“Oh, brother,” Leo said, taking advantage of Regan’s momentary confusion to voice his objection to her tale… and thereby filling the gap just as Fortunato made another attempt to get Lilliana’s attention. “The sphinx? As in the creature from Oedipus Rex?”
“The very same,” Regan said. “With the wings o’ a snake an’… wait, hold on a tick. It had… well, the details o’ its appearance aren’t important, ’cause as everyone knows, no man can look upon the sphinx or he or she will be turned to stone, an’ she was eatin’ everybody who tried to get in or out o’ Sol if they couldn’t answer her riddle.”
“So an ancient monster from Old Earth had blocked the only route into and out of a stellar system,” Leo said. “And it was stopping spaceships, asking each person on board a riddle, and then eating them if they failed to answer.”
“Good, ya were payin’ attention,” Regan said.
“How would it even get the spaceships to stop?” Leo asked.
“They had to. She was blockin’ the path, like.”
“They couldn’t have just rammed it?” Leo asked. “Great big ship traveling at ship-traveling speeds versus beast made out of beasts. Seems like it would be no contest.”
“Ya’d think so, but ya’d be wrong,” Regan said. “So, anyway, the sphinx had this riddle, see, an’…”
“Would this riddle be about things walking on legs?”
“It would, at that,” Regan said. “Only it had been updated for a new millennium on account o’ everybody havin’ heard the old version. The new riddle was ‘what walks on four legs in the mornin’, two legs in the middle o’ the day, an’ three in the evenin’… an’ isn’t man.‘”
“Clever,” Leo said.
“Devilishly clever,” Regan said. “So, I’m on a passenger ship, right? An’ we’re headin’ into Sol an’…”
“Because regular passenger service wasn’t suspended on account of a monster from German mythology,” Leo said.
“Australian, actually,” Lilliana said knowledgeably. “Freud was Australian.”
“It’s the same thing,” Leo said.
“An’ purely by coincidence, I was sittin’ in the last row on the liner,” Regan said. “Well, it wasn’t pure coincidence. I’d staked that seat out on account o’ it bein’ so close to the heads, but that’s a whole separate story an’ one I’ll be more than happy to come back to… anyway, the ship stops an’ on comes the sphinx, all wings an’ tail an’ bits an’ she starts demandin’ everybody try to answer her riddle, an’ I don’t pay her a lot o’ heed at first ’cause I figure it’s just somethin’ I missed out on in the pre-flight thing on account o’ running for the… well, that’s the other story. But by the time she got down to me, I’d pretty well sussed out what was what an’ so when she asks me the riddle, I look her square in the eye an’ I tell her it’s me.”
“You walk on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday, and three in the evening?” Leo asked.
“Not as you’d notice,” Regan said. “But luck was with me: accordin’ to the onboard chronometers, it was just a quarter past fourteen, so I pointed to me two legs. I told her that if she hadn’t eaten everybody else up, I was sure somebody’d have verified I’d had two more just like ‘em in the mornin’ an’ if she cared to stick around the rest of the day I’d show her me third leg.” Regan winked. “I would’ve, too… she was kind o’ feisty, ya know? But she was also in a hurry. There were a lot o’ other ships to waylay. Only route in an’ out o’ Sol’s bound to be busy.”
“Even when every single person who took it was getting eaten,” Leo said.
“The world o’ interstellar commerce doesn’t stop for little things like that,” Regan said. “Anyway, there was some slight dispute there, as I am undeniably a man. I held that her riddle had been referrin’ to the totality of mankind rather than any specific man, but she pointed out that I was practically the literal embodiment o’ manliness and so there was room for some interpretation. An’ I had to admit it was a fair cop, so we split the difference an’ she only ate half o’ me.”
“She ate half of you,” Leo said.
“She did,” Regan said. “I used to be a lot bigger. Actually, that puts me in mind o’ another story…”
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