Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Is that the standard of perfection?” Ward asked and he couldn’t keep the sarcasm completely from his voice.

  The commander puffed idly on his cigarette and his white, knife-thin features were solemnly thoughtful.

  “Yes,” he said finally, as if he had made up his mind after considerable deliberation, “I should say it is.”

  Ward felt that he had never encountered such monumental conceit; but he was forced to swallow the fact that it was almost completely justified.

  “I’ll try,” he said.

  “Good,” the commander said laconically. “And by the way,” he added, as he started to turn away. “I forgot to introduce myself yesterday. Slater’s the name. Captain Slater when I was with the Federation.”

  “Captain Slater!” Ward repeated dazedly. He felt as if the wind had been knocked from his lungs. “Captain Slater,” he said again, and his voice was a mere whisper.

  CAPTAIN SLATER! The greatest combat fighter ever to wear the Federation’s uniform. Living legend, hero of a thousand stories told and retold in space bases from Mars to Venus. Ward felt a shuddering sense of relief, even in his astonishment. Losing to Captain Slater in combat tactics was nothing to be ashamed of. He remembered hearing of one occasion when the Captain had blasted fourteen freebooters’ ships from the sky by himself, in an exploit that had sent his name to the executive commander’s desk where he had been awarded the highest medals of the Federation accompanied by a citation that was practically lyrical.

  “Well, what’re you staring at?” Captain Slater asked with cynical amusement.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Ward said, “but this is quite a shock.”

  “That bad, eh?” Captain Slater murmured, raising one eyebrow quizzically.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Ward said hastily. “But I understood that—” He paused, floundering. “I heard some story that you had resigned your commission in the Federation and it’s a start to realize that you’re here, commanding a Federation unit.”

  Captain Slater studied him for an instant through the curling smoke of his cigarette.

  “Come with me,” he finally said abruptly. “There are a few points on which you need clarification.”

  He turned on his heel and strode toward his office.

  CAPTAIN SLATER seated himself at his desk and waved Ward to a chair facing him. He poured himself a stiff drink and set the bottle at his elbow.

  “Hanley,” he said, “I’m going to be blunt. We men here are not Federation officers. The Federation chose to kick us out for our opinions, so we don’t owe it any loyalty. We are an independent unit, subject to no authority other than that which is self-imposed. You are in the same spot as the rest of us. You—”

  “Just a minute,” Ward said. “I still hold a commission in the Federation.”

  “That is what I thought when they offered me this post,” Captain Slater said bitterly. “What happened to me has happened to you and your friend, Brick Masters. You were offered a choice. Jupiter asteroid group or resignation, right?”

  “Why, yes,” Ward said.

  “So far, so good,” Captain Slater said. “You accepted an appointment here for five years. If you leave before that time you are a deserter and the Federation will shoot you on sight. But the ironic thing is that you are no more a Federation officer today than I am. I was offered the same deal you got and I decided as you did. But after I left for this hole the court martial quietly tore up my papers and commission, circulated the story that I had changed my mind and had left the service. The same procedure will follow in your case. Don’t you understand? They don’t want us on Earth. They’ve washed their hands of us, condemned us to this hell-hole to live like outcasts because we had the courage to disagree with the stupidity of Earth’s present pacifist policy.”

  Captain Slater’s thin face was burning with an ugly anger as he finished speaking. He tossed off his drink and stood up, glowering down at Ward.

  “What the hell do we owe them?” he said, and his voice was like a breaking lash. “We’re free agents. Two hundred fighting men and sixty fighting ships ready to go to the highest bidder. That’s all we can be, all we’ll ever be.”

  “But supposing Earth should need us?” Ward asked.

  Captain Slater laughed bitterly. “They won’t need us,” he said mockingly.

  “Can’t they communicate with us?” Ward asked.

