"A tentacle fastened, say, to the right hip-bone could be very useful."
Buzz!
My right hip tingled. From it protruded a whip-like appendage some eight feet long, brown and leathery, tapering to the diameter of a pencil and terminating in a pink flesh-pad richly supplied with sensory buds. I could feel every hair in the nap of the carpet on which it rested—feel, taste, smell and hear! Four sense organs in one!
"Now we are making progress!" came the exclamation.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
The instant-seeming anesthetic moments came upon me in quick succession, and each left me bereft of some standard, human equipment or in the possession of some extra-normal addition to my anatomy—with no more sensation than the slight tingle I have mentioned.
From their mental remarks I conclude that I lost my vermiform appendix, tonsils and a mole on my left shoulder blade. Most of the other items which I acquired were too grotesque to describe further.
"The two additional cardiac structures and the adrenal adjustments should assure some likelihood of immortality," one of the intruders was explaining.
"Which would probably bring about over-population in ten generations," the other reminded him.
"Ah, yes. I should compensate for that."