As he left the room, it occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask her how he happened to be inside the pyramid in the first place. It was just as well. She would only have told him another fib.
How did he happen to be inside it then?
Probably, after his sphinx hallucination, he had crawled the rest of the distance to his objective and me girl had found him and taken him in tow. For all he knew, she could very well have saved his life. He wished now that he hadn't been quite so rude to her. As nearly as he could ascertain, the room that adjoined the one he had just left was a living room. It contained elaborately upholstered settees and chairs, and there were cushions scattered over the thickly carpeted floor. The next room was unquestionably a cooking room. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were lined with earthenware pots, and there was a brick oven large enough to roast an elephant in. in addition to the oven, there was a brazierlike affair on which less pachydermatous dishes could be prepared.
Passing through the third doorway, he found himself, not in the passage which the girl had mentioned, but in a spacious court. Stone columns gave the illusion of supporting the ceiling, and at the lop of each, just beneath the capital, was the bas-relief of a cowlike face. Elaborate horns rising from the stone foreheads blended with the capitals and supplied their motifs. It finally dawned on Hall who this cowlike being was. It was Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love.
He crossed the court without further delay and stepped through a wide doorway into a long corridor. At the end of the corridor, a dark, star-spangled rectangle showed. He made track for it, rejoicing in the cool night air that presently reached his nostrils. Obviously he had been unconscious longer than he had thought.
He could hardly wait to see the stars. He knew perfectly well that he couldn't possibly be in ancient Egypt, that there was another, far more practical, explanation for the presence of the Sphinx and the pyramids and the olive-skinned girl. but just the same it would be good to know for sure. The stars would tell him. Stars did not lie.
Stepping out of the passage, he looked up at them. The structure behind him and the roof of the portico had half of the heavens, but the half that was visible contained not a single familiar constellation. He gave a sigh of relief. A moment later, he wondered why. Wouldn't he be better off if he were in ancient Egypt? There, at least, he would have a chance to live out the rest of his natural life. Here, he would be dead before morning.
The portico was wide and lofty. Four columns, larger but similar in all other respects to the columns he had seen in the court, stood in a row along the marble apron, supporting the roof. Between the two center ones a short flight of wide marble steps descended to the ground. He crossed the apron and went down them.
All was silence. Above his head, a constellation suggestive of a huge crocodile sprawled across the heavens. The white sands of the tableland caught the starlight and shattered it into infinitesimal particles, and the particles glistened softly for miles around, seeming to emit a radiance of their own.
Behind him, the Great Pyramid-he still thought of it as the "Great Pyramid" even though he knew that it wasn't-rose geometrically up into an apex that was nearly 500 feet above me ground. To his left, the lesser pyramids stood, and to his right crouched the Sphinx.
Despite himself, he was struck by her beauty-awed, almost. She had a silvery cast in the starlight. Her flanks rose up like smooth escarpments to the magnificent ridge of her back. Her noble head hid half a hundred stars. The cliff of her classic profile was a splendid silhouette against the sky.
Hall walked toward her in the starlight. He had been impressed by the Great Sphinx of the Gizeh Necropolis. Even in its state of disrepair there was a mysterious quality about it that he had found appealing, a massive grace that had intrigued him. But compared to his sphinx the one of the Gizeh Necropolis was nothing more than a crudely sculptured rocky promontory reinforced with masonry. Stone was all it had ever been and stone was all it could ever be. This sphinx was art apotheosized. No wonder in his dazed and weakened state of a few hours ago he had invested her with life. Even now, thinking clearly again, he felt that at any moment she would rise and walk beneath the stars.
What had happened to the race of people who had sculptured her? Hall wondered. To the race of people who had built the three pyramids over which she was standing guard?
