First Contacts: The Essential Murray Leinster

by Murray Leinster

  Now all this was doomed to become like the fractional strifes of Nineveh and Tyre. The tiny asteroid, swinging in its appointed course about the sun, would come into the attraction of the earth’s gravitation. It would be torn from its path and crash into the earth. Death and destruction would follow the impact, and humanity would cease to be divided into cliques and factions but would become one in suffering and in death.

  Knowing twelve months beforehand the full horror that awaited, the aristocrats of Esthonia had not thought to warn the earth to prepare. Their first instinctive idea was the problem of turning the knowledge to their own benefit. Long conferences had been held, and now when the world at large was first trying to grasp what the fall of the asteroid would mean, the beneficent rulers of Esthonia were completely ready for what was to come.

  Eighty great cargo-carrying submarines had been built to carry supplies and munitions of war. The world had been scoured for submersibles. For twelve months agents of the royalists of Esthonia had been buying up not only the passenger submarines of the Arctic ports, but even the crawling salvage boats which crept along the ocean floor on caterpillar treads like the “tanks” of the war of 1914-18. And secret shipyards had been set to work. So urgent was the need that the metallic spray—used to blow molten metal by a blast of white-hot gas—had been used. Great forms of clay had been prepared in strangely fish-like shapes, and molten metal cast upon them until the requisite thickness was obtained. Engines had been turned out by hundreds, and when the observatories of the other nations first saw the menace of the planetoid, no less than four great whale-like monsters were splashing heavily every day into the waters of the hidden ports of Esthonia. We do not know how many of the submarines there were. We do know that between twenty and thirty thousand people took their places in them three days before the day of the Great Catastrophe.

  His Majesty the King of Esthonia and all his staff, the Royal Family of Esthonia and all its kin, the numberless princes, dukes, counts, barons and untitled aristocrats of Esthonia trooped into the cramped spaces of the submarines. Five regiments of the Esthonian army entered the holds of the iron sea-monsters. And the democrats of Esthonia found themselves in undisputed control of the government of the country. Their arrogant masters had left them, gone no-one knew where.

  The flotilla put to sea, and steamed for three days out into the broad spaces of the North Atlantic. It must have been a strange sight. A thousand black specks plowing through the sea, foam streaming behind them, arranging themselves in symmetrical pattern over a thousand-mile stretch of open sea. It was an edifying spectacle; of a ruler and all his aides fleeing from calamity they left their people to face alone.

  On board the submarines, no such thought was entertained. Instead, there was but little thought save of the time to come when the Catastrophe had passed. Then the cities of the world would lie in ruins. The bridges of civilization would have fallen to the river-beds. The ships of the world would have been sunk at their docks by the terrific tidal waves that would follow the fall of the planetoid. Then the people in the submarines would return. They would not suffer from the destruction of food crops by the storm that would rage. They would be well-supplied with all that made for comfort. They would be armed with the most deadly weapons science could devise. They would be organized, and in possession of air-craft of the latest patterns.

  The Esthonian scientists had estimated that ten per cent of the earth’s population would be killed by the earthquake and the storm—some six hundred and fifty millions of people. Another ten, or perhaps fifteen per cent would die of famine from the destruction of food. But the remainder…Foodless, unarmed, unequipped for warfare, they would be at the mercy of the handful of aristocrats and the well-drilled soldiers they commanded. A new empire would be set up, over which the Junkers would rule, and an empire without boundaries or nations, an Empire of the Earth!

  Laughter and gay talk enlivened the journey for the passengers of the submarines. Safely submerged below the surface of the ocean, they would be secure alike from the earthquake shock and the terrific storm that would surely follow. Tidal waves would not harm them. They were far at sea in ships that could not be swamped or injured by the fury of the waters.

  On the morning of the planetoid’s fall, the submarines were given their final instructions by wireless. At half-past twelve the wireless masts were unshipped, the hatches closed, and all made in readiness. Then, one by one, the sinister vessels submerged. One by one the waves closed over them. The Royal vessel was the last to disappear. Then they waited. Snugly safe, a hundred and fifty feet below the twinkling wavelets of the calm sea, they waited for the coming of the planetoid that was to come so near to annihilating the human race.

