Zack activated his heads-up camera and turned on the image enhancement. The canyon walls were growing either side of him as it got deeper. The passed the famous west rim in a blur.
“We’re flying through the Hualapai reservation,” said Nizhoni.
“They’re related to us, but not as close as you might think.”
“I’m learning more about your people every day,” said Zack. “I can’
t believe how ignorant I was before.”
Outside the view was stunning. The canyon was nearly a mile deep and several wide at this point. He could see lights along the rim on both sides.
“Campers,” said Nizhoni “enjoying the stars”
“Wonder if any of them will report a UFO tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” said Nizhoni. “We’re hard to spot.”
“Makes you wonder how often saucers fly out of the city back into the real world, doesn’t it?” said Zack. “Many people report UFOs around here.”
They left the canyon and entered Navajo territory.
“Spider Rock is in a national park near the border with New Mexico,” said Nizhoni. “My home.”
She paused for a second.
“Zack,” she said. “Spider Rock is sacred to my people. It would be best if we land a distance away and you let me go ahead there, alone.”
He nodded. “Understood.”
“Be careful,” she said. “There are campgrounds there where tourists come to see the rock. It’s beautiful. But they cannot be allowed to see us. “
“How will you know where to land?”
“I’m assuming what we’re looking for is at or on Spider Rock itself, but I’m sure we’ll have some sign when we get closer.”
They crossed over another low mountain range, and approached the spot that Nizhoni had marked on the map.
A beacon started bleeping on their heads-up display.
“I guess that’s it,” said Nizhoni.
The beacon was right at Spider Rock itself, just as Nizhoni had guessed. “I know a place to land,” she said “It’s a short hike from the rock, but it’s well hidden.”
They hugged the landscape for a few more miles, and then a valley appeared seemingly out of nowhere. “It’s more like a hole in the ground,” said Zack, “than a valley or canyon.”
Delicately she flew her ship down into the canyon, with Zack following. The gray landscape had given way to moonlit reds and yellows. Trees grew along the sides of the valley, and clusters of bushes dotted the landscape. Ahead of them, dark against the sky was a towering rock.
“Wow,” said Zack “How tall is that thing?”
“It’s about eight hundred feet,” said Nizhoni
The rock was a tall, thin, straight tower, looking like a skyscraper from New York City had gotten lost in the desert. Because it was in the canyon, reaching from the floor of it, up to about ground level, it couldn’t be seen from outside the canyon, unless you were on the rim looking down.
“It’s beautiful,” said Zack.
The rock stood where two valleys intersected, making the shape of a ‘V’. Nizhoni took her ship to the left hand side of the rock, flying past it for a couple of miles before gently landing it in a small alcove.
Zack got out of his ship to see Nizhoni sitting at the edge of the alcove, legs dangling down. She turned to him and smiled. “I’m home.”
He sat beside her. The sky was inky black and dotted with millions of stars. The moon was almost full and bathed the valley in a yellowish glow. He looked up at the rim of the canyon, almost a thousand feet above him. Campfires dotted a campsite near the rim, and Zack almost imagined he could hear people singing.
“Nice home,” said Zack
“Well, I don’t actually live here,” said Nizhoni. “My village is a few miles from here, across the border into New Mexico but,” she smiled again, “this is home.”
She held up her bracelet and touched a button. A small display projected in front of her.
“Whatever the beacon is, it’s at Spider Rock itself,” she said, showing him the display. “I’ll get going in a moment, but, beforehand, I’d better change. Wouldn’t want to run into anyone in this uniform.”
“Skirt too short?” said Zack, laughing.
She gave him her stern look, but her eyes were glistening in the darkness. “Try again. Wouldn’t want anyone to have any questions about the uniform, right?”
“You mean like, where can I buy one of these for my girlfriend?”
She slapped him, playfully, on the arm. “You’re hopeless! Now turn around when I change, and if I catch you peeping, I’ll-“
“You’ll what?” said Zack “Do a little dance?”
“I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise,” she said. “But if you want a clue, think about Simon, ok?”
He heard the rustling of her changing and the zipping sound of her removing her uniform. He remembered her fearlessly taking on the air force planes. She was tough, that was for sure, but now she was just a little girl, changing in the darkness.
“Ok,” she said. “I’m decent now, you can turn around.”
She stood in front of him in cardigan, tee shirt and jeans. “How do I look?”
“Like a tourist?”
“Good enough,” she answered. “Wish me luck.”
