Chapter II: He stood up

I'm dead, he thought. How can I be standing, if I'm dead?

It was dim, but not completely dark. He breathed deeply, and gagged on plaster dust. He heard a siren distantly, and the brisk, businesslike sound of flames crackling nearby.

A pile of masonry covered the broken, battered desk. Automatically, he groped behind it. There was someone there. They had been talking, he remembered.

He found the man, a Kedaki. Am I a Kedaki? he thought. He did not know. He remembered nothing about himself.

Shock, he thought reasonably enough. You've been through hell, so just calm down and it will all come back to you. The man behind the desk was dead, his skull flattened on top and pulpy. The man nearer to the door was also dead, his neck broken. He went around the corpse and to the door, which opened into the room. He opened it, was driven back by a wall of flame.

He slammed the door, but not before his eyebrows were seared. He went quickly to the center of the room and smelled something like feathers burning before he felt the pain. Then, instinctively, he beat his hands against his head. His hair had caught fire. He shouted with pain and looked up and saw the smoke and the fluctuating brightness of the flame and by the time he got it out he knew all his hair was gone. He felt his scalp gingerly. It smarted, but there didn't seem to be any blisters. Third degree burn--he was lucky. Only for the moment, he realized. Because the fire was still out there and while the door seemed flame resistant, it wouldn't resist forever.

He had to find some other way out of here if he didn't want to perish in the flames.

He made a swift circuit of the room. There was no other door. There were no windows. He was engulfed momentarily by panic, but could still think objectively. See? he told himself. You're afraid. Afraid to die. So you know at least this much: you're not a Kedaki, whatever else you are. For the Kedaki wouldn't fear death, that was sure.

Returning to the door, he opened it a crack. The flames were dazzling, roaring, dancing things. He shut the door and felt its surface. It was uncomfortably hot to the touch. He waited a few moments, listening to the sounds of the flame and the still-wailing siren. Then he touched the door again. Unmistakably, it had grown hotter. He stood at the door and shouted for help, then laughed. Nobody would hear him. And certainly, nobody could come through the fire to rescue him.

He made a prowling circuit of the room once more. Nothing.

Then something stirred overhead. He looked up, and the laughter bubbled in his throat, almost hysterically.

Beams and masonry and sky.

The ceiling had come down. Or, most of it had. There was a way out and he'd not looked for it, not found it at first, because he hadn't expected to find it over his head.

He jumped, came down again. What's the matter with me? he thought. It's way over my head. I'm acting crazy.

He looked at the door. It was glowing a dull red now. There was a dry burning sound. A flame licked through the door tentatively. Got to hurry, he thought.

The pile of masonry covering the desk seemed tall enough. He climbed it, stood there, reached up with his hands. Short, by several feet. He looked at the door: hungry flames were devouring it. He crouched, tensing his muscles, then jumped. But the loose-piled masonry offered no purchase and was dislodged by his feet. The result was that his groping fingers did not even come close to the beams overhead.

A second time he tried it, and this time the rubble underfoot shifted and he was flung to the floor. This won't do, he told himself. This won't do at all. If you don't get out of here, and get out of here fast, you're going to be roasted.

Now the distant siren's wail had come closer. Something rumbled outside, and the next moment he was deluged with water. By this time the flames were eating their way along the wall on either side of the door. They leaped to the rubble on the floor, found something combustible there, and burned. He began to choke on the smoke and the steam as water hissed and boiled on the masonry.

They'd put the fire out, all right, he thought. Eventually, they'd get it under control. But if I'm not broiled by the flames I'm going to be boiled in their fire-fighting water, so what difference does it make?

He tried the desk again, but could not jump high enough. He stood there, panting with the effort to get enough oxygen into his lungs. The flames danced playfully around him. The fact that there was so much in the room that could burn surprised him.

Once more he jumped. He hardly had the strength to clear the floor with his feet. His left ankle was numb and when he came down he knew he would not be able to jump again.

