Logan's Run (4 page)

"Cubs!" breathed Logan.

He studied the cubscouts. There was something odd and fragmented about their movements as they converged on Doyle. Then he realized what he was seeing. He heard Francis swear softly. "They're on Muscle."

The small figures moved in a continual blur of motion, daring and flitting like earthbound dragonflies.

Where do they get the stuff? Logan wondered. Muscle had been outlawed since the Little War. Originally developed for armed combat, the drug was designed to speed up reactions. It increased a man's strength tenfold, giving him ample time to deal with an enemy. But its action was too violent to control; it forced the heart to do a day's work in minutes. A man lived impossibly fast with Muscle in his bloodstream. Only the very young could use it.

Logan felt the flesh on his scalp tighten as he watched the incredibly swift boy-shapes attack the runner. Under Muscle a stick in a fist becomes a steel hammer—and the swarming cubs were cutting Doyle to pieces. He was on the ground, hands outstretched to ward off the cubs, but they were killing him. They were all around him in a rippling, weaving circle; and each wet, bone-shattering blow brought Doyle closer to death.

Logan and Francis were crouched behind a wall of rubble facing the action in the clearing ahead of them.

"We'll try vapor," said Francis. "Plug up."

They inserted nose filters. Francis flipped the Gun to V, braced the weapon against the top of the wall, fired.

The gas charge took immediate effect, driving the cubs back in a broken wave.

Doyle lay huddled and unmoving in the center of the clearing.

"Let's check him," said Logan.

"I can handle it. You cover me."

Before Francis could reach the runner the cubs regrouped to cut him off. They backed the DS man into a shallow pocket of stone to one side of the open ground. A second wave came for Logan.

He fired a nitro into the group, and three of the cubs were torn about by the blast. This stopped them long enough for Logan to reach Doyle.

The man's face was a mosaic of blood and bone-ends; his mouth moved convulsively. A word. The runner was repeating a word.

Logan leaned closer to catch the broken whisper: "Sanctuary."

Logan tensed. The runner's head fell back loosely; his fingers uncurled. A small glittering object fell from his left hand. A punchkey. Logan pocketed it.

The flat, dry crack of a ripper. Francis was effectively dealing with his attackers. He came into the clearing and stepped quickly to Doyle.

"Alive?" he asked.

"Dead," said Logan.

Francis stared sourly down at the unbreathing man, obviously disappointed, cheated of a prize. Then slowly he raised his Gun and fired a blister charge into the body.

The dead runner flamed and danced into sudden ash.

"Let's go," said Francis.

On the way back to headquarters, riding beside Francis in the shuttle, Logan kept his right fist closed against his side. He didn't want to see the flower in his palm.

It was blinking.

He cat-prowls the corridors.

He stops in front of the Gunwall. Logan's Gun is still not there.

He paces, waits.

He hears a guarded whisper not meant for his ears: "Old Francis is on to something," says a voice.

"They say the cubs cheated him out of a runner."

"That isn't it. He's on to something."

He doesn't react to this.

He shadow-glides the gray halls.

He is a violence, contained.

He moves back to the Gunwall, stares, moves away.

He checks the time: 7:30.

Fact: Logan has not returned with his Gun.

Fact: Logan is on Lastday.

He instructs the techs to rig a Gun trace, tuned to Logan's weapon. When the Gun is fired it will register its location on the board.

He sits, face illuminated by ghost lights from the glowing circuits.

He waits.

EVENING . . .

When Logan walked into his living unit young Abe Lincoln was there, splitting logs in the center of the room. Logan automatically punched a wall stud and the president was sucked, hissing, back into the Tri-Dim.

He stripped, bathed, changed to grays and dialed a meal and a Scotch. Sipping the iced drink, Logan stared at his palm, at the blinking crystal flower.

Lastday. Twenty-four hours in which to live. Then his flower would go black and it would be time to turn himself in for Sleep.

Twenty-four hours.

Logan picked up the silver punchkey from the bed.

Runners say
please
; runners say
help
; runners say
mercy
, runners say
don't
.

Doyle had said
Sanctuary
.

And Logan held a key which might lead to it, to a goal never proved to exist, to a place which
could
not exist. Not in this world. Not for a runner in 2116.

But what if Sanctuary were a reality? A place where runners were safe from the Gun. What if he, Logan 3, could find it and destroy it in the last twenty four hours of his life? His existence would be justified; he'd be a world hero; his life would end in glory.

It would be a risk worth taking. And the key to the quest lay in his hand.

Do it
.

Logan walked to the communideck. The silver key slid easily into the slot. Inside the flat housing, tiny indentations in the stamped-metal made electrical connections. The wallscreen lightened.

A girl in vented peekaboos regarded Logan. She was perhaps sixteen, with dead, flat eyes. Her body was slim-breasted and angular. "Call back later," she said. "I'm going out."

"I'm calling
now
," said Logan.

"Have you got a name?"

"I've got a name." He let it rest at that.

A spark of interest in the flat eyes. "But you've keeping it to yourself."

"There's no sanctuary in passing out random identities," said Logan, leaning slightly on the word sanctuary.

Her gaze did not flicker.

This didn't feel right. Not right at all. The runner could have been babbling. Maybe he was acting on a false lead.

"Who gave you my key?" the girl asked.

"A friend."

"I'm going out."

"You said that."

"To a party. I'm expected."

"I could meet you there," said Logan.

She studied him speculatively.

"Halstead complex. West wing. Fourth level. Living unit 2582. Got that?"

Logan nodded.

"I really shouldn't be inviting strangers," she said. "If you're . . . not up to the party I'll be to blame."

"I'm up to it," said Logan, "and anything else." He kept his face impassive.

