Anti-Man

VIII

Dry, bullet-like flakes of snow blew in sheets across the wintry landscape. The wind had picked up a bit and was punctuated by stiff gusts that almost rocked me off my feet. The clouds were so low that they seemed to pick up the glitter of them and reflect it yet again.

I was feeling terribly alone, and the desolation of the blizzard did not help to relieve my spirits any. I have always been what some people call a loner, one of those types who seldom find a deep need for the companionship of other people. Oh, there is Harry, of course. It is hard to imagine what the world would be like without Harry and his pot gut, his rather rank little cigars, his bushy eyebrows raised in surprise or lowered in consternation when he had to re-explain something to me. Harry was a fixture of the reality of this world, a familiar rock formation that would always exist. There had been women, too. There had been many women, really, but only two that counted. Yes, Jake Kennelmen had been in love twice, the loner himself. The first time had been with Jenny, blonde and thin with breasts like apples stuffed beneath her blouse, all out-thrusting and ripe. Cool Jenny with all of her books, her Salinger and Heller books, everything else that was resurrected avant-garde. Why I loved her, I don't know, though there was more to her than the hip, suave, cool, beautiful exterior. There was a basic tenderness to her, an animal warmth, a place to go and find sympathy and understanding after a journey on rough seas. And she had left me. Who wants a gangling, somewhat skinny, tousle-haired, long-faced physician when you can swing with any man you want? A good question. It must have occurred to Jenny. One night she was there, the next morning gone. And there had been Kim with dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, dark brown skin. There had also been the fire… The fire and the crisped corpse, the shriveled, charred limbs just two weeks before the wedding. Other than those three, I had no real friends. Now one was gone off with someone else. Another was dead. The third was a couple of thousand miles away in New York City. Right now, I wished I had all three of them with me, all three cuddled against me. I would even have appreciated Harry's cigar smoke in my face.

The android was not really a friend.

He was less than a friend and, perversely, more than a friend. I could not understand Him or any relationship with Him. Our personalities crossed, webbed, and formed something, though what it was remained a mystery insoluble. I concentrated on hunting, trying to dispel some of the gloomy melancholy I was giving myself over to.

I got the magnetic sled from the shed and took it along the row of foothills upon which Harry's cabin perched, drove two miles away. Touring the edge of the tree line, I eventually found a place where the snow was beaten down, and where the ground was blanketed by fresh deer tracks, still uncovered by new snow. Pulling the sled into a nook in the pines, I stopped it, checked my gun and the narcodart pistol, and waited.

Fifteen minutes later, a male elk trotted out of the trees and stood at the brink of open land, sniffing the air and pawing the ground a little. I waited until he had ventured out far enough, then, still sitting strapped in the sled seat, raised the rifle and fired. The shot missed, and the animal leaped forward, startled, and began heaving itself through the snow that came up to its knees. It started down the slope, heading toward another arm of the forest. I dropped the rifle, clutched my pin-gun, and, steering with one hand, took the sled after him.

It was hard going for him. The snow retarded his progress, flew up in his face and blinded him as he ran. I glided past him, fired a burst of pins. But he had seen me going by and had executed a turn to his left.

I went after him, came in on his right flank. He bellowed. I fired.

This time, he went down, twisting his neck, his legs kicking for a moment before he slipped into unconsciousness.

I stopped the sled next to him and got out, carrying the rifle now. I placed the barrel against his head, then realized I could not watch what I was doing. I turned my head sideways, pulled the trigger, then put the rifle back on the sled.

He was much too large to load on the sled all at once. I would have to do some butchering before I could move him. I got my knives out of my backpack and knelt to the chore. I needed a meat saw and cursed myself for not thinking of that earlier. I hacked and ripped with the two pieces of cutlery I carried, managed to saw off two large slabs of about forty or fifty pounds each. I loaded them in the back seat of the sled and took them back to the cabin. I tossed them down the steps to the cellar floor, closed the door, and went back for the remainder of the meat. He had not said anything, and I did not feel like initiating a conversation.

The trip back to the sight of the killing seemed much longer than two miles. And I could not help thinking about the new Jacob Kennelmen, the slaughterer of animals. When I finally arrived at the butchered elk, I just wanted to get this thing over with as quickly as possible. I jumped out, waded to the bloody meat, and dragged the main mass of it back to the sled. I was almost finished loading it when a bright flashlight swept the sled and me, outlining us against the sparkling snow.

The gun, the heavy rifle, was standing on the seat, its butt against the leatherette, its barrel pointing skywards. I grabbed, swung it into my arms, and came around, firing. There was a startled yelp. The light fell into the snow, face down, and was effectively shut off. For a moment, I felt a little exhilaration. Then I stopped to think for the first time in several minutes, and I realized I had just shot a man.

A man. Which is different from an elk. Much different.

