Pyramids

by Fred Saberhagen

  "I'm not sure. But go on."

  "But if I am able to duplicate the noble Khufu's world, or a sizable portion of it, including my gold, there is nothing, theoretically, to prevent my going to that duplicated world, and there laying my hands upon that precisely duplicated gold.

  "Such a duplication—'abstraction' is probably a better translation of our word into English—has its own dangers. It is also expensive in energy and effort. And extremely difficult. But it is not impossible. If my grandfather and I both have access to a particular created, abstracted, temporary world, and he will join me there, he had better beware of me if I in fact have designs upon his life. There I can at least kill his abstracted double. In this case paradox takes no revenge. Nothing will happen to me unless my grand-sire kills me too, in which case I shall be dead. My own grandfather was always regrettably treacherous. Do you understand a little better now what I am talking about?"

  "You're trying to tell me that you have created a whole world? The one we're standing in?"

  "I thought a moment ago that you had already accepted that idea. You were ready to believe that the entire universe might split every time anyone made a decision. Yes, in a sense, with the help of innumerable other minds, and an impressive amount of machinery and power, I have created it. Or caused it to split off, for a time, from the one and only original world, if you prefer."

  "If you can do that, why not just create yourself some more of your special gold?"

  "I suppose that is a valid question, coming from a youth in your state of almost complete ignorance. To obtain a duplication of my gold was of course the object. But to duplicate, at such a distance, the gold that the Pharaoh carried with him to the grave it was necessary, depend upon it, to include a large slice of the surrounding fabric of spacetime in the process as well."

  Scheffler was still trying to grasp it. "Anyway, I still don't know what you're talking about. What sort of a creation? All this, around us?" Scheffler waved a hand again, taking in the entire unseen sky outside the tomb of Khufu, the Nile and sand and rock. "I think you're raving."

  "I am not raving. We are standing at this moment within such a partial duplication—or abstraction—and I am chiefly responsible for its existence. A myriad of other people contributed substantially, though most of them were unaware of doing so. I did not kill anybody in the process." He made an offhand gesture. "There was, as I have already mentioned, a battle earlier, in which there died a few police, who were doing their best to kill me."

  "When I'm out of this hole I can see the sun."

  "What you see is an abstracted version of the sun, full-sized and just as massive and hot. It would still be very hard to distinguish from the original, even if the full resources of science were here available to us."

  Scheffler was silent for a little, trying to think. He found himself wanting to believe the "explanation." But what did it take, what kind of powers would a man have to possess, to duplicate a sun?

  He said at last, "At night we can see the stars."

  "The abstraction is not quite that big. One or two stars besides the sun may be included in it; but you see most of them by light that left them long ago. Their light, trapped in this new space, will still be visible for a few years to come. It may be moving more slowly in this space."

  "What?"

  Pilgrim shifted his position. "Consider. With the little camera that you brought on your first trip here, you can make an image of an object. Given a more advanced camera, you could make an image in three dimensions. Another advance, or several, beyond that, and you could make a replica of a pyramid that casual observation could not distinguish from the original. Not, perhaps, exact down to the last molecule, but very close to that ideal. Another advance, and another—"

  "But I thought you were saying you made space. Planets. Everything. Out of what?"

  "Why must a creation be 'out of anything'? Out of the same materials as the original, if you prefer."

  "And how do you perform this creation? Just by thinking about it, with your friends? Making a decision?"

  "No. Not at all. I have said that physical power is required too. As a trigger. And almost all of the mental contributors did so unwittingly. They were not my friends, or even known to me—they comprised the very population about which you are now concerned. Therefore the new world, as you have seen, bears the stamp of the collective mind of ancient Egypt. Therefore we have the ba and the sefer taking on reality. I must confess that matters have gone a little further in that regard than I expected."

  Scheffler was looking doubtful.

  Pilgrim pressed on. "Even in your own century, scientists working with quantum mechanics are coming to understand that the objects making up the universe would have a very different existence, in some cases no existence at all, if it were not for the consciousness of intelligent observers. The only way to accomplish an abstraction on the necessary scale was to draw upon the minds of all available observers. The center of the abstracted volume of spacetime is at the locus of what you call ancient Egypt—therefore the most intense mental input, by far, came from its human inhabitants, those living about fifty centuries before your own time.

  "Almost all of them were themselves filtered out of the process of abstraction—but a few whose minds were closely attuned to mine, were not."

  "Closely attuned to yours?"

  "I suspect chiefly by thoughts of robbery, of Khufu's gold. It seems remarkable how many thieves there are in our small handful of Egyptian people. Perhaps it is only a testimony to the shocking morals of their time."

  "And the ones who were filtered out, as you put it?"

  "Almost all of the people of ancient Egypt were completely unaffected by my machinations. The moment of the abstraction passed over them and they had no idea that anything unusual had happened. Their world went on its way without interruption. Indeed it had to be so. In the original world of ancient Egypt, an original Sihathor—no more or less real than ours—goes on about his business. Or more likely, he was arrested on the day of Pharaohs burial, and executed two years ago, along with other plotters who meant to rob the tomb of Pharaoh. Have you heard our Sihathor's story of that day and evening?"

