Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  He looked up at Simar and his eyes were bleak and hard as frozen steel.

  “All right, Simar,” he said, “you apparently hold all the cards. What do you want with us?”

  “Now you are being more sensible,” Simar said.

  HE SAT down carefully on the cot facing them and smiled his flat, humorless smile.

  “First,” he said, “let me caution you against attempting to escape from Lunas. You will be under constant surveillance and the penalties for any such action will be very severe. I hope you will be sensible in this matter.”

  He leaned forward slightly on the cot and cleared his throat softly.

  “I will begin my story by telling you something of this place. You must try and think in terms of the past, the past of a hundred thousand years ago, when this moon of Earth still possessed sufficient heat to nurture vegetation and make its surface habitable. In that time the creatures you have seen, of which I am one myself, were a flourishing, highly developed species of intelligent life. Civilizations, however, do not all progress along the same lines, and our advancement was chiefly marked by the development of elementary devices to span time and the cultivation of a system of thought transference, which did away with the necessity of speech, with the result that the vocal chords of our people eventually atrophied.

  “In all lines of science we were striving ceaselessly to attain perfection and if we had developed normally there is no limit to the ends we might have achieved.”

  Simar paused and Phillip noticed that his eyes had left their faces and he seemed to have forgotten their presence.

  “We might have grown great and glorious,” he went on in a changed voice that was charged with bitterness, “but life on Lunas was obliterated in the twentieth of a second and the greatest civilization the Universe has ever known was reduced to a pile of rubble in the twinkling of an eye. A meteor storm of unprecedented size and speed smashed Lunas into the dust, destroying it forever.”

  Nada had raised her head as Simar spoke and only the redness of her eyes indicated that she had been crying. She was listening closely to Simar’s story, and now she said,

  “Hadn’t your scientists been able to predict the course of the storm?”

  “They had,” Simar answered, “and we had built a force shield to deflect the meteors but we hadn’t sufficient experience to make the shield work effectively. We were working frantically on it when the storm struck. And before a man could draw a breath the life of Lunas was sealed under millions of tons of molten metal.

  “And the very suddenness of the onslaught was the thing that saved us from complete obliteration. It may be hard for you to understand but the very speed with which the life of Lunas was crushed out prevented the life forces from escaping completely from the area. Millions of us were destroyed in a physical sense, but our life forces were held in suspension under the tons of metal that had destroyed our city.

  “After the molten meteors had cooled, thousands of years later,” Simar continued, “we were able by sheer, disembodied will power to project a life substance to Earth where it assumed the form of a human being.”

  SIMAR smiled then and then bowed slightly in a self-depreciatory gesture.

  “And I, as you may have guessed, am that humble person,” he said. “I appropriated this body and then the rest you can probably surmise. I constructed a time machine on the principles we had discovered thousands of years before and arranged to be included among the members of your expedition. But I had no intention of going to Mars. I wanted to return to Luna and that was easily managed. The city that appeared in the visi-screen was but a phantom, a figment of your collective imaginations induced by the concerted will of the millions of life forces still held in suspension on the buried city of Lunas.”

  “What did you do to Captain Malcolm?” Phillip asked.

  “Captain Malcolm as you know him is dead forever,” Simar said. “His body was absorbed by a liberated life force before he readied Lunas.”

  Phillip had difficulty in controlling an impulse to spring at Simar’s throat and crush the dead, unclean life from his body.

  But he fought back the red rage that coursed through his body in hot waves. He knew that Nada and he were in terrible danger and their only hope was to play for time, to find, somehow, a means to return to their own time.

  “It wasn’t hard,” Simar continued, a cool smile on his lips. “As a matter of fact, when you and Miss Connors explored the basin of the Lunasian valley, her mind was almost taken over by one of the life forces. If you noticed, the ectoplasmic emanations from the buried city of Lunas drifted toward you the instant your presence in the valley became manifest. If you hadn’t distracted her mind, forced her to concentrate on something else she would have been lost to you forever.”

  Nada squeezed Phillip’s arm with her hand,

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You tried to tell me that but I wouldn’t listen. I’ve been nothing but a drag on you since we left Earth. It’s no wonder you despise me.”

  “Skip it,” Phillip said. “You’ve got more guts than most of the men on the Astra” He grinned down at her and rocked her chin gently with his fist. “We’ll lick this thing.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Simar said, “but I am afraid I must disappoint you. You are here to do a specific job and when that job is done you will be—ah—liquidated is the word, I believe.”

  HE crossed his legs and leaned back comfortably on the narrow cot.

  “I will tell you now why I brought you here. At this moment the meteor storm I spoke of has not yet occurred. It will occur tomorrow evening. Before that time you are going to examine our force shield and put it in working order. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Supposing I can’t fix it?” Phillip asked.

  “You will repair the machine,” Simar said, emphasizing each word carefully. “Unfortunately you are not going to have much time. I miscalculated slightly in my entropy estimate and consequently we arrived back at Lunas only a day before the impending destruction of the city by the meteor storm. But your skill will avert that catastrophe and Lunas will be saved.”

