by Unknown
ARGOS
Argos died twice.
Beyond the 21st century, when the angry young had taken control of Earth, and space travel had been aborted, she was left to die in orbit, dwarfed by a silent Mars, her mute sun mirrors capturing energy without purpose, her womb-hub empty of life—an immense, spoked wheel turning in endless black.
Until the runners found her.
The man called Ballard knew about Argos, knew that she could provide shelter to those who fled the Sandmen and sought Sanctuary. He helped organize the lifeships that fired up from Cape Steinbeck carrying the vital stuffs of existence—hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon—to feed the arteries of the great wheel in the sterile frontier darkness beyond Earth. And, with each silver ship, eager runners arrived on Argos, free from the Sandman's Gun, to spawn fresh life in this new sea of space.
Children were born who would never know Earth. A hospital was built; fields of wheat, corn and rice were cultivated; a school was established—and fruit trees bloomed under a ribbed-glass sky.
At staggered intervals, as Ballard perfected his Sanctuary Line, more ships arrived, swelling the colony's population to more than three thousand men, women and children.
Then the lifeships stopped coming.
As a full year passed without supplies, fear began to permeate the colony. Argos was not selfsufficient; she could not survive without the stuffs of Earth.
Two years without ships.
Three. Then four.
Medical supplies were exhausted. Plague and death ran the wheel. The colony dwindled—to a
thousand…to five hundred…to a hundred…to a handful of steel-tough runners and their families.
Logan and Jessica were among them, ten-year veterans of Argos—the legendary ex-Sandman and the woman who'd shared his desperate run for Sanctuary. They had a son now: Jaq, born on the wheel eight years ago, with the strength of his father in his pale green eyes, his mother's grace in movement, a boy who thrived on Earth history, who listened, entranced, to Logan's dark tales of a computerized world. To Jaq, the man named Ballard was a god…
Six years without ships.
Crisis time. The fields sere and withered. Water at a minimum. Food running out.
And one small lifeship to take them back.
Only a dozen could undertake the voyage. Lots were drawn, the final twelve chosen, the ship prepared. On board with nine others: Logan, Jessica and Jaq.
Fireup! Away…away.
Away.
Behind them, in the cool depths of uncaring space, Argos began her second death.
In Old Washington, Logan discovered why the ships had stopped coming. Sandmen had penetrated and smashed the Sanctuary Line at Cape Steinbeck. Just one step ahead of them, Ballard escaped to Crazy Horse Mountain in the Dakotas, to the Thinker. There, in a final gesture of rebellion against the system, he had sacrificed himself to destroy the vast computer-complex—bringing the cities down with it. Mazecars froze on their tracks; beltways were stilled; the time crystals in the hand of each citizen no longer ticked away human life.
The power of the Sandman was broken.
Citizens poured out of the tumbled, lifeless cities into the sudden reality of a raw world. The City People, young, pampered, given every luxury by their computerized life-system, had now become the Wilderness People, bewildered and cast adrift in a harsh new environment.
For them, the illusion of freedom had turned to the reality of nightmare.
RUN!
Logan was running.
No longer the hunter, he was the hunted. Black on black: his charcoal-dark uniform blending into night, feet stabbing the earth as he ran, dry-mouthed, for life.
The men of Deep Sleep were close behind him, relentless, kill-trained State assassins who terminated runners with the cold dispatch of the Thinker itself. Sandmen who hated him for what he'd done to them. "A Sandman doesn't run, Logan! He accepts Sleep proudly. You've betrayed the system, made fools of us all—and we'll homer you down for it, Logan!"
Homer! It could follow him anywhere, that singing charge of pain and death, seeking the heat of his body as a bee seeks pollen, leaping and twisting as he leaped and twisted through the night spaces of the city.
Yet, they had not fired. They were savoring the hunt, tasting it like a fine wine, moving in tireless oiled motion behind him, knowing he could not outrun them or the glowing death they carried at their belts.
