"Most of the time. But if I'm not careful, she can get as testy and petulant as the original."

"Okay, here goes," Pat murmured under her breath. "Max, have you a.n.a.lyzed the symbols that were scanned into your system?"

"I have." Max's voice answered in tones that sounded positively human.

"Could you decipher and translate any of the symbols into the English alphabet?"

"I've only scratched the surface, but I have made progress. The inscriptions on the ceiling of the chamber appear to be a star chart."

"Explain," Yaeger ordered.

"I see it as a sophisticated coordinate system that is used in astronomy to plot the positions of celestial objects in the sky. I think it might suggest changes in the declinations of stars visible in the sky over a particular part of the world in past epochs."

"Meaning that because of deviations in the earth's rotation, the stars appear to shift positions over time."

"Yes, the scientific terms are precession and nutation," Max lectured. "Because the earth bulges around the equator from its rotation, the gravitational pull of the sun and moon is heaviest around the equator and causes a slight wobble to the earth's spinning axis. You've seen the same phenomenon in a spinning top, due to gravity. This is called precession, and it traces a circular cone in s.p.a.ce every 25,800 years. Nutation, or nodding, is a small but irregular movement that swings the celestial pole 10 seconds away from the smooth precessional circle every 18.6 years."

"I know that sometime in the distant future," said Pat, "Polaris will no longer be the North Star."

"Exactly," Max agreed. "As Polaris drifts away, another star will move into position above the North Pole in approximately 345 years. A hundred years before the time of Christ, the vernal equinox-Excuse me, are you familiar with the vernal equinox?"

"If I remember my junior college astronomy," said Pat, "the vernal equinox is where the sun intersects the celestial equator from south to north during the spring equinox, making it a reference direction for angular distances as measured from the equator."

"Very good," Max complimented her. "Spoken like a college professor putting her cla.s.s to sleep. Anyway, before Christ, the vernal equinox pa.s.sed through the constellation Aries. Because of precession, the vernal equinox is now in Pisces and is advancing toward Aquarius."

"What I think you're telling us," said Pat, elation beginning to grow in her chest, "is that the starlike symbols in the ceiling in the chamber display coordinates of the star system from the past."

"That's how I read it," Max said impa.s.sively.

"Did the ancients have the scientific knowledge to make such accurate projections?"

"I'm finding that whoever carved that celestial map in the ceiling of the chamber was superior to the astronomers of only a few hundred years ago. They calculated correctly that the celestial galaxy is fixed and that the sun, the moon, and the planets revolve. The map shows the orbits of the planets, including Pluto, which was discovered only in the last century. They discovered that the stars Betelgeuse, Sirius, and Procyon remain in permanent positions, while other constellations move imperceptibly over thousands of years. Believe me, these ancient people knew their stuff when it came to stargazing."

Pat looked at Yaeger. "If Max can decipher the star coordinates as engraved in the chamber when it was built, we might be able to date its construction."

"It's worth a try."

"I deciphered a small part of the numbering system," said Pat. "Would that help you, Max?"

"You shouldn't have bothered. I have already interpreted the numbering system. I find it quite ingenious for its simplicity. I can't wait to dig my bytes into the inscriptions that spell out words."

"Max?"

"Yes, Hiram."

"Concentrate on deciphering the star symbols and put aside the alphabetic inscriptions for now."

"You'd like me to a.n.a.lyze the celestial map?"

"Do the best you can."

"Can you give me until five o'clock? I should be able to get a handle on it by then."

"The time is yours," Yeager responded.

"Max only requires a few hours for a project that should take months, even years?" Pat asked incredulously.

"Never underestimate Max," said Yaeger, swinging around in his chair and sipping from a cup of cold coffee. "I spent the better part of my prime years putting Max together. There isn't another computer system like her in the world. Not that she won't be obsolete in five years. But for the present, there is very little she can't do. She is unique, and she belongs heart and soul to me and NUMA."

"What about patents? Surely you must turn your rights over to the government."

"Admiral Sandecker is not your average bureaucrat. We have a verbal contract. I trust him, and he trusts me. Fifty percent of any revenue that we make on patent royalties or charges for the use of our acc.u.mulated data to private corporations or government agencies is turned over to NUMA. The other fifty percent comes to me."

"You certainly work for a fair-minded man. Any other employer would have given you a bonus, a gold watch, and a pat on the back, and taken your profits to the bank."

"I'm lucky to be surrounded by fair-minded men," said Yaeger solemnly. "The admiral, Rudi Gunn, Al Giordino, and Dirk Pitt, they're all men I'm proud to call my friends."

"You've known them for a long time."

"Close to fifteen years. We've had some wild times together and solved any number of ocean riddles."

"While we're waiting for Max to get back to us, why don't we begin a.n.a.lyzing the wall symbols. Perhaps we can find a clue to their meaning."

Yaeger nodded. "Sure thing."

"Can you reproduce the holographic image of the chamber?"

"Wishing will make it so," Yaeger said, as he typed a command at his keyboard and the image of the interior walls of the chamber materialized again.

"To decipher an unknown alphabetic writing, the first trick is to separate the consonants from the vowels. Since I see no indication that they represent ideas or objects, I'm a.s.suming that the symbols are alphabetic and they record sounds of words."

"What is the origin of the first alphabet?" asked Yaeger.

"Hard evidence is scarce, but most epigraphists believe it was invented in ancient Canaan and Phoenicia somewhere between 1700 and 1500 B.C., and is labeled as North Semitic. Leading scholars disagree, of course. But they do tend to agree that early Mediterranean cultures developed the awakenings of an alphabet from prehistoric geometric symbols. Much later, the Greeks adapted and refined the alphabet, so the letters we write today are related to theirs. Further developments came from the Etruscans, followed by the Romans, who borrowed heavily to form the written language of Latin and whose later cla.s.sic characters eventually formed the twenty-six-letter alphabet you and I use today."

"Where do we begin?"

"We'll be starting from scratch," said Pat, referring to her notes. "I'm unaware of any other ancient writing systems whose symbols match those inscribed in the chamber. There seems to be no influence either way, which is most unusual. The only remote similarity is to the Celtic Ogham alphabet, but there any resemblance ends."

"I almost forgot." Yaeger handed her a small batonlike shaft with a miniature camera at one end. "Max has already coded the symbols. If you want me to help you from my end with any calculations, just aim the camera at the symbol and its sequence in the inscriptions you wish to study, and I'll work at developing a decipher program."

"Sounds good," said Pat, happy to be back in the harness again. "First, let's list the different symbols and get a count on how many times each is represented. Then we can try working them into words."

"Like the and and."

"Most of the ancient script did not include words we take for granted today. I also want to see if we can detect the vowels before tackling the consonants."

They worked through the day without a break. At noon, Yaeger sent word down to the NUMA cafeteria to send up sandwiches and soft drinks. Pat was becoming increasingly frustrated. The symbols looked maddeningly simple to decipher, and yet by five o'clock she had had little or no success in untangling their definitions.