...I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.For now is Christ risen from the dead....
...I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.
For now is Christ risen from the dead....
After the final notes of the aria had died away came the chorus, slow, grave:
...Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive....
...Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive....
The jubilant tones of "Even so in Christ" sent startling shivers of illumination through him; it was as if he had never listened to these words before. ("Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead....") The words pursued him everywhere.
Twenty minutes later, after the last melisma of "Amen," he abruptly turned the set off; dinner was about ready, or at least it should be. It was. He ate quietly, deep in thought.
On Saturday he was a little more lively; he worked around the house, took Chris and Paul for an hour-long hike in the early afternoon, spent some time before dinner watching the telecast of the Yankee-Dodger inter-league game from Los Angeles. He and Lois visited neighbors in the evening; it was a pleasant, relaxed three or four hours. He was beginning to think he could forget about the problem that was starting to grow.
But Sunday his short-lived forgetfulness ended. It was breakfast-time; Paul was struggling under the bulk of the SundayTimes, which had been left in the box outside, and Lois was bringing the pancakes to the table. As he took the paper from his youngest son, Harker turned to Chris and said, "Switch on the audio. Let's see what the morning news is like."
There was a click. A resonant, almost cavernous voice said:
"...he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I—"
"...he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I—"
Impatiently Chris reached out and changed the station. Harker shook his head, annoyed. "No, Chris. Get that back. I want to hear it."
"TheBible, Dad?"
Harker nodded impatiently. As Chris searched for the original station Lois said, "That's St. Matthew, isn't it?"
Chuckling, Harker said, "St. John, unless I've forgotten all my Sunday Schooling. Your father ought to hear you say a thing like that."
Lois' father had been a stern Bible-reading Presbyterian; he had never approved of Harker. The radio preacher said:
"...Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them—"
"...Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them—"
"All right," Harker broke in suddenly. "You can change the station now."
Chris said, "How come you wanted to hear that, Dad?"
"It's a very famous passage." Harker smiled. "And I have a feeling we're all going to get to know it pretty well before summer comes."
After supper Sunday he packed for his trip to Washington; he took an extra change of clothes, because Thurman's secretary had warned him that the Senator was very busy and might not be able to see him until Tuesday. Harker reflected privately that that was fine treatment to accord a man who had once been virtually the titular head of the party, but complaining would have done him less than no good.
He came downstairs again after packing, and spent the next several hours watching video with the family: a silly, mindless series of programs, ideally designed to give the mind a rest.
At quarter-past-nine, in the middle of an alleged ballet sequence, the screen went blank. Harker frowned, annoyed; then an announcer's face appeared.
"We interrupt this program to bring you a special announcement from our newsroom."Richard Bryant, hero of Earth's first successful voyage to another planet, died quietly in his sleep an hour ago, in his Manhattan apartment. He would have been seventy-four next month."He was assured of immortality on the first of August, 1984, when he radioed from Mars the triumphant message, 'Have landedMars Onesafely. Am on way back. Mars is pretty dreary.'From that day on, Rick Bryant was a hero to billions."We return you now to the regularly-scheduled program."
"We interrupt this program to bring you a special announcement from our newsroom.
"Richard Bryant, hero of Earth's first successful voyage to another planet, died quietly in his sleep an hour ago, in his Manhattan apartment. He would have been seventy-four next month.
"He was assured of immortality on the first of August, 1984, when he radioed from Mars the triumphant message, 'Have landedMars Onesafely. Am on way back. Mars is pretty dreary.'From that day on, Rick Bryant was a hero to billions.
"We return you now to the regularly-scheduled program."
Cavorting dancers returned to the screen. In a soft, barely-audible voice, Harker cursed eloquently.
"Gee, Dad! Rick Bryant died!" Chris exclaimed.
Not long after he had taken the case, Harker had induced the old man to autograph a copy of his bookI Flew to Marsfor Chris; since then, the boy had taken deep interest in Bryant's career.
Harker nodded. To Lois he said, "They didn't even give him a chance. The hearing would have been last Thursday, but his son got it postponed."
"Do you think this will affect the outcome, Jim?"
"I doubt it. That document was pretty solid. Damn, I wanted old Bryant to have the satisfaction of knowing he died on top." Broodingly he stared at his slippers. "If any of them had any guts, they would have lied to him, told him his will was upheld. But of course they didn't. They're just so many vultures. Hell, I guess I'd better phone. As the old man's lawyer, I'd better get in touch."
