Better late than never

By the time he broke for a late lunch, his vocabulary and understanding of the Linear A language syntax was growing exponentially. After a break with the others in the Refectory, he returned to the study room with a new idea. He started pulling scans of other Linear A tablets off the internet and set about translating them as well. Hmm. Had he really just made a massive breakthrough? Everything he translated made sense, so he had to be getting the words right, didn’t he? He sat and pondered the matter for a few minutes leaning back in his chair and staring blankly at his computer screen.

He then sent an email to Professor Rawlins asking for an appointment to discuss his thesis. He returned to his study of random Linear A tablets from the net while getting increasingly fluent in the language. Or, at least, he thought he was. He supposed he could just be getting delusional and making it all up in his head. No, this was real. He considered the matter and decided that being too free and easy with the Minoan tablets would give away too much information that he would have difficulty explaining. He couldn’t very well tell everyone about Urasmian without getting locked up in the looney bin. Yes. A careful explanation based on comparing the two groups of tablets would explain his breakthrough perfectly well. Professor Rawlins got back to him about two hours later and offered a nine-thirty appointment time the following day. He accepted, then decided to call it quits for the day and headed home. The rain had stopped, of course, now that he wasn’t in any particular hurry.

He did enjoy having his parents back home, but at the same time, he found he sort of missed having the house to himself as well. Their holiday had really been the first time they had both been away together for more than just a weekend trip somewhere since his big sister had moved out last year. He sometimes wished he could afford to live on campus, but he had decided to leave his part-time job at Burger King when he began studying for his doctorate, so his finances were limited. His parents agreed with his choice to concentrate on his doctorate and were only too happy to support him, but the lack of a decent income still limited his options and his spending money! Plus, living at home would make it awkward if he finally met a girl who was interested in him. Living at home was seen as such a lame lifestyle for a guy.

Professor Rawlins was a forty-year-old thin woman who still kept herself in shape, unlike some of her male colleagues. She’d been married twice and was now dating an aging actor she’d met when some B-grade film had been made on the University campus involving an ancient Spartan Warrior coming back to life in the Twenty-First Century. It sounded lame even before seeing some no-name actors parading around campus like they were somebodies! Even the Professor thought the script sounded pretty awful! Her eldest child was a fresher at the college but was studying Law rather than Classics. The Professor seemed equally sad and elated at her eldest offspring’s choice of studies. The professor always seemed a little disappointed her daughter was not following in her footsteps but proud of her daughter for getting into Law School.

The Princess & The Gangsters should be out next month.

Taroniah at Bay is progressing.

Our new house is nearing completion requiring us to visit repeatedly (2 1/2 hours each way) so that is interrupting things and then the move is approaching – next month sometime I expect. Could be off the internet for some days which will hold things up.

Kyron the Rescuer follows Taroniah and then the New Federation Story The Kelad Onslaught.

Peter

Going on how up his window the glare was coming, the sun was well up by the time he finally woke up in the morning, yet he still felt exhausted from the mental gyrations of the day before. It took him some time and two cups of coffee before he was able to get his head working, and then he pulled open the laptop and started in on the files again. At some point, he listened to the recording he had on his phone of Urasmian casting the transport spell into the wooden broom handle the sorcerer had made into a wand or staff or something. He found a couple of words on the tablets that he was sure had also been used in the spell, and these gave him a better grasp of the pronunciation of the rest of the words. He quickly found that the more he compared the two groups of tablets and attempted to decipher the Linear A text, the easier it became.

He finally broke off studying just after one, absolutely famished and made a sandwich, at which point he suddenly remembered that today was the day he was supposed to pick up the parents from the airport. Shit! What time was their flight arriving? He had absolutely no recollection! He ran around doing a headless chook impersonation for a couple of minutes, checking the calendar on the fridge, the calendar on his phone, and the note file for odd stuff he kept on his phone, getting more frantic by the minute before remembering he had stored the details on his computer! Frantic mouse pointer stuff! Relief. Not till after five. Ha!

