Harker shrugged. "I wish I knew. I thought we won them over with that show--until Thurman spoke up. The old fossil is fogged up with age, I guess. He's got some preconceived idea that it's immoral to bring back the dead, and having it done right in front of him just solidified it." The strain was showing on Raymond, Harker saw. His gray eyes were red-rimmed and bleary; his face had grown thin. He had given up a career in medical research to handle the job of running Beller Labs--and perhaps he was regretting that, now. He said, "Thurman is supposed to be a Nat-Lib. I could understand those two Conservatives turning up their noses, but I thought--" "Yeah. So did I. But Thurman's an old man." "The Conservatives came out against reanimation today, didn't they? Doesn't he realize he's helping the opposition if he fights us?" "Maybe he doesn't think of them as opposition any more," Harker said. "He's eighty-eight years old. He may _look_ alert and bright-eyed, but that's no guarantee against senility." "If he votes against us," Raymond said, "we're cooked. How can we win him over?" "The hearings begin next Monday. We've got four days to figure out a line of attack. Maybe the old buzzard will die before Monday." Harker reddened slightly as he spoke the words; the thought of a universe without Clyde Thurman in it was a mind-shaking concept for him. He looked at his watch. Five minutes to three. Right on the button, Lurie stuck his head in and said, "Time for the press conference, Jim." Leadenly Harker nodded. "Okay. Send them in, Lurie." * * * * * He ran through what he had to say in less than half an hour. He told them that the senatorial committee had been there and had watched the successful reanimation of a twelve-year-old boy. He expressed a hope that the demonstration had impressed the senators favorably, and did not mention that Thurman's remarks implied a negative reaction. There was a brief session of sporadic questions; then Harker pleaded exhaustion and hustled the newsmen out. He felt tremendously weary, but at the same time there was the excitement of knowing he was in a fight, and a tough fight. He phoned Lois and said he would be home in time for dinner. She was being cooperative beyond the call of wifely duty, he thought. He was hardly ever home these days, and when he did show up at Larchmont he was a pale, exhausted ghost of himself, with little energy left over for family life. The evening papers came in about half past four. Harker had been preparing a plan of attack for the Senate hearings the next week; he looked up when Lurie silently dropped the stack on his desk. There was a statement from Mitchison and Klaus in most of the papers, to the effect that the Beller Laboratories were in the hands of--approximately--power-hungry madmen, and that they should be stripped of control immediately.