Уильям Макгиверн - Collected Fiction - 1940-1963

The little girl nodded, watching him intently, and Johnny nodded too.

“Good,” he said. “Well, two men have got away and I’m trying to find them. Not only I, but dozens of agents from all the other planets have joined in the search. These two men are very dangerous and if we don’t find them they’ll hurt someone. We think they are on Earth, and we know their intention is to get away from Earth and establish themselves on some remote asteroid or planetoid. They need a space ship, naturally and that’s why we’re investigating all these old yards. They just might try to equip an obsolete ship and make an escape in it.” He paused, studying Johnny’s unhappy little face. “Now do you understand how serious this is?”

Johnny nodded sullenly.

“Well, have you seen anyone in the yards? If you have, you must tell me. The man you saw might be one of these very bad men, and we must find them before they do a lot of damage. Did you see anyone, Johnny?”

Johnny looked away from him, fighting back tears. The little girl bounced her rubber ball up and down, watching him with cool blue eyes.

“I didn’t see anybody,” Johnny said in a low voice. “If I saw someone I’d tell you.”

“Why are you so upset? What’s troubling you, Johnny?”

Johnny turned to him eagerly, responding to the gentle friendliness in his voice, but the little girl said quickly, “It’s all that about the bad men. It’s frightened him. And it frightened me too, mister.”

“Was that it?” the young man asked Johnny.

“Yes, I guess so,” he said, after a little pause. “That was it, I guess.”

The young man got to his feet. “Well, if you see anyone, you tell your grandfather.” He stared at the little girl for a moment or so, frowning uneasily, and then he said goodby to them and walked around to where old John was sitting in the sun.

Johnny looked at the little girl with a piteous frown on his face. “Why did you make me lie?” he whispered. “It makes me feel so bad.”

“Would you like me to go away and never come back?” she said, looking up at the sky and tossing the ball in the air.

“No, Lucy. Don’t go away from me.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

Dan and Willie sat in the control room of the space ship, facing each other across the chart desk. Between them stood a small bottle with about half a dozen pills in it.

“One day’s ration,” Willie said, staring at Dan with hot, bitter eyes. “We got to make our move. I didn’t crash out just to starve to death.”

Dan pounded a fist into the palm of his hand. “Where in hell are those kids?”

“Maybe they’ll never come back. You and your bright ideas.”

“They’ve got to,” Dan said, but his voice lacked conviction. “Kids are naturally curious. Maybe they’re busy with some other game but pretty soon they’ll remember this place and come back.”

“Yeah? Are you sure they can find it?”

“Well, they found it once.”

Willie stared at the bottle of food ration pills. “Everything is set and we’re stuck because of a pair of kids. Power plant, communications, everything’s set. But no igniter.”

“We’ll get it.”

Willie stood up and began to pace the floor. “I say let’s take it,” he said. “Beat the old man over the head and take it.”

“Very smart, very shrewd,” Dan said sarcastically. “By the time we got back and installed it they’d be on our necks. These junk yards may look like country stores but they’re booby-trapped like banks. That’s why they only need one guard.”

Two days later the little girl and Johnny once again penetrated into the depths of the space dump. It was obvious from Johnny’s little face that a change had taken place in their relationship. He still adored her but there was a hint of guilt and worry in his expression, very out of place on his round childish face.

“Now let me see,” the little girl said, pausing at an intersection, and putting a dainty fist under her chin. “I think it was this way. That’s it, I’m sure. Come on, Johnny.”

She led surely from one wide lane to another, until finally she reached the spot where they had found the tendril of tobacco. Looking up at the platform of the ship, she called out, “Dan! Hello, Dan.”

The door opened with a click and Dan stared down at them from the railing of the platform. His face was pale and gaunt, but he was grinning with excitement. “Well, well, I was hoping you kids would show up. How would you like to come inside and see what a ship looks like.”

“That would be thrilling,” the little girl said, wriggling her shoulders with anticipation. “Thank you so much.”

Johnny was excited too; but beneath it was the persistent tug of guilt. “Grampa told us never to go into the ships,” he said.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” the little girl said. “He’ll never find out.”

The ladder swooped down at them and the little girl ran eagerly up to the platform, her grave, delicate face working with excitement. Johnny followed reluctantly.

Inside Dan led them through shining companionways to the chart room where he introduced them with a flourish to Willie.

“We’re pleased to meet you,” the little girl said, sedately.

Johnny looked from one man to the other, his eyes widening with anxiety.

“He’s just bashful,” the little girl said. “Don’t worry, he’ll get over it.”

Johnny said defiantly, “They’re the two bad men, Lucy. They’re the ones the good man told us about.”

Willie, his eyes blazing with anger, took a step toward the little boy, but Dan stopped him with a heavy hand against his chest. “Now, relax,” he said, smiling at the little girl. “Who is this ‘good man’ he’s talking about?”

“That was a man who came a couple of days ago,” the little girl said. “He told us about some bad men who had run away. He was looking for them.”

“Did you tell him about me?”

“Oh, no. That was a secret.”

“Now listen to me,” Dan said, kneeling and putting his big hands on her thin arms. “Those bad men are trying to find us. That’s why we’re hiding. If they find us they’ll kill us. Do you understand that?”

The little girl wet her lips. “Yes, but I’m scared.”

“There’s nothing to be frightened of,” Dan said softly. “But you’ve got to help us. Otherwise these bad men will find us and kill us. Will you help us? You don’t want us to be killed, do you?”

“No,” the little girl said quickly.

“All right. We’ve got to getaway in this ship. But we don’t have an igniter to start it. Do you know what that is?”

The little girl shook her head.

Willie turned away and muttered something under his breath. Dan paid no attention to him; his hard, direct eyes were focused intently on the little girl’s. “Now please listen very carefully,” he said. “And igniter is a tube about six inches long, and its solid black in color. There are two kinds. One is for very short trips, like if you just wanted to move this ship from one mooring tower to another. The other is long range. Now we need the long range igniter, and there are some in the warehouse next to your Grampa’s house.”

“He’s not her Gramps, he’s mine,” Johnny said sullenly.

“Do you understand this so far?” Dan said, ignoring the boy.

“Yes, I understand,” she said.

“Very well. You’re a smart little girl. I knew that right away. Now I’ll tell you where to find the igniter we want. This is real important. When you get into the warehouse...”

“The next thing is how to get into the warehouse,” Dan said, after he had described in detail the location of the igniters. “That’s going to take some planning, because we can’t let your Grampa know what we’re doing. Otherwise the bad men would kill him too. Do you see that?”