Raymond looked up, troubled. "Santangelo's a brain surgeon, and a good one. Too damn good, Jim. He's smack on the nose."
Harker shook his head. "I don't like this for two reasons. One is that it happens to be accurate; two is that it puts the 'zombie' stigma again, this time thanks to a reputable scientist." He reached for a fresh sheet of note paper. "Mart, give me the figures on human reanimations so far, will you?"
"To date seventy-one attempts. Successful resuscitation in sixty-seven cases."
"Uh-huh. And how many of your sixty-seven suffered no mental after-effects?"
"Sixty-one," Raymond said.
"Which leaves six zombies." Harker felt a sudden chill. The frenzy of the first few days of publicity had left him no time to discover some of the vital information about the laboratory. "What did you do with the six?"
"What could we do? We chloroformed them and returned them to the source. It was the merciful thing to do—and it's no crime to kill a man who's already been pronounced dead."
"Where'd you get these seventy-one?"
Raymond looked evasive. "Locally. We got a few from a hospital in Jersey City. That's where we got the man you saw revived. Some came from auto accidents in the neighborhood. Medical supply houses, too. Three of the bodies were of staff-men at the labs who died naturally."
"And where are the sixty-one successful revivees?" Harker asked.
"It's all in the records. Twelve of them are in hospitals, recuperating. Death really jolts the nervous system, you know. It takes two or three months to make a full recovery. Twenty have returned to normal life. Six of these don't even know they were dead, incidentally. We keep careful watch over them."
"How about the rest?"
"The recent ones are still on the premises, in Lab B. I guess I didn't get a chance to show you the ward."
"I guess not," Harker said wryly. "Well, we're going to have to issue a general statement on your experiments so far. Get Vogel and Smathers to write it up, and I'll revise it into releasable form. Tell them not to say anything about the six idiots, but it's okay to mention the fact that four of the cadavers couldn't be revived."
Vogel delivered the first draft of the statistical summary about one-thirty that afternoon. Harker read it through once, made a couple of changes, and typed it out. He stressed the fact that many of the reanimatees had returned to normal life. He did not mention that six of the revivals had been unsuccessful, and that the patient had had to be destroyed.
The release was mimeographed and was ready in time for his daily three o'clock press conference. He handed out the sheets and waited.
Timessaid, "Could we have the names of the successful revivifications?"
"Flatly impossible. This is to protect them, naturally. They still aren't in perfect health."
"When was the first successful reanimation?" asked Associated Press.
Harker glanced at Raymond, who said, "Exactly ten months ago. To be exact, it was at 3:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday, July 17 of last year. Dr. Vogel operated."
"What was the name of the patient?" United Press shot out quickly.
Harker laughed. "Good try, but no score. Patients' names will not be revealed."
"How many unsuccessful attempts were there before the July 17 success?"Timeswanted to know.
"I don't have the exact figure," Harker said, because Raymond had neglected to give it to him. "Mart, what would you say? About—"
He hesitated. Raymond caught the hint and said, "I'd estimate approximately thirty attempts over a period of two years."
"And there have been seventy-one tries since then?" Transcontinental TV said.
"Right. With sixty-seven reanimations."
"All completely successful?" the sharpTimesman said.
Harker looked vague. "Varying degrees of success," he replied ambiguously.
"Would you care to elaborate on that, Mr. Harker?"
"Not just now."
Video cameras recorded his statement. He was used to the televised press-conference, from long experience in public office, and he maintained a perfectly guileless expression while uttering the evasion.
The Scripps-Howard-Cauldwell man said, "As you know, Senator Thurman is pressing for a detailed Senate investigation of your laboratory. Would you welcome such an investigation?"
"If it's conducted fairly and without prejudice," Harker said, "of course we'd welcome it. We're not trying to fool anyone. We've discovered something wonderful and we want the people of the world to share in it."
"How do you feel about the American-Conservative party stand on reanimation?"Timesasked.
"I wasn't aware there was one."
"They issued a statement at noon today. It implies that the National-Liberal Party is going to exploit the discovery for its own personal advantage. They point to your presence as legal adviser as proof of that."
Harker smiled, but beneath the smile was sudden bitterness. So it would be political capital too? He said, "This comes as a big surprise to me. I don't have any formal affiliation with the National-Liberals, though of course I generally support their program. I'm not even a member of the national committee. And we've received no encouragement or anything else from them.
"But you were a former Nat-Lib governor, Mr. Harker. Doesn't that make you a major figure in the party hierarchy?" Scripps-Howard-Cauldwell asked.
It was a loaded question. Harker mopped the sweat from his forehead, glared straight into the eye of the video camera, and said, "I still vote Nat-Lib, if that's what you mean. But ex-governors are just ex-governors, period."
"How about the claim of Cal Mitchison and David Klaus that there have been unethical practices in this lab?" Transcontinental TV asked slyly.
Harker said, "I hardly think that's worth talking about. Mitchison and Klaus are former employees who didn't perform competently and who were discharged. It's as simple as that."
"You were the lawyer for the late Richard Bryant," said theTimesman. "Did you make any attempts to have Mr. Bryant resuscitated?"
"I did not. The family issued a statement expressing no desire to have Mr. Bryant revivified, and at no time did anyone here suggest that he should be. The movement to revive Richard Bryant was strictly unofficial."
Harker was starting to weary under the barrage of questions. He looked at his watch; the half-hour he allotted to these conferences had elapsed. He felt as if he were wrung dry.
"I'll have to ask you to cut it short now," he said. "Unless there are any other very urgent questions, we'll stop here."
Timessaid, "One question, Mr. Harker. Have any reanimations taken place since the announcement of the process yesterday morning?"
Harker shook his head. "The answer is no. Until the legal status of reanimation is settled, we're not proceeding with further experiments on human beings"—he regretted the unfortunate wordexperimentsas soon as it passed his lips, but by then it was too late—"although we're continuing with other phases of our research. We've been bombarded with requests for reanimations, but we don't intend to attempt any. Obviously a legal decision on the validity of our process is needed first. The death-certificate laws, for instance; they'll have to be considered. And a host of other things. Well, gentlemen, I think our time is just about up."
The fearsome blaze of the video cameras died away, and the newsmen packed up their pocket recorders and left. Harker sank down wearily behind the desk and looked at Mart Raymond.
The scientist smiled admiringly. "Jim, I don't know how you do it. Stand up to those eagles, I mean. The pressure doesn't let up for a second."
"I'm used to it," Harker said with forced casualness. His stomach felt knotted, tight; his throat was dry and seemed to be covered with hundreds of small blisters. His legs, under the desk, quivered of their own volition.
Gradually, as the minutes passed, he recovered his poise. The press conference had been a sort of purgative; he had put forth all the thoughts that had been boiling within him during the day.
The battle, he saw now, would be fought on a number of fronts—but the essential standpoint was a politico-legal one. Theyhadto secure Congressional approval for the process. And they had to win friends and influence people in a hurry, before the various splintered opponents of reanimation, the Beller Labs, and James Harker could join forces and provide a united front.
