Chapter V

The man newly named Matlin, which meant The Reborn, stood at the bar in the Hotel Deneb. Matlin wore an inexpensive tunic supplied him by the Arcturan hospital, and still had a few silver denebs in his pocket, also courtesy of the Arcturan hospital. Matlin was not drunk, but wished that he was.

He should not have come here. He knew that now. It had been wrong to surrender to drink like this, before he had time to think, to prowl the damaged streets and seek out the familiar in a world which seemed totally alien because his mind was lost somewhere in the shattered prison building. Had he been a drunkard in his earlier life? or at least a not very forceful man who readily lost himself in some form of lethe or another when his problems weighed heavily on his shoulders? Had this, indeed, been the weak character he'd been trying to resurrect?

Lethe. He thought: lethe. But what is lethe? It is not a Kedaki word, but in your thoughts you use it. Isn't it said that a man tends to think at least some of his thoughts in his native tongue, no matter where he lives or how long he has been away from home?

Lethe. It meant: forgetfulness. The waters of ... no, the river of forgetting. Lethe. It meant that all right. But in what language? This Matlin did not know.

The bar of the Hotel Deneb, since the hotel was Junction City's best, catered to extra-Kedaki and to highborn natives. You could always tell the highborn by the rich-looking tunics they wore, tell their ladies by the way you could see breast and loins through the transparent, clinging garments, and tell both sexes among the highborn by their arrogance toward lower born Kedaki and toward all extra-planetary peoples. You could, all right, Matlin thought desperately, but why do I think this? A lowborn Kedaki would not: he would hope for rebirth, someday, as a highborn. And a highborn? But a highborn would never admit it, not even to himself.

Matlin ordered another glass of Sirian whisky with a soda chaser. Sirian? Why Sirian? He seemed to like the fiery brew, but Sirius was five hundred and some years across intergalactic space. Was he a Sirian? That didn't seem likely, for the Sirians were chauvinistic, rarely leaving their homeworld....

Chauvinistic. Another word, like lethe. Not a Kedaki word. A word from somewhere else, but Matlin could not recall where. As it turned out, he did not have time to pursue the matter, for a voice at his elbow said:

"I'll say it again. You were eyeing my woman with lust."

This jolted Matlin, until he realized he was not being addressed. The words were spoken by an expensively-dressed highborn Kedaki on his left, but the man's face was averted. He was talking, Matlin realized, to a baseborn Kedaki further down the bar who, from the looks of his tunic, probably had no business here.

Between them, an amused look on her face, stood a Kedaki woman. She was incredibly beautiful with the extremely arrogant beauty found among the highborn Kedaki ladies who, it was said, might have each toenail painted by a different lowborn slave if they so desired. Her face was pampered but insolent, and her body, its beauty of line and curve and hue enhanced rather than hidden by the diaphanous folds of her veil-like garment, was magnificent. She said, in a deep, throaty, contralto voice, "Now really, Felg. Don't you think that's enough?"

* * * * *

The man named Felg was a big fellow, tall as Matlin but heavier, with a dueling scar on each cheek. Duels, Matlin knew, were common on Kedak as copter zoning tickets were on other worlds, for you had nothing to lose in a duel but your life, and what did this matter against the possible loss of honor if your death would immediately usher a--possibly better--rebirth?

"I don't think it's enough," said Felg. "This lowborn was gawking at you and while you are beautiful, he should not gawk at another's woman."

"I am neither your woman nor anyone else's," the beautiful creature said coldly.

This angered Felg. If there had been the chance of preventing a duel, that chance was gone now, trampled in the dust of what might have been by the woman's insolent words. "Well, then," Felg said slowly, "you are my woman at least as long as I am your escort. You, there!" he roared, turning again to the lowborn Kedak who stood waiting quietly, patiently and almost indifferently. "Are you armed?"

"I am armed, master," said the lowborn. He was a small, thin Kedaki with a piping but unfrightened voice. Instinctively, Matlin sympathized with him. Smaller, weaker, with less to remember and less to look forward to, victimized by a system hardly above slavery, he was forced by tradition to wait on the highborn Felg's pleasure, even if that pleasure were to mean death in an uneven duel with the spike-studded Kedaki maces.

Felg laughed harshly. "No dagger, you fool. I mean a mace."

"I carry no mace," the lowborn admitted.

"Barkeep!" roared Felg, but the barkeep, highborn as Felg himself, shook his head slowly, saying:

"We serve extra-Kedaki here, see? The place is full of them. There will be no duel here tonight, or any night."

"But it's lawful," said Felg stubbornly.

"Lawful or not--" began the barkeep. Then the beautiful woman smiled at Felg, a smile not for him but at him, a baring of the teeth in amused contempt. And she hissed:

"Felg, I swear, you are a barbarian."

