A. E. Van Vogt - Resurrection.pdf

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RESURRECTION
by A. E. van Vogt
THE GREAT ship poised a quarter of a mile above one of
the cities. Below was a cosmic desolation. As he floated
down in his energy bubble, Enash saw that the buildings
were crumbling with age.
"No signs of war damage!" "The bodiless voice touched his
ears momentarily. Enash turned it out.
On the ground he collapsed his bubble. He found
himself in a walled enclosure overgrown with weeds. Several
skeletons lay in the tail grass beside the rakish building.
They were of long, two-legged, two-armed beings with skulls
in each case mounted at the end of a thin spine. The skele-
tons, all of adults, seemed in excellent preservation, but when
he bent down and touched one, a whole section of it crum-
bled into a fine powder. As he straightened, he saw that
Yoal was floating down nearby. Enash waited until the his-
torian had stepped out of his bubble, then he said:
"Do you think we ought to use our method of reviving the
long dead?"
Yoal was thoughtful. "I have been asking questions of the
various people who have landed, and there is something
wrong here. This planet has no surviving life, not even in-
sect life. We'll have to find out what happened before we
risk any colonization."
Enash said nothing. A soft wind was blowing. It rustled
through a clump of trees nearby. He motioned towards the
trees. Yoal nodded and said, "Yes, the plant life }ias not
been harmed, but plants after all are not affected in the
same way as the active life forms."
There was an interruption. A voice spoke from Yoal's re-
ceiver: "A museum has 'been found at approximately the
centre of the city. A red light has been fixed on the roof."
Enash said, "I'll go with you, Yoal. "There might be
skeletons of animals and of the intelligent being in various
stages of his evolution. You didn't answer my question.
Are you going to revive these things?"
Yoal said slowly, "I intend to discuss the matter with
the council, but I think there is no doubt. We must know
the cause of this disaster." He waved one sucker vaguely
to take in half the compass. He added as an afterthought,
"We shall proceed cautiously, of course, beginning with an
obviously early development. The absence of the skeletons
of children indicates that the race had developed personal
immortality."
The council came to look at the exhibits. It was, Enash
knew, a formal preliminary only. The decision was made.
There would be revivals. It was more than that. They
were curious. Space was vast, the journeys through it long and
lonely, landing always a stimulating experience, with its
prospect of new life forms to be seen and studied.
The museum looked ordinary. High-domed ceilings, vast
rooms. Plastic models of strange beasts, many artifactstoo
many to see and comprehend in so short a time. The life
span of a race was imprisoned here in a progressive array
of relics. Enash looked with the others, and was glad when
they came to the line of skeletons and preserved bodies.
He seated himself behind the energy screen, and watched
the biological experts take a preserved body out of a stone
sarcophagus. It was wrapped in windings of cloth, many of
them. The experts did not bother to unravel the rotted
material. Their forceps reached through, pinched a piece of
skullthat was the accepted procedure. Any part of the
skeleton could be used, but the most perfect revivals, the
most complete reconstructions resulted when a certain section
of the skull was used.
Hamar, the chief biologist, explained the choice of body.
"The chemicals used to preserve this mummy show a sketchy
knowledge of chemistry. The carvings on the sarcophagus
indicate a crude and unmechanical culture. In such a civili-
zation there would not be much development of the potential-
ities of the nervous system. Our speech experts have been
analysing the recorded voice mechanism which is a part of
each exhibit, and though many languages are involved
evidence that the ancient language spoken at the time the body
was alive has been reproducedthey found no difficulty in
translating the meanings. They have now adapted our uni-
versal speech machine, so that anyone who wishes to need
only speak into his communicator, and so will have his words
translated into the language of the revived person. The re-
verse, naturally, is also true. Ah, I see we are ready for
the first body."
Enash watched intently with the others as the lid was
clamped down on the plastic reconstructor, and the growth
processes were started. He could feel himself becoming tense.
For there was nothing haphazard about what was happen-
ing. In a few minutes a full-grown ancient inhabitant of this
planet would sit up and stare at them. The science involved
was simple and always fully effective. ~
.... Out of the shadows of smallness, life grows. The
level of beginning and ending, of life andnot life; in that
dim region matter oscillates easily between old and new
habits. The habit of organic, or the habit of inorganic.
Electrons do not have life and un-life values. Atoms form
into molecules, there is a step in the process, one tiny step,
that is of lifeif life begins at all. One step, and then dark-
ness. Or aliveness.