Did that same race of people have something to do with the building of the Egyptian pyramids? Did- Nothing happened to the race of people who built the pyramids, Daniel Hall. And nothing is going to happen to them if they can help it. As the words formed themselves in his mind, he saw that the Brobdingnagian head was turning toward him. Simultaneously he realized that, far from being inanimate, the massive leonine body was rampant with life. At length, me mysterious eyes met his and regarded him like a pair of intelligent golden suns. He stood stark stil] in the starlight, a statue now himself.
In the final analysis there was no reason why a sphinx couldn't be alive. Statues were sculptured of men, too, but this did not mean that men were made of stone.
Even the poor Egyptian child who dressed your wound in the Temple of Hathor is less anthropocentric than you are, Daniel Hall. She realized I was alive the moment she saw me.
And yet you allowed yourself to know resentment simply because her thought world ruled out the possibility of your being her equal, thereby forcing her to think of you as a slave. For shame, Daniel Hall.' "And now what happens?" Hall asked, half in cynicism, half in fear. "Are you going to devour me?"
There, your anthropocentric nature is influencing you again!
You think that merely because a being is larger than you are, it must be evil. And the larger it is, the more evil it becomes in your mind, and the more partial to human flesh. No, I'm not going to devour you, Daniel Hall-it is you and your kind who are going to devour me and my sisters. That is. you would be going to devour us if we hadn't taken the necessary steps to prevent you from doing so, although the possibility exists that you may still succeed. You are on the verge of devouring us, not because you want to at the moment, but because you haven't bothered to find out whether or not we exist.
"That's not true!" Hall objected. "I was sent here myself to find out!"
And so was one of the members of the Uvelian forces. But even if either or both of you were able to report your respective findings to your respective headquarters the battle would still take place, and you know it. Incidentally, it's unnecessary for you to speak, to say nothing of shout. I can receive thoughts as well as send them.
It was you who seized our controls then-who-who caused us to crash.
It was I who seized your controls and caused you to crash, Daniel Hall. My sister in the neighboring demesne took care of your opponent. If our project is successful, we will need both of you. However, although I caused you to crash, Daniel Hail, I had no intention of causing you bodily injury.
Small details are beyond the scope of our telekinesis. But I see that thanks to the skillful ministrations of Ahura, you've fully recovered.
Ahura?
The little Egyptian princess whom you were so rude to a few minutes ago in the Temple of Hathor.
She's no more of an Egyptian princess than you are! Hall "said." Egypt was consolidated with the Union of Terran States over a hundred years ago when the capital was built at Kafr el Haram, and couldn't recognize a princess even if she wanted to. Egyptian princesses were out of style long before that time anyway.
But millennia ago. they were not. Ahura wasn't lying to you-she realty is Cheops' daughter.
But don't you see?-that's more incredible yet.' Cheops' daughter has been dead for over five thousand years!
No, said the Sphinx, Cheops' daughter is very much alive.
However, until yesterday she had been unaware of the fact for quite some time. Not long after I arrived on your planet some fifty-two hundred of your years ago and instituted the project my sisters and I had agreed upon, it came to my attention that in his zeal to see his sepulcher erected Cheops had placed her in the stews. Since I had told him that if he would put all of the resources of his kingdom at my disposal the first pyramid would be his. f felt responsible for his action; and, as I had intended to take back someone like Ahura anyway, I stole her from the stews, placed her in suspended animation, built a special capsule for her. and had one of my sisters come and get her. She was then entombed in a special vault on Pomos-NRGC 984-D to you, Daniel Hall-until such time as I should have need of her. Two days ago I brought her here, dressed her in clothing similar to what she was accustomed to, placed her in the Temple of Hathor. and revived her. Ahura is not her real name. incidentally. She thinks of her ordeal in the stews as having happened only a few days ago and has unconsciously taken the first step toward creating a new identity. 1 interceded in time, but the experience left its mark just the same.
Drowning, Hall grabbed for the first straw he saw. But according to Herodotus, she stayed in the stews for a long lime, and also according to Herodotus, she made each of the patrons pay off with a building block for a small pyramid which she later built in front of her father's.
