Part 20 (2/2)
Something in the wreck itself confused him. There was a man. There was a woman. That fit the ritual--two servants to accompany dead royalty on its way. This was the custom of the Nadians. But the man....
On the man's crushed arm, the arm completely covered with blood, was a mark. It was as if something--say, a band of metal--had protected the arm at one point. For circling the upper arm was a band of skin not b.l.o.o.d.y like the rest, wide in the shape of a disc, then narrow all around.
The bracelet of Portox-saviour! thought Byla.n.u.s. Had this dead man worn it? Had the imposter, now slain by the wild boar, taken it from him?
_Oh Portox-saviour, Portox-saviour, how long dead? Am I too late, is it too late for this man, your heir...?_
As gently as he could, the huge Byla.n.u.s lifted the two bodies and put them in his saddle-bags. He faced the Kranuian Wood astride. The stallion held its head up, alert, ready. They psychokinesthized.
And disappeared in a twinkling with Bram Forest and Ylia, both of whom were dead.
CHAPTER XVI
_The Raging Beast_
Although once mighty Ofridia of Tarth and certainly the nations of Earth had outstripped Byla.n.u.s' world in the physical science, the planet of the pink and green suns was supreme in biology. Thus had it needed Portox' help, a hundred Earth-Tarthian years before, when run-down entropy threatened its very existence. On the other hand, through biology, the science of Byla.n.u.s' world had come a long way in the conquest of death and destroyed human tissue. So it was that with some faint ray of confidence Byla.n.u.s brought the two broken bodies to the single large city of his park-like planet. There, tenderly, he left them in the care of specialists at the regeneration station, and began his long vigil.
... sensation and movement.
Hardly anything at first. Bram Forest dreamed of dreaming. The motion was gentle, warm, comfortable.
The glow of life and not the cold breath of death....
With it, with the first stirrings of regeneration, came the shadow of pain. But it was far away and almost impalpable, pain understood rather than felt. And slowly the pain departed. There came a time when Bram Forest realized he was not breathing, was, indeed, immersed in liquid.
He floated, helpless, serene, strangely content.
... Until, with the first signs of impatience, strength flooded through his regenerated limbs.
”In every cell of a living creature's body,” Orro the bio-technician explained to Byla.n.u.s, ”there is the potential for complete and perfect regeneration. For, whereas the eye is an organ to see with, in every one of the millions of tiny cells making up the eye is the gene-pattern not merely for the eye but for the rest of the body.
Theoretically then, Byla.n.u.s, if we are given but a single intact cell of a living--or once-living--organism, we ought to be able to reproduce the organism in its entirety. This is not supernatural. It is not creation of life: we can create nothing. The secret of creation is not ours here at this laboratory. But we have mastered the secret of recreation. Nurtured by the life-giving fluid, their development controlled by their own genes, the two human beings you brought are being made whole again.”
Byla.n.u.s nodded. Orro the bio-technician was loquacious and spoke quickly, confidently, with mild pedantic enthusiasm. As for Byla.n.u.s, he awaited the regeneration of the man who had worn Portox-saviour's bracelet. He looked at the bodies in the vat, hanging upside-down, floating head down, rocking gently in the warm, circulating life-fluid. He waited....
Bram Forest took his first breath. The first thing he said was: ”Ylia, Ylia....”
Byla.n.u.s met them after the vat had been drained and a door had opened for them. He told them what had happened, including the death of Hultax. Then he added:
”As far as I am concerned, there can be no doubt as to your ident.i.ty.
But the bracelet is lost forever and there will be some who doubt your ident.i.ty.” Abruptly, he seemed to change the subject: ”How do you feel?”
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