Anti-Man

III

We left the road when I judged we were nearing the fork that would reveal to us the first ranger station and tourist information bureau. Getting over the plowed snowbanks at the edge of the road proved even more difficult than it looked, and it looked quite difficult indeed. Somehow, we clambered through, damp and disheveled when we came out into the snowy, but more or less open fields,

I had only been in the park three times before, all three back when I had been an intern and Harry had given me the keys and wished me luck with whatever nurse had recently fallen for my limited charms and unlimited line. Admittedly, an unusual act of friendship for a hospital staff director to show to a lowly intern, but then Harry was the one who had gotten me interested in medicine back when I was still toddling around in wet pants (he had given me a doctor play kit), the one who took care of me after my mother and father were killed in one of the early intercontinental rocket flights, the one who had seen that I prepared for and was accepted by the best medical school in the country. Our relationship at City General, then, was bound to be somewhat unorthodox. Harry never made my internship easy, understand. It was only socially that he treated me kindly; in the hospital I was as gruffly handled as the rest, perhaps even more so. I wondered what Harry thought of me now. Then the brush grew denser, the snow deeper and more heavily drifted, and there was not time for thinking about anything but breaking through into open country.

He moved ahead now, breaking a path with His larger bulk, kicking the drifts apart and forging on like a flesh tank or a large, thick-skinned jungle animal that has never met the immovable object. Thorn vines snagged our suits and held us up, but I was confident we could make the cabin by morning. It was only a matter of keeping a steady pace, even a somewhat cautious one hampered by drifts and thorns. In time, we came out into fields and stopped for a breather, though He would not have required one. I checked the compass, which had a luminous face, and looked at the softly glowing map I had brought out of my wallet. The background of the map was a gently shimmering green, the various lines and grids either crimson or orange or white. At arms length, it somewhat resembled an old-fashioned psychedelic light show. "Straight across that field," I said. "And we had better break out the snowshoes."

Halfway across the open land on our way toward the next clump of pines that stood like skinny sentinels in the darkness, black patches against the snowy hills, we found that the snowshoes had not been instruments of over-caution. The field dropped ten feet within three yards, forming a breaking point for drift winds, and the rest of the broad flatlands, clear to the woods, was buried in a good six feet of snow. We treaded carefully despite the fact that the crust seemed everywhere thick enough to support us. We stayed ten feet apart to distribute our weight and help prevent too great a strain on the crisp outer layer of the drift. I felt like a stunt man trying to prove he could walk on softboiled eggs without disaster. A hundred yards from the trees, I felt the crust cracking under me, slowly but relentlessly. Then I heard it: painful whining and a low, dull moan.

I panicked, was about to run to avoid disaster, and remembered that would not help the situation at all. No running. Walk as if you were that damn fool stunt-man on the softboiled eggs. But by the time I remembered, I had convulsively leaped a single step to escape the weak area, smashed through the crust with all the force of my 160 pounds, and fell through snow over my head.

When I was a kid, the other kids used to call me Bucket Feet Kennelmen.

Now I knew why.

I flailed, trying to beat away the endless slide of white powder that covered my face, creeping coldly up my nostrils, came close to suffocating, and broke through so that I was looking up the hole I had made at the dense night clouds and the ever-faster fall of snow. I stood very still, afraid to move lest the loose snow beneath the crust and on all sides of the shaft come down on top of me, making my position that much more impossible. It seemed like slightly over six months, but it was no more than a minute or two before His face appeared and He came to the rim of the broken crust, cautious not to get too close, but leaning out towards me.

"Don't you fall in too," I warned. "Any ideas on getting me out of here?"

"I'll dig a sloping path into you and pack the snow as I come," He said. "It's the only way. I can't pull you out. That would break the crust here and bring me down with you."

"What are you going to dig with?" I asked. "We haven't any shovels or tools."

"Wait," He said.

The wind howled above. A gust of it blew a film of snow over my face.

He removed His gloves and stripped off the insulated jacket and undershirt beneath. His chest and shoulders and arms bulged and rippled with fantastic muscle development. These were muscles the size of those you can get lifting weights every day until you drop, but they were not blocky like weight-lifting muscles; they were leaner, giving hint to a usefulness that a muscle-bound exerciser can never know. The cold should have had Him huddled and trembling, but He didn't even seem to notice it. He was the supreme study in detachment, in nonchalance. The snow fluttered down and struck His bare shoulders and chest, melted and ran off Him in cold streams of glistening water.

He held His hands out before Him as if doing a stretching exercise, held His fingers close together, closed His eyes and stood solid as a great pine, unmoved even when the wind suddenly picked up and began howling again. I could see very little in the dim light, but I could make out that some transformation was taking place in His hands. When He finally opened His eyes and set to work making a sloping path into me, I saw that the transformation was startling. The fingers had fused together so that the hands were flat scoops. The palms had broadened and lengthened until they were as large as the blade of a spade. He turned and walked out of sight to begin work. Working quickly, He removed the crust from the snow twenty-five feet away and began angling toward me, packing the snow in steps. Two hours later, after a second minor cave-in that required Him to reclear an area of His path, we were both on top of the drift, suited again, and headed toward the woods at the end of the field.

