CHAPTER EIGHT
_"THE MARTIANS ARE COMING!"_
The alarm was spread instantly among those upon the planet and throughthe remainder of the fleet.
One of the men from the returning electrical ship dropped down upon theasteroid and gave a more detailed account of what they had seen.
His ship had been the one which had gone to the greatest distance, inthe direction of Mars. While cruising there, with all eyes intent, theyhad suddenly perceived a glittering object moving from the direction ofthe ruddy planet, and manifestly approaching them. A little inspectionwith the telescope had shown them that it was one of the projectile carsused by the Martians.
Our ship had ventured so far from the asteroid that for a moment itseemed doubtful whether it would be able to return in time to givewarning, because the electrical influence of the asteroid wascomparatively slight at such a distance, and, after they had reversedtheir polarity, and applied their intensifier, so as to make thatinfluence effective, their motion was at first exceedingly slow.
Fortunately after a time they got under way with sufficient velocity tobring them back to us before the approaching Martians could overtakethem.
The latter were not moving with great velocity, having evidentlyprojected themselves from Mars with only just sufficient force to throwthem within the feeble sphere of gravitation of the asteroid, so thatthey should very gently land upon its surface.
Indeed, looking out behind the electrical ship which had brought us thewarning, we immediately saw the projectile of the Martians approaching.It sparkled like a star in the black sky as the sunlight fell upon it.
The ships of the squadron whose crews had not landed upon the planetwere signaled to prepare for action, while those who were upon theasteroid made ready for battle there. A number of disintegrators weretrained upon the approaching Martians, but Mr. Edison gave strict ordersthat no attempt should be made to discharge the vibratory force atrandom.
"They do not know that we are here," he said, "and I am convinced thatthey are unable to control their motions as we can do with ourelectrical ships. They depend simply upon the force of gravitation.Having passed the limit of the attraction of Mars, they have now fallenwithin the attraction of the asteroid, and they must slowly sink to itssurface.
"Having, as I am convinced, no means of producing or controllingelectrical attraction and repulsion, they cannot stop themselves, butmust come down upon the asteroid. Having got here, they could never getaway again, except as we know the survivors got away from earth, bypropelling their projectile against gravitation with the aid of anexplosive.
"Therefore, to a certain extent they will be at our mercy. Let us allowthem quietly to land upon the planet, and then I think, if it becomesnecessary, we can master them."
Notwithstanding Mr. Edison's reassuring words and manner, the companyupon the asteroid experienced a dreadful suspense while the projectilewhich seemed very formidable as it drew near, sank with a slow andgraceful motion toward the surface of the ground. Evidently it was aboutto land very near the spot where we stood awaiting it.
Its inmates had apparently just caught sight of us. They evinced signsof astonishment, and seemed at a loss exactly what to do. We could seeprojecting from the fore part of their car at least two of the polishedknobs, whose fearful use and power we well comprehended.
Several of our men cried out to Mr. Edison in an extremity of terror:
"Why do you not destroy them? Be quick, or we shall all perish."
"No," said Mr. Edison, "there is no danger. You can see that they arenot prepared. They will not attempt to attack us until they have madetheir landing."
And Mr. Edison was right. With gradually accelerated velocity, and yetvery, very slowly in comparison with the speed they would have exhibitedin falling upon such a planet as the earth, the Martians and their carcame down to the ground.
We stood at a distance of perhaps three hundred feet from the pointwhere they touched the asteroid. Instantly a dozen of the giants sprangfrom the car and gazed about for a moment with a look of intensesurprise. At first it was doubtful whether they meant to attack us atall.
We stood on our guard, several carrying disintegrators in our hands,while a score more of these terrible engines were turned upon theMartians from the electrical ships which hovered near.
Suddenly he who seemed to be the leader of the Martians began to speakto them in pantomime, using his fingers after the manner in which theyare used for conversation by deaf and dumb people.
Of course, we did not know what he was saying, but his meaning becameperfectly evident a minute later. Clearly they did not comprehend thepowers of the insignificant looking strangers with whom they had todeal. Instead of turning their destructive engines on us, they advancedon a run, with the evident purpose of making us prisoners or crushing usby main force.
The soft whirr of the disintegrator in the hands of Mr. Edison standingnear me came to my ears through the telephonic wire. He quickly sweptthe concentrating mirror a little up and down, and instantly theforemost Martian vanished! Part of some metallic dress that he wore fellupon the ground where he had stood, its vibratory rate not having beenincluded in the range imparted to the disintegrator.
His followers paused for a moment, amazed, stared about as if lookingfor their leader, and then hurried back to their projectile anddisappeared within it.
"Now we've got business on our hands," said Mr. Edison. "Look out foryourselves."
As he spoke, I saw the death-dealing knob of the war engine contained inthe car of the Martians moving around toward us. In another instant itwould have launched its destroying bolt.
