Pyramids

He shrugged. It might be, for all he knew. ‘The point is, though, that everyone can do it. They’re very proud of it. Everyone has—’ he hesitated again, certain now that things were amiss — ‘the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It’s a very enlightened civilization.’

Ptraci gave this some consideration.

‘And that’s a mocracy, is it?’

‘They invented it in Ephebe, you know,’ said Teppic, feeling obscurely that he ought to defend it.

‘I bet they had trouble exporting it,’ said Ptraci firmly.

The sun wasn’t just a ball of flaming dung pushed across the sky by a giant beetle. It was also a boat. It depended on how you looked at it.

The light was wrong. It had a flat quality, like water left in a glass for weeks. There was no joy to it. It illuminated, but without life; like bright moonlight rather than the light of day.

But Ptaclusp was more worried about his son.

‘Do you know what’s wrong with him?’ he said.

His other son bit his stylus miserably. His hand was hurting. He’d tried to touch his brother, and the crackling shock had taken the skin off his fingers.

‘I might,’ he ventured.

‘Can you cure it?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘Well, Dad. When we were up on the pyramid … well, when it couldn’t flare … you see, I’m sure it twisted around … time, you see, is just another dimension … um.’

Ptaclusp rolled his eyes. ‘None of that architect’s talk, boy,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘I think he’s dimensionally maladjusted, Dad. Time and space has got a bit mixed up for him. That’s why he’s moving sideways all the time.’

Ptaclusp IIb gave his father a brave little smile.

‘He always used to move sideways,’ said Ptaclusp.

His son sighed. ‘Yes, Dad,’ he said. ‘But that was just normal. All accountants move like that. Now he’s moving sideways because that’s like, well, it’s like Time to him.’

Ptaclusp frowned. Drifting gently sideways wasn’t IIa’s only problem. He was also flat. Not flat like a card, with a front, back and edge — but flat from any direction.

‘Puts me exactly in mind of them people in the frescoes,’ he said. ‘Where’s his depth, or whatever you call it?’

‘I think that’s in Time,’ said IIb, helplessly. ‘Ours, not his.’

Ptaclusp walked around his son, noting how the flatness followed him. He scratched his chin.

‘So he can walk in Time, can he?’ he said slowly.

‘That may be possible, yes.’

‘Do you think we could persuade him to stroll back a few months and tell us not to build that bloody pyramid?’

‘He can’t communicate, Dad.’

‘Not much change there, then.’ Ptaclusp sat down on the rubble, his head in his hands. It had come to this. One son normal and stupid, one flat as a shadow. And what sort of life could the poor flat kid have? He’d go through life being used to open locks, clean the ice off windscreens, and sleeping cheaply in trouser-presses in hotel bedrooms[22]. Being able to get under doors and read books without opening them would not be much of a compensation.

IIa drifted sideways, a flat cut-out on the landscape.

‘Can’t we do anything?’ he said. ‘Roll him up neatly, or something?’

IIb shrugged. ‘We could put something in the way. That might be a good idea. It would stop anything worse happening to him because it, er, wouldn’t have time to happen in. I think.’

They pushed the bent statue of Hat the Vulture-Headed God into the flat one’s path. After a minute or two his gentle sideways drift brought him up against it. There was a fat blue spark that melted part of the statue, but the movement stopped.

‘Why the sparks?’ said Ptaclusp.

‘It’s a bit like flarelight, I think.’

Ptaclusp hadn’t got where he was today — no, he’d have to correct himself — hadn’t got to where he had been last night without eventually seeing the advantages in the unlikeliest situations.

‘He’ll save on clothing,’ he said slowly. ‘I mean, he can just paint it on.’

‘I don’t think you’ve quite got the idea, Dad,’ said IIb wearily. He sat down beside his father and stared across the river to the palace.

‘Something going on over there,’ said Ptaclusp. ‘Do you think they’ve noticed the pyramid?’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s moved around ninety degrees, after all.’

Ptaclusp looked over his shoulder, and nodded slowly.

‘Funny, that,’ he said. ‘Bit of structural instability there.’

‘Dad, it’s a pyramid! We should have flared it! I told you! The forces involved, well, it’s just too—’

A shadow fell across them. They looked around. They looked up. They looked up a bit more.

‘Oh, my,’ said Ptaclusp. ‘It’s Hat, the Vulture-Headed God …’

Ephebe lay beyond them, a classical poem of white marble lazing around its rock on a bay of brilliant blue—

‘What’s that?’ said Ptraci, after studying it critically for some time.

‘It’s the sea,’ said Teppic. ‘I told you, remember. Waves and things.’

‘You said it was all green and rough.’

‘Sometimes it is.’