Riverworld01- To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) Hugo Award

by Philip José Farmer

  `It must have been in A.D. 1890,' Burton said. The creature had brought back his sense that all this was not real. He ran his tongue around his mouth; the back teeth he had lost when the Somali spear ran through his cheeks were now replaced. But he was still circumcised, and the men on the riverbank – most of whom had been crying out in the Austrian- German, Italian, or the Slovenian of Trieste – were also circumcised. Yet, in his time, most of the males in that area would have been uncircumcised.

  `At least,' Burton added, `I remember nothing after October 20, 1890.'

  'Aab!' the creature said. `So, I left my native planet approximately 200 years before you died. My planet? It was a satellite of that star you Terrestrials call Tau Ceti. We placed ourselves in suspended animation, and, when our ship approached your sun, we were automatically thawed out, and . . . but you do not know what I am talking about?'

  `Not quite. Things are happening too fast. I would like to get details later. What is your name?'

  `Monat Grrautut. Yours?'

  `Richard Francis Burton at your service.' He bowed slightly and smiled. Despite the strangeness of the creature and some repulsive physical aspects, Burton found himself warming to him.

  `The late Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton,' he added. `Most recently Her Majesty's Consul in the Austro- Hungarian port of Trieste.'

  `Elizabeth?'

  `I lived in the nineteenth century, not the sixteenth.'

  `A Queen Elizabeth reigned over Great Britain in the twentieth century,' Monat said.

  He turned to look toward the riverbank.

  `Why are they so afraid? All the human beings I met were either sure that there would be no afterlife or else that they would get preferential treatment in the hereafter.'

  Burton grinned and said, `Those who denied the hereafter are sure they're in Hell because they denied it. Those who knew they would go to Heaven are shocked, I would imagine, to find themselves naked. You see, most of the illustrations of our afterlives showed those in Hell as naked and those in Heaven as being clothed. So, if you're resurrected bare-ass naked, you must be in Hell.'

  `You seem amused,' Monat said.

  `I wasn't so amused a few minutes ago,' Burton said. `And I'm shaken. Very shaken. But seeing you here makes me think that things are not what people thought they would be. They seldom are. And God, if He's going to make an appearance, does not seem to be in a hurry about it. I think there's an explanation for this, but it won't match any of the conjectures I knew on Earth.'

  `I doubt we're on Earth,' Monat said. He pointed upward with long slim fingers which bore thick cartilage pads instead of nails.

  He said, `If you look steadily there, with your eyes shielded, you can see another celestial body near the sun. It is not the moon.' Burton cupped his hands over his eyes, the metal cylinder on his shoulder, and stared at the point indicated. He saw a faintly glowing body which seemed to be an eighth of the size of a full moon. When he put his hands down, he said, `A star?'

  Monat said, `I believe so. I thought I saw several other very faint bodies elsewhere in the sky, but I'm not sure. We will know when night comes.'

  `Where do you think we are?'

  `I would not know.' Monat gestured at the sun.

  `It is rising and so it will descend, and then night should come. I think that it would be best to prepare for the night. And for other events. It is warm and getting warmer, but the night may be cold and it might rain. We should build a shelter of some sort. And we should also think about finding food. Though I imagine that this device' – he indicated the cylinder – `will feed us.'

  Burton said, `What makes you think that?'

  `I looked inside mine. It contains dishes and cups, all empty now, but obviously made to be filled.' Burton felt less unreal. The being – the Tau Cetan – talked so pragmatically, so sensibly, that he provided an anchor to which Burton could tie his senses before they drifted away again. And, despite the repulsive alien-ness of the creature; he exuded a friendliness and an openness that warmed Burton. Moreover, any creature that came from a civilization which could span many trillions of miles of interstellar space must have very valuable knowledge and resources.

  Others were beginning to separate themselves from the crowd. A group of about ten men and women walked slowly toward him. Some were talking, but others were silent and wide-eyed. They did not seem to have a definite goal in mind; they just floated along like a cloud driven by a wind. When they got near Burton and Monat, they stopped walking.

