Logan's Run (14 page)

A robot touched his arm. "Citizen Wentworth 10," said the robot, looking with steel sympathy at Logan's blinking hand "We've been expecting you. This way, please."

He had no choice. Francis was outside, back to the door, studying the crowd.

The robot slid out a life drawer from the metal wall.

"Just lie down here. This is our latest model. You may switch years as desired."

Logan settled into the steel foam seat, grateful to be shielded from the open doorway. The robot dabbed his temples with saline solution, connected the rubber-cradled terminals to his neck and forehead.

"Listen, I don't really need to be . . ." Logan was stalling for time, but the robot was programmed to deal smoothly with nervous citizens on Lastday.

"Any year—as desired," he repeated, flipping a switch. The life drawer slid silently into the wall.

Darkness.

I can't stay here. I have to find Jess. I—

He was sixteen, and the Nevada desert was a brown heat shimmer before his eyes. Logan sat in the sparse shade of a saguaro cactus, utterly motionless except for his eyes. One hundred miles of desert to cover without food, water or weapons to graduate from DS school. Now, in the second day, he was dehydrated and feeling the enervating fatigue of the trek. At dawn he had squeezed the pulp of a barrelcactus through the cloth of his shirt and obtained half a pint of sour-tasting fluid. It had almost gagged him.

Logan was watching the small cleft in the yellow shale which swelled from the desert hardpan at his feet. A rattler oiled into view, tongue licking the baked air.

Logan waited, and when the snake was free of its lair, he killed it with a bootheel. Using his beltclasp, he scored the ridged skin along the back of the jaw and across the top of the broad flat head. He worked the skin loose with his teeth and pulled. It peeled smoothly back from the long body. Logan ate the pink flesh, carefully chewing the smaller bones before swallowing. The rattler joined a field mouse, three butterflies and several grasshoppers in his stomach.

He rose into the heat of the desert and went on. In theory there was a runner ahead of him who would pause to sleep. Who would falter and fall. Who would despair at the size of the desert. Because Logan did none of these he would overhaul the runner and kill him.

His tissues were pleading for water. The scant moisture provided by the snake had reawakened his water need, and the pebble in his mouth didn't help, much. He remembered the class he had taken dealing with life in the desert. In the training room none of it seemed particularly difficult. The desert teemed with life, with ground owls and bats, jackrabbits and bobcats. There were gophers and mice and squirrels, foxes, badgers—and a thousand other forms crawling and slithering and inching the desert floor. But they were damned hard to trap. There was water here too, but it took luck and knowledge and instinct to find it.

His feet puffed dust in a trail that would hang in the motionless air until dusk. Then the winds would come, freezing and scouring the hardy mesquite, whipping tumbleweeds like bramble wheels on a thousand-mile journey through the and wastes. At night the deaths would begin. Cat would stalk fox who stalked mouse who stalked insect—down through the levels of kill-to-live.

Logan stumbled and caught himself. He was tiring fast. No. A hunter does not tire. It is the quarry who tires, gives up, dies. The need for survival in a hunter must be stronger than the need of a runner, and the need of a runner is a fever in the blood.

He had to go on. He could not rest. He had to live so that runners would die.

and . . .

He was seven, and his flower had changed color and it was time to leave the nursery and go out into the world and Logan was afraid. He wanted to take Albert 6, his favorite talk puppet, with him—but they wouldn't allow it.

"Why, why, why?" he sobbed.

"Not permitted," said his Autogoverness, and reached for Albert.

The puppet ran after Logan, tiny feet pattering across the nursery floor. "Loge, Loge! I'll never forget you, Loge. Never forget you."

They caught Albert and put him away in a box.

And Logan screamed and screamed and screamed

and . . .

He was nine, and the red flower smashed against the side of his face. He was ringed by four men. The leader scowled at him. "Lick my boot," he said.

Logan shook his head. The man slapped him again.

"Go ahead," said the man. "Do it"

He tried to back away, was shoved from behind and almost fell.

He'd been on his way to Yellowstone to meet Iron Jack who rode real horses, when they'd stopped him for no reason on the maze platform.

