Dr. Sign said, "Evidently he's going to become conscious. He seems to be passing through the rebirth process unusually rapidly; that indicates his death was originally rapid."
Bending over the Anarch, Sebastian studied him, studied the tiny, dark, wrinkled face. It was certainly a living face, now; the change struck him as enormous. To see what had been inert organic matter become active... this is the real miracle, he said to himself; the greatest of them all. Resurrection.
The eyes opened. The Anarch gazed up at Sebastian, his chest rising and falling regularly; his expression was tranquil, and Sebastian decided that in this state the man had died. Worthy of his calling, he reflected; the Anarch had died like Socrates: hating no one, fearing nothing. He found himself impressed. But always he and his crew at the Flask of Hermes Vitarium missed this moment: this took place before the digging up, the recovery; this took place in the dismal vacuity of the tomb.
"Maybe he'll say something profound," Lindy offered.
The pupils of the eyes moved; the inert man now living again was seeing each of them here in the room. The eyes roved but the expression in them and on the other features stayed constant. As if, Sebastian thought, we have resurrected a watching-machine. I wonder what he remembers, he asked himself. More than I? I hope so, and it would be reasonable. He, because of his calling, would be more alert.
The dry, cracked, darkened mouth stirred. The Anarch said in a rustling, wind-like whisper, "I saw God. Do you doubt it?"
There was a moment of silence and then, shockingly, R.C. Buckley said, "Do you dare to doubt it?"
The Anarch said, "I saw the Almighty Man."
"His hand," Buckley said, "was resting on a mountain." He paused, strained to remember; the others in the room watched him. The Anarch watched him, listening for him to go on. "And he looked upon the world," Buckley said finally. "And all about it."
"I saw him plainer than you see me now," the Anarch whispered. "You mustn't doubt it."
"What's that?" Bob Lindy said.
"An old Irish poem," Buckley said. "I'm Irish. It's by James Stephens, I think. As I remember."
The Anarch said, in a stronger voice, "He was not satisfied; his look was all dissatisfied." He shut his eyes then, rested; Dr. Sign listened to his heart, checked the registering gauges of body functions. "He lifted up his hand," the Anarch said, dimly. As if once more fading back into death. "I'm in the way, I said. And I will never move from where I stand."
"He said," Buckley said, "dear child, I feared that you were dead. And stayed his hand."
"Yes," the Anarch said, and nodded; his expression was peaceful. "I don't want to forget. He stayed his hand. Because of me."
Lindy said, "Were you something special?"
"No," the Anarch said. "I was something small."
"Small,'" Sebastian echoed, nodding. How well he remembered that. Terribly, completely small, the most meager iota in the universe of things. Now he, too, remembered this: the dissatisfied look; the raising of the hand... and then the staying of the hand, because he had said something. The Anarch's words, and Buckley's, had brought it back, the rest of his recollection. That terrifying, angry, lifted hand.
"He said," the Anarch said, "that he feared I was dead."
"Well, you were," Lindy said practically. "That's why you were there; right?" He glanced at Sebastian, clearly not impressed. "What about you, R.C.," he said to Buckley. "You were along? How come you know so much?"
"A poem!" Buckley said hotly. "I remember it from my childhood. For chrissake; forget it." He looked ill at ease. "It made a big impression on me when I was a kid. I don't remember it all, but what he said--" He gestured at the Anarch. "Brought most of it back."
Sebastian said to the Anarch, "That's how it was; I remember now." And more; he remembered more, a great deal. It would take him a long time to sift it and digest it. To Dr. Sign he said, "Can you provide him adequate medical attention? Can we keep him out of a hospital?"
"We can try," Dr. Sign said noncommittally. He continued taking readings, testing the pulse; he seemed particularly concerned about the pulse. "Adrenalin," he said, and dived into his medical bag; in a moment he was preparing an injection.
"So R.C. Buckley," Bob Lindy said, "the hot-shot salesman, is a poet." His reaction was a fusion of contempt and disbelief.
"Lay off," Cheryl Vale said to him sharply.
Again bending over the Anarch, Sebastian said, "Do you know where you are, sir?"
Faintly, the Anarch said, "In a medical ward, I think. I don't seem to be in the hospital." Again his eyes roved, with the curiosity of a child, simple and naive. Wondering. Accepting, without resistance, what he saw. "Are you my friends?"
"Yes," Sebastian said.
Bob Lindy, traditionally, had a down-to-earth fashion of speaking to the old-born; he trotted it forth now. "You were dead," he said to the Anarch. "You died around twenty years ago. While you were dead something happened to time; it reversed itself. So you're back. How do you like it?" He leaned down, speaking louder, as if to a foreigner. "What's your reaction to that?" He waited, but no response came. "Now you're going to have to live your entire life over again, back to childhood and finally to babyhood and then back into a womb." He added, as if by way of consolation, "It's true of the rest of us, whether we died or not." He indicated Sebastian. "This guy here died. Same as you."
"Then Alex Hobart was right," the Anarch said. "I had people who thought so; they expected me back." He smiled, an innocent, enthusiastic smile. "I thought it was grandiose, on their parts. I wonder if they're still alive."
"Sure," Lindy said. "Or about to be alive again. Don't you understand? If you think your coming back signifies something, you're wrong; I mean, it has no religious significance; it's just a natural event, now."
"Even so," the Anarch said, "they will be pleased. Have you been approached by any of them? I'd be glad to give you their names." He shut his eyes again, then, and for a time seemed to have difficulty breathing.
"When you're stronger," Dr. Sign said.
"We should let him get in touch with his people," Father Faine said.
"Of course," Sebastian said, irritated. "It's standard; we always do that; you know." But this was special. And they all knew it, except of course the Anarch himself. He seemed blissfully glad to be alive again, already thinking of those who had been close to him, those whom he had depended on and those who had leaned on him. The joyful reunion, he thought. Not in the next life, but back here. Ironic... this is the meeting place of souls, the Flask of Hermes Vitarium of Greater Los Angeles, California.
Father Faine was speaking to the Anarch, now; two brethren of the cloth, deep in their mutual concern.
"The epitaph on your monument," Father Faine was saying. "I know the poem; it's interested me, because I suppose of its complete repudiation of everything in Christianity, the idea of an imperishable soul, an afterlife, redemption. Did you choose it?"
"They chose it for me," the Anarch murmured. "My friends. I tended to agree with Lucretius; I suppose that's why."
"Do you still?" Father Faine asked. "Now that you've experienced death, the afterlife and rebirth?" He listened intently.
The Anarch whispered, "'This bowl of milk, the pitch on yonder jar, are strange and far-bound travelers come from far. This is a snowflake that was once a flame--the flame was once the fragment of a star.'" He nodded, staring up now at the ceiling of the work area. "I still believe that. I always will."
"But this," Father Faine said. "'The seeds that once were we take flight and fly, winnowed to earth, or whirled along the sky, not lost but disunited. Life lives on.'"
The Anarch finished. "'It is the lives, the lives, the lives, that die.'" His voice was almost inaudible, strange and dim and lonely. "I don't know. I'll have to think... it's too soon."