Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  Holding the rifle in readiness, Storm stepped carefully through the door and dropped to his stomach. He wriggled ahead for perhaps a hundred yards until he reached a slight rise, from where he could clearly see the creature who had remained behind in the compound.

  He settled himself on his stomach and put the stock of the rifle into his shoulder, enjoying the feel of cool metal against his cheek. He sighted on the toad-like creature and began to squeeze the trigger gently.

  The creature moved back and forth restlessly, as if sensing that something was wrong. From its waist hung a small disc which glowed brightly. The beam from the disc flashed about in a wide questing circle as the creature moved in an aimless circle.

  Suddenly the ray of light flashed to a greater length and leaped across the plain toward the blast-off field, toward Storm.

  Storm fired a blast of heat at the creature, as light from the disc struck him full force. For an instant a terrible, unendurable pain swept over him. Then it was gone, and he clambered to his feet, shaking his head like an injured animal.

  The creature was lying on the ground, and attempting to move, to crawl. Storm fired two more blasts and the movement stopped.

  McDonald came hurrying up, caught Storm’s arm. “That light—what was it?” he gasped.

  “I don’t know. But another tenth of a second and I’d have been gone. My first shot got him just in time. Let’s get going.”

  THE compound was a nightmarish scene of death. Men lay sprawled on the ground, slumped at workbenches, or collapsed in their cots. No one was alive.

  Storm made directly for his headquarters. Inside he snapped on the visi-screen above his desk. McDonald was at his heels.

  They stood looking at the void, at the mightily jeweled star-chin on the Earth side of Galaxy X. Beneath it, several inches on the screen, but billions of miles in the void, was a shadowy cluster of black dots, thousands of them, poised in space.

  Storm spoke matter-of-factly, bitterly. “You are looking at the space fleet of Galaxy X. They’re ready. Are we, McDonald?”

  He turned without cutting off the machine and went outside. There were no clear thoughts in his mind. He didn’t know what they could do.

  He heard a ship overhead and instinctively he ducked; but the whine of the auxiliaries was familiar, and when it flashed into sight he recognized it as one of their own fighters, the one Boyd had left in an hour or so before.

  Storm watched the ship circle for a mooring at the blast-off field, and then he trotted in that direction, the heat rifle still in his hands.

  CHAPTER VII

  WHEN Storm, McDonald and the girl had first been led away, Larry had outlined his plans quickly to Boyd, the squarely-built towhead, and Carney, the Irishman. They were in Storm’s office.

  “For better or worse we’re in charge,” he said crisply. “Our necks depend on what we do with our authority. If we do a sensible job, it will prove we were right. If not, we’ll hang as mutineers.”

  “Hell, everybody is back of us,”

  Carney said, his voice shaking.

  “Okay, fine. First we have to find the girl, the one Storm called Karen. We’ve got to find out how she controls those robots, and make sure she doesn’t use them against us. Here’s my idea: Those robots must return to some central area and they’re probably still on the way there. Boyd, you take a fighter ship and cruise around this area until you pick up the trail. Meanwhile Carney and I will take a party in the same general direction the robots took. When you establish contact, radio us the directions and we’ll close in on the girl. Okay?”

  There were a few questions, a few details to iron out, then Boyd left on the double for the blast-off tubes. Larry told Carney to select a party of twelve men and pack enough supplies to last them a week.

  When both men had gone, Larry lit a cigarette and sat down in Storm’s chair. He frowned at the tip of his cigarette for a few minutes. He had been trained in the best ideals of the service. Mutineer in his eyes was a mad dog. Yet he had taken that step, confident he was right. The babbling about Galaxy X had never impressed him. It was an old scare story of those who wanted Earth to build bigger armies, bigger space ships. It was one of those semi-sacrosanct fables that everyone discussed gravely, but no one believed. At least none of the cadets in his class had believed it, and they were a well-informed, sophisticated group.

  Suddenly he realized it was Commander Storm’s desk he was sitting at and he got up hastily, with the uncomfortable certainty that he didn’t belong there.