Why is the runner always weak, exhausted, fighting to stay afoot—while his hunters are calm, easybreathing, unruffled? Is it fear which quakes his bones, triphammers his heart; the fear of impossible odds, fear of the homer's ultimate pain?
Logan feared. He was brave, resolute, superbly-conditioned, and had faced the possibility of death in many forms, but now he feared. When a homer leaves the barrel of a Sandman's Gun there is no way to deflect it from its deadly course. It finds you, hits you, rips and unravels you in a wash of searing, nerve-tortured pain. Any man would fear such a death…
Logan circled up through the mile-high complex, a frenzied insect caught in a maze of steel-and-metal. He was weaponless; the Gun had been lost to him a million years ago somewhere in the vastness of the city. A million-year run! His mouth gaped in pained laughter. Had he really been running that long? No wonder, then, that exhaustion burned fire-hot in his chest, that the world rippled in and out of focus, that his legs were loose and stupid under him, betraying his body, refusing to obey the hard command: run…run…run!
Run!
Logan fell.
"You all right?" Voice, filtering down to him. Hand, reaching for him. "Up you come now, Sandman. Easy does it."
Logan swayed, holding fast to the shoulder of a reed-thin citizen, blinked at him, held out his right palm.
"Your flower's blacked, has it? Then you're a runner!" The voice turned icy. "A stinking runner!"
A fist smashed into Logan's face. He lurched back, blood threading his mouth.
"Here he is! Here!" The man was shouting, telling the Sandmen where to find Logan. He swung dizzily away, into a snake-twist of corridor darkness. Another lift up. A riser to the next quad level. Then, in a stagger of steps, and a cool rush of night air, through an irised exit onto the roof of the mile-high complex.
Logan's run was over. He had climbed to the summit of this metal mountain.
Around him, on all sides, the city spread pulsing, sensuous wings of light. Far below, the multicolored shimmer of Arcade devoured darkness with tongues of crystal fire.
Measured voices on the quad level directly beneath him. Sharp commands. The Sandmen were only seconds away. Logan spun toward the roof door.
Jessica was there. Her hair glimmered like spun copper, the lights of the city caught in its soft strands. Her face was carved ivory against the night. She was beautiful.
"You need help," she said.
"No one can help me now," he told her. "Not even you."
She rippled and changed. And Jaq was there in her place.
"They're going to kill me," the boy said.
"Not you!" cried Logan. "You're young. Your crystal's blue!"
"I have no crystal." And Jaq held up his right palm. It was clear.
Logan started toward his son, wanting him to understand everything, wanting to tell him he was sorry he had ever been a Sandman, ever hunted and killed runners like himself, ever used the Gun… But the Deep Sleep men were there, on the roof, weapons out and aimed at his son.
At Jaq!
The boy backed away from them, fear rising like smoke in the pale green of his eyes.
"It's me you want!" shouted Logan.
They ignored him, closing on Jaq in a tightening circle. The b
oy was at the roof's edge; he could retreat no further.
Hands fisted, Logan threw himself at the Sandmen. A backhanded blow from the barrel of a Gun stunned him, dumped him to the roof. He raised his head to scream. Too late. Too late for everything.
They'd forced Jaq over the edge—and the boy fell in soundless, dream—spinning slow motion, dolllike, down…down…down…into the flame-sharp lights of Arcade.
The Sandmen swung their rifled eyes to Logan.
"Homer him," said their leader, softly.
And the charge leapt from a Gun, sang in a hot yellow arc toward Logan. Who stood to meet it.
Astonishing pain. A ripped dazzle of seared nerves as Logan collapsed in upon himself, fingers clawing air. His body exploded, flared out in ribbons of shocked flesh, into a thousand separate units of anguish. He was only pain and agony and sundered bone…
He was awake.
"You all right?"
Logan flinched back from the citizen's question.
Not his question, not his voice. Jessica's.
She was touching him with warm, gentle hands, smoothing away the nightmare.
"The Sandmen," said Logan, staring up at her, his face flushed and sweating. "They killed Jaq."