She climbed down the entrance of the alcove, and jogged off into the darkness. Zack sat on the edge of the rock, dangling his feet watching her run. She was light on her feet and almost silent as she ran across the rocky ground. Before long she was gone in the darkness, and a moment of fear overcame him. He was surprised to find that he was more afraid for himself, alone in the darkness, than for her, running off into the unknown.
*
She had been gone for a couple of hours, but the time passed quickly. The night was beautiful and Zack spent it leaning back looking at the stars. Without city lights the sky was much clearer and the stars much sharper. Occasionally he’d hear the cry of a bird, maybe an eagle or an owl, out hunting at night, and the scurry of small desert creatures on the rocks beneath him. There was a faint sweet smell in the air. He felt that he could stay here forever.
“Wake up,” said Nizhoni. “Some guard you are, a whole army could have come here and stolen the ships.”
“A Navajo army maybe, if they’re anything like you,” said Zack. “You’re quiet in how you run on this terrain.”
She smiled. For once it seemed Zack had said the right thing. It felt good.
“I got it,” she said. “But I am not sure what it is.”
She held up a package. Inside was a piece of paper. On the paper was a picture of something that looked like a dome or a crater on a rocky floor.
“What’s that?” said Zack
“I have no idea,” said Nizhoni.
He thought about it a little more. “You know,” he said. “This looks like it was taken from a satellite picture, right?”
She nodded agreement.
“But there are no domes or craters like our one on the Earth’s surface, right?”
“What if it isn’t a dome? What if it is something else? Could it be a volcano or something?”
“There’s no spout, but…” he trailed off.
“What is it?”
“I have an idea” he said. “I’ve seen something like this before”
She waited.
“Underground weapons testing. Nuclear weapons. Back in the cold war, the government tested lots of nukes in Nevada, most of them underground. When I first got into the city, I figured that’s how it had been built – they just blew great holes in the ground with nukes, but now I think they couldn’t have.”
“Why?”
“Because it would have to leave some kind of pimple on the surface that would look something like this.”
“So you think this is in Nevada?”
“It might be. We’ll have to search.”
“Ok” she said. “But what’s the point? Why did Trichallik have us flying these ships, getting used to them, and then send us on an errand to find something hidden here, only to go back to Nevada again?”
“There’s something else,” added Zack. “Back when you were dogfighting the USAF planes, a scanner on my ship picked up something hidden in the desert floor. It did a deep scan, and I haven’t had time to analyze the data yet.”
“So she sent us there for a reason?”
“They say Go
d moves in mysterious ways,” said Zack. “But I think he’s a cheap con artist compared with the alien.”
*
They had sufficient maps in the onboard computers within their saucers, so Zack decided that it would be better to stay where they were.
“Besides,” he said, “don’t want to encounter our USAF friends again, right?”
Nizhoni nodded. “You know we can do this the smart way, or we can do this the not so smart way,” she said.
“The smart way would be to scan this image into the computer and have it do some pattern matching against maps. We can narrow it down by using the test ranges in Nevada.”
“And the dumb way would be?”
“Looking over the maps manually!”
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m doing it the dumb way so I could spend more time here.”
Nizhoni returned to her ship, carrying the paper. A few moments later she returned. “It’s scanned,” she said.
Zack called up some pattern matching algorithms and linked them to the mapping interface. The program started working through the maps of Nevada, looking for a match.
It only took a few seconds before the computer beeped. It was a match.
“98% accuracy,” said Zack. “I think we have our pimple. And it’s a crater, not a pimple. Darn it. I was hoping it would take longer.”
They got into their saucers and took off, heading back westward across the Navajo land, entering the Grand Canyon at its eastern side, and meandering along it until they exited at Lake Mead. They cut northwest towards Papoose Mountain which towered over the south west corner of Area 51 and turned to head west.
“After we cross the next mountain range, we’ll be at the north tip of a huge rift valley. It’s full of craters from nuclear testing, and this one seems to be the biggest.”
A few minutes later they were there. It was getting close to dawn and Nizhoni could see the sun beginning to add a yellow glow to the sky east of them.
“That’s one heck of a crater,” said Zack as they hovered over it.
“Sensors are showing it as over 300 feet deep”
“But why are we here?”
Zack headed south, slowly. There were many craters in the desert floor, none as large as the one they had just left.
“So many,” she said.
He landed his ship and got out. The wind was blowing and sand stung his face. Everywhere was gray and barren. He shook his head.
“There’s no life here.”
“So sad,” she replied.
“It’s a complete contrast, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“We came from a place of great natural beauty that your people have respected and preserved, to this place,” he said. “It looks like hell, and it’s made by man.”