They speculated for a while about why and how they had been resurrected and who could have done it. They also talked about why the growth of facial hair in men was inhibited, why all males had awakened circumcised, and why women had their hymens restored before resurrection. As for not needing to shave, half the men thought it a good thing while the other half resented not being able to grow moustaches and beards.
There was also some wonder about why the grails of both men and women occasionally yielded lipstick and other cosmetics.
Frigate said that he thought that their benefactors probably did not like to shave and that both their sexes painted their faces. That was, to him, the only reasonable explanation.
Then Alice brought up Burton's experience in the preresurrection bubble. This got everybody's attention, but he told them that he had no memory of that. He'd suffered a blow on his head which had wiped out all recollection of it.
As always, when he told this lie, he caught Monat smiling slightly at him. He suspected that the Arcturan guessed that he was prevaricating. However, the fellow had never said so. He respected Burton's reasons for concealment even if he did not know what they were.
Frigate and Alice recounted Burton's tale as they remembered it. They made several mistakes, which he, of course, could not correct.
"If that is so," a man said, "then the resurrection isn't a supernatural thing. It was done through scientific means. Amazing!"
"Yes, it is," Alice said. "But why are we no longer resurrected? Why has death, permanent death, returned?"
A gloomy pensiveness fell upon them for a minute.
Kazz broke it by saying, "There is one thing which Burton-naq has not forgotten. That's the business with Spruce. The agent of the Ethicals."
That brought forth more questions.
"What are Ethicals?"
Burton took a long drink of scotch and launched into the story. At one time, he said, he and his party had been captured by grail-slavers. There was no need to explain this word. Everybody had had some experience with grail-slavers.
Burton told them how his boat had been attacked and how they had been put into a stockade. Thereafter, they had left it only to work under a heavy guard. All of their tobacco, marijuana, dreamgum, and liquor were taken by their captors. Moreover, these kept half of the food for themselves, leaving their prisoners on a bare-minimum diet.
After a few months, Burton and a man named Targoff had led a successful revolt against the slavers.
Chapter 24
* * *
"A few days after we'd won our freedom, Frigate, Monat, and Kazz came to me. They greeted me, and then Kazz spoke excitedly.
"A long time ago, before I could speak English good, I see something. I try to tell you then, but you don't understand me. I see a man who don't have this on his forehead.'
"My friend here, my naq, as he calls it in his speech, indicated the center of his forehead and that of all of us.
"Kazz then said, 'I know you can't see it. Pete and Monat can't either. Nobody else can. But I see it on everybody's forehead. Except on that man I try to catch long time ago. Then, one day, I see a woman who don't have it, but I don't say nothing to you. Now, I see a third who don't have it.'
"I still did not understand. Monat, however, explained.
" 'He means that he is able to perceive certain symbols of characters on the forehead of each and every one of us. He can see these only in bright sunlight and at a certain angle. But everyone he's ever seen has had those symbols – except for the three he's mentioned.'
"Frigate added that Kazz somehow could see a little further into the color spectrum than non-Neanderthals could. Into the ultraviolet, as a matter of fact, since the symbols were bluish. At least that is the way Kazz described them. All of us, except certain individuals, seem to bear this mark. As if we're branded cattle. Since that time, Kazz, and his woman Besst, have observed these on people's foreheads, when the lighting conditions were right, of course."
This news, as always, resulted in astonishment, indignation, and even shock. Burton waited until the furor died down before speaking.
"Some of you late-twentieth-centurians may know that the so-called Neanderthal man was reclassified. The anthropologists decided that he was not a separate species but a variant of Homo sapiens. Nevertheless, just as he differed somewhat in physical build and teeth from us, he also has the ability to see into the ultraviolet."
Besst said, "I am not a Neanderthal man but a woman, and I, too, have this ability."
Burton grinned and said, "Women's lib has penetrated into the Old Stone Age. However, let me point out that events will show that Whoever made this world and stamped us with, in a manner of speaking, the mark of the beast, did not know that Homo neanderthalis had a special visual ability. This means that Whoever is not omniscient.
"To resume my narrative. I asked for the identity of the person who lacked the symbol. Frigate replied, 'Robert Spruce!'
'' Spruce had also been a grail slave. He claimed to be an Englishman born in 1945. That was about all I knew of him.
"I said that we would get him and question him. Frigate told me that we'd have to catch him because he was probably long gone. It seems that Kazz told Spruce he'd noticed Spruce lacked the mark on his forehead. Spruce had turned pale, and a few minutes later he left hurriedly. Frigate and Monat sent search parties out, but at the time they reported to me he hadn't been found.
"It seemed to me that his flight was an admission of guilt, though I didn't know what he was guilty of. A few hours later, he was discovered hiding in the hills. He was brought before the newly formed council of our newly formed state. Spruce was pale and trembling, though he looked us straight in the eye defiantly enough.
"I informed him that we suspected that he was an agent for the Ethicals if not an Ethical himself. I also told him that we would go to any lengths, including torture, to get the truth from him. This was a lie, since we would have been no better than the men who'd enslaved us if we had resorted to torture. Spruce, however, did not know that.
