The Project Gutenberg eBook ofRecalled to lifeThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Recalled to lifeAuthor: Robert SilverbergIllustrator: Bill BowmanRelease date: December 31, 2023 [eBook #72569]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1958Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECALLED TO LIFE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Recalled to lifeAuthor: Robert SilverbergIllustrator: Bill BowmanRelease date: December 31, 2023 [eBook #72569]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1958Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Recalled to life
Author: Robert SilverbergIllustrator: Bill Bowman
Author: Robert Silverberg
Illustrator: Bill Bowman
Release date: December 31, 2023 [eBook #72569]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1958
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECALLED TO LIFE ***
Recalled To LifeBy Robert SilverbergIllustrated by BILL BOWMANIt was the greatest scientific breakthroughof all time: reanimation after death. The troublewas, it created more problems than it solved.[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromInfinity June and August 1958.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
By Robert Silverberg
Illustrated by BILL BOWMAN
It was the greatest scientific breakthroughof all time: reanimation after death. The troublewas, it created more problems than it solved.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromInfinity June and August 1958.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
That morning James Harker was not expecting anything unusual to happen. He had painstakingly taught himself, these six months since the election, not to expect anything. He had returned to private law practice, and the Governorship and all such things were now bright memories, growing dimmer each month.
Morning of an Ex-Governor.There was plenty to do: the Bryant trust-fund business was due for a hearing next Thursday, and before that time Harker had to get his case in order. A pitiful thing: old Bryant, one of the glorious pioneers of space travel, assailed by greedy heirs in his old age. It was enough to turn a man cynical, Harker thought, unless a man happened to be cynical already.
He reached across his desk for the file-folder labeledBryant: Hearing 5/16/33. The sound of the outer-office buzz trickled into the room, and Harker realized he had accidentally switched on the inter-office communicator. He started to switch it off; he stopped when he heard a dry, thin voice say, "Is the Governor in?"
His secretary primly replied, "Do you mean Mr. Harker?"
"That's right."
"Oh. He—he doesn't like to be called the Governor, you know. Do you have an appointment with him?"
"I'm afraid not. Terribly foolish of me—I didn't realize I'd need one. I don't live in New York, you see, and I'm just here for a few hours—"
"I'm extremely sorry, sir. I cannot permit you to see Mr. Harker without an appointment. He'sextremelybusy."
"I'm quite aware of that," came the nervous, oddly edgy voice. "But it's something of an emergency, and—"
"Dreadfully sorry, sir. Won't you phone for an appointment?"
To the eavesdropping Harker, the conversation sounded like something left over from his Albany days. But he was no longer Governor of New York and he was no longer the fair-haired boy of the National Liberal Party. He wasn't being groomed for the Presidency now. And, suddenly, he found himself positively yearning to be interrupted.
He leaned forward and said, "Joan, I'm not very busy right now. Suppose you send the gentleman in."
"Oh—uh—Mr. Harker. Of course, Mr. Harker." She sounded startled and irritated; perhaps she wanted to scold him for having listened in. Harker cut the audio circuit, slipped the Bryant file out of sight, cleared his desk, and tried to look keenly awake and responsive.
A timid knock sounded at his office door. Harker pressed theopenbutton; the door split laterally, the segments rising into the ceiling and sliding into the floor, and a man in short frock coat and white unpressed trousers stepped through, grinning apologetically. A moment later the door snapped shut behind him.
"Mr. Harker?"
"That's right."
The visitor approached Harker's desk awkwardly; he walked as if his body were held together by baling wire, and as if his assembler had done an amateur job of it. His shoulders were extraordinarily wide for his thin frame, and long arms dangled loosely. He had a wide, friendly, toothy grin and much too much unkempt soft-looking brown hair. He handed Harker a card. The lawyer took it, spun it around right-side-up so he could read it, and scanned the neat engraved characters. It said:
Beller ResearchLaboratoriesLitchfield, N. J.Dr. Benedict Lurie
Harker frowned in concentration, shook his head, and said, "I'm sorry, Dr. Lurie. I'm afraid I've never heard of this particular laboratory."
"Understandable. We don't seek publicity. I'd be very surprised if youhadheard of us." Lurie's head bobbed boyishly as he spoke; he seemed about as ill-at-ease a person as Harker had ever met.
"Cigarette?" Harker asked.
"Oh, no—never!"
