"Thank you, sir," said Cletus.
"Don't butter me up!" snarled Bat, softly. "You knew I was too bright to go around raising hell about your putting me out of the way until I'd found out what the score was. You knew I was going to do what I did. So let's not play games. You locked me up and nobody's ever going to know about it. But you captured two-thirds of the Neuland armed forces and I'm the one who's going to get most of the credit back in Geneva. That's the way things stand, and that's one of the two things I came to tell you." Cletus nodded.
"The other thing's this," Bat said. "What you pulled off up there at Two Rivers was one hell of a piece of fine generalship. I can admire it. But I don't have to admire you. I don't like the way you work, Grahame, and I don't need you - and the Alliance doesn't need you. The second thing I came to tell you is this - I want your resignation. I want it on my desk inside of forty-eight hours. You can go back home and write books as a civilian."
Cletus looked at him quietly. "I've already submitted my resignation from the Alliance Military Service," he said. "I'm also giving up my citizenship as an Earth citizen. I've already made application for citizenship on the Dorsai, and it's been accepted."
Bat's eyebrows rose. For once his hard, competent face looked almost foolish. "You're skipping out on the Alliance?" he asked.
"Completely?"
"I'm emigrating, that's all," said Cletus. He smiled a little at Bat. "Don't worry, General. I've no more interest in making public the fact that you were locked in my office over part of the weekend than you have. We'll assume a Neulander spy got into the office, found himself trapped and managed to break his way out."
Their eyes met. After a second, Bat shook his head. "Anyway," he said. "We won't be seeing each other again."
He turned and left. Cletus lay gazing at the ceiling until he fell asleep.
Mondar did not show up until the following afternoon; he apologized for not coming sooner.
"The message saying that you wanted to see me was sent through the regular mail," he said, sitting down in a chair at Cletus' bedside. "Evidently your good physician didn't see any urgency in your asking for me."
"No," said Cletus, "it's outside his area of knowledge."
"I think he assumed I'd have to tell you that I - or we Exotics, that is - couldn't help you either," said Mondar, slowly. "I'm afraid he may have been right. I called the hospital after I got your message and talked to someone I know on the staff here. I was told you've got a problem of almost certain psychological rejection of any organ graft"
"That's right," said Cletus.
"He said you thought that perhaps I - or perhaps some other Exotic, working with you, could succeed in overcoming such a psychological reaction long enough for a healthy leg to be grafted on you."
"It's not possible?" Cletus watched the Exotic closely as he spoke.
Mondar looked down and smoothed the blue robe covering his crossed knees. Then he looked back up at Cletus.
"It's not impossible," he said. "It'd be possible in the case, say, of someone like myself, who's trained in the areas of mental and physical self-control since he was a boy. I can ignore pain, or even consciously will my heart to stop beating, if I wish. I could also, if necessary, suppress my immune reactions - even if they included the kind of psychological rejection that afflicts you... Cletus, you've got a tremendous amount of native talent, but you haven't had my years of training. Even with my assistance you wouldn't be able to control the rejection mechanism in your body."
"You're not the only one who can ignore pain," said Cletus. "I can do that too, you know."
"Can you?" Mondar looked interested. "Of course, come to think of it. Both after your first time up at fitter's Pass, and this last time at Two Rivers when you damaged the knee again, you did a good deal of moving around on it when ordinarily such movement should have been unendurable."
His eyes narrowed a little, thoughtfully. "Tell me - do you deny the pain - I mean do you refuse to admit the pain is there? Or do you ignore it - that is you remain conscious that the sensation is there but you don't allow the sensation to affect you?"
"I ignore it," answered Cletus. "I start out by relaxing to the point where I feel a little bit as though I'm floating. Just that much relaxation takes a lot of the sting out of the pain. Then I move in on what's left and more or less take the color out of it. What I'm left with is a little like a feeling of pressure. I can tell if it increases or decreases, or if it goes away entirely, but I'm not bothered by it in any way."
Mondar nodded slowly. "Very good. In fact, unusually good for self-trained," he said. "Tell me, can you control your dreams?"
"To a certain extent," said Cletus. "I can set up a mental problem before falling asleep, and work it out while I'm asleep - sometimes in the shape of a dream. I can also work out problems the same way while I'm awake by throwing a certain section of my mind out of gear, so to speak, and letting the rest of my body and mind run on automatic pilot."
Mondar gazed at him. Then he shook his head. But it was an admiring shake.
"You amaze me, Cletus," the Exotic said. "Would you try something for me? Look at that wall just to your left there, and tell me what you see."
Cletus turned his head away from Mondar and gazed at the flat, vertical expanse of white-painted wall. There was a small prickling sensation at the side of his neck just behind and below his right ear - followed by a sudden explosion of pain from the site of the prick, like the pain from the venom of a bee sting following the initial puncture. Cletus breathed out calmly; as the breath left his lungs, a crimson violence of the pain was washed clean and unimportant. He turned back to Mondar.
"I didn't see anything," he said, "of course."
"Of course. It was only a trick to get you to turn your head away," said Mondar, putting what looked like a miniature mechanical pencil back in his robes. "The amazing thing is, I wasn't able to measure any skin flinch, and that's a physiological reaction. Clearly your body hasn't much doubt about your ability to handle pain quickly."
He hesitated. "All right, Cletus," he said. "I'll work with you. But it's only fair to warn you that I still don't see any real chance of success. How soon do you want the transplant done?"
"I don't want it done," said Cletus. "I think you're probably quite right about the impossibility of suppressing my rejection mechanism. So we'll do something else. As long as it's a long shot anyway, let's try for a miracle cure."
"Miracle... " Mondar echoed the word slowly.
"Why not?" said Cletus cheerfully. "Miracle cures have been reported down through the ages. Suppose I undergo a purely symbolic operation. There's both flesh and bone missing from my left knee where the prosthetic unit was surgically implanted after I was first wounded years ago. I want that surgical implant taken out and some small, purely token portions of the flesh and bone from equivalent areas of my right knee transplanted into the area where the original flesh and bone is missing in the left. Then we cover both knees up with a cast" - his eyes met Mondar's - "and you and I concentrate hard while healing takes place."
Mondar sat for a second. Then he stood up.
"Anything is eventually possible," he murmured. "I've already said I'd help you. But this is something that's going to require some thought, and some consultation with my fellow Exotics. I'll come back to see you in a day or two."
The next morning Cletus had a visit from both Eachan Khan and Melissa. Eachan came in first, alone. He sat stiffly in the chair beside Cletus' bed. Cletus, propped up in a sitting position gazed at the older man keenly.