"Spawn of the Comet"
© 1931
by
Harold Thompson Rich
Tokyo, June 10 (AP).—A number
of the meteors that pelted Japan
last night, as the earth passed
through the tail of the Mystery
Comet have been found and are
puzzling astronomers
everywhere.
About the size
of baseballs,
orange in color,
they appear to be
of some unknown metal. So far,
due to their extreme hardness, all
attempts to analyze them have
failed.
Their uniformity of size and
marking gives
rise to the popular
belief that
they are seeds,
and, fantastic
though this conception
is, it finds support in certain
scientific quarters here.
Jim Carter read the news dispatch
thoughtfully and handed
it back to his chief without
comment.
“Well, what do you make of
it?”
Miles Overton, city editor of
The
New York Press, shoved his green
eye-shade far back on his bald head and glanced up irritably from his littered
desk.
“I don’t know,” said Jim.
“You don’t know!” Overton snorted,
biting his dead cigar impatiently.
“And I suppose you don’t know
they’re finding the damn things
right here in New York, not to
mention Chicago, London, Rio and
a few other places,” he added.
“Yes, I know about New York.
It’s a regular egg hunt.”
“Egg hunt is right! But why
tell me all this now? I didn’t see
any mention of ’em in your report
of last night’s proceedings. Did you
see any?”
“No, but I saw a lot of shooting
stars!” said Jim, recalling that
weird experience he and the rest
of humanity had passed through so
recently.
“Yeah, I’ll say!” Overton lit his
wrecked cigar and dragged on it
soothingly. “Now then, getting back
to cases—what are these damn
things, anyway? That’s what I’d
like to know.”
“So would I,” said Jim. “Maybe
they
are seeds?”
Overton frowned. He was a solid
man, not given to fancies. He had
a paper to get out every day and
that taxed his imagination to the
limit. There was no gray matter
left for any such idle musings as
Jim suggested. What he wanted was
facts, and he wanted them right away.
“Eggs will do!” he said. “Go
out and get one—and find out what’s
inside it.”
“Okay, Chief,” said Jim, but he
knew it was a large order. “I’ll
have one on your desk for breakfast!”
Then, with a grave face that denied
his light words, he stepped
from the city room on that fantastic
assignment.
It was the television broadcast
hour and crowds thronged the
upper level of Radio Plaza, gazing,
intently at the bulletin screen (1), as
Jim Carter emerged from the Press
tower.
News from the ends of the earth,
in audio-picture form, flashed before
their view; but only the reports
on the strange meteors from
the tail of 1947
(2), IV—so designated
by astronomers because it was the
fourth comet discovered that year—held
their interest. Nothing since
the great Antarctic gold rush of
’33 had so gripped the public as
the dramatic arrival and startling
behavior of this mysterious visitant
from outer space.
Jim paused a moment, halfway
across the Plaza, to take a look at
the screen himself.
The substance of the Tokyo dispatch,
supplemented by pictures of
Japanese scientists working over
the baffling orange spheres, had
just gone off. Now came a flash
from Berlin, in which a celebrated
German chemist
(3) was seen directing
an effort to cut into one of them
with an acid drill. It failed and the
scientist turned to declare to the
world that the substance seemed
more like crystal than metal and
was harder than diamond
(4).
Jim tarried no longer. He knew
where he was going. It was still
early and Joan would be up—Joan
Wentworth, daughter of Professor
Stephen Wentworth
(5), who held the
chair of astro-lithology
(6) at Hartford
University. It was as their guest
at the observatory last night that
he had seen 1947, IV at close range,
as the earth passed through her
golden train with that awesome, unparalleled
display of fireworks.
Now he’d have the pleasure of
seeing Joan again, and at the same
time get the low-down from her
father on those confounded seeds—or
eggs, rather. If anyone could
crack one of them, he’d bet Professor
Wentworth could.
So, hastening toward the base of
Plaza Airport, he took an elevator
to ramp-level 118, where his auto-plane
was parked, and five minutes
later was winging his way to
Hartford
(7).
Throttle wide, Jim did the
eighty miles to the Connecticut
capital in a quarter of an hour.
Then, banking down through the
warm June night onto the University
landing field, he retracted the
wings of his swift little bus and
motored to the foot of Observatory
Hill.
Parking outside the Wentworth
home, he mounted the steps and
rang the bell.
It was answered by a slim, appealing
girl of perhaps twenty-two.
Hers was a wistful, oval face, with
a small, upturned nose; and her
clear hazel eyes were the sort that
always seem to be enjoying some
amusing secret of their own. Her
hair was a soft brown, worn loose
to the shoulders, after the style
then in vogue.