He went upstairs to his den and switched on the phone. Punching out the Bryant number, he waited a moment; an intercepting service took the call and said, "We represent the Bryant family. Only friends of the family and immediate relatives can be put through just now, sir."
"I'm the late Mr. Bryant's lawyer," Harker said, staring at the monogrammed pattern on the screen. "James Harker. Will you put me through?"
There was a momentary pause; then: "I beg your pardon, sir. Your name does not seem to be on the list. You understand that in a time of grief such as this the Bryant family accepts your condolences in the sincere spirit in which they are offered, and regrets that it cannot devote personal time to you as yet. We suggest that you call back tomorrow, when the shock of Mr. Bryant's departure has lessened."
The intercepting-service monogram disappeared from the screen. Harker scowled.
The cold-blooded lice. Hiring a service to dish out all that unctuous crap, meanwhile making sure I don't have a chance to talk to anybody there.
He took a deep breath and punched out another number: the home phone of District Judge Auerbach, who was scheduled to conduct the Bryant hearing next Thursday.
Auerbach appeared on the screen, plump, sleepy-looking. Harker said, "Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday night, Tom. You've heard about the Bryant business?"
Auerbach nodded. "Too bad, I guess. He was very sick."
"No doubt of that. Look, Tom, his sons are being sticky about their phone. I'm on the spit-list and can't get through to them. Has Jonathan phoned you tonight?"
"No. Is he supposed to?"
"I don't know. I just want to notify you that I'll be out of town on business tomorrow and maybe Tuesday, in case you or he or anybody is trying to reach me. But I'll be back in plenty of time for the hearing on Thursday. There isn't another motion for a postponement, is there?"
"Not that I know of," Auerbach said. "Be seeing you in court on Thursday, then?"
"Right."
He returned to the television room. The ballet was still going on.
"Well?" Lois asked.
"I couldn't reach the Bryants. They hired an intercepting service," Harker said darkly. "I spoke to Tom Auerbach, though. The hearing's still scheduled for Thursday. Jonathan just didn't want the old man to be alive when it was held."
I wouldn't put it past them to murder old Bryant, he thought.Cold-blooded bunch.
He stared at the screen, but the colorful images only irritated him.
Idlewild was a busy place the following morning. Harker got there at half-past-nine, and the sprawling buildings were jam-packed.
"Flight 906 leaving for London via TWA in fifteen minutes—Flight 906 leaving for London via TWA in fifteen minutes—"
He heard a deep-bellied boom; someone next to him said, "That's a cross-country job, I'll bet."
Sure enough, the loudspeaker said, "Now departing, Flight 136 for San Francisco—"
Above him a neon board flashed. The bright letters said:Flight 136. Lv Idlwld 0932, Ar SF 1126.
Less than two hours across the continent. Harker shivered; the plane that had taken off two minutes ago was probably somewhere over Pennsylvania or Ohio by now.
"Attention, please. Flight 199, United Air Lines, for Washington, D.C., departure 0953, now boarding—"
That was his plane. Leaving in about twenty minutes, and arriving in Washington only about twenty minutes after that. Harker looked up and saw a great golden stratocruiser coming in for a landing on a distant runway. All around him he felt the nervous urgency always surrounding people traveling.
Inwardly he began to grow tense. He had checked off two of the three names on his scrawled list; neither had been of much encouragement. Only Senator Clyde Thurman remained, and Thurman represented the old-guard conservative wing of the Nat-Lib party; there was no telling how he would react to the news that a technique had been developed for—
"Attention, please. Telephone call for Mr. James Harker. Mr. James Harker, please report to any ticket desk. Telephone call for James Harker—"
Puzzled, Harker shoved his way through the crowd to the desk in the foreground and said to the uniformed clerk, "I'm James Harker. I was just paged for a phone-call."
"You can pick it up in there."
Harker stepped through into a waiting-room and picked up an extension phone—audio only, no visual. He said to the operator, "I'm James Harker. There's a phone-call for me."
"One moment, please."
There was the sound of phone-jacks being yanked in and out of sockets. Then Mart Raymond's voice said, "Hello? Jim?"
"Harker here. That you, Mart?"
"Oh, thank God I caught you in time! I phoned your home, and your wife said you'd gone to the airport to make a 9:53 jet! Another few minutes and you'd have been aboard the plane, and—"
Harker had never heard Raymond this excited before. "Whoa, boy! Calm down!"
"I can't. Cancel your trip and get out here right away!"
"How come? I'm on my way down to see Thurman."
"The hell with Thurman. Haven't you heard the news?"
