Logan's Search by William F Nolan Page B

“I’ll just circle a couple of times…”
    “As you wish.” The robot nodded. “But the device seems quite sound to me.” And he stepped back as Logan roared the stick skyward.
    In the air, he estimated the space between the robot and the cliff. Room enough, he decided, if I come in fast and keep the sea at my back.
    Logan circled once as the robot peered upward.
    Fast and simple, Logan told himself.
    And he powered the Devilstick, full-thrust, at the robot, skimming in low over the highway to drive the stick’s sharp duralloy nose directly into the creature’s metal chest.
    The impact smashed the humanoid into the base of the rock with incredible force. Logan powered the stick swiftly upward again, fighting to regain full control. The cliff seemed to leap at him as he swung the craft hard-left to avoid violent collision with the rock face.
    Below, the big robot lay motionless, metal parts strewn along the cracked road surface.
    Logan brought the hovercraft down directly beside the body, quickly dismounting. He rolled the heavy creature over on its side, unsnapped the robot’s carrier-pouch, and pulled the Gun free.
    At last! He had it!
    “Stop!” said the machine, staggering up to face Logan. “Not…permitted.”
    The creature’s chest was a smoking mass of shattered metal and ruptured circuitry. One of its arms had been totally ripped away; loose wires dangled from the gaping shoulder. And, in striking the rocks, the left side of its head had been crushed flat. The robot’s one still-functional eye was canted at a grotesque angle.
    To Logan, the machine now seemed a totally alien thing, the thin veneer of pseudo-humanity having been ripped away.
    The robot advanced on Logan as he retreated toward the road edge. “Stay back!” 
    And Logan brought up the Gun.
    The machine kept coming, its twisted mouth forming the same ominous phrase: “Not permitted…not permitted…”
    But the ammopac had been removed and Logan couldn’t fire; the Gun was useless.
    Jamming the weapon into his belt, he feinted left, then lunged right, attempting to put the machine between himself and the road edge. And did not succeed.
    The creature slammed its arm across Logan’s face, spilling him to the highway. Dazed, only half-conscious, he was powerless to resist as the tall machine plucked him up and swung his body toward the edge of the cliff.
    “Not permitted…” the creature rasped. “Not permitted…”
    And Logan was hurled from the cliff—a sheer mile drop to the distant sea.
    As he went over, the instinct to survive fired his blood, and Logan clawed wildly at an overhang of heavy brush growing along a narrow ledge of rock, obtained a handhold—and managed to check his fall.
    Loosened at its base, the tough-rooted brush threatened to pull free of the rock, but held. For how long?
    Logan hung there, swinging by one hand, as the robot’s twisted metal head loomed above him. Can the damn thing reach me? No, Logan assured himself. Can’t. I’m too far down.
    The creature realized that in order to dislodge this man below him, in order to send him plunging into the sea, it would be necessary to climb down to him. He set out to do this, easing his battered metal body over the road edge.
    Logan, hanging ten feet below, no longer thought about his enemy; he was now trying desperately to obtain a double-handed grip on the slipping brush. But each time he hauled himself a bit higher, the shifting weight of his body ripped another section of brush loose from its base in the rock
    The question was: could he pull himself onto the ledge before the brush gave way completely?
    The robot was closer—much closer—making ponderous progress down the sharply angled face of the cliff. Soon he would be able to reach this man-thing. Soon.
    Logan had swung his body to a point where he was finally able to get a grip on the ledge. Releasing the brush, he clawed his way up, levering his bruised body onto the narrow rock shelf.
    But the