Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  Instinctively Terry shrank against the back of his seat. The Martian ship was moving at them with incredible speed and he could see now the tiny mouths of the atomic cannons, ringed around the nose of the onrushing ship. His breath was rasping against the lining of his throat and there was a dull ache in his lungs.

  “He’s opened fire,” the co-pilot said calmly. “We’re out of range yet so he must be just testing.”

  Off to the right Terry could see flaming streaks of electron bullets hissing harmlessly through the void, missing his ship by several hundred yards. Something turned in his stomach. He had to grit his teeth to keep from retching. His skin whitened and then a green edge appeared at his mouth.

  The Martian gunner was opening up now. Streaks of blazing death were hissing toward them in brilliant terrifying arcs, but the range was still long and the blasts were roaring beneath them. Terry shook his head and closed his eyes. From every pore in his body sweat was streaming, but his mouth and throat were as dry as brick dust.

  He forced his eyes open again and looked at the visi-screen. The Martian ship was winging toward them like a huge black arrow, belching fire and death from all of her sixteen tommy guns. They were only seconds away from a head-on collision.

  “Open fire!” the co-pilot snapped. “Enemy within dead center range.”

  Terry felt a wave of nausea and terror sweep over him. He jerked his gaze from the visi-screen and buried his head in his hands sobbing hysterically.

  The co-pilot wheeled from the acceleration lever and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him roughly.

  “Fire,” he commanded roughly. “Fire,” his voice rose frenziedly. “Fire!” he screamed.

  TERRY raised his eyes to the visi-screen. The monstrous Martian ship was almost upon them. It was a miracle that one of the dozens of atomic blasts had not already blasted them out of the void. For a split-instant,

  Terry Mason stared in horror at the nearing ship. Then, without reason, without conscious volition, his hand was reaching out—not for the cannon release—but for the control lever. His fingers closed over its hard handle and he shoved it forward. His ship plummeted down in a twisting spiral, running from the Martian.

  He heard the co-pilot cursing wildly in his ear, felt his hands tearing at his arms, but he held the ship on the course back to MX. Now the visi-screen showed the big Martian ship wheeling and blasting after him, closing on his tail, tommy cannons roaring furiously.

  Terry knew he was running like a whipped cur when he should be fighting to the end. But something stronger than reason was guiding his actions now. It was his blind nameless fear. He shoved the acceleration lever up to its last notch and tripped the general rocket release. His ship spurted forward under the new power like a thoroughbred leaving the post, and in a matter of seconds the Martian fighter was nothing but a black blur on the visi-screen and the mooring towers of MX were coming into view.

  Dully, automatically Terry set the landing apparatus and slumped against the back of his seat. Realization of what he had done was crawling over him now in sickening force. He knew now that he was finished, washed up, not only with himself but with every one on MX. For courage was the one absolute quality a man must possess to gain the respect of a space garrison. And Terry Mason didn’t have that quality. An anguished sob tore from his throat and he dropped his head on his arms.

  The co-pilot’s voice, caustic and contemptuous, cut across his senses like a lash.

  “I didn’t think I’d live to see a Mason quit cold and run like a yellow cur. You’ve endangered the life of every man on MX with your cowardice, but you saved your own precious skin.”

  Terry lifted his head, faced the man. The contempt and scorn on the man’s face was like a hard slap.

  “I didn’t think; I didn’t even try to think,” he said brokenly. “All I could see were those tommy cannons coming at me. Before I knew what I was doing I was running. Why didn’t you shoot me?” he cried bitterly. “Why don’t you shoot me now? I’m a coward, do y’hear? Shoot me, damn you, and get it over with.”

  The co-pilot shook his head slowly. “Shooting’s too good for you,” he said icily. “I won’t deprive your father and brother the pleasure of telling you what they think of a yellow Mason.”

