* * *
Osiris’ face was a pallid green. Liz blamed it on Mac’s “brandy.” After all, she’d stopped them attaching the gall bladder to the heart valves. It could also have been the frieze of coiled cobras on the small roof above him. Occasionally they stirred. That would have been enough to make most people green.
In the middle of the hall stood an enormous balance, with burnished brass pans. Lamont, complete with a funerary shroud, was led off to sit among the judges.
* * *
“Don’t stare,” hissed Jerry to Henri, whose mustachios were bristling fiercely as he peered at the scale’s attendant. Jerry was trying not to stare himself. The goddess Maat, she of truth and justice, was depicted in several papyrus scrolls as having been clad in a garment that started just below the breasts. They’d got it right. . . .
They dragged their attention to what was happening at the doorway. The person there was dressed in the remains of a uniform. Well, his shade was dressed in what would have been a uniform if it had been any more substantial. It wasn’t.
He stepped over the threshold. Anubis hauled him back, not bothering to be gentle. Obviously those jackal teeth could still hurt whatever this was. He stood. Anubis pushed him forward. So he stepped into the room. Anubis hauled him back by the scruff of the neck.
“Kiss the threshold,” said Jerry in a stage whisper.
The strange ghost looked horrified. “Kiss the floor? But that’s so unhygienic,” he said fastidiously, backing off.
Jerry took a deep breath. “You’re dead, in an Egyptian myth. I think worrying about germs is the least of your problems, and it is a bit late to think about health hazards.”
The language obviously suddenly registered. “You speak English! Thank God!”
Jerry had an upwelling of sympathy for the shade. “Yes . . . ”
“Go in, mortal soul. But kiss the threshold,” snapped Anubis testily.
“Better do it,” said Jerry.
The once-uniformed man staggered in and kissed the doorsill. Then said: “Please, please translate. I’ve learned about ten words in the construction gang, and they’re not getting me very far. ‘Stop hitting me’ is real useful but doesn’t make for communication.” He looked closely at Jerry. “Ah. Dr. Lukacs, I believe? You’re one of that large party that went missing.”
“Yes. We’re all here. How do you know? Who are you?”
“Captain Michael Halstrom. I am—ah, was part of Professor Tremelo’s research team. I’m an Army psychologist detailed to put together profiles of the snatchees. You were a very atypical group. The largest since the pyramid started operating a few days ago.”
“A few days? We’ve been here for weeks!”
Anubis shoved Halstrom. “Go on, mortal soul. Greet the judges. You must then answer to each and every one. Then your soul must be weighed against the feather of Maat.”
“What did he say?” whined the Army psychologist.
* * *
Halstrom had done his rounds of all the judges. Talking to him as he walked, Jerry learned that back in Chicago the pyramid just kept on expanding. It had expanded enormously just after the trial of the neutron device. Halstrom hadn’t been supposed to know about it, but the story had leaked out. They were in the process of being evacuated further back when he’d been snatched.
The alien pyramid was still snatching, still growing. So far, to the point where Halstrom found himself among the peasants in the pyramid construction team, pulling huge limestone blocks up a ramp lubricated with fresh Nile mud.
Nearly a thousand people had vanished, in toto. Most of them came back dead within a few hours. The research team had already worked out that the victims had been gone for longer than just the elapsed time.
The last judge hiccupped. “Who won the Super Bowl in 1999?” “she” demanded.
* * *
The feather was an enormous one. And it was made of gold. Amemait the devourer—part hippopotamus, part lion, part crocodile—was already licking his lips in anticipation when Halstrom got onto the scale.
Thoth verified the weight. “Hmm. These many hours of playing ‘Free Cell’ at work, O foreign magician, you say that it is a religious observance? One of great respect to the hierarchical position of the black and the red Kings? Religious observances are permitted during working time. We can give him some credit for that.”