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 210 Princeton Road, Rockville Centre, L.I., treasurer of the Better Research Laboratories, died of a heart attack at the Better office in Litchfield, New Jersey yesterday. His age was 61.
Mr. Barchet joined the organization of the late oil operator D. F. Better in 2014, after serving as a vice-president of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Upon Mr. Belter’s death ten years later, he became a trustee of the Better 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 Seller 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 abide 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 Research 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 wilful 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 Seller 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, Marker 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 Thurrnan, 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 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 Nationa 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 intersted 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 under foot 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.”