Come now, Daniel Hall, you aren't even convinced of that yourself. You simultaneously think of Herodotus as the ' 'Father of History" and as the "Father of Lies." However, as his Egyptian history can't possibly be anything more than recorded hearsay, he can't have been deliberately lying in this case. Probably he merely repeated the myths which the generations that followed the fourth dynasty dreamed up to supplement their knowledge of Cheops, Chephren, and Mykerinos. In any event, what he wrote about Ahura is untrue.
Hall had already forgotten Ahura- You said you arrived on Earth fifty-two hundred years ago. That means you're over five thousand years old!
Right, said the Sphinx. Even older if you count my incubation period, which you really should in view of the fact that members of my race mature before they even see the light of day. Altogether, we have a longevity of some fifteen thousand years-your years, that is. So you see. I've still got quite a few to go-or will have if the preventive measures my sisters and I have taken succeed in averting the Armageddon which the Terran and Uvelian space navies are so determined to bring off in our skies. Her golden eyes traversed the heavens, returned to Hall. No Pleiades yet, I see. Well, there will be soon. Incidentally. I stole the expression from your mind, Daniel Hall.
"Pleiades'* was the term used by ground observers to describe a space fleet in planetary orbit. But at the moment Hall was concerned with more important matters than Terran war terminology. You and your sisters-you' re parthenogenetic, aren't you? he said.
Righl again, Daniel Hall.
And does each of your sisters have a set of pyramids like these?
Not all of them. no-only those who have need for them at the moment.
Who built them for you?
We built them ourselves-not as a team, but as individuals. 1 myself built the set of Gizeh.
Come off it! Hail said. How could you build a pyramid? 1 have spread my left forefoot. Look at it. Daniel Hall. and tell me what you see.
Hall looked. /-/ see, he said a long time later, a set of five powerful appendages. Two of them-the ones which correspond to my thumb and forefinger-appear to be some manner of gripping tools. The next one appears to be a stone-cutting tool, and the last two appear to be tools thai can be adapted for almost any kind of work.
Good. Basically, my sisters and 1 are equipped/or quarrying and building, but through the ages our race extended its abilities to encompass innumerable other fields. The stone used in the set of pyramids behind you, 1 quarried in the mountains that form the western boundary of my dhen-or demesne: hence, transporation was no problem. Owing to the distribution of our dhens, it rarely is on our planet. However, the stone used in the Gizeh pyramids in many instances had to be quarried in neighboring countries: hence, transporation was a problem, and I had to enlist the aid of the reigning pharaohs. It's doubtful whether I could have succeeded without their cooperation in any case. The job took almost one hundred and fifty of their years-practically the whole of the fourth dynasty, ft needn't have taken that long, but the liming had to be perfect, and besides, I wanted it to look as though mankind alone were responsible for it. The first pyramid became Cheops', the next. Chephren's. and the last, Mykerinos'.
But why did you build them on Earth?
My sisters and I have the ability to look into the future. It's a limited ability and functions only when we're enjoying complete freedom from fear and worry, but when we do foresee, we foresee quite well. Some fifty-two hundred of your years ago, Daniel Hall, one of my sisters foresaw the converging of the Terran and Uvelian fleets on Pornos and realized that our planet couldn't possibly survive the side effects of the battle that was bound to take place. She also foresaw the appearance of your scout ship and the almost simultaneous appearance of (he Uvelian's. In keeping with our custom she convened an emergency council, and the situation was examined in detail. Finally the only possible solution was arrived at, and two of us were chosen, one to go to Earth and one to go to Uvet. there to take the necessary steps to save our civilization. 1 was the one who was chosen to go to Earth, and my sister in the neighboring dhen was the one who was chosen to go to Uvel. The strategic location of our dhens with respect to the predicted appearance of you and the Uvelian scout was partially responsible for the decision.
