Anti-man

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,