"Lick my boot," said the leader. "Then we'll let you go"

Logan looked at the four men. He could see they ached to hurt somebody.

He bent and licked the dust from the toe of the leader's boot

The men registered disappointment. "Let's go," said the leader. "We'll find somebody with
guts
." Then they were gone, into the maze.

I'm not going to cry, Logan told himself as his eyes blinked rapidly and the hot tears came . . .

and . . .

He was one.

He was warm.

He was clean.

He was full.

and . . .

He was thirteen, and riding the devilstick in Venice above the Piazza San Marco and the wind rushed at him and he opened his mouth to gulp the wild wine wind, and he felt the great tidal immensity of the Earth below and he was free. His palmflower was the blue of this Italian sky and it would never change and he would never grow old and it would always be clear Venice blue, Mediterranean blue, and always and forever blue . . .

and . . .

I must wake. Must find Jess. Must get up.

Logan stirred in his dark metal womb. The Re-Live wall hummed.

and . . .

He was three, and the hypnotape was telling him that
A²
+
B²
=
C²
—and of sines and cosines . . .

and . . .

He was fifteen, and the instructor bowed to him.

Logan wore the foam—padded mittens which were necessary in an Omnite class and the short white traditional shirt. He tried to do as he'd been taught, tried to clear his mind of all images except this squat, hard man before him.

"Again," said the man.

Logan fell into the proper stance and began to circle. His hands were moist and clammy, and he fought back a desire to retreat. He must never retreat. If he wished to become a top DS operative he had to learn everything this man could teach him.

The man feinted a blow. Logan countered with a savate kick. The instructor took the impact in the belly like a stone image, without flinching, caught Logan's leg, dumped him and struck his throat, temple and solar plexus with a single continuous blow. Logan slammed the mat and was sick on the mat and the instructor said, "There is no single blow in Omnite. Only combinations. Learn them."

Each culture had evolved a method of personal combat. From Japan: jujitsu. From China: kempo and karate. From France: savate. From Greece: boxing and wrestling. The finest points of each art were combined in Omnite.

They circled one another. Logan struck, but was once more dumped hard to the mat. He picked himself up, wiping a thread of blood from his nose. He was stiff with pain.

"Again," said the instructor, smiling thinly. And again and again and again.

and . . .

He was six, and it was a play period, and Rob was scampering across the asphalt ahead of him. "I'm a Sandman," cried Logan. "Here I come after ya. I see ya, Rob! You're hiding, but I see ya. I'm gonna shoot ya now!"

Logan raised the wooden Gun. Rob was behind one of the teeter-swings, pretending to be a runner.

"Bam!" yelled Logan. ' "Homer!
AAAAAzzzzz
-pow!"

Rob didn't fall. "Missed me!" he shouted.

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not. A homer never misses anybody. Ya can't get away from a homer."

. . . a homer.

homer . . .

homer!

Up! Run! Escape!

The life drawer continued to vibrate.

Logan tensed in its metal embrace.

and . . .

He was nineteen, and the haunting voice sang in two-tone scale. "Oh, Black, Black, BLACK!"

He was on leave in New Alaska with a glassdancer, whose body was coated in shining scales. Outside, the forcegrown palm trees flagged the sky.

And they listened to the Cantata for Bongo in A Minor with all eighty-eight tones clear and deep from the clava drum that only Deutcher 4 could play. And there was "Single Sung Tingle Tongue Pidge" and "Milkbelly" and "Angerman," the saga of DS with its 103 choruses:

Angerman was filled with fury,

He the judge and he the jury,

Gunning runner, Gunning, Gunning,

With the quarry from him running.

Homer in the Gun!

Angerman pursuing faster,

Angerman, the angry master,

Gunning runner, Gunning, Gunning,

With the coward from him running,

Fleeing from the Gun . . .

Logan felt proud to be here among his friends, in his handsome black tunic, with the glossy serpent

woman caressing him in secret ways to set his blood coursing . . .

and . . .

