Logan: A Trilogy

by William F. Nolan

  Into high papyrus grass, flowing up five feet above their heads, past yellow-blossomed thorn, around giant trees whose vein-tangled roots snagged at their shoes.

  Now into a steep-plunging ravine, grasping at vines to slow their descent, stumbling, sliding downward along a sandy ridge.

  At the bottom, in the thick dry silt, under the shade of wide high-trunked trees, they fell to their knees, fighting for breath, holding on to each other like lost children.

  “Something…to…” Logan found it almost impossible to form words; his lips were split and bleeding,

  “…use.”

  “To use?” Jessica looked at him in confusion. “Against them…to…fight them.”

  She watched him uproot one of the heavy, long-stalked reeds that grew in profusion along the side of the ravine. From his bodyshirt Logan withdrew a jagged-edged bone fragment which he’d found on one of the ancient animal trails. Using strips of vine, he lashed this sharp bone to the end of the reed.

  “Spear!” He waved it in triumph.

  A sudden spill of gravel and loose stones from the upper ledge of the ravine. The hunters!

  Logan put a hand on Jessica’s shoulder, drawing her silently back into the blue-black shadow of the reeds.

  Where they waited.

  If I can get one of them with this, Logan told himself, gripping his crude weapon, then I can use his spear on the others. I can handle three of them.

  But even if you’re successful, an inner voice told him, more will come. They’ll keep coming, by threes, until they kill you. No way to win. If Doyle had killed both of us back on the desert, more Sandmen would have come. The system works for the hunters, not the hunted.

  No way to win.

  They had circled, come in from the far side, picking their way carefully along the powdery-dry bed of the ravine, knowing that their quarry was hiding here, run to ground and exhausted, while they were fresh and full of the hunt.

  They scanned every thrust of rock, every ridge, every ledge and tree shadow, spears firm in their burnished hands. It was good to hunt again, good to ride the swift marabunta after the condemned ones, good to trail and trap and kill.

  Their leader was Duma, named for the cheetah. Tall and slim-bodied, as were all his people, he sat tree-straight in the ant’s high saddle, hair swinging behind his shoulders in a roped braid. Raised tribal scars marked his chest and forehead. Duma had been on many hunts, and his skill with a spear was unmatched. Never had Duma missed a living target.

  He was the son of their chief, Nyoka, and proud father of the boy who rode beside him this day: eight-year-old Swala, a handsome youth, lithe and quick—and aptly named for the gazelle. This was Swala’s first hunt, and his father knew he would do well.

  With them rode Nyati—the buffalo—a wise tracker who knew every vine and thorn bush, every ridge and rock and rolling green hill within the Serengeti.

  Two masters—and a brave boy who hoped, this day, to become a man.

  Duma smiled. The first kill I will take for myself, as elder, for this is custom on a hunt—but the second kill shall be reserved for my son. It shall be Swala’s. This had been agreed to by Nyati. The veteran tracker would hold back. For Nyati, there would be other days, other kills, as there had been before— as many as the faces of the night moon.

  Beneath Duma, the marabunta paused to swing its giant clicking antennae toward a patch of reed-shadow near the inner ravine wall. The sharp clicking alerted the others.

  All were stopped, eyes probing the bank.

  “There, Father!” shouted young Swala, pointing at Jessica. “A condemned one! Behind the rock.” She stood up, poised to run, inviting the spear of Duma.

  He drew back his muscled arm, spearhead glinting in the leaf-filtered sunlight banding the ravine floor. But he did not loose the weapon.

  A snake-hiss of sound, and a bone-tipped reed buried itself deep in the warrior’s scarred chest just above the heartline. Silently, he toppled from the saddle.

  “Father! My father!” cried Swala. He was confused and frightened; his mount swayed back nervously as he fought to control it.

  Logan ignored the boy. He charged straight at the second hunter, yanking Nyati’s leg violently, pulling him from the ant’s saddle and knocking the spear from his hand.

