CHAPTER VIII
Balata 'kai!
Even the word was like heady wine.
Balata 'kai!
Where, five thousand years ago, civilization—and a lie—had been born on Kedak. Where now the ruins were ghostly in the early dawnlight, standing like grim sentinels against the still dark sky, silhouetted there on the limestone crag above the floor of the desert.
"Would you believe it, Matlin," Haazahri said, "I'm a native of Junction City, but I've never seen the ruins of Balata 'kai?"
"Sure. It's like that all over. Only the tourists are interested in what makes where you live famous," Matlin said, and smiled. He was happy. He felt happy for the first time since his accident. The woman? She was part of the reason, but not most of it. Did he love her? He hardly knew, and wouldn't press it yet, not until he remembered. Because it wasn't fair either to Haazahri or whatever he was, whoever he was, in lost memory.
It was Balata 'kai. He belonged here. Somehow, he could sense that. The navel of his people, was that the reason? Because any Kedaki would feel at home where the world-idea that governed his planet had been born, fifty centuries ago?
But not Matlin. Matlin was an iconoclast. Matlin did not believe, Matlin wished to smash idols, Matlin wished....