POWER STAR
                         The Imagination Anthology

ISSUE 89                                                        AUGUST 1995

Jerry Seward, Editor Emeritus        Kimberly Murphy-Smith, Managing Editor


"The Renewal Run", Conclusion, By D. Lynn Bivens . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
     Has LOGAN'S RUN really brought him to Sanctuary--and is
     that really Logan-4 standing before him?  And can all of
     them survive the last Sandman, Priest, as he closes in? 
     The conclusion is here!

    

                              The Renewal Run
                A LOGAN'S RUN Short Story By D. Lynn Bivens
                    (Based On A Premise By John Warner)

                            C O N C L U S I O N

     [The Story So Far:  This story takes place just before the end
of the M-G-M movie LOGAN'S RUN.  Just after destroying the computer
in the City of Domes, Logan investigates its remains and realizes
it had to have been built centuries earlier.  "If there is a
Sanctuary--its location would be contained within the core!" he
excitedly tells Jessica, then searches the computer for some sort
of map or plans.  He finds one--with another domed city just two
months walking distance from their city.  Certain he has finally
found Sanctuary, Logan and Jessica run from the dying city to find
their own treasure...never realizing that the last Sandman, Priest,
was watching them, determined to avenge the death of his friend
Francis-6 by killing the traitor Logan-5.  Logan and Jessica make
their way through the wilderness, finally finding a hidden entrance
to a domed city, and sneak inside, where they find people over 30
living happily--one of whom is Logan's father, Logan-4....]

                            CAST OF CHARACTERS

Michael York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Logan-5
Jenny Agutter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jessica
Sonny Landham. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Priest
Sam Elliot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Logan-4


     A second domed city seemed miraculous enough to Jessica and
Logan-5 as they were escorted through the sterile environs of the
enclosed city of thousands...but to be led along by a group of
actually aging men and women with the Head Administrator calling
himself Logan-4--which, of course, would make him Logan-5's donor
father--was much more than the two could conceive, or barely
believe.
     Just as startling was the precise differences of the two so
closely-structured Domed Cities.  Where they came from, pleasures
of the flesh took precedence over philosophical pursuits or
intellectual activities.  There, a person produced artificially
within the cold confines of Nursery had little to look forward to
except pleasing their senses and hoping against hope that there
really was such a thing as Renewal.
     But here was a Domed City where pleasures of the flesh were
not peddled blatantly in bland little sex shops as accessible as
storefronts selling pre-prepared foodstuffs.  Here was a Domed City
wherein the intellectual and the philosophical brought about
pleasures like nothing anywhere within the first Domed City could
even rival, because it had been a subject Computer had deemed
dangerous to the hedonistically-controlled lifestyles of the young
people residing inside its air-tight structural sterility.
     In this second domed city, individuals could actually live.
     "This is amazing!" gasped Jessica as she looked in on
something called School, where young children listened to robot
teachers which reminded Logan and Jessica a little too much of Box
in the frozen caverns adjacent to the first Domed City, and
interacting with small personal desktop computer systems.  "When I
was a child," she continued, "we had all the knowledge Computer
considered necessary subconsciously implanted into our minds as we
slept.  I never dreamed young ones could congregate in a single
location to learn while awake."
     "This School is designed for children aged five through ten,"
Logan-4 proclaimed proudly as the product of his donated sperm
cells stared at him in awestruck reverence.  "We have another
School, located at the other end of this section, which caters to
those between eleven and eighteen.  The robot teachers and
interactive training computers there are much more sophisticated
and technical."
     "And if someone wishes to learn still more?" Logan-5
respectfully asked of his genetic parent.  The mustachioed, middle-
aged man cast his wise eyes toward the blonde-haired ex-Sandman and
smiled.
     "Then they enter into what we call College, situated in
another Quad," was the serene reply of the person who had been most
responsible for reshaping the destiny of the second Domed City. 
"There are no robot teachers to guide you there, and the computers
used are much more complex, with an almost limitless memory
containing hundreds of thousands of higher-educational studies from
which to choose.  An individual would enter around nineteen and
remain until well into his mid-to-late twenties.  Some have even
been known to stay longer."
     "What would they learn?" Jessica innocently asked with eyes
wide in childlike interest.  "What more could anyone need to know
that could not be learned during the years you mentioned in both
Schools?"
     As the self-satisfied Head Administrator started his slow walk
along the length of the mall-like interior, with Jessica and Logan-
5 in close tow with security personnel just behind them, Logan-4
proceeded to explain what those who had existed in past centuries
had understood very well:  "There is astronomy and astrophysics and
calculus and advanced philosophy and anatomy and microcircuitry,
just to name a few of the many, many things anyone who wishes to
know more and more could choose from in College.  There really is
no limit to what they could learn."
     "I take it, then," Logan-5 said somewhat softly as if afraid
to offend the father he had never seen, "that you yourself have
been to this...college."
     "I still attend occasionally, Logan-5," the man with the
graying mane admitted with a gleam in his eye.  "One thing about
learning:  You're never too old!"
     Old!  The very mention of that word brought forth feelings of
peace and a kind of complacent peace Logan and Jessica had longed
for during their period of awakening after their ruby-red crystals
had begun to blink.  The complacency could have come only from
knowing your thirtieth birthday would not turn out to be Last Day. 
That complacency was once hated in a past where primitive
prejudices and drives dominated an entire planet's people hurtling
toward destruction.
     Such complacency was, however, held in highest regard by those
who Computer had determined to be Runners, whom Sandmen were
specifically assigned to exterminate in order to prevent any spread
of their disruptive ideas.
     "Come," Logan-4 insisted with a slightly tense sigh, "let's go
to one of our eateries and have a relaxing meal.  There, we can
talk.  I know there are many questions that need to be asked,
especially between myself and my son!"
     Even as he said it, Logan-4 looked at the thin yet handsome
ex-Sandman striding by his side.  Logan-5, in turn, looked toward
the taller, older man in white and smiled.
     Hearing words as unknown to his Domed City as "old age" and
"dying naturally", Logan-5 suddenly experienced a sense of extreme
pride unlike anything he had felt at any one moment during his
near-thirty years of existence.  Family.  In this second Domed City
it was the fulfillment of family and the longevity of life that
mattered.  It was the totality of knowledge that provided guidance
for the young, and it was the pursuit of serenity which comforted
the middle-aged.
     As far as Logan and Jessica were concerned, this was
Sanctuary.

