Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  In the center of the room, arms folded, head thrown back arrogantly, Satan surveyed the scene with sardonic amusement.

  His raking black eyes swept from Mr. Minion to Carson Carruthers’ trembling figure on the couch.

  “Is this the man?” he demanded in a voice that sapped the juice from Carson’s spine.

  “Yes, Your Malignancy,” Mr. Minion said diffidently.

  IF Carson had thought the whole affair a practical joke at one time, he had no such doubts now. This black creature he was facing was the real thing. He knew it. Although he could see only the black eyes through the heavy mask that covered the evil one’s face, they were enough to convince him. Those black eyes that stared so covetously at him were old and hard and malignant beyond the imagination of any man.

  “I am satisfied,” Satan said abruptly.

  “N—now just a minute,” Carson said pleadingly. “I didn’t know what I was getting into when I signed that contract. Anyway, why do you want my body?”

  “I need it,” Satan said inexorably. His eyes flicked downward for an instant, Carson followed his gaze and saw the tip of a cloven hoof protruding from beneath the enveloping black cape Satan wore. Also he saw the pronged tip of a horrid-looking tail twitching restlessly.

  “I cannot walk the Earth in my present shape,” Satan said grimly. need a form such as yours for my purposes.”

  His long arms suddenly raised above his head and fingers spread like the talons of a mighty hawk. Carson saw the flashing lights in the black, malevolent eyes growing brighter before his swimming vision. But just at the instant his senses were leaving him, a shrill angry voice cut through the evil fog that was sweeping over him.

  “What the hell ees thees?” the enraged voice cried shrilly. “Who are theese people, Babeey?”

  Carson struggled bewilderedly to his feet. Standing in the doorway was Renee, her fiery dark beauty enhanced by the billowing white negligee she was wearing.

  At the sound of her voice Satan swept his cloak over his face and crouched close to the floor. Mr. Minion, for once, lost his expression of imperturbable affability. His jaw sagged dazedly.

  Renee stamped into the room.

  “Who are zey?” she demanded. Must we have a convention here the first night of our marriage?”

  “Marriage?” gasped Mr. Minion.

  CARSON shook his head as his memory came back to him. After drinking all day with Renee, he recalled that they had gotten married in a little village in Connecticut. He remembered carrying her over the threshold of the apartment and then things had got blackish.

  “What business ees eet of yours?” Renee blazed at Mr. Minion. “Thees ees our wedding night. How you say? Our honey-moon!”

  “Now darling,” Carson said placatingly, as he heard an angry hiss from the crouching figure of Satan.

  “Don’t ‘darling’ me!” Renee cried hotly. “Tell theese bums to clear out or I throw them out!”

  “Unworthy minion,” Satan said coldly. “My orders were for a single man.”

  “But,” Mr. Minion said imploringly, “I didn’t know.”

  “What ees all theese?” Renee yelled shrilly. Her glance flew to Satan, swept down to the protruding hoof.

  “A ventriloquist!” she screamed, whirling on Mr. Minion.

  “You have ze nerve to bring a goat into my house? How dare you?”

  “Madam,” Mr. Minion said frantically, “you don’t know what you’re saying. That is not a goat, that—”

  “Never argue with a woman,” Satan said moodily. “I got my fingers burnt once that way.”

  “More ventriloquist beesiness!” Renee shrieked. Her hair was tousled, and her small white teeth were bared angrily. She looked as if she were drawing a bead on Mr. Minion’s jugular vein. “Eef you want your goat to leave here alive, eef you want to leave here alive yourself, you will get out before I lose my temper.”

  “You have failed me, Minion,” Satan said blackly.

  “The situation is not hopeless, Master,” Mr. Minion said pleadingly.

  “Even though Heaven has joined them, cannot Reno divorce them?”

  Renee sprang for a vase. With a delivery that Lefty Grove might have envied, she hurled it straight at Mr. Minion. It missed him by an inch and crashed into the wall.

  “Peeg!” she screamed. “Get out!” She sprang for another vase.

  Satan slunk toward the door.