Well, you certainly put a stop to our hostilities in a hurry.
How about the battle between the two fleets? Won't that come off either?
We hope it won't. In any case, all that could have been done to avert it has been done-short of stooping to genocide and short of prematurely interfering with the natural evolution of two civilizations.
But surety if this sister of yours could look fifty-two hundred years ahead one of the rest of you ought to have been able to look a little beyond that point and have found out whether or not you're going to succeed!
I told you, Daniel Hall, that we're capable of prescience only when we're enjoying complete freedom from fear and worry. We haven't been free from either for those same fifty-two hundred years.
Hall was "silent" for some time. Then, I'll overlook for the moment how a being of your size without any apparent means of space travel could have journeyed from here to Earth, he said, and I'll also overlook for the moment how your presence on our planet escaped being recorded in our history other than in legend form. But will you please explain to me how you expected to avert a battle in the vicinity of your own planet by building pyramids on another planet thousands of years before the battle was to begin?
Two other planets, Daniel Hall. While I was building the set on Earth, my sister in the neighboring dhen was building a corresponding set on Uvel.
All right, two other planets then. But that still doesn't answer my question. Does the shape and the size and the location of the Gizeh pyramids have anything to do with it? I mean, could they possibly be a focal point for some kind of fourth-dimensional weapon?
The Sphinx laughed thunderously. The shape and the size and the location of the pyramids have a great deal to do with it, Daniel Hall-but not in the way you suggest. The riddle will become clear to you before the night is over, I'm sure.
The other two items that puzzle you may not, however, so I will clear them up for you now.
My sisters and f navigate space by teleporting ourselves through it. We do this by utilizing a paraspatial energy source which can be employed only when interstellar distances are involved. However, we can't teleport ourselves from point A to point B unless the cosmic variables pertinent to the two points are in appropriate relationship, and this severely limits our activities. And when the need arises, as it did in the case in question, for one of us to teleport herself from point A to point B and another of us to teleport herself from point A to point C within a single teleportative period, the cosmic variables are doubly limiting. Fifty-two hundred of your years ago, the cosmic variables with respect to Pornos-Earth and Pornos-Uvel limited us to a period of three hundred years. Following this three-hundred-year teleportative period was a twelve-hundred-year non-teleportative period, which in turn was followed by another three'hundred-year teleportative period, and so on. Ideally, one of the threehundred-year teleportative periods should have partially coincided with the three centuries immediately preceding the battle we wished to avert: practically, however, none of them did, and as a result we had to pursue an indirect course in averting our planet's accidental annihilation. Fortunately, the first three-hundred-year teleportative period proved feasible for the plan which we presently devised. With respect to the second point that puzzles you. Daniel Hail, the reason my presence on your planet failed to find an authentic place/or itself in your history books was that I took the necessary action to make sure that it didn't. My sisters and I simply couldn't allow you to know enough about us to take us seriously because if you had, you might have guessed our secret, and that would have meant the end of our plan- not to mention the end of us. So before I left your planet, I wiped alt memory of my activities from the minds of men. This automatically gave Cheops, Chephren, and Mykerinos exclusive credit for the building of the three pyramids at Gizeh.
However, memory eradication is only ninety-five percent effective, and while the pharaohs and the priests and the slaves and everybody else forgot about my activities, they didn't quite forget about me. I suspected as much but I wasn't sure until this afternoon when I read your mind while I was carrying you to Ahura. Fortunately, their memory of me was ambiguous at best, and although they associated me with the Gizeh pyramids, it simply didn't occur to them that I might have built them. So they adapted me to their religious needs of the moment and sculptured a statue of me in the Gizeh Necropolis, identifying me with the Harmachis version of their sun-god, Amen-Ra. Their other "sphinxes," as you call them, can undoubtedly be traced to me also, and the nonGizeh pyramids with which Egypt abounds were undoubtedly modeled after mine, although before the reign of Cheops an architect named Imholep had devised a ' 'step pyramid'' that may very well have resulted in simitar structures. As for the non-Egyptian pyramids and "sphinxes" which are scattered over your planet, some of them can be traced to me also. but I daresay that in most cases they have religio-socio backgrounds of their own. In any event, the only pyramids I built on Earth are the ones on the Gizeh plateau. My sister, you see. foresaw not only the Terran-Uvelian Armageddon but also the future sites of the Terran and Uvelian capitals.
