by Unknown
Jessica stood beside Logan; she shared his passion. Fennister's argument made no dent in their combined determination to destroy the source of so much pain and death in the world they'd known.
"We'll finish the job Ballard started," said Logan.
Fennister nodded slowly. "All right…we can do it. But the whole mountain must go with it. That's the only way."
Logan was shaken by this. To bring down the great warrior who symbolized courage and rebellion, who ruled the Dakota wilderness in proud granite majesty…
But he hesitated for only a moment. His eyes were hard. "The mountain, then," he said.
It would be difficult—and dangerous. A timing device was set to detonate thermocharges planted at a multitude of spots inside the caverns.
For days, Fennister and his technicians had labored to plant these charges and regulate them, precisely, to the primary timer; each had a separate and vital function.
"I want everyone clear of the mountain before we set the timer," said Logan.
"Someone will have to remain in the laboratory," said Fennister. His face was drawn with exhaustion, his eyes pouched and swollen from lack of sleep.
"Why?"
"To make certain the device works. There's no way to monitor it from outside."
"What's the risk factor?" asked Logan.
"It could be high. There's a chance I won't come out."
"You?"
"Who else would it be?" Fennister said in a calm, weary tone. "I'm the only one qualified to see that the timer functions properly."
"I'll do it," said Logan flatly. "Just tell me what I need to know."
Fennister tapped his head. "It's all in here, Logan. And only I have it." He spread his hands. "There's no one else."
A moment of silence.
"You'd die with the Thinker?"
"If I must."
Logan was silent for a moment.
"Let's get started," he said.
The Dakota sun was a disc of white gold in the heated morning sky. Under it, well back from the mountain, surrounded by green pines and thick, waist-high brush, the workers and technicians of Crazy Horse stood nervously.
They said nothing; their eyes were on the mountain, fixed to the immense granite figure who seemed tall enough to rule the world.
Jessica stood close to Logan, gripping his hand. Her eyes, too, were on the mountain. Near them, Mary-Mary, pale from her experience in the stormroom, but sharing their joy in having aborted Gant's plan.
"How much longer?" Mary-Mary asked.
"Fennister set the timer exactly," said Logan. "At his signal, we're to count down from a hundred. By the count of twenty-five he should be back here with us."
"He's a brave man," said Jessica.
Logan nodded. "And a brilliant one. The world needs its Fennisters now."
"Will he make it?" asked Mary-Mary.
Logan looked at the cavern entrance, a dark wound in the base of Crazy Horse.
"I don't know," he said.
The signal was given.
And the countdown began.
EXTINCTION
A muted, murmurous sea of voices, counting down to zero, each voice strained, tight with emotion…
"…eighty-two…eighty-one…eighty…seventy-nine…"
All eyes on the mountain.
Logan and Jessica and Mary-Mary counting with the others. "…sixty-six…sixty-five…sixty-four…" As Logan's voice mechanically chanted the countdown, like some terrible litany, his mind kept giving him the image of Fennister, alone at the timer, watching for any flicker of imperfection, any sign that all was not well.
"…forty-eight…forty-seven…forty-six…"
A maddening vision.
Logan felt himself beginning to tremble. His right leg throbbed, still bearing the mark of Gant's Flamer. When he was under pressure, in a highly-dangerous situation, this condition could never have manifested itself—but his fear now was for Fennister. And this fear twisted and ate at Logan.
"…thirty-eight…thirty-seven…thirty-six…"
Dammit, he should be coming out by now!
The dark cavern mouth gaped, silent and empty.
"…twenty-nine…twenty-eight…"
"I'm going in to get him," said Logan.
"You're not," said Jessica. It was a flat statement.
"Hold her," Logan said to a worker next to them. "She'll try to follow me."
"Logan, you—"
But he did not hear her voice any longer. Her voice was a million miles behind him.
There was only the mountain.
And Fennister.
The count stood at sixteen when Logan reached the lab.
Fennister was gone!
The timer stood deserted—ticking away life-seconds: fourteen…thirteen…twelve…
Logan shouted, "Fennister!"
"Back here," a voice said from the depths of the laboratory.
Logan found him, kneeling at a terminal, adjusting a tiny set screw, grabbed his arm, jerked him
upward.
