"Something like that," Harker admitted. "Why did you have to do it? _Why?_" "We thought it would help us," said Barchet. "Help? To kidnap and kill a United States Senator? But--oh, what's the use? Just remember now that there are six of us who know about this. The first one who cracks and talks not only sends all six of us to the gas chamber but finishes reanimation permanently." Suddenly he did not want to be with them. He said, "I'm going to my office to get some papers, and then I'm going home. Can I trust you irresponsible lunatics for an entire weekend?" Raymond looked boyishly at his shoes; Barchet tried to glare at Harker, but there was something sickly and unconvincing about the expression. Harker turned and headed out. * * * * * He made the long journey from the lab to his home by taxi, an extravagance that he did not often permit himself. Tonight it seemed necessary. He had no heart for facing other people in a public jet, for buying tickets at a terminal, for doing anything else but sitting in the back of a cab, with the driver shrouded off by his compartment wall, sitting alone and staring out at the bright night city lights as he rode home. Friday, May 24, 2033. Harker thought back to the morning when Lurie had first come to him. That had been a Wednesday; May 8, it had been. Two weeks and two days ago, and in that time so much had happened to him, so many unexpected things. He had lost his affiliation with the law firm. He had re-entered public life, this time as publicity agent, legal adviser, and general champion of a weird and controversial cause. He had become a stranger to his family, a man bound up entirely in the many-levelled conflicts arising out of the simple announcement that a successful reanimation technique had been developed. He had watched two dogs and two human beings, both of them dead, return to the ranks of the living. He had watched a third man, a great man, a former idol of his, suffer death in the name of this strange cause. He had become a murderer and a kidnapper. Unintentionally, true, and after the fact; but his guilt was as sure as that of the man who had lowered the chloroform. Forces ranked themselves against him: Mitchison, Klaus, Jonathan Bryant--petty little men, those three, but they could cause trouble. Barchet, who was on their side and still managed to hurt them with everything he did. The Church; the American-Conservative Party; the ignorant, fearful people of the world, swayed by whatever hysteria happened to be in the air at the moment. Had it been worth it? He thought back, putting himself in the shoes of that James Harker of 8 May 2033 who had made the decision to go ahead. The bait had been the image of Eva, drowned, beyond his grasp. Eva might have lived. _Yes_, he thought, _it's worth it_.