Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Today I am going to explain to you the greatest scientific triumph of my regime. It is something which I have dreamed and planned for years. But first I want to say this to you. You know that in our State we do not allow slackers and shirkers to live. We put them to death the instant we discover them, for we know that all must fight and give their utmost in the crusade we are waging. Now if we are doing that, giving our last drop of blood and sweat to crush our enemies, why should those who will enjoy the benefits of our heroic labors be permitted to shirk their duty?”

  For an instant there was dead silence in the room. A silence broken only by the sharp intake of breath as the assembled Chieftains caught the import of the Leader’s words.

  “They have as much at stake,” the Leader continued, “more, in fact, than we ourselves have. Those who will follow us, the super race which will result from the completion of our struggle, they must be made to do their share in the winnings of that struggle. Therefore I have called you here to tell you of my plan.”

  HE made a slight gesture to an orderly standing next to a square object beside him. The orderly stepped forward and with one gesture whipped the enveloping cover from the object, revealing it as a glistening metal cage, shimmering and strangely unreal.

  The gathering of Chieftains moved forward for a better view of this strange creation. It was made roughly like a small cage with two metal seats in the interior and a mass of gadgets and equipment on a dial board before them.

  The leader drew himself to his full height and stared truimphantly over the bewildered throng.

  “The object before you is a Time Machine,” he said with repressed pride. “The result of our Ingenuity and skill. With it we will draw new support to our Cause. Two of my most trusted Lieutenants are to travel into the future to enlist the aid of the races which will be created by us. When they are told of our need of them, they will swoop back through the boundless reaches of Time to throw their great skill and power into the fray. With our glorious descendants fighting by the millions alongside us we will not, cannot, fail.”

  There was a buzzing murmur of excited voices sweeping through the room and then shouts of praise and joy pouring from their throats. The Leader stood before them, smiling quietly at the fanatical demonstration. At last he raised his hand for silence.

  “The Time Machine leaves now!” he announced. At a gesture from him two stalwart, uniformed young men stepped to the machine. “Lieutenant Schmidt and Lieutenant Wolf,” he cried fervently, “are doing their Race and their Country and their Cause great and glorious service. They have invented this machine and are prepared to take it into the glorious future which we are creating now. The mighty race which will spring from us will welcome them and honor them and return with them by the thousands to fight with their ancestors.”

  The two young men saluted, stepped into the machine. A thunderous roar of commendation broke from the audience, crashing between the walls with reverberating echoes.

  Once more the Leader raised his hand.

  “We salute you Lieutenant Schmidt and Lieutenant Wolf,” he said impressively. “Our hearts and our hopes travel with you, wishing for you and for us and for the glorious races we will bring to Earth, success; mighty, magnificent success!”

  He dropped his hand and one of the young men in the Time Machine moved a lever slowly to the right. The other, moved an indicator along a row of buttons stamped with units of time. Then he pressed a button. To the accompaniment of roar upon roar of triumph and hysterical encouragement the Time Machine shimmered and twisted slowly. As it turned it gradually disappeared. Bedlam broke loose; even the normally august figure of the Leader pranced in an uncontrolled ecstasy of glee.

  “WE have arrived, Lieutenant Schmidt,” Lieutenant Wolf, the smaller of the two men, sat quietly. “We are five hundred years into the future. It is our third stop. We tried two centuries, three centuries, four centuries and now five.”

  “And every time is the same,” Lieutenant Schmidt answered dully. “Let us climb out. It can’t be any worse.”

  The two men climbed out of the machine and stared despairingly about at the black and blasted surface of the earth.

  “The only people we have seen,” Schmidt said bitterly, “were those starving barbarians we saw two hundred years ago. Is it the end of the world? Is this what we are fighting for? To produce this?”

  “Watch your tongue,” Wolf snapped. “That is treason.”

  “Treason,” Schmidt muttered disgustedly.

