Holy Vatican See
29-04-2004, 19:49
Brother Ference downloaded a final set of analytical reports from the big infrared ’scope and then reset it for another 24 hours’ scan. It was one of the less glamorous telescopes in the Vatican Observatory’s impressive array of sky-watching, sky-mapping, sky-measuring tools, but it was an “old reliable,” generating consistently useful data, which was shared among dozens of astronomical labs around the Earth.
Ference yawned, and checked the clock. Time for Utiskia to log in. He called up the ShareWeb. Sure enough, they were logged on.
Jelaz, Brynoi!
>>Jelaz, Ference. Is the Partri-47 data ready yet?
No, sorry. We have not had good results from Lisbon. They are trying a 128-bit algorithm.
>>Disappointing. That track was looking interesting. We finished the ultraspectagraph parse on the 458.91x3871.02 pass today and the data would be helpful.
Joggle their elbows, then. They don’t know who else is waiting for the data. Might get them moving a bit.
>>Tempting. Who is the coordinator in Lisbon?
Brother Pedro Moltaran. Tell him I told you to pester him.
>>Alright. Baljoyi Fasbah, my friend, and God be with you.
And with you.
Ference continued with the routine work of shutting the Observatory’s active systems down for the morning. He worked an unusual schedule, up in the middle of the night when most were sleeping.
He checked the last three “Jofiel” SkyWatch monitors. This project was part of a worldwide network of observatories in Catholic Universities and institutes of learning, using a huge array of listening, watching, receiving, sending, and measuring devices to analyze the very fabric of space, the pulses and energies that made it up. Undergraduate wags referred to it as the AOT project, for “Anybody Out There?” The data was collected here, given a cursory review, and uploaded to a satellite where it could be accessed by other participants in the project.
Brother Ference’s sense of whimsy prompted him to sign off each day’s observation schedule with the broadcast of a verse from Hildegard of Bingen:
Hoc Verbum effabricavit tibi
Pater hominem,
et ob hoc es tu illa lucida materia
perquam hoc ipsum Verbum exspiravit
omnes virtutes,
ut eduxit in prima materia omnes creaturas
(So the Word was fashioned, by the Father,
into human form,
And therefore you are that one shining matter,
whereby the Word exhales all virtues,
drawing out all creatures from prime matter.)
Every morning he entered this, every morning the verse in Latin pulsed its way out to the unheeding stars in dozens of algorithms and encryptions, before the Vatican’s instruments shut down.
So far, the Jofiel receivers had recorded a huge array of incoming data. Sometimes they got random and garbled traffic from the various satellites and space vessels that infringed on their scan area, but for the most part that was a known factor and screened carefully out. They had reams and reams of data—more than the most powerful computers could ever analyze thoroughly and in detail—and much of it had yielded a deeper and more fascinating understanding of the physical, temporal Universe that was manifested from God’s Divine Providence. But it was impersonal stuff, the fodder for mathematical and supramathematical analysis, deconstruction, and modeling.
Ference knew that no voice would ever “speak” through Jofiel, but he liked to think that Someone was listening, nonetheless, and this little verse of praise and acknowledgement was his way of saying “thanks” to a Creator Who had provided him with this infinity of richness.
The verse entered, he did one more check of the automatic controls for the Observatory instruments, engaged the security protocols, shut off the lights, and headed back to his little apartment on the Via San Pio V.
Ference yawned, and checked the clock. Time for Utiskia to log in. He called up the ShareWeb. Sure enough, they were logged on.
Jelaz, Brynoi!
>>Jelaz, Ference. Is the Partri-47 data ready yet?
No, sorry. We have not had good results from Lisbon. They are trying a 128-bit algorithm.
>>Disappointing. That track was looking interesting. We finished the ultraspectagraph parse on the 458.91x3871.02 pass today and the data would be helpful.
Joggle their elbows, then. They don’t know who else is waiting for the data. Might get them moving a bit.
>>Tempting. Who is the coordinator in Lisbon?
Brother Pedro Moltaran. Tell him I told you to pester him.
>>Alright. Baljoyi Fasbah, my friend, and God be with you.
And with you.
Ference continued with the routine work of shutting the Observatory’s active systems down for the morning. He worked an unusual schedule, up in the middle of the night when most were sleeping.
He checked the last three “Jofiel” SkyWatch monitors. This project was part of a worldwide network of observatories in Catholic Universities and institutes of learning, using a huge array of listening, watching, receiving, sending, and measuring devices to analyze the very fabric of space, the pulses and energies that made it up. Undergraduate wags referred to it as the AOT project, for “Anybody Out There?” The data was collected here, given a cursory review, and uploaded to a satellite where it could be accessed by other participants in the project.
Brother Ference’s sense of whimsy prompted him to sign off each day’s observation schedule with the broadcast of a verse from Hildegard of Bingen:
Hoc Verbum effabricavit tibi
Pater hominem,
et ob hoc es tu illa lucida materia
perquam hoc ipsum Verbum exspiravit
omnes virtutes,
ut eduxit in prima materia omnes creaturas
(So the Word was fashioned, by the Father,
into human form,
And therefore you are that one shining matter,
whereby the Word exhales all virtues,
drawing out all creatures from prime matter.)
Every morning he entered this, every morning the verse in Latin pulsed its way out to the unheeding stars in dozens of algorithms and encryptions, before the Vatican’s instruments shut down.
So far, the Jofiel receivers had recorded a huge array of incoming data. Sometimes they got random and garbled traffic from the various satellites and space vessels that infringed on their scan area, but for the most part that was a known factor and screened carefully out. They had reams and reams of data—more than the most powerful computers could ever analyze thoroughly and in detail—and much of it had yielded a deeper and more fascinating understanding of the physical, temporal Universe that was manifested from God’s Divine Providence. But it was impersonal stuff, the fodder for mathematical and supramathematical analysis, deconstruction, and modeling.
Ference knew that no voice would ever “speak” through Jofiel, but he liked to think that Someone was listening, nonetheless, and this little verse of praise and acknowledgement was his way of saying “thanks” to a Creator Who had provided him with this infinity of richness.
The verse entered, he did one more check of the automatic controls for the Observatory instruments, engaged the security protocols, shut off the lights, and headed back to his little apartment on the Via San Pio V.