The newspapers Saturday morning gave full play to the Thurman
disappearance. Several of them ran biographies of the missing Senator,
tracing his political career from the early founding days of the
National-Liberal Party to his present anti-reanimation stand.
The police and FBI statements were simply mechanical handouts, repeats
of last night's assurances that no stone would be left unturned. Harker
read them with some amusement. He had slept well, and a good deal of
last night's tension had departed from him.
He had come to a calming conclusion: Raymond and Barchet had done a
violent thing, but these were violent times. Somehow he would have to
forget about the shocking Thurman affair and continue along the path
already entered upon.
The obituary pages contained one item worth note:
SIMEON BARCHET
_Simeon Barchet of 201 Princeton Road, Rockville Centre, L.I.,
treasurer of the Beller Research Laboratories, died of a heart
attack at the Beller office in Litchfield, New Jersey, yesterday.
His age was 61._
_Mr. Barchet joined the organization of the late oil operator D.
F. Beller in 2014, after serving as a vice-president of the Chase
Manhattan Bank. Upon Mr. Beller's death ten years later, he became
a trustee of the Beller Fund and participated actively in the
operation of the laboratory in Litchfield._
_He left no survivors. His wife, the former Elsie Tyler, died in
2029._
Harker felt inward relief. Raymond had not dared to defy him; the
reanimation of Barchet had been stopped as he had ordered.
It was only to be expected that some keen-eyed reader would read the
Barchet obit and wonder why an official of the Beller Laboratories had
been allowed to die on the premises, when reanimation equipment was
right there. No doubt the question would be raised in the afternoon
papers, since any news of the Beller researchers rated a good play.
He was not mistaken. At noon Mart Raymond called; he stared somewhat
reproachfully at Harker out of the screen and said, "Some reporters
just phoned up, Jim. They saw Barchet's obit and want to know how come
he wasn't reanimated. What am I supposed to tell them--the truth?"
Harker scowled. "Don't tell them anything. Let me think. Ah--yes. Tell
them Barchet was despondent over personal affairs, and left a memo
imploring us not to reanimate him. Naturally, we abided by his last
request."
"Naturally," Raymond said acidly. "Okay. I'll tell them. It sounds
halfway plausible, anyway."
The newspapers moved fast. By nightfall the story had been promoted to
the front pages, generally headed with something like BELLER MAN
CHOOSES DEATH. The editorial pages of the _Star-Post's_ evening
edition had an interesting comment:
NATURAL DEATH OR SUICIDE?
_Yesterday Simeon Barchet, an executive of the now-famous Beller
Laboratories, died suddenly of a heart attack. According to his
colleagues at Beller, Mr. Barchet had been in a despondent frame of
mind and left instructions that he was not to be reanimated._
_The situation exposed a new facet of the already-explosive
reanimation situation. Can willful refusal to undergo reanimation
be considered suicide? According to time-honored principles of law,
suicide or attempted suicide is an illegal act. In this case, the
odd paradox arises of a man already dead committing what can only
be termed suicide. Should reanimation be given the cachet of legal
approval during the forthcoming Congressional hearings, then it is
clear that a testament forbidding reanimation will reach beyond the
grave to bind the dead man's survivors, counsel, and physicians in
a conspiracy to abet suicide._
_Obviously this is an impossible state of affairs. It demonstrates
once again that the staggering Beller Laboratories success, which
renders death in many cases merely temporary, will unavoidably
bring about a massive revolution in our codes of legal and medical
ethics, and indeed a change in our entire manner of life._
As he looked through the heap of newspapers, Harker began to feel
that the tide was turning. The hysteria was dying down. Men were
realizing that reanimation was no grisly joke, no hoax, but something
real that had been developed and which could not be stamped out. There
were relatively few cries for wholesale suppression of the process. A
Fundamentalist minister from Kansas had got his name into the papers
by demanding immediate destruction of all equipment and plans for
reanimation apparatus, but his was an isolated voice.
The tone of the _Star-Post_ editorial seemed to be the tone of the
consensus. Men of intelligence were saying, _Reanimation exists, for
good or evil. Let's study it for a while and find out what it can do
and how it will change society. Let's not scream for its suppression,
but let's not unleash it entirely before we know what we're letting
loose._
The most authoritative of the secular anti-reanimation voices had
belonged to Clyde Thurman, and that voice now was stilled. The act had
been one of colossal audacity and thoughtlessness, and even now Harker
found it difficult to endure the memory of the noble old warrior's
mindless eyes; but, he had to admit it, it had silenced a potent force
for suppression.
_Perhaps these were times for violence and audacity_, Harker thought.
_In that case I'm the wrong man for my job. But it's too late to help
that now._
* * * * *
Sunday's papers continued the general trend toward reasonable
consideration of the reanimation case, and also reported no progress in
the search for the missing Senator. It was learned that the reanimation
hearings would begin as scheduled on Monday--not in Washington, though,
but in New York. Late Sunday evening a messenger appeared at Harker's
door and handed him a document.
It was a subpoena, requesting him to be present at 10:00 the following
morning at the Hotel Manhattan, where the Congressional hearings would
begin.
Harker arrived there half an hour early. The hearings were taking place
in a meeting-room on the nineteenth floor of the big hotel. Federal
law required the presence of the press at Congressional hearings;
television cameras were already set up, and at the back of the room
Harker saw the four senators who had visited the labs: Brewster, Vorys,
Dixon, Westmore. Two American-Conservatives, two National-Liberals. The
fifth seat had been left vacant, obviously for Thurman; but Thurman
would not be likely to take part in the hearings, though only a few men
knew that fact with any certainty.
