“Understandable. If that’s the whole trouble—”
“It isn’t. Jim, you have to understand that death is a tremendous shock to the nervous system-the biggest shock there is. That goes without saying. Sometimes the shock is so great that it short-circuits the brain, so to speak. And so even though we can achieve physiological reanimation, the mind—ah—the mind is not always reanimated with the body.”
Harker was stunned as if by a physical blow. He took one step backward, groped for a chair, and lowered himself into it. Forcing himself to keep calm he said, “Just how often does this happen?”
“About one out of every six tries, so far.”
“I see. ” He drew in his breath sharply, cleared his throat, and fought to hang on to his self-control. The whole thing had taken on an unreal dreamlike atmosphere in the past two hours. And this was the crusher.
So one out of six revivifications produced a live idiot? Great, Harker thought. So a public demonstration will be like a game of Russian Roulette. One chance out of six that the whole show will blow up in our faces.
“How long will it take you to iron this thing out?” he asked.
“All I can say is that we’re working toward it.”
“Okay. Forget the demonstration. We don’t dare try it until things calm down. Remind me to cut your throat for this, Mart. Later.”
There was a knock on the door. Harker nodded to Barchet, who opened it. One of the laboratory guards stood outside.
“The reporters are getting out of hand,” he said. “They want to know when they’re getting their statement.”
Harker stood up and said, “It’s five minutes to eleven now. Tell them that I’ll have a statement for them before noon.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me a typewriter,” Harker said to Raymond.
A typewriter was produced. Harker fed a sheet of paper in, switched on the current, and began to type. He composed a hasty 250-word statement disowning Mitchison, crediting Raymond as head of the project, and declaring that full details of the technique would be released as soon as they were ready.
He signed it James Harker, and added parenthetically, (Former Governor of New York—now legal adviser to Seller Research Laboratories.)
“Here,” he said, handing the release to Raymond. “Read this thing through and approve it, Mart. Then get it mimeographed and distributed to that wolfpack out there. Is there a vidset around anywhere?”
“In A Lounge,” Lurie offered.
A Lounge was in the small dormitory in back. Harker said, “I’m going there to pick up the news reports. Lurie, I’m requisitioning you to set up office space for me someplace in Dormitory A. I want a phone, a vidset, a radio, and a typewriter. And I don’t care who has to get pushed out of the way.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
He jogged across the clearing toward Dormitory A, pausing only to look back briefly at the horde of newsmen straining at the barrier down the hill. A Lounge was packed with lab researchers, clustered around the video. They moved to one side as Harker entered.
He recognized Vogel and said to the bearded surgeon, “Has there been much about us on yet?”
Vogel laughed. “Much? Hardly anything but!”
Harker stared at the screen. A newscaster’s solemn face stared back. “... a discovery of staggering importance, if we can credit this morning’s release. Further details will be brought to you as bulletins the moment information is received at the network newsroom.”
Harker wrenched the channel-selector dial one turn to the left. A new voice, equally crisp and solemn, was saying: “. . . called for an immediate Senate investigation. The cry was echoed by Nat-Lib Senator Clyde Thurman, who declared that such a scientific finding would have to be placed under careful Federal regulation.”
A third channel offered: “. . . the President had no comment on the news, pending further details. Vice-President Chalmers, attending a meeting in Detroit, coimnented: ‘This is not as incredible a development as superficial appearances would indicate. Science has long had the power to save human lives; this is merely the next step. We should not lose our sense of proportion in considering this matter? ”
Harker felt a sudden need for fresh air. He muscled his way through the crowded lounge and out onto the dormitory porch.
Confusion reigned everywhere. His tentative plans for making a careful survey of the situation had gone up in one puff of press-agentry; from now on, he would have to improvise, setting his course with desperate agility.
He tried to tell himself that things would quiet down before long, once the initial impact had expended itself. But he was too well schooled in the study of mass human behavior to be able to make himself believe any such naive hope.
The man in the street could only be thinking one thing now: that the power of death over humanity had ended. In future days, death would have no dominion.
But how would they react? Jubilantly, or with terror? What would they say when they learned that five times out of six, life could be restored—but the sixth time a mindless idiot was the product?
Fear and trembling lay ahead, and days of uncertainty. Harker let the warm mid-May sun beat down on him; he stared up at the sky as if looking into tomorrow.
The sky held no answers. Confusion would be tomorrow’s watchword. And there was no turning back, now, not for any of them.
Chapter IX
Barker held his first news-conference at three-thirty that afternoon, in the hastily-rigged room that was now his Litchfield office.
By that time, it had occurred to him that he had become, not only the legal adviser of the laboratories, but the public spokesman, publicity director, and chairman of the board as well. Everyone, Raymond included, seemed perfectly willing to delegate responsibility to him.
He made a list of eight selected media representatives—three newspapers, both press services, two video networks and one radio network, and invited them to send men to his conference. No others were allowed in.
He told them very concisely what the Beller technique was, how it had been developed, and what it could do. He used a few technical terms that he had picked up from his weekend reading. He did not mention the fact that the technique was not without flaws.
When he had finished his explanation, he called for questions. Surprisingly few were forthcoming. The news seemed to have stilled the tongues of even these veteran reporters.
At the close of the conference he said, “Headquarters for further Beller news will be right here. I’ll try to make myself available for comment about the same time every afternoon.”
He watched them go. He wondered how much of what he had said would reach the public undistorted, and how much would emerge in garbled and sensationalized form.
Toward evening, he started finding out.
Harker reached his home in Larchmont about seven that evening, utterly exhausted. Lois was at the door, anxious-faced, tense.
“Jim! I’ve been listening to the news all day. So have the boys. Your name’s been mentioned every time.”
“That’s nice,” Harker said wearily. He unsnapped his shoes and nodded hello to his sons, who stared at him strangely as if he had undergone some strange transformation during the day.
“I’ll be spending most of my time at Litchfield until things get calmer,” he said. “I may even have to sleep out there for a while.”
The phone rang suddenly. Harker started to go for it, then changed his mind and said, “Find out who it is, first. If it’s anybody official tell them I’m not home yet. Except Raymond.”