Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Thanks,” Allerton said, smiling affably. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Linda. And of course I’ve read all about your adventurous past.” His glance dropped to the desk, swept over the charts and specifications. “Don’t take a chance on anything slipping up, do you?”

  “No,” Barry answered, “we don’t. If you’ve ever time-traveled you’ll realize that there are enough unknown factors to meet, without adding to them by carelessness or oversight.”

  “Bruce understands that,” Linda said quickly, “he’s had some experience with time travel himself. He made all the arrangements for father’s trip. Father wouldn’t trust the last minute inspections to anyone but Bruce.”

  Her attitude was defensive and Barry smiled.

  “I’m sure he’s very capable,” he said diplomatically.

  “It’s because I understand some of the risks you’re taking,” Allerton said, “that I objected to Linda’s going with you.”

  “Going with me?” Barry raised an eyebrow and glanced at Linda. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “I didn’t tell you,” Linda said, blushing, “because I knew you’d object. But I am going. This means everything to me.”

  BARRY noticed her grimly set jaw and sighed.

  “Okay,” he said. “As long as you realize what you’re letting yourself in for it’s all right.”

  Allerton objected, “But it’s very likely to be dangerous, darling.”

  “I don’t care,” Linda said stubbornly.

  “All right,” Allerton shrugged his big shoulders philosophically, “if that’s the way you want it. But if you think I’m going to let you tackle this thing alone you’re crazy. If you go, I go.”

  “Now, Bruce,” Linda said softly, “that’s sweet of you, but I really—”

  “That’s final,” Allerton said. “If you go, I go. How do you think I’d feel if anything happened to you? You know I’d never forgive myself.”

  “Okay, okay,” Barry said, feeling suddenly irritable, “this is not a sight-seeing tour we’re taking, but it’s your own business if you want to come along. We’re arranging to leave tomorrow night about nine o’clock. Allerton, bring along a complete set of equipment, clothes, guns and gear for yourself. Miss Carstairs, you do the same. Get metal-fabric clothes that will take a beating and don’t forget inhalators. We’ll have to leave from approximately the same position that your father did. Now here’s something else I’d like to know. Can either of you give me any reason that might have influenced Professor Carstairs to travel thirty-thousand years into the past?”

  Allerton shook his head.

  “I was pretty close to the professor,” he said, “but I don’t know why he made the trip. His work here was concerned with synthetic energy. He was making very wonderful strides. As a matter of fact the company which he and I established to distribute his invention is just starting to expand.”

  “And you?” Barry glanced at Linda. “You can’t think of any reason either?” The girl shook her head.

  “Okay,” Barry said. “Until tomorrow night you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got a million things to do.” . . .

  The time ship was designed in the shape of an ovoid, almost forty feet long. Its brilliant gleaming surface refracted light at what seemed odd angles and this peculiarity created the optical effect that the sides of the ship were pulsating in shimmering waves.

  Barry and McGregor stood by the open door of the ship making an exhaustive last minute check-up of supplies and equipment.

  “Well,” McGregor muttered, scratching his unruly red hair, “I think we’re all set.”

  He was dressed in smooth metal-fabric breeches and knee-high leather boots. A heat resistant helmet with an inhalator attached was dangling from the thick belt at his waist.

  Barry’s keen eyes traveled carefully over the duffel bags which were stacked outside the ship. Then he glanced impatiently at his watch.

  “We’re ready,” he said. “Linda and Allerton should be here any minute.” He turned and stepped through the door into the interior of the ship. Small, brilliant phosphorescent lights set into the ceiling every few feet bathed the ship with brightness.

  The three crew members glanced up and Barry nodded to them.

  “All set?” he asked.

  One of them, a tall thin man with leathery, wrinkled skin and sharp, blue eyes, turned from the intricate controls of the ship and said,

  “Never be more so.” He grinned and went on, “Seems like old times, doesn’t it?”

