Rhodes faced the agonies of alien torture
because he knew the secret which held an entire
world in bondage. It was a secret proclaiming—

Forever We Die!

By C. H. Thames

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
August 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

The guard spat in Phil Rhodes' food bowl, closed the grate, and trudged away down the stone-walled corridor.

Darkness returned to the narrow, coffin-shaped cell. Rhodes reached for the bowl of gruel. It was tepid, not hot. The cell was very cold. In the square of light admitted briefly when the grate had been opened, Rhodes had seen the big, unkempt guard's breath, a puff of smoke on the cold air. He had also seen the guard hack spittle into the bowl of gruel.

It was no whim on the guard's part. Rhodes grinned wryly, and realized he was doing so, and encouraged his facial muscles in the act. Nothing around here was a whim. Absolutely nothing. It was all part of a plan, and the purpose of the plan was to break Rhodes.

Given: one Earthman.

Problem: to degrade him by subtle psychological torture.

Purpose: a big, fat question mark which, by itself, was almost enough to drive Rhodes crazy.

He ate the gruel. He held his breath and got it down somehow, got it down because he had to.

It had been some time since the last question period, and Rhodes expected to be summoned momentarily. Why me? he thought for the hundredth time. That was part of it, too. Why Rhodes? He was only a student at the Earth University at Deneb III, here on Kedak now—that was Deneb IV—to do field work in extra-terrestrial anthropology. And the Kedaki had come for him one night, how long ago? Rhodes had no idea how long it was, and that was part of the plan too. His sleep was irregular, usually disturbed by one or another of the guards as part of the overall pattern of psychological torture.

Rhodes began to shiver. It was growing suddenly cold. Naturally, that was no accident. The cell was very small and so shaped that Rhodes could neither recline fully nor stand up without jack-knifing his spine. Obviously, he couldn't engage in much physical activity to keep warm. The Kedaki knew this: it was part of the maddening plan.

Rhodes shook with cold, felt the skin of his face going numb, heard his teeth chattering. The abrupt cold now was his entire universe. He made an effort of will—you're warm, he told himself, you're warm. His lips took on that peculiar numb puckering sensation which meant, he knew, that they were blue with cold. He felt a welcome lethargy, then, as if the terrible cold were a bed of repose, the most comfortable, most wonderful bed he'd ever had. He wanted to sink back in it, surrender to it.

If he did, if he surrendered to the blood-freezing cold, he would die.

No, he told himself. That was wrong. They wanted him to think he would die. But it was out of the question. If they'd wanted to kill him, there were easier ways. What they wanted was a state of mind. They wanted terror, a simple animal fear of death.

You're not going to die, Rhodes told himself. They need you—for something. They're very good at making you think so, but you're not going to die.

A sudden blast of hot air belched into the freezing cell.

It was Turkish-bath hot, and it dissipated the cold at once. It was stifling. Rhodes, who was sitting awkwardly because the cell was constructed for minimum comfort, opened his mouth and gulped in the hot, wet air. His lungs needed more oxygen; his head was giddy with the need; his pulses throbbed.

He sank into a troubled sleep, shoulders propped against rough stone. He slept for half an hour while the unseen vents in the cell poured heat on him.

There was a grating sound, and footsteps. Something hard prodded Rhodes' back. He opened his eyes. The heavy boot struck again, thudding against his kidney. He rolled away from it.

"Crawl out of there," the guard said in Kedaki.

Rhodes, who was a student of the Kedaki civilization, understood the language perfectly. But even if he had not, the tone of voice was unmistakable. Rhodes crawled toward the grating on his hands and knees. The roof of the cell was so low, he could barely crawl. It was more a slithering motion. Part of the treatment, Rhodes told himself, able to bear it better because he understood. Part of the process of degradation. Turn a man into an animal, and he'll do whatever you wish.

"More questions?" Rhodes asked in Kedaki when he stood up outside the cell, stretching the cramped muscles of his back, shoulders and legs.

"What do you think?" the guard replied, and prodded him forward down the brightly lit corridor.

The room was very clean. It was spotless, possibly antiseptically clean. That, too, was part of the plan. For Rhodes' cell was filthy. Rhodes' clothing was stiff with his own foul sweat. Rhodes' skin itched with encrusted dirt.

"Sit down," the Kedaki said politely.

Rhodes sighed. This was the polite one. He had two interrogators, one cruel, brutal, harsh, the other as polite and suave as the rustle of silk. To keep Rhodes guessing....