"Spruce said, 'You may be denying yourself eternal life if you torture me. It will at least set you far back on your journey, delay your final goal.' "
"I asked him what that final goal was, but he ignored that question. Instead, he said, 'We can't stand pain. We're too sensitive.' "
"There was some more exchange, but he would not answer our questions. Then one of the councillors suggested that he be suspended above a fire. Monat spoke up then. He told Spruce that he was from a culture somewhat more advanced than that of Earth's. He felt he was more qualified to make guesses about the truth than the rest of us, and no one argued with him about this. Monat said that he would like to spare him the pain of the fire and also the pain of betraying his trust. Perhaps Monat could make some speculations about the Ethicals and their agents, and Spruce could merely affirm or deny the speculations. In this way, Spruce would not be making a positive betrayal of his trust, whatever that was."
Bill Owain said, "That was a peculiar arrangement."
"True. But Monat hoped to get him to talking. You see, we were not going to use any brutal methods of inquisition. If we couldn't scare him, then we were going to try hypnosis. Both Monat and I are skilled mesmerists. However, as it turned out, we didn't have to resort to that.
"Monat said, 'It's my theory that you are a Terrestrial. You come from an age chronologically far past 2008 A.D. In fact, you are a descendant of the few people who survived the death beam projected from our orbital ship.' Monat guessed that the technology and energy required to reconstruct this planet into one vast Rivervalley was very advanced. He suggested that Spruce was born in the fiftieth century A.D.
"Spruce replied that he should add two thousand years.
"Monat then said that not everyone had been resurrected. There wasn't enough room on this world. It was known that no children who had died before the age of five were here. And though it couldn't be proved, it seemed likely that no imbec
iles and idiots had been resurrected here. Nor was anyone who lived after 2008 A.D., with the exception of Spruce here."
"Where were these people?"
"Spruce answered that they were elsewhere, and that was all he would say on the subject."
Monat then asked him how the people of the Earth had been recorded. That is, what device had the Ethicals used to make recordings of our bodies? Since it was obvious that scientific, not supernatural, means were used to resurrect us, that meant that everyone from the Old Stone Age to 2008 A.D. had somehow been observed, the structure of every cell of a person's body recorded, and this recording was stored somewhere to be used later in the recreation of the body.
Monat said that the recordings must be placed in an energy-matter converter, whereupon the body was duplicated. The effects of injuries, wounds, and diseases that had caused death were cancelled. Amputated limbs and organs were restored. I myself saw some of this regeneration process when I awoke in the preresurrection space. Also, those aged past twenty-five were rejuvenated.
Monat further speculated that the bodies in the PR bubble were destroyed after the regeneration process was completed. But recordings of the new bodies had been made, and these recordings were used in the final stage, the great resurrection, when all of us appeared together on that never-to-be-forgotten day.
Monat supposed that the resurrection was accomplished through the metal of the grailstone system. That is, all the stones are connected deep underground to form a circuit of some sort, and the energy is supplied from the hot nickle-iron core of this planet.
Monat then said, 'The big question is why?' Spruce said, 'If you had it in your power to do all this, would you not think it your ethical duty?
Monat said that he would think so. But he would bring back to life only those who deserve a second life.
Spruce became angry then. He replied that Monat was setting himself up as an equal of God. Everybody, no matter how stupid, selfish, petty, brutal, etcetera, must be given another chance to redeem themselves, to make themselves worthy. It would not be done for them; they must, somehow, lift themselves by their own moral bootstraps.
"Monat asked Spruce how long this process would take. A thousand years? Two? A million?
"Spruce became angry, and he shouted, 'You will stay here as long as it takes you to be rehabilitated! Then . . .'
"He paused, glaring at us as if he hated us, and he said, 'Continued contact with you makes even the toughest of us take on your characteristics. We then have to go through a rehabilitation process ourselves. Already, I feel unclean . . .'
"One of the councillors, wishing to press him, urged that he be put over the fire until he would talk freely.
"Spruce cried, 'No, you won't! I should have done this long ago! Who knows what . . .' "
Burton paused dramatically.
"Then Spruce fell dead!"
There were gasps, and someone said, "Mein Gott!"
"Yes, but that isn't the end of the story. Spruce's body was taken away for dissection. It seemed too coincidental that he should have had a heart attack. Not only was it too convenient for him, it was unheard of.
"While he was being dissected, we discussed what happened. Some thought that he was lying to us. Or, at least, only giving us half-truths. We did agree on one thing. That was that there were people in this Valley who were agents of the Ethicals or perhaps the Ethicals themselves. These did not bear the mark on their foreheads.
"But it seemed likely that we would not be able to distinguish them anymore by using Kazz's peculiar visual powers. Spruce would be resurrected wherever their headquarters was. He would report to the others that we now knew about the symbols. And of course they would put the mark on their agents."
"This would take time, and in the meantime Kazz might detect others. But this has not happened. Neither he nor Besst has seen anybody unmarked. Again, of course, this does not mean too much. They have to get a close look under certain conditions to see the mark."
