Logan's Search Read Free Page B

you avoid contact. Keep away from her. Jessica need not concern you—and is no part of your mission.
    “How do I contact you from this new Earth?”
    Contact will not be possible.
    “You mean, I can’t—”
    We never leave this environment. We were always here. We will always be here.  
    The enigmatic reply failed to satisfy Logan.
    “But what if I need help?”
    A man named Kirov 2, who works at CenControl in Moscow, may be able to assist you in case of emergency. There is no one else.
    “What about the place and time of my pickup if I succeed?” 
    Leave this to us. A hesitation. There is a limitation.
    “Yes?”
    We have no control over the spatial time shift that dictates the reality phase of the two planets. Eventually, these parallel worlds will cease to exist on the same cosmic plane. We cannot maintain our dual-world position indefinitely.
    “How long?”
    Fourteen Earthdays. If you have not exposed and destroyed the planet’s power source within this period, we will be forced to abandon you.
    “Impossible!” raged Logan. “It took years to destroy the Thinker…I don’t even know who or what I’m searching for!”
    Fourteen days, Logan.
    And a rolling, milky substance, like white smoke, began to fill the chamber. The aliens faded…the walls rippled…Logan felt himself losing consciousness.
    He was on an endless chute, plunging down…down…and down.
    To another life.
    To another Earth.

     
----

RETURN TO YESTERDAY
     
    New California.
    A full-moon summer midnight in the swarming sprawl of the Angeles Complex. And, within the life swarm:
    A glasshouse, where citizens seek voyeuristic sexual release in the rainbow-tinted night…

    A hallucimill, dispensing dream-lifts to the jaded.

    A nursery, with its robot tended rows of hypno-sleeping children.

    Sleepshops, where silver darts deliver oblivion to those whose Lastday has ended.

    DS Headquarters, a hive of black-garbed Sandmen, intent on their death-duty to the system.

    Arcade, a fire-dazzle of blazing lights and frenzied pleasure.

    The maze, with its swift, deep-tunnel beetle cars converging from a thousand major cities of the world…
    And in the heart of the midnight city, in one of the glittering boxbeam lifeunits, an off-duty Sandman stirs to the sensual play of soft fingers caressing the skin of his chest…
    Logan awakened to the smiling female on the flowbed beside him. In the rich spill of moonlight from an open skyvent her body was flushed ivory. She wore a sheergold loverobe, accenting the peaks and hollows of her soft flesh. Her beauty was flawless.
    “Remember me?” she asked in a voice of velvet. “I’m Phedra 12…from Arcade.” She frowned, studying his face. “You look strange. Are you lifted?”
    Her question supplied Logan with an answer to mask his obvious confusion: “I took some Y-16 earlier tonight.”
    “Y-16?”
    “New formula,” Logan improvised. “Not in the ‘mills yet.”
    She smiled again, relaxing against him, melding her body to his. “You DS have the best.always.” 
    He kissed her pouting lips. “How’d you get in?”
    “With this,” she said, holding up a thin slotkey. “Remember? You gave it to me at the firegallery last week…I dance there.”
    Young Logan had been attracted to her, had made contact, had invited her here. “I remember now,” said Logan, taking her firmly into his arms.
    She was here for sex, and he’d oblige. Any other reaction would appear perverted; a young Sandman was expected to fulfill his natural urges with many women. But as Logan reached out to caress her face he flinched, jaw muscles tightening.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked.
    His hand glowed crimson against her cheek; the time-crystal in his palm was alive again! He smiled, shaking his head. “Nothing…nothing’s wrong.” “It’s the Y-16,” she said. “Can you—I mean, are you able to—”
    In answer, he tongue-kissed her deeply, fitting himself into the heated curve of her waiting body. He