Code Breakers!

    Which was it, one side looking for Professor Seltzman, or two? And if two, then the one side being The Village, the other British Intelligence, either that or two different departments. Certainly Sir Charles Portland was in a bad place, his code-breakers having failed to break the meaning of the photographic transparencies. After all breaking a code or cipher is a finite problem. With these transparencies they don’t know if there is a problem, And if there is, on what level of reasoning it is set. However Sir Charles was not convinced, they just haven’t thought of it, and he doesn’t accept that it is impossible to do so. So how was he to do so? Was it Sir Charles who sent the Colonel to The Village, only later feigned not to recognise him, when the Colonel returned but with the mind of ZM73. After all who else could manipulate those film transparencies in order to break the code?…………..only XM73!
    So why did British Intelligence want Seltzman? Perhaps they hadn’t got a Seltzman machine. And if they had, maybe theirs had been taken by those behind The Village, after all they managed to get their hands on  Blue Streak rocket! Whereas The Village does have the Seltzman machine, and so had a different reason for wanting to find Professor Seltzman. They wanted his so called reversal process!
    Whether or not it was one side or two who were looking for Professor Seltzman, it became essential that Number 6/ZM73 was brought into play. The Village had released him into the outside World to find Seltzman, and so after the meeting with Sir Charles Portland, he then had his man Potter hang onto ZM73’s coat tails in order to find Seltzman. With the aid of a transmitter location device attached to the Lotus Seven.
    Eventually ZM73 leads Potter to Kanderseld and the Barber’s shop, and Professor Seltzman. But following Potter was the Undertaker masquerading as a chauffeur, and it is he who renders both ZM73 and Potter into unconsciousness with the aid of a nerve gas. So if there was only one side looking for Seltzman, British Intelligence which is presumed to also be behind The Village, why the need for both Potter and the Undertaker? Unless its two different departments in British Intelligence working against each other. That has been known to happen. It’s all terribly confusing, hardly anything in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ is straightforward. The main thing is Sir Charles Portland’s code breakers couldn’t comprehend what level the problem with the film transparencies was set, they were not even sure there was a problem. But Sir Charles was, and he didn’t think it impossible to break the code. But where could he find the man who could break the code? Why in The Village! And besides which, if Sir Charles code breakers had been able to construe the coded problem of the transparencies, then there wouldn’t have been any need to involve Number 6 at all!

Be seeing you