Logan Trilogy (33 page)

"Close, eh, Logan?" the taunting voice asked him. "Since I've been reworking the Thinker I've become quite adept in the use of a Flamer. As you are discovering!"

The voice never came from the same spot of darkness long enough for Logan to get a fix on it. Gant knew he'd come for him if he had a stationary target. So each man kept circling, kept fluid…waxy, alert…

Logan was weaponless. Just his bare hands against the kill-power of a Flamer. Gant had called this a contest. No contest; an execution.

Then Logan realized Gant had stopped moving.

Logan froze, locking his muscles, stopping the breath in his lungs.

Gant was motionless, listening.

Logan, too. Motionless.

Can he hear the pounding of my heart? Logan wondered. It sounded, within his body, as loud as a hammered drum.

The silence grew, became intolerable.

Logan's mouth was dry; he wanted desperately to swallow—but the faint sound would draw Gant's fire as surely as a shouted word.

His right leg was aching terribly; the flesh, from thigh to ankle, throbbed with stinging pain. Logan had to shift the leg, ease it. Didn't want to. Shouldn't. But…

Had to.

Gant fired.

Flame ate at Logan, his writhing body mirrored and multiplied a thousand times in the sudden heat-glow.

It had not been a direct hit. Had it been, he'd be dead at this moment. But, instinctively, he'd twisted his torso sideways and rolled with the flame as its cutting edge assaulted him.

From the blackness, Gant roared his delight. "Taste the fire, Logan! Taste its sting!…There's no more running for you. No Sanctuary to reach. No Jessica. No Ballard alive to help you…"

He was saying more, taunting Logan in a triumphant, mocking voice. Gant began to laugh, and in so doing made one vital mistake: he forgot to keep moving.

Logan had slipped the belt from his tunic, fisting it tight at each end. He launched himself at the sound of Gant's laughter, in a collision of flesh…

A shocked, strangled gasp burst from the tall man as Logan's body bore him floorward. The Flamer was knocked, spinning, into darkness.

"Damn you!" cried Gant, his huge hands at Logan's throat.

He had the strength of ten; he was truly a giant, superbly conditioned, a fighting machine of awesome capability—fired with hatred for this tenacious enemy who continued to plague him, who dared, even now, to physically attack him.

He would crush the life from Logan!

He's killing me! I'm getting dizzy. Mind's blanking. Can't breathe!

But Logan broke the hold. Using his feet, he snap-kicked free, twisted, looped the narrow belt around the giant's thick neck, applied fierce pressure.

Gant fought him. For a long moment it was impossible to say which man had the greater advantage.

Two ex-Sandmen, trained to kill, masters of their craft. Each driven to hate, each determined to end the other's life.

Abruptly, Gant's hands fell away from Logan. He beat the floor with the flat of his palms—as a panicked bird beats its feathers under the hawk.

The great dark hands went slack; the fingers curled, twitched, fluttered. And did not move again.

Gant was dead.

ROUT

She saw him!

"Logan!"

"Jess!"

Workers were flooding out of the cells, arming themselves with Flamers, metal clubs, stones…rushing toward the door which Logan had opened wide.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to face Gant," she said, trembling, holding him. "When you didn't come out…when no one came out…I thought he'd killed you!"

"It's Gant who died," he told her. "Now do as I said. I'm going after Mary-Mary."

Nodding, she vanished off into a twist of cavern gloom.

Evans 9 got the word first: Breakout. Main block. All the cells emptied.

Where were the guards?

And where was Gant?

No matter. Evans could handle a ragtag band of half-starved workers. He needed a bit of excitement; things had been dull since Logan's escape.

He was probably hopelessly lost by now in the caverns, and Jessica with him. Without Mary-Mary they'd have no chance.

Evans was at the vidphone. "Which way are the workers headed?"

The vid gave no reply; the image screen was blank. A malfunction was annoying at a time like this.

Evans strapped on his Gun, stuffed an extra Fuser into his belt, left the unit.

Steratt and the others were outside, battle-assembled, ready to move against the escapees. Evans smiled. His men would grind the rebels underfoot. A mere flexing of Sandman muscle.

It would be amusing.

Logan was at the door of the storm chamber. Through the thick metal walls he could hear the hurricane roaring inside.

"Kill it," he said to the control-tech in front of him, his Fuser jabbing the man's back.

The tech mouthed fear-words, palmed a primary switch on the weatherboard.

The storm died.

"Door," snapped Logan. "Get it open."

The tech did that.

Logan clubbed him aside and vaulted into the room.

She was alive.

"There!" shouted Evans, pointing. "There they are."

Steratt and the Sandmen advanced toward the workers. A narrow stretch of rock tunnel separated the two groups.

The Sandmen moved into the tunnel, Guns ready.

The workers halted, seemed confused. They murmured among themselves.

"The poor fools aren't even firing at us," grinned Steratt. "Maybe they think we'll make it easier on them if they give up now."

"Too bad," sighed Evans, his Gun raised. "I was actually looking forward to—"

He didn't finish.

Evans and Steratt and the entire group of advancing Sandmen were buried in a sudden, crushing downfall of rock…huge boulders loosed in deadly profusion by willing hands from above.

Under the personal direction of Jessica 6.

The tunnel was still.

Not a shot had been fired, yet the battle had been won.

COUNTDOWN

Fennister simply could not believe it, could not accept the fact that it had all happened so quickly, that one man and one woman had routed Gant's army, had freed the workers and turned his universe upside down.

"My whole reason for existence here, for months, has been to make the Thinker live again," he said to Logan. "And now you want me to let it die?"

"No," said Logan, "not let it die. I want you to destroy it. Totally. So it can't be revived again, by anyone. No more rule-by-computer. Ever."

"But with Gant dead…you and I…we could use it, for the good of man, not his enslavement."

"There's no good in it," said Logan.

Fennister shook his head.

"And if there was," Logan continued, "who's to say how long we'd control it? Every power-hungry maniac in the world would be licking his chops over the thought of running it. No, Fennister, the Thinker has to die."

They were in the scientist's lab, beyond the inner Core, a vast place of complex instrumentation, filled with a dazzling array of multi-operational equipment which Gant had supplied.

Nothing had been stinted here.

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.