Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  Still, he was worried.

  Lt was then that Dirk Masters opened his eyes fur the second time and looked around him. This time there was a liquid light in the eyes, a questioning light that finally turned to Jan’s immobile figure.

  “W—where am I?” he whispered weakly. He couldn’t remember much of what had happened to him. Somehow he had the disquieting sensation that he didn’t want to remember.

  The stocky man at his bedside was saying something to him.

  “You are all right,” Jan said. “You are safe. You did not drown.”

  Dirk turned his face away as a flood of incredible memories swept over him. They weren’t tangible recollections, just vague terrifying half-thoughts that seemed more like the horrible miasma of a half-remembered nightmare than anything actual that had happened.

  There was the wild, fleeting image of a huge blue ship descending on him through green fog. Then a blast of white hot light searing his very soul. After that there was water and waves and horrible confusion, climaxed by falling . . .

  He moaned and tossed fitfully on the cot. Everything was closing in on him with intolerable pressure . . .

  He knew no more.

  WHEN he awakened again Jan was still at his beside and he felt somehow more refreshed. His eyes were clear and while he was terribly weak, it was obvious that he was recovering.

  He asked the same question of Jan again.

  “Where am I?”

  Jan started to tell him, but some intuition advised him that the information would only excite the sick man further.

  “You are all right,” he said. “You must rest.”

  With a terrible effort Dirk struggled to lift himself on one elbow. He had to get up. It was terribly important. Everything was crystal clear in his mind now. The destruction of earth’s armaments, the materialization of the green fog, the onslaught of the mighty ship? from space, all of these things he remembered.

  Possibly everyone on board the broadcast ship had perished. He had a dim recollection of a great explosion as he fell into the water. Maybe that had been the boilers of the ship blowing up.

  He shuddered at the thought. It was terrible to think that men he had talked and laughed with a few short days ago were now dead.

  He reached out and grabbed Jan by the arm. He could do nothing for the dead, but there were still the living people of Earth to save.

  “Listen to me,” he said weakly. “There’s no time to lose. You’ve got to warn the people that they might be in grave danger. Ships, huge blue ships are attacking. More of them may be coming soon. We—we’ve got to be ready to fight.”

  A worried look crept into Jan’s eyes.

  “We cannot tight the blue ships,” he said softly.

  “Damn you!” Dirk cried feebly. He made another attempt to rise but his body lacked the strength. He slumped back again, breathing heavily.

  “You’ve got to do something,” he said weakly. “If the people aren’t warned these cursed blue ships may destroy everything, may conquer all of Earth”

  Jan rose sadly to his feet and pulled the coarse coverlet up about Dirk’s neck.

  “You must rest,” he said soothingly. “The things you speak of belong to the past. The men from the stars came in their blue ships many, many years ago and killed the people of Earth. That was a long, long time ago. No one who lives now is old enough to remember it. It was all so long ago that it is almost forgotten. You must rest and try to forget it too.”

  Dirk listened incredulously, a mad feeling of desperation welling up inside him.

  “You’re lying,” he half sobbed. “You’re lying to me. It happened yesterday. It happened . . .”

  His voice trailed off as his eyes moved over the rough stone walls of the room and to the coarse leather clothes which Jan was wearing. What did this impossible nightmare mean?

  “I won’t believe it,” he cried. “I won’t believe.”

  Jan shook his head sadly and slowly left the room.

  IT WAS ten days before Dirk could sit up, another ten before he was able to walk about. He was still weak but once on his feet his strength returned rapidly.

  It was after he had been up for about five days that Jan allowed him to leave the small stone room.

  “You are still weak,” Jan stated arbitrarily. “Need much rest. I think some air would do you good. Come with me.”

  Dirk followed Jan out of the small stone room in which he had been lying for almost a month into a larger room with a higher ceiling. The walls and floor were covered with the skins of small animals and in one corner there was fire under a crude pot, suspended under three crossed sticks.

