Shar knew well that language acquisition closely mirrored brain development. The brain of a preverbal humanoid child possessed twice the number of synaptic pathways as that of an adult, only to winnow out some connections while reinforcing others. As billions of neural circuits fell away, gradually collapsing a nearly infinite array of perceptual possibilities down to something more manageable, language emerged. Meaning coalesced as the still-growing brain pruned itself of excess capacity, honing and sharpening language and intellect in the process. In the absence of a clear linguistic key, Shar was becoming convinced that only a technological analog of this process could decrypt the aliens’ puzzling language.

A thought flitted through his mind, unbidden and unwelcome: Would Thriss’s death hone him in similar fashion, or would it merely leave him forever diminished and incomplete?

“Nearly a solid day of work,” Bowers said. “And all we have to show for it so far is a few syllables of Gamma Quadrant baby babble. Not to mention megaquads of untranslatable alien sehlatscratches.” He handed the translator over to Shar in a gesture of resignation.

Bowers’s sentiments caused Shar to question, if only for a moment, his newfound certainty about their progress. How much of it was merely an attempt to cast off the crushing weight of grief that had lately settled upon his soul? Thriss was dead. Work was solace. Nevertheless, they wereon the right track, Shar told himself. We have to be.

The mess hall doors slid open and John Candlewood stepped briskly into the room, holding yet another iteration of the reconfigured Pinker-Sato phonology module up to one of the room’s overhead lights. He squinted for a moment at the translucent module’s almost indiscernible filigree of isolinear microfibers, then nodded to Shar in apparent satisfaction.

“I think Cassini and T’rb got the replicator specs fine-tuned enough this time,” Candlewood said as he handed the fingernail-sized chip to Shar, who accepted it with laconic thanks. “This one’s loaded up with the main computer’s latest quadrantwide cross-linguistic comparison algorithms. Let’s hope this one doesn’t overload the translation matrix.”

Shar nodded, noting that the mess hall still smelled of ozone and burned insulation from the previous attempt to, as Bowers had put it at the time, “hot rod” the translator by means of a high-speed link to the Defiant’s main computer core. In the depths of that system, a sophisticated linguistic cross-matching program was currently busy comparing both the ancient text and the alien’s every recorded utterance with all known Gamma Quadrant language groups; cross-correlating disparate samples of speech and writing; seeking syntactical and phonological relationships; and methodically winnowing out what amounted to cubic parsecs of coincidental linguistic chaff.

“I wish we could tear Senkowski and Permenter away from that alien engine room long enough to give this new chip a test-drive,” Bowers said as Shar snapped the new Pinker-Sato module into the translator’s haft. “After all the time they spent studying the hardware that translated the Vahni language, this assignment ought to be right up their street.”

Candlewood cleared his throat, a look of friendly umbrage on his face. “I had a little bit to do with that, too, Sam—not that I’m trying to steal any credit from Nog’s people. But we had a little more to work with in that situation. Even though the Vahni language was completely visual, it still had a far greater overlap with other known dialects than what we’re working with here—and the Vahni already had their own translation equipment.”

“Nog expects the alien ship’s most urgent repairs to be finished within the hour,” Shar said.

“The aliens will be able to ship out then,” Bowers said, stroking his chin. “And I’ll wager they’ll insist on taking the last of our, um, guests with them when they do. I wish they’d given us access to something other than their engine room. It would be nice to know why they’re here and what their fight with the other alien ship was all about.”

“Perhaps our guest will be able to tell us soon,” Shar said, nodding toward the alien, whose long and spindly body was splayed gingerly across two mess-hall chairs. “Though I don’t doubt that his people will wish to be on their way as soon as possible. But as Mr. Candlewood has pointed out—”

“Call me John,” Candlewood said.

Reminding himself once again of the human penchant for informality, Shar nodded and displayed his best synthetic smile. “As Johnhas pointed out, Senkowski and Permenter wouldn’t be likely to decipher this language any more quickly than we can.”

“So we’ve got maybe an hour, tops, to do the impossible,” Bowers said. “Otherwise, our new friend goes home without helping us puzzle out the alien text. And whatever it has to say about that Oort cloud artifact.”

“We’re lucky he’s even still here,” Candlewood said. “If his own medical bay hadn’t been wrecked when his ship was attacked, he’d probably already be gone.”

“And if we fail to return him by the time the aliens are ready to leave,” Shar said, “we can’t rule out a hostile reaction on their part.”

“So we’re back where we started,” Candlewood said. “We may have a few phonemes, but we’ve still got no syntax or semantics. And no Rosetta stone to bail us out.”

Nodding, Shar recalled what he’d read about the Rosetta stone at Starfleet Academy. That artifact, discovered nearly six centuries ago in the Terran town of Rashid, bore inscriptions of identical texts in Greek, Demotic, and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Only a prior knowledge of Demotic and Greek had allowed the stone’s translators to comprehend the enigmatic Egyptian picture language. Without the Rosetta stone, those obscure inscriptions might have remained unreadable, their authors’ voices forever stilled.

Shar surmised that whatever Rosetta stone the Gamma Quadrant might hold had spread itself across whole sectors ages ago by the slow process of inter-stellar cultural and linguistic diffusion. It would take all the processing power the Defiant’s computer could muster to reconstruct those ancient language migration patterns—in effect sweeping up and reassembling the local Rosetta stone’s billions of metaphorical shards.

“Display the alien text,” Shar said.

Candlewood responded by giving the computer the appropriate command. A parade of large, cryptic characters, pictograms consisting of undulating lines, asymmetrical polygons, crosshatches, and intersecting and broken shapes, coalesced in the air above the table. There were no perceptible spaces between the symbols, nor anything resembling punctuation marks.

The alien’s deep, oil-drop eyes watched the lockstep march of the pictograms without any evident recognition.

Bowers cast a doubtful glance at Shar. “Think we’ll actually find out what he knows this time?”

“I believe,” Shar said, activating the translator, “that we have only one way to find out for certain.”

Shar discreetly angled the translator toward the alien, not eager to have his action mistaken for an attack. But the creature showed no sign of noticing, evidently engrossed in the parade of airborne text.

“Old, very, perceives me, self/ego,” came the translator’s melodious voice, the alien’s speech-surrogate. “Perceives me not old very merely. Indeed, but is oldoldold.”

Bowers startled Shar by suddenly launching into what appeared to be a brief victory dance. Candlewood grinned broadly, evidently expressing similar sentiments.

The text is not simply old,Shar thought, too intent on the unfolding mystery to join in his colleagues’ jubilation. The alien recognized it asvery old.

“Maybe it’s his people’s equivalent of the Book of Genesis,” Candlewood said, his thoughts obviously moving along lines similar to Shar’s.