I stood very still, looking out at the humped form of the body. I prayed that more of them would come out of the trees, that he would prove to be a WA soldier bent on killing me. That would make it self-defense, you see. That would make it, in some small way, pardonable. But he was alone. There were no back-up forces. When all my excuses failed me, I dropped the rifle and started off toward the man I had shot, walking at first, then running, pumping my legs up and down, my lungs afire, snow flowering up around me as I kicked it out of the way.

I fell down beside him and rolled him over. He was not in a uniform. He was a man of forty or forty-five, tall, relatively thin, sporting a gray-black moustache. His mouth was slack now, his eyes closed. Frantically, I searched him and found where the bullet had struck. It was not as bad as I thought. It had lodged in his right thigh. I probed through his uninsulated trousers, could feel no broken bones. He was bleeding freely, but it was not gushing. He was unconscious, evidently, because the force of the impact and the realization that he had been shot had been enough to throw him into a faint-and probably into a state of shock.

Two or three minutes later, I found myself staring out across the snow, daydreaming. Think, Jacob! I yelled at myself. Don't let it crack you up. You've shot a man. You. You've got to face it. And you've got to do something. Fast. If I took him back to the cabin, I could get the bullet out with kitchen utensils if I had to. I could stop the bleeding. Then the shock

The next thing I knew, I was loading him into the second seat of the sled. I looked for a weapon, found he had been carrying none. He probably rented a cabin just like Harry's, a cabin hidden behind this rim of trees, perhaps. He had heard me shooting, had come and had found the elk, had waited to see if I would return. Just a good man trying to catch someone poaching game on government reserves. Now he had a hole in his leg.

I swung into the driver's seat, strapped myself down, and accelerated away down the slope, moving around trees, going much too fast. I was almost to the fence, twenty minutes later, when I realized I was not taking him back to the cabin. I was taking him to the hospital and to hell with being recognized.

But by then my emotions were a bit settled. I began to think more rationally again. I had shot a man. Not fatally. Sure, it was up to me to see that he received good medical care. But it wasn't up to me to jeopardize everything now, not now that we had come this far and achieved this much towards His goal. When I decided what I should do, I felt better. I turned the sled toward the main gate and the chief ranger station.

I stopped the sled five hundred feet away and looked down the road at the building, the windows warmly lighted. Quickly, I undid the straps binding my victim, hefted him more easily than I would have thought possible, and went down the road to the front door of the place. I stood him up against the door, leaning him into it so that he would not fall, then rapped sharply and ran.

Back at the sled, I jumped into the front seat and watched to see what would happen. Several seconds passed, so many that I began to think I would have to go back and knock louder. Then the door opened and my victim fell forward into the arms of a ranger. I swung the sled around, accelerated back up the mountain, broke over the snowbanks and into the open fields, moving fast

The ranger would see the wound. He would get the man to the Cantwell medical center faster than I could, for he would have a jeep. The bullet would come out. The blood would stop. There would be no gangrene. But I had still shot him… It was still my moral responsibility. I would never forget it.

I did not want to return to the elk, but I knew I had to. It had fallen off when I was getting the victim in the seat, and He needed that meat.

He

Suddenly, I realized that I could have taken the wounded man to Him and that He could have healed him in moments. The man could have been well, would not have had to suffer this long. I realized that I had been doing a great deal of gut-thinking these last few hours. If I didn't manage to return to my accustomed logicality, I was going to be in a great deal of trouble. They say the first signs of madness are changes in the most common of thinking patterns. A man who has always been a slow-mover begins flitting about in a great rush. A man who has been friendly withdraws; the loner begins seeking companionship. And the logical man begins letting his emotions rule him

I loaded the elk aboard and took it back to the cabin. I tugged and twisted and heaved at it until I had it to the cellar steps, thrown inside to crash down the steps to the floor. I looked down at the frozen meat and said, "I'm tired." It sounded like someone else's voice, a distant, metallic ringing that was faintly like syllables, like words, but only faintly. It was the sort of voice you hear in a fever dream when demons and gnomes crawl at you. "I just can't do any more."

"That's all right, Jacob," the voice said, even stranger and more ominous than before. "I've almost stopped the metamorphosis. I just need enough calories now to maintain my functions and to provide substance for my productions. I can use the elk for that, plus a little of what I've stored and don't need."

I did not question the word "productions." I was far too tired to bother. I mumbled something, staggered off to bed, and slept until late afternoon, a sleep deep and almost dreamless. Almost. Now and then, I would dream of a huge gun barrel pointed at my head. I would hear the trigger click as it left primary position

When I woke, the snow had stopped falling except for thin, light flakes that struck and melted against the glass. The only sound was a strange noise. I cocked my head and listened for a moment before I was able to identify it: helicopter blades pounding directly overhead