Chapter IV

"Tired, my young friend?" Dr. Quotis asked.

"Disappointed, I guess," Rhodes admitted.

"I know how you feel. For three days people have been coming here to see you with the hope that you might be a missing relative. But--"

"But none of them knew me," Rhodes finished bleakly. "And yesterday they were only a trickle."

"All it will take is one."

"Doctor, I don't have to tell you I owe my life to you, but--well, I'm restless."

"You're young," Quotis said with a smile.

"I've got to get out and find the lost threads of my life. I'm well enough, you said so yesterday."

"But a man in your condition--"

"Amnesia? So what? I'm perfectly able to take care of myself. It isn't as if I'm on an alien world or something. Kedak is my home. Kedak is--"

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" Quotis asked abruptly.

For a while Rhodes did not answer. And, when finally he did, it was with a question of his own. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because it might answer at least one question for you: whether you are of high or low birth. If of low, then...."

Rhodes said with a smile, "Since I haven't jumped on your back and started gouging out your eyes, I guess I wasn't Kedaki baseborn."

"You highborn Kedaki certainly make no attempt to hide your irreverency!"

"Well, why should they?" said Rhodes. "After all, the system is clearly one which...."

"They? Did you say they?"

"I guess I did."

"Doesn't that strike you as rather odd?"

Rhodes shrugged, then said, "Look, I'm all confused. I just want to get out of here and find my life and pick it up where I left off."

"But you know nothing of your past. Where will you go?"

"I might as well start at the prison. That's where they found me, isn't it?"

Quotis shook his head firmly, and his usually mild voice took on surprising strength. "Don't be a fool, man!" he cried. "We've already checked with the prison. None of their personnel is missing. However, I don't know if they'd checked the inmates at that time. Don't you see?"

"You mean, if I belong at the prison at all, it's as a prisoner?"

"Exactly."

"Still, if I'm to find out anything about myself ... maybe some discreet inquiries--"

"Which should never be made by you, my young friend, at least not in person. If you remain on here and allow me to look into the matter for you, I'd consider it part of the treatment."

Rhodes shook his head, saying, "I appreciate that, doctor. I appreciate all you've done for me. But from now on, I start paying my own way."

Quotis squinted at him. "Paying your own way? That's an idiom, isn't it? Surely not Arcturan, as it translates so poorly into the Arcturan language. Kedaki?"

"I don't know," Rhodes admitted.

"Well, I doubt if it is Kedaki. The Kedaki language is not the galaxy's most imaginary. It has fewer idiomatic phrases than any. Could I have ... no! No, forget it."

"What were you going to say?"

"There's no sense confusing you further when Lord knows you're confused enough."

"But you've got to tell me if it's something which might help me learn my identity. Don't you see that, doctor?"

"I was thinking ... well, is it possible--just barely possible mind you--that you are not a Kedaki?"

"Not a Kedaki? But my skin! My skin is purple!"

"Because I made it purple. That's no answer. If you're determined to leave here, you ought to at least know that much. You know absolutely nothing about yourself. You could be mistaken in everything you think. For example, you probably are a Kedaki--but you consider yourself a highborn Kedaki when you might well be lowborn. It makes sense, doesn't it? All your life, as a lowborn Kedaki, you've been waiting for death and rebirth, hoping you'd get your chance at a higher station in life. Now, after near-death, your subconscious mind is unwilling to accept a return to your lowborn status, so you no longer believe in reincarnation and hence trick yourself into thinking you're highborn. It could explain the amnesia, too."

Rhodes shook his head. "That's a neat theory, except, if true, I wouldn't understand a word you're saying. In the first place, I probably wouldn't know any extra-Kedakian language. In the second, I wouldn't hear such irreverent talk without going berserk. In the third, I wouldn't understand terms like subconscious mind and even metempsychosis." Rhodes grinned. "But anyhow, you've given me an idea."

"What's that?"

"I'll need a name for myself. In a way I died and was born again, as happens to all good Kedaki. So, how about Matlin?"