Felg slammed his hand down on the surface of the bar. "It is lawful. I demand my rights! Bring maces!"

"I await you, lord," said the lowborn.

"Not here," the barkeep said softly, not wanting to create a disturbance. Then he looked at Felg's eyes. Felg's eyes told him that Felg had been made a fool of before the woman, but they did not tell him what Felg did not know: Felg had been made a fool of by himself. The eyes did say, however, that if Felg did not have satisfaction from the lowborn, he would have it from the barkeep himself. And the voice, a roaring, thundering bellow, confirmed this. "I'll duel with him here!" cried Felg. "Here and now I will!" He added softly, almost purring: "Or I'll duel with you outside, friend. Do you believe in metempsychosis, friend?"

Matlin knew what the barkeep's unspoken answer was by the ashen look which came over the man's face. He most assuredly did not believe. He was afraid to die. He did not want to duel with Felg, a bully and probably an expert with the mace. He sighed, shrugging his shoulders. He looked at the lowborn and shook his head. He said, "I'll get the maces."

"Room!" someone bellowed, excitement in his voice. "Give them room!"

Kedaki and extra-planetaries moved away from the bar, forming a rough square a dozen paces across. The barkeep ducked through a doorway and Matlin heard a lady tourist from Polaris say, almost squealing the words, "This is so exciting." The tone of her voice disgusted him. The extra-Kedaki, he thought. Perhaps they were guilty too. At least, if they enjoyed the fantastic mores of Kedak, if in any way they encouraged them, then they shared guilt with the Kedaki highborn.

But not equal guilt. No, not that. For clearly, the man named Felg was chiefly to blame here. Big, powerful-looking Felg--a murderer. Because, Matlin told himself grimly, it would be murder. The smaller Kedaki, the lowborn, didn't have a chance. Looking at his face, Matlin knew that the man was aware of this. And Felg? Felg was aware of it too. In the case of the lowborn awareness did not bring terror, for virtually all lowborn Kedaki believed in reincarnation. Thus, facing death, Felg's victim was almost sure he would be reborn in a higher station in life. But Felg did not believe. Felg was a trained maceman: the scars on his cheeks--white scar tissue over crushed cheekbones--proved this. Felg would kill the lowborn and it would be cold-blooded murder morally if not in the eyes of the Kedaki law.

* * * * *

A buzz of eagerness stirred the crowd as the barkeep returned with the traditional _melgast_, the metal bar from which the two dueling maces hung on hooks. The maces were a yard long, their stems extremely light-weight and thick enough around at the base for a man to hold comfortably, their heads round and heavy and black and studded with a score or so of half-inch long spikes. As the barkeep brought the _melgast_ forward, the maces swung back and forth on their hooks.

The Polarian woman who had been excited gasped. Whispers ran through the crowd. "Let me see them," Felg demanded coldly, and examined the maces as the barkeep lifted the _melgast_ over the surface of the bar with both hands.

"You can still change your mind," the barkeep suggested.

Felg raked him with a glance. "Would _you_ want me to?"

The barkeep could not stare at him long. "No," he said. "Not if you don't want to."

"I am ready, master," the lowborn said.

Felg bowed to him, mocking him. "Select your weapon, then, and tell me your name so I may have it for the report I must file after our duel."

The beautiful woman looked at him coldly. "You already have this man dead and cremated, don't you, Felg?" she asked contemptuously.

"He'll live on!" cried Felg, in mock reverence. "Don't we all. We live forever--as we die forever! On with the cycle! Hooray for life! Hooray for death! Are you ready, lowborn? Ready for your passage to a higher station?"

The woman whispered fiercely, "You don't believe a word of that, do you?"

Instead of answering her, Felg hefted his mace and waited for the lowborn's reply. "Ranmut is my name," came the other's piping voice. And again he said, "I am ready, master." He held the mace uncertainly, awkwardly. It was obvious to everyone present that he barely knew how to use it and would not have a chance against the experienced Felg. But still, he had courage....

No, Matlin thought, his courage is based upon a lie! _The Book of the Dead_--a tissue of lies fabricated thousands of years ago and still keeping the lowborn Kedaki in fearful bondage to the highborn. But--but how, Matlin wondered wildly, do I know this? How....

He was very adept with the Kedaki mace. He knew that suddenly too, and at first the knowledge surprised him. Then the memory came. It was the first clear memory of the time before the Earthquake that he had experienced. It was a single memory-picture, devoid of all connections, devoid of any real meaning. He was in a room. The walls were padded and the floor was padded. He had come there for exercise. It was--it was a gymnasium. You fought with Kedaki maces in this gymnasium, but see? see? they were not real maces. They were padded instead of spiked and if you swung with all your might you could possibly knock your antagonist senseless as you would in Earth-style boxing, but nothing else. And, in the memory, Matlin usually won.

