The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

He looked down. All this time, he had just been a primitive man living with the wolves. But now, he was suddenly brought back into civilization for a moment. The distance between him and the world had narrowed to nothing in a heartbeat. I could see it run through his mind as if he were shouting at me. Broadcasting the interchange between us that had just happened, if done in the right way, would brand him instantly a pervert. It didn’t even have to be true; the allegation would take on a life of its own and any perception of him would be defined by it. People he knew would reconsider all of their memories of him: did the rude gesture on the playground lead to this? Could he have meant that all along? People he didn’t know would make instant and unshakable judgments of him.

I read once that human beings were the only animals that were incapable of domestication. The man who wrote it did not understand people at all. Human beings are the most easily domesticated animal of all; they do it to themselves. Jack had forsaken all that for the love of the pack and now it had come back home to roost. Being thought a pervert mattered to him.

I could see him considering options. Denying it would make no difference. It was the allegation that caught the imagination, not the facts. Baring it all would be better and that was not acceptable. He could kill me-I could see the appraising expression. But he had no idea if the material was on my person. It could be anywhere-it could be broadcast already and then he would have nothing to lose. Besides that, killing someone opened up another whole basket of worms. Could he hush it up? Could he do it at all?

“I don’t work that way,” I said quietly. “I send the material to my home base and edit it later. I don’t do live work.”

He looked up at me with a flicker of hope. “What do I have to do to keep this private?”

“I need to see the pack in action. I need to see a hunt.”

He nodded. “Done. It might take some time to set it up.”

“I can wait.”

He lay back down. He stared into the sky with an absent expression. Before he had been a simple man living a simple life. Now, a secret contorted him. I wondered if he would be able to live here much longer.

“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said suddenly.

“Fair?” I shook my head in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Being anatomically altered. I’m too smart-any human would be in the same position. I could become alpha but I’d be sterile. The pack wouldn’t have any offspring.”

“You could have had your testes replaced with that of a wolf,” I pointed out. “You could have sired more wolves.”

He looked at me with a weary patience. “And what would be the point? My pack has wolves for that.”

What would be the point to any of this? I almost said but thought better of it. I had what I needed.

I awoke to find Jack rummaging in a small rucksack. He was wearing clothes of a sort; he wore a tight loincloth whose edges were buried in his fur. He caught me looking at him.

“I can’t carry a knife in my hands all the time,” he said defensively. “Besides, it has a cup.”

“I thought everything… down there retracted.”

He pulled out a pair of knives, one with a nine-inch broad blade and the second a short curved one, and fastened them to the loincloth. “It does,” he said, checking his equipment. “But I’m still more vulnerable there than they are.”

He put on the rucksack. “I’m going north with Akela. It’ll take some hours to get some of the pack together. It won’t be a full hunt-we’re pretty spread out this time of year. But four or five of us will do. Do you have a locator with you?”

“Old style GPS and new style LLS. I know where I am.”

He nodded. “Go due north seven miles. There is a rock formation there that looks like old bread dough. Sam used to call it ‘The Dumplings’ when we were kids. Wait there for me. By that time, we should have everybody and know if there’s something nearby. We might have to wait some days but you said you could wait.”

“What are you going to hunt?”

“I don’t know yet.” He rose and barked at Akela. The two of them loped off into the distance while I packed up.

Raksha had stayed behind with the pups. The look she gave me was one of pure hatred.

It took six hours of walking to reach the Dumplings. No one, wolf or man, was waiting for me when I got there. I made camp and then climbed to the top of the boulders. I could see no one. Even Goldie failed to spot anyone as she flew above us. Darkness fell three hours later and still no sign of Jack or his pack.

Here I could see a couple of trees. Certainly, not enough deadwood to build a fire. Not to mention it was illegal to build any fire in Beck-Lewis. That didn’t stop me from wanting one. It was cold and lonely in the dark and the glow of the heater didn’t quite measure up. I was careful in the adjustment not to set a brush fire. I had a lot of resources even here in the wilderness but I couldn’t outrun a wind-driven fire.

The crickets and frogs were loud. Somewhere nearby there must have been a lake or a pond.