Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  And that is going to take them considerable time, I can assure you.”

  “And I’m to go to Mars and fly this new fighter in a demonstration trial, is that it?” Terry asked. A sardonic grin lit his lean, burnished features. “What’s the matter with your own precious pack of space flyers? Are they afraid to take the chance?”

  Commander Moore’s eyes were suddenly cold and hard.

  “There isn’t a space pilot in the Federated Command who wouldn’t give his right arm for the chance I’m offering you, Lester,” he said with icy deliberation.

  Terry grinned with bitter amusement.

  “Why don’t you give one of them the chance?” he asked with gentle irony.

  “You know that as well as I do,” Commander Moore said, and the twitching muscle in his cheek was the only external evidence of his anger. “You still happen to be the best fighter pilot in the Universe today, Lester. And this job requires the best we have. I would rather have done almost anything else I can think of before begging you to take this assignment, but my personal feelings don’t count. I have been ordered to assign this job to the best pilot I know, and you are that man. I am waiting for your answer.”

  “I’m sorry as hell about your feelings,” Terry said with bitter sarcasm. “No one thought of mine when they drummed me out of the Command for gambling, did they?” He drew a deep heavy breath. “But that’s neither here nor there. What do I get out of this thing if I accept?”

  “I won’t remind you of your obligation to Earth,” Commander Moore said caustically. “Nor the possible satisfaction you might get from serving your native planet. I won’t mention those things because I am afraid they wouldn’t touch you. Instead, I will make this a strictly commercial proposition. I am offering twenty-five thousand dollars, payable immediately after the flight, regardless of results. Will you take it or leave it?”

  Terry smiled but there was no humor in his hard, bitter young eyes.

  “You’re talking my language,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

  “You’ll receive a contract tomorrow,” Commander Moore said, “and your orders will be sent when you return the signed contract. Satisfactory?”

  “Okay,” Terry said. He turned the knob of the door. “I don’t need the money, particularly,” he added, “but I can’t resist the spectacle of the Federated Command down on its knees whimpering for my services. I’ll do your job, Commander, don’t worry about that, but you can shove your twenty-five thousand dollars in your ear.”

  He slammed the door behind him and walked out of the commander’s reception room with swift, angry strides.

  HIS contract arrived the next day, and three days after he signed it an officer of the Federated Command arrived at his room and presented him with a sheaf of orders, sealed with the official insignia of the Command Headquarters.

  Terry glanced through the orders, packed a small grip and a day later arrived at the closely guarded Federated research laboratories. He presented his identification and was led to a small office beside the main mooring tower, where a grizzled, white-haired old man sat at a desk, chewing on the stump of a cigar. He looked up sharply when Terry entered the office.

  “Who’re you?” he snapped peevishly. “How the hell am I supposed to get any work done if they use my office for a main spacelane?”

  Terry ignored the outburst.

  “Are you MacGregor?” he asked.

  The white-haired man behind the desk gnawed viciously on his cigar and glared at Terry through the ragged tufts of his eyebrows.

  “Who else would I be?” he demanded.

  “You might be a refugee from a pickle jar for all I know,” Terry said. “I’m Terry Lester. I understand some crack-pot here put a rocket on a tin can and thinks he’s got a world-beater ship. I’m the guy who’s going to tear it to pieces, if it doesn’t fall apart blasting-off.”

  MacGregor put his horny hands on the desk and rose half-way out of his chair. His wrinkled face was an alarming shade of red; he almost swallowed his cigar as he struggled to speak.

  “Refugee from a pickle jar, am I?” he cried in a wheezy, sputtering voice. “And you’re Terry Lester! And you’re going to test a tin-can rocket ship that some crack-pot designed,” he roared, gathering steam as he listed Terry’s insults categorically. “Well, Mr. Terry Lester, I happen to be the crack-pot that designed the ship you’re going to test and if you tear it to pieces I’ll eat your hat without seasoning.”

  Terry laughed.

  “I recognized you from your pictures, MacGregor. I heard you were excitable but I got a bum steer. You’re damn near incandescent!”

