Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  He pushed a button at his elbow, then ~ stood and poured himself a drink from the table at his reading chair. His apartment was sparely furnished. There were a cot, desk, reading chair, and of course his books and charts.

  A knock sounded and he said, “Come in.”

  It was his chief engineer, MacDonald, a tall graying roan with thoughtful eyes and a reserved manner.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. He stood at attention easily.

  “That’s all right, MacDonald,” Storm said. “Will you have a drink?”

  MacDonald hesitated almost imperceptibly, then said, “I think not, sir, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Very well.”

  Storm put his drink down. He had no flair for relaxing with his men, for being genial and off-handed* It didn’t bother him particularly; he knew he was respected but not liked by most men. There was a wall of stubborn steel around him that rebuffed all but the most impersonal contact.

  “We will blast-off sometime tomorrow morning, probably before eight, and not after nine. I want everything ready by six.”

  “Yes, sir. Will that be all?”

  “That’s all,” Storm said curtly.

  WHEN MacDonald had gone Storm walked into the intercom panel and flicked open the switch. “Hear this,” he said, in his hard flat voice, and in his imagination he could see men stopping their work in all parts of the craft, of men in bunks rising up one elbow, of sleeping men waking, as his voice, the supreme voice on the ship, was carried echoing throughout the corridors and compartments of the craft.

  “Hear this,” he repeated. “All leaves are cancelled as of now. No one will be allowed off the ship unless he has my written permission. All personnel except guards on duty will assemble in the forward gun chamber in fifteen minutes. That is all.”

  Storm flicked off the switch and went into his bedroom where he washed his face and hands and put on a clean shirt. He put on his tunic and fastened the command belt with its five-starred buckle about his flat waist.

  Turning toward the door he saw himself in the mirror, and noticed the lines of exhaustion at the corners of his mouth, the hard look of his eyes. Readying the Astro Star II had meant twenty hours of work every day. It hadn’t been fun; but there was nothing else he’d rather have done.

  Smiling, he left his office and walked down the companionway to the forward gun chamber where he had scheduled the meeting of the ship’s company.

  THE doors leading to the gun chamber were ajar and Storm stopped as he heard a great shout of laughter from inside the room.

  Someone called for silence and as the laughter faded another voice said, “Really, men, I’m not that funny. The credit should go to our indomitable skipper who supplies me with all the material.”

  Storm took an involuntary step forward, his great hands clenching. But he stopped as the carefree mocking voice beyond the doors continued speaking.

  Storm knew the voice. It belonged to Captain Larry Masterson, a gunnery officer, whose recklessness and irresponsibility had worried him since the first day of training. He had thought of getting rid of him; but Storm didn’t like admitting he couldn’t handle the situation.

  Larry Masterson now was telling the men in the gun chamber the circumstances of his first meeting with Commander Storm. The muffled laughter was a tribute to his ability as a mimic.

  Storm pushed the doors open gently and watched with hands on hips, as Larry Masterson continued his story.

  Masterson was facing a semi-circle of seventy or eighty crew members, and speaking in a broadly comic imitation of Storm’s hard flat voice. “The hand salute,” the young captain was saying, “is not intended to convey anything but respect. It is not a gesture by which one indicates high spirits or personality, Captain.”

  “Quite right,” Storm said mildly, and walked into the room.

  Larry Masterson stiffened suddenly and the circle of crew members after one horrified look at Storm raised their eyes in agonized innocence to a point high in the air Storm said to the captain, “You’re carrying your childishness too far, young man. You’re getting infantile.’* Larry Masterson stared over Storm’s shoulder, stiffly at attention, but there was a hint of secret laughter at the corners of his mouth.

  “Captain,” Storm said, “do you think you’re amusing?”

  Larry hesitated an instant before saying, “Yes, sir,” in a meek voice.

  Someone laughed; and Storm knew he was allowing the situation to become difficult,

  “Report to my quarters in ten minutes” he said to the young captain, and then turned to face the semi-circle of crew members. They fell into immediate silence.