  “We leave,” he snarled. “Even if I could become this woman’s husband, I would rather go back to hell—” With an angry, baffled hiss, he swept his arms down in a vicious gesture.

  A wind whistled through the room and a bolt of light crashed over their heads. When the smoke cleared Satan and his minion had vanished.

  “Pooh!” Renee sniffed. “Theese actors. Always zey must make ze dramatic exit.”

  Carson Carruthers, who had been standing helplessly throughout the entire stormy scene, suddenly slumped backward onto the sofa, a gusty sigh wheezing through his lips.

  Renee slipped onto his lap.

  “My babee is so pale,” she cooed. Carson gulped.

  “A—am I?” he said faintly.

  Renee rested her cheek against his. “You remember what I say;” she murmured softly, “what I do if I catch you wit’ another woman? You remem—I say I cut your heart out?”

  “Y—yes,” Carson said. “I remember.”

  “Well don’t forget it!” Renee cooed dreamily. “What God has put together let no man or woman—or goat, put apart!”

  “No darling,” Carson Carruthers said thinking of hell, “I won’t.”

  Then he looked at Renee and thought of hell again—wistfully.

  MYSTERY ON BASE 10

  First published in the January 1942 issue of Amazing Stories.

  Veya Mallon knew her father wasn’t a traitor, so she blasted spaceward to prove it—right into a hornet’s nest of conspirators . . .

  THERE was a tense, painful silence in the chromium and duraglass office as Space Commander Wilson finally glanced up from the reports which littered his metal desk.

  His eyes shifted from the tall, blonde, red-tuniced lieutenant who stood at attention before his desk, to the small lovely girl who was seated on the edge of a steel chair, hands clenched anxiously.

  His kindly, deeply lined face softened in unspoken sympathy as he dropped his gaze back to the papers spread before him.

  “Tin terribly sorry, Miss Mallon,” he said quietly, “but there is nothing in the official report to substantiate your claim. Believe me, I’m as anxious as you are to clear your father’s name. Unfortunately, the facts point conclusively to his guilt. It is impossible to change the verdict on the strength of your suspicions.”

  Veya Mallon sprang to her feet angrily, every line of her slim, supple body expressing her emotion.

  “Oh how can I make you see that you are being very unfair!” she cried. “You know—you must know, that he wasn’t a traitor. He just couldn’t be. And yet you don’t raise a finger to try to find some evidence that will clear his name.”

  She paused a moment, bit her lip, then went on.

  “My father was killed,” she said bitterly, “because the information he possessed would have incriminated some Earth officer as a traitor. For that reason he was murdered. Papers were planted on him to make it look as if he were in the pay of the Martian Federation. On his last trip to Base Ten he discovered the information he had been tracking down for years. But before he could get back to Earth, he was killed. The story about him running from a Martian ship and being killed in the battle is an out-and-out lie. You knew my father, Commander Wilson. He never ran from an enemy ship in his life.”

  Wilson passed a hand wearily over his tired eyes.

  “Veya, my dear,” he said huskily, “your father was my closest friend. I knew him as a courageous space fighter, without an ounce of fear in his makeup. But from all the evidence, it is dead certain that he did run from the Martian ship on his last flight. Undoubtedly he did
so rather than risk a general battle that might attract other of our space fighters to the scene. Since he was carrying enemy instructions on his person at the time, he couldn’t risk any chance of detection from our force.

  “As much as I wished it were otherwise, the facts are definite. I have checked and rechecked them personally. There is no possibility of any mistake. Your father was in the pay of Mars, a traitor to Earth. Ironically enough, he was killed running from a Martian ship. I’m sorry, my dear, but that is the final verdict.”

  Veya Mallon turned appealing eyes to the tall lieutenant.

  “Lieutenant Vickers,” she said imploringly. “Couldn’t you have made a mistake, somehow, somewhere? Couldn’t it have been some other ship you saw running before the Martian cruiser?”

  Lieutenant Vickers’ boyish face twisted miserably.