And your other sister, Halt said. The one who went to Uvel when you went to Earth. You say she built a set of pyramids too?
Exactly like my Gizeh set. In addition to looking and acting alike, Terrans and Uvelians have almost parallel pasts. In a general sense, of course.
The Sphinx had turned her head and was looking at a region of the heavens just above the eastern horizon. Following her gaze, Hall saw the first group of Pleiades rising into the sky. The distance was such that only the dreadnoughts attained the status of "stars." The thousands of smaller craft were invisible.
He counted six bright points of tight, but the number told him nothing. Both the Terran and Uvelian fleets had six major vessels. Facing west, he was not surprised to see the second six climbing slowly above the mountains- Looks like we're going to get a good view of the proceedings anyway, he said. Just the same, I wish they were meeting above the dayside. That way, we might stand a chance.
Not enough of a one to worry about… You don't even know which fleet is yours, do you, Daniel Hall?
I'm better off not knowing.
Yes, I suppose you are. The Sphinx was "silent" for a moment. Then, Don't you think it would be a good idea if you went to Ahura and lent her one of your broad shoulders to lean on? she asked. She's going to need it. There's no terror that can compare to the fear of the unknown.
Hall was annoyed. Surely you could have briefed her on what's coming off!
Again, the Sphinx laughed. Tell me. Daniel Hall, how do you explain a battle between two huge space navies to a child who visualizes the creation of the universe as a trio of anthropomorphic deities in the midst of a fantastic handbalancing act? As Shu the air supporting his sister. Nut the sky, with their brother. Keb the Earth, lying beneath them. I did well in the little lime I had since reviving her to supplant her native tongue with yours.
I see your point. Hall said. Nevertheless, it can be done.
And it will be done. But not in hours, Daniel Hall, nor in days nor weeks nor months, and not by me, but by you. Ahura has an excellent mind, and given time she can learn all you can teach her, and then some. And with the aid of the special textbooks and other teaching aids contained in the first step of the smallest pyramid there's no limit to what you can teach her-nor to what you can leach yourself.
Wait a minute. Hall objected. Even assuming I decide to cooperate in this project of yours, how am I going to make use of textbooks I can't read ana that are probably too big for me to open?
The textbooks are printed in APE and are no larger than those you are accustomed to. My sisters and I have had thousands of years to prepare for this crucial point in our history. Daniel Hall. and we've prepared for it well. However. at this juncture it's futile to discuss what you are or aren't going to do. The battle hasn't been averted yet, and there's a good chance that it may not be. If it is averted, come to me afterward. In the meantime, go to Ahura. You can take shelter in the Temple of Hathor if you wish, but I guess you know as well as I do that without a system of deflectors to protect you, the death rays of either fleet can reach you regardless of where you are.
Hall looked up into the mysterious golden eyes. Was there sadness there? Concern? He could not tell. And if the battle isn't averted?
Then this is goodbye. I have enjoyed knowing you, Daniel Hall. Basically, your race and mine are very much alike.
Certainly, we share the same major character trait, and moreover we share it in common with the Uvelians. It's only in the matter of terminology that we differ. My sisters and I call the trait "selfishness," and your race and the Uvelian call it "patriotism." It's right for a man to love his country, but he should never forget that his country is only an extension of himself and that the intensity of his love for if is an infallible index of the intensity of his love for himself. We can't change the way we are, but it helps the cause of reason if we face the truth. Go now, Daniel Hall-Ahura awaits you.