The Sands Of Time Part 21

Prior gestured for her to join them, introducing his guests as she made her way down the stairs.

As she reached the bottom, Prior took her hand. 'This is my daughter, Vanessa.'

'How do you do.' The Doctor dusted his hand on his lapel and offered it.

'Are you more Egyptian people?'

'Well, that rather depends on what you mean. We're not actually Egyptian by birth.'

'They're here for the mummy,' Prior said simply.

Vanessa looked at the Doctor, Tegan and Atkins. 'You're welcome to it,'

she said. 'I think the whole thing's creepy.' She smiled, her face instantly alive with humour. 'Would you like some tea? I'm sure dad didn't think to offer.'

'Er yes, thank you,' the Doctor looked round at his friends. 'That would be very nice.'

'I'll put the kettle on. Call me when you're back.' She turned sharply, her hair thrown outwards in a semi-circle of strands. As she reached the end of the hall, she looked back. 'You will stay for the party, won't you?' She did not wait for an answer.

Prior coughed. 'Tomorrow is her twenty-first birthday. We're having a bit of a bash tomorrow night. Mainly my friends, I'm afraid, though she has invited a couple of people from her old school. Along with James Norris of course, Vanessa's fiance. It's something of a double celebration now they've finally made their minds up.'

Prior unlocked the door under the stairs, opened it and gesturing for the Doctor to go first. 'Vanessa won't come down here now,' Prior said. 'Makes her feel funny seeing someone so dead, she says.'

'We may soon be able to allay her fears,' the Doctor said as he started down the stairs.

'Too right,' said Tegan as she followed him. 'She's not as dead as you think.'Prior said nothing, but followed Atkins down the stairs.

The room was surprisingly large, it probably extended under a good part of the house above. The floor was flagged with stone, and the walls were covered with heavy velvet curtains. Angled spotlights set into the ceiling made the room seem stark and bare, despite the various low tables and shelves around it. On each stood several relics, so that the whole place looked like a small museum.

'I've moved things round a bit,' Prior said. 'After the fire we put a proper staircase in when we restructured the house. Easier than the old trap door that used to be there. I use this as a sort of relic room now for my collection.'

At the far end of the room, on a raised dais, stood the sarcophagus. It was darkened with age and exposure to the moist English air, but was recognisably the same coffin. Tegan ran across to it.

'Are these genuine?' the Doctor asked, pausing by a display case. It contained an alabaster goblet, hieroglyphics on the rim picked out in blue pigment. The light inside the case shone through the cup making it seem to glow. Two handles projected from opposite sides, shaped like lotus flowers growing up and out from the base of the goblet. Beside it lay a dagger together with its embossed gold sheath. The blade was silver, the handle an intricate lacing of cloisonne.

Prior joined the Doctor. 'Magnificent, aren't they? And yes, they are genuine. The lotus wishing cup, and Queen Ahhotpe's dagger.'

'Why is it called a wishing cup?' asked Atkins.

'I imagine because of the inscription,' the Doctor indicated the coloured rim.

'The hieroglyphs probably wish for long life and happiness, or some such thing.'

Prior nodded. '"May the Ka live, and mayest thou spend millions of years, thou who lovest Thebes, sitting with thy face to the north wind, thy two eyes beholding happiness,"' he quoted. 'Or so Tobias St. John translated it.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Not at all bad, actually.'

'Doctor,' called Tegan impatiently from the coffin.

'All right, Tegan, all right. She's waited for a long time, a couple more minutes won't make much difference.'

'They will to me.'

The Doctor ignored her and examined the relics again. 'You obviously know and love the subject,' he told Prior.

'That's your fault.'

'Oh?'

'Oh yes. Well, indirectly. I knew nothing about Egypt, even where it was, until my uncle showed me the mummy soon before he died. It fascinated me. When he pa.s.sed away, I could afford to devote more time to the hobby. Now it's an obsession.' He smiled. 'Or so Vanessa tells me. She has little interest in the past. The future holds everything for the young. Like your impatient friend here.'

