The scientist smiled admiringly. "Jim, I don't know how you do it. Stand up to those eagles, I mean. The pressure doesn't let up for a second." "I'm used to it," Harker said with forced casualness. His stomach felt knotted, tight; his throat was dry and seemed to be covered with hundreds of small blisters. His legs, under the desk, quivered of their own volition. Gradually, as the minutes passed, he recovered his poise. The press conference had been a sort of purgative; he had put forth all the thoughts that had been boiling within him during the day. The battle, he saw now, would be fought on a number of fronts--but the essential standpoint was a politico-legal one. They _had_ to secure Congressional approval for the process. And they had to win friends and influence people in a hurry, before the various splintered opponents of reanimation, the Beller Labs, and James Harker could join forces and provide a united front. What would happen if reanimation lost? No doubt the technique would survive, no matter what the legal verdict was. But it would become an undercover, furtive activity, as abortion had been before the permissive laws of the late twentieth century. And _undercover_ meant _dangerous_; _illegal_ equated with _deadly_. The tools of medicine are always deadly in unskilled hands. No doubt about it, the fight was on. It was, thought Harker, the old, old struggle--the battle to give humanity something it craved, despite the obstacles provided by fear, greed, and ignorance. The essential fact--that of the conquest of death--could easily be clouded over by half-truths, distortions, and the well-meant fanaticism of self-righteous pressure groups. _I fought this fight once before_, Harker thought. _And I let myself be beaten. But this time I'm not giving up. There's too much at stake._ CHAPTER XI The next morning--Wednesday--Harker found a neatly typed note sitting on his desk when he reached his office in Dormitory A. It was from Raymond. It said simply, _We got a call from Washington at 0800. Investigating committee headed by Thurman is on its way north to snoop around the lab. They're arriving noon today._ Methodically Harker destroyed the note and turned his attention to the morning papers. He felt tense, but not unduly so; the Senatorial investigation could be the beginning of success in their campaign, and in any event it would put an end to these days of doubt. He would know at least how the reanimation project stood in the eyes of the Senate. On this, the third morning of the Era of Reanimation, almost the entire front page of every paper was given over to a discussion of the subject. His press conference had been given a great deal of space, and as usual the _Times_ had printed the full text. He read the other articles with a queasy sense of expanding confusion. * * * * *