"E. C. Tubb - Stardeath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

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Stardeath
by E.C. Tubb
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Copyright (c)1983 by E.C. Tubb


Wildside Press
www.wildsidepress.com

Science Fiction


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STARDEATH
E.C. TUBB
*WILDSIDE PRESS*
*STARDEATH*
Published by:
Wildside Press
P.O. Box 301
Holicong, PA 18928-0301 U.S.A.
www.wildsidepress.com
Copyright (C) 1983 by E.C. Tubb.
All rights reserved.
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*CHAPTER 1*
AFTER an eternity when he could see again Varl looked at his hands and stared wonderingly at the
unmarked skin, the uncrushed bones, and the intact nails. He had known his hands as things of horror --
burned, seared, the tips bleeding stumps, the knuckles crushed, splintered, shards of bone needling the
skin.
"Here." The figure at his side held out a cup containing a pale blue liquid. "This will help."
The masked man was shapeless beneath an enveloping robe. A creature of studied anonymity, even
his voice betrayed a calculated distortion. The cup he held in gloved hands was made of fragile plastic
which would shatter into a powder if broken. Varl ignored it as he did the man, concentrating on his own
hands, remembering the things which had been done to them.
"Subjective punishment," the robed figure explained. "An illusion created by the use of electronic
stimulus on appropriate areas of the cortex. If the level had been too high your protoplasm would have
responded in psychosomatic mirroring. As it was, you only suffered mental anguish."
Only? The agonies of hell itself delivered by means of fire and clamps and tearing steel. A time in
which he had known the touch and taste, the sight and sound, the stench of calculated torment. Dimly he
remembered a frenzied screaming and sensed the soreness of his throat. Had he begged? Pleaded?
Groveled? Prayed?