     Crouching just outside the filtering duct of the second Domed
City, silently examining the snapped twigs and ever-so-slightly
disturbed sand granules where Jessica and Logan had so carefully
walked earlier, Priest prepared to enter an unknown environment. 
But he would not enter without a show of strength.
     He pulled his blaster from its sleek, black holster and held
it tightly in his right hand, his American Indian facial features
set solidly and his darkly-piercing eyes peering through the
grating of what had to be the point of entry for the two Runners
who had ruined his life weeks before.
     If the Sandmen of this Domed City had not yet dispatched Logan
and Jessica and called for Clean-Up, Priest would cold-bloodedly
avenge Francis-7, and stop the potential destruction of a second
Domed City's peaceful lifestyle in the process.

     "So," Logan-5 summed up between bites of carefully cooked
food--a sharp contrast to the instant foodstuffs of his previous
existence--"you decided that the proposed construction of the Life-
Clocks and surgical implantations of the palm crystals were not the
right ways for a post-holocaust citizenry to go.  And you used what
you've said was a diplo...diplo..."
     "Diplomatic Immunity," Logan-4 calmly completed as he studied
his son for a prolonged period across the large, round table in one
corner of a crowded restaurant.  "It's a term which had existed
before the End-Time, and a practice which, after Computer was given
total control, has since been abolished.  It gave me, the genetic
descendant of a true diplomat of the Old World, the right to do
pretty much whatever I wished, even if it were completely contrary
to the current laws of the land."
     "Including," Jessica asked as she sipped from the ice-cold
liquid she had been using to wash down mouthfuls of delicious food,
"going Outside?"
     Logan-4 looked approvingly at his genetically-procreated
offspring's choice of a mate and couldn't help but marvel at how
much Jessica seemed like the young woman he himself had once loved
so long ago.  "Yes, Jessica, including going Outside.  I made my
mind up I was not going to live in an artificial world where love
and parenting had become as illegal as living past the age of
thirty.  I had no desire to simply exist with my every movement
monitored and controlled by Computer and the Life-Clocks.  So I
left.  After a very long and arduous journey through the rock and
trees and brush, I came upon this Domed City.  I feared it might be
about to undergo the same societal metamorphoses as the one I'd
left, but I was so tired, I had to take the chance."
     "You entered," Logan-5 respectfully interjected after
finishing the organically-grown food on his dish, "and were
accepted by the inhabitants, inhabitants who already had older
individuals functioning as leaders and philosophical father-
figures.  And you realized you'd stumbled upon the type of society
you had secretly sought all your life."
     Nodding, Logan-4 finished where his son's reasoning had left
off, "Yes, even though I had no idea what family meant, or how
rearing children could instill such incomparable pleasure and
pride.  These people had carried on in the same fashion as our
ancestors, but without the hate, the violence, the desire to
destroy.  Here, we have truly reveled in paradise."
     "We have always called it...Sanctuary."  Logan-5's intensely-
spoken term was as filled with utter respect and awe as his
father's usage of the term "paradise".  Whatever it was called,
life within the second Domed City was absolutely idyllic.
     "Too bad the rest of our people couldn't come here," Jessica
sighed frustratedly while playing with what was left on her plate,
her own appetite being somewhat restrained.  "How great it would be
for them to find what we have found and what those already living
here have enjoyed all their lives: the perfect life."
     Logan-4, without batting an eye or hesitating an instant,
responded, "Why can't they, Jessica?"
     Logan-5 shot a puzzled glance at Jessica, then turned back to
his father's ruggedly handsome face and sputtered, "B-because there
are thousands of survivors there!  And...and there are already tens
of thousands here!  There would be no room..."
     "We have the room," Logan-4 stated succinctly with a sly smirk
showing underneath his heavy mustache.  "Should those survivors
wish to do so, the Great Seals of the City can be opened in order
to allow them easy access, much easier than the two of you!"
     "I suppose it would be rather difficult for several thousand
men, women and children to use the filtering conduits as a means of
entering," Logan-5 almost laughed as he envisioned the ludicrous
image of such a mass of people pushing and shoving their way along
semi-darkened air shafts in a haphazard attempt to step into the
grand interior of the second Domed City.  "And, as we all know full
well, the air outside is no longer toxic.  So opening the Great
Seals would not necessarily poison the sterilized air inside."
     "Well, although it is true that the toxin levels of the
outside air are no longer immediately deadly," Logan-4 was quick to
correct while shifting nervously in his seat as he spoke of the
subject, "our tests have shown that prolonged exposure to what
remains from the wars of the End Time would be sufficient to bring
about illness and eventual death."
     The shock of such a straightforward statement stunned Jessica
and Logan-5 into silence, as Logan continued, "In other words, no
human could live for more than six to eight months on the outside. 
The reduced quantity of toxic elements in not only the air but the
water and the vegetation as well would eventually kill."  Logan-5
and Jessica were still too shocked to speak, as he lamented, "So
you see, we really have little choice in the matter.  Either we
allow those from the other Domed City to enter and live with us, or
we knowingly allow them to gradually die out from incurable cancers
unknown to any who had once lived inside a sterile environment."
     "My God," gasped Jessica somewhat to herself as she stopped to
think about how much toxins she and Logan had ingested during their
two treks beyond the Domes, her hand automatically slipping close
to her throat as if wondering if it were already too late.
     Logan-5 did much the same, as he said with a sharp inhale,
"But it all seemed so...safe."
     "No need to worry," Logan-4 calmed them while sliding a strong
hand onto the soft shoulder of Jessica in an expression of support
and a request for trust.  "The two of you have not spent enough
time outside to cause any irreversible side-effects.  A few days of
clean living within this Domed City should neutralize any toxins in
your bloodstream.  You'll be fine."
     "I'm certain," Logan-5 started with a tense smile, "that the
majority of those now wandering beyond the rise shall be happy to
accept your generosity.  But some, such as the Sandmen, might be
less than hospitable.  They may eve present a threat to this Domed
City's way of life."
     Gesturing toward the men clad so similarly to the Sandmen, who
stood by as security officers for their Head Administrator, Logan-4
answered simply, "If any of your Sandmen should get out of hand,
ours are more than amply trained to counter them."
     Glancing at the broad-shouldered, square-jawed Sandmen who
were, when all was said and done, little more than police officers
and security specialists in the second Domed City, Logan-5 heaved
a heavy sigh while quietly stating, "I truly hope they can handle
it.  For there are some Sandmen who are nearly unstoppable!"

