Logan's Run by William F. & Johnson Nolan Read Free Book Online

eyes strained the darkness.
Louder:
Now I lay me
 
down to pray.
 
Sandman, Sandman,
 
stay away . . .
    A small figure in a tattered blue garment walked into the circle of sun on the platform. A little girl of five. She was dragging something behind her. The child's face was grimed and hair-tangled; her scabbed legs were thin. She wore no shoes.
    She stopped singing. "Don't be afraid," she said. "I'm Mary-Mary 2."
    Logan stepped from the shadow. "What are you doing here?"
    "Oh, he told me to meet you."
    "Who did?"
    The little girl's eyes saucered. "Why, the old, old man, of course."
    Jessica gripped the child's shoulder. "What old, old man?"
    "His hair is black and white, all mixed together," she told them. "And he has deep places in his face and he looks so wise. He's the oldest man in the world."
    "Ballard!"
    The little girl took a silver key from a torn pocket. "He told me to give you this."
    Logan palmed the key. "Do we use it now?"
    "This many," she said solemnly, raising her tiny hands, all ten fingers spread. In the center of her right palm a yellow flower glowed softly.
    "Ten o'clock," said Jess.
    Logan checked a wallchron above them. "Twelve minutes."
    Jessica looked deeply into the waif's eyes. "Where do you live, Mary-Mary?"
    She smiled. "Here," she said.
    "Why aren't you in a nursery?"
    "I'm very smart," said Mary-Mary.
    "But don't you get hungry?"
    "You can catch things to eat."
    She opened the frayed cloth bag at her feet and proudly held out an old-fashioned rat trap. Jessica paled.
    "I never go upstairs," continued Mary-Mary. "The bad people are there and they chase you. Goodbye now! You're a nice old lady."
    The child looked disdainfully at Logan and walked off into the tunnels.
    "I don't think she likes me," he said.
    "She shouldn't be here," said Jess. "Alone in a place like this. She should be in a nursery with other children."
    "She seems to be self-sufficient."
    "A nursery would protect her."
    "As it protected you?"
    "Of course. No child under seven belongs on her own. I was happy in the nursery." Jess sat down on the platform edge with Logan. "No, no I wasn't happy." Her voice trembled. "I accepted everything then, without questioning but I was never happy there."
    Logan let the girl talk; he wanted to know more about her, wanted to understand her.
    "Why should every child be taken from its parents at birth? Why should a brother and sister be separated for seven years?" She studied Logan's face. "When did you begin to doubt, to question Sleep? I'd like to know."
    "I can't recall just when. I'd heard the stories, of course."
    "Of Ballard?"
    "Yes. And the rest of it."
    "About the Sanctuary line. Oh, how I wanted to believe those stories when I first heard them as a little girl." Her eyes grew hard again. "Do you ever wonder what your mother was like, who she was, what she felt, how she looked? Do you think she'd be ashamed of what you've become?"
    "She may have been a runner, too," said Logan evasively. "I'll never know what she was."
    Jess frowned angrily. "I think you should. I think children should know their mothers and be loved by them. Little Mary-Mary should have a mother to love her. A machine can never love you . . . only people can love people."
    "Where did you work before you ran?" he asked her.
    "I was a fashion tech at Lifeleather trim. Three hours a day, three days a week. I hated it."
    "Then why did you stay there?"
    "Because it was a job. What can anyone really work at? You can paint or write poetry or go on pairup. You can glassdance or firewalk in the Arcades." Her voice was scornful. "You can breed roses or collect stones or compose for the Tri-Dims. But there's no meaning to any of it. I just—"
    A scream from the tunnels.
    "That was Mary-Mary!" Jess lunged forward, but Logan restrained her.
    "Wait," he said. "Here she comes."
    The child ran out of the darkness into Jessica's arms. "The bad people! Bad, bad, bad!"
    A howling group of cubscouts burst from the tunnel mouth to surround