Kerron and his business associates, Chang and Forrest, were three of the richest men on Earth. Now old and approaching the end of their days, they were desperate to prolong their lives. And there was one man who seemed to possess the secret of immortality-the mysterious Brett, a tall adventurer who had apparently lived for centuries. So the three men paid a fortune to the one man they believed could help them, But Brett had a dark secret, and he in turn made a bargain with them, They had to accompany him on the strangest and most dangerous journey ever undertaken - to the very centre of the Galaxy - beyond the Wall!
Release date:
January 30, 2014
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
202
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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Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)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Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)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Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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)
Three old men
The night was brilliant with stars. They glittered from the cloudless sky like a handful of diamonds thrown by some careless jeweller against the soft velvet of the night, and like diamonds they were bright and hard and cold. They stared down from the bowl of the heavens with cruel, mocking eyes, and the faint light from their scattered vastness threw tenuous dream-shadows from the worn mountains of an ageing Earth.
Kerron stared at them, feeling the chill of their bright challenge knot his withered muscles and yet feeling the age-old excitement of their mystery accelerate his heart. Fear crawled deep within him; fear of adventure, fear of the great unknown, fear of lost and futile hope and yet these fears were as nothing to his terrible fear of death.
He shivered a little and drew his eyes from the great bubble of transparent plastic sweeping from breast height and covering the entire room. It was warm here, too warm for normal men, and yet the chilly light from the distant stars seemed to penetrate even this high-perched haven of civilized comfort. For a moment he glanced at the thermostat control, tempted to raise the temperature still higher, then a man coughed, and he turned away.
“He is late,” said the man who had coughed. He was a little old man, old as they all were, wrinkled and sere, hairless and with the thin limbs and stringy muscles of a man who has spent too long sitting at a desk. He coughed again, and Kerron shrugged.
“He will come,” he promised. “Restrain your impatience, Forrest. We have waited long, and can wait a little more.”
“Wait!” The third man of the group snorted and stared at the glimmering stars. “Why are we here, Kerron? Why did you call us from our comforts to assemble here on the tip of a mountain? Who are we waiting for?”
“A man.” Kerron smiled at the withered form of his friend and turned the thermostat a notch higher. “One who I think can help us, perhaps the only man alive today who can.”
“Help us!” Fire burned for a moment in the depths of the yellow-faced man’s eyes, then died at an effort of inner control. Impassively he folded his arms, and stared towards the heavens. “I think that you hurt yourself too much, you and Forrest. You have too much hope, too much fear, better be like the elders of my people and accept the fate the gods decree.”
“Stop it, Chang!” Forrest turned on the placid featured man and twitched with emotion. “You are as bad as the rest of us, perhaps even worse. You are torn between the lust of living, and the conviction that you should accept your destiny with placid calm. Be honest with yourself man! Rid yourself of superstitious nonsense and face reality. We, all three of us here, want to live. We want that with a power nothing can restrain, and if there is a single hope anywhere in the universe that the impossible can be accomplished, then we will take that chance.”
“Steady, Forrest,” warned Kerron, “remember your heart.” He smiled at his friend’s sour expression, and glanced at his wrist. “He is late,” he muttered, and for the first time looked anxious.
“How do you know that he will come?” Chang glanced at the instrument strapped to his thin wrist, and then at the blazing stars. “Do I know for whom we wait?”
“Perhaps, he is a free adventurer, a trader on the outer rim, a man who seems to care for nothing and who will admit to no master. His name? Brett.”
“Brett!” Forrest turned to glare at the old man seated at the wide desk. “That man?”
“You know him?” Chang carefully shook a small blue tablet from a phial and gently placed it between his lips.
“I do.” Forrest sounded grim and displeased. “I had dealings with him once, a long time ago now it must be. A tall man, slender with long smooth muscles and an unexpected strength. A black-haired man with a cold hard face and eyes which have a yellow gleam—the gleam of gold.”
He shrugged and licked his thin lips.
“He will do anything for money, anything. I remember…” He stopped and shrugged again. “What does it matter now?”
“I have heard of the man,” admitted the Eurasian. “I heard of him when I was a mere youth, and…?” He stopped, his eyes wide with unspoken questions. Kerron nodded, and smiled at the startled expression on Chang’s yellow features.
“Exactly my friend. You heard of him when you were a mere youth—and how long ago was that?”
In the following silence the unsteady breathing of the three men seemed strangely loud. Chang sighed, and slowly relaxed into the depths of his chair. Forrest grunted, seemed about to speak, and then shrugged and sat poised on the edge of his chair watching the man behind the desk with bright bird-like eyes. Kerron coughed and papers rustled as he opened a thick file.
“I don’t know how much each of you has spent on the study of longevity, I can guess by my own expenditure that it must be a major part of your income, perhaps even more. Some little we have learned, and had we united sooner, perhaps we could have learned even more.”
“There are some things of which even friends do not speak,” murmured Chang softly.
“I understand, and I am as much to blame as either of you.” Kerron sighed as he leaned back in his padded chair.
“It was by sheer chance that I stumbled on to your secret, and the discovery turned us from business rivals into close friends. We each know the other’s weakness, and knowing it, also know that neither of us has anything to fear from the other.”
“That is past history now,” grumbled Forrest. Older than the others he seemed more impatient, more nervous, as if he had less time for the delicacies than others. Kerron smiled.
“My spies found me your secret, the thing which you had always feared to admit, even to yourselves. My scientists worked along the same lines as yours did, but perhaps because of an earlier start, learned more.” Kerron leaned earnestly over the wide desk. “We have followed a dream, an illusion, and we are at . . .
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