He refrained from returning to the Linear A study just in case he got too distracted, so he sat and watched a couple of re-runs of Time Team episodes before leaving fairly early for the airport, where he got a good parking place and waited patiently in the terminal near the exit gate until their plane arrived. He spotted them easily in the middle of the main press of passengers, and they soon spotted him in turn. Much parental joy followed, along with interrogation as to the state of the house as they collected their baggage and then headed home. No, he hadn’t held any wild parties. Sheesh. Even if he wanted to, he doubted he had enough friends to hold a tame party, let alone a wild one! All traces of Urasmian had been removed except the aluminum ends on the broom pole, which casting the transport spell had sort of welded in place, he had discovered. He had to admit that it made for an interesting effect, although he kept the matter to himself. If they asked about the pole, he’d say he had been working on a prop for an outfit to wear to a Con later in the year.

His folks had the rest of the week off, not having to return to their respective jobs till the following Monday, and he quickly found that having them around the house was too distracting for serious study, so he headed into college mid-morning the next day. The drive there was frustrating as it was pouring with rain which slowed all the traffic down. Why do people drive so much slower in the wet? Around corners and such, yeah, he could understand being careful, but on the main road in a straight line when the road was merely wet, not submerged? It sure was frustrating how cautious and slow many people became in the wet. And then there were the idiots that still sped and drove like maniacs. Fortunately, there were relatively few of those idiots out today. He finally reached the campus car park nearest his building and then had to hustle through the University grounds in the rain, eventually reaching the office or the study in a slightly damp state. After unloading his laptop from the plastic bag he grabbed in the garage to carry it in to keep the rain out, he settled down to work.

The way Urasmian pronounced the word Keftios meant it did sound sort of a bit like he was using ancient Greek, but it was much more guttural than Greek usually sounded. Ah, he thought, as he determined that that line meant five female goats and a male goat. Or so it appeared. The last line referred to five cups or pots of the type most authorities called tripods and six of another kind of cup, which was usually regarded as the name for the three-handed cups. The first line was obviously the person’s name who owned all these things. Urasmian’s Hellandios was indeed more like Mycenean Greek than Classical Greek, he decided. A bit like French is far more like Latin than it is the Germanic the Franks must have spoken originally. Clearly, history had run to a different path on Earth Fifty East, as he had started to call the planet Urasmian came from.

He stayed buried in his computer, studying the tablets, and he was only vaguely aware of the others leaving as the afternoon wore on. He began comparing the other tablets and looking for matching words or word groups and found more as the day turned into evening. Ah, this man had two chariots and five chariot wheels. He must have been a warrior. And six amphorae of wine. He began trying to pronounce the Linear A text using the Mycenean sounds for the symbols that matched but saying them in a much more guttural way. It sounded almost like the Keftios Urasmian had used for the transport spell. Almost. He could feel and see the Linear A language just there, sort of hanging in front of him but could still not quite grasp it. Damn!

Instead, a tap on his shoulder made him jump in fear and surprise, and he finished up on the floor as his chair overbalanced, leaving him looking up at an extremely apologetic security guard.

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to startle you that much.” The fellow said, offering Jason a hand to help Jason scramble back up off the floor.

“Um. Yes. That’s all right. I was miles away.” His heart was still going at seemingly twice its normal rate!

“I could see that, sir. I spoke to you three times before touching you. It’s lockup time, sir. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

Jason looked around at the empty room and settled himself inwardly. “Huh?” Not the most intelligent sounding of responses. It must be nine o’clock already! What the…  He shook his head, trying to focus on the idea that it was nine o’clock already. “Oh. Sorry. Yes, of course. I’ll pack up straight away. Sorry.”

The guard smiled. “No problem, sir. I’ll just go check on the far end of the hall and lock up as I return. If that is all right?”

“Yes, yes. No problem. Sorry to hold you up. I’ll be out of here in a sec.”

He sat down after righting his chair, saved his image files before shutting down the laptop, and was gone before the guard returned. Damn! He thought to himself as he waited at the lift. He’d never become so immersed in anything that he could have that much time pass without realizing what was happening! By the time he exited the lift two floors below, his stomach was making sure he noticed that he had missed dinner! Ah, Mcdonalds! The best friend of students who study late.

