To Your Scattered Bodies Go

"Unless there is some entity attached to the human body, an entity which is the human being. I mean, it contains all that makes the individual what he is, and when the body is destroyed, this entity still exists. So that, if the body were to be made again, this entity, storing the essence of the individual, could be attached again to the body. And it would record every thing that the body recorded: And so the original individual would live again. He would not be just a duplicate."

Burton said, "For God’s sake, Pete! Are you proposing the soul?"

Frigate nodded and said, "Something analagous to the soul Something that the primitives dimly apprehended and called a soul." Göring laughed uproariously. Burton would have laughed, but he did not care to give Göring any support, moral or intellectual.

When Göring had quit laughing, he said, "Even here, in a world which is clearly the result of science, the supernaturalists won’t quit trying. Well, enough of that. To more practical and immediate matters. Tell me, have you changed your mind? Are you ready to join me?"

Burton glared and said, "I would not be under the orders of a man who rapes women; moreover, I respect the Israelis. I would rather be a slave with them than free with you." Göring scowled and said, harshly, "Very well. I thought as much. But I had hoped … well, I have been having trouble with the Roman. If he gets his way, you will see how merciful I have been to you slaves. You do not know him. Only my intervention has saved one of you being tortured to death every night for his amusement." At noon, the two returned to their work in the hills. Neither got a chance to speak to Targoff or any of the slaves, since their duties happened not to bring them into contact. They did not dare make an open attempt to talk to him, because that would have meant a severe beating.

After they returned to the stockade in the evening, Burton told the others what had happened.

"More than likely Targoff will not believe my story. He’ll think we’re spies. Even if he’s not certain, he can’t afford to take chances. So there’ll be trouble. It’s too bad that this had to happen. The escape plan will have to be cancelled for tonight" Nothing untoward took place — at first. The Israelis walked away from Burton and Frigate when they tried to talk to them. The stars came out, and the stockade was flooded with a light almost as bright as a full moon of Earth.

The prisoners stayed inside their barracks, but they talked is low voices with their heads together. Despite their deep tiredness, they could not sleep. The guards must have sensed the tension, even though they could not see or hear the men in the huts. They walked back and forth on the walks, stood together talking, and peered down into the enclosure by the light of the night sky and the flames of the resin torches.

"Targoff will do nothing until it rains," Burton said. He gave orders. Frigate was to stand first watch; Robert Spruce, the second; Burton, third. Burton lay down on his pile of leaves and, ignoring the murmuring of voices and the moving around of bodies, fell asleep.

It seemed that he had just closed his eyes when Spruce touched him. He rose quickly to, his feet, yawned, and stretched. The others were all awake. Within a few minutes, the first of the clouds formed. In ten minutes, the stars were blotted out. Thunder grumbled way up in the mountains, and the first lightning flash forked the sky.

Lightning struck near. Burton saw by its flash that the guards were huddled under the roofs sticking out from the base of the watch houses at each corner of the stockade. They were covered with towels against the chill and the rain.

Burton crawled from his barracks to the next. Targoff was standing inside the entrance.

Burton stood up and said, "Does the plan still hold?"

"You know better than that," Targoff said. A bolt of lightning showed his angry face. "You Judas!" He stepped forward, and a dozen men followed him. Burton did not wait; he attacked. But, as he rushed forward, he heard a strange sound. He paused to look" out through the door. Another flash revealed a guard sprawled face down in the grass beneath a walk.

Targoff had put his fists down when Burton turned his back on him. He said, "What’s going on, Burton?"

"Wait," the Englishman replied. He had no more idea than the Israeli did about what was happening, but anything unexpected could be to his advantage.

Lightning illuminated the squat figure of Kazz on the wooden walk. He was swinging a huge stone axe against a group of guards who were in the angle formed by the meeting of the two walls. Another flash. The guards were sprawled out on the walk. Darkness. At the next blaze of light, another was down; the remaining two were running away down the walk in different directions.

Another bolt very near the wall showed that, finally, the other guards were aware of what was happening. They ran down the walk, shouting and waving their spears.