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Even when you were detected in areas so widely separated that you could
not possibly have gotten to them except through resurrection, we did not
suspect. We thought that you had been killed and then translated. The
years went by. We had no idea where you were. There were other things
for us to do, so we pulled all agents from the Burton Case, as we called it,
except for some stationed at both ends of The River. Somehow, you had
knowledge of the polar tower. Later we found out how. Your friends Goring
and Collop were very helpful, although they did not know they were talking
to Ethicals, of course!
'Who notified you that I was near The River's end?' Burton said.
Lop smiled and said, `There's no need for you to know. However,
we would have caught you anyway. You see, every space in the restoration
bubble the place where you unaccountably awakened during the pre-
resurrection phase has an automatic counter. They were installed for
statistical and research purposes. We like to keep records of what's going
on. For instance, any candidate who has a higher than average number of
deaths sooner or later is a subject for study. Usually later, since we're
short-handed.
`It was not until your 777th death that we got around to looking at
some of the higher frequency resurrections. Yours had the highest count.
You may be congratulated on this, I suppose.'
'There were others, as well?'
'They're not being pursued, if that's what you mean. And, relatively
speaking, they're not many. We had no idea that it was you who had
racked up this staggering number. Your space in the PR bubble was empty
when we looked at it during our Statistical investigation. The two
technicians who had seen you when you woke up in the PR chamber
identified you by your photograph.
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`We set the resurrector so that the next time your body was to be
re-created, an alarm would notify us, and we would bring you here to this
place.'
`Suppose I hadn't died again?' Burton said.
`You were destined to die! You planned on trying to enter the polar
sea via The River's mouth, right?! That is impossible. The last hundred
miles of The River go through an underground tunnel. Any boat would be
torn to pieces. Like others who have dared the journey, you would have
died.'
Burton said, `My photograph the one I took from Agneau. That
was obviously taken on Earth when I was an officer for John Company in
India. How was that gotten?'
`Research, Mr. Burton,' Loga said, still smiling.
Burton wanted to smash the look of superiority on his face. He did
not seem to be restrained by anything; he could, seemingly, walk over to
Loga and strike him. But he knew that the Ethicals were not likely to sit in
the same room with him without safeguards. They would as soon have
given a rabid hyena its freedom.
Did you ever find out what made me awaken before my time?' he
asked. `Or what made those others gain consciousness, too?' Loga gave a
start. Several of the men and women gasped.
Loga rallied first. He said, `We've made a thorough examination of
your body. You have no idea how thorough. We have also screened every
component of your ... psychomorph, I think you could call it. Or aura,
whichever word you prefer.'
He 'gestured at the sphere above his head. `We found no clues
whatsoever.'
Burton threw back his head and laughed loudly and long.
`So you bastards don't know everything!'
Loga smiled tightly. `No. We never will. Only One is Omnipotent' He
touched his forehead, lips, heart, and genitals with the three longest fingers
of his right hand. The others did the same.
`However, I'll tell you that you frightened us -if that'll make you feel
any better. You still do. You see, we are fairly sure that you may be one of
the men of whom we were warned.'
`Warned against? By whom?'
'By, a . . . sort of giant computer, a living one. And by its operator.'
Again, he made the curious sign with his fingers.
'That's all I care to tell you even though you won't remember a
thing that occurs down here after we send you back to the Rivervalley.'
Burton's mind was clouded with anger, but not so much that he missed the
`down here.' Did that mean that the resurrection machinery and the hideout
of the Ethicals were below the surface of the Riverworld?
Loga continued, `The data indicates you may have the potentiality
to wreck our plans. Why you should or hoes you might, we do not know.
But we respect our source of information, how highly you can't imagine.'
`If you believe that,' Burton said, `why don't you just put me in cold
storage? Suspend me between those two bars. Leave me floating in space,
turning around and around forever, like a roast on a spit, until your plans
are completed?' Loge said, `We couldn't do that! That act alone would ruin
everything! How would you attain your salvation? Besides, that would
mean an unforgivable violence on our part! It's unthinkable!
'You were being violent when you forced me to run and hide from
you,' Burton said. `You are being violent now by holding me here against
my will. And you will violate me when you destroy my memory of this little
tete-a-tete with you.'
Loge almost wrung his hands. If he was the Mysterious Stranger,
the renegade Ethical, he was a great actor.
In a grieved tone, Loga said, `That is only partly true. We had to
take certain measures to protect ourselves. If the man had been anyone
but you, we would have left you strictly alone. It is true we violated our own
code of ethics by making you run from us and by examining you. That had
to be, however. And, believe me, we are paying for this in mental agony.'
`You could make up for some of it by telling me why I, why all the
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human beings that ever lived, have been resurrected. And how you did it.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]