     Priest had successfully followed an almost imperceptible trail
left by Jessica and Logan through the large filtering ducts, right
up to the point where they had accomplished their entry into the
second Domed City.  With blaster held firmly in hand, Priest
breathed in the freshness of sterile air provided by the recycling
systems which purified what was siphoned in from the strangeness of
Outside.
     He burst out into the open with weapon ready and grim features
glaring at the passers-by.  They, on the other hand, did not seem
too shocked to see him--although his blaster being out of its
holster did alarm them to a small extent--which caused Priest to
puzzle over the exact nature of the interior into which he had just
stepped...an interior that, upon first glance, seemed precisely the
same as that which used to exist inside his own Domed City...a
Domed City which now lay in smoldering ruins many miles away beyond
the nearest rise...a Domed city which had been destroyed by a
traitor and his illegally-selected mate.
     They were two individuals whom he had silently sworn to remove
from corporeal existence the instant they came within his view.
     Then, as Priest stepped a bit further out into the enormity of
this Domed City's interior, he noticed something unheard of in the
place from which he had hiked, a place which was no more.
     There were people who were older than thirty...much older. 
Some, it seemed to him--though Priest had never actually seen
someone with graying hair and wrinkling countenance--who were
freely roaming among the crowd of mostly thirty-or-younger people,
seemed actually quite ancient.  They were possibly even into their
sixties or seventies, as those who had lived past the End-Time were
rumored to have aged.
     "No!" Priest shouted with his eyes wide in disbelief and his
trigger finger tensing while taking aim at the older individuals. 
"This can't be!  No one can live beyond the Age of Renewal!  It's
unholy!"
     Before anyone could run or even react, Priest fired several
explosive projectiles at a small cluster of people whose present
age exceeded fifty years.  People, who at the ultra-advanced
technological level of medicine in use within the second Domed
City, could have easily survived until close to the age of 100,
were violently and agonizingly terminated by the explosive
intrusion of the projectiles launched by the plasma blaster held
expertly in the right hand of Priest.
     "Aaiiee!"
     "God, No!"
     "Aarrrr!"
     As the aged group lay in smoldering heaps upon the pristine
surface of a spotlessly polished floor near the foot of an
escalator leading up, the rest of the citizens in that area ran
away, screaming in terror at the mad Sandman who had entered their
peaceful City and had cold-bloodedly blasted several of their more
respected and revered members.  Their contribution to their
inclosed society had been without equal, and now, thanks to
Priest's destructive actions, their years of wisdom would never
again interact with their once-placid City.
     "Yaaaaa!" shrieked Priest as his unreasoning rage overwhelmed
him, and he stormed out into the panicking crowd with blaster
blazing.  "Lo-gannn!"
     Several more over-thirty individuals were cut down, along with
some younger innocents who had the misfortune to stumble into the
speeding path of the projectiles.  His voice rose above the screams
of the crowds running for cover and echoing along the length of the
largest of the Domes:  "Lo-gannn!"
     The cries reached the ears of those seated about the table in
the restaurant only dozens of meters away from the site of the
savagery.  Both Logans instantly tensed at the shouting of a
numberless name.
     Logan-5 was the more concerned of the two, as he heard the
all-too-familiar sounds of plasma blasts, followed closely by
screams of agony and dying.  As an ex-Sandman, such sadistic sounds
were still imprinted in his mind.
     "What's going on?" Logan-4 asked rhetorically as he shot a
puzzled expression at his son.  "Is that a blaster being fired? 
There've been no blasters used in this Domed City since my arrival
years ago!  What's happening?"
     Heaving a very heavy sigh of tense exasperation, Logan-5 stood
with his handsome features taking on a stony look as intense as his
innermost sense of survival.  "I'm afraid I know," he said, as he
slipped his own blaster from its holster.  "It's a Sandman from the
first Domed City.  He must've tracked us here, and found his way in
through the filtering system like we did."
     "A Sandman from the other Domed City?" exclaimed Logan-4 as
the seriousness of such a statement brought him to his feet.  "But
how could he have tracked you so well?  And how could he have found
the exact point of entry?"
     "There was only one Sandman who could find his targets without
the aid of Computer," Logan-5 lamented with a certain fear tainting
his tone.  "His name was Priest!"
     There were more blaster shots...more agonizing screams of
older individuals dying...more shouts from the Sandman in question.
     "Logan!  Where are you?  Lo-gannn!"
     "He's...he's killing my people!"  Logan-4 worriedly responded
as he spun in the direction of the shots and shouts, his eyes
betraying the tremendous sense of responsibility he harbored for
his citizens.  "There've been no violent deaths in all the years
I've been Head Administrator...maybe longer!"
     "Don't worry, father," Logan-5 proclaimed with renewed
determination.  "I know Priest and what he's capable of.  And I am
the one he seeks."
     Just as the ex-Sandman started away from the table, Jessica
stopped him with pleading eyes and shaky voice, her love for the
man with whom she had finally found Sanctuary as evident in her
expression as Logan-4's worries regarding his people were in his.
     "Logan, no!" she cried.  "If you go out there, Priest will
kill you on sight!  I can't just stand idly by and watch you die!"
     "And I can't stand idly by while he kills innocent citizens
because of his dogged devotion to Computer's proclamation against
anyone over thirty, can I?"
     Jessica wanted to argue, but she knew Logan's statement was
true.  Priest would continue killing until he, himself, was killed. 
"Then let me go with you, Logan," she asked with sincerity.  "If I
must lose you, I want to be by your side and die as well."
     "Jessica, no!" Logan-5 angrily insisted.  He then softened his
tone and verbally expressed his love for her:  "If I were to die,
I'd wish it not to be in vain.  If you were to die, too, what has
anything we've gone through meant?  We've found Sanctuary, Jessica. 
I want you to live your life here, to its fullest.  Understand?"
     Reluctantly, the lovely lady in light-green garb nodded while
struggling against the tears threatening to expose her true
feelings on the matter.  She and Logan shared a tender moment
during the few seconds of silence.
     Pfff-thmmp!  "Arrrr!"  "Logan!"
     It was short-lived.
     "Father," Logan-5 quietly said to Logan-4 as he passed him on
his way to somehow stop Priest's reign of terror, "if I should be
unsuccessful--"
     "I'll treat Jessica as if she were my daughter," Logan-4 said
with a reassuring smile as pride rose within him for a son he had
known only for a couple of hours.  "But somehow, I think you will
succeed."
     With that vote of unconditional confidence from his father,
Logan-5 tightened his grip on the plasma blaster and strode off in
the direction of the disturbance.
     Jessica stifled sobs as tears freely flowed from the fears she
had held deep within herself...not only the fear of losing Logan
forever, but the uncertain prospect of surviving and growing very
old without him by her side.  That was probably her worst fear of
all.
     Glancing silently to his own Sandmen, assigned specifically as
personal protectors for their Head Administrator, Logan-4 gave a
stern nod, which immediately told the grim-faced young men in black
uniforms like Logan-5's own to assist any way they could.
     Pulling blasters from their own holsters, something previously
done only during training exercises or target practice, the Sandmen
hastily chased after Logan-5 in order to increase the blonde-haired
heir's chances of survival against Priest.
     Many of them knew full well that they, themselves, might not
be coming back.

