Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  Stooping, he slunk Dirk’s limp body to his shoulders and lurched from the office.

  THE next sensation that penetrated to Dirk’s consciousness was the sound of monotonously shuffling feet, and the occasional metallic clank of chains. For a timeless interval he knew that and nothing more. Then he gradually became aware of his own forward motion. He was in line, chained to a man in front and another behind him, walking forward in jerky, robot-like motions.

  But beyond these elementary realizations his mind was unable to travel. Like a man in a living dream he slouched along, jaw slack, eyes dull. He was chained. He was walking. That was all he knew.

  Time passed. Finally the forward motion ceased. Like a soulless beast he stood in his fetters, without the will or inclination to move an eyelid.

  Gradually his mind began to clear. The transition was not swift, but it was steady. He became aware of the men next to him, of guards, of vast expanses of rock spreading before his eyes.

  “Get to work,” a voice yelled.

  Dirk saw his fettered companions raise blunt instruments resembling pick-axes over their heads and attack the rocky soil with the sharp, scooplike blade. There were other lines of men working other sections of the rock heap. Like twisted snakes the lines wound about, up and down hillocks, through stunted vegetation.

  In his hands Dirk was aware was one of the picks. A black engulfing despair settled over his soul. Then bitterness flooded over him.

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll work” he shouted. With all his strength he flung the pick away from him.

  “Take it easy, friend,” the man on his right cautioned in an undertone.

  “Why should I?” he yelled. “I’m no slave. I’m Dirk Temple. I’ll get out of here, I tell you. I’ll get—”

  “Watch it!” the man on his right hissed.

  His warning was too late. Dirk had not seen Buck, the broken-nosed guard coming up behind him. He had not seen the cruel, blunt whip swinging.

  All he knew was its sudden vicious bite as it slashed across his back. Again and again it fell wielded with all of Buck’s strength and deliberate cruelty.

  Dirk pitched to the ground moaning.

  The lash continued to rise and fall, until Dirk’s back was criss-crossed with ribbon-like welts. Then it stopped.

  “Now.” Buck panted, “get to work.”

  It took Dirk minutes to crawl to his feet. Someone tossed the pick at his feet and he picked it up dully. He swung it once to the ground and almost cried out as his muscles worked under his frayed, stinging skin. But it was better to swing the pick and writhe with every movement than to provoke another assault by refusing.

  THE man on his right spoke through set lips.

  “It don’t do no good to blow up. Keep your mouth shut and you’ll live longer.”

  “Who wants to live?” Dirk almost sobbed.

  The man on his right went on working without replying.

  The day wore away. There was a brief pause about mid-day but no food was served. When the lines of shackled men were ordered to quit, Dirk’s legs were trembling with fatigue. His lacerated back throbbed with excruciating pain. Blood was dripping from his finger tips, welling from his blistered, cut palms.

  They filed along until they came to a metal doorway leading to one of the large sheds. Then the line slowed to a jerky crawl.

  “Inspection” the man walking beside him grunted.

  When Dirk reached the doorway he saw that a half-dozen guards with drawn atomic pistols checked the men in. One of the guards had a spongelike object in his right hand. “As each prisoner passed him he slapped him on the shoulder with object in his hand, and shouted out a number. Dirk was next in line.

  “New one,” the guard yelled.

  Dirk was thinking of something that had eluded him all day. It was the girl. He remembered now his last words for her. “I’ll be back for you.”

  That’s what he’d told her. A bitter smile touched his lips.

  He stepped ahead, the guard’s hand rose and fell. The sponge-like object pounded into his shoulder. A swift tingling raced through his body, as if invisible hot needles were probing his body, for nerve centers. He started to wheel, an angry yell forming on his lips, but he didn’t.

  He plodded on instead, his jaw slackening, his eyes glazing. He knew nothing else until he came around from his strange torpor and discovered that another day had dawned.

  He was shackled to the same line of convicts, his pick was in his hands and a snarling voice was yelling:

  “Get to work!”

