To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer

“This tells me that you have a fractured skull and a concussion of the brain: You must be very tough, because you should be dead, judging from the extent of the injury. But you may pull out of it, if you take it easy. Unfortunately, you don’t have time to convalesce. The Others know you’re in this area, give or take thirty miles. In a day or so, They’ll have you pinpointed.”

Burton tried to sit up and found that his bones had become soft as taffy in sunlight, and a bayonet was prying open the back of his skull. Groaning, he lay back down.

“Who are you and what’s your business?” “I can’t tell you my name. If – much more likely when – They catch you, They’ll thread out your memory and run it off backward to the time you woke up in the pre-resurrection bubble. They won’t find out what made you wake before your time. But They will know about this conversation. They’ll even be able to see me. But only as you see me, a pale shadow with no features. They’ll hear my voice too, but They won’t recognize it. I’m using a transmuter.

“They will, however, be horrified. What they have slowly and reluctantly been suspecting will all of a sudden be revealed as the truth. They have a traitor in Their midst”

“I wish I knew what you were talking about,” Burton said.

The man said, “I’ll tell you this much. You have been told a monstrous lie about the purpose of the Resurrection. What Spruce told you, and what that Ethical creation, the Church of the Second Chance, teaches – are lies! All lies! The truth is that you human beings have been given life again only to participate in a scientific experiment. The Ethicals – a misnomer if there ever was one have reshaped this planet into one Rivervalley, built the grailstones, and brought all of you back from the dead for one purpose. To record your history and customs. And, as a secondary matter, to observe your reactions to Resurrection and to the mixing of different peoples of different eras. That is all it is: a scientific project. And when you have served your purpose, back into the dust you go!”

“This story about giving all of you another chance at eternal life and salvation because it is Their ethical duty – lies! Actually, my people do not believe that you are worth saving. They do not think you have “souls”!” Burton was silent for a while. The fellow was certainly sincere. Or, if not sincere, he was very emotionally involved, since he was breathing so heavily.

Finally, Burton spoke. “I can’t see anybody going to all this expense and labor just to run a scientific experiment, or to make historical recordings.”

“Time hangs heavy on the hands of immortals. You would be surprised what we do to make eternity interesting. Furthermore, given all time, we can take our time, and we do not let even the most staggering projects dismay us. After the last Terrestrial died, the job of setting up the Resurrection took several thousands of years, even though the final phase took only one day.”

Burton said, “And you? What are you doing? And why are you doing whatever you’re doing?” “I am the only true Ethical in the whole monstrous race! I do not like toying around with you as if you were puppets; or mere objects to be observed, animals in a laboratory! After all, primitive and vicious though you be, you are sentients! You are, in a sense, as . . . as…”

The shadowy speaker waved a shadowy hand as if trying to grasp a word out of the darkness. He continued, “I’ll have to use your term for yourselves. You’re as human as we. Just as the subhumans who first used language were as human as you. And you are our forefathers. For all I know, I may be your direct descendant. My whole people could be descended from you.”

“I doubt it,” Burton said “I had no children – that I know anyway.” He had many questions, and he began to ask them.