Robert J. Shea returns with this intriguing short-short predicting a nottoo distant future where medicine, not content with stimulating life andnew growth in people who had already died, goes on to further experimentswhich Baron von Frankenstein would have found interesting.
They had been cramped for space, him and his people.Obviously this new age had solved the problem better.
"You're a fascinatingperson," the girl said. "I'venever met anyone like youbefore. Tell me your storyagain."
The man was short andstocky, with Asiatic featuresand a long, stringy mustache."The whole story?" he asked."It would take a lifetime totell you." He stared out thewindow at the yellow sun andthe red sun. He still hadn'tgotten used to seeing twosuns. But that was minor, really,when there were so manyother things he had to getused to.
A robot waiter, with longthin metal tubes for arms andlegs, glided over. When he'dfirst seen one of those, he'dthought it was a demon. He'dtried to smash it. They'd hadtrouble with him at first.
"They had trouble with meat first," he said.
"I can imagine," said thegirl. "How did they explain itto you?"
"It was hard. They had togive me the whole history ofmedicine. It was years beforeI got over the notion that Iwas up in the EverlastingBlue Sky, or under the earth,or something." He grinned atthe girl. She was the first personhe'd met since they gothim a job and gave him a homein a world uncountable lightyears from the one he'd beenborn on.
"When did you begin to understand?"
"They simply taught all ofhistory to me. Including thepart about myself. Then I beganto get the picture. Funny.I wound up teaching them alot of history."
"I bet you know a lot."
"I do," the man with theAsiatic features said modestly."Anyway, they finally gotacross to me that in the 22ndcentury—they had explainedthe calendar to me, too; Iused a different one in myday—they had learned how togrow new limbs on peoplewho had lost arms and legs."
"That was the first realstep," said the girl.
"It was a long time till theygot to the second step," hesaid. "They learned how tostimulate life and new growthin people who had alreadydied."
"The next part is the thingI don't understand," the girlsaid.
"Well," said the man, "as Iget it, they found that anypiece of matter that has beenpart of an organism, retains aphysical 'memory' of the entirestructure of the organismof which it was part. And thatthey could reconstruct thatstructure from a part of a person,if that was all there wasleft of him. From there it wasjust a matter of pushing theprocess back through time.They had to teach me a wholenew language to explain thatone."
"Isn't it wonderful that intergalactictravel gives usroom to expand?" said thegirl. "I mean now that everyhuman being that ever livedhas been brought back to lifeand will live forever?"
"Same problem I had, meand my people," said the man."We were cramped for space.This age has solved it a lotbetter than I did. But they hadto give me a whole psychologicaloverhauling before I understoodthat."
"Tell me about your pastlife," said the girl, staringdreamily at him.
"Well, six thousand yearsago, I was born in the GobiDesert, on Earth," said GenghisKhan, sipping his drink.