* * *
STORM
In the six years since the death of the cities Gant had built his personal kingdom at Crazy Horse. Stripping the Thinker itself for raw materials, he’d constructed a miniature city beneath the mountain. Logan saw only parts of it as they marched him down hallways, past labs and crew quarters, through a courtyard, past food-storage lockers…but he was impressed.
Yet he did not ask questions. His curiosity about Gant was canceled by his consuming desire to see Jessica, to hold her again.She’s here, he told himself, here in one of these buildings.
Escape, at this point, was a useless hope. In addition to the chokechain and tapewire, the four Sandmen who walked with him (one leading, one to either side, another following) all carried Guns in their hands.
He would do as they instructed. If Gant had not been lying, he’d be allowed to see Jess after whatever torture the man had set up for him to endure. And Logan had endured much in his life. He would endure this—and hope.
Jess, Jess…I love you!
“Stop here,” said the lead Sandman.
They had reached a wide duralloy door, set flush into the corridor’s end. The door was solid metal, and smelled of oil. One of the Sandmen unlocked it, swung it back. “Inside,” he said.
Logan entered—and the heavy door crashed shut behind him.
Soft laughter in the corridor, and the Sandmen were gone.
Logan was alone.
The chamber was large, perhaps twenty by twenty feet, of bolted metal, totally bare. Not a single item of any kind—just metal walls, ceiling, floor. And, as Logan tested the surface, cool to the touch.
There were round holes of varying size punched into the ceiling, scores of them. And as many in the floor. The walls were vented, top to bottom.
Am I to be gassed in here? Is that Gant’s plan? Ironic. Saved in New York from the same fate I’ll suffer here.Will Gant really allow me to see Jess? Will I leave this room alive?
Logan raised his head, tensing his body; he swung around abruptly.
Someone was touching him!
No, not someone. Something: a slight draft of currented air, touching at his face, his hair…emanating from the vents. Fresh. Not gas. Fresh air.
But subtly increasing, gradually becoming stronger.
A soft, pattering sound—and Logan felt wetness against his skin. Slow drops of water, dripping down on him from a multitude of ceiling holes.
A muted rumble from the room, a faint, far-distant sound, like the throb of giant drums.
The current of air had become a breeze, blowing chill against Logan’s rapidly-dampening uniform. The patter of drops from the ceiling intensified, became a steady downfall, soaking Logan’s hair and clothing.
The breeze soon mounted to a wind, whipping at Logan in cold gusts from the wallvents surrounding him.
The downpour increased to a fierce curtain of iced sleet, and the muted drum-rumble boomed into full thunder, assaulting Logan’s eardrums.
He staggered back, dazed, helpless—as the wind punished him, building in force by the second.
Now another frightening element manifested itself in the chamber: firebolts of lightning danced and crackled around him, first at one wall, then at the next.
Logan clapped both hands to his ears to muffle the thunder’s brutal roar, his mouth gaping in shocked agony.
A solid gust of wind slapped him to the floor. He rose to his knees, fighting for balance on the rainslick metal, crawled toward a corner to lessen the storm’s impact—but a sizzle of heat-lightning forced him back to the room’s center.
The wind was a demon’s shriek, the thunderclaps now impossibly loud in the metal chamber.
Something began cutting at Logan’s skin, drawing blood along his cheek. Hailstones—sharp-edged pellets of cold ice which pounded and slashed at his unprotected head and shoulders.
Now the wind suddenly reversed direction, taking Logan by surprise; under its gale force, he was toppled and slammed into the wall.
Again the hurricane blast abruptly reversed direction, and Logan was hurled across the slippery floor into the opposite wall, striking the metal with bonecrushing impact.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Viciously pelted and buffeted, Logan lay gasping on his back, blood running from a dozen wounds, the hail and rain drumming his flesh.
He opened his mouth and cried out, but his voice was swallowed up in the cruel, unending din, as the storm raged.
* * *
REUNION
“Do you think he’s ready now?” asked Evans 9.
