Temple of Death

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

For ten years, Colin sweated, slaved, and eventually built-up a nice business on a dusty world called Mars. Ten more years and he'd have been able to retire a rich man. Five more years and he'd have put all worry behind him. He didn't get those five years. During a sandstorm, he blundered accidentally into the forbidden zone, where the temple of Dra Vheera waited and rested, an area guarded zealously to the death by a fanatical faith. The Martians complained, and he lost all, stripped of everything he owned, fined, and sent back to Earth on a one-way ticket. And who was to blame? The Dra Vheera, the priesthood of Mars, the temple, the religion. One name for all three, but all three really one. A man named Barhart offered vengeance, sweet, pure vengeance. With his help and money, Colin put together a force of eager men determined to strike back at the Martians, but he found more than they bargained for. The safety of Earth was now at stake, and Colin had to race against time and Death to save mankind.

Release date: June 24, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 96

Sample

In 1954, a young British science fiction writer by the name of E.C. Tubb was on a winning streak of high productivity. Since making his debut with a short story in 1950, he had published more than 50 magazine stories and some thirty novels in the space of four years, and had just turned full-time professional writer. At that time, he was in fact pursuing two literary careers: for the sf magazines he was writing fascinating stories which explored psychology and human nature. These mature, adult stories won considerable acclaim from his readers, particularly his realistic stories of Martian colonization (eventually collected as ALIEN DUST.) As a novelist, he was obliged to write to suit the then British market. As he recalled in a memoir:

“…the formula they wanted…was to have twelve chapters each of three thousand words, each chapter, if possible, ending on a high point. It was a mechanical technique and led to stories that were more a series of episodes rather than a closely plotted story. But I enjoyed writing them and found the concentration on action easier to handle than the interplay of deep characterization, a style both difficult to do within the confines of the length and unwanted by the publishers. Fast-moving adventure stories against colorful backgrounds—a formula which is still the best for easily-assimilated entertainment. I could write this kind of fiction and had no trouble selling…”

This aspect of Tubb’s career was reviewed in depth in my article on E.C. Tubb’s Early Adventure Novels which appeared in PAPERBACK PARADE #44 (November 1995). I showed how Tubb was adept at adapting the exciting ideas and themes of the early pulp magazines with his own special brand of realism and logic. As noted above, the bibliographical record credits Tubb with thirty novels—but he had in fact written thirty-two.

The boom in British sf pocket books came to an abrupt end in 1954. Tubb’s last two novels, written back to back in the summer of 1954, fell back into his hands. In an attempt to salvage the situation, Tubb passed the original mss to a German agent he met at a Convention, hoping for a sale to the still-burgeoning European market. THE SPORE MENACE was subsequently sold to a German publisher, but the second novel, then entitled THE TEMPLE OF DRA VHEERA, appeared to have been lost.

Meanwhile, Tubb, with a new mortgage and a young family to support, sought new directions. He diversified into other literary genres—westerns, detective, foreign legion—and by concentrating on his quality magazine stories, he cracked the much more lucrative American market. With no immediate UK market in sight, the author put the carbons of his two unsold novels away in a drawer and forgot about them. The story of their subsequent rediscovery has been detailed in my introduction to the Gryphon Books edition of PANDORA’S BOX (THE SPORE MENACE, retitled).

Now, forty two years after it was first written, Gryphon Books are publishing the remaining “lost” novel, THE TEMPLE OF DEATH (aka THE TEMPLE OF DRA VHEERA). The book you are holding is a Paperback Original and a true World First Edition.

Superficially, the novel has “dated”. Most of the action takes place on Mars—a Mars with a breathable atmosphere and inhabited by a race of humanoid Martians. This was a common background to early sf adventure fiction, but in the light of astronomical discoveries it is unpublishable today. Unpublishable? Not necessarily!

As noted in my introduction to Gryphon’s 1995 editions of John Russell Fearn’s Martian Quartet, in the hands of a master story teller—most notably Edgar Rice Burroughs—an inhabitable Mars is just another literary framing device. A powerful story can transcend its background, and the Martian stories of Fearn and Burroughs can today be enjoyed as fantasy.