He had often thought about asking the rather attractive French girl out and would have if it hadn’t been for her on-again, off-again sometime relationship with Dylan, whom Jason had never met. It appeared their relationship had turned serious. Not that he was ever likely to have persuaded her to go out with him even if she had been single. None of the other girls he’d asked out since beginning here at College had been interested enough to consider even a first date. At least the couple of girls he’d met through the online dating service he was on had at least gone on one date with him. Besides, he did not have enough time for a girlfriend. Really, he didn’t.

Chapter 5

Change in approach

Back at his desk, he quickly finished translating the other Linear B tablets, then spent a couple of hours checking his translation against the only extant published one of the lower group of tablets. He found a few differences between his translation and the published one, which wasn’t surprising given the vagaries of deciphering a three-thousand-year-old language. On re-checking the tablets, he decided that his interpretation of the text was correct in every case. There was nothing specific to base this on, but his conversations with Urasmian had given him a feel for Hellandios, which he thought was very similar to Mycenean. That ease of use and the understanding of what Urasmian was saying seemed to have carried over into reading the Mycenean tablets. He suspected that if he saw written Hellandios, it would also look like Mycenean. By the time he was finished, the afternoon was nearly over. He thought about heading home but then decided to have a coffee break and come back and look at the Linear A tablets before heading home for a late dinner.

Studying the Linear A tablets was strange after the Linear B ones, as they were so similar in appearance, although the Linear A ones were messier. He wondered if the letters had similar phonetics to the Mycenean ones and began sounding them out while comparing the two groups on the screen, two by two and two tablets deep, scrolling up and down. There was something about them, the sounds as he mouthed them, the shape of the text blocks. He paused and moved the images into a proper graphics program. He arranged the images of the tablets, so they were displayed side by side and by the shape of the text blocks, re-arranging the order and fiddling until he was happy. And he could almost make sense of them. Almost. Hmmm.

Then he noticed that Linear A Tablet four had a two-word block that seemed to match Linear B Tablet six. He re-arranged them again and compared these two. One cow was the Linear B two-word sentence. So, if that symbol was one and that was a cow, did those symbol combinations appear on any other Linear A tablets? And if the two tablets were recording the same information, what else could he decipher? While puzzling over the characters, he started running the spell Urasmian had used to travel home through his head. He had worked out that Keftu most likely referred to Crete, especially as it was similar to the Egyptian word for the island. With Keftios being both the name for the island’s people and the term for the language they spoke.

Is now available

Six hundred years ago, a nuclear war devastated the planet, particularly the northern hemisphere. The war started over gene modifications that gave some humans special powers. Areas of the southern hemisphere are now slowly recovering, and civilization has begun to rebound.

Ostraya, being the least damaged of the southern hemisphere areas, is also the most advanced along that road to recovery, but its population density is still far lower than it had been before the nuclear war. After centuries of poor treatment, those Ostrayans who inherited the gene modifications are finally starting to be accepted by mainstream society.

Then, Ostraya is invaded by the brutal, totalitarian forces from the Japanese part of the Triple Alliance that extends across thousands of worlds. The Japanese enforce their rule through the use of chips they place in people’s heads. These are attached to metal tendrils that spread throughout the brain of the person, allowing the gene-modified mentalists of the Alliance to control them. This is the story of that invasion.

“Seriously?”

Franny’s voice sounded surprised and possibly irritated in response to the girl’s words. Then the girl said something else, and Franny shrugged and muttered something in French that Jason was pretty sure was obscene.

“His name is Jason, and he studies Mycenean stuff. Mostly those stupid tablets. You know those Linear B things.”

The girl smiled and her mouth moved some more.

“She says to tell you that her name is Katerina, and she hopes you will come on the dig with me. Sacrebleu! This isn’t a dating service. And besides, I think all the places are filled. So there. Now I am going to get something to eat.” She pulled one of her earplugs out. “Do you want to talk to her?”

