Logan's Run (5 page)

High in the complex, a full half-mile above them, a police paravane ran its pinlight along the ledges.

"Keep in shadow," said Lilith. "They patrol these landings. We have to be careful."

Logan knew the game was illegal, and he didn't want the police stopping him. If he got picked up without the Gun he would not be able to prove his identity. They'd have to check him out. If he
had
the Gun, and revealed himself, the girl would close the door on Sanctuary. Either way, he couldn't afford to be stopped.

He'd be careful.

With a cat's litheness, the girl swung, hand over hand, along a guy wire leading to the next ledge. Logan slung the camera over one shoulder and followed.

Most of the windows they could reach were blacked. Other units were unoccupied.

Lilith pointed downward "I think something's happening in there," she said.

The window she'd indicated was closed but not blacked.

The girl took out a slim wire with an earplug at one end and a walkup on the other. She pressed the cup against the building, the plug in her ear. She smiled.

"Have a listen," she said, passing the earplug to Logan.

Through the miniature amplifier he could hear voices husky with love. A man and a woman. Sighs. The rub of skin on skin.

"Give me the camera," whispered Lilith. "And grab my ankles. I'm going down for a shot."

Logan braced himself. He clung to the girl's legs as she slipped off the ledge, head first. Lilith dangled in space just in front of the dark window. Below her: a mile-deep emptiness, a stagger of steel and glass and box beam units.

Logan leaned back, feet gripping the stone, feeling his leg muscles protest. The camera whirred. "Up!" the girl whispered.

He pulled her back to the ledge. "How did you know I could hang on to you?"

"I didn't," she said. "That's part of the lift."

Did she really know anything about Sanctuary? Or was she simply some danger-sick female out for thrills? Logan didn't know. Yet.

A pinlight raked the building. Police!

They melted into shadow. The patrol paravane ghosted past them and continued on its way.

"You're doing fine," the girl said.

"Can't we talk now?"

She laughed—and crawled off with Logan behind her.

They climbed upward, along ridged metal, their suction stretchsoles aiding the ascent. On the roof Lilith said, "Jump!"

She leaped into space, cleared a gap between units, and landed in a garden patio. He made the jump, almost losing his balance.

The patio was deserted.

On the adjoining level, however, the girl found fresh prey. "You take them this time," she said to Logan.

He aimed the camera, fingered it into whirring motion.

"Good," said the girl. "That's prime peeping. Now we—"

"Now we talk—or I pitch you over this ledge. I've had enough of your nonsense."

"You'd really do it, wouldn't you?" Her voice held excitement.

"I really would."

"All right . . . what do you know about Sanctuary?"

"I know it's where I want to go."

"Where did you get my key?" She watched him carefully.

His lips felt loose. He giggled foolishly. "From . . . from the same place all runners get theirs."

He giggled again.
What was happening to him?
The hard aluminum ledge rippled, fell away. He was floating out in space with the wind crying around him.

"Answer the question!" the girl's voice whispered intensely at his ear.

Logan found himself singing: "Angerman was . . . filled with fury, He the judge and he the jury . . ."

Logan babbled happily. He was poised in air, looking down at himself sprawled on the ledge. He watched Lilith cuff him across the mouth. He watched her grab his hair and bend his head back.

"The
key
—where did you get the key?"

"Man named 10, named 10, named 10 . . . named Doyle 10."

Logan's neck ached.

"Angerman, pursuing faster," he sang. "Ang—Angerman, the angry master."

He stood up rigidly, with the girl clinging to him. The world was no longer dark; it was filled with blazing orange music which stabbed his eyes.

"Did you kill Doyle?"

The orange music stroked him. "Cubs . . . cubs killed him."

Logan stepped off the ledge. Instinctively he reached out; his clawing fingers found a grip. His head was clearing as he kicked at air. His right foot lodged on a metal projection and slowly, inch by inch, he drew himself back onto the ledge.

He lay, stomach down, gasping for breath. The girl. She'd drugged his Scotch. With Truthtell.
Had he told her too much?

"What now?" he asked.

"Go see Doc," she said sweetly. "He's your next contact."

"Doc who?"

"In Arcade. Look for The New You. That's his place."

Logan nodded.

"Now we go back to Sharps and turn in our peeps. Some lift, eh?"