  Their Time Machine had landed in a slight depression, surrounded on three sides by rough, craggy boulders and blasted rocks. Wolf, staring at one of the slight hills, suddenly grabbed his companion by the arm.

  “I saw something move up there,” he whispered tensely. He loosened his gun in its holster. “Let us investigate.”

  Schmidt shrugged and followed him, climbing over the rough brambles and crags that littered the side of the slope.

  KOGAR and Merena crouched behind the big black boulder and silently watched the two strange creatures moving across the scarred terrain.

  Sharply Kogar drew in his breath and turned his shaggy head to his mate. He licked his lips.

  “These creatures live, my Merena.”

  His small eyes beneath his thick brows went back to their burning contemplation of the figures approaching.

  Merena was not quite so coarse featured as Kogar. She had long, tangled black hair that fell almost to her waist. Her nose was not so flat as Kogar’s, her lips not so thick. But her black eyes gleamed with the same furious intensity, the same fierce gnawing hunger, as her mate’s.

  For three star-skies it had been this way. No food. No raw flesh to fill the belly. There had been a small winged sky creature, that last time. Kogar had brought it down with a stone well aimed. But it had been small, too small to satisfy completely the burning hunger that gripped them both. And there had been scant blood to drink.

  Merena found it hard to remember that there had once been a few four-footed animals to feast on. They were gone now, along with the last, of the winged sky creatures. She swallowed hungrily.

  Kogar picked up the sharpened stone by his side. In his great paw he held it ready, his eyes estimating the distance from their boulder to the creatures moving toward them. Too far yet.

  It didn’t occur to Kogar that these creatures might be even as himself and Merena. Their bodies were covered by strange trappings, their legs encased in odd sheaths. Truly these were not of their kind. Kogar’s thick left paw gently stroked the bulging muscle beneath the thick mat of hair on his right arm. No, they were not as Merena and Kogar.

  Kogar knew that there were no others such as himself and Merena. Once there had been. But they were gone now—along with the four-footed animals and the sky creatures. They had been few enough to begin with, and their numbers decreased until there were finally but himself and his mate. The others had not been cunning enough to keep their bellies filled, their thirsts quenched.

  Still watching the approach of the strange creatures, Kogar thought back to that day in the compounds when the feeble old Chief lay dying. All around them, that day, women and children had lain white and sick and bloated. They were dying too. Kogar had gone to Merena. He had slipped from the compounds with her that night.

  “We will leave these weaklings, and go forth to find meat for ourselves,” he had told her.

  And they had. Scouring far and wide, farther even than the old tribal laws had permitted. Kogar took his mate in search of flesh to sustain life. That had been countless star-skies ago. Kogar could not remember how long. He knew, of course, that the others were dead by now. They had been foolish, and weak.

  “See, Kogar,” Merena whispered, “the strange creatures halt!”

  KOGAR, jolted from his musings, turned his attention back to the strange creatures. They had stopped, several hundred paces away, and were making sounds at each other. They looked like animals quarreling.

  For an instant, Kogar
looked at the sharpened stone in his big hand. He lifted it once or twice doubtfully. A throw might bring one of them down. But if he missed, it would frighten them away. He wet his thick lips.

  Merena put her hand on his arm.

  “Wait,” she breathed, “do not frighten them.”

  Kogar nodded. For an instant he considered moving out from behind his hiding place and chasing down after them. He was fleet of foot. He had trapped the last of the four-footed animals that way. But Kogar realized that he was weaker now and not so swift. Besides, he wasn’t certain how swift these strange creatures were in their own right. They might even be like the sky creatures, able to swoop up and away if frightened. Although he saw no signs of wings Kogar couldn’t be sure.

  Merena touched his arm again.

  “They move,” she whispered.

  The creatures were indeed, moving toward them once more. Kogar wondered if there might not be a watering place nearby, unknown to him, to which they were going. He had found many such watering places by following the animals.