She offered, waving it a Jason. Ooh. Sharing earplugs. Not very sanitary! Jason was unsure how to respond to the offer. The girl hadn’t seemed to mind him butting in. On the contrary, she had asked who he was, which was a distinct plus. Most girls just looked at him blankly and then went back to whatever they had been doing before he had impinged upon their consciousness. He decided he didn’t want to presume on Franny’s good nature, so he declined the offer, although he indicated that he was interested in getting to know the girl on the screen too. Before he could get all this across, she clearly said something else, to which Franny threw up her hands.

“Now she says she is running late but that it was nice to meet you. Bye, Kat.” And the girl’s image disappeared from the screen.

Franny packed up and they headed down to the Refectory near their building while she told him about Katerina Raeburn, who Franny had met through an online archaeology forum a couple of years before. She had Livonian and Scottish parents and was currently at the University of Newcastle in her second year of post-grad studies in Roman history.

Jason couldn’t decide if the girl had actually been that interested in him or had responded that way just to annoy Franny. He had never had a girl show an immediate desire to get to know him like that ever before, so he was pretty sure it had been a prank aimed at Franny. Being a nerd meant girls largely laughed rather than drooled, or mostly they simply ignored him. Occasionally they said something to the boyfriend Jason hadn’t realized they had, which often proved painful! Not that he was a complete nerd. He had done a bit of karate in High School and played football as a third-string linebacker in his senior year, although he hadn’t made the cut for the College football program. Still, he was in reasonable shape for a nerd, or so he felt. he immediately resolved to start a more regular exercise regime. It was the second time he had made that resolution just this year!

Lunch was spent talking about the adventures they each had enjoyed during the break, although Jason refrained from mentioning his strange visitor, so he told them about the Con mostly. Franny wasn’t really into Cons but liked hearing about some of the costumes people wore, although she couldn’t see the point in spending all that time and effort to make a good costume. She had spent a large part of her break with her boyfriend, who had taken a week’s leave from his work to spend time with her. Ah, the course of true love! Jason kept that thought to himself.

Next book out will be Ostraya – planning on 27th April
Currently finishing up The Princess & The Gangsters – aiming for late June or early July release
That will be followed by Taroniah at Bay (Sept-Oct) and then Kyron the Rescuer (Dec-Jan)
After that The Kelad Onslaught (New Fed – Aprilish)
Then Taroniah at Risk and Kyron the Savior
after that – hmm
Probably my new alternate history/time travel story set in Maine/New Hampshire area about the survivors of Prince Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd’s expedition to the west with his brother Prince Rhiryd – Madoc found a land – left the first party there and returned to Wales to collect more settlers and supplies, sailed west once more and was never seen again.
There are lots of fanciful tales many centered on Alabama but it would seem unlikely that people traveling west from Wales in medieval vessels of the late 11th century type would sail south to miss Florida then north to finish in Alabama without hitting the east coast first.
My story concerns a modern man sailing his boat off Portsmouth when he is sent back in time by some strange event and finds the first group of Welsh under Rhiryd barely hanging on in the face of hostile locals and still hoping the Madoc will return with reinforcements etc before they get overrun.
It gives the modern guy a challenge while leaving open the fate of Madoc and therefore possible settlers in Alabama.

Opinons?

“Hi, Sharyn. Have a good break?”

The other girl put down the tome she had continued reading the whole time since Jason arrived and smiled at the newcomer.

“Franny! Good to see you. I had a shit break. Family. You know. But I’m glad you’re here as I need help with this bloody text.” She indicated the book she had been studying.

“But of course, my friend,” Franny said, moving over to Sharyn’s desk.

The two girls were soon immersed in whatever Sharyn had been having a problem with, and Jason turned his attention back to his computer. By the time he was ready to break for lunch, he had finished the last of the thirty-one tablets from the supposed box and also translated four of the separate lower group of tablets. He was about to call up the only publicly released translation of the tablets when he decided food was more important, especially given that he had finished his self-imposed translation task in a few hours instead of the weeks he had anticipated it would take back before his strange weekend encounter.

John Henderson the Third, an African American from old money, something he always reminded those around him of if the opportunity presented itself, had entered the room at some point without Jason realizing. While Sharyn was in her second year and Franny her third, John was in his first year of post-grad studies. Along with Alicia Franklin, who had so far failed to put in an appearance. Henderson was a specialist in Ancient Greece, especially Athens, as was Sharyn. However, her interest was in a later period compared to John’s interests and extended more into the Hellenistic period after Alexander. Franny and Alicia were Roman specialists, and Franny was going on a dig in England during the summer break. Lucky shit!

