Pyramids

by Fred Saberhagen

  He walked over to Gallery Two. Peering in through the grillwork, he could see that the curtain was hanging in place, and all the treasures that were supposed to be in the protected area were still there. He felt a certain perverse temptation to open up the grill and take one more look at the false door, but the urge was very weak and easy to resist. He was safely out of it all now, and well out of it. And if Uncle Monty wasn't coming back, so what? Under the circumstances, considering the risks in which his uncle had placed him, Scheffler didn't consider that he owed the old man a thing.

  All the same, he experienced an unexpected but definite twinge of regret. In a few days he would go back to school and finish learning to be an engineer. No matter where he spent the rest of his life, nothing like a timelock was ever going to happen to him again.

  For a long time, for almost an hour, Scheffler roamed the apartment, shuffling along on weary legs. He felt exhausted but at the same time too keyed up to try to go back to sleep. He kept wishing Becky would wake up, and at the same time he was glad she didn't. There was nothing credible that he could tell her, very little indication that they'd had any visitors tonight. But he was not at all tempted to believe he'd dreamed the visitors. All the things he'd carried back with him from pyramid-land were gone, including his photographs, and his ancient sandal. That was the only change.

  Maybe they'd left him his cigarette butt. Yes, it was still there, buttoned into his shirt pocket. Big deal.

  He went to the liquor cabinet, and opened a bottle of aged whisky that bore a name he assumed must be one of the most respected in the business—he didn't know that much about the subject—and poured himself a good, stiff drink. Scheffler seldom touched the hard stuff, but under the circumstances it seemed the only appropriate action he could take.

  Then he went back to bed and without undressing again lay down beside Becky, the remains of his drink within reach. He wondered if he was ever going to be able to sleep again.

  Scheffler's second unexpected waking of the night was considerably more violent than the first. Becky screamed, as both of them were tipped out of the heavy bed onto the floor. Scheffler rolled over to stare up into a gray dawn light. Strange, ominous-looking weapons like crystalline rods were aimed at him, gripped in the hands of two things whose size and generally grotesque appearance reminded him of Uncle Monty's statues.

  Two monster-headed creatures, clothed in strange fabric and helmeted in opaque glass, were standing one on either side of the bed, just where Olivias escort had been an hour or so ago. They were not statues, nor did they look at all ancient or Egyptian. The darkness that might have softened their shapes vanished when someone hit the wall switch and all the lights in the room came on.

  The figures who were aiming what he assumed were peculiar weapons at Scheffler looked monstrous indeed, but one visitor, standing at the foot of the bed, was certainly a human being. And Scheffler had seen his face before.

  The man bowed slightly, smiling down at the two people who were huddled on the floor. His very precise voice was alarmingly familiar. "We have spoken on the phone, Scheffler. My name is Pilgrim."

  TEN

  The man's dark eyes were hypnotic, holding an intensity of life that no holograph could have conveyed. The face was, in its own way, handsome. And the precise voice was the same one that had spoken to Scheffler on the phone, though now it sounded much wearier.

  "Scheffler? No need to be terrified of me. Not just yet anyway. We have plenty of time for that. Get up. Get dressed. You and the young lady both. Desert outfits for both of you, please. Please don't be terrified, not now, we're in a hurry. The industrious Olivia must have told you some unkind things about me. I'll have to speak to her about that." Pilgrim's accent was slight but very distinctive. Scheffler, if pressed to come up with a definition, could only have called it suave.

  Certainly Pilgrim's were the features that Olivia had shown him in the holograph, though now the man's gaunt face was rimmed with a beard, short and patchy and unkempt, as if he simply had not had the chance to shave for many days. His age, Scheffler thought, might have been somewhere between thirty and forty. Physically he was rather small, not nearly as big as Scheffler had somehow expected despite Uncle Monty's description. But in spite of the lack of size the impression of magnetic force was there.

  Scheffler, still clad in the dressing gown over his jeans, got slowly to his feet. Becky, clad in nothing at all except the sheet that she was clutching around her, sat on the floor and whimpered.

