It was a voice-test. Someone yelled out, “Harker’s fine! Raymond could stand 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 the discoveries of the Beller Research Laboratories, I hereby ask for your attention and call this hearing 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, Dr. 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 this 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 reanimation 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 aftereffects 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 Seller 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?”
“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 Marker, 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 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.”
Chapter XVII
The newspapers had a field day with Raymond’s unwilling revelation. Even the traditionally sedate Times devoted six of its eight columns to a banner headline about it, and a story which began:
Public faith in the Beller reanimation process was seriously shaken today by the surprising revelation that reanimation sometimes produces a mentally deficient individual.
Dr. Martin Raymond, head of the Beller research organization, made the statement in New York at the opening session of Senate reanimation hearings. He declared that seven out of seventy-three experimental reanhnations had produced “mindless beings.” In four other instances, neither body nor mind was successfully recalled to life.
In the other papers, it was even worse. The Star-Post, which had been growing more sympathetic each day, demanded atop its editorial column, WHY HAVE THEY BEEN HIDING THIS? The Hearst papers, which had never been sympathetic to the cause of reanimation, grew almost apoplectic now; their key slogan was the label, “The Zombie-Makers,” which they used in reference to the Beller researchers not only in the editorial (a vitriolic one) but even in several of the news columns.
At the Litchfield headquarters, the flood of abusive mail threatened to overpower the local postmaster. It was impossible to read it all, and after Harker picked up a scrawled letter that threatened assassination for him and his entire family unless reanimation experiments ceased, he decided to read none of it at all. They stored it in one of the supply-buildings in back, and Harker gave orders that any overflow was to be destroyed unread.
On the second day of hearings, a few new faces were in the auditorium. They were faces Harker did not enjoy seeing. They belonged to Cal Mitchison and David Klaus, and with them was their lawyer, Gerhardt.
With Senator Thurman still not found, Brewster presided over the second session—a heavy-set, slow-moving man with the ponderously tenacious mind that went with those physical characteristics. With the opening formalities out of the way, Brewster said, “We would like to hear from Dr. David Klaus, formerly of the Beller Research Laboratories.”
Harker was on his feet immediately. “Senator Brewster, I’d like to enter an objection. This man is the principal in a lawsuit pending against our laboratory. Anything he says in his favor this morning may be prejudicial to us in the lawsuit.”
Brewster shook his head slowly. “This is not a court of law, Mr. Harker. We are interested in hearing Dr. Klaus’ statements. You will have ample time to refute them later, if you wish.”