  “I asked you to come here for one reason,” Storm said, speaking in a tight clipped voice. “Leaves are cancelled, as you know, and you deserve to know why. Tomorrow morning we blast off for Jupiter. I—”

  Someone let out a yell and then the entire crew was cheering. Storm watched them for a moment, then held up his hand for silence. He was not touched or impressed by the demonstration. It meant nothing. The time to cheer was when something had been accomplished.

  “You know the job ahead of us,” he said. “It may be difficult, tiresome and dangerous. But understand this, gentlemen, we will do that job. I will accept excuses, but not failure. Carry on!”

  STORM was lighting a cigar when a knock sounded on the door of his quarters. He opened the door and saw Captain Larry Masterson standing there at attention.

  “Captain Masterson reporting as ordered, sir,” he said.

  “Come in,” Storm said.

  He puffed on his cigar until it was drawing to his satisfaction, then looked at the young officer and said, “Don’t you like this assignment, Captain?”

  Captain Masterson made the slightest of shrugs. “Is my attitude important, sir?”

  “Not to me, but I thought it might be to you.”

  Storm studied the younger man thoughtfully. Larry Masterson was tall, slimly built, with curly blonde hair and merry blue eyes. Except for a certain untried look about his mouth he was an extremely handsome young man. Storm knew that he came from a wealthy influential family, which had placed many of its members in top military and diplomatic posts. The boy’s father was a retired secretary of Conservation, and several of his uncles had been in the World Parliament.

  Storm said, “Are you worried about the uncertainties of inter-planetary travel, perhaps?”

  The young captain flushed. “I asked for the assignment, sir. I’ve been a space flier since I graduated from the Cadet Center. I know what space is, sir.”

  “Oh, Tm sure you do,” Storm said with heavy irony. “Then what is it that makes you undermine my authority aboard the ship?”

  “Do I have to answer that question, sir?”

  “I would prefer that you do,” Storm said dryly*

  “Very well, sir. I find it difficult to serve under an officer who has been dishonorably discharged from the service.”

  Storm stood motionless for an instant, and then he carefully knocked the ash from his cigar.

  “That will be all, Captain.”

  “You asked for it,” Larry said, hotly. “That’s the way I feel and—”

  Storm’s voice cut harshly across his sentence. “I said, that will be all, Captain.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  When he had gone Storm stared at the closed door for several moments without moving. Then he pounded a fist into his palm and his eyes were hot and bitter.

  CHAPTER II

  THE blast-off was without incident. The mighty Astro Star moved up through Earth’s atmosphere under auxiliary power and then, at sixty thousand feet, the aft atomic rockets crackled into life.

  The ship leaped upward trailing a mile-long stream of orange fire in its wake. It hissed through the thinning atmosphere and cleared the Heaviside layer in a matter of seconds. Void-bound, it wrenched itself clear from the pull of Earth, and shot outward with flashing silent speed.

  Storm left the bridge the
n and returned to his quarters where he snapped on the visi-screen. He watched the depths ahead for a few moments, noting asteroid clusters, and comets that: appeared on their course. Everything was routine so far. The powerful deflector rays of the Astro Star II spread thousands of miles beyond the ship and nothing smaller than a class I comet could penetrate that buffer.

  Nothing of incident occurred until the second day. Storm was at his desk checking reports from his subcommanders on the operation of the ship, when his orderly knocked and entered with an anxious expression on his face.

  “Sir, there’s trouble in compartment B.”

  “What happened?” Storm said, rising from his chair.

  “A cadet has gone berserk sir.”

  “A little early for hysterics,” Storm muttered, and went down the corridor toward B at the half-trot. The doer to the compartment was locked; and there was no response to Storm’s resounding knock.

  He stared at the door for a second, then pulled his heat gun. Compartment B, he knew, was the sleeping and recreation quarters for the cadet members of the crew, most of them youngsters in their last year of training.

