THROUGH THE TERROR TOROID It could have been a black hole - one of those terrifying rips in space that defy all laws. That it was artificial in origin did not make it any less deadly. Worst of all, that strange extra-galactic torus was drifting into an intersect with Earth in its orbit. The result would be devastation beyond concept. Cap Kennedy and his three companions were considered expendable in such a cause. And Cap himself volunteered to dare the impossible - to turn that cosmic hole aside. What he fell into was an adventure utterly different than anything he had expected. The novel of EARTH ENSLAVED is a real surprise package for the legion of Cap Kennedy's followers.
Release date:
September 29, 2011
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
128
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The Cap Kennedy (F.A.T.E.) Series (E.C. Tubb writing as Gregory Kern)
1: Galaxy of the Lost (1973)
2: Slave Ship from Sergan (1973)
3: Monster of Metelaze (1973)
4: Enemy Within the Skull (1974)
5: Jewel of Jarhen (1974)
6: Seetee Alert! (1974)
7: The Gholan Gate (1974)
8: The Eater of Worlds (1974)
9: Earth Enslaved (1974)
10: Planet of Dread (1974)
11: Spawn of Laban (1974)
12: The Genetic Buccaneer (1974)
13: A World Aflame (1974)
14: The Ghosts of Epidoris (1975)
15: Mimics of Dephene (1975)
16: Beyond the Galactic Lens (1975)
17: The Galactiad (1983)
Alien Dust (1955)
Alien Impact (1952)
Journey Into Terror (originally published as Alien Life (1954, rev 1998))
Atom War on Mars (1952)
Fear of Strangers (first published as C.O.D. – Mars (1968))
Century of the Manikin (1972)
City of No Return (1954)
Death God’s Doom (1999)
Death is a Dream (1967)
Dead Weight (first published as Death Wears a White Face (1979))
Escape into Space (1969)
Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)
Hell Planet (1954)
Journey to Mars (1954)
Moon Base (1964)
Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)
Pawn of the Omphalos (1980)
S.T.A.R. Flight (1969)
Stardeath (1983)
Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)
Stellar Assignment (1979)
Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)
Fifty Days to Doom (first published as The Extra Man (1954))
The Life-Buyer (1965, 2008)
The Luck Machine (1980)
World in Torment (originally published as The Mutants Rebel (1953))
The Primitive (1977)
The Resurrected Man (1954)
The Sleeping City (1999)
The Space-Born (1956)
The Stellar Legion (1954)
To Dream Again (2011)
Venusian Adventure (1953)
Tide of Death (first published as World at Bay (1954))
E. C. Tubb (writing as Arthur MacLean)
The Possessed (revised version of Touch of Evil (1957))
E. C. Tubb (writing as Brian Shaw)
Argentis (1952)
E. C. Tubb (writing as Carl Maddox)
Menace from the Past (1954)
The Living World (1954)
E. C. Tubb (writing as Charles Grey)
Dynasty of Doom (1953)
The Extra Man (first published as Enterprise 2115 (1954) & then as The Mechanical Monarch (1958))
I Fight for Mars (1953)
Space Hunger (1953)
The Hand of Havoc (1954)
Secret of the Towers (originally published as The Tormented City(1953))
The Wall (1953)
E. C. Tubb (writing as Gill Hunt)
Planetfall (1951)
E. C. Tubb (writing as King Lang)
Saturn Patrol (1951)
E. C. Tubb (writing as Roy Sheldon)
The Metal Eater (1954)
E. C. Tubb (writing as Volsted Gridban)
The Green Helix (originally published as Alien Universe (1952))
Reverse Universe (1952)
Planetoid Disposals Ltd. (1953)
The Freedom Army (originally published as De Bracy’s Drug (1953))
Fugitive of Time (1953)
From his seat at the controls Elg Rowan could see the screens, ranked dials, the reflection of his own face in a polished
strip of metal. A hard face, no longer young, seamed and stamped with the vicissitudes of time. He scowled at it, not liking
what he saw, wondering if it had turned into the visage of a fool.
The thought bothered him and he lifted his eyes, staring at the vista of space limned with crystal clarity on the screens.
Stars shining with remote hostility, the pale fuzz of distant nebulas, ebon splotches of interstellar dust which hid the luminescence
beyond. He looked with casual indifference at the familiar scene before adjusting the magnification to scan an area of space
close to hand.
Nothing.
Nothing on the screens, nothing on the instruments, and no sign of activity from the expensive Larvik-Shaw spatial disturbance
detector which his new partners had insisted that he install. The thought of them deepened his scowl. Forty years of tough
living, risking his neck a thousand times, and now doing it again on the ghost of a promise. If this trip proved a bust he
was finished, back to where he had started as a dewy-eyed boy in his teens with starlight in his eyes and romance in his soul.
