Logan's Search

Logan’s Search

The unborn child was restless. He kicked out at the pulsing red darkness surrounding him, awakening his mother. Her voice murmured softly to him; her hands pressed inward, soothing him.

“He’s getting impatient,” said Logan, now awake also. “Wants out.” He smiled at Jessica.

She nodded. “He’ll just have to wait his turn, like everyone else,” she said, massaging her flesh in a rhythmic manner designed to calm the child.

“Well, he’s still got a few weeks in there,” Logan said, patting her swollen stomach. He suddenly looked serious. “It’s not too late to change his name.”

She sighed, saying nothing.

Logan got up, moved to the window, glanced out at the sweep of night sky. The moon was full, riding free beyond massed clouds. Its light defined his face in hard, sharp planes.

Jessica rose to stand beside him, pressing the soft swell of her body against him.

“It’s what I want,” she said softly. “We lost Jaq—and now it’s as if.. .we have him back again.”

“But that’s not really true,” said Logan. “You
know
that each child is different.” He turned to her, cupping her face gently in the moonlight. “Jaq is gone forever. It took us a long time to accept it, but he’s gone, Jess.”

“I know,” she said, lips trembling.

He leaned to kiss her, running his right hand slowly over the miraculous life-swell of flesh. “This is
new
life—a new human being.”

Jessica nodded. “I understand what you’re saying…really I do.” She hesitated. “It’s just that…calling him Jaq will mean a lot to me.”

Logan kissed her cheek very gently. “Fine. No more objections.”

And they stood together in the moon-glimmered bedroom in the mansion on the hill above the dry Potomac, not speaking as the drifting clouds massed solidly, shutting out the light.

It appeared in the sky over Old Washington the next morning—small, silvery, glinting—a strange metal dragonfly dropping swiftly toward Maincamp.

The Wilderness People were alarmed. Their vow of nonviolence, sworn after the deaths at Crazy Horse in the Dakotas, severely limited their ability to defend themselves against outside attack. They had no offensive weapons, no effective way to fight an enemy.

However, as they soon discovered, this was no enemy.

A tall man, bare-headed and weaponless, in torn grays, climbed weakly from the control pod of a silver skybug. Its rotor blades whispered to silence behind him as he advanced on the camp at a stumbling walk. He was gaunt-fleshed; his spindly legs would barely support him. Beard stubble darkened his thin cheeks, and his eyes were desperate.

Logan caught the man as he half fell to one knee, helping him the rest of the way into camp. A group of shouting Wilderness children danced around them, excited by the event. Logan spoke sharply, and the children melted back, clearing a space for the exhausted stranger.

Several primary members of the camp moved out from the central chamber-tent to face the newcomer. He blinked at them. “Who—who leads here?” 

“We have no leader,” said Fennister.

His woman, Lisa, stood at his shoulder, nodding. “We are all equal here,” she said. “We function as a group, a single unit,” added Mary-Mary. 

The gaunt man smiled weakly. “Idealists!”

“Realists,” corrected Logan. “We know what absolute power can do. We’ve had enough of it.” He looked down at the gaunt man, who had propped his back against a tree; the stranger sat in a slumped posture, drained of energy.

“Who are you?” Fennister asked him. “Why have you come here?” 

“My name is Karrick 3. I’m from the Chicago Complex.” 

“You’re a long way from home,” Logan said.

“I’ve been searching for help.” Karrick’s voice broke. “We—we’re all starving back there! We must have food!”

“We’ve barely enough for ourselves,” said Fennister.

“There are many children here,” said Mary-Mary. “With new ones coming.” She glanced significantly at Logan.

“Others have asked for help,” said Lisa, “but we were forced to refuse.”

“But you
must
help us!” Karrick pleaded. “I could find no one there’s nowhere else for me to go.” He looked in desperation toward Logan. “You call yourselves realists. All right, then let’s talk trade.” He hesitated. “What do you need most?”

“What we always need,” said Logan. “Medical equipment…healing drugs…lab supplies.”

“We have all that,” said Karrick. “When the food supply failed, the Scavenger packs abandoned Chicago. We have free access to the medshops.”

Logan turned to Fennister, eyes intense. “Even if we have to ration food this winter,” he said, “it will be worth it for medical security. Five died last year because we lacked proper supplies.”

Fennister rubbed his cheek, thinking. Then he raised a hand. The Wilderness People grouped in around them. “An offer,” Fennister declared loudly, so that all could hear. “Medical supplies for food. How do you vote?”

A muttering. A brief cross-discussion of terms. A hand count was made: the vote was almost unanimous.

“We trade,” said Fennister.

Karrick smiled in exhausted relief. Then he drew a long breath, his lips tight. “I’ll leave tonight.”

“You’re in no condition to handle a ship.” Logan said. “I’ll make the flight—with signed authority from you.”

“Agreed.” Karrick sighed, extending a thin-boned hand. As Logan shook it, Karrick had tears in his eyes. “Thank you.” he said softly.

“Get some rest,” Logan told him, pressing the man’s trembling shoulder. “I’d say you’ve earned it!”

As he lifted away from Old Washington in the silver skycraft, Logan experienced a sharp sense of guilt at having left Jessica. With the new baby coming she had not wanted him to undertake the flight, claiming that she needed him with her, psychologically, at this special time in her life.

“But I’m the only qualified pilot at Maincamp,” he’d argued. “It’s a short trip. I’ll be back home in plenty of time to greet young Jaq!”

“Let Karrick make the flight. In a few days he’ll be strong enough.” 

“I volunteered. I gave my word.”

And then she had shivered—looking at him with sudden fear in her eyes. “Don’t go, Logan.” She crossed both arms over her rounded life-flesh in a protective gesture. “I’m afraid.”