  A man trailing the group especially attracted Burton's scrutiny. Monat was obviously non-human, but this fellow was subhuman or pre-human. He stood about five feet tall. He was squat and powerfully muscled. His head was thrust forward on a bowed and very thick neck. The forehead was low and slanting. The skull was long and narrow. Enormous supra-orbital ridges shadowed dark brown eyes. The nose was a smear of flesh with arching nostrils, and the bulging bones of his jaws pushed his thin lips out. He may have been covered with as much hair as an ape at one time, but now, like everybody else, he was stripped of hair.

  The huge hands looked as if they could squeeze water from a stone.

  He kept looking behind him as if he feared that someone was sneaking up on him. The human beings moved away from him when he approached them.

  But then another man walked up to him and said something to the subhuman in English. It was evident that the man did not expect to be understood but that he was trying to be friendly. His voice, however, was almost hoarse. The newcomer was a muscular youth about six feet tall. He had a face that looked handsome when he faced Burton but was comically craggy in profile. His eyes were green.

  The subhuman jumped a little when he was addressed. He peered at the grinning youth from under the bars of bone. Then he smiled, revealing large thick teeth, and spoke in a language Burg did not recognize. He pointed to himself and said something that sounded like Kaxzintuitruuabemss. Later, Burton would find out that it was his name and it meant Man- Who- Slew- The- Long- White- Tooth.

  The others consisted of five men and four women. Two of the men had known each other in Earthlife, and one of them had been married to one of the women. All were Italians or Slovenes who had died in Trieste, apparently about 1890, though he knew none of them.

  `You there,' Burton said, pointing to the man who had spoken in English. `Step forward. What is your name?' The man approached him hesitantly. He said, `You're English, right?' The man spoke with an American Midwest flatness.

  Burton held out his hand and said, `Yaas. Burton here.' The fellow raised hairless eyebrows and said, `Burton?' He leaned forward and peered at Burton's face. `It's hard to say . . . it couldn't be. . .'

  He straightened up. `Name's Peter Frigate. F- R- I- G- A- T- E.' He looked around him and then said in a voice even more strained, `It's hard to talk coherently. Everybody's in such a state of shock, you know. I feel as if I'm coming apart. But . . . here we are. . . alive again . . . young again . . . no hellfire . . . not yet, anyway. Born in 1918, died 2008 . . . because of what this extra-Terrestrial did . . . don't hold it against him . . . only defending himself, you know.' Frigate's voice died away to a whisper. He grinned nervously at Monat.

  Burton said, `You know this . . . Monat Grrautut?' 'Not exactly,' Frigate said. `I saw enough of him on TV, of course, and heard enough and read enough about him.' He held out his hand as if he expected it to be rejected, smiled and they shook hands.

  Frigate said, `I think it'd be a good idea if we banded together. We may need protection.' `Why?' Burton said, though he knew well enough.

  `You know how rotten most humans are,' Frigate said. `Once people get used to being resurrected, they'll be fighting for women and food and anything that takes their fancy. And I think we ought to be buddies with this Neanderthal or whatever he is. Anyway, he'll be a good man in a fight.' Kazz, as he was named later on, seemed pathetically eager to be accepted at the same time, he was suspicious of anyone who got too close.

  A woman wal
ked by then, muttering over and over in German, `My God! What have I done to offend Thee?' A man, both fists clenched and raised to shoulder height, was shouting in Yiddish, `My beard! My beard!

  Another man was, pointing at his genitals and saying in Slovenian, `They've made a Jew of me! A Jew! Do you think that … ? No, it couldn't be!' Burton grinned savagely and said, `It doesn't occur to him that maybe they have made a Mohammedan out of him or an Australian aborigine or an ancient Egyptian, all of whom practiced circumcision.'

  `What did he say?' asked Frigate. Burton translated; Frigate laughed.

  A woman hurried by; she was making a pathetic attempt to cover her breasts and her pubic regions with her hands. She was muttering, `What will they think, what will they think?' And she disappeared behind the trees.

  A man and a woman passed them; they were talking loudly in Italian as if they were separated by a broad highway.

  `We can't be in Heaven . . . I know, oh my God, I know! . . . There was Giuseppe Zomzini and you know what a wicked man he was . . . he ought to burn in hellfire! I know, I know . . . he stole from the treasury, he frequented whorehouses, he drank himself to death . . . yet . . . he's here! . . . I know, I know . . .'

  Another woman was running and screaming in German, `Daddy! Daddy! Where are you? It's your own darling Hilda!'

