Read Online Logan's Run by William F Nolan, George Clayton Johnson - Free Book Online Page A

fingers. All the fat was gone, and the bone structure was exposed in raw relief. The arm strained in a bowed curve, clawing for life. Nestled against the shoulder was the head. Staring out of a twisted visage were, eyes of milk. Wind and sun and wilderness had carved him.
    He was black.
    “He was a white man, once,” said Warden. Jessica looked away.
    “Black Tom’s up there for a reason,” Warden went on. “He ain’t what you’d call decoration. You can learn from Tom. He cracked the two-year mark in Hell. He watched ‘em come and he watched ‘em go —until he went snow-blind the end of the first year. A month later frostbite got his legs, but that didn’t slow him. He dug two burrows by hisself to keep his place, and tanned the skins you’re wearin’ on your backs. They say he bit his arm off when an ice slide trapped him. Anyhow, he come in without it. Tom lived longest ‘cause he learned fastest.” Warden spat on the ice. “Me, I’ve lasted more’n a year already—and there’s none here can say the same. Do like you’re told, and you may last the week.”
    “Savage!” flamed Jess. “Why do you live like this?”
    Warden’s reply was edged. “Living’s better than dying.”
    “You could cooperate,” she said. “You could work together instead of slaughtering each other.”
    “Work for what?”
    “Food, clothing, tools.”
    “There’s damn little food, less clothing and no tools. It takes wood and stone and metal to build something, and the only metal around here is—in Box.”
    A man loped up to drop a soggy bundle at their feet. “Here’s your cut,” the man said to Logan.
    He picked up the bundle—and unwrapped the liver and heart of Harry 7! Jess stepped back with a look of horror. Logan dropped the bundle; it stained the snow.
    “We don’t waste food here,” snapped Warden. “This ain’t a threemile complex in Nebraska. Now pick up your share. When you get hungry enough you’ll eat.”
    “There must be other food,” said Logan.
    “Out there.” Warden swept the lifeless horizon with his hand. “Maybe a mile, maybe a hundred. If you’re lucky you’ll stumble across a seal whelp, which ain’t very likely. Black Tom killed a polar bear once with an ice spear. We lost three men last month, tryin’ to pull down a bull seal—and Redding lost all his fingers. Ice too thick to reach the fish if there is any. And if you don’t have luck in the first hour there ain’t a second. Shackleford made himself a slingshot outa hide strips, but he froze solid before he could use it. Sure, there’s food. There’s polar bear and ptarmigan, seal and otter, and you’re welcome to hunt ‘em down, if you can find ‘em. And when you do they can hide better, run faster and jump quicker than you can. I tell you this—go join Box out there if you don’t care for the table we set”
    “Box? Who’s he?”
    “Box ain’t a he. He’s a what. ”
    Logan looked curiously at Warden.
    “Maybe he’s got a name, but I don’t know it,” said Warden. “He got chewed up in a belt jump after a torture jig with a ten-year-old. The gears scattered him some. He was half dead then, but the system don’t let go that easy. They sewed him back together, and what they couldn’t find they made . After they was done they put him on a Hellcar. He lit out soon as he got here, and he’s a hard one to find.
    “One thing I’ll say for him. He must know where the food is and how to get it. If you can catch him maybe you can make him show you. You might try up north, about two miles, near the cliffs.” He grinned wolfishly. “But you can bet he won’t be waitin’ there for you.”
    “We’ll risk it,” said Logan.
    “Then go,” said Warden. “You won’t be comin’ back.”
    When they stepped from the shelter of the berg, the wind took them.

    Box lived in a white world. He moved in storms of dusted ice and loneliness. He did not tire; he was never cold; a part of him never slept. His world