He was fourteen, and his hand was suddenly blue. Now he had to take on the duties of adulthood to earn his way. Yesterday all had been free for the asking be cause he'd been a boy, but now he was a man. But that was all right, because now he could be what he had always wanted to be.

Always . . .

and . . .

He was twenty and on the hunt. The girl had been clever, crossing the river to shake him, but now she was trapped, her back to a high board fence.

Logan walked toward her.

She clawed at the boards, breaking her nails on the rough wood, then fell, huddling at the base of the fence. He raised the Gun, fired, and the homer sang in.

Logan stood there; feeling the sick emptiness flush through him. Why had she made him do this? Why hadn't she accepted Sleep? Why had she run?

. . . run

run . . .

Run!

And he was twenty-one. Suddenly, twenty-one! And his palm-flower was blinking and he was high in the threemile complex, hanging by one hand from the ledge, with Lilith laughing above him and he was in Arcade on the Table with the scapels slicing down at him and he was in the narrow corridor with Doc charging, popsickle raised, and he was on the age-warped platform under Cathedral with the cubs, a blurred bee-drone, rushing in and the drugpad shimmering at his face and he was in brined submarine darkness in the heart of Molly as the walls quaked and Whale's steglauncher was centered on his stomach and the cold green tide was rising past his chest and he was facing Warden on the ice with the wolf circle pressing in and the wind slashing and he was in the jewel cave with Jess shackled and the great block hovering on the chute and Box coming at him with that cutting hand raised and he was scrabbling for the fallen Gun in the root grass with the golden mech eagles falling down the sky at him and he was on the granite steps in Crazy Horse with the Watchman at the bottom and Francis coming closer and Jess gone and he was lost forever in the endless, night-twisting caverns and he was watching Rutago pour the Hemodrone down Jessica's throat and the devilstick was singing under him and he was above the Lame Johnny with the king diving at him and he was in the foaming white wash of the rapids and he was soaring over the strands of dread microwire and the Loveroom had him and the entrance door was sliding closed before he could reach it and he was inching up Marye's Hill with the brass cannon roaring and Jess was gone and Francis was outside the Re-Live parlor and he was . . .

Awake!

The drawer slid open, and Logan sat up.

The robot was at the far end of the hall, tending another customer, as Logan emerged from the Re-Live bed. He did not wait, pulling off the terminals. He checked the front of the building. Francis had moved on. The way was, for the moment, clear.

A police paravane was idling at a landing stage on the next level. Logan approached the driver, a spidery man with sorrowful eyes who wore a tight-fitting lemon uniform. Logan displayed his right palm. "Perhaps you could help me?"

"Pleased to help any citizen on Lastday," said the lawman.

"I'm running out of time. And I hate to waste it on beltruns. Could I pick up a ride with you?"

"Know just how you feel, citizen. Another year or two and I'll be on Lastday myself. Where can I take you?"

"Not far." Logan pointed off to the west. "That wooded area beyond the battleground. I'm due to meet someone there."

"Climb aboard."

They rose through puffs of cannon smoke. Below, General Burnside's men were massing for another try at the slope. Muskets crackled faintly. A drum throbbed. A skirl of fife music drifted up.

The officer in yellow sighed. "Grand sight, isn't it? Me, I always come here every year whether or not I'm on duty. Wouldn't miss the Gala. It just inspires you to see all those brave soldiers dying for what they believed in. Gives you a sense of purpose, a sense of honor. Inspiring."

"Yes," said Logan.

"There were real issues to fight for then," the officer went on. "Liberty, freedom, justice. Now things have changed. Now everything comes to us on a platter. Man's got nothing left to fight for."

Logan nodded.

"I envy those lads on that field. They were fighting for their
future
. And what's our future?" The officer's sad eyes grew sadder. "Sleep. For you, tomorrow. For me, next year. I used to have religion, used to figure that there was a better place beyond Sleep. I don't know anymore. Really can't be sure. I was a Zen-Baptist for awhile, then switched to—"

"Right down there," Logan cut in, pointing. "On the far side of those trees."

The paravane settled in a patch of open ground. Logan got out, waved his thanks.