  A man scowled at them and said repeatedly, in Hungarian, `I'm as good as anyone and better than some. To hell with them' A woman said, `I wasted my whole life, my whole life. I did everything for them, and now… '

  A man, swinging the metal cylinder before him as if it were a censer, called out, `Follow me to the mountains) Follow me! I know the truth, good people! Follow me! We'll be safe in the bosom of the Lord! Don't believe this illusion around you; follow me! I'll open your eyes!' Others spoke gibberish or were silent; their lips tight as if they feared to utter what was within them.

  `It'll take some time before they straighten out,' Burton said. He felt that it would take a long time before the world became mundane for him, too.

  `They may never know the truth,' Frigate said.

  `What do you mean?' 'They didn't know the Truth – capital T – on Earth, so why should they here? What makes you think we're going to get ado revelation?'

  Burton shrugged and said, `I don't. But I do think we ought to determine just what our environment is and how we can survive in it. The fortune of a man who sits, sits also.' He pointed toward the riverbank. `See those stone mushrooms? They seem to be spaced out at intervals of a mile. I wonder what their purpose is?'

  Monat said, `If you had taken a close look at that one, you would have seen that its surface contains about 700 round indentations. These are just the right size for the base of a cylinder to fit in. In fact, there is a cylinder in the center of the top surface. I think that if we examine that cylinder we may be able to determine their purpose. I suspect that it was placed there so we'd do just that.'

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  A woman approached them. She was of medium height, had a superb shape, and a face that would have been beautiful if it had been framed by hair. Her eyes were large and dark. She made no attempt to cover herself with her hands. Burton was not the least bit aroused looking at her or any of the women. He was too deeply numbed.

  The woman spoke in a well-modulated voice and an Oxford accent. `I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I couldn't help overhearing you. You're the only English voices I've heard since I woke up . . . here, wherever here is. I am an Englishwoman, and I am looking for protection. I throw myself on your mercy.' `Fortunately for you, Madame,' Burton said, `you come to the right men. At least, speaking for myself, I can assure you that you will get all the protection I can afford. Though, if I were like some of the English gentlemen I've known, you might not have fared so well. By the way, this gentleman is not English. He's Yankee.' It seemed strange to be speaking so formally this day of all days, with all the wailing and shouting up and down the valley and everybody birth-naked and as hairless as eels.

  The woman held out her hand to Burton. `I'm Mrs. Hargreaves,' she said.

  Burton took the hand, and, bowing kissed it lightly. He felt foolish, but, at the same time, the gesture strengthened his held on sanity. If the fortes of polite society could be preserved perhaps the 'rightness' of things might also be restored.

  'The late Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton,' he said, grinning slightly at the late. `Perhaps you've heard of me?' She snatched her hand away and then extended it again.

  `Yes, I've heard of you, Sir Richard'

  Somebody said, `It can't be!'

  Burton looked at Frigate, who had spoken in such a low tone. `And why not?' he said.

  `Richard Burton!' Frigate said. `Yes. I wondered, but without any hair? . . .' `Yeas?' Burton drawled.

  'Yaas' Frigate said. `Just as the books said'

  `What are you talking about?' Frigate breathed in deeply and then said, Never mind now, Mr. Burton. I'll explain later. Just take it that I'm very shaken up. Not in my right mind. You understand that, of course.' He looked intently at Mrs. Hargreaves, shook his head, and said, `Is your name Alice?'

  `Why, yes' she said, smiling and becoming beautiful, hair or no hair. `How did you know? Have I met you? No, I don't think so.'

  `Alice Pleasance Liddell Hargreaves?'

  `Yes!'

  'I have to go sit down,' the American said. He walked under the tree and sat down with his back to the trunk. His eyes looked a little glazed.

  `Aftershock,' Burton said.

  He could expect such erratic behavior and speech from the others for some time. He could expect a certain amount of non-rational behavior from himself, too. The important thing was to get shelter and food and some plan for common defense.

  Burton spoke in Italian and Slovenian to the others and they made the introductions. They did not protest when he suggested that they should follow him down to the river's edge.