What would happen if reanimation lost? No doubt the technique would survive, no matter what the legal verdict was. But it would become an undercover, furtive activity, as abortion had been before the permissive laws of the late twentieth century. Andundercovermeantdangerous;illegalequated withdeadly. The tools of medicine are always deadly in unskilled hands.
No doubt about it, the fight was on. It was, thought Harker, the old, old struggle—the battle to give humanity something it craved, despite the obstacles provided by fear, greed, and ignorance. The essential fact—that of the conquest of death—could easily be clouded over by half-truths, distortions, and the well-meant fanaticism of self-righteous pressure groups.
I fought this fight once before, Harker thought.And I let myself be beaten. But this time I'm not giving up. There's too much at stake.
CHAPTER XI
The next morning—Wednesday—Harker found a neatly typed note sitting on his desk when he reached his office in Dormitory A. It was from Raymond. It said simply,We got a call from Washington at 0800. Investigating committee headed by Thurman is on its way north to snoop around the lab. They're arriving noon today.
Methodically Harker destroyed the note and turned his attention to the morning papers. He felt tense, but not unduly so; the Senatorial investigation could be the beginning of success in their campaign, and in any event it would put an end to these days of doubt. He would know at least how the reanimation project stood in the eyes of the Senate.
On this, the third morning of the Era of Reanimation, almost the entire front page of every paper was given over to a discussion of the subject. His press conference had been given a great deal of space, and as usual theTimeshad printed the full text. He read the other articles with a queasy sense of expanding confusion.
Manhattan—The late Richard Bryant was cremated here today despite a demonstration urging his reanimation. At least fifty banner-waving demonstrators attempted to interfere with the ceremony, but police maintained order."We are sure Father would never have approved of such an awakening,"declared Jonathan Bryant, 42, oldest son of the Space hero—
Manhattan—The late Richard Bryant was cremated here today despite a demonstration urging his reanimation. At least fifty banner-waving demonstrators attempted to interfere with the ceremony, but police maintained order.
"We are sure Father would never have approved of such an awakening,"declared Jonathan Bryant, 42, oldest son of the Space hero—
Montreal (UP)—A mob destroyed the home and office of Dr. Joseph Pronovost this afternoon after he refused to resuscitate a 9-year-old girl who had died the night before. Dr. Pronovost, 58, a general practitioner, claimed to have no knowledge of the Beller reanimation technique announced Monday. Despite his statement, relatives of Nancy St. Leger, a victim of leukemia, broke into the doctor's home and attacked him.Dr. Pronovost was reported to be in good condition at Sacred Heart Hospital—
Montreal (UP)—A mob destroyed the home and office of Dr. Joseph Pronovost this afternoon after he refused to resuscitate a 9-year-old girl who had died the night before. Dr. Pronovost, 58, a general practitioner, claimed to have no knowledge of the Beller reanimation technique announced Monday. Despite his statement, relatives of Nancy St. Leger, a victim of leukemia, broke into the doctor's home and attacked him.
Dr. Pronovost was reported to be in good condition at Sacred Heart Hospital—
Corpus Christi, Tex. (AP)—Four men and two women suffered injuries here this evening as a result of a rumor that a Beller reanimation was taking place at a local funeral home.More than thirty persons entered the Burr Funeral Parlors in an attempt to prevent the reanimation. A funeral service was in progress, and the injuries resulted when guests turned back the intruders. The funeral continued as scheduled after the disturbance.
Corpus Christi, Tex. (AP)—Four men and two women suffered injuries here this evening as a result of a rumor that a Beller reanimation was taking place at a local funeral home.
More than thirty persons entered the Burr Funeral Parlors in an attempt to prevent the reanimation. A funeral service was in progress, and the injuries resulted when guests turned back the intruders. The funeral continued as scheduled after the disturbance.
There were other similar stories elsewhere in the newspapers: violence on both sides of the controversy, angry and ill-informed people trying to prevent or to bring about reanimations. Harker gloomily put the papers aside.
Dark forces were being unleashed. He suspected there was violence yet to come. The fabric of society had been unbound; anything might happen now.
At twenty minutes to twelve, Benedict Lurie stuck his head through Harker's door and said, "A helicopter full of senators just landed outside. Raymond's talking to them right now."
"How many?"
Lurie shrugged. "There were ten in the copter. I couldn't tell you how many are senators."
"I'll be right out," Harker said.
He filed away the newspapers, cleaned his desk, and self-consciously straightened his clothing before he went outside. A little group stood in the clearing formed by the area between the three main buildings. Harker saw Mart Raymond, Vogel, Barchet, and Dr. Smathers, and they were talking to—among others—Senator Clyde Thurman.
Harker joined them. Thurman was the first to notice him; he stared at Harker glintingly and rumbled, "Ah—Harker. Hello, there."
"How are you, Senator?"
"Never better. Harker, you know these men? Senators Brewster of Iowa, Vorys of South Carolina, Dixon of Wyoming, Westmore of California. Gentlemen, you know Mr. Harker—former Governor of New York, of course."
Harker shook hands all around. He knew most of the senators at least casually; Dixon and Westmore represented the Far West branch of the Nat-Libs, while Brewster and Vorys were arch-Conservatives.
Thurman was the chairman of the committee, and would have the deciding vote in case of a tie. Harker felt apprehensive of that. The venerable Senator was ostensibly a Nat-Lib; at least he was elected every six years under that label. But in the past decade he had been trending increasingly toward conservative ways of thinking, and away from the party he had helped to found forty years earlier, in the great political upheaval and reshuffling of the 1990's.
Each of the senators was accompanied by a staff assistant. That made ten in all.
Thurman said, "The hearings will begin next week, Mr. Harker. We're here for a preliminary look-see, you understand."
"Of course." Harker glanced at Raymond and said, "Mart, have you been introduced?"
Raymond nodded.
Harker went on, "Mr. Raymond is the director of the labs. He'll conduct you wherever you would like to go, on the premises."
Raymond looked worried; Harker had seen the faint harried expression growing on the dapper lab director's face in the past few days. It troubled Harker. Raymond was a good organizer, a level-headed scientist—but he was showing alarming signs of crumbling under the sudden pressure brought about by Mitchison's treasonous press release.
Harker edged close to him and murmured, "What's on the schedule for the senators?"
Through tight lips Raymond replied, "The main event's a cadaver."
"You're going to risk it?"
Raymond shrugged. Worry lines tightened his cheeks. "We'll have to do it sooner or later. Why not now?"
Harker made no reply. Attempting a human reanimation in front of the senators was a long-shot gamble, even with odds of five to one in favor of success.
If the experiment succeeded, they had gained very little; if it failed, they had lost everything right at the start. The odds of five to one were highly deceptive. But Harker decided to go along with Raymond, just this one time.
He said, "Shall we begin our tour, gentlemen?"
Raymond had evidently been working frantically all morning to set things up. The labs were spotlessly clean, everything well-ordered and well-dusted. The researchers had received their instructions, too; every one of them looked Constructively Busy, doing something scientific-looking no matter how trivial. In reality, most of them spent a good half their time staring into space, making doodles on scrap paper, or thumbing through textbooks—but senators could never be expected to believe that such idle acts were part of genuine scientific research.