"There's no more killing. The cities are dead, Logan. The system is dead. When will you believe that?"
"I believe it," he said.
"Then why do you keep having these dreams?"
He shook his head. "I don't know…" He looked at her. "This dream was different. In all the others, I was the only one they hunted. In this one, Jaq died."
"I wish you could stop having them."
"I'm worried about Jaq. How is he?"
"A little better today, I think. But he's still—"
"He's not better," said Logan flatly, rising from the bed to slip on a velvrobe. "And he's never going to be until I do what Jonath told me to do." A moment of silence. "I'm going to Stoneham."
"He'll…want to see you before you go."
Logan nodded.
He walked through the sagging wooden house to his son's room. The mammoth three-story Colonial mansion facing the banks of the Potomac floated like a landbound ship on acres of green lawn, now gone to seed and wild growth. In its day it had served the elite of Washington; its vaulted, highceilinged rooms and wide hallways had echoed to week-long parties and lavish state dinners. Now it was a time-eroded relic to an unremembered past.
As he moved toward his son's room Logan thought again of the irony in this situation: Jaq had been one of the strongest boys on Argos, impervious even to the plague and sickness which had devastated the colony. Yet now, within a dozen sunsets of their return to Earth, the boy had fallen victim to an illness which spread fever through his young body, which softened bones and thinned muscles, leaving him weak and shaking, unable to function.
Logan had gone to Jonath who, at twenty-seven, was the oldest of the new breed of Wilderness People, serving as their leader in this rugged world beyond the womb cities.
"What is it, what's wrong with him?" Logan had asked.
"Earth is what's wrong with him," said Jonath. "Your boy has no immunity to protect him from a virus which our adult bodies would instantly reject. I would say he has contracted a form of viral pneumonia, an infant's disease."
"How do I cure it?"
"You'll need Sterozine. A nursery medroom would carry it, but the primary nurseries are all inside the cities and impossible to reach."
"Why impossible?"
"When the cities fell, the Scavengers took over. Ex-cubs…gypsies…looters…They run in packs. No one goes in or out. The People need food and supplies from the cities, but the Scavengers are in total control. You'd never reach a primary nursery alive, and even if you did they'd never let you leave. They carry Fusers, and burn down anyone who penetrates inner-city territory."
"There are secondary nurseries…Sunrise…Stoneham…"
"Yes," said Jonath. "In your place, I'd try them. But their med supplies may have already been stripped."
"It's a chance," Logan had said. "If Jaq's not better by tomorrow, I'll try Stoneham."
Jonath nodded. "…a chance."
"He may not need the drug," Logan had told him. "Jess thinks that she can pull him through this. I hate leaving them alone." He sighed. "Couldn't you be mistaken?"
"Easily," said Jonath. "I'm only guessing. We'd need a med machine to be certain. Without a full diag there's no way to be sure, but all the symptoms…"
The symptoms: weakness, fever, flushed features, twitching muscles…They were all in evidence as Logan looked down at his son. He leaned closer, touched the boy's fevered cheek.
Jaq's eyes fluttered open. He smiled, a pained stretching back of his pale lips.
"I'm going to find something that will make you well," said Logan. "You'll be strong again. Soon."
"I—can't be alone." A note of panic.
"You won't be. Jess will stay with you until I'm back."
"I hate being sick," Jaq mumbled softly. Again the pained smile. "But I love you, Logan!"
Strange; this business of loving. Sandmen never loved. Logan had grown up believing that love was a useless emotion shared by cowards, by runners who refused to face their responsibilities to the system. He'd heard them say they loved one another, before he'd Gunned them. He'd terminated them with the word still on their lips. And felt contempt.
Did you "love" in a glasshouse? Sex wasn't love. Did you "love" a pairmate?
