Logan's Run (12 page)

The gypsy leader savored his power; he advanced and placed his hands on Logan's shoulders in comradely fashion. "Runnergirl she soon a sick one. Wanta you the antidote?"

Logan nodded tightly.

"Then"—Rutago handed a short bone-handled dirk to Logan—"gotta take an ounce of flesh— anywhere on runnergirl."

Logan paled. No, he couldn't do this: The act was inhuman.
And was a homer human?
They were asking him to torture the girl who'd saved his life.

But she'd die if he didn't.

"Anywhere?"

Rutago nodded. His smile was angelic.

Graygirl placed a delicate set of spring balance scales on the bar. One tiny pan held a gold ounce.

Logan bent over Jess. She had her eyes closed, which was fortunate, because if she watched him . . . He slit the clothing along her hip to expose a patch of white skin. He placed his hand high on her upper leg. Shielded by his body, his thumb searched for the nerve plexus on her inner thigh. Shifting his weight to cover the action, he dug his thumb powerfully into the pressure point. Jess winced.

Then he used the knife. Quickly. Efficiently.

The raw square of bleeding flesh balanced the scales. Logan tossed the dirk aside.

Rutago looked steadily at him. He shook his head slowly. "Sandfella badfella. Badfella cheat. Antidote, no."

Enough!

Logan swept an arm around Graygirl, dropped to one knee and bowed the girl across it. "Give her the antidote, or I break this bitch's back!"

Graygirl was no longer gray; she was red-faced with pain, her eyes bulging, her mouth twisted.

Rutago stood unmoving, undecided.

"
Now!
" snapped Logan. His hands tightened.

"Third finger, left hand," rasped Graygirl.

Disgusted, Rutago extended the ring facing. Logan sniffed it, was satisfied.

Rutago poured the contents into a glass of water, handed it to Jess. Trembling, sweat sparkling her skin, she gulped it down.

Logan motioned her out. "Take a stick and ride for the Gun," he told her. "I'll catch up with you"

Jess limped to the door, moved through it.

A thrum of metal. She was gone.

Logan waited to give Jess a proper start, then backed out slowly, holding Graygirl in front of him. With vicious force, he heaved her back through the batwing door into the midst of the gypsies, spilling them.

Outside, he vaulted into the saddle of the nearest devilstick and kicked the release stud. The hovercraft flamed into motion.

He knew they'd be after him. Trees whiplashed at him as he skimmed their top branches. He'd stay as close to the ground as possible, head into the brush country and try to shake the pursuit before doubling back for Jess.

As a boy, Logan had loved devilsticks. But this brute took some getting used to. Its power thrust was massive and tricky, and a delicate touch was needed, to keep upright. Sudden throttle bursts were dangerous, threatening to pitch him from the saddle. Yet his confidence grew with each passing mile. Learning to
feel
the machine he rode, beginning to understand its quick-working habits, Logan felt real exhilaration as he jetted over the country. His wounds were healed and his hands were free.

Let the gypsies come!

Logan saw them as he topped a high rock. Six of them, expertly riding his wake. He cut his vehicle sharply down into a baked creek bed, hugging ground, his jet flame searing the dry dust.

He had taken Graygirl's stick, and it was fast. Faster, by far, than most of the others. Gradually they fell back. And back. And were lost behind him.

Logan headed for Jess.

Yet one rider clung to him, matching his speed, gaining with each twist and fold of land. The afternoon sun rayed on moving jewels.

Rutago.

Logan gave his craft full throttle, but the gypsy continued to gain, mile by mile.

At the entrance to the Lame Johnny, Logan spotted Jess. She was just over a mile ahead, riding in a ragged, irregular pattern, weak from loss of blood and unable to control her vehicle properly. Sheer guts had carried her this far; she could falter at any moment.

Logan sped to catch her.

Rutago charged closer, giving the wind his smile.

