"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.