hat you first underwent replacive surgery in 1991.
Correct?"

"Yes."

"Remember what it was for?"

"Yes, I had heart trouble. They fixed me up with one of those big jobs
requiring my carrying batteries under my armpit."

"One of those early models. And this shows that at various times since
then you have undergone replacive surgery some eighty-seven times,
including three replacements of a pulmonary nature."

Again Lee hesitated. The number of times he had had a worn organ or
tissue repaired or replaced was more than a little hazy. After the
novelty of the first few times when he found himself with a new
stomach, or liver, or muscle, he had started to take these things as a
matter of course. He gave a little nervous laugh. "If that paper says
so, I suppose so, doctor."

"Yes. Well, everything seems to be functioning properly now, doesn't
it? With the exception of your head, of course."

"Yes, yes I feel fine otherwise." Lee was feeling uncomfortable.
"Doctor, could you tell me what this is all about? I must have
answered these questions half a dozen times before to those other
people."

"In just a moment. First I need to know you a little better. Your
medical history lists your occupation as 'cabinet maker'."

"That's right." Lee was becoming more and more uncomfortable. The
extensive examinations had tired him, and repetition of the answers to
all these questions was making him edgy.

"Doctor, can't you at least tell me what type operation I'm going to
have?"

"What do you think it will be?"

"I don't know. Some sort of repair on my head, I guess."

"Mr. Lee, this isn't going to be a matter of repair. We have found it
necessary to replace the entirety of what could roughly be called
your 'brain', as well as part of the spinal cord."

"My whole brain?" Lee sat, stunned, comprehension slowly filtering
into him. He voiced the only coherent thought which materialized. "Why
that will mean there won't be anything left of me at all."

Dr. Letzmiller regarded him. "What do you mean?"

"Doc, you've got my records there. At one time or another, since they
first put a new heart in me, every single inch of me has been replaced
by an artificial part. I mean all of me. There's not one bit of me,
heart, eyes, toenails, _nothing_, that is _me_. That bothered me quite
a bit when this left eye was put in. I mean I thought, 'Well, this
isn't me. This is my brain walking around in a jumble of artificial
flesh.' I tel