He sat down across a metal desk from the interrogator. The man was, Rhodes judged, in his thirties. He had the faintly purple skin of the Kedaki—not really purple, but as purple as the skin of an American Indian is red. He was slightly built, smooth-skinned, almost beardless. His eyes were very friendly but somehow very deadly.

"You have been here three months," he said conversationally.

"Three months! Yesterday, they told me...."

"Yesterday? Indeed? And how do you know it was yesterday?"

"Well, I thought...."

"You see, you have no way of knowing."

"But three months! You haven't even told me why I'm a prisoner. If I could just make a call," Rhodes said, his voice rising to an almost hysterical whine although he attempted to keep it level. "Just one call to the Earth Consul...."

"Mr. Rhodes," the interrogator said softly. "You are a student, merely a student. I do not say this deprecatingly, but merely to point out that you are not a servant of your government and as such shouldn't undergo torture because you consider it the, ah, patriotic thing to do. How old are you, Rhodes?"

"I'm twenty-one," Rhodes said.

"A very young man, but stubborn."

"Listen!" Rhodes cried, his voice rising out of control again. "I don't even know what you want to know! Every day you change your questions! And every day you change how you react to my answers. I don't know what you want! I think you're crazy, all of you!"

"Do you really think so?"

"No," Rhodes admitted in a subdued voice.

"I will tell you something, Rhodes. We Kedaki are experts at psychological torture. You know that, don't you, as a student of our culture? Yes?—good. Eventually, we get what we want. Since no Kedaki fears death because he knows he will be reincarnated—"

"You say."

"No Kedaki doubts this fact. Other creatures are not reincarnated, but the Kedaki are. As a consequence, the Kedaki are fearless. The fear of death does not exist for us and therefore, the fear of pain and violence is also minimized. The Kedaki, as you know, make wonderful soldiers. I tell you all this only to prove that we are the galaxy's most adept practitioners of psychological torture, as a necessity. I tell you all this only to save you further trouble."

"But I still don't know what you want."

"Nor will you, ever. Even when we are finished with you. I'll tell you, Rhodes. We want the answer to one question. We are asking you hundreds. When we break you completely, when you answer every question the way we want it to be answered, you will answer the one important question. Are you ready?"

"No," said Rhodes.

"What do you mean, no?"

"Because I can never tell in advance whether you want the truth or lies. Because either way I give myself a hard time. Look: just ask me the one question. Maybe I won't mind answering it."

"You'll mind. Besides, when we're all finished here, we don't want you to know. What kind of work do you do, Rhodes?"

"You know what kind. I already told you, fifty times."

"What kind of work do you do, Rhodes?"

"I'm a student of extra-terrestrial anthropology at Deneb University, doing field work here on Kedak...."

"Good."

Good, thought Rhodes. They're accepting the truth today, not rejecting it. He settled back in his chair and answered the unimportant initial questions almost automatically. His family back on Earth. Mother, father, younger sister. What he thought of Deneb III and the university there. Why he wanted to be an extra-terrestrial anthropologist. Exactly what kind of field work he was doing on Kedak.

"Reincarnation," Rhodes said. "At least, a planet-wide belief in reincarnation. It's unique in the galaxy, as far as we know, and it sets the pattern for Kedaki civilization."

"You are making a planet-wide study?"

Rhodes shook his head. He'd been asked these questions many times before, but it was the subject he loved and he felt himself warming to it. "Not a planet-wide study," he said. "Just this city. Just Junction City. But if you can learn how a sweeping social institution controls one center of population, then...."

"I'm sure," the interrogator said dryly.

"Besides, there are the ruins outside the city."

"Indeed, there are the ruins."

"Because an anthropologist is interested in the history of his subject as well as its merely ephemeral present. And there are those who believe that the Balata 'kai ruins hold the origin of your belief in metempsychosis...."

"Do you, Rhodes?"

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"Have you found anything to fortify this belief?"

"I have."

"What have you found?"

"The Balata 'kai Book of the Dead. Oh, it isn't a book, really. It's some tablets—five thousand years old."

"You have seen these tablets?"

"Yes," said Rhodes.

"Where?"

"The Temple of the Golden Dome, Balata 'kai."

"They are there now?"

"No," said Rhodes. "I took them."

"You took them where?"

"Well, I hid them."

"Where?"

