Cranstead held up his hand. "Wait a minute--you don't quite realize that you may indeed be very dead to the world you knew before. The doctors can't predict the personality changes you may have undergone. Except for certain very broad limits, they can't predict how you'll act. So we have to protect you, as well as the world you left when you came here. The prosthesis is almost a total job--replaced organs, replaced vascular system, replaced glandular system, even some repaired nervous tissue. Some men come out almost exactly as they were before. But some come out vastly different--" Griffin blinked and stared at the death certificate. "And this," he said slowly, "protects me." "It makes the old Dan Griffin with the leaky heart and the bad kidneys legally dead. Just as the death insurance protects your wife and family. You can't be forced back into the old mold if you don't fit, so you're cut loose as completely as possible. You have a year to adjust; a year as a Free Agent, to go anywhere you wish and do anything you like. You no longer exist in the eyes of the law. If you go back to your old life, that's fine. And if you don't go back, and find yourself a new life, that's fine too. It's up to you." Dan Griffin stood up, a coldness growing in his mind like nothing he had ever experienced; a sense of utter aloneness and total helplessness. "It's hard to get used to," he said softly. "I don't know what to think." He walked to the window and stared out at the city that spread out for miles, and saw the shadows of the tall Upper Level apartments falling across the busy curves of the throughways. "I just don't know--" "We'll help you in any way we can," said Cranstead. "But nobody but yourself can influence your ultimate decision. You're a Free Agent. The decision must be yours." "It's frightening," said Griffin. John Cranstead gave him a long look. "It may be the most frightening thing in the world," he said. II He did not go home immediately.