  IV.

  Raging, Andrews slashed savagely at the heavy ropes that held his aerostat to the earth. For nearly two weeks he had worked like a madman, trying desperately to afford an ark of safety to at least a part of the inhabitants of the village. He knew it would be useless to try to spread broadcast the news of his discovery. Rail and steamship service had ceased as soon as the tidings of the asteroid’s coming had been made public. Factories had stopped production, farmers dropped their plows, all the multiple activities of civilization had ceased. Even the wires were untended and communication had been abandoned as useless. There was no possible way for him to let the world know how he had found a refuge from the earthquake and the storm. Using every atom of his ingenuity, however, and the last least fragment of material at his disposal, he had built an aerostat of his metal foam that would carry aloft a dozen or more people. He had no resources to provide for more. Then, when he had finished, he told the villagers what he had done. He would take twelve of them aloft. With the shining globe of metal he had made, there was no fear of storm or earthquake. He could weather any storm, rise to any height, remain in the air for an indefinite length of time. If they would come with him they would be safe. And they had laughed at him. Aircraft in a storm? Absurd, they said, and most of all was a balloon absurd. Aircraft and ships had been warned of a terrific storm that would follow the blow of the planetoid. They would wait the earth-shock in the open fields, and trust to find shelter later from the storm.

  As the huge globe broke free from its severed moorings and rose into the air, Andrews was near to weeping from his disappointment. He knew the terrific nature of the outbreak that would come, and knew that of all the crowd that had jeered at him, hardly one had more than a little chance of surviving. He watched the ground sink from beneath him with lack-lustre eyes, but presently fastened shut the air-tight windows of the car he had made and turned wearily to his instruments.

  The iridescent mass above him shimmered and glistened in the sunlight, turning slowly as it rose. The whole of the globule was the metallic foam, gas-filled and lighter than air, that Andrews had discovered. Built into it was the car he had improvised. A single air-propellor did away with the need for ballast. The little engine within the car would cause it to thrust up or downward as he willed. Air-tight windows let him look out at the world below.

  At fifteen minutes after one, his barometer told him he had risen to seven thousand feet. At twenty minutes after, he was ten thousand feet from the green fields underneath. Forgetting his sadness over the people who would not seize the chance of safety he had offered them, he stared out of the window toward the south. He saw the dark shadow that was the planetoid. It moved slowly but implacably downward.

  Down, down, down…With gathering speed the planetoid sped toward the horizon. It vanished behind it. Andrews glanced at his clock. One twenty-five! He waited, straining his eyes…One twenty-six…One twenty-seven…

  There was a flash. The whole sky seemed to blaze an awful red. For a full minute a blast shot upward, far beyond the limits of the atmosphere. There was no sound, the terrific uproar of the explosion had had no time to travel from the Antilles to New York, but the flare in the sky was awe-inspiring. Andrews saw the tall buildings of New York City against the blaz
e. The little village from which he had risen was no more than thirty miles from Manhattan, and the skyscrapers showed high and inspiring from the height to which the aerostat had risen. As he watched, the ground below him rippled. It was the earthquake.

  Staring at the stately buildings of the city, Andrews rubbed his eyes. They had suddenly become blurred. Their sharp outlines ceased to be clear-cut and distinct. A faint fog seemed to hang about them. It was not fog, however, it was dust, for as Andrews stared the high towers of the modern Babel collapsed gently upon themselves. They sank slowly to the ground in a hopeless muddle of rent stone and twisted iron, while above them a dust-cloud shifted and twirled. New York was a pile of broken, tumbled stone.

  He heard a blast of sound, and wheeled. The mountains behind him formed the base from which a fan-shaped sheet of flame had sprung. White-hot lava spurted into the air, and fell in hissing masses on the green slopes of the hills, while the whole universe seemed to thunder out monstrous bellowings. The shimmering aerostat quivered from the air-waves. Then the storm broke.

