This is the tale of Earl Dumarest. Space-wanderer, gladiator-for-hire, seeker of Man's forgotten home. Dumarest's search begins on the ghost-world of Gath, where he becomes unwilling champion of the Matriarch of Kund, and must undergo a fight-to-the-death at stormtime. Victory could give Dumarest his first clue to the whereabouts of the planet he fled from as a child - an obscure world scarred by ancient wars, which lies countless light years from the thickly populated centre of the galaxy; a world no-one else in the inhabited universe believed exists. Earth, the birthplace of Man. (First published 1967)
Release date:
September 29, 2011
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
192
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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Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)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Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)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Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)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 woke counting seconds, rising through interminable strata of ebony chill to warmth, light and a growing awareness. At thirty-two
the eddy currents had warmed him back to normal. At fifty-eight his heart began beating under its own power. At seventy-three
the pulmotor ceased helping his lungs. At two hundred and fifteen the lid swung open with a pneumatic hiss.
He lay enjoying the euphoria of resurrection.
It was always the same, this feeling of well-being. Each time he woke there was the surge of gladness that once again he had
beaten the odds. His body tingled with life after the long sleep during which it had been given the opportunity to mend minor
ills. The waking drugs stimulated his imagination. It was pleasant to lie, eyes closed, lost in the pleasure of the moment.
‘You okay?’
The voice was sharp, anxious, breaking into his mood. Dumarest sighed and opened his eyes. The light was too bright. He lifted
a hand to shield his face, lowered it as something blocked the glare. Benson stood looking down at him from the foot of the
open box. He looked the same as Dumarest remembered, a small man with a puckered face, an elaborate fringe of beard and a
slick of black hair, but how much did a man have to age before it showed?
‘You made it,’ said the handler. He sounded pleased. ‘I didn’t expect trouble but for a minute back there you had me worried.’
He leaned forward, his head blocking more of the light. ‘You sure that you’re okay?’
Dumarest nodded, reluctantly recognising the need to move. Reaching out, he clamped his hands on the edges of the box and
slowly pulled himself upright. His body was as expected, nude, bleached white, the skin tight over prominent bone. Cautiously
he flexed his muscles, inflated the barrel of his chest. He had lost fat but little else. He was still numb for which he was
thankful.
‘I haven’t lost a one yet,’ boasted the handler. ‘That’s why you had me worried. I’ve got a clean score and I want it to stay
that way.’
It wouldn’t, of course. Benson was still fresh at the game. Give him time and he would become less conscientious, more time
and he would grow careless, finally he wouldn’t give a damn. That’s when some of his kind thought it cute to cut the dope
and watch some poor devil scream his lungs raw with the agony of restored circulation.
‘I’m forgetting,’ he said. He passed over a cup of brackish water. Dumarest drank it, handed back the cup.
‘Thanks.’ His voice was thin, a little rusty. He swallowed and tried again. This time he sounded more like his normal self. ‘How about some Basic?’
‘Coming right up.’
Dumarest sat hunched in the box as Benson crossed to the dispenser. He wrapped his arms about his chest, conscious of the
cold, the bleakness of the compartment. The place resembled a morgue. A chill, blue-lighted cavern, the air tainted with a
chemical smell. A low place, shapeless with jutting struts and curved beams, harsh with the unrelieved monotony of unpainted
metal.
There was no need for heat in this part of the ship and no intention of providing comfort. Just the bare metal, the ultraviolet
lamps washing the naked coffin-like boxes with their sterilising glow. Here was where the livestock rode, doped, frozen, ninety
per cent dead. Here was the steerage for travellers willing to gamble against the fifteen per cent mortality rate.
Such travel was cheap—its sole virtue.
But something was wrong.
Dumarest sensed it with the caution born of long years of experience. It wasn’t the waking. He had gained awareness long before
the end of the five-minute waking cycle. It wasn’t Benson. It was something else—something which should not be.
He found it after he had moistened the tips of his fingers and rested them lightly against the bare metal of the structure.
They tingled with the faint but unmistakable effect of the Erhaft field. The ship was still in space.
And travellers were never revived until after landing.
Benson returned with a pint of Basic. A thin vapour rose from the cup, scientifically designed to stimulate the appetite.
He smiled as he passed it over.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Get this down while it’s still warm.’