  The room was possibly twenty feet square and there were at least a dozen people in it. They were squatting on the floor, old and young alike, and they all stared at him with the silent curiosity of animals observing a new phenomenon.

  Jan explained, “This is the main room of our tribe. Our caves extended far, but many of them are not occupied. Every year more and more die and are killed. Soon there will be none of us left.”

  He spoke with a fatalistic philosophy that was somehow terrifying.

  He led Dirk then through several corridors lighted with burning strands of grease soaked rope which cast a flickering illumination over the rough walls and floor.

  Occasionally Dirk saw youngsters peeking at him around corners, their thin pale faces and wild long hair giving them the look of half-human animals. The faces disappeared with an accompaniment of squeaks and giggles every time he looked in their direction.

  As they passed one corridor Dirk noticed that a heavy wooden door blocked its entrance. He wasn’t sure, but he fancied he heard a faint, somehow familiar noise emanating from behind the thick door.

  He stopped. “What’s down that corridor?” he asked.

  Jan looked at the door, half fearfully, Dirk thought, and then grabbed him by the arm and pulled him along.

  “No one go in there,” he said. “Long ago the old men forbid anyone of the tribe to go near the room at the end of the tunnel. Keep away.”

  After a while they came to a crudely cut stairway that led upward. Jan started up the stone steps, motioning Dirk to follow. At the top of the stairs Jan shoved a boulder to one side and a brilliant shaft of sunlight poured into the aperture, spilling its light and warmth over Dirk.

  Dirk almost cried out his happiness. It had been eternities, it seemed, since he had seen the sun and the light of day.

  HE CLIMBED eagerly through the hole, following Jan into the open. With eager expectancy he stared about. For fully a minute he stared in all directions, the hopeful light in his eyes slowly fading.

  For the entire terrain before him was a burned and blackened scene of miserable desolation. Rock and shale and coarse yellow mud extended as far as his eye could reach. There was no vestige, no semblance of human habitation. Only the ocean which lapped against the forbidding shore was unchanged.

  He remembered—it seemed like yesterday—advising the Captain of the broadcast boat to make for Florida. But this ugly, craggy, desolated land couldn’t be Florida.

  It was while he was looking miserably over the ruined plains that the words of Jan came back to him.

  “The men from the stars came in their blue ships many, many years ago and killed the people of earth!”

  That was what Jan had said.

  Good Lord! That would mean that he . . . No! That was madness. It couldn’t be.

  It was a relief when Jan said a few minutes later:

  “Come. We go down. It is not safe to stay out in the daylight too long. At night there is not so much danger.” Dirk followed Jan down into the gloomy cave, his thoughts spinning into mad impossibilities.

  He was hardly conscious of moving and it wasn’t until he passed the heavy solid door that blocked off the forbidden corridor that he snapped from his reverie.

  He stopped, not realizing for an instant what it had been that had snagged his attention.

  Then he hea
rd it.

  The muffled but familiar sound that he had noticed before when passing this grimly closed door.

  For an unbelieving second he hesitated. It was impossible . . . still he couldn’t be mistaken about a thing like that.

  He grabbed Jan by the arm, jerking the stocky man about to face him.

  “Jan,” he said tensely. “Is there any way to get beyond this door? It’s terribly important.”

  Jan looked at the door and there was a doubtful fear in his eyes.

  “There is a key,” he said miserably, “but it is forbidden—”

  “Get it!” Dirk interrupted tersely. “We’ve got to get into the room at the end of that corridor.”

  Jan hesitated for an anxious instant, then with a clearly apprehensive look, he hurried off. Dirk waited impatiently, ear at the door, until he returned, carrying a thick ring to which was attached a long crudely-made key.

  With fingers that trembled he took the key from Jan and inserted it in the door. The lock was rusty from long lack of use, but after a number of unsuccessful attempts, the door swung open with a groaning creak.

