There was more, all the better because unexpected. A small briar pipe, A sack of pipe tobacco. Three cigars. A plastic package with ten cigarettes.
"Unfiltered!" Frigate said.
There was also one small brown cigarette which Burton and Frigate smelled and said, at the same time, "Marihuana!"
Alice, holding up a small metallic scissors and a black comb, said, "Evidently we’re going to get our hair back. Otherwise, there’d be no need for these. I’m so glad! But do … They really expect me to use this?" She held out a tube of bright red lipstick.
"Or me?" Frigate said, also looking at a similar tube.
"They’re eminently practical," Monat said, turning over a packet of what was obviously toilet paper. Then he pulled out sphere of green soap.
Burton’s steak was very tender, although he would have preferred it rare. On the other hand, Frigate complained because it was not cooked enough.
"Evidently, these grails do not contain menus tailored for the individual owner," Frigate said. "Which may be why we men also get lipstick and the women got pipes. It’s a mass production.
"Two miracles in one day," Burton said. "That is, if they are such. I prefer a rational explanation and intend to get it. I don’t think anyone can, as yet, tell me how we were resurrected. But perhaps you twentieth-centurians have a reasonable theory for the seemingly magical appearance of these articles in a previously empty container?"
"If you compare the exterior and interior of the grail," Monat said, "you will observe an approximate five-centimeter difference in depth. The false bottom must conceal a molar circuitry, which is able to convert energy to matter. The energy obviously comes during the discharge from the rocks. In addition to the converter, the grail must hold molar templates? … molds? … which form the matter into various combinations of and compounds.’
"I’m safe in my speculations, for we had a similar converter on my active planet. But nothing as miniature as this, I assure you."
"Same on Earth," Frigate said. "They were making iron out of pure energy before A.D. 2002, but it was a very cumbersome and expensive process with an almost microscopic yield."
"Good," Burton said. "All this has cost us nothing. So far…
He fell silent for a while, thinking of the dream he had when awakening.
"Pay up," God had said. "You owe for the flesh."
"What had that meant? On Earth, at Trieste, in 1890, he had been dying, in his wife’s arms and asking for… what? Chloroform? Something. He could not remember. Then, oblivion. And he had awakened in that nightmare place and had seen things that were not on Earth nor, as far as he knew, on this planet. But that experience had been no dream.
8
They finished eating and replaced the containers in the racks within the grails. Since there was no water nearby, they would have to wait until morning to wash the containers. Frigate and Kazz, however, had made several buckets out of sections of the giant bamboo. The American volunteered to walk back to the river, if some of them would go with him, and fill the sections with water. Burton wondered why the fellow volunteered. Then, looking at Alice, he knew why. Frigate must be hoping to find some congenial female companionship. Evidently he took it for granted that Alice Hargreaves preferred Burton. And the other women, Tucci, Malini, Capone, and Fiorri, had made their choices of, respectively, Galleazzi, Brontich, Rocco, and Giunta. Babich had wandered off, possibly for the same reason that Frigate had for wishing to leave.
Monat and Kazz went with Frigate. The sky was suddenly crowded-with gigantic sparks and great luminous gas clouds. The glitter of jam-packed stars, some so large they seemed to be broken-off pieces of Earth’s moon, and the shine of the clouds, awed them and made them feel pitifully microscopic and ill-made.
Burton lay on his back on a pile of tree leaves and puffed on a cigar. It was excellent, and in the London of his day would have cost at least a shilling. He did not feel so minute and unworthy now. The stars were inanimate matter, and he was alive. No star could ever know the delicious taste of an expensive cigar. Nor could it know the ecstasy of holding a warm well-curved woman next to it.
On the other side of the fire, half or wholly lost in the grasses and the shadows, were the Triestans. The liquor had uninhibited them, though part of their sense of freedom may have come from joy at being alive and young again. They giggled and laughed and rolled back and forth in the grass and made loud noises while kissing. And then, couple by couple, they retreated into the darkness. Or at least, made no more loud noises.
The little girl had fallen asleep by Alice. The firelight flickered over Alice’s handsome aristocratic face and bald head and on the magnificent body and long legs. Burton suddenly knew that all of him bad been resurrected. He definitely was not the old man who, during the last sixteen years of his life, had paid so heavily for the many fevers and sicknesses that had squeezed him dry in the tropics. Now he was young again, healthy, and possessed by the old clamoring demon.
Yet he had given his promise to protect her. He could make no move, say no word which she could interpret as seductive.
Well, she was not the only woman in the world. As a matter of fact, he had the whole world of women, if not at his disposal, at least available to be asked. That is, he did if everybody who had died on Earth was on this planet. She would be only one among many billions (possibly thirty-six billion, if Frigate’s estimate was correct). But there was, of course, no such evidence that this was the case.
The hell of it was that Alice might as well be the only one in the world, at this moment, anyway. He could not get up and walk off into the darkness looking for another woman, because that would leave her and the child unprotected. She certainly would not feel safe with Monat and Kazz, nor could he blame her. They were so terrifyingly ugly. Nor could he entrust her to Frigate — if Frigate returned tonight, which Burton doubted because the fellow was an unknown quantity.
Burton suddenly laughed loudly at his situation. He had decided that he might as well stick it out for tonight. This thought set him laughing again, and he did not stop until Alice asked him if he was all right.
"More right than you will ever know," he said, turning his back to her. He reached into his grail and extracted the last item. This was a small flat stick of chicle-like substance. Frigate, before leaving, had remarked that their unknown benefactors must be American. Otherwise, they would not have thought of providing chewing gum.
After stubbing out his cigar on the ground, Burton popped the stick into his mouth. He said, "This has a strange but rather delicious taste. Have you tried yours?"
"I am tempted, but I imagine I’d look like a cow chewing her cud."
"Forget about being a lady," Burton said. "Do you think that beings with the power to resurrect you would have vulgar tastes?"
Alice smiled slightly, said, "I really wouldn’t know," and placed the stick in her mouth. For a moment, they chewed idly, looking across the fire at each other. She was unable to look him full in the eyes for more than a few seconds at a time.
Burton said, "Frigate mentioned that he knew you. Of you, rather. Just who are you, if you will pardon my unseemly curiosity?"