  A solid wall of wind struck the aerostat like a blow from a giant hand. No construction of cloth and wires could ever have endured for an instant, but the metal globule held, though it rang from the impact like a silver bell. Andrews was jerked from his feet and flung to the floor of the car, where he groped on his hands and knees for a hand-hold. It was some minutes before he could pull himself to his feet, because of the mad twisting and spinning of the aerostat.

  Round and about, up and down, spinning furiously, twisting like a whipped top, the aerostat shot onward in a frenzy of motion, as if struggling to escape the incredible winds that lashed and tore at it. The noise of the storm outside was like the howling of a thousand wolf-packs joining in one monstrous ululation. From below, the explosions and thunderings of the tortured earth resounded and broke through the storm-sounds like artillery fire through the small-arms crackling, though the sound of the winds was a mighty roar.

  Andrews had braced himself by a window and stood staring out, aghast. Utter blackness reigned overhead now. Clouds of black vapor and ashes floated everywhere, constantly thickened by the masses of darkness that were spewed up by flaming fissures in the bed-rock. Far below him, Andrews saw a wide sheet of lava suddenly open and spread out. A moment later the sound of the bursting came to him with a shock. The white-hot area swept below him and behind. Andrews was being carried out to sea.

  With a cushioned jar, the aerostat checked in its onward course, and the wind-sounds became thunderous. An opposing current of air had struck the one on which the aerostat was being borne, and the two mighty forces battled a moment for mastery. Then Andrews felt the sensation of a man in a swiftly moving elevator as his tiny globule of metal was jerked upward. He was almost wrenched from his post at the window by the suddenness of the movement. Each unable to conquer the other, the opposing storm-winds had risen higher and higher in their grapple…Dimly, through the murky clouds of dusky smoke, Andrews could see the reddish glows of flame after flame, where fissures had opened in the bed-rock of the continent, and the inner fires burst forth. Still he rose, until below him the blackish clouds lay sullenly. Here and there a murky column rose to unguessed heights, and he saw two great pillars of steam, but for the most part the earth was hidden by a stratum of black fog, upon which a reddened sun looked down in blank amaze.

  We do not know to what heights the storm took the shimmering aerostat, nor from what colossal altitude Andrews saw the sun set in a blaze of red. His barometers had ceased to register long before, but an incredible chill made its way into the air-tight little car in which he sat and gazed out at a dying world. Black and sulfurous clouds in amazing turmoil, an occasional mass of black vapor rising, rising, rising to undreamed-of heights, steam that pushed its way through the floating ashes and black smoke to spout upward in a shimmering plume that turned to snow even as it rose…

  When darkness had fallen, Andrews saw the glows from no less than six lava-flows, the illumination from the white-hot rock piercing even the thick clouds of ashes that floated everywhere. At the least estimate, the aerostat must at that time have been no less than two hundred thousand feet from the earth’s surface, forty miles aloft, in a region in which there is normally nothing but the most perfect calm! To those heights had the atmosphere been racked and troubled, to that unbelievable height had the stress of storm attained.

  He was moving, moving constantly. No one knows what speed the winds reached. Solid masses of rock were picked up and scattered by the blasts, and heavy objects of amazing weight were tossed and carried to great heights and distances. The fact that in the storm following the earthquake nearly one-fourth of the earth’s population perished, is sufficient evidence of its fury. And Andrews was aloft and in the midst of the storm. Tossed about like the lightest bit of thistle-down, swept out to sea and back again, carried to heights beyond the wildest dreaming of aeronauts of former days, then almost dashed against a hissing mass of white-hot lava, the aerostat was absolutely at the mercy of the winds. It was their plaything, to be wrenched and tortured, to be flung high and swept low, to be thrust here and there, spinning madly from their fury and plunging like a wild thing when their grip was loosened. It was incapable of motion in itself, and in its helplessness lay its greatest strength, because no dirigible of any material could have coped with the mighty winds of that storm.