Grinning, Harker took one himself, squeezed the igniting capsule with his index-finger's nail, and put the pack away. He leaned back. Lurie's awkwardness seemed to be contagious; Harker felt strangely fidgety.
"I guess you're wondering why I came here to see you, Mr. Harker."
"I guess I am."
Lurie interspliced his long and slightly quivering fingers, then, as if dissatisfied, separated his hands again, crossed his legs, and gripped his kneecaps. He blinked and swiveled his chair slightly to the left. Sensing that the sun slanting through the window behind the desk was bothering Lurie, Harker pressed theopaquebutton and the room's three windows dimmed.
Lurie said finally, "I'll begin at the beginning, Mr. Harker. The Beller Research Laboratories were established in 2024 by a grant from the late Darwin F. Beller, of whom you may have heard."
"The oil magnate," Harker said.And a notorious crank.The lawyer began to regret his impulsive action in inviting the gawky stranger in to see him.
"Yes. Beller of Beller Refineries. Mr. Beller provided our group with virtually unlimited funds, established us in a secluded area in New Jersey, and posed us a scientific problem: could we or could we not develop a certain valuable process? I'll be more specific in a moment. Let me say that many of the men Mr. Beller assembled for the project were openly skeptical of its success, but were willing to try—a triumphant demonstration of the scientific frame of mind."
Or of the willingness to grab a good thing when it comes along, Harker thought. He had had little experience with scientists, but plenty with human beings. Lurie's speech sounded as if it had been carefully rehearsed.
"To come to the point," Lurie said, uncrossing his legs again. "After eight years of research, our project has reached the point of success. In short, we've developed a workable technique for doing what we had hoped to do. Now we need a legal adviser."
Harker became more interested. "This is whereI'mto come in, I suppose?"
"Exactly. Our process is, to say the least, a controversial one. We foresee multitudes of legal difficulties and other problems."
"I'm not a patent lawyer, Dr. Lurie. That's a highly specialized field of which I know very little. I can give you the name of a friend of mine—"
"We're not interested in a patent," Lurie said. "We want to give our process to mankind without strings. The problem is, will mankind accept it?"
A little impatiently Harker said, "Suppose you get down to cases, then. It's getting late, and I have a lot of work to do before lunch-time."
A funny little smile flickered at the corners of Lurie's wide mouth. He said, flatly, "All right. We've developed a process for bringing newly-dead people back to life. It works if there's no serious organic damage and the body hasn't been dead more than twenty-four hours."
For a long moment there was silence in Harker's office. Harker sat perfectly still, and it seemed to him he could hear the blood pumping in his own veins and the molecules of room-air crashing against his ear-drums. He fought against his original instincts, which were to laugh or to show amazement.
Finally he said, "I'll assume for the sake of discussion that what you tell me is true. If it is, then you know you're holding down dynamite."
"We know that. That's why we came to you. You're the first prominent figure who hasn't thrown me out of his office as soon as I told him why I had come."
Sadly, Harker said, "I've learned how to reserve judgment. I've also learned to be tolerant of crackpots or possible crackpots. I learned these things the hard way."
"Do you think I'm a crackpot, Mr. Harker?"
"I have no opinion. Not yet, anyway."
"Does that mean you'll take the case?"
"Did I say that?" Harker stubbed his cigarette out with a tense stiff-wristed gesture. "It violates professional ethics for me to ask you which of my colleagues you approached before you came to me, but I'd like to know how many there were, at least."
"You were fourth on the list," Lurie said.
"Umm. And the others turned you down flat, I take it?"
Lurie's open face reddened slightly. "Absolutely. I was called a zombie salesman by one. Another just asked me to leave. The third man advised me to blow up the labs and cut my throat. So we came to you."
Harker nodded slowly. He had a fairly good idea of whom the three others were, judging from the nature of their reactions. He himself had made no reaction yet, either visceral or intellectual. A year ago, perhaps, he might have reacted differently—but a year ago he had been a different person.
He said, "You can expect tremendous opposition to any such invention. I can guess that there'll be theological opposition, and plenty of hysterical public outbursts. And the implications are immense—a new set of medical ethics, for one thing. There'll be a need for legislation covering—ah—resurrection." He drummed on the desk with his fingertips, "Whoever agrees to serve as your adviser is taking on a giant assignment."
"We're aware of that," Lurie said. "The pay is extremely good. We can discuss salary later, if you like."
