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Then…the amazing thing happened.
    As Vivian watched, his heart hammering, the black wolf streaked across the snow on a diagonal to intersect the third aerosan. It bounded toward one of the pontoon skis, and when it clambered against the vehicle’s wooden side and gripped hold of a viewslit it had fingers instead of claws.
    Within seconds, the black animal shape had become the white naked body of a seventeen-year-old boy. “Oh my Christ! My Christ!” the gunner in Vivian’s aerosan shouted raggedly, proving that a Communist who saw a lycanthrope—because that was the proper word—immediately regained his castaway religion.
    The first aerosan, in the lead, turned to the right and made a wild circle. Vivian reasoned they too, had seen this awesome miracle. But Mikhail Gallatinov was now climbing up the side of the third aerosan, and when he got up on the top at the gunner’s hatch he hit the astounded and dumb-struck soldier in the face so hard the teeth flew out like river pebbles. The soldier slid back in, and then as the aerosan careened across the snow Vivian’s jaw dropped again as the white body rippled with bands of black hair, the spine contorted, the skull changed, a tail burst free and twitched like a rudder and the wolf leaped down into the passenger and driver’s compartment.
    Within seconds, the exit door crashed open and three men came flying out. The aerosan turned to the left and headed to intersect the vehicle carrying Vivian and Raznakov. The major realized Gallatinov must be manning the wheel, and the lycanthrope’s intent was to ram.
    “Shoot it!” Raznakov screamed. “Shoot the thing!”
    The machine gunner started firing. Bullets slashed across the snow and holes pocked the aerosan’s side. It was then that Vivian decided he could sit still no longer; he twisted around in the narrow compartment, grabbed Raznakov’s gun wrist and jabbed for the man’s eyes with the outstretched fingers of his other hand. Blinded, Raznakov got off a shot that scorched past Vivian’s side and put a hole through the aerosan’s roof. Then Vivian headbutted the bastard, and though it was neither cricket nor gentlemanly the move was successful because Raznaskov’s thin nose exploded and suddenly Major Vivian had the pistol.
    The first aerosan’s gunner got off burst after burst at the vehicle Mikhail was piloting. Splinters flew into the air. The bullets hissed past Mikhail’s face, his shoulders and chest as he twisted the wheel back and forth. Then, at the same time as Vivian put the pistol against the chest of Varga Raznakov and shot him somewhere north of the heart, Mikhail left his wheel, climbed through the hatch and swivelled the machine gun to take aim at the aerosan that roared down his throat. He fired two bursts not at the gunner but at the front of the vehicle where the driver sat, and then he jumped.
    And as he jumped, he once again summoned the pain and the power.
    The two aerosans, both runaways, slammed together. Wood crashed and crumpled. One of the huge propellers flew, still spinning, into the air. Gasoline and oil ignited on a spark. First one aerosan exploded and then the second blew, and the one with the remaining prop began to spin around and around in a mad circle throwing flaming fluids in all directions. Burning men rolled frantically in the snow.
    The black wolf took quick note of the carnage and then sped toward the last aerosan.
    Within it, Major Valentine Vivian had taken charge. He saw the gunner squaring aim at the wolf that bounded ever closer, and with no hesitation he fired into the man’s groin. That caused all machine gunning to cease. The gunner crawled out, leaving a bloody trail, and flung himself off the top of the aerosan into the snow where he thrashed in agony. The wolf passed him, close enough to touch, and then went on.
    Then there was only the driver.
    Vivian pressed the pistol against the man’s head and shouted, “Stop this damned thing!”
    The driver, a