Harker looked up the phone number of Gerhardt's New York office,
called, and spoke briefly with the lawyer. It was not a very pleasant
conversation. Gerhardt seemed almost offensively bubbling with
confidence, gloating as he informed Harker that it was only a matter
of days before the court tossed Raymond and Harker out of control of
Beller Labs and reinstated Klaus and Mitchison. No, Harker was told,
he would _not_ be given the present whereabouts of the two dismissed
employees. And yes, the suit had already been filed--control of the
labs and $1,000,000 in punitive damages.
"Okay," Harker said. "I'll prepare a countersuit against your clients
on grounds of malfeasance, insubordination, and half a dozen other
things. I don't mind fighting, Gerhardt."
He hung up. After a moment's thought he pulled a sheet of
note-paper from a desk drawer and started to jot down notes for the
counter-offensive. This was an additional nuisance; things grew more
complicated by the moment.
And Gerhardt was a prominent member of the American-Conservative
Party's national committee. Harker could see the battle-lines
beginning to form--with Klaus and Mitchison, Gerhardt, the
American-Conservatives, the organized churches, Jonathan Bryant, and
Senator Thurman on one side, and, at the moment, nobody but Harker,
Raymond, and the staff of Beller Labs on the other.
During the day, tension rose at the Litchfield headquarters. The phone
rang constantly; from time to time the mail-truck arrived with more
letters, and Harker found it necessary to clear out one of the less
important lab rooms to store them.
"Have a couple of men start going through them," he told Lurie. The
gangling biologist had slipped easily into the role of messenger-boy
and general go-between. "Have all the letters pleading for
revivification of long-dead relatives burned immediately. Likewise the
ones asking for miracles we can't perform, like that cancer business."
"How about the abusive ones?"
"Save those," Harker said. "It helps to know who our enemies are."
The afternoon papers again devoted most of their front-page space to
the news, and the _Times_ in addition ran a well-handled four-page
symposium in which many noted scientists discussed the entire concept
of reanimation with varying degrees of insight. Harker skimmed through
it rapidly and paled when he came across a comment by Dr. Louis F.
Santangelo of Johns Hopkins. He read it aloud to Raymond:
_"There is the distinct possibility that death causes irremediable
damage to the brain. So far the Beller researchers have been extremely
silent on the subject of the mental after-effects of reanimation.
We must consider the chance that the process may produce living but
mindless bodies--in short, walking corpses, or the zombies of legend."_
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.
_Times_ said, "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?"
_Times_ wanted 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 sharp _Times_ man 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?" _Times_ asked.
"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 the _Times_
man. "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."
_Times_ said, "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 word _experiments_ as
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. They _had_ to 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. And _undercover_ meant
_dangerous_; _illegal_ equated with _deadly_. 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._