Robert Silverberg - Recalled to Life

Nasty business. Jonathan had deliberately obtained the stay of hearing with the hope that his father would die before the case came up.

He left the office at noon, spent some time downtown in the public library trying to find some books that would give him a little scientific background, and headed for home about four that afternoon. His home life had been suffering, a bit, in the week since he had plunged himself fully into the Beller Labs project. He had been coming home at odd hours, which upset Lois’ routine, and his attitude was one of withdrawn introversion, which made things tough on the children. Still, they all were very cooperative about it, Harker thought. He hoped he could make it up to them when the pressure let up.

If the pressure ever let up.

Thursday passed slowly. Harker remained at home, in his study, and tried to read the books he had brought from the library. He was surprised to learn that formal resuscitation research dated from the middle years of the past century. He traced down a few of the terms Raymond had thrown at him, and learned a bit about the mechanics of the Beller reanimation technique.

But, he realized when he put the books down, he knew very little in detail. He had simply skimmed the surface, acquiring a veneer of terms which he could use to impress the even-less-educated.

A politician’s trick, he thought. But what else could he do?

He woke early on Friday, before six, and made breakfast for himself. By the time he had turned off the autocook and set the kitchen-servo to mopup, Lois and the children were moving about upstairs. They had come down for breakfast before he was ready to leave.

“Morning, Dad,” Chris said. “Up early, eh?”

“I have to make a 9:30 jet,” he explained. “It’s the last one before noon.”

Paul appeared, thumbing his eyes, yawning. “Where you going, Daddy?”

“Albany,” Harker said.

The seven-year-old looked awake immediately. “Albany? Are you Governor again, Daddy?”

“Hush, stupid!” Chris said savagely.

But Harker merely smiled and shook his head. “No, I won’t be Governor any more, Paul. I’m going to visit Mr. Winstead. He’s the Governor now.”

“Oh,” the boy said gravely.

Harker reached the West Side jet terminal at ten after nine. The big 150-seater was out on the field, surrounded by attendants. It would make the trip to Albany in just under thirteen minutes.

It was a silly business. It took him twice that long to get to the terminal from his home. But modern transportation was full of such paradoxes.

At nine-thirty-five the great ship erupted from the landing-strip; not much later it was roaring over Westchester, and not very much after that it was taxiing to a smooth and uneventful landing just outside Albany.

Thirteen minutes. And it took twenty-five minutes more for the jetport bus to bring them across the Hudson into Albany proper after the flight.

His appointment with Governor Winstead was for eleven that morning. Declining the public transport service, Harker walked through town to the governor’s mansion-a walk that he had come to know well, in his four years in Albany.

The town hadn’t changed much. Still third-rate, dirty, bedraggled; one of his proposed reforms had been to move the Capital downstate to New York City, where it really belonged, but naturally the force of sentiment was solidly against him, not to mention the American-Conservative Party, whose New York stronghold Albany was.

He smiled at the memory. He had fought so many losing battles, in his four years as Governor.

The guards at Winstead’s mansion recognized him, of course, and tipped their hats. Harker grinned amiably at them and passed through, but he felt inward discomfort. Their jobs were pegged down by civil-service regulations; his was not, and he had lost his. In an odd way it made him feel inferior.

He travelled the familiar journey upstairs to the Governor’s office. Winstead was there to greet him with outstretched hand and a faintly abashed smile.

“Jim. So glad you could come up here.”

“It’s not a courtesy call, Leo. I’m here to ask some advice.”

“Any way I can help, Jim, you know I will.”

Harker experienced a moment of disorientation as he took a seat facing Winstead across the big desk that had been his until a few months ago. It was strange to sit on this side of the desk.

He looked for ways to begin saying what he had come here to say. He sensed the other man’s deep embarrassment, and shared it in a way, because the awkwardness of this first meeting between Governor and ex-Governor was complex and many-levelled.

Winstead was ten years his senior: a good party man, a reliable workhorse who had come up through the ranks of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, and who had turned down a judgeship because he thought he had a shot at the race for Governor. But the party had chosen the bright, me-teorically-rising young Mayor, James Harker, to be the standard-bearer instead, and an avalanche of Nat-Lib votes from downstate had swept Harker in.

Then it had been necessary to discard Harker four years later, and good dependable old Leo Winstead was trotted out of private law practice to take his place. The Nat-Lib tide held true; Winstead was elected, and now it was the ex-prodigy who entered private law practice instead of using the Governorship as a springboard into the White House.

Harker said, “Leo, you carry weight with the party. I don’t any more.”

“Jim, I—”

“Don’t try to apologize, Leo, because it’s my own fault and none of yours that I’m where I am now. I’m simply asking you to exert some influence on behalf of a project I’m involved in.”

It was a naked attempt at lobbying. Harker hoped Win-stead’s unconscious guilt-feelings would lead him to support the Beller people.

“What sort of project, Jim?”

“It’s-it’s a sort of revolutionary breakthrough in science, Leo. A process to reanimate people who have been dead less than twenty-four hours.”

Winstead sat up. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. I’m going down to Washington next week to see Thurman. This thing really works -and I want to get it legally approved.”

“And where do I come in?”

“You’re a powerful official, Leo. If you came out in praise of this new development—”

“Dangerous business, Jim. The Church—”

“I know all about the Church. And you can bet our friends the American-Conservatives will make some kind of political capital about the news. The Nat-Libs will have to take a favorable stand on this.”

“Suppose we don’t?” Winstead asked. His voice was tense and off-center; he ran his knotty hands nervously through his bushy shock of white hair. “You know as well as I do that this is no time to hop off supporting anything too farfetched.”

Barker began to feel a sense of exasperation. “Farfetched? Leo, I saw a dead man come back to life right in front of me. If you think—”

“I don’t think anything. Thinking’s not my job. If you’ll pardon my saying so, Jim, you did too much thinking for your own good when you were in Albany. This thing has to be handled with kid gloves. It wouldn’t surprise me if the government clamps down and bottles it all up until it’s been fully explored.”

“Federal Research Act of ’92,” Harker said thinly. “It guarantees freedom of research without government interference, as you know well enough.”

Winstead seemed to be perspiring heavily. “Laws can be repealed or amended, Jim. Listen here: why don’t you go see Thurman? Find out how he stands on the matter. Then come back here and maybe we can talk about it again.”