Gant nodded. “Tell them to kill the storm, then have Logan brought to Room K…” His smile glowed red…where I shall keep my promise to him.”
Evans turned to leave when Gant’s voice stopped him.
“One thing I’d like to know.”
“Yes?”
“I’m curious,” said Gant. “What made you betray him? You were friends once.yet you set the trap that brought him here.”
“I’m a proud man,” said Evans. “Logan kept me in his shadow. In DS he assumed a position of superiority. He was arrogant, self-serving. He never tried to understand me. Even took our friendship for granted. Thought it was a privilege for me to be his friend! But I was never his friend! I knew someday I’d best him. And I have.”
“Indeed you have,” nodded Gant. “It seems we share similar emotional attitudes toward Logan. Which helps bind us in the venture.”
“I want him dead,” said Evans flatly.
And he left.
When they opened the door Logan did not move, did not look at them. Water dripped languorously from the ceiling, draining away along the floor.
The storm was over.
Logan lay in a far corner of the chamber, knees drawn up tight against his body, head sunken against his chest, eyes closed. His breathing was irregular. His soaked, torn uniform was spotted with blood.
Two Sandmen walked over to him, lifted him by the elbows, dragging him toward the door. He moved in a broken child’s stumble, his eyes glazed, unfocused. Small, mewling sounds issued from his mouth.
The Sandmen smiled at one another as they led him away from the stormroom.
Room K formed part of Gant’s personal living quarters, and was lavish. Cut from the natural rock of the mountain, it was walled in leathertrim and lit by moonglobes, which cast their soft radiance on Jessica’s pale skin. When Gant entered she rushed to him, eyes pleading. “Have you brought Logan? Where is he?”
Gant ran a dark hand along the shine of her hair. “They’re bringing him. He’ll be here soon, I assure you.”
She turned away, slipped nervously into a bodychair. The green silk gown she wore, cut low at the breasts, pressed in against the curves of her body.
“I’m sure he’ll find you as desirable as ever,” Gant said, moving to a winetable. Seating himself, he sampled a French vintage, inhaling its subtle bouquet. “The Borgias treated you well, all things considered. They could have disfigured you, ruined your beauty.”
“They were foul to me,” she said.
“Come now, Jessica. Put yourself in their place. You belonged to them. You were a woman of strong sexual attraction. Naturally they used you. But Lucrezia knew enough not to allow abuse. That was the key. She kept your Market value intact.” He chuckled. “Had she known just how much I wanted you, and for what ultimate purpose, she could have realized a much greater profit.”
“I’m glad Logan killed her,” said Jessica darkly. “She didn’t deserve to live—not after what she did to
Jaq.”
“Your Logan is a strong-willed, violent man.” He hesitated, for effect. “Or should I say…was.”
Jessica looked startled, suddenly frightened. Her eyes sought Gant’s. “Then, he’s not coming! You’ve lied to me…Logan is dead!”
Gant smiled, and the moonglobes flashed crimson from his rubied teeth. “No, not dead. Merely…gentled…eased fro
m his violence. I have given him the gift of bodily peace.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
“I went to a great deal of trouble to have him brought here to you. In justice, you should be grateful to me, not suspicious.”
Jessica’s eyes burned with heat; her hands were fisted. “You hate us both for daring to do what you lacked the courage to do—for seeking Sanctuary.”
“I stood by my duty,” said Gant, his voice gone hard. “Logan ran from his.” The door chimed softly.
“Ah, the moment of your reconciliation is at hand,” said Gant. “It should be touching.” He palmed the door and it whispered open.
Logan was there, his sagging body held erect between two Sandmen. He blinked rapidly as Jessica ran forward to embrace him.
“Logan…oh, Logan!” She put her arms around him, frantically kissed his lips, held his face between her cupped hands. He showed no sign of recognition.
His face was totally expressionless.
“He doesn’t know me!” She swung toward Gant, stunned. “What have you done to him?”
Gant smiled, a red gash of pleasure.
Logan stared at nothing.
