Anti - Man

by neetha Napew

  The sleds went into production as pleasure craft. It wasn’t long before they had replaced the small boat as the favorite middle-class luxury item. The snowmobile, so popular for thirty years, died overnight. The mag­netic sled could never get stuck, could never break a tread, and moved faster. It could also go places the snowmobile could never reach. Ford made money. Kesey was kept on at his research lab. But the revolu­tion never came.

  Now I rested outside the cabin on the snow, drifting slightly forward. I accelerated a bit more, brought the craft smoothly ahead, and took it around the cabin, under the trees. I pointed the front end down the white stretch of the long slope below the cabin and stepped up the propeller speed. They whined behind me. I surged forward, the trees and mounds of snow flashing past. I kept the machine at twenty, not daring to go much faster. There was just enough light reflected off the snow from the pale moon to see by, and I kept a sharp lookout for sharp rises in the landscape. If the land dropped abruptly, the sled would fall gently back to the surface without disaster. But if there was a rise that I did not pull back on the wheel to compensate for, the sled would glide into it, smash nose-first and tip over. Even if I didn’t get hurt, such an accident would damage the sled so that I would be forced to walk the rest of the way. And that was not a pleasant prospect.

  When I came to the first section of woods, I decided to circle it rather than hunt a wide enough path through. Even if I did find a deer trail, I would have to slow up, for the woods were very treacherous for a sled. I soared past, curving in a wide arc around the trees. It would be an extra couple of miles around the stand of pine, but the increased speed would more than compensate for it. I moved sharply in the last moments of the high point of the arc, sending a spray of snow in a long geyser behind. The ride was exhilarating. For the first time in a long time, I felt like laughing.

  I crossed more open fields beyond the wood, bringing the speed up to thirty, now that I was more sure of my­self. Five minutes like that brought me to another section of forest. As I approached, I saw that it stretched to both sides, far out of sight. It looked as if I would be forced to go through the trees here. I slowed to fifteen and cruised along the edge of the woods, looking for a path. I disregarded the first two because they were windy and narrow, but the third showed regular use by elk or deer and had been beaten into a fairly well-traveled and wide thoroughfare. I turned into it, dropped my speed to eight miles an hour, and pro­ceeded with care.

  The trees went by at a steady clip. It was slightly over two miles before I saw the opening at the end of the woods and the fields beyond. With a hundred feet to go through the tunnel of wood, I tramped down on the accelerater. The sled leaped ahead. I could see that the remainder of the path was wide and free of branches. The only thing I did not see was the white-tailed deer to the left of the hole leading into the field. He moved in front of my exit just as I reached it . . .

  I hit the brakes almost instantly, but it was too late to avoid him completely. Startled, he tried some evasive action of his own, turning and leaping back. The sled smacked into his brown rump, leaped into the air, came down on its magnetic field, slapping the surface hard, tilted onto its side, and careened along the field for fifty feet, nosing into the snow until the propellers became clogged and the motor stalled.

  I had not been able to get free, for I was strapped tight. Perhaps it was fortunate that I rode out the wreck. Otherwise, I might have been thrown off and had my neck broken. As it was, my goggles had been rammed down onto my nose with such force that the old pro­boscis had started bleeding. My back had been wrenched, and the stiffness reached up into my neck. A little bit of a whiplash and a bloody nose, I thought. Not too bad. Not considering.

  Then I remembered the sled. And the long walk with­out it.

  And I was suddenly much more concerned about it than I was about anything that might have happened to my body.

  I unfastened the belt and crawled away from the sled. The snow had blown off this field and had packed in among the trees, so there was not more than two and a half feet on the surface. Halfway up my thigh. Which made for tough walking, but which, at least, could not gulp me down and smother me. I turned around and moved carefully to the sled. It was lodged in the snow, only a few inches of the side sticking out. I set to work scooping the snow away from it, wishing my hands could reform themselves as His had. Ten minutes later, I was able to pull it free and turn it right side up in the hole it had made. The underside looked amazingly in­tact. The drive box had not been breached. I thumbed the ignition, and was delighted beyond words when the propeller fluttered and the motor hummed.