  “I SAW the entire disgraceful encounter,” Space-Inspector Mason barked, “from our central visi-screen. I saw my own son run like a frightened rabbit from a ship carrying less power than his own. His actions were treacherous, cowardly and completely out of line with the code of honor established by Earth space-fighters and pilots. Therefore, with the authority vested in me by the Earth council, I order his immediate dishonorable discharge from the service.”

  Terry Mason listened in silence as his father pronounced sentence. There was nothing he could say, there was nothing that could be said in his behalf. He was standing at attention before his father’s desk. There were several officers in the room, among them his brother, “Bats” Mason, one of the greatest space men in the universe. There was a deep absolute silence as his father stepped before him.

  “Do you have anything to say?”, the old man asked sharply.

  Terry swallowed. His lean features were taut and straining under the pressure of maintaining a wooden, expressionless face. He wanted to cry out, to defend himself, to try and explain his horror and ungovernable terror at the sight of those Martian guns, but he forced the words back, squared his shoulders.

  “No, sir,” he whispered.

  Space-Inspector Mason’s stern, lined face worked for a brief instant and then he reached out a gnarled hand and ripped the blue-gray service stripes from his son’s tunic.

  “You have twenty-four hours to clear from MX,” he stated. He turned then to his desk, picked up a small object and handed it to Terry. “This,” he said, “expresses in a slight measure, my opinion of a man, who, by cowardice and cravenness, would endanger the lives of his fellow fighters, and undermine the prestige and esteem of his country.”

  Terry glanced at the object in his hand and stiffened. It was a tiny, unadorned wooden box. He lifted the top and saw that it was filled with yellow mud. It was part of the space-fighters tradition that this emblem, the tiny box full of yellow mud, represented the ultimate in disgrace and dishonor to the person who received it from his fellow fighters. To the coward, to the cheat, to the traitor, it was given as a symbol of baseness and dishonor.

  His fist closed over the box tightly. He turned blindly for the door but a voice behind him said,

  “Just a minute. You’re leaving something.”

  He turned and saw his brother, “Bat”, walking slowly toward him.

  “Dad summed things up pretty neatly,” he said coldly, “and all I can add is this.” His open hand swung in an arc and landed with a staggering smack against Terry’s cheek. Four livid marks stood out against the whiteness of his face, as if they were burned there.

  Terry backed a step with the force of the blow and tears of pain sprang to his eyes. Through them he could see his brother regarding him pitilessly. His brother’s hand was stretched toward him, and on his wide palm rested a tiny wooden box, a replica of the one Terry had received from his father.

  Terry took the box without speaking and left the room.

  OUTSIDE in the bright glaring sun he walked stonily past the officers’ quarters, past the mooring towers, past the mechanics’ shop, until he neared a residential section, fenced off from the rest of the activities on MX. He turned in at a small steel house set back a little way from the walk. It was the home of Dr. Manners, stationary physician on MX.

  Terry had been trying frantically, desperately not to think. There was one person he had to see before he could be alone with his thoughts and with himself.

  That person was Eileen Manners, the girl he was engaged to marry, the girl who had whispered that she loved him on a dark night not too many weeks ago. Terry had been allowed to see no one since his return from his shameful battle in space.

  He rang t
he bell and, a few seconds later, followed a soft-footed servant into the modest living room. He was not alone for more than a minute before a door opened and Eileen Manners entered the room. His heart leaped as it always did at sight of this slim, elfinfaced, auburn-haired girl.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” she said in a low voice.

  He looked at her miserably. There was no anger or scorn in her face, but there was something that was worse. There was pity on her soft lips and in her eyes. The pity of a woman for something weak and helpless and crushed. It cut him more than his discharge, more than the two tiny boxes of yellow mud in his pocket. There was something else he had to know.

  “Do you still love me?” he asked in a whisper.

  The pity in her eyes faded.

  “Yes,” she said, “That’s something I can’t help. It’s a disease I must get over. But any respect I had for you is gone.”

  He picked up his hat. He knew he had forfeited the right to plead for her understanding or forgiveness.

  “You won’t see me again,” he said stiffly. “I—I’m sorry you put your money on a bad horse.” He turned on his heel and left the room.

