Book Review: S.T.A.R. Flight by E.C. Tubb
About fifty years ago, the Kaltich came to Earth. Not in rocket ships, but by the Gates. Their technology was in many ways well advanced beyond ours, especially in the field of medicine. They offered easy organ transplants and restored youth treatments, for a price. Very favorable trade terms did not seem like such a high cost, at the time. And they also promised that when Earth was ready, they would share the Gates, and the many inhabitable worlds the Kaltich had access to, quite a few of which were empty and waiting to be colonized.
That was fifty years ago. While the Kaltich aren’t officially the rulers of Earth, they certainly expect to be treated like a ruling class. The planet’s cultures have become impoverished, and the place is becoming more and more of an overpopulated hellhole. Some Earthlings have noticed the Kaltich never mention a timetable, or benchmarks to indicate when they’ll be “ready” to share the Gates. The Secret Terran Armed Resistance (STAR) is determined to take the secret, by force if they have to.
We primarily follow Martin Preston, a debt collector who is perhaps a bit too soft-hearted for his job. This is still his first time in his early thirties, but he’s already grown sick of kowtowing to the Kaltich to avoid losing access to their immortality treatment. One of them hijacks his long saved-for luxury vacation to arbitrarily make Martin his personal tour guide–which is why it’s almost a relief when STAR sends him a message requesting urgent attendance at a meeting of the resistance group.
STAR has received back a box containing the hands of their last agent who tried to infiltrate a Gate. No Earthling has ever passed through a Gate and returned to tell the tale–indeed, they don’t even know what the Gates look like! That’s a bummer, but they already have a plan for another attempt, and Martin is just the man for the job. He’s offered two million standard units for successful completion, but he needs to decide in the next couple of days before the window closes.
We cut away to follow other people for a while, as the Kaltich arbitrarily double the cost of the immortality treatment (which physically restores you to your twenties for ten years.) Chung Hoo, head of the United Nations Organization’s (UNO) New York office; Cherry Lee, an intelligence operative infiltrating the “zanies” (rebellious youth gangs, basically the yippies as seen by squares back in the Sixties): William Preston, Martin’s impoverished father who used to be an advertising man in the day and his longtime roommate Ed Lever; Charles Denbow, an antiques dealer who must please Kaltich tastes; and finally Milt Concord, a medical transplant courier who fails to wear his motorcycle helmet.
This sequence ends with the death of William, severing Martin’s last family tie and making him willing to take the risky mission–but only in exchange for the massive payout if he succeeds. As it happens, STAR has managed to abduct and interrogate a low-ranking Kaltich who looks a lot like Martin. The idea is to substitute Martin for Leon Tonoch under circumstances that will make the Kaltich less likely to check his credentials and thus infiltrate the Gate compound.
If this works, it will be brilliant, but if Martin is caught, it could mean death–or worse!
This is one of the more obscure novels by Edwin Charles Tubb (1919-2010), better known for the Dumarest series.
While the Kaltich arrived in the 1980s, it’s evident that the actual divergence point is earlier, since this Earth never even made it to the moon, and apparently there was no space program to speak of to dismantle. Earth technology has largely stalled out, they’re still using landline telephones and CRT televisions. The big changes are that everyone’s learning Galactic, the language the Kaltich speak, and there’s a global currency so that everyone can trade with the visitors.
Overpopulation is repeatedly mentioned as a problem, but birth control of any kind, even “keep it in your pants” propaganda, is not mentioned at all. Killing off unproductive members of the human race is floated, but not taken seriously.
The Kaltich have a strict caste system, each caste wearing clothing of a specific color, and multi-colored badges to show hierarchy within those castes. Breaking caste barriers by putting on a different color is a serious crime in their society. This makes it easy to bluff a higher caste than you actually are if you dare, because it’s so unthinkable, but the punishment for getting caught is what makes it unthinkable.
Genre-savvy readers will figure out the book’s big twist several chapters ahead of Martin, who has to have it spelled out for him.
There’s also a minor twist at the end which told me that either I had read this book back in my teens and completely forgot everything but that twist, or Mr. Tubb reused that twist elsewhere.
The Earth people are not happy that a colonialism is being done to them, but don’t follow through on the idea that colonialism itself is a bad thing.
Content note: Several characters die, some messily due to violence. Torture (the Kaltich are big on poisoned whips). The organ banks are scary to look at if you’re not a medical professional, but not as horrific as Martin initially thinks they are. There’s female nudity and some extramarital sex. (Kaltich are not supposed to have sex with Earth women, by their own rules, but it does happen.) The female characters with actual roles are mostly described in terms of how their bodies look. (Both of them are competent professionals in their fields.) Senior high readers and up should be able to handle it.
I detect a bit of John Brunner influence here, but mostly this is a potboiler with some interesting twists and turns. It’s competently written, but doesn’t really stand out. Recommended to fans of action science fiction that’s just starting to break out into New Wave.