“I’m taking a lunch break, people. Does anybody want to come?” He packed up his things, slipping his laptop into his backpack before standing up.

“Hang on a sec; I’ll come too,” Franny said and returned to the conversation she was having with someone on her computer.

She had been speaking so quietly that Jason hadn’t even noticed she was talking to someone. He moved over to where he could look over her shoulder and saw a rather attractive young lady on the screen comparing notes with Franny about something to do with Hadrian’s Wall. Seeing they were deep into talking Roman stuff, He couldn’t help himself.

“Bloody Romans. So, what did the Romans ever do for us, eh?”

It was old, it was lame, but you know, the opportunity had presented itself. The girl on the screen had seen him appear behind Franny but hadn’t said anything until he had failed to resist the urge to open his mouth.

Franny swung round.

“Hey, this is a private conversation! Do you mind!”

Jason winked at the girl on the computer, who didn’t appear to be that upset at him listening in from the crinkling of her eyes and grinned at Franny.

“Don’t mind at all, Franny. Who’s your friend?”

He wasn’t sure if Franny was about to hit him or merely verbally abuse him, but the girl said something which arrested whatever retribution she was about to undertake.

Sorry guys – a lot on this week

He sat back in his chair and just stared at his screen in shock. Then it dawned on him that it had to be something to do with Urasmian! The sorcerer had thrown a spell on him, which the sorcerer had said would enable Jason to understand the language Urasmian had spoken. It had allowed Jason to understand both languages, at least to an extent. The Greekish one and the other one that was used for spells. Urasmian had done it because the old man had claimed it made it easier for him to communicate since Jason’s language had far too many terms that Urasmian had no frame of reference for and was struggling to understand. Jason had taken that to mean that Urasmian could make out the words Jason was saying, but too many of them were so tech-heavy that Urasmian, or his translation spell, had not been able to determine their meaning from context. So Urasmian had put a spell on Jason that he claimed would enable Jason to understand Urasmian’s language and thus make communication easier for the old man. And indeed, it had enabled him to understand the transdimensional sorcerer after a period of adjustment.

The main language used by Urasmian was the Greekish-sounding language of the Hellandios, which Jason had decided were the ancient Greeks of Urasmian’s world. Cultural shifts had changed the language over the millennia, although not as much as he had assumed due to the sorcerers keeping written texts and basic literacy alive. Combined with the apparently global dominance of the Hellandios people on the back of their magical ability, it meant that while the language had spread pretty much everywhere, it had remained relatively pure due to the sorcerers. The Hellandios language was fundamentally the same as the Mycenean Greek of Jason’s Earth. That similarity had helped him learn it from Urasmian plus, of course, the magic spell. Not that Jason intended to dismiss magic anymore, not after Urasmian’s visit anyway! And now Jason was able to read Mycenean! Whoot! Franny L’Henney wandered in at that point and plopped her backpack onto the desk next to Jason’s. “Bonjour, monsieur.” She offered.

Jason had needed to read a good number of French academic articles over the years, although he had never developed any ability to speak French. Until now. “Bonjour, Demoiselle.”

Franny smiled before giving him a little clap and spoke some more in French. “So, my friend, you have decided to study a little French?”

Jason shook his head, more at himself than anything, but he understood her fine! He summoned up some courage and answered in French.

“A little, perhaps. I must have retained more from those horrible French articles I had to read for my Honours dissertation that I realized!”

With that, he smiled at her, and although she had frowned at the horrible allusion, in the end, she smiled back.

“It would appear so. Good.”

She turned to Sharyn and changed to English which she spoke with only a mild French accent. It was just enough to be attractive and exotic without making it hard to understand what she was saying. Jason always found it delightful listening to her talk in colloquial American but with the tinge of a French accent. Most non-English speaking foreign students and academics tended to speak a more formal style of English, at least until they’d been in the States for a few years.