"Three hours later, the surgeon reported to us. There was nothing remarkable about Spruce. Nothing to distinguish him from, other members of Homo sapiens."
Once more, Burton paused.
"Except for one small item! This was a very tiny black sphere! The doctor had found it on the surface of Spruce's forebrain. It was attached to the cerebral nerves by extremely thin wires. This led us to conclude that Spruce had literally thought, or wished, himself to die."
"Somehow, the sphere interacted with his mental processes in such a manner that he could think himself dead. Perhaps he thought of a certain code sequence, and this released a poison into his system. The doctor could find no evidence of this, but then he lacked the necessary chemical means to make an accurate analysis."
"In any event, Spruce's body showed no damage. Something had stopped his heart, but the doctor did not know what that was.''
A woman said, "Then there could be such people among us? Now, here, in this group?"
Burton nodded, and everybody started talking at once. After fifteen minutes of this babel, he stood up and indicated to his crew that it was time to go to bed. On the way to the cutter, Kazz drew him aside.
"Burton-naq, when you mentioned you and Monat were hypnotists . . . well, that made me think about something. I've never thought about it before . . . maybe there's nothing funny about it . . . only . . ."
"Well?"
"It's nothing, I'm sure. Only it was funny. You see, I told Spruce I could see he didn't have no sign on his head. He left a few minutes later, but I could smell the fear in his sweat. There were others there, all eating breakfast, Targoff, Doctor Steinborg, Monat, Pete, and a number of others. Targoff said we should convene the council, though this was some time after Spruce had taken off. Monat and Pete agreed. But they said they wanted to question me a little more. You know, what the marks looked like. Were they all alike or did they differ?"
"I said they differed. A lot of them were. . . what you say? . . . similar, yes, that's it. But each one . . . what the hell, you know what they look like, I've drawn pictures of them for you."
Burton said, "Aside from some looking something like Chinese ideograms, they resemble nothing I've ever seen. My guess is that they're symbols of a numbering system."
"Yeah, I know what you said. The thing is, Monat and Frigate took me aside before we went to your place to tell you what'd happened. In fact, we went to Monat's hut."
Kazz paused. Impatiently Burton said, "Well?"
"I'm trying to remember. But I can't. I went into the hut, and that's all!"
"What do you mean, that's all?"
"Burton-naq, I mean that's all. I don't remember a thing about going into that hut. I remember starting through the door. The next I remember is walking with Monat, Pete, and the other councillors to your hut!"
Burton felt a slight shock, yet he had no idea what had caused it.
"You mean that you don't remember anything from the time you entered until the time you walked out?"
"I mean that I don't remember walking out. All of a sudden, there I was, a hundred paces from Monat's house and walking along, talking to Monat."
Burton frowned. Alice and Besst were standing on the dock, looking back as if wondering why they had dropped behind.
"This is most peculiar, Kazz. Why haven't you told me about this before? After all, it's been many years since it happened. Didn't you think about this before?"
"No, I didn't. Ain't that funny? Not one frigging thought. I still wouldn't remember even entering the hut if Loghu hadn't said something about it the other day. She saw me go in, but she wasn't with the group that day and so didn't know what was going on until later.
"What happened was that she was standing in the doorway of her and Frigate's hut. Frigate, Monat, and me was going to go into Frigate's hut. When they found she was there, they went to Monat's. It was just by chance that she mentioned this yesterday. We was talking about when we was grail slaves, and this brought up Spruce. That's when she a
sked me what Monat, Pete, and me was talking about. She said she wondered sometimes why they wanted to talk to me in private.
"She just never brought it up before because it didn't seem important. It still wasn't, but she was curious, and since the subject was brought up, she remembered to ask me. You know how curious women are."
"Women have the curiosity of cats," Burton said, and he chuckled. "Whereas men are as curious as monkeys." "What? What does that mean?"
"I don't know, but it sounds deep. I'll think up an explanation later. So, it was Loghu's remarks that made you remember the events preceding and following your entry into Monat's place?" "Not right away, Burton-naq. I got to puzzling about what she said. I really strained my brain. I could hear the tissues ripping. Finally, I could remember, in a dim way, how we meant to go into Pete's hut. Then I could remember Loghu being there and Monat saying they'd use his hut. And after a while . . . I could faintly recollect going into there.
"While you was talking didn't you notice me sitting there by the fire, frowning away like there was a thunderstorm on my brow?"
"I just thought you'd taken too much to eat and drink, as usual.''
"That, too. But it wasn't no farts storming around inside me. It was gas on the brain."
"Since you've recalled this, you haven't said anything to Monat or Frigate about it?"
"No."
"Don't, then."
Kazz had a low forehead, but he was not unintelligent.
"You think there's something phony about those two?"
Burton said, "I don't know. I'd hate to think so. After all these years . . . and they are good friends. At least . . ."
"It don't seem possible," Kazz said. He sounded as if his heart were about to break.
"What doesn't?"
"I don't know what. But it has to be something bad."
"I don't know that," Burton said. "There may be a very good explanation other than the one I'm thinking of. Anyway, don't mention this to anyone."
Riverworld03- The Dark Design (1977) Page 17