Anti-man

remember that it is necessary."
        He took off His gloves again and knelt on the earth. He pressed His fingers against the ground after brushing the snow away over a two-foot square area. As I watched, His hands seemed to melt and run into the soil. The frozen ground cracked and spattered up as His lengthening fingers probed and displaced it. Several minutes later, He smiled and withdrew His hands, His fingers flowing back into normal shape as if they had been rubber that had been stretched and now released. "I found two of them," He said mysteriously. "Over there."
        "What?" I asked.
        "Watch."
        I followed him across the clearing to a jumble of rotting logs and brush. He hefted the logs aside effortlessly, revealing a burrow of some sort. He reached into it, and He made His arm grow longer now, not just His fingers. Abruptly, there was a squealing and thrashing from inside the burrow. He drew His arm back out, a snow rabbit clutched in His fist. The animal had been strangled. A few moments later, He had done the same thing to a second rabbit and had brought it out and placed it next to the first. "This is the part you may find disgusting," He said. "I'll have to eat them raw. No time for a fire and too risky to start one anyway."
        "Doesn't bother me," I said, though I was not too sure what I felt. The blood wouldn't bother me, certainly, nor would the spilling of intestines and gore. If it did, then I might as well give up being a doctor. Eating a raw, warm rabbit, though…
        He lifted the first rabbit in His left hand while He thinned His right fingers and slid the tiny tips into the game, loosening the hide from the inside. The animal peeled, literally, like a banana. He did the second one the same way, then set to devouring them before they could stiffen and freeze. He took large bites of the greasy flesh, blood dribbling down His chin, until He had consumed everything but the bones and the fur that He had previously skinned off. He hardly seemed to chew the food, but bolted it down in an effort to finish the unpleasant business as swiftly as possible. "Okay," He said, standing and wiping the mess from His cheeks and lips. "Time to go."
        His eyes glittered.
        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