…nine…eight…"Out!"
"But there's still a loose connection here. I have to—"
"I said out!"
And Logan dragged him toward the lab door…five…four…three…
Logan stared desperately at the timer. "We're too late! The whole mountain's going!"
"No!" Fennister threw his body across the space between Logan and the timing device.
And killed it.
The timer stopped
"I didn't intend to come out," admitted Fennister. "Gant was my only chance to find Lisa again. He's dead, so I—"
"We'll find her," vowed Logan. "I know the Market now. She'll be found, I swear it."
"I believe you."
"Then destroy the Thinker—and come out with me."
"I can't reset the timer," said Fennister. "It's not possible without detonating the charges."
"Can they be rigged to go off any other way?"
"Yes. By fuse. But that's death for us."
"Are you certain?"
"A short fuse is required. We'd have no time to clear the mountain."
"How much time is no time?" Logan asked him.
"Perhaps…fifteen…twenty seconds. No more."
"We can make it," said Logan. "Go ahead."
Fennister made the proper connection, attached the short length of fuse.
"No way to ignite it," he said.
Logan pulled the Fuser from his belt. "I'll use this," he said.
They moved to the door, poised to run. "Start," Logan told the scientist. "I'll fire, and follow you."
"But I—"
"Run, damn you!"
Fennister took off, leaving Logan alone.
He aimed carefully—triggered the burnweapon.
The fuse ignited, began running a thin line of orange flame rapidly toward the charges. Logan tossed the weapon aside and sprinted after Fennister. And soon caught him. "Faster!" yelled Logan.
They ran.
Along the main corridor.
Through a linking series of rooms.
Down a secondary corridor.
Up a flight of cut-stone steps.
Ahead: the bright mouth of the escape tunnel and, just beyond, the exit into Dakota sun, shining with the promise of life itself. Fennister stumbled, fell, with a snapping of bone, full-face onto the tunnel's dirt floor. …as the fuse burned closer.
Logan pulled at him. "Up!"
"Broken," gasped Fennister. "Thigh bone. Can't walk. Go on, Logan! There's no time to—" Logan grappled the scientist's body, slinging Fennister's full weight across his shoulders.
"Keep your arms locked around my chest," he said. "Hang on!"
And he staggered forward. Mary-Mary cried out Logan's name as she saw the two figures emerge from darkness into light. Jessica's throat was locked; she could not speak.
Several of the workers ran to Logan and Fennister, bore them swiftly away from the mountain. They cleared it.
Barely.
Inside the lab: a final spark of flame.
Then a blinding radiance.
Concussion!
The mountain screamed—a sound of cracking, rending granite and Tashunca-uitco began to die. A hairline split appeared in the shoulder of Crazy Horse; the immense arm of the great war chief of the Ogallala Sioux, on which five hundred men could stand shoulder-to-shoulder, suddenly quaked loose, sundering into giant boulders.
The massive head of the warrior split itself in twain, as if a titanic axe-blade had cleaved the skull… The huge stallion, bearing the chief, reared up magnificently, magically alive, as tons of rock folded into an opening crevasse behind it; a raised hoof sheared away, fell into disintegrating fragments…
The main body of horse and man swayed majestically for a moment, then bowed, tumbling down in an awesome granite rain of rock and rubble and dust…
A terrible, mind-numbing silence. As if the universe itself had been extinguished.
TOGETHER
Jessica turned her eyes to Logan in the down-sifting dust. Like his, her skin was powdered white. Tears had cut furrows down her cheeks.
They embraced, silently.
Something evil had died with the Thinker. Not the computer itself, but the uses to which men put it; no longer would its machine-metal dictate life and death. Men like Gant could never use it to enslave a world.
"It's done, Logan," she said. "Really done now."
He held her body tightly to his.
"With Jonath dead," said Jessica, "the Wilderness People will need a new leader…They need you, Logan."
"No more leading," he said darkly. "That's the wrong word for us. I'll help the People…You'll help them…Mary-Mary will help…Fennister…all of us." He framed her face with his hands. "Together!"
And the sun burned, and burned, and burned in the arched sky of the Black Dakotas.