Recalled to Life

Chapter VI

The grand tour of the laboratory grounds was as disturbing as it was stimulating. Seemingly tireless, Raymond marched him through room after room where elaborate experiments were going on.

“Serotonin-diffraction goes on in here. This room’s plasma research; remind me to bring you back some time when the big centrifuge is running. Fascinating. This is Klaus’ enzyme lab, and down here—”

Harker puffed along behind the lab director, listening to the flow of unfamiliar terms, dazzled by the array of formidable scientific devices. He saw kennels where lively dogs bounded joyfully up and down and struggled to lick his hands through the cage; it was a little jarring to learn that every dog in the room had been “dead” at least once, for periods ranging from a few minutes to twenty-eight hours. He met a grave little rhesus monkey that held the record; it had been dead thirty-nine hours, two months before.

“We had a pair of them,” Raymond said. “We brought this fellow back at the 39-hour mark, and held the other off for nine more hours in hopes of hitting a full two days. We didn’t make it. The surviving monk moped for days about it.”

Harker nodded. He was swept on; into a large room lined with ledgers, which Raymond said contained all the records of the Beller Laboratories since its opening in 2024. White-smocked researchers turned to look up as Harker and his guide passed through into a long, well-lit lab room, then out into the afternoon warmth and across to the other building, for more of the same.

“Well,” Harker said finally, after they had returned to Raymond’s office. “It’s a busy place.”

Raymond nodded. “We keep it moving. And it gets results. Despite everything, it gets results.”

Despite everything. Harker didn’t like the implications of that. He was beginning to form a picture of Raymond as an able man surrounded by stumbling-blocks and obstacles, and bulling his way through none-the-less. He wondered how it would be once he got the campaign into full swing, not too many weeks from now.

Harker leaned back, trying to relax. Raymond said, “Is it too early for you to give me an outline of the program you’re planning?”

Harker hunched his shoulders forward uneasily. “It’s still in the formative stage. I’m seeing Governor Winstead on Friday, as you know, and early next week I’ll go down to Washington and talk to Senator Thurman. If we get them on our side, the rest is relatively easy.”

“And if we don’t?”

Harker did not smile. “Then we have a fight.”

“Why do you say that? Can’t we just set up an instruction center and start resuscitating? ”

“Pardon me, Mart, if I say that your approach’s a naive one. We can’t do any such thing. Not even if you limit use of the apparatus to fully qualified M.D.s. You see, anything as radical as this will have to be routed through the Federal Health Department, and they’ll simply boot it on up to the President, and he’ll refer it to Congress. What we need is a law making use of your technique legal.”

“Is there any law saying it’s illegal to reanimate the dead?” Raymond asked.

“Not yet. But you can bet there’ll be an attempt to ram one through, before long. Which is why we have to put through a law of our own.”

Raymond fell silent; his blue-cheeked face looked grave. An idea occurred to Harker and he said, “Do you have any idea how big our public-relations budget is?”

Raymond shrugged. “Pretty big. I guess you can have three or four hundred thousand, if you need it.”

“Three or four hundred million is more in line with what we’ll need,” Harker said. He saw the stunned expression on Raymond’s face and added, “Certainly at least a million, to begin with.”

“But why? Why should it be necessary to sell the idea of restoring life? You’d think the people of America would rise up and acclaim us as saviors.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Harker shook his head bleakly. “It doesn’t work that way, Mart. For one thing, they’ll be afraid to try it. There’ll be plenty of ‘zombie’ jokes, and behind those jokes will be unvoiced fear. Uh-uh, Mart. If we’re going to put this thing across, we’ll need a big public-relations budget. And we can’t let a bubblehead like Mitchison handle the job.”

“It’ll take a little time to fire him.”

“Why?”

“You heard Barchet. Mitchison’s Barchet’s man. We’ll have to go through shareholder channels to get rid of Mitchison.”

“How long will that take?”

“Two weeks, maybe three,” Raymond said. “Will that hold things up too badly? ”

“We’ll manage,” Harker said tiredly.

Harker spent the next morning, Wednesday, at his office, tidying up unfinished business. The delayer on the Bryant hearing had come through, and he read the document carefully, scowled, and jammed it into his desk drawer. He phoned the Bryant home and learned that the old man was very low; the doctor refused to let Harker speak with him. Harker suspected the fine hand of Jonathan Bryant lurking behind that ukase, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The old man wasn’t going to last forever, anyway-but Harker genuinely wanted him to hold out until after the hearing, at least.

Nasty business. Jonathan had deliberately obtained the stay of hearing with the hope that his father would die before the case came up.

He left the office at noon, spent some time downtown in the public library trying to find some books that would give him a little scientific background, and headed for home about four that afternoon. His home life had been suffering, a bit, in the week since he had plunged himself fully into the Beller Labs project. He had been coming home at odd hours, which upset Lois’ routine, and his attitude was one of withdrawn introversion, which made things tough on the children. Still, they all were very cooperative about it, Harker thought. He hoped he could make it up to them when the pressure let up.

If the pressure ever let up.

Thursday passed slowly. Harker remained at home, in his study, and tried to read the books he had brought from the library. He was surprised to learn that formal resuscitation research dated from the middle years of the past century. He traced down a few of the terms Raymond had thrown at him, and learned a bit about the mechanics of the Beller reanimation technique.

But, he realized when he put the books down, he knew very little in detail. He had simply skimmed the surface, acquiring a veneer of terms which he could use to impress the even-less-educated.

A politician’s trick, he thought. But what else could he do?

