II

The odd thing about Chandler's dilemma was not merely that he was

innocent--in a way, that is--but that many who were guilty (in a way;

as guilty as he himself, at any rate) were free and honored citizens.

Chandler himself was a widower because his own wife had been murdered.

He had seen the murderer leaving the scene of the crime, and the man

he had seen was in the courtroom today, watching Chandler's own trial.

Of the six hundred or so in the court, at least fifty were known to

have taken part in one or more provable acts of murder, rape, arson,

theft, sodomy, vandalism, assault and battery or a dozen other offenses

indictable under the laws of the state. Of course, that could be said

of almost any community in the world in those years; Chandler's was not

unique. What had put Chandler in the dock was not what his body had

been seen to do, but the place in which it had been seen to do it. For

everybody knew that medicine and agriculture were never molested by the

demons.

Chandler's own lawyer had pointed that out to him the day before the

trial. "If it was anywhere but at the McKelvey plant, all right, but

there's never been any trouble there. You know that. The trouble with

you laymen is you think of lawyers in terms of Perry Mason, right?

Rabbit out of the hat stuff. Well, I can't do that. I can only present

your case, whatever it is, the best way possible. And the best thing

I can do for your case right now is tell you you haven't got one." At

that time the lawyer was still trying to be fair. He was even casting

around for some thought he could use to convince himself that his

client was innocent, though he had frankly admitted as soon as he

introduced himself that he didn't have much hope there.

Chandler protested that he didn't have to commit rape. He'd been a

widower for a year, but--

"Wait a minute," said the lawyer. "Listen. You can't make an ordinary

claim of possession stick, but what about good old-fashioned insanity?"

Chandler looked puzzled, so the lawyer explained. Wasn't it possible

that Chandler was--consciously, subconsciously, unconsciously, call it

what you will--trying to get revenge for what had happened to his own

wife?

No, said Chandler, certainly not! But then he had to stop and think.

After all, he had never been possessed before; in fact, he had always

retained a certain skepticism about "possession"--it seemed like such a

convenient way for anyone to do any illicit thing he chose--until the

moment when he looked up to see Peggy Flershem walking into the culture

room with a tray of agar disks, and was astonished to find himself

striking her with the wrench in his hand and ripping at her absurdly

floral-printed slacks. Maybe his case was different. Maybe it wasn't

the sort of possession that struck at random; maybe he was just off his

rocker.

Margot, his wife, had been cut up cruelly. He had seen his friend, Jack

Souther, leaving his home hurriedly as he approached; and although he

had thought that the stains on his clothes looked queerly like blood,

nothing in that prepared him for what he found in the rumpus room.

It had taken him some time to identify the spread-out dissection on

the floor with his wife Margot.... "No," he told his lawyer, "I was

shaken up, of course. The worst time was the next night, when there

was a knock on the door and I opened it and it was Jack. He'd come

to apologize. I--fell apart; but I got over it. I tell you I was

possessed, that's all."

"And I tell you that defense will put you right in front of a firing

squad," said his lawyer. "And _that's_ all."

* * * * *

Five or six others had been executed for hoaxing; Chandler was familiar

with the ritual. He even understood it, in a way. The world had gone to

pot in the previous two years. The real enemy was out of reach; when

any citizen might run wild and, when caught, relapse into his own self,

terrified and sick, there was a need to strike back. But the enemy was

invisible. The hoaxers were only whipping boys--but they were the only

targets vengeance had.

The real enemy had struck the entire world in a single night. One

day the people of the world went about their business in the gloomy

knowledge that they were likely to make mistakes but with, at least,

the comfort that the mistakes would be their own. The next day had

no such comfort. The next day anyone, anywhere, was likely to find

himself seized, possessed, working evil or whimsy without intention and

helplessly.

Chandler stood up, kicked the balled-up wax paper from his sandwiches

across the floor and swore violently.

He was beginning to wake from the shock that had gripped him. "Damn

fool," he said to himself. He had no particular reason. Like the

world, he needed a whipping boy too, if only himself. "Damn fool, you

know they're going to shoot you!"

He stretched and twisted his body violently, alone in the middle of the

room, in silence. He _had_ to wake up. He _had_ to start thinking. In a

quarter of an hour or less the court would reconvene, and from then it

was only a steady, quick slide to the grave.

It was better to do anything than to do nothing. He examined the

windows of his improvised cell. They were above his head and barred;

standing on the table, he could see feet walking outside, in the paved

play-yard of the school. He discarded the thought of escaping that

way; there was no one to smuggle him a file, and there was no time.

He studied the door to the hall. It was not impossible that when the

guard opened it he could jump him, knock him out, run ... run where?

The room had been a storage place for athletic equipment at the end of

a hall; the hall led only to the stairs and the stairs emerged into the

courtroom. It was quite likely, he thought, that the hall had another

flight of stairs somewhere farther along, or through another room. What

had he spent his taxes on these years, if not for schools designed with

more than one exit in case of fire? But as he had not thought to mark

an escape route when he was brought in, it did him no good.

The guard, however, had a gun. Chandler lifted up an edge of the table

and tried to shake one of the legs. They did not shake; that part of

his taxes had been well enough spent, he thought wryly. The chair?

Could he smash the chair to get a club, which would give him a weapon

to get the guard's gun?...

Before he reached the chair the door opened and his lawyer came in.

