“Right.” She said in a flat tone of voice that Jason couldn’t decide about.

He felt she was either offering contmptuous dismissal, or she was too surprised to know how to respond. She pulled up another page that presumably had the two translations by the noted scholars. She read through them quickly, comparing his as she went, and then sat back and stared into space for a moment. She turned to face him.

“You were saying the words as you translated them, weren’t you?”

Jason spluttered. He hadn’t realized it was that obvious.

“Um. Sort of. The, um, the Myceneans copied the Minoan alphabet, sort of, and it seemed to me that the sounds are sort of similar. But I think Linear A is more guttural. Very Slavic or Russian in style. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. How did I do with the translation?”

The Professor smiled. “The same as one of them here and the other there and completely different in a couple of spots, plus you translated pretty much the whole thing, including the lines they hadn’t managed to do much with. Hmm. I need to think about this.” She glanced up at him. “You were pretty sure of your translation despite how quickly you did it. You hesitated a bit in places, but that should have taken you hours, not a few minutes. Is this tablet one you studied before?”

“No, Professor. I have never seen that one before. I, well, I have just found that the language has sunk in. Mycenean too.” He hesitated and then decided he needed to add some misdirection or something. “It’s been a bit like unraveling one of the phrase puzzles, you know, like on a TV quiz. It’s all sort of vague until you get enough consonants and vowels, and then suddenly, the whole phrase is as clear as day. I think the Mycenean language has been a bit like that for me and now the Linear A as well.” He shrugged.

“I see.” She shook her head and didn’t look like she believed him. “I am not sure what is going on, but what do you want to do?”

She’d clearly decided to leave his unexpected translation skill to another time. Jason relaxed a bit. He hadn’t realized quite how tense he had been waiting for her response to his discovery.

“I thought that I could change my thesis to a study of Linear A and that I could publish the two sets of tablets and the translation of the Linear A ones alongside the Linear B tablets and make some comparisons and also point out the Semitic influence in the Minoan language.”

She considered this for a few moments and then smiled.

“Yes. We can do that. But first, we will need to get permission from the Archaeologists on the dig, plus probably their Faculty’s head. All that could take a while.”

Jason nodded in understanding. He did have some idea of the paperwork that would be involved.

“Will you help me?”

She smiled. “Of course. That is what a supervisor is for. Right. So, this is what we had best do first….”

Two hours later, they had sent numerous emails and worked out an outline for the new thesis. Finally escaping, he staggered down to the Refectory for a badly needed cup of coffee. When he finally made it up to the study room, most of the others had their heads down in whatever they were studying and barely nodded acknowledgment of his presence. He was bursting with his news, and they all pretty much ignored him! All right. See if he cared! He would ignore them right back. He found he was now badly scattered in his head and couldn’t study properly with the thought that he could publish the first translation of Linear A! If, in fact, he could offer a complete breakthrough with the language, he would have to be careful not to be seen to know too much. The result of the spell Urasmian had thrown on him had to be explained away by more rational means!