  Kogar had a sudden idea. He turned to Merena.

  “By that other great rock, over there,” he pointed a few hundred feet away to a boulder lying just behind the strange creatures, “you take your place.”

  Merena looked uncomprehending Kogar picked up the second of his sharpened stones. He handed it to her. He had taught Merena to hurl the sharpened stones with a fair amount of skill and cunning. From short distances—if the targets moved slowly as these did—she was deadly.

  “Behind that great rock,” Kogar repeated, “you take a place!”

  Merena nodded, understanding. She smiled at her mate in open admiration of his superior cunning. Kogar was infinitely pleased by the implied compliment. Merena took the stone and flattened herself out on the ground, preparing to inch along to the other boulder.

  “After I throw,” Kogar reminded her. “Wait until then.”

  Stealthily, with the ability of long practice[*] Merena moved away toward the position her mate had indicated. Kogar watched her progress, aware at the same time that the strange creatures had given them additional advantage by halting again and making angry sounds at each other.

  Almost at the same time that the strange creatures resumed their movement toward his boulder, Kogar saw Merena gain the shelter of the other great rock a hundred feet behind them.

  ONE of the strange creatures as it moved closer, brought forth a stick from its chest and put it in its mouth. Kogar frowned bewilderedly at this. Then the same strange creature produced a glittering thing and held it up to the stick.

  The glittering thing puffed a tiny spurt of orange, then the stick smoked odd blue clouds. The tiny spurt of orange had disappeared now, and the creature put the glittering thing away. But the stick still made small blue clouds. And the blue clouds issued from the mouth of the creature as well.

  Kogar shook his head, bewildered. Indeed these were oddly different animals.

  Suddenly the creatures were close enough for Kogar to hear the sounds they made. Weird, unintelligible sounds.

  “I’m for going back, Wolf!” one creature said. Or, at least that was the way the strange noises sounded to Kogar. His thick brows knit uncomprehendingly at these strange noises. They were communicating, of course, just as dogs communicate by whining, or birds by chirping. Nevertheless, it made Kogar uneasy.

  Kogar growled softly in his throat. They were close enough now.

  His eyes measuring the distance with deadly certainty, Kogar lifted the sharpened stone again, bringing it back behind his head, his muscles tightening like steel webbing.

  Kogar was counting on surprise to hold them motionless long enough to hurl the stone. With most animals it worked that way.

  Now, suddenly, thick lips flattened against his teeth in a snarl, Kogar rose from behind the boulder. So intent were the strange creatures that for an instant they didn’t see him. And in that instant Kogar hurled the stone with terrible force.

  It caught one of the strange creatures squarely between the eyes, and from the sound it made, Kogar knew he’d crushed in its skull. Red, warm, delicious blood spurted forth from the wound as the creature toppled over dead.

  Kogar yelled wildly now, and it had the frightening effect he wanted.

  The other creature—the one with the stick in its mouth—was momentarily rooted with terror as it watched its companion fall. Then, on Kogar’s shrill whoop, it suddenly turned—the cloud stick falling to the ground—and dashed madly in the opposite direction, straight toward the boulder behind which Merena waited.

  The creature was less than five paces from Merena’s boulder, when she rose, whooping just as Kogar had, but more shrilly.

  The effect of this was just as the cunning Kogar had planned. The creature halted abruptly in terror, and in that split second, while it turned its head right and left seeking escape, Merena threw her pointed stone with incredible force and magnificent accuracy.

  Kogar was forced to grunt in admiration at Merena’s skill, as the second strange creature shrieked once and fell to the ground. Blood gushed from its head, just as it had from the other.

  KOGAR and Merena dragged the bodies of the two slain animals together, then, and with fierce exultation began to tear ravenously. This was flesh, warm and fine.

  But the creatures were indeed strange. They had shells of dry flesh covering their bodies. Bloodless flesh, so it seemed. But these shells came away readily. Kogar examined them as they stripped them off.