  “They can, but they won’t. And why should they?” Captain Slater asked ironically. “They know all there is to know about everything and they don’t need us to tell them their business.” He waved a hand toward a covered void-wireless in a corner of the room. “That’s been there for two years and Earth hasn’t called for help yet. And she never will. Think it over, Hanley.” He sat down again abruptly.

  “Get back to work,” he said curtly. “You’re going to be a combat fighter if I have to burn you to a cinder in the process.”

  WARD left the captain’s office with queerly mixed feelings. He felt stunned, his mind was numb from the impact of the captain’s information. He was a man without a country, but the fact his land had disowned him made it additionally worse. He found Brick and related to him the captain’s story.

  “Well,” Brick shrugged, when Ward finished, “what’re you going to do?”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Ward said. “We’ve got to go along here, learning what they can teach us. They seem a helluva lot more advanced than any of the Federation forces on Earth.”

  “Amen to that,” Brick said fervently, “I’ve been working this morning with a gunner who could hit the moon, dead-center, from Earth with a pea-shooter!”

  THREE months passed. Three months in which Brick and Ward worked desperately hard and learned more than they had in their previous three years with the Federation. The attitude of the men at Asteroid Base gradually thawed and as Ward came to know them, he discovered that they were tinged with the same feeling of hopeless, bitter cynicism as was the captain. They felt that they had been renounced, betrayed by their own land, and that consequently they owed no allegiance to anyone or anything but themselves. They were ready to fight, and they were magnificently equipped to fight, but they felt they should fight only for themselves, for their own gain, their own glory.

  And Ward was gradually coming to share that same viewpoint. He had been ill-treated, practically kicked off Earth and exiled to this barren hellhole. And his natural reaction was one of bitterness and resentment. Paradoxically, he still thought of himself as a Federation officer, but he knew, logically and coldly, that he owed Earth nothing.

  One afternoon after the completion of a training flight he headed for the captain’s office to report. As he walked in the door he saw Captain Slater bent over the void-wireless, a tense flushed look on his face.

  The void-wireless was spitting a message from the transmitter, and Ward caught only the last section of it. But he recognized the signal that followed the message. It was a signal that he had memorized in classrooms, but which he had never heard on a ship’s communication system.

  For the signal crackling in regular intervals from the transmitter, was the universal distress of Earth!

  Ward stared in amazement.

  “What the hell’s happening?” he demanded.

  “It seems,” Captain Slater said lazily, as he moved to his desk and picked up the bottle, “that Earth is expecting a bit of trouble. They have spotted a space formation of alien ships at a rendezvous just beyond Heaviside, on a forty degree beam from the eastern seaboard of the United States.”

  “Where are their interceptors?” Ward demanded.

  “Well,” Captain Slater said with a sardonic grin, “they’re having their trouble on Earth too. A revolution has started, saboteurs have destroyed practically the entire interceptor space force. The uprising is led by an Asiatic, Captain Hakari. Interesting situation, isn’t it?”

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” Ward said excitedly. “We’ve got ships and fighting men. Po
ssibly we can get to the rendezvous before the alien space formation attacks. Then—”

  “Just a minute,” Captain Slater said quietly. “We are not going anywhere, Hanley.”

  “But, Earth—”

  “EARTH is no concern of ours,” Captain Slater said grimly. “What would we profit by smashing this force of ours in a futile attempt to save Earth from the results of her own folly? I didn’t build this force to throw it away foolishly. Lawlessness is coming to the void again. We here knew it was coming, but our opinion was disregarded. This time someone else can take care of law and order and I’ll take the spoils. Why in five years of free-booting, do you realize we’ll be kings? We’ll have money, power—”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ward yelled. He gripped the edge of the desk and leaned forward until his face was only a foot from Slater’s. “How can you talk about money when Earth, your own planet, is in danger and needs every fighting man it can muster?”

  “That is no concern of mine,” Captain Slater said calmly.

  “Well it is of mine I” Ward snapped. “I’m heading back for Earth.”