"What news? About Bryant, you mean? How—"
"No, not about Bryant," Raymond snapped. "I mean about theproject. Hell, I guess you haven't heard yet. It only broke about five minutes ago."
Harker stared strangely at the receiver in his hand. In as level a voice as he could manage he said, "Mart, what are you trying to tell me?"
"Mitchison!" Raymond gasped. "Mitchison and Klaus—they issued a public statement about five minutes ago, telling the world all about the project! The lab is swarming with reporters! Jim, you've got to get out here at once!"
He hung up. Harker let the receiver drop into its cradle. He moistened his lips.
The mask of secrecy was off. From now on, they were accountable to the world for their every move.
CHAPTER VIII
Harker had thought Idlewild was in a state of confusion, but he realized he still had a lot to learn about ultimate chaos when he reached Litchfield, an hour later. Cars clogged the highway for a quarter of a mile on each side of the private road leading to the laboratories. He saw television cameras, sound trucks, men who looked like reporters.
He ducked through the milling mob and tried to slip unobtrusively along the spruce-bordered dirt road to the administration building. But it was a foolhardy attempt; he hadn't taken more than ten steps before someone yelled: "Hey! There's Governor Harker!"
A dozen of them surrounded him in a minute. Harker recognized a few of the faces from his mayoralty days—aTimesman, one from theStar-Post, one from the Hearst combine. Harker strode doggedly along, trying to ignore them, but they blocked his path.
"What areyoudoing here, Governor?"
"What's your opinion on the reanimation bit? You think they're serious?"
"How will the Nat-Libs react?"
"Do you figure there'll be a congressional investigation?"
They crowded around him, waving their minirecorders and notebooks. In a loud voice Harker said, "Hold on, all of you! Quiet down!"
They quieted.
"In answer to half a dozen of your questions, I'm here because I'm legal adviser to Beller Laboratories. The statement that was released to the press earlier today was an unofficial and possibly inaccurate one. I'll have an official statement for you as soon as things are under control here."
"Does that mean the reanimation process doesn't actually exist?"
"I repeat: I'll have an official statement later." It was the only way to handle them. He spun, pushed his way forcefully but with care between theTimesand Scripps-Howard-Cauldwell, and made his way up the hill.
The road-block still functioned—only this time there were five guards there instead of two, and three of them held multishot rifles, the other two machine-pistols. Harker approached and said, "How come the fire-arms?"
"It's the only way we can keep them back, Mr. Harker. You better go in. Dr. Raymond wants to see you."
Harker nodded grimly and stepped through the cordon. He half-trotted the rest of the way.
Raymond's office was crowded. Barchet was there, and Lurie, and two or three of the other researchers. Raymond, his face gray and stony, sat quietly back of his desk.
"Here," he said. "Read this. It's the text of the handout Mitchison released."
Harker scanned it.
Litchfield, N.J., 20 May (for immediate release)—Security wraps today came off an eight-year-old project that will be the greatest boon to mankind since the development of modern medicine. A process for bringing the dead back to life has left the experimental stage and is now ready for public demonstration, according to famous biochemist David Klaus, 29, a Harvard graduate who has spearheaded the project in recent months.Klaus stated, "The technique developed at this laboratory will make possible restoration of life in all cases where death has taken place no more than twenty-four hours before the reanimation attempt, provided no serious organic damage was the cause of death. A combination of hormone therapy and electrochemical stimulation makes this astonishing and miraculous process possible."The Beller Research Laboratories of Litchfield, established in 2024 by a grant from the late Darwin F. Beller, were the birthplace for this scientific breakthrough. Further details to come.—Cal Mitchison, publicity.
Litchfield, N.J., 20 May (for immediate release)—Security wraps today came off an eight-year-old project that will be the greatest boon to mankind since the development of modern medicine. A process for bringing the dead back to life has left the experimental stage and is now ready for public demonstration, according to famous biochemist David Klaus, 29, a Harvard graduate who has spearheaded the project in recent months.
Klaus stated, "The technique developed at this laboratory will make possible restoration of life in all cases where death has taken place no more than twenty-four hours before the reanimation attempt, provided no serious organic damage was the cause of death. A combination of hormone therapy and electrochemical stimulation makes this astonishing and miraculous process possible."
The Beller Research Laboratories of Litchfield, established in 2024 by a grant from the late Darwin F. Beller, were the birthplace for this scientific breakthrough. Further details to come.—Cal Mitchison, publicity.