"I haven't said I'm accepting," Harker reminded him crisply. "For all I know right now this is just a pipe-dream. Wishful thinking on the part of a bunch of underpaid scientists."
Lurie smiled winningly. "Naturally we would not think of asking you to make a decision until you've seen our lab. If you think you're interested, a visit could be arranged sometime this week or next—"
Harker closed his eyes for a moment. He said, "If I accepted, I'd be exposing myself to public abuse. I'd become a storm-center, wouldn't I?"
"You should be used to that, Mr. Harker. As a former national political figure—"
Theformerstung. Harker had a sudden glaring vision of his rise through the Nat-Lib Party ranks, his outstanding triumph in the 2024 mayoralty contest, his natural ascension to the gubernatorial post four years later—and then, the thumping fall, the retirement into private life, the painful packing-away of old aspirations and dreams—
He nodded wearily. "Yes, I know what it's like to be on the spot. I was just wondering whether it's worthwhile to get back on the firing line again." He moistened his lips. "Look, Dr. Lurie, I have to think about this whole business some more. Is there someplace I can call you this afternoon?"
"I'm staying at the Hotel Manhattan," Lurie said. He retrieved his calling-card with surprising deftness and scribbled a phone number on it, then a room number, and handed it back to Harker. "I'll be there most of the afternoon, if you'd like to call."
Harker pocketed the card. "I'll let you know," he said.
Lurie rose with typical lack of grace and shambled toward the door. Harker pressed theopenbutton and the two halves of the door moved into their slots. Rising from the desk, he accompanied Lurie through the door and into the outer office. The scientist's stringy frame towered five or six inches over Harker's compact, still-lean bulk. Harker glanced up at the strangely soft eyes.
"I'll call you later, Dr. Lurie."
"I hope so. Thank you for listening, Governor."
Harker returned to the office, reflecting that the finalGovernorhad either been savagely unkind or else a bit of unconscious absent-mindedness. Either way, he tried to ignore it.
He dumped himself behind his desk, frowning deeply, and dug his thumbs into his eyeballs. After a moment he got up, crossed to the portable bar, and dialed himself a whiskey sour. He sipped thoughtfully.
Resurrection.A crazy, grotesque idea. A frightening one. But science had come up with a method for containing the hundred-million-degree fury of a fusion reaction; why not a method for bringing the recent dead back to life?
No, he thought. He wasn't primarily in doubt of the possibility of the process. It was dangerous to be too skeptical of the potentialities of science.
It was his own part in the enterprise that made him hold back. What Lurie evidently had in mind was for him to act as a sort of public advocate, arguing their case before the courts of law and of human opinion. It was a frighteningly big job, and if the tide swept against him he would be carried away.
Then he smiled.What have I to lose?
He eyed the tri-dims of his wife and sons that occupied one corner of his desk. His political career, he thought, couldn't be any deader than it was now. His own party had cast him loose, refusing to name him for a second term when he indiscreetly defied the state committee in making a few appointments. His law practice did well, though not spectacularly; in any event, he was provided for financially by his investments.
He had nothing to lose but his good name, and he had already lost most of that in the political mess. And he had a whole world to win.
Revival of the dead?How about a dead career, Harker wondered.Can I revive that too?
Rising from his desk, he paced round the office, pausing to depolarize the windows. Bright morning sunshine poured in. Through his window he could see the playground of the public school across the street. Thin-legged girls of nine or ten were playing a punchball game; he could hear the shrieks of delight and anguish even at this distance.
A sudden sharp image came to him: himself, nine years before, standing spread-legged on the beach at Riis Park, with Lois staring white-faced at him and three-year-old Chris peeking strangely around her legs. It was a blisteringly hot day; his skin, to which sand had adhered, was red, raw, tender. He heard the booming of the surf, the overheadzoopof a Europe-bound rocket, the distant cry of refreshment-venders and the nearer laughter of small girls.
He was not laughing. He was holding a small, cold, wet bundle tight, and he was crying for the first time in twenty years. He huddled his drowned five-year-old daughter to him, and tried to pretend it had not happened.
Ithadhappened, and Eva was dead—the girl-child who he had planned would be America's darling when he reached the White House, fifteen years or so from now.
That had been nine years ago. Eva would have been nearly fifteen, now, flowering into womanhood. He had no daughter.But she could have lived, Harker thought.Maybe.
He returned to his desk and sat quietly for a while. After twenty minutes of silent thought he reached for the phone and punched out Lurie's number.