When we reached the trees, I stopped and looked at His hands but could find no trace of the previous transformation. His fingers were back in place, five to a hand, all perfectly formed. "How much of your body can you-change when you want to?" I asked. I had been afraid, back there when I had fallen through the crust, that He would just leave me there. What did He need me for, after all? It seemed that, already, He was going to be too much for World Authority to handle, even with their superior fire power and all their cunning little think tank men. There did not appear to be any need for me, even though He assured me there was.

Of course, that was not His way, abandoning someone to die.

"I can change most of it," He said matter-of-factly.

"Your face?"

"I'm working on that."

"And how far have you progressed?"

"I need to be able to exert more delicate control on the bone tissue. It, too, must be changed along with the facial features of the flesh."

"When you control that, we can stop running," I said. "You can change your face and go unrecognized." Indeed, He could assume a different face every few weeks, every week if necessary, and be always a few steps ahead of the authorities with no fear of their ever catching Him.

"Someone would recognize me sooner or later, Jacob. It isn't just my face. It's everything about me that singles me out, makes people suspicious of me. I'm- well-different." He grinned that damned infectious, winning grin of His and spread His hands in a show of helplessness. All for my benefit. He was about as helpless as a full-grown bull elephant.

But what He said had some truth to it. He would always be an outcast. There was an indefinable, unscientific aura about Him that gave Him an indisputably alien air. I knew what it was. He was alien, in that He was a superman, a supergenius too, who could no more pass for a man than a man could pass for a monkey in some jungle ape society. "But a change of face could gain you time to complete your evolution," I said.

"Get me to the cabin," He said, gripping my shoulder in His mammoth hand, "and I will only need the three days you promised. Then face-changing won't be necessary."

I put on my goggles and mask, for my face was already prickled with numbness that felt like a huge injection of novocaine had been rammed into both my cheeks. I fumbled the compass out and read it, pointed straight ahead. He took the lead, breaking a trail, spraying the snow to both sides, tramping it down, charging through it at a brisk pace. As we walked, I noticed something new about Him. His hand, when He had gripped my shoulder, had been enormous, not just large. Now I saw that He was enormous in every respect. An insulated suit, meant to be bulky, was strained to bursting with His giant body. His head seemed higher, larger, with a much greater expanse of forehead. His footprints were half again as large as mine. He lumbered through the dark woods like a fairy-tale giant, crushing or thrusting aside all that got in His way, silent, somewhat mysterious. Again, I was conscious of that part of His personality that always remained shrouded, the eerie side of Him that I had never been able to understand.

It was not exactly the result of the wind or the cold, but I shivered.

Half an hour later, He stopped and squatted in a small clearing, wiping snowflakes from His face and looking about as if He were searching for something He had left behind on a previous trip through these same parts, though He could never have been here before. His head tilted, swayed from side to side like a pendulum through molasses, His lips compressed and bloodless.

"What is it?" I asked, coming up behind Him. "I'm not tired yet, if that's what you're troubled about."

"How far to the cabin, Jacob?" He asked anxiously, His voice closer to a show of emotion than it usually got. It was the first time I had seen anxiety in Him; He was usually the pinnacle of patience, easygoing and willing to wait for all things.

"Well-" I took the map out of my coat pocket, unfolded it, and squinted to see in the gloom. After a moment, the glowing characters were clear and easy to read. "We're right about here somewhere," I said, pointing to a shaded forest area. "Halfway through this section of the forest. Then we have to cover this series of foothills, not rugged but quite steep in some places. Skirt this final copse, and we're there. Maybe two and a half hours yet."

"That's much too long."

"It's the shortest way. I checked it several times in San Francisco when we ate dinner, remember? And again in the movie theater when that damned show became intolerable. This always measured the shortest and easiest route. Less hills than if we moved east to take advantage of that temporary ravine, less forests than if we went west along the ridge here." I pointed to the corresponding portions of the map.

He didn't answer.

I sat down next to Him. The snow was falling harder now, though it still might be only a local storm or even a short-term squall. He didn't speak, and I didn't feel like interrogating Him. We sat for about five minutes until the warmth we had gained from marching drained out and the cold began seeping back into my bones. He had given way completely to that unknown part of His personality, and I could not see how to approach Him, how to ask what was the matter. When another five minutes passed, I decided on the blunt route. "What is it?" I asked.

"Jacob, I am sitting here in a quandary, faced with two decisions, each of which will be in some way unpleasant." He spoke in that same, deep, even tone that denied emotion. That was what a machine should sound like — not like a seductress. "One of the courses of action that is open to me will end with your becoming a little less sure of me, a little frightened of me."

