"Frigate added that Kazz somehow could see a little further into the color spectrum than non-Neanderthals could. Into the ultraviolet , as a matter of fact, since the symbols were bluish. At least that is the way Kazz described them. All of us, except certain individuals, seem to bear this mark. As if we're branded cattle. Since that time, Kazz, and his woman Besst, have observed these on people's foreheads, when the lighting conditions were right, of course."
This news, as always, resulted in astonishment, indignation, and even shock. Burton waited until the furor died down before speaking.
"Some of you late-twentieth-centurians may know that the so-called Neanderthal man was reclassified. The anthropoligists decided that he was not a separate species but a variant of Homo sapiens. Nevertheless, just as he differed somewhat in physical build and teeth from us, he also has the ability to see into the ultraviolet."
Besst said, "I am not a Neanderthal man but a woman, and I, too, have this ability."
Burton grinned and said, "Women's lib has penetrated into the Old Stone Age. However, let me point out that events will show that Whoever made this world and stamped us with, in a manner of speaking, the mark of the beast, did not know that Homo neanderthalis had a special visual ability. This means that Whoever is not omniscient.
"To resume my narrative. I asked for the identity of the person who lacked the symbol. Frigate replied, 'Robert Spruce!'
'' Spruce had also been a grail slave. He claimed to be an Englishman born in 1945. That was about all I knew of him.
"I said that we would get him and question him. Frigate told me that we'd have to catch him because he was probably long gone. It seems that Kazz told Spruce he'd noticed Spruce lacked the mark on his forehead. Spruce had turned pale, and a few minutes later he left hurriedly. Frigate and Monat sent search parties out, but at the time they reported to me he hadn't been found.
"It seemed to me that his flight was an admission of guilt, though I didn't know what he was guilty of. A few hours later, he was discovered hiding in the hills. He was brought before the newly formed council of our newly formed state. Spruce was pale and trembling, though he looked us straight in the eye defiantly enough.
"I informed him that we suspected that he was an agent for the Ethicals if not an Ethical himself. I also told him that we would go to any lengths, including torture, to get the truth from him. This was a lie, since we would have been no better than the men who'd enslaved us if we had resorted to torture. Spruce, however, did not know that.
"Spruce said, 'You may be denying yourself eternal life if you torture me. It will at least set you far back on your journey, delay your final goal. "
"I asked him what that final goal was, but he ignored that question. Instead, he said, 'We can't stand pain. We're too sensitive.'
"There was some more exchange, but he would not answer our questions. Then one of the councillors suggested that he be suspended above a fire. Monat spoke up then. He told Spruce that he was from a culture somewhat more advanced than that of Earth's. He felt he was more qualified to make guesses about the truth than the rest of us, and no one argued with him about this. Monat said that he would like to spare him the pain of the fire and also the pain of betraying his trust. Perhaps Monat could make some speculations about the Ethicals and their agents, and Spruce could merely affirm or deny the speculations. In this way, Spruce would not be making a positive betrayal of his trust, whatever that was."
Bill Owain said, "That was a peculiar arrangement."
"True. But Monat hoped to get him to talking. You see, we were not going to use any brutal methods of inquisition. If we couldn't scare him, then we were going to try hypnosis. Both Monat and I are skilled mesmerists. However, as it turned out, we didn't have to resort to that.
"Monat said, 'It's my theory that you are a Terrestrial. You come from an age chronologically far past 2008 a.d. In fact, you are a descendant of the few people who survived the death beam projected from our orbital ship.' Monat guessed that the technology and energy required to reconstruct this planet into one vast Rivervalley was very advanced. He suggested that Spruce was born in the fiftieth century A.D.
"Spruce replied that he should add two thousand years.
"Monat then said that not everyone had been resurrected. There wasn't enough room on this world. It was known that no children who had died before the age of five were here. And though it couldn't be proved, it seemed likely that no imbeciles and idiots had been resurrected here. Nor was anyone who lived after 2008 a.d., with the exception of Spruce here.
"Where were these people?
"Spruce answered that they were elsewhere, and that was all he would say on the subject.
"Monat then asked him how the people of the Earth had been recorded. That is, what device had the Ethicals used to make recordings of our bodies? Since it was obvious that scientific, not supernatural, means were used to resurrect us, that meant that everyone from the Old Stone Age to 2008 a.d. had somehow been observed, the structure of every cell of a person's body recorded, and this recording was stored somewhere to be used later in the recreation of the body.
"Monat said that the recordings must be placed in an energy-matter converter, whereupon the body was duplicated. The effects of injuries, wounds, and diseases that had caused death were cancelled. Amputated limbs and organs were restored. I myself saw some of this regeneration process when I awoke in the preresurrec-tion space. Also, those aged past twenty-five were rejuvenated.
"Monat further speculated that the bodies in the PR bubble were destroyed after the regeneration process was completed. But recordings of the new bodies had been made, and these recordings were used in the final stage, the great resurrection, when all of us appeared together on that never-to-be-forgotten day.
"Monat supposed that the resurrection was accomplished through the metal of the grailstone system. That is, all the stones are connected deep underground to form a circuit of some sort, and the energy is supplied from the hot nickle-iron core of this planet.
"Monat then said, "The big question is why?'
"Spruce said, 'If you had it in your power to do all this, would you not think it your ethical duty?"
"Monat said that he would think so. But he would bring back to life only those who deserve a second life.
"Spruce became angry then. He replied that Monat was setting himself up as an equal of God. Everybody, no matter how stupid, selfish, petty, brutal, etcetera, must be given another chance to redeem themselves, to make themselves worthy. It would not be done for them; they must, somehow, lift themselves by their own moral bootstraps.
"Monat asked Spruce how long this process would take. A thousand years? Two? A million?
"Spruce became angry, and he shouted, 'You will stay here as long as it takes you to be rehabilitated! Then...'
"He paused, glaring at us as if he hated us, and he said, 'Continued contact with you makes even the toughest of us take on your characteristics. We then have to go through a rehabilitation process ourselves. Already, I feel unclean...'
"One of the councillors, wishing to press him, urged that he be put over the fire until he would talk freely.
"Spruce cried, 'No, you won't! I should have done this long ago! Who knows what...'"
Burton paused dramatically.
"Then Spruce fell dead!"
There were gasps, and someone said, "Mein Gott!"
"Yes, but that isn't the end of the story. Spruce's body was taken away for dissection. It seemed too coincidental that he should have had a heart attack. Not only was it too convenient for him, it was unheard of.