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answer my question. Does the shape and the size and the location of the Gizeh pyramids have anything to do with it? I file:///F|/rah/Isaac%20Asimov/Asimov,%20Isaac%20-%20Mythical%20Beasties%20(SSC)%20UC.txt (212 of 251) [5/21/03 2:06:12 AM] file:///F|/rah/Isaac%20Asimov/Asimov,%20Isaac%20-%20Mythical%20Beasties%20(SSC)%20UC.txt 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 dis- tances 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 three- hundred-year teleportative periods should have partially co- incided 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 feasi- ble for the plan which we presently devised. 294 Robert F. Young 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 exclu- sive credit for the building of the three pyramids at Gizeh. However, memory eradication is only ninety-five percent ef- fective, 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 non- file:///F|/rah/Isaac%20Asimov/Asimov,%20Isaac%20-%20Mythical%20Beasties%20(SSC)%20UC.txt (213 of 251) [5/21/03 2:06:12 AM] file:///F|/rah/Isaac%20Asimov/Asimov,%20Isaac%20-%20Mythical%20Beasties%20(SSC)%20UC.txt Gizeh 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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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