Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  The professor’s mild blue eyes met Barry’s and his frail shoulders shrugged wearily.

  “My young friend,” he said softly, “I admire your will and I respect your courage. But I am afraid they will be of no use here.”

  “One more thing,” Barry said after a pause, “I’ve told you about the bird-girls, but you didn’t comment. What is your opinion of them?”

  “More guess work,” the professor replied. “They are represented in the monolithic inscriptions, so it is safe to assume they have existed for quite some time. Possibly they are the source of the Valkyries, the beautiful bird-girls, of the Germanic mythology. At any rate they are an extremely interesting mutation. Mother Nature in her wisdom might have equipped these daughters of hers with wings to enable them to survive the dangers they would meet in the plains. With wings, even the most ferocious dinosaur can be eluded. In their countenance, as you have described them, there is a definite resemblance to the North American Indian, who is still buried thousands of years in the future. That is another speculation. Why they helped you I can, again, only guess. They might reason that you were of their type, as opposed to the beast you were fighting. Therefore their sympathies were with you and they came to your aid. What to do with you then became their problem. Since they know that the cave men live in the volcano, and since you resembled the cave men, the logical thing was for them to bring you here, which they did. The reception they received will undoubtedly serve to stifle any such charitable inclinations which might arise in the future.”

  Barry twisted slightly and a twinge of pain shot up his side.

  The professor’s keen eyes caught his wince.

  “You’re hurt,” he said anxiously. “I’m an old fool for gabbing on like this. Lie down on these skins and I’ll bring some salve and bandages. I had them with me when I was captured. Then you’ll need some broth and a night’s sleep to put you on top of the world. Do as I say now.”

  Barry obeyed the suddenly decisive professor meekly.

  “One thing though,” he said, “the girl they captured looked as if she might be hurt. I’d feel better if you’d see if there’s anything you can do for her.”

  “All right, all right,” the professor said testily, “I’ll look after everybody in the ward but first of all I want to look after you.”

  WHEN the professor had dressed the ugly scratches and bruises on his side and fed him a deep wooden bowl full of steaming broth, Barry relaxed against the comfortable warmth of the thick skins. He was not worried about the party he had brought back to this savage past. They were, he knew, in McGregor’s capable hands. The realization that he might never again see the big Scotchman gave him a deep wrench. Surprisingly, however, he had the same sensation when he thought of never seeing Linda Carstairs again.

  He dozed off, still unable to make sense out of his thoughts and emotions.

  The professor awakened him. After another meal he felt almost up to normal. The rest and food had performed a miracle on his tired, weakened system. Strength was flowing again through the muscles of his hard, well packed body.

  “You look like a different man,” the professor said, “Naturally that is gratifying for I take full credit for my patient’s recovery. I regret to say my other patient is not doing as well.”

  “The girl?” Barry asked quickly. “You’ve seen her?”

  The professor nodded.

  “They have locked her away in a small cave. They are all extremely elated over her capture. She will, I imagine, be put to use during one of their sacrificial ceremonies, if she lives that long.”

  “Why do you say that?” Barry asked.

  “She will not eat,” the professor said. “She will languish away inside of a week, like any wild thing in captivity. Probably it is the kindest thing that could happen to her.”

  “Could I see her?” Barry asked.

  “Possibly,” the professor said thoughtfully. “Keep close to me. I have freedom here, because the cave men all feel immensely superior to me physically. Mentally, too, I suppose,” he added wryly.

  With the professor in the lead they left the small smoky chamber and followed a narrow corridor for several hundred feet. Rooms branched off this tunnel and Barry had quick glimpses of the living quarters of the cave men. Great slovenly females and savage wiry children peered curiously at him as he walked past.

  They met several males lumbering along in the opposite direction, but the only attention they received was a noncommittal grunt.

  “I think it’s going to be all right,” the professor said. With a smile, he added, “The males, fortunately, feel superior to you, too.”

  At the end of this corridor the professor stopped. He pointed to a heavy door, made of slabs of wood bound together with leather thongs and hinged by the same device.

  “She is in there,” he said.

  A torch cast an eerie smoky yellow light over the door and through its chinks. Through one of these Barry was able to see the interior of the small, rock-walled room. It took an instant to adjust his eyes to the poorly lighted enclosure but when he did he saw the girl, a dark motionless shape, crouched in the farthest corner of the room. He could not see her face, but in the semidarkness, her brilliant dark eyes gleamed like two tiny flames.

  Listening he could hear her breathing, harshly, fearfully, as if each shuddering breath were to be her last. It was that sound, piteously terrible, that spurred him to action.

  “There must be something we can do,” he said determinedly.

  “It’s no use,” the professor protested. “I placed a bowl of broth before her earlier today, but she won’t touch it. There’s nothing you can do.”

  BARRY didn’t bother answering.

  Quickly he untied the leather thongs that secured the door, opened it and stepped inside the room. The light from the corridor fell across the floor, cutting a swath through the darkness, affording him a clear view of the girl.

  She crouched against the wall as he moved cautiously toward her, her gleaming eyes darting about as if seeking escape.