The Lame Johnny was below, and Logan bounced in the saddle as the swift currents affected his power thrust. He cut to the right, using the bank, and his speed resumed. Rutago was almost upon him.

The king was here, the man who rode the Ribbon. Logan had heard of this legendary feat. Many deestickers had tried it, tried to hug that flexible durasteel cable stretching the storm-tossed Atlantic, but only one jockey had ever ridden the Ribbon from shore to shore, through wind and wave change, cold and blind fog. Only Rutago had managed it. The king.

Logan braced himself for attack. And was shocked.

In a wash of jato heat Rutago sliced past him, heading for Jess.

The gypsy raked the side of her jato housing. She wavered as smoke began seeping from her craft. It staggered downward, the girl fighting for control. Rutago circled, lazily riding air, expertly guiding his machine, playing her.

Jess regained partial stability, and he was at her again immediately, forcing her close to the red granite walls of the ravine. Her face held terror; in another moment she'd be spilled from the saddle.

Logan shot up to engage the gypsy, flashed by him, drawing him away from Jess in a hazardous ploy: Logan took his stick up the sheer ravine face, riding the mountain with the water boiling below them.

Rutago could not resist the bait. He made splendid use of his fabled skill to harass Logan, dipping and slashing in at him. Logan was a boy once again, all awkwardness and uncertainty in trying to handle his first devilstick. This man who knifed at him was in cool command of the air, but when would he tire of the one-sided game?

He'll go for Jess again unless . . .
unless I kill him
. But how?

Logan kicked his craft around, aimed it at the gypsy. Rutago veered left; Logan veered with him, fixing his trajectory. Full throttle. A startled look on Rutago's face as Logan pitched himself from the saddle.

Down . . . down . . . down. The Lame Johnny far below. Rapids. White water. Logan arrowed toward it in a long dive.

The stick caught Rutago below the rib line, carrying away his stomach as it drove into the face of the ravine.

Logan sliced the water, and the rapids took him, rolled him twisting, sucked him under. He came up choking, kicking to maintain leverage. Rocks just ahead.

The last thing Logan saw before he went under again was the faltering smoke trail of Jessica's wounded machine layering the sky.

He knows the girl is on black now. A runner.

But the quarry has vanished again beyond Crazy Horse.

He checks the board in Rapid City. It does not help him. The Follower remains dark.

He is certain that Logan and the girl must break cover soon.

When they do he will be ready.

He will be there to intercept them.

AFTERNOON . . .

Jess lay unconscious in a pale square of sunlight next to her damaged machine. One cheek was scraped raw where she had skidded along the black asphalt. The wound on her thigh still pulsed blood.

She didn't hear the soft footsteps or the voices that surrounded her. Fourteen bright eyes peered down.

"Ohhhhhhhh!"

"Pret-ty, pret-ty!"

Seven tiny moppets in pink playrompers drew back in alarm as the girl stirred. Jess moaned, lapsed back into unconsciousness. The children bent over the still figure. Wonderingly, they felt her hair, her soft lips, the long lashes of her closed eyes.

"What is it?"

"It's a people! Ohhh . . . so
big!
'

"People tired."

They clucked together, deciding that Jess should be in a crib. They tugged and lifted and pulled her toward the Cribroom.

Fourteen bright eyes peered down. Jess lay on her side in a small crib, knees tucked under her chin. The crib had sensed her hurt and ministered to her, closing her wounds with synthaskin. She slept deeply.

The eyes never left her.

DAKOTA STATES

INDUSTRIAL NURSERY—UNIT K

Beneath the sign Logan reconnoitered the gray metalmesh fence. Twice as tall as a man and capped with a triple strand of microwire. These gossamer threads could chop off fingers under the weight of a climber.

Beyond the fence, far out on the flat surface of the nursery playground, he could see the wreckage of Jessica's devilstick. Apparently she was inside somewhere, perhaps already in the hands of the Autogoverness. Other runners had tried to hide in these vast institutions, but each Autogoverness was programmed to sound an alarm. And if you
could
avoid the robots there were always the older children, conditioned and hypnotaped against invaders.