  Dirk plunged into the dark corridor that stretched ahead of him and Jan followed him, cautiously holding one of the rope candles to illuminate the black passage.

  The narrow corridor was only about twenty feet long and Dirk covered the distance in several strides. A smaller door, standing half open, loomed ahead of him and the noise he had heard was now louder and more distinct.

  It was a sputtering crackling, like the crumpling of cellophane or the frying of bacon.

  As Dirk shoved through the halfopened door into a small dank room the crackling sound faded out and a soft patient voice said, “Calling. Please come in.”

  CHAPTER V

  The Voice from Tibet

  JAN cried out in terror at the sound of the strange voice, but Dirk leaped into the room, hope surging in heart.

  “Light,” he snapped to Jan. “Bring your light in here.”

  Fearfully Jan stepped into the room, holding the rope candle well in front of him, and peering about as if he expected the demons of hell to leap at him from the corners.

  The light revealed a small, stonewalled room, no different than the others Dirk had seen in this underground habitation.

  But built against one wall was a complete radio sending and receiving set, dusty and interlaced with thick spider webs, but still in working order.

  Dirk knew it was in working order because from its loud speaker the calm, quietly patient voice was repeating: “Please come in. If you hear our voice please come in. There is no danger. Please communicate with us.” Jan was fidgeting at the door.

  “Is not good,” he muttered. “Let us leave.”

  “Quiet,” Dirk said impatiently. He seated himself before the radio equipment and slipped the dusty head phones on. Then he made the necessary adjustments and picked up the small hand mike.

  “Hello,” he said. “If you can hear me please come in again.”

  He cut himself off and flicked the receiver on.

  Almost instantly the smooth voice came in, but there was an undercurrent of tense excitement in it.

  “I heard you. I can hardly convince myself I am not dreaming. We have been trying for several fruitless years to re-establish contact with your station. Why have you been out of contact all this time? Please come in.”

  Dirk cut himself in again.

  “I can’t answer your questions,” he said. “I stumbled on this set only a few moments ago, just as you were speaking. I don’t know anything about what has happened in the last few years. Please tell me who you are.”

  He cut the receiver in and waited tensely.

  Again the soft voice came in.

  “I am broadcasting from the land that was once known as Tibet. Our set is located in one of our ancient monasteries. Since the invasion of the murderous hordes from Saturn and

  Mars, one hundred and fifty years ago, we have tried to keep the thread of human communication intact. We kept contact with the station you are using for many years, but a decade ago the thread was broken and we were beginning to despair of re-establishing communication.”

  DIRK did not hear the last half of what the voice said. His mind was dazedly trying to adjust itself to the enormous implications contained in the realization that it had been over one hundred and fifty years ago since the day of the broadcast when he had first seen the mighty-blue ships from space.

  One hundred and fifty years!

  He became aware after a stunned instant that the voice had stopped, that he had automatically switched the receiving set off in his bewilderment.

  He cut himself in again.

  “Please go on,” he said shakenly. “It may sound incredible to you, but I witnessed the first of the invasion of Earth. I was stunned by a bolt of light from one of their ships and it was not until a few weeks ago that I regained consciousness. Please tell me what has happened since then.”

  The calm voice from the timeless land of Tibet came softly again into his ears.

  “We Lamas have watched the rise and fall of civilizations and empires since the youth of Man, and we are not shocked or disheartened by the constant and seemingly periodic lapses of mankind into the degradation from which he originally sprang. Such things happen; that is all one could say of them. But this present debacle is of a different nature. Man’s plight is now infinitely worse because he is beyond help.

  “When the invaders came with their scientific methods of slaughter man was powerless to halt them. It is ironic to realize that the horrible invasion from outer space came at the time when Man had apparently solved his own Earth problems. War had been outlawed, the weapons of destruction were being consigned to oblivion, a golden era was truly dawning. Then came the combined hordes from Saturn and Mars to destroy utterly what it had taken Man fifty thousand years to achieve: peace.