  “I beg to differ with you,” Captain Slater murmured sarcastically. He drew a gun from his desk drawer and pointed it at Ward’s stomach. “You’re going to stay right here on Asteroid Base, Hanley.”

  Ward stared at the gun for a moment.

  “You can shoot me in the back if you like,” he said and walked toward the door. His shoulder muscles were tensing instinctively for the impact of a bullet as he stepped out of the office and headed for the mooring tower at a dead run. He met Brick at the base of the tower.

  “Come on,” he snapped, “we’re blasting off for Earth.”

  “What the hell’s up?” Brick asked.

  “I’ll tell you on the way,” Ward answered.

  As he clambered into the tiny two-seater ship and reached out to slam the door he saw Captain Slater’s lean form in the doorway of the office watching him with one hand shading his eyes. The other hand was thrust negligently in his pocket and every line of his pose suggested the cynical mockery which Ward knew would be gleaming in his dark eyes.

  He slammed the door and snapped on the firing switches.

  A few seconds later the ship blasted out of its socket and screamed through the atmosphere, Earth-bound . . .

  CHAPTER IV

  THE trip from Earth to the Jupiter asteroid group had taken Ward and Brick two days; the return trip was made in a fourth of that time. From the moment they left the asteroid base Ward had savagely gunned the ship until every rocket chamber was shrieking protestingly, and the firing detonators were heating dangerously.

  Nine hours after they left the asteroid base Ward sighted the alien space formation in the fore visi-screen. He immediately cut the speed of his ship and swung up in a steep climb.

  The ships that were visible in the visi-screen were all of a solid silver color, completely devoid of identifying insignia. They were exactly like the ship with which they had exchanged electronic blasts on the Astra’s Earthbound flight months previous.

  “That ship we fired at must have been a long-range scouter,” Brick said. “Probably sneaking in for reconnaissance information.”

  Ward was grimly studying the formation of ships on visi-screen. They were lined in three triangular columns, apparently waiting for a signal to attack.

  ABOUT two hundred,” Ward estimated quickly.

  “What’ll we do?” Brick asked.

  Before Ward could answer the formation of alien ships began to move and, one by one, the ships peeled off in slow dives toward Earth.

  “There’s only one thing we can do,” Ward said. He looked at Brick steadily. “We can delay them for a few minutes anyway.”

  Brick grinned.

  “A few minutes is better than nothing. Let’s go.”

  Ward threw the idling rockets into full power and dove straight for the densest section of the enemy formation. The silver ships grew larger on the screen at an alarming rate; and then orange puffs suddenly began to mushroom from their gleaming sides.

  “They’ve spotted us,” Ward snapped.

  “They’re off the range,” Brick said. “Keep going.”

  He moved to the small cowled gun turret and took a quick finding with the firing panel. As Ward sent their ship flashing under the belly of the first ship in formation Brick fired a broadside that burned it to nothingness in a twinkling second.

  “Number one!” he yelled.

  “Number two isn’t going to be so easy,” Ward said grimly.

  He maneuvered his ship desperately to avoid a cross-fire and Brick snapped out another blast that missed its mark by a fraction.

  That miss made their position impossible. Three ships converged on them, lining them up for a destructive cross-fire blast that would burn them from the void in a split-second.

  Ward put every atom of his new training and skill behind the manipulation of the ship, but it was a hopeless situation. They had him dead and were taking their time to make absolutely sure they didn’t miss fire.

  Brick suddenly grabbed Ward’s arm and pointed excitedly to the visi-screen.

  “Look,” he yelled flashed a quick glance at the visi-screen and saw a formation of fifty fighters streaking toward them. And in the lead was the slim crimson ship of Captain Slater.

  “It’s the Asteroid Base fleet!” Brick yelled, pounding Ward on the shoulder.

  “I knew Slater would come,” Ward said.