"We'll see."

She said one last thing before she blacked. "I'm Lilith 4. I think you'll find me . . . helpful."

The screen died.

Logan let out a breath. It sounded like a word. The word it sounded like was "Sanctuary."

The party in unit 2582 was getting into full stride when Logan arrived. The door was opened by a mouse-faced man in orange trims. He was quite intoxicated.

"The tree of cruelty often blooms in the fertile soil of love," he said

"I'm sure it does," said Logan, scanning the crowded room for Lilith.

"The boy seeks, the man finds. That's a poem. I write them, you know."

"I didn't know," said Logan. The girl was not in the crowd. Perhaps she'd been delayed or had changed her mind about meeting him.

"One of my poems was read on TD. Called 'Womb Wood.' Like to hear it?"

Logan said nothing.

"In the woods of the womb,

She walked.

In a whirl of red wounds,

She fell.

Heart bursting like a plum

In the bracelets of her breasts."

Logan sat down on a flowcouch built into the wall. The poet continued to talk, obviously determined to elicit praise.

"That poem received a great deal of very favorable comment. I'm quite famous, you know."

"Fine," said Logan.

A toad of a man scuttled up with a foaming mug in his hand. "Try this," he said. Logan caught the slightly sour odor of fermentation. "It's Volney's home brew. We've got a whole keg of it. It's nothing like the beer from the slots. He's a real artist, Volney is. Puts musk raisins in it."

"I prefer Scotch."

"That's your loss, citizen."

Logan dialed a Scotch. It was taken from him by a red-haired girl in slashvelvets. She downed it hurriedly.

"Wonderful!" she said Her green eyes were alcohol flushed. She offered Logan a cigarette.

"No, thanks."

"Don't be afraid to," she urged him. "There's a police payoff in this area. No tobacco raids. Go ahead."

"No, thanks."

The girl took offense. "Afraid to smoke, aren't you? You men! Cowards. Every one of you cowards. I was on pairup with a merchantman until last week. Then we broke it. Know why?"

"Why?" asked Logan.

"Because. Because he lacked the essentials. He was content. Content to
be
content. He had his business and he had me and that's all he wanted. I need a man who wants what he doesn't have. That make sense to you, citizen?"

"Maybe you don't need a man. Maybe you need a boy."

"I tried a boy. Eleven. He was good for a while, but I got so I hated his young face. I'm fifteen—and a woman needs a man. How old are you?"

"Old enough," said Logan, keeping his right hand closed. The flower blinked warmly in palmflesh. He could feel its heat against his fingertips.

"How about a pairup?"

"No. No, thanks."

The green eyes chilled. "Is that all you can say—'no, thanks'?" The girl stood up, weaved away.

Logan sighed.
Where
was Lilith?

The door slid open and a fat bellied man eased in, bearing a double armload of clothing and accessories. Hs voice shrilled in falsetto. "Hail, fellow lungblasters and glassmasters and livefasters! Hail, fellow peepers! The gear is here." The fatman pasted a talk puppet grin on his face and began strutting the room in high-pumping steps. "Gear up! Everybody gear up!"

"Been waiting long?" Lilith 4 grinned down at Logan; a pink cigarette dangled smoke from her glittercoated lips. She was bare-hipped in silver snakeskins.

"Let's talk," said Logan. "You know why I'm here."

The fatman bustled importantly up to them. He thrust a black knit bodystocking and crepe stretchsoles at them. "Gear up, you two," he said, clapping his meaty hands. "Let's peep!"

"We'll be partners," declared Lilith. "You said you were up to it."

Logan took the clothing, moved to a changeroom and slipped out of his grays. He'd have to stow the Gun somewhere; no place to conceal it in the skintight bodysuit. At least he'd left the spare ammo packs in his unit; figuring that the six charges in the weapon should see him through. Now he was grateful for this decision. Less bulk to worry about. He slipped the Gun into an alcove, gambling that no one would have occasion to search the closet.

"You have Greek shoulders," said the mouse-faced poet, who was beginning to gear up next to him.

Logan grunted and returned to Lilith, who was already dressed and ready. She offered him a Scotch.

"Thanks, I can
use
this!" He tipped the glass to his lips.

A dozen dark-garbed men and women waited in the central chamber. They joined them, and the girl handed Logan a pair of smokegoggles. "Wear these on the ledge."

Six black-light cameras were arranged neatly on a table. One camera per couple.

"Righty, righty," said the fatman, signaling for attention. "Now all you peepers know what to do?"

"Stop being a damn woman, Sharps," said a bored voice, "and get on with it."

Sharps glanced petulantly at the speaker. "
I'm
in charge. The cameras belong to me!"

"And it's
your
alcohol and
your
tobacco and
your
living unit. For which we are all duly grateful. So let's peep."

Sharps made an obscene gesture. He waved the first couple off. In pairs, the players left the chamber through a ceiling-high view-window.

Logan found himself kneeling beside Lilith on a narrow ledge high in the complex. Below them, the great city was alive with snakes of light. He saw the rows of blinking glasshouses near Hurley Square and, beyond, the dazzle of Arcade. The fire galleries sent up their rose glow, staining the edge of the night sky.

It was a long way down.

He shifted the camera and gripped the alum-ribbing of the building wall. Wind slicked between the box beams, threatening to pull him from the ledge.

Lilith crawled into the liquid dark, edging in front of Logan. Keeping his eye on the feminine sway of her dark bottom, he followed.

When the girl stopped he said, "Talk. Were alone now." He couldn't see her face behind the goggles.

"First we peep," she said. "
Then
we talk."

"Why not now?"

"If we return to the party without film they'll suspect something. Sharps is not the fool he seems. They'll ask questions we might not want to answer."