'It’s hard to say … it couldn’t be…’.
He straightened up. 'Name’s Peter Frigate. F-R-I-G-A-T-E.' He looked around him and then said in a voice even more strained, 'It’s hard to talk coherently. Everybody’s in such a state of shock, you know. I feel as if I’m coming apart. But … here we are. … alive again … young again … no hellfire … not yet, anyway. Born in 1918, died 2008 … because of what this extra-Terrestrial did … don’t hold it against him … only defending himself, you know.' Frigate’s voice died away to a whisper. He grinned nervously at Monat.
Burton said, 'You know this … Monat Grrautut?'
'Not exactly,' Frigate said. 'I saw enough of him on TV, of course, and heard enough and read enough about him.' He held out his hand as if he expected it to be rejected, smiled and they shook hands.
Frigate said, 'I think it’d be a good idea if we banded together. We may need protection.'
'Why?' Burton said, though he knew well enough.
'You know how rotten most humans are,' Frigate said. 'Once people get used to being resurrected, they’ll be fighting for women and food and anything that takes their fancy. And I think we ought to be buddies with this Neanderthal or whatever he is. Anyway, he’ll be a good man in a fight.' Kazz, as he was named later on, seemed pathetically eager to be accepted at the same time, he was suspicious of anyone who got too close.
A woman walked by then, muttering over and over in German, 'My God! What have I done to offend Thee?' A man, both fists clenched and raised to shoulder height, was shouting in Yiddish, 'My beard! My beard.
Another man was, pointing at his genitals and saying in Slovenian, 'They’ve made a Jew of me! A Jew! Do you think that…? No, it couldn’t be!' Burton grinned savagely and said, 'It doesn’t occur to him that maybe they have made a Mohammedan out of him or an Australian aborigine or an ancient Egyptian, all of whom practiced circumcision.'
'What did he say?' asked Frigate. Burton translated; Frigate laughed.
A woman hurried by; she was making a pathetic attempt to cover her breasts and her pubic regions with her hands. She was muttering, 'What will they think, what will they think?' And she disappeared behind the trees.
A man and a woman passed them; they were talking loudly in Italian as if they were separated by a broad highway.
'We can’t be in Heaven … I know, oh my God, I know! … There was Giuseppe Zomzini and you know what a wicked man he was… he ought to burn in hellfire! I know, I know… he stole from the treasury, he frequented whorehouses, he drank himself to death… yet… he’s here!… I know, I know . .’
Another woman was running and screaming in German, 'Daddy! Daddy! Where are you? It’s your own darling Hilda!'
A man scowled at them and said repeatedly, in Hungarian, 'I’m as good as anyone and better than some. To hell with them' A woman said, 'I wasted my whole life, my whole life. I did everything for them, and now… '
A man, swinging the metal cylinder before him as if it were a censer, called out, 'Follow me to the mountains) Follow me! I know the truth, good people! Follow me! We’ll be safe in the bosom of the Lord! Don’t believe this illusion around you; follow me! I’ll open your eyes!' Others spoke gibberish or were silent; their lips tight as if they feared to utter what was within them.
'It’ll take some time before they straighten out,' Burton said. He felt that it would take a long time before the world became mundane for him, too.
'They may never know the truth,' Frigate said.
'What do you mean?'
'They didn’t know the Truth — capital T — on Earth, so why should they here? What makes you think we’re going to get a„ revelation?'
Burton shrugged and said, 'I don’t. But I do think we ought to determine just what our environment is and how we can survive in it. The fortune of a man who sits, sits also.' He pointed toward the riverbank. 'See those stone mushrooms? They seem to be spaced out at intervals of a mile. I wonder what their purpose is?'
Monat said, 'If you had taken a close look at that one, you would have seen that its surface contains about 700 round indentations. These are just the right size for the base of a cylinder to fit in. In fact, there is a cylinder in the center of the top surface. I think that if we examine that cylinder we may be able to determine their purpose. I suspect that it was placed there so we’d do just that.'
5
A woman approached them. She was of medium height, had a superb shape, and a face that would have been beautiful if it had been framed by hair. Her eyes were large and dark. She made no attempt to cover herself with her hands. Burton was not the least bit aroused looking at her or any of the women. He was too deeply numbed.
The woman spoke in a well-modulated voice and an Oxford accent. 'I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I couldn’t help overhearing you. You’re the only English voices I’ve heard since I woke up… here, wherever here is. I am an Englishwoman, and I am looking for protection. I throw myself on your mercy.'
'Fortunately for you, Madame,' Burton said, 'you come to the right men. At least, speaking for myself, I can assure you that you will get all the protection I can afford. Though, if I were like some of the English gentlemen I’ve known, you might not have fared so well. By the way, this gentleman is not English. He’s Yankee.' It seemed strange to be speaking so formally this day of all days, with all the wailing and shouting up and down the valley and everybody birth-naked and as hairless as eels.
The woman held out her hand to Burton. 'I’m Mrs. Hargreaves,' she said.
Burton took the hand, and, bowing kissed it lightly. He felt foolish, but, at the same time, the gesture strengthened his held on sanity. If the fortes of polite society could be preserved perhaps the 'rightness' of things might also be restored.
'The late Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton,' he said, grinning slightly at the late. 'Perhaps you’ve heard of me?' She snatched her hand away and then extended it again.
'Yes, I’ve heard of you, Sir Richard’
Somebody said, 'It can’t be!'
Burton looked at Frigate, who had spoken in such a low tone. 'And why not?' he said.
'Richard Burton!' Frigate said. 'Yes. I wondered, but without any hair?…'
'Yeas?' Burton drawled.
'Yaas' Frigate said. 'Just as the books said’
'What are you talking about?' Frigate breathed in deeply and then said, Never mind now, Mr. Burton. I’ll explain later. Just take it that I’m very shaken up. Not in my right mind. You understand that, of course.' He looked intently at Mrs. Hargreaves, shook his head, and said, 'Is your name Alice?'
'Why, yes' she said, smiling and becoming beautiful, hair or no hair. 'How did you know? Have I met you? No, I don’t think so.'
'Alice Pleasance Liddell Hargreaves?'
'Yes!'
'I have to go sit down,' the American said. He walked under the tree and sat down with his back to the trunk. His eyes looked a little glazed.
'Aftershock,' Burton said.
He could expect such erratic behavior and speech from the others for some time. He could expect a certain amount of non-rational behavior from himself, too. The important thing was to get shelter and food and some plan for common defense.
Burton spoke in Italian and Slovenian to the others and they made the introductions. They did not protest when he suggested that they should follow him down to the river’s edge.
'I’m sure we’re all thirsty,' he said. 'And we should investigate that stone mushroom.' They walked back to the plain behind them. The people were sitting on the grass or trilling about. They passed one couple arguing loudly and red-facedly. Apparently, they had been 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.'