     "I'm warning you, Logan!"  shouted Priest after firing at
another group of aging individuals--but, fortunately, missing them. 
"If you don't surrender yourself to me, I'm gonna start killing
everyone!  If I have to, I'll bring down this whole damned place,
the way you did our City!  Logan!"
     "No need to shout, Priest," Logan-5 calmly and deliberately
said from one side of the large area where he stood near an
escalator.  "My hearing is as good as it ever was."
     His rage overtaking instincts which were the result of
generations of genetic pooling from American Indian ancestors,
Priest screamed something unintelligible and began blasting.
     Logan, already anticipating such an animalistic reaction, dove
behind the escalator just as the explosive projectiles shot past
his previous position, their plasma payloads being unleashed upon
solid steel supports and various decorative planters situated close
by.
     "You son-of-a-bitch!" Priest exclaimed as he started shooting
at the escalator, destroying its internal mechanism and promptly
stopping the downward-turning steps...
     ...just as Logan popped out on the opposite side and blasted
away at his assailant.
     Though Priest's rage and hatred were overwhelming in their
power, his instincts as a Sandman and an Indian with centuries of
warrior blood coursing through his veins were not about to let him
be brought down so easily.
     Leaping out of the projectiles' paths just in time, Priest
rolled along the floor and sought safety behind one of the many
steel pillars supporting the upper levels.  The plasma blasts
impacted against a sturdy wall, doing little damage and endangering
none of the innocents still scrambling for cover in view of the
battle about to be waged.  Logan had no desire to spill innocent
blood, not within what he and Jessica came to believe to be their
Sanctuary.
     "You can't beat me, Logan," screamed an almost insane Priest
as he shot a couple of well-placed projectiles uncomfortably close
to where Logan was crouching, "and you know it!  We've been on
Hunts together!  I've always been better than you...better than any
of the Sandmen!  Besides, I have another advantage over you in
here:  You have no wish to accidentally hurt anyone!"
     As if to sadistically accentuate his statement, Priest cold-
bloodedly killed two bystanders seeking safety, neither of whom
were much older than 24, their shrieks of indescribable pain prior
to death chilling Logan's soul.
     Priest continued, "I, on the other hand, don't care!  If I
have to, I'll kill a hundred of them just to draw you out into the
open."
     Priest's unsettling laughter filled the air, mixing with the
blasts from his weapon, which explosively landed all about the
escalator and the surrounding area, as Logan ducked and dodged
death in an attempt to secure a second position of safety.
     Just then, completely unexpected by the blonde-haired ex-
Sandman, the Sandmen sent by his father opened fire from several
vantage points, their less-than expert shots spattering all about
the support pillar and flooring in the area where Priest was
hiding.  None of them actually claimed their flesh-and-blood
objective.
     "You amateurs!" Priest shouted as he swiftly slid along the
smooth, slick surface of the floor to take up a more protected
position behind a large concrete support and plant arrangement. 
"Let someone who's done this for real all his life show you how
it's done!"
     "Aiiiiii!"
     The well-placed shot by Priest easily dropped one of the
inexperienced Sandmen of the second Domed City, burning though his
midsection as agonizingly dead-accurate as the countless other such
shots that had been squeezed off by the expert Sandman survivor
from the first Domed City.  Priest felt, as always, a sudden rush
of exhilaration, much more this time than what he usually
experienced whenever he had tracked down and killed Runners...
primarily because these targets carried blasters as well.
     "Stay back!" Logan-5 warned the Sandmen with words which,
unfortunately, fell on deaf ears.  "He's too good at this!"
     Pfff-thmmp...pfff-thmmp...pfff-thmmp!
     "Arrgg!"
     "Eeeeiiii!"
     "God, nooooo!"
     Three more of Logan-4's personal Sandmen had been blasted by
Priest, with Logan-5 feeling as though it were his own fault for
not predicting their presence, although their being there had been
at his father's request.
     "Damn you, Priest!" Logan screamed angrily while firing off
several shots at his Indian adversary hiding behind the concrete
support pillar.  "It's me you came after!"
     After the expertly-placed plasma bursts erupted against the
solidity of the support, inches away from Priest's head as he
flattened himself against its other side, Logan-5 shouted to the
other Sandmen, "Get out of here!  He'll kill you all if you stay! 
Go back and protect my father and Jessica!"