  `I'm sure we're all thirsty,' he said. `And we should investigate that stone mushroom.' They walked back to the plain behind them. The people were sitting on the grass or trilling about. They passed one couple arguing loudly and red-facedly. Apparently, they had been husband and wife and were continuing a life-long dispute. Suddenly, the man turned and walked away. The wife looked unbelievingly at him and then ran after him. He thrust her away so violently that she fell on the grass. He quickly lost himself in the crowd, but the woman wandered around, calling his name and threatening to make a scandal if he did not come out hiding.

  Burton thought briefly of his own wife, Isabel. He had not seen her in this crowd, though that did not mean that she was not in it. But she would have been looking for him. She would not stop until she found him.

  He pushed through the crowd to the river's edge and then got down on his knees and scooped up water with his hands. It was cool and clear and refreshing. His stomach felt as if it were absolutely empty. After he had satisfied his thirst, he became hungry.

  `The waters of the River of Life,' Burton said. 'The Styx? Lethe? No, not Lethe. I remember everything about my Earthly existence.'

  `I wish I could forget mine,' Frigate said.

  Alice Hargreaves was kneeling by the edge and dipping water with one hand while she leaned on the other arm. Her figure was certainly lovely, Burton thought. He wondered if she would be blonde when her hair grew out, if it grew out. Perhaps Whoever had put them here intended they should all be bald, forever, for some reason of Theirs.

  They climbed upon the top of the nearest mushroom structure. The granite was a dense-grained gray flecked heavily with red. On its flat surface were seven hundred indentations, forming fifty concentric circles. The depression in the center held a metal cylinder. A little dark-skinned man with a big nose and receding chin was examining the cylinder. As they approached, he looked up and smiled.

  'This one won't open,' he said in German. `Perhaps it will later. I'm sure it's there as an example of what to do with our own containers.' He introduced himsel
f as Lev Ruach and switched to a heavily accented English when Burton, Frigate, and Hargreaves gave their names.

  `I was an atheist,' he said, seeming to speak to himself more than to them. `Now, I don't know! This place is as big a shock to an atheist, you know, as to those devout believers who had pictured an afterlife quite different from this. Well, so I was wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.' He chuckled, and said to Monat, `I recognized you at once. It's a good thing for you that you were resurrected in a group mainly consisting of people who died in the nineteenth century. Otherwise, you'd be lynched.'

  `Why is that?' Burton asked.

  `He killed Earth,' Frigate said. `At least, I think he did.'

  'The scanner,' Monat said dolefully, `was adjusted to kill only human beings. And it would not have exterminated all of mankind. It would have ceased operating after a predetermined number – unfortunately, a large number – had lost their lives. Believe me, my friends; I did not want to do that. You do not know what an agony it cost me to make the decision to press the button. But I had to protect my people. You forced my hand.'

  `It started when Monat was on a live show,' Frigate said. `Mount made an unfortunate remark. He said that his scientists had the knowledge and ability to keep people from getting old. Theoretically, using Tau Cetan techniques, a man could live forever. But the knowledge was not used on his planet; it was forbidden. The interviewer asked him if these techniques could be applied to Terrestrials. Monat replied that there was no reason why not. But rejuvenation was denied to his own kind for a very good reason, and this also applied to Terrestrials. By then the government censor realized what was happening and cut off the audio. But it was too late.'

  `Later,' Lev Ruach said, `the American government reported that Monat had misunderstood the question, that his knowledge of English had led him to make a misstatement. But it was too late. The people of America, and of the world, demanded that: Monat reveal the secret of eternal youth.'

  `Which I did not have,' said Monat. `Not a single one of out, expedition had the knowledge. In fact, very few people on my planet had it: But it did no good to tell the people this. They thought I was lying. There was a riot, and a mob stormed the guards around our ship and broke into it. I saw my friends torn to pieces while they tried to reason with the mob. Reason! `But I did what I did, not for revenge, but for a very differed motive. I knew that, after we were killed, or even if we weren't, the U.S. government would restore order. And it would have the ship in its possession. It wouldn't be long before Terrestrial scientists would know how to duplicate it. Inevitably, the Terrestrials would launch an invasion fleet against our world. So, to make sure that Earth would be set back many centuries; maybe thousands of years, knowing that I must do the dreadful thing to save my own world, I sent the signal to the scanner to orbit. I would not have had to do that if I could have gotten to the destruct button and blown up the ship. But I could not get to the control room. So, I pressed the scanner-activation button. A short time later, the mob blew off the door of the room in which I had taken refuge. I remember nothing after that.'