by E.C. Tubb
(Also available in print)
Published here together for the very first time are five long-lost vintage science fiction stories by a master of the genre.
THE TROUBLEMAKER
Curt Gregson is a Martian colonist who has saved for 10 years to raise his fare back to Earth. But when he breaks his leg in an accident he misses his flight and is denied a refund. Medical bills plunge him into debt, at a crippling rate of interest. Bankrupt, he is caught in an economic trap working for the corporations which import essential materials from Earth. Embittered, he embarks on a fight to break the power of the corporations…but is the trap worse than what lies outside?
PERAC
A spaceship doctor is about to retire and return to Earth with his fiancée who has completed her teaching contract on a colonized planet. Whilst still in space, she contracts Perac, a rare and fatal incurable disease. The rules for dealing with cases of Perac are harsh and inviolable: total isolation and immediate destruction of the affected person and their body ejected into space…
CONFESSIONAL
It was a beautifully simple form of religion—the planet’s natives simply projected all their evil thoughts and their Leader fought the tangible evidence conjured up. But—add a party of Earth tourists …
GIGOLO
All the off-world colonists wanted was to get back home to Mother Earth. The yearning and nostalgia became so intense that it almost developed into a national neurosis. Or so it seemed …
UNWANTED HERITAGE
The tiny garrison on Venus had two objectives in view—survival and conquest. If they could survive the alien environment for five years, Earth would send colonists—but the Venusians had other ideas about conquest …
