"With me it's different," he went on enthusiastically, paying little attention to my comment. "I'm getting on in years. My wife has been gone long enough so that she's just a memory. Paula is grown up. There's nothing to keep me from making the jump. Of course, I get a rather peculiar feeling every time I think of actually taking this step, and waking up to find my original body lying there on the other table, dead. But it doesn't alter the milk to pour it into another bottle. And from my experiments with dogs there doesn't seem to be any sensation accompanying the process of transfer. As a matter of fact, with one dog I teased him with a juicy bone up to the instant of transfer. The first thing he did in the robot body was look around for the bone. Rapid as the flicker of a film." "Yes, I know," I said dryly. "I found the same thing. No consciousness of transfer or any other sensation. With the scanner-transferer it takes place in less than a ten thousandth of a second. Every electrical pattern of the brain complex is lifted out as an infinitesimal segment and transplanted into the colloid dielectric complex without alteration." "Like a television eye scans a scene, in a way," the doctor added. "But let's go out to my laboratory. I'll show you _my body_." He laughed at the remark as he stood up and went to the door. My hands were trembling visibly. I hid them in my pockets, gripping them into tight fists to stop their trembling. I followed him into the hall, holding onto my appearance of calm detachment with every ounce of my will. The doctor had not yet found out what had made me afraid. But he would. He'd find out when I was ready for him to. "We're going out to the lab, Paula," Dr. Moriss was saying. "Oh," Paula said, disappointment in her tone. "Wait a minute, Dr. Moriss," I said. "Paula and I are going out for a walk first." "That can wait a half hour," he said. "I just want to show you--my body." He chuckled. "It can't wait," I said, "and even if it could I want a breath of fresh air before going into that lab." "He's been sick for three days without being out," Paula said. "Stop being so selfish, dad." "That's unkind, Paula," Dr. Moriss said, "but go ahead." He turned back into his study. * * * * * We walked along sidewalks hand in hand, with kids playing catch and hop-skip as hazards, and shapeless, harassed women struggling home with overloaded shopping bags. We heard the dying wail of sirens and saw a crowd at a corner, and joined it to watch the callous internes lift a screaming woman onto a stretcher while she repeated, "Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God," over and over, and a white faced teenage boy kept repeating to an unsympathetic but silent police officer, "I didn't see her. I didn't see her. I didn't see her."