     Demonstrating extreme loyalty to Logan-4's orders as well as
a desire to see this threat to their artificial world removed, the
Sandmen repositioned themselves while one yelled back to the
blonde-haired heir, "You need our help, Logan-5!  He'll just keep
killing until he gets to you; then he'll probably stalk Logan-4 and
Jessica!"
     Priest popped out from behind his hiding place long enough to
fire three or four more projectiles at multiple targets,
projectiles which found no flesh-and-blood obstacles at the other
end of their trajectories.  This time, the inexperienced Sandmen
found sufficient cover and crouched low while small bluish
explosions sprang up at various vantage points, mostly where those
same Sandmen had stood seconds before Priest's rapid firing.  They
fired in return.
     "Move in, Logan-5!" the Sandman who had spoken so defiantly
moments before urged between blaster shots.  "Take him while we've
got him pinned down!  Stop his insanity before more innocent people
pay a price never exacted before in the history of this City!"
     Logan wasted no time thinking about it or replying.  He
stealthily resituated himself a little closer to Priest's position,
carefully taking cover behind a steel support beam several feet
from the escalator behind which he'd hidden initially, his blaster
poised to one side of his head and ready to release a killing round
at his foe the instant he was in sight...ready to avenge not only
the senseless dispatching of innocent citizens, but to avenge the
deaths of his father's sandmen sent to assist in stopping Priest. 
Somehow, that reason grew more powerful within Logan's mind than
any other.
     Even in this second Domed City, the feeling of loyalty and
comraderie for fellow Sandmen, even those not trained to hunt
Runners, was incredibly intense.  Priest was the enemy.  Logan
would finish him now.
     No sooner had Logan-5 leaped out of the shadows, hoping to be
standing on Priest's blind side, it became quite clear that the
Indian Sandman had somehow shifted position once again.  No longer
was he hiding behind the concrete support pillar, which was still
being pummelled with explosive projectiles fired by Logan's
father's Sandmen.
     "Damn!" he exclaimed as he suddenly realized the extreme
danger into which he had inadvertently stepped.
     "Sorry, Logan," a voice full of self-satisfaction snarled from
a point directly to his rear, "but I guess I am the better
Sandman."
     "Noooo!"
     The unexpected exclamation was quickly followed by a volley of
haphazardly-released projectiles, projectiles which, if better aim
had been taken, could have easily sent Priest's soul into the very
Hell which he was seeking to unleash upon the unsuspecting
citizenry of the second Domed City.
     Instead, it only served to piss Priest off.
     "Damn you meddlesome--"
     Priest easily ducked and dodged explosive plasma blasts while
returning fire in the direction of a Sandman who had never even
seen such personal battles and violence.
     "Guhiiii!"
     Only two Sandmen remained to stand against Priest, to stop the
Indian from bringing ruin to what Logan and Jessica had come to
consider Sanctuary...to save the citizenry from destruction and
death.  Logan-5 stood, as did a younger Sandman he had not even
gotten to know by name:  The one who had spoken with such certainty
earlier with regard to sticking by the side of Logan-4's son.
     Together, they would either save the second Domed City or join
their comrades in agonizing extinction.
     "What do we do now?" asked the younger "Sandman as the two of
them took refuge behind the very concrete support pillar behind
which Priest had hidden minutes before.
     Amid the muffled noise of plasma blasts slamming against the
opposite side of the support pillar, Logan-5 groaned, "At the
moment, I'd say just staying alive might prove a trifle difficult!"
     As a pause in Priest's assault presented itself, Logan and the
younger Sandman knelt low and popped out of their respective
corners to fire at Priest.  Neither was too surprised to see their
projectiles cut through the air and explosively impact against
another escalator about a dozen feet away from where their enemy
had been standing just prior to the pause.
     "Damn!" the younger Sandman exclaimed through teeth clenched
tightly in tense realization that both of them could now be in
grave danger.  "How can he move so fast?"
     "That's always been one of Priest's best traits," Logan-5
lauded while looking about to make certain they weren't being
targeted by a repositioned adversary, "his quick thinking and his
even quicker reflexes."
     "Where the Hell did he go?"
     Logan thought for a moment and then came to the only
conclusion possible under the circumstances, one which sent
freezing shivers up his spine and chilled his soul:  "My God...he
must be going after my father and Jessica!"

