Logan's Search (12 page)

“Kirov kept his word,” said Logan as they cleared the Angeles Complex in a bulleting rush. “He’s giving us the time we need.”

Jessica smiled. A tired smile. Her face was drawn, the skin taut across her cheeks. “So now we find Francis,” she said.

“Right.” Logan nodded as the tunnel swept past them in a silver blur. “We find Francis.”

South under Mexico, east through Guatemala into the Caribbean—to the West Indies and Jamaica, slowing as they moved beneath the island’s girdling coral reef to the platform stop at New Port Royal. Since the island jungles had once provided a haven for runners, all incoming visitors were required to register with Jamaica CenControl.

“How long did Kirov say he could hold the cross-check?” asked Jess as they moved down the processing line.

“Six hours maximum,” said Logan. “It’s going to be close.” The computer cleared them.

“Citizen Treven…citizen Jaci…our island welcomes you!” said the dark-skinned port official, handing them their foilcards. “Please enjoy yourselves. As we say on the island, ‘may the Undertaker’s Wind blow all troubles away!’ “

Back at the platform, armed with ID clearance, they boarded a local mazecar for the twenty-mile cross-island jump under the Blue Mountains to Dragon Bay on the rugged north coast, emerging into a blaze of color and lush tropical growth. An easy-flowing tradewind from the Caribbean stirred fern and bamboo, juniper and satinwood. Frigate birds skimmed the white dazzle of beach, and immense Jamaican butterflies flashed their rainbow wings.

“The air’s so clean,” said Jess. “They say the tradewinds never stop.” She shaded her eyes against the glare of white sand. “It’s really lovely here…unspoiled.”

“No part of this world’s unspoiled,” said Logan, looking at the red crystal alive in his right palm. “Ask a runner how unspoiled Jamaica is. This island’s a potential deathtrap. If we don’t find Francis, and soon, we may never leave it.”

“Where do we look for him?”

“He’ll be hunting,” said Logan. “Francis likes to hunt.” 

“Dragon, mon! He hunt the big dragon!”

“Barracuda,” Logan said to Jess. “The dragon of the sea. Extremely difficult to catch.”

“Oh, yes, mon!” The club attendant nodded his dark, smooth-skinned head. “They like catch you. ‘Cuda eat many hunters. Very…”. he smiled broadly, winking at Logan, “difficult.”

The island clubroom was festooned with undersea gear—from ancient metal diving helmets to modern laserspears. Photos of myriad sea life crowded the walls—and a large manta ray, fully extended, floated above the main doorway, looking all too lifelike.

Logan checked the huntboard. Francis was logged out as a solo.

When Logan asked about this, the attendant shook his head. “Mon, you friend not wise,” he said. “Nobody hunt alone! Not here, mon. Never alone here.”

Logan wasn’t surprised; it was characteristic of Francis to ignore the dangers of a solo undersea hunt.

“What’s he using?” Logan asked.

“He got a cat. Long range. Gone for long time.”

“How long?”

“Long time now,” said the attendant. He flashed his wide smile again. His tone was musical, full of secret mirth. “Many come here, hunt ‘cuda. Not all come back.”

“I’m going after him,” said Logan flatly.

Jess looked concerned. She put aside a shell she’d been holding. “You heard what he said about going out alone. I don’t like your going out after him alone.”

“I can handle it.”

“I think you should wait. He’ll be back…probably on the way right now.”

“Or he could be in trouble right now,” said Logan. “I’ve got to find him. If he’s in trouble,” and he looked at her steadily, “we’re in trouble.”

“Undertaker Wind blow all trouble away!” said the attendant.

And against the darkly burnished skin of his cheeks, his mocking white smile dazzled like beach sand.

It was a world of cerulean blues, deep-velvet purples, inked greens, of wide brainstone coral cliffs and deep-bottomed troughs where the sea turned black in the chartless depths—a world of eel and octopus and squid, of the soldier crab and the loggerhead turtle, of jeweled angelfish, gliding manta rays, and great blue marlin. The majestic whale shared these rich Jamaican waters with the pulsating jellyfish—and the voracious shark, as old as time itself, prowled here in the daggered dark of the Caribbean.

