Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  From the corner of his straining eyes he saw Carney move suddenly, lunging toward the ray gun on the floor, but as he did a beam of light from another of the creatures flashed out and Carney screamed—a scream torn from the depths of his soul* Blood streamed from his nose and mouth and he dropped to the floor like an animal crushed by some monstrous weight.

  The light receded from the limp, huddled body, and Larry knew he was dead, the life driven from him forever by one touch of the creature’s light.

  The creatures hadn’t yet moved except for the swinging swaying motion of their great heads; but now they advanced slowly into the room, and fixed sunken eyes on the girl.

  The light that held Larry in a grip of agony left him suddenly, and he fell to the floor, drained and helpless. From where he lay he could see the girl, see the creatures advancing slowly toward her, their eyes moving over her body as restlessly as ants.

  “They’re asking me about the robots,” she cried brokenly, “Their minds are in mine—like fingers, probing and twisting.”

  “Good God!” Larry gasped.

  “No!” the girl screamed suddenly, drawing back. “No! No! No! I’ll tell you nothing, you rotting fiends!”

  The intruders were motionless for a moment, but Larry sensed they were communicating with one another.

  Then a whimpering cry broke from his lips as one of the creatures moved closer to the bed, and light from the disc at his waist flashed over the girl’s slim figure.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE two bodies lay sprawled at a cross-corridor beside the vast robot pit in the heart of the mountain.

  Storm dropped to his knees beside them, saw instantly that both men were dead. He said to McDonald, “We’re on the right track.”

  They stood, Boyd, McDonald, and Storm, staring ahead along the gleaming corridor. Boyd had told Storm of Larry’s plans, and they had set out after the twelve-man party, leaving Margo and the corporal behind at the compound.

  “These were two of the men Larry took with him, I’m sure,” Boyd said.

  “Okay, let’s keep going. And keep your guns ready,” Storm said. “If we find those damn things we’ll only get one chance.”

  They went on, heat guns drawn and held in readiness, until they reached a corridor that ran off in a long curve. In that respect it was different from the other halls they had passed; and for that reason Storm decided to follow it. They were looking for a needle in a haystack, he knew, and their chances of success were slim. But they had to keep on.

  As they followed the new course they became aware that the sounds from the pit were fading behind them; and half a mile on they came to a door in the right side of the wall.

  Storm glanced at McDonald, a look that told him to be ready for anything, and pushed the door open, slowly. They stepped through the door into another corridor and followed that to a pair of high doors that were standing slightly ajar.

  Storm looked into the room, then grabbed Boyd by the arm and jerked him against the wall. McDonald had seen also, and he had ducked down on the opposite side of the corridor.

  Ahead, through the door, they saw the four gray monsters from the galaxy standing near a long bed, on which the red-haired girl lay helplessly bound.

  Light from the discs at the waists of the creatures played across her slender straining figure, transforming her hair into a halo of foaming gold and coating the alabaster whiteness of her flesh with shimmering radiance.

  Her body was bent in a straining tortured arc. Her bare feet pressed flat against the hard matting of the bed, her head was thrown back in agony.

  She was held in the vise-strong grip of the light, helpless as a victim on a rack, and every muscle and tendon of her body quivered and trembled against the incredible agony she was undergoing.

  Storm whispered, “Boyd, take the one on the right, McDonald, the left. Now!”

  HE snapped up his gun and sent a searing blast of destructive heat through the head of one creature. Every nerve in his body knew a macabre satisfaction as the leprous, putrefying flesh disintegrated into streams of obscene slime.

  McDonald and Boyd fired with the same deadly accuracy, and Boyd leaped into the room and dashed toward the remaining creature.

  “Get down!” Storm shouted,

  Boyd’s impetuous charge brought him in the line of fire. McDonald cursed and tried to find an opening to blast at the slowly turning creature. But he was too late.

  And so was Boyd. He had waited too long to fire, and a lashing, vengeful beam of light from the creature’s disc cut him down in a crumpled heap.

