E.C. Tubb’s eighteenth book
in the Earl Dumarest galaxy-spanning saga is Incident on Ath.
But first, some background:
The
Dumarest novels are set in a far future galactic culture that spread to many
worlds. Earl Dumarest was born on Earth, but had stowed away on a spaceship
when he was a young boy and was caught. Although a stowaway discovered on a
spaceship was typically ejected to space, the captain took pity on the boy and
allowed him to work his passage and travel on the ship. By the time of the
first volume, The Winds of Gath,
Dumarest has travelled so long and so far that he does not know how to return
to his home planet. Perplexingly, no-one has ever heard of it, other than as a
myth or a legend. It’s clear to him that someone or something has deliberately
concealed Earth’s location. The Cyclan, an organization of humans (cybers who
are surgically altered to be emotionless, and on occasion they can link with
the brains of previously living Cyclans, in the manner of a hive mind process,
seem determined to stop him from locating Earth. The cybers can call on the
ability to calculate the outcome of an event and accurately predict results.
An
additional incentive for the Cyclan to capture Dumarest is that he possesses a
potent scientific discovery, stolen from them and passed to him by a dying
thief, which would inordinately amplify their already considerable power and
enable them to dominate the human species. Also appearing in the books is the
humanitarian Church of Universal Brotherhood, whose monks roam many worlds,
notably every world where there is war.
***
Incident on Ath
(1978) is a self-contained adventure; it begins on the planet Ath, with a
gifted artist, Cornelius, and his sensual sponsor Ursula; he craves perfection
in his art and she is prone to taking a drug that offers her temporary oblivion.
On the planet Juba Dumarest
rescues a woman, Sardia, from attack. She is a retired ballet dancer, now
dealing in artwork and artefacts. She is grateful and takes him back to her
apartment. ‘Asleep she was more beautiful than awake, small tensions eased,
muscles relaxed, the hand of time lifted from brow and cheek and the corners of
the eyes. The mane of her loosened hair lay like a serpent over the pillow… In
her throat, beneath the rich olive of her skin, a small pulse beat like a tiny
drum.’ (p35) Here, in the apartment, among her collection he spots an
intriguing painting – a scene depicting a familiar sight. ‘The moon he had seen
when a child on earth’ (p26). Dumarest learns that the painting comes from Ath.
Also on Juba is a Cyber Hine;
at puberty he was operated on: an adjustment to the cortex which took from him
the ability to feel emotion… Yet Dumarest cleverly evades the cyber with Sardia’s
help.
He and Sardia arrive on Ath
to find there are no taverns, no hotels. To obtain accommodation you have to be
a guest. Guests are bid for by the populace. They have little choice but to go
along with the local custom. Dumarest becomes the guest of the woman Ursula –
who reveals that she knows of earth! Sardia is the guest of Cornelius…
Cornelius tells Sardia about
the creative impulse, applicable to writers as much as artists: ‘You get an
idea, a concept, and you work on it until, within your mind, it is there in its
final accomplishment. A work complete in every detail. Then comes the need to
communicate and so the necessity of taking that image from the mind and setting
it down on canvas…’ (p86) ‘A determination to pursue the demon which plagued
him; the creative madness which cursed all true artists. A thing they carried
as a burden and a dread, hating it, fearing it, owned by it and totally
possessed by it.’ (p88).
As a dancer, Sardia
empathises. ‘No dance could be given a personal interpretation without
confronting the same devils which tormented every creative artist. The
compromise. The limitation of the medium involved. The hopes and aspirations
and, always, the sickening knowledge of failure.’ (p86)
Dumarest saw the parallels
between Cornelius and himself. ‘Yet the quest was a search and both men sought,
in their own way, to find the same thing. The truth… A painting finished – a
world found.’ (p89)
As always, Tubb was inventive
– ‘The cube itself provided the music…’ (p103) – this written long before the
devices we now have in the twenty-first century.
There are two cultures on Ath
– ‘the Choud make the decisions and the Ohrm obey. Anything else is
unthinkable.’ (p141) Only there are factions who are intent on overthrowing the
Choud, though those in power seem incapable of conceiving any kind of
rebellion… Arrogant, uncaring, incapable of listening, the Choud are in for a
surprise – as will be the reader when the devastating truth is revealed.
A fast-paced moral tale about
the over-reliance on computer systems with plenty of insights into the human
condition.
Note:
A pity the blurb writer
didn’t read the text more closely. The back cover states ‘His rail led to Ath –
and to the ominous forces of the Cylan’ when it should be Cyclan! Oh, well…
Editorial comment
In the text we have: ‘… the
forearm pressed against her windpipe
as the snort of the laser he held pressed
against her temple.’ (p174) Of course this should be ‘snout’ not ‘snort’
and there are ways to avoid repeating ‘pressed against’…
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