"Matlin? That means The Reborn, doesn't it?"

"The Reborn," Rhodes said, nodding. "Well, doc, The Reborn is going to get dressed and out of here. And thanks for everything."

"Will I be able to contact you anywhere, if I learn something?"

"I'll contact you, after I get settled."

An hour later, Rhodes signed the Arcturan hospital release form. He signed the form with his new name, Matlin.

* * * * *

The Dean of the Department of Archaeology of the Junction City branch of Kedaki College entered the hospital twenty minutes after Matlin had walked out into the dazzling Denebian sunshine. The Dean, whose name was Gawroi, hardly seemed the academic type. For Gawroi was a strapping baseborn Kedaki who had done the near impossible: Gawroi had risen in life to a position of some importance among his people. He was a big fellow with enormous shoulders and an appetite for life second only to his appetite for eating. But Gawroi, for all his hedonism, was not soft. He was a hard, capable man--who passionately believed in the Kedaki doctrine of reincarnation.

That Five Bureau Director, he thought with admiration. Smart. He was smart, all right. He's finally got a lead on this Earthman, Rhodes. But he doesn't send a Five Bureau Operative. Why should he? An extra-Kedakian like the plastic surgeon Quotis of Arcturus would be suspicious of a Five Bureau Operative, wouldn't he? The Kedaki Secret Police--of course he would be suspicious. But of a fellow scientist, an archaeologist? Never!

Gawroi grinned in admiration, then waited until the grin vanished, waited until his big, earnest face assumed its most earnest look, and entered Quotis' office. Quotis, he observed, was a small bespectacled Arcturan with vivid orange skin. Quotis rushed around his desk, beaming, to pump Gawroi's right hand in the Earth gesture which had swept the galaxy.

"Gawroi!" he exclaimed. "I've heard of you. This is a pleasure, a real pleasure."

Gawroi sat down, settling down and trying to mask his impatience while Quotis talked of various discoveries in Kedaki archaeology. Quotis was a garrulous fellow, he thought. Perhaps all Arcturans were garrulous; he did not know much about Arcturans: he hardly had had any desire to study the extra-Kedaki people, any of them.

"But, to your business," Quotis finally said. "I apologize, my friend. You should have stopped me. I'm sure you didn't come here to hear an old man talk."

Gawroi assured him it had been a great pleasure listening, then said, "There was an Earthman co-worker of mine at the College, a bright young fellow named Rhodes--you've heard of him?"

"No. Should I have?"

"Mr. Rhodes has been missing since the earthquake, Dr. Quotis. He had been assigned to the College by his home office in order to make a study of extra-terrestrial penal conditions, in this case, the penal conditions here on Kedak, in Junction City. He was at the prison at the time of the quake, and since every other person there has been accounted for, living or dead, and Rhodes has not...."

"Why come to me?"

"Because the Five Bureau tells us that a badly burned man was brought here, was treated by you. Tell me, doctor, was he an Earthman? Did he survive? Is he here now?"

"If he survived," said Quotis slowly, "wouldn't he have got in touch with you?"

Gawroi said, "We thought an injury, a blow on the head...."

"The man I treated was a Kedaki."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"You speak in the past tense," Gawroi said. The words came automatically. He was thinking: you fool, Gawroi. That was a mistake. A bad mistake. Naturally, if Rhodes was your friend Rhodes would have contacted you after his accident. How can you think it was amnesia, when total amnesia is such a rare thing? See? See the Arcturan doctor? He's suspicious now. Does that mean the man _was_ an Earthman?

"I treated him," Quotis said. "He's gone now."

"Treatment successful, doctor? But that is wonderful. I heard the man was severely burned. Do you have his picture?"

"No," said Quotis promptly.

"Could you have been mistaken?"

"About what?"

"About this man's planetality? Tell me, doctor, could he have been an Earthman?"

"His skin was burned completely. His memory was gone. He might have been anything," Quotis admitted reluctantly.

* * * * *

Gawroi thought: that was a break. The man actually did have amnesia. He said, "There, you see? It was as I thought. But tell me, doctor: he suffered from amnesia, and you let him go?"