  “Surprised?” it was the clipped voice of the convict on his right, Dirk noticed that he was a small, compactly built man of almost middle age.

  He swung his pick twice before answering:

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “Electrical hypnosis.” The answer was swift. “Sponge in guard’s hand is studded with quills. Shoots a charge into us, knocks us out. Keeps us from planning, talking, thinking about getting away.”[2]

  “Just work and then a complete blank-out,” Dirk grated bitterly. “I’ll be glad when I blank-out for good.” But he was thinking about the lighthaired girl when he spoke, and he wondered if he meant it.

  In the next week Dirk learned much from the prisoner chained to his right. The man’s name was Vyers and he explained the incredibly brutal and inhuman system which Skarack operated.

  Through an arrangement with corrupt officials at the great prison base of Plubium, which was only sixteen hours from this section of Jupiter, Skarack had managed to have hundreds of convicts shipped to his mining settlement. The prison wrote the men off the records as having died, but actually they went to the living death that Skarack had arranged for them. Without the overhead of labor he was able to make fabulous profits from his mineral mines.

  The tip of Dirk’s pick bit deeper into the rocky soil as he thought of it. There was a new set to his jaw and a strange glint in his eyes that had not been there before.

  “I’ll live,” he muttered to himself. “If I have to wait a hundred years I’ll pay him back.”

  “No,” Vyers shook his head briefly. “You won’t. The constant electric hypnosis will kill you in about a year. No one can last longer than that. Then there will be more convicts to replace us.”

  Dirk slammed the pick into the ground and the stout handle almost splintered under the impact.

  ALONG one hundred and eight-day Jovian “month” passed without change. The convicts labored, were knocked out electrically, labored again. Some died. Others came.

  Dirk Temple continued to swing his pick savagely. His hands were as tough as alligator skin, and his complexion was blackened by the sun. The bloat of dissipation had melted from him, leaving him clean-limbed and powerful. These were the physical changes. Something had happened inside Dirk that no one could see. It was something that grew from a white hot core of hatred into a mighty force of determination that was as inevitable in its way as a waterfall. It showed itself in the grim smile that hovered on his lips. In his silent acceptance of the lashings that fell to him. But most noticeably it was evident in his eyes. They were like the windows of Hell; awful in their cold, deliberate, flaming hatred.

  The only soft thought that entered his mind was that of the girl he had seen so briefly his first night in this morass of misery. He thought of her, not as living, but as belonging to his own dead past. Something beautiful and tender that had been destroyed.

  His pick slashed into the ground.

  “One more score,” he muttered.

  When he jerked his pick loose he noticed a few green threads of moss clinging to it. With his next blow he uncovered a patch of the peculiar Jovian creeping moss. It was wiry, hardy stuff, its thin individual filaments tough as strands of steel.

  “Vyers,” he said tensely. An idea had struck him with the suddenness and force of a lightning bolt.

  Vyers glanced up.

  “Yes?”

  “Will this moss conduct electricity?” his vo
ice was strained.

  Vyers shrugged.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Why don’t you try it?”

  “I’m going to,” Dirk snapped. “Listen to me. I’m going to make a pad with this stuff, shove it under my jacket. Maybe I won’t be blanked out tonight. That’s all I need. One night.”

  “You’re mad!” Vyers hissed. “You’ll be caught. Killed.”

  “Fine,” Dirk’s eyes glowed. “That’s where I can’t lose. Either way I’m better off. Want to try it with me?”

  “No,” Vyers said nervously. “No!”

  But that evening as the line of prisoners wound past the guards there were two convicts with slightly padded right shoulders. Vyers went through first. Then Dirk stepped up. His number was bawled out, the guard’s hand whacked him on the shoulder. Dirk’s body stiffened to resist the customary sensation, but with a sudden wild feeling of delirium, he noticed that the usual effects were lacking. He started to step on, but the guard’s command halted him, nerves quivering.

  “Hold it you. What’s wrong with that shoulder?”

  Dirk turned slowly, feigning stupor.

