To Your Scattered Bodies Go (11 page)

"What do you mean by that?" Burton said.

"There were millions dying from famine, even the States were on a strictly rationed diet, and pollution of our water, land, and air was killing other millions. The scientists said that half of Earth's oxygen supply would be cut off in ten years because the phytoplankton of the oceans - they furnished half the world's oxygen, you know - were dying. The oceans were polluted."

"The oceans?"

"You don't believe it? Well, you died in 1890, so you find it hard to credit. But some people were predicting in 1968 exactly what did happen in 2008. I believed them, I was a biochemist. But most of the population, especially those who counted, the masses and the politicians, refused to believe until it was too late. Measures were taken as the situation got worse, but they were always too weak and too late and fought against by groups that stood to lose money, if effective measures were taken. But it's a long sad story, and if we're to build houses, we'd best start immediately after lunch."

Alice came out of the river and ran her hands over her body. The sun and the breeze dried her off quickly. She picked up her grass clothes but did not put them back on. Wilfreda asked her about them. Alice replied that they made her itch too much, but she would keep them to wear at night if it got cold. Alice was polite to Wilfreda but obviously aloof. She had overheard much of the conversation and-so knew that Wilfreda had been a factory girl who had become a whore and then had died of syphilis. Or at least Wilfreda thought that the disease-had killed her. She did not remember dying. Undoubtedly, as she had said cheerily, she had lost her mind first.

Alice, hearing this, moved even further away. Burton grinned, wondering what she would do if she knew that he had suffered from the same disease, caught from a slave girl in Cairo when he had been disguised as a Moslem during his trip to Mecca in 1853. He had been "cured" and his mind had not been physically affected; though his mental suffering had been intense. But the point was that resurrection had given everybody a fresh young and undiseased body, and what a person had been on Earth should not influence another's attitude toward them.

Should not was not, however, would not.

He could not really blame Alice Hargreaves. She was the product of her society - like all women, she was what men had made her and she had strength of character and flexibility of mind to lift herself above some of the prejudices of her time and her class. She had adapted to the nudity well enough, and she was not openly hostile or contemptuous of the girl. She had performed an act with Burton that went against a lifetime of overt and covert indoctrination. And that was on the night of the first day of her life after death, when she should have been on her knees singing hosannas because she had "sinned" and promising that she would never "sin" again as long as she was not put in hellfire.

As they walked across the plain, he thought about her, turning his head now and then to look back at her. That hairless head made her face look so much older but the hairlessness made her look so childlike below the navel. They all bore this contradiction, old man, or woman above the neck, young child below the bellybutton.

He dropped back until he was by her side. This put him behind Frigate and Loghu. The view of Loghu would yield some profit even if his attempt to talk to Alice resulted in nothing. Loghu had a beautifully rounded posterior; her buttocks were like two eggs. And she swayed as enchantingly as Alice.

He spoke in a low voice, "If last night distressed you so much why do you stay with me?" Her beautiful face became twisted and ugly.

"I am not staying with you! I am staying with the group! Moreover, I've been thinking about last night, though it pains me to do so. I must be fair. It was the narcotic in that hideous gum that made both of us behave the . . . way we did. At least, I know it was responsible for my behavior. And I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt."

"Then there's no hope of repetition?"

"How can you ask that! Certainly not! How dare you?"

"I did not force you," he said. "As I have pointed out, you did what you would do if you were not restrained by your inhibitions. Those inhibitions are good things - under certain circumstances, such as being the lawful wedded wife of a man you love in the England of Earth. But Earth no longer exists, not as we knew it. Neither does England. Neither does English society. And if all of mankind has been resurrected and is scattered along this river, you still may never see your husband again. You are no longer married. Remember .. . till death do us part.

You have died, and, therefore, parted. Moreover, there is no giving into marriage in heaven."

"You are a blasphemer, Mr. Burton. I read about you in the newspapers, and I read some of your books about Africa and India and that one about the Mormons in the States. I also heard stories, most of which I found hard to believe, they made you out to be so wicked. Reginald was very indignant when he read your Kasidah. He said he'd have no such foul atheistic literature in his house, and he threw all your books into the furnace."

"If I'm so wicked, and you feel you're a fallen woman, why don't you leave?"

"Must I repeat everything? The next group might have even worse men in it. And, as you have been so kind to point out, you did not force me. Anyway, I'm sure that you have some kind of heart beneath that cynical and mocking air. I saw you weeping when you were carrying Gwenafra and she was crying."

"You have found me out," he said, grinning. "Very well. So be it. I will be chivalrous; I will not attempt to seduce you or to molest you in any way. But the next time you see me chewing the gum, you would do well to hide. Meanwhile, I give my word of honor; you have nothing to fear from me as long as I am not under the influence of the gum."

Her eyes widened, and she stopped. "You plan to use it again?"

"Why not? It apparently turned some people into violent beasts, but it had no such effect on me. I feel no craving for it, so I doubt it's habit-forming. I used to smoke a pipe of opium now and then, you know, and I did not become addicted to it, so I don't suppose I have a psychological weakness for drugs." "I understood that you were very often deep in your cups, Mister Burton. You and that nauseating creature, Mr. Swinburne..." She stopped talking. A man had called out to her, and, though she did not understand Italian, she understood his obscene gesture. She blushed all over but walked briskly on.

Burton glared at the man, He was a well-built browns youth with a big nose, a weak chin, and close set eyes; His skinned speech was that of the criminal class of the city of Bologna, where Burton had spent much time while investigating Etruscan relics and graves: Behind him were ten men, most of them as unprepossessing and as wicked-looking as their leader, and five women. It- was evident that the men wanted to add more women to the group. It was also evident that they would like to get their hands on the stone weapons of Burton's group. They were armed only with their grails or with bamboo sticks.

