‘You did well to tell me,’ said O’Brien. ‘It is necessary for us to know everything.’ He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice with somewhat more expression in it:
‘Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be as a different person? We may be obliged to give him a new identity. His face, his movements, the shape of his hands, the colour of his hair—even his voice would be different. And you yourself might have become a different person. Our surgeons can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb.’