     "Why is it so quiet now?" Jessica asked while pacing nervously
around the now-deserted restaurant.  "What's going on?"
     Logan-4 shook his head in tense silence as he considered the
possibility that his son and the Sandman sent after him had been
killed by Priest.  He then worried about what would happen to his
precious Domed City and its people.  They would be like helpless
sheep with a bloodthirsty predator voraciously stalking them.
     Then, another thought, just as terrible, crossed his mind. 
"Jessica," he urgently insisted as he stepped close to her, "we've
got to find a safe place to hide!"
     Jessica suddenly realized the reason and asked, as she allowed
herself to be led along, "But what about Logan, your son?  We can't
just leave him to--"
     "We wouldn't do him much good if we got killed either,"
interjected Logan-4 as he stepped past the last of the tables and
proceeded into the kitchen--an actual working kitchen! thought
Jessica--with his hand tightly clutching hers.  "Besides, as much
as I hate the thought, if this Priest has shot my son with his
blaster, chances are he's already dead."
     Jessica shuddered at the thought.  She knew Logan-4 was just
being logical and acting on a sense of self-preservation, but his
reaction still seemed a somewhat cold assessment of the possibility
that his only son, whom he had only just met, might indeed be lying
dead somewhere within the larger of the Domes.
     "What are we to do?" she finally inquired with her inner
strength rising to suppress her fears and sorrow.  "We can't just
hide forever!"
     "I have no intention of just hiding, Jessica," Logan-4
proclaimed with as much determination as she had come to deeply
appreciate within Logan-5.  "That son of a bitch is not going to
get away with this.  One way or another, this ends!"
     No sooner had the swinging doors leading into the kitchen
stopped flapping against each other, than Priest appeared near the
restaurant area.  His weapon ready and his instincts sharper than
ever, Priest surveyed the deserted sea of tables and half-eaten
food in order to determine precisely where the second target which
had brought him there might have gone.  He was looking for Jessica.
     He had surmised that she had to be within a few hundred feet
of the site of battle between himself, Logan, and the inexperienced
Sandmen.  He had noted the probable direction from which they'd all
come and simply backtracked, after giving Logan-5 the slip during
a purposeful pause in his blasting.  He had decided that this
restaurant would be the only logical location wherein to find her,
as well as whoever obviously accompanied her as her protector.
     While priest quietly looked about for some sign of where he
might find Jessica and whoever was with her, she and Logan-4 had
managed to squeeze themselves into a small portion of the pantry
wherein extra cooking containers were usually located, pulling shut
the door and praying that Priest would not think to open it and
peer inside.
     Both held their breath.  Both felt small rivulets of
perspiration rolling down their faces, their eyes betraying the
fears they held for themselves and for the fate of the second Domed
City.
     Meanwhile, the object of their mutual terror was, at that
exact moment, stepping past the table at which both Logans and
Jessica had been sitting.  Picking up a drinking glass and
sniffing, Priest's extremely keen senses detected a scent he had
already attributed to his primary target.  It was not difficult to
do the same, with an eating utensil on a plate still containing
food, to determine Jessica's recent presence there.
     His darkly brooding eyes cut quickly about and noticed one of
the swinging doors leading into the kitchen moving ever-so-slightly
as it settled itself from being disturbed in the last few minutes. 
Priest smiled to himself.  He now knew where to find his prey. 
Soon he would kill Logan's main reason for surviving and seeking
shelter inside another Domed City.
     Soon he would kill Jessica.