  An upper-neck chop slammed the Masai, stunned, into the silt. Logan scooped up the fallen spear, preparing to drive it into the man’s bronzed back, when he heard Jess scream, “Marabunta!”

  Duma’s warrior ant was in full attack. The giant insect reared up, its shining, razored antennae slashing air, its red and black body towering directly over Logan.

  He spun sideways, but his upper shoulder was opened to the bone by one of the whipping antennae. The ant moved in, sensing its advantage, jaws wide, ready to finish the kill. Again Logan pivoted, and, using his good arm, plunged Nyati’s spear into the creature’s bulbous right eye.

  Incredibly, smoke and sparks poured from the wound as the creature went berserk, wildly thrashing its immense, segmented body to left and right.

  A robot, marveled Logan, the thing’s a robot!

  Now the frenzied ant’s left antenna swung up to knock young Swala from the saddle; the boy fell heavily to the floor of the ravine, striking his head on a silt-covered rock. He did not move as the maddened machine-creature reared up to crush him.

  Logan sprang between them, driving the boy’s spear full-strength into the ant’s vulnerable underchest. The great dark insect spun crazily to smash head-on into the ravine wall, exploding as it hit, showering the area with bits of broken metal. Then it lay unmoving, silent, its clockwork interior gutted.

  Logan knelt by the unconscious young Masai. Jess was already there, cradling the boy’s bleeding head.

  “He’s all right,” she told Logan.

  Nyati had seen it all, seen what this brave white condemned one had done. He had saved Swala’s life.

  He had slain the marabunta.

  Nyati had seen, and he would remember.

  He would never forget.

  * * *

  THE OTHER ME

  The trip across the hot plain to the Masai village was painful for Logan. His shoulder throbbed under the still-powerful afternoon sun, and the makeshift sling bandage was stiff with blood. Jessica had cleaned the wound with water from the canteens, but there was very little to be done by way of remedy until they reached the village.

  Jessica rode one of the massive warrior ants with Swala, who was subdued and aloof, while Logan followed on the second machine-creature. Nyati ran lightly and easily beside him, sleek-muscled legs pistoning over the grass. The Masai was in awe of Logan and considered it an honor that the white one had chosen his mount.

  A mile short of the village they were met by a horde of swift-running Masai children who circled Logan and Jessica with saucered eyes. Most of the children had never seen a condemned one alive, and certainly not astride a marabunta! Ah, what a wondrous sight this was!

  By now the sun had lost most of its force. Afternoon was slowly shading into African night as they dismounted before the hut of the chief.

  Nyati, who spoke both English and Swahili, would be their translator. He would tell the chief of Logan’s deeds.

  “You are to wait here,” said Nyati.

  And he entered the hut, pushing the reluctant Swala ahead of him. The boy did not relish facing his grandfather; in his eyes he had behaved like a child, and his grandfather would surely berate him. His father lay dead in a ravine and Swala was not yet a man. It was a day to curse forever!

  Outside, the children still circled, gazing wordlessly at the white ones. The adult members of the tribe, in tall brown clusters, kept to a distance, equally curious but uncertain, awaiting the word of their chief. His wisdom would direct them. “What happens now?” asked Jessica.

  “We wait,” said Logan. “We stay alive if the chief figures he owes me for saving his grandchild—but we die if he figures me a murderer for killing his son. It cou
ld go either way.”

  She frowned. “Your shoulder’s bleeding again.”

  “I’ll be all right,” said Logan.

  They stood there awkwardly for several long minutes, their fate undecided. Logan ignored the throbbing pain in his shoulder, grateful to have reached the village, grateful for this second chance at life.

  Then Nyati appeared, glancing behind him, toward the hut.

  “He comes.” From the tracker’s impassive face it was impossible to guess what the chief might be planning.

  Nyoka came out to meet them, looking solemn—a reed-thin, handsome man of indeterminate age, though obviously he was not young. (In this world, Logan realized, the Masai lived and died here in the Serengeti, beyond Sleep, in their own private stratum of society.)

  Nyati had explained that their chief was named after the snake. “He is very wise, like the serpent of old,” the tracker had told them. “He speaks only wisdom. His words are true, always.”

