The pilot relaxed and deliberately spat on the rug. Brave reached out an arm like a tree trunk and slapped the tanned cheek, so the head rocked sideways. "We aren't going to be gentle with you, pal," said Don. "Face that. We aren't playing for marbles."
Grady did not speak. Brave took eight strips of light wood, narrow and about two inches long, from his pocket. Kneeling, he fitted them neatly under the pilot's well-manicured and rather long nails. The man flipped them out with a convulsive motion of the fingers; Brave impassively brought his enormous fist down like a hammer on the back of the fellow's right hand. Grady shrieked.
"Do that again and I'll break the other one," said Brave.
"You red-skinned bastard!" howled Grady, "you did bust it up."
"I meant to. I wanted to see if you'd be quick enough this time to simulate pain."
Had Alan not known better, he would have sworn the pilot was actually suffering. "What are you talking about? Why in blue hell shouldn't I feel pain?"
"Because you're a mutant, and we know you can't. Why can't you, I wonder," muttered Brave in a conversational tone, fitting the splinters under the nails again. "Pain is a necessity of life as we know it. It warns you of danger. A man could be sliced off up to the waist without noticing it, except for pain. Why would the next higher animal to man in the scale of evolution have lost the sensation of pain? It doesn't make sense."
"That's the first thing you've said that I agree with or understand. It doesn't make sense. You're all nuts."
"Come off it," said Alan. "You have given yourself away too often. Don't go back to the old innocent routine."