"He was an adult. It was his decision to make. I didn't approve of it."

"You have a clinical description of the man?"

"Of course."

"Can you forward it to my office?"

"I'll do that. If it's possible for you to tell me why this Earthman is so important to you...?"

"Why? Why is Philip Rhodes important?" boomed Gawroi. "Because he was my friend, Dr. Quotis! I want to find my friend! Is that strange?"

"No," Quotis admitted.

"Well, did Rhodes leave a forwarding address?"

"He did not. He may contact me. I rather think he will."

"Splendid, doctor. Splendid. When he does, assuming there is some possibility that this is the same man, will you tell him to contact me at once. With my help he will be able to take up the thread of his former existence," Gawroi finished enthusiastically. But he was thinking: in a Five Bureau torture cell, where he belongs, this extra-Kedaki, this alien who has dared to counterfeit his own criminally inaccurate version of the _Book of the Dead_.

"I'll let you know," Quotis said. "If you happen to have a picture of this Earthman Rhodes, I may be able to offer an opinion now."

Gawroi nodded. "I can oblige you with that." He rummaged in a pocket of his tunic with big, capable hands. He handed a small glossy photograph to Dr. Quotis. It was of a young, smiling Earthman, in color, showing the faintly tan, almost white Earth complexion starkly against a background of green vegetation.

Studying the picture, Quotis mused aloud, "It's possible. It certainly is possible. The features seem the same, Gawroi. But how can I be sure? Matlin--"

"Matlin? He called himself The Reborn? He dared to!"

"It was symbolic to him, I guess."

"Symbolic? But he dared...."

"See here, Gawroi. You're a scientist. You ought to keep a check on your emotions. And you oughtn't be so opinionated. Don't the highborn Kedaki look with suspicion on the doctrine of metempsychosis?"

"You extra-Kedaki like to think so," Gawroi said, keeping his voice down with an effort. "I--I'm sorry for the outburst, doctor." But more than ever, he was convinced that the man who called himself Matlin was the Earthman Rhodes, an outsider who wanted to smash five thousand years of Kedaki tradition with an alleged seeking after the truth.

"Matlin, as I was saying," Quotis went on finally, "was utterly bald. His hair won't grow in, you see, until the follicles have had a chance to adjust to the new skin. Without hair, a face assumes different proportions. The nose seems larger, the brow more noble. Then, of course, Matlin's skin is purple, and that also makes a difference. Still, I'll admit it: it could be the same man."

"I thought so!" Gawroi said triumphantly. "Doctor, I sincerely want to find my friend. You'll help?"

"If Matlin contacts me, yes. Otherwise, I can do nothing."

"He had complete amnesia?"

"Total amnesia, yes."

"Even if there was something very important to him--something he was working on and believed in very strongly, for example--he couldn't remember that?"

"No, but if he runs across it, it might serve to trigger his memory."

Gawroi stood up, shook his hands once more, chatted amicably for a few moments with the Arcturan physician, then went outside. It was a dazzlingly bright day, and hot. Much of Junction City was still in ruins, great piles of rubble lining the streets, broken buildings--their walls shattered, their insides exposed nakedly--condemned but not yet torn down, aid stations only now being cleared away. But Gawroi was not thinking of this. He was thinking of _The Book of the Dead_, and of the Earthman Rhodes.

Somewhere, Rhodes had hidden _The Book_--or, his version of _The Book_. Rhodes had done an admittedly magnificent job of forgery, or so the Five Bureau had said. Rhodes' _Book_ looked like the real thing and, since the masses were ignorant, might serve to sway them. Naturally, Gawroi knew, this could not be accomplished overnight, but the seeds for discord and strife could be sowed by a clever extra-Kedaki like Rhodes in the night of ignorance and discontent. Then, Rhodes had to be found, had to be stopped, had to be killed if necessary.

But first Rhodes had to lead them to his _Book of the Dead_. Gawroi's enormous hands clutched. He personally, would see that this was done.