Also in the memory, Matlin's skin was the tan-white of Earthmen!

"Wait!" he blurted, and silence fell like a shroud on the large room.

Felg and the lowborn named Ranmut were squaring off with the maces. Felg snapped, "Well, what is it?"

Again the shroud of silence. Padded maces, thought Matlin. It was a memory, a vague, troubled, unclear memory. Perhaps I was very good with padded maces, but in their padding they did not hold death, the kind of death this man Felg had delivered with spiked maces and would deliver again....

"Well, come on, man, come on!" shouted the overwrought Felg impatiently. Ranmut merely looked at Matlin, neither glad nor sorry for the temporary reprieve, awaiting the end which a five thousand year old fabrication told him was merely the beginning.

_Forever we die!_--these were the first words of the _Book of the Dead_. But--to live again? The writers of the book had lied, for they hadn't known. No one had known, thought Matlin.

* * * * *

The Sirian whisky roared through his veins. His vision clouded, then cleared. "I am Matlin," he said.

A Kedaki nearby gasped and Felg cried: "The Reborn! You dare to call yourself that?"

"That is no name," Ranmut whispered, his voice strange.

"I am Matlin, for the record you must keep," Matlin told Felg, his words dropping like peals of thunder on the silence in the great room. "I am bigger than this man Ranmut and I can use the mace. I challenge you, Felg."

Felg appraised him, then said, "Later, if you have a grievance. But I don't know you, Matlin."

"No! Now. I wish to take Ranmut's place." Don't think, he told himself. Don't think that in the memory your skin was white as an Earthman's. And don't think that you fought with padded maces only.

A voice called: "It would be far fairer."

Other voices took it up, and Felg's beautiful woman companion turned and looked coolly, then with quickening interest, at Matlin. She smiled at him and it was a smile like consuming flames. She said, with a laugh, "Oh, Felg! Poor Felg, you're in for a fight now."

Ranmut stared at Matlin. Someone pushed Ranmut forward and Matlin took the mace from his hand. He patted the little man's shoulder because Ranmut still looked dubious, and then someone cried a warning. Matlin barely had time to realize it was the woman, and then--from the corner of his eye he saw Felg charging!

Felg came so swiftly that Matlin barely had time to whirl and face him. Felg came like a rocket, his big brutal face contorted with hatred. Felg came with a wild bellow meant to stop Matlin dead in his tracks. Felg came with a rush and the rush spelled death. Then Felg swung his mace.

All this happened in a split-second. Matlin threw himself to the floor, lacking time to bring his own mace around to parry the unexpected attack. The mace blurred by inches over his head as he went down and he realized that it would have split his skull like a ripe melon had he still been standing. Spike-studded, it crashed into the side of the bar, splintering the richly-grained hardwood as if it had been a flimsy sheet of wickerwork.

The spikes caught and held in the wood, but with a wrench of his hand Felg got them loose before Matlin could climb to his feet. Felg swung again, putting his whole body behind the blow. He swung downward and the deadly head of the mace splintered the floor as it had splintered the hardwood bar. It had been so close that some of the spikes caught in Matlin's tunic. When he scrambled upright, he was half naked and there was a welt from his armpit to the bottom of his ribcage.

He swung his own mace, but Felg caught it expertly with the haft of his weapon, twisting suddenly and almost tearing the mace from Matlin's grasp. Then Felg advanced with a lightning-swift series of short, jolting blows from his weapon. Matlin took them all on the haft of his own, but his hands ached with the shock and his arms grew numb. Across the room he reeled before the powerful onslaught. Sparks leaped between the maces as they struck; the sounds were of a smithy in hell.

Felg was big, powerful. Matlin knew he must summon memory to survive the attack, for already his arms dragged so wearily he barely could hold the mace crosswise in front of him with both hands to take the rain of blows. Something he must remember ... had to remember ... must bring forth to save his life....

He fell abruptly to one knee, and the Polarian tourist woman gave a little scream of terror and enjoyment. Leering, sweat streaming from his face, Felg brought his mace up for the _coup_. And Matlin dropped his other knee to the floor.

Felg's face spoke mutely of Felg's knowledge of the move, but the heavy mace already swung down and could not be checked. It blurred across Matlin's shoulder, the spiked head splintering the hardwood floor behind him. For an instant, Felg leaned over him, wrenching at the mace helplessly and exposing his middle.

