BORGIAS

“We call them the Borgia Riders,” said Jonath. He towered over Logan, a full foot taller, but without Logan’s strength of body. The Wilderness leader was gaunt; his flesh hung loose on a bony frame, but his eyes were very alive, dark and penetrating.

They were walking together in warm morning sunlight outside the main camp, fronting the Lincoln Memorial. Jonath, in a gray workrobe, sashed at the waist; Logan, for the first time since Argos, wearing his Sandman’s black tunic, boots and belt, the Gun holstered at his right side. He was a hunter once again, and he would wear the garb of a hunter.

“You know them?” Logan asked.

“I’ve never encountered them personally,” said Jonath. “But some of the People have been attacked by them. They killed one of our men, and raped several of our women.”

“Their leader’s name…do you have it?”

“She calls herself Lucrezia.”

“Know anything about her?”

“Only that she seems to possess a cruelty beyond that of most outlanders. Human life apparently means very little to her.”

Logan said nothing to this, but his eyes took on a hard shine.

“Still…Jessica may be alive.”

“There’s no reason to hope for that,” said Logan flatly.

“But there is.”

Logan suddenly stopped walking, stared at the Wilderness leader. “What are you saying? They’ll use her sexually and they’ll kill her.”

“Perhaps,” nodded Jonath. “But my point is—outlanders often trade the females they abduct. A beautiful woman can be quite valuable to them.”

“And you think Jessica might—”

“—be traded off to a rich man, or to a Market group. Since the breakdown of the cities an extensive trade-sale Market has sprung up. Among the most salable items, next to certain drugs, are beautiful women.”

“And outlanders have access to these markets?”

“They’re prime suppliers.”

Logan picked up a dry branch, snapped it in frustration. “But I don’t know where to look. They could be halfway across country by now. I don’t even know which direction they headed.”

Jonath sat down on the squared base of a broken column which had once formed part of an ancient government building, ran his thumb slowly along the veined marble. “Logan, do you believe in the magic of the mind?”

Logan sat down next to Jonath, looked at him. “In what sense?”

“I believe that the human brain has infinite possibilities—that we’ve barely touched on our potential as fully developed creatures. Before the Little War, experiments were being conducted in telekinesis, telepathy, and a dozen other inter-related aspects of sensory phenomena. Brain expansion…And one of these aspects was clairvoyance.”

“I don’t think I—”

“The ability to summon up visions involving a particular person, place or thing.”

“I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.”

“There’s an old man I’ve heard of…His name is Andar. He escaped the Sandmen. He lives at the tip of a bridge on the western coastline.”

“So?”

“They call him ‘The Gifted One’ He’s physically blind, yet he sees. He’s a visionary. He can ‘read’ objects.”

“Read them?”

“Do you have something of Jessica’s…a ring she wore…a throat jewel…anything of that nature?”

Logan nodded.

“Bring it to Andar. Ask him to read its vibrations. If what I’ve heard is true, he might be able to tell you where she is, physically, from his reading of the object.”

“That’s impossible!”

“I told you, he’s a visionary. His mind is tapped into what he calls the ‘cosmic energy source.’ All objects in space are part of this cosmic chain. One object gives him a direct link to another.”

Logan stood up. “This sounds insane.”

“But you’ll do it…You’ll go to him?”

“Yes,” said Logan. “I’ll go.”