Mart Raymond was there already, wearing not his stained lab smock but
a surprisingly natty tweed suit. Vogel had been subpoenaed too, but
not Lurie. Next to Raymond sat a plumpish woman Harker had never seen
before; she was middle-aged and dressed in an obsolete fashion.
"Jim, I want you to meet someone," Raymond called to him as soon as
Harker entered. He crossed the room to the front row of seats and
Raymond said, "This is Mrs. Beller. She's acting as representative for
the Beller Fund since Barchet died."
"Dreadful, about poor Mr. Barchet," the woman said, in a highly
masculine baritone. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Harker. I've heard so
much about you. My late husband was deeply interested in your career."
_I'm damned sure of that_, Harker thought. For as many years as he
could remember, the name of Darwin F. Beller had headed the list of
contributors to the annual American-Conservative Party campaign fund.
He said aloud, "How do you do, Mrs. Beller."
He looked toward the platform where the senators sat. Brewster looked
grim, Vorys peeved; Dixon and Westmore, the Nat-Lib members of the
commission, both wore identical uneasy smiles.
Television cameramen seemed to be underfoot everywhere, checking
camera angles, adjusting mike booms, testing the lighting. A small,
harried-looking man with close-cropped hair came scurrying up to him,
jabbed a microphone under his nose, and said, "Mr. Harker, would you
mind saying a couple of words into this?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"That's fine, sir. Now you, Mr. Raymond, and then after that I'd like
to hear the lady speak."
It was a voice-test. Someone yelled out, "Harker's fine! Raymond could
use more resonance!"
"Would you mind getting more _chest_ into your voice, Mr. Raymond?"
"I'll do my best," Raymond said.
The man with the microphone scurried away.
Harker watched the time on the big clock above the dais. Ten minutes
to ten. The room was slowly filling up, not only with newspapermen.
Raymond pointed out a couple of well-known medical men; Harker spotted
two lawyers, including one who had issued a ringing denunciation of
reanimation a week before.
At ten sharp Senator Westmore rose, smiled apologetically at the video
camera, and said, "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As acting
chairman of the Senate Special Investigating Committee dealing with the
problem of discoveries of the Beller Research Laboratories, I hereby
ask for your attention and call this meeting to order."
The room fell silent. In the hush, the throbbing purr of the official
stenographer's recording machine was clearly audible. After a pause
Westmore went on, "We begin this session in the absence of our
chairman, Senator Thurman of New York. I'm sure you'll all join me in
the hope that the beloved Senator is safe, wherever he is, and that
his unusual absence will soon be explained. However, the, shall we
say, delicate nature of the Beller discoveries makes it imperative
that this Committee elicit facts and present its findings to Congress
immediately, and so we are proceeding on schedule despite our
chairman's absence.
"Our purpose is to draw forth information on the subject of
reanimation. First I think it is well to question the director of the
laboratory which developed the technique, Mr. Martin Raymond."
Raymond rose, a trifle awkwardly, and as he did so Senator Vorys
requested permission to question him. Permission was granted.
Vorys said, in his thin, penetrating voice, "Dr. Raymond, you recognize
me, do you not, as a member of the group of United States Senators who
visited your laboratories recently?"
"I recognize you. You were there."
"In our presence you applied your animation technique to a
twelve-year-old boy. Am I correct?"
"You are."
"The boy was dead?"
"He had drowned the day before."
"And where is this boy now?"
Raymond said, "Recuperating from the after-effects of his experience.
He's in good health, but still pretty weak."
"Ah. Would it be possible for you to bring this boy to a session of
this Committee?"
"I don't believe so, Senator. The boy's not ready for any travelling
yet. And it would violate our policy to present him to the video
audience. We try to keep the identity of our patients secret."
"Why do you do that?"
"To protect them. Reanimation is still in its early stages. The social
implications are still unclear."
"Ah. Would you object if the members of this Committee paid the boy a
visit, then, to ascertain the current state of his health?"
"That could be arranged," Raymond said.
There was a moment of silence. Vorys stared keenly at Raymond and said,
"Would you trace briefly for us the history of your laboratory, the
nature of your process, and the results you have obtained so far."
Speaking easily and freely now, Raymond told of the original Beller
bequest, the gathering-together of the laboratory staff, the early
failures. He outlined a rough sketch of the technique as it was now
practiced. "To date we've had about seventy successful reanimations,"
he finished.
"And how many failures have there been?"
"About ten out of the seventy. Previous to our first successful
reanimation we had thirty consecutive failures."
"I see. And what is the nature of these failures?"
Raymond began to fidget. "Ah--well, we don't succeed in restoring life."
"The body remains inanimate?"
"Yes. Most of the time, that is. I mean--"
It was too late. Vorys pounced on the slip gleefully and said, "Most
of the time, Dr. Raymond? I don't quite understand. Does that mean
that some of your failures result in actual reanimation, or _partial_
reanimation? Will you make yourself clear?"
Panicky, Raymond glanced at Harker, who shrugged and nodded resignedly.
_It had to come out eventually_, Harker thought.
The squirming Raymond was a pitiful sight under the merciless lights.
He said in a hopeless voice, "I guess I ought to be more specific."
"That would help, Dr. Raymond."
"Well," Raymond said, "Counting the boy we reanimated when you were at
the labs, Senator, we've had 72 reanimations since the first success.
No, 73. In 62 of those cases, we've had c-complete success. In four
others, it was impossible for us to restore life at all. And in the
remaining seven"--_now it comes out_, Harker thought--"we achieved
reanimation with partial success."
"In what way partial?" Vorys pressed.
Raymond had run out of evasions. He said, "We restored the body to
functional activity. We were unable to achieve a similar restoration of
the mind, in those seven cases."