Chapter Twenty-one

Seeking the edge of the future, we go on. By breeding the two lines together again and again, age
by age, millennium by millennium, we are creating a masterpiece.
A masterpiece of evil. Something far darker than man­kind. Something unencumbered by impulses
toward the good.
Something unspeakably monstrous!
Jonathan was on the floor. "No!" His mouth was dry, his face smeared with tears. "No, it mustn't be!"
He could almost see it, almost smell it, and it was hideous and stank of rotted flesh.
And it was in this room.
Danger, the old man wailed, danger!
The bits and pieces of the shattered computer had cut into Jonathan viciously. He touched a gash on his
palm, tasted his blood.
Something was crouched just the other side of the lab bench, breathing softly. Jonathan was so
frightened he liter­ally could not move.
It was the thing humankind with its inquisitions and perse­cutions has been trying to prevent through the
ages.
The anti-man, ugly where man is beautiful, bad where man is good, the very essence of evil.
But it wasn't on the other side of the lab bench, not really. That was only his imagination, it had to be.
Yes, but your imagination is still dangerous! It's trying to make you stop thinking these thoughts.
"I won't stop thinking. I remember the anti-man. It's been bred over thousands of years. And it's—"
He looked at his own hands, turned them slowly over and over in the merciless fluorescent light.
Cro-Magnon was bred out of Neanderthal and destroyed Neanderthal. Homo sapiens was bred
out of Cro-Magnon and destroyed him. In the same way the anti-man will destroy what you call
mankind. It is only following nature's law. There is nothing bad about it.
"It's Satanic! Hell's answer to the creation of God!"
Homo sapiens is a defective species, and like all of nature's mistakes, it is going to become extinct.
You of all people should love the anti-man. You will be its father.
Jonathan felt his skin beneath his jeans, the slight damp­ness of his crotch pressed by his briefs. In him
was a new species?
You have already learned more than you should. Now you must be made to forget. You will
confront the thing behind the bench, and it will tear these past few minutes from your mind.
"No!"
I think yes. I think yessssss.
The voice in Jonathan's mind became one with the breath­ing behind the lab bench. It merged into the
hissing, terrible and loud, of something primal and big. Then came a slipping, sliding sound, weighty rubbing
against the floor, and the black gleaming head of an enormous snake appeared around the corner of the
table. It had coppery scales and eyes like yellow-green stones.
In them was not the savage blankness of the reptile species. Instead there was something far
worse—burning, unquenchable rage mixed with the self-mocking irony of great intelligence.
It came elegantly along, its huge body sweeping in great loops. Jonathan was utterly revolted, and yet
also fasci­nated. Nothing, not even the threat of death itself, could tear him from those staring green eyes.
But 6-6-6 isn't supposed to be a hallucinogen. Sloppy testing, California. This is an effect you didn't
mention in the protocols.
The serpent had coiled into a great shiny mass of scales just in front of Jonathan. It reared its head until it
was level with his own face.
It was so very real, even to the snake mites running along the edges of its mouth. Jonathan drew himself
up from his prone position. The snake rose almost magically, facing him, staring at him over a space of
mere inches.
He stood fully erect. Impossibly, the snake had now risen up out of its coil, still face to face with him.
"What are you?"
I guard your memories. I live inside you.
"My God!"
Back and forth it swayed, back and forth. Its eyes regarded Jonathan evenly. He realized that, in spite of
all the fear it evoked in him, there was great beauty in it. He stretched out his hand, palm up. The huge
head laid itself in his palm, and the membranes over the eyes slid down, giving them a milky green
appearance.
An invisible claw seemed to take hold of his arm, to make him draw the head closer and closer to his own
sweating face. Up close it was terrible to see, the face of a snake with such extreme intelligence in it that it