* * *
FRIEND
They were stripped naked and thrown into a cell of raw rock, dirt-floored, exposed to constant drafts of cold air slicing through the interior of Crazy Horse. Gant’s instructions were concise: No clothing. No food. Water at two-day intervals.
He wanted to see them rot.
Logan was helpless. He whimpered, lacked control of his body functions, was incapable of speech. As Jessica held him, his muscles jerked spastically. His, eyes rolled white. Saliva dribbled from the corners of his slack mouth.
The stormroom had broken him.
Through the long hours, Jessica crooned to him, stroked his trembling skin with gentle fingers—but he did not know her. She was a warm presence, nothing more, in the dim gray web of his mental world.
Her voice was a litany: “Logan, my darling…my dearest…Logan…Logan…Logan, my love…”
But they had a friend at Crazy Horse—a silent figure weaving in shadowed stealth through the twisting rock caverns surrounding the Thinker—a friend who knew Gant’s ways and awaited the chance to move against him.
Watching.
Waiting.
Until a plan was evolved.
And acted upon.
Gant entered their cell with Steratt, his chief guard. Steratt was lean and sharp-featured, with the muscles of a hunting dog; he was dressed in slash-chest ivory leathers, wore thighboots and carried a small black handcase.
Jessica looked up at them, blinking, nestling Logan close to her shoulder.
Gant opened the handcase, took out a looped object.
Bodywhip.
He handed the whip to Jessica. “Use it on him,” he said in a flat, emotionless tone. “No!” She threw it aside.
Gant nodded to Steratt. He pulled Jessica up by her hair, swinging her toward Gant. Who slapped her.
Hard.
Logan blinked at them, his face devoid of expression. Blood flecked Jessica’s mouth. “I…won’t,” she gasped.
“If you don’t,” said Gant, taking a Fuser from his belt, aiming it at Logan, “I’ll burn him where he lies!” Logan blinked stupidly.
“Pick it up,” said Gant, “and use it now.” His eyes blazed black.
Jessica picked up the whip.
Behind the Medsupply Unit, in caverned rock darkness, a shape moved.
The Sandman in charge of guarding the unit was bored. He was thinking how much better the workers’ guard had it—with females to use whenever he felt the urge. Just go into the cells, drag one out, use her and toss her back inside. The workers didn’t complain. Who would they complain to? Oh, they didn’t like it. One of them tried to club a guard once, while he was busy with a female, but they burned him. As an example. It didn’t pay to attack a guard. They all realized that.
Well, Steratt owed him a shift change. He’d been on Med now for a month. Maybe he could get switched to Workers next. End up with some nice young meat.
The shape detached itself from the rocks, moved closer.
The Sandman yawned, sat down, arms folded across his chest. He closed his eyes and thought about women.
While the shadow-figure darted into the unit, unseen. Hypokit. Fresh needles. Healpacs. Wraps and cotton.
Careful! Arrange the other supplies to cover what’s taken. No breakage. No noise. Quickly…quickly! And a shadow drifted back into the caverns.
Imprisoned inside the mountain, Jessica had lost all sense of time. As she held her man, this brave human who had given his selfhood to save her, she felt they’d been like this, together in Gant’s cell, for many months.Sometimes, her mind, disoriented by lack of food, held the conviction that they would be here forever, immortal in agony, abandoned, unfed, their bodies racked by cold, thinned by hunger.
Then Gant would come. To gloat. To enjoy the spectacle. Sometimes she would be given to Evans or Steratt, who would take her brutally in the cell, for Gant’s amusement. But, mostly, it was darkness, cold, hard dirt against aching muscles, night-crawling insects.
Logan never spoke. He lay in her arms, unable to relate to her, to his bleak surroundings, to hunger or pain.
Yet Jessica loved him more fiercely than ever.
And, until Gant killed them, her love for Logan would remain—a hard, unwavering flame that warmed the deepest part of her.
She would endure.
They would endure.
Assigned to Logan’s cell unit, in six-hour shifts: eight Sandmen, two of them always on guard. Top men. Personally selected by Gant.
