“Why couldn’t everybody have been told the truth at the outset?” Burton had said. And then, before Loga could reply, Burton had answered himself.
“I see. For the same reason that every person could not be asked if he wished to have another life and another chance at it.”
“Yes. And even if we Ethicals had appeared in The Valley and told the truth to all, only a certain percentage would have believed us. And our teachings would have been perverted, changed, and denied by many.
“Believe me, our way is the best, even if it has its disadvantages and limits. We know because of what our predecessors told us about their projects in resurrecting other sentients. Besides, when Earthpeople were all raised on that day, there were one hundred thousand languages spoken by them. We would not have been understood by many. All the people could not hear the message until the Church of the Second Chance had spread a common language, Esperanto, throughout the River-world.”
Burton had then said, “In the previous projects, uh, I’m almost afraid to ask, how many, what percentage, Passed On?”
“Three-quarters of those raised on the Gardenworlds did,” Loga had said. “The remaining one-fourth … their recordings were dissolved when they died after their grace period was up.”
“Died or were killed?” Burton had said.
“Most of them killed each other or committed suicide.”
“Most?”
Loga had ignored this.
“One-sixteenth of the people resurrected as adults or juveniles in previous projects passed the test, Went On. Each of these projects had at least two phases. Here, after the phase with those who died before or during a.d. 1983 is done, then those who died after that will be raised for the second stage. The final one.”
“But the first stage is going to take longer than planned because of your interference,” Burton had said.
“Yes. I believe … I know … that the percentage of those Going On could have been higher, much higher, if the lazari had been given more time. I could not endure the thought of so many being doomed, so I became a renegade. I betrayed my fellow Ethicals. I … I may have condemned myself to … not Going On. But I don’t believe that. I did it for my love of humanity.”
The Christians and the Muslims on Earth had believed in a physical resurrection. And so it had been. But the ultimate goal of the Ethicals was Buddhistic, absorption of the soul into the All-Being.
As if reading his mind, Loga had said, “Tell me, Dick, do you really believe, believe in the innermost and deepest part of your mind, where it counts, that you will Go On?”
Burton had stared at Loga for a moment. Then, slowly, he had said, “No. Not in the sense you mean. I just cannot believe it. There is no evidence that such a thing as Going On occurs.”
“Yes, there is! Our instruments cannot perceive the wathan, what you call the soul, when its owner has died after attaining a certain stage of … let’s call it goodness instead of ethical advancement.”
“Which only means that the instruments can’t detect it,” Burton had said. “You have no knowledge of what really happens to the wathan at that point.”
Loga had smiled and said, “In the end, we have to fall back on faith, don’t we?”
“From what I’ve seen of its manifestations on Earth, I have no faith in faith,” Burton had said. “How do you know but what the wathan, as you call it, has simply worn out? It’s an artificial thing, but its life may end naturally, just as all synthetic things … and natural, too … end. The wathan is not a material entity, as we know material things, but that’s the point. We don’t really know if it’s material or not. It may be a form of matter unknown to us. Or a thing of pure energy. If so, a form of energy unknown to us. But how do you know that it may not change into another form, which your instruments cannot detect?”
“It does! It does!” Loga had said. “Into the Undetectible! How else could you explain that the wathan only passes beyond the instrument range when the owner has reached a certain stage of ethical advancement? Those who don’t reach this stage may die again and again, but always, always, the wathans return to their resurrected bodies!”