The Lady Had Wings

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Did you ever find an angel lying dead in the snow? Few people have, so that's what made Logans experience unique. Then other "angels" equipped with blasters, arrived on the scene. That made it interesting. Until Logan couldn't figure out where his loyalty belonged — with his friends or his enemies.

Excerpt

Logan found the corpse about a mile from the spaceship.

It was the body of a young woman with wings, great pinions folded slackly in death now, dead eyes staring sightlessly, the whites covered with snow — the mouth opened and filled with snow also.

The body was quite naked and had been beautiful. It was hard and cold now with winter in the world. There was ice in the folds of the dead wings.

The snow fell softly, steadily, slow windless flakes shrouding the world with white from the flat rock- strewn plain where Logan and Taggart had brought their spaceship down to the high mountains which Logan could no longer see because of the snow.

Logan prodded the corpse and turned it over. It was stiff as wood.

The winged girl had not surprised Logan, for Taggart, who had been here before and who had brought Logan with him across interstellar space, had told him of the womenlike eagles. What surprised Logan was the dead girl's back. She had been shot from behind with a blaster: her entire spine was gone and one of the wings had been all but sheared away. There were two blasters on this world of eagles. One was buckled about Logan's waist. Taggart, who had left the spaceship a dozen hours before and whom Logan had come looking for, had the other.

There was a sudden rushing of air. Logan straightened, looked up. He saw a flutter of great dark wings in the snow overhead. Two girls swooped down, hair streaming, wings flapping slowly now, snow flakes like diamonds in the feathers.

It happened so quickly that Logan did not think to struggle. The wings beat and the girls swooped and a hand grabbed each of Logan's arms near the armpits. Then the wings fanned more rapidly, the feathers beating at Logan's head and shoulders, and slowly he was borne aloft. It was too late to resist as soon as his feet left the snow-covered ground. He blinked and felt a giddy sweeping motion and looked down. The ground was far below. If he struggled they might drop him, and he would die.