  Storm adjusted his gun for a two-foot target and played a ray of white heat against the lock of the door. It dissolved instantly and he nudged the door open cautiously with his foot.

  Through the aperture he saw that eight crewmen were standing against one wall with their hands raised in the air. They were all officers, and among them he noticed Captain Larry Masterson.

  On the floor were lying two cadets in shorts and beside them were long handled brushes and buckets of soapy water. The two men were looking fearfully past a third cadet who stood above them with a heat gun in his hand. The gun was trained unwaveringly on the officers.

  This cadet was a slightly built youth who wore the green tunic, black trousers and white cap of a first class cadet Storm couldn’t see his face.

  “I don’t intend to be treated as a child by you barbarians,” he was saying in a light cool voice to the officers as Storm eased through the door and began to close in on him from behind.

  “You may humiliate these other cadets if they allow it, but I’ll put a hole through the first man who tries to give me a bath I don’t need.’* Storm moved with savage speed as he came up behind the cadet. His right hand chopped down in a blurring arc and the rock-hard edge of his palm cracked against the cadet’s arm. The gun flew upward and Storm caught it in mid-air; the cadet cried out in pain and dropped to the ground, clutching his injured arm.

  Storm glanced at the two cadets lying on the floor. “Get up,” he said, and then he swung around to face the officers, who had lowered their arms and were facing him sheepishly.

  “I think you men understand my orders about hazing,” he said curtly. “Return to your rooms and consider yourselves under arrest. I will talk to you later.”

  Several officers had come in behind Storm with guns drawn. They put them away at a motion from him. He glanced down at the cadet who still lying on the floor clutching his arm, and said, “Report to me immediately in my quarters,” and left the compartment.

  “WHAT’S your name?” Storm said to the cadet a little later in his office.

  “Thomas, sir,” the cadet said in a low voice.

  Storm sat at his desk, a dark frown on his face. He studied the cadet carefully. The boy was slim, with fine features, fair skin and deep, vivid-blue eyes. His hair was “black and cut short. He was older than Storm had first judged. There was a weary, tired bitterness in his face that contrasted oddly with the boyish fairness of his skin.

  “What was the idea of that tantrum?” Storm asked quietly.

  “I—I saw no reason to submit myself to the indignity of being scrubbed with a stiff brush.”

  “You realize you could be shot for drawing a gun on a superior officer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How’s your arm?”

  “All right, sir.” The cadet touched it with his other hand and winced painfully.

  “Take off your jacket,” Storm said, and turned to his desk. He wanted to get to the bottom of this situation, for any temperamental explosion like this might set off a series of them, like a string of firecrackers. He found his resentment against Captain Masterson growing. Trust that young fool to precipitate such a situation.

  He turned around and his anger suddenly sharpened as he saw the cadet still wearing his jacket.

  “It’s all right, sir,” the cadet said hastily.

  “By God, I don’t give orders to hear the sound of ray voice” Storm snapped. “Take off that jacket F*

  The cadet made no more to obey; and Storm’s patience ran out. He stood and grabbed the young man by the arm and jerked him about. The cadet struggled in his grasp and kicked backward at Storm’s shins.

  “You need a taste of discipline,” Storm said grimly.

  He twisted the cadet’s uninjured arm sharply and brought him to the floor in a kneeling position. Then he gripped the collar of his jacket and ripped the garment down over his elbows. Buttons spattered the floor.

  “Now stand up and finish the job,” Storm said.

  The cadet got slowly to his feet, and the jacket slipped from his arms and dropped to the floor.

  “Turn around,” Storm ordered.

  The cadet obeyed slowly, smiling bitterly, and Storm suddenly felt the breath leave his lungs in a rush.

  “Good God,” he said.

  The “cadet” was a girl!

  SHE faced him unashamedly, defiantly, nude from the waist up, her shoulders thrown back and her head held high. Her breasts were small and firm and perfect and her waist could have been encircled with his two hands.

  On her left forearm—the arm he had struck—was an ugly, swelling bruise.

