All Verrill wanted to do was to get to Mars, to Port Mercham where a ship was getting ready to take the Big Jump to the stars. But he was stranded on Venus, without money, papers, or weapons, with nothing but a keep-sake between him and starvation and the revengeful fury of the powerful Brotherhoods - and charity was a forgotten word. How, with foreign papers, he fought and won the right to a berth, discovered a subtle plot to smuggle narcotics and defeated a mutiny. How he fought a desperate battle with the menace of the Sun and escaped from Mercury, and how, at last, he managed to reach his objective, make a story of high adventure. This is a fast-moving, hard-hitting tale of the future, of rocket ships and the men who guide them across the wastes of space, of the perils and dangers waiting at every turn. A story which paints bright colours across the pages of unwritten history, and brings to life the lives of those yet unborn.
Release date:
September 29, 2011
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
144
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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Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)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Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)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Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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)
A spaceman brought the news. A tough, hard-faced, hard-eyed rocketeer with scarred hands and the blue patches of radiation
burns mottling his puckered skin. He lounged against the stained bar, his worn leather redolent of a dozen worlds, and the
Weimar gun at his side a grim reminder of the razor edge on which he lived.
He wasn’t drunk, but he wasn’t sober, and his eyes had the glazed look of incipient euphoria from the teng-weed cigarette
between his thin lips. He stared at Verrill through a coiling haze of green smoke.
“Busy tonight?”
Verrill nodded letting his grey eyes flicker over the crowded tavern, outwardly casual, but inwardly alert for the tiny signs
warning of the birth of violent action. As usual the long bar was thronged with men, rocketeers from the spaceport, swampers
from the Hotlands, a sprinkling of traders and a handful of business men from the town. In one corner a five piece band thudded
out an apology of a tune, half-Terrestial, half-Venusian, and an imported dancer flung her charms in calculated abandon.
Everything was normal. Even to the inevitable gamblers hunched over their carved pieces of bone, muttering to forgotten Gods
and scraping the table with their ophidian talons. Next to them, sitting in their own circle of rapt concentration, a group
of Terrestials vied with the Venusians in their muttered prayers to the blind Gods of chance and good fortune. Both groups ignored the appeal of the dancer, the Terrestials because they were busy, the Venusians because their ideas of beauty
included head-crests, scales, and needle sharp talons.
Aside from which the native females laid eggs and didn’t dance—in public or otherwise.
Through the open doors came the thick, moisture-laden air, and the eternal drip, drip, drip of the ceaseless rain. Inside
the green smoke of teng-weed mingled with the blue haze of tobacco smoke, the raw smell of spirits and the heady fragrance
of fungi-wine. Here Terrestials mingled with native Venusians, and both inhaled and swallowed the drinks and drugs relatively
harmless to each other but poison to those of different race. Tobacco would send a Venusian into rigid nightmare and teng-weed
made a delirious rot of the human mind. In time, of course, but inevitably and irrevocably.
The spaceman spat at the segmented body of a crawling insect and swallowed five ounces of hundred proof rot-gut with an experienced
flick of his wrist. He slammed the empty glass down on the counter.
“Have a drink?”
“Sure,” said Verrill, not because he wanted one but because business was business. “Scotch.”
Anything you like,” said the rocketeer genially. He pounded on the counter until he was served and raised his glass to Verrill.
“Air in your tank.”
“Clear jets,” replied Verrill absently and sipped at his drink. It wasn’t Scotch, of course, but it wasn’t too bad as drinks
went and he guessed that the bartender must have served them from the special bottle. The spaceman grunted as he tasted the
liquor and stared at the big man at his side.
“You the bouncer here?”
Verrill nodded.
“I thought so. What happened to the other one?”
“Too much teng-weed. He went on a rampage and they had to cut him down.”
“That so?” The rocketeer inhaled a great lungful of green smoke and the glaze in his eyes increased. “Get many?”
“Three natives and a swamper.” Verrill shrugged. “He would have got more but his aim was bad.”
