Raging Beast_

Although once mighty Ofridia of Tarth and certainly the nations of
Earth had outstripped Bylanus' 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 Bylanus' 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 Bylanus 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 Bylanus, "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, Bylanus, 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."

Bylanus nodded. Orro the bio-technician was loquacious and spoke
quickly, confidently, with mild pedantic enthusiasm. As for Bylanus,
he awaited the regeneration of the man who had worn Portox-saviour's
bracelet. He looked at the bod