"The United States has always been the world pioneer," declared Senator Marshall of Alabama, the elder statesman of the American Conservatives. "We never show fear as we approach the boundary between the known and the unknown. But we must exert caution in this new step, and take care lest we move recklessly forward and unleash forces which can destroy the bonds of society." The medical societies had statements, too--sound ones. "The problem," declared an A.M.A. spokesman, "is essentially a soul-searing one. If the Beller process is valid, every physician will have the power to return life to the dead. Shall he make use of this power whenever he can? Or will there be the danger of giving life indiscriminately, to those perhaps who do not merit a reprieve? What will happen if a dead man's family refuses the right of reanimation? Can the physician proceed? And is he guilty of murder if he does not? Who will make the decisions? An entirely new code of medical ethics must be developed before any wide-scale practice of reanimation can be permitted." These were sound viewpoints, and Harker had no issue with them. But there were other, more hysterical voices clamoring in the newspapers, and hundreds of vituperous letters had already descended on the Litchfield post office as well. People who feared death feared reanimation more. There were those who assumed that reanimation might become the property of an aristocracy that would perpetuate itself over and over, while leaving the common people to death. There were those who dreaded the return to life of a loved one, who were unwilling to face again someone who had been "beyond" and returned. Fear and ignorance, ignorance and fear. Harker read the letters in the newspapers, and his head swam. The ones received direct were even worse. ... _you are violating the command of God brought on us by Adam's fall, Harker. But you will rot in Hell for it._ ... _you Harker and Raymond and the others there should have been strangled in your cribs. Bringing the dead back from the grave is disgusting. You will fill the world with a race of undead zombies._ ... _I know what it is to have a loved one die, do you?_ (Yes, Harker thought.) _But I would not want to touch the lips of one who was dead._ Harker paused a moment in thought as he read that last letter, wondering how he would feel had Eva been brought back to him there on the beach. He had assumed that he would welcome the idea, but now he remembered Lois' doubtful answer to the question, and it seemed to him that he himself was doubtful too now. Would he be able to embrace a daughter who had died and had been reanimated? Could he-- He shook his head in bitter self-contempt. _I'm overtired_, he thought. _All this superstitious muck is contagious. The life-process stops, it starts again--and is anything lost? Wake up, Harker. Of course you'd have hugged Eva if she had been brought back to life._