  “Hurt,” he mumbled, “Fell on rock.”

  His hands curled into fists, as he watched the guard through lidded eyes. He was prepared to fight now, regardless of outcome.

  The guard hesitated an instant, then waved him on.

  “Don’t be so damn clumsy,” he shouted after him.

  Dirk slouched on, careful to affect the drugged walk of the other prisoners. But his heart was pounding madly with excitement and hope.

  IN THE central eating room which Dirk remembered but dimly and foggily the prisoners were unshackled. Food was set before them and soon the air was full of the sounds of greedy feeding.

  Dirk kept his head over his plate pretending to eat ravenously. Guards walked back and forth behind the diners, occasionally shoving a drugged prisoner’s head into the sloppy stew just to hear him grunt and strangle.

  The meal was finally over. The men were led to their bunks. Dirk climbed in as did the rest. Through the meal he had not attempted to catch Vyer’s eye, for one glimmer of intelligence on the part of a prisoner would be an instant give-away to the guards.

  Now he waited tensely till the guttural snores of the men would cover any noise he might make, then slipped from his bunk.

  Instantly a shadowy figure joined him. Vyers!

  They did not speak. One iron handshake was all they needed. Then they moved as silently as wraiths through the sleeping room, into the eating room. In Dirk’s mind was only one desire. And that was to feel Skarack’s writhing throat under his hands.

  He motioned Vyers to additional caution as they approached the large doors that led from the eating room. There was a guard stationed outside this door. Little vigilance was exercised over the electrically drugged prisoners.

  This was one thing Dirk was counting on.

  He shoved the door open a cautious inch. The guard was not sleeping. He was pacing up and down before the door and he wheeled, swinging his gun up as it opened slightly.

  “Who is it?” he snapped.

  To close the door would be an invitation for him to throw the great bolt in place and sound an alarm. Dirk did the only other thing possible. He hurled the door wide open and lunged with the speed and ferocity of a tiger at the startled guard.

  His furious driving lunge carried him to the guard’s throat before the deadly atomic pistol could be brought into action. It was over then in an instant. Dirk’s gnarled, powerful hands contracted like the segments of a vise, and the guard’s eyes rolled desperately. With a final wrench Dirk stood up.

  Vyers grabbed the corpse by the feet and dragged it into a shadow.

  They were outside the prisoner’s quarters now. The stockade fence faced them, high and impassable. The gate was heavily guarded with a half dozen armed guards.

  But Dirk had been doing a little thinking.

  “The side gate by the freight ramp,” he snapped. “It’s almost deserted now because there hasn’t been a shipment in months. Let’s try it.”

  It took them twenty minutes to skirt the fence and reach the side gate, but when they did a glance showed them their efforts had not been wasted. The gate was not guarded, and it was covered with tough, thick creepers that wound all the way to the top of the fence.

  HAND over hand the two figures went up the twelve-foot gate. Stuck into Dirk’s belt was the guard’s atomic pistol. Its cold, heavy bulk was reassuring.

  They dropped to the ground, crouched still for an instant to make sure their descent had gone unnoticed, then started off. They had circled half way around the stockade making for Skarack’s office when Dirk stopped. He was standing in front of the dwelling where he had seen the blonde-haired girl. Motioning Vyers to wait he stepped to the door. What he was doing was wild and crazy but he couldn’t stop himself.

  The door was fastened from the inside. He hesitated for a brief fraction of a second, then moved his shoulder slowly, but inevitably against the door. If anybody else were inside, he decided simply, he would kill him.

  For a while the door held, then a bolt shattered and Dirk slipped swiftly into the room.

  “Don’t scream,” he said. “Please don’t.”

  He couldn’t see her, but he knew she was present. Her subtle, warm fragrance was everywhere in the room, a part of it.

  “W—who is it?” the question came from the opposite side of the room.

  “Don’t you remember?” he whispered. “I’m the fellow who said he’d be back. I always keep my word.”

  A sound like a sob came from the girl.