Harker dropped the sheet contemptuously to Raymond's desk. "Bad grammar, bad writing, bad thinking—not even a good mimeograph job. Mart, how the dickens could a thing like this have happened?"
"Klaus and Mitchison must have cooked it up last night or early this morning. They handed copies of it to the local press-service stringers in town, and phoned it in to all the New York area newspapers."
"We didn't even have time to fire him," Harker muttered. "Well? Where is he now?"
Raymond shrugged. "He and Klaus are gone. I sent men looking for them as soon as I found out about the newsbreak, but no sign of them."
"Operation Barn Door," Harker snapped. "Most likely they're in Manhattan getting themselves interviewed on video. I see Mitchison didn't bother to mention anyone's name but Klaus' in this alleged handout."
"What would you expect?"
Harker whirled on Barchet, who looked very small and meek suddenly, with none of his earlier blustery self-assurance. "You!You're the one who brought Mitchison into this outfit!"
In a tiny voice Barchet said, "Recriminations are useless now, Mr. Harker."
"The hell with that. Did you tell Mitchison I was going to have him sacked?"
"Mr. Harker, I—"
"Did you?"
Helplessly Barchet nodded. Harker glared at him, then turned to Raymond and said, "There you have it, Mart. Mitchison heard he was getting canned, so he whipped this thing out now, while he could get fat on us. Well, we're stuck with this statement. There are two million reporters on the front lawn waiting for official word from us."
Raymond had not shaved that morning. He ran his fingers through a blue-stubbled growth of beard and then locked his hands over his forehead. In a sepulchral voice he said, "What do you suggest? Deny the Mitchison release?"
"Impossible," Harker said. "The word has gone out. If we nix it, the public will never believe a further word we say. Uh-uh."
"What then?"
"Don't worry about it. First thing is to prepare a release saying that the early announcement was premature, that Mitchison and Klaus are no longer connected with this organization—"
"Klaus has a contract."
"The contract has a clause in it about insubordination or else it isn't worth a damn. Have somebody send a special-delivery letter to Klaus informing him that his contract is voided. Keep a couple of carbons. Send a letter of dismissal to Mitchison, too."
Harker paused to wipe sweat from his face. In the small room, the air conditioners had little effect.
He went on, "Next thing: I'll draft a release confirming the fact that you've developed this technique, and I'll sign my name to it. When I'm done, have it mimeographed and distributed to everybody out there. That cancels out Mitchison's poop, anyway. After that"—he frowned—"do you have any human cadavers around the place? Revivable ones, I mean?"
Raymond shook his head.
"Too bad. Find one. We'll give a demonstration of the technique to any of the pressmen who have strong enough stomachs to want to watch. And then—"
"Don't you think that's a little risky?" Lurie asked mildly.
"What? The demonstration?"
Lurie nodded, grinning foolishly. "Well, I mean, something might go wrong—"
"Like what?"
"There are flaws in the process," Raymond cut in. "We haven't fully perfected it. I was meaning to talk about them to you, but of course, this thing coming up makes it impossible to iron the bugs out in time, and—"
"Hold it," Harker said. He felt a chill start to rise up his back. In a flat voice he said, "You gave me the impression that this process worked all the time. That if the body was in good enough shape to live, and hadn't started to decay, you could revive it. Suppose you tell me about these so-called 'bugs'—right here and now."
There was a brief, ominous silence in the room. Harker saw Raymond glare sourly at Lurie, who cowered; the other staff researcher looked uneasy, and Barchet nibbled at his nails.
At last Raymond said, "Jim, I'm sorry. We didn't play it square with you."
"Go on. Bare your soul to me now, Raymond. I want to know everything."
"Well—ah—the processdoesn'talways work. About one out of twenty times, we can't bring the patient back to life."
"Understandable. If that's the whole trouble—"
"It isn't. Jim, you have to understand that death is a tremendous shock to the nervous system—the biggest shock there is. That goes without saying. Sometimes the shock is so great that it short-circuits the brain, so to speak. And so even though we can achieve physiological reanimation, the mind—ah—the mind is not always reanimated with the body."
Harker was stunned as if by a physical blow. He took one step backward, groped for a chair, and lowered himself into it. Forcing himself to keep calm he said, "Just how often does this happen?"
"About one out of every six tries, so far."
"I see." He drew in his breath sharply, cleared his throat, and fought to hang on to his self-control. The whole thing had taken on an unreal dreamlike atmosphere in the past two hours. And this was the crusher.
So one out of six revivifications produced a live idiot?Great, Harker thought.So a public demonstration will be like a game of Russian Roulette. One-chance-out-of-six that the whole show will blow up in our faces.