The tour began with a rapid and exhausting general survey of the labs; Raymond served as guide, giving forth bristling scientific terminology at every possible opportunity. The senators looked impressed.
The senators also looked increasingly weary—all except Thurman, who strode along next to Raymond and Harker and put forth a never-ending string of questions, some of them pointless and others embarrassingly perceptive.
As he struggled to keep pace with Thurman, Harker felt a surge of new admiration for the Nat-Lib patriarch. Thurman was a ruggedly built man, well over six feet tall and still erect of bearing; his face was a craggy affair dominated by massive snowy-white eyebrows and a thatch of silver hair, and his voice was a commanding rumble.
It was Thurman who had completed the destruction of the old Democratic and Republican parties by serving as organizer for the National-Liberal Party that carried the 1990 congressional elections; he had then persuaded the incumbent President Morrison to run for re-election on the Nat-Lib, rather than Democratic ticket, in '92—and, by '94, the obsolete political parties had vanished, replaced by a more logical alignment of liberal against conservative.
Now, Harker thought, the party lines were blurring again; perhaps it was an inevitable force at work. There were liberals in the American-Conservatives, and some early Nat-Libs, especially Thurman, were with increasing regularity voting for Conservative-sponsored measures. Perhaps in another fifty years' time a further re-organization would be needed; it seemed to be necessary about once a century, judging by past performance.
As they explored the enzyme lab and watched the big centrifuge at work in the serotonin room, Harker wondered how he stood with Thurman now. Fifteen years ago, he had virtually been a son to the Senator, serving for a while as his private secretary before being tapped for prominence in the New York Nat-Lib organization. Thurman had guided him up through the Mayoralty, saw him into the governor's mansion in Albany—and then, when the party decided to ostracize him, Thurman had not said a word in his defense. It was more than a year since he had spoken to the veteran legislator.
"These dogs," Senator Vorys said as Raymond and Vogel demonstrated reanimation on a pair of spaniels, "they feel no pain?" Vorys was a waspish, bald little man, with seemingly a lifetime tenure as American-Conservative Senator from South Carolina.
"Absolutely none," Raymond assured him.
"Animal experiments are legal," remarked Senator Westmore, the Californian Nat-Lib. "No grounds for objecting there."
"I wasn't objecting," snapped Vorys. "Merely inquiring."
Harker smiled to himself.
The dogs were cleared away in due time; Harker saw the tension-lines reassert themselves on Raymond's face, and he knew the main event was about to begin.
When Raymond spoke, his voice was thin and strained. "Gentlemen, I know you've come here for one main purpose—to see if human life can be restored. The time has come for us to demonstrate our technique."
Raymond licked his lips. Tension mounted in the lab room. The senators stirred in anticipation; the five staff-men scribbled notes furiously. Harker felt dry fingers clutching at his windpipe. It was a sensation he remembered having felt on two election nights, at that moment just after the polls had closed—when, with the die irretrievably cast, there was nothing to do but wait until the electronic counters had done their job and announced the winner.
He waited now. Two white-smocked assistants rolled in an operating-table on which a covered cadaver lay.
In a harsh, edgy voice Raymond said, "We secure most of our experimental cadavers from local hospitals. We have permits for this. The body here is approximately the one hundredth we have used in our work, and the seventy-second since the first successful reanimation."
The covers were peeled back. Harker flinched slightly; the body was that of a boy of about twelve or thirteen, and it was not a pretty sight.
"This boy drowned late yesterday afternoon in a nearby lake," Raymond said hoarsely. "All conventional methods of resuscitation were tried without success."
"You mean artificial respiration, heart massage, and things like that?" Senator Dixon said.
"Yes. The boy was worked over for nearly eight hours, and pronounced dead early this morning. When I phoned the hospital to arrange for a demonstration specimen for you gentlemen, I was allowed to speak to the boy's father, who gave permission for this experiment."
Five minirecorders on five secretarial wrists drank in Raymond's words. Harker felt growing anxiety; still, he had to admit that using a boy for the experiment was a good touch—if the experiment worked.
He was not afraid of total failure; that could always be explained away and accepted tolerantly. It was the one-out-of-six chance that frightened him, the worse-than-failure of restoring the boy's body and not his mind.
Raymond nodded to Vogel, who again was presiding over the reanimation. The bearded surgeon clamped the electrodes to the boy's temples and wrists, and lowered the great hooded bulk of the reanimator.
"The initial attack will come simultaneously through the electrodes and through hormone injections," Raymond said droningly. "Heart massage will follow, as well as artificial operation of the lungs. Keep your eyes on these instruments; they measure heartbeat, respiration, and the electrical activity of the brain."
The room was terribly silent. Vogel moved swiftly and smoothly, confidently, without tension. He threw three switches. The archaic light-bulbs overhead dimmed slightly at the instant of power-drain.
Driblets of sweat rolled down Harker's face. The five senators watched eagerly; he wondered what they were thinking now, how they were reacting as electrical currents rippled through a dead brain and hormones raced through a stilled bloodstream.
The boy was dwarfed by the hovering instrument that simultaneously clung to his exposed heart, pumped his lungs, jolted his brain, fed awakening substances to his blood. The needles on the indicator gauges began to flicker gently.
Harker felt little of the earlier revulsion this sight had caused in him. Now he stared at the slim thin-limbed body of the boy, his skin mottled with the blue imprint of asphyxiation, and waited for the miracle to take place.
Minutes passed. Once Thurman coughed and it was like a physical blow. Needles rose on dials, wavered, fell back as Vogel decreased power, stepped forward again as the delicate fingers nudged the rheostat a few fractions of an inch upward.
"Watch the EEG indicator," Vogel murmured.
The needle was tracing out an increasingly more agitated line. The calmness of sleep was ending.
"Respiration approaching normal. I'm shutting off the lung manipulators."
The heart-pump followed. Frowning, Vogel moistened his lips and yanked down on toggle-switches, finally drawing the main rheostat back to point zero.
"Artificial controls are withdrawn," Vogel said. "The life process continues."
The boy lived. Raymond said quietly to Harker, "The EEG patterns are normal ones. The boy's mind is okay. We did it."
We did it.Harker felt a sharp sense of triumph, as if he personally had accomplished something. The senators wouldhaveto react favorably to something like this, he thought.
He glanced at Thurman. The old man was gray-faced, disturbed. Harker said, quietly, "Well, Senator? You've just seen a miracle."
He wasn't prepared for the reply, when it came. Thurman shook his great head slowly from side to side like a dying bison and said, "Jim, this is nightmarish. In the name of all that's good, boy, why did you get mixed up in it?"
CHAPTER XII
Two hours later, the Senate committee had gone, but the gloom of their presence still hovered darkly over Harker.
A delayed reaction having nothing to do with the visit of the senators had struck him. The old wounds of that day at the beach were open once again; once again he huddled Eva's cold little form against his.
Somewhere else on the laboratory grounds, surgeons were working over a twelve-year-old boy, stitching together the surgical apertures that had been made to permit resuscitation. By tomorrow, the boy would be out of anesthesia. In a few weeks, he would be walking around, healthy, recalled to life after twenty hours of death.