  “Has it occurred to you,” Phillip said, “that you aren’t in a very good position to be making demands? You need my knowledge to save your own life and the life of every person and thing on Luna. Supposing I refuse to help you?”

  “That has occurred to me,” Simar said blandly. He smiled as if he were enjoying the taste of something on his tongue. His eyes moved slowly to Nada. “I noticed that you are quite fond of our charming guest,” he murmured. “That is the reason I brought her with us. She is the lever I may have to use on you—a very beautiful lever and a most effective one. If you don’t cooperate, it will not be very pleasant for her. Has that occurred to you, Phillip Evans?”

  “Don’t listen to him, Phillip!” Nada cried. “He intends to kill us anyway after you have saved their city. I don’t care what happens to me.”

  “Don’t you, my child?” Simar said gently. “That is only because you have no idea of the refined tortures we have prepared for you.” He glanced at Phillip and smiled. “You have seen my people? Probably they seem quite repugnant to you, but they are actuated by the same fundamental desires that motivate any thinking organism. They have impulses that are quite normal and moderate from their viewpoint. But—” He paused and chuckled softly. “I wonder if Miss Connors would think so?”

  “You filthy beast!” Phillip spat the words out harshly. “You couldn’t possibly be that rotten and corrupt.”

  “I might surprise you,” Simar said. “At any rate, I am going to give you a few minutes to think this over. That is why I placed you in the same cell.” He stood up and walked to the door. “I’ll be back shortly for your decision. And remember, Miss Connors would be a dainty diversion for some lucky citizen of Lunas.”

  He bowed mockingly to them and stepped into the corridor, closing and locking the door behind him.

  PHILLIP put his arm about Nada’s sh
oulder and held her tightly.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” he whispered. “Nothing like that is going to happen to you. I promise you that much.”

  “Why don’t you agree to help them?” Nada asked. “They intend to kill us both, but that way you’d gain a little time. If you refuse to help them they may kill us immediately.”

  “I think maybe that’s the best idea,” Phillip said. He took a small knife from his pocket—his only weapon—and handed it to the girl.

  “If anything happens to me,” he said, “you know what to do with this.” Nada slipped the knife into the front of her tunic and nodded slowly.

  “Yes, Phillip,” she whispered, “I’ll know what to do with it. And I won’t be afraid.”

  “I know you won’t,” Phillip said. He patted her gently on the cheek and smiled into her eyes. “You’ve got everything it takes.”

  “Thanks,” she said simply.

  Phillip stepped to the cell door and called Simar.

  “Have you reached a decision?” Simar asked mockingly.

  “Yes, I have,” Phillip said. “I’ll help you.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE force shield had been constructed at the edge of the city. When Simar and Phillip, escorted by a half dozen of the ropey-armed inhabitants of Lunas, reached the spot where it had been erected, a huge battery of brilliant lights was directed on the machine bringing it into sharp focus against the soft, velvet blackness of the Lunas night.

  Phillip studied the machine with an engineer’s practiced eye. It towered two dozen feet in the air and was easily twice that wide. From its flat, gleaming surface a dozen barrels pointed skyward like the menacing feelers of some giant bug.

  A control panel and observation platform was reached by a narrow flight of iron steps.

  “Come with me,” Simar said. “There is no time to lose.”

  He led Phillip up the steps to the observation platform.

  “The principle of the machine is simply a variation of ray projection,” he explained. “These barrels throw a powerful ray screen miles into the air which, when magnetized, become as dense as the hardest metal. It should be sufficient to deflect the meteor storm. Your job is to make this machine work. Our scientists are completely unable to discover the flaw in its operation. That, as you know, is why you and Captain Malcolm were brought here.”

  “Bring me the necessary tools to tear this machine to the ground and I’ll get to work,” Phillip said, studying the control panel with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.

  He worked steadily that night and the following morning, familiarizing himself with the construction and operation of the force shield machine. When the sun reached its zenith he was covered with grime and sweat and his face was pale and drawn with fatigue. He had inspected every square inch of the monster machine, had dug into every compartment, every housing and had re-checked the original designs and figures from which it had been built.

  And he found nothing wrong.

  Simar paced restlessly up and down the platform, occasionally glancing worriedly up in the direction the barrels of the machine were pointed.

  “Have you found anything?” he asked for the dozenth time. His usually expressionless face was twisted now into a worried scowl as he peered over Phillip’s shoulder.

  “Get out of the light,” Phillip said shortly. “When I find something, I’ll let you know.”

  Simar stared at his back in baffled rage, then resumed his worried pacing.

  “If you’re trying to trick me,” he snarled, “that wench of yours will curse you a thousand times before she dies.”

  Phillip had felt a return of his confidence as he saw Simar’s anxiety. The creatures of Lunas were like robots, without emotion, without feeling, but Simar was as edgy as a cornered rat. With the human body he had stolen he had also acquired a complete set of human emotions.

  “If I don’t get this machine operating,” he said grimly, “none of us will have any worries after tonight.”

  SIMAR glanced up at the sky. He was chewing his lower lip and his hands were shaky as he glanced at his watch.

  “You haven’t got much time,” he said and his voice was tense.

  “Where is Captain Malcolm?” Phillip asked.

