Chapter Three
The operation was a simple one. Simple, that is, for state-of-the-art medibots. Arthur's body was removed from stasis, and placed on one of the operating tables by two assistant medibots. Zaphod lay on the other. A protracted argument with himself, as to which of his two heads should go under the knife, was only resolved when Ford suggested the drawing of straws. The right head won, and the left immediately demanded a recount. It didn't take long.
Behind the viewing screens, Trillian and Ford watched on. Zaphod, making the best of a bad job, gave Trillian his finest brave-little-soldier smile and added a delicate little finger-wave for good measure. She returned a tight smile using the minimum number of muscles to do so, which lasted all of three tenths of a second. Her eyes, and body language, wanted no part of it.
The Chief Medibot approached Zaphod and levitated to one side.
"Ahhh, Mr Beeblebrox, I believe?" it said with its best resonating doctor's voice, courtesy of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
"Yeah, like... er, this is safe, yeah... You don't foresee any complications?"
"None whatsoever Mr Beeblebrox," the Chief Medibot boomed, "the principles are well understood. You couldn't be in a safer pair of hands."
"So you've done this before?" said Zaphod counting the Chief Medibot's hands all the way up to zero.
"Personally, no," said the Chief Medibot, "it's not every day you get to transplant somebody's brain, Mr Beeblebrox. However, many fine practitioners have, and their experience is included in the medical databanks to draw upon should it be necessary. It will be as if all the finest neurosurgeons the galaxy has to offer, dead or alive, practising or struck off, are here to guide me and my colleagues throughout the entire operation."
"And you're absolutely sure you haven't got any chimps stashed away back there?" said Zaphod indicating a door marked, Medical Personnel Only Beyond This Point, "for experiments and so forth. I'd take anything within reason. The one thing I don't want is to wake up with a tea fixation, and an inability to say anything other than, 'I don't understand.'"
"Mr Beeblebrox, it will be your intellect that rules the roost, so to speak. I can at least reassure you in that regard. The thought processes of... um, Mr Dent, will be as absent as his own brain is currently from his head."
"Will I be under for long?" said Zaphod in a small voice.
"Well... it's not the most straightforward operation I can think of. It could take anything up to, say ten minutes, possibly a little longer. Ahhh, I think we're ready... Thank you, Matron. No time like the present, Mr Beeblebrox," said the Chief Medibot.
"One more thing..." said Zaphod as two jets of gas shot out from the overhanging canopy and sent him into dreamless sleep.