A stone or a living cell. A grain of gold or a blade of
grass, the sands of the sea or the equally numerous ani-
malcules inhabiting the endless fishy watersthe difference is
there in the twilight zone of matter. Each living cell has in it
the whole form. The crab grows a new leg when the old
one is torn from its flesh. Both ends of the planarian worm
elongate, and soon there are two worms, two identities, two
digestive systems each as greedy as the original, each a
whole, unwounded, unharmed by its experience. Each cell
can be the whole. Each cell remembers in detail so intricate
that no totality of words could ever descibe the completeness
achieved.
Butparadoxmemory is not organic. An ordinary wax
record remembers sounds. A wire recorder easily gives up a
duplicate of the voice that spoke into it years before. Mem-
ory is a physiological impression, a mark on matter, a
change in the shape of a molecule, so that when a reaction
is desired the shape emits the same rhythm of response.
Out of the mummy's skull had come the multi-quadrillion
memory shapes from which a response was now being
evoked. As ever, the memory held true.
A man biinked, and opened his eyes.
"It is true, then," he said aloud, and the words were
translated into the Ganae tongue as he spoke them. "Death
is merely an opening into another lifebut where are my
attendants?" At the end, his voice took on a complaining
tone.
He sat up, and climbed out of the case, which had auto-
matically opened as he came to life. He saw his captors. He
froze, but only for a moment. He had a pride and a very
special arrogant courage, which served him now. Reluctantly,
he sank to his knees and made obeisance, but doubt must have
been strong in him. "Am I in the presence of the gods of
Egypt?" He climbed to his feet. "What nonsense is this? I
do not bow to nameless demons."
Captain Gorsid said, "Kill him!"
The two-legged monster dissolved, writhing in the beam of
a ray gun.
The second revived man stood up, pale, and trembled
with fear. "My God, I swear I won't touch the stuff again.
Talk about pink elephants"
Yoal was curious. "To what stuff do you refer, revived
one?"
"The old hooch, the poison in the hip pocket flask, the juice
they gave me at that speak . . . my lordie!"
Captain Gorsid looked questioningly at Yoal, "Need we
linger?"
Yoal hesitated. "I am curious." He addressed the man. "If
I were to tell you that we were visitors from another star,
what would be your reaction?"
The man stared at him. He was obviously puzzled, but
the fear was stronger. "Now, look," he said, "I was driving
along, minding my own business. I admit I'd had a shot or
two too many, but it's the liquor they serve these days. I
swear I didn't see the other carand if this is some new idea
of punishing people who drink and drive, well, you've won. I
won't touch another drop as long as I live, so help me."
Yoal said, "He drives a 'car' and thinks nothing of it. Yet
we saw no cars. They didn't even bother to preserve them
in the museums."
Enash noticed that everyone waited for everyone else to
comment. He stirred as he realized the circle of silence
would be complete unless he spoke. He said, "Ask him to
describe the car. How does it work?"
"Now, you're talking," said the man. "Bring on your line
of chalk, and I'll walk it, and ask any questions you please.
I may be so tight that I can't see straight, but I can always
drive. How does it work? You just put her in gear, and step
on the gas."
"Gas," said engineering officer Veed. "The internal com-
bustion engine. That places him."
Captain Gorsid motioned to the guard with the ray gun.
The third man sat up, and looked at them thoughtfully.
"From the stars?" he said finally. "Have you a system, or
was it blind chance?"
The Ganae councillors in that domed room stirred uneasily
in their curved chairs. Enash caught Yoal's eye on him. "The
shock in the historian's eye alarmed the meteorologist. He
thought: "The two-legged one's adjustment to a new situation,
his grasp of realities, was unnormally rapid. No Ganae could
have equalled the swiftness of the reaction."
Hamar, the chief biologist, said, "Speed of thought is not
necessarily a sign of superiority. The slow, careful thinker has
his place in the hierarchy of intellect."
But Enash found himself thinking, it was not the speed;
it was the accuracy of the response. He tried to imagine him-
self being revived from the dead, and understanding instantly
the meaning of the presence of aliens from the stars. He
couldn't have done it.
He forgot his thought, for the man was out of the case. As
Enash watched with the others, he walked briskly over to the
window and looked out. One glance, and then he turned
back.
"Is it all like this?" he asked.
Once again, the speed of his understanding caused a sensa-
tion. It was Yoal who finally replied.
"Yes. Desolation. Death. Ruin. Have you any ideas as to
what happened?"
The man came back and stood in front of the energy
screen that guarded the Ganae. "May I look over the mu-
seum? I have to estimate what age I am in. We had certain
possibilities of destruction when I was last alive, but which
one was realized depends on the time elapsed."
The councillors looked at Captain Gorsid, who hesitated;
then, "Watch him," he said to the guard with the ray gun. He
faced the man. "We understand your aspirations fully. You
would like to seize control of this situation and ensure your
own safety. Let me reassure you. Make no false moves,
and all will be well."
