Recalled to Life

Chapter VII

It was a very long weekend.

Harker reached his home at five-thirty that evening, having left Winstead around noon. He had had a miserable chlo-refia-streak lunch on the wrong side of State Street and spent the early afternoon strolling around Albany, easing the inner tension that gripped him. He made the 4:15 jet back to New York.

Chris was watching the video when he came in; it was a weekend, and the boy had no homework. He hopped up immediately and said, “Drink, Dad?”

“Martini. Very dry.”

The boy busied himself with the pushbutton controls of the autobar while Harker hung up his hat and jacket. Lois appeared from the general vicinity of the kitchen.

“Did you see Winstead?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I saw him. He isn’t interested, I guess.”

“Oh. Dr. Raymond called, from the labs. He wanted to know if you were back yet. I told him you’d call as soon as you came home.”

Harker picked up the phone, yanked down on the longdistance switch, and punched out Raymond’s number. He waited, hoping Raymond himself would pick up and not Klaus or Barchet or someone like that.

Raymond did. He looked inquisitively out of the screen and Harker told him exactly what Winstead had said. When he had finished the flat, weary recital, he added, “I’m going to Washington on Monday. But if Thurman gives me the brushoff, we may be in trouble.”

Raymond grinned with unconvincing heartiness. “We’ll get through somehow, Jim. Have faith.”

“I wish I could,” Harker said.

He sipped the drink Chris put in his hand, and after a little of the cold gin had filtered into his bloodstream he felt better. It was a false comfort, he knew, but it was comfort all the same. He went upstairs to the sitting-room, picked out a musictape almost at random, put it on. The selection was a mistake: Handel’s Messiah, Part III. He listened to the big alto aria that opened the section:

. . . I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

And though worms destroy this body, yet in my fish shall I see God.

For now is Christ risen from the dead. . . .

After the final notes of the aria had died away came the Chorus, slow, grave:

. . . Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. . . .

The jubilant tones of “Even so in Christ” sent startling shivers of illumination through him; it was as if he had never listened to these words before (“Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead…”). The words pursued him everywhere.

Twenty minutes later, after the last melisma of “Amen,” he abruptly turned the set off; dinner was about ready, or at least it should be. It was. He ate quietly, deep in thought.

On Saturday he was a little more lively; he worked around the house, took Chris and Paul for an hour-long hike in the early afternoon, spent some time before dinner watching the telecast of the Yankee-Dodger interleague game from Los Angeles. He and Lois visited neighbors in the evening; it was a pleasant, relaxed three or four hours. He was beginning to think he could forget about the problem that was starting to grow.

But Sunday his short-lived forgetfulness ended. It was breakfast-time; Paul was struggling under the bulk of the Sunday Times, which had: been left in the box outside, and Lois was bringing the pancakes to the table. As he took the paper from his youngest son, Harker turned to Chris and said, “Switch on the audio. Let’s see what the morning news is like.”

There was a click. A resonant, almost cavernous voice said:

“... he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And 1—”

Impatiently Chris reached out and changed the station. Harker.;.shook his head, annoyed. “No, Ghris. Get that back. I wanr.to hear it.”

“The Bible, Dad?”

Harker nodded impatiently. As Chris searched for the ori-ginal station Lois said, “That’s St. Matthew, isn’t it?”

Chuckling, Harker said, “St. John, unless I’ve forgotten all my Sunday Schooling. Your father ought to hear you say a thing like that.”

Lois’ father had been a stern Bible-reading Presbyterian; he had never approved of Harker. The radio preacher said:

“. . . Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them—”

“All right,” Harker broke in suddenly. “You can change the station now.”

Chris said, “How come you wanted to hear that, Dad?”

“It’s a very famous passage.” Harker smiled. “And I have a feeling we’re all going to get to know it pretty well before summer comes.”

After supper Sunday he packed for his trip to Washington; he took an extra change of clothes, because Thurman’s secretary had warned him that the Senator was very busy and might not be able to see him until Tuesday. Harker reflected privately that that was fine treatment to accord a man who had once been virtually the titular head of the party, but complaining would have done him less than no good.

He came downstairs again after packing, and spent the next several hours watching video with the family: a silly, mindless series of programs, ideally designed to give the mind a rest.

At quarter past nine, in the middle of an alleged ballet sequence, the screen went blank. Harker frowned, annoyed; then an announcer’s face appeared.

“We interrupt this program to bring you a special announcement from our newsroom.

“Richard Bryant, hero of Earth’s first successful voyage to another planet, died quietly in his sleep an hour ago, in his Manhattan apartment. He would have been seventy-four next month.

“He was assured of immortality on the first of August, 1984, when he radioed from Mars the triumphant message, ‘Have landed Mars One safely. Am on way back. Mars is pretty dreary.’ From that day on, Rick Bryant was a hero to billions.

“We return you now to the regularly-scheduled program.”

Cavorting dancers returned to the screen. In a soft, barely-audible voice, Harker cursed eloquently.

“Gee, Dad! Rick Bryant died!” Chris exclaimed.

Not long after he had taken the case, Harker had induced the old man to autograph a copy of his book I Flew to Mars for Chris; since then, the boy had taken deep interest in Bryant’s career.

Harker nodded. To Lois he said, “They didn’t even give him a chance. The hearing would have been last Thursday, but his son got it postponed.”

“Do you think this will affect the outcome, Jim?”