He woke early on Friday, before six, and made breakfast for himself. By the time he had turned off the autocook and set the kitchen-servo to mopup, Lois and the children were moving about upstairs. They had come down for breakfast before he was ready to leave.

“Morning, Dad,” Chris said. “Up early, eh?”

“I have to make a 9:30 jet,” he explained. “It’s the last one before noon.”

Paul appeared, thumbing his eyes, yawning. “Where you going, Daddy?”

“Albany,” Harker said.

The seven-year-old looked awake immediately. “Albany? Are you Governor again, Daddy?”

“Hush, stupid!” Chris said savagely.

But Harker merely smiled and shook his head. “No, I won’t be Governor any more, Paul. I’m going to visit Mr. Winstead. He’s the Governor now.”

“Oh,” the boy said gravely.

Harker reached the West Side jet terminal at ten after nine. The big 150-seater was out on the field, surrounded by attendants. It would make the trip to Albany in just under thirteen minutes.

It was a silly business. It took him twice that long to get to the terminal from his home. But modern transportation was full of such paradoxes.

At nine-thirty-five the great ship erupted from the landing-strip; not much later it was roaring over Westchester, and not very much after that it was taxiing to a smooth and uneventful landing just outside Albany.

Thirteen minutes. And it took twenty-five minutes more for the jetport bus to bring them across the Hudson into Albany proper after the flight.

His appointment with Governor Winstead was for eleven that morning. Declining the public transport service, Harker walked through town to the governor’s mansion-a walk that he had come to know well, in his four years in Albany.

The town hadn’t changed much. Still third-rate, dirty, bedraggled; one of his proposed reforms had been to move the Capital downstate to New York City, where it really belonged, but naturally the force of sentiment was solidly against him, not to mention the American-Conservative Party, whose New York stronghold Albany was.

He smiled at the memory. He had fought so many losing battles, in his four years as Governor.

The guards at Winstead’s mansion recognized him, of course, and tipped their hats. Harker grinned amiably at them and passed through, but he felt inward discomfort. Their jobs were pegged down by civil-service regulations; his was not, and he had lost his. In an odd way it made him feel inferior.

He travelled the familiar journey upstairs to the Governor’s office. Winstead was there to greet him with outstretched hand and a faintly abashed smile.

“Jim. So glad you could come up here.”

“It’s not a courtesy call, Leo. I’m here to ask some advice.”

“Any way I can help, Jim, you know I will.”

Harker experienced a moment of disorientation as he took a seat facing Winstead across the big desk that had been his until a few months ago. It was strange to sit on this side of the desk.

He looked for ways to begin saying what he had come here to say. He sensed the other man’s deep embarrassment, and shared it in a way, because the awkwardness of this first meeting between Governor and ex-Governor was complex and many-levelled.

Winstead was ten years his senior: a good party man, a reliable workhorse who had come up through the ranks of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, and who had turned down a judgeship because he thought he had a shot at the race for Governor. But the party had chosen the bright, me-teorically-rising young Mayor, James Harker, to be the standard-bearer instead, and an avalanche of Nat-Lib votes from downstate had swept Harker in.

Then it had been necessary to discard Harker four years later, and good dependable old Leo Winstead was trotted out of private law practice to take his place. The Nat-Lib tide held true; Winstead was elected, and now it was the ex-prodigy who entered private law practice instead of using the Governorship as a springboard into the White House.

Harker said, “Leo, you carry weight with the party. I don’t any more.”

“Jim, I—”

“Don’t try to apologize, Leo, because it’s my own fault and none of yours that I’m where I am now. I’m simply asking you to exert some influence on behalf of a project I’m involved in.”

It was a naked attempt at lobbying. Harker hoped Win-stead’s unconscious guilt-feelings would lead him to support the Beller people.

“What sort of project, Jim?”

“It’s-it’s a sort of revolutionary breakthrough in science, Leo. A process to reanimate people who have been dead less than twenty-four hours.”

Winstead sat up. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. I’m going down to Washington next week to see Thurman. This thing really works-and I want to get it legally approved.”

“And where do I come in?”

“You’re a powerful official, Leo. If you came out in praise of this new development—”

“Dangerous business, Jim. The Church—”

“I know all about the Church. And you can bet our friends the American-Conservatives will make some kind of political capital about the news. The Nat-Libs will have to take a favorable stand on this.”

“Suppose we don’t?” Winstead asked. His voice was tense and off-center; he ran his knotty hands nervously through his bushy shock of white hair. “You know as well as I do that this is no time to hop off supporting anything too farfetched.”

Barker began to feel a sense of exasperation. “Farfetched? Leo, I saw a dead man come back to life right in front of me. If you think—”

“I don’t think anything. Thinking’s not my job. If you’ll pardon my saying so, Jim, you did too much thinking for your own good when you were in Albany. This thing has to be handled with kid gloves. It wouldn’t surprise me if the government clamps down and bottles it all up until it’s been fully explored.”

“Federal Research Act of ’92,” Harker said thinly. “It guarantees freedom of research without government interference, as you know well enough.”

Winstead seemed to be perspiring heavily. “Laws can be repealed or amended, Jim. Listen here: why don’t you go see Thurman? Find out how he stands on the matter. Then come back here and maybe we can talk about it again.”

It was obviously a dismissal. Winstead had no intentions of getting involved with something that had so many ramifications as this.

Tiredly Harker rose. “Okay. I’ll see Thurman.”

“Good.”

“One more thing, Leo-this project hasn’t been announced to the public yet. Since you’re aware of the fuss it’s going to kick up, I hope you’ll be thoughtful enough to keep your mouth shut until we’re ready to spring it ourselves.”

“Of course, Jim. Of course.”