CHAPTER II
Harker had an appointment with old Richard Bryant at three that afternoon. He was not looking forward to it. Since Bryant was confined to his home by doctor's orders, it meant that Harker would have to visit the old man, and that meant entering a house where death seemed to hang heavy over the threshold, a house filled with graspingly impatient relatives of the venerable hero of space travel's infancy.
At half past two Harker notified his secretary that he was leaving; he gathered up the portfolio of relevant papers, locked his office, and took the gravshaft down to street level. He emerged on First Avenue, and walked quickly downtown toward 125th Street.
It was a bright, warmish, cloudless May afternoon. A bubble of advertising was the only blot on the otherwise flawless sky. The Manhattan air was clean, tingling, fresh. Harker never breathed it in without thinking of the vast dynamos of the puritron stations every ten blocks apart, gulping in tons and tons of city soot each second. In his second year as Mayor, the entire Brooklyn puritron assembly had "accidentally" conked out for four hours, thanks to some half-forgotten labor squabble. Harker remembered the uproarthathad caused.
At 125th Street he boarded the crosstown monorail and moments later found himself disembarking at the Riverside Drive exit. He signaled for a cab; while he waited, a bleary-eyed old man shuffled over to him, shoved a gaudy pamphlet in his hands, greeted him by name, and shuffled away.
He looked at it. It was one of the many official organs of the Watchtower Society. As he stuffed it in the corner disposal-bin, he smiled in recollection of that organization's motto:Millions now living will never die.
Gravely he proposed a substitute:Millions now dead will live again.
The attendant images effectively choked off the mood of good humor that had been stealing over him. He remembered that in only two days he would be journeying across the Hudson to see whether the Beller Laboratories people had actually hit on something or not.
The cab drew up. Harker slid into the back seat and said, "Seventy-ninth and West End, driver."
The house was a massive, heavily-chromed representative of late twentieth-century architecture, settling now into respectable middle age. Harker had visited it on three separate occasions, and each time his discomfort had increased.
It had no gravshaft; he rode up in a human-operated elevator. The operator said, "I guess you're going to visit Mr. Bryant, eh, Mr. Harker?"
"That's right."
"The old gentleman's been poorish lately, sir. Ah, it'll be a sad thing when he goes, won't it?"
"He's one of our greatest," Harker agreed. "Many people up there today?"
"The usual lot," the operator said, halting the car and opening the door. It opened immediately into the foyer of the huge Bryant apartment. Almost at once, Harker found himself staring at the fishy, cold-eyed face of Jonathan Bryant, the old man's eldest son.
"Good afternoon, Jonathan."
"Hello, Harker." The reply was sullenly brusque. "You're here to see my father?"
"I didn't come for tea," Harker snapped. "Will you invite me in, or should I just push past you?"
Jonathan muttered something and gave ground, allowing Harker to enter. The living room was crowded: half-a-dozen miscellaneous Bryants, plus two or three whom Harker did not know but who bore the familiar Bryant features. A horde of vultures, Harker thought. He nodded to them with professional courtesy and passed on, through the inner rooms, to the old man's sick room.
The place was lined with trophies—one room, Harker knew, consisted of the cockpit of theMars One, that slender needle of a ship that had borne Rick Bryant to the red planet nearly fifty years ago, an epoch-making flight that still stood large in the annals of space travel. Trophy cases in the halls held medals, souvenir watches, testimonial dinner menus. Old Bryant had been a prodigious collector of souvenirs.
His doctor, a tiny man with the look of an irritated penguin, met him at the door to the sick room. "I'll have to ask you to limit your stay to thirty minutes, Mr. Harker. He's very low today."
"I'll be as brief as I can," Harker promised. He stepped around the barricade and entered.
Helen Bryant, oldest of the daughters, sat solicitously by her father's bedside, glaring at him with the tender expression of a predatory harpy.
Harker said, "If you'll excuse me, Miss Bryant, your father and I have some important business to discuss."
"I'm his daughter. Can't I—"
"I'm afraid not," Harker said coldly. He waited while she made her proud retreat, then took her seat at the side of the bed.
"Afternoon, Harker," Bryant said in a tomblike croak.
He was not a pretty sight. He was seventy-three, and could easily pass for twice that age—a shrunken, leathery little man with rheumy, cataracted eyes and a flat, drooping face. There was little about him that was heroic, now. He was just a dying old man.