  But that was foolish. Storm would have killed them all with his fanatic’s ideas; and if Storm hadn’t, then the girl with the robots might well have.

  Larry lit another cigarette and pushed the hair from his eyes. He had had but one quick glimpse of this girl, but something about her, some quality of defiance and arrogance in her attitude, made him eager to see her again, eager to test that steel.

  IT was an hour later that he received the first radio message from Boyd. His party was halted near the narrow mouth of a valley. They were about ten Earth miles from the compound, and the air was stingingly cold, while the flakes of flint like dust hurled by the wind made their progress slow and difficult.

  Larry raised a jubilant hand as Boyd’s deep sure voice came over the portable unit:

  “It’s the valley ahead of you, Captain. Bear right, into an opening in the mountain. That’s where every robot has disappeared.”

  “Check,” Larry snapped with satisfaction.

  The men with him had heard the message and they pressed forward with renewed enthusiasm as Larry led the slender column through the narrow opening of the valley. His eyes swept along the right side of the vast purple mountain that soared above their heads to the green-colored sky.

  He found the opening Boyd had spotted about a quarter of a mile from the valley entrance, and its appearance immediately suggested Herculean labor combined with intelligence. The aperture was fifty yards square and led to a shaft that seemingly stretched into the heart of the mountain, a tunnel with silk-smooth walls and gracefully arched ceiling high above the stone flooring.

  They followed the shaft for nearly half a mile before it turned to the right. As they followed this new route they heard a swelling, murmuring sound that seemed to emanate from the heart of the mountain.

  An iridescent glow from the sheer, glass-smooth walls provided illumination as they proceeded cautiously down the gleaming corridor. The sound was becoming more intense now; it was a gigantic humming that echoed from the walls and set up a throbbing in their ears.

  Larry glanced at Carney uneasily, then shrugged. There was nothing to do but keep going.

  A quarter of a mile ahead they saw that the corridor fanned out on both sides before ending abruptly—leading to nothing but bright and empty space.

  They hurried along this last stretch and the swelling sound now filled their heads with an almost intolerable clamor.

  Reaching the widening section of* the shaft, Larry moved forward more cautiously to the very lip of the floor—until he could look down into the pit where the roaring sounds seemed to originate.

  Carney crowded alongside him with the other members of the party as Larry heard a somebody say, “Good God!” in a hushed voice.

  HALF a mile below them, and extending as far as. they could see, was a mighty vault cut into the granite heart of the mountain. Working deep in that immense pit were thousands and thousands of the ponderous, carefully moving; robots.

  The sight of that incredible metal army spreading for miles in all directions was enough to catch at their throats with a nameless horror.

  Carney touched Larry’s arm and said in an awed voice: “Do you see what they’re doing? They’re making more robots! Look! There on your left! They’re coming off that line, getting up and walking ahead under their own power!”

  Larry rubbed a hand over his forehead. He saw squads of the creatures carrying loads of metal, others working with ringing sledges, and that other
groups were working at long tables supporting fabulously intricate machines.

  “Let’s keep going,” Larry said to Carney. “We’ve got to find that girl. You can imagine what would happen if she ever turned this loose on us!” They stood indecisively for a moment at the cross-corridor, above the great pit. Larry finally sent half the party to the left while he, Carney, and four others, proceeded to the right.

  At the next cross-corridor Larry selected two men and told them to follow it for half an hour, then return to the main corridor. Again, a quarter of a mile on, he sent two more men down a cross-corridor, while he and Carney continued on alone. For a mile they went ahead; then they came to a third cross-corridor and Larry looked helplessly at Carney.

  Carney shouted an answer to the unspoken question on Larry’s face. “We might as well follow it. If we find nothing we might as well collect the men and get out of here.”

  The new corridor did not run straight. Instead it curved back and forth, and was considerably narrower than the one they had just left. As they followed its undulations the noise from the robot factory faded away to a gentle, distant murmur*

  Then, as they founded a corner, Larry caught Carney’s arm. Ahead was a wide arched door on the right side of the corridor.

