You, he said to the thing within his mind — a thing that was a thing no longer, but was a part of him — it is your idea. Death is something that you can’t accept.
But something that in all truth must surely be accepted. For it was an actuality, it was an ever-presence, it was something that everything must live with through the shortness of its life.
There was death and it was close — much too close for comfort or denial. It was in the mumble of the mob just outside the building, the mob that now had passed from sight and quit its shuffling, that even now was massed outside the courthouse entrance, arguing with the sheriff. For the sheriff’s booming voice came clearly through the outer door, calling upon those outside to break up and go back to their homes.
“All that this will get you,” yelled the sheriff, “is a belly full of shot.”
But they yelled back at him, and the sheriff yelled again and it went back and forth for quite a little while. Blaine stood at the inner bars and waited, and fear seeped into him, slowly at first, then faster, like an evil tide racing through his blood.
Then the sheriff was coming through the door and there were three men with him — angry men and frightened, but so purposeful and grim their fright was covered up.
The sheriff came across the office and into the corridor, with the shotgun hanging limply from his hand. The other three strode close upon his heels.
The sheriff stopped just outside the bars and looked at Blaine, trying to conceal the sheepishness he wore.
“I am sorry, Blaine,” he said, “but I just can’t do it. These folks are friends of mine. I was raised with a lot of them. I can’t bear to shoot them down.”
“Of course you can’t,” said Blaine, “you yellow-bellied coward.”
“Give me them keys,” snarled one of the three. “Let’s get him out of here.”
“They’re hanging on the nail beside the door,” the sheriff said.
He glanced at Blaine.
“There’s nothing I can do,” he said.
“You can go off and shoot yourself,” said Blaine. “I’d highly recommend it.”
The man came with the key, and the sheriff stepped aside. The key rattled in the lock.
Blaine said to the man opening the door. “There is one thing I want understood. I walk out of here alone.”
“Huh!” said the man.
“I said I want to walk alone. I will not be dragged.”
“You’ll come the way we want you,” growled the man.
“It’s a small thing,” the sheriff urged. “It couldn’t hurt to let him.”
The man swung the cell door open. “All right, come on,” he said.
Blaine stepped out into the corridor, and the three men closed in, one on either side of him, the other one behind. They did not raise a hand to touch him. The man with the keys flung them to the floor. They made a clashing sound that filled the corridor, that set Blaine’s teeth on edge.
It was happening, thought Blaine. Incredible as it seemed, it was happening to him.
“Get on, you stinking parry,” said the man behind him and punched him in the back.
“You wanted to walk,” said another. “Leave us see you walk.”
Blaine walked, steadily and straight, concentrating on each step to make sure he did not stumble. For he must not stumble; he must do nothing to disgrace himself.
Hope still lived, he told himself. There still was a chance that someone from Fishhook might be out there, set to snatch him from them. Or that Harriet had gotten help and was coming back or was already here. Although that, he told himself, was quite unlikely. She’d not had time enough and she could not have known the urgency involved.
He marched with steady stride across the sheriff’s office and down the hall to the outer door, the three men who were with him pressing close against him.
Someone was holding the outer door, with a gesture of mock politeness, so he could pass through.
He hesitated for an instant, terror sweeping over him. For if he passed that door, if he stood upon the steps outside, if he faced the waiting mob, then all hope was gone.
“Go on, you filthy bastard,” growled the man behind him. “They are waiting out there for you.”
The man put a hand behind his shoulder blades and shoved. Blaine staggered for a step or two, then was walking straight again.
And now he was across the doorway, now he faced the crowd!
An animal sound came boiling up from it — a sound of intermingled hate and terror, like the howling of a pack of wolves on a bloody trail, like the snarling of the tiger that is tired of waiting, with something in it, too, of the whimper of the cornered animal, hunted to its death.
And these, thought Blaine, with a queer detached corner of his mind, were the hunted animals — the people on the run. Here was the terror and the hate and envy of the uninitiate, here the frustration of those who had been left out, here the intolerance and the smuggery of those who refused to understand, the rear guard of an old order holding the narrow pass against the outflankers of the future.
They would kill him as they had killed others, as they would kill many more, but their fate was already settled, the battle already had been won.
Someone pushed him from behind and he went skidding down the smooth stone steps. He slipped and fell and rolled, and the mob closed in upon him. There were many hands upon him, there were fingers grinding into muscles, there was the hot foul breath and the odor of their mouths blowing in his face.
The many hands jerked him to his feet and pushed him back and forth. Someone punched him in the belly and another slapped him hard across the face and out of the bull-roaring of the crowd came one bellowing voice: “Go on, you stinking parry, teleport yourself! That’s all you have to do. Just teleport yourself.”
And that was most fitting mockery — for there were very few indeed who could teleport themselves. There were the levitators who could move themselves through the air like birds, and there were many others, like Blaine, who could teleport small objects, and others, also like Blaine, who could teleport their minds over many light years, but with the help of weird machines. But the true self-teleport, who could snap his body from one location to another in the fraction of an instant, was extremely hard to come by.
The crowd took up the mocking chant: “Teleport yourself! Teleport! Teleport! Teleport yourself, you dirty, stinking parry!” Laughing all the time at their cleverness, smirking all the time at the indignity thus heaped upon their victim. And never for a moment ceasing to use hands and feet upon him.
There was a warmness running down his chin, and one lip felt puffed and swollen, and there was a saltiness in his mouth. His belly ached and his ribs were sore, and the feet and fists still kept punching in.
Then another bellowing voice roared above the din: “Cut that out! Leave the man alone!”
The crowd fell back, but they still ringed him in, and Blaine, standing in the center of the human circle, looked around it and in the last faint light of dusk saw the rat eyes gleaming, and flaked saliva on the lips, sensed the hate that rose and rolled toward him like a body smell.
The circle parted and two men came through — one a small and fussy man who might have been a bookkeeper or a clerk, and the other a massive bruiser with a face that looked as if it were a place where chickens scratched in their search for grubs and worms. The big man had a rope coiled on one arm and from his hand he dangled one end of the rope fashioned very neatly into a hangman’s noose.
The two of them stopped in front of Blaine, and the small man turned slightly to face one segment of the circle.
“Gents,” he said, in a voice that any funeral director would have been proud to own, “we must conduct ourselves with a certain decency and dignity. We have nothing personal against this man, only against the system and the abomination of which he is a part.”