“I’d like to speak to Father Carteret, please. My name is James Harker.”
“Pardon, Mr. Harker. Father Carteret is in conference with Bishop O’Loughlin. Would you care to have him call you when he’s free?”
“When will that be?”
“A half hour, I’d say. Is your matter urgent? ”
“Reasonably. Tell the Monseigneur I’d like to make an appointment to see him some time today or tomorrow, and ask him to call me at my office.”
“Does he have your number?”
“I think so. But you’d better take it anyway, just to make sure. MON-4-38162.”
He blanked the screen, waited a moment, and dialed the number Raymond had given him to use when calling the Laboratory. The pale, goggle-eyed face of David Klaus appeared on the screen.
“I’d like to talk to Raymond.”
“Dr. Raymond’s busy in the hormone lab,” Klaus said sharply. “Try again in an hour or so.”
Harker frowned impatiently; he had taken an immediate dislike to this jittery little enzyme researcher. He said, “You tell Raymond—”
“Just a minute,” a new voice said. There was confusion on the screen for an instant; then Klaus’ face disappeared and the precise, tranquil features of Martin Raymond took their place.
“I thought you were busy in the hormone lab,” Harker said. “Klaus told me so.”
Raymond laughed without much humor behind it. “Klaus is frequently inaccurate, Mr. Harker. What’s on your mind?”
“Thought I’d let you know that I’m getting down to immediate operation. I’m lining up interviews with key people for today and tomorrow as a preliminary investigation of your legal situation.”
“Good. By the way—Mitchison’s prepared some publicity handouts on the process. He wants you to okay them before we send them to the papers.”
Harker repressed a strangled cough. “Okay them? Listen, Mart, that’s exactly why I called. My first official instruction is that the present wrap of ultra-security is to continue unabated until I’m ready to lift it. Tell that to Mitchison and tell him in spades.”
Raymond smiled evenly. “Of course—Jim. All secrecy wraps on until you give the word. I’ll let Mitchison know.”
“Good. I’ll be out at the lab sometime between here and Wednesday to find out some further information. I’ll keep in touch whenever I can.”
“Right.”
Marker broke contact and stared puzzledly at the tips of his fingers for a moment. His uneasiness widened. His original suspicion that behind the smooth facade of the Beller Research Laboratories lay possible dissension was heightened by Klaus’ peculiar behavior on the phone—and the idea of Mitchison doing anything as premature as sending out press handouts now, before the ground had been surveyed and the ice broken, gave him the cold running shudders.
It was going to be enough of a job putting this thing across as it was—without tripping over the outstretched toes of his employers.
Chapter V
Monseigneur Carteret’s private office reminded Harker somehow of Mart Raymond’s. Like Raymond’s, it was small, and like Raymond’s it was ringed round with jammed bookshelves. The furniture was unostentatious, old and well-worn. As a concession to die 21st Century, Carteret had installed a video pickup and a telescreen attachment to go with his phone. A small crucifix hung on the one wall not encumbered with books.
Carteret leaned forward and peered curiously at Harker. The priest, Harker knew, suffered from presbyopia. He was a lean man with the sharp facial contours of an ascetic: up-thrust cheekbones, lowering brows, grizzled close-cropped hair turning gray. His lips were fleshless, pale.
Harker said, “I have to apologize for insisting on such a prompt audience, Father.”
Carteret frowned reprovingly. “You told me yesterday it was an urgent matter. To me urgency means—well, urgency. My column for the Intelligencer can wait a few hours, I guess.”
His voice was dramatically resonant. He flashed his famous smile.
Harker said, “Fair enough. I’m here seeking an ecclesiastical opinion.”
“I’ll do my best. You understand that any real opinion on a serious matter would have to come from the Bishop, not from me—and ultimately from Rome.”
“I know that. I wouldn’t want this to get to Rome just yet. I want a private, off-the-record statement from you.”
“I’ll try. Go ahead.”
Harker took a deep breath. “Father, what’s the official Church position on resurrection of the dead? Actual physical resurrection here and now, I mean.”
Carteret’s eyes twinkled. “Officially? Well, I’ve never heard Jesus being condemned for raising Lazarus. And on the third day after the crucifixion Jesus Himself was raised, if that’s what you mean. I don’t see—”
“Let me make myself clear,” Harker said. “The Resurrection of Jesus and of Lazarus both fall into the miracle category. Suppose—suppose a mortal being, a doctor, could take a man who had been dead eight or nine hours, or even a day, and bring him back to life.”
Carteret looked momentarily troubled. “You speak hypothetically, of course.” When Harker did not answer he went on, “Our doctrine holds that death occurs at the moment of ‘complete and definitive separation of body and soul.’ Presumably the process you discuss makes no provision for restoring the soul.”
Harker shrugged. “I’m not capable to judge that. Neither, I’d say, are the men who have developed this—ah—hypothetical process.”
“In that case,” Carteret said, “The official Church position would be that any human beings revived by this method would be without souls, and therefore no longer human. The whole procedure would be considered profoundly irreligious.”
“Blasphemous and sacrilegious as well?”
“No doubt.”
Harker was silent for a moment. He said at length, “How about artificial respiration, heart massage, adrenalin injections? For decades seemingly dead people have been brought back to life with these techniques. Are they all without souls too?”
Carteret seemed to squirm. His strong fingers toyed with a cruciform paperweight on his desk. “I recall a statement of Pius XII, eighty or ninety years ago, about that. The Pope admitted that it was impossible to tell precisely when the soul had left the body-and that so long as the vital functions maintained themselves, it could be held that the person in question was not dead.”
“In other words, if resuscitation techniques could be applied successfully, the patient is considered never to have been dead?”
Carteret nodded slowly.
“But if the patient had been pronounced dead by science and left in that state for half a day or more, and then reanimated by a hypothetical new technique-?”
“In that case there has been a definite discontinuity of the life-process,” Carteret said. “I may be wrong, but I can’t see how the Vatican could give such a technique its approval.”
“Ever?”
Carteret smiled. “Jim, it’s a verity that the Church is founded on a Rock, but that doesn’t mean our heads are made of stone. No organization lasts two thousand years without being susceptible to change. If in the course of time we’re shown that a reanimation technique restores both body and soul, no doubt we’ll give it approval. At present, though, I can foresee only one outcome.”
Harker knotted his fingers together tensely. The priest’s response had not been a surprise to him, but he had hoped for some wild loophole. If any loophole existed, Carteret would have found it.
Quietly he said, “All right, Father. I’ll put my cards on the table now. Such a process has been invented. I’ve seen it work. I’ve been retained as legal adviser for the group that developed it, and I’m shopping around for religious and secular opinions before I let them spring the news on the public.”