The needles of an intravenous feed-line penetrated his body at various points. He no longer had the strength to swallow or to digest. It was difficult to believe that this man had made the first successful round-trip flight to another planet, back in 1984, and that from his early thirties until his stroke four years ago he had been a figure of world importance, whose words were eagerly rushed into print whenever he cared to make a statement.
He said, "How does it look for next Thursday?"
Harker's jaws tightened. "Pretty good. I hope to be able to swing it."
"How have you set it up?"
Harker drew the papers from his portfolio. "Twenty million is to be established as a trust fund for your grandchildren and for the children of your grandson Frederick. Thirty million is to be granted to the Bryant Foundation for Astronautical Research. Fifty thousand is to be divided among your children, ten thousand to each."
"Is that last bit necessary?" Bryant asked with sudden ferocity.
"I'm afraid it is."
"I wanted to cut those five jackals off without a penny!" he thundered. Then, subsiding, he coughed and said, "Why must you give them so much?"
"There are legal reasons. It makes it harder for them to overthrow the will, you see."
The old man was reluctant to accept the idea of giving his children anything, and in a way Harker could see the justice of that. They were a hateful bunch. Bryant had garnered millions from his space journey, and had invested the money wisely and well; there had been an undignified scramble for the old hero's wealth when a stroke appeared to have killed him in '28. He had confounded them all by recovering, and by cutting most of them out of his revised will—a document that was being contested in the courts even while the old man still lived.
At three-thirty, the penguinish doctor knocked discreetly at the bedchamber door, poked his head in, and said, "I hope you're almost through, Mr. Harker."
At that moment old Bryant was trying to sign a power-of-attorney Harker had prepared; his palsied hand could barely manage the signature, but in time he completed it. Harker looked at it: a wavy scrawl that looked like a random pattern on a seismograph drum.
"I'm leaving now," Harker told the doctor.
Bryant quavered, "What time is the hearing next Thursday, Harker?"
"Half-past-eleven."
"Be sure to call me when it's finished."
"Of course. You just relax, Mr. Bryant. Legally they can't trouble you at all."
He reaped a harvest of sour glances as he made his way through the trophy-cluttered halls to the elevator. It was a depressing place, and the sight of the shattered hero always clouded his mind with gloom. He was glad to get away.
Riding a cab downtown to Grand Central, he boarded the 4:13 express to Larchmont, and eleven minutes later was leaving the Larchmont tube depot and heading in a local cab toward his home. At quarter to five, he stepped through the front door.
Lois was in the front room, standing on a chair and doing something to the ceiling mobile. Silently Harker crept in; standing with arms akimbo at the door, he said, "It's high time we junked that antique, darling."
She nearly fell off the chair in surprise. "Jim!What are you—"
"Home early," Harker said. "Had an appointment with old Bryant and the medics tossed me out quick, so I came home. Gah! Filthy business, that Bryant deal."
He slipped out of his jacket and loosened his throat-ribbon. He paused for a moment at the mirror, staring at himself: the fine, strong features, the prematurely iron-gray hair, the searching blue eyes. It was the face of a natural leader, an embryo President. But there was something else in it now—a coldness around the eyes, a way of quirking the corners of his mouth—that showed a defeated man, a man who has climbed to the top of his string and toppled back to the ground. With forty years of active life ahead of him.
"Hello, Dad. Want a drink?"
It was the already-deepening voice of twelve-year-old Chris that drew him away from his reverie. In recent months he had let the boy prepare his homecoming cocktail for him. But today he shook his head. "Sorry, son. I don't happen to be thirsty tonight."
Disappointment flashed briefly in the boy's handsome face; then it faded. Minor setbacks like this meant little to a boy who had expected once to live in the White House, and who knew now it wouldn't be happening.
"Where's Paul?" Harker asked.
"Upstairs doing his homework," Chris said. He snorted. "The ninny's learning long division. Having fits with it, too."
Harker stared at his son strangely for a moment; then he said, "Chris, go upstairs and give him some help. I want to talk to Mum."
"Sure, Dad."
When the boy had gone, Harker turned to his wife. Lois at forty—three years his junior—was still slim and attractive; her blonde hair had lost its sheen and soon would be shading into gray, but she seemed to welcome rather than fear the imprint of age.
She said, "Jim, why did you look at Chris that way?"