Eva had drowned. She had not been saved.
"I don't understand it," Mart Raymond exclaimed vehemently. "It just doesn't make sense."
Drawn for a moment from his painful memories, Harker said, "What doesn't make sense?"
"Thurman. How can he stand there and watch a dead boy come to life, and end up twice as solid against us as he was before?"
Harker shrugged. "I wish I knew. I thought we won them over with that show—until Thurman spoke up. The old fossil is fogged up with age, I guess. He's got some preconceived idea that it's immoral to bring back the dead, and having it done right in front of him just solidified it."
The strain was showing on Raymond, Harker saw. His gray eyes were red-rimmed and bleary; his face had grown thin. He had given up a career in medical research to handle the job of running Beller Labs—and perhaps he was regretting that, now.
He said, "Thurman is supposed to be a Nat-Lib. I could understand those two Conservatives turning up their noses, but I thought—"
"Yeah. So did I. But Thurman's an old man."
"The Conservatives came out against reanimation today, didn't they? Doesn't he realize he's helping the opposition if he fights us?"
"Maybe he doesn't think of them as opposition any more," Harker said. "He's eighty-eight years old. He maylookalert and bright-eyed, but that's no guarantee against senility."
"If he votes against us," Raymond said, "we're cooked. How can we win him over?"
"The hearings begin next Monday. We've got four days to figure out a line of attack. Maybe the old buzzard will die before Monday." Harker reddened slightly as he spoke the words; the thought of a universe without Clyde Thurman in it was a mind-shaking concept for him.
He looked at his watch. Five minutes to three. Right on the button, Lurie stuck his head in and said, "Time for the press conference, Jim."
Leadenly Harker nodded. "Okay. Send them in, Lurie."
He ran through what he had to say in less than half an hour. He told them that the senatorial committee had been there and had watched the successful reanimation of a twelve-year-old boy. He expressed a hope that the demonstration had impressed the senators favorably, and did not mention that Thurman's remarks implied a negative reaction.
There was a brief session of sporadic questions; then Harker pleaded exhaustion and hustled the newsmen out. He felt tremendously weary, but at the same time there was the excitement of knowing he was in a fight, and a tough fight.
He phoned Lois and said he would be home in time for dinner. She was being cooperative beyond the call of wifely duty, he thought. He was hardly ever home these days, and when he did show up at Larchmont he was a pale, exhausted ghost of himself, with little energy left over for family life.
The evening papers came in about half past four. Harker had been preparing a plan of attack for the Senate hearings the next week; he looked up when Lurie silently dropped the stack on his desk.
There was a statement from Mitchison and Klaus in most of the papers, to the effect that the Beller Laboratories were in the hands of—approximately—power-hungry madmen, and that they should be stripped of control immediately.
"I wonder what they hope to gain by that?" Raymond asked. "Even if theydosucceed in getting control of the labs, they'll have thoroughly loused up the whole idea of reanimation."
Harker nodded. "We'll shut them up soon enough. I spoke to Gerhardt this morning and he said the hearing's coming up soon."
"How about this other thing you're involved with? The Bryant case. When's the hearing on that?"
"Tomorrow," Harker said. "I'll be tied up with that all day, I guess. But then I'll be free to devote full time here."
He skimmed through some of the other papers. More news of mob disturbance; this business of mobbing physicians because they either allegedly had been practicing reanimation or had refused to reanimate some newly-dead person was becoming disturbingly more frequent. There were three instances of it in the late editions in Idaho, Missouri, and Louisiana. The mobs acted with fine impartiality, rioting on both sides of the question. Harker brooded for a while over that.
The editorial pages universally hailed the decision of the Senate to hold an immediate investigation; the papers seemed divided here too, the Conservative ones urging suppression of reanimation and the Nat-Lib papers pleading for sane consideration and government control.
By now everyone was getting into the act: philosophers, painters, athletes, ministers of foreign countries, were all quoted copiously pro and con reanimation. The Russians at last were heard from: Georgi Aksakov, President-General of the Federated Socialist States, sent a note of congratulations to President McComber on the American conquest of death, and extended hope that America would follow the time-honored custom of sharing its scientific developments with the other nations of the world.
By now word had reached the settlements on the Moon and under the Mars Dome, too; by wire came messages of enthusiasm from the two international colonies. It was only to be expected, Harker thought, that the space colonists would welcome the breakthrough with joy. There was no breeding-ground for hysterical anti-scientific reaction on an airless world where only scientific miracles daily insured survival.
It was fast becoming a contest between darkness and light, between education and ignorance—a contest complicated by the presence of educated, intelligent, utterly sincere fanatics in the camp of the opposition.
"We must have regard for the soul," declared the spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury. "A limitation has been placed on the term of man's life. We must proceed with care when we destroy a limitation of God."
It was, Harker had to admit, a reasonable attitude—granted a framework of beliefs which he and much of the rest of the world did not share.
"The United States has always been the world pioneer," declared Senator Marshall of Alabama, the elder statesman of the American Conservatives. "We never show fear as we approach the boundary between the known and the unknown. But we must exert caution in this new step, and take care lest we move recklessly forward and unleash forces which can destroy the bonds of society."
The medical societies had statements, too—sound ones. "The problem," declared an A.M.A. spokesman, "is essentially a soul-searing one. If the Beller process is valid, every physician will have the power to return life to the dead. Shall he make use of this power whenever he can? Or will there be the danger of giving life indiscriminately, to those perhaps who do not merit a reprieve? What will happen if a dead man's family refuses the right of reanimation? Can the physician proceed? And is he guilty of murder if he does not? Who will make the decisions? An entirely new code of medical ethics must be developed before any wide-scale practice of reanimation can be permitted."
These were sound viewpoints, and Harker had no issue with them. But there were other, more hysterical voices clamoring in the newspapers, and hundreds of vituperous letters had already descended on the Litchfield post office as well.
People who feared death feared reanimation more. There were those who assumed that reanimation might become the property of an aristocracy that would perpetuate itself over and over, while leaving the common people to death. There were those who dreaded the return to life of a loved one, who were unwilling to face again someone who had been "beyond" and returned.
Fear and ignorance, ignorance and fear. Harker read the letters in the newspapers, and his head swam. The ones received direct were even worse.
...you are violating the command of God brought on us by Adam's fall, Harker. But you will rot in Hell for it....you Harker and Raymond and the others there should have been strangled in your cribs. Bringing the dead back from the grave is disgusting. You will fill the world with a race of undead zombies....I know what it is to have a loved one die, do you?(Yes, Harker thought.)But I would not want to touch the lips of one who was dead.
...you are violating the command of God brought on us by Adam's fall, Harker. But you will rot in Hell for it.
...you Harker and Raymond and the others there should have been strangled in your cribs. Bringing the dead back from the grave is disgusting. You will fill the world with a race of undead zombies.
...I know what it is to have a loved one die, do you?(Yes, Harker thought.)But I would not want to touch the lips of one who was dead.
