"In the latter part of the twentieth century, to avoid the finality of death many people had themselves quick-frozen immediately before or after death. They hoped that by having their bodies preserved they could be thawed out at a later date with minimal damage so the medical skill of a future civilization could bring them back to life. One of the more dubious legacies of the past was about twenty-two thousand of these frozen people.

No one knows exactly what to do with these corpses. Should an attempt be made to resurrect them? Should they simply be disposed of? Since the population of the world is maintained at a constant level, most people feel that it is preferable to create a new life that is genetically and psychologically [sic] prepared for participation in the twenty-first century. Resurrection of one of these bodies with an uncertain adjustment in the twenty-first century might be a sticky business.

Finally, a group decided they would attempt the revival of 100 of the bodies. They picked fifty males and fifty females whose records seemed to be especially promising and thawed them out. They have been successful in bringing 93% of them back to life, and replacing the defective organs that were responsible for death with synthetic organs.

The real problem arose when they found that these individuals are completely out of touch with patterns of life in the twenty-first century. You could no more leave them on their own that you could turn a baboon loose in the middle of a research center. They seem so full of hostilities and have ego motivations that are so alien to the twenty-first [sic] century that people have finally given up the task of trying to train them to fit into the new world. These "thawees" are so disruptive of the routines of life in the twenty-first century that the group that has brought them to life realizes they are saddled with a custodial problem. They are beginning to understand the types of pressures and twenty-four-hours-a-day watchfulness that burdened mothers in previous centuries.

Their reverence for human life does not permit them to refreeze these "unsane" individuals. They finally decide to set up a twentieth-century behavioral research laboratory on an isolated island and turn these people loose there. They provide the ninety-three men and women with every material resource requested and build a laboratory for psychologists and anthropologists to observe them. The thawees are free to set up their own social structure.

By means of monitoring pickups, the custodians are able to make a recording of most of the behavior of the twentieth-century thawees. One evening as Hella is watching them on the teleprojection screen, two men begin to quarrel. One man suspects that another man has attempted to obtain a sexual relationship with a woman he feels belongs to him. Although the woman protests that his suspicions are not correct, he slaps her in the face and hits her in the ribs so hard that it sends her sprawling across the room. The man with whom she has been accused of intimacy stands up and rushes toward the attacking man. A fight begins that lasts several minutes.

Neither Hella nor anyone in the group has even seen anyone strike another person in anger. They watch, spellbound, as the fight continues. They have read that twentieth-century television showed fights and murders. They know little children in that society sometimes spent from four to eight hours a day watching such vicious programs and learning these folkways.

The man who started the fight seems to be losing. Blood is streaming from his nose. Suddenly, the jealous man picks up a metal bar and brings it down with a crunching impact on the head of the man who came to the woman's rescue. His legs crumple, and he slumps to the floor. His murderer is locked in a room by two other thawees.

The next day a court is set up with a lawyer who asks for his death. A judge is appointed, and a jury is selected. Although the custodians have read of these tribal customs, they have never had the opportunity to experience them emotionally. It seems almost impossible that human beings could behave in this manner.

After several hours of verbal courtroom ritual, the jury labels the man "guilty," and the judge informs him that the group will take his life. They tie the man's hands behind his back and put a rope around his neck. They pull him several feet off the ground and watch self-righteously while he chokes to death.

Most of the custodians who observe this ritual become physically sick and vomit. They keep the recorders working, but they turn off the screen and walk outside to take deep breaths of fresh air. As they look over the vast Pacific Ocean, they manage to overcome their feelings of nausea at this strange spectacle of man's inhumanity to man."

"This strong reaction [to the murder and the ensuing trial and execution] has not been caused by a fear of death. The people in the twenty-first century regard death as a natural phenomenon and accept it when it comes. They put their energy into living fully while they are alive. Every resource of medical science is used to keep bodies functioning, but each individual calls a halt when he feels that physical deterioration has gone too far. When the torch of life has burned brightly, they do not hesitate to pass it on to another. Each individual realizes that upon his death a new baby will be permitted to enter into the world. They don't fight this natural progression beyond a certain point. In the future immortality may be possible. But until then -- no problem.

While they are breathing the fresh ocean air, Hella asks where the other frozen bodies are kept. She is informed they are in the Antarctic vault near the frozen animal specimens. Hella is sure that they will remain there for some time. Perhaps thousands of years in the future when aggressive behavior is only a vague, theoretical concept, an intrepid group might wish to thaw additional specimens to observe this phenomenon. It seems unlikely that these frozen bodies could never be functioning citizens in a contemporary society. Each year the antiquated associations locked in their frozen brains become more and more inappropriate to the rapidly changing world."