  There was a noise behind me, perhaps twenty feet off. I turned, startled, and remembered the deer. There were about two dozen of them, standing in an area where the wind seemed to have scoured away all but three or four inches of snow. I could not tell which of them was the one I had hit a glancing blow with the sled. They watched me, snorting among themselves and blinking their large, dark eyes.

  I turned back to the sled, muscled it up out of the snow and onto the undisturbed surface, its motor idling, the field on and holding it on the thin crust. I climbed aboard, buckled up, and started out again. I kept it at a decent twenty miles an hour as I had at first, and I kept it like that until I had come down through all the foothills and had reached the fence at the edge of the park.

  Beyond the fence, there was a plowed and cindered road banked with snow on both sides. I realized that I could not be far from the main gate where He and I had first entered. But, of course, it would be nothing but suicide to go back there. The World Authority coppers would be congregated at the first ranger station, would have secured that primary gate. All gates, in fact. If I were to get out, I would have to climb the fence.

  I lugged the sled to a clump of brush, brown and dry and dead from the battering of winter. I tucked it into them, then stood back and examined it. It was still noticeable from the road, I was certain. I went behind the bushes, dug out snow and threw it on the sled. Five minutes later, I was satisfied. The contours of its hidden shape were irregular and unnatural, but the smooth blanket of falling snow would take care of that in an­other hour. I went back to the fence and spent a good fifteen minutes climbing and falling off before I went over and dropped in the snow on the other side.

  On each of the fence posts, there was a small red plate with a number stamped into it. I checked the number on this one: 878. Now all I would have to do when I returned was get on this park access highway and follow the fence posts down or up until I came to 878. I felt proud of my ingenuity, so proud that I almost stepped out onto the road before I noticed the low, rumbling sound of an approaching jeep.

  VI

  I was standing in the snow bank that the plows had thrown up. I had not yet broken through to the road, and now I dropped quickly until I was snuggled down in a hole that would be invisible to the WA searchers. The sound of the jeep engine grew louder until, finally, I knew it was just beyond the bank. A powerful light swept over the snow as the vehicle moved slowly past. Could they know? Could they already know that I was leaving the park? Had they captured Him and—no, no. This was probably just a routine patrol. They would be looking along the perimeters of the park for any place where the snow bank might be broken, any place where we might have exited behind their backs.

  When the engine was sufficiently distant, I stood up and looked after the jeep. It was a heavy, truck-bedded vehicle carrying half a dozen armed WA troops. Then it turned a bend and was out of sight. Quickly, I broke through onto the road, then turned around to look at the hole I had made. It would do no good for them to see this, investigate, and discover the sled. I’d come strolling back, confident about fooling them, and they would be sitting in the trees with their guns ready, grin­ning with a satisfaction of their own. I set to work scrap­ing snow off the front of the bank and packing it into the exit I had made. When the spot was well enough hidden to pass searchlight inspection, I crossed to the other side of
the road, broke through the snow wall there, packed it behind me. Then, paralleling the road, but hidden by the wall of snow, I began walking back toward Cantwell.

  When I reached the town proper, the banks of snow along the roads disappeared, for full snow-removal op­erations were in effect in the city limits. Now I would have to walk in the open, out where I could easily be seen, recognized, and apprehended. Except they did not expect me by myself, but were looking for two men. Also, they would not think to search here in the town where hundreds of WA cops and troops milled.

  That was what I hoped, anyway.

  Soon, I had a chance to try the theory. Three blocks from the Port, a group of half a dozen uniformed men came out of a low, lighted building and started my way, talking animatedly among themselves.

  I hunched my shoulders and lowered my head, even though I still wore the mask. The goggles had seemed too conspicuous for a walk in the city, so I had stuffed them in a jacket pocket. Then, the closer I got to the group, the more I began to think that hunched shoul­ders and lowered head would draw more attention than a straightforward, shoulders-back approach. I un­hunched and raised my head. When we passed, I said hello and they said hello, and we left each other without any nasty physical encounters.

