"Please, listen to me. You're in a hospital. You're being kept alive by the best doctors we have, and by machines made by those doctors. Physically, there isn't much left of you, but we're going to give you a new body. Please be patient. And please co-operate."
The thought was staggering. New body! Then all that's left of me is—
She finished it for him. "A brain in a jar, kept alive by pumps and blood-conditioners and electronic impulses. I'm here to try to keep you sane."
George was silent, thinking now in visual images instead of words. A brain in a glass jar, surrounded by fantastic machinery to perform the functions of the human body. And a woman's voice being piped in to him, to keep him from going mad. He'd read about it somewhere—that it had been tried, and was successful up to a point. But the patient had died. He didn't want to die.
I'll try, he thought loudly. I'll try like hell!
George Jameson, or the part of him that was in the jar, learned quickly. It was two days before he had thoroughly mastered the knack of thinking to himself, and sub-vocalizing only to others. On the third day he asked Karen for a description of his surroundings.