To Your Scattered Bodies Go

Suddenly, an explosion made them jump. Some of the women screamed. They had forgotten about watching the grailstone. Burton turned just in time to see the blue flames soar up about twenty feet. The heat from the discharge could be felt by Brontich, who was about twenty feet from it.

Then the noise was gone, and they stared at the grails. Burton was the first upon the stone again; most of them did not care to venture on the stone too soon after the flames. He lifted the lid of his grail, looked within, and whooped with delight. The others climbed up and opened their own grails. Within a minute, they were seated near the fire eating rapidly, exclaiming with ecstasy, pointing out to each other what they’d found, laughing, and joking. Things were not so bad after all. Whoever was responsible for this was taking care of them.

There was food in plenty, even after fasting all day, or, as Frigate put it, "probably fasting for half of-eternity." He meant by this as he explained to Monat, that there was no telling hove much time had elapsed between AD 2008 and today. This world wasn’t built in a day, and preparing humanity for resurrection take more than seven days. That is, if all of this been brought about by scientific means, not by supernatural. Burton’s grail had yielded a four-inch cube of steak; a small ball of dark bread; butter; potatoes and gravy; lettuce with salad dressing of an unfamiliar but delicious taste. In addition, there was a five-ounce cup containing an excellent bourbon and another small cup with four ice cubes in it.

There was more, all the better because unexpected. A small briar pipe, A sack of pipe tobacco. Three cigars. A plastic package with ten cigarettes.

"Unfiltered!" Frigate said.

There was also one small brown cigarette which Burton and Frigate smelled and said, at the same time, "Marihuana!"

Alice, holding up a small metallic scissors and a black comb, said, "Evidently we’re going to get our hair back. Otherwise, there’d be no need for these. I’m so glad! But do … They really expect me to use this?" She held out a tube of bright red lipstick.

"Or me?" Frigate said, also looking at a similar tube.

"They’re eminently practical," Monat said, turning over a packet of what was obviously toilet paper. Then he pulled out sphere of green soap.

Burton’s steak was very tender, although he would have preferred it rare. On the other hand, Frigate complained because it was not cooked enough.

"Evidently, these grails do not contain menus tailored for the individual owner," Frigate said. "Which may be why we men also get lipstick and the women got pipes. It’s a mass production.

"Two miracles in one day," Burton said. "That is, if they are such. I prefer a rational explanation and intend to get it. I don’t think anyone can, as yet, tell me how we were resurrected. But perhaps you twentieth-centurians have a reasonable theory for the seemingly magical appearance of these articles in a previously empty container?"

"If you compare the exterior and interior of the grail," Monat said, "you will observe an approximate five-centimeter difference in depth. The false bottom must conceal a molar circuitry, which is able to convert energy to matter. The energy obviously comes during the discharge from the rocks. In addition to the converter, the grail must hold molar templates? … molds? … which form the matter into various combinations of and compounds.’

"I’m safe in my speculations, for we had a similar converter on my active planet. But nothing as miniature as this, I assure you."

"Same on Earth," Frigate said. "They were making iron out of pure energy before A.D. 2002, but it was a very cumbersome and expensive process with an almost microscopic yield."

"Good," Burton said. "All this has cost us nothing. So far…

He fell silent for a while, thinking of the dream he had when awakening.

"Pay up," God had said. "You owe for the flesh."

"What had that meant? On Earth, at Trieste, in 1890, he had been dying, in his wife’s arms and asking for… what? Chloroform? Something. He could not remember. Then, oblivion. And he had awakened in that nightmare place and had seen things that were not on Earth nor, as far as he knew, on this planet. But that experience had been no dream.

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