“Joan!” blurted Jim.
“What brings you here at such
an hour, Jimmy Carter?
(8)” she asked
with mock severity.
“You!”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What then have I come for?”
“You’ve come to interview father
about those meteorites.”
“Nonsense! That’s purely incidental—a
mere by-product, you
might say.”
“Yes, you might—but I wouldn’t
advise you to say it to father.”
“All right, I won’t,” he promised,
as she led him into the library.
Professor Wentworth rose as they
entered and laid aside some scientific
book he had been reading.
A man of medium height and
build, he had the same twinkling
hazel eyes as his daughter, though
somewhat dimmed from peering at
too many stars for too many years.
“Good evening, Jim,” he said.
“I’ve rather been expecting you.
What is on your mind?”
“Seeds! Eggs! Baseballs!” was
the reply, “I don’t know what.
You’ve seen the latest television reports,
I suppose?” said Jim, noting
that the panel on the receiving
cabinet across the room was still
lit.
“I’ve seen some of them. Joan
has been keeping an eye on the
screen mostly, however, while I
refreshed my mind on the known
chemistry of meteorites. You see,
I have a few of those eggs myself,
up at the observatory.”
“You have?” cried Jim.
He was certainly on the right
track!
“Yes. One of my assistants
brought them in this afternoon.
Would you like to see them?”
“I’ll say I would!”
“I rather thought you might,” the
professor smiled. “Come along,
then.”
And as Jim turned, he shot a
look at Joan, and added:
“You may come too, my dear, if
you want.”
They went out and up the hill
to where the great white dome
glistened under the stars, and once
inside, Jim Carter of The New
York Press was privileged to see
two of those strange objects that
had turned the world topsy-turvy.
As the Tokyo dispatch and the
Berlin television flash had indicated,
they were orange in color, about
the size of baseballs.
“Weird looking eggs, all right!”
said Jim. “What are they made of,
anyway?”
“Some element unknown on
earth,” replied Professor Wentworth.
“But I thought there were only
ninety-two elements in the universe
and we’d discovered them all.”
“So we have. But don’t forget
this. We are still trying to split
the atom, which nature has done
many times and will doubtless do
many times again. It is merely a
matter of altering the valence of
the atoms in an old element ; whereupon
it shifts its position in the
periodic scale and becomes a new
element
(9). Nature accomplishes this
alchemy by means of great heat,
which is certainly to be found in
a meteor.”
(10)
“Particularly when it hits the
earth’s atmosphere!”
(11)
“Yes. And now then, I’d like to
have you examine more closely this
pair I have here.”
Jim lifted one and noted its
peculiar smoothness, its remarkable
weight for its size; he noted, too,
that it was veined with concentric
markings, like a series of arabesques
or fleurs-de-lis.
The professor lifted the other,
calling attention to the fact that
the size and marking of both were
identical, as hitherto reported.
“Also, you’ll observe that they
are slightly warm. In fact, they
are appreciably warmer than when
they were first brought in. Curious
behavior, this, for new-laid cometary
eggs! More like seeds germinating
than meteorites cooling,
wouldn’t you say?”
(12)
“But good Lord!” Jim was somewhat
taken aback to hear this celebrated
scientist apparently commit
himself to that wild view. “You
don’t really think they’re seeds, do
you?”
“Why not?”
“But surely no seeds could survive
the temperature they hit getting
here.”
“No seeds such as we know, true.
But what, after all, do we know of
the types of life to be found on
other planets?”
(13)
“Nothing, of course. Only these
didn’t come from a planet. They
came from a comet.”
“And who can say a comet is not
a disintegrated planet? Or suppose
we take the other theory, that it is
an eruption from some sun, ours or
another
(14). In any event, who can say
no life can survive intense heat? Certainly these seeds—or call them
meteorites, if you choose—came
through the ordeal curiously unscathed.”
“Yes, that’s true. Funny, too!”
“And another thing is true, Jim.
If by chance they
should be seeds,
and
should germinate, the life they
would produce would be something
quite alien to our experience, possibly
quite inimical to—”
Professor Wentworth broke off
abruptly as a startled cry came from
Joan, and, turning, they saw her standing with eyes fixed in fascinated
horror on the laboratory
table.
Following her gaze, Jim
saw something that caused his
own eyes to bulge. The color of
those mysterious orange spheres
had suddenly, ominously heightened.
They lay glowing there like
balls of fire.
“Good God!” he gasped. “Look,
Professor! Do you see that?”
Professor Wentworth did not answer
but himself stood gazing spellbound
at the astounding scene.