Whether or not the man believed the lie, he gave no sign.
Nor did he show by a glance or a movement that he had seen
the scarred floor where the ray gun had burned his two
predecessors into nothingness. He walked curiously to the
nearest doorway, studied the other guard who waited there
for him, and then, gingerly, stepped through. The first guard
followed him, then came the mobile energy screen, and finally,
~ trailing one another, the councillors.
Enash was the third to pass through the doorway. The
_room contained skeletons and plastic models of animals. The
room beyond that was what, for want of a better term, Enash
called a culture room. It contained the artifacts from a single
period of civilization. It looked very advanced. He had ex-
amined some of the machines when they first passed through
,it,, and had thought: Atomic energy. He was not alone in his
recognition. From behind him. Captain Gorsid said to the
man:
"You are forbidden to touch anything. A false move will be
the signal for the guards to fire."
The man stood at ease in the centre of the room. In spite
of a curious anxiety, Enash had to admire his calmness. He
must have known what his fate would be, but he stood there
thoughtfully, and said finally, deliberately, "I do not need to
go any farther. Perhaps you will be able to judge better than I
of the time that has elapsed since I was born and these ma-
chines were built. I see over there an instrument which, ac-
cording to the sign above it, counts atoms when they explode.
As soon as the proper number have exploded it shuts off the
power automatically, and for just the right length of time to
prevent a chain explosion. In my time we had a thousand
crude devices for limiting the size of an atomic reaction, but
it required two thousand years to develop those devices from
the early beginnings of atomic energy. Can you make a com-
parison?"
The councillors glanced at Veed. The engineering officer
hesitated. At last, reluctantly, he said, "Nine thousand years
ago we had a thousand methods of limiting atomic explosions."
He paused, then even more slowly, "I have never heard of an
instrument that counts out atoms for such a purpose."
"And yet," murmured Shuri, the astronomer, breathlessly,
"the race was destroyed."
There was silence. It ended as Gorsid said to the nearest
guard, "Kill the monster!"
But it was the guard who went down, bursting into flame.
Not just one guard, but the guards! Simultaneously down,
burning with a blue flame. The flame licked at the screen,
recoiled, and licked more furiously, recoiled and burned
brighter. Through a haze of fire, Enash saw that the man
had retreated to the far door, and that the machine that
counted atoms was glowing with a blue intensity.
Captain Gorsid shouted into his communicator, "Guard all
exits with ray guns. Spaceships stand by to kill alien with
heavy guns."
Somebody said, "Mental control. Some kind of mental con-
trol. What have we run into?"
They were retreating. The blue flame was at the ceiling,
struggling to break through the screen. Enash had a last
glimpse of the machine. It must still be counting atoms, for it
was a hellish blue. Enash raced with the others to the room
where the man had been resurrected. There, another energy
screen crashed to their rescue. Safe now, they retreated into
their separate bubbles and whisked through outer doors and
up to the ship. As the great ship soared, an atomic bomb
hurtled down from it. The mushroom of flame blotted out the
museum and the city below.
"But we still don't know why the race died," Yoal whis-
pered into Enash's ear, after the thunder had died from the
heavens behind them.
The pale yellow sun crept over the horizon on the third
morning after the bomb was dropped, the eighth day since the
landing. Enash floated with the others down on a new city.
He had come to argue against any further revival.
"As a meteorologist," he said, "I pronounce this planet safe
for Ganae colonization. I cannot see the need tor taking any
risks. This race has discovered the secrets of its nervous sys-
tem, and we cannot afford"
He was interrupted. Hamar, the biologist, said dryly, "If
they knew so much why didn't they migrate to other star
systems and save themselves?"
"I will concede," said Enash, "that very possibly they had
not discovered our system of locating stars with planetary
families." He looked earnestly around the circle of his friends.
"We have agreed that was a unique accidental discovery.
We were lucky, not clever."
He saw by the expressions on their faces that they were
mentally refuting his arguments. He felt a helpless sense
of imminent catastrophe. For he could see that picture of a
great race facing death. It must have come swiftly, but not so
swiftly that they didn't know about it. There were too many
skeletons in the open, lying in the gardens of magnificent
homes, as if each man and his wife had come out to wait for
the doom of his kind. He tried to picture it for the council, thtit
last day long, long ago, when a race had calmly met its end-
ing. But his visualization failed somehow, for the others shifted
impatiently in the seats that had been set up behind the series
of energy screens, and Captain Gorsid said, "Exactly what
aroused this intense emotional reaction in you, Enash?"
The question gave Enash pause. He hadn't thought of it as
emotional. He hadn't realized the nature of his obsession, so
subtly had it stolen upon him. Abruptly now, he realized.

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