The fluid was sickly with glucose, laced with vitamins, thick with protein. Dumarest swallowed it with caution, taking small
sips, careful of his stomach. He handed Benson the empty container and stepped from the box. A drawer beneath held his clothes
and personal effects. He dressed and checked his gear.
‘It’s all there,’ said Benson. His voice was hollow against the echoing metal. ‘Everything’s just as you left it.’
Dumarest tightened his belt and stamped his feet in their boots. They were good boots. A wise traveller looked after his feet.
‘I wouldn’t steal anything from you people.’ The handler was insistent on his honesty. ‘I don’t blame you for checking your
gear but I wouldn’t steal it.’
‘Not if you’ve got any sense,’ agreed Dumarest. He straightened, towering over the other man. ‘But it’s been tried.’
‘Maybe. But not by me.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Not ever. I’d never do a thing like that.’
Dumarest shrugged, knowing better, then looked at the other boxes. He crossed to them, checking their contents. Three young
bulls, two rams, a solid block of ice containing salmon, a dog, a plethora of cats—the general livestock cargo of any starship
travelling at random and trading in anything which would yield a profit. Animals but no people—despite all the empty boxes.
He looked at the handler.
‘There were other travellers wanting passage at your last port of call,’ he said evenly. ‘Why only me?’
‘You came early.’
‘So?’
‘We had a last-minute charter. The Matriarch of Kund and party. You were already in freeze or you’d have been dumped out with
the other passengers and freight.’ Benson crossed to the dispenser and refilled the empty cup. ‘They took the whole ship.’
‘Big money,’ said Dumarest. The only way to break the Captain’s Bond was to buy off anyone who could claim prior right. ‘Didn’t
she have a ship of her own?’
‘She did.’ Benson rejoined Dumarest. ‘I heard one of our engineers talking and he said that their drive was on the blink.
Anyway, the Old Man took the charter and we left right away.’
Dumarest nodded, taking his time over the second pint. A spaceman could live on four ounces of Basic a day and he was beginning
to feel bloated. Benson sat close, his eyes on the big man’s face. He seemed eager to talk, to break the silence normal to
his part of the ship. Dumarest humoured him.
‘A matriarch, eh? Plenty of women to liven things up.’
‘They’re travelling High,’ said Benson. ‘All but the guards, and they don’t want to play.’ He hunched even closer. ‘What’s
it like being a traveller? I mean, what do you get out of it?’
His eyes were curious and something else. Dumarest had seen it so often before, the look of the stay-put to the mover-on.
They all had it and the envy would grow. Then, as the prison of their ship began to close in, that envy would sour into hate.
That’s when a wise traveller waited for another ship.
‘It’s a way of life,’ said Dumarest. ‘Some like it, some don’t. I do.’
‘How do you go about it? What do you do between trips?’
‘Look around, get a job, build another stake for passage to somewhere else.’ Dumarest finished the Basic and set down the
empty cup. ‘Broome is a busy world. I won’t have too much trouble finding a ship heading for somewhere I haven’t yet seen.’
He caught the handler’s expression. ‘We’re going to Broome? The place you told me was the next port of call?’
‘No.’ Benson retreated a little. Dumarest caught his arm.
‘I booked for Broome,’ he said coldly. His hand tightened. The handler winced. ‘Did you lie?’
‘No!’ Benson had courage. ‘You booked the usual,’ he said. ‘A passage to the next port of call. I thought it was Broome. It
was Broome until we got that charter.’
‘And now?’
‘We’re three days’ flight from Gath.’
Close your eyes, hold your breath, concentrate. On Gath you can hear the music of the spheres!
So claimed the admen and they could have been telling the truth—Dumarest had never wanted to find out. Gath was for tourists
with a two-way ticket. It was an ‘attraction’ with no home industry, no stable society in which a traveller could work to
build the price of get-away fare. A dead, dumb, blind-alley of a world at the end of the line.
He stood at the edge of the field looking it over. He wasn’t alone. Down past the levelled area, crouched in the scoop of
a valley running down to the sea, squatted a huddle of ramshackle dwellings. They reflected the poverty which hung over them
like a miasma. They gave some shelter and a measure of privacy and that was all.
Further off and to one side, on some high ground well away from the danger of the field and the smell of the camp, sat a prim
collection of prefabricated huts and inflatable tents. There sat the money and the comfort money could provide—the tourists
who travelled High, doped with quick-time so that a day seemed an hour, a week a day.
Those in the camp had travelled like Dumarest—Low. Those who rode Middle stayed . . .
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