     "Come on!  Hurry!" a half-running Logan-5 kept telling the
young Sandman with him as the two made their way back to the
restaurant area where they had been when they first heard Priest.
     "Slow down!" the young Sandman snapped as his fearful eyes
expectantly cut about their surroundings, his mind believing their
enemy to be waiting to ambush them.  "He could be anywhere!  Why
the Hell would he go back to that eatery?  It doesn't make sense!"
     "On the contrary," Logan growled in response while stepping up
their pace, "it does!  If you knew Priest as well as I, it'd make
sense to you, too!  I only hope and pray we're not too late!"
     As images of the man who had been Head Administrator for years
lying as dead as is friends flashed through his head, the younger
Sandman suddenly sped up, enabling him to pass the older and more
weary Logan-5 in his haste to save his leader.
     "Hurry!" he shouted over one shoulder while now ignoring his
surroundings.  "Logan-4 may be facing a mortal threat even now!"
     "Suddenly," Logan-5 said to himself as he struggled to
increase his own footspeed, "I actually feel close to thirty..."

     "I know you're in here!"
     Priest had burst through the swinging doors leading into the
kitchen with his blaster ready to fire and his face as icy cold as
his deadly intentions.  His steps were silent and steady as a
feline stalking its unsuspecting prey, and his eyes cut quickly
from side to side in search of some glimpse of Jessica and Logan-4.
     "You might as well show yourselves," he added with a devilish
smirk.  "If you make me have to hunt for you, I'll kill you much
more slowly than I would if you surrendered now."
     Jessica and Logan-4 held their breaths for the most part and
remained absolutely still, sweat stinging their eyes and their
hearts thundering within their ears as fear gripped them
mercilessly.  Jessica had already experienced these sickening
sensations in her lifetime; Logan-4 never had.  Still, he seemed to
be handling it fairly well, considering the consequences of caving
under such stress.
     Jessica had no doubt that their deaths would be prolonged by
Priest should they resist surrender.  Their agonizing demise would
be extended sadistically.  But she also understood death was a
certainty no matter what.  So she preferred putting it off as long
as possible, even if it were only a few more minutes.
     "Last chance, Jessica," Priest snarled as he slowly circled
about the far end of the huge kitchen.  "I'm going to find you, and
when I do..."
     Before Priest had a chance to finish his sardonic statement,
Logan-4 looked at Jessica and silently nodded a signal which had
been pre-arranged before Priest's actual arrival.
     Then the two of them swiftly leaped out of the pantry and
dashed for the swinging doors.
     "Nooo!"
     Pfff-thmmp...pfff-thmmp!
     No sooner had the two disappeared through t hose doors than
the twin plasma projectiles impacted with the flapping frames...
     Krrr-KRRANGG-thmmpt!
     ...violently blasting them off their hinges, sending the now
crumpled metal out into the restaurant area, one grazing Logan-4's
back in an agonizing fashion which sent him sprawling onto a table.
     "Aiii!"
     Ker-KRACK-thudump!
     "Logan-4!" Jessica exclaimed as she stopped short at the sound
and spun to se her lover's father face-down on the floor with a
now-broken table of light-weight plastics now fallen to one side.
     "No," groaned Logan-4 as pain pulsated along his back while he
struggled to push himself up.  "Keep going, Jessica!  Save yourself
...find my son!"
     Ignoring his pleas completely, Jessica rushed to his side and
assisted him onto his feet.
     "All right, all right," he panted.  "Go, go!  Before it's--"
     "Too late."
     Somehow, Priest had used the distraction caused by Logan-4's
fall to cut around and take up a menacing stance directly in front
of them, his blaster aimed in straight-armed fashion with his
finger firmly pressed against its trigger.
     "And now," he said with a sinister sneer, "you both die."
     "Nooo!"
     The unexpected shout from behind Priest caused him to crouch
low while spinning and firing his blaster.
     "Wait!" Logan-5 warned too late as the overzealous Sandman
ahead of him was caught in the chest by a searing plasma
projectile.
     "Eeegaaaa!"
     As soon as the younger Sandman collapsed in painful death onto
the floor just outside the restaurant's ring of tables, sliding
several feet due to the momentum of his running, Logan-5 dropped to
one knee and brought his blaster to bear on Priest...
     ...who, in the same instant of indecision on behalf of Logan-4
and Jessica, had leaped up and grabbed the latter in a stranglehold
with the barrel of his blaster pressed firmly against the side of
her head.
     "Drop your blaster, Logan, or I'll blow her pretty head to the
other side of this eatery!"
     Of course, Logan-5 lowered his weapon and slowly stood, even
though he knew full well Priest planned on killing them both
anyway.
     "Don't hurt her, Priest!" he pleaded loudly while keeping his
blaster in hand.  "Let her go, and you can kill me here and now! 
I'll make myself an easy target.  Just don't kill her!"
     "Interesting proposition," toyed Priest while still pressing
his own against Jessica's head.  "But first, throw away your
blaster, Logan.  I don't trust you!"
     "No, Logan, don't!" Jessica screamed as Priest's stranglehold
tightened against her throat.  "Don't worry about me; just kill
him!"
     "Shut up, you little bitch, or I'll blow your head off right
now!"
     "No, don't!" Logan pleaded again as he started to toss aside
his blaster as Priest had so sternly requested.  "Jessica, don't
say anything!  Don't struggle!"
     Unable to shout out anymore because of the pressure being
applied to her larynx by Priest's forearm, Jessica could do little
else but sob as tear-filled eyes stared into those of her lover,
and she realized that somehow, he had a plan.  She just had no idea
what.
     "Throw it away!" demanded a deranged Indian Sandman as his
trigger finger tensed visibly.  "Do it now!"
     Just as Logan-5 was about to comply with the order, Logan-4
overcame his paralyzing sense of helplessness as well as the
painful injury to his back and acted.  Moving with remarkable
