Chapter 31

"I never loved thee, mine, until these tears

Of common sorrow bound us into one.

Then when we danced together down the years,

And shouted in the sun,

Greeting the dawn of each new day with cheers,

We were not one. Our souls were still asleep,

We were companions in a childish game,

Until the great God called and bade us weep,

Until the darkness came,

And we went hand in hand down to the deep."

-A. Studdert Kennedy, "Love's Dawn"

It was Christmas again in Oxford, and the streets were lit up with sparkling lights while the chiming of the bell-ringers could be heard from the churches in the streets. Elizabeth had been given a whole week off of work for the holidays. It was the second day – Christmas Eve – and she was still bundled up in her apartment, and working. Not on anything for her job, but on the project which had obsessed her for over a year and a half. She had felt for weeks that she was getting closer, and now she was determined, with hardly any food or rest, to finally decode the written language of the Vellorians.

She had a list of thousands of words she had learned, spelled out phonetically, on her computer, and she now spoke the language well enough to be able to understand anything Dresle or the other Vellorians said, although she was very careful with her knowledge. Only Will knew how far she had gotten: Dresle would be terrified if she had known how close Elizabeth was to translating that captain's log. Will had invited her to his family's house to spend Christmas, but she had declined, telling him, "I'm so close to figuring this out, Will – only a few more days."

Instead, she went to Dresle's house for Christmas. Dresle had begun to recover quite well from the trauma of her capture, and Christmas was the first day she was free to move about without a guard on her at every moment. She and Elizabeth made Christmas dinner themselves, and invited the security guards to join them, since they were stuck with her and not with their families over Christmas (or at least that's how Dresle put it). Will sent Elizabeth a gift – a digital book called Vellorum: A Visual History, which was filled out with gorgeously detailed drawings by Arjen. She could see spires and minarets, and many creatures that looked almost like Earth's dinosaurs. Dresle enjoyed pointing out and explaining each picture.

"That one is the Dark Tower. It's the capitol of our country," she said at one picture of a tall, dark tower emerging from stony black mountain slopes. "It's called that because of the dark stone it is made of. That is where I was trained in my trade – all the scientists were. Oh, that one is our port city of Mizrach. Its white towers were so beautiful – you should have seen them in the moonlight."

"And what is this creature?" Elizabeth asked, pointing to a picture. "And is that – a person on its back?"

"Hm… well I don't know what your term might be for it – it was a great, scaly, sea creature that we tamed and raced against each other on them. Not that I did – I mean, the athletes did, every year at our athletic games. Oh! and look at this one! Here is a picture of the banquets we used to have, every Coming-of-Age Day, once a year. We could eat whatever we wanted and however much we wanted then. No dietary restrictions."

It was delightful to have such a guide through the book. "Arjen is a magnificent artist," said Elizabeth. "Did he have any artistic training on Vellorum?"

"Oh, no," said Dresle. "We weren't permitted to – engage ourselves that way. No writing, reading, or art beyond what our society deemed fit for us."

"But now he's free to draw what he likes," said Elizabeth with a smile.

"Yes, and me to sing," said Dresle.

"I gave Will your new album for Christmas, you know."

Dresle blushed. "Really?"

"Well, yes, seeing as you've already sold a billion copies since it came out a couple weeks ago."

"I had so much fun doing it. But – why didn't you go to Will's family's house for Christmas?"

"Oh, I – I just had some … stuff I have to work on."

There was silence for a full minute while Elizabeth scrutinized some more drawings on her handheld.

"You don't…" began Dresle awkwardly, as if this were new for her, "you don't – love him, then?"

Elizabeth's head snapped up. Her cheeks had suddenly grown very red. "Love him? Why do you ask that?" she inquired breathlessly.

"Well, because he loves you," said Dresle, as if she were stating the obvious.

"He – loves me?" said Elizabeth in surprise.

"Well, of course. I thought you surely knew."

"No, no I don't – I didn't," she stammered. "How do you know?"

"Because of the flowers he gave you last Christmas, when you got sick, remember?"