Harker paused a moment in thought as he read that last letter, wondering how he would feel had Eva been brought back to him there on the beach. He had assumed that he would welcome the idea, but now he remembered Lois' doubtful answer to the question, and it seemed to him that he himself was doubtful too now. Would he be able to embrace a daughter who had died and had been reanimated? Could he—
He shook his head in bitter self-contempt.I'm overtired, he thought.All this superstitious muck is contagious. The life-process stops, it starts again—and is anything lost? Wake up, Harker. Of course you'd have hugged Eva if she had been brought back to life.
It had been a long day. He riffled through a few more letters, but the emotional impact was too great for him to bear after all the other conflicting events of the day. It was not easy to read letters from people who had pleaded for the reanimation of a loved one on Monday, and who now wrote bitterly to say that the period of grace had passed, and by their silence the reanimators had become murderers.
...my fiancee Joan who was seventeen and electrocuted in a kitchen accident Sunday night could have been saved if you had been willing. But three days have gone by and now she is forever gone.
...my fiancee Joan who was seventeen and electrocuted in a kitchen accident Sunday night could have been saved if you had been willing. But three days have gone by and now she is forever gone.
Even more hellish than watching the slow ebb of life from a dying person, Harker thought, must be the wait while the hours pass after death, and the time for reanimation passes with them. New torments had been loosed upon the world, he saw. He felt like a man riding a tiger that grew larger with each day.
He picked up another one:
...you may remember I mentioned my wife, mother of our four children who was close to death from cancer. Well she died the night I wrote to you, and not having heard from you yet I suppose you cannot help me in this matter. I understand revival must be done on day of death, since she has now been gone two days I am arranging for her burial. Though I am unhappy and disappointed I do not hold bitterness in my heart against you, may God forgive you for having let Lucy die.
...you may remember I mentioned my wife, mother of our four children who was close to death from cancer. Well she died the night I wrote to you, and not having heard from you yet I suppose you cannot help me in this matter. I understand revival must be done on day of death, since she has now been gone two days I am arranging for her burial. Though I am unhappy and disappointed I do not hold bitterness in my heart against you, may God forgive you for having let Lucy die.
Harker remembered that one: Mikkelsen, from Minnesota. The implied accusation of murder, cloaked as it was by the prayer for God's forgiveness, chilled him. He put the letters away, phoned across the lab to Raymond, and said he was going home for the day.
"Good luck with that hearing tomorrow," Raymond said.
"Thanks."
The air was clean and warm as he stepped outside; at five in the afternoon of an almost-summer day, the sun was still bright, the sky blue and curiously transparent. Harker tried to blot away the network of human suffering whose vortex he had apparently become; he drew in a deep breath, expanded his chest, swung his arms loosely at his sides.
A yellow dart crossed the sky and was gone; after it came the abruptblurpof sound. It was a southbound rocket to Florida. No doubt it would be landing in Miami before he had reached his own home.
He remembered the legal fight when rocket service had been instituted on a commercial basis, almost thirty years ago. The jet-lines had fought tooth and nail against introduction of rocket service; yet, today, both jets and rockets served the cause of transportation amicably enough.
There had been the Moon wrangle too, back in the trouble-wracked twentieth century. He had cut his legal teeth on the suits and countersuits; they were standard fare in every law-school. The Moon had been reached almost simultaneously by America and Russia in the early 1960's, during a period of international conflict and danger. The Socialist revolution in Russia in 1971 had ended the threat of atomic war, but even so it had not been until 1997 that the United States agreed to join forces with the Federated Socialist States in making the Moon base truly international in character.
There, too, forces of reaction had fought the merger on grounds that seemed to them just and necessary. They had been defeated, ultimately—and now, the Moon base and its newer companion on Mars were hailed as triumphs of the harmony of mankind.
Now reanimation. The old struggle was joined again. Harker told himself that the force of history was on his side, that ultimate victory would be his. But what sacrifices would be made, what campaigns fiercely fought, before then?
He reached his home at six-fifteen. Lois had the video set on, and even as he stood in the doorway the words of a newscaster drifted toward him:
"Senator Thurman of New York and four colleagues today visited the Beller Laboratories and witnessed an actual human reanimation which was successful. Senator Thurman later commented, and I quote, There is no doubt that a restoration of life took place. What is in doubt is whether this power is one that mankind should permit to be used, end quote. Senator Thurman will head a committee to study the implications of reanimation. Hearings begin Monday in Washington."
"Senator Thurman of New York and four colleagues today visited the Beller Laboratories and witnessed an actual human reanimation which was successful. Senator Thurman later commented, and I quote, There is no doubt that a restoration of life took place. What is in doubt is whether this power is one that mankind should permit to be used, end quote. Senator Thurman will head a committee to study the implications of reanimation. Hearings begin Monday in Washington."
Thurman was chairman, and Thurman had already indicated opposition. It was not a good omen. Harker kissed his wife wearily and said to Chris, "Get me something strong to drink, lad. I've had a tough day."
CHAPTER XIII
The headline the next morning, black against the faint green of the paper, was,Thurman to Oppose Legalized Reanimation. Harker read the story at breakfast; it seemed the veteran senator had had a chance to think things over, and his conclusion was that reanimation was evil and should be suppressed.
Harker tried to pretend he had not seen it. It was a staggering setback; it negated any possible gains they might make at the hearing next week. With the vote of the tie-breaking chairman already committed to their opposition, Harker thought, what chance did they stand?
He glanced quickly over the rest of the front page. Riot in Des Moines; accusation of reanimation leads to attack on doctor in Missouri. And—Harker nearly choked on his breakfast coffee—what was this?
Return to Life A Failure, Patient SuicidesNew York—Police are searching the Hudson River this morning for the body of 58-year-old Wayne Janson, who allegedly jumped to his death from the lower level of the George Washington Bridge late last night."Wayne was in a state of despondency since submitting to the Beller reanimation technique two months ago," said Jonathan Bryant, of 312 W 79th St., a close friend of the dead man."He suffered a stroke in February and placed himself in the hands of the Beller people. I was notified of his death and reanimation early in March, but when he returned to Manhattan he seemed to be entirely changed. His whole personality had changed. He—"
Return to Life A Failure, Patient Suicides
New York—Police are searching the Hudson River this morning for the body of 58-year-old Wayne Janson, who allegedly jumped to his death from the lower level of the George Washington Bridge late last night.
"Wayne was in a state of despondency since submitting to the Beller reanimation technique two months ago," said Jonathan Bryant, of 312 W 79th St., a close friend of the dead man.
"He suffered a stroke in February and placed himself in the hands of the Beller people. I was notified of his death and reanimation early in March, but when he returned to Manhattan he seemed to be entirely changed. His whole personality had changed. He—"
"Excuse me," Harker muttered to his wife. Clutching the paper, he ran to the phone and tapped out Mart Raymond's number.
"Mart? Jim. Have you seen this Wayne Janson thing in the paper?"
"What's that?"
Harker rapidly read the article. Raymond was silent for a moment, then said, "Huh? Who does he think he's kidding?"
"What do you mean?"
"We've never had anyone of that name here. Bryant's obviously fabricating something."
"I figured that when I saw his name in the article. You better check the records, though. We've got grounds for a suit if you're right."