Rhodes grinned. "I'm not going to answer that," he said. He was thinking. Prolong the interview, Phil old boy. Because it's clean here, and neither too warm nor too cold, and you can sit comfortably or stand if you want to.

"Why aren't you going to answer it?"

Rhodes grinned again. "I realize this isn't very important to you...."

"Everything is important to me while I do my job."

"But it's very important to me, I was going to say. Because The Book of the Dead is an anthropological find, that's why. Because I intend to have an exclusive on it until I've finished my work here."

"What makes you think The Book of the Dead isn't very important to us?"

"Don't tell me," Rhodes said incredulously, "that I'm in jail and being tortured because I won't tell you where I've hid an anthropological curiosity which may not even be genuine!"

"No, I won't tell you. Now, as to the genuineness of The Book of the Dead...."

Rhodes felt suddenly sleepy. He'd been awakened to come here. He was always awakened to come here, sometimes after what he thought was a full night's sleep and sometimes after what seemed only a few moments. He listened sleepily as the interrogator went on, surprisingly doing most of the talking. He hardly heard the words, had all he could do to keep his head from slumping down on the desk. It just wasn't very important. It was preliminary to what really mattered, to the questions about Earth history, sociology, engineering, economy, which always followed.

But why me? Rhodes thought. My subject is extra-terrestrial anthropology....

"... therefore, Rhodes," the interrogator was saying, "The Book of the Dead is not only the oldest known written document on Kedak, but also, clearly, genuine. Do you agree?"

Rhodes stood up and paced back and forth. The interrogator permitted this, even encouraged it. There was neither room to stand nor to pace in Rhodes' cell, a fact which made it difficult for Rhodes to do anything but cooperate completely with his interrogator. Well, why shouldn't I cooperate? he thought. If I cooperate, they'll let me out of here. Let me out of here? No, how can they do that? They're holding an extra-Kedakian illegally, and they know it, and I know it, and they know I know it. My God, Rhodes thought suddenly, are they going to kill me when they're finished with me? It seemed the only logical outcome of all this.

"... population growth of the Earth colony on the planet Mars?"

Rhodes supplied the answer, knowing it was one you could find in any textbook on the Martian colony back in the solar system. All this, he thought, for what? Because Kedak is resisting its incorporation into the Galactic League? Because the Kedaki rulers want to be left alone, fearing that their doctrine of reincarnation will be discredited by intercourse with other worlds?

But the one maddening question remained: why Rhodes?

"... titanium deposits on the moons of Jupiter?"

"Sorry," Rhodes said, "I don't know the answer to that one."

At that moment, the room shook.

Trained since his imprisonment to expect the unexpected, Rhodes thought it was part of the treatment. But the interrogator seemed surprised.

There was a deep rumbling which seemed to rise up from the very bowels of the planet. The room shook again. Rhodes felt himself flung violently across it, colliding with the far wall. The interrogator's head slammed against the metal desk, then the interrogator stood up, blood on his face.

"Guard!" he cried. "Take this man back to his cell at once!"

The room shook a third time, plaster sifted down from the ceiling, and a big crack appeared over Rhodes' head. Through it he saw daylight—the first daylight he'd seen in three months, if he could believe the interrogator.

"Guard!" screamed the interrogator, his composure gone.

Kedak was, Rhodes knew, an earthquake-prone planet. All young worlds were, and Kedak was a young world. Was this, then, an earthquake?

The room swayed, tilted. Rhodes staggered uphill back to the desk, clutching its edge for support. Underfoot, there was a rolling, booming sound. You could not merely hear it, you could feel it. It rolled on from a long way off, coming closer every second, like the distant boom of a thousand cannon fired at split-second intervals.

The door opened, and the guard stood there. The interrogator pointed at Rhodes, shouting something which was swallowed completely by the rolling, booming sound. The guard shouted something back, unheard in the noise, then walked toward Rhodes.

He never reached the Earthman.

The room rocked. The floor came up suddenly, jarringly, and the ceiling came down.

The guard stood there, a look of horror on his face. Not fear of death, Rhodes found himself thinking in the final few seconds. The Kedaki, believing in metempsychosis, did not fear death. But the choking, blinding fear of any man a split-second before personal catastrophe.

Then, literally, the ceiling fell.

The guard pivoted slowly, as if he had all the time in the world to return to the door. He took one small step and the ceiling hit him. It came down not in one sheet but sectionally, Rhodes found himself thinking with amazing objectivity, because—see?—the guard is being struck now, but I haven't been touched....