“It would be,” agreed the spaceman. “He used to carry two guns as I remember. I’ve always said that if you can’t kill a man
with one gun you’ll never do it with two.” He swayed a little and grabbed at the counter for support. “Heard the latest?”
“Maybe. Which latest do you mean?”
“They’re going to blast Outwards again.”
“That right? Where to?”
“The usual. Alpha. I think it’s the nearest but one and the nearest with possible habitable planets.” The spaceman swayed
again and shook his head. “Some people will never learn. Thirty ships have tried to make it and how many have come back? I’ll
tell you. Five. Five out of thirty.” He spat the smouldering butt of the cigarette from between his lips. “Three of them were
found heading towards the Sun, wrecks the lot of them, their crews all dead. One was found in the orbit of Jupiter. It had
a madman on board, one man, and he died before they could get him to hospital. The other …” He frowned as if struggling with
recalcitrant memory.
“Was found wrecked and abandoned on Mars,” said Verrill quietly. He stared at the spaceman. “Where are they starting from
this time?”
“Mars I guess. I had it from the mate of a tramper I shipped Inwards on from 10. I hear that they’re in the market for good
crewmen.” He chuckled. “For me they’ll have to wait a long time.”
“They’ll find men,” said Verrill. “What is it, a Government project?”
“No, private. One of these colonisation things. You know how it is. Some bright speculator gets the idea of how to make some
easy money and offers passage to a new world. He buys a ship, fits it with a Quendis drive, hires a crew, and sends it off to Alpha Centauri.” He spat with sudden anger. “He may even wave them goodbye. He can afford to, they’ll never
be able to ask for their money back.”
“It could be one of the big houses financing it,” said Verrill thoughtfully. “Fenshaw’s, or maybe de Closter’s?”
“No. Those houses are too busy making money to worry about interstellar travel.” The spaceman jerked his thumb to where a
cleaner patch showed against the stained leather of his jacket. “I used to be a Fenshaw man, they kicked me out when they
found I was smoking teng. That’s when I turned independent. Believe me, if they wanted to operate an interstellar line they
wouldn’t have crew trouble. Those damn houses are so big that they run the Government and they could take their pick of a
thousand starry-eyed hopefuls.”
“So it’s a private,” said Verrill. “Starting from Mars you say? Whereabouts?”
“Port Mersham. At least that’s what I heard, but you know how these things are. They may have gone by now.”
“You think that?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I told you, crew trouble.” The spaceman grinned. “The best they could ever get is the worst there is. What man in his right
mind would go on the Big Jump? Planet hopping is bad enough, even on the big ships, and on the trampers. …” He shrugged, the
blue patches on his puckered skin writhing as he twisted his thin lips. “Bad air, bad food, stinking water. The engines leak
radiation and the hull plates leak air. There’s not enough room to stretch and if you can get a wash once a week you’re lucky.
That’s in the Solar System. That’s where we’re supposed to have regular inspections and guaranteed conditions. What would
it be like on a Big Jump?”
“Pretty bad I guess.”
“Those trips take years,” said the rocketeer. “Even if the ships come back, which they don’t. A man would have to be crazy
to sign up.”
“Or desperate?” suggested Verrill quietly.
“Or desperate,” agreed the man. “They’ll be lucky if they can fill their quota with criminals, tramps, jail jumpers, dopeheads,
the scum of the System.” He fumbled in a pocket and produced a battered, loosely rolled cigarette. He lit it and dragged at
the green smoke.
“I’m pretty tough and I’ve seen and done a few things in my time, but I wouldn’t sign up for a Big Jump. Not me.”
“I don’t blame you.” Verrill snapped his fingers at the bartender. “Drinks for my friend. On the House.” He grinned at the
glaze-eyed man and half-raised his arm in a farewell salute. The spaceman nodded, already deep in the dream state induced
by the insidious teng-weed, and liquor rolled down his chin as he drained his glass.
Verrill shrugged and moved away.
Against the motley collection of the low-class dive he stood out . . .
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