  Eileen Manners stood still for many minutes after he left, her hands clenched over her breast, her eyes wet with unshed tears. When the sun’s rays had faded from the room, she opened her hands and looked at the tiny wooden box, filled with yellow mud.

  “I’m glad I didn’t give it to him,” she whispered.

  FOR the next two months Terry Mason did his utmost to keep from drawing a sober breath. He very nearly succeeded. Mixing his diet with Martian Grano and Venusian rum, he was able to spend his waking hours in a semi-comatose condition which made it impossible for him to think. Thinking, he had discovered, in his few lucid moments, led him to a hell he could not stand. The only release came in the limbo of half-forgetfulness, induced by the liquors of the Universe.

  It was during one of his comparatively sober spells that he learned from a gabby Martian dock hand that space-base MX had been surrounded and blockaded by radio-controlled Martian ships for the past six weeks. It was a shock that knocked the fuzziness from his brain, left him completely sober for the first time since he had left MX.

  For if MX was blockaded it meant that his father and brother and Eileen were in the gravest danger. He ordered another drink for his gabby informant and eased him down to the end of the bar, out of earshot of the other brawlers in the Martian saloon.

  “What started it?” he asked tensely.

  “Well, it’s a long story,” his informant said, filled with importance by his newly acquired role of news dispenser. “It started actually about two months ago when a Martian ship chased a space base fighter back home with its tail between its legs. We knew then that they wouldn’t fight so we circled ’em with radio-controlled ships within another week or so. They haven’t had any food or supplies since then. Only one of their ships managed to get away, but without food or supplies they’ll soon fold up. But we aren’t going to wait much longer. We’ll just blast ’em out of the void if they aren’t talking nice in another few days. Yes, sir, we mean business.”

  Terry paid for his drinks and left the bar, his thoughts churning desperately. He plodded hopelessly down a narrow Martian street, his soul black and bitter with self-accusation. Thoroughly sober, he realized with sickening impact, that he was responsible for the plight of MX. If he had fought it out, if he had maintained the prestige of the garrison, the Martian attack might not have been conceived.

  It was a monstrous responsibility to have on his shoulders, a ghastly, terrible thing to accept judgment for. Something was writhing and turning within him, but something was growing too.

  It was rage, black and fearful. Rage at himself and rage at the cruel, mercilessly precise Martians.

  Terry stopped in and bought a pint of violent Martian rum and returned to his small room. He planked the bottle down in front of him, unopened. He stared at it for a minute and then picked it up by the neck and smashed it on the floor.

  It was a gesture, a symbol of accepted responsibility. For the rest of the night he sat staring at the floor. By the time he tossed himself onto his ragged cot, streaks of lights were seeping into the room.

  But Terry Mason had a plan of action . . .

  “ISH tellin’ yuh Ish know suin’pn,” the bleary-eyed, sodden figure at the bar protested drunkenly. “Whash a matta wih you? Don’ cha believe me? Ish tellin’ Ish know sum’pn about the space fleet. Used to be a spash fighter muself. Know all about ’em. Name’s Mason. Got thrown out long time ago. They’ll be sorry. They’ll be sorry as hell when Ish tell whash I know about the spash fleet.”

  A Martian dressed in a gaudy uniform stepped alongside the grotesque figure mumbling at the bar.

  “Did you say,” he asked with sibilant politeness, “that the name was Mason?”

  “Shupossin’ I did,” the figure at the bar turned to stare belligerently at the nattily dressed Martian.

  “Brother of the man they call “Battering” Mason?”

  “Yeah,” the drunk mumbled sleepily, “good old Bats.”

  The Martian made a slight gesture to the bartender and then sauntered unconcernedly away. The bartender picked up Terry Mason’s glass and refilled it. Then he dropped a white tablet into the foaming glass and waited for it to dissolve before he placed the glass back on the bar.

