Alex closed his eyes again and took a slow deep breath. His lungs felt truly marvelous. Normally his lungs were two wadded tissues of pain, two blood-soaked sponges, his life’s two premiere burdens. But now they had somehow transmuted into two spotless clean-room bags, two crisp high-tech sacs of oiled wax paper, two glorious life-giving organs. Alex had a savage cramp in his lower back, and his feet and hands were so chilled by the whipping night wind that they felt like the feet and hands of a wax dummy, but that didn’t matter. That was beside the point.