DOORWAY TO UTOPIA "Beyond that curtain of darkness lies paradise." That was the promise of the doorway known as the Gholan Gate, a doorway so ancient that its makers had vanished millions of years before the first Earthly life crawled out of the primeval oceans. It was still functioning in the possession of its discoverers. To go through it was to enter a universe where all your dreams came true - where your every wish was obeyed, every fantasy became reality, where you could play God to your heart's content. But there was a price, for once beyond the Gholan Gate, you would live only in hopes for a second visit, and a third. . . . And to get the right for that return to paradise a man would sell his soul, his people, his world. Cap Kennedy entered THE GHOLAN GATE once . . . and the result became cosmic history.
Release date:
September 29, 2011
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
124
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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Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)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Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)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Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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 TormentedCity(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)
At night the world of Gholan was full of ghosts; things rustled, squeaked, grated; and the air was filled with vibrant hummings,
chitters, vague shapes in the sky. By day things were little better, the twin suns looming in sullen majesty, pocked and blotched
with somber colors, swaths of umber, ebon, smoky cerise, the swollen orbs resembling the lined and leering faces of senile
old men.
The harsh, bleak, and savage world had scouring winds rasping from the deserts and vicious predators lurking in the hills.
Turgid seas lashed with violent storms and were filled with voracious life. A broken world, decadent, dying.
Alik Henata wanted none of it.
He lounged in the seat of the flier, his small, lithe body clothed in expensive fabrics, gems winking on his hands as he moved
to stare at the passing scene below. Small fields dotted with sparse vegetation, huddled villages built of local stone mortared
with mud, trails which wound like broken threads from farm to farm. The figures busy at work did not look up from their labors.
Squat and stunted, they had skins like leather with jaws and lips shaped like the muzzle of a dog. The Zendarh were serfs
imported from a more fertile world millennia ago, set to breed and toil for their arrogant masters, the Gholanzi.
Henata looked at them with contempt. Men would never have suffered themselves to be worked so hard, to be treated so badly; and despite the wild mutation that had peaked his ears and covered his skin with a mottled down so that
he resembled a cat, Henata was a man. But the canine trait of the Zendarh coupled with intensive inbreeding had broken their
spirit and turned them into obedient machines.
To the pilot he said, “How long?”
“An hour, at least, master.”
The man was of the servile race. He had been taken and trained, and taught a limited skill. He could handle the flier and
read a few simple instruments, but he was apparently devoid of curiosity.
“An hour? Can’t you be more precise?”
“There could be winds, master. And there is turbulence over the Rovik Archipelago. Sometimes it is very bad.” The flat, droning
voice held the hint of a whine. “I am doing my best, master. We shall arrive as soon as it is possible.”
Resigned to the inevitable Henata moved to a more comfortable position and resumed his study of the scene below. The land
ended, terminating in high cliffs, the ocean beyond dotted with islands. Small boats tossed on the waves, more of the Zendarh
busy with nets and spears, primitive in their fishing as they were in their agriculture. If the Gholanzi spent less on gems,
spices, imported wines, and succulent foods, and more on machines, all would benefit from increased production. But the masters
lived as their forebears had done, seeming to be unaware of the cultures of other worlds, despite the spacefield adjoining
their main city and the ships which brought them their luxuries in exchange for precious oils and scintillant shells won from
the sea.
Fools, thought Henata dispassionately. The decayed culture was desperately striving to maintain the status quo, believing
that if it did not accept the existence of other societies it would be left at peace in its own restricted world. The fools
were unable to see that they were already doomed.
But not all on Gholan had such restricted vision.
He straightened as the flier approached a large island, a mass of craggy stone rearing upward as if lava had been flung high and had frozen before it could fall. It rose from a shore
of cliffs broken in one place by a sloping beach of black volcanic sand, the beach in turn fronted by sheer walls of weathered
rock. Nowhere was there signs of habitation.
To the pilot he said, “Here?”
“Yes, master.” The man was tense, hands tight on the controls, eyes wide as if with terror. As they neared the shore the flier
bucked, uprising winds catching the wings, the fragile body. “Steady, master!”
Henata gripped the sides of his chair, his pupils dilating a little, the only outward signs of his anxiety. Again the craft
jerked, spun a little, veered as it crossed the shore. Below, in a cup of stone ringed by jagged crags, rested a smooth landing
place. The flier dropped, seemed almost about to smash itself against a crag, then came safely to rest.
“There, master,” the pilot said, pointing. “The Gholan Gate.”
Alik Henata looked and saw only a fretted mass of stone. Then he looked again and saw an arched door, slits of windows, a
parapet, and a cupola as if, by a trick of optical illusion, the natural-seeming cliff had transformed itself into a magical
palace.
A robed figure came to meet him as he stepped from the flier. The cowl was lowered to hide the face, the hands tucked into
wide sleeves. Even the feet were covered by the trailing hem.
“Your name, master?” The voice was deep, resonant, certainly not that of one of the Zendarh, nor that of a Gholanzian. There
was no mistaking their hard, brittle snap of arrogance. Yet despite the title he used, with its given and implied admission
of superiority, there was nothing servile about this man. “You are welcome,” the robed figure continued when Alik Henata gave
his name. “The Superior awaits. Please follow me. Talk to no one. Stray not from the path. Make no sound.”
The orders had to be obeyed, yet nothing had been said about Henata’s eyes, and he used them as he followed the guide through the arched doorway into an area flagged with polished stone. Light streamed softly through the slits
of windows, catching patches of reflective minerals cunningly placed on the walls and the groined roof so that patches of
living color shimmered and spread as if alive.
They passed through a door, a corridor, more flagged and polished stone, reflected light casting a somber haze over arches,
columns, and echoing chambers all carved from the living rock. Other figures glided past on soundless feet, all, like the
guide, robed and cowled. A ramp spiraled upward, and Henata felt the soft pressure of the floor against his feet as silent
mechanisms wafted them upwards. They reached another door on which the guide softly knocked.
“Who?”
“The one expected, master.”
“Let him enter.”
Alik Henata blinked as he stepped through the opened door, his eyes adjusting to a flood of light. Soft rugs cushioned his
feet, brilliance streamed from ornamented lanterns, the air held the scent of khan, the murmur of Keddish drums. Facing him
across a wide desk stood a tall robed figure, the cowl thrown back to reveal a harsh, strongly boned face, the eyes upslanting,
the lips cruel.
Master Hna Irmuse, Superior of the Gholan Gate, extended a hand, pointing to a chair.
“Sit. You have credentials?”
“A million of them if necessary.” Henata’s voice was a purr, in striking contrast to the harsh tones of the other. “But I
appreciate you. . .
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