"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.... Did he? He didn't know what he wished. He'd come here on an impulse. Idol-breaker? But why? And what idols? "Look," he said, pointing at the limestone crag. There was something at once ineffably serene and tumultuously exciting about the five thousand year old slabs and columns perched there. There were stories they could tell, stories of generations long turned to dust, stories of the past and how, from the past, the present came, child of history, buffetted by forces it only half-understood, the helpless, passionate, living present, the moment for which, whether we admit it or not, we all live, ephemeral, hardly palpable, thrilling and then gone, dead, history, the navel for tomorrow which is today.... "It is beautiful," Haazahri said slowly. A wind stirred, swirling little puffs of sand at their feet, their clothing, even their faces. The sun was very hot already and would be much hotter soon. Dazzling white Deneb, far brighter than Sol.... Sol! But Sol was the day star of the planet Earth, remote on the other edge of this small filamental arm of the galaxy. So, why Sol? Look at your skin, Matlin. Matlin, the Reborn! Proud, insolent name! But look at your skin. Gaze on it. You're Kedaki. Of course you're Kedaki. What else could you be? "Have you ever been here before?" Haazahri asked. "Yes, I think so." "Probably it's why you wanted to come." "I've been here. I know I have, Haazahri. Many times. Straight ahead, there, see where I'm pointing? There used to be a staircase there, carved in the living rock. For tourists to climb to the top, to see the ruins. See the jumble of rocks now? We'll have to climb, but it won't be like climbing stairs. We'll--" "Get down!" Haazahri cried suddenly, and threw herself at him, and bore them both to the sand, where they lay still. "Where you were pointing," she whispered. "Look, but don't turn your head. Don't move. Someone's up there."