reflexes and speed for a man his age, Logan-4 grabbed the gun arm
of Priest and forced it upward, away from Jessica's head, the
suddenness of such an unanticipated action also causing Priest to
loosen the stranglehold, allowing her to slip free.
     "Damn you, old man!" Priest shrieked in rage as the two
struggled in the middle of the deserted restaurant.  "I'll beat you
to death instead!"
     "Father, get away from him!" Logan-5 urged as he leveled his
blaster at the two of them in preparation for firing on Priest. 
"Get out of the way!"
     So caught up in the struggle was the older Logan that he never
heard a word.  Instead, the two of the m danced frantically about
the tables, knocking a couple over in the process, making a clear
shot completely impossible for Logan-5.
     "Damn!"
     "Don't worry about me, son," Logan-4 shouted while holding his
own with a younger, stronger adversary.  "Kill the son of a bitch
while you can!  Otherwise, he'll kill us all!  Shoot!  Shoot now!"
     "I...I can't, Father!" Logan-5 called back as his blaster
became unsteady in a slightly shaking hand.  "I can't risk killing
you!"
     Realizing the dilemma his son was experiencing, Logan-4
decided upon an action which would make such a decision
significantly easier.
     Bringing a knee up into Priest's unprotected groin, a purely
instinctual maneuver, Logan-4 successfully distracted the enraged
Sandman, then pushed himself away two or three feet while yelling
instructively to his son, "Shoot him now, son!  Shoot him now!"
     Logan-5 reacted quickly and re-aimed his weapon while
unleashing a plasma projectile.
     Unfortunately, Priest's reflexes were much faster, and he
dodged adeptly to one side, while simultaneously shooting point-
blank at Logan-4.
     "Uhnngg!"
     The explosive impact upon the elder Logan's upper chest area
dropped the Head Administrator onto the top of a table two feet
behind him.  The sheer shock of the sudden sensation of
inexpressible agony seemed to stop any other considerations.
     Meanwhile, perhaps a microsecond after Priest had fired...
     "Aaaaiiieee!"
     ...Logan-5's unleashed projectile blew off the left arm of his
adversary at the shoulder, causing the Sandman to drop his blaster
and instinctively grab for the bloody stump that remained.
     He collapsed to the floor, his warrior-sharp wits no longer
staying one step ahead of his target, and shrieked unintelligibly
while clutching at the point where an arm had once been attached.
     "Jesus!  God!  Damn you!  Aagggg!"
     Logan-5 rushed to his father's side and instantly knew he was
in the last throes of death.  As a Sandman of some experience, he
had seen it too many times in the ashen faces of Runners he had cut
down in the first Domed City.
     "Father...!"
     "P-please, my s-son," Logan-4 stammered as a freezing
stillness settled over his body and a final numbness took the place
of any pain, "I...I have lived a f-full life.  Now y-you and J-
Jessica can do the same..."
     As mournful sadness swept over Logan-5 for the first time
since Francis' demise at his hands, Logan-5 swallowed the lump
which had manifested itself at the sight of his dying father, and
he managed a weak reply:  "We will.  And we'll make certain our
firstborn son bears the name Logan-6 in your honor.  I...I love
you."
     With his last breath rattling in his throat, Logan-4 replied
tenderly, "And I...I love you...m-my s-s-son--"
     As the blankly-staring eyes rolled upward and the muscles of
his face slackened, Logan-4 finally expired.
     "Uhn, uhn...akk!"
     The agonized sounds from the still-living Priest squirming on
the blood-soaked floor in a vain attempt to reach his fallen
blaster caused the sorrow-ridden ex-Sandman to allow another
extremely powerful emotion to overtake his reasoning.
     Spinning on one heel with his own weapon still held tightly,
Logan-5 kicked away the one for which his struggling adversary was
reaching, then stood astride the profusely bleeding Indian Sandman.
     "Go ahead, you coward!" Priest sputtered angrily with face
flushed and the taste of blood in his mouth.  "You used to have
what it took to kill someone...but I doubt there's much left in you
to finish the job!  You'll probably let me lie here and bleed to
death, won't you, coward?"
     "Not now," Logan-5 said stonily as he pointed his plasma
blaster straight down at Priest's snarling face.  "So long,
Priest."
     "You son of a..."
     Pfff-thmmp...spluht!
     Jessica had to avert her eyes from the horrid results of the
explosive projectile's impact, as a less-than-satisfied Logan
lowered his weapon and walked away from the now-headless Priest,
whose body twitched as a veritable flood of crimson spurted from
his jagged-edged neck.  His split-second of realization regarding
Logan's intentions had been swiftly followed by the blackness of
sudden death.
     It was over.
     "What...what do we do now?" Jessica asked, as the two of them
strode away from the restaurant scene and the citizens returned
into the open.
     After reholstering his blaster, a sullen Logan exasperatedly
sighed, "We pick up where my father left off, I suppose.  I'll
begin with the search for a new Head Administrator, and sending a
search party out to bring in those survivors of our Domed City who
might be looking for Sanctuary."
     "And," added Jessica somewhat slyly while gently touching her
lower abdomen, "being parents to our firstborn."
     Logan looked at her with puzzlement in his expression, then
seemed to understand as a beaming smile brightened his angularly
attractive features.  "Oh, Jessica, why hadn't you said anything?"
     Jessica shrugged and said matter-of-factly, "I wasn't really
sure myself...and besides, we were a bit busy for a while!"
     The two melted into a loving embrace and shared a romantically
lingering kiss, as those gathered about them and within hearing
range of the two in the cavernous area in which they all now stood
broke into gradually-growing applause and the chanting of Logan's
name, obviously open to the notion of a Head Administrator from the
previous line...
     ...as well as the birth of a new heir, and a New Day for all.

                               T H E   E N D

                               === Break ===