A cold sweat came over him as he revolved Carteret's words in his mind: Our Savior went meekly to the Cross, and on the third day He arose.
Do I dare, he wondered?
It was, he knew without doubt, the act that would settle the fate of reanimation for good. With success would come triumph; failure for him unquestionably meant the downfall of the project.
Shall I risk it?
Do I dare?
He thought back over a life that had lasted forty-three years, a comfortable life, most of it spent in easy circumstances as he rose through law school to political prominence, then down the other side of the curve into a short-lived obscurity. He had never known real danger in his life. There had been enemies, of course—political ones, who had worked his downfall. But that was a gentle kind of strife, a chess-game more than a pitched war.
This was different.
This was life or death, on the line—and for what? For a cause. He had never known a cause he might be willing to risk death for. Now that the risk presented itself, he wondered if he had the courage to submit to it.
Harker sat quietly for perhaps half an hour, thinking. Then he reached for the phone and dialed his home number. Lois answered. In a calm, level voice, he told her exactly what he was going to do.
She was silent for a moment; then she said simply, "Jim, why do you have to do this thing?"