Logan's Run Read Free

partially glazed.
    Logan took the drug flask handed him, swallowed the contents. “Have a good lift,” the man in white said as he closed the door.
    Logan sat down in the chair, keeping his eyes closed for a full minute, allowing the LF to work itself into his blood. Then he relaxed, opened his eyes.
    A terrible illumination fired the room, and Logan knew it was going to be a bad lift.
    Window, he thought, got to reach the window. It was open when he reached it and he fell out of the window, dropping down rapidly into the heart of the threemile complex.
    A short, squat man caught him.
    “You were running,” the man said “That’s fine.”
    “No, I was falling. There’s a big difference.” It was important that he be understood. “I fell from a window. Fell .”
    Logan twisted away, began to run.
    He ran through hissing fire galleries. The world smelled of dream dust, and a million voices were dirging the coda to “Black Flower.”
    The short, squat man dropped him with a blow.
    “Again,” said the man, crouched.
    But Logan had the Gun. He didn’t need to take any more of this damned punishment! He pulled the trigger. And the world exploded
    On the way out the attendant grinned at Logan. “You were really lifted. Like another?” “No, thanks,” said Logan, and left the building. He didn’t feel any better.
    On the upper level he slowed. A group of youngsters approached him, their palms glowing like blue fireflies in the soft dark. As they passed, Logan heard snatches of heated argument.
    “The Reddies don’t remember we’ve got rights, too.”
    “They just better begin to—”
    Echoes of the Little War.
    Logan moved on, toward the play of colored lights on the glasshouse ahead.
    The big dome was frosted in white, and interior images were indistinct. A contortion of naked, massed bodies formed a high, arched entrance, and the steps leading inside were illumined from below.
    PLEASURE gleamed a step.
    SATISFACTION gleamed another. 
    RARE DELIGHTS gleamed a third.
    Logan entered.
    “Your pleasure is our pleasure, sir,” a flax-haired girl said to him mechanically. She was seated at a flow desk and wore red satin transpants.
    Logan placed his right palm flat to the desk. An inaudible click: the desk would bill him for the visit. He walked into the stagroom.  
    It was awash in sexuality. Here were beach girls from Mexico and California, Japanese maidens with shy eyes, Italian girls with mooned bodies, pert Irish lads, slim exotics from Calcutta, cool Englishwomen and full-figured French girls. All here because they were lonely or bored or oversexed; because they were looking for someone new or escaping from someone old—or for no reason at all except that the glasshouse was here to be used and it was a time for mingling and touching in a shadow search for love. You never find the people that you go to meet in dreams …

    A girl with a blue palm swayed toward Logan; she was Eurasian and, at thirteen, a year away from womanhood. “I’m adept,” she said. “You’ll find me skilled beyond any others.”
    Logan ignored her, gesturing to an older girl with red hair flowing along her back. She was swan-white with deep-lashed eyes of coral. “You,” he said.
    The girl glided in his direction, the thin silk of her gown clouding behind her. “Not me,” she laughed, linking arms with a blue-gold blonde.
    Logan was irritated. Ordinarily he would have been excited, flushed with anticipation. Tonight he felt dulled by what he saw.
    He waved another female to him, a lithe girl with Slavic features and full hips. She smiled, took his hand.
    They caught a riser up, passing tier on tier, stepped into a glass hall, moved in darkness to a glass room.
    The girl told him that her name was Karenya 3. “I’m a three also,” Logan told her.
    “Don’t talk,” she said feverishly. “Why do men always want to talk?”
    Logan sat down on the bed and began to unbutton his shirt. The girl was already nude, having cast