  They approached it cautiously. There was no knob or handle but it swung inward slowly, silently, as Larry put his shoulder against it.

  Beyond the door was a short, narrow hall that turned to the right and led them to a pair of closed doors.

  Larry stopped before them, his heart beating almost audibly.

  HE put his hand against the panel of one and pushed. Through the aperture formed by the opening door he saw a large, high-ceilinged room with gleaming walls and a metal floor that shone like aluminum.

  He eased the door open another few inches; and his breath caught as he saw the red-haired girl.

  She was lying on a low oval bed in the center of the room and her full, sharply pointed breasts rose and fell with her even breathing. Her eyes were closed, and she was apparently asleep.

  Larry glanced at Carney and put a cautioning finger to his lips; and then stepped through the arched doorway into the room. Carney moved quietly at his heels.

  The girl who had called herself Karen turned restlessly as they moved toward her. She wore a light silken garment open at the throat and extending halfway to her bare knees. The pale silver light from the walls glinted on her fiery red hair and glazed the milky smoothness of her slender, exquisite legs.

  On a table beside the bed Larry saw the belt she had worn the first time he had seen her, and the tube with which she had seemed to control the robots. Also, close to her hand, was the ancient ray gun.

  Carney moved up beside Larry and as he did so his foot slipped on the silk-smooth floor. He lost his balance and fell to one knee with a thud.

  The girl sat upright with the instinctive, light-swift reaction of an animal in danger, her icy green eyes flicking across the faces of the two men.

  For a second they stared at one another in a tense, breathless silence, and Larry saw the muscles in the girl’s arms and legs beginning to coil.

  “Calm down, beautiful,” he said softly. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “I told you not to follow me,” the girl said, a slow ominous anger in her voice. “I want nothing from you but to be let alone.”

  “Cut it out,” Larry said curtly. “You’re an Earth girl, and you can’t live here like this.”

  “You fool!” the girl cried, and with a flashing movement that caught them both by surprise, she flung herself from the bed and lunged for the ray gun.

  Larry dove after her, catching her about the waist as she wheeled, gun in hand, to face them. A bolt of dazzling silent heat shot past his shoulder, as his attack deflected her arm.

  Carney closed in on the girl as she struggled with Larry.

  “I’ve got her!” he yelled, lunging for her arm.

  But the girl swung Larry about with savage, incredible strength, and Carney’s hands closed on empty air. As he stumbled forward she slugged him across the side of the head with the gun barrel. He went down in an inert heap.

  LARRY suddenly stepped back from the girl and chopped his hand down on her forearm. The gun clattered to the floor and she lunged at him with a cry of anger and pain.

  “Stop it, you hellcat!” Larry panted.

  “Never!”

  “Okay, you asked for it,” Larry said. He caught her arm and pulled her close, then snapped a short hard right to the point of her jaw. She slumped against him, her eyes glazing, and he caught her before she could fall to the floor.

  Lifting her in his arms he carried her to the bed, then stripped off his belt, and Carney’s, and bound the girl’s elbows and ankles.

  Breathing hard, he bent over Carney and looked at the ugly lump on his head. The fallen man was breathing, but showed no signs of regaining consciousness.

  Larry sat down beside the girl on the bed and waited until her eyes flickered open. For an instant she stared at him without comprehension; then she attempted to move, only to become aware of the bonds at her arms and ankles. A spasm of defiant fury contorted her face and she began to writhe and twist on the bed.

  “You’ll die for this!” she panted.

  Larry held her by both shoulders to keep her from rolling onto the floor. He said, “You’re a spoiled and unpleasant brat, Karen. The thing you need is a thorough spanking and a short lecture on the fact that you’re not the most important and wonderful person in the universe. Possibly then you might start behaving like a human being.”