“You’ll be
fine
here”” he’d assured her. “Lisa and Mary-Mary will look after you.”

“No—it’s you I’m afraid for. There’s.something out there.”

The phrase had startled him. “What are you saying?”

“I—don’t know exactly.” She’d groped for words. “But…it’s as if I’m tuned in to something…” And she had shivered again.

“Hey, hey…” He had taken her gently into his arms. “There’s nothing out there between me and the Chicago Complex but a lot of empty sky. Now, no more of this, hear me? Let’s have a smile out of you!”

And she had smiled.

But the fear had remained in her eyes.

The night was dark with stormclouds, the moon deep-buried. Bad flying weather—with a hard rain beginning to slash at the canopy. The wind was choppy at this altitude, slapping the little skybug in staggered gusts.

Logan checked the tie-down straps on the two heavy crates of food beside him in the cockpit. Fully secure. No problem.

The bug was quick and totally reliable, with twice the cruise range of his own paravane—and with power enough to climb above the storm into clear weather.

The storm…Maybe
that’s
what Jess was worried about, thought Logan, as he set the controls for maximum ascent. Maybe pregnant women can feel bad weather in their bones.

Odd, though, the way she’d phrased it: “…something out there.”

If not the storm, what then?

Just what
had
she sensed?

Location?

Directly below, and climbing. 

Intersect point? Immediate.

Stabilize.  Prepare to encounter.

Logan was puzzled. According to the controls, he should be seeing moon—clear night sky above him, but apparently there was a malfunction.

The entire arc of sky within view range was obscured with.

Not clouds. A shape. Dark…all-encompassing…

Logan pressed forward, face against the canopy, peering upward. He was stunned.

He’d never seen anything so gigantic! Its size was absolutely incredible, beyond rational acceptance. In simply contemplating it, Logan was swept by vertigo.

A ship. Some kind of mammoth alien starcraft moving through our solar system.

No, not moving. Stabilized. Dark and utterly motionless. Nonreflective surface. No lights. No sound.

Silent and immense above him.

“…Something out there.”

Then, abruptly, with painful brightness, an energy beam flared from the hull of the great ship, bathing Logan’s small skybug in a fire circle of illumination so intense that he twisted in agony, shielding his eyes.

Get away! Now!

Gasping, he threw himself forward, fingers clawing at the descent lever. No response. The controls were frozen, locked tight.

Above him, a seamless mouth opened in the underbelly of the great starship—and Logan felt his small craft being sucked upward with impossible force.

His breath was snatched from his lungs; he was flung savagely backward against the control seat. Logan tried to cry out as the darkness engulfed him. Or was this black horror of a ship eating him alive? 

Movement.

Something touching him.

Something speaking to him.a soundless inner voice:
Open your eyes, Logan 3.

Logan opened his eyes to a spin of blazing colors. He blinked, and the colors steadied became illuminated dials, glittering wall switches, blinking relays.Around him, the room seemed alive, vibrating to the tick and hum of alien machinery.

The mental image struck him with sudden impact:
alien.

Again, the soundless telepathic voice:
To you, that is what we are, Logan. Just as your race is alien to ours.

Logan had awakened naked, in a sitting position, his body softly supported by a cluster of flaring, free-floating diamonds—or what seemed to be diamonds. Now, with a soft clicking, the diamonds shifted —and Logan found himself standing, in semishock, facing a large glowing crystal set into the wall directly ahead of him.

The crystal pulsated with banded patterns of light, radiating energy like a thousand tiny suns.

Some kind of force field, thought Logan.

A door, Logan. Leading to us.

Logan stepped toward it, was jolted back.

His words were hard, angry: “Let me through…Let me see you!” 

Stand as you are. Do not move. We will come to you. But, first…

From the arched ceiling a transparent cone whispered down to settle over Logan’s naked body. He felt trapped inside the cone, like an insect in a bottle.

For your protection. Without it, we could not approach you.

The crystal began misting away in a myriad of brightly dissolving particles.

They were coming.

Logan could feel his heart beating wildly. His mouth was dry. What would he see? What type of monstrous life form would confront him? Would he be repulsed, stunned, sickened?

His thoughts brought a reply:
We are creatures of beauty, Logan. Like your sun.

And so they were: pure beings of dazzling energy. Logan drew up a hand to shield himself against their combined brilliance, slitting his eyes to see them, three of them rippling and merging, flowing now together, now apart, in a core of incredible light and heat.

Now you understand the need for your protection: If we removed the cone, our radiance would blind you—and your flesh would melt to instant ash.

Logan realized that the voice he seemed to hear inside his head came from all of them; there was no separation of tone. They communicated mentally as a single entity.

“Why am I here?”

You are here because of what you are—a Sandman who defied a life-destroying system, who outran it, outwitted it, and finally destroyed it. You ended computer rule on Earth.

“Not me; Ballard,” Logan said. “It began with Ballard. I just finished what he started. And I was not alone—there were many others…Jess, Mary-Mary, Fennister, Jonath of the Wilderness People…”

We know of them. But you were the force that brought the Thinker to final ruin.

“How? How do you know about all this?”

We have ways of monitoring your world as we monitor others. Our powers are vast—quite beyond your imagination.

Logan felt his adult self being stripped away. Here, facing these fantastic beings, he had regressed to the level of a child in Nursery. He felt small, totally powerless; he knew nothing of the countless starworlds swarming their universe.

He had never concerned himself with suns beyond Sol, with planets beyond this solar system.They were right: all this was, literally, beyond his imagination.

But he pulled himself up from the mental gulf that separated them; he forced himself to accept the reality of the moment, however bizarre. He had many answers to find.