"How long will it take you to iron this thing out?" he asked.
"All I can say is that we're working toward it."
"Okay. Forget the demonstration. We don't dare try it until things calm down. Remind me to cut your throat for this, Mart. Later."
There was a knock on the door. Harker nodded to Barchet, who opened it. One of the laboratory guards stood outside.
"The reporters are getting out of hand," he said. "They want to know when they're getting their statement."
Harker stood up and said, "It's five minutes to eleven now. Tell them that I'll have a statement for them before noon."
"Yes, sir."
"Get me a typewriter," Harker said to Raymond.
A typewriter was produced. Harker fed a sheet of paper in, switched on the current, and began to type. He composed a hasty 250-word statement disowning Mitchison, crediting Raymond as head of the project, and declaring that full details of the technique would be released as soon as they were ready.
He signed itJames Harker, and added parenthetically. (Former Governor of New York—now legal adviser to Beller Research Laboratories.)
"Here," he said, handing the release to Raymond. "Read this thing through and approve it, Mart. Then get it mimeographed and distributed to that wolfpack out there. Is there a vidset around anywhere?"
"In A Lounge," Lurie offered.
A Lounge was in the small dormitory in back. Harker said, "I'm going there to pick up the news reports. Lurie, I'm requisitioning you to set up office space for me someplace in Dormitory A. I want a phone, a vidset, a radio, and a typewriter. And I don't care who has to get pushed out of the way."
"Yes, sir."
"Good."
He jogged across the clearing toward Dormitory A, pausing only to look back briefly at the horde of newsmen straining at the barrier down the hill. A Lounge was packed with lab researchers, clustered around the video. They moved to one side as Harker entered.
He recognized Vogel and said to the bearded surgeon, "Has there been much about us on yet?"
Vogel laughed. "Muchabout us? Hardly anything but!"
Harker stared at the screen. A newscaster's solemn face stared back. "... a discovery of staggering importance, if we can credit this morning's release. Further details will be brought to you as bulletins the moment information is received at the network newsroom."
Harker wrenched the channel-selector dial one turn to the left. A new voice, equally crisp and solemn, was saying: "... called for an immediate Senate investigation. The cry was echoed by Nat-Lib Senator Clyde Thurman, who declared that such a scientific finding would have to be placed under careful Federal regulation."
A third channel offered: "... the President had no comment on the news, pending further details. Vice-President Chalmers, attending a meeting in Detroit, commented: 'This is not as incredible a development as superficial appearances would indicate. Science has long had the power to save human lives; this is merely the next step. We should not lose our sense of proportion in considering this matter'."
Harker felt a sudden need for fresh air. He muscled his way through the crowded lounge and out onto the dormitory porch.
Confusion reigned everywhere. His tentative plans for making a careful survey of the situation had gone up in one puff of press-agentry; from now on, he would have to improvise, setting his course with desperate agility.
He tried to tell himself that things would quiet down before long, once the initial impact had expended itself. But he was too well schooled in the study of mass human behavior to be able to make himself believe any such naive hope.
The man in the street could only be thinking one thing now: that the power of death over humanity had ended. In future days, death would have no dominion.
But how would they react? Jubilantly, or with terror? What would they say when they learned that five times out of six, life could be restored—but the sixth time a mindless idiot was the product?
Fear and trembling lay ahead, and days of uncertainty. Harker let the warm mid-May sun beat down on him; he stared up at the sky as if looking into tomorrow.
The sky held no answers. Confusion would be tomorrow's watchword. And there was no turning back, now, not for any of them.
CHAPTER IX
Harker held his first news-conference at three-thirty that afternoon, in the hastily-rigged room that was now his Litchfield office.
By that time, it had occurred to him that he had become not only the legal adviser of the laboratories, but the public spokesman, publicity director, and chairman of the board as well. Everyone, Raymond included, seemed perfectly willing to delegate responsibility to him.
He made a list of eight selected media representatives—three newspapers, both press services, two video networks and one radio network, and invited them to send men to his conference. No others were allowed in.
He told them very concisely what the Beller technique was, how it had been developed, and what it could do. He used a few technical terms that he had picked up from his weekend reading. He did not mention the fact that the technique was not without flaws.
When he had finished his explanation, he called for questions. Surprisingly few were forthcoming. The news seemed to have stilled the tongues of even these veteran reporters.
At the close of the conference he said, "Headquarters for further Beller news will be right here. I'll try to make myself available for comment about the same time every afternoon."