Logan rode an open-cockpit two-man Seacat, swift and highly maneuverable, a sleek deep-water vehicle equipped with probing pinbeam lights and a stern-mounted minicannon powerful enough to penetrate any undersea obstacle.

He wore full lightweight bodyarmor, developed by Jamaican hunters to provide maximum protection against shark and barracuda.

“Within limits, of course,” the outfitter had warned him as he’d donned the armored suit. “Some of these fellows can swallow you whole!”

“How strong is it?” Logan had asked.

“It’s designed to withstand an ordinary slash attack—which will give you a chance to use the cannon if you have to.” The outfitter, whose face bore a scar from chin to forehead, looked at him scornfully. “Not very sporting, though. Idea is to use a trank pistol on the fellow, then bring him in unmarked.”

The tranquilizer was strong enough to put any barracuda to sleep—but then the problem became: how to net him to the Seacat and haul him in before his fellow denizens, sensing his lifeless state, tore him apart for lunch!

And me along with him, thought Logan. But of course he had no intention of netting a ‘cuda; he was searching every trough and coral valley for Francis, pinbeaming the sea floor, powering the cat through masses of clinging sealace, over encrusted rocks, darting his light into the mouths of caves.

Where were the dragons?

He saw several sharks; a manta rippled over him like a great shadowed blanket; a startled octopus unfurled like a dark flower from the lee of a sunken boulder; a fat trunkback turtle paddled by in lazy unconcern, ignoring this bizarre vehicle and the armored man who rode it.

But nowhere did Logan encounter barracuda. Perhaps by now they were wary of hunters; perhaps they avoided these sharp-snouted Seacats with their nets and lights and weapons.

But, eventually, Logan knew, he would find them.

Or they would find him.

Jessica hated being left behind at the clubhouse. She had asked to go with him, but Logan had refused. Too dangerous, he’d insisted. She had no undersea experience, which might prove disastrous in case of emergency. He must go alone. Wait. Just wait. He’d be back with Francis.

She forced calmness upon herself; she tried to read one of the seahunt publications, but could not sit still. She ranged the hallways, glancing at the various trophies, at the mounted specimens of sea life, at weaponry new and old. She walked aimlessly into the equipment room, running her fingers along masks and fins and oiled tank fittings. The room sickened her: it smelled of brine and rubber and iodine.

She left without speaking to the outfitter, who stared at her.

What was wrong? More than her worries about Logan and the computer time running out and the rest of it, more than the tensions induced by their perilous situation. It was something else, something that threatened in a very personal way. She grew increasingly nervous and apprehensive.

And then she had the answer. So simple—and so horrible. Her shocked mind rejected it. No, can’t be. Not yet. Not now.

No!

Standing alone in the club hallway, she slowly opened her right hand. In the center of her palm, the crystal timeflower was no longer a steady red. It pulsed like an angry heart: red-black…red-black… red-black.

Jessica 6 was on Lastday.

The silo was a relic, built in the turbulent twentieth century, when one nation attempted to impress another with destructive power, when nuclear submarines patrolled the dark waters and bomb-laden aircraft rode global skies.

The submarines and the aircraft were gone, but the concrete-and-steel silos remained, deep-buried in land or under the seas, silent and long abandoned, their deadly missiles removed—stark reminders of a time when another kind of evil beyond Sandman and runner permeated the world, when war seemed ready to bloom into monstrous atomic life, engulfing the Earth in fire.

The tall, tubular structure loomed ahead, pinned in Logan’s lightbeam. He circled it in a wide arc, and in jubilation found what he’d been searching for: a Seacat, moored to the silo’s lower section, swaying idly in the surge of undersea currents.

I’ve found him! Francis
has
to be inside.

Logan quickly looped a holdchain over a projecting lichen-covered ladder along the near side of the huge silo. His craft would be safe here. He removed a spare breatherpac from the cat and snap-linked it to his suit. Just to make certain he had ample oxygen in case of trouble inside the silo.

He climbed the ladder to the massive overhead entry hatch. The hatch doors had jammed open, providing easy access.

Logan carried a portable pinbeamer to light his way, and a laserspear was belted to his wrist. His wide visorshield afforded a full field of vision.