"Sure," said Logan. "Some lift."

He left the belt at the Beverly overpass and began threading his way through Arcade.

The immense pleasure center formed a never-ending human logjam. Arcade had not closed its doors to funseekers for over fifty years. The place was a vast crazy quilt of hallucimills, Re-Live parlors and fire galleries.

Signs screamed and moaned in smoky colors:
RE-LIVE THAT FIRST EMBRACE!
(A gaudy Tri-Dim on a ribbed platform depicting two nude youngsters in a torrid tangle.)
RE-LIVE THOSE PRECIOUS MOMENTS!
(A wild-eyed boy riding a flamed devilstick through a mock sky.)
RE-LIVE! RE-LIVE! RE-LIVE!

Noise gonged; a thousand odors mingled; hawkers cried their wares. Here night was day and day was night

"Wanta good time, citizen?" A man with one arm and a fog voice beckoned him toward a swinging door.

Logan passed him quickly.

He saw the sign he was looking for. It hit the window in a sulfurous shower and withdrew, hit and withdrew into the darkness behind the black glass.
THE NEW YOU . . . THE NEW YOU . . . THE NEW YOU . . .

Logan entered the shop.

The waiting room was the color of ashes. The scattered pieces of furniture were faded, worn. Even the air in the room seemed used. An ancient chrome-plated desk hunched in one corner, and behind it sat a young woman in soiled whites. Her face was pale and predatory. She regarded Logan suspiciously. "You want Doc?"

"I want Sanctuary."

The girl wet her lips with a small pink tongue. "Then you want Doc."

She rose listlessly, crossed to Logan. "Hand," she said. He held up his right hand, palm out. Red-black-red-black-red-black . . .

"C'mon," she said. "Follow through for the new you."

She led him down a musty hallway and into a large room smelling of metal. Logan recognized the thing in the center of the alum floor; he felt himself ice up.
Table!
The machine loomed over a flat metal bed that was grooved and slotted and equipped with fastening devices.

"There's not another like her outside a hospital between here and New Alaska," said a harsh, confident voice.

Logan whirled to face a thick bodied sixteen-year-old. The man's bony features were split by a crooked-toothed smile. He wore a long gray smock which extended down to his shoe tops. Doc.

"A little edgy, are you? Well, that's natural. Runners are scared people. Least you got enough sense to start before your flower blacks. It's tougher then, with the Sandmen onto you. What'll it be, face job or full body? Could add a couple inches to those legs"

"Just the face," said Logan.

"Got no time, is that it? Runners never got time." A note of sad regret in the voice. "I won't ask your name. I don't want to know it. You got the punchkey and that's good enough for me. Ballard knows who to give them to."

Ballard!
Logan's mind leaped. The world's oldest man. A story to frighten children with. A legend. A subject for folk chants. Was there actually such a man—the force behind Sanctuary?

"Holly will get you ready. If you're worried about the Table, don't be. They call me Doc, but I'm a trained mech. A real mechanic. Give me a basket of transistors and a pound of platinum sponge and I can make anything. You're in good hands, believe what I tell you."

As he talked, the girl came forward to unbutton the collar of Logan's shirt. The Gun was stuffed into his waistband, and he wondered if they'd want all his clothes off. Hiding the Gun would be impossible here.

"Ask me what I'm doing in a shop like this if I'm so handy. I got my reasons. I make out. A little Muscle for the cubs, a sea lift now and then, a face job for Ballard—maybe a body change for some sick citizen who's tired of himself. Adds up. I do all right."

The girl was brushing her fingertips lightly down Logan's arms. There was a deep-blue spark in her eyes. "I'm Holly," she said softly. "Holly 13. In ancient times they said my number was unlucky. Do you believe in luck?"

Doc aimed another crooked smile at Logan. "Holly don't work for the money. She gets her lift out of watching the Table—and
other
things." His smile became a dry chuckle. "Back in a minute."

"Do I need to undress?" Logan asked the girl.

"Not for a face," she said. "That is, not unless you
want
to."

"What now?"

"Empty your pockets."

She led him to the Table.