Before that could occur, however, it had been dissipated into space by avibratory stream from a disintegrator.
But we were not to get the victory quite so easily. There was another ofthe war engines in the car, and before we could concentrate our fireupon it, its awful flash shot forth, and a dozen of our comradesperished before our eyes.
"Quick! Quick!" shouted Mr. Edison to one of his electrical expertsstanding near. "There is something the matter with this disintegrator,and I cannot make it work. Aim at the knob, and don't miss it."
But the aim was not well taken, and the vibratory force fell upon aportion of the car at a considerable distance from the knob, making agreat breach, but leaving the engine uninjured.
A section of the side of the car had been destroyed, and the vibratoryenergy had spread no further. To have attempted to sweep the car fromend to end would have been futile, because the period of action of thedisintegrators during each discharge did not exceed one second, anddistributing the energy over so great a space would have seriouslyweakened its power to shatter apart the atoms of the resistingsubstance. The disintegrators were like firearms, in that after eachdischarge they must be readjusted before they could be used again.
Through the breach we saw the Martians inside making desperate effortsto train their engine upon us, for after their first disastrous strokewe had rapidly shifted our position. Swiftly the polished knob, whichgleamed like an evil eye, moved round to sweep over us. Instinctively,though incautiously, we had collected in a group.
A single discharge would sweep us all into eternity.
"Will no one fire upon them?" exclaimed Mr. Edison, struggling with thedisintegrator in his hands which still refused to work.
At this fearful moment I glanced around upon our company, and wasastonished at the spectacle. In the presence of the danger many of themhad lost all self-command. A half dozen had dropped their disintegratorsupon the ground. Others stood as if frozen fast in their tracks. Theexpert electrician, whose poor aim had had such disastrous results, heldin his hand an instrument which was in perfect condition, yet with mouthagape, he stood trembling like a captured bird.
It was a disgraceful exhibition. Mr. Edison, however, had not lost hishead. Again and again he sighted at the dreadful knob with hisdisintegrator, but the vibratory force refused to respond.
The mean
s of safety were in our hands, and yet through a combination ofill luck and paralyzing terror, we seemed unable to use them.
In a second more it would be all over with us.
The suspense in reality lasted only during the twinkling of an eye,though it seemed ages long.
Unable to endure it, I sharply struck the shoulder of the paralyzedelectrician. To have attempted to seize the disintegrator from his handswould have been a fatal waste of time. Luckily the blow either rousedhim from his stupor or caused an instinctive movement of his hand thatset the little engine in operation.
I am sure he took no aim, but providentially the vibratory force fellupon the desired point, and the knob disappeared.
We were saved!
Instantly half a dozen rushed toward the car of the Martians. Webitterly repented their haste; they did not live to repent.
Unknown to us the Martians carried hand engines, capable of launchingbolts of death of the same character as those which emanated from theknobs of their larger machines. With these they fired, so to speak,through the breach in their car, and four of our men who were rushingupon them fell in heaps of cinders. The effect of the terrible fire waslike that which the most powerful strokes of lightning occasionallyproduce on earth.
The destruction of the threatening knob had instantaneously relieved thepressure upon the terror-stricken nerves of our company, and they hadall regained their composure and self-command. But this new andunexpected disaster, following so close upon the fear which had recentlyoverpowered them, produced a second panic, the effect of which was notto stiffen them in their tracks as before, but to send them scurrying inevery direction in search of hiding places.
And now a most curious effect of the smallness of the planet we were onbegan to play a conspicuous part in our adventures. Standing on a globeonly five miles in diameter was like being on the summit of a mountainwhose sides sloped rapidly off in every direction, disappearing in theblack sky on all sides, as if it were some stupendous peak rising out ofan unfathomable abyss.
In consequence of the quick rounding off of the sides of this globe, theline of the horizon was close at hand, and by running a distance of lessthat 250 yards the fugitives disappeared down the sides of the asteroid,and behind the horizon, even from the elevation of about fifteen feetfrom which the Martians were able to watch them. From our sight theydisappeared much sooner.
The slight attraction of the planet and their consequent almost entirelack of weight enabled the men to run with immense speed. The result, asI have subsequently learned, was that after they had disappeared fromour view they quitted the planet entirely, the force being sufficient topartially free them from its gravitation, so that they sailed out intospace, whirling helplessly end over end, until the elliptical orbits inwhich they travelled eventually brought them back again to the planet onthe side nearly opposite to that from which they had departed.
But several of us, with Mr. Edison, stood fast, watching for anopportunity to get the Martians within range of the disintegrators.Luckily we were enabled, by shifting our position a little to the left,to get out of the line of sight of our enemies concealed in the car.
"If we cannot catch sight of them," said Mr. Edison, "we shall have toriddle the car on the chance of hitting them."