* * * * *

Slowly, aware he had all the time in the world, Matlin brought his own mace up. I'm going to kill this man, he thought. I can kill this man now. I merely have to drive the head of the mace against his abdomen, ripping through the wall of muscle to the quivering viscera beneath. He will scream, the blood will flow, the mace will fall from his nerveless fingers, and they will hail me here as hero. But I have saved the man Ranmut's life, so why should I kill this one? The thought astonished him: it was no Kedaki thought....

Symbolic of his triumph, he placed the head of his mace against Felg's belly and pushed. The big Kedaki stumbled back, the wind driven from him. He collapsed on the floor and his mace, still spikefast in the hardwood, quivered there. Matlin walked to it, braced both feet, strained his back, and drew it clear. Then he took both maces and returned them to the _melgast_.

"No! No!" screamed Felg, his breath returning. "Kill me! Kill me, you fool!"

Ranmut said, but quietly, "Kill him, lord. He would have killed me. He expects to be killed. Otherwise, his honor dies. Kill him, lord."

Matlin looked at the barkeep, who shrugged and held his silence. The faces of the crowd told him nothing. And Felg's woman? She had no love for Felg: she was Felg's companion for the night, no more. She wore the look of a Sphinx on her beautiful face and when she saw Matlin watching her the smile she turned on him was a smiling of the mouth only. Her eyes were cold and distant, but beautiful.

Matlin took one of the maces from the _melgast_. The spikes held blood, and bits of scraped skin and flesh adhered to them. So this was the mace Felg had used, for blood had been drawn from Matlin's ribs. With this mace, Matlin walked to the man he had conquered. Felg had not risen from the floor. He sat there and he looked up at Matlin, who made no move to use the mace, and he said, his voice a tight whisper now, barely audible, "Will you kill me? I can't stand the waiting."

"I read somewhere," Matlin heard himself saying, "that at the moment before death life is so precious that a man will crave it even if it is a life of torment on torment, a life of torture, a life of terrible pain. But life, any life, rather than the black sleep of death. Life as a slave, and toil without end, and streaming sweat mixed with blood, but life! This I read, but of course it was not on Kedak, for here on Kedak death means nothing. Well, does it?"

"Kill me now," said Felg, uncertainly.

Matlin lifted the mace slowly. "Here on Kedak, how can death hold such terrors? Death is not the unknown. Death is not a sleep of forever, a sleep without waking, or the unproven expectation of sharing a dream of immortality with the god. Death here on Kedak is merely a way station in the passage of life, many lives. So why should we fear death? You believe this, do you not? Believe the transcripts from the _Book of the Dead_ as our religious teachers read them?"

"I believe," said Felg quickly, without passion, without conviction.

The mace was high over Matlin's head now. The crowd came close, watching. Someone touched the single mace remaining on its hook, and the mace swung slowly. The swinging motion caught Felg's eye and he watched, fascinated. But the mace was out of reach and he must have known it. Everything but death was now out of reach, forever out of reach.

"That death is not a cold sleep from which there is no awakening?"

"Yes, yes!"

"That reincarnation will come to you?" Why am I doing this, Matlin wondered. It was to prove a point: but he knew not what point he wished to prove.

"Yes, yes...."

"That the loss of life is to be suffered before the loss of honor?"

"Yes. By the holy pages of _The Book of the Dead_, kill me!"

"All this you believe?"

Light caught the spikes of the mace. They flashed. Someone had to carry the Polarian tourist to a chair and settle her there. Sweat made her clothing cling to her body, revealing a figure like a sow's. Sweat beaded her face, but her ugly little eyes gazed on Matlin as if he'd made love to her.

"State your belief," said Matlin.

"Kill me." A barely audible whisper.

"State your belief, Felg."

Felg's eyes riveted on the mace. His face was gray. His eyes pleaded with the mace, as if cold metal, death-dealing metal, might heed the message Matlin would not. Silence was a wall between this room and the rest of the world.

And Felg screamed, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

His eyes blinked. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he rolled over to fall on his knees before Matlin. "If you had killed me at once," he sobbed bitterly. "If you would have killed me. Damn you, I don't believe, I don't believe...."

"Then live," said Matlin indifferently, all at once not caring if Felg lived or died.

A roar went up from the crowd of extra-Kedaki, but the Kedaki themselves were sullen. Highborn like Felg, they also did not believe in reincarnation. They saw themselves on the floor, craven before what seemed to be a lowborn member of their race, lives spared and honor destroyed.

The beautiful woman who had been with Felg took Matlin's elbow. "They're ugly now," she said. "You'd better get out of here."

"What difference does it make to you?"

"Difference? No difference. Felg is a fool and you gave me pleasure."

"Come with me," Matlin said on impulse.

It was very hot outside and for the first time when they reached the street Matlin knew that he had been close to death.