How can I explain? he wondered. How can I show her that a moment can come when you stand between life and death, and the choice is entirely yours?
He said, "I think it's the only way, Lois. It'll prove to the world that reanimation can be trusted."
"But the awful risk, Jim—"
One-chance-out-of-six for idiocy, he thought bleakly. "I wouldn't do it if I thought it was risky, Lois. The whole point is that it isn't risky. You think I want to be a goddam martyr?"
"Sometimes I think you do, Jim," she said very quietly.
He chuckled harshly. "Well, maybe. But I know what I'm doing. It'll hammer home reanimation the way no amount of talking ever could."
After a long pause she said, "When—when would you do this thing?"
"I don't know. I'd have to discuss it with the others here first. And we'd need to arrange for proper publicity. Unless the whole world finds out about it, there's no sense in doing it."
Forty-three years of life converging toward one moment of decision in a bare little room on a rain-soaked New Jersey hill, Harker thought. And this is probably the weirdest motive for suicide in the history of the human species.
Lois said, "Do you have that much faith in those men?"