“You want my secular opinion, Jim, now that you’ve had the religious one?”
“Of course.”
“Drop it. Get out of this thing as fast as you can. You’re asking for trouble.”
“I know that. But I can only see this process as a force for good-for minimizing tragedy in everyday life.”
“Naturally. And I could offer you six arguments showing how it’ll increase suffering. Is it a complex technique requiring skilled operators?”
“Yes, but—”
“In that case it won’t be available to everybody right away. Are you going to decide who lives and who stays dead? Suppose you’re faced with the choice between a good and virtuous nobody or an evil but talented creative artist.”
“I know. I don’t have any slick answers to that, Father. But I still don’t think it’s any reason to suppress this thing.”
“Maybe not. On a purely secular level, though, I tell you it’s sheer dynamite. Not to mention the opposition you’re bound to get from religious groups. Jim, listen to me: you had a wonderful career once. You wrecked it. But now you’re continuing your headstrong ways right to the point of self-destruction.”
“Which is frowned upon by your Church,” Harker snapped, irritated. “But—”
“I’m not talking about my Church!” Carteret thundered. “I’m talking about you, your family, the rest of your life. You’re getting into very deep waters.” “I’ll shoulder the responsibility myself.” “I wish you could,” the priest murmured. “I wish any of us could. But we can’t ever do that, of course.”
He shrugged. “Go in peace, Jim. Any time you want to talk to me, just pick up the phone and call. I guarantee no proselytizing.”
“Of course everything we’ve just said is confidential, you understand.”
Carteret nodded. He lifted his arms, shaking the sleeves of his cassock back. “Observe. No concealed tape-recorders under my garments. No telespies in the wall.”
Chuckling, Harker opened the door and stood at the threshold a moment. “Thanks for talking to me, Father. Even if I can’t agree with you.”
“I’m used to disagreement,” Carteret said. “If everyone who came in here agreed with everything I said, I think I’d lose my faith. So long, Jim.” “Goodbye, Father.”
Harker emerged on the steps of the old cathedral where Carteret had his office, paused for a few deep breaths, and looked around. Fifth Avenue was humming with activity, here at noontime on a Tuesday in mid-month.
He thought: Tuesday, May 14, 2033. A pleasant late-spring day. And any time I decide to give the word, the entire nature of human philosophy will change.
Harker walked downtown to 43rd Street, stopped in for a quick coffee, and headed toward the Monorail Terminal.
Puffing businessmen clutching attache cases sped past him, each on some business of no doubt vital importance, each blithely shortening his life-span with each new ulcer and each new deposit of cholesterol in the arteries. Well, before long it would be possible to bring these fat executives back to life each time they keeled over, Marker thought. What a frantic speedup would result then!
He bought a round-trip ticket to Litchfield and boarded the slim graceful yellow-hulled bullet that was the New Jersey monobus. He sat back, cushioning himself against the first jolt of acceleration, and waited for departure.
The eleventh commandment: thou need not die. Harker shivered a little at the magnitude of the Beller project; each day he realized a little more deeply the true awesome nature of the whole breakthrough.
Mitchison was waiting for him at the Litchfield monobus depot in the big black limousine. Harker climbed in, sitting next to the public-relations man on the front seat.
“Well?” Mitchison jammed his cigar into one corner of his mouth. “What did the padre have to say?”
“Precisely what we all expected.”
“Nix?”
“His unofficial feeling is that the Church will condemn this thing the second it’s announced.”
“Umm. Take some heavy thinking to cancel that out. How about the politicos?”
The car pulled into the Beller Labs private road. Harker said, “I’m going to Albany later in the week to see Governor Winstead. After him I’ll go after Senator Thurman. Depending on what they say—”
“The hell with that,” Mitchison growled. “When do you figure we can release this thing to the public?”
Harker turned round in his seat. In a level voice he said, “When you’re planning to touch off a fusion bomb, you look around first and make sure you won’t get scragged yourself. Same here. This project’s been kept under wraps for eight years, and I’m damned if I’ll release anything now until I see exactly where we all stand.”
“And you’ll pussyfoot around for months?”
“What do you care?” Harker demanded. “Are you getting paid by the week or by the amount of publicity you send out?”
Mitchison grunted something but made no intelligible answer. They pulled up at the roadblock and Marker got out at the right; the guards nodded curtly to him this time but made no attempt to interfere as he headed toward the administration building. Mitchison took his car to the parking-area.
Knocking at Raymond’s door, Harker said, “You there, Mart?”
The door opened. A diminutive hatchet-faced man peered up at him. “Hello, Harker.”
Taken off balance, Harker blinked a moment, then said, “Hello. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“You’ve seen my name. At the bottom of your check. I’m Barchet. Administrator of the Beller Fund.”
Harker smiled at the little man and looked past him to Raymond. He shook his head. “It’s no go, Mart. The Father says the Church will oppose us.”
Raymond shrugged. “We could have figured on that, I guess. You see Winstead on Friday?”
Harker nodded. “I hope for better luck there.” “Doubtful,” Barchet snorted. His voice was an annoying saw-edged whine. Harker wondered whether the little man was going to be around the Litchfield labs very often; he had a deep dislike for moneymen.
Ignoring Barchet’s comment, Harker said to Raymond, “Mart, how solid is the tenure of the people in this organization?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do all the affiliated men have verbal contracts like me, or are some inked in black-and-white?” “Most of the research men have verbal agreements.” “How about Mitchison?”
Barchet turned to peer at Harker. Raymond frowned and said, “Why Mitchison?”
“I’ll be blunt,” Harker said. “I’d like to bounce him. He doesn’t seem very capable and he’s awfully trigger-happy about releasing data on the project. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to bring in a couple of the boys who handled my gubernatorial campaign. They—”
Interrupting icily, Barchet said, “It seems to me we have more than enough people of radical political affiliation working for us now. Anyone who handled a Nat-Lib campaign would be no asset to our work.”
Harker goggled. “I was a Nat-Lib Governor! You hired me, and you think that two press-agents—”
“I might as well tell you,” Barchet said. “You were hired over my definite objections, Mr. Harker. Your party happens to be the one in power, but it definitely does not represent the main ideological current of American enterprise. And if we succeed in our aims, I like to think it will be despite your presence on our team, not because of it.”