  BARRY smiled fleetingly and the effect on his face was interesting. The hard, almost cold lines of his mouth softened and his gray eyes brightened.

  “Yes, Upton,” he said, “it does. We’ve made a lot of these trips together.”

  The man called Upton wiped his hands on his breeches.

  “We’re going a long way this time,” he said soberly. “Any idea of what we’ll find back that far?”

  “We’ll find trouble,” Barry stated matter-of-factly. He turned to the other two crew members who were stacking concentrated packages of food into the small, compact compartments of the ship.

  “When you’re through,” he told them, “start stacking the gear into the ship. We aren’t waiting for anyone.”

  When he left the ship he saw that it was almost dark. McGregor was a huge shadow against the blackness.

  “They haven’t showed yet, eh?” Barry said grimly. “Do they think this is a suburban bus that leaves every hour?”

  The time ship was resting in an enclosed area about a half mile from the laboratory where Professor Carstairs had departed.

  “Maybe,” McGregor said hopefully, “they changed their minds.”

  “Women,” Barry said disgustedly, “never change their minds except when you’d rather they didn’t.”

  As if in direct substantiation of this remark the door of the enclosure opened and Bruce Allerton and Linda Carstairs appeared.

  Linda ran forward, Allerton following.

  “I hope we aren’t late,” Linda said breathlessly.

  “You’re on time,” Barry said. He realized that he sounded curt and he was irritated with himself for it. Subconsciously he had been hoping she would be late, so he would have something to grumble about.

  Linda climbed into the ship without answering and Allerton stepped forward.

  “Everything ready, skipper?” he asked jovially.

  Barry noticed that two bulky ray guns were strapped to his waist. As a rule only show-offs and fools carried two weapons like that, but he had the impression that Allerton was neither a show-off or a fool. The guns seemed perfectly at home and Allerton looked as if he would know what to do with them if the need arose.

  The two crew members had loaded the gear into the ship now and Barry, with a last quick look about, said, “Let’s go. The sooner we get started the sooner we’ll be back.”

  “That sounds encouraging,” Allerton said. “I hope it works out that way.” Barry entered the ship after McGregor and Allerton had closed the door behind him.

  In the lighted interior he saw that Allerton was attired the same as he and McGregor and the crew members, but when he glanced at Linda his mouth settled into a thin straight line.

  She was wearing a boy’s shirt and absurdly small boots, but instead of breeches, she wore a short, metal-fabric skirt that failed by several inches to cover her bare knees.

  She caught his glance and blushed. “I’m sorry if I seem to stare,” Barry said with a grim smile, “but I was just wondering about the practicality of that skirt if we have to make a trek through insect infested underbrush. Didn’t I tell you to get breeches?”

  “Y-yes,” Linda said, “but I looked atrocious in them.”

  Barry heard McGregor groan softly. “Okay,” he said, “it’s too late to do anything about it now.”

  He strode to the control panel of the ship. For a few moments he made calculations on a line-spiralled chart, then he set two rheostats and moved a c
alibrated bar into place.

  Upton was at his side, his keen eyes moving over the control panel.

  “I think that does it,” he said to Barry.

  Barry nodded. “McGregor,” he snapped. “See that the door is sealed and the oxygen vents opened a point.”’

  In a moment McGregor answered, “Everything set, Boss.”

  Barry’s hand closed over a master switch. Then he hesitated and swung about to face the occupants of the ship. His eyes passed over them slowly.

  “BRUCE ALLERTON was sitting next to Linda, smoking a cigarette calmly. McGregor and the two crew members were standing together at the end of the ship, Upton was at his side. Linda’s eyes were on the floor and her cheeks were still faintly flushed. Barry noticed with amusement that she had curled her feet under her and pulled the skirt down over her knees.

  “I want one thing understood,” he said quietly. “My job is to get this party back safely and I need absolute obedience if I’m going to do it. If that isn’t entirely satisfactory to anyone he’d better not go any farther.”

