bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2021), pp. 45–47
The Zoom screen showed three faces and a metallic gray cylinder with a gold band near one end. Hamish MacBannock, head of the Centre, was speaking. Behind him on the screen could be seen a door opening on a room stacked high with toilet paper. It reminded Hamish’s number two and ace logician, Ludwig Liebnitz, that he had to send in an entry to the long-term pool — his guess was that the last roll would be unwrapped in March 2029. The third participant in the meeting, former Centre librarian and current Sultan of SuWaNi Dryan Tweedie, looked up to answer Hamish’s question about his wife.
“MABEL? SHE’S FINE. She’s working on a COVID project. You remember Edible Granite? The heavy metal group she fronts? Well, it turns out that some of its louder hits actually drive away the virus.” (“COVID has good taste?” thought Liebnitz. “Who knew?”) Dryan went on, “Something to do with harmonics and the resonant frequency of the lipid membrane. They tested it out in a mock-up of a senior care home and it disinfected the place completely. Unfortunately, it also blew it sky-high. Literally. They found a chamber pot in Zimbabwe. It looks like 15 seconds is all most structures can take, so she’s in talks with TikTok to make videos.”
Hamish looked perplexed. “Well, give her my best. To business, however. Gentlemen, you will recall the last time I went on this platform.” “Hard to forget,” replied Liebnitz. Even for someone as catastrophically inept on electronic media as Hamish, Zoom-bombing a Cabinet session had been egregious, especially since he hadn’t realized he was in the wrong meeting and proceeded to deliver a 15-minute presentation on future banana cultivation in the francophone Maritimes, despite all attempts to shut him up. Furthermore, he had not turned off his grandson’s webcam filter and so appeared on the screen as a woeful-looking anime beagle. And his Siri had misunderstood his request for auto-interpretation and so instead of Acadian French (which seemed like a nice touch at the time), his talk was delivered in Old Akkadian (which no-one has spoken for almost three millennia).
As if that wasn’t bad enough, hackers took advantage of his penetration to create a back door into the PMO’s IT systems and issue three press releases. One congratulated Xi Jinping and Jason Kenney on their (non-existent) same sex marriage. One declared war on Aruba for persistent border violations. And one announced the appointment of a new Governor General — Nigel Farage. Before it all got straightened out, the PM had received a severe denunciation from Beijing, a frosty silence from Edmonton, a puzzled “What border?” from Aruba and a warm thank-you note from Boris Johnson. Reactions on the Hill were volcanic.
“Fortunately,” Hamish continued, “what with the animal filter and all, no-one recognized me and I was able to log off cleanly. But I’m sure they’Il have someone bright tracking me down. So we need to do something fast to get back on their good side.” “Like what?” asked Liebnitz. “Volunteering as carbon sequestration by burying ourselves in a salt mine?” “Creative idea, Ludwig, but I may have something less terminal. While waiting to join that meeting, I noticed a Zoom window with a PowerPoint cover page entitled “The Oumuamua Baton — Threat or Menace?”. No idea what that was about, but clearly a problem at Cabinet level. I thought maybe if we could sort the crisis out for them, it would get us off the hook. I put out feelers for more information, didn’t get much at first. But then Dryan came up trumps.”
The sultan adjusted his Centennial plaid turban. “The reference to Oumuamua itself was not tough to clear up. In October of 2017, astronomers in Hawaii noticed what they first took to be a comet and later concluded was an asteroid. Calculation of its orbit revealed that its origin was outside our solar system, the first such object to be recorded. Slim and cylindrical, it was between 100 and 1000 metres long. It was leaving the system when it was spotted, so details are cloudy. Scientists celebrated its discovery as a milestone event. A few suggested it might not be natural but rather the artificial construct of an alien civilization, maybe a spaceship. So things rested until last week. Then, during a transborder bowling championship in Flin Flon, a cylindrical object half a metre long crashed through the ceiling, disrupting the finals. Scored a perfect strike, though.”