"Yes. But people send flowers all the time. That doesn't necessarily mean that they love –"

"Oh, but it was the meaning conveyed by the flowers. Don't you remember, he told you, 'Each flower had a specific meaning in Victorian times, so that you could send a whole message with just a bouquet'."

"That's true… he did say that," Elizabeth murmured pensively.

"Well, I looked up the meanings of the flowers later – red rose for passionate love, hyacinth for constancy, red tulips – a declaration of love, and forget-me-nots – well, those are obvious."

"I – I never realized," said Elizabeth, rather stunned. What if it was true? Is that why he wanted her to meet his family? And if so, how did she feel about him? She had never had any "crushes" growing up, and had always seen herself as living and dying alone – but was that because she wanted it that way, or merely because she was frightened of losing yet another person she loved?

"Anyway," said Dresle, clearly trying to change the subject in the awkward silence. "I heard that Esma and the astronauts have come back."

"Oh, really?" said Elizabeth, looking up with glazed eyes.

"Yes." Dresle turned on the television. "They arrived this morning – only two left from the original Mars mission – the rest dead."

They watched in silence the emotional reuniting of the rescued astronauts and their families.

"Oh, by the way," Elizabeth said. "I got my cardio-injector."

"Really?"

"Yep. They're out on the market now, and my doctor wrote me a prescription for one. Just in case. Although heart attacks are more common in men." She was trying to get her mind off Will, but everything she said just kept reminding her of him. He had been so excited to study the medicine behind the cardio-injector. "How's the new energy coming with Laufa and the Atlas Corp?" she asked, even though she knew Dresle had nothing to do with it.

"Good, I think. They're close to being able to share it with the world. They are still some protesting going on in certain countries.

"Why?" Elizabeth wondered.

"Well, they see it as a large corporation taking over the government. I think the CEO David Michaels will soon be the most powerful man in the world."

"You mean, besides Laufa and you others?"

"What power do I have?" Dresle shrugged.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Elizabeth. "You all are superstars across the world now! Especially after the kidnapping and the peace treaty. They would bow down and worship you as gods – if they believed in any god, that is."

Dresle seemed to be made uncomfortable by this fact.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.

"I just – I hate the fact that you all see us as so superior and all-knowing. We're not – we're just like you. We just want to survive and live in peace without being experimented on or locked up."

"You mean – because you can't go back home."

There was a long silence and then Dresle looked up into Elizabeth's eyes. "Yes."

Elizabeth had suspected it all along. All those hints that Dresle unknowingly dropped, the behavior of the Vellorians, all pointed to it – but now, now that she had heard it from Dresle's own lips, she was so amazed that she could only stare. All her suspicions were true.

"Why?" she said at last.

Dresle shrugged, looking unhappy. "I can't tell you."

"But, why not? What's the big secret? I won't tell anyone."

"Except Will. You tell Will everything."

Elizabeth turned red with embarrassment. Dresle was shrewder than she looked. "I'm sorry, I know you told me not to tell anyone, but Will is true and loyal, he would never repeat it."

"That's okay," said Dresle wearily. "It's just the others mustn't know that I told you anything. I made a vow –"

"A vow? A vow to whom?"

"When we first landed here, we all took a vow that we would never tell – never tell –"

"Never tell the truth?"

"No, not like that," said Dresle in a pleading voice. "It was just for our own comfort and safety – it could do no harm to anyone else. I swear."

"So… no one else is coming then?"

"No," said Dresle, lowering her head.

"Is your planet destroyed? Are you exiles? I mean, if you really want to help the world then what is the purpose of lying to it?"

"It's what they all agreed on. I had to go with it. Now please, don't ask me anymore. I've said too much already. Perhaps you should go."

Elizabeth wanted to get home, too; for now she had an even greater incentive for discovering what was written on the Captain's log. They parted on good terms, and for the next three days Elizabeth did not leave her apartment or even answer the phone, so intent was she on her task. The computer was constantly running scenarios for her while she worked by hand in her notebook.

On the third day Will knocked on the door; and she was concentrating so hard that at first she did not hear it. But once he had knocked multiple times, she got up to open the door. She had completely forgotten what Dresle had said about Will in her concentration. "Come on in," she said. "I'm just working." She sat back down at her desk.