"Sorry I'm late," he said briskly. "Well. As your attorney I have to

tell you they've presented a damaging case. As I see it--"

"What case?" Chandler demanded. "I never denied the acts. What else did

they prove?"

"Oh, God!" said his lawyer, not quite loudly enough to be insulting.

"Do we have to go over that again? Your claim of possession would make

a defense if it had happened anywhere else. We know that these cases

exist, but we also know that they follow a pattern. Some areas seem to

be immune--medical establishments, pharmaceutical plants among them. So

they proved that all this happened in a pharmaceutical plant. I advise

you to plead guilty."

Chandler sat down on the edge of the table, controlling himself very

well, he thought. He only asked: "Would that do me any good at all?"

The lawyer reflected, gazing at the ceiling. "... No. I guess it

wouldn't."

Chandler nodded. "So what else shall we talk about? Want to compare

notes about where you were and I was the night the President went

possessed?"

The lawyer was irritated. He kept his mouth shut for a moment until he

thought he could keep from showing it. Outside a vendor was hawking

amulets: "St. Ann beads! Witch knots! Fresh garlic, local grown, best

in town!" The lawyer shook his head.

"All right," he said, "it's your life. We'll do it your way. Anyway,

time's up; Sergeant Grantz will be banging on the door any minute."

He zipped up his briefcase. Chandler did not move. "They don't give

us much time anyway," the lawyer added, angry at Chandler and at

hoaxers in general but not willing to say so. "Grantz is a stickler for

promptness."

Chandler found a crumb of cheese by his hand and absently ate it. The

lawyer watched him and glanced at his watch. "Oh, hell," he said,

picked up his briefcase and kicked the base of the door. "Grantz!

What's the matter with you? You asleep out there?"

* * * * *

Chandler was sworn, gave his name, admitted the truth of everything the

previous witnesses had said. The faces were still aimed at him, every

one. He could not read them at all any more, could not tell if they

were friendly or hating, there were too many and they all had eyes. The

jurors sat on their funeral-parlor chairs like cadavers, embalmed and

propped, the dead witnessing a wake for the living. Only the forewoman

in the funny hat showed signs of life, looking alertly at Chandler,

at the judge, at the man next to her, around the auditorium. Maybe it

was a good sign. At least she did not have the frozen in concrete,

guilty-as-hell look of the others.

His attorney asked him the question he had been waiting for: "Tell

us, in your own words, what happened." Chandler opened his mouth, and

paused. Curiously, he had forgotten what he wanted to say. He had

rehearsed this moment again and again; but all that came out was:

"I didn't do it. I mean, I did the acts, but I was possessed. That's

all. Others have done worse, under the same circumstances, and been

let off. Just as Fisher was acquitted for murdering the Learnards, as

Draper got off after what he did to the Cline boy. As Jack Souther

over there was let off after he murdered my own wife. They should

be. They couldn't help themselves. Whatever this thing is that takes

control, I know it can't be fought. My God, you can't even _try_ to

fight it!"

He was not getting through. The faces had not changed. The forewoman

of the jury was now searching systematically through her pocketbook,

taking each item out and examining it, putting it back and taking

out another. But between times she looked at him and at least her

expression wasn't hostile. He said, addressing her:

"That's all there is to it. It wasn't me running my body. It was

someone else. I swear it before all of you, and before God."

The prosecutor did not bother to question him.

Chandler went back to his seat and sat down and watched the next twenty

minutes go by in the wink of an eye, rapid, rapid, they were in a hurry

to shoot him. He could hardly believe that Judge Ellithorp could speak

so fast, the jurymen rise and file out at a gallop, zip, whisk, and

they were back again. Too fast! he cried silently, time had gone into

high gear; but he knew that it was only his imagination. The twenty

minutes had been a full twelve hundred seconds. And then time, as if

to make amends, came to a stop, abrupt, brakes-on. The judge asked the

jury for their verdict and it was an eternity before the forewoman

arose.

She was beginning to look rather disheveled. Beaming at

Chandler--_surely_ the woman was rather odd, it couldn't be just his

imagination--she fumbled in her pocketbook for the slip of paper with

the verdict. But she wore an expression of suppressed laughter.

"I _knew_ I had it," she cried triumphantly and waved the slip above

her head. "Now, let's see." She held it before her eyes and squinted.

"Oh, yes. Judge, we the jury, and so forth and so on--"

She paused to wink at Judge Ellithorp. An uncertain worried murmur

welled up in the auditorium. "All that junk, Judge," she explained,

"anyway, we unanimously--but _unanimously_, love!--find this son of a

bitch innocent. Why," she giggled, "we think he ought to get a medal,

you know? I tell you what you do, love, you go right over and give him

a big wet kiss and say you're sorry." She kept on talking, but no one

heard. The murmur became a mass scream.

"Stop, stop her!" bawled the judge, dropping his glasses. "Bailiff!"

The scream became a word, in many voices chorused: _Possessed!_ And

beyond doubt the woman was. The men around her hurled themselves away,

as from leprosy among them, and then washed back like a lynch mob. She

was giggling as they fell on her. "Got a cigarette? No cigarettes in

this lousy bag--oh." She screamed as they touched her, went limp and

screamed again.

It was a different note this time, pure hysteria: "I couldn't _stop_.

Oh, _God_."

* * * * *

Chandler caught his lawyer by the arm and jerked him away from staring

at the scene. All of a sudden he was alive again. "You, damn it.

Listen! The jury acquitted me, right?"