Chapter 2

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.