“What about germ warfare in the water supply?” somebody ventured.
“Still looking into it. No report yet. All right, that’s enough for now. Meeting’s adjourned. Watch the ball game for a while, then drift away. One at a time.”
Hsi was the first to go, then a couple of women together, then a sprinkling of other men. Chandler was in no particular hurry, although it seemed time to leave anyway, because the ball game appeared to be over. A ten-year-old with freckles on his face was at the plate, but he was leaning on his bat, staring at Chandler with wide, serious eyes.
Chandler felt a sudden chill.
He turned, began to walk away—and felt himself seized.
He walked slowly into the schoolhouse, unable to look around. Behind him he heard a confused sob, tears and a child’s voice trying to blubber through: “Something funny happened.”
If the child had been an adult it might have been warning enough. But the child had never experienced possession before, was not sure enough, was clear into the schoolhouse before the remaining members of the Society of Slaves awoke to their danger. He heard a quick cry of They got him! Then Chandler’s legs stopped walking and he addressed himself savagely. A few yards away a stout Chinese lady was mopping the tiles; she looked up at him, startled, but no more startled than Chandler was himself. “You idiot!” Chandler blazed. “Why do you have to get mixed up in this? Don’t you know it’s wrong, love? Stay here!” Chandler commanded himself. “Don’t you dare leave this building!”
And he was free again, but there was a sudden burst of screams from outside.
Bewildered, Chandler stood for a moment, as little able to move as though the girl still had him under control. Then he leaped through a classroom to a window, staring. Outside in the playground there was wild confusion. Half the spectators were on the ground, trying to rise. As he watched, a teenage boy hurled himself at an elderly lady, the two of them falling. Another man flung himself to the ground. A woman swung her pocketbook into the face of the man next to her. One of the fallen ones rose, only to trip himself again. It was a mad spectacle, but Chandler understood it: What he was watching was a single member of the exec trying to keep a group of twenty ordinary, unarmed human beings in line. The exec was leaping from mind to mind; even so, the crowd was beginning to scatter.
Without thought Chandler started to leap out to help them; but the possessor had anticipated that. He was caught at the door. He whirled and ran toward the woman with the mop; as he was released, the woman flung herself upon him, knocking him down.
By the time he was able to get up again it was far too late to help … if there ever had been a time when he could have been of any real help.
He heard shots. Two policeman had come running into the playground, with guns drawn.
The exec who had looked at him out of the boy’s eyes, who had penetrated this nest of enemies and extricated Chandler from it, had taken first things first. Help had been summoned. Quick as the coronets worked, it was no time at all until the nearest persons with weapons were located, commandeered and in action.
Two minutes later there no longer was resistance.
Obviously more execs had come to help, attracted by the commotion perhaps, or summoned at some stolen moment after the meeting had first been invaded. There were only five survivors on the field. Each was clearly controlled. They rose and stood patiently while the two police shot them, shot them, paused to reload and shot again. The last to die was the bearded man, Linton, and as he fell his eyes brushed Chandler’s.
Chandler leaned against a wall.
It had been a terrible sight. The nearness of his own death had been almost the least of it.
He had no doubt of the identity of the exec who had saved him and destroyed the others. Though he had heard the voice only as it came from his own mouth, he could not miss it. It was Rosalie Pan.
He looked out at the redheaded man, sprawled across the foul line behind third base, and remembered what he had said. There weren’t any good execs or bad execs. There were only execs.
XI
Whatever Chandler’s life might be worth, he knew he had given it away and the girl had given it back to him.
He did not see her for several days, but the morning after the massacre he woke to find a note beside his bed table. No one had been in the room. It was his own sleeping hand that had written it, though the girl’s mind had moved his fingers:
If you get mixed up in anything like that again I won’t be able to help you. So don’t! Those people are just using you, you know. Don’t throw away your chances. Do you like surfboarding?
Rosie
But by then there was no time for surfboarding, or for anything else but work. The construction job on Hilo had begun, and it was a nightmare. He was flown to the island with the last load of parts. No execs were present in the flesh, but in the first day Chandler lost count of how many different minds possessed his own. He began to be able to
