"All I can say is that we're working toward it."
"Okay. Forget the demonstration. We don't dare try it until things calm down. Remind me to cut your throat for this, Mart. Later."
There was a knock on the door. Harker nodded to Barchet, who opened it. One of the laboratory guards stood outside.
"The reporters are getting out of hand," he said. "They want to know when they're getting their statement."
Harker stood up and said, "It's five minutes to eleven now. Tell them that I'll have a statement for them before noon."
"Yes, sir."
"Get me a typewriter," Harker said to Raymond.
A typewriter was produced. Harker fed a sheet of paper in, switched on the current, and began to type. He composed a hasty 250-word statement disowning Mitchison, crediting Raymond as head of the project, and declaring that full details of the technique would be released as soon as they were ready.
He signed it James Harker, and added parenthetically. (Former Governor of New York—now legal adviser to Beller Research Laboratories.)
"Here," he said, handing the release to Raymond. "Read this thing through and approve it, Mart. Then get it mimeographed and distributed to that wolfpack out there. Is there a vidset around anywhere?"