Even as they looked, the metal
table smoldered under the fiery
meteorites and melted, and in a
little while the meteorites themselves
sizzled from view. Flames
licked up from the floor; dense,
suffocating fumes rose and swirled
through the laboratory
(15).
“Quick!” cried Jim, seizing Joan’s
arm. “Come on, Professor! Never
mind trying to save anything. Let’s
get out of here!”
They staggered from the laboratory
and once outside, plunged
down the hill. It was none too
soon.
Behind them, as they fled, came
suddenly two deafening explosions.
Looking back, they saw the roof
of the observatory tilt crazily; saw
the whole building shatter, and
erupt like a volcano.
But that, startling though it was,
was not all they saw. For now, as
they stood there speechless, two
incredible forms rose phoenix-like
from the flames—two weird monsters,
orange against the red, hideous,
nightmarish. They saw them
hover a moment above that fiery
hell, then rise on batlike wings to
swoop off into the night.
Nor was that all. As the awed
trio stood there halfway down Observatory
Hill, following the flight
of that pair of demons, other explosions
reached their ears, and,
turning to the city below, they saw
vivid jets of red leap up here and
there, saw other orange wings
against the night.
While off across the southeast
sky, receding fast, spread the Mystery
Comet whose tail had sowed
the seeds of this strange life.
Still silent, the trio stood gazing
upon that appalling scene
for some minutes, while the ruddy
shadows of the flaming observatory
lit their tense faces.
“Well, the seeds have hatched,”
said Professor Wentworth at
length, in a strained voice. “I am
afraid some of the curious who have
been gathering those meteorites so
eagerly have paid a dear price for
them.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” echoed Jim.
“We were lucky. If Joan hadn’t
happened to spot those things just
when she did—” He broke off and
pressed her hand fondly. “But
somehow I can’t believe it, even
yet. What do you think the things
are, Professor?”
“God knows! As I told you, those
seeds, should they germinate, would
produce something quite alien to
our experience; and as I feared, it
is a form of life that will not blend
well with humanity.”
Jim shuddered.
“But look, father!” exclaimed
Joan. “They’re flying away! They
seem to be way up among the stars.
Maybe they’ve left the earth altogether.”
Professor Wentworth following
his daughter’s gaze, saw that many
of the monsters were now mere
orange pinpoints against the night.
“Let us hope so!” he said fervently.
But in his heart there was no
conviction, nor in Jim’s, strangely.
On the way back to New York,
Jim had plenty to heighten
his uneasiness. The scene below
him everywhere was red with conflagrations,
the sky everywhere
orange with the wings of those
fiery moths.
More than one swept perilously
close, as he pushed his auto-plane
on at top speed; but they showed
no inclination to attack, for which
he was devoutly thankful.
Over the metropolitan area, the
scene was one beggaring description.
All the five boroughs were a
blazing checker-board. New Jersey,
Connecticut, Westchester—all were
raging. Hundreds of those deadly
bombs must have burst in Manhattan
alone.
But the fire department there
seemed to have the situation in
hand, he noticed as he swept down
onto the Plaza landing platform.
Leaving his plane with an attendant,
he took the first elevator
to the street level, and crossing
hastily to the Press tower, mounted
to the city room.
There absolute pandemonium
raged. Typewriters were sputtering,
telegraph keys clicking, phones
buzzing, reporters coming and going
in a steady stream, mingled
with the frantic orders of editors,
sub-editors, copy readers, composing-room
men and others.
Carter fought through the bedlam
to the city editor’s desk.
“Sorry I couldn’t bring you that
egg, Chief,” he said, with a grim
smile. “I had one right in my
hand, but it hatched out on me.”
Overton looked up wearily. He
was a man who had seen a miracle,
a godless miracle that restored his
faith in the devil.
“Don’t talk—just write!” he
growled. “I’ve seen and heard too
much to-night. We’re all going to
hell, I guess—unless we’re already
there.”
But Jim wasn’t ready to write
yet.
“What’s the dope elsewhere? The
same?”
“All over the map! We’re frying,
from coast to coast.”
“And abroad?”
“Cooked, everywhere!”
(16) He paused,
and turned an imploring face to
Jim. “Tell me, Carter—what’s happening?
You’ve seen Wentworth, I
suppose. What’s he make of it?”
“He—doesn’t know.”
“God help us! Well, go write
your story. If we’ve got a plant by
press time, we’ll have something on
page one to-morrow—if there’s anyone
to read it.”
By morning the fires in the
metropolitan area had been
brought under control and it was
found that neither the loss of life
nor the damage was as great as had
at first been feared. Mainly it was
the older types of buildings that
had suffered the most.
