When his wife is murdered, victim of an assassin's bullet, businessman Dell Weston finds his life falling apart. Betrayed by his partner, he loses control of his company, and descends into the lower strata of a dog-eat dog society. Somehow, Dell manages to survive long enough to question the very fabric of civilization, and the role played by the mysterious figures in grey - the Arbitrators.
Release date:
January 30, 2014
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
197
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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Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)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Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)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Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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 awoke to the thin sound of shots and for a moment lay silent in the darkness, ears strained and nerves tense as he listened to the brittle sounds from the street below. Footsteps raced along the concrete of the pavement. Others thudded heavily behind them and a shouted warning echoed from the shuttered windows and smooth face of the building. A gun snapped angrily, glass shattered, and a man screamed in pain and terror. More shots, then silence, and the warm, soft darkness of sleep coiled temptingly around him.
He thrust it aside, forcing himself away and shivering a little in the pre-dawn chill. Carefully he reached for slippers and a robe, fumbling in the darkness and cursing softly as a chair fell with a crash. Lights flashed and a woman blinked sleepily at him from the second of twin beds.
“Dell, what on Earth are you doing?”
“Sorry, Madge.” He rubbed a bruised shin and narrowed his eyes against the too-bright glare. “Someone was shooting in the streets and the noise woke me up.”
“Go back to sleep then.” Cat-like she turned and buried her face in the soft pillow.
“But it could be serious.”
“What of it?” Irritably she twisted on the bed, her eyes closed against the lights. “The Guards will handle it. Turn off the lights and get back into bed.”
He hesitated, drawing the robe more tightly around him as his body lost the warmth of sleep. He stepped towards the window, one hand half raised as if to twitch aside the curtain, then stopped at the sound of his wife’s harsh voice.
“Dell! Are you mad? What do you think you are doing now?”
“I wondered if I could see anything?” He flushed a little beneath her look of undisguised contempt. “Someone might be hurt.”
“Sometimes I wonder why I ever had to marry such a fool,” she snapped acidly. “It isn’t enough that you have to be a moralist, a laughing stock among the other business men, you have to expose us both to danger as well. How do you know that someone isn’t out there just waiting to shoot you dead?”
“Why should there be?”
“How should I know? You’re a business man aren’t you?” Irritably she reached for a short fur jacket and pulled it around her too-plump shoulders. Sitting up in bed she lit a cigarette and blew thick streamers of smoke towards the fluorescents, the dimmed light gleaming from the artificial blondness of her hair.
“Now that you’ve managed to spoil my sleep,” she grumbled, “you may as well make some coffee. At least that would be useful.”
While he waited for the percolator to boil he stared at his reflection in the kitchen mirror and frowned at the growing lines of tiredness and worry. Still nearer thirty than forty, yet his thick, dark hair showed traces of grey at the temples, and premature age had placed its mark around eyes and mouth.
Worry, he thought. Worry and the constant necessity of making more and more money. A too-young marriage to a too-greedy wife. A business which could be profitable but which his own stupid morals forced to run at a starvation margin of profit, and the steady pressure of a money-hungry partner clashing with his own innate convictions.
Bender was right, of course. Bender was always right. There was no reason why the business shouldn’t provide more than enough for the both of them, no reason but his own conscience and the stubborn morality that made him a figure of fun and derision in business circles. Madge knew it, and never ceased telling him just what she thought about it. One day she would leave him, and somehow he just couldn’t worry about that probability.
The hissing of the percolator jerked him from his mood of self-pity. He wrinkled his nose at the sickly smell of marijuana coiling about the bedroom, and set down the coffee tray with a clatter of cups. “Do you have to smoke that stuff?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Madge glared at him from the bed and deliberately blew smoke into his face. “All the other girls at the club do, their husbands too. You’d be a lot better if you had a smoke now and again.”
“I do smoke,” he corrected.
“Tobacco,” she sneered. “Sissy stuff.” She dragged deeper on her cigarette. “That’s the trouble with all you moralists—because you don’t want to do a thing, it must be wrong. You, and people like you made the world what it was. Prigs! Sissy cowards! Weaklings! You just haven’t got the guts to be a man.”
“If by that you mean I don’t dope myself senseless, drink myself blind, beat my wife, chase women and shoot unarmed men, then you’re right. If that’s being a man then I want no part of it.”
“And who do you think wants any part of you?”
“You did—once.”
“Once was a long time ago,” she sneered. “I’ve grown up since then. I’ve learned what money can do, and what life should be like. If you didn’t have money things might be different, but you’re a potential millionaire and you owe it to me to cash in on the demand.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“I’d rather not talk about it, not now. Have some more coffee then let’s get back to sleep. I’m tired.”
“Tired? You’re always tired. I’m tired too, tired of a husband who is only half a man. A lousy stinking moralist, a coward. Why can’t you be like Bender? Why did I ever marry you?”
“Because you were a lazy slut hungry for a meal ticket. That’s why. What have you to offer a man? Look at you! Drugged, half insane, greedy, too lazy even to take a bath.”
“You—!” He ducked as the coffee cup swung towards his head, the fragile china shattering on the wall behind.
He winced at the stream of abuse pouring from her twisting lips, and with a quick, smooth motion, gripped her wrists and squeezed—hard.
“Shut up,” he said without anger. “If you want to leave me you know where the door is and I promise tha. . .
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