He watched them go. He wondered how much of what he had said would reach the public undistorted, and how much would emerge in garbled and sensationalized form.
Toward evening, he started finding out.
Harker reached his home in Larchmont about seven that evening, utterly exhausted. Lois was at the door, anxious-faced, tense.
"Jim! I've been listening to the news all day. So have the boys. Your name's been mentioned every time."
"That's nice," Harker said wearily. He unsnapped his shoes and nodded hello to his sons, who stared at him strangely as if he had undergone some strange transformation during the day.
"I'll be spending most of my time at Litchfield until things get calmer," he said. "I may even have to sleep out there for a while."
The phone rang suddenly. Harker started to go for it, then changed his mind and said, "Find out who it is, first. If it's anybody official tell them I'm not home yet. Except Raymond."
Lois nodded and glided off toward the phone alcove. When she returned, she looked even more pale, more tense.
"Who was it?"
"Some—some crank. There've been a lot of those calls today, Jim."
He tightened his lips. "I'll have the number changed tomorrow. Nuisances."
The late editions of two of the New York papers lay on the hassock near his chair. He picked up the Seventh Edition of theStar-Post. A red-inked banner said,Can Life Be Restored? Read Nobel Winner's Opinion!
Harker glanced at the article. It was by Carlos Rodriguez, the Peruvian poet, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018. Evidently it was a philosophical discussion of man's right to bring back the dead. Harker read about three paragraphs, then abruptly lost interest when another headline at the lower right-hand corner caught his eye. It said,
Rick Bryant Remains Dead, Say Space Pioneer's HeirsNew York, May 20—The body of 73-year-old Richard Bryant, early hero of the space age, will be cremated on schedule tomorrow morning, according to a family spokesman. Commenting on the growing public sentiment that the famed Bryant be granted a reprieve from death for his epochal flight to Mars, Jonathan Bryant, his oldest son, declared:"The feeling of my family is that my father should go to eternal rest. He was an old and sick man and frequently expressed the desire to sleep forever. We emphatically will not subject his remains to the dubious claims of the so-called reanimators currently in the headlines."
Rick Bryant Remains Dead, Say Space Pioneer's Heirs
New York, May 20—The body of 73-year-old Richard Bryant, early hero of the space age, will be cremated on schedule tomorrow morning, according to a family spokesman. Commenting on the growing public sentiment that the famed Bryant be granted a reprieve from death for his epochal flight to Mars, Jonathan Bryant, his oldest son, declared:
"The feeling of my family is that my father should go to eternal rest. He was an old and sick man and frequently expressed the desire to sleep forever. We emphatically will not subject his remains to the dubious claims of the so-called reanimators currently in the headlines."
Harker looked up.
"Listen to this hogwash, Lois!" He read her the article, bearing down with sardonic malice on Jonathan's more cynical remarks.
She nodded. "I heard about it before. Seems some people got up a quick petition to bring old Bryant back to life. Jonathan's statement was broadcast about five this afternoon."
Scowling, Harker said, "You can bet they'll rush him off to the crematorium in a hurry, now. They waited four years for him to die, and they'd be damned before they let him be brought back to life!"
The phone rang again. Lois slipped away to answer it, while Harker busied himself with the papers. She returned in a moment, looking puzzled, and said, "It's a Father Carteret. He begged me to let him talk to you. What should I tell him?"
"Never mind. I'll talk to him."
He picked up in the foyer, where the phone was audio-only. "Father Carteret? Jim Harker speaking."
"Hello there, Jim." Carteret sounded troubled. "I—I guess you meant what you said, that day you saw me. It's all over the papers."
"I know. Some knucklehead sprang the thing prematurely and we're stuck with it now."
"I thought I'd let you know that ecclesiastic circles are in a dither," Carteret said. "The Archbishop's been on the phone to Rome half the day."
Harker's throat tightened. "Any news?"
"Afraid so. The Vatican has issued a hands-off order: no Catholic is to go near your process in any way whatever until the Church has had ample time to explore the implications. Which means a few months or a few centuries; there's no telling."
"So it's a condemnation, then?"
"Pretty much so," Carteret agreed softly. "Until it's determined whether or not reanimation is sinful, no Catholic can let a member of his family be reanimated—or even work in your laboratories. I hope everything works out for you, Jim. There's nothing you can do now but stick to your guns, is there?"
"No," Harker said. "I guess not."
He thanked the priest for the advance information and hung up. Storm-clouds were beginning to gather already. But his earlier mood of gloom and desperation had washed away, he found.