  Pilgrim smiled at her in a not-unkindly and yet impatient manner. In his precise actor's voice he said: "You must get up and dress, my dear. For the desert."

  "For the desert," she repeated, nodding as if to show that she was willing to be obedient. Then she added helplessly: "I don't know what you mean."

  Scheffler shook his head when Pilgrim looked at him. "She doesn't have any desert outfit," Scheffler said. "She doesn't know anything about it."

  "Well, I suppose that's possible. But if not she will soon learn. My dear, if you would prefer to do your dressing in the closet—well, obviously you would prefer that—take whatever garments you have and put them on in there—you do have some clothing at hand, I take it? Of course you do. Scheffler, be a good fellow and go with her. And be quick about it, both of you. Clothed or unclothed, we are all about to depart on a journey."

  Scheffler helped Becky to her feet. Then he led her, still wrapped in her bedsheet, across the room. On the way they both grabbed up garments from a chair and from the floor. She went on into the closet and began putting things on, while he stood in the closet doorway, trying to shield her from view as much as possible as he completed his own dressing.

  Pilgrim's eyes, red-veined and weary though they were, had followed Becky appreciatively as she crossed the room.

  "What are they going to do to us?" she whimpered to Scheffler as she tugged up her jeans. It was as if she thought the intruders couldn't hear her as long as he was standing in their way. He mumbled something as he struggled to get a shoe on while standing up. He supposed it wasn't a very encouraging reply but it was the best that he could do.

  Fully dressed, he felt more angry than afraid. Being dragged out of bed by strangers twice in one night was just too damn much. But when Scheffler turned around, meaning to confront this new invader boldly, he found himself again facing one of the short but monstrous figures that he had seen when the lights first came on. In the interval between then and now his mind had suppressed the nature of those shapes, but now here was one of them again, not a hallucination, not some result of interrupted dreams and blurry eyes and glaring light, but real.

  No more than five feet tall, the thing stood in the doorway to the hall. Still pointing a slender crystalline rod with attachments, that had to be a weapon. The threat was implicit in the thing's attitude. In a moment its fellow, similarly armed, had reappeared in the dark hallway behind it.

  Scheffler came to a halt, unable to say anything, staring at the two misshapen helmets, glassy but opaque, and the two unearthly bodies in strange, tight suits. Both of the small beings had moved completely back into the bedroom now, and they continued to point their rods at him.

  Pilgrim was watching him intently. "They're not going to eat you, my lad. They are members of my crew, as impeccably human as you yourself, though Earth has never been their home."

  "Your crew."

  "Yes."

  "Where are you from?"

  "Long ago and far away. They need a bit of help in breathing when they come here, that's all. Hence the helmets. We all need a bit of help from time to time, don't we? I'm going to need some help from you. And you and the young woman are going to need my help for a while now, just to stay alive."

  And now Scheffler noticed for the first time that Pilgrim himself was injured. The smaller man was keeping his left hand in the side pocket of his trousers. And at the wrist of that arm, under the sleeve of Pilgrim's upper garment, Scheffler could see what looked like the end of
some kind of cast or splint. The jacket whose sleeve concealed most of the cast somewhat resembled the upper garments that the police had worn.

  Becky, peering past Scheffler, got a good look at what had just come in from the hall. She reacted with a gasp and clutched him by the arm. Scheffler himself, now over the first shock, could discern on the two odd creatures—or at least on their garments, for none of their skin was showing—some of the same signs of wear and tear that Pilgrim displayed. The two silent beings, though of approximately human shape, were too thin and angular to be men, women, or children born of Earth. The joints of their limbs, being slightly displaced by terrestrial standards, provided even more convincing evidence of their alien origins. So did the configuration of the glassy helmets, implying the shape of the heads inside. Their hands were covered in mitten-like gloves that hid all details of form.

  Pilgrim was growing impatient with his victims. "Are you dressed yet, wench? Come come. Step out here boldly, I don't bite. Nothing worse than a little adventure lies ahead for you, and you will emerge from it intact if I have my way, and I generally do."