  “Put on that jacket,” Storm said.

  “A second ago you tried to jerk it off by main strength,” the girl said, quietly.

  Storm stooped and retrieved the jacket. He held it while the girl slipped into it awkwardly, favoring her injured arm.

  Storm nodded to the chair beside his desk. “Sit down and we’ll get to the bottom of this. You stowed away last night, I presume. Did you take Cadet Thomas’ place?”

  “That’s right,” the girl said.

  “Where is Cadet Thomas now?”

  “At my apartment. That is, he was there. I presume he has waked by now. He probably has a horrible head.”

  “You drugged him, took his uniform and papers and came aboard. Why?”

  The girl said “Did you ever know a man named Thatcher?”

  “Thatcher?” Storm looked at the girl closely. “Yes, I knew a man by that name. He accompanied Commander Griffith to Jupiter eleven years ago. He remained there with Griffith to die.”

  The girl sprang to her feet. “No! That’s a lie. He can’t be dead!”

  “You knew him?” Storm said quietly.

  The girl sat down again and her deep eyes grew bitter, “Yes, I knew him,” she whispered. “I loved him. I was seventeen then and we were going to be married.”

  “You came on this trip hoping to find him alive?”

  “There’s a chance, isn’t there?” the girl said. “Don’t you see, I had to take it.”

  “No, I don’t,” Storm said harshly. “You’ve ruined a young man’s career, you’ve forced yourself on a trip where you’ll cause trouble, just on the thin chance that your fiancée might still be alive.” He rang impatiently for his chief medical officer. “What’s your name?” he said. “Margo.”

  Storm sat in silence, a heavy frown on his face, until the ship’s medical officer appeared. He was a portly, gray-haired man with very red cheeks, which got even redder when Storm explained the situation to him.

  “Well, well,” he said, peering down at the girl as if she were some hitherto undiscovered fauna. “Well, well,” he added.

  “I understand what you mean,” Storm said drily. “Put her into a compartment away from the run of ship’s business, and take a look at her arm.
She will receive her meals there, and I’ll have a guard posted to see that she stays put. Also, you’d better inform the crew of this development. Give them all the facts. I don’t want a lot of stupid gossip and speculation started.”

  “Very well,” the medical officer said. He nodded to the girl, who had gotten to her feet, and said, “Just come along with me, please.” He started to offer her his arm, but seeing Storm’s frown, cleared his throat and proceeded her from the room.

  The girl paused. She looked at

  Storm and there was pity in her smile. “You’ve never loved anyone, have you?”

  “You are excused,” Storm said firmly, and turned to his desk.

  CHAPTER III

  THEY landed on Jupiter sixteen days later. Storm set to work immediately to convert a tiny section of the planet into an efficient space base. The men were restless after the enforced inactivity of the trip and needed a period of diversion. But Storm drove them with out let-up. He knew the danger; but he made no man his confidant.

  They had landed in the shadow of an immense mountain. The weather was bitingly cold, the ground hard as flint

  The Astro Star II was unloaded and a headquarters building erected for Storm, and his records and graphs. Prefabricated dwellings were set up in a semi-circle about Storm’s quarters, and towers were erected to hold the great lamps which bathed the area in warming light. Everything necessary for comfort and efficiency had been built on Earth and shipped in parts aboard the Astro Star II.

  Storm ordered a separate hut built for the girl, Margo, and saw to it that she was lodged there with as much comfort as possible, although his bitterness toward her had not diminished.

  When the encampment was made, Storm ordered the fighter space ships uncrated and assembled by a crew working days, while a, night shift started the work of clearing a field, sinking blast-off tubes, and preparing a maintenance section.

  The mood and keynote of the place was work. Storm drove the men, but drove himself twice as hard. He was everywhere at once, keeping an eye on all details; and occasionally throwing his big shoulder against a stanchion that refused to budge, or taking specifications into his office and working through the night to correct errors, or to adjust them to fit an emergency.