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Ahura's hands were still pressed tightly against her mouth, and she was rocking gently back and forth. "I do not understand thee. Dan'el," she moaned. "I understand only that Sebek is greatly displeased and that Keb the Earth is in danger."
"You understand far more than that, Ahura. As a matter of fact, in your own way you know as much about what is happening as I do. You know that mankind is about to destroy himself because of his dog-his selfishness. That's why you can't get the story of the doomed prince out of your mind. The doomed prince is mankind, Ahura. only he isn't quite doomed. There's still hope for him. There's still hope for you and me-and She-who-builds-sepulchers. Tell me the rest of it, Ahura."
She had stopped rocking back and forth, and now she returned her hands to her lap. "There is but little left to tell thee, Dan'el. After the prince entered the river behind his dog there came out the crocodile, and took him to the place where the mighty man was. And the crocodile said to the prince, 'I am thy doom, following after thee.'* And there endeth the tale."
"So actually," Hall said, "we don't know for certain whether the crocodile got him or not. He may very well have escaped it in the end."
"Yes, but there is still the dog, Dan'el."
"There will always be me dog. But maybe by recognizing it for what it really is we can curtail its activities." He looked at the sky, gasped. "Ahura, look! they're going away!"
She, too, was staring at the Pleiades. They were rapidly fading from sight, one set of them into the eastern reaches of me heavens, the other set into the western reaches. Abruptly.
Ahura's tale is an adaption of the Egyptian story "The Doomed Prince." one set winked out as its hyperdrives went into effect. A moment later, the other followed suit. "Did-did we escape me crocodile, Dan'el?"
Hall hugged her. "We sure did, and all of a sudden I'm as hungry as a horse. Does that offer you made a tittle while ago still stand?"
She slipped free from his arms, not haughtily, but hesi* tantly, as though she weren't quite sure whether she wanted to be free or not. "I will prepare thee a feast fit for a king," she said. "Come."
The Ambassadors
Well, said the Sphinx, it looks as though you two are going to live happily together ever after, after all, as they say in your planet's folklore. Where's Ahura now? I broke contact with you after you went into the Temple of Love.
She's tidying up the kitchen. Hall answered, gazing up into me starlit Brobdingnagian face. Incidentally, I was right when I told her thai she probably could not even boil water. Would you believe it?-/ had to show her how!
But she learned readily enough, did she not? You'll find her equally receptive when you begain teaching her full-time.
Who said I was going to teach her at all? And while we're on the subject, just what am I supposed to teach her, and why?
Everything you can. As to why, it would be rather impractical for you not to, don't you think, in view of the fact that you and she are going to be representing my sisters and myself on Earth in the negotiating of a million-year peace treaty between Pomos, Earth, and Uvel? Meanwhile, the Uvellian scout whom my sister in the neighboring dhen captured will be similarly engaged on Uvel.
Hall was thunderstruck. So that's what you've got up your sleeve! But whatever gave you the idea that I'd make a good ambassador?
It was a gamble, Daniel Halt, hut it paid off. You haven't a great deal of diplomacy, but I can teach you diplomacy. The really important attributes you already have. You have intelligence, and you are brave. Underneath your flippant exterior you are kind and gentle, but you can be firm when the occasion demands. Most important of all, you have motivation. Ever since you played a part in the destruction of the Deimos Dissenters you've hated war and everything it stands for. With someone like Ahura working at your side, there's no limit to what you can accomplish in the cause of peace, Daniel Hall. As man and wife, the two of you will- Wait a minute! Ha!l interrupted. You're carrying this thing too far!
Come now, Daniel Hall, you're half in love with her already, and you know it. And you might as well know, too, that she's already half in love with you. I not only "heard" everything both of you said, I also experienced everything both of you felt. My sister in the next demesne ' 'tells'' me that her scout and her princess hit it off well, too.
Her princess?
She brought a princess back from Uvel just as I brought one back from Earth. We're going to arrange a double wedding ceremony that will comply with the customs of the four different religions which will be represented. I myself have been chosen to do the officiating. This will in no way conflict with the religions of the two princesses, and I'm sure that both you and the Uvelian scout are sufficiently sophisticated in such matters not to raise any objections. I've already built you and Ahura a love nest in my largest pyramid-not altogether authentic as regards her background, but authentic enough to satisfy her-and modern enough to satisfy you. as you will see presently when Ahura's education permits her to take such ' 'miracles'' as electricity and hot and cold ru
Hall threw up his hands. All right, we'II let all that pass for the moment. Right now, suppose you drop that deep and mysterious mien of yours and break down and tell me how you managed to put a slop to the greatest space battle ever contemplated and to put two of the mightiest space armadas ever assembled to rout.
The Sphinx laughed, softly this time. You already know part of the answer. Daniel Hall. You know that we're parthenogenetic. You know that we build pyramids-or what you think of as pyramids. And you know that some of your legends depict us with wings. How do you account for that, Daniel Hall? Why should we be depicted with wings when we don't have any and never did?
The truth dawned on Hall then. "You lay eggs'" he gasped.
We do indeed. And we incubate them in inviolable capsules that lend the illusion of invisibility. These capsules are placed just beneath the apexes of the structures that you call ' "pyramids" but which we call "nests." Originally, we did this out of instinct alone; now, we do it out of knowledge as well.
Owing to the length of the incubation period-some fifty-two hundred of your years-nests of this kind are ideal for the survival of our species. They provide protection, they provide warmth, they- But no egg could possibly contain enough nutrients to nourish an embryo for fifty-two hundred years! Hall objected.
Of course it couldn't. My race obtains ninety-five percent of its nutrition from the sun, Daniel Hall, and your sun is an even better provider than ours is. I may seem to consist of flesh and blood, but I don't-at least not in the sense that you do.
And do you always build three nests of three different sizes?
Always. Our eggs are three in number and our offspring vary in size. Not very much, but enough to necessitate larger or smaller incubation areas. Now that the eggs which / incubated on the Gizeh ptateau have hatched. I'm due to procreate again; consequently, I've built three new nests.
When the time arrives, I'll remove the as-yet'unsealed apexes, place the eggs in the capsules, which are already in position, and seal the apexes over them.
I can anticipate your next question, Daniel Hall. so there's no need for you to ask it. Incubation time never varies, and can be computed to the second, and the main reason I and my sister in the neighboring dhen were- chosen for the job was that our procreation times were compatible with the Terran and Uvelian time periods that had to be used. At the end of the incubation period an adult rather than a child emerges from the nest. Physically, she's only partially grown, but mentally, she's completely mature, having inherited the parent's knowledge and abilities, plus a sizable quantity of the parent's judgment. As a result, she's perfectly capable of carrying out whatever commands the parent may have implanted in her embryo-mind at the begi
Hall sighed. Oh, I'll go along with you, I suppose-I'd be pretty much of a heel iff didn't. But before we get down to brass tacks, how about relieving my mind on a certain little matter? Granted, I'm half in love with Ahura, and maybe she's half in love with me as you say, but there has to be more to it than that for marriage to work. Now that the crisis is past, how about taking a peek a little ways into the future and finding out whether Ahura and I are going to hit it off the way a married couple should?
I'll try, Daniel Hall, said the Sphinx. She looked straight ahead, and Hall could tell from the serious expression on her face that she was concentrating with all her might. A few minutes passed. Then the Sphinx turned to him and winked.