It was one of the big brutes, a Mark J. Surgeon. Suspended over the flat bed was a glittering tangle of probes and pincers and scalpels, springs, clamps and needles. Tubes and looped wires interconnected from one part of the Table to another, crisscrossing the main body which contained the solid-state circuitry forming the machine's memory center and brain. At one end was a console of buttons and switches, lights and dials.

A Table such as this could lengthen bone and change dental patterns. It could broaden shoulders, put on or take off weight. It could alter germ plasma or blood groupings. With its infinitely adjustable lasers it could lay back the flesh surrounding a single nerve and lift out that nerve without nicking the sheath. It was as precise as a diamond cutter and as unemotional as a vending slot.

Logan didn't want to get on the Table. It could carve and change him, make him into another man. Holly 13 fastened down his ankles and wrists, then attached the sensors. The Table rippled, accepted his weight, positioned him.

"I like dark hair," said Holly, leaning close to him. The blue spark danced in the depths of her eyes. "Have him give you dark hair."

Doc returned to his patient. "Got anything special in mind?" he asked. 'Bone structure like yours I could give you most anything."

"That's your decision," snapped Logan. "Just get it over with."

"Look, runner," said Doc, his voice hard, "just you ease down. I tell you where to go, how to go and
when
to go. You runners are always in a hurry. Always trying to rush me. You don't go nowhere without Doc . I handle this end of things. Can't use the next key anyhow till nine forty. Got plenty of time for the new you."

Doc danced his fingers over the control board as he studied Logan's face. "We can widen those cheekbones for a start."

The Table began to hum as a pair of thin silver probes separated themselves from the overhead cluster and poised above Logan; a stun needle lowered toward his face; a vibrosaw began to keen.

Abruptly all motion ceased. The keening died. An alarm buzzed insistently.

Doc's eyes narrowed. "Something's wrong. We've got metal on the Table. You empty your pockets?"

Logan nodded.

Doc looked at him suspiciously. "
Something
ain't right"

He came out from behind the console, stood over Logan. The slight bulge of the Gun was visible in Logan's waist. Doc pulled open his shirt, baring the weapon.

"Lock the door, Holly."

"What is it?" she asked, moving forward. Doc shoved her back.

"Gun!" he said. "We got a Sandman."

"What'll we do?"

"I'm thinking." Doc glared at Logan, helpless on the Table.

"You've seen my hand," said Logan. "I'm on Lastday. Does it figure I'd still be working for DS?"

"You got a Gun," said Doc. "Only DS men got Guns."

"I'm not the first Sandman to run."

"Why should I take a chance?" said Doc, moving back to the console. "I'm scrambling the Table. You'll get more than a new face, Sandman."

Logan lunged against the straps, but they held fast.

"What will it
do
to him?" asked Holly. The blue light gleamed in her eyes.

"Anything. It's on its own."

The Table hummed to life.

"I want to watch," said Holly, flushing.

Doc chuckled.

Logan looked up, sweating, into the moving cluster of pointed, bladed objects suspended above him. A stun needle lanced into his cheek, and the left side of his face went dead. A pair of metal clamps bit into his right leg below the knee. A surgical scapel slit his shirt from shoulder to waist, leaving a thread of blood in its wake. A sponge dipped to wipe the blood neatly away.

Desperately Logan sucked in his belly and tried to flatten himself into the Table.

Beside him, Holly was breathing fast.

A wide serrated blade shifted its downward sweep, moved three inches to the right and hovered. A pair of nervescissors snipped viciously at empty air, lowered abruptly and sliced through the strap that confined Logan's right arm.

Doc took a shocked step back as Logan clawed the Gun free.

A rain of silver knives dropped toward him, and he hacked at them with the barrel. They snapped like icicles.

Logan attempted to swing the Gun in Doc's direction. "Kill the Table!"

Lizard-quick, Doc was out the door, the girl behind him.

The Table pumped a cooling alcohol spray on Logan's chest as he clumsily freed his other wrist. Tiny lubricated gears inside the machine's housing slid into new positions.

Logan sprawled the upper part of his body off the bed and hit the leg releases. He rolled from the Table as it mindlessly attacked its own vitals.

It died, shrieking, as sparks showered from the gutted machine.

Logan considered his next move. Without another punch-key, which Doc apparently was to supply, his run was over. And it wouldn't take a mouth like Doc long to spread the word: Sandman. The trail would end before it began.