  Storm fired twice, deliberately, coldly, and the fourth and last of the galaxy raiders crashed to the floor in a mass of putrescent ooze.

  McDonald hurried to the side of the girl, removed the bonds and helped her to a sitting position. She was conscious, but her face was ashen and drawn and she was trembling violently. McDonald put an arm about her shoulder and held her close.

  Storm’s face tightened as he saw Larry Masterson getting to his feet. The young captain’s face was strained and gray. He looked unseeingly at Storm, then turned to the girl and stumbled to her.

  “I know what it was,” he said, in a choked voice. “They—did it to me. I know what you stood—for us.”

  “Captain Masterson,” Storm said in a cold precise voice. “You will consider yourself under arrest.”

  Larry turned to him slowly, a hand moving uncertainly to his face. He sighed and there was a bare trace, a ghost of a weary smile on his lips.

  “You were right, of course,” he said. “Hanging’s too good for me.” Storm turned to McDonald and suddenly the helplessness of their position was plain to him. Out in the void a great fleet of ships from Galaxy X was poised to strike at Earth. And here they were, three men and a girl, a helpless, futile unit.

  McDonald’s thin, whipcord body looked tired, and a strand of graying hair hung over his forehead. But his hard soldierly face was still firm, knife-sharp.

  “Your orders, sir?” he said.

  Storm hesitated, then shrugged. He said drily, “There’s nothing to say, is there?”

  “Perhaps not,” McDonald agreed. “But we still have our brains and a source of power that has probably never been equalled in the history of the universe. I mean the robots, of course.”

  “You’re right!” Storm said, and suddenly new excitement, new hope kindled in him. He turned and strode over to the girl. He looked directly into her ice-green eyes. “Will you help us?” he said. “Will you tell us how the robots are controlled?”

  “Of course,” the girl said. Her eyes were listless, her face dispirited; but slowly as Storm held her gaze, her expression began to change. Her eyes came alive, color touched her cheeks. “I’ll do anything to drive creatures like these into the slime where they belong.” She shook her head suddenly, and moved her shoulders. “Whatever they did to me doesn’t seem to have a permanent effect. I’m all right—but I’ll remember. One second under that light gives you a sensation to take to your grave.”

  She swung her legs off the bed and got to her feet. “Come with me,” she said.

  SHE led them out of her quarters and along the edge of the vast robot pit to a stairway cut in the solid, granite-hard walls of the vault. Ascending this stairway for a nearly a quarter of a mile, they entered a great dome-shaped chamber fitted out as a laboratory. In the center of the room a great machine rested, a machine fully fifty yards tall and a hundred yards in diameter at the base, with sides of curving metal that gleamed like silver.

  “This was my father’s workshop,” Karen said.

  McDonald stared about, his eyes finally stopping on the machine. From its depths they could hear a gentle murmur. “This is what motivates the robots I suppose,” he said, in a musing voice. Data is fed in here and transmitted into electrical impulses that affect radio cells in the robot’s heads or bodies. Is that it?”

  “Yes,” Karen said. “The blueprint of what you want has to be made with care, and
takes time. After the blueprint is made it is fed into the machine, which does everything then, even to correcting small errors.”

  “Where are your father’s records?” McDonald said, his voice sharp. “We can’t waste a minute.”

  Karen indicated a long desk at one side of the chamber and soon McDonald was surrounded by charts, graphs and records. He studied them for several minutes, then shrugged helplessly.

  Storm said, “Fabulously complicated, eh? It’s as I feared.”

  “I can help,” the girl said.

  “Thank you,” McDonald said. He tapped a pencil thoughtfully on the desk. “It’s complicated, of course, but not fabulously so. The principle, the basic idea is simple enough, and is used by every office on Earth today. It’s a question of extension. But to extend it as far as this machine indicates your father did is rather staggering. The machine has a million choices at a million separate points in even the simplest diagram. To attempt to make something complicated—that is, to make the robots make something—well, that gets one into mathematics of an extraordinary nature.”

