Anti-Man

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."

IV

We stood a third of the way down the next slope, nothing behind which we might hide, no trees to climb, nothing at all to do but wait and hope that they passed us by, crossed another hill, went down a distant ravine and never knew our presence. But my scalp tightened and cold chills crept up my spine, flushing through all parts of my body when I considered the unlikelihood of that. A wolf is a formidable opponent. It has exceedingly sharp senses, among the keenest in the animal kingdom. And with the wind blowing our scent in the direction of the guttural, melancholy howls, there was almost no chance at all that we would escape detection.

"I've read only a little about wolves," He said. "But they are vicious, very vicious, when they are hungry and hunting. Am I right?"

"Too right," I told Him, drawing my pin gun and wishing, now that I was going to have to face beasts instead of men, that I had something more lethal than narcodarts. It had been a harsh winter; I could tell that from the depth of the drifts, the bow of the trees after they had borne so many weeks of heavy snow. The wolves had been driven out of the higher levels of the park, down from the dense upper forests into the more civilized areas. Food would be scarce up there in this weather. Farther down, there was still good hunting… "They must have caught the odor of blood-maybe from the rabbits you skinned. If that's the case, they've been searching for some time now, and they're bound to be near mad with excitement."

Just as I finished, the first wolf loped into sight, a scout of the main pack. He came over the brow of the next hill and stood looking at us across the little valley that separated him from us. His eyes were hot coals, feverish, gleaming between the beads of the snow curtain that draped the night. His muzzle quivered, and he bared his teeth. Two prominent fangs arched up from his lower jaw and shone wickedly yellow-white in the gloom, fangs that could rip out a man's throat in seconds, free the bubbling blood in human veins. He danced backward, then forward again, examining us, his excitement growing by the second. Then he raised his head and dropped his lower jaw to howl.