at Lee intently, studying him through this
outburst. "I think I see what you mean. And I can't answer you. The
question you raise may be philosophical, or metaphysical, but it
certainly isn't medical. And from a doctor's point of view complete
substitution is the only course open, risky as it may seem."

Lee mulled this over. Of course he knew surgery was the only solution
to his decaying mentality, actually the only alternative to his
becoming a virtual idiot, and, shortly after that, dead. And he did
not want to die. He had lived a long time, but thanks to the methods
of Letzmiller, Gorss, and all their predecessors, he was as full of
juice as he had been at thirty-five. But the question that kept
plaguing him Letzmiller seemed determined to avoid. He didn't
understand very much about replacive surgery, really didn't care to.
If Letzmiller said it could work, then he wasn't worried about that.
Well, he guessed he really didn't have much choice. With this
realization, he had only one more question for Letzmiller.

"Doc, if I'm not me when this is over, do you think I'll know it?"

Letzmiller looked at Lee's troubled face. "Do you think that you would
want to?"

Lee answered slowly. "No, no I guess not."

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