That was it. He'd burn.

* * * * *

A crafty look suddenly came into his eyes. You're hysterical, he thought, and was right. But it didn't matter. He got down on hands and knees, then on his belly. Cooler near the floor, he told himself, still smiling craftily. You're outfoxing the fire, old boy. You crafty devil. Close to the floor, he could breathe. But it was hot, and the flames circled him, expectantly, it seemed, as if they had burned through the entire prison just for a chance to get at him.

Tentatively, a tongue of flame licked at his arm. He brushed it away as you would brush an insect away. It came back, playfully. It hardly seemed to hurt but he screamed anyway.

When the fire was finally brought under control, they found him. His skin was red and blistered where it was not black and crisp. His prison uniform had been consumed completely by the flames, as had all his body hair. Miraculously, he was still alive. It was a slow, irregular heartbeat and they did not expect it to last long, but dutifully they took him to the aid station.

He was lucky there.

Among the doctors on duty to treat the thousands of victims of the Junction City earthquake was an Arcturan named Quotis. Now Quotis, unlike the Kedaki, had a high regard for human life. For Quotis did not believe in reincarnation since Quotis was not a Kedaki. The other doctors looked at the burned thing which had been a man and shook their heads and one of them said, "It doesn't matter, my friend," patting Quotis on the back and winking at the others. But Quotis, shrugging, replied, "The man is still alive and if he is alive it's my job to keep him alive." The Kedaki physician pointed out that there were bones to set elsewhere, and states of shock to be treated, and lacerations to mend, but Quotis would not hear of it.

The case intrigued him. The man should have been dead, but was still living. Besides, he was a Kedaki, wasn't he? And the Kedakis held death in very little regard. Therefore, Dr. Quotis told himself happily, he would be able to practice his new theories of skin rebirth on the injured Kedaki. But he had to hurry because a loss of half the epidermis was usually fatal, and this Kedaki had lost all of it to either first or second degree burns. Why, you couldn't even see the faintly purple tint of the skin anywhere....

If he died in the treatment? Quotis shrugged. No approved of treatment could save him. Still, on most civilized planets the answer would have been no. But on Kedaki? On Kedaki it was different. Smiling and eager, Quotis gave the order that took the dying man to a hospital near the aid station. Of native Kedaki hospitals, of course, there were none. Firm believers in metempsychosis, the Kedaki did not waste time and effort keeping moribund people alive. The injured, yes: but the injured could be treated, as the situation demanded, at aid stations like the one set up after the Junction City earthquake.

The hospital which Dr. Quotis took his patient to was the Arcturan hospital in Junction City, an institution made necessary by the fact that many Arcturan nationals lived on Kedak, particularly in Junction City, which was not only a native but an interplanetary trading center.

While the patient was made ready, Quotis thought: You cannot graft skin on a man with no skin left. For the only effective graft is that of a man's own epidermis--or that of his identical twin, should one exist.

Then why couldn't you supply brand new skin tissue? thought the Arcturan happily, utterly involved in his scientific detachment. Impermanent, of course. But that didn't matter. It would keep the patient alive and would stimulate the growth of new skin before it sloughed off. Say, a month. One Kedakin month. The new skin would be identical with the artificial skin and not with the patient's former epidermis, but that didn't matter. Too bad I don't even have a picture to go by, though, he Arcturan thought. Perhaps there is a mole or some other blemish which, foolishly, he would want reproduced. Well, no matter. At least the faint purple pigmentation of the Kedaki is easy to make, yes, very easy. Now an Arcturan with his vivid orange skin would be something else again, Quotis admitted, or an Earthman with the subtle gradations of pale tan. But those could come later. It would be enough, for now, to save this one life with the revolutionary development in skin regrowth.

"Patient is ready, doctor," the orange Arcturan nurse said.

"Still alive?"

"For the moment, yes."

"You give him...."

"Only a few minutes, I'm afraid."

"Then we must hurry," said Quotis, and rushed into the operating room.