"Jim, I want you to meet someone," Raymond called to him as soon as Harker entered. He crossed the room to the front row of seats and Raymond said, "This is Mrs. Beller. She's acting as representative for the Beller Fund since Barchet died." "Dreadful, about poor Mr. Barchet," the woman said, in a highly masculine baritone. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Harker. I've heard so much about you. My late husband was deeply interested in your career." _I'm damned sure of that_, Harker thought. For as many years as he could remember, the name of Darwin F. Beller had headed the list of contributors to the annual American-Conservative Party campaign fund. He said aloud, "How do you do, Mrs. Beller." He looked toward the platform where the senators sat. Brewster looked grim, Vorys peeved; Dixon and Westmore, the Nat-Lib members of the commission, both wore identical uneasy smiles. Television cameramen seemed to be underfoot everywhere, checking camera angles, adjusting mike booms, testing the lighting. A small, harried-looking man with close-cropped hair came scurrying up to him, jabbed a microphone under his nose, and said, "Mr. Harker, would you mind saying a couple of words into this?" "What do you want me to say?" "That's fine, sir. Now you, Mr. Raymond, and then after that I'd like to hear the lady speak." It was a voice-test. Someone yelled out, "Harker's fine! Raymond could use more resonance!" "Would you mind getting more _chest_ into your voice, Mr. Raymond?" "I'll do my best," Raymond said. The man with the microphone scurried away. Harker watched the time on the big clock above the dais. Ten minutes to ten. The room was slowly filling up, not only with newspapermen. Raymond pointed out a couple of well-known medical men; Harker spotted two lawyers, including one who had issued a ringing denunciation of reanimation a week before. At ten sharp Senator Westmore rose, smiled apologetically at the video camera, and said, "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As acting chairman of the Senate Special Investigating Committee dealing with the problem of discoveries of the Beller Research Laboratories, I hereby ask for your attention and call this meeting to order." The room fell silent. In the hush, the throbbing purr of the official stenographer's recording machine was clearly audible. After a pause Westmore went on, "We begin this session in the absence of our chairman, Senator Thurman of New York. I'm sure you'll all join me in the hope that the beloved Senator is safe, wherever he is, and that his unusual absence will soon be explained. However, the, shall we say, delicate nature of the Beller discoveries makes it imperative that this Committee elicit facts and present its findings to Congress immediately, and so we are proceeding on schedule despite our chairman's absence.