  He tossed his orders on MacGregor’s desk and lit a cigarette while the crotchety engineer thumbed through them, a scowl on his red face.

  MacGregor, Terry knew, was a living legend in the history of space travel. His contributions to the development of inter-planetary travel stretched over a span of almost fifty years. What he didn’t know about shape ships, no one else in the Universe did either. And his knowledge, scientific brilliance and Scotch canniness were the subjects of a thousand stories, told and re-told in space-ports from Jupiter to Venus.

  This was the dour, white-haired, hopping little man who sat behind the desk scowling at Terry’s orders, Terry knew that his truculent belligerence was ninety-nine per cent pose, to cover a streak of soft sentiment.

  MacGREGOR finally glanced up from the papers, his keen old eyes bright in his small face.

  “So you’re Terry Lester, eh? Heard a lot about you. Suppose to be a pretty good man at the controls of a ship, aren’t you?”

  Terry shrugged.

  “Good enough,” he said.

  “We’ll see,” MacGregor said. He leaned back in his chair and said, “What did the Federated Command kick you out for?”

  “That’s none of your damn business,” Terry said evenly.

  “Well, it don’t matter,” MacGregor said, getting up from his desk and tottering over to the door. He put a hand to his back and grimaced. “Darn this rheumatism!” In the same peevish, impersonal voice he said, “The Federated Command always was a little too uppity for ray tastes.” He squinted at Terry and laughed with a thin, high chuckle. “Threw me out of their research department forty-six years ago for telling a brass hat to go to hell.” Terry found himself warming to this twisted, grumpy old man. And he knew then why MacGregor had become a living legend. He was more than a magnificent engineer; he was a magnificent human being.

  “I never heard that before,” he said.

  “Well,” McGregor said wryly, “neither of us brags much about it. How ’bout taking a look at that tin can of mine now?”

  Terry followed the old man to the main mooring tower where a half dozen engineers and mechanics were working on a slim, beautiful ship, powered by four rear rockets. Stubby atomic cannons stuck out from the nose of the ship like the feelers of a bug.

  MacGregor teetered back and forth, hands in his pockets, working his cigar from side to side in his mouth.

  “There she is,” he said.

  Terry walked around the ship, inspecting it from every angle. There was a singing in his heart as he drank in the sheer perfection of the small ship. It was more than a creation of man’s mind and ingenuity; it was the dream of a man’s soul translated in lines of shining steel.

  MacGregor watched him closely, eagerly, with his small bright eyes, when he completed his inspection. “Well, what do you think?”

  Terry let the enthusiasm fade from his face and he shrugged.

  “It looks like a fair ship,” he said cautiously. “No one’s taken it out yet, have they?”

  MacGregor shook his head.

  “Nope. You’ll be the first. It’s ready to go anytime you feel like it.”

  “Stick it into a propulsion slot, then,” Terry said. “There’s no time like the present. I’ll tell you in an hour or so if she’s got anything besides good looks.”

  MacGregor’s face lighted with a rare enthusiasm. He
shouted an order to the crew working on the ship and slapped Terry on the arm.

  “You do things the way I like—sudden as hell,” he said.

  TEN minutes later, wearing a borrowed space suit, Terry blasted off in MacGregor’s fighter. A thousand miles above Earth, in the stark immensity of the void, he put the ship through its paces. At first he found it almost too delicate and fast to handle, but as his trained reflexes adjusted to its almost incredible maneuverability and velocity, a satisfied grin broke on his face.

  What a ship!

  There was nothing it couldn’t do. Terry Lester had flown every type of ship in existence, from training fighters to great liners, but he’d never piloted anything like this quick-silver-fast ship of MacGregor’s.

  He took it out fifty thousand miles and dove it back toward Earth. The hair at the back of his neck rose as he watched the rate-of-speed needle revolve madly. He pulled it out of the dive a thousand miles above Earth, a few seconds later. He took a deep, unsteady breath. There was apparently no limit to the ship’s speed.

