Letzmiller rose from his chair. "I'll talk to you again after the
operation. Do you think you're ready to go to your room now?"
Lee nodded and obediently followed the doctor.
* * * * *
Lee was asleep when the nurse came, but with the efficiency of all
good nurses since time immemorial, she woke him to give him the
sedative to prepare him for surgery. She chattered brightly as she
prepared the hypodermic.
"You know, you have all the nurses speculating, Mr. Lee. I mean we're
wondering just what Dr. Lakin, he's the anesthesiologist, is going to
use for you when you won't have any brain for the anesthesia to work
on." She stopped, the needle poised above Lee's arm, realizing the
inaptness of her remark. "Oh. I shouldn't have said that."
"No, that's all right," said Lee. "I've already reconciled myself to
being the headless horseman for a while." He had, too, although it was
wonderfully strange to think of himself lying on the operating table
with a cavity where he right now thought, felt, knew that he was a
person.
* * * * *
Lee didn't actually lie on the table in the literal sense. The table
was inclined to about forty-five degrees, with his head exposed and
supported by a clamp on the cheek and jaw bones. This arrangement was
necessary to allow the waiting machinery access to the area where it
would perform.
Physicians, surgeons, biologists and the like were gathered in the
amphitheater to see a bit of medical history. Actually there wasn't
much to see. A team of technicians, radiologists and surgeons were
working around Lee. Some were attaching electrodes to parts of Lee's
body to maintain the electrical impulses necessary to keep his vital
processes in motion while the main switchboard was out of commission.
Others were sensitizing the exposed brain, from which the skull had
already been removed, to guide the delicate fingers of the huge
automatic Operating, Recording and Calculating Complex through its
precisely programmed steps.
Letzmiller was among those in the amphitheater, as a spectator, drawn
both by professional curiosity and a desire to know the answer to
Lee's question, "Doc, what will there be left of me?" Of course he
couldn't find out even part of the answer for some weeks. Even the ORC
complex, now being fitted to Lee's unconscious brain, adjusted and
activated, would not finish with its job for something like thirty-two
hours.
The synthesizer would reconvert the data, translate it into countless
chemical and electrical formulae, and apply it to the raw material of
carbons, amino acids, proteins, and other components. When the basic
organ had been reconstructed, a process requiring another week and a
half in the synthesizer, it would be grafted back. The nerve lead-ins
would then be reconnected, one by one, spaced at intervals to avoid
shock. Lee would be unconscious the whole time, of course. Or rather
Lee would be unconscious part of the time. Most of the time he
wouldn't have the capacity for either consciousness or the lack of it.
Dr. Letzmiller observed the huge ORC complex for a time, but there
wasn't anything to see. It simply sat over Lee, doing its job.
Unwanted, the thought came to Letzmiller that the machine looked like
a frog with a long worm dangling from its mouth. Lee was the worm.
* * * * *
"You can talk to him now, doctor." Oldenreid, Surgeon in Charge,
addressed Letzmiller outside Lee's room where he had just finished his
examination. "Personally, I think things went exactly as they should.
All physical and mental responses check out. I guess here's where I'm
finished and you go to work."
Lee was sitting up in bed as Letzmiller entered. He looked just like
he had in Letzmiller's office before the operation, except for the
small white bandages around his head to protect his healing skull.
"Well," the doctor said, "how do you feel? Your head hurt?"
* * * * *
Letzmiller checked at Oldenreid's office, and was admitted to give his
report, as had been planned.
"Well?" asked Oldenreid.
Letzmiller lit the end of his cigar before answering. "I wholly agree
with you. Everything seems to have worked out exactly according to
plan. I found him essentially the same as he appeared to me during his
pre-operative interview. Of course he's a little foggy yet, but I
suppose that's just the post-operative shock."
"Yes, that will clear up in a few days."
"He seems alert, responsive, full memory. I don't think there will be
any difficulty with my part of his post-operative treatment. Except--
"Doctor, have you ever listened to a group of violins and sensed, just
sensed, not actually heard, that one of them seemed about a quarter of
a note flat?"
Oldenreid looked at him strangely as Letzmiller left the office and
closed the door.
* * * * *