  “I wish I were mistaken, Vey—Miss Mallon,” he said steadily. “But when the two ships flashed past my visi-screen I had a side-on view of your father’s ship and the markings were unmistakable. I started after them, but it was twenty minutes before

  I sighted either ship again. Then it was your father’s, drifting out of control. I boarded his ship and found him lying dead. In his uniform pocket were the papers from the Martian Federation. It was my duty to turn them in, and I did.”

  VENYA MALLON’S pale features hardened. Her dark eyes flashed angrily at the two men.

  “My father was not a coward or a traitor,” she cried desperately. “I know that and so do both of you. But still you’ll stand by and see his name dishonored because you’re afraid to dig into the rotten mess that caused his death. Well, I’m not afraid. I’m going to shout his innocence so loud that someone will have to listen to me. And before I’m through I’ll find out who framed him and killed him. I’ll do that, even if it means my own life.”

  Trembling with anger Veya spun on her heel and started for the door.

  Lieutenant Vickers moved to intercept her.

  “Veya,” he said pleadingly, “please listen—”

  Veya Mallon jerked a small diamond ring from her finger and dropped it at his feet.

  “Please don’t speak to me again,” she said.

  Then she stepped through the door.

  Lieutenant Tom Vickers stood still for a silent instant, the blood draining from his face. Then he stooped slowly and picked up the ring from the floor and stared at it dazedly.

  “I’m sorry, son,” Commander Wilson said kindly. “All of this has been a terrible strain on Veya and you must be patient with her. She’s overwrought, nervous, emotionally shocked by her father’s death. Time is the only thing that will help her.”

  Tom Vickers stared blindly at the ring in his hands.

  “Th-thanks, sir,” he said brokenly. “But I’m afraid the only thing that will ever change Veya is the exoneration of her father’s name. And that’s impossible. I hated to testify as I did, but it was the only course open to me. I’ve wished a thousand times that I might have been looking the other way when his ship flashed across my screen, but I wasn’t.”

  Commander Wilson nodded slowly. “It’s hard on you, boy,” he said quietly, “but you must try and make her understand your position in the affair. And it might be a good idea if you’d attempt to convince her that her father actually was guilty. As hard as that will be for her to accept, it will be easier for her in the long run to realize that he was guilty. Then she can adjust herself to the facts and try and forget them. Her present resentful attitude will only make her more miserable, more sensitive and nervous.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Vickers said shrugging, “but I’m afraid I’ll get nowhere. For the past week I’ve tried to reason with her, but that only seems to make her more determined that he wasn’t guilty.”

  Commander Wilson looked thoughtful.

  “In that case,” he said, “it might be best not to antagonize her by further efforts to prove her father’s guilt. I think it would be best if we say nothing more to her on the subject. She has made up her mind. We can’t change it. She’ll have to do that herself.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vickers said. “If you don’t need me any more, Commander, I’d like a forty-eight hours’ leave to sort of straighten myself out again.”

  “Certainly, my boy,” Commander Wilson said heartily. “Take all the time you want. When you feel right, come back. Not before.”

  Vickers thanked him and left the office.

  OUTSIDE he stared unseeingly at the vast, sprawling space field, with its dozens of mooring towers and expulsion tubes, repair pits and checking offices. Freight, atomically condensed, was rolling into the holds of the mighty freight cruisers to be carried to the farthest limits of the solar system. Fighting and scout ships were hissing into the void from expulsion tubes every minute or so, blasting through the cold darkness of space to their allotted lanes and schedules. Everything was orderly confusion and efficient speed.

  Vickers had grown up with scenes like this before him, almost a part of his own nature. Something he loved with an affection that was as vast as the void. But now it soured in his mouth. Everything, somehow, had lost its meaning, when Veya had dropped his ring contemptuously at his feet.

  He realized that all he had worked for had been for her benefit. With her, everything and anything had been glorious. Without her, it was all pointless and futile.

  And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

  He turned and walked moodily along the ramp until he reached the small office that recorded the movement of ships in and out of the vast terminal. A small, fussy-looking man in the doorway saw him and waved.