"It will be like firing into a bush to kill a hidden bear," said one ofthe party.
But help came from a quarter which was unexpected to us, although itshould not have been so. Several of the electric ships had been hoveringabove us during the fight, their commanders being apparently uncertainhow to act--fearful, perhaps, of injuring us in the attempt to smite ourenemy.
But now the situation apparently lightened for them. They saw that wewere at an immense disadvantage, and several of them immediately turnedtheir batteries upon the car of the Martians.
They riddled it far more quickly and effectively than we could havedone. Every stroke of the vibratory emanation made a gap in the side ofthe car, and we could perceive from the commotion within that ourenemies were being rapidly massacred in their fortification.
So overwhelming was the force and the advantage of the ships that in alittle while it was all over. Mr. Edison signaled them to stop firingbecause it was plain that all resistance had ceased and probably not oneof the Martians remained alive.
We now approached the car, which had been transpierced in everydirection, and whose remaining portions were glowing with heat inconsequence of the spreading of the atomic vibrations. Immediately wediscovered that all our anticipations were correct and that all of ourenemies had perished.
The effect of the disintegrators upon them had been awful--toorepulsive, indeed, to be described in detail. Some of the bodies hadevidently entirely vanished; only certain metal articles which they hadworn remaining, as in the case of the first Martian killed, to indicatethat such beings had ever existed. The nature of the metal composingthese articles was unknown to us. Evidently its vibratory rhythm did notcorrespond with any included in the ordinary range of thedisintegrators.
Some of the giants had been only partially destroyed, the vibratorycurrent having grazed them, in such a manner that the shatteringundulations had not acted upon the entire body.
One thing that lends a peculiar horror to a terrestrial battlefield wasabsent; there was no bloodshed. The vibratory energy, not onlycompletely destroyed whatever it fell upon but it seared the veins andarteries of the dismembered bodies so that there was no sanguinaryexhibition connected with its murderous work.
All this time the shackled Martian had lain on his back where we hadleft him bound. What his feeling must have been may be imagined. Attimes, I caught a glimpse of his eyes, wildly rolling and exhibiting,when he saw that the victory was in our hands, the first indications offear and terror shaking his soul that had yet appeared.
"That fellow is afraid at last," I said to Mr. Edison.
"Well, I should think he ought to be afraid," was the reply.
"So he ought, but if I am not mistaken this fear of his may be thebeginning of a new discovery for us."
"How so?" asked Mr. Edison.
"In this way. When once he fears our power, and perceives that therewould be no hope of contending against us, even if he were at liberty,he will respect us. This change in his mental attitude may tend to makehim communicative. I do not see why we should despair of learning hislanguage from him, and having done that, he will serve as our guide andinterpreter, and will be of incalculable advantage to us when we havearrived at Mars."
"Capital! Capital!" said Mr. Edison. "We must concentrate the linguisticgenius of our company upon that problem at once."
In the meantime some of the skulkers whose flight I have referred tobegan to return, crestfallen, but rejoicing in the disappearance of thedanger. Several of them, I am ashamed to say, had been army officers.Yet possibly some excuse could be made for the terror by which they hadbeen overcome. No man has a right to hold his fellow beings to accountfor the line of conduct they may pursue under circumstances which arenot only entirely unexampled in their experience, but almost beyond thepower of the imagination to picture.
Paralyzing terror had evidently seized them with the suddencomprehension of the unprecedented singularity of their situation.Millions of miles away from the earth, confronted on an asteroid bythese diabolical monsters from a maleficent planet, who were on thepoint of destroying them with a strange torment of death--perhaps it wasreally more than human nature, deprived of the support of humansurroundings, could be expected to bear.
Those who, as already described, had run with so great a speed that theywere projected, all unwilling, into space, rising in elliptical orbitsfrom the surface of the planet, describing great curves in what might bedenominated its sky, and then coming back again to the little globe onanother side, were so filled with the wonders of their remarkableadventure that they had almost forgotten the terror which had inspiredit.
There was nothing surprising in what had occurred to them the moment oneconsidered the l
aws of gravitation on the asteroid, but their storiesaroused an intense interest among all who listened to them.
Lord Kelvin was particularly interested, and while Mr. Edison washastening preparations to quit the asteroid and resume our voyage toMars, Lord Kelvin and a number of other scientific men instituted aseries of remarkable experiments.
It was one of the most laughable things imaginable to see Lord Kelvin,dressed in his air-tight suit, making tremendous jumps in empty space.It reminded me forcibly of what Lord Kelvin, then plain WilliamThompson, and Professor Blackburn had done when spending a summervacation at the seaside, while they were undergraduates of CambridgeUniversity. They had spent all their time, to the surprise of onlookers,in spinning rounded stones on the beach, their object being to obtain apractical solution of the mathematical problem of "precession."