"No," I said.

"Yes, it will I know. You will be slightly disgusted, and it will have a bearing on the way you feel about me. Maybe small, maybe large. I don't want to lose your friendship."

"The second alternative?"

"I can postpone continuation of the changes going on in me, lose the momentum of biological processes, and wait until we are to the cabin to begin. It might mean a lost day."

"What are you trying to say?" Despite myself, I let a note of fear slip through my words. It must have showed, for He grinned and slapped my back.

"I need food," He said. "I can't wait until we get to the cabin. I've started new systems, and I would suffer a complete setback if I had to wait much longer for food to create the energy needed to form large quantities of muscle tissue."

"I don't see how you propose to get food out here. Also, I don't see what you could possibly do to upset me."

"All right," He said. "I will not postpone the changes. If you do not like what happens, try to remember that it is necessary."

He took off His gloves again and knelt on the earth. He pressed His fingers against the ground after brushing the snow away over a two-foot square area. As I watched, His hands seemed to melt and run into the soil. The frozen ground cracked and spattered up as His lengthening fingers probed and displaced it. Several minutes later, He smiled and withdrew His hands, His fingers flowing back into normal shape as if they had been rubber that had been stretched and now released. "I found two of them," He said mysteriously. "Over there."

"What?" I asked.

"Watch."

I followed him across the clearing to a jumble of rotting logs and brush. He hefted the logs aside effortlessly, revealing a burrow of some sort. He reached into it, and He made His arm grow longer now, not just His fingers. Abruptly, there was a squealing and thrashing from inside the burrow. He drew His arm back out, a snow rabbit clutched in His fist. The animal had been strangled. A few moments later, He had done the same thing to a second rabbit and had brought it out and placed it next to the first. "This is the part you may find disgusting," He said. "I'll have to eat them raw. No time for a fire and too risky to start one anyway."

"Doesn't bother me," I said, though I was not too sure what I felt. The blood wouldn't bother me, certainly, nor would the spilling of intestines and gore. If it did, then I might as well give up being a doctor. Eating a raw, warm rabbit, though

He lifted the first rabbit in His left hand while He thinned His right fingers and slid the tiny tips into the game, loosening the hide from the inside. The animal peeled, literally, like a banana. He did the second one the same way, then set to devouring them before they could stiffen and freeze. He took large bites of the greasy flesh, blood dribbling down His chin, until He had consumed everything but the bones and the fur that He had previously skinned off. He hardly seemed to chew the food, but bolted it down in an effort to finish the unpleasant business as swiftly as possible. "Okay," He said, standing and wiping the mess from His cheeks and lips. "Time to go."

His eyes glittered.

My stomach flipped like a dying animal looking for a cozy place to have that final wrenching spasm, despite my concentrated efforts to control myself. I turned and led the way this time, for the snow under the trees was considerably less than it had been in the open and in the less dense sections of the woods. As I walked, I tried to sort out the confusing mass of conflicting emotions throbbing through my brain. He was the greatest boon to mankind in centuries, was He not? Of course He was I Look at the power in His hands, the ability to heal that burned in every cell of His body. This was not just a steam engine or an electric lightbulb or a more powerful rocket booster that had been discovered; this was a panacea for all that physically ailed the race. I should discount little things like His wild appetite, His energetic consumption of the rabbits-blood, guts, and all. Shouldn't I? Of course I should. Only a small-minded man will overlook intrinsic worth because of superfluous surface defects.

The wind blew.

The snow beat my face.

Cold

But there was one thing troubling me: Yes, perhaps He was benevolent in His previous stage when I had

kidnapped Him, when He had brought the explosion and fire victims back from the dead. But did that necessarily mean He would look kindly upon mankind in one of His later stages, after He had changed?

Wouldn't we seem very inferior? And sort of pitiful. And maybe worthless. And, just maybe, pests to be dealt with out-of-hand?

I shivered.

Damn! I was acting like some superstitious child, or some senile old ninnie. This wasn't a retelling of the hoary Frankenstein tale! My artificial human was not going to turn on me like a senseless brute and bash my head in. I shook my head and tried to dispel any more such thoughts. I knew they were unhealthy.

Thirty-five minutes later, we came out of the trees to the edge of the foothills. We had taken off our snow-shoes when we had entered the last woods, now we unstrapped them from our packs and put them on again. I made a mental note to be especially careful if we encountered any drifts. We couldn't afford another two-hour delay while He shoveled me out with His hands. It would be dawn before we reached the cabin now, and I didn't want to stay out in daylight any longer than was absolutely necessary. We moved across the barren slopes, and we had just crested the rise when the sound came to us.

"What is that?" He asked, taking my arm and stopping me.

I peeled off my mask and waited. It came again, low and hollow. "Wolves," I said. "A pack of wolves."