"Jim, I tell you we've never carried out any reanimations on anyone named Wayne Janson. Bryant is obviously trying to smear us."
"Smear me," Harker corrected. "But I guess it amounts to the same thing."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing yet," Harker said. "I'll wait until the police find the body and then demand proof from Bryant."
"But thereisno body, Jim! It's just a hoax!"
Grimly Harker said, "It may be a hoax, but I'm willing to bet there's a body. Jonathan isn'tthatfoolish!"
The long-delayed Richard Bryant will hearing took place at last at half-past-ten that morning, in the gray-walled, luminolit chambers of District Judge T. H. Auerbach. The affair was almost a farce; it lasted no more than twenty minutes.
Jonathan Bryant was not there. His sister Helen was the official representative of the Bryant children, and she explained curtly that Jonathan was overcome with grief at the death of a very dear friend last night and would not attend.
Six other Bryants were in court, all of them hungry for the old man's millions. They had retained a lawyer named Martinson who briefly and concisely explained that the old man had not been in sound mind at the time of making the will, and that it was therefore invalid.
It was a flimsy stand, and Harker said so. He spoke for no more than ten minutes. Judge Auerbach smiled politely, said he had studied the briefs from both sides with care, and ruled in favor of upholding the will.
Just as simple as that. Helen Bryant tossed Harker a glance of molten hatred and flounced out, followed by her younger brothers and sisters. Auerbach leaned forward from his bench and said to Harker, "I'm gladthat'sover with. One more delaying injunction—"
"There wouldn't have been one, Tom. They just were waiting for old Bryant to kick off. Jonathan didn't want to give him the satisfaction of winning while he was alive."
Auerbach shrugged. "They really didn't have a claim to the money. Were they just trying to make trouble?"
Harker nodded. "Trouble's their specialty, Tom."
"Well, you're through with having trouble with the Bryants now, I guess."
Harker shook his head slowly. "No," he said. "Not by a long shot."
He rode uptown from the courthouse and stopped off at his law office for the first time in a week. The girls in the outer office stared at him strangely, as if he had undergone some frightening apotheosis and was no longer just the firm's newest partner.
He crossed left and rapped on Bill Kelly's door. The plump lawyer smiled at him as he entered, but without much warmth.
"Morning, Jim. Long time no see."
"I've been busy."
"I know. I know all about it."
Harker ignored Kelly's tone and said, "I've just come from the Bryant hearing. Thought I'd let you know that it's over. Poof: fifteen minutes!"
"The will was upheld?"
"What else? It was just a case of willful petty obstruction on the part of the Bryant family. They're mean, twisted people, Bill. They've lived all their lives in the shadow of one great man—Rick Bryant—and I guess they chose this time to show him and everyone else just what Great Big Important Persons they really were." He scowled.
There was a pained expression on Kelly's face that seemed to have nothing to do with the Bryant affair. Slowly Kelly said, "Jim, this completes all the current work you're doing here, isn't that right?"
Harker nodded. "I turned over the Fuller and Heidell cases to Portobello. That was to leave me clear for—"
"Yes. I know." Kelly's face reddened even more than normally, and he squirmed wretchedly in his inflated pneumatic desk-chair. "I've been following the papers, Jim. I've been following the whole thing."
"I warned you it was hot."
"I know. I didn't know how hot it was, though. Jim, this hurts me," Kelly said. "I'm going to ask a favor of you. It's a lousy thing to ask, because it shows I don't have guts or the courage of your convictions or something along those lines. But—"
Harker said, "I'll spare you the trouble of putting it into words. The answer is yes. If you think my presence on your firm letterhead will hurt the firm, Bill, I'll resign."
A look of gratitude appeared on Kelly's fleshy sweat-shiny face. "Jim, I want you to understand—that is—look here, I asked you to come in with me when your party booted you out, and don't think I didn't get my wrist slapped for it. But this reanimation thing is too big. I don't want to get associated with it in any way. And so—well it seemed to Portobello and Klein and me—"
"Sure, Bill." Harker had a sudden dizzying vision of himself standing at the rim of a bottomless abyss, but he heard his voice saying, calmly, rock-steady, "I'll draft a note informing you that I'm resigning because of the pressure of outside activities."
Hoarsely Kelly said, "Thanks, Jim. And if this thing blows over—if it all works out—-we'll have a spot for you here. Don't forget that."
"I won't."Not even because you don't mean it, Harker thought. It wasn't possible for Kelly to mean it. It was just a formal ritualistic statement, this implication that he could come back at a future time.
He was through here. Probably he was through with private law practice forever. Kelly was a brave and intelligent man, but Kelly had been afraid to keep the hot potato named James Harker on his letterhead any longer. No one else would welcome him either. Beller Labs was the straw to which he had to cling now.
He stood up.
"Okay, Bill. Glad we got everything cleared up. Just thought I'd tell you about the wrap-up on the Bryant case. I'll clear out my office next week."
"No hurry about it. Oh—nearly forgot." Kelly consulted a memo slip. "Leo Winstead's office phoned here for you earlier today. The Governor wants you to call him back between one-thirty and three o'clock this afternoon."
Harker frowned momentarily.Winstead? What does he want with me?He said to Kelly, "Thanks, Bill. And so long."
He bought a noontime edition of theStar-Postand ate a gloomy little meal by himself in a nineteenth-floor automated restaurant overlooking the East River. He pushed the meal-selector buttons almost at random; the result was largely an assortment of cheap synthetics, but he hardly cared. He ate abstractedly, not looking at his food but at the increasingly more troubling news in the paper.
There was a new statement from Senator Thurman, more doggedly anti-reanimation than the last. Apparently Thurman's views on the subject mounted in vitriol-content in hourly increments; now he said that "reanimation is of dubious value in mitigating human sorrow—a crude and unsatisfactory process that robs life of dignity." Evidently he had read about the Janson suicide. And speaking of that—
Yes. The body had been found and identified, according to a story at the bottom of page one. Wayne Janson, 58, an unmarried industrialist. Listed as suicide; Jonathan Bryant identified body. Investigation now proceeding as a result of Bryant's statement that Janson had recently undergone reanimation.
And a statement from David Klaus, too, evidently released by Mitchison: "The Janson case proves that the Beller technique can be a dangerous and destructive instrument in the wrong hands." He recognized Mitchison's blunt word-sense, the equating oftechniqueandinstrument.
At half past one he made his way to a public phonebooth, sealed himself in, snapped on the privacy-shield, and called the operator.
"I'd like to make a charge-account call to Albany."
She took his name and home phone, assured him that the call would be billed to his account, and put him through to the Governor's mansion. A relay of secretaries passed him along to Winstead.
The booth's screen was small, a seven-incher, and definition was poor. Even with that handicap, though, Harker could see the rings around Winstead's eyes. New York's Governor obviously had had little sleep the night before.
"I got your message, Leo. What goes?"
Winstead said, "You know about Thurman and his stand on reanimation, don't you?"
"Of course. Thurman visited the lab yesterday."