  Forty nine thousand miles in thirty seconds![*]

  That was traveling! At that speed a man didn’t have time to check his reactions. He smiled at the thought of using the ship in actual combat. He trigged the force guns and watched the bright beams of energy lash out from the atomic cannons against the dead blackness of the void. An enemy ship would be a cinder in an instant under that searing blast.

  He drove back to Earth and flashed the ship in a whistling screaming dive through Earth’s atmosphere to test the friction resistance of the hull. He had seen ships melt into molten, shapeless lumps from the heat generated by atmospheric friction; but MacGregor’s ship took it without difficulty.

  He circled Earth once, then set the automatic mooring dial and brought the ship down. MacGregor was waiting at the base of the tower, hiding his anxiety behind a sarcastic smile.

  “Well, it’s still in one piece,” he said. Terry handed him the chart on which the reactions of the ship had been automatically recorded, and waited while the old Scotchman read them rapidly, tracing every waver of the reaction lines with keen eyes that missed nothing.

  He shook his head grumpily. “Have to make an adjustment on the gravity-repeller. Too much strain. Won’t take much to fix it right.”

  Glancing up at Terry, he couldn’t hide his anxiety any longer. His bright, little eyes were frankly worried. “How’s she handle?” he asked.

  TERRY didn’t have the heart to hold him in suspense. He grinned and said, “There’s nothing to worry about. She’s perfect. If she were any faster you couldn’t find pilots to handle her.”

  “Hmmph,” MacGregor said, striving unsuccessfully to hide the pleased light in his eyes. “She’s just another ship. You’ve been blasting around in tubs so long you forget the feel of a nice, trim little ship. But I guess she’ll do.”

  “She’ll do, all right,” Terry said. “When do we take her to Mars?”

  “Right away,” MacGregor said emphatically.

  “Are you going?” asked Terry. “Hell’s fire, yes!” the wiry Scotchman said explosively. “Did you think I’d trust anybody else to get that ship ready for flight? And I want to be on hand to watch them Martian double-crossers get run out of the void.”

  “Who else is going?” Terry asked. “Just you, me, and the three-man commission from the Space Bureau,” MacGregor said. “What they want them diplomats to go along for, I don’t know. Not one of ’em knows a propulsion rocket from a mooring tower. But they’re going, nevertheless. We’ll leave from here at the end of the week and make the trip in the fighter. That’ll give you that much time to get used to it.”

  “Fine,” Terry said. “I’ll be on hand.”

  BLAST-OFF was scheduled for Saturday morning, nine o’clock. Earth time, 296-04, Inter-planetary time. MacGregor’s fighter was in its propulsion slot when Terry arrived.

  He climbed into a pair of leather space togs, gave the ship a quick, thorough inspection, then opened the hatch and stepped into the small cabin.

  MacGregor was there, talking with three persons whom Terry guessed to be the representatives from the Space Bureau who were making the trip with them. Two of the three were middle-aged, with graying hair; but when Terry glanced at the third figure, he couldn’t repress a low exclamation of amazement.

  MacGregor chuckled at the look on his face.

  “Didn’t figure the three-man commission might have a girl on the staff, did you?” he said, chuckling gleefully at Terry’s discomfiture.

  The girl was tall and slim. The strands of hair that escaped from her tightly fitting space helmet were a becoming shade of red. Her eyes were very blue in the whiteness of her face.

  “Miss Masters,” MacGregor said, “our pilot, Terry Lester.”

  “How do you do?” the girl murmured in a low voice. She didn’t smile and Terry noticed that her eyes were without warmth. She looked cold, superior and there was a suggestion in her attitude that the bare cabin of the fighter was not quite her customary environment.

  Terry nodded shortly to her, making no attempt to conceal his dislike. She was a type he couldn’t stomach. Cold, stiff and superior.

  He shook hands with the two men and learned that the younger of the two was Mr. Neelson, and the other Mr. Forrest. They were both cordial and looked alert and efficient.

  “How soon do we leave?” Terry asked, turning to MacGregor.