  The shells were the odd coverings Kogar had noticed at first. And they had many pouches. It was in one of these pouches, that Merena found the glittering thing that had puffed orange spurts.

  The glittering thing lay in the same pouch as a packet of the cloud sticks. While Merena munched on the cloud sticks dubiously, Kogar toyed with the glittering thing. Suddenly it spurted orange. Kogar noted with astonishment that the orange held heat.

  Gingerly, Kogar touched his finger to the orange heat, and brought it away with a sharp growl. He had never been burned before.

  Merena dropped the packet of cloud sticks and came beside him.

  “What is this orange god?” she asked.

  Kogar shook his head.

  “It brings warmth. But I do not dare to touch it again.”

  Merena frowned.

  “I remember,” she said, “a legend told to me about an orange god when I was a child in the compounds. It is a very old legend.” She turned away, walking to a pile of brush a few yards distant.

  Returning with the brush, Merena placed it on the ground.

  “Now,” she said. “Touch the orange god to this.”

  Kogar obeyed. Flames crackled as a small fire grew. The two stood back, awed.

  “It brings great warmth,” Kogar said, pleased.

  Merena nodded.

  “Over it we can warm the flesh of our kill,” she said. “We must never let this orange god die.”

  Kogar turned the glittering object over in his hand. It stopped spurting orange. But there was still the fire at their feet. There was something cut into the side of the glittering object. And looking at it, Kogar failed to understand what the strange symbols meant.

  “To Schmidt,” they read, “From the Leader. To mark loyalty and devotion in our Cause. And to bind our future, greater Civilization.”

  Kogar shook his head bewilderedly. Then turned to Merena. The warmth from the orange god at their feet was incredibly pleasant. Kogar said,

  “You are right. We must never let this die.”

  [*] Science has many instances on record of human beings, who, when placed in a savage environment, developed the faculties of the beast to a high degree. The ability to stalk a quarry, to move noiselessly, and to remain hidden from the eyes of an intended victim, is thought by some scientists to be an ingrained heredity, handed down to man by his ancestral past, when he was in the process of evolving from the actual beast, to the true man. But other scientists deny this, and insist that-it is en
vironment alone that makes a man develop animalistic abilities. In this story we have an interesting commentary on this scientific conception.

  Here, the author’s characters, placed by a terrible, civilization-wrecking war in a very primitive environment, forced to use mind, muscle, and stealthy cunning to procure food and to satisfy the most powerful of all urges, hunger, have slipped back in a few years to an animalistic plane that is actually not any different from that of the dawn man himself. Kogar and Merena are the products of our own civilization—yet, after the greatest of all wars, they become savages on a swift swoop back through time. Are we really as civilized as we think we are? And are we really as savage as we ever were in the past? Are men like Hitler really throwbacks?

  TINK TAKES A HAND

  First published in the October 1941 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

  Tink and Nastee were leprechauns: little Irish elves. Tink made people happy! Nastee made them miserable. So they made a bet . . . and the fun began . . .

  THE argument started on the corner of Forty-second and Broadway on a very hot morning in late August. Like many intense arguments it was precipitated by a chance remark.

  Tinkle and Nastee were sprawled on top of the broad shoulders of the redfaced Irish cop who directed traffic at the intersection. They were sunning themselves lazily, paying little attention to the surging crowds and noisy trucks and cars.

  Of course the Irish cop didn’t know that his shoulders were serving as a resting place for Tink and Nastee. In fact he didn’t even see them.

  For Tink and Nastee were Leprechauns, not quite the size of the Irish copper’s index finger and quite invisible to human eyes. Forty-second Street was a favorite spot for them. They liked the noise and the bustle and the never-ending crowds of people. Practically every morning they climbed onto the top of a refuse can or the copper’s shoulders and basked contentedly in the warm sun and the exciting street noises.