FREE ACTING TERRAN ENVOY F.A.T.E. Alien scientists had learned how to release the ravening beast-instincts buried in the recesses of the human brain from the far distant past. Now they were willing to sell their knowledge to the highest bidder in exchange for an alliance against Terra. And they had many willing to bargain with them. Captain Kennedy, the top man of the Free Acting Terran Envoys - FATE - was assigned to stop this terrifying menace. But he knew immediately that his greatest danger lay within himself - and that by challenging the alien scientists he could turn himself and his friends into beasts beyond imagining!
Release date:
September 29, 2011
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
110
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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Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)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Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)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Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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)
The site had been carefully chosen, a tiny valley thickly ringed with trees, a lake in the center on which swans glided. The
sun was warm with a soft crimson light, the sward dotted with flowers, the air fresh and scented with growing things. To the
hundred men and women scattered around it was an idyllic contrast to the bleak walls and barred windows they had recently
known. They milled, a little unsure, not yet believing what they had been told. On Merah prisoners were not accustomed to
such treatment. They served short, harsh, savage sentences. Rehabilitation was just a word. And yet here they were, not a
guard to be seen, low tables piled with food and containers of wine. A party to reward them for good behavior. A taste of
freedom to remind them of the benefits of obeying the law.
Subjects in an interesting experiment.
Ipoh-Luang was impatient. ‘Why do they not begin?’ he asked. ‘You would think that to such creatures the sight of food and
wine would be an instant spur.’
‘They are suspicious.’ Kota Bassein was just as impatient, but age had taught him to mask his feelings. He stood in the observation
dome resting on a high tripod beyond the screen of trees. From his vantage point he could see what the prisoners could not,
the double ring of armed guards, the fence of electrified wire. ‘You must remember they are criminals and have a highly developed
sense of caution. They cannot really believe what they see, food, wine, a day from the confines of their cells.’
‘We should have starved them for a few days. Hunger would have driven them.’
‘It would have made them even more suspicious,’ corrected Bassein. He lifted binoculars to his eyes. At the edge of the lake a burly man was throwing scraps of food to the swans. ‘See? They are testing it for poison.’
‘They will find none.’ The third occupant of the observation dome was a Chambodian. He was taller than the others, leaner,
black hair sweeping in a pronounced widow’s peak from a high forehead. His face was wedge-shaped, the nose beaked, the mouth
a thin slit above a sloping jaw. His eyes were deepset, slanted, the irises horizontal slots. An alien whose ancestors had
risen from avian, not primate stock. He wore fabric of fine-meshed scales. His hands, long-nailed, were like claws. ‘The food
is innocuous and they are unable to test the wine. Even if they could they would find nothing.’
‘So you say.’ Ipoh Luang was uneasy at the Chambodian’s presence. Merah should go its own way and be dependent on no other
race. And yet progress had been tediously slow. If the man could do what he promised he must be tolerated even if not actively
liked.
‘You are discourteous,’ snapped Bassein. ‘Ser Prome is our guest. He has come to help us. He is worthy of respect.’
‘My apologies.’ Luang bowed, as much to hide his face as to show his deference. ‘It is just that this waiting – ’ He gestured
beyond the dome. ‘How much longer must we wait?’
The burly man had finished his testing. Now he sank strong teeth into a slab of the strongly flavored meat. A woman helped
herself to a cake, another to a juicy fruit. Within seconds, it seemed, all were thronged around the tables.
‘Not long,’ said Bassein. ‘They are relaxing. Once they have eaten they will reach for the wine.’ He lifted his binoculars
again. The burly man, he thought, surely would be the first. Or, perhaps, no. Already he had proved his caution. He could
wait until others had drunk, watching, joining in only when he was convinced the wine was harmless. That woman, then? Or the
man with the scarred cheek?
‘Have your guards been alerted?’ Ser Prome had not moved from where he stood behind the others. ‘As I warned you, the results
will be spectacular.’
‘They have their orders.’ Bassein spoke distantly, concentrating on the scene below. The man with the scarred cheek reached
for a jug, tilted it, cautiously tasted. He grinned, pleased, and swallowed deeply. Too deeply, perhaps. Bassein said, ‘Perhaps we should have used something other than wine. If they become intoxicated – ’
‘If you followed my instructions the alcohol content is low,’ interrupted Ser Prome. His face betrayed nothing of the impatient
arrogance he felt for the two officers. As expected they were victims of their heritage, the seemingly overriding inability
to wait in silence. And yet they could be used.
‘Look at them!’ Luang echoed his disgust. ‘Eating and drinking like animals.’
Bassein said nothing, watching.
The scarred man reached for a jug of wine. Another lifted it before he could grip it and Bassein saw the disfigured face contort
in anger. He said something and the man with the jug raised it and, without hesitation, smashed it down hard on the other’s
skull. The jug was heavy. Bone splintered in a gush of red and gray, blood and brains spurting among the broken pottery, the
flood of wine.
‘Now!’ breathed Luang. ‘It begins!’
Horror had replaced the idyllic scene. The sward with its bright flowers became the place of carnage. Men, women, mouths open
in screams, faces ugly with maniacal rage, threw themselves one against the other. Jugs shattered to provide crude weapons,
savage points ripping at throats and eyes, blood staining the ground. A man kicked another in the groin, kicked again as he
fell, his boot turning a face into a mass of red and oozing pulp. A woman sprang at him, fingers ripping at his eyes. Blinded,
he turned to trip over a table, to fall rolling among the scattered food, rising to fall again, to twitch among threshing
legs, to drown in his own blood as a heel crushed his throat.
There was no sound and Bassein was glad of it. He could imagine the screams, the shouts, the shrieks of agony.
In a few minutes what had appeared to be a harmless picnic had turned into a ghastly shambles. A hundred men and women fighting,
killing, being killed in turn. Through the binoculars he could see their faces, distorted, filled with naked hate, burning
with the fury of savage blood-lust. Safe as he was here in the observation dome, with armed guards between the tripod and
those in the valley, he felt a sudden terror. If they should attack, somehow overcome the guards, reach this place –
‘The guards!’ snapped Luang. ‘Quickly!’
A knot of survivors, numbering about a dozen, were running toward the ring of trees. Another headed for the lake, slipping on the edge, fighting even as they drowned. Swans made shadows
on the grass as they took to wing.
Bassein shook himself. Once, on Dihun, he had attended the arena and watched as men fought and died, but that had been nothing
like this. There he had felt a rising euphoria, gaining a vicarious pleasure at watching wounds and blood and impersonal death.
Now he felt only a sickness as he watched men turn into beasts.
‘The guards,’ said Luang again. ‘With your permission, Marshal?’
Bassein nodded, unable to tear his eyes away from the carnage below. Luang stepped to a communicator and rapped a quick order.
The waiting guards advanced from the ring of trees.
They were blank-faced men, disciplined, accustomed to obey without question. From their rifles spat a stream of fire, the
self-propelled missiles venting their energy in gouts of flame as they struck. Bodies ripped open spillin. . .
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