He wore the armored suit comfortably, like a second skin, finding that it did not in any way hamper normal body movement. The suit contained an emergency mini-powerunit capable of limited independent acceleration in case its wearer was injured and could not propel himself through the water. Easily enough power to get him back to the cat.

Logan kicked out with his lightweight, finned diving boots, gliding swiftly downward, guided by the pinbeam.

His light flashed across the owlish eyes of a large blowfish, which instantly swelled into a defensive ball of prickly white spines. A speckled moray eel whipped past in the murky deep. As Logan angled down toward the floor of the silo he passed a series of phosphorescent depth markers, the numerals still glowing faintly in the thick green-black waters:

                                                    30’ 

                                                    60’ 

                                                    90’ 

                                                    120’

Iron rung ladders spidered up the curved walls. He passed ruptured pipes and tubing choked with sea growth. A wire-cage elevator was frozen halfway between the upper hatch and the floor.

He swam toward it. Ran the beam inside. Empty.

Logan continued his descent, the suit equalizing body pressure, keeping the oxygen flow clear and steady. At last his boots touched the wide, debris-covered floor of the silo. Schools of curious suckerfish circled him as Logan swung the pinbeam toward a substantial, octagon-shaped structure in mid-floor.

Probably missile control. Francis could be in there.

Its door was open, and Logan swam through into a large instrumentation chamber. The room was a mass of dials, switches, control chairs, and computer decks, all heavily encrusted with sea life.

No sign of Francis. Logan felt a surge of disappointment. Of frustration. Where the hell
was
he?

He was about to leave the missile-control area when he noticed a second exit door to the far right. It had partially collapsed, and Logan barely managed to slip between the angled door edge and the floorbase.

Inside, his pinbeam traveled over tumbled equipment bins, a spillage of tools and electronic parts. Storage area. Nothing here.

But wait!

Something was moving to his left. A dark shape—just beyond a section of fallen bins…

Logan tensed, a hand on his speargun. If he surprised a manta down here, or a disgruntled octopus, he’d be in for a mean close-quarter attack. But the dark shape did not advance; it seemed unaffected by his presence.

He swam toward it, still warty, ducking under a section of twisted steel shelving to discover: Francis!

Logan beamed the Sandman’s visorshield: eyes closed, mouth slack. Was he dead?

He studied the situation: Francis was wedged into a corner of the crowded storage area, his body jammed beneath a fallen portion of the ceiling. The moving shape Logan had seen from the doorway was the trapped Sandman’s right arm, moving languidly up and down in the current created by Logan’s passage.

Oxygen! He’s probably out, Logan realized — quickly attaching the spare breatherpac, making the suit connection. He noted an immediate change in Francis: his eyelids fluttered open, his mouth gulping in the precious oxygen.

Logan unreeled a suit-to-suit intercom from a contact cylinder at his waist and plugged it into the Sandman’s helmet.

“Francis, can you, hear me?”

A nod. “Logan.”

“How badly hurt are you?’

The answering voice was strained; the words formed slowly: “Can’t move…my legs. Other arm… think broken.”

“What happened?”

“Curious…came in here to…look around…ceiling gave way…got trapped…oxygen gone.” 

“All right, I understand. I’ll get you out.” 

“Can’t move this bin…too heavy…jammed.”

“I’ll go back to the cat for a dicer. Cut you free. You’ve got enough oxygen now, so just hang on here till I get back.”

Francis smiled faintly behind the visor. “I…won’t be…going anywhere.” Logan broke the suit connection and swam for the exit.

The Seacat’s S-6x penetration beam handunit, of “slicer,” was extremely effective in lasering through the interlace of steel that held Francis pincered against the floor. Logan had almost succeeded in freeing the trapped Sandman when Francis suddenly jerked his right arm upward, directly into the path of the slicebeam. The laser cut deeply into his suit armor, slitting it from elbow to shoulder, before Francis was able to pull his arm away from the beam.

“What are you
doing?
” Logan yelled into the intercom.

“Muscle spasm,” Francis replied. “Couldn’t help it.” In shock, Francis watched his blood darkly clouding the water.

“It’s bad,” said Logan, checking the wound. “Went right through your suit.” 

“I know…blood in the water. They’ll come for us.” 

“Are you able to swim?” 

“No.”

“I don’t see a propulsion unit on your suit.”