The senators also looked increasingly weary--all except Thurman, who strode along next to Raymond and Harker and put forth a never-ending string of questions, some of them pointless and others embarrassingly perceptive. As he struggled to keep pace with Thurman, Harker felt a surge of new admiration for the Nat-Lib patriarch. Thurman was a ruggedly built man, well over six feet tall and still erect of bearing; his face was a craggy affair dominated by massive snowy-white eyebrows and a thatch of silver hair, and his voice was a commanding rumble. It was Thurman who had completed the destruction of the old Democratic and Republican parties by serving as organizer for the National-Liberal Party that carried the 1990 congressional elections; he had then persuaded the incumbent President Morrison to run for re-election on the Nat-Lib, rather than Democratic ticket, in '92--and, by '94, the obsolete political parties had vanished, replaced by a more logical alignment of liberal against conservative. Now, Harker thought, the party lines were blurring again; perhaps it was an inevitable force at work. There were liberals in the American-Conservatives, and some early Nat-Libs, especially Thurman, were with increasing regularity voting for Conservative-sponsored measures. Perhaps in another fifty years' time a further re-organization would be needed; it seemed to be necessary about once a century, judging by past performance. As they explored the enzyme lab and watched the big centrifuge at work in the serotonin room, Harker wondered how he stood with Thurman now. Fifteen years ago, he had virtually been a son to the Senator, serving for a while as his private secretary before being tapped for prominence in the New York Nat-Lib organization. Thurman had guided him up through the Mayoralty, saw him into the governor's mansion in Albany--and then, when the party decided to ostracize him, Thurman had not said a word in his defense. It was more than a year since he had spoken to the veteran legislator. "These dogs," Senator Vorys said as Raymond and Vogel demonstrated reanimation on a pair of spaniels, "they feel no pain?" Vorys was a waspish, bald little man, with seemingly a lifetime tenure as American-Conservative Senator from South Carolina. "Absolutely none," Raymond assured him. "Animal experiments are legal," remarked Senator Westmore, the Californian Nat-Lib. "No grounds for objecting there." "I wasn't objecting," snapped Vorys. "Merely inquiring." Harker smiled to himself. The dogs were cleared away in due time; Harker saw the tension-lines reassert themselves on Raymond's face, and he knew the main event was about to begin. When Raymond spoke, his voice was thin and strained. "Gentlemen, I know you've come here for one main purpose--to see if human life can be restored. The time has come for us to demonstrate our technique."