AN: Full disclosure, I didn't quite think this out as well as I should have done so I had to go rewrite a bit of the previous chapter – basically, the forcefield stopping them getting into the bowels of the pyramid was permanently deactivated instead of temporarily, because it was the only thing I could think to do to enable the plot to actually move forwards.

Ancient Astronauts

Eleven

It was one of the biggest motherships he had ever seen. It lay, lopsided and wedged halfway into the dirt, in a humungous cavern of indescribable size. It was as though the Grand Canyon had been given a rooftop and then buried, an abominably huge space beneath the Giza Plateau hiding quite possibly the single most significant archaeological and technological discovery in all of human history. An alien craft, so large its precise shape was indistinguishable, taking up space under all three of the Great Pyramids above. They were on a sandstone ridge overlooking the monster, with carved likenesses of the gods running around the edges of the room like Mount Rushmore, only a thousand times more spectacular and glistening with golden paint, all of it illuminated by bizarre blue flames in torch brackets around the walls. Never had he thought something as extraordinary as this would be hidden in the Sahara, hidden so well, for in all his days he had never heard anything of this thing being discovered. It had lain there for millennia, undisturbed, and now it was silent.

He was perhaps misguided when he decided to make the short leap from their stone ridge to the closest rim of the spaceship, especially given his incredibly achy cobra bite, and he stumbled and lost his footing with a metallic clatter. Ordinarily, he may have been chastised for this, but Rory, Amy and River were much too awestruck by what they had found to even pay attention to what the Doctor was doing. He regained his balance and then crouched again – wincing – in order to place his hand flat on the metal surface of the spaceship. Beneath his skin it felt like ice, a sure sign that it had been inactive for a considerable amount of time. When he rapped his knuckles on it, the noise rang out, hollow. It was abandoned alright, and had been ever since those pyramids had been erected originally.

"This is an impact crater," River finally said, "It crashed here." Looking around, the Doctor acknowledged that she was right. It was larger because of the images of Anubis and Ra and Amun and whoever else carved out of the walls. In an effort to ascribe this piece of machinery to their deities, the Egyptians had made the crater into a grand and royal chamber.

"Nothing left in it now," said the Doctor, "I wonder where they went… probably picked up and evacuated."

"But it's huge," said Amy, "Are you seriously saying that aliens built the pyramids?"

"No," he said, "I think humans built the pyramids on top of this spaceship."

"Why? So they wouldn't forget where they buried it?"

He shrugged, pacing carefully on top of the metal hull, "Maybe? It's still exponentially dangerous. A ship this size probably has defence mechanisms, weapons – if somebody found a way to activate it, they could change all of human history, potentially destroy the planet. Especially in this era, they'd be unopposed. Even the Roman Empire couldn't take on an alien mothership in a fight."

"And we're just supposed to believe nobody has ever found this?"

"That's not true," said the Doctor, "We've found it."

"Yes," said River, "Much too easily."

"So you keep saying."

"Maybe we should get rid of it?" she suggested.

"Get rid of it how?" he frowned, looking up at them all gathered on the ledge, "I don't know where it came from or how to fly it, and it's much too big to teleport. It would be like trying to teleport an entire spacestation! And while it's simple enough to transport the population of a spacestation, the actual space station is… well, it's very heavy, for one thing. And even if we could fly it, removing it would probably destroy the Great Pyramids!"

"Maybe we could replace them?" Amy suggested.

"Replace them? The Pyramids?"

"With holograms."

"I don't think anybody would fall for that," he said.

"So, what? We just leave it here?"

"It's been left here for two-thousand five-hundred years without anybody stumbling across it," he said. "I don't see a reason why anyone should start now."

"You can't be serious. There's a bloke out there digging already," she told him in disbelief. He said nothing, just looked around at the immense ship beneath his feet. "Doctor?"

River scoffed dismissively, "He has no idea what to do."

"I think the solution will present itself."

"Well can the solution hurry up? It's cold down here." She had her arms crossed tightly about her person.

"I hate to point out that you're wearing practically nothing," he said. That was the wrong thing to say. Rory was frightened on Eleven's behalf after that comment was made about his wife, and he distinctly looked like a man who was dying to get out of the way of any immediate danger. Amy was furious.

"You're too used to being able to say whatever you like to Clara. But I'm not Clara. I'll hurt you." Eleven was intimidated enough that he resisted the urge to point out that Clara would probably hurt Amy back in retaliation, and potentially a lot worse. He was saved from having to apologise, however, by the arrival of some most unwelcome guests. The guests he had really been waiting for, all along – the cherry on his cake: Sati and his gang of wannabe archaeologists. Eleven repositioned himself so that his wounded leg was not so obvious, putting his hands in his trouser pockets and trying to look authoritative. This was tricky because he was still standing on the ship's hull, and was therefore a few feet lower than everybody else. His head was just about level with the edge of the ridge.