  As with all Masai tribesmen, the chief wore a narrow brown cloth slung loosely around his waist. As a badge of rank, a necklace of ivory elephant bones hung from his neck. Each bone in the necklace had been carved into the shape of a snake.

  Now he placed a hand on Logan’s good arm, speaking slowly and with dignity; his large yellow-brown eyes were deep, and they did not waver from Logan’s face.

  Nyati translated quietly: “I, Nyoka, salute the condemned one. I declare you a brave warrior. My son died honorably under your spear and for this I hold no anger against you.”

  Logan exchanged a relieved smile with Jess as the chief continued: “You risked your life to save my grandson, and for this Nyoka is truly in your debt. Your shoulder will he tended. You shall spend the night here in my village, and in the morning, when the sun has shortly risen, we will talk.” And, giving Logan no opportunity to reply, he turned away to reenter the but.

  “It is as I told you,” Nyati whispered. “He speaks true wisdom.”

  Logan nodded. “Indeed he does.”

  He looked at the red sun through the screening trees as it slid smoky down the horizon. The day was done.

  And he was alive.

  The Masai were not altogether primitive. Not only did they ride sophisticated robot machines, but their tribal doctor utilized the latest medical knowledge and equipment to maintain group health in the colony.

  To their doctor, Logan’s shoulder wound was simple, easily treated. By morning it was totally healed. Nothing more than a faint scar trace remained.

  Nyoka, true to his word, was ready to talk with Logan shortly after sunup. They met, with Nyati translating, inside the chief’s hut, while Jessica waited. (“To him, I don’t exist!” she’d complained that morning. And Logan had said, “Wrong. He knows you tried to aid Swala. It’s just that his tribal pride dictates that he talk to me, the brave male warrior. But you wouldn’t be alive right now if Nyoka didn’t appreciate what you did for his grandson.”)

  A woven reed mat covered the floor of Nyoka’s hut. A gold-tipped ceremonial spear was mounted on the wall above the doorway, and a coiled snake, in ebony, formed the centerpiece on a low table of darkly polished wood. Also, among the hut’s sparse furnishings: cooking pots and painted hangings, including a lion’s head rendered in vivid earth dyes by Nyoka’s dead son.

  The three men sat down at the low table, and Nyoka spoke first, saying (in translation) “Your wound is healed. You have been fed and you are well rested. It is time for you and the woman to leave our village.”

  “But we’re condemned prisoners,” Logan replied, through Nyati. “Where can we go? Even if you allow us to live, even if your warriors no longer ride against us, we are trapped here on the Serengeti.”

  Slowly, his large eyes intense on Logan, the chief shook his head. “This need not be so. There is a way out. But you must go where I direct.”

  Logan was astonished. “A way out?…of Serengeti?”

  “Perhaps — out of Africa!” And Nyoka smiled for the first time since they’d met; his teeth were even and perfect in wide, pinkish gums.

  “Tell me the way!”

  The chief spoke in a soft, rhythmic flow, his tone hushed and reverential. Nyati translated as a priest might translate from the Bible.

  “You must journey east, to the high mountain of Kilimanjaro. A marabunta will take you. It is nearly a full day’s ride. There, upon the insect’s back, you will ascend the great mountain. To a ledge high above the plain. Here, at this place, dwells a white leopard, whose eye sees all. The leopard’s eye will guide you.”

  “But how…and to where? Guide us where?”

  “Seek your answer in the leopard’s eye.” With this, the chief stood up and put out his hand. “I wish you long life, white one!”

  Logan clasped the chiefs strong-fingered hand. He was about to speak again, but Nyati shook his head, nodding toward the doorway.

  The talk was over.

  Logan and Jessica left within the hour, in fresh clothing, with food and water strapped to the ant’s saddle, waving farewell to Nyati and to the happy, squealing children who trailed behind them.