  “When you say the word,” MacGregor answered. “Everything’s all set. The supplies are aboard. I checked everything myself, personally.”

  The girl stood up and said to MacGregor, “Is Mr. Lester a Federated Command pilot?”

  Terry noticed that the top of her head came about level with his eyes. And he also noticed that the tailored trousers and jacket she wore accentuated the slim, feminine lines of her body.

  MacGregor cocked his head and looked at her with a strange lack of expression on his round, wrinkled face.

  “What makes you ask that, Miss Masters?” he asked.

  Terry watched the scene with a bitter, ironic smile that pressed his lips into flat, white lines.

  “I’ll tell her, Mac,” he said quietly. He turned to the girl and smiled without humor. “I was a Federation officer, Miss Masters, but they threw me out. Since you undoubtedly knew that, what was the point of your question?”

  “Yes,” the girl said, “I knew of your past record, Mr. Lester.” Her eyes met his coolly, levelly. “I simply wanted to remind you that the Space Bureau Commission, of which I am a member, is aware of your background.”

  “I see,” Terry said, and his voice was dangerously soft. “You’ll be watching to see that I don’t sell out to the Martians, is that it?”

  “Precisely,” the girl said calmly. “I didn’t approve of your selection from the start, but I was over-ruled by the Federated Command. I insisted that we use one of their accredited, trustworthy pilots. Why they didn’t is something I still can’t understand.”

  TERRY’S burnished features were rock-hard, but before he could speak, MacGregor said to the girl, “There’s probably a lot of things you don’t understand, Miss Masters, judging from the stuff comin’ through those sweet lips of yours.” The cigar in his mouth shifted angrily from side to side and his little eyes were snapping bright. “Terry Lester’s aboard because he’s the best damn pilot in the Universe. This is a time when Earth can’t stand on formality. She’s got to have the best men she’s got, whether they’re wearing cute red uniforms or convict stripes. When the Martian pilots learn they’re flying against Terry they’ll be ready to quit before they hit the void.” He paused and spat contemptuously. “I hope them skirts of yours make as good an impression.”

  Terry saw the high spots of angry color in the girl’s cheeks and he couldn’t repress a reluctant admiration for her tenacity. Wrong as she was, she was sticking to her guns. And maybe, he thought with a mental shrug, she wasn’t wrong at that.

  “I refuse to be intimidated by you
r attitude, Mr. MacGregor,” she said quietly.

  Terry noticed with a faint grin that the two men—Neelson and Forrest—were looking rather embarrassed.

  “Well,” he said, with a slight mocking nod to the girl, “now that the spotlight has been turned on the black sheep, suppose we get started.”

  He turned and strode into the control chamber and in a few seconds the powerful rear rockets were throbbing gently.

  MacGregor came in and stood behind him as he rapidly checked the instruments.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  Terry nodded. “Fine.”

  The old Scotchman laid a hand awkwardly on his shoulder.

  “Don’t let that dame get you down.” he said. “The best of women are odd gadgets,” he added, shaking his white head despairingly. “They’re the only things in God’s Universe that violate the laws of mechanics and science. That’s why I never got married. Couldn’t stand to have somethin’ around that wouldn’t fit into an equation.”

  Terry felt the bitter core of anger in his breast dissolving slowly.

  “That’s your story,” he smiled. “The truth is, none of them would have you.” MacGregor chuckled.

  “That’s been my secret for forty years,” he said. “And now you come along and dig it out.”

  “Here we go,” Terry said.

  His hand moved to the release switch and closed it firmly. A second later the fighter rocketed from its tower and split the Earth’s atmosphere with a shrieking roar as it blasted for the measureless void . . .

  THE trip to Mars took a day and a half. Terry cut the speed of the fighter when he saw the red orb of Mars in the small visi-screen which was at eye-level above the control panel.

  He was watching closely the reaction of the repulsion rocket gauges when the door opened and the Masters girl entered. Terry hadn’t spoken to her since the start of the flight. And he didn’t bother to speak now. He was conscious of her eyes on his back, but he kept his attention on the control panel.