It was the last planet left for men to conquer - a planet rich in priceless urillium ore, yet no man laid a finger on this wealth that was for the taking. For the planet Vendor could not be conquered. Space-men tried time and time again, but always the Voices drove them mad and destroyed them. Some intangible power kept men away from that taunting prize - until a scientist on Deneb IV perfected a blanketing device to protect his shop through the barrier. It took him twenty years to do it and every penny he possessed, but at last his voyage to Vendor began. It was the voyage of a gambler who knew that only two alternatives faced him...illimitable wealth and glory, or failure and death. But the journey to Vendor brought hazards that neither he nor his crew had foreseen, and before its conclusion a force was unwittingly released that could have swept life from the Universe - the indestructible and horrifying force of THE METAL EATER.
Release date:
April 30, 2014
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
105
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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Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)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Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)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Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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)
HE RUSHED out of hyper-space, far too near to a planet, and in seconds he was fighting for control.
He had one glimpse of danger as the swirling greyness of hyper-space cleared from the visi-screen, then, with the speed of a man who often had to rely on reflexes to save his life, Carl Wendis sent his hands over the controls.
Sound filled the tiny ship: the transmitted sound of roaring venturis, spouting fingers of blue-white flame that mingled with the crackle of cooling hyper-drive coils and the groans of internal structures.
He felt himself thrust hard into the pilot’s chair, and blood came from nose and ears as he fought to save the ship. In the belly of the ship, gyroscopes whined, and the main rocket drive vibrated.
It seemed to go on for ever.
In the visi-screen the planet leapt up at him, huge and menacing, and slowly, so slowly, its image began to shift. It lowered, slipping across the screen, a mottled ball of grey, brown and green, hazed with masses of cloud.
Wendis tugged at the firing levers, sending every last erg of the ship’s energy into the spouting venturis. On the screen the image seemed to move a little faster, dropping to the edge of the view plate, but slowly—slowly … The swollen ball became hazy, then it seemed to writhe, losing its convexity and changing from a ball into a shallow concave disc.
Something whispered from outside the hull.
A thin whispering, a rustle, a mounting, screaming whine, the sound of the atmosphere’s friction as it heated the metal hull plates. On the control panel, instruments flickered, thin hands swung and climbed far into the red, and still the shrieking wail of air echoed through the ship.
Desperately the pilot sent power to the whining gyroscopes, tilting the vessel so that the force of its thrust was in line with its direction of flight. The air shrilled louder as the vessel plunged with added speed into the atmosphere, then, as the planetary controls lifted the nose of the ship, the shrilling faded and died, and slowly the flickering needles of the external temperature gauges lowered across their dials.
Wendis cut the rocket drive, and silence replaced the ear-numbing thunder of sound, a silence broken only by the thin whisper of displaced air as the ship rode its orbit, swinging in an ever-decreasing spiral to the planet below, letting the resistance of the atmosphere kill its speed.
In the silence the humming of the radio attention signal sounded unusually loud.
“Attention. Attention. Planet to orbiting vessel. Identify yourself.”
“Free trader. Owner-pilot Wendis, Carl Wendis. Ship identification XX546, registered on Frontarch, Rigelian System. Which planet are you?”
“What?” The radio operator sounded his surprise. “Don’t you know where you are?”
“No. My hyper-drive broke down and I drifted for three days and lost my co-ordinates. Where am I?”
“This is Deneb IV. A free trader, you say?”
“Yes. Where shall I land?”
“You’ll have to land here at Carterston; it’s the only large town on the planet, on the Equator, mid-way between two mountain ranges. Do you have an almanac?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can get your own planetary data. What cargo are you carrying?”
“Trading goods. Why?”
“Nothing, but if you’d like to tell me what type of goods you have I’ll notify the merchants. We don’t get many free traders here. At first I thought that you must be a special courier, and I might be able to save you some time.”
“Thanks,” said Wendis, dryly. “I thought that you wanted time to look up some forgotten landing tax, or penalty for carrying my cargo.”
“You needn’t be afraid of anything like that here,” the radio operator said. “We don’t get enough free traders to make it profitable to cheat them. I was only trying to help.”
“My cargo is Throndike juice and mutated furs from the Cephid System,” said Wendis abruptly. “You can notify your merchants that I’ll be landing within the hour. Breaking contact now.”
“Breaking contact.”
He opened the circuit, and sat frowning at the banked controls before him. Deneb IV had lain well off his original route. He must have drifted further than he had imagined when the hyper-drive had broken down. He shrugged, and reached for a thick volume of closely printed sheets of thin plastic. He riffled the pages until he found the planetary data for Deneb IV.
“Gravity, 1200. Tropical climate, mild winter. Environment, suited to human life. Flora, lush and riotous. Fauna, savage and dangerous. Exports: perfumes, skins, exotic fruits and woods, some narcotics and medicinal drugs.”
He closed the volume, not interested in the itemised information as to just what the planet’s exports were. One thing was certain, his cargo of skins had no value, the Throndike juice little more.
He shrugged, replacing the volume in its slot and reaching for the controls. He thinned his lips as he saw from the fuel gauge that the thin hand hovered just above zero, and he stared anxiously at the blurred surface of the planet below.
Landing a ship took fuel, lots of fuel, and he had used all his reserves in reducing speed after he had emerged from hyper-space. Now, on a planet with a higher gravity than Earth’s 1000, he would need every erg the tanks contained, and even then he would be lucky if he didn’t smash the ship into a heap of wreckage.
Tensely he sat at the controls, his body hunched in the pilot’s chair, his eyes flickering over the banked instruments before him. Beneath him the planet swept past, seas and jungle, mountains and plain, more mountains and sea again. Carefully he adjusted the atmosphere controls and swung the vessel towards the equator, narrowing his eyes as he searched for the city. He found it, a blur of white concrete sweeping past almost before he could register its presence, then he pressed a lever before him and the nose of the ship lowered as it plunged through the whispering air.
Lower he forced the ship, the air screaming now as it slowed the vessel, the hull plates dull red and radiating heat from the friction. Lower still, letting the ship fall in a controlled orbit closer to the surface below.
It was a tricky manoeuvre, using the atmosphere to absorb speed. If he l. . .
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