When you were weak and small and needed it, the Loveroom gave it to you (Mother loves you…loves you…loves you…) but, until Jessica, he hadn't thought he'd ever share it. Not Logan 3, a master of the Gun, a hunter of weaklings and cowards and misfits. Now, miracle of miracles, he had two human beings to love and who loved him: his wife and his son. Husband…wife…son. Old labels, worn by those who had rejected the system and gone back to ancient customs. Ugly, how the Thinker had twisted everything, distorted emotion, crippled and warped. Jaq had been right about Ballard: he was a god. He'd killed the Thinker…
Jess walked out to the paravane with him. Logan wore a dark blue citizen's tunic, open at the neck, vested in leather.
"You'll be back before dark?"
"Yes," he said, climbing into the control pod, activating the gyroblades, rear blade first, then overhead. The blades shivered into motion, began revolving in a vibrating blur, feeding power into the small craft.
They were on a section of high grass facing the Potomac, and the afternoon sun flashed fire-colors off the wind-sculptured rocks scattered along the dry riverbed. Before the Little War, before climactic changes had blocked off the Potomac, it had flowed richly with water. Must have been beautiful then, thought Logan, this spot facing the river. So much had changed…
"He's sleeping now," Jess said, her voice keyed to the rising hum of the blades. "He'll be all right until you get back."
Logan leaned out to kiss her.
She was crying.
Afraid I won't find the drug, Logan told himself. Afraid I'll be too late. But I'll find it! Jess, I'll find it!
Trim level: corrected. Gyro controls: stable. Power curve: normal. Logan engaged vertical thrust—and the paravane soared gracefully upward, quickly attained cruising altitude, then tipped westward in a singing rush of blades.
Toward Stoneham.
STONEHAM
Each major city area had its secondary nurseries, its Stoneham and Sunrise units; Logan had terminated a female runner once, near Stoneham, in the Angeles Complex. ("Please don't hurt me, Sandman! I want to live. I'm only twenty-one…that isn't really old…can't you…") And the homer leaving the Gun. And the girl scrabbling along the high fence, the horror in her eyes. And the homer—
Stop it!
Logan shut down the memory.
The primary nurseries were much larger, and handled most of the city infants; these outside units were designed to take up the overflow, but were complete in themselves. There was more than a good chance he'd fi
nd Sterozine at a secondary unit.
Adults had no use for the drug. It would fetch nothing on the Market, and would be a useless item to outland looters.
A good chance…
Had his mission been less critical Logan would have enjoyed the flight to Stoneham. The sky was a serene blue, the green land rich and rolling beneath him—and the paravane was sound and responsive, thanks to his work on it over the past seven days since he and Jess had found the machine, abandoned outside the city-ruins. It had been damaged in the city's fall, had fluttered down, brokenbladed, to kill its pilot. Logan's mechanical skills, honed in his years on Argos, had quickly restored it to perfect working order.
Fuel wasn't a problem, since the craft's solar-charged unit would provide unlimited range, and Logan was fully confident that he would encounter no malfunction in flight.
But thoughts of Jaq kept darkening his mind, canceling out the natural joys of soaring above the land…
Then he sighted the heavy mass of bulked gray stone rising from a hill to his left. Stoneham.
Logan cut primepower on the aft blade, swinging the paravane at a sharp arc downward and to the left, clearing the nursery's microwire fence. He gentled the craft to a smooth touchdown in the central court area, killed the blades, slid free of the controls.
Incredible silence. His landing had set off no alarm systems; no automated guards rushed toward him; no robotic defense devices were activated. He remembered running with Jess from just such a nursery as this in the Dakotas—through a chaos of sirens and bells—fighting his way free of machines and closing gates and menacing robots.
This time, nothing. He was free to walk inside.
Yet Logan felt uneasy, prowling the long, dust-silent corridors, searching for the Medroom. He'd hated growing up in this sterile environment, denied all outside human contact for the first seven years of his life. His talk puppet had been his only real friend ("I'll never forget you, Loge…never forget you!") and his dream of becoming a Sandman had sustained him. The pride he'd felt in the word in those days! Sandman! The psyc machines had brainwashed him thoroughly from birth. If it had not been for Jess…
