To Your Scattered Bodies Go

"Jew-hate is something bred into the child," Targoff said. "It becomes part of the nerve. No act of will can get rid of it, unless it is not very deeply embedded or the will is extraordinarily strong. The bell rings, and Pavlov’s dog salivates. Mention the word Jew, and the nervous system storms the citadel of the mind of the Gentile Just as the word Arab storms mine. But I have a realistic basis for hating all Arabs."

"I have pled enough," Burton said. "You will either accept me or reject me. In either case, you know what I will do."

"I accept," Targoff said. "If you can change your mind, I can change mine. I’ve worked with you, eaten bread with you. I like to think I’m a good judge of character. Tell me, if you were planning this, what would you do?" Targoff listened carefully. At the end of Burton’s explanation, Targoff nodded. "Much like my plan. Now…"

16

The next day, shortly after breakfast, several guards came for Burton and Frigate. Targoff looked hard at Burton, who knew what Targoff was thinking. Nothing could be done except to march off to Göring’s "palace." He was seated in a big wooden chair and smoking a pipe. He asked them to sit down and offered them cigars and wine.

"Every once in a while," he said, "I like to relax and talk with somebody besides my colleagues, who are not overly bright. I like especially to talk with somebody who lived after I died. And to men who were famous in their time. I’ve few of either type, so far."

"Many of your Israeli prisoners lived after you," Frigate said.

"Ah, the Jews!" Göring airily waved his pipe. "That is the trouble. They know me too well. They are sullen when I try to talk to them, and too many have tried to kill me for me to feel comfortable around them. Not that I have anything against them. I don’t particularly like Jews, but I had many Jewish friends. . " Burton reddened.

Göring, after sucking on his pipe, continued, Der Fuehrer was a great man, but he had some idiocies. One of them was his attitude toward Jews. Myself, I cared less. But the Germany of my time was anti-Jewish, and a man must go with the Zeitgeist if he wants to get any place in life. Enough of that. Even here, a man cannot get away from them." He chattered on for a while, then asked Frigate many questions concerning the fate of his, contemporaries and the history of post-war Germany.

"If you Americans had had any political sense, you would have declared war on Russia as soon as we surrendered. We would have fought with you against the Bolshevik, and we would have crushed them." Frigate did not reply. Göring then told several "funny," very obscene stories. He asked Burton to tell him about the strange experience he had had before being resurrected in the valley.

Burton was surprised. Had Göring learned about this from Kazz or was there an informer among the slaves? He told in full detail everything that had happened between the time he opened his eyes to find himself in the place of floating bodies to the instant when the man in the aerial canoe pointed the metal tube at him.

"The extra-Terrestrial, Monat, has a theory that some beings, — call them Whoever or X — have been observing mankind since he ceased to be an ape. For at least two million years. These super-beings have, in some manner, recorded every cell of every human being that ever lived from the moment of conception, probably, to the moment of death. This seems a staggering concept, but it is no more staggering than the resurrection of all humanity and the reshaping of this planet into one Rivervalley. The recordings may have been made when the recordees were living. Or it may be that these super-beings detected vibrations from the past, just as we on Earth saw the light of stars, as they had been a thousand years before. .

"Monat, however, inclines to the former theory. He does not believe in time travel even in a limited sense.

"Monat believes that the X’s stored these recordings. How, he does not know. But this planet was then reshaped for us. It is obviously one great Riverworld. During our journey up River, we’ve talked to dozens whose descriptions leave no doubt that they come from widely scattered parts, from all over. One was from far up in the northern hemisphere; another, far down in the southern. All the descriptions fall together to make a picture of a world that has been reworked into one zigzagging Rivervalley.