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.Abby rubbed her eyes and said, "This may tell us somethingabout their eyes.They may not see as well as we do, and their persistence ofvision may be longer than ours.""So this might look just fine to them?""It's possible.This ship wouldn't have been cheap to build.I'd bet theycould have higher resolution if they wanted it.And it could be they don'tsee in stereo since the display is flat.Having only the one eye-stalksuggests that they have either no stereoscopic vision, or stereoscopic withfairly limited depth perception since the separate views would have to bepretty close together.""Well, it may be okay for them, but I bet it'll give me a headache in anhour.""Mmm," Abby said."Any ideas so far?"Abby pointed to the pie wedge on the left."That image there reminds me of aside-view silhouette of their mouths.It looks a little like a spider'smouth, but with no mandibles.""Yeah, it does.So maybe that indicates communication, speech?""Could be.""If that's true, we don't want to activate that function.""How would we if we wanted to?" asked Abby."Touch the corresponding wedge onthis control panel?""That's my first guess, but I didn't want to try anything like that without aclue as to what it might be turning on.Showing a mouth might not mean speech or communication, and Ididn't want to be ordering a pizza.""Don't talk about real food, all right? I'm getting so very tired of greenpellets.""Sorry about that." Bobby Joe hesitated."Do spiders have good vision?""I don't know, but that's probably just as well.If we think of the Archiesas just big spiders, I think we're bound to make mistakes.As much aspossible, we should focus on what we can learn about the Archies andextrapolate from there.For instance, we shouldn't expect they lay eggsunless we get some direct evidence for that assumption.""Okay.So what next?""I've got several video images stored.Language or symbols from things likethe elevator door and several machines.I need to create a small catalog ofthem.I want to use more space than a computer screen." Abby looked at Matt."Any problem with writing on the wall? It'll make it tougher to cover ourtracks.""Go ahead.It won't be long before that's less important."Page 150 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlAbby and Bobby Joe went to work, with Abby locating images and Bobby Joetranscribing them on the wall, along with a brief note about where they camefrom.When they finished, a dozen images decorated the wall next to theconsole.To Bobby Joe several of the images looked more likeRorschach ink blots than characters.Abby's image collection included thesign on the dome over Manhattan, and images from the emergency exit door, theelevator, the monorail car, the locationRichard had planted explosives, and several other unidentified equipmentcabinets.Now that they were all together on the wall, Bobby Joe could see asimilarity in most of the images except for the sign on the dome.On theright-hand side of all the other images was a distorted octagon and a squarewith a vertical line at its center.Abby must have been looking at the same thing, but she was ahead of Bobby Joe.She pointed to the octagon and square fromthe message on the emergency door."You know what? I'm beginning to thinkthese symbols on the end are location references.This octagon is almostwhole.But look at the ones from places farther inside.They're smooshedin.""That's a technical term, right?""Right.The one from near the observation port is smooshed in maybe tenpercent.The one from what you guys guessed was part of the propulsion systemis smooshed farther in, and the actual location is physically closer to thecenter of the ship.The octagon we found on the elevator is almost whole.I think the smooshingsays where you are, what direction from the center of the ship, and how farout from the center.And the thin line in these squares shows elevation inthe ship.Everything on this level looks the same, but the one from theemergency door says we were closer to the middle of the ship."Bobby Joe scanned the images, looking for any inconsistency that coulddisprove the hypothesis.He didn't find one."So are you saying the Archieshave a pictographic language?""I'm betting they don't.If their history is something like ours, separategroups developed their own languages, and pictographs are an easy solutionthat allows a group of people who don't all use the same language to quicklyunderstand the message.Even if they do all use the same language now,pictographs are still convenient shorthand.""So all we need to do is figure out what these other seven pictures mean? Howdo we do that?""That's the first step.And all I can say for now is keep your mind as openas you can, and be prepared for the possibility that we just won't be able todecipher everything.Think about the "I Love New York" bumper sticker withthe heart symbol for the word 'love' and what the Archies would need to knowto understand it.The heart is an internal organ, so they're not going toknow what it looks like without a dissection or a scan.Then they would need to know that our stylized shape correlates to the heart,and they'd need to know the historical basis for believing the heart is thesource of emotion.Plus they'd need to know that in that context, red isgood.The symbol is actually a ideogram, not a pictograph.""They'd never figure that out without a lot of help.So you're saying we'regoing to have that tough a time, too?""With some of the figures, maybe.Then again, we might get lucky and find theequivalent of a side view of a stairway used to show where the stairs are.Some pictographs should simply be a small picture of what they represent.""So we're back to making guesses as to what these things represent?""Yes."Bobby Joe and Abby stared at the eight pictographs.FinallyBobby Joe said, "The one that looks like a 3-D octagon.Could that be thePage 151 