"Just wanted to see if you had a good Christmas," said Will. "I couldn't get you on the phone, so I figured you were working."

"Yes. I think I'm really close. Feel free to sit down, turn on the TV, whatever."

"Thanks," he plopped down on the couch. "By the way… my mother made you a pudding. I put it on the kitchen counter for you."

"Oh, thanks. That's so nice of her," said Elizabeth automatically, and kept typing.

"How was your Christmas?" she asked after a few minutes, in which Will had turned the TV on low volume. Sebastian jumped onto the couch and cuddled immediately in Will's lap.

"Good. It was fine," he said unenthusiastically. "Did you get a lot of work done?"

"Um… yeah. But I just still – can't – crack – it." She looked up at him in frustration. "I've figured out that there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of different characters here. I've matched over 800 of them already. But when I try to fit them together as a word, it's just jibberish. Like, look what I tried with the title – as I translate it, it says, Zitfangast swalba im unp, and that in English means, 'Ambrosia seven ride barrier.' And no matter how many times I rearrange the words it makes no sense."

"Hmm," said Will, "have you tried reading it right to left?"

"I've tried right to left, left to right, up to down, and down to up."

"What if it's some weird way, like horizontal? You know what I mean. Or words inside other words – like Gallifreyan."

Elizabeth did not answer for several long moments, but her pupils dilated and red came to her cheeks. "That's it, Will!" she said at last, putting her hands on his shoulders. "That's the key!"

"What is it? What have I said?" asked Will in bewilderment.

"High Gallifreyan," she said, sitting down at her desk again and typing. "An invented script for a TV show. That's what I've been missing. I've been treating this script like a human language – which, despite having many similarities to ours, is not one!"

"So…" said Will, still perplexed.

"So I need to look at this from an entirely different piont of view. This script is nothing like Tolkien's tengwar, like Klingon or Gallifreyan. But it might have some of their properties – the properties of an invented language. And I'm an expert in those, in case you'd forgotten."

She went back to typing for several minutes while Will looked over her shoulder.

"That's it!" she cried at last. "You see each of these characters? Well, I thought they each only had one meaning, but they don't – because they have multiple different meanings depending on how you arrange them in a word or a sentence."

"I don't get it," he said.

"Okay, well let me show you with the title page. What I'd said it was before was zitfangast swalba im unp. But if the characters can have different meanings (which I'll have to run through the computer), it could be sitganfazt smalba iw umt or any other number of combinations. If I translate it sitgunfust zmalba im amt, that means, "Ambrosia seven log of captain."

"Brilliant!" cried Will. "So now you can translate the log?"

"Well, no – not yet. I still have a lot of work to do. I'll have to run these characters through the computer again in a new matrix." She got out her notebook and began scribbling notes in it.

"I'll let you get to it then," said Will. "I haven't been home yet, and I'm exhausted. Let me know when you have a breakthrough."

"I will. See you, Will."

He left.

She had to return to work day after next, so she spent all of New Year's Eve trying new variables and attempting to translate the document. There were many large places she left blank, either because she couldn't figure out the translation, or she didn't know what the word meant. It seemed teeming with scientific terms, which she did not understand or know the English word for. Also, the words seemed out of order, so that she wondered if she was translating it correctly – sentences such as:

was no heat inside the capsule the captain saw that there

he commanded that the once the fuel had been restored

be opened once more to let air into the chamber of the cryocapsule

But after rearranging the word in every sequence she could think of, she still could not decipher a meaning from the sentences. Another problem was that Ashtauz did not use puncutuation, so she never knew when a new sentence was beginning or an old one was ending. She tried to write it out, putting punctuation in where it made most sense:

was no heat inside the capsule. The captain saw that there

he commanded that the. (?) Once the fuel had been restored

be opened once more to let air into the chamber of the cryocapsule.

But this still made no sense. She looked down at the rest of the page she had translated. A lot of sentences or phrases seemed to begin in the middle of the line. Was that a coincidence? She tried starting each sentence in the middle, then moving to the left on the next line, but that did not work either.

