Anti-Man

For a full twenty minutes, we wove in and out of the pattern, swinging to all points of the compass, rising and going back down to make way for commercial and private craft already assigned to that position. Other craft slid by us on all sides, sometimes as close as five or ten feet, the drivers inside perfectly visible in the glow of their cabin lights. Then we were into clearer air, over the Atlantic, beyond the most used airlanes, even out past the holding patterns for transoceanic flights. I could lean against the window and look down on the sea below, where medium-sized waves curled off toward the continent, capped with white foam, otherwise black as oil. Above, there was a heavy cloud layer from which a light snow filtered. The wipers clicked on and thumped back and forth across the windscreen.

I asked the dash computer if it would be possible to go above the clouds since they were so low, and it obliged, because it could work out the maneuver without disturbing the traffic pattern. Suddenly, the clouds were below me, and the almost-full moon lay cold and serene in the black sky overhead.

"What do you do when God is out to get you?" I asked aloud.

"Pardon?" the computer said.

"Ignore me," I said.

"That is impossible, sir. My pickups function constantly and are beyond my control."

"That must get boring," I said, "listening to all your passengers' problems."

"On the contrary," the helicar said, "that is my only contact with the outside world."

I knew then that the central traffic computer had tapped this cab again to see if things were functioning properly. The simple brain and simple voice-tapes of the helicar would not have been up to this sort of banter.

"I'll try not to talk aloud," I said.

"Very well."

And there was silence again.

But what could you do when the omniscient was watching? When the omnipotent was about to make His move. But was He omniscient? No, that was doubtful. He had not shown any signs of knowing all that was going on and would go on. He was not omnipotent either, or He would not have been frightened off by the guard-bot. What had He said there in Harry's cabin? He had denied that He was the immovable object, but had stated that He was the irresistible force. And that summed Him up quite well. Parts of Him could be killed. He could be temporarily defeated. But, in the end, He would win because He could tap the flow of life and return to fight again and again in other copies of Himself. So the answer to the question, "What can you do when God is out to get you," was — "Nothing."

No. Wait. There was one thing.

"Kill Him," I said.

"Who?" the computer asked.

"Sorry. Thinking aloud."

"I don't mind. Passengers are my only — "

"Link to the outside," I finished for it. Then we were both quiet again.

Kill Him. Yes, it was possible. Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly. I would have to go back to Cantwell, back to the mother body in the cellar of Harry's cabin. I would have to go well enough armed to take Him out quickly and completely, so He had no chance to heal Himself. I would have to get near enough without arousing His suspicions, or without letting Him kill me. How? Well, I could think about that. I could work on it and come up with something.

Why? Why would I want to kill Him when I had gone to all that trouble to help Him? Why kill Him after I knew that He was God, and, therefore, the greatest force for good in the universe. Or was He? Who could state with assurance that this God was a benevolent one? Suddenly, I could see one instance in which He might wish to see me dead. Suppose He was not benevolent. Suppose He was not even God, as He claimed. Suppose, instead, He was what He logically appeared to be: a superior species, the first of its kind, able to reproduce in hours and at will. And suppose He would be more pleased in a world composed of his own kind. Suppose all those things, and you could not help but be a little frightened. If He were about to initiate a war against mankind, it would be quite sensible to destroy me before continuing, for I was the only one who knew His sanctuary, the only one who even partially understood what had happened to Him in the last several days.

We dipped through the clouds as a huge airliner roared into our traffic lane. The helicar bumped about in the turbulence of the other craft's jets, then came up out of the clouds once more and leveled off, running out to sea.