  “I hope I never behave like the humans I’ve known,” the girl cried. “The humans who left my father to die; humans like you and that clod on the floor who know no rule but strength, no rules but the ones you make. I’d die before I molded myself after you.”

  Larry felt almost helpless before the blazing fury and conviction in the girl’s eyes. In a way, he could see that she had reason behind her attitude.

  “Now listen to me just a minute, please,” he said, in a calmer voice. “We probably seem like savages to you in one sense. But try to understand our attitude. We’re a small group of Earthmen who have been driven to the point of collapse by a neurotic commander. We—”

  “You mean Storm?” the girl said. She had ceased struggling, and interest showed in her face.

  “That’s right. The man is a maniac. So we put him in irons—and took a hell of a chance in doing it! Now we want to get safely back to Earth and present our story to the Earth Federation. Frankly those robots of yours scared us and we intend to make sure they don’t attack us again. That’s why you find yourself in the spot you’re in.”

  LARRY’S last words were colored with faint sarcasm, but the girl appeared not to notice.

  “What is it Storm feared?” she said. “Why did he come here?” Larry shrugged. “The old familiar bedtime story about Galaxy X. You know, the one they use to frighten children on Earth. Storm, being slightly cracked, eats it up. He’d kill himself and everyone of us to fight this non-existent menace.”

  “My father often talked of Galaxy X,” the girl said. “When—” A troubled frown appeared on her face. “I’m not sure of time anymore. But once he told me he built the robots to fight for Earth against the galaxy.”

  Larry saw that her mood had changed, that her attention was arrested by his story. He decided to take advantage of that to get information.

  “We saw the robot pit on the way here,” he said. “Do those creatures actually make themselves, or was I drunk?”

  “They make themselves, of course. Father worked for years to make them self-perpetuating. They’ve gone on since he died, reproducing themselves to the last rivet and coil.”

  “How are they controlled?”

  That question broke the girl’s oddly submissive mood. She stared at him as if she had suddenly awakened. Suddenly she strained against her bonds, and cried, “I’ll tell you nothing more. Release me at onc
e!”

  Larry smiled at her and folded his arms. “You have to learn humility, Karen. I’m not going to release until you tell me what I want to know, and give me your promise you’ll behave. Think that over, young lady, while I take a look at my friend.”

  He bent over Carney, his back to the girl and the tall doorway, and began shaking the man’s shoulder gently. Carney stirred and his lids fluttered.

  “That’s the boy,” Larry said.

  A sound from the girl caused him to turn quickly. She was staring past him, toward the doorway, and the expression on her face sent a cold tremor of alarm down his spine.

  Her face was ashen, her breath laboring in gasps. Her teeth were closed on her lower lip, and a thin trickle of blood stained her chin. But it was her eyes that sent horror into Larry’s soul. They were wide, staring, agonized.

  Her lips moved, and she whimpered, “No!” in complete terror.

  LARRY wheeled, still on his knees, and the sight that met his eyes contracted his throat with nauseating horror.

  Standing silently in the doorway were four creatures that could have been spawned only in the nightmares of a diseased and ravaged mind.

  Leprous gray in color, squat and thick as great toads, they stood on clumsy round feet, while their heads, huge and pendulous, swung slowly back and forth.

  They were old, hideously old and evil, and the folds of flesh that hung in putrefying folds and loops over their bodies, looked as if it had been created from slime and filth.

  About their waists were belts which supported pale, gleaming discs. The discs glowed with gelid light, their beams playing downward on the floor at their feet.

  Larry swallowed dry terror and rose instinctively to his feet. He took a step backward—and then a beam of light flashed upward and caught him in its glare.

  Instantly pain, numbing, incredible, maddening pain, flamed through every muscle, tendon and nerve of his body. He was transfixed, held motionless in its grip. He tried to fight, tried to throw himself to the floor, to scream. But the light was binding as a mold of steel. He stood rooted and paralyzed in the dreadful beam until his limbs were on the point of cracking and his skull felt as if it were ready to split like a rotten melon.