LOGOS RUN
WILLIAM C. DIETZ
ONE
The Planet Thara
—Emperor Hios, on the day that the fi?rst public star gate went into service, and he stepped onto the surface of the Planet Zeen The attack came without warning. The angen-drawn coach had been under way for hours by then, having followed the well-established ruts south through villages of neatly thatched roofs, past prayer ribbons that fl?ew with the wind, and miles of fl?ooded paddies. The genetically engineered draft animals strained at their harnesses as the road began to rise, the driver’s long, supple whip cracked over their vaguely equine heads, and they were forced to assume the fourwheeled vehicle’s entire weight. The angens expressed their unhappiness via snorts, grunts, and occasional bursts of fl?atulence as the low-lying paddies fell away and they pulled the coach up through a long series of switchbacks. But the driver was accustomed to such displays, and his passengers were largely unaware of how the animals felt, since two of the three were asleep within the boxy cab.
The single exception was Lonni Norr, who sat facing the front of the coach with Jak Rebo’s head resting on her lap. The variant’s right leg had gone to sleep ten minutes earlier, but she couldn’t bring herself to wake the runner and thereby break the spell. Because after months of danger and turmoil Norr was temporarily at peace. And had been ever since their departure from the holy city of CaCanth. But Norr’s ancestors had been bred to sense things that norms could not. So even as the heavy who was curled up on the seat across from her continued to snore, and Rebo jerked as if in response to a dream, the young woman knew that confl?ict lay ahead. Partly because the threesome possessed something others wanted—and partly because it was somehow meant to be. The windows were open, which meant Norr caught a brief glimpse of the terrain ahead as the coach lurched up over a pass and began its rattling descent. In contrast to the carefully cultivated paddies the coach had passed earlier in the day, a dense forest awaited them below. The interlocking foliage stretched for as far as the eye could see, and, judging from the occasional glint of refl?ected sunlight, was watered by a serpentine river.
Rebo mumbled something in his sleep, and Norr smiled tenderly as she ran her fi?ngers through the runner’s thick black hair. His features were even, but a bit too rugged to be described as classically handsome, in spite of the fact that women generally found him to be attractive. The relationship with Rebo had been part of the long journey that had begun on the Planet Anafa, and subsequently taken them to Pooz, Ning, Etu, and Thara. What began as a momentary alliance had gradually evolved into a wary friendship, an onagain, off-again romance, and a decision to remain together.
For a month? A year? A lifetime? Not even a person with her gifts could tell.
Such were Norr’s thoughts as the coach found level ground, bounced its way into a set of deep ruts, and was soon embraced by an army of leafy trees. Their trunks were four to fi?ve feet in circumference, and their massive branches came together to form a dense canopy overhead. The thick biomass cut the amount of sunlight that could reach the forest fl?oor by half and caused a drop in temperature. But the chill that Norr felt was not entirely physical. Other senses had come into play, too, senses that norms possess, but rarely take full advantage of. What one of them might have experienced as a vague uneasiness, Norr saw as a roiling blackness, and knew the sensation for what it was: negative energy being broadcast by a group of hostile minds. The sensitive put her hand on Rebo’s arm. “Jak . . . Wake up . . . Something is wrong.”
But the warning came too late. One of the angens uttered a bloodcurdling scream as an arrow sank into its haunch, and a pair of hobnailed boots made a thumping sound as a bandit landed on the roof. That noise was followed by a loud boom as the driver triggered his blunderbuss and sent a dozen .30-caliber lead balls into the undergrowth where the archer was concealed. But that did nothing to protect the coachman from the garrote that dropped over his head, or the noose that began to tighten around his throat. He had little choice but to release both his weapon and the reins in a desperate effort to restore his air supply.
“On the roof!” Norr exclaimed, as her companions awoke. “Bandits!”
Like all his kind, Bo Hoggles had a body that had been designed for life on heavy-gravity worlds. That meant he was strong, so strong that he could smash a massive fi?st up through the thin roof, and grab the bandit’s ankle. That was suffi?cient to scare the would-be thief, who was forced to let go of the garrote, while he attempted to pry the heavy’s sausagelike fi?ngers off his ankle. And that’s what he was doing when Rebo drew the semiautomatic Crosser, pointed the weapon up toward the ceiling, and fi?red two ten-millimeter rounds through the roof. One bullet missed, but the other struck the brigand in the back and severed his spinal cord. The coach rocked sickeningly as Hoggles let go; the body bounced into the air and fell past Norr’s window. The driver had control of the reins by then, but no amount of swearing could make the wounded angen run faster, and that slowed the rest. All of which was part of the time-tested process that the bandits traditionally relied upon to bring their prey to a standstill. So, while the loss of Brother Becko was regrettable, the brigands had every expectation of success as the coach slowed and fi?nally came to a stop. What they didn’t expect were the people who emerged from the carriage. A heavy, armed with a war hammer, a norm with a gun in each fi?st, and a sensitive with a metaltipped wooden staff. But in spite of the fact that the passengers were clearly more formidable than the bejeweled merchants the bandit leader had been hoping for, he had little choice but to hurl himself forward as a volley of arrows arched overhead.
Rather than exert more control over her body, Norr let go instead. That allowed her full array of senses to unfold. The staff made patterns in the air as the variant whirled. There was a series of clacking sounds as half a dozen arrows were intercepted, broken in half, and left to fall like wooden rain. Hoggles was not so graceful, or so fortunate, since he made an excellent target. Two arrows thumped into his chest, but neither possessed the force required to penetrate the mesh-lined leather armor the variant had purchased in CaCanth. And, having fully recovered from the injuries suffered at the Ree Ree River, the hard-charging giant was among the bandits in a matter of moments. Blood fl?ew as the enormous war hammer struck this way and that, while his basso war cry dominated the fi?eld of battle. Nor was that the worst of it, because even as the berserker met the main body of the onrushing brigands in hammer-tohead combat, Rebo was busy shooting at the rest. It was aimed fi?re, which meant that nearly every bullet found its mark, and that added to the slaughter.
And so it was that having lost fully half his band in a matter of minutes, and with a bullet lodged in his left thigh, the group’s leader issued a shrill whistle. Strong hands grabbed the chieftain under the armpits, and his feet were lifted clear off the ground as members of the bandit’s extended family hustled him into the safety of the woods. All the brigands were gone within seconds, leaving the battle-dazed travelers in sole possession of the body-strewn battlefi?eld.
“Well, that was an unpleasant surprise,” Rebo said calmly as he slipped the unfi?red Hogger back into the crossdraw holster at his waist. “Let’s get out of here before they regroup.”