  The appearance of the formidable fighter group had distracted two of the ships which had been pocketing Ward’s ship. When they swung away he was able to climb into the clear. From a height of several miles Ward and Brick watched the onslaught of the fighter squadron led by Captain Slater’s crimson ship on the milling, disorganized formation of the silver ships.

  Ward took his eyes off the battle long enough to open the communications channels to Earth.

  “Fighter ship, Asteroid Base squadron calling Earth.”

  He sent the message twice before he got an answer. The Earth operator’s voice was tense with excitement.

  “Earth calling fighting ship. We have things under control here, but cannot handle invasion from space. The formation of enemy ships on beam 40 outside Heaviside is from Sirius. Can you give us information on when they may launch attack? That is all. Please come in.”

  “Calling Earth. Don’t worry about the silver raiders from Sirius. A fleet from Asteroid Base under the command of Captain Slater has things pretty well in hand.”

  Ward snapped off the radio and headed the ship back down for the vast space battle raging over a thousand square miles of the void.

  But even at that early stage the superiority of the Earth was becoming obvious. And Captain Slater’s crimson ship was like a grim harbinger of vengeance as it flashed repeatedly into the densest formations of the Sirius raiders and left smoking ruin in its wake.

  Brick and Ward got one more ship before the bulk of the silver squadron broke and streaked away from Earth.

  The crimson ship of Captain Slater stayed on the trail of the Sirius raiders as they headed for the vast reaches of outer space. His ship closed on the stragglers like a hungry shark. But as the formation of silver ships was vanishing into pin-points in infinity Ward saw something that brought a choking lump to his throat.

  A desperate blast from a silver ship had caught Captain Slater’s ship in a direct hit; and it vanished into cinders in the void. His own cool recklessness had worked against him. The ship that got him was one that he passed with his blinding speed and grim anxiety to close with the bulk of the formation, where the spoils would be richest. A blast from behind had done what no ship had ever been able to do from the front.

  Ward swung their ship wearily toward Earth. The raiders from Sirius might come again, but Earth would be prepared for them.

  And he realized that Captain Slater and the men of Asteroid Base who had died in the void today, had not died in vain. Their insistence on the id
eal of preparedness would bear fruit now and Earth would always be richer for having had such men in its hour of desperate need.

  WORLD BEYOND BELIEF

  First published in the August 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

  Oscar didn’t believe in reincarnation until three of his ancestors returned in the flesh. Then he wished he had!

  CHAPTER I

  OSCAR DOODLE arrived at his modestly furnished apartment every evening at six o’clock and by six ten he would be resting in his favorite chair sipping a glass of light sherry and reading the evening papers.

  The sherry was brought to him by his Filipino houseboy, Chico, Oscar’s one extravagance.

  This particular evening was no exception to the inevitable pattern. He was seated comfortably enjoying his sherry and Chico was busy in the small kitchen, preparing dinner.

  Oscar Doodle was not a remarkable man. In fact if anyone was interested in making a catalogue of the prosaic, colorless, unimportant people in the country, Oscar’s name would be certain of inclusion. He had never made Who’s Who; he would have been, however, a candidate for Who Cares?

  His life was bounded on three sides; his job, as a minor executive in a small bank, in whose service he had slaved for sixteen years, was his chief interest. Second to this came his well-ordered and pleasant apartment, dominated by the marvelous efficiency of Chico. And last and least was the not-too-young lady with whom he kept fairly steady company, Miss Agatha Prim.

  Miss Prim was a quiet, cultivated sort of person and he found her company restful. What she found in him no one ever bothered to ask.

  Chico came into the room as he finished the last of his sherry.

  “Dinner is ready,” Chico said quietly. He was brown and moon-faced with a quick flashing smile that displayed a mouthful of large white teeth.

  Oscar rose to his feet and burped gently, another of his punctual habits.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’m going out tonight, Chico, I wish you’d set out my gray suit.”