In answer, Harker crossed to the table near the window and his fingers sought out the tri-dim of dead Eva, its bright colors losing some of their sharpness now after nine years. "I was trying to picture him as a teen-age girl," he said heavily. "Eva would have been fifteen soon."
Her only outward reaction was a momentary twitch of the lower lip. "You haven't thought of her for a long time."
"I know. I try not to think of her. But I thought of her today. I was thinking that she didn't have to be dead, Lois."
"Of course not, dear. But it happened, and there was no help for it."
He shook his head. Replacing Eva's picture, he picked up instead a tiny bit of bric-a-brac, a kaleidoscopic crystal in whose depths were swirling streaks of red and gold and dark black. He shook it; the color-patterns changed. "I mean," he said carefully, "that Eva might have been saved, even after the accident."
"They tried to revive her. The pulmotor—"
"No. Lois, I had a—a person visit me this morning. A certain Dr. Lurie, from a certain research laboratory in New Jersey. He claims they've developed a technique for bringing the dead back to life, and he wants me to handle promotion and legal aspects. For a fat fee, may I add."
She frowned uncertainly. "Reviving the dead? What kind of crazy joke is that?"
"I don't know. But I'm not treating it as a joke; not until I've seen the evidence, anyway. I made an appointment to go out to Jersey and visit their lab on Friday."
"And you'll take the job, if they've really hit on something?"
Harker nodded. "Sure I'll take it. It's risky, of course, and there's sure to be a lot of public clamor in both directions—"
"And haven't we had enough of that? Weren't you satisfied when you tried to reform the state government, and wound up being read out of the party? Jim, do you have to be Quixote all the time?"
Her words had barbs. Harker thought bleakly that being able always to see both sides of a question, as he could, was a devil-granted gift. Wearily he said, "All right. I tried to do something I thought was right, and I got my head chopped off as a result. Well, here's my second chance—maybe. For all I know they're a bunch of lunatics over there. I owe it to myself and to the world to find out—and to help them, if I can."
He pointed at the tri-dim of Eva. "Suppose that happenednow—Eva, I mean. Wouldn't you want to save her? Or," he said, making his words deliberately harsh, "suppose Paul dies. Wouldn't you want to be able to call him back from—from wherever he had gone?"
For a moment there was silence.
"Well? Wouldn't you?"
Lois shrugged, turning her hands palm outward. "Jim, I don't know. I just honestly don't know."
CHAPTER III
At three minutes past two on Friday afternoon Harker's secretary buzzed him to let him know Dr. Lurie had arrived. Harker felt momentary apprehension. Cautious, even a little conservative by nature, he felt uneasy about paying a visit to a laboratory of—for all he knew—mad scientists.
He turned on an amiable grin when Lurie arrived. The scientist looked less gawky than before, more sure of himself; he wore what seemed to be the same rumpled clothing.
"The car's downstairs," Lurie said.
Harker left word at the front desk that he was leaving for the day, telling the girl to refer all calls to one of the other partners in the firm. He followed Lurie into the gravshaft.
The car idled in the temporary-parking area outside—a long, low, thrumming '33 turbo-job, sleekly black and coming with a $9,000 price-tag at the least. There were three men inside. Lurie touched a knob; the back door peeled back, and he and Harker got in. Harker looked around.
They were looking at him, too. Minutely.
The man at the wheel was a fleshy, hearty-looking fellow in his late fifties, who swiveled in a full circle to peer unabashedly at Harker. Next to him was a thin, pale, intense young man with affectedly thick glasses (no reason why he couldn't wear contacts instead, Harker thought), and sitting at the far side in back was the third, a coolly self-possessed individual in unobtrusive black clothes.
The fleshy man at the wheel said, "How do you do, Governor Harker. I'm Cal Mitchison—no scientist I, heh-heh! I'm public-liaison man for Beller Labs."
Harker smiled relatively courteously.
Mitchison said, "Man next to me is Dr. David Klaus, one of Beller's bright young men. Specialty is enzyme research."
"H-h-hello," Klaus said with difficulty. Harker smiled in reply.
"And to your left is Dr. Martin Raymond. Mart's the Director of Beller Labs," Mitchison said.
"Pleased to meet you," said Raymond. His voice was deep, well-modulated, even. Harker sensed that this was a man of tremendous inner strength and purpose. Raymond was a type Harker had seen before, and respected: the quietly intense sort that remained in the background, accumulating intensity like a tightening mainspring, capable of displaying any amount of energy or drive when it was needed.
