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 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 there _is_ no 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't _that_ foolish!"
* * * * *
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 glad
_that's_ over 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 the _Star-Post_ and 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 of _technique_
and _instrument_.
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."