At last she spotted it. Of course! Why had she not noticed it before? The sentence or phrase began in the middle of the line, then read to the right, and from there to the left and back to the middle. So the lines should be read:

The captain saw that there was no heat inside the capsule.

Once the fuel had been restored, he commanded that the

air into the chamber of the cryocapsule be opened once more to let

She was so elated by her discovery that she completely forgot Dresle was coming over until there was a knock on the door. Hastily she jumped back to reality and turned off the computer program, stuffing her notebook into her bag so Dresle would not see what she was working on.

"Hi!" she said, opening the door to let Dresle in. She peered around the hall. "Where is your guard?"

"Oh, they dropped me off and I said I'd stay the night so they'll pick me up in the morning."

"Isn't that dangerous?" asked Elizabeth hesitantly.

"Oh, no. Ever since the treaty it's been much safer for us. Plus, we have our subcutaneous trackers so that they know where we are at all times."

"Oh, okay, good. Sorry about the mess in here," she said, as Sebastian came purring up to rub against Dresle's leg. Dresle picked up the cat and petted him fondly.

"What have you been working on?" she asked.

"Oh – just some stuff for work," said Elizabeth evasively. "Would you like a cup of tea? I'll put the kettle on."

"Sure," said Dresle. She sat down on the couch and Sebastian cuddled down on her lap.

"What have you been up to the last couple days?" Elizabeth asked.

"Nothing much. Practicing with my vocal coach, and reading."

"Oh! What are you reading?" asked Elizabeth with interest.

"Doomsday Book by Connie Willis."

"That's one of my favourites!"

"I know; that's why I wanted to read it. You know, I used to think I had so little in common with you and your people; but I see it all from a different point of view now."

Elizabeth got out some teacups and laid the table.

"It's like Kivrin – the historian from the future. She travels back in time to the Middle-Ages to study it, and finds out that she's stuck there. Then she finds value in things she never thought she would appreciate before. People are the same everywhere, in every time period. The same's true with Vellorum, you know. I used to think our society and way of life was so superior to yours – that was the way I'd been taught. But now it all just seems so false." She rested her hand next to her teacup as Elizabeth filled it with piping hot tea. "I'm like Kivrin – stranded in a place that I thought before was barbaric – only to find it more true to my heart than any place I'd been before."

"You don't want to go back home?" asked Elizabeth, sitting down across from her at the kitchen table.

"That's not my home – that never was my home. I'd just been trained to believe it was. I never really fit in there, as much as I tried to conform. I'm glad I could come here – even if I can never get back."

"I'm glad too," said Elizabeth with a smile. They both took a sip of hot tea. "And I'm glad you feel you can confide in me."

Dresle was silent for a moment, and looked pensive, as if trying to decide something. Then she said, "I know you think I'm – well, that I'm a liar." Elizabeth tried to protest, but Dresle waved her quiet. "You know what I mean. That I haven't told you the truth. That I haven't told you everything. I hope you don't hold it against me. There's – there's nothing I can do. I shouldn't have told you the things I already have. I just wanted you to know, that I never wanted to lie to you – or to anyone. Especially you and Will."

"It's all right," said Elizabeth, and Dresle's hopeless face brightened a little. "I understand. I really do. Please don't worry about it anymore."

"Okay. Thanks, Elizabeth." She took a sip of tea; but something was still obviously bothering her. They sat in silence for a moment before she said, "Sometimes – I wish I could live inside the books I read. Not depressing books, of course. I don't mean like that. I don't know how to explain it. We didn't have fiction in our society so I'd never experienced it 'til I got here. What I mean is, I wish the characters and places really were real, and I could live among them."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Elizabeth. "When I was younger that's just what I would do – bury myself inside a book to live in that reality for a time. I still do."

Dresle nodded. "I feel like – the whole life I lived before I came here was my real life, and this world – the world I'm in now, is the book world – the one I've lost myself in. And I'm always afraid when I go to sleep, that when I wake up, this will all have just been a dream."

Elizabeth was about to speak, but there was a sharp knock on the door. "That's strange. I wonder who that is," said Elizabeth, getting up to answer it. She looked through the peephole. It was Laufa.