How’s that? Can’t be too long now. Look there, Tyndall Just came in, Bible and all! Let’s see if he’s got any tomatoes in his pockets. Ol’ “Moses” really gets you going—ever listen to him talk? Well, it’s just as well. Damn, but it’s hot in herein the rear chamber, Dan mopped his brow, popped a pill under his tongue, puffed savagely on the long black cigar. “You with me, lad?”
Carl nodded.
“You know what it means.”
“I don’t care what it means. I’m with you. There’s your buzzer, better get in there.” Carl turned back to Jean and the others around the 80-inch screen, set deep in the wall. Dan put his cigar down, gently, as though he planned to be back to smoke it again before it went out, and then walked through the tall oak doors.
The murmur in the gallery above rose to a roar of applause as he was recognized, and suddenly someone was on his feet, and then another, and the whole gallery rose in a standing ovation. Dan waved and took his seat, grinned across at Senator Libby, leaned his head over to drop an aside into Parker’s ear. Rinehart sat with a face of stone as the applause died and a gavel banged and the president of the Senate said, “Will the clerk please read the charges and petition that concern this chamber this morning,” and then the charges, read off in a droning nasal voice—
— Whereas the criteria for selection of candidates for subtotal prosthesis, first written by the Honorable Walter Rinehart, senator from the great state of Alaska, have been found to be inadequate, outdated, and utterly inappropriate to the use of this life-sustaining technique that is now possible—
— And whereas that same Honorable Walter Rinehart has repeatedly used these criteria, not in the just, honorable, and humble way in which such criteria must be regarded, but rather as a tool and weapon for his own furtherance and for that of his friends and associates—
Dan waited, patiently, as the voice droned on. Was Rinehart’s face whiter than before? Was the hall quieter now? Maybe not, but wait for the petition—
— The Senate of the United States of North America is formally petitioned that the Honorable Walter Rinehart should be dismissed from his seat as chairman of the Criterion Committee, and that his seat should be yielded to the Honorable Daniel Fowler, senator from the great state of Illinois and author of this petition, who has pledged himself before God to seek, through this committee in any and every way possible, the extension of the benefits of subtotal prosthesis to all the people of this land and not to a chosen few—
Screams, hoots, catcalls, wild applause, all from the gallery. None below—senatorial dignity forbade. And then Dan Fowler stood up (an older Dan Fowler than most of them seemed to remember) and requested the floor. And they listened, incredulous, as the familiar, rasping voice rose in the halclass="underline" “You have all heard the charges which have been read. I now stand before you, formally, in order to withdraw them.”
Slowly then, measuring every word, he told them. He knew that words were not enough, but he told them. “Only 70,000 men and women have undergone the process, at this date, out of over five hundred million people on this continent, yet already it has begun to sap our strength. We were told that no changes were involved, and indeed we saw no changes, but changes were there. The suicides of men like Kenneth Armstrong did not just happen. There are many reasons that might lead a man to take his life in this world of ours—selfishness, self-pity, hatred of the world or of himself, guilt, bitterness, resentment—but it was none of these that motivated Kenneth Armstrong. His death was the act of a bewildered, defeated mind, for he saw what I am telling you now and knew that it was true. He saw Starships built and rebuilt, and never launched. He saw colonies dying of lethargy, because there was no longer any drive behind them. He saw brilliant minds losing sight of goals and drifting into endless inconsequential digressions, lifetimes wasted in repetition, in re-doing and re-writing and re-living. He saw what I too can see: a vicious downward spiral which can only lead to death for all of us in the last days.
“That is why I withdraw the charges and petition of this Hearing. This is why I reject rejuvenation, and declare that it is a monstrous thing which we must not allow to continue. That is why I now announce that I personally will nominate the Honorable John Tyndall, senator from the great state of Los Angeles, for President in the elections next spring, and will pledge him my support, my political organization, my experience, and my every personal effort to see that he wins that election.”
It seemed there would be no end to it, when Dan Fowler had finished. “Moses” Tyndall sat staring as the blood drained out of his sallow face; his jaw gaped, and he half- rose from his chair, then sank back with a ragged cough, staring at the senator as if Dan had been transformed into a snake. Carl and Terry were beside Dan in a moment, clearing a way back to the rear chambers, then down the steps of the building to a cab. Senator Libby intercepted them there, his face purple with rage, Dwight MacKenzie, bristling and indignant, in his wake. “You’ve lost your mind, Dan, you’ve simply—”
“I have not. I am perfectly sane.”
“But Tyndall! Hell turn Washington into a grand revival meeting, hell—
“Then we’ll cut him down to size. He’s my candidate, remember. Hell play my game if it pays him well enough. But I want an Abolitionist administration, and I’m going to have one.”
Libby was shaking his head. “There isn’t a sane man in the country who’ll support you. You’ll be whipped so badly you’ll never win another election.”
Dan ground out his cigar under his heel, and started down the steps. “Fine. Then I’ll fight it after I’m beaten. And when it comes to a fight, I’m no slouch.”
In the cab he stared glumly out the window, his heart racing, his whole body shaking in reaction now. “You know what it means,” he said to Carl for the tenth time.
“Yes, Dan, I know.”
“It means no rejuvenation, for you or for any of us. It means proving something to people that they just don’t want to believe, it means cramming it down their throats if we have to. It means taking away their right to keep on living.”
“I know all that.”
“Carl, if you want out, you, or anybody, now—the time.”
“Correction. Yesterday was the time.”
“Okay then. We’ve got work to do.”
Up in the offices again. Dan was on the phone immediately. He knew politics, and people, like the jungle cat knows the whimpering creatures he stalks. He knew that it was the first impact, the first jolting blow that would win for them. Everything had to hit right. He had spent his life working with people, building friends, building power, banking his resources, investing himself. Now the time had come to cash in his investment.
Carl and Jean and the others worked with him—a dreadful afternoon and evening, fighting off the newsmen, blocking phone calls, trying to concentrate in the midst of bedlam. They labored to set up a work schedule, listing names, outlining telegrams, drinking coffee, as Dan swore at his dead cigar like old times once again, and grinned like a madman as the plans slowly developed and blossomed. The snowball was rolling.