| abstract
| - After arriving at the Temple, Sybil had tried to dine, but she found that she did not want to eat. Leone could tell that Sybil was ill, so he located the Temple's doctor, a robot. The robot was a new model with a sophisticated T-particle detector and even a T-particle emitter for testing the telepathic sensitivity of human patients. The machine quickly noticed that Sybil had a sensitivity to T-particle signals of the type produced by the Haldus transport grid. The robot gave Sybil a nanite remedy to counter the effects of close proximity to the transport grid. The robotic doctor and Portia had put Sybil to bed, then they came out into the hallway where Leone was pacing. Portia said, "She's asleep." Leone asked the doctor, "What is wrong with her?" The robot explained, "Sybil is sensitive to the powerful telepathic emissions from the grid. I've exposed her brain to a special type of nanite that will prevent her neurons from resonating with the grid. My advice is that she leave this star system as soon as possible." Leone suggested, "Kaleb is planning to return to Earth soon. My spaceship is still in the Solar System. Maybe we can get a ride with Kaleb." Sybil woke up with a bad headache. She got out of bed and promptly crashed her head into the ceiling of her room. She had forgotten just how little gravity there was here. This Haldus Order base was located on a very small planet in orbit around a supergiant star. That star was known within the Order as Haldus, although most star atlases used the name Epsilon Aurigae. Sybil wondered what the local residents called this world. She consulted the room's dataport and found that the residents here called this little world "Almaaz". After a quick shower, Sybil felt better. She dressed in local clothing that had been provided in the room by the Temple. She left her room and knocked on the doors to Leone's and Portia's rooms, however, there was no response so she went to the Temple's common room. A robot directed her to the dinning hall where she found Leone and Portia already eating breakfast. Portia asked, "Are you feeling better?" Sybil nodded. "Much better! And I feel like eating...I'm very hungry." Leone signaled to a robot. The machine came to their table, bowed to Sybil and said, "Your wishes, madam?" Sybil giggled. She could not get used to the archaic and formal habits of the robots on Almaaz. She ordered a large meal and then listened while Leone described what he had been able to learn about the museum spaceship. The museum was in orbit above Almaaz and accessible by space elevator. A team of robots brought Sybil's food and served it with a flourish. The head waiter asked, "Is there anything else?" Then departed. "Enjoy your meal." Sybil asked, "Exactly what is in the museum?" Leone activated a display screen that was built into their table and showed Sybil a list of the historical collections held onboard the museum ship. "It looks like most of the material dates from the years since Earth became a Green planet, but there is also this," Leone pointed to the display, "Mysteriously called 'the Egyptian collection'." Portia said, "I still do not understand all this talk about Egypt. I thought it was a fairy land, like Oz." Leone told Portia about the Temple library on Esclagon and its museum-like display with images of the Egyptian pyramids. "I wonder...if Earth has been frequently visited by people from Haldus...well, maybe the common practice on Earth of building pyramids was inspired by those off-world visitors." Sybil nodded, "Right. If the visitors knew about the tetrahedral conduit array, they might have tried to explain to Earthlings how they had come to Earth and the story could have ended up leading to the construction of pyramids on Earth." Portia was skeptical, "In ancient times it may have just been convenient to build in the shape of a pyramid if you wanted a tall monument." Leone said, "I'm intrigued by the idea that the original Haldus Order Temple in Egypt might have been an observatory. Somehow the ancient Egyptians figured out that Haldus is a source if T-particles. I'm picturing a narrow tunnel leading into the interior of an Egyptian pyramid. Maybe such a tunnel could be used for sighting stars." Sybil shrugged, "Yes, a hole in a pyramid could be used to sight stars, but how would anyone be able to associate the T-particle emissions from the transport grid with light from Haldus? Unfortunately, that robot on the research ship said that the original Haldus Order temple was lost when the oceans rose." Portia suggested, "Maybe it is still there, on the bottom of the sea." Leone shook his head. "I'm afraid it was destroyed by the explosion that obliterated Egypt, but you are right, it might have been there for centuries...hidden...unfortunately nobody knew to look for it back then." Portia asked, "Do you believe that Egypt was destroyed by an exploding spaceship? In school I learned that Earth was destroyed by a black hole." Leone rubbed his chin. He was looking at the remains of Sybil's breakfast. He asked Sybil, "Are you going to eat that?" There was one piece of fruit left in Sybil's bowl. She replied, "Go ahead, I'm stuffed." Leone ate the strawberry-like fruit and then said, "It might not be a matter of Earth being destroyed by either a black hole or an exploding spaceship. A problem with antimatter drives in spaceships is that if you push antimatter engines too hard then they start producing black holes." Portia complained, "Yes, I know, but I've never understood that." Leone shrugged. "It is fairly well understood physics. If you get the antimatter reaction going too fast then there is a huge graviton flux. You might go for days like that, but eventually, by a quantum mechanical fluke, a black hole will form." Sybil nodded, "I've heard all this before, but it still makes no sense. The black holes you are talking about are tiny and they evaporate almost instantly." "Yes, this is where it gets interesting! A black hole can either evaporate or grow, but in the antimatter reactor that 'choice' is governed by the chaotic conditions of the ongoing conversion of mass into energy. There is a