"And then proceeded to issue a series of statements blasting your project," Winstead said. The Governor looked like a man about to explode from conflicting tensions. In a tight-strung voice he said, "Jim, we held a caucus on the Thurman situation last night. First let me tell you that the Nat-Libs have decided to issue a public statement praising your outfit and asking for careful consideration of reanimation."
Harker smiled. "It's about time someone said he was on our side."
"Don't break your arm patting your back," Winstead warned. "The Amer-Cons forced our hand. It took all night for us to agree to support you. A lot of us aren't in favor of reanimation at all."
"And a lot of you aren't in favor of anything I'm in favor of," Harker said crisply. "But what's this about Thurman, now?"
"He's killing us! How can we come out pro-reanimation when the elder patriarch of our party is issuing statements condemning it?"
Harker shrugged. "I'll admit you have a problem."
"Any such inconsistency would make us look silly," Winstead said. "Jim, would you do us a favor?"
The idea of doing favors for the party leaders who had summarily expelled him less than a year ago did not appeal to him. But he said, in a cautious voice, "Maybe. What do you want?"
"We haven't approached Thurman directly yet. We'd like you to do it."
"Me?"
Winstead nodded. "Go down to Washington and appeal to the old gorilla's sense of sentiment. Plead with him to come back to the fold. Thurman was once very high on you, Jim. Maybe he still is."
Harker said, "I saw Thurman yesterday and he wasn't running over with sentiment. He came, he saw, and he condemned. What more can I say to him?"
Winstead's face grew agitated. Harker wondered what pressures had been exerted on the Governor to make this phone-call. "Jim, this is for your sake as well as ours. If you can win Thurman over, Congressional approval of reanimation's a cinch! You're just cutting your own throat by refusing to go down."
"You know I'm not anxious to do favors for—"
"We understand that! But can't you see you'll be helping yourself as well? We'll try to make things easier for you if you convince Thurman."
Harker grinned pleasantly. It was fun to see Winstead squirm. "Okay," he said finally. "I'll go down to see Thurman first thing tomorrow morning."
CHAPTER XIV
Friday Morning. Ten-fifteen a.m., on the morning of May 24, 2033.
James Harker stared out the round vitrin porthole at the fleecy whiteness of the clouds over Washington. The two-hundred-fifty-mile flight from Idlewild had taken about twenty minutes by short-range jet.
Now the big passenger-ship plunged down toward the Capitol's jetport. Harker felt the faint drag of gravity against his body and thought that a spaceship landing must be something like this, only tremendously more taxing. The ship quivered as its speed dwindled, dropping from 700 mph to less than half that, and halving again, while the 150-passenger ship swooped down from its flight altitude of 40,000 feet.
Harker was seeing Thurman at half-past-eleven, at the Senator's office. He rolled the phrases round in his mind once again:
"Mr. Thurman, you stuck by me long ago—"
"You owe this to your party, sir—"
"A forward step toward the bright utopia of tomorrow, Senator—"
None of the arguments sounded even remotely convincing. Thurman was a stubborn old man with a bee in his bonnet about reanimation; no amount of cajoling was going to get him to alter his stand. Still, Harker thought, he owed it to himself to try. The hearings began on Monday under Thurman's aegis. It would not hurt to have the patriarch sympathetically inclined. Nor would it be undesirable to have Leo Winstead and the whole Nat-Lib leadership beholden to him, Harker reasoned.
The yellow light flashed and a soft voice emanating from a speaker next to Harker's ear murmured, "Please fasten your safety-belts. We'll be landing in a few minutes."
Mechanically Harker guided the magnetic snaps together until he heard the properclick!The ship broke through the thick layer of clouds that blanketed the sky at 20,000 feet, and the white, neat, oddly sterile-looking city of Washington appeared below.
Harker hoped there would be no further difficulty over the Janson case while he was gone. Police investigators had arrived at the labs in mid-afternoon the day before, wanting to know if a reanimation had been carried out on the late industrialist. Raymond had flatly denied it, but at Harker's advice had refused to turn over the laboratory records to the police until subpoenaed to do so.
The inspectors had left, making it clear that the matter was far from at an end. Harker smiled to himself about it; any comprehensive investigation was bound to prove that the whole affair had been staged by Bryant, taking advantage of his bachelor friend's suicide declaration to smear the reanimators in public.
But the suicide was in the newspapers, and no amount of unmasking ever really cancels out unfavorable publicity. The public would—with some justice—now link reanimation with possible mental deficiency afterward. Harker longed to have Jonathan Bryant's neck between his hands, just for a minute.
Troublemaker!
He leaned back and waited for the landing.
It took nearly half an hour for Harker to make the taxi-jaunt from the jetport to Capitol Hill, longer than the transit-time between New York and Washington. It was nearly eleven when he reached Senator Thurman's suite of offices—imposing ones, as befitted a senator who not only represented the second most populous state in the Union but who had held office for nearly seven terms.
A pink-faced, well-starched secretary about two years out of law school greeted Harker as he entered the oak-panelled antechamber.
"Sir?"
"I'm James Harker. I have an appointment with the Senator for half-past-eleven."
The secretary looked troubled. "I'm sorry, Mr. Harker. The Senator appears to be ill."
"Ill?"
"That's right, sir. He hasn't reported to his office yet today. He's always here by nine sharp, and it's almost eleven now, so we figure he must be sick."
So far as Harker knew, Clyde Thurman had not known a day's illness yet in the twenty-first century. It was strange that he should fall ill this day of days, when Harker had an appointment to see him.
But it was not like Thurman to run away from a knotty problem, either. Harker said, "Have you checked with his home?"
"No, sir." The secretary appeared to resent Harker's question. "The Senator's private life is his own."
"For all you know Thurman died this morning!"
A shrug. "We have not received word of any sort whatever."
Harker paced up and down in the antechamber for fifteen minutes, sitting intermittently, fidgeting, glancing up nervously every time the big outer door opened to admit someone. He thought back thirty-odd years, to the time when eight-year-old Jimmy Harker was reported to his school principal for some obscure, forgotten offense. He had sat in just this manner in the anteroom of the principal's office, waiting for the principal to come back from lunch to administer his punishment—his head popping around every time a clerk opened the big door, his stomach quivering in fear that this might be the principal this time.
In time, he recalled, the principalhadcome—and had not expelled him nor phoned for his father, merely reprimanded him and sent him back to his classroom. Perhaps the same thing might happen today, he thought, perhaps some miraculous change of heart on the part of old Thurman—
But no miracles took place. Eleven-fifteen went by, and eleven-thirty, and there was no sign of Thurman. Clerks serenely went about their routine duties, ignoring the tense, sweating man in the outer office.
At ten-to-twelve Harker rose and confronted the secretary again. "Any word from Thurman?"
"Not yet, sir," was the bland reply.
Harker crooked his fingers impatiently. "Look here, why don't you phone his home? Maybe he's seriously ill."
"We never disturb the Senator at home, sir."
Harker glared at the man, exhaled exasperatedly, and growled, "I guess you won't give me his home phone number."
"Afraid not, sir."
"Is there anything youwilldo? Suppose you phone the office of Senator Fletcher for me, then."
