‘”The universe is filled with these, yet they can never increase enough to occupy all of space. They can intersect, pass through each other, an unlimited number can occupy the same space.
“ ‘We assume that the ka is unconscious though it contains the intelligence and memory of the dead person. So the ka wanders through eternity and infinity, a vessel for the mental potentiality of the living person. A frozen soul, if you will.
‘”When a dead person’s body is duplicated, the ka reattaches itself to that body. No matter how far away it might be from the body in spatial terms, it flashes back at the first second of life of that duplicated body. There is an affinity between the two that knows no bounds. But when the reunion takes place, the ka has no memory of the interval between the moment of death of the first body and the first moment of consciousness of the second duplicate body.
‘”However, some have said that it is possible that the ka is fully conscious during its bodiless periods. Evidence for this theory was lent by a certain phenomenon of afterlife which was well documented, I understand, in the 1970’s. As I remember the accounts a significant number of men and women who were legally dead were revivified. They testified that while dead they had experienced out-of-body flights, had watched relatives grieve and had been yanked back into life. Whether or not the ka does have a memory during these times, we are concerned only with its incarnations, its enfleshed states.’
“La Viro was both stunned and ecstatic. But he interrupted again, it seeming to be a human function, a built-in compulsion, to interrupt.”
Goring paused, then said, “As I know only too well.”
There was some laughter.
‘”Pardon me,’ La Viro said. ‘How do you make this duplicate body?’
“He looked down at his own body and thought of how it had been dust and now was whole again.
“’We have instruments which can detect and scan the ka,’ the visitor said. ‘These can determine the nature of and location of each nonmatter molecule. From then on, it is a matter of energy-matter conversion.’
“’Can you duplicate any ka at any stage?’ La Viro said. ‘I mean, what if a man died at eighty? Could you duplicate his ka at the age of twenty?’
“ ‘No. The ka of the eighty-year-old is the only one existing. Then, while the mind is unconscious, the body made from the records is regenerated to the twenty-year-old state. All defects are corrected. A recording of that body is made and destroyed. For the first resurrection on the surface of this planet, another energy-matter conversion is made. During this process, the bodies are unconscious.’
“’What if you made two duplicates?’ La Viro asked. ‘At the same time? To which would the ka be attached?’
‘”Presumably, to the first that was revivified,’ the visitor said. ‘No matter how synchronized the new resurrections, there would still be at least a microsecond difference. Our machines cannot cut it so close that there is an absolutely simultaneous revivifying. Besides, that experiment would not be done. It would be evil. Unethical.’
“’Yes,’ La Viro said, ‘but what if it were done?’
“’The body without a ka would develop its own, I suppose. And though the second body is the duplicate of the first in the beginning, it would soon become another person. Its different environment, different experiences, would differentiate it from the first. In time, though it would always look like the first, it would become another person.
“’But we are getting into minutiae. The important thing is this. Most disembodied kas go forever without consciousness.
At least, we hope so. It would be hell to be imprisoned in an intangible body, without control of it, without communication with others, yet aware of it all. The inevitable result would be the torments of the damned. It is too horrible to contemplate.
“’Anyway, nobody who’s been resurrected remembers the interval between death and the second life.’
“And so,” Goring said, “La Viro was told that out of the billions who died on Earth, only a minute fraction was not part of that wandering horde of kas. A few went out. Disappeared. The visitor did not know where and why. The Ancients had only told the Ethicals that these few had gone on. They had united with the Creator or were at least keeping company with It.