Chapter 2: 101 Hours

The Giza pyramid complex was doomed by religious intolerance. They were going to destroy the pyramids and the Sphinx. The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities had been looted and razed—at least they looted prior to destroying the buildings and grounds. That wasn’t going to happen to the pyramids—or the Sphinx.

My first step was deploying recon drones. Next, I piloted a modified pod to Giza from orbit, using Confederacy Navy technology to mask my arrival while also informing my father-in-law on my activities. I deployed several things at once—a sonic weapon that drove humans and most other creatures out of the complex, a tent containing a transporter pad, a 63 foot tall avatar of me in the garb of ancient Egypt, and as soon as the complex was cleared I dropped an interdiction field around the complex, leaving tent and avatar outside. A battalion-sized elements of Egyptian-built Abrams tanks and EFIV (basically the M113A2 with a Bradley turret) surrounded the interdiction field. Their weapons faced out, away from the interdiction field. Anybody remember that 1951 science fiction classic, “the Day the Earth Stood Still?” The Egyptian Army exhibited far more discipline than the 1951 fictional US Army—the guns on the tanks and infantry fighting vehicles pointed out, away from the interdiction field.

An officer approached the tent.

“General Mubarak is en route,” the officer announced in British-accented English. “He expects to be here by sundown.”

My avatar knelt to talk with the normal-size human.

“Do you or your men require anything?” I asked through my avatar.

“It’s Ramadan,” the officer smiled. “We’re fine, thank you. Carry on with your duties, sir.”

Sundown. Ramadan. I have to keep better track of important holidays. The Arab world shuts down during Ramadan for a month of fasting and prayer—unless at war. They fast from dawn to dusk. Eid was two weeks away. Look it up sometime.

Dismantling the pyramids and transporting the artifacts to safety was only part of my task. I was well on my way scanning and cataloging them when a cyborg entered the pod through the transporter pad. The sensor suite inside scanned it and identified the intruder as a Naga naga, an Indian or Spectacled Cobra. The animal had added cybernetics that the AI analyzed as hybrid Confederacy and human technology—and the cobra was in attack mode.

Outside at the same moment a VIP helicopter, the Mi-8 S (NATO code name SALON) landed and four men deplaned. The timing could have been worse. I had time before my guests arrived—if I could multitask. My avatar greeted them, General Mubarak commented on my atrocious accent and they entered the tent.

Inside I used skills gained in a TK simulator. Different types of tractor and presser beams that were normally used to move objects around inside the pod. No problem. In an instant I had the snake immobilized and in a med-tube. Anti-climatic end to an assassination attempt. I’d have to figure out who done it and what I needed to do in response later because my visitors arrived just as the med-tube hissed closed.

They were my father-in-law General Mubarak, Solomon, and the head of the Saudi Binladen Group, Omar bin Laden. If I’ve scrambled the titles, my fault! Arabic isn’t even a second language with me and I lack proficiency. The fourth guest was the infamous Osama bin Laden, protected by three things: the Arabic rules of hospitality, the fact that the Confederacy had no official interest in the man, and the current mission parameters. There was Confederacy business relating to the future battle for Earth. Inside I wore the Confederacy Navy parade uniform with all authorized medals and my lieutenant rank insignia.

“What’s this, my son?” General Mubarak pointed to the movie playing on the wall of the pod.

“Marlin Brando in the 1963 movie, ‘the Ugly American,’ and yest, it’s different from the book,” I pointed to Kukrit Pramoj, who was playing Sarkan’s Prime Minister Kwen Sai. “That actor became Thailand’s Prime Minister a dozen years after this movie was first shown in cinemas worldwide.”

“Indeed?” Solomon asked. “That can’t be any worse than the American actor becoming President of the United States. What was his name again?”

“Ronald Reagan,” Osama said. Pointing at a dark shape passing across the wall, Osama inquired, “What is that?”

“A sea-going boat that was hidden thousands of years ago,” I said. “The Confederacy has tasked me to collect and preserve human culture. I’m too late to do anything about the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, but I can save these artifacts so that we humans don’t forget who we were before the Sa’arm arrived.”

It is the Arab way to talk around a subject until rapport has been established. The tradition of nomadic tribes, often with little in common, would be spending several days feeling each other out. It’s humanity’s future.

“That looks like a lion, only white,” Omar pointed at Kimba. “Is that a snake? They look dangerous.”

“They are here to keep this man on his best behavior,” Solomon explained. “Thomas has to remain calm or his animals get agitated. As long he remains calm, they stay calm.”

“His second mission” General Mubarak added, “is preparing us for the Sa’arm. The lion is part of that. I’m not certain about the snake.”

My personal assistant AI emerged from the transporter pad in corporeal form at that moment; several humans had recommended that a few AI be put in human-like bodies for interaction with humans. Experiments in the Baboon Laboratory had demonstrated the wisdom of this—and after being isolated for generations, humans might not react well to voices from above.

“Tom’s third mission is helping with the Islamic star ship,” Ricardo Corleone said. “You’re here, Osama, so that you can arrange for the help you need to build your starship. Yes, we know about it.”

“Who are you?” Mubarak asked.

“One of the artificial intelligences,” Ricardo explained that he was in human form so that he didn’t appear to put on airs. Dressed in ancient Egyptian costume, Ricardo flawlessly followed Arab protocol. His Arabic was better than mine, too! “Tom told us that we had no right to stop you from building space ships and then he proved his case. After that, he suggested that we covertly provide assistance to keep you from killing yourselves in space, but with the fiction that we didn’t directly provide that information. It will appear that you bought the information from the West or through your own research. This is necessary and you are not the only group we’re doing this for—the Indian and Chinese have similar programs, to name just two.”

“They’re only sublight capable starships,” I added. “That means it will take years to reach the nearest inhabitable star at a maximum velocity of 0.8 C—the limit is due to limited sensors and computer equipment.”

“Thomas argued for low-end star drive,” Ricardo declared. “He did get you a concession for building your starship without Confederacy interference so long as you take no offensive action against the Confederacy or against the other space projects of Earth-at. The Confederacy cannot tolerate that aggression and the Confederacy Navy will immediately retaliate by destroying the offending space platform. General Mubarak can install and train the defensive weapons crews, but those weapons must remain inactive until after your starship has departed. See, you did get some technology transfers.”

“That’s unfair!” Omar complained. “Why do the Jews and Crusaders get all the weapons of mass destruction? Why can’t we have star drives?”

“You can,” I pointed out. “Develop them yourself. Find the information on Earth—it’s available, for the right price. One gang already has stolen that information. I’m investigating a group we call MMD—it’s written like this,” I wrote the letters in the air and they appeared solid red, “with a bar over the letters and means ‘two hundred fifty million.’ This is the group that started the nuclear exchange by destroying your holy cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Then they scuttled the submarine that launched those three missiles.’

Silence.

“Thomas has a secret brief to play policeman among the Confederacy humans,” Ricardo said, “not unlike Gort in that 1951 movie ‘the Day the Earth Stood Still.’ He’s all the tools he needs but right now is only authorized to hunt the MMD group. So far he has accounted for nearly a hundred of them.”