Fletcher was the Senate Majority Leader, another veteran Nat-Lib who was likely to know where to reach Thurman if anyone was. A little to Harker's surprise, the secretary said, "You can use the phone back here. Just pick up and tell the switchboard who you want."
The phone was audio-only. A metallic voice said, "Your party please?" and Harker, resisting the temptation to ask for Thurman's home number (it was probably restricted) said, "Would you connect me with Senator Fletcher's office?"
Four secretaries later, Harker heard the deep, confident voice of Pennsylvania's Fletcher say, "What can I do for you, Harker? Heard you were in town."
"I'm here to see Senator Thurman," Harker said. "Do you know where—"
"Thurman? Where are you now, Harker?"
"At the Senator's office. He isn't here, and I thought you might know—"
"Me? Harker, if I knew where Thurman was I'd be talking to him and not to you. I'm looking for him myself."
Harker's hopes sank. "Have you phoned his home?"
"Yes. Nobody there has seen him since early last evening. If you get any word, Harker, call me back."
The line went dead. Harker stared at the phone thoughtfully a moment, then replaced the receiver. He walked over to the smug secretary and said casually, "You better start looking for a new job. Senator Thurman hasn't been seen since some time last night.
"What? But—"
Interrupting the agitated reply, Harker said, "You better make some quick phone-calls. I'll be back later if the Senator turns up."
The next two hours were hectic ones in the Capitol. Harker picked up an early afternoon newspaper when he saw the huge scare-head readingWhere Is Senator Thurman?The article simply said that the 88-year-old Senator had last been seen at his huge bachelor home in nearby Alexandria shortly after dark the previous night, and that nothing had been heard of him since.
Secret Service men were combing Washington and the outlying districts. The three-thirty headlines screamed,Thurman Still Missing!
No word has been received yet of the whereabouts of Senator Clyde Thurman (N-L, N.Y.), who vanished from his home early last evening. The veteran lawmaker is slated to preside over the controversial reanimation hearings beginning Monday, if—
At four o'clock there was still no sign of the missing Senator. Harker phoned the jetport, made reservations for a four-thirty flight back to New York. At five, he was at Idlewild; he phoned Lois from there, told her what had happened, and said he was going straight out to Litchfield and would be home later, after supper.
The New York evening papers were full of the Thurman disappearance. Harker thought of phoning Winstead, then changed his mind; the Governor was well aware by now that Harker could not have kept his appointment with Thurman. Instead he rented a cab and travelled quickly out to the Beller Laboratories.
He got there shortly after six. The place was oddly empty; evidently the reporters had grown tired of clustering around the entrance to the dirt road. Three guards, fully armed, stood by the blockade in the yellow-brown light of very late afternoon.
"Hello, Mr. Harker. You can go in."
"Where's Raymond?"
"Main operating lab," the guard said.
Frowning, Harker moved past and headed across the clearing to the lab building. A late-spring breeze whistled down through the spruces, chilling him momentarily; the sun was a dying swollen reddish ball hovering near the horizon. Harker felt a strange foreboding sense of fear.
Three white-garbed medics guarded the lab entrance. Harker started to go past; one of them shook his head and said, "Very delicate work going on in there, Mr. Harker. If you're going in, be sure to keep quiet."
Harker tiptoed past.
Inside, he saw a tense group clustered around the operating-table: Raymond, Vogel, Lurie, little Barchet, and a surgeon Harker did not know. There was a figure on the table. Harker could not see it.
Raymond detached himself from the group and came toward him. The lab director's face was pale, almost clammy; his lips hung slack with tension, and his eyes bulged. He looked frightened half into catatonia.
"What's going on?" Harker whispered.
"Ex-ex-pe-riment," Raymond said, shivering. "God, I wish we hadn't started this."
Raymond seemed close to collapse. Puzzled, Harker edged closer to the table, shunting Barchet to one side to get a better view. Five guilt-shadowed faces turned uneasily to stare at him.
For a long moment Harker studied the exposed face of the cadaver on the table, while billowing shockwaves clouded his mind, numbed his body. The enormity of what had been done left him almost incapable of speech for a few seconds.
Finally he looked at Raymond and said, "What have you idiots done?"
"We—we thought—"
Raymond stopped. Barchet said, "We all agreed on it after you left yesterday. We would bring him here and try—try to convince him that we were right. But he had a heart attack and d-died. So—"
In the yellow light of the unshielded incandescents the lie stood out in bold relief on Barchet's face. It was Lurie who said finally, "We might as well tell the truth. We had Thurman kidnapped and we chloroformed him. Now we're going to revive him and tell him he died of natural causes but was reanimated. We figure he'll support us if—"
Wobbly-legged, Harker groped for a lab stool and sat down heavily, cradling his suddenly pounding head in his hands. The monstrosity of what had been done behind his back stunned him. To kidnap Thurman, kill him, hope that in reviving him he would be converted to their cause—
"All right," Harker said tonelessly. "It's too late for saying no, I guess. You realize you've condemned all of us to death."
"Jim," Raymond began, "do you really think—"
"Kidnapping, murder, illegal scientific experimentation—oh, I could strangle you!" Harker felt like bursting into tears. "Don't you see that when you revive him he's bound to throw the book at us? Why did you have to do this when I was gone?"
"We planned it a long time ago," Barchet said. "We didn't think you'd be back in time to see us doing it."
Vogel said, "Perhaps if we don't carry out the resuscitation, and merely dispose of the body—"
"No!" Harker said, half-sobbing. "We'll reanimate him. And that'll be the end of this grand crusade. Finish." He looked down on Thurman's massive head, imposing even in death. His voice was a harsh hissing thing as he said, "Go on! Get started!"
He watched, numb-brained, as if dream-fogged, while Vogel and the other surgeon prepared the complex reanimating instrument. His heart pounded steadily, booming as if it wanted to burst through his ribcage.
He felt very tired. But now, thanks to this one master blunder, all their striving was at an end. Thurman, awakened, would denounce them for what they had done. After that, they ceased to be scientists and would be mere criminals in the eyes of humanity.
Harker listened to the murmured instructions being passed back and forth over the table, watched the needles entering the flesh, the electrodes being clamped in place. Minutes passed. Vogel's thin hand grasped the controlling rheostat. Power surged into the dead man's body.
After a while Harker rose and joined the group around the table. Needles wavered and leaped high, indicating that life had returned. But—
"Look at the EEG graph," Raymond said hollowly.
The graph held no meaning for Harker. But he did not need to look there to see what had happened.
The eyes of the body on the table had opened, and were staring toward the ceiling. They were not the beady, alert, eager eyes of Senator Thurman. They were the dull, glazed, slack-muscled eyes of an idiot.
CHAPTER XV
For a moment, no one spoke.
Harker stood some five feet from the operating-table, looking away from the creature under the machine, thinking,These people are like small boys with a new shiny toy. I should never have trusted them alone. I should never have gotten involved in this.
"What do we do now?" Lurie asked. The gangling biologist was nearing a state of hysteria. Sweat-drops beaded his forehead. "The man's mind is gone."
"Permanently?" Harker asked. "There's no way of restoring it?"
Raymond shook his head. "None. The EEG indicates permanent damage to the brain."