Burton spoke sharply, and his people closed up. Kazz did not understand his words, but he sensed at once what was happening. He dropped back to form the rearguard with Burton. His brutish appearance and the handaxe in his huge fist choked the Bolognese somewhat. They followed the group, making loud comments and threats, but they did not get much closer. Why they reached the hills, however, the leader of the gang shouted a command, and it attacked.

The youth with the close-set eyes, yelling, swinging his grail at the end of the strap ran at Burton. Burton gauged the swing of the cylinder and then launched his bamboo spear just as the grail was arcing outward. The stone tip went into the man's solar plexus, and he fell on his side with the spear sticking in him. The subhuman struck a swinging grail with a stick, which was knocked out of his hand. He leaped inward and brought the edge of the handaxe against the top of the head of his attacker, and that man went down with a bloody skull.

Little Lev Ruach threw his grail into the chest of a man and ran up and jumped on him. His feet drove into the face of the man, who was getting up again. The man went backward; Ruach bounded up and gashed the man's shoulder with his chert knife. The man, screaming, got to his feet and raced away.

Frigate did better than Burton had expected him to, since he had turned pale and begun shaking when the gang had first challenged them. His grail was strapped to his left wrist while his right held a handaxe. He charged into the group, was hit on the shoulder with a grail, the impact of which was lessened when he partially blocked it with his grail, and he fell on his side. A man lifted a bamboo stick with both hands to bring it down on Frigate, but he rolled away, bringing his grail up and blocking the stick as it came down. Then he was up, his head butting into the man and carrying him back. Both went down, Frigate on top, and his stone axe struck the man twice on the temple.

Alice had thrown her grail into the face of a man and then stabbed at him with the fire-sharpened end of her bamboo spear. Loghu ran around to the side of the man and hit him across the head with her stick so hard that he dropped to his knees. The fight was over in sixty seconds. The other men fled with their women behind them Burton turned the screaming leader onto his back and pulled his spear out of the pit of his stomach. The tip had not gone in more than half an inch.

The man got to his feet and, clutching the streaming wound, staggered off across the plains. Two of the gang were unconscious but would probably survive. The man Frigate had attacked was dead.

The American had turned from pale to red and then back to pale. But he did not look contrite or sickened. If his expression held anything, it was elation. And relief.

He said, "That was the first man I've ever killed! The first!"

"I doubt that it'll be the last," Burton said. "Unless you're killed first.'

Ruach, looking at the corpse, said, "A dead man looks just as dead here as on Earth. I wonder where those who are killed in the afterlife go?"

"If we live long enough, we might find out. You two women gave a very fine account of yourselves."

Alice said, "I did what had to be done," and walked away. She was pale and shaking. Loghu, on the other hand, seemed exhilarated.

They got to the grailstone about a half-hour before noon. Things had changed. Their quiet little hollow contained about sixty people, many of whom were working on pieces of chert. One man was holding a bloody eye into which a chip of stone had flown. Several more were bleeding from the face or holding smashed fingers.

Burton was upset but he could do nothing about it. The only hope for regaining the quiet retreat was that the lack of water would drive the intruders away. That hope went quickly. A woman told him that there was a small cataract about a mile and a half to the west. It fell from the top of the mountain down the tip of an arrowhead-shaped canyon and into a large hole, which it had only half-filled. Eventually, it should spill out and take a course through the hills and spread out on the plain. Unless, of course, stone from the mountain base was brought down to make a channel for the stream.

"Or we make waterpipes out of the big bamboo," Frigate said.

They put their grails on the rock, each carefully noting the exact location of his, and they waited. He intended to move on after the grails were filled. A location halfway between the cataract and the grailstone would be advantageous, and they might not be so crowded.

The blue flames roared out above the stone just as the sun reached its zenith. This time, the grails yielded an antipasto salad, Italian black bread with melted garlic butter, spaghetti and meatballs, a cupful of dry red wine, grapes, more coffee crystals, ten cigarettes, a marihuana stick, a cigar, more toilet paper and a cake of soap, and four chocolate creams. Some people complained that they did not like Italian food, but no one refused to eat.

The group, smoking their cigarettes, walked along the base of the mountain to the cataract. This was at the end of the triangular canyon, where a number of men and women had set up "camp around the hole. The water was icy cold. After washing out their containers, drying them, and refilling the buckets, they went back in the direction of the grailstone. After a half mile, they chose a hill covered by pines except for the apes, on which a great irontree grew. There was plenty of bamboo of all sizes growing around them. Under the direction of Kazz and of Frigate, who had spent a few years in Malaysia, they cut down bamboo and built their buts. These were round buildings with a single door and a window in the rear and a conical thatched roof. They worked swiftly and did not try for nicety, so that by dinnertime everything except the roofs was finished. Frigate and Monat were picked to stay behind as guards while the others took the grails to the stone. Here they found about 300 people constructing lean-tos and buts. Burton had expected this. Most people would not want to walk a half mile every day three times a day for their meals. They would prefer to cluster around the grailstones. The buts here were arranged haphazardly and closer than necessary. There was still the problem of getting fresh water, which was why he was surprised that there were so many here. But he was informed by a pretty Slovene that a source of water had been found close by only this afternoon. A spring ran froth a cave almost in a straight line up from the rock. Burton investigated. Water had broken out from a cave and was trickling down the face of the cliff into a basin about fifty feet wide sad eight deep.