  The tendons in her throat were taut and strained, and her lips were drawn in pain from her strong teeth.

  Barry stopped in the middle of the room and for several minutes remained absolutely motionless. Then he slowly eased himself on one knee and picked up the crude wooden bowl of broth. He waited again and then slowly extended it toward the girl.

  She crouched away from the extended bowl.

  Barry held it out until his arm was tired, then he set it again on the floor. He tried this twice again with no success.

  Then he held the bowl to his own lips and drank. The girl watched him with narrowed eyes. After a pause he extended the bowl to her. She hesitated, tremblingly indecisive, then crouched away again.

  Barry drank again, but the girl would not take the bowl from him. In despair he set the broth down and left the room.

  “It’s useless,” Professor Carstairs said.

  “I guess you’re right,” Barry said glumly. He closed the door discouragedly. Then he heard a strange sound from inside the room. Putting his eyes to one of the larger chinks, he saw that the girl had picked up the bowl and was drinking the broth, her bright eyes still staring steadily over the rim of the bowl at the door.

  He grabbed the professor excitedly and pulled him to the door.

  The professor looked for an instant then cocked his head appreciatively.

  “Well, well,” he said, a deep satisfaction in his voice, “she gurgles her soup like a lady. My boy, you have unexpected resources.”

  The next day they returned to the room with another bowl of broth, several pieces of roasted meat and a strange assortment of bandages, leather strips and lengths of wood, hacked down to a thickness of a quarter of an inch.

  “Are you sure you can do it?” Barry asked anxiously, as he untied the leather thongs on the door.

  “My boy,” the professor said touchily, “to a man who has performed cellular transformation operations, a sp
lint should not be too difficult. If she will keep still I can patch that wing as good as new.”

  When they entered the room the girl watched them warily, but she showed no signs of fear. There were deep lines of pain in her face and beads of sweat ringed her forehead. A sickly white pallor was showing through the deep tan of her skin.

  She drank the soup hungrily, without hesitation. But she would not touch the meat until Barry had eaten almost half of it. Then she devoured the rest.

  “We might have to put a splint on you,” the professor said, “to show her that it’s all right.”

  But two attempts to bind the injured wing convinced them that it was a hopeless task. The girl crouched in terror from them, shielding the broken wing with her body.

  “What now?” the professor asked helplessly.

  “I’ll show you,” Barry said grimly.

  With a quick motion he grabbed the girl’s arms, pinioning them behind her. She fought him in savage silence, but the surprise of his movement had given him the advantage. It took all of the steely strength in his arms to hold the girl while the professor straightened her broken wing.

  “Hurry,” Barry panted.

  “Doing my best,” the professor said through his teeth.

  Barry held the girl, face downward on the floor, his knee in her back, but she continued to fight and struggle with savage strength.

  The professor worked in swift silence. When he set the wing the girl strained convulsively for an instant, then her head fell forward to the floor.

  “I think she’s unconscious,” Barry said.

  “Good,” the professor snapped. “I can work that much faster.”

  IN a matter of minutes he was binding the splints into place with leather thongs. Then he strapped the wing to the girl’s body and stood up.

  “All through,” he said. “In a week or two it should be fit as a fiddle.”

  Barry turned the girl on her side and balled his jacket into a pillow and slipped it under her head.

  Her eyes flickered open as they were leaving. The expression in them was inscrutable. There was pain and fear and watchfulness, but behind that there was a faint expression that was impossible to name.

  Barry closed the heavy door and shook his head.

  “It isn’t likely,” he said, “that we’ll ever receive a vote of thanks for that job.”

  Professor Carstairs putted his lips musingly.

  “You never can tell,” he said. “Stranger things have happened.”

  They started back down the rock hewn corridor toward the room which Barry had been using, but they had not traveled a dozen feet before they became aware of a sudden commotion, a clamorous excitement sweeping through the halls and corridors of the underground caves.

  Hoarse guttural shouts echoed about them, and they saw a dozen of the shaggy cave brutes lumbering past an intersection, their faces twisted in savage anticipation.

  The huge, dull-faced women crowded into the corridor from the living quarters, their monkey-like children clinging to their legs, squealing in excitement.

  “What’s up?” Barry demanded.

  The professor shook his head worriedly.

  “We’d better investigate,” he answered.

  They started off at a trot, but before they crossed the nearest intersection, four formidably armed cave men appeared and, with a wild yell, sprang at them.

  The attack was so unexpected and the savagery of the shaggy creatures so irresistible that Barry was hurled to the ground before he could raise his arms to defend himself. Resistance was useless, but still he struggled desperately, lashing out with both fists at his bestial attackers.

  A stunning blow from a heavy gnarled fist exploded a constellation of fireworks in his head. Dazed, he slumped to the floor, fighting doggedly at the mists of darkness that were rising to cloud his mind.

  Rough hands jerked him to his feet and he felt himself being half dragged, half carried along the rocky floor of the corridor.

  The very abruptness of the motion revived him to some extent. A dozen feet ahead he could see three burly figures dragging the limp form of Professor Carstairs between them. There was a babel of sound in his ears as the cave men grunted and chattered among themselves like a tribe of excited apes.

