To Your Scattered Bodies Go

"My own people," Monat said, "had a theory that they would eventually be able to see into their past. I won’t go into the details, but it was possible that past events could be visually detected and then recorded. Time travel, of course, was sheer fantasy. But what if your culture was able to do what we only theorized about? What if you recorded every single human being that had ever lived? Located this planet and constructed this Rivervalley? Somewhere, maybe under the very surface of this planet, used energy-matter conversion, say from the heat of this planet’s molten core, and the recordings to re-create the bodies of the dead in the tanks? Used biological techniques to rejuvenate the bodies and to restore limbs, eyes, and so on and also to correct any physical defects?"

"Then," Monat continued, "you made more recordings of the newly created bodies and stored them in some vast memory-tank? Later, you destroyed the bodies in the tanks? Re-created them again through means of the conductive metal, which is also used to charge the grails? These could be buried beneath the ground. The resurrection then occurs without recourse to supernatural means.

"The big question is, why?"

"If you had it in your power to do all this, would you not think it was your ethical duty?" Spruce asked.

"Yes, but I would resurrect only those worth resurrecting."

"And what if others did not accept your criteria?" Spruce said. "Do you really think you are wise enough and good enough to judge? Would you place yourself on a level with God? No, all must be given a second chance, no matter how bestial or selfish or petty or stupid. Then, it will be up to them…" He fell silent, as if he had regretted his outburst and meant to say no more.

"Besides," Monat said, "you would want to make a study of humanity as it existed in the past. You would want to record all the languages that man ever spoke, his mores, his philosophies, biographies. To do this, you need agents, posing as resurrectees, to mingle with the Riverpeople and to take notes, to observe, to study. How long will this study take? One thousand years? Two? Ten? A million? "And what about the eventual disposition of us? Are we to stay here forever?’

"You will stay here as long as it takes for you to be rehabilitated," Spruce shouted. "Then . ." He closed his mouth, glared, then opened it to say, "Continued contact with you makes even the toughest of us take on your characteristics. We have to go through a rehabilitation ourselves. Already, I feel unclean. .’

"Put him over the fire," Targoff said. "We’ll get the entire truth."

"No, you won’t!" Spruce cried "I should have done this long ago! Who knows what. .’

He fell to the ground, and his skin changed to a gray-blue color. Doctor Steinborg, a Councilman, examined him, but it was apparent to all that he was dead.

Targoff said, "Better take him away now, doctor. Dissect him. We’ll wait here for your report."

"With stone knives, no chemicals, no microscopes, what kind of a report can you expect?" Steinborg said. "But I’ll do my best." The body was carried off.

Burton said, "I’m glad he didn’t force us to admit we were bluffing. If he had kept his mouth shut, he could have defeated us."

"Then you really weren’t going to torture him?" Frigate said. "I was hoping you didn’t mean your threat. If you had, I was going to walk out then and there and never see any of you again."

"Of course we didn’t mean it," Ruach said. "Spruce would have been right. We’d have been no better than Göring. But we could have tried other means. Hypnotism for instance. Burton, Monat, and Steinborg were experts in that field."

"The trouble is, we still don’t know if we did get the truth," Targoff said. "Actually, he may have been lying. Monat supplied some guesses, and, if these were wrong, Spruce could have led us astray by agreeing with Monat. I’d say we can’t be at all sure." They agreed on one thing. Their chances of detecting another agent through the absence of symbols on the forehead would be gone. Now that They — whoever They were — knew about the visibility of the characters to Kazz’s species, They would take the proper measures to prevent detection.

Steinborg returned three hours later. "There is nothing to distinguish him from any other member of Homo sapiens. Except this one little device." He held up a black shiny ball about the size of a matchhead.

"I located this on the surface of the forebrain. It was attached to some nerves by wires so thin that I could see them only at a certain angle, when they caught the light. It’s my opinion that Spruce killed himself by means of this device and that he did so by literally thinking himself dead. Somehow, this little ball translated a wish for death into the deed. Perhaps, it reacted to the thought by releasing a poison which I do not have facilities for analyzing." He concluded his report and passed the ball around to the others.

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