slim chance that the black hole will grow. In practice, spaceship engineers have simply set a limit on the power output allowed for the reactors of spaceships. That limit keeps black hole production from getting out of hand. But imagine what might happen, once in a thousand years: an unusual chance event in a spaceship's reactor might produce a large black hole that could cause the reactor to go out of control and trigger a tremendous explosion." Portia shook her head, "I don't believe that. I took an antimatterics course in school and it was made clear that even if you rupture an antimatter reactor the power output can only decline. Spaceships have often been destroyed in space battles and they do not release the amount of energy that was needed to make that huge blast crater on Earth." Sybil stood up and said, "We cannot resolve such mysteries by talk. Let's go visit the museum. Maybe the answers to Earth's mysteries await us there." The transportation system of Almaaz was efficient and they were soon riding a car up a space elevator towards the museum. The view was fantastic. The transport grid hung in space over Almaaz like a vast spider web. Sybil found that by looking at the grid she could control what remained of her feeling of disorientation. She was intrigued by the flashes of color that rippled across the grid. She said, "I wonder what causes those little sparks." Portia asked, "Sparks?" Sybil nodded, "Ya...can't you see the colors?" The inhabited part of Almaaz was on the back side of the planetoid, shielded from the intense stellar radiation emitted by Haldus. The disk-shaped transport grid hung in the sky above Almaaz, illuminated by Haldus. Leone described what he saw, "It is a milky blue, refracting the light of Haldus. I see no other colors. And I do not see why it is called a 'grid'." Sybil activated the dataport of the elevator car and brought up on the display an image of the grid. That image looked like what Leone had described. "Interesting." She turned back to look directly at the grid through the plastiglass window of the elevator car. She could clearly see multi-colored flashes pulsing through the grid. She closed her eyes. The colors were still there." Sybil said, "Oh, my." Leone wondered if Sybil's illness was returning. He asked, "Do you want me to request an emergency descent?" Sybil shook her head. "No, I feel fine. I've long been able to see colors associated with people, but now I'm seeing colors on this grid. My brain must be interpreting the emissions of the grid as if they were human emotions. It is very beautiful." The elevator reached their stop and Sybil reluctantly opened her eyes so she could see to walk. When they stepped out of their elevator car they were inside a large space station that hung in stationary orbit over Almaaz. They were greeted by a robot who recognized them. The machine said, "Welcome, Sakkarans. How may I assist you?" Sybil explained that they wanted to visit the museum. The robot agreed to be their guide. While they walked to the museum the machine explained, "Sybil, I see that you are of the Inner Circles. You can enter the Temple. However, Leone and Portia can only tour the public areas of the museum." Sybil was surprised. "What are you talking about, machine? A Temple is always open to visitors." The robot insisted, "Not in this case. Do you wish to enter the Temple or will you stay with your friends on the public tour?" Sybil replied, "I'll start with the tour." "As you wish." They had reached an airlock and there was a line of waiting visitors. The robot explained, "Sybil, if you want to go to the Temple then you can go right on in; there is no wait for that." Leone suggested, "You should go. I'm afraid that we will learn little on the public tour. Go ahead and visit the Temple." Portia said, "I'm not sure it is a good idea for Sybil to go by herself. Sybil, are you sure that you are healthy? Are you still dizzy?" Sybil decided to go look at the Temple. She said, "I feel fine. The tour takes almost an hour. I'll meet you back here in an hour, okay?" She left her place in line and entered the airlock that was the entrance to the museum. At the inner door of the airlock she was stopped by another robot. It said, "I will take you to the Temple, Priestess." Sybil followed the machine through a network of corridors. She began to feel that the robot was leading her around in circles. She could easily keep her orientation because of her telepathic sense and her ability to see the "colors" of the transport grid in her mind. Sybil was pleased by that sense of being oriented. She had never previously been conscious of a source of telepathic signals that was outside of her range of vision. She had extensive training in seeing human auras, but she had never become particularly good at it. Finally she complained to the robot, "Where are you taking me?" The robot replied, "We are almost there. The temple is well hidden, for good reason." In fact, the museum had been designed to hide the Temple. The museum and the Temple were actually two different spaceships. When the museum collections had grown large and it was decided to use some of the materials to publicize the true history of Earth, a second, larger spaceship was added to the museum and used for the public museum displays. However, for security reasons, even Haldus Order members who visited to the Temple were made to believe that it was a single compartment within the spaceship that comprised the public part of the museum. Finally the robot opened a door and gestured for Sybil to enter the Temple. This spaceship compartment held two statues of sphinxes. The one on the left was made of stone, the one to the right was made of some synthetic material. The compartment was not large and the two beasts filled most of the room. Sybil turned to the robot and asked, "Is this it? You call this one room a Temple?" The robot asked, "What were you expecting?" In her studies of the historical Egypt, Sybil had seen images of sphinxes, but she wondered why a Temple would be devoted to the display of two sphinxes. Sybil wondered out loud, "Is this a test? If I do not know what to