brother and approached the corpse, sniffing it all over and casting wary glances in all directions as if he sensed the presence of the force that had dealt the death blow. He raised his head and smelled the wind, but my scent was being carried the wrong way. He howled.
Shortly, his friends came to join him, prancing a little and trying to look brave.
I raised the rifle and sighted on the largest of the group, then had a better idea. Quietly, I put the rifle down and took out my narcodart pistol. It was smaller, and I had to remove even the thin gloves I was wearing to be able to handle it right. I leveled it at the group, swept them from left to right as I depressed the trigger. All were hit. I swept back again, just to make certain. Some of them tried to run but got only a few feet when the drugs affected them, sent them tumbling into the snow, legs akimbo.
I put the pistol away and walked down to the sleeping demons. They lay with their mouths open, their teeth bare and wet with saliva. They smelled of the dead meat they had eaten. Raising the rifle, I shot two of them and decided to let the others go. Making live flesh into dead flesh did not appeal to me. I wanted to do as little of it as possible.
With cord from my pack, I tied the three dead wolves together and dragged them back to the cabin. The three together outweighed me, and it was not an easy job. I thought, too late now, that I should have brought the magnetic sled at least part of the way. Fortunately, the snow packed in their coats and turned to ice under the influence of their dissipating body heat so that they formed a sort of sled of their own that glided across the spots the wind had made bare and across the places where there was a heavy crust.
When I got back to the cabin, I stacked the wolves on the porch and went inside. I opened the cellar door and flipped on the light which He had not bothered with. I went down the first two steps when His voice came from below, hollow and strange, His voice, and yet not remotely His voice, much different than it had been an hour and a half ago. 'Jacob, stay where you are,' He said.
He meant it.
I stopped, looking down toward the bottom. The stairs came into one end of the cellar, and it was impossible to see anything of the basement room if you stood at the top of them. 'What's the matter?' I asked.
'Nothing wrong,' He said.
'Then I'm coming down.'
'No! I'm not-not pleasant to look at,' He said. 'There has been a major change within the last hour. You had best stay up there.'
The voice was something like a seventy-eight r.p.m. recording being played at forty-five, though it was intelligible and still carried enough of His former tones to let me know it was definitely Him. 'I think I can take it,' I said, starting down again.
'No!'
It was such a definite negative that I stopped on the fourth step, then turned and went to the top landing again. I was shaking all over. Scenes from the old horror story wound through my mind despite my earlier proclamation. Bolts in the neck? A series of heavy stitches across the forehead? malevolent eyes, eyes of a dead man
'The changes,' I said. 'What-'
'It became necessary to adapt my circulatory system to my newer form,' He said. It was eerie talking to Him and not being able to see Him. My mind conjured up worse apparitions, I was sure, than the one He must truly have possessed at that point. 'It could not support the tissue I was making. I restructured it into a triple pump with external as well as internal vessels.'
I sat down on the top step because I did not trust myself to remain standing. 'I see,' I said, seeing nothing. I have this complex about seeming stupid. It comes from having lived with Harry Leach for so many years. He would explain something to me, something so complex that only a team of specialists could fully understand it, and then he would say, 'See?' And if I said no, he sulked and slunk around looking for simpler language to put it in, inevitably putting it so simply as to embarrass both of us. He never inferred that I was not as swift as he, but the aura of his frustration made me feel somehow inadequate. It was years and years, until I was finished with interning and had gained some confidence as a full-fledged doctor working on my own, that I came to understand myself in this respect, this threatening inferiority complex. I understand it now. I still can't shake it.
He went on. 'And my eyes were insufficient. I did away with those. Other systems are more efficient. A great number of organs-Jacob, in short, I am not human-not even android-any longer. Not even remotely.'
Frankenstein!
Nonsense! Or was it?
For a time, we honored silence. It was the old inferiority thing again as I groped about for some understanding, some interpretation that would present my mind's eye with a coherent theory-picture. It was hard, sweaty work, even though it was totally mental. Finally, I said, 'What good are you like this? Are you even mobile?'
'No. Too much tissue.'
'If you're not mobile,' I said, 'They'll get you in a few days. Sooner or later, they'll find out we crossed them, and they'll come here and find you waiting for them like a plastic duck in a shooting gallery.'
'No,' He said confidently. His voice was still garbled and strange. 'I can never die, Jacob.'
'Invulnerability now? Are you certain it will hold up even to nuclear weapons? They'll use limited atomics, I should think, if there is no other way to get to you. They hated you that much. And they will hate you more when they see whatever it is you have come to be. And when they fully understand that you think you can give men unlimited Me spans.'
It was laughter, I think, that rolled up from that cold cellar. At least, it was as close as He could come to making the sound of mirth now that He had forsaken human form. Instead of conveying good humor, however, it left me uneasy and with a nagging desire to keep looking over my shoulder. 'I'm not invulnerable, Jacob. I am not, you see, the immovable object. I am the irresistible force.'
'I'm afraid you've lost me,' I said.
'No mind.'
Silence a minute.
'Did you bring food?' He asked.
'Three wolves.'
'Throw them down. I'll get them when you have gone. You'll have to do some more work for me. The beef is almost finished. I'll need more than three wolves.'
'How much more?'
'As much as you can bring me, Jacob.'
'I had better go hunting now while I'm a little fresh so that I can sleep later,' I said.
'Jacob?'
'Yes?'
'Don't give up on me, Jacob. Keep your faith a little longer. Not much longer. One more day, Jacob. Things are moving faster than I had expected. Faster and faster all the time.'
I got up and went out for the wolves. I threw them down the steps one at a time. Each landed with a sickening plop and bled on the floor. I closed the door and stood in the living room, listening. A few seconds passed, then I heard a heavy, rapid breathing sound, a wet slithering, and a short series of deep, guttural sounds of joy. Then silence. I got more shells from the gun cabinet, drank a cup of coffee, and went outside again, looking for something else to kill
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
