Spruce said, “I’m listening.” “It’s my theory that you are a Terrestrial. You belong to an age chronologically far past A.D. 2008. You must be the descendant of the few who survived my death scanner. Judging by the technology and power required to reconstruct the surface of this planet into one vast Rivervalley, your time must be much later than the twenty-first century. Just guessing, the fiftieth Century A.D.?”
Spruce looked at the fire, then said, “Add two thousand more”
“If this planet is about the size of Earth, it can hold only so many people. Where are the others, the still-born, the children who died before they were five, the imbeciles and idiots, and those who lived after the twentieth century?”
“They are elsewhere,” Spruce said. He glanced at the fire again, and his lips tightened.
“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.”