  "And the great majority of people were not duplicated—"

  "Scheffler, Scheffler. Are you being deliberately obtuse? I lose patience. I repeat, your precious majority of people went nowhere. Not to market, not to church, and not to war. They stayed home. They were not killed, so you see that charge against me is quite baseless. In fact, in a manner of speaking, I have created some new lives. If you judge that a crime, as certain people do, then I must stand convicted. Of course those few folk of my creation have certainly experienced a change. Their lives of incredible dullness have been enriched by some excitement."

  "That's one way of looking at it, I suppose. Excitement they didn't ask for."

  "My friend. How could they have asked for anything that was beyond their power to dream?"

  "My life has been enriched too, thanks to you." Scheffler was saying it grimly, ironically. But after the words were out he realized he wasn't at all sure he didn't mean them.

  "You are quite welcome." Pilgrim sounded sincere, as usual. "And mine also, fortunately, by—a number of other circumstances. It is a necessary condition of being fully alive."

  Scheffler realized suddenly that he had never yet seen the little man get angry. He said: "I gather you weren't so happy when your life was changed in unexpected ways. When something kept you from going home. What was it?"

  Pilgrim's expression changed. "No, I was not happy when that occurred. Therefore I take what action I can, to adjust matters to my own satisfaction. You are presumably doing the same; as are our handful of Egyptians. I will not be angry with any such displaced persons, for doing what they can to improve their lot."

  "That's good of you."

  "Yes, considering all circumstances, I think it is. But does it make you feel better about my motives? Are yours really greatly differen
t?"

  "I keep coming back to these people here. The duplicates. Fat chance they have now to improve their lot. Or to keep you from doing whatever you want with them."

  "Bah. Fat chance their originals have ever had�from the beginning of their short and brutish lives. I have given these… creations of mine… moments of glory, whatever else may happen to them." Pilgrim made a grand gesture.

  "And you're doing all this to get back your gold."

  "Yes. I do not intend to explain about the gold again." And Pilgrim got busy lifting rocks.

  They worked together in heat and silence for a while.

  When Scheffler came back to the subject it was from another angle. "Just how big a chunk of the universe did you abstract, anyway?"

  "It is a very large chunk, as you call it, as compared with the size of the solar system, containing even a few stars, as I have said. But it is infinitesimal as compared with the whole of observable space."

  "All right. Sure."

  "We are ready for more dynamite now. Help me string the wire and we will move outside."

  Some minutes later the next charge rumbled away inconsequentially, deep inside those five million tons of stone. Presently a little more dust came drifting out.

  Olivia, leaning on an Egyptian girl for support, approached Scheffler and Pilgrim where they stood watching.

  "Pilgrim tells me," Scheffler said to the policewoman, "that I should ask you if he's really wiped out the whole population here."

  Olivia took thought. Then she suggested to Scheffler: "I have a question for you to ask him instead. How long does he expect this created world of his to last? And what will happen to the people left in it when it ceases to exist? I'm sure he and his crew plan to be gone by then."

  The little man bowed lightly. "Two questions, my worthy foe. A third implied. But I answer willingly: In time, that is to say in some not-very-great number of Earthly years, the abstracted segment will shrink in upon itself, and then collapse. Already there are disturbances, as we have seen. Already this space around us has become essentially Newtonian. If we were to attempt some proof of Einsteinian relativity here and now, it would not work."

  Scheffler asked laconically: "Collapse?"

  "No loss to anyone in your world. Everyone there will still see the same stars and the same sun as before."

  "And what about the people in this world?"

  Pilgrim shrugged. "They will have had rather interesting lives. And probably no shorter lives, on the average, than those endured by their originals in the original world."

  "They will all die," said Olivia, in an almost toneless voice.

  "There are little kids living here now," said Scheffler. "Infants."

  Pilgrim was unimpressed. "Notably healthier than those born at a corresponding time in their original world."

  Scheffler started to say something. But then he couldn't think of what the words ought to be.

  "One cannot be sure of the duration," said Pilgrim. "But most probably about ten or twelve years from now, all the stars outside a radius of ten or twelve light years' distance will abruptly vanish�unless the abstracted space should itself collapse entirely before that time. I doubt it will, but when quantum effects play an important role one cannot be sure.

  "After the disappearance of the outer stars, the two or three stars remaining within the volume of the abstraction will appear to be behaving strangely�as indeed they will be. One or more might go nova, and wind things up for the rest a bit prematurely. I think that is unlikely, but there are certain to be changes in color and position and even apparent magnitude. Then, over the next few years, oddities of space and time and gravitation will become more frequent. Then, within a span certainly less than a twentieth-century American lifetime, these phenomena will close in, encroaching upon the center—which is ancient Egypt.

  "By the time the outer planets of the solar system are visibly affected, the end will be almost at hand�probably no more than days or weeks away.