  At the edge of the Port area, I stopped to consider what my next move should be. True, they would not expect me to brazen my way up to the desk and buy a ticket on the next rocket out. But that still might be idiotic. Earlier, the Port employees would not have been thinking about Jacob Kennelmen and an android. Now, we would be on their minds. The chances of being recognized were correspondingly higher than they had been the night before. And there wouldn’t be just the ticket seller to get by. There would be the crew of the rocket, the other passengers, the debarking officer . . . No, that was out. What, then?

  I thought over the possible methods of transportation: monorail, flivver, copter (which would be grounded to­night.) None of these were particularly appealing. They all involved being around too many people.

  Then I had it.

  I hurried past the front of the Port building, moving between about fifty WA special troops loitering on the promenade awaiting orders. When I came to the steps down into the taxi docking area, I took them two at a time. I went along the rows of vehicles to the last in the line. It was almost totally blocked from the view of anyone using the lot, and it would afford me more privacy to work. I opened the door on the driver’s side and slid in, closing it behind so that the ceiling light went off.

  I inspected the controls and the keyboard to be cer­tain that this was no different than the standard auto-taxi I had used for so many years in New York City. On the bottom of the directory chart, I found the in­structions I had been hoping for:

  IN THE EVENT THAT THIS VEHICLE SHOULD ENCOUNTER MECHANICAL DIFFI­CULTY THAT THREATENS IN ANY WAY TO INJURE OR KILL THE OCCUPANTS, THE PATRON OR PATRONS ARE LEGALLY EM­POWERED TO ASSUME CONTROL OF THE CRAFT. CONVERSION FROM AUTO TO MAN­UAL IS ACCOMPLISHED BY PUNCHING OUT E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y ON THE KEYBOARD. A BUZZER WILL SIGNAL WHEN THE CON­VERSION HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED, AT WHICH TIME PATRON OR PATRONS MAY OPERATE THIS VEHICLE AS ANY MANUAL STEERING CAR. NOTE: IF ANY PATRON OR PATRONS CONVERTS THIS VEHICLE FROM AUTO TO MANUAL FOR THE PURPOSE OF AVOIDING HONEST FARES OR FOR THE PURPOSE OF STEALING THIS VEHICLE, THEY WILL BE TRIED AND PUNISHED AC­CORDING TO SECTION 3, PARAGRAPH 16 OF THE WORLD AUTHORITY TRANSPORTATION AGENT PROTECTION LAWS WHICH PRO­VIDE FOR NOT LESS THAN ONE YEAR AND NOT MORE THAN FIVE YEARS IN A WORLD AUTHORITY CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION.

  I felt like laughing again. One to five years would mean nothing to Jacob Kennelmen on top of what he was going to receive anyway if he were caught. I wrestled my wallet out of the zippered sidepocket on my insulated trousers, took out a poscred bill and dropped it in the payment slot. The keyboard lighted instantly. Slowly, I typed out E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y. There was a click, a series of grumbling sounds, and the buzzer sounded that the car was now a manually oper­ated vehicle. I shifted it into reverse, backed it out of its stall, and left the lot at a reasonable speed. Once on the highway, I turned toward Anchorage. Keeping the taxi at top speed as much as possible, I reached that city a little over two hours later, at eleven-thirty.

  I parked on the outskirts at a self-service recharging station for electric cars. There was an automat attached. It was well lighted, but empty. I went in, purchased a synthe-ham sandwich and a carton of chocolate arti­ficial milk, went back to the taxi that I had parked at the edge of the lot. While I ate, I tried to plan the next step. I wanted them to know I was in Anchorage, wanted them to shift their search down here and take the heat off the park. But how to do it? If I moved into someplace where there were a lot of people, I would surely be recognized sooner or later—recognized and trapped.

  I had not come all this way to sacrifice myself. Besides, letting them catch me would be utterly foolish. With the right drugs, they would have me babbling everything inside of half an hour, spouting happily where He was at the moment. There must be some other way. A man in a dark blue sedan pulled up before the building at the charging station, plugged in his car, cleaned his windscreen, and drove away. By the time he left, I knew what I was going to do.

  Walking to the far end of the station and around the corner, I found the phones. I stepped into the last so that I was not visible from the front of the station and punched out Harry Leach’s home number.

