The jury chortled happily. The type bars blurred with frantic speed as they set down the Verdict, snaking smoothly across the roll of paper.

Then the Verdict ended and the judge nodded to the clerk, who stepped up to the Jury and tore off the Verdict. He held it ritually in two hands and turned toward the judge.

"The defendant," said the judge, "will rise and face the Jury."

Franklin Chapman rose shakily to his feet and Ann Harrison rose as well and stood beside him. She reached out a hand and laid it on his arm. Through the fabric of his shirt she felt the quiver of his flesh.

I should have done a better job, she told herself. Although, in all fact, she knew, she had worked harder on this case than she had on many others. Her heart had gone out to this man beside her, so pitiful and trapped. Perhaps, she thought, a woman had no right to defend a man in a court like this. In the ancient days, when the Jury had been human, it might have been all right. But not in a court where a computer was the Jury and the only point at issue was the meaning of the law.

"The clerk," said the judge, "now will read the Verdict."

She glanced at the prosecutor, sitting at his table, his face as stern and pontifical as it had been throughout the trial. An instrument, she thought—just an instrument, as the Jury was an instrument of justice.

The room was quiet and somber, with the sun of late afternoon shining through the windows. The newsmen sat in the front row seats, watching for the slightest flicker of emotion, for the tiny gesture of significance, for the slightest crumb upon which to build a story. The cameras were there as well, their staring lenses set to record this moment when eternity and nothingness quavered in the balance.

Although, Ann knew, there could be little doubt. There had been so little upon which to build a case. The Verdict would be death.