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Abby rubbed her eyes and said, "This may tell us somethingabout their eyes.They may not see as well as we do, and their persistence ofvision may be longer than ours.""So this might look just fine to them?""It's possible.This ship wouldn't have been cheap to build.I'd bet theycould have higher resolution if they wanted it.And it could be they don'tsee in stereo since the display is flat.Having only the one eye-stalksuggests that they have either no stereoscopic vision, or stereoscopic withfairly limited depth perception since the separate views would have to bepretty close together.""Well, it may be okay for them, but I bet it'll give me a headache in anhour.""Mmm," Abby said."Any ideas so far?"Abby pointed to the pie wedge on the left."That image there reminds me of aside-view silhouette of their mouths.It looks a little like a spider'smouth, but with no mandibles.""Yeah, it does.So maybe that indicates communication, speech?""Could be.""If that's true, we don't want to activate that function.""How would we if we wanted to?" asked Abby."Touch the corresponding wedge onthis control panel?""That's my first guess, but I didn't want to try anything like that without aclue as to what it might be turning on.Showing a mouth might not mean speech or communication, and Ididn't want to be ordering a pizza.""Don't talk about real food, all right? I'm getting so very tired of greenpellets.""Sorry about that." Bobby Joe hesitated."Do spiders have good vision?""I don't know, but that's probably just as well.If we think of the Archiesas just big spiders, I think we're bound to make mistakes.As much aspossible, we should focus on what we can learn about the Archies andextrapolate from there.For instance, we shouldn't expect they lay eggsunless we get some direct evidence for that assumption.""Okay.So what next?""I've got several video images stored.Language or symbols from things likethe elevator door and several machines.I need to create a small catalog ofthem.I want to use more space than a computer screen." Abby looked at Matt."Any problem with writing on the wall? It'll make it tougher to cover ourtracks.""Go ahead.It won't be long before that's less important."Page 150 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlAbby and Bobby Joe went to work, with Abby locating images and Bobby Joetranscribing them on the wall, along with a brief note about where they camefrom.When they finished, a dozen images decorated the wall next to theconsole.To Bobby Joe several of the images looked more likeRorschach ink blots than characters.Abby's image collection included thesign on the dome over Manhattan, and images from the emergency exit door, theelevator, the monorail car, the locationRichard had planted explosives, and several other unidentified equipmentcabinets.Now that they were all together on the wall, Bobby Joe could see asimilarity in most of the images except for the sign on the dome.On theright-hand side of all the other images was a distorted octagon and a squarewith a vertical line at its center.Abby must have been looking at the same thing, but she was ahead of Bobby Joe.She pointed to the octagon and square fromthe message on the emergency door."You know what? I'm beginning to thinkthese symbols on the end are location references.This octagon is almostwhole.But look at the ones from places farther inside.They're smooshedin.""That's a technical term, right?""Right.The one from near the observation port is smooshed in maybe tenpercent.The one from what you guys guessed was part of the propulsion systemis smooshed farther in, and the actual location is physically closer to thecenter of the ship.The octagon we found on the elevator is almost whole.I think the smooshingsays where you are, what direction from the center of the ship, and how farout from the center.And the thin line in these squares shows elevation inthe ship.Everything on this level looks the same, but the one from theemergency door says we were closer to the middle of the ship."Bobby Joe scanned the images, looking for any inconsistency that coulddisprove the hypothesis.He didn't find one."So are you saying the Archieshave a pictographic language?""I'm betting they don't.If their history is something like ours, separategroups developed their own languages, and pictographs are an easy solutionthat allows a group of people who don't all use the same language to quicklyunderstand the message.Even if they do all use the same language now,pictographs are still convenient shorthand.""So all we need to do is figure out what these other seven pictures mean? Howdo we do that?""That's the first step.And all I can say for now is keep your mind as openas you can, and be prepared for the possibility that we just won't be able todecipher everything.Think about the "I Love New York" bumper sticker withthe heart symbol for the word 'love' and what the Archies would need to knowto understand it.The heart is an internal organ, so they're not going toknow what it looks like without a dissection or a scan.Then they would need to know that our stylized shape correlates to the heart,and they'd need to know the historical basis for believing the heart is thesource of emotion.Plus they'd need to know that in that context, red isgood.The symbol is actually a ideogram, not a pictograph.""They'd never figure that out without a lot of help.So you're saying we'regoing to have that tough a time, too?""With some of the figures, maybe.Then again, we might get lucky and find theequivalent of a side view of a stairway used to show where the stairs are.Some pictographs should simply be a small picture of what they represent.""So we're back to making guesses as to what these things represent?""Yes."Bobby Joe and Abby stared at the eight pictographs.FinallyBobby Joe said, "The one that looks like a 3-D octagon.Could that be thePage 151 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]