Only one issue had not been raised yet—luckily, for it was the deadliest of all, having a basis of truth. No one had accused the Seller people of murdering Senator Thurman.
It was a logical accusation, against the background of insane charges already raised. After all, Thurman had been the most vigorous and most important of the enemies of reanimation, and he had disappeared on the eve of the hearings themselves! It seemed obvious to Harker that someone would think of implying that the Beller group had done away with their tough, intractable enemy.
But no one raised the cry, perhaps because it was too obvious. A thousandth time, Harker was grateful for that momentary impulse of steely purposefulness that had led him to condemn Barchet to continuing death. Of the six people who had known the fate of Senator Thurman, only Barchet was likely to crack and reveal the truth—and Barchet was out of the picture now.
The eighth day of the hearing came and went; Vorys grilled poor Lurie mercilessly on minor scientific details, while Brewster got Vogel to explain some of the surgical fine-points of the reanimation technique.
“You have to admire those two boys,” Harker said after that session. “They’ve really brushed up on the pertinent subjects.”
“I haven’t had a quizzing like that since I left medical school,” Vogel said, nervously tugging at the dark strands of his beard.
“And for what?” Raymond wanted to know. “Just to use up the taxpayers’ money. They’ve found out all they want to know about us.”
Harker nodded gloomily. You only had to pick up any newspaper, listen to any reasonably right-wing news commentator, attend any church, even walk in the street and talk to people at random.
The response was the same. Fear.
Fear of reanimation; fear of that one-chance-out-of-six that the result would be a so-called “zombie.” Desperately Harker tried to counteract the swelling tide of fear. He scraped up money for a full-page ad in the Times, headed, THROW OUT THE BABY WITH THE BATHWATER?
His line of argument was that the reanimation process should not be condemned for its failures, but praised for its successes. It was in the early stages, the experimental years. What if aviation had been suppressed because of the early crashes? Research had to go on.
The response to the advertisement was a lessening of hysteria in responsible places; the Times itself echoed his feelings in its own editorial the next day. But he sensed he was not reaching the people. And the people feared reanimation. There was no doubt of that, now.
The hearing rolled along into early June, and then one day Dixon announced that this was the last week; the committee would enter private deliberations preparatory to delivering its findings to the Senate as a whole.
Harker approached Senator Dixon privately and said, “Tell me, Senator—how are our chances?”
The Wyoming liberal frowned quizzically. “Hard to say. The Committee’s deadlocked two-and-two, you see. We may fight all summer about it.”
“Vorys and Brewster are dead against it?”
“Absolutely. They heed the voice of the people, you see, Every minority party has to. It’s the way they became a majority again.”
Harker said doubtfully, “How’s the feeling in high Nat-Lib circles?”
Dixon shrugged. “Right now, the feeling runs toward taking the Beller labs over and continuing reanimation research under federal supervision—with you and Raymond still in charge, of course.”
“Fine!”
“Not so fast,” Dixon warned. “We’ve got a Congressional majority, but that doesn’t mean a thing. The way the people are murmuring, it looks pretty bad for getting that measure through.”
“You mean you may have to switch your stand?”
Dixon nodded. “Jim, you know all about political expediency. You tried to knock down the stone wall when you were Governor, and got nowhere. If the people say, junk reanimation, then we’ll have to junk it.”
Hotly Harker said, “Junk it? The way I was junked as Governor?”
Dixon smiled. “I’m afraid so. It’s this business of the seven idiots, Jim. That scares people more than you can imagine.”
“But we can lick that problem—eventually!”
“Maybe you can. But the voters don’t believe that. All they see is the short-range possibility. And they’re more afraid of having a loved one turn into a zombie than they are of death. After all, you can’t very well kill your wife or son or father if you’ve had him reanimated and he turns out to be an idiot. You have to go on supporting him. It’s pretty frightening.”
Doggedly Harker said, “I think we can get over that particular hump.”
“Then reanimation’s in. Jim, I’m not so foolish as to think that we can ever go back to where we were two months ago. The Beller process exists; it can’t be destroyed. But it can be batted around in committee and sidechannelled and circumvented until the time is ripe for popular acceptance. And the Party may have to do that to you, though I hope it doesn’t happen.”
“Do you think it will, though? ”
Again the sad smile. “Read the newspapers, man. Read your mail!”
Harker read his mail.
He ploughed through hundreds of vicious, sweat-provoking letters. He sorted them out: favorable on one side, unfavorable on the other. The unfavorable pile grew so high it toppled over, and he started a new one; the pile of encouraging letters was no more than three inches thick.
They were letters of raw hate, most of them. The kind of thing that went, My beloved mother/father/sister/brother/son/daughter/aunt/uncle/grandmother/grandfather/ died last week, and I want to tell you she/he had a decent Christian burial and went to his/her eternal repose. Naturally I feel sorrow at my loss, but Yd rather be dead mysetf than let a loved one of mine get into your hands. Sure, maybe you’ll bring him/her back to life—but who wants to see the hollow mindless shell of someone you once loved? Not me, brother. Not me.
It was an enlarging experience to read those letters. Even when he had held public office, Harker had never received so many, nor such loaded ones.
It was astonishing. They gloated in the triumph of death, they thanked God they had not allowed their beloved ones to be reanimated, they extended curses for Harker and his whole family. He was the target of their hate, the symbol for reanimation.
At first he was irritated, then angered; anger passed, and turned into compassion. Perhaps some of these same people had written to him a month ago, pleading to have a loved one restored to them by the new miracle of science. Now, confused by the haze of conflicting tales, of lies and partial truths, their earlier willingness turned to repulsion.
Harker wearily baled the letters up again, and left Litchfield to spend some time with his puzzled, unhappy family. They were accustomed to seeing their father’s name in the headlines; it was old stuff to them. But this public hatred was new to them, and difficult for them to understand.
It was not too late, Harker thought. The forces of confusion could be put to rout; the dominion of death could at last have boundaries staked out.
But the public faith had to be regained. Some spectacular demonstration, some act of faith that would capture their imagination and end the sway of ignorance.
But what? How?
Harker had no answer. And the answer, when it came, arrived from an unexpected quarter.
Chapter XIX
At litchfteld again, the next day, Harker was reading through a lab report, comprehending not very much of it, when a diffident knock sounded outside his door.