On this shift: Lister 4 and Brim 11. Humorless, hard-faced, alert as cats. They paced outside the unit, carrying (at Gant’s direct order) Guns in their hands.
“Had a runner once,” Lister was saying, in a tight, controlled voice, “who got into a Nursery. Got past the robots. I had to go in after him.”
“And?” said Brun.
“Had him backed to the wall in a Cribroom. I was ready to homer him, when this Autogoverness comes rolling in. Upset. Won’t let me fire. All worried about the infants. She knocks the Gun out of my hand. Runner makes a dive for it. Gets his hand around it. Zip! Blows his arm off to the shoulder!”
“Runners know better,” said Brun.
“Guess this one forgot,” said Lister, a faint smile tracing his lips. “Anyway, when I—”
Lister stopped, the smile vanishing. He sat down very slowly, then toppled sideways, laying his face into the dirt.
A small, glinting hyponeedle projected from his neck.
Brun wheeled in a covering arc, Gun up, peering into the cave—darkness around him. No sound. No movement.
He was about to press the alarmstud just inside the unit’s arched doorway when a second needle sang from blackness, deeply imbedding itself in his carotid artery.
The Gun slipped from Brun’s nerveless fingers as he sank to his knees. His eyes lost focus. He collapsed backward, head striking the edge of the rock doorway—but he did not feel the impact.
Silence.
Then—a soft scratch of loose pebbles. A shape, moving.
Jessica saw the figure coming swiftly down the gloomed corridor toward their cell. Not Gant. Or Evans. Or Steratt. Or the guards.
Who then?
An assassin sent to kill them?
No, Gant had vowed he’d be there personally to watch them die, and Jessica knew that was one promise he would keep.
“I’m Mary-Mary 2,” the figure said. “You met me once, long ago.”
Jessica looked at the girl. Slim. Intense. Dressed in a ripped green tunicdress. And didn’t know her.
Mary-Mary smiled. “In the Angeles Complex. Under Cathedral. I was only five then. I’d escaped Nursery.”
“Yes,” said Jessica. “Now I remember. But how did you ever—”
“No questions,” said Mary-Mary. “I got rid of both guards,
but there’s very little time.” She produced a ridged silver key, hurriedly opened their cell door with it.
The chamber smelled of damp earth and rock mold, a fungoid odor of decay.
“He can’t walk,” said Jessica, looking down at Logan who was curled into a ball in the center of the dirt floor, arms clasping his updrawn legs. His eyes were open. He was staring at the wall.
“Together we can manage him,” said Mary-Mary. “I’m stronger than I look.”
The women half-lifted, half-dragged Logan to a standing position. His head rolled on his neck; a bubble of saliva formed and broke on his paste-white lips.
A clang of distant metal. Door being opened, closed.
“Hurry!” urged Mary-Mary. “Someone’s coming.”
* * *
SEARCH
Gant. Evans. Steratt. Joking about what they would find in the cell ahead of them. Laughing, as they moved down the corridor.
Suddenly; an oath from Gant. “Gone!” he thundered. “Their cell’s empty!”
“Someone used a key,” said Evans. “The door wasn’t forced.”
Gant was wearing a large ruby ring with a chased-silver facing on the index finger on his right hand. The ring opened the side of Steratt’s face under Gant’s blow. “You! You’re in charge of the cells! You’re responsible!”
“They can’t be far away,” said Evans. He was kneeling in the cell, one hand to the floor. “Still warm from their bodies.”
Gant turned from Steratt, who was groaning, half-conscious. “Maximum alert. Have the outside of the mountain completely sealed off. They’re still inside here somewhere.”
Evans nodded, picked up a vidphone.
“We’ll find them,” gasped Steratt, a hand to his bloodied face. “I swear we’ll find them!” Gant looked at him, saying nothing, holding the bodywhip loosely in his hand.
“Here…lower him,” said Mary-Mary. “Ease him down.”
Logan: A Trilogy Page 23