look for then nothing will be revealed to me?" The robot replied, "The Temple is open to you, Priestess." Sybil hated it when robots were evasive. She strode towards the space between the two statues in order to try to see what was on the other side of the room. She thought: sphinxes are often guardians- At her approach, the metal sphinx came alive. Its head morphed from human to animal and back again. Sybil froze in amazement and waited for her racing heart to slow. The sphinx head kept morphing. She touched the statue and felt the warm metal surface shifting its shape. She asked the robot, "This came from Earth?" The robot replied, "No, Priestess. That statue is from Polastis III." Sybil had heard of that world since there was a Haldus Order Temple there. She could not remember the whole story. She knew that Polastis was a star on the fringe of explored space. A Haldus Order colony had been established there early in the space age and then it was later abandoned. Her heart stopped racing and she continued on to the back of the room. The room lights dimmed and a holographic image of an old man appeared and began to speak, "The teleguide array on Polastis III was the key to revealing the transporter function of the conduits. Unfortunately, the ability of the conduits to trigger catastrophic explosions of antimatter reactors was not recognized until after the destruction of one of the nodes in the Polastis array. The search for other worlds with intact arrays continues." "All available evidence suggests that the Polastians were amazingly similar to humans. It is estimated that the last Polastian on Polastis III lived about thirty four million years ago. Some of their artifacts survived intact until human colonists arrived. The sphinx you see here is a typical example of Polastian art." "I supervised Haldus Order research on Polastis III, from initial human colonization until destruction of the array. To those of the future: be warned! Yes, explore. We must always push on into the galaxy. However, do not be reckless! Learn from the disasters on Earth and on Polastis III. Beware of the danger of mixing antimatterics and conduits. Fare thee well." The hologram vanished and Sybil turned around. The room lights came up and she could see the robot standing there on the other side of the room. The sculpture from Polastis was again motionless, frozen with a human head on an animal's body. Sybil asked, "Who was that?" The robot replied, "Master Olmo." Sybil had never heard of "Olmo". Her contact with the Haldus Order beyond Sakkara had always been through Kalid. She walked back to the front of the morphable sculpture and closely examined the face and skull. Was it human? Or was she looking at the head of a Polastian? Sybil spent an hour carefully examining the Temple, but she found nothing else of interest. The robot then led her back to the designated meeting place. While they walked the robot spoke to Sybil, "You are of the Inner Circle, Sybil. You know the rules for protecting the secrets of the Order. Polastis is an even greater secret than the Haldus grid." Sybil and the robot reached the entrance to the museum. Leone and Portia were there waiting for her. She asked, "Is it worth my time to take the tour?" Portia replied, "I could see it again." Leone outlined the key aspects of the tour. "As expected, the Egyptian collection is the high point. They have actual material from ancient Egypt. However, most of the museum displays document a war between the Haldus Order and the Spaceship Guild. The evidence in there is greatly embarrassing to both the Spaceship Guild and the Antiquist Party...if it is true." They got back in line. Sybil asked, "You think the evidence is fake?" Leone shrugged. "I know enough about history to be skeptical of the stories told by either side that is fighting a war." Portia commented, "The tour is very dramatic, showing the lows of the Haldus Order, such as the destruction of its Temples on Earth and on the Moon, but ending with the clear expectation of ultimate victory for the Order." Leone nodded, "In many ways it comes across like propaganda designed to keep up the spirits of the troops. You will be able to judge for yourself." They were now being shadowed by two robotic guides. Leone looked over his shoulder at the two robots. He asked Sybil, "What did you see in the Temple?" Sybil looked at their robot guides and she decided that it was safest to say little in front of the robots. "It was very small, a kind of a time capsule. There were some ancient artifacts, including an ancient Egyptian sphinx." Leone said, "Really? Fantastic! The artifacts on the tour are all small objects in plastiglass display cases. They are all labeled, 'British Museum' and were apparently recovered from Earth after Egypt was destroyed." Sybil tried to fabricate an excuse for why most people were prevented from visiting the Temple; she wanted to provide Leone with a line of thought that would distract him from asking too many questions. "I actually touched the sphinx. I guess the people who run this museum just do not want hordes of tourists running their hands over their most prized display objects, so they reserve them for members of the Inner Circles." Leone nodded. "Most museums only allow trained researchers access to their most important holdings." They completed the tour and returned to the space elevator. Their robot guides finally stopped following the Sakarans. As the elevator car descended towards the surface of Almaaz, Sybil was again looking at the "colors" that she could sense in the grid. Leone asked, "Do you think it is safe to talk here?" Sybil knew that Leone must be eager to hear details about what was in the Temple. She replied, "I'm sorry Leone, but I'm going to have to ask you not to push me on this. I once told you that there are some things you have to ask Kalid." She would say no more. Leone said half jokingly, "I wonder if Kalid is real. I do hope to some day meet him." Portia said, "I would like to see him, too, and ask him if he foresaw all this as my destiny when he rejected me from the Order."
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