  Terry Mason downed the drink in one gulp. Looking over his shoulder he saw several Martian soldiers gathering about him. He turned back to the bar to hide his smile. Things were working beautifully. For the past week he had staggered about the Martian coastal town, apparently as drunk as a lord, babbling about his strange military secrets. He was just about on the verge of trying something else when the bait had been gobbled up. Now he knew he was about due for a blackout. He had seen the bartender drop the knock-out drop into the drink.

  He was feeling a little weak already. When he came to again, he realized, he would be thoroughly investigated, and well on his way to gaining the confidence of the Martian intelligence department. The one thing he wanted to know was the location of the radio base which controlled the planes which were blockading MX. With that information to give to the Earth space fleet, he knew the breaking of the blockade of MX would be only a matter of hours.

  His knees wobbled a bit and then with unexpected abruptness, he crumpled to the floor.

  The last thing he remembered was a crisp voice saying,

  “Take it easy. That’s ‘Bats’ Mason’s brother.”

  WHEN Terry Mason opened his eyes again, he saw that he was lying on a cot in a small room. Before he could notice anything else a door clicked open and two uniformed Martians stepped into the room. One of them stepped forward, bowed slightly.

  “Permit me to introduce ourselves,” he smiled. “I am Rog and this is my associate Gonor.”

  Terry sat up on the edge of the bed. His head was pounding sullenly. He wondered vaguely how long he had been knocked out.

  “I’m Terry Mason,” he said. “Can you tell me where I am?”

  “Not exactly,” Rog answered with a bland smile. “We are on a planetoid in the void. The exact location I am not at liberty to divulge. You have been unconscious for two days. If you feel strong enough I would be honored if you would follow me.”

  Terry felt a vague premonition prickling his spine. Something was definitely screwy. The Martians were typical of their race. Smooth, bland, with hairless red faces and long feelerlike hands, and ridiculously short legs. He knew from his experience with them that he was being told to follow them and not asked.

  He stood up and followed them through several short, narrow halls and into a larger room fitted up as an office. Several Martian officers were lounging against the wall, and they all smiled and nodded politely to him.

  “First, Mr. Mason,” the Martian called Rog, said affably, “we brought you here for a purpose. I might add that your charming impersonation of an inebriate was somewhat lost on us
. We saw through that rather readily, I am afraid. I hope you are not disappointed.”

  Terry listened and waited. All of the blandness had dropped from the Martian’s voice as he spoke. There was nothing but the flat ring of chilled steel left.

  “Your brother ‘Battering’ Mason is here,” Rog said abruptly. “We allowed him to escape MX and then captured him in space. It cost us four ships, but it was worth the price. He has been most obstinate in spite of our charming persuasions. That, Terry Mason, is where you are to be of service to us. You will be the lever we use over your most obstinate brother. He knows the position of Earth space fleet Number X 1. We can not proceed in safety with our plans until we know its location and plans. So, with your help, Terry Mason, we will extract that nugget of information from your brother.” Rog glanced at an orderly. “Bring the prisoner in,” he said blandly.

  Terry waited tensely, without speaking. He realized that he had blundered into a Martian trap, probably making things tougher for his brother. Something had hardened within him though as the Martian, Rog, had been speaking. Something that straightened his shoulders and bunched the muscles alongside his lean jaw. For the first time in his life he wanted to hit someone hard, and feel bones and flesh giving under his knuckles. The molten and latent steel in his body was tempering into a hard, flinty unyielding substance, and he was unaware of it.

  A DOOR opened suddenly and a huge, familiar figure stumbled into the room, followed by two orderlies. Terry choked back a gasp of horror as he looked at his brother. For both of Bats’ arms were set in splints and braced away from his body by steel supports. He glared around the room like a desperate bull and his eyes glinted red when he recognized Terry.

  “So,” he rasped, “you sold out to ’em, eh? If my arms were in shape I’d break your back for it. A coward and now a traitor. Pardon me, while I vomit.”

  “Bats,” Terry said desperately, “you’ve got it all wrong. I’m—”

  “Save your breath,” Bats growled. “I’m not interested.”