He knew why. The battle had been joined. No more behind-the-scenes skulking; he was out in the open as the standard-bearer of Beller Labs. It promised to be a rough fight, but that didn't scare him.
"This is my second chance," he said to Lois.
She smiled palely. "I don't understand, Jim."
"I was elected Governor of New York on a reform platform that nobody in the party organization took seriously except me. I waded in and started to make reforms, and I got my teeth rammed down my throat for it. Okay. I lost round one. But now I'm in the thick of the fight again, fighting against ignorance and fear and hysteria. Maybe I'll lose again—but at least I'll have tried."
She touched his arm, almost timidly. Harker realized that he had never really seen into his wife before: seen the contradictions in her, the caution, the timidity, and the core of toughness that was there too.
"This time you'll win, Jim," she said simply.
It didn't look that way in the morning.
Thurman Spearheads Reanimation Inquiry, theTimesannounced, and the story revealed that Senator Clyde Thurman (N-L, N.Y.) had urged immediate Congressional investigation of the claims of Beller Research Laboratories, and from the tone of Thurman's statements it was obvious that he was hostile to the whole idea of reanimation. "Sinful—possibly a menace to the fabric of society," were two of the terms quoted in the newspaper.
TheTimesalso printed a full page of extracts from editorials of other newspapers throughout the country, plus a few comments from overseas papers that had arrived in time for the early editions.
The prevailing newspaper sentiment was one of caution. The East Coast papers generally suggested that careful scrutiny be applied to the alleged statements of Beller Labs before such a process be used on any wide scale. The Far West papers called for immediate scientific study of the Beller achievement, and most of them implied that it would be a tremendous boon to humanity if the claims were found to be true.
The Midwest papers, though, took a different approach, in general. The ChicagoTribunedeclared: "We fear that this new advance of science may instead be a step backward, that it may sound the trumpet-call for the decline of civilization as we know it. A society without the fear of death is one without the fear of God"—and so on for nearly a full column.
The overseas notices were mixed: the ManchesterGuardianoffered cautious approval, the LondonDaily Mirrorringing condemnation. From France came puzzled admiration for American scientific prowess; the Germans applauded the discovery, while no word was forthcoming from Russia at the moment. The Vatican statement was about what Carteret had predicted it would be.
He reached the Litchfield headquarters about quarter-past-ten that morning. There was the usual gaggle of newsmen cluttering up the highway, even though the skies held a definite threat of rain. However, someone had had enough sense to rope off the approach to the laboratory grounds, and so he had no trouble getting past the gauntlet of reporters and into the area.
Raymond and Lurie were in the office when Harker got there. They had a huge pile of newspapers spread out all over the floor.
"Makes interesting reading," Harker said amiably.
Raymond looked up. "We never expected this, Jim. We never expected anything like this."
Harker shrugged. "Death is the most important word in the language, right after birth. What comes in between is immaterial; everybody goes through his days remembering that all his life is just a preparation for the moment of his death. You've changed all that. Did you expect the world to take it calmly?"
Lurie said, "Show him the letters, Mart."
Raymond sprang to his feet and shoved a thick file-folder at Harker. "Take a look at these, will you? It's enough to break your heart."
"They come in truckloads," Lurie said. "The Litchfield post-master is running hourly deliveries down to us because he does not have room for the stuff up there."
Harker reached into the folder and pulled out a letter at random. It was written painstakingly by hand on blue-lined yellow paper. He read it.
Dear Sirs,You will probably throw this letter in the wastebasket but I beg you to consider it sincerely. My wife age 29 and the mother of our four children is sick in the Hospital with cancer and the Dr. says she will not live more than 1 more week.We have all been praying for her but so far she shows no sign of getting well and does not recognize us. I read of your miracle discovery in this morning's paper and hope now you can bring my Lucy back to life when she is gone. I enclose a self-addressed envelope so you can let me know if such would be possible, I will immediately upon her death bring her to you so you can give her back to me. I speak for our children Charles age 6 Peggy age 4 Clara age almost 3 and Betsy age fourteen months. May God bless all of you and keep you from suffering what I have been suffering, and I will live in hope of hearing from you.Yours gratefully,Charles MikkelsenR.F.D. #1,Delaware, Minne.
Dear Sirs,
You will probably throw this letter in the wastebasket but I beg you to consider it sincerely. My wife age 29 and the mother of our four children is sick in the Hospital with cancer and the Dr. says she will not live more than 1 more week.