  Andrews can tell but little of the four days of the storm. He was in a daze, it seems. Flung here and there about the little car, eating a snatch of food now and then, drinking water from his scanty store, he waited dumbly for the end to come. After a very little while he had no doubt of his ultimate doom. At one time he was swept to an incredible height, so that northern lights played about and around him. Three hours later he was barely two hundred feet above the surface of angry ocean, where waves of a size before unknown lashed themselves into a fury, reaching incredible depths and incredible heights beneath the whipping of the hurricane. Then again, he was held at an immense altitude for so long that the penetrating cold crept in to him, and he wrapped himself in many garments, yet suffered intensely—and almost before he realized the change, he was being swept with relentless force toward a mountain-high jet of boiling water and steaming spume, shooting skyward from the ocean bed.

  The days and nights passed slowly, while Andrews grew accustomed to the thought of death, and slept the sleep of utter weariness as his aerostat climbed thirty, sixty, seventy thousand feet, and then plunged like a stone for the depths below. To be dashed against a smoking pinnacle of rock became a thing so possible and plausible that the thought gave him no qualm, and death from an abstraction became a thing so concrete and immediate that it ceased to be a subject of thought. Andrews became so weary of his tossing and pitching, his peril and narrow escapes, that he sank into a semi-comatose state that left him unobservant and indifferent. As a matter of fact, he was unable to tell how long the storm endured. We know now that for four days it raged in all its violence, and abated with some suddenness on the fifth.

  Andrews was roused from his abstraction by the gentleness and evenness of the motion of the aerostat. He enjoyed it gratefully for a time, and at last looked vaguely out of the window. The aerostat was sinking slowly from the heights, and below it was the blue water of the ocean. Fairly high waves were still running, but there was no strangeness in the scene. Blue water, waves curling and breaking here and there, the sun shining brightly overhead…Andrews threw open a window and looked down eagerly. He was perhaps a thousand feet above the water, and he saw that a brisk breeze was blowing over the ocean. As he looked the thought suddenly struck him that the worst of the catastrophe was over. The earth had received its wound, and suffered. Its agonies had passed their worst, now. Andrews surveyed the inviting ocean gratefully. The continents might be lava-strewn and buried beneath masses of ashes, but the ocean—

  His eye was caught by a black dot against the blue. The dot enlarged. A sinister, fish-like shape appeare
d on the surface, and plunged and tossed in the swells that were still running. A second similar shape appeared, and a third. Then from all over the visible surface the dots began to rise to the surface. There was something symmetrical and methodical in their appearance. Andrews looked earnestly and puzzledly. Men appeared on the decks of the fish-shaped objects. They gathered themselves into an obviously artificial formation, and other shapes appeared from all quarters and joined them. Then masts began to appear, and at last, simultaneously, an ensign was broken out at the top of every mast. It was the Royal Standard of Esthonia.

  V.

  A brisk breeze was blowing, and the aerostat was swept away from the converging group of dots upon the ocean. Andrews saw from such instruments as were not broken that he was about two thousand feet up and rising again. At three thousand feet he checked his ascent and busied himself in preparing a meal, while trying to puzzle out the meaning of the sight he had just seen. He realized at once that the submarines could not have been gathered together in the two weeks of warning the world had had. Some knowledge of the catastrophe must have been possessed by the builders of the submarines far in advance of the rest of the earth. But why had they not warned the nations? The Royal Standard of Esthonia identified the submarines to a limited extent. If Esthonia had been able to make such vast preparations for the coming of the planetoid, the whole world could doubtless have done the same.

  The breeze was carrying him way from the converging cluster of whale-backs, but for a long time he saw an occasional black shape hurrying toward the rendezvous. The breeze which bore him freshened a little, and he sped westward at a faster pace. Toward noon he saw smoke before him, and by two o’clock he saw the shoreline again. In a comparatively little while he was floating over the desolated earth. He descended to no more than five hundred feet, to observe the earth more clearly.