  Nyoka was not there to see them off—but Swala stood alone beyond the village, at the far edge of the road leading onto the broad plain, watching them until they were out of his range of vision, lost to sight in the wide sea of rolling grass. Then, his face drawn with emotion, head down, he walked back into the village—hating them as he had hated no one else in the whole of his young life.

  For Logan and Jess, the ride to Kilimanjaro was one of revelation. They had been through much together, and Jessica felt guilt; she told herself that Logan should know the truth about her, about all this.

  She began by saying, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For the fact that you’re here…that you’re going through all this because of me.”

  “We’re going through it together,” said Logan. “And because of Phedra, not you.”

  They rode in silence for several moments, Jessica directly behind him in the ant’s saddle. She hesitated, forming the proper words; the words were very important.

  “I want to tell you everything,” she said. “I want you to have the truth.”

  Logan turned his head to smile at her. “It’s a long ride. My belly’s full. My shoulder’s healed. My head is shaded. My thirst is satisfied.” Patting the canteen at his side. “So, if you want to talk, I’ve got nothing to do but listen.”

  “I’m serious, Logan. I’m not joking.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “The day you came to my unit…to tell me about Doyle,” she began, her voice steady and resigned, “I was pretending. I pretended to be cold to the news of his suicide.”

  “You had me convinced,” said Logan.

  “The hard way I talked…the drinks…the part about Doyle being a fool. It was all an act. Actually, I was dying inside.”

  “But why the act?”

  “I’ll get to that. At the time, all that mattered was that I threw you off balance. I wanted to appear cool and sensual…make you desire me.”

  “Well, it worked.”

  “Exactly as I’d planned. Entice you to that party in Arcade, excite you, then have sex with you back at my unit—so I could plant the DD-15 in your jacket.”

  Logan twisted in the saddle to face her. “You planted the Dust on me?”

  “I hated you. I blamed you for hounding my brother to suicide. I loved Doyle deeply…deeply…and I blamed you for his death.”

  Just as she did, thought Logan, in my world.

  “I wanted to avenge him, pay you back for what you’d done to him, to me…and planting that Dust on you seemed the best way.”

  “But Phedra was at Headquarters,” protested Logan. “She was the one who accused both of us.”

  Jessica nodded. “She simply used an opportunity she never thought she’d get. You were right, she was jealous when she saw us together in Arcade—and she must have found the drug disc in my thing
s when I was at the gallery.”

  “You took the disc there?”

  “Yes—to try to slip it into your jacket if my full plan didn’t work out, in case I couldn’t lure you back to my unit. Phedra saw her chance, and framed the whole story of us using the drug together.”

  “And she had no idea you intended planting it on me?”

  “No idea at all.” She smiled thinly. “But it certainly helped verify her story.”

  “But why tell me all this now?” asked Logan. “You didn’t have to.”

  She sighed, spilling out the words: “What you did for the boy, for Swala…I couldn’t hate you after that. You can’t help being what you are…the system gets us all eventually. It got you—and it got Doyle. All my life I’ve hated the system. It killed Doyle, and now it’s killing us.”

  Logan was hard-struck by her words. She was telling him the truth, he knew; it had been an act, her coldness, her lack of compassion—the things that had shocked and revolted him about her.

  She was like Jessica after all! They were as mentally alike as they were physically alike! And since she had told him the truth about herself, he owed her the same kind of honesty, if only to erase the image of the uniformed DS killer in her mind.

  “Turns out we were both putting on acts,” he declared.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not the man you think I am. I’m not Logan 3.”

  Her eyes widened. ‘But you are! I’ve seen you on the tri-dims. I recognized you instantly when you came to my unit.”

  “I look like him—exactly like him—and his name is mine, but I’m no killer, Jess! I hate this system as much as you do, so much that I once helped destroy one just like it on my world.”

  And, as they rode, as the scorched brown land passed beneath them under the steady march of the marabunta and the sun fell slowly down the western sky, Logan told her everything. About the aliens, the dual worlds, his mission here…and about his own wife and child, his own Jessica.

  When he finished, she was crying softly, her head pressed forward against his shoulder, her arms tight around his waist.