  Scheffler turned his head to Becky. "Better do what the man says," he urged apologetically. He was thinking that if Pilgrim intended rape or murder, he wouldn't have ordered her to get dressed.

  Whatever Becky might be thinking, she didn't have much choice, and followed Scheffler out of the closet. Pilgrim waved a hand, in what looked like a consciously theatrical gesture, to signal his captives to follow him out of the bedroom.

  Escorted by silent monsters, two men and a woman traversed the dimly lighted rooms and hallways of the apartment until they came to Gallery Two. The grillwork door was already standing open, though Scheffler could see no sign that it had been forced. The lock must have been cheated somehow, or simply opened with a key. Not Scheffler's key; he could still feel that in his pants pocket, where he had put it yesterday before Becky arrived. It wasn't exactly that he hadn't trusted her, but…

  The cloth curtain decorated with Egyptian figures, that Olivia had warned him never to touch again, had already been pulled aside. The dark doorway to the elevator stood open. Becky was staring at all this in total incomprehension.

  Pilgrim paused for a moment in the sanctuary, pointing to one after another of the gold artifacts in their niches. He said something to his companions, speaking in the most alien-sounding tongue that Scheffler had ever heard from human lips. One of the diminutive monsters answered, a startling, buzzing speech that did not sound as if it could be produced by human lips at all.

  Evidently Pilgrim did not particularly like the answer he had been given, but it was not unexpected. Now with a grimace he had turned back to his captives, and was gesturing them forward, into the open door of the elevator.

  Scheffler moved forward obediently and then stopped on the threshold. There were two figures already inside the little dark-walled room, one of them lying bound on one of the couches. A hand pushed Scheffler roughly in, and now he could see that it was Olivia who lay on the couch. The policewoman's face was pale and drawn and her eyes were closed. A third monster, helmeted and armed like the two who had come to Scheffler's bedroom, its knees and elbows bent at somewhat inhuman angles, was crouching beside her as guardian.

  Becky was shoved in beside Scheffler, and then both of them were pushed toward the rear of the car. Becky's face was controlled, and she had stopped whimpering, but she clung to Scheffler's arm with the grip of a drowning woman. Pilgrim and his cohort crowded in after them. Looking back, Scheffler could see how the last creature left outside closed and locked the grillwork door and pulled the curtain shut before entering. Then the door of the elevator slid closed.

  Pilgrim observed Scheffler's stare at Olivia. "I suppose, Scheffler," the cultured voice inquired, "you were warned to have no dealings with me? Told that I was the most savage criminal in the Galaxy? Inevitably to be arrested within the next ten minutes?"

  "I don't think so. I don't remember."

  "It doesn't matter what you were told." Pilgrim made a dismissive gesture with his good hand. Then he leaned back against the elevator wall, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "But you see the police didn't have quite the success in arresting me that they anticipated. Well, it's not the first time."

  Olivia had opened her eyes and was gazing stonily up at them all. She said nothing, and Scheffler wasn't sure that she was fully conscious.

  Now Pilgrim had turned to face the dark wall, and the fingers of his uninjured hand moved over the illuminated projections beside the door. The pattern of the little lights across the wall was changing under his touch. Over his shoulder he said: "Please make no attempt to change any of these. I want to be able to return you to your apartment, Scheffler, when the time comes. If you and—what is your fair companion's name? "

  "Becky." She spoke up for herself, in a voice that surprised Scheffler with its firmness. "Rebecca Haggerty."

  Their kidnapper gave her another appreciative glance. Then he finished with whatever he was doing to the wall, stabbing at it with his fingers like a pianist, and faced them again. "Rebecca Haggerty and Thomas Scheffler, I mean neither of you any harm. If possible I will see to it that you are restored to your normal world, once I have got my hands on what I want. If, that is, you still prefer your normal world—it does have its disadvantages, you know?" Pilgrim's was a mild, inquiring, schoolteacher's gaze. And even as he asked the question the time-elevator began to move, gravity weakening and coming back in spurts beneath the passengers' feet.