Tubb’s basic ideas employed in this novel remain fascinating: the Martians have a secret religion, the cult of the Dra Vheera, which is forbidden to Earthmen. A picked band of mercenaries—victims of the taboo, and with good reason to hate Martians—are hired to go on a secret mission to Mars. Their objective is to penetrate the secrets of a Martian temple, and rip aside the veil of secrecy. The unravelling of the mystery is vintage Tubb, involving human and alien psychology, interpreted through the medium of high adventure and explosive, pulse-pounding action.

The fascinating theme has echoes of a much older story, written by Clifford Simak—“The Voice in the Void,” published in the Sprint 1932 WONDER STORIES QUARTERLY. Simak’s story tells of the desecration of a sacred Martian tomb, where Earthmen make the astounding discovery that the sacred bones of the Martian Messiah are those of an Earthman! Tubb’s denouement is quite different, but no less astounding. It is certainly possible that Tubb had once read Simak’s story, since he was a voracious reader of the American pulp magazines in his youth.

Enough preamble. The stage has been set. This book is your own personal time machine. You can activate it by simply turning the page. Settle back and enjoy this rousing 1950s adventure classic, published for the very first time. To add to its authenticity this volume is illustrated in the classic style by master artist Ron Turner.

Philip Harbottle, Wallsend, December 1995.

Night came like a tired old woman spreading her tattered cloak over the fading remains of the dying day. Stars blossomed fitfully in the darkening bowl of the sky, then, touched by the ebon fingers of unlit clouds, blinked and vanished in wispy memory. A wind arose, a thin, sighing, keening wind, droning from the frozen plains of the north and carrying on its invisible wings chill and moisture, bitterness and the threat of early winter. Shadows thickened and lights flared like trapped fireflies in the canyons of the streets, fighting with the mechanical efficiency of science, the age-old laws of nature.

Rain came, thin and penetrating, filtering down from the star-shielding clouds, flurried by the chill wind, washing streets and buildings, trickling in the gutters and filling the sewers on its inevitable way to the distant sea. It fell on glassite-covered penthouses, on the broad acres of concrete which was the landing field, the wide roads and the twisting lanes. It fell on people, on the surging crowds spilling from office and shop, from mono-rail and moving way. It wetted them all, the well-fed and the hungry, the satisfied and the discontent, the hopeful and those to whom hope was an aching memory.

It fell on Colin.

He stood on the edge of the sidewalk, a tall man, his cropped head bare and the rash of blue pockmarks on one cheek dulled by the stubble of a three-day beard. His eyes were grey, the cold, hard grey of freshly quarried slate, his chin was firm and his mouth was a twisted line of bitterness and hate. Around him people moved in swift impatience to escape the rain, brightly dressed men and women, some in their work blouses of shimmering cellosilk, others in their relaxation clothes of multi-coloured materials. Among them, dressed as he was in faded blouse and trousers, short leather jacket and high knee-boots, he was as conspicuous as a piece of coal among diamonds, as a swallow among gaudy plumaged birds of paradise.

Too conspicuous.

A patrol car swung around a corner and slowed with a falling whine from its turbine engine. It slid to a halt and uniformed men sprang from the vehicle, moving with practiced efficiency as they closed in on the solitary figure. Colin stared at them, not moving, not lifting his hands from where they rested, thumbs tucked behind the belt he wore around his waist.

“Your iden.” One of the patrolmen thrust out his hand while his companion stood a yard further back, his hand resting on the stungun at his belt.

“This what you mean?” Colin fumbled in a pocket and produced a slip of heat-treated plastic.

“That’s it.” The patrolman snatched it and stared at it with expert eyes. It bore a photograph, double thumbprints, retinal pattern, code number, and a succession of punched holes and symbols. It told all that needed to be known about the owner, all he had done, could do, where he had been, how long he had stayed, everything. In itself it was a perfect, unforgeable document combining all the attributes of passport, birth certificate, employment records and health chart.

“Seems correct.” The patrolman’s eyes flickered from the features before him to the sealed photograph. “From Mar. . .