But I've got to try and find her.

He had to walk a full mile along the fence perimeter before he found the tree. It angled up and inward; one of its branches thrust out toward the wire. Logan climbed the tree, inching out as far along the branch as he dared. He hung there. Six feet ahead of him, and down, were the deadly strands of microwire.

He began to swing himself back and forth, gathering momentum. If he struck the wires they'd slice him like cheese. At the height of a swing he let go, twisting his body in the air. Logan hit ground safely, rolled and came up in a crouch. Silence. No alarms.

He crossed the wide asphalt toward the looming bulk of the nursery. At its fortress flank he paused to orient himself. He'd grown up in a place like this. The hypno classes would be in the west wing, the dorms to the left. He was now outside the infant wards. Less chance of being discovered if he entered here. High up the brick building face was a bank of windows. Logan began to climb, clinging to the irregular surface. A foot slipped; he regained his balance and continued.

The first window was locked.

He spidered along a narrow ledge, feeling the strain pulling at his arm muscles. The next window was unlocked but jammed. He struggled to budge it; the glass panel grated inward. Logan crawled through, dropped to the floor and stood listening. He was in a storage area.

Where was Jess? She could be anywhere in the sprawl of buildings. She could be hurt and dying in a corridor or under a conveyor or hidden in a locker space. Or maybe she wasn't here at all. The silence encouraged him. If Jess
were
here, at least she hadn't been discovered as yet.

He crossed the room and eased open the door. Distantly he heard the hum and buzz of classrooms in use. He checked the hall. Deserted. He moved to the next door. The dot symbol told him it was a Playroom.

It was not activated. The vibroballs were boxed and motionless, no longer bouncing themselves in puzzle patterns from the walls. The talk puppets were stacked and speechless. The echo boards were silent. No sign of Jess here. He closed the door.

The next chamber was also quiet. The delivery-room.

Logan checked the moveways. He stared in fascination at the Hourglass, at the phosphorescent crystals in the thick globe which gave each infant his birth right—the radioactive timeflower. He stared at his own hand, blinking red-black, red-black . . . He'd received
his
crystal in a room like this; it had imbedded the flower in his right palm, and the crystal had decayed on schedule, in the same way the cesium atom decays in a radium clock, turning the stigmata inexorably from yellow to blue to red—and now, soon, to black.

Logan passed through the room to a long corridor. Had Jess gone in this direction? The search seemed hopeless, but he could not abandon it. Not until he was forced to.

A whirring noise—a sound Logan had heard often in his childhood. The Autogoverness.

He jerked open a door to his right, dodged inside. The door swung closed. The interior was dark and warm.

"My own, my precious," his mother said.

A softness enveloped him.

"My little one, my sweet," said the Loveroom. Its voice was a crooning, smoothing music. "There, there," said the room.

Logan attempted to struggle, but the room held him fast in tender embrace, stroked him. It pressed him against its great warm bosom and rocked him gently, rhythmically. "My dove, my darling, my precious love."

"But—I can't—" ' said Logan wildly.

His mother held him close.

"I can't stay here. I've got to—"

"Sleep," said the room softly.

Need and emotional hunger flooded through Logan in a great wave.

"Mother loves you, loves you, loves you," sang the room.

"No," cried Logan, "I've got to—"

"Sleep," said the room.

"I've got to . . ."

"Sleep." Insistently, lovingly.

"Got to . . . sleep," sighed Logan.

He slept.

In Cribroom L-16, during her hourly inspection, Autogoverness K-110 discovered a sleeping woman.

The Autogoverness calmly rolled into the corridor and activated the Invader Alarm. Bells. Sirens.

Jess awoke in panic, leaped from the small crib and began to run.

The nursery defended its children. Doors slammed, gates closed; trams and moveways halted. Crib covers snapped down like turtle shells; barriers sprung up through slotted floors, sealing off each wing.