  “And we need something complicated,” Storm said grimly.

  “Exactly! Battering rams, projectiles, something of that sort.” He rubbed his forehead and then squared his shoulders stubbornly. “We’ll give it a try—Karen and I. Won’t we Karen?”

  “Why, certainly,” the girl said, and laughed. “And we’ll do it, too.”

  She looked at Larry as she laughed; but he avoided her eyes. “What’s the matter with you?” she said.

  “Nothing,” he muttered.

  She put her hand on his arm. “I’m not angry with you. I think you used your best judgment. Don’t brood about it now.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said.

  Storm cleared his throat. “We, the captain and I, will return to the compound, McDonald. Carry on here, and we’ll keep in touch.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Storm and Larry left the great vaulted room together, and the girl stood silent by McDonald, staring after them, a curious expression on her face . . .

  STORM watched the visi-screen in his office every hour of the day. Margo and the corporal made his meals, and twice in the next forty-eight hours Karen came down to report on their progress. She said that McDonald was becoming more optimistic.

  “Fine,” Storm growled, and returned to the visi-screen.

  The spreading space fleet of Galaxy X was still in position. He had noticed some motion among ships on the outer edge of the formation, and for several hours he was sure the attack on Earth was commencing.

  During that time he paced to and fro before the huge visi-screen, his mood black. Margo brought him coffee and stayed with him. He was learning he could talk to her.

  “You see,” he said, jerking a thumb at the screen, “they’re restless. That could be because the ship they sent here hasn’t returned, and they’re getting ready to come after it. Or maybe they’re getting ready to make for Earth.”

  “Well, it won’t help to prowl around like a tiger. Sit down and have some coffee.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” He sat on the edge of his chair and hammered a fist into his palm. “If McDonald can just get a model ready in time! Karen said he seems optimistic.”

  “She’s pretty cheerful herself;” Margo said.

  Storm shot a look at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Naturally you wouldn’t notice,” Margo said drily. “But she’s in love with Larry.”

  “That’s fine!” Storm said. “She can have the satisfaction of loving a traitor who will die on our return to Earth.”

  “Storm, you can’t do it.”

  “That’s all I want to hear about it,” Storm said coldly. “You can leave now. I’ve got work to do.”

  AFTER that day Storm snapped on the telescreen they had connected with McDonald. The connection was made at the opposite end and the engineer’s lean face appeared. He was smiling.

  “Glad you got in touch with us, sir,” he said. “We’ve got the model.” He held up a slim metal tube, the size of a cigar, for Storm to see. In the background Karen, too, was smiling.

  “It’s very much like the V-2’s used after World War II, except of course it is made for space, and is about a hundred times as fast. I’m making a blueprint of this now to feed into the machine. Work should get underway here by tonight.”

  “Great, great,” Storm said. He was grinning, he knew; but he couldn’t help it. To have a weapon once more, to be able to strike! “I’ll be in touch with you again a few hours from now.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Storm snapped the switch and McDonald’s face disappeared. He walked back and forth for several minutes, making plans, seeing already in his mind’s eye the fight that would develop between their robot-built missies, and the fleet from Galaxy X. The tactics, strategy, and deployments, of such an attack crowded everything else from his consideration.

  For half an hour he was oblivious to everything else. Then, having done as much as he could to explore all contingencies, he put the matter from his mind and turned back to the visi-screen.

  He saw instantly that all his plans were pointless—the fleet from Galaxy was moving, slowly but inevitably, away from Jupiter.

  They were reassembling, forming in a wedge-shaped cluster that had its spear-end aimed at Earth.

  Storm stared at the screen for a full thirty seconds; then wheeled and, with a mighty oath, snapped on the contact with McDonald.

  “The attack is starting,” he said, harshly, when McDonald appeared. “They’re forming to blast-off for Earth. What chance have we got?”

