"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.