  “The men of Earth fought as best they could, retreating from the cities into the forests and farmlands, living and hiding in caves, venturing forth only at night for food. Many died. And as the years rolled on and as the inhuman creatures from space hunted down Earth people with unrelenting fury, the entire human race declined. They had nothing to fight with and after a hundred years of horror their children’s children lost even the incentive to fight. So at last the people ©f Earth could be counted in the thousands, existing in ragged, barbarous hordes, living beneath ground, forgetting their heritage and pride as intelligent creatures of a great planet.

  “Now there are only a few scattered groups of which yours is one. That is, I trust there are a few of that group still alive. When our communication was cut off, there were still a few hundred left, still untouched by the ravages of the invaders. How long we can remain so is a question which time alone will answer.”

  THE voice faded out. Dirk sat before the set, staring unseeingly ahead of him, his mind trying desperately to absorb what he had learned.

  It was staggering to realize that the earth he had known was no more; that alien beings from far out in space had completely conquered it, subverted it to their own uses; that the people of Earth now were little better than animals, living their frightened lives in caves and holes, scurrying from the light like cockroaches.

  Still more staggering was the knowledge that the life he had known had been dead and in ashes for a century and a half. What strange fate had kept him living, when the time and place to which he belonged had been mouldering for fifteen decades?[3]

  It was while he was vainly trying to readjust himself to the incredible situation that he became conscious of running footsteps in the corridor that led from the radio room.

  He turned just as Jan barged through the door breathlessly, his eyes widened in fright, a mask of terror stamped on his face.

  Dirk sprang to his feet.

  “What is it, Jan?” he demanded.

  “They have come,” Jan said fearfully. “A blue ship has landed close to the opening of our cave. They are hunting
us now.”

  CHAPTER VI

  Discovered!

  IT TOOK an instant for the impact of the words to register on Dirk. They! What a terrifying connotation there was in that impersonal pronoun.

  They—the inhuman creatures from the black recesses of space—were hunting down the humans in this underground refuge as ruthlessly as man had hunted vermin. Man had become the vermin of Earth now, a pestilent species that the usurpers from space were anxious to exterminate.

  He realized then that Jan was looking at him.

  “What we do?” Jan asked.

  The question jerked him back to the immediateness of their plight. Something had to be done—at once. He ran a hand nervously through his hair. Why was it his responsibility? It wasn’t for him to decide what to do. There wasn’t anything that could be done.

  “Come on,” he said abruptly to Jan.

  He strode back through the now-dark corridor to the illuminated section of the cave. There was a cluster of frightened men and women at the base of the stone steps that led to the open. At the base of the stairs Dirk turned to Jan.

  “How near is the ship to the opening of these steps?” he asked.

  Jan shrugged and scratched his head.

  “I show you,” he said finally.

  Leading the way he scampered up the steps and moved the sliding stone that closed the opening about an inch.

  Dirk crawled up alongside of him and peered through the narrow crack. About a hundred yards away was a huge blue ship resting on the rocky ground. At that range it seemed gigantic and wickedly invulnerable. It was shaped like a torpedo, with a blunt snout-like nose and long gracefully tapering body that ended in a pair of flaring fins. A series of small port holes lined the side of the ship that was visible to him. A rectangular opening in the center of the ship showed like a black cancer against the delicate blue sides. All of this was strange and incredible to Dirk, but it was faded into prosaic insignificance by the two things which were climbing out of this slit-like opening.

  They were wraith-like creatures, a dirty ivory in color, tall as a human but not more than five inches wide at the thickest parts of their bodies. Whether the ivory coloring was their skin or some kind of clothes was impossible to tell. At the bottom of their bodies were two thin appendages which served as legs. Their arms appeared to be solid at the shoulders but at the point where a human elbow would have been, a number of writhing tendrils sprouted. These twisting feelers hung almost to the ground and their hair-thin tips twitched and curled restlessly, seeming to have a separate life of their own.