  “I need hours yet,” McDonald said, his voice strained. “The blast-off pits are being made now, thousands of them. God, it’s immense, it’s staggering, what we can do—could do in just a few more hours.”

  “How about the projectiles?”

  “The blueprint is in the machine. Within a few hours the first will be ready. The directional apparatus—everything will be set.”

  Storm glanced at the visi-screen. The movement of the great Galaxy X fleet was proceeding at a smoother, faster rate.

  “Do what you can, McDonald. We won’t quit; but we need a miracle now. They’ll be out of range in half an hour.”

  “There’s no chance then,” McDonald said, his voice dull and empty.

  “Keep at it!” Storm said harshly. “By God, I’ll take excuses, but not failure!”

  He walked to the visi-screen and stood glaring at the shadowy clusters of ships—ships, he knew to be moving at incredible speed beyond his reach. He felt almost like smashing his fist into the screen to destroy a sight he hated to watch.

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

  IT was Larry Masterson. The young captain stood at attention, his eyes level.

  “Well?” Storm snapped.

  Larry glanced at the visi-screen. He said, “They’re leaving, aren’t they, sir? They’re leaving for Earth.”

  “What of it?” Storm said coldly. Larry flushed. “I know what you think of me, sir. You have good reason to, of course. But Earth is my home, my country. You can’t believe I love it, I know. But I do. I want to help now.” He pointed suddenly to the visi-screen. “I want to stop them, sir.”

  “Yes?” Storm said. “A laudable ambition. How would you go about it?”

  “Let me take the Astro Star after them,” Larry said eagerly* “She’s faster and bigger by far than their units. All they have is numbers. I could disrupt their formations, burn hundreds of them from the void before they—well, before it was over. Don’t you see, sir, it’s our only hope. Earth’s only hope. I can delay them an hour, maybe two, and by then McDonald may have the self-propelled missies ready to shoot after them.” Storm stood stock still a moment, then wheeled and snapped on telescreen. When McDonald appeared Storm said, “You may get those extra hours you need, after all. Listen:

  I’m going after that fleet in the Astro Star. You’re in co
mmand here. If you get your missies up in time, and all goes well, you can return to Earth in one of the fighters.”

  “You’re committing suicide, sir,” McDonald said.

  “Possibly. But that’s beside the point. You understand your orders? Get that fleet from Galaxy X, then return to Earth in one of the fighters. And, McDonald, for God’s sake, make them believe you when you get there. Stay at their throats until they build a Space Arm. That’s all.”

  “Very well, sir,” McDonald said. He suddenly straightened and raised his arm in a crisp salute. “Goodby, sir.”

  Storm chuckled as he returned the salute, then snapped off the switch.

  When he turned he saw that Margo had entered and was standing by the door. Larry was staring at him with hot flushed eyes.

  “You can’t leave me out of it,” he cried. “It was my idea. You can’t deprive me of a chance to clear myself.”

  “You’ll have your chance for that on Earth, after due process of court-martial,” Storm said. “I wouldn’t trust you to take the Astro Star. You’d probably by-pass that fleet out there and scuttle for home.”

  “Take me with you. I’m a gunnery officer. A good one. I can help.”

  “No!” Storm cried, and the word fell like a bar of iron in the room. “I go alone.”

  MARGO clapped her hands together in applause; but her expression mocked him.

  “Now you finally have what you want,” she said. “You can die alone for Earth. You can prove conclusively that no one else really cared for Earth, that everyone else was stupid, cowardly and indifferent. They’ll put up statues of you!”

  Storm said, “I want none of those things. Why do you deliberately misunderstand me?”

  “Because you’re such a bitter, twisted, wonderful person,” Margo cried out. She ran to him and pounded her fists against his chest. “There was never a man like you, Storm! You’re strong and fine and good in some ways, but a brooding freak in others. You see no viewpoint but your own. Here on this compound more than one hundred and fifty men died for Earth; here a man named Thatcher died for Earth; here Boyd and Carney died for Earth, and Karen and Larry suffered for Earth.