methods of
prosthesis to eliminate this weird effect but these were only available
back on the home planets.

I had to wait one year for this release. Meanwhile I had plenty of time
to contemplate my mysterious affliction; the mystery of it was so great
that I had little chance to notice how painful it actually was. There is
enough strangeness in feeling with absolute certainty that a limb exists
where actually there is nothing, but the strangeness is compounded when
you look down and discover that not only is the leg gone but that
another, mechanical one has taken its place. Dr. Erics, who had
performed the operation, said this difficulty would ultimately prove a
blessing but I often had my doubts.

* * * * *

He was right. Upon my return to Earth, the serious operations took
place, those giving me plastic limbs that would become _living_ parts of
my organic structure. The same outward push of the brain and nervous
system that had created phantom pain now made what was artificial seem
real. Not only did my own blood course through the protoplastic but I
could feel it doing so. The adjustment took less than a week and it was
a complete one.

Fortunately the time was already past when protoplast patients were
looked upon as something mildly freakish and to be pitied. Artificial
noses, ears and limbs were becoming quite common. Whether there was some
justification for the earlier reaction of pity, however, still remains
to be seen.

My career resumed and I was accepted for the next Centauri Expedition
without any questions being asked. As a matter of fact, Planning Center
preferred people in my condition; protoplast limbs were more durable
than the real--no, let us say the original--thing.

At home and at the beach no one bothered to notice my reconstructed arm
and leg. They looked too natural for the idea to occur to people who did
not know me. And Marla treated the whole thing like a big joke. "You're
better than new," she used to tell me and the kids wanted to know when
they could have second matter limbs of their own.

Life was good to me. The one-year periods away from home passed quickly
and the five-year layoffs on Earth permitted me to devote myself to my
hobbies, music and mathematics, without taking any time away from my
family. Eventually, of course, my condition became an extremely common
one. Who is there today among my readers who has all the parts with
which he was bo