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.