The guard fell, and the ceiling crumpled on top of him. Rhodes saw the guard's head, very close to the floor, bent at right angles to his body, which was stretched out and hidden by the shards of plaster and stone. There was a worm of blood trickling from the guard's nose. His eyes were opened wide, but the eyeballs had rolled up in the sockets.

The interrogator screamed, and Rhodes heard the sound faintly above the thunderous booming before the tons of plaster and stone came down on both of them.

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.

CHAPTER III

"How do you feel?" Quotis asked.

"Still stiff," said the patient.

"But otherwise?"

"Otherwise fine. They told me how you saved my life, doctor," the patient said in Arcturan.

"I'm still surprised how well you speak my language."

"I seem to have a gift for tongues. I can speak Earthian, Arcturan, Sirian, Fomalhaution, and naturally, my own Kedaki. All of them with just about no accent, all of them equally well."

"We'll be taking the bandages off today. You still don't have any hair, but that ought to grow back later. You're alive, and that's what counts. Can you believe that every square inch of your skin surface was gone when they found you last month?"

"That's what the nurses keep telling me. Do you think that after the bandages are removed, doctor, they might find out about me?"

"We were hoping your memory would come back of its own accord. Otherwise," Quotis shrugged, "there are other ways. As you can imagine, thousands of your fellow Kedaki are still missing, after the quake. Most of them probably will never be found, so there ought to be thousands of people through here to look at you—when you're well enough. Never fear, one of them will know you."

"But the prison office? Doesn't it mean something that I was found in the prison office?"

"It might, but the prison authorities report that all their men are accounted for, safe, killed, injured—none missing. Why, do you remember working in the prison?"

"No," said Rhodes, "I don't remember anything."

"Relax! Please, relax. Someone will know you. Someone will be able to trigger that memory of yours. Relax, if you will...."

"There were no marks of identification on me?"

"No, none. Your clothing was burned off. You were naked as well as completely skinned," said Quotis, beaming. "Remarkable cure. Remarkable. On Arcturus, when I return, I will astound the medical profession. Here on Kedaki, unfortunately, there is no such organized profession. Well, now, about your new skin...."

"What about fingerprints?" Rhodes persisted. "My identity may not be important to you, doctor. But it's important to me."

"I understand, I understand. I didn't mean to be so callous. But consider. You have no fingerprints. It will be a while before the whorls re-establish themselves on your new skin. Immediately after the operation, before you were bandaged, we took your retinal pattern, but there was no record of it in the Junction City Identity Center or with the local police. There is absolutely no way you can be identified, except through your own memory or the efforts of your Kedaki friends and relatives to find you. In time, I'm sure everything will straighten out. Meanwhile," said Quotis, smiling, "if you're ready, we can remove the bandages from your face. Tomorrow, from the rest of your body. If there are any imperfections, don't worry. Eventually, the artificial skin we have given you shall become your old skin again. I mean that literally. For example, if we have left out—through ignorance—a birthmark or a mole, it will reappear again after six or seven months have passed. Your fingerprints will also, as I have indicated, re-establish themselves. If we have made your pigmentation too light or too dark, your true color will also appear after some months.... Well, then, are you ready? Ready for that first look at yourself? It might help, you know. It might trigger something!" cried Quotis enthusiastically.

Even while he was speaking, he had begun to remove the bandages from Rhodes' face. "The room will be dark," he said. "Gradually, we will increase the light. Your eyes have been in darkness for a long time."

"My eyes...." said Rhodes in sudden fear.

"You are worrying about them? You needn't. They were examined when the retinal pattern was taken. Miraculously, as miraculously as the fact that you are alive, your eyes are all right. Now, then, here we are! See—ummmm, no you cannot see yet. It is dark. There, a little more light. A little more. The eyes, they are all right?"

"It seems awfully bright."

"Any light would, at first. There, a little more. But you are young! Hardly more than a boy, I should judge. The purple of your skin—yes, the purple looks fine.... Not a mark, not a trace. My boy, you will not even be scarred."

His face still felt stiff, but very cool. The contact with air was very welcome and the soft stirring of the currents of air as the doctor's hands did some final adjustments on the bandages which still covered him from the neck down, tucking them back into place.