  Allerton looked up. “Why naturally, old man, what you say goes. You can count on me to do just as you wish. That goes for both Linda and myself.”

  “Fine,” Barry said. “If anything should happen to me, McGregor will take over.”

  He swung back to the control panel and gripped the master switch.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  He shoved the switch forward . . .

  FOR an instant there was a complete silence in the ship, broken only by the movement of the occupants. Then, so lightly at first as to seem only a vibration, a soft humming noise was audible.

  Barry’s eyes roved swiftly over the instruments.

  Then he settled back.

  “We’re on our way,” he said.

  “Is this all there is to it?” Linda asked.

  Barry nodded. His eyes were half closed and there was a faint smile on his lips.

  “It isn’t very exciting, is it?” he murmured. “No noise, no flashing lights or dizzying speed.”

  What he had said was true, he thought. There were no external evidences to amaze or shock a time-traveler. But to those, like himself, who had traveled much, there was something else. It was a feeling, a subtle awareness of cosmic motion. Their time ship, a slim ovoid of gleaming speed, was flashing back through the distant mazes of time, criss-crossing from layer to layer, sinking deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine depths of the unguessable past. It was lifting the veil of mystery that guarded the secret of the cosmos and, at the same time, it was multiplying that mystery a thousand fold.

  It was this nameless sensation that Barry always experienced. A feeling of being an integral, though infinitesimal, part of a larger and more vast system than it was possible to imagine. Some never felt it.

  Linda said unexpectedly, “There is something exciting about it.” Her voice was hushed and somewhat troubled. “Something you can’t describe or analyze, but you feel it, nevertheless.

  Allerton laughed, his big voice striking a jarring note in the stillness of the ship.

  “What nonsense!” he chuckled.

  Barry glanced at him distastefully. Again the thought hit him that Allerton wasn’t good enough for Linda Carstairs.

  He shrugged and closed his eyes. If he wasn’t careful he’d be developing a prejudice against Allerton, founded only on his own foolish ideas.

  Gradually, listening to the faint soothing humming, he was able to forget the matter. For a long time he sat before the control panel, hardly moving a muscle.

  It was three hours later before he opened his eyes and moved his arms and shoulders.

  The humming noise had stopped.

  Barry stood up.

  “Okay,” he said. “Here we are.”

  CHAPTER III

  Barry Meets the Bird-Girls

  THERE was silence for an instant in the ship. Then McGregor moved to the door, and Allerton and Linda stood up.

  “Careful,” Barry said. The interior of the ship was becoming uncomfortably warm. A heavy drop of perspiration dropped from his forehead to the floor.

  He stepped ahead of McGregor to the door, his hand moving instinctively to the holster at his belt. With a cautious hand he opened the door until a crack of bright light appeared and then he shoved it open all the way, blocking the door with his body.

  For a long silent moment he remained in the ship, his eyes traveling about in a wide careful arc. Then he stepped from the ship to the ground, his whipcord muscles tensed and ready. It was only after he had satisfied himself that there was no immediate danger that he waved to McGregor.

  “Okay,” he said. “It looks safe enough.”

  The ship had landed in the middle of a small clearing, bounded on four sides by huge green masses of coarse underbrush. The floor of the clearing was covered with a matting of coarse rank grass that was as thick as leather shoe strings.

  The air was close and oppressive, hardly stirring the heavy, towering shoots of green brush. The foliage of the forest was dense and foreboding, seeming to brood in a sultry silence.

  Linda and Allerton followed McGregor’s burly form from the ship. Barry was still taking stock of their environment, his eyes sweeping about the upper branches of the dank, lush undergrowth.

  The sky overhead was brilliantly white and the sun, a molten ball of brass on the horizon, still beat hotly on this jungle.

  “It’s terribly primitive, isn’t it?” Linda said at his side.