We have all been praying for her but so far she shows no sign of getting well and does not recognize us. I read of your miracle discovery in this morning's paper and hope now you can bring my Lucy back to life when she is gone. I enclose a self-addressed envelope so you can let me know if such would be possible, I will immediately upon her death bring her to you so you can give her back to me. I speak for our children Charles age 6 Peggy age 4 Clara age almost 3 and Betsy age fourteen months. May God bless all of you and keep you from suffering what I have been suffering, and I will live in hope of hearing from you.
Yours gratefully,Charles MikkelsenR.F.D. #1,Delaware, Minne.
Harker put the letter down, feeling a strange sense of bitter compassion. He said nothing.
Raymond said, "We have hundreds like that. Some of the damnedest things, too. People with relatives dead ten years want to dig them up and bring them to us."
Harker shook his head. "There's no chance you can help any of these people? How about this woman?"
"The cancer one? Not a chance. If it's as bad as he says it is, the malignancy has probably metastasized right up and down her body by now. Maybe we could bring her back to life, but we couldn't keep her alive afterward."
"I see. How about other diseases?"
Raymond shrugged. "If the organic damage is beyond repair, we can't do a thing. But if it's repairable, you can figure a good chance of success. Take a patient with cardiac tissue scarred by repeated attacks. One more attack will finish him—and so would any operation to correct the condition. But now we can 'kill' him ourselves, install an artificial heart, and reanimate. He could live another thirty years that way."
"In other words—"
The phone rang. Raymond swiveled around and scooped it lightly off its cradle without activating the video. He frowned, then said, "Yes. Yes. I get you. No, we won't make any such concessions. Go ahead, then. Sue, if you like. We'll counter-sue."
He hung up.
"What the blazes wasthat?" Harker demanded.
"Do you know a lawyer named Phil Gerhardt?"
Harker thought for a moment, then said, "Sure. He's a flashy lawsuit man, about as honest as snow in the Sahara. What about him?"
"He just called," Raymond said, scratching the lobe of one ear thoughtfully. "Seems he's representing Mitchison and Klaus. They got their dismissal notices and they're suing for a million bucks plus control of the Labs. Isn't that lovely?"
CHAPTER X
Harker looked up the phone number of Gerhardt's New York office, called, and spoke briefly with the lawyer. It was not a very pleasant conversation. Gerhardt seemed almost offensively bubbling with confidence, gloating as he informed Harker that it was only a matter of days before the court tossed Raymond and Harker out of control of Beller Labs and reinstated Klaus and Mitchison. No, Harker was told, he wouldnotbe given the present whereabouts of the two dismissed employees. And yes, the suit had already been filed—control of the labs and $1,000,000 in punitive damages.
"Okay," Harker said. "I'll prepare a countersuit against your clients on grounds of malfeasance, insubordination, and half a dozen other things. I don't mind fighting, Gerhardt."
He hung up. After a moment's thought he pulled a sheet of note-paper from a desk drawer and started to jot down notes for the counter-offensive. This was an additional nuisance; things grew more complicated by the moment.
And Gerhardt was a prominent member of the American-Conservative Party's national committee. Harker could see the battle-lines beginning to form—with Klaus and Mitchison, Gerhardt, the American-Conservatives, the organized churches, Jonathan Bryant, and Senator Thurman on one side, and, at the moment, nobody but Harker, Raymond, and the staff of Beller Labs on the other.
During the day, tension rose at the Litchfield headquarters. The phone rang constantly; from time to time the mail-truck arrived with more letters, and Harker found it necessary to clear out one of the less important lab rooms to store them.
"Have a couple of men start going through them," he told Lurie. The gangling biologist had slipped easily into the role of messenger-boy and general go-between. "Have all the letters pleading for revivification of long-dead relatives burned immediately. Likewise the ones asking for miracles we can't perform, like that cancer business."
"How about the abusive ones?"
"Save those," Harker said. "It helps to know who our enemies are."
The afternoon papers again devoted most of their front-page space to the news, and theTimesin addition ran a well-handled four-page symposium in which many noted scientists discussed the entire concept of reanimation with varying degrees of insight. Harker skimmed through it rapidly and paled when he came across a comment by Dr. Louis F. Santangelo of Johns Hopkins. He read it aloud to Raymond:
"There is the distinct possibility that death causes irremediable damage to the brain. So far the Beller researchers have been extremely silent on the subject of the mental after-effects of reanimation. We must consider the chance that the process may produce living but mindless bodies—in short, walking corpses, or the zombies of legend."