They made their way slowly to the sarcophagus, where Tegan was almost hopping with antic.i.p.ation. 'What does your wife think to it all?' she asked Prior as the Doctor leaned over the coffin and started examining the bandaged body within.

'My wife is dead.'

'I'm sorry.' Tegan looked away.

'You weren't to know. It was a long time ago. She died giving birth to Vanessa.'

The Doctor straightened up. 'Well, everything seems to be going swimmingly,' he said with a smile. 'In a few days she'll be back to normal.'

'A few days?'

'Tegan.' The Doctor raised a finger to stop her outburst.

Prior looked into the sarcophagus. Where the Doctor had pulled at the bandages there was an exposed area through which the bare flesh of an arm was showing. 'I realize that I have inherited an obligation of some sort to you people,' he said quietly. 'But I do think, Doctor, that you owe me some sort of explanation.'

They were in the drawing room. The layout and decor had changed surprisingly little over the last hundred years, although a large organ stood incongruously in one corner of the room. 'My late wife used to play,' Prior had commented when Tegan asked him pointedly why he possessed such a baroque piece of equipment.

The Doctor gave a brief and simplified explanation of events over tea. He glossed over the problems of timing and dates, suggesting but never actually stating that he and his friends were under a similar obligation to some unspecified ancestor to be there when Nyssa awoke. Explaining how she came to be sleeping inside the wrappings of an Egyptian mummy was rather less simple.

'I am aware of the notion of suspended animation,' Prior said huffily at one point as the Doctor tried to explain. 'I did some reading up on cryogenics a long time back, in a previous career. So while I don't understand what's happened, I can begin to believe it.''It all sounds complete nonsense to me,'

Vanessa said, offering round a plate of shortbread. 'But I failed science.'

'Snap,' said Tegan.

'You mean the nonsense or the science?'

Tegan laughed. 'Both. But you get used to believing nonsense when you're with the Doctor.'

Atkins leaned forward. 'I have found, Mr Prior, that even though I understand little of what the Doctor says or does, or what happens around him, he is able to make perfect sense of it all.'

Prior drained his cup. 'Well, that's good enough for now, anyway. So, you say it will be several days before this Nyssa person wakes up?'

The Doctor nodded. 'I need to examine her in more detail to be sure, but yes. Three, maybe four days. I wanted to arrive a few days ahead just to check everything's all right.'

'Then you'll stay for the party,' Vanessa said, tidying up the tea things. 'We insist, don't we dad. We've plenty of room, and you'll be right here to look after the lady downstairs.'

'Thank you,' the Doctor said. 'That would be ideal.'

Tegan was in better mood after dinner. She had been rather down for most of the afternoon, disappointed that they still had to wait several days before they would know for certain that Nyssa was all right. But as dinner progressed, she became philosophical. The Doctor was right after all, a few more days after waiting so long was nothing really. And Prior and his daughter seemed so pleasant and hospitable that she was actually beginning to welcome the opportunity for a short holiday.

The Priors seemed to live alone in the huge house, though Vanessa mentioned that someone came in to clean twice a week, and they had a part time gardener for the grounds.

'No cook, though,' Tegan said, and they all laughed.

Vanessa had rung for an Indian take-away, which contrary to its description had been delivered. Tegan loved Indian food, and the Doctor expressed his appreciation as well. Atkins confessed that he had never been to India or tried their cuisine. But he tucked in with as much enthusiasm as he ever showed, and before long was wiping his glistening brow with a crisp white handkerchief.

After dinner, the Doctor had suggested they get a good night's sleep. They had had a long day, and tomorrow promised to be a late night with Vanessa's birthday party in the evening.

Vanessa had already sorted out rooms for them all, expressing no apparent surprise at their lack of luggage, and offering to lend Tegan whatever she needed. Prior and his daughter bade their guests goodnight, and left them to find their own way upstairs.

Now Tegan, Atkins and the Doctor were sitting in the large room allocated to the Doctor. He had asked them if they could spare a minute for a quick conference before turning in. And already Tegan was beginning to worry that her few days of quiet might not be as relaxing as she had hoped.