“I remember that tournament,” interjected Hamish. “It had to be delayed while they confirmed that the two-metre distancing requirement didn’t apply to the pins. You would have needed really big balls.” “Ah — right,” said Dryan and continued. “The so-called baton, which is shown in the fourth panel of the screen we share, is made of lead over an iron core, with a band of gold at one end. On the band is inscribed the number sequence 4-5 11-23-10-3-10-6-14- 1-5 21-10-7 8-15-5 14-12-18-10-12-16-5-12-14-5-12-18-5. Since it landed in Canada, our government has held it. We are however under pressure to release it to international authority, by which is understood to mean one of the big powers. But we are reluctant to do so until we have a better idea where it came from and what it means. The astrophysical boffins have calculated that it was almost certainly ejected from Oumuamua while it was passing through the solar system. But no-one has any idea on the second point.” “No-one?” asked Liebnitz, noting the twinkle in the sultan’s eye. “Well, I did consult GEODE, who has an idea or two.” GEODE was the emergent AI associated with a natural computer that developed on its own in a cavern fill of silicon crystals deep in the Borneo sultanate, and which chose to talk only with Dryan and Mabel. “He — although Mabel insists it’s a she — says that it’s all humanity’s fault. Apparently Oumuamua is indeed a starship built by aliens living not far away in our sector of the galaxy. A cautious but curious bunch, they maintain listening posts for other civilizations all over the region. The nearest such post to us is in the Alpha Centauri system, about four light years away. Which means that they get all our radio and TV broadcasts with a four-year delay. They have developed their picture of our civilization from that source.” Interjected Liebnitz, “So everything from the James Bond series and The Godfather through Breaking Bad and most of Game of Thrones, plus punk and rap. Great intro course — Earth 101.” “Indeed,” said Dryan. “Fortunately, they also managed to intercept the Voyager I satellite briefly and read the Golden Record, which offers a more balanced and even positive view of our world.”
“So what does the baton say?” asked Hamish. Dryan replied, “I don’t know. From what GEODE reports, it is something the aliens wanted to tell us.” “But how are we supposed to decipher it?” asked Liebnitz. “It is far too short for any straightforward analytics.” Dryan replied, “GEODE contacted them — in real time, don’t ask me how — and they sent him this to help us.” He sent around on the chat function two pages of text. The first was a blank puzzle chart with lines of boxes each containing a number and in some cases a punctuation mark. The second was a set of 10 clues with a string of numbers after each one.
Liebnitz looked them over. “The puzzle itself is not all that tough. The numbers only go up to 26, so it is obviously a straight number-for-letter substitution. If you work out the clues, you can substitute the letters for numbers in the chart. You can also work things in the other direction. Once you have established the full number-letter correspondence, you can use it to decipher the message on the baton. Liebnitz applied himself to the puzzle and soon had it solved. After reading out the message from the golden band, he said, “Well, I guess that’s all right then.”
“But there are two things I still want to know. First, why did they send us a puzzle instead of just spelling out their message?” Replied the sultan, “Apparently someone has been beaming them copies of bout de papier electronically, and they are big fans. I blame A Aalto.”
Liebnitz continued: “And the second thing is this: if these aliens have been reading our broadcasts for decades, and clearly have the technology for interstellar, why don’t they Just show up in person?” “Ah yes,” said Dryan, “the Fermi paradox. If there is advanced alien intelligence out there, why hasn’t it dropped in?” He smiled crookedly. “Well, GEODE asked them that. Seems it is because they are afraid they will be attacked by zombies, or vampires, or Skynet. Or possibly Cersei Lannister. So they sent the baton to let us know they existed, but did it from far enough away that we couldn’t trace them.”
There was a thoughtful pause. Then a new pane opened on the screen and Hamish’s EA said, “The PM is on line 3 for you, Chief. Something about banana futures.” Taking a deep breath, Hamish said, “Put him on, please. We have things to tell him.”
Can you duplicate Liebnitz’s feat by deciphering the message on the golden band? bout de papier will award a book prize signed by A Aalto to the submitter of the first correct answer drawn from a hat on May 1, 2021. Not necessary for winning, but can you also provide the question to 11-12 11-12-11-6-7-11-22 21-10-7 11-25-5-3 5-24-19-5-7-8? (You may have to put yourself in jeopardy.) And do you know the source of the chart text and the script on the baton?
Answers
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2021), pp. 45–47. Read the rest of this issue →