  “Want to see you,” the little man said. “Veya Mallon just left from tube 22 in your single-seater. Said you said it was all right. Irregular as the very devil, but I let her go. Want you to sign a clearance form for your ship.”

  “Veya Mallon,” Vickers said unbelievingly. “You say she left in my ship?”

  “That’s right,” the little man snapped. “Anything wrong with that? I knowed you two was practically one. Didn’t bother to check with you.”

  “It’s okay,” Vickers said, and signed the clearance form. “Did you say tube 22?”

  “Yep. She arced out not more than a minute ago.”

  Worried, Vickers hurried along the ramp until he reached the conical base of expulsion tube 22. He couldn’t imagine why Veya had taken his ship. Feeling as she did about him, it wasn’t logical. But maybe it was the only way she could get a ship. He knew she didn’t have one of her own. But what destination was so important to her, that she had to practically steal a ship to get there. That was what worried him.

  He grabbed the first rocket man he bumped into.

  “Were you here when Miss Mallon left?” he demanded.

  “Yes, sir,” the mechanic replied, stiffening to attention. “She just left, Lieutenant. She took a course twenty-two degrees off normal arc using full power. Destination Interplanetary Base Ten.”

  Base Ten! That was the base which had figured so prominently in the testimony against Veya’s father. He had been reported leaving Base Ten when the Martian raider caught him. Veya had said repeatedly that it was on Base Ten that her father had discovered the plot against Earth. According to Veya the evidence proved that several Earth officers were involved in the conspiracy.

  Base Ten was a dangerous hell-hole, rotten with intrigue and espionage, and no place at all for a hot-headed young girl. Interplanetary law kept it open as a free base between Mars and Earth and it had become a cauldron of trouble, harboring the suspicious characters of both planets and offering a fertile field to free-lance agents from the other members of the solar system. If Veya was heading for Base Ten, she was heading for trouble.

  “Anything wrong, Lieutenant?” the mechanic asked respectfully.

  “I hope not,” Vickers answered. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes, and I’ll need a ship ready to go. Set it for Base Ten and have it sparking when I return.”

  The mechan
ic jumped to his job, and Vickers wheeled and headed for Commander Wilson’s office. He entered without knocking.

  COMMANDER Wilson looked up, surprised, as Vickers barged in.

  “What’s up?” he demanded.

  “Veya Mallon has just left for Base Ten,” Vickers replied. “She took my ship, evidently with some idea of discovering proof of her father’s innocence there. I’d like your permission, sir, to follow her and see that she isn’t involved in any trouble. Base Ten is a dangerous spot for a young girl with ideas like Veya’s in her head. I feel, somehow, responsible for her safety.” Commander Wilson stood up and ran a hand through his graying hair. He walked to the huge side window of his office and stared worriedly over the sprawling space field.

  “Base Ten, eh?” he muttered irritably. “Silly girl should have had better sense than to head there.”

  “Then it’s all right with you, sir, if I leave immediately?”

  Commander Wilson turned from the window, tugging anxiously at his lower lip.

  “Vickers,” he said gravely, “I cannot grant you permission to follow Veya Mallon. We need you here, on hand for any emergency that might develop. While I think a great deal of Veya myself, we can’t let ourselves forget that our duty is here, not on Base Ten. If I could spare you, I’d stretch a point. But as it is, your request is impossible. If our space pilots were at liberty to chase about the void on personal matters, what kind of a fleet do you think we’d have? With Mars waiting to strike at any opening we leave, we can’t take the chances of weakening any defensive line.”

  “But what about Veya?” Vickers exploded. “With the information she had about Earth defenses, she’d be a ripe plum to fall into the hands of Martian agents on Ten.”

  “We’ll have to take that chance,” Commander Wilson said quietly. “Earth cannot spare space pilots, Lieutenant Vickers.”

  Vickers felt a hot flood of anger rushing through him. Maybe it was illogical and inconsistent, but he knew, somehow, that Veya would need him on Base Ten. The thought of her in trouble, while he was twiddling his thumbs on Earth, was too much for him.