"How many?"
Lurie shrugged. "There were ten in the copter. I couldn't tell you how many are senators."
"I'll be right out," Harker said.
He filed away the newspapers, cleaned his desk, and self-consciously straightened his clothing before he went outside. A little group stood in the clearing formed by the area between the three main buildings. Harker saw Mart Raymond, Vogel, Barchet, and Dr. Smathers, and they were talking to—among others—Senator Clyde Thurman.
Harker joined them. Thurman was the first to notice him; he stared at Harker glintingly and rumbled, "Ah—Harker. Hello, there."
"How are you, Senator?"
"Never better. Harker, you know these men? Senators Brewster of Iowa, Vorys of South Carolina, Dixon of Wyoming, Westmore of California. Gentlemen, you know Mr. Harker—former Governor of New York, of course."
Harker shook hands all around. He knew most of the senators at least casually; Dixon and Westmore represented the Far West branch of the Nat-Libs, while Brewster and Vorys were arch-Conservatives.
Thurman was the chairman of the committee, and would have the deciding vote in case of a tie. Harker felt apprehensive of that. The venerable Senator was ostensibly a Nat-Lib; at least he was elected every six years under that label. But in the past decade he had been trending increasingly toward conservative ways of thinking, and away from the party he had helped to found forty years earlier, in the great political upheaval and reshuffling of the 1990's.
Each of the senators was accompanied by a staff assistant. That made ten in all.