"All right," I said, shrugging indifferently.
"Not exactly keen about it?" he said, chuckling again. "After what you told me I don't blame you. But it'll be good therapy, and with Paula in the background I don't believe you'll have any trouble resisting the temptation to gain immortality in a non-living robot."
"Maybe you're right," I said.
"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.