"Sati! I was wondering when you were going to show up, my old pal. You see, Amelia. I said the solution will present itself."

"This isn't a solution," Rory hissed, "They're heavily armed."

"So is River," he said, nodding at her. River glared at him and shook her head. "What? You're…? But you're always armed!"

"I didn't think I would need a weapon when we were just coming here to see the sights," she said angrily. And of course neither of the Ponds would be armed. Where was his daughter when you needed her? She always had at least three firearms on her at a given moment. But he did have one trick left up his sleeve, an ace in the hole… River was watching him closely.

"I knew you were more than a mere physician," Sati said to Eleven. He had a dozen men with him, and they all had bows with arrows loaded into them.

"Yes, I have a lot of talents," he said, "For example, I consider myself to have a phenomenal amount of integrity. I would never poison people on purpose and force them out of their own homes, just to try and get my hands on – what? What did you think you were going to find? The tomb of your Pharaoh is a good few hundred metres above us in a different room. You've missed out on that. Is this your trophy? This thing?" He kicked the top of the ship with his heel, flinching, and it clanged. "What are you going to do with it?"

"You shouldn't have made the light wall vanish," said Sati in a cruel way. He was a twisted man. He looked deceptively wizened. "I've been listening to you. Even the Roman Empire couldn't defeat this... construction. The knowledge a vessel like this holds about us, about the world, about the gods themselves who must have sent it here – the sheer, unopposed power. I could rule for a hundred years, a thousand years! My bloodline could live on using the power of this object. You are going to witness the birth of the Great Egyptian Empire, the largest empire that will ever exist. This machine, it will teach me everything. It will tear apart the jewels and treasures of Khufu and scatter them like dust – how could gold mean anything when compared with this wonder? I would not have to pay people to work for me. They would do it out of fear alone, fear and worship. I can walk among the gods, I can become a god. And here you are, so big yet so small, insignificant. You are like the fly on the back of the hippo standing on that thing, it will not even respond to your presence. But I am a man of stature, of ambition, I am a puppeteer and it will bend to my will and then the population of Egypt will bend to my will, and then Greece, and Rome, and what is left after that? Stragglers who will submit to me or be crushed. And you, Doctor, and your unusual friends, your friends who came into the Great Pyramid of Khufu and home of the original ingenious progenitors of civilisation without a single weapon. Without even a stone to strike down on my head! Bah! You are ridiculous, and you will die as silently as the people in the village do, slowly and painfully and thinking the wrath of the gods is smiting them. But you will be different, because you will know the wrath of the gods is smiting you, the gods as directed by me!" Silence. Amy, Rory and River were watching the Doctor. He was going to have to do something – improvise. He cleared his throat.

"Good speech, very powerful, went on a bit though," he said, "I'd probably give you a seven out of ten for expression. A three out of ten for originality. Had some good metaphors, but the sentiment is very old hat. But I suppose any take-over-the-world scheme gets a bit boring when you've seen every episode of Pinky and the Brain."

"What is this? Do you not fear me?"

"No," he shrugged, "You and your bow and arrows? Do you see this ship? I've made whole fleets of hundreds of ships the size of this thing turn around at the mention of my name. Anyway, your quest for knowledge and power is a little bit glum. I don't think you'd be able to unlock the secrets of this ship no matter how hard you tried-"

"Try, Doctor. I will try. I will succeed."

"I doubt that. I'm here to stop you. As I was saying, knowledge isn't the answer to everything – there's all kinds of things I don't know. I didn't know who built the pyramids or why when I showed up here this morning. I don't know why Stonehenge was built, either – though I suspect it's something to do with a giant game of novelty croquet. And most of all, I don't understand why Kit-Kats come wrapped in tinfoil and in a plastic wrapper. This is why the oceans are so polluted, you know, because of Kit-Kats. Now, I don't like empires and I especially don't like 'ultimate power', but if you're dying in your craving for it, I suppose I can show you for a brief moment exactly what ultimate power looks like."

The Eleventh Doctor dug around in his pocket and drew something out, something which made River Song's day, but nobody else understood its significance. A small, round sphere, about the size of an apple, covered in Gallifreyan etchings and glowing vividly gold when it rested in his palm.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed triumphantly. He pretended like he hadn't heard her, holding up the Singularity for all to see. It was tiny compared to the havoc it could reach, like the reaction inside of an atomic bomb, or the cataclysms within a star.