The first thing he saw was the doctor, a small bespectacled man with the vividly orange skin of a full-blooded Arcturan. The doctor was all smiles, and understandably. Then he saw a mirror. It was held before his face and he was aware of the doctor's slight intake of breath as he waited for a reaction, hoping some forgotten memory might be triggered.

He looked in the mirror. "I—I'm purple!" he gawked.

The doctor frowned. "Of course, purple. The Kedaki color."

"I'm sorry. I don't know why it startled me."

"Well, I can tell you. I am an Arcturan. This is an Arcturan hospital, and we have been speaking Arcturan. Even if you had been unable to see until today, you associated everything about this place with Arcturus. Probably," and Dr. Quotis laughed, "you were expecting orange skin."

"Probably," said Rhodes, and laughed with him.

"Well, enough excitement for one day. If you are strong enough, tomorrow we can have the first of your visitors, people trying to identify you. I warn you, there will be hundreds, thousands."

"Any time you say," Rhodes replied eagerly. But behind the eagerness was a certain vague confusion. Why had the purple tints of his new skin stirred him so strangely? Purple. Kedaki skin color. What else did he expect?

The Director of the Five Bureau, the Kedaki Secret Police, said, "Stop acting like a fool, please."

"But sir," wailed the prison warden. "I tell you, the Earthman's body was not uncovered in what remained of the prison."

"What does that mean?" the Director demanded scornfully. "I have here the final earthquake casualty report for Junction City—shall I read it to you? There are over six thousand people still missing, my dear warden. Six thousand."

"Yes, I know," persisted the prison official. "But doesn't it seem strange that of all the inmates and guards at the prison, the Earth archaeologist alone is missing?"

"Nevertheless, we can assume that virtually all of those missing are dead, buried forever under the debris of the municipal disaster."

"Still, you know how important this Earthman is, what trouble he can cause...."

"I know," snapped the Director arrogantly, "But do you?"

"Well, I have been told...."

"Told! Told what you had to know, told to furnish the Earthman with a maximum security cell, and so forth. You know nothing!"

"I still...."

With a wave of his hand, the Director dismissed the warden. Then, sitting alone at his desk, he lit a cigarette. It was an Earth-cigarette, and a good one. These things, the Director mused, we accept from the outworlders. Their little luxuries. But their way of life, he told himself, never. Whatever threatens our way of life, we seek out and destroy. He leaned on a corner of the desk's surface and in a moment a serving girl came obsequiously into the room with a tray. Patting her rump playfully, as you might stroke the head of a dog, the Director selected the bottle he wanted from the tray, indicating that she should make him a drink. He waited, watching her graceful movements as she set down the tray and poured the liquid into a delicate glass of Regan crystal. The drink, heady and delicious, was Aldeberanean fire wine. He savored it slowly, then with a gesture indicated that the girl, who wore nothing but a kirtle to cover the nakedness of her loins, should depart. He leaned back and thought: This too—not the wine, but the woman.

Because the woman would be impossible if the Kedaki way of life were changed. A system, he went on thinking, founded on bedrock as strong as the pull between the planets.

Metempsychosis....

Do you believe in reincarnation? he asked himself. He chuckled, the sound deep in his throat. He was no fool and did not hold a fool's belief. But the others? The servant classes, the slaves? Yes, they believed. All their lives, they were indoctrinated to believe. Reincarnation was the stuff of which their dreams were fashioned, and so it was that they accepted the hard lot of lifelong servitude with the hope that in their next birth, had they led a good, loyal life, they would be born to a higher station.

Change that? thought the Director. He shook his head slowly, grimly. But the Earthman Rhodes had been a problem, for in the age-old ruins of Balata 'kai he'd stumbled on the manuscript of The Book of the Dead, a five thousand year old document which had first propounded the beliefs of metempsychosis. The Book of the Dead was a dangerous document, a document which could ignite Kedak in revolutionary conflagration, for it showed clearly that the so-called gods of the earliest Kedaki civilization were not gods at all and their so-called revelation of metempsychosis not a revelation at all but a clever trick calculated to win them a life of ease at the expense of gullible subjects.

What am I thinking? the Director asked himself. The Earthman Rhodes is dead, of course. He couldn't possibly be alive. I'm as bad as the warden, but the warden is a fool who knows nothing.... Still, even if the warden is a fool and Rhodes is dead, The Book of the Dead is still missing. And if there is one chance in a million that Rhodes lives, then every stone on this planet must be turned to find him....

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?"