Divine Right E-Book

Lester Del Rey

• Herausgeber: Wildside Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 60

Beschreibung

In a world where the privileged are granted immortality through cybernetics and secretive methods, Mark Saxon faces a career-ending failure. While appealing for more time to complete his research, he discovers evidence that the current World Custodian may have lived for centuries by transplanting his mind into new bodies.

As Mark races against time to expose this truth, he uncovers the depth of the custodian's power and the horrifying reality of mental immortality. With his life at stake, Mark must decide if he can trust those who promise him the ultimate gift: a shared mind and eternal fellowship.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION, by John Betancourt

LESTER DEL REY: SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

DIVINE RIGHT, by Lester Del Rey

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2024 by Wildside Press LLC.

Story copyright 1957, 1985 by Lester del Rey.

Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, July 1957.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com

INTRODUCTION,by John Betancourt

Lester del Rey was one of the most accomplished writers in the early days of genre science fiction. His novels and short stories appeared in every leading magazine from the 1930s through the 1950s. His work explored robotics, time travel, telepathy, alien invasion, space exploration, first contact, and many more themes, all with vivid writing and realistic, believable characterizations.

He was highly creative, and, in fact, made up most of the “public” details of his life. He often told people his real name was Ramon Felipe Alvarez-del Rey (and sometimes even Ramon Felipe San Juan Mario Silvio Enrico Smith Heartcourt-Brace Sierra y Alvarez del Rey y de los Uerdes). He also claimed that his whole family was killed in a car accident in 1935. However, after his death, his sister confirmed that his name was, in fact Leonard Knapp, and the accident in 1935 killed his first wife but not his parents, brother, or sister.

In the 1950s and 1960s, he moved from short fiction to writing novels for adults and young adults, while simultaneously embarking on an editing career. Along with his fourth wife, Judy-Lynn, Lester del Rey met his greatest success at Ballantine Books, where they established the fantasy and science fiction imprint Del Rey Books in 1977. Del Rey Books continues to this day.

Del Rey was a member of the literary banqueting club, the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov’s fictional group of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. (He was the model for “Emmanuel Rubin.”)

Following Lester del Rey’s death, I purchased his literary estate from his heirs and have been working to put all of his classic fiction back into print.

Judy Lynn and Lester Del Rey at Minicon 8 (1974).

(Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

LESTER DEL REY:SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

NOVELS

Marooned on Mars (1952)

RocketJockey (1952)

Attack from Atlantis (1953)

Battle on Mercury (1953)

The Mysterious Planet (1953)

Rockets to Nowhere (1954)

Step to the Stars (1954)

For I Am a Jealous People (1954)

Preferred Risk (1955) with Frederik Pohl

Mission to the Moon (1956)

Nerves (1956)

Police Your Planet (1956)

Day of the Giants (1959)

Moon of Mutiny (1961)

The Eleventh Commandment (1962)

Outpost of Jupiter (1963)

The Sky Is Falling (1963)

Badge of Infamy (1963)

The Runaway Robot (1965)

Rocket from Infinity (1966)

The Scheme of Things (1966)

Siege Perilous (1966)

Tunnel Through Time (1966)

Prisoners of Space (1968)

Pstalemate (1971)

Weeping May Tarry (1978) with Raymond F. Jones

DIVINE RIGHT,byLester Del Rey

The cybernetics wing of Eos Institute lay in the shadow of the central tower, where even the faint twilight failed to reach it. Most of the building was dark in the lull of annual finals. The successful students were out celebrating their newly created Fellowships; those who had failed were already gone, to make whatever they could of their doctorates. Only a few lights shone from windows here and there as neophyte Fellows cleaned out their laboratories or grew accustomed in private to the official masks that proved their rank.

The lights were on in the room where Mark Saxon waited, but there was no mask to conceal his blond, square-cut face or cover the sterility symbol tattooed on his forehead. He was rubbing the mark unconsciously now while his big body was slumped in front of the humming computer. Then, as two rows of symbols began forming on the panel, he groaned faintly and swung away.

He snapped off the lights and power and turned toward the laboratory window, gazing across the parklands around the Institute. The palace of the World Custodian lay beyond, already bathed in a rosy flood of light. Above the dome, the great figure of a masked Minerva poised, eager body and arms stretched toward the east, as if reaching for the dawn. Mark stared at it, as he had done a thousand nights before, but this time the inspiration was lacking in the sight.

Abruptly, the musical tone of the phone sounded. Mark swiveled to reach the receiver and saw the little panel light up with the pleasantly plain face of Letty, receptionist and general girl Friday for this floor.

“Dr. Saxon?” She bent closer, trying to make out his face, and worry quickened on her own features. “Mark, you shouldn’t be sitting alone in the dark!”

He shrugged. “I’m all right, Letty. Any word from the dean?”

The question was more automatic than hopeful, though. He’d put in his appeal for a continuation of his research project weeks before, when he finally realized he couldn’t complete it this term. It was too much to hope for any action now, at the end of the final day.

“Not yet, Mark. But the dean hasn’t left yet, so there’s still time.” Letty was determined to sound optimistic, though she must have known as well as he how little chance he had. “Fellow Northrup wants you to see him, though.”

Mark shrugged again. Northrup had made overtures of friendship before, but the young Fellow somehow rubbed Mark the wrong way. There was an air of too sure familiarity mixed with a peculiar attitude that might have been normal for an older brother in his advances. Besides, it wasn’t normal for a Fellow to associate too closely with a mere doctor. “Anything else?” he asked.

“There’s a box of books and papers from Central Files for you being sent up. And the janitor wants to know when he can start cleaning out your lab. I told him he could just wait until your time’s up at midnight.”

“Thanks,” he told her, and hung up. It fitted. He’d waited two months for the material from Central Files, but they weren’t ready here to wait five more hours for him to leave.

He sighed and dropped back to his seat in front of the computer, switching it on, staring at the impossibly duplicated rows of symbols that appeared. One row represented a supposedly exact mathematical analysis of the personality of the current custodian; the second did the same for another custodian who had been in office over a hundred years ago. Yet the two were identical. Either his three years of work here was a failure, or else Custody was in the hands of an immortal man!

It was utter nonsense. It was an idea from the degraded depths of rumors spawned by the anarchistic Ruddies. Only malcontents driven to fantastic fantasies by their sterility could believe such things about the custodian.