  “Thank God,” she said softly. “I thought you’d been killed long ago. But how are you here?” there was swift alarm in her voice.

  “Escaped,” Dirk said briefly.

  “We’ve gone as far as we can right now. It’s farther than we hoped to get. Our next stop is Skarack. When I’m through with him I don’t care what happens to me”

  “Or anyone?” she asked.

  He was silent. Then:

  “How did you come here?”

  “My father owned this property at one time,” she answered. “Skarack was his foreman. I was in school on Earth and my checks always came from here promptly. What I didn’t know was that father had died years ago and that Skarack had taken over, even to the extent of seeing that my checks were mailed to keep me from becoming suspicious. Finally I got lonely, jumped in a one seater and started off for here without letting anyone know where I was going. When I found out the truth Skarack refused to allow me to leave. He’s made me offers, but I’ve told him I’d rather kill myself.”

  Dirk couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Vyers stuck his head in the door. “Hurry up,” he whispered, “we haven’t got much time left.”

  “If there was any way at all of licking Skarack and his mob,” Dirk said, “I’d take it. But there isn’t. That’s why we’re concentrating on him.”

  “Just a minute,” Dirk heard the girl slip from her bunk, cross to him. “There is a chance if you want to take it. All you need is more alive, alert men. Well, Skarack has a solution that will break the electric hypnosis. He perfected it in case he ever had to move the men or put them to work after they’d been drugged. He told me this one night when he was drunk. That same night I stole a bottle of the drug, hoping I’d get a chance to slip it to someone who could get it to you, or maybe some other prisoner.”

  “I don’t get what you’re driving at.”

  Dirk frowned.

  “Just this,” the girl said breathlessly. “If I gave you the drug and you could slip back and awaken a dozen more men you’d have a chance to overthrow Skarack’s entire horrible system here. If you just get him, someone will take his place and these hundreds of helpless men will be no better off. You can take your private revenge if you wish, but you won’t be satisfying anyone but yourself.”

  “It’s an awfully long gamble,” he said grimly.

 
“Maybe I haven’t the right to ask you to take such a chance,” the girl said softly.

  “You can ask me anything,” he snapped, “anytime, anywhere. Anybody with your guts doesn’t need to apologize for asking someone else to take a risk. Give me that bottle of dope.”

  The girl uttered a happy, choked cry and slipped away from him. She returned in an instant and thrust a slim vial into his hands. A hypodermic needle was strapped to the bottle.

  “Good luck,” she whispered.

  He kissed her then.

  “I’ll be right back for you,” he said, “and remember—I always keep a promise.”

  Wheeling he slipped out the door, pulled Vyers into the shadow of the hut and hurriedly explained the new situation to him.

  “It’s a chance,” he said grimly, “for everybody.”

  “What’re we waiting for?” Vyers snapped.

  AN HOUR later Dirk opened the huge eating room door cautiously and peered out. The stretch approaching the stockade fence was clear. Turning he motioned with his hand, then stepped through the open door.

  Vyers was at his heels. Following Vyers in close formation came twelve crouching shapes, armed with picks and clubs.

  The serum had worked swiftly. Dirk and Vyers had selected the hardiest and gamest of the prisoners to administer the counteractive drug to. The men aroused from the stupefying effects of the electric discs had been hard to restrain. Once they realized that they were free they wanted to charge Skarack’s office and tear the man to pieces.

  Now Dirk paused, held up a hand, the shadowy shapes behind him froze into rigidity.

  “What is it?” Vyers asked.

  “Look!” Dirk pointed to the main gate. “The guards have evidently turned in. Maybe a surprise attack at that point will turn the trick for us.”

  “Long shot,” Vyers muttered.

  “What isn’t?” Dirk snapped. “Come on!”

  Slinking across the lighted areas like stalking wolves the small band reached the shadow of the fence and followed it to the main gate.

  Dirk stole forward alone then. He tried to keep himself from dwelling on the tremendous stakes of this game he was playing. His own life was insignificant, but the courageous girl and the men who trusted him had to have a break. He couldn’t let them down.