The starlight had faded and the romance had died, but the itch remained. The hope that, this time, he would make it. The big
strike, the bonanza, the jackpot which would make him rich and let him coast on a tide of luxury. It had happened, Eng Kyle
had done it, Heeb Moreton, Ole Elverum—the names rolled in his mind like the beat of drums. A handful among thousands, but they had proved it was possible. All a man needed was guts and luck. Forty years had proved he had the guts
and now, surely, it was time for a little luck.
Rising, he crossed to the Larvik-Shaw. The screen incorporated into the apparatus showed a thin tracery of delicate lines
as highly sensitive detectors reached into space to locate any disturbance. An electromagnetic storm would cause the instrument
to respond. A nearby mass, a gravitational node, any alteration in the normal continuum—but as yet there had been nothing.
Irritably he slammed the heel of his palm against the casing.
“Steady on, Pop, that thing cost money.”
Neil Quimper was half Rowan’s age and looked a third. Neatly combed hair rested above a smoothly round face, the lips quirked
in a perpetual smile, the eyes blue and bright with intelligence. He stepped into the control room and glanced at the screen,
the instruments.
“Nothing yet?”
“No.” Rowan glared his irritation. “I’m beginning to doubt if there ever will be. Three weeks now we’ve been looking and still
no sign. I thought you had this all figured out.”
Quimper shrugged, his voice casual. “Not me, Pop. José Oveido. I just helped to provide the cash, remember?”
He was a spoiled scion of a wealthy family taking a look around the system before settling down to a nice, snug desk job.
Yet his aid had been essential. Money for fuel, supplies, the expensive detector, and to pay the creditors who were holding
the ship. His money, Rowan’s vessel, and Oveido’s knowledge.
His voice was calm as he joined the others.
“No luck as yet, my friend? Well, it is to be expected. We are looking for a mote of dust in an ocean of emptiness. And yet
my calculations show that it must be close.”
Rowan said bitterly, “Unless you figured wrong.”
“Not I, my friend.” Oveido, middle-aged, rumpled as if he had slept in his clothes, shrugged as he spread his hands in an
age-old gesture. “If anything is to be blamed it is the computer at Madrid. My calculations were most precise and were based
on starcharts spread over a hundred years. Zafra exists. You know why I called it that? After my wife, may her soul rest in
peace. She, too, was elusive and, she too, held great treasure. Treasure, my friend, which we shall find.”
That promise had lured him from the Belt to a point a full astronomical unit outside the orbit of Pluto and another above
the plane of the ecliptic. Rowan moved, impatient with himself and the others, knowing again the searing bitterness of failure.
“A dream,” he said. “I should have known better.”
“No dream,” said Oveido quickly. “A careful deduction based on scientific fact. As you know, my friend. As I explained to
you so very many times.”
Quimper and Oveido had met in the Hive at Ceres where they had drifted, an ill-matched pair, looking for someone like Rowan.
And yet Rowan had to be fair. He had been willing to be convinced, eager to clear his ship and again be on the search. And
their words had made sense.
A fragment of a destroyed world as the asteroids Were, this one was on an eccentric path which carried it far beyond the Solar
System into the darkest regions of space beyond Pluto. A fragment of something which could have wandered from a distant galaxy,
perhaps, to be caught by the gravitational pull of the sun and flung, like a comet, into a tremendously elongated elliptical
orbit.
Soon it would be detected by the watchful eyes of Terran Control, and then taken and examined by the ships of MALACA 1 which
guarded the system. But if Rowan and his partners could reach it first, their claim would be recognized and it and the treasure
it might contain would be theirs beyond question.
Gems, perhaps, minerals, rare metals, even artifacts of some ancient race. The discovery alone would be of value. Fame and fortune at last!
“You see, Pop,” said Quimper, “the last time it entered our system was way back before space travel was what it is now. Thanks
to José here we’ve got a chance to get in first. He’s plotted the orbit as best he could, now the rest is up to us. It’s out
there, somewhere.” He gestured at the screen. “All we have to do is find it.”
“Sure,” said Rowan savagely. “But how?”
“Don’t ask me, Pop, that’s in your department.” Quimper crossed to the Larvik-Shaw. “But this should make it easy.”
If it was there to be found. If Oveido had calculated correctly. If nothing had happened to the fragment on its long, long
journey around the sun.
Rowan glared at the screen, seeing only the familiar tracery of delicate lines, resisting the impulse to hit it again, to
send the ship into random flight. A search had to follow a pattern. He had taken the figures Oveido had provided and formed
a wide-flung area of investigation. They were following it now as they had done for the past three weeks. In a couple of days
it would be completed, and if they hadn’t found anything, the trip would have been a wasted effort.
On the screen the lines flickered a trifle.
“Pop!” Quimper had noticed. “Is that—”
“Shut up!” Rowan concentrated on the screen. Again came the flicker and then, abruptly, the lines twisted, converging to form
a pattern like a spider’s web, thin at the edges and thick at the center. They dissolved as he adjusted a control, returned
firmer than before.
His voice rose in a shout of triumph.
“That’s it! It has to be! By God, we’ve found it!”
It was small, a scrap of rugged stone which barely reflected the. . .
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