"Thurman. How can he stand there and watch a dead boy come to life, and end up twice as solid against us as he was before?"
Harker shrugged. "I wish I knew. I thought we won them over with that show—until Thurman spoke up. The old fossil is fogged up with age, I guess. He's got some preconceived idea that it's immoral to bring back the dead, and having it done right in front of him just solidified it."
The strain was showing on Raymond, Harker saw. His gray eyes were red-rimmed and bleary; his face had grown thin. He had given up a career in medical research to handle the job of running Beller Labs—and perhaps he was regretting that, now.
He said, "Thurman is supposed to be a Nat-Lib. I could understand those two Conservatives turning up their noses, but I thought—"
"Yeah. So did I. But Thurman's an old man."
"The Conservatives came out against reanimation today, didn't they? Doesn't he realize he's helping the opposition if he fights us?"
"Maybe he doesn't think of them as opposition any more," Harker said. "He's eighty-eight years old. He may look alert and bright-eyed, but that's no guarantee against senility."
"If he votes against us," Raymond said, "we're cooked. How can we win him over?"
"The hearings begin next Monday. We've got four days to figure out a line of attack. Maybe the old buzzard will die before Monday." Harker reddened slightly as he spoke the words; the thought of a universe without Clyde Thurman in it was a mind-shaking concept for him.
He looked at his watch. Five minutes to three. Right on the button, Lurie stuck his head in and said, "Time for the press conference, Jim."