Immediately Lord Kelvin was imitated by a dozen others. With what seemedvery slight effort they projected themselves straight upwards, rising toa height of four hundred feet or more, and then slowly settling backagain to the surface of the asteroid. The time of rise and fall combinedwas between three and four minutes.
On this little planet the acceleration of gravity or the velocityacquired by a falling body in one second was only four-fifths of aninch. A body required an entire minute to fall a distance of only 120feet. Consequently, it was more like gradually settling than falling.The figures of these men of science, rising and sinking in this manner,appeared like so many gigantic marionettes bobbing up and down in apneumatic bottle.
"Let us try that," said Mr. Edison, very much interested in theexperiments.
Both of us jumped together. At first, with great swiftness, butgradually losing speed, we rose to an immense height straight from theground. When we had reached the utmost limit of our flight we seemed tocome to rest for a moment, and then began slowly, but with acceleratedvelocity, to sink back again to the planet. It was not only a peculiarbut a delicious sensation, and but for strict orders which were issuedthat the electrical ships should be immediately prepared for departure,our entire company might have remained for an indefinite period enjoyingthis new kind of athletic exercise in a world where gravitation hadbecome so humble that it could be trifled with.
While the final preparations for departure were being made, Lord Kelvininstituted other experiments that were no less unique in their results.The experience of those who had taken unpremeditated flights inelliptical orbits when they had run from the vicinity of the Martianssuggested the throwing of solid objects in various directions from thesurface of the planet in order to determine the distance they would goand the curves they would describe in returning.
For these experiments there was nothing more convenient or abundant thanchunks of gold from the Martians' mine. These, accordingly, were hurledin different directions and with every degree of velocity. A littlecalculation had shown that an initial velocity of thirty feet per secondimparted to one of these chunks, moving at right angles to the radius ofthe asteroid, would, if the resistance of an almost inappreciableatmosphere were neglected, suffice to turn the piece of gold into alittle satellite that would describe an orbit around the asteroid, andcontinue to do so forever, or at least until the slight atmosphericresistance should eventually bring it down to the surface.
But a less velocity than thirty feet per second would cause the goldenmissile to fly only part way around, while a greater velocity would giveit an elliptical instead of a circular orbit, and in this ellipse itwould continue to revolve around the asteroid in the character of asatellite.
If the direction of the original impulse were at more than a right angleto the radius of the asteroid, then the flying body would pass out to agreater or less distance in space in an elliptical orbit, eventuallycoming back again and falling upon the asteroid, but not at the samespot from which it had departed.
So many took part in these singular experiments, which assumed ratherthe appearance of outdoor sports than of scientific demonstrations, thatin a short time we had provided the asteroid with a very large number oflittle moons, or satellites, of gold, which revolved around it in orbitsof various degrees of ellipticity, taking, on the average, aboutthree-quarters of an hour to complete a circuit. Since, on completing arevolution, they must necessarily pass through the point from which theystarted, they kept us constantly on the _qui vive_ to avoid beingknocked over by them as they swept around in their orbits.
Finally the signal was given for all to embark, and with great regretthe savants quitted their scientific games, and prepared to return tothe electric ships.
Just on the moment of departure, the fact was announced by one, who hadbeen making a little calculation on a bit of paper, that the velocitywith which a body must be thrown in order to escape forever theattraction of the asteroid, and to pass on to an infinite distance inany direction, was only about forty-two feet in a second.
Manifestly it would be quite easy to impart such a speed as that to thechunks of gold that we held in our hands.
"Hurrah!" exclaimed one. "Let's send some of this back to the earth."
"Where is the earth?" asked another.
Being appealed to, several astronomers turned their eyes in thedirection of the sun, where the black firmament was ablaze with stars,and in a moment recognized the earth-star shining there, with the moonattending close at hand.
"There," said one, "is the earth. Can you throw straight enough to hitit?"
"We'll try," was the reply, and immediately several threw huge goldennuggets in the direction of our far-away world, endeavoring to impart tothem at least the required velocity of forty-two feet in a second, whichwould insure their passing beyond the attraction of the asteroid, and ifthere should be no disturbance on the way, and the aim were accurate,their eventual arrival upon the earth.
"Here's for you, Old Earth," said one of the throwers, "good luck, andmore gold to you!"
If these precious missiles ever reached the earth we knew that theywould plunge into the atmosphere like meteors and that probably the heatdeveloped by their passage would melt and dissipate them in goldenvapors before they could touch the ground.
Yet there was a chance that some of them--if the aim were true--mightsurvive the fiery passage through the atmosphere and fall upon thesurface of our planet where, perhaps, they would afterward be picked upby a prospector and lead him to believe that he had struck a newbonanza.
But until we returned to the earth it would be impossible for us to tellwhat had become of the golden gifts which we had launched into space forour mother planet.
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