To Your Scattered Bodies Go Read Online Free PDF

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 himself 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