  "That's what we'd prefer, yes," said Scheffler. Becky clutched at him again and he patted her hand in reassurance. This was really the smoothest ride that Scheffler had taken yet in this device. The gravity was remaining almost constant. No doubt Pilgrim had made just the right adjustments.

  The little man shrugged elegantly. "Ah well. It is not impossible that you will change your minds. But as you wish. The more willingly you both cooperate with me while we are traveling companions, the more likely you are to have your choice at the end of the journey."

  "Co-operate in what?"

  "In whatever may come along. The little day-today things that add up to make life worth living."

  "Okay. Whatever you say. Is she badly hurt?" With a nod Scheffler indicated Olivia, who still seemed to be having trouble getting her eyes to focus on anything.

  "I'm afraid she may be." Pilgrim sounded genuinely—though not intensely—regretful. "We fought a skirmish since she saw you last. Neither of us, as you see, emerged unscathed." He moved his injured arm a trifle, gently, without taking the hand out of the pocket. "But really I have no more wish to hurt her than to harm you. Possibly she will survive to try to arrest me once again."

  Becky asked, in a lost voice: "Where are we going?" Obviously she was still unable to make any sense at all out of the elevator and its unique ride.

  Pilgrim came close to twinkling at her. "Scheffler can explain that to you. Not very thoroughly or accurately I suppose, but well enough to serve the immediate purpose. It's a place he has already visited. Or if words fail him you can see for yourself since we shall soon be there." The little man smiled at Scheffler. "When we arrive, he will indicate to me how far the gold-hunting has progressed up to now. How much of the Pharaoh's treasure, if any, remains unplundered."

  "I didn't see any gold when I was there," Scheffler protested. "I didn't hunt for any."

  "Oh, did you not?" Momentarily Pilgrim's gaze was a dark implacable force that probed him coldly. "Perhaps not. If that is true, then I suspect that even by the standards of your own world you have been badly cheated. Cheated by your two friends who are still at work there now, and by your own great-uncle. But don't let that depress you; your respected great-uncle Montgomery Chapel seems to have cheated almost everyone who ever tried to deal with him. Including me." Gradually Pilgrim's face had assumed a wry expression, as if to indicate that he was able to accept the situation as a joke. And then, as if in afterthought: "I mean to talk with him about that."


  Scheffler wondered if the man before him was insane. He felt no hope of being able to predict what he'd do next.

  The time-conveyance bounced a little more. Becky moaned and muttered, but it was a minor disturbance by the standards of Scheffler's first three trips. Everyone inside the car held on in one way or another, grabbing a strap or at least bracing a hand against the wall. Becky continued to grip Scheffler by the arm. And at least one of the rod-weapons stayed pointed at Scheffler all through the bouncing ride. He was by far the biggest being in the group, but right now it didn't seem that size and strength were going to do him any good.

  The vehicle stopped. He estimated that the ride had lasted no more than two minutes.

  The door opened, on what was becoming a familiar sight to Scheffler, the entrance to the fissure in Egyptian rock. This time it was not full daylight outside, but not full night either. The mildness of the heat that washed into the car suggested to Scheffler that they had arrived near dawn rather than dusk. Becky sniffed the air, and her confusion reached new heights. She stared at him, seeking enlightenment.

  Pilgrim was first out of the timelock, looking around him warily. Now at last he had drawn a weapon of his own, which appeared to be a shorter version of the rod-devices still brandished by his three un-earthly followers After looking, around, Pilgrim motioned for the others to follow him.

  Olivia, on being released from the couch, said very little but demonstrated a willingness to co-operate under duress. She was able to stand and walk with only a minimum of help. Becky moved spontaneously to the other woman's side and helped her to stay on her feet.

  When everyone was out of the car, standing almost in single file in the confined space of the fissure, and the door had closed behind them, Pilgrim faced Scheffler.

  "I want you to tell me what arrangement you have made for meeting the other two twentieth-century people who are still working here."