home Chapter one . two . three . four . five
That was two years to the day before the final night -- the night that was the culmination of our greatest and most secret project. For those two years we worked intensively with Biblical texts, archaeological references, and computers of various sizes and varieties. We attended various symposiums on chiasmus and other archaic literary forms. We talked with numerous religious and archaeological experts. (Inadvertently, we became rising stars in this arcane field.) Six months before, we even traveled the holy lands to confirm some of our findings. That was the trip that you may recall reading about in the newspapers -- if you follow such things. That was one where Bergen and I discovered the Negev Scrolls, sometimes called the second Dead Sea Scrolls.
That trip turned out to be one of the most beneficial parts of our experiments. Researchers will be pouring over the cache of writings we discovered for years, and finding that cache was a direct result of our pouring through the Books of Moses with our computer-aided analysis.
But one thing the researchers will not find are the two blued-steel talismans we took from the cache. We smuggled them back here to the States. We suspected, and it later proved true, that they would be critical to the success of our final project.
The final six months we were both hard to find. We labored feverishly on our project. We found both disks covered with a fine script. They were a foot wide each, and covered on both sides, so there was a lot of script to work with. We subjected the writings to intensive analysis so we could get an accurate translation. The equipment we needed for that analysis was only available after hours. We joined the nocturnal set: programmers, janitors, and other university people working on projects even stranger than ours.
We discovered Ned and the others we normally congregated with were getting concerned. Ned started making a habit of intercepting Bergen after dinner just before he would head back to the university for the evening's work. For a while they played cat and mouse. Finally, Bergen came in one night upset because he'd had to yell at Ned to get him out of the way.
The next night we all had a meeting. Ned began, "Horace and Bergen. I'm glad to see you two have found such enthusiasm for your research. But we, and I believe I speak for your wives as well as myself and mine, are concerned that you're going at this a little too hard."
"Nonsense, Ned." answered Bergen confidently. His eyes were bright, but he coughed a bit before he continued. Behind his eyes, his face was looking sunken and worn. The tan from the Negev expedition was fading and leaving behind a pallor. A good rest at that time would have done him no harm -- or me either I'm sure. But I doubt either of us could have. We were too close. "No pain, no gain." he continued, "Besides, look what tremendous things we've uncovered so far! The Negev scrolls."
Loranne spoke, "The scrolls were an impressive accomplishment. But is what you're working on now worth your health? Look at you, dear. Please look at yourself. I rarely get a chance to these days. You just run in, eat dinner, then run out."
"I'm sorry, my dear. But the equipment we're using is only available at odd times. It won't go on much longer, I assure you. Another couple weeks at most."
"What are you working on?" asked Ned.
"I'd rather show you. It won't be long now."
"You're sure you're not over doing it?"
"We're doing fine." I assured everyone. "This is such exciting work. And we'll have something fine to show you soon. Trust us."
The meeting ended, and as soon as the guest left we hurried to the university to continue our work.
home Chapter one . two . three . four . five