  "And then the Sun itself will be altered—from then on it becomes harder and harder to predict in any detail exactly what course the process is likely to take. As the end approaches, quantum-mechanical effects increasingly dominate."

  NINETEEN

  Pilgrim had now given up all hope of finding his gold anywhere but inside the pyramid. Now all energies could be concentrated on the task of getting it out.

  On a page of his notebook Montgomery sketched the known passages of the still inaccessible interior. Ptah-hotep confirmed the accuracy of the drawing. The obvious assumption was that the bulk of the gold would be found with Pharaoh Khufu's coffin in the room that explorers in later history had named the King's Chamber.

  Pilgrim and others, working in shifts, armed with electric lights and the wonderful steel tools at which Sihathor never ceased to marvel, were now hammering their way around the fifth and last of the train of sliding granite plugs. It appeared that no more blasting would be needed to clear this obstacle.

  At last an opening appeared. The new tunnel had rejoined the Ascending Passage just above the plugs. The opening was enlarged and the way was clear to proceed.

  Pilgrim led the way through, emerging in a passage no higher or wider than the Descending Passage which began at the entrance, and sloping upward at the same angle as the Descending passage went down.

  Here the lantern beams shone on lumber blocks and fragments scattered over the sloping floor. These had been used to hold back the granite plugs until after the burial, when some kind of a trigger had been released. Originally the wooden parts had been carefully shaped, but some had been splintered and crushed two years ago by the onrushing tons of granite. The fragments lay where the sliding mass had thrown them when the trigger—whatever it was�was pulled.

  "This is the Ascending Passage," Monty gasped, struggling to a position beside Pilgrim in the cramped new corridor. This tunnel above the plugs was no bigger than the lower passage. Underfoot the slanting surfaces over which the great stones had been made to slide were still treacherous with two-year-old grease. But a narrow track in the middle of the floor was clean and gave good footing.

  Fifty feet ahead, a small dark shape took alarm at the glare of electricity and fluttered away into the dimmer distance. Scheffler recognized a bat. "How did they get in here?"

  Willis, just behind him, answered. "There are the so-called 'air-passages'—they serve that purpose but actually I think they were meant for something else�that connect the King's Chamber, and the Queen's, to the outside. Only nine inches square and hundreds of feet long. Too small for a man to get through them."

  Pilgrim was advancing in the necessary crouch. Everyone else followed.

  The Ascending Passage angled its way steadily upward for a hundred feet or more, aiming, as Monty had sketched it, toward the geometric center of the pyramid. But the passage changed dramatically at a point well short of that.

  Here the height of the ceiling suddenly increased, from about four feet to almost thirty. At the same point a cramped horizontal passage branched off, leading straight on in toward the middle of the monument.

  "This is the way to the Queen's Chamber," Motgomery offered, shining his light that way. "A misnomer given by explorers; actually no queens were ever buried in any of the Great Pyramids."

  The small horizontal shaft leading in to the Queen's Chamber was somewhat shorter than the Ascending or Descending Passages, and unobstructed. The Queen's Chamber, when they reached it, offered a chance to stand upright and stretch. It was about eighteen feet square and twenty feet high, with a gabled roof. It was completely empty, just as Ptah-hotep said the builders had doubtless left it. The air was quite fresh and breathable. There was not even a suggestion of any golden treasure. Pilgrim's instrument confirmed that none of the metal he sought had ever been here.

  Ptah-hotep stated that this would have been Khufu's vault if the second plan of pyramid construction had been followed. But a third plan, and possibly a fourth, had been put in
to effect.

  Returning to the Ascending Passage, the explorers went on up, climbing through the section almost thirty feet high, known as the Grand Gallery. Ptah-hotep explained its odd conformation as part of a plan for more elaborate traps and blockages. It appeared that the engineers' most refined ideas for traps had never actually been constructed.

  At the top of the Grand Gallery a very short horizontal passage led through an anteroom toward the King's Chamber.

  And here, in the anteroom, the way was closed again. A blank wall of granite spanned the narrow hall.

  "One of the portcullis stones," Montgomery announced. "There will be others, positioned behind it and above it—am I right, Ptah-hotep?"

  "More stones, yes." The former Chief Priest gestured. With words and miming he conveyed the idea that other slabs of rock were waiting in wall and ceiling, precariously balanced to come crashing down whenever the first barrier stone should be removed.

  "The only way is forward," Pilgrim grunted.

  Dynamite charges were placed again and a retreat ordered, all the way to the horizontal passage leading to the Queen's Chamber. The shock of the blast shattered the first barrier satisfactorily, but it also brought down more portcullis stones. Now these, one after another, were going to have to be blown out of the way.

  At last, hours later, the way to the King's Chamber stood open. Lantern beams stabbed in through a gray fog of drifting dust, to discover the lidded and sealed granite sarcophagus, itself plain and massive, surrounded by a breathtaking mass of hastily piled treasure. Scheffler could distinguish furniture of several kinds, life-sized statues, what looked like at least two disassembled chariots—in dust and lantern light he could not begin to take a complete inventory at once. But the gleam of gold was everywhere.