  There was a triumphant, gloating note in their voices, as if some long and eagerly awaited event were about to transpire.

  Groggily, Barry attempted to make some kind of sense out of the violent reversal of the cave men’s attitude toward the professor and himself. It was no use. His tired brain gave up the struggle to think.

  HOW long or how far he was dragged through narrow corridors, he had only the vaguest idea. It seemed hours and miles, but he was conscious enough to realize it had probably been only a fraction of that.

  The forward motion stopped abruptly. Dimly he heard the shuffling, rhythmic tramp of heavy, bare feet approaching, coming nearer . . . nearer . . .

  Exultant cries sounded about him and from a distance answering shouts filtered to his consciousness. Lifting his head Barry saw another and larger band of the savage cave creatures tramping, toward them. Leading this horde was a gigantic figure of a man, muscled and massive, with a fantastically bestial countenance. This lumbering savage carried a club on one wide shoulder. In the forked end of the club a flashing, glittering stone was lashed, and its luminous emanations threw a pale flickering glow against the walls of the caves and over the dull faces of the pack.

  Barry’s eyes flicked from the giant leader of the approaching group, and a sudden shock of amazement jarred him to full consciousness. For in the center of the shaggy, savage pack of cave men, were three weary, dirt stained figures, stumbling along under the fierce prods of their captors.

  Incredulously, he stared, his heart hammering painfully.

  His eyes swung in an agony of apprehension to Professor Carstair’s inert form, sprawled piteously on the rocky floor, then back to the advancing horde, to the small, dark haired girl, whose frail slimness was terribly emphasized by the towering bulk of the brutes who strode beside her.

  “Linda!” he cried frantically.

  At the sound of her name the girl looked up, and an expression of sudden hope and joy flooded her strained features.

  “Barry,” she whispered.

  That faint sound went through him like a powerful elixir. With a sudden frenzied burst of strength he broke away from the hands that held him, and staggered toward her. Two shaggy creatures sprang after him, bellowing madly, but before they reached him, his inspired strength faded and he crashed forward to the hard floor.

  CHAPTER VI

  Waiting for Death

  “THERE will be a full moon tonight!”

  Professor Carstairs spoke the words slowly, with careful unmistakable emphasis. In the small dimly lighted chamber where he and Barry had been confined, they echoed with a fatalistic ring.

  Barry lifted his head from his hands and looked up haggardly at the professor’s slight figure.

  “That means curtains for us then?” he asked.

  “I’m quite certain of it,” the professor answered. “You noticed the excitement in the face of the creature who brought us our food this morning? You hear the undercurrent of restless anticipation that drifts in to us? Very evil portents, both.”

  Barry stood up and savagely paced the narrow width of the cell.

  “If only we knew what these beasts had done with Linda and McGregor and Allerton,” he raged. “It’s waiting here helplessly while she might be hurt, or in danger, that’s driving me crazy.”

  “The others are safe until tonight,” Professor Carstairs said heavily. “What might happen then is something I dare not let myself think about.”

  Barry slumped against the wall, gritting his teeth to hold back a groan. It was not his own life he regretted losing. It was the thought of Linda, frail and defenseless, going forth to a barbarous death, that brought red flecks of madness before his eyes. Since that brief moment, a week ago, w
hen he had seen her, pitifully stumbling before the callous shouts of the brutish, gloating men, he had known that her fate was more important to him than his own. If, in dying, he could save her, he would consider it a light payment. But to go to death, futilely and uselessly, unable to raise a finger to help her, was maddening.

  There was no way of measuring the passage of time in their dark damp dungeon. A faintly flickering torch in the corridor cast an oppressive, uncertain illumination through the chinks in the door of their cell. No other light reached them.

  After an interminable stretch of time, the professor lifted his head. “Listen!” he said tensely.

  A faint shout reached them and before it faded it was echoed by other voices, growing louder and closer. A tramping of feet that seemed to jar the solid rock floor came to them, and the eager howling voices swelled to an unbelievable crescendo as the mightily thudding feet neared.

  Then, with a crash, the timbers of the door shattered and a half dozen shaggy demoniacal figures broke through and fell on them. Barry felt leather thongs cutting into his arms and wrists, then he was jerked into the corridor between two of the cave men.

  A milling horde of the savages surrounded him and in the pale light their slavering fangs and unkempt hair gave them the appearance of lusting animals.

  A hoarse sing-song chant broke out from them as they hustled him down the corridor. Then, hours and miles later it seemed, he was dragged through a crude arch way into the vast vaulted chamber that was the core of the volcano. Moonlight streaming through the hole hundreds of feet above his head, bathed with soft mellow light the incredible scene that confronted him.

  THE large, naturally-formed arena was jammed with the shaggy men, the slovenly women and the shrieking children of the cave tribe. From wall to wall they formed a solid, screaming mass of primitive humanity. Flaring torches set in niches in the wall touched their glaring eyes with points of light and transformed them to glowing pools of insane frenzy.

  On their hideously twisted faces was the stamp of mob lust, thirsting for vengeance, for sacrifice, for blood.