I read this about 30/40 years ago. I don't remember if it was a short story or book.
What I remember of it :
Some aliens arrive at earth; they don't find any living humans, just empty cities.
They go to one museum and revive an Egyptian mummy. When it's alive, it keeps asking where his servants are. They don't get any information from the mummy so they kill him again.
Later on they revive another human, who turns out to be more intelligent than the aliens.
I don't remember much of what happened from this point on, except:
- In the end the human starts to revive other humans.
Some one can tell me what story, name of book.
Answer
This is a classic short shory, "Resurrection" aka "The Monster" by A. E. van Vogt, first published in Astounding Science Fiction, August 1948, available at the Internet Archive; previously identified as the answer to this question and this one and maybe this one. There is a review here.
Some aliens arrive at earth; they don't find any living humans, just empty cities.
The great ship poised a quarter of a mile above one of the cities. Below was a cosmic desolation. As he floated down in his energy bubble, Enash saw that the buildings were crumbling with age.
"No sign of war damage!" The bodiless voice touched his ears momentarily. Enash tuned it out.
On the ground he collapsed his bubble. He found himself in a walled inclosure overgrown with weeds. Several skeletons lay in the tall grass beside the rakish building. They were of long, two-legged, two-armed beings with the skulls in each case mounted at the end of a thin spine. The skeletons, all of adults, seemed in excellent preservation, but when he bent down and touched one, a whole section of it crumbled into a fine powder. As he straightened, he saw that Yoal was floating down nearby. Enash waited until the historian had stepped out of his bubble, then said:
"Do you think we ought to use our method of reviving the long dead?"
Yoal was thoughtful. "I have been asking questions of the various people who have landed, and there is something wrong here. This planet has no surviving life, not even insect life. We'll have to find out what happened before we risk any colonization."
They go to one museum and revive an Egyptian mummy. When it's alive, it keeps asking where his servants are. They don't get any information from the mummy so they kill him again.
Out of the mummy's skull had come the multi-quadrillion memory shapes from which a response was being evoked. As ever, the memory held true.
A man blinked, and opened his eyes.
"It is true, then," he said aloud, and the words were translated into the Ganae tongue as he spoke them. "Death is merely an opening into another life—but where are my attendants?" At the end, his voice took on a complaining tone.
He sat up, and climbed out of the case, which had automatically opened as he came to life. He saw his captors. He froze, but only for a moment. He had a pride and a very special arrogant courage, which served him now. Reluctantly, he sank to his knees and made obeisance, but doubt must have been strong in him. "Am I in the presence of the gods of Egyptus?" He climbed to his feet. "What nonsense is this? I do not bow to nameless demons."
Captain Gorsid said, "Kill him!"
The two-legged monster dissolved, writhing, in the beam of a ray gun.
Later on they revive another human, who turns out to be more intelligent than the aliens.
Captain Gorsid waved at the biologist, "Proceed," he said, "with the revival."
To Enash, he said, "Do we dare return to Gana, and recommend mass migrations—and then admit that we did not actually complete our investigations here? It's impossible, my friend."
It was the old argument, but reluctantly now Enash admitted that there was something to be said for that point of view. He forgot that, for the fourth man was stirring.
The man sat up and vanished.
There was a blank, startled, horrified silence. Then Captain Gorsid said harshly, "He can't get out of there. We know that. He's in there somewhere."
All around Enash, the Ganae were out of their chairs, peering into the energy shell. The guards stood with ray guns held limply in their suckers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the protective screen technicians beckon to Veed, who went over. He came back grim. He said, "I'm told the needles jumped ten points when he first disappeared. That's on the nucleonic level."
"By ancient Ganae!" Shuri whispered. "We've run into what we've always feared."
In the end the human starts to revive other humans.
In a few moments, now, he would be leaving the ship, secure in the knowledge that shortly no alien mind would know his planet existed. Knowing, too, that his race would live again, and this time never die.
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