The Gifts of Asti, Andre Norton

This is the third story of Andre Norton's that I have read. Andre Norton (1912-2005) is a legendary writer from the Golden Age of sci-fi. "The Gifts of Asti" is available at manybooks.com, feedbooks.com, gutenberg.org, and many more locations.

The story is a fairly simple one. It's either set in the very distant future or the very distant past. One culture is being destroyed by a barbarian one. As the last of the 'virgin Maidens of Asti' of that culture flees with the aid of a reptilian servant, she discovers a well preserved man. The lake in which she finds him preserves everything for as long as they are in the lake. They do not age or die.

They discover a mostly destroyed ship in the lake, with the parts sticking out of the lake rusted to dust, while that sticking in the lake is still in good shape and without signs of damage aside from what happened with the crash. The lake is described as alive, so they do not drink of it (and why not if it preserves life?)

They rescue the man who is a hardened warrior, not like her dying people who had had everything done for them and gone soft. That seems to be a frequent motif with both "The People of the Crater" and "The Gifts of Asti." I suspect that this is a motif born from the competing ideologies of communism and capitalism, or, perhaps a consequence of a long lasting peace. Just like "The People of the Crater," the woman is a religious figure while the man is a human warrior come to give an almost extinct species hope. However, of course, biologically speaking it would be nearly impossible to accomplish this with just two people. But, that is the story from Genesis, isn't it?