"It isn't a pleasant sight the first time, I guess. I wish I could share some of your emotional reaction, but I'm blocked out. My dad was a biochemist, specialty life-research. He had me cutting up frogs when I was three. I'm numb to any such reactions by now." "Don't let that trouble you," Harker said. He shivered. "I could live very happily without seeing another demonstration of your technique, you know." Raymond chuckled. "Does that mean you're convinced we aren't quacks?" Harker shrugged. "What you have is heap big medicine. I wonder if I've got the voltage needed to handle the job you want me to do." "You wouldn't be here if we didn't think so." "I was fourth on the list," Harker said. "Lurie told me." "You were my personal choice. I was outvoted. But I knew you'd accept and the other three would turn us down without even coming out here to investigate." "I haven't said I've accepted," Harker pointed out. "Well? Do you?" Harker was silent for a moment, his mind returning to the impact of the scene he had just witnessed. There was still plenty he had to know, of course: the corporate set-up of this lab, including knowledge of the powers that had "outvoted" the director; the financial resources behind him; the possible bugs in the technique. A dozen implications unfolded. His mind was already at work planning the campaign. He was thinking of people to see, wires to pull, angles to check. "I guess I accept," he said quietly. Raymond smiled and reached into his desk. He handed Harker a check drawn on a Manhattan bank for $2,400, payable to James Harker, and signed _Simeon Barchet, Treasurer_. "What's this?" "That's four weeks salary, in advance. Barchet's the trustee who administers the Beller Fund. I had him write the check yesterday. I was pretty confident you'd join us, you see." * * * * * Harker spent a quietly tense weekend at home with his family. He told Lois about the assignment, of course; he never kept things from her, even the most unpleasant. She was dubious, but willing to rely on his judgment. He worked off some of his physical tension by playing ball in the backyard with his sons. Chris, entering adolescence, was developing an athlete's grace; seven-year-old Paul did not yet have the coordination needed for catching and throwing a baseball, but he gave it a good try. On Sunday the four of them drove upstate to a picnic ground, ate out, even went for a brief swim though it was really too early in the season for that. Harker splashed and laughed with his sons, but there was an essential somberness about him that Lois quietly pointed out. "I know," he admitted. "I'm thinking." "About the Beller Labs business?"