  Barry nodded. “This is the interior of the North American continent, yet it’s wilder and more primeval than the darkest spots in the Africa of our time. Your father landed near here. Tomorrow we’ll set out with a searching party, scouring the vicinity in widening circles until we find his machine. It’s too late to do anything now, but I’m going to take Upton and make sure this is a safe camp site.”

  “You’ll be careful, won’t you?” Barry glanced sideways at her, one of his rare grins breaking the hardness of his face.

  “Sure thing,” he said. Still smiling he strolled to where McGregor and Upton were clearing the thick matted grass from the ground.

  McGregor’s broad back was soaking wet and heavy drops of sweat were dripping from his forehead.

  “A blighted land, it is,” he growled. “I’m lucky if I don’t melt away to nothing in this heat.”

  “It’ll do you good,” Upton said unsympathetically, “to boil some of that grease out of your system.”

  “Why, you bag of bones,” McGregor roared indignantly, “a canary couldn’t get a meal from the meat on your skeleton.”

  BARRY chuckled to himself as he approached the two men. There was nothing serious in their wrangling. It went on eternally, but good naturedly.

  “Upton,” he said, “get a couple of rifles and a compass. You and I are taking a short look around. Mac, I want you to set up camp and post a guard until I return. Don’t let anyone leave this clearing under any circumstances.”

  “I got you, boss, McGregor nodded, “but why don’t you let me go with you? You may need me.”

  “You’re needed here,” Barry said. “Besides, according to Upton, you’ve got a little too much avoirdupois to make a good hiker.”

  McGregor scowled down at the matted jungle floor.

  “Wait ’til I get a dictionary,” he said fiercely, “if avoordewpoise means what I think it does, that little shrimp had better look out.”

  Upton came up then and Barry took a rifle from him. It was a short weapon, with a slim barrel and a heavy, insulated drum attached to the stock. In spite of its unprepossessing appearance it was a savage instrument, capable of stunning a charging animal with one devastating electric blast.

  Barry checked its compact, powerful battery and did the same with the revolver at his waist.

  Then, with Upton close at his heels, he plunged into the dense jungle. His intention was to circle the camp and make sure that there was no possible danger lurking in the immediate” v
icinity.

  Using a long heavy knife with a razor-sharp edge to hack away the clinging trailers, he plowed on, sinking almost to his ankles in the loamy soil.

  The noise of their passage introduced them to the first signs of life they had noticed. From the overhanging boughs above their heads brilliantly plumaged birds flashed into sight and disappeared with shrill, raucous cries. When the birds were motionless it was impossible to detect them against the green background, for their green and brown wing feathers camouflaged them completely. But when they opened their wings their gorgeous breast colorings and inner wing feathers created the illusion that small, noisy rainbows were flitting through the somber green bushes.

  It was a half hour later before they came to another clearing, a great deal larger than the one in which their ship had landed.

  Barry checked the compass, as they paused to catch a breath. They were both grimy with dirt and damp with sweat.

  “We’ll cross the clearing,” Barry said, slipping the compass back to his pocket, “then circle the camp before returning. Come on.”

  They started across the clearing, Barry in the lead.

  THE sun was just beginning to slide over the far horizon and there was a still, breathless feeling in the close air, as if all the life in this young pulsing jungle had suddenly been stilled.

  Barry noticed it and glanced warily about the clearing. The blood-red shafts of light that speared through the towering brush threw grotesque shadows flickering across the open space. In the white, crimson-shot sky, mighty birds, so far off as to appear only as drifting specks, circled restlessly.

  Suddenly a frenzied flurry of wings beat against the air and a score of birds flashed from the bush, their fear-crazed screams blasting the unnatural silence.

  Then Barry heard a ponderous threshing to his right. Wheeling he saw the heavy brushes on that side of the clearing trembling like straws in a gale and he felt the matted earth beneath his feet quiver.

  Grabbing Upton by the arm, he unslung his rifle.