“I doubt it. That document was pretty solid. Damn, I wanted old Bryant to have the satisfaction of knowing he died on top.” Broodingly he stared at his slippers. “If any of them had any guts, they would have lied to him, told him his will was upheld. But of course they didn’t. They’re just so many vultures. Hell, I guess I’d better phone. As the old man’s lawyer, I’d better get in touch.”

He went upstairs to his den and switched on the phone. Punching out the Bryant number, he waited a moment; an intercepting service took the call and said, “We represent the Bryant family. Only friends of the family and immediate relatives can be put through just now, sir.”

“I’m the late Mr. Bryant’s lawyer,” Harker said, staring at the monogrammed pattern on the screen. “James Harker. Will you put me through?”

There was a momentary pause; then—“I beg your pardon, sir. Your name does not seem to be on the list. You understand that in a time of grief such as this the Bryant family accepts your condolences in the sincere spirit in which they are offered, and regrets that it cannot devote personal time to you as yet. We suggest that you call back tomorrow, when the shock of Mr. Bryant’s departure has lessened.” ... -The intercepting-service monogram disappeared from the screen. Harker scowled.

The cold-blooded lice. Hiring a service to dish out all that unctuous crap, meanwhile making sure I don’t have a chance to talk to anybody there.

He took a deep breath and punched out another number: the home phone of District Judge Auerbach, who was scheduled to conduct the Bryant hearing next Thursday.

Auerbach appeared on the screen, plump, sleepy-looking. Harker said, “Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday night, Tom. You’ve heard about the Bryant business?”

Auerbach nodded. “Too bad, I guess. He was very sick.”

“No doubt of that. Look, Tom, his sons are being sticky about their phone. I’m on the black-list and can’t get through to them. Has Jonathan phoned you tonight?”

“No. Is he supposed to?”

“I don’t know. I just want to notify you that I’ll be out of town on business tomorrow and maybe Tuesday, in case you or he or anybody is trying to reach me. But I’ll be back in plenty of time for the hearing on Thursday. There isn’t another motion for a postponement, is there?”

“Not that I know of,” Auerbach said. “Be seeing you in court on Thursday, then?”

“Right.”

He returned to the television room. The ballet was still going on.

“Well?” Lois asked.

“I couldn’t reach the Bryants. They hired an intercepting service,” Harker said darkly. “I spoke to Tom Auerbach, though. The hearing’s still scheduled for Thursday. Jonathan just didn’t want the old man to be alive when it was held.”

I wouldn’t put it past them to murder old Bryant, he thought. Cold-blooded bunch.

He stared at the screen, but the colorful images only irritated him.

Idlewild was a busy place the following morning. Harker got there at half-past-nine, and the sprawling buildings were jam-packed.

“Flight 906 leaving for London via TWA in fifteen minutes- Flight 906 leaving for London via TWA in fifteen minutes—”

He heard a deep-bellied boom; someone next to him said, “That’s a cross-country job, I’ll bet.”

Sure enough, the loudspeaker said, “Now departing, Flight 136 for San Francisco—”

Above him a neon board flashed. The bright letters said: Flight 136. Lv Idlwld 0932, Ar SF 1126.

Less than two hours across the continent. Harker thought: the plane that had just taken off two minutes ago was probably somewhere over Pennsylvania or Ohio by now.

“Attention, please. Flight 199, United Air Lines, for Washington D.C., departure 0953, now boarding—”

That was his plane. Leaving in about twenty minutes, and arriving in Washington only about twenty minutes after that. Harker looked up and saw a great golden stratocruiser coming in for a landing on a distant runway. All around him he felt the nervous urgency of people traveling.

Inwardly he began to grow tense. He had checked off two of the three names on his scrawled list; neither had been of much encouragement. Only Senator Clyde Thurman remained, and Thurman represented the old-guard conservative wing of the Nat-Lib party; there was no telling how he would react to the news that a technique had been developed for—

“Attention, please. Telephone call for Mr. James Harker. Mr. James Harker, please report to any ticket desk. Telephone call for James Harker—”

Puzzled, Harker shoved his way through the crowd to the desk in the foreground and said to the uniformed clerk, “I’m James Harker. I was just paged for a phone call.”

“You can pick it up in there.”

Harker stepped through into a waiting-room and picked up an extension phone-audio only, no visual. He said to the operator, “I’m James Harker. There’s a phone call for me.”

“One moment, ple-ase.”

There was the sound of phone-jacks being yanked in and out of sockets. Then Mart Raymond’s voice said, “Hello? Jim?”

“Harker here. That you, Mart?”

“Oh, thank God I caught you in time! I phoned your home, and your wife said you’d gone to the airport to make a 9:53 jet! Another few minutes and you’d have been aboard the plane, and—”

Harker had never heard Raymond this excited before. “Whoa, boy! Calm down!”

“I can’t. Cancel your trip and get out here right away!”

“How come? I’m on my way down to see Thurman.”

“The hell with Thurman. Haven’t you heard the news?”

“What news? About Bryant, you mean? How—”

“No, not about Bryant,” Raymond snapped. “I mean about the project. Hell, I guess you haven’t heard yet. It only broke about five minutes ago.”

Harker stared strangely at the receiver in his hand. In as level a voice as he could manage he said, “Mart, what are you trying to tell me?”

“Mitchison!” Raymond gasped. “Mitchison and Klaus- they issued a public statement about five minutes ago, telling the world all about the project! The lab is swarming with reporters! Jim, you’ve got to get out here at once!”

He hung up. Harker let the receiver drop into its cradle. He moistened his lips.

The mask of secrecy was off. From now on, they were accountable to the world for their every move.