"This is a lost relic, of my people, so dangerous it had to be locked away. In a place a lot like this. And my daughter made me vow to destroy it, but I suppose we're kindred spirits in a way, you and I. Because I just couldn't let it go, something as significant to me as I suppose these pyramids are to you. But that was a mistake," he looked at it in his hands, then lifted it and said mockingly, "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!"

"You are a madman," said Sati.

"Mmm. I get that a lot. You enjoy the company of this spaceship so much, I'll be very happy to grant your wish and let you spend eternity in its arms. This is a tomb, after all."

Jack and Jenny and even River to some degree had never even touched upon what the Singularity could do. It was so much more than just an object to emulate the abilities of Rose Tyler. The time vortex merely flowed through her, this device absorbed it, harnessed it, used it in a phenomenally cruel way. Part of the reason it had been locked up never to be used to begin with. It could control anything and everything, he had the raw power of existence quite literally between his fingertips. River had been right about him, like she always was, and in using it he felt as though he had betrayed his relationship with his daughter. But he was going to make it right, all of it, including the fact that there was a gigantic spaceship hidden right outside of Cairo. He only had to think about it to make it happen.

The Singularity began to glow impossibly brightly, going nuclear, hot in his hands like the heat of the sun on the surface above. It was too late when Sati realised that something very bad was about to happen to him. The Ponds looked frightened; River looked concerned, but still had some traces of that smugness in her expression. Smugness that she knew him so well and knew his flaws enough that she trusted others to be able to subconsciously exploit them.

"Shoot them! Shoot them now! I want that orb!" Sati ordered to no avail. The arrows were released from their bows but the four members of the TARDIS crew disappeared in an instance, only to rematerialise with a very bumpy landing somewhere as dark as the caverns and just as cold. But windier, much windier, and there were stars shining above them. Then someone pushed him very aggressively.

"What the hell was that!?" Amy demanded, "What is this thing!?" she tried to snatch the Singularity out of his hand.

"A WMD, I think," said River, acting like she didn't know exactly what it was. He took in their surroundings; there was no doubting it, they were now on top of the Pyramid of Khufu, where once a golden-painted cap had sat but had since been robbed or broken or melted. Now there was flat stone and a view which was to die for, and he could see the expanse of desert for miles upon miles all around.

"You've been carrying this around with you this whole time!?" Amy exclaimed.

"You hate weapons," added Rory.

"It isn't just a weapon," he said, "It controls the universe. On Rospaonus, this is what they found. River, Jack, and Jenny."

"Someone who thought they were a 'chosen one' was trying to get it. Called himself the Conqueror. Jenny made him promise to destroy it, did she not?"

"I…" his arms fell by his sides. "I will. For her. It's too much, it's too dangerous."

"What did you do? Just teleport us out?" Rory asked.

"No. I used some old Time Lord tricks. The TARDIS can make herself into an endless maze if she wants to. I merely mimicked that ability, with this pyramid. Nobody is going to find anything in there ever again except for the very limited areas of Khufu's tomb and a few air vents. Make them think that's the only secret these pyramids hold. A transdimensional maze down there, and Sati is trapped in it. He's going to be on the other side of the wall to that ship for the rest of his life, unable to reach it and unable to leave," he said. It was a very foul thing to have done, and he blamed the Singularity for that. The thing was evil, as far as an inanimate object could be evil, and he did not like that it had given him the ability – the permission, almost – to do something so heinous. Even if it was for the greater good. His hand tightened around it and he put it back in his pocket. He had also healed his leg while he had it at his disposal; Clara was never going to find out about his snake bite. But when he thought of his current wife, he couldn't help but let his thoughts wander to his ex, standing there beneath the desert stars, overlooking Egypt for miles all around. "This was where we got married, was it not?"

She laughed. "I think you might be right. A very fragile parallel universe collapsed around us."

"Funny how it was 'Area 52.' Who knew that it really has been hiding the existence of extra-terrestrial life, all this time?" he mused, going to stand next to her. She took his arm, observing the view, and talked to him very quietly.

"I'm going to check that you've destroyed it, you know," she warned him.

"Of course I will. I know of a very reliable black hole; did you ever hear of Krop Tor? That's where I met the devil."

"You've told me that story a lot."

"It's a good story. K37 Gem 5, that's where this thing belongs. You can tag along, if you like. You're a Time Lord, after all. Witness the destruction of one of the most amazing things they ever created. Well, after me." Behind them, Amy Pond cleared her throat and River slid her arm out of Eleven's. They turned to face her.

"This is all well and good, and I'm glad that you two are flirting again, but now can we please go and see the Sphinx?"