'I've been working on deciphering the hieroglyphics from the secret room behind Nyssa's tomb over the last few days,' the Doctor explained. 'And I've made a fair bit of progress, though there's still a lot to work through.'

'Good news?' asked Tegan.

'No,' said the Doctor. 'Not really.'

Tegan and Atkins exchanged glances.

'Terrific,' said Tegan.

'I think you had better divulge whatever information you deem of significance, Doctor,' Atkins told him.

'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'Right.' He coughed, stood up, walked round the room, then sat down again. 'The second mummy, the one you found in the hidden chamber, Tegan, is Nephthys. Or at least, given it seemed human and Nephthys was an Osiran, it represents Nephthys. Whatever that means.'

'Is he making sense to you?' Tegan asked Atkins.

'Not at all. I was not even aware that there was a second room or mummy.'

The Doctor ignored them and continued: 'The inscriptions tell the story of Nephthys and how she secretly helped her husband Seth, also known as Sutekh, to kill Osiris. His son, Horus, imprisoned Sutekh forever beneath a great pyramid. The inscriptions say that he also imprisoned Nephthys, though they're a bit vague on where and how.'

'That is hardly a revelation, Doctor,' Atkins said. 'The legend is well known, although the exact part, if any, played by Nephthys has been a matter for some speculation.'

'Oh I agree. But these inscriptions are quite specific on certain points. And they tend to be the areas of Osiran influence. They don't just retell the myth, they doc.u.ment the actual events.'

Atkins shook his head. 'Actual events?'

Tegan said: 'It's all to do with these Osiran things the Doctor keeps going on about.' The Doctor took a deep breath. 'As I think I told you, the Osirans came from Phaester Osiris. They mastered the power of pure thought and used psi-power to project themselves through s.p.a.ce in capsules driven by the power of the mind. All their power was based on mathematical exactness, in the same way that the pyramids are exactly proportioned and aligned. That's how they focused their powers. They drew power from the alignment and geometry of certain star systems, which they then tempered with their minds and harnessed.'

'The pyramids?'

'Yes, the pyramids were built to the plans and instructions left by the Osirans after they visited Earth.'

Atkins considered. 'It would explain some of the history of ancient Egypt,'

he said. 'The country changed far more rapidly than anyone really believes is possible. They moved from a culture based round villages with chieftains to countries with kings in about two hundred years.'

The Doctor nodded. 'You'll also find that there is evidence that those kings were significantly taller and with much larger heads than their subjects. The Osirans not only left their mark in the style of architecture, they used their powers to project mental energy into their chosen rulers so that they and their descendants would follow through on the grand plan. Probably the pyramids had to be built exactly as they are for some great reason. Like keeping Sutekh and Nephthys restrained.'

'So who were Sutekh and Nephthys?'

'Sutekh was an evil Osiran of almost unparalleled mental power. The weight of it drove him mad, and he sought to destroy all life that was not his equal. He destroyed planet after planet and left a trail of havoc and devastation across half the cosmos before his brother Osiris caught up with him. Then, so far as I can tell, he and Nephthys killed Osiris, destroyed their planet, and fled to Earth.'

'Egypt?'

'Exactly. Horus and his fellow surviving Osirans cornered Sutekh and Nephthys in ancient Egypt. They overpowered them and imprisoned them.'

'So that's all right,' Tegan said. 'Isn't it?'

'Well, no actually, it isn't. You have to understand the Osiran mentality.

They were a cunning lot. Devious and enigmatic just for the sheer fun of it.

They wouldn't execute Sutekh or Nephthys as that would mean stooping to their level. But they didn't think just locking them up was good enough either.'

'So?'

'So they left the means for their escape just out of reach. Sutekh knew that in the next chamber to where he was kept paralysed was all the equipment he would need to build a pyramid-powered missile to destroy the power source that kept him captive. And he knew that there was an infinitesimally small chance that he would ever get to activate the Osiran service robots that would build and operate the missile.'

'Robots?' asked Tegan. She was beginning to feel apprehensive.

The Doctor nodded. 'Yes. Wrapped in protective bandages impregnated with chemicals to protect them from corrosion and decay.'

'So, the creatures that attacked the camp -' Atkins began.