"And you already know Ben Lurie, of course," Mitchison said. "So we might as well get on our way."
The trip took a little over an hour, with Mitchison making a crosstown hop via the 125th Street overpass, then ducking downtown to 110th Street and taking the Cathedral Avenue rivertube across the Hudson into New Jersey. The village of Litchfield turned out to be one of those Jersey towns of a thousand souls or so that look just like every other small Jersey town: a railroad siding, a block or two of shopping center, bank, post office, then a string of old split-levels rambling away from the highway in every direction.
Mitchison, handling his big car with an almost sensuous delight, drove on through the main part of town, into the open country again, and about a mile and a half past the heart of the village suddenly turned up a small road prominently labeledPrivate: Keep Out. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.
The road wound inward through a thick stand of close-packed spruce for more than a thousand feet, at which point a road-block became evident. Two apparently armed men stood guard at either side of the road.
Mitchison opened the doors and the five occupants of the car got out. Harker took a deep breath. The air out here was sweet and pure, and not with the mechanical purity of Manhattan's strained and filtered atmosphere. He liked the feel of fresh air against his nostrils and throat.
Lurie said to the guards, "This is Mr. James Harker. We've brought him here to visit the labs."
"Right."
The guard who had grunted assent took a red button from his pocket and jammed it against Harker's lapel. It adhered. "That's your security tag. Keep it visible at all times or we can't answer for the consequences."
"What if it falls off?"
"It won't."
Harker and his companions followed around the road-block while Mitchison took the car somewhere to be parked. Harker saw three large buildings, all of them very old, and several smaller cabins behind them, at the very edge of the encroaching forest.
"Those are the dormitories for the researchers," Lurie said, pointing to the cabins. "The big building over here is the administrative wing, and the other two are lab buildings."
Harker nodded. It was an impressive set-up. The group turned into the administrative building.
It was every bit as old-fashioned on the inside as outside. The lighting was, of all things, by incandescent bulbs; the air-conditioners were noisily evident, and the windows did not have opaquing controls. Harker followed the other three into a small, untidy, book-lined room—and, suddenly, he realized that Dr. Raymond was taking charge.
"This is my office," Raymond said. "Won't you be seated?"
Harker sat. He reached for his cigarettes and Raymond interjected immediately, "Sorry, but no smoking is permitted anywhere on the laboratory grounds."
"Of course."
Raymond sat back. Klaus and Lurie flanked him. In a quiet, terribly sane voice, Raymond said, "I think Dr. Lurie has explained the essentials of our situation."
"All I know is that you claim to have perfected a process for restoring the dead to life, and that you want me to act as legal adviser and public spokesman. Is that right?"
"Indeed. The fee will be $600 per week for as long as your services will be required."
"For which you'll insist on my full-time participation, I expect."
"We have confidence in your ability, Mr. Harker. You may apportion your time as you see fit."
Harker nodded slowly. "On the surface, I don't see any objections. But naturally I'll expect a thorough demonstration of what you've achieved so far, if I'm to take on any kind of work for you."
Levelly Raymond said, "We would hardly think of employing you unless we could take you into our fullest confidence. Come with me."
He opened an inner door and stepped through; Harker walked around the desk to follow him, with Klaus and Lurie bringing up the rear.
They now were in a large room with the faint iodoform odor Harker associated with hospitals; it was brightly, almost starkly lit, and Harker saw two lab tables, one empty, one occupied by a dog, both surrounded by looming complex mechanical devices. A bearded, grave-looking young man in the white garb of a surgeon stood by the dog-laden table.
"Are we ready, Dr. Raymond?"
Raymond nodded. To Harker he said, "This is Dr. Vogel. One of our surgeons. He will anesthetize the dog you see and kill it."
Harker moistened his lips nervously. He knew better than to protest, but the idea of casually killing animals in the name of science touched off a host of involuntary repugnance-reactions in him.
He watched stonily as Vogel fitted a mask over the dog's face—it was a big, shaggy animal of indeterminate breed—and attached instruments to its body.
"We're recording heartbeat and respiration," Raymond murmured. "The anesthetic will gradually overcome the dog. In case you're concerned, the animal feels no pain in any part of this experiment."
Some moments passed; finally Vogel peered at his dials, nodded, and pronounced the dog in full narcosis. Harker fought against the inner tension that gripped him.