  There was a little musical set of tones that reminded me of the old-fashioned bells triggered when you opened the door at Harnwockers Book Store back in New York. The tones sounded five times, and I was just beginning to think that Harry was going to fink out on me in my hour of need when the screen rolled once and came back up with his homely, balding head looking out at me.

  “My God, Jake!” he said, his eyes going wide.

  “Harry, I have to talk fast, so don’t try to interrupt me.”

  “But—“ he began.

  “You don’t have to help if you don’t want to. I am not forcing you to—“

  “Jake—“

  “—do anything you don’t want,” I said, talking louder and drowning him out. “But I need help. Look, they think we’re in that park up at Cantwell. I heard it on the radio. But we’re—“

  “Jake, don’t you realize they are—“

  “Shut up! We’re really here in Anchorage. I’m at a little self-service recharging place right now. Now what I want—“

  “Jake—“ he began. It was time to let him tell me what I knew he had been trying to tell me all along. “Jake, this phone is bugged!”

  “Damn!” I said, and I slammed the receiver into its cradle, disconnecting myself. Harry blinked off the screen.

  I stood there for a moment, content with how well it had gone. I had known, of course, that they would tap Harry’s phone. He was my best friend, my father image. It was logical that I should contact him if anyone. The trick had been not to let Harry tell me the bad news until after I had spilled our false position. But I had held him off, had gotten in the bit about Anchorage before he could tell me. The WA boys in the investigation Bureau offices must be frantic at this moment, slapping each other on the back and congratu­lating each other profusely. We’ll have that bastard Kennelmen in hours, boys. He can’t get away from us now. We have him cornered in goddamned old Anchor­age. Then I remembered that they would have me cornered if I didn’t beat it the hell out of there.

  I opened the door of the booth, went out and around the front of the building. Across the lot, a local patrol car had pulled up next to the stolen auto-taxi. The cop, in a state uniform, tending toward plumpness, was look­ing at the yellow letters on the side: Cantwell Port Auto-Taxi Service.

  A WA cop would have pegged it for a hot car as soon as he saw it. This fuzz might be more slow-witted, but he would not require more than another few seconds to reach a similar conclusion.

  I thought of turning and getting out of there before he turned and saw me. Run, run, move, my mind told me. Or was it my e
motional gut again? I forced myself to be calm, then continued across the lot toward the car. “Officer!” I shouted. “Thank God you’re here!”

  He turned around and looked at me. He was a big, heavy-jowled man. His fur hat was brought down around his ears and snapped under his chin. It gave him the look of a small, arctic animal. He made no sign of going for the pin-gun on his hip, but stood with his arms folded across his chest, waiting for me. I realized I must look rather strange, wearing full outdoor gear in a city like this, but the strangeness did not seem to be enough to set him on edge. After all, I had called to him and said I was glad to see him. A criminal never did that sort of thing.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked when I reached him.

  “Name’s Andrews,” I said. “I work at the Port Build­ing in Cantwell. Passenger service desk. This fellow came through customs from Region One, going into the North American Economic Grid. Of course, we were going to search his luggage like we always do. He thought different. Pulled a gun. I mean a projectile gun, not a narcodart pistol. Made me leave the terminal with him, illegally took this taxi and—Well, anyway, I got a chance to go for him and—but you don’t want the whole story right away. Look here in the back seat and see what you think we ought to do with him.”

  He turned back to the car, slightly confused but still not suspecting me of anything illegal.

  I grasped one hand in the other, clenched my fists to make a solid club, and brought them down on the back of his neck. He staggered forward, tripping over his own feet, and went down on his knees. Unfortun­ately, the fur cap had absorbed some of the blow, and he was fumbling for his pistol, still conscious, though evidently whoozy. I slammed my hands on his neck again, then a third time. I tried to remember to keep the blows hard enough—without making them so hard they’d crack his spine or snap the bones in his neck. I could see how a man could get carried away with the thrill of striking an enemy, could so very easily apply just a little too much pressure . . . After the third blow, he pitched forward onto the snow and lay still, snoring.