  “What difference does it make?” Simar said harshly. “Keep working on that machine.”

  “Captain Malcolm might be able to help me,” Phillip said.

  Simar paced the platform in silence, clenching and unclenching his hands.

  “I’ll have him brought here,” he said finally.

  One of the Lunasian creatures moved off immediately and returned a few moments later leading the dazed, glassyeyed figure of the captain.

  “He’ll be no help!” Simar snapped.

  Phillip shrugged. “Maybe not. But I wish you’d leave him here on the platform. The association with the machine might help restore his own consciousness. He was one of the most brilliant scientists on Earth. He could solve this problem in ten minutes.”

  “All right, all right,” Simar said harshly, “let him stay here.”

  When the Lunasian released the captain he moved slowly, awkwardly to the control panel of the force field machine and ran his hands gently over the gleaming row of directional dials. A pleased, vague smile touched his face.

  Phillip turned away, choking back the rage and bitterness in his heart. The fine, keen mind that had brought illumination to a thousand subjects was a dim, tragic thing now, its brilliance clouded forever.

  “Hurry!” Simar’s voice cracked like an angry whip about his ears. He was staring at the sky, his face pale with terror. “I think I can see the light of the meteor storm.”

  Two hours passed slowly and darkness was settling slowly on Luna. And as the darkness came the eastern sky was illumined by a cherry-red glow that seemed to emanate from the boundless wastes of space.

  Sweat was standing out in tiny drops on Simar’s forehead.

  “The meteor swarm will be here in hall an hour,” he said, and his voice was thick with mounting terror. He wheeled on Phillip, his face savage. “Damn you!” he shouted. “You’ve tricked me.”

  Phillip didn’t bother to look up. His fingers worked rapidly and desperately repairing a broken cable he had discovered but a moment before.

  “Don’t worry,” he said bitterly, “your hide is saved, Simar.”

  “Have you found the trouble?” Simar asked tensely.

  Phillip nodded. “I’ll have it fixed in ten minutes.”

  An audible sigh of relief passed Simar’s lips.

  He straightened his shoulders and slowly the old expression of calm arrogance spread over his features. His eyes were again cold and hard.

  PHILLIP worked as swiftly as possible but it was twenty minutes before he finally straightened and faced Simar. The eastern sky was a blazing red now and the heat from the on rushing billions of meteors was beginning to grow uncomfortable.

  “The machine’s ready,” he said. Simar stepped to the control panel and snapped the three main connections into place, then threw the switch that sent sparks to the ray chamber.

  Instantly a dozen solid rays of orange light flashed upward from the mouth of the barrels. When they passed through Luna’s atmosphere they merged into a solid band of opaque light that widened as it moved void-ward to repel the meteors.

  Simar watched the force shield for a moment and there was a cold expression of triumph on his face. He turned then and drew the ray tube from his belt and pointed it squarely at Phillip’s chest.

  “Your usefulness is over,” he said. He smiled mockingly. “I didn’t tell you all the details of my plan for I was afraid you would refuse to cooperate, regardless of what I might do to you or the girl. You see,” he continued, grinning sardonically, “the entire population of Lunas is to be transported into the future by time machines. Once there, we will have little difficulty in subjugating the entire Universe, and your precious Earth will be the first to feel the weight of our attacks. Lunas has wa
ited long and patiently for its moment of supreme glory and it shall not be denied. I am going to kill you now, Phillip Evans. The girl I intend to keep alive, at least as long as she amuses me. When I tire of her charms I shall pass her on to one of the delightful creatures you have seen here on Lunas.”

  He laughed openly as Phillip took an involuntary step toward him, his face blazing with rage.

  “You don’t like that thought, do you?” he said jeeringly. “And you don’t like the thought of an attack launched against an unsuspecting Earth that will cripple her beyond the threat of any possible retaliation. But don’t worry too much about that. You won’t be present to witness the destruction of your beloved Earth.”

  Phillip was tensed for the searing bolt from the ray tube, but from the corner of his eye he saw Captain Malcolm moving slowly, steadily toward Simar. And in the captain’s eyes was a flickering gleam of awakened awareness.

  “For Earth!” he said softly.

  And as Simar wheeled toward the sound of the unexpected voice, Captain Malcolm threw himself in front of the ray tube—and died instantly as a searing livid bolt burned a clean hole through his forehead.

  But Simar’s shift of attention gave Phillip a million-to-one chance. And he took it.

  He leaped in as Simar swung back to him and his right fist chopped down with a vicious, axe-like stroke that smashed into Simar’s jaw with sickening force.

  The ray tube slipped from his fingers as he fell backward, his jaw hanging queerly.

  Phillip kicked the weapon across the platform and it dropped to the ground twenty feet, below. He dodged the rush of one of the Lunasian creatures and sprang to the force-shield’s control panel.

  His arm rose and fell three times and the delicately wired, glass-encased panel smashed into a mass of tangled wreckage under the bludgeoning blows of his fists.

  SIMAR scrambled to his feet and his face was wild with terror. Phillip turned from the wreckage of the control panel and laughed at him, bitterly, mockingly.

  “Where are your mad dreams now?” he said harshly.