"Dr. Vogel will now bring death to the dog," Raymond said.
With practiced, efficient motions the surgeon slit the animal's blood vessels, inserted tubes, adjusted clamps. An assistant glided forward from the corner of the room to help. Harker found a strange fascination in watching the life-blood drain from the dog into dangling containers. The needle registering the heartbeat sank inexorably toward zero; respiration dropped away. At last Vogel looked up and nodded.
"The dog is dead," he declared. "The blood has been drained away. This pump will ensure oxygenation of the blood during the period of the animal's death. We will now proceed to the next table—"
Where, Harker saw, another dog had been placed while his attention had been riveted on the death scene. This dog lay in a slumped furry heap that grotesquely reminded Harker of Eva as she had looked when they pulled her from the sea. His throat felt terribly dry.
"This animal," Vogel said stiffly, "underwent the killing treatment nine hours and thirteen minutes ago. Its blood has been stored during that time. Now—"
Spellbound, Harker watched the surgeon's busy hands as he and the assistant fastened tubes to the dead animal's body and lowered a complicated instrument into place. "We are now restoring blood to the dead animal. When the indicator gauge reads satisfactorily, injection of adrenalin and other hormones will restore 'life' to the animal. The blood is being pumped back at the same rate and rhythm that the animal's own heart uses."
"In some cases," Raymond remarked, "we've restored animals dead nearly thirty-six hours."
Harker nodded. He was forcing himself to a realization of the gulf that lay between these calmly efficient men and himself. Yet they needed him and he needed them; neither type of mind was complete in itself.
The resuscitation of the second dog took fifteen minutes. At length Vogel nodded, withdrew the reviving apparatus. The heartbeat indicator was fluttering; respiration was beginning. The dog's eyes opened wearily. It wagged its tail feebly and almost comically.
Lurie remarked, "For the next several hours the dog will show signs of having undergone a serious operation—which it has. In a day or two it'll be as good as new—once the stitches have healed, of course. In Lab Building Two we can show you dozens of dogs that have been through the killing process and were returned to life, happy, hearty—"
"This dog," Raymond said calmly, "is thesonof a dog we temporarily 'killed' two years ago. The period of death doesn't seem to interfere with later mating or with any other life-process."
While they spoke, Vogel was repeating the process of revivification on the dog that had been killed twenty minutes before. This time Harker watched with less revulsion as life returned to the animal.
In a dry voice he said, "Your experiments—are—well, impressive."
Raymond shook his head. "On the contrary. We've merely repeated work that was first carried out more than eighty years ago. These techniques are far from new. But our application of them to—"
"Yes," Harker said weakly. "Tohumanlife. That's—that's the clincher, I'd say."
Harker realized that Raymond was staring at him coldly, appraisingly, as if trying to read his mind before proceeding to the next demonstration. Harker felt his face reddening under the scrutiny.
"We're lucky enough to be able to—ah—clinchthings," Raymond said.
"With a human being?"
Raymond nodded. "You understand that getting human specimens for research has been our gravest problem. I'll have to ask you not to voice any of the questions that may arise in your mind now."
Harker nodded. He could recognize a security blanket when it was lowered.
Raymond turned and said in a mortuary voice, "Bring in Mr. Doe."
Two attendants entered, carrying a sheet-shrouded form on a stretcher. They deposited the figure on the vacant lab table that had held the second dog. Harker saw that it was a man, in his late sixties, bald, dead.
"Mr. Doe has been dead for eleven hours and thirteen minutes," Raymond said. "He died of syncope during an abdominal operation. Would you care to examine the body?"
"I'll accept the evidence on faith, thanks."
"As you will. Dr. Vogel, you can begin."
While Vogel worked over the cadaver, Raymond went on, "The process is essentially compounded out of techniques used for decades with varying success—that is, a combination of pulmotor respiration, artificial heart massage, hormone injection, and electrochemical stimulation. The last two are the keys to the process: you can massage a heart for days and keep it pumping blood, but that isn't restoration of life."
"Not unless the heart can continue on its own when you remove the artificial stimulus?"
"Exactly. We've done careful hormone research here, with some of the best men in the nation. A hormone, you know, is a kind of chemical messenger. We've synthesized the hormones that tell the body it's alive. Of course, the electrochemical stimulation is important: the brain's activity is essentially electrical in nature, you know. And so we devised techniques which—"
"Ready, Dr. Raymond."