Logan Trilogy (41 page)

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 could 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 things 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.

"I tried to kill you," she sobbed. "I did this to you. How will you ever get back to her now? To the other me…to your son."

"I'll do what Nyoka told me to do," said Logan quietly. "He's a wise man, Jess. He knows this land.

There may really be a way out."

He kissed her cheek, gently.

Ahead of them, blue and steep-rising and mysterious, at the far edge of the vast plain, the mountain waited.

THE LEOPARD'S EYE

And, at last, they were here.

Kilimanjaro.

The king of peaks—rising in snowcapped majesty more than nineteen thousand feet into the African sky, a blue-white mammoth to stun the mind, a thing of myth and mystery…

At the lower slope, looking up, Logan and Jessica felt the power and immensity of the mountain, a palpable presence around them. They could not imagine scaling this massive stone citadel. Where was the ledge? How could they possibly reach it?

"There's no way up for us," said Jessica.

"Nyoka told me, 'Upon the insect's back you will ascend the great mountain.' We'll have to trust our robot friend here to do the job," said Logan.

"You mean, the ant knows where to go?"

"He was programmed to get us this far. I figure he's also programmed to find the ledge. Just hang tight."

And Logan nudged the marabunta forward.

Obeying preset tapes, the giant metal insect began ascending the slope, moving with surety over ancient trails and along narrow rock fissures, climbing steadily higher on its six legs, transporting its fragile human cargo slowly upward on this final stage of their journey.

The heat of the plains had now given way to the blowing cold of the upper mountain, and Logan halted the marabunta long enough for them to put on the thermosuits and snowgoggles Nyoka had

provided. The light duraloid suits, strong and flexible, had built-in heat controls that adjusted automatically to maintain normal body temperature.

"At least we won't freeze," said Logan, tabbing up his suit.

"What about the leopard?" asked Jess. "If there really is one up here, won't we need some kind of weapon to defend ourselves?"

"If a weapon was needed, Nyoka would have provided one," said Logan. "The leopard's obviously no threat. Whatever it is, it can't be alive."

"A robot," said Jess. "It could be a machine—like this ant."

"Maybe. But we won't know till we get there."

Now the lumbering insect moved upward on a path that laboriously followed the contour of the mountain's flank: This path had been carved from the iced rock centuries ago, had taken many years to complete, at a staggering cost in human life, and was a marvel of engineering. At no time, despite the foul weather and the incredible height they'd attained, did Logan feel threatened or uneasy. The way was safe.

As a young man, had Nyoka trod this same path?

Their climb ended at a high shelf of wind-packed snow. Here the marabunta stopped, became motionless.

"This must be the ledge," said Logan.

He and Jess dismounted, heads lowered against the gusting ice wind. In touching ground, Logan's left foot dislodged a rock, which dropped from the ledge, booming down the rugged flank of the mountain.