R.W. I - To Your Scattered Bodies Go
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Burton thought that it probably was a device, which gave him a sense, or senses, of perception denied the others. From then on, Burton felt uncomfortable whenever the faceted and gleaming eye was turned on him. What did that many-angled prism see? At the end of the explanation, Burton did not know much more than he had before. The Ethicals could see back into the past with a sort of chronoscope; with this they had been able to record whatever physical beings they wished to. Using these records as models, they had then performed the resurrection with energy-matter converters.
`What,' Burton said, `would happen if you re-created two bodies of an individual at the same time?' Loge smiled wryly and said that the experiment had been performed. Only one body had life.
Burton smiled like a cat that has just eaten a mouse. He said, `I think you're lying to me. Or telling me half-truths. There is a fallacy in all this. If human beings can attain such a rarefiedly high ethical state that they "go on," why are you Ethicals, supposedly superior beings, still here? Why haven't you, too, "gone on'?
The faces of all but Loga and the jewel-eyed man became rigid. Loge laughed and said, `Very shrewd. An excellent point. I can only answer that some of us do go on. But more is demanded of us, ethically speaking, than of you resurrectees.' `I still think you're lying,' Burton said. `However, there's nothing I can do about it.' He grinned and said, `Not just now, anyway.'
`If you persist in that attitude, you will never Go On,' Loga said. `But we felt that we owed it to you to explain what we are doing – as best we could. When we catch those others who have been tampered with, we'll do the same for them.'
`There's a Judas among you,' Burton said, enjoying the effect of his words.
But the jewel-eyed man said, `Why don't you tell him the truth, Loga? It'll wipe off that sickening smirk and put him in his proper place.'
Loga hesitated, then said, `Very well, Thanabur. Burton, you will have to be very careful from now on. You must not commit suicide and you must fight as hard to stay alive as you did on Earth, when you thought you had only one life. There is a limit to the number of times a man may be resurrected. After a certain amount – it varies and there's no way to predict the individual allotment – the psychomorph seems unable to reattach itself to the body. Every death weakens the attraction between body and psychomorph. Eventually, the psychomorph comes to the point of no return. It becomes a – well, to use an unscientific term – a "lost soul:" It wanders bodiless through the universe; we can detect these unattached psychomorphs without instruments, unlike those of the – how shall I put it? – the "saved," which disappear entirely from our ken.
`So you see, you must give up this form of travel by death. This is why continued suicide by those poor unfortunates who cannot face life is, if not the unforgivable sin, the irrevocable.' The jewel-eyed man said, `The traitor, the filthy unknown who claims to be aiding you, was actually using you for his own purposes. He did not tell you that you were expending your chance for eternal life by carrying out his – and your – designs. He, or she, whoever the traitor is, is evil. Evil, evil! `Therefore, you must be careful from now on. You may have a residue of a dozen or so deaths left to you. Or your next death may be your last! '
Burton stood up and shouted, `You don't want me to get to the end of The River? Why?' 'Why?'
Loga said, `Au revoir. Forgive us for this violence.' Burton did not see any of the twelve persons point an instrument at him. But consciousness sprang from him as swiftly as an arrow from the bow, and he awoke . . .
Chapter 30
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The first person to greet him was Peter Frigate. Frigate lost his customary reserve; he wept. Burton cried a little himself and had difficulty for a while in answering Frigate's piled-one-on-the-other questions. First, Burton had to find out what Frigate, Loghu, and Alice had done after he had disappeared. Frigate replied that the three had looked for him, then had sailed back up The River to Theleme. `Where have you been?' Frigate said.
`From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it,' Burton said. `However, unlike Satan, I found at least several perfect and upright men, fearing God and eschewing evil. Damn few, though. Most men and women are still the selfish, ignorant, superstitious, self-blinding, hypocritical, cowardly wretches they were on Earth. And in most, the old red-eyed killer ape struggles with its keeper, society, and would break out and bloody its hands.'
Frigate chattered away as the two walked toward the huge stockade a mile away, the council building which housed the administration of the state of Theleme. Burton half-listened. He was shaking and his heart was beating hard, but not because of his home-coming.
He remembered! Contrary to what Loge had promised, he remembered both his wakening in the pre-resurrection bubble, so many years ago, and the inquisition with the twelve Ethicals.
There was only one explanation. One of the twelve must have prevented the blocking of his memory and done so without the others knowing it.
One of the twelve was the Mysterious Stranger, the Renegade.
Which one? At present, there was no way of determining. But some day he would find out. Meanwhile, he had a friend in court, a man who might be using Burton for his own ends. And the time would come when Burton would use him.
There were the other human beings with whom the Stranger bad also tampered. Perhaps he would find them; together they would assault the Tower.
Odysseus had his Athena. Usually Odysseus had had to get out of perilous situations through his own wits and courage.
But every now and then, when the goddess bad been able, she had given Odysseus a helping hand.
Odysseus had his Athena; Burton, his Mysterious Stranger.
Frigate said, `What do you plan on doing, Dick?'
`I'm going to build a boat and sail up The River. All the way! Want to come along?'
END OF VOLUME I
POSTSCRIPT
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This ends Volume I of the Riverworld series. Volume II will tell how Samuel Clemens looked for iron in the mineral-poor valley, found it, and built his great paddle-wheeled Riverboat, the NOT FOR HIRE.