The same thing was true in other
parts of the country and elsewhere
in the world; and elsewhere, as in
New York, people pulled themselves
together, cleared up the debris, and
went ahead with their occupations.
Business was resumed, and rebuilding
operations were begun
(17).
Meanwhile, where were those fiery
moths that had sprung so devastatingly
from their strange
cocoons?
For a while no one knew and it
was believed they had indeed
winged off into interstellar space,
as Joan had suggested that night
on Observatory Hill.
Then came rumors that damped
these hopes, followed by eye-witness
reports that altogether dashed
them. The bat-like monsters had
flown, not off into space, but to the
world’s waste-lands.
Strange, it was, the instinct that
had led them unerringly to the
remotest point of each continent.
In North America it was the great
Arizona desert, in South America
the pampas of Argentina, in Europe
the steppes of Russia, in Asia the
Desert of Gobi, in Africa the Sahara,
in Australia the Victoria;
while in the British Isles, Philippines,
New Zealand, Madagascar,
Iceland, the East Indies, West
Indies, South Seas and other islands
of the world, the interiors
were taken over by the demons,
the populace fleeing for their lives
(18).
As for the oceans, no one knew
exactly what had happened there,
though it was obvious they, too,
had received their share of the
bombardment on that fateful night;
but, while temperatures were found
to be somewhat above normal, scientists
were of the opinion that the
deadly spawn that had fallen there
had failed to incubate.
Immediately the presence of
the monsters in the Arizona
desert was verified, Overton called
Jim Carter to his desk.
“Well, I’ve got a big assignment
for you, boy,” he said, rather more
gently than was his fashion. “Maybe
you know what, huh?”
“You want me to buzz out and
interview those birds?”
(19)
“You guessed it. And photograph
’em!”
“Okay, Chief,” said Carter, though
he knew this would be the toughest
job yet.
Overton knew it, too.
“It won’t be easy,” he said. “And
it may be dangerous. You don’t
have to take the assignment unless
you want.”
“But I want.”
“Good! I thought you would.” He
regarded the younger man admiringly,
almost enviously. “Now, about
those photos. The Television News
people haven’t been able to get a
thing, nor the War Department—not
so much as a still. So those
photos will be valuable.”
Overton paused, to let that sink
in.
“They’ll be worth a million, in
fact, in addition to what the War
Department offers. And to you
they’ll be worth ten thousand dollars.”
“How come?”
“Because that’s what the Old
Man said.”
“Well, I can use it!” said Jim,
thinking of Joan.
“All right. Then go to it!”
Leaving New York late that
night, Carter timed his flight
to arrive over the eastern edge of
the desert just before dawn.
The trip was uneventful till he
crossed the Rockies over New
Mexico and eased down into Arizona.
Then, flying low and fast, he
suddenly caught a glow of color
off ahead.
For an instant Jim thought it was
the dawn, then called himself a
fool. For one thing, the glow was
in the west, not the east. And for
another, altogether more significant,
it was orange.
His quarry!
Pulling his stick back hard, he
shot like a rocket to ten thousand
feet, figuring that a higher altitude,
besides giving him a better view of
the lay of the land, would be considerably
safer.
Winging on now at that height,
he saw the orange tide rise higher
in the west by seconds, as he
rushed toward God knew what eery
lair. He suddenly gasped in amazement,
as he saw now something so
incredible it left him numb.
Below, looming above the on-rushing
horizon was a city! But
such a city as the brain of man
could scarcely conceive, much less
execute—a city of some fluorescent
orange material, rising tier on tier,
level on level, spreading out over
the sandy floor of the desert for
miles.
And, as Jim draw nearer, he saw,
too, that this weird city was teeming
with life—terrible life! Thousands
of those hideous monsters were
working there like an army of ants
in a sand-hill—a sand-hill of glistening,
molten glass, it seemed
from the air.
Were they building their city
from the sand of the desert, these
hellish glaciers?
Carter decided to find out.
“Well, here goes!” he muttered,
diving straight for that dazzling
citadel, one hand on the stick, the
other gripping the trigger of his
automatic camera. “This’ll make a
picture for the Old Man, all right!”
Off to the east the dawn was
breaking, and he saw, as he swept
down, its pearly pastel shades blending
weirdly with that blinding
orange glare.
Pressing the trigger now, he
drove his screaming plane on with
throttle wide—and yes, it was glass!—glass
of some sort, that crazy
nightmare down there.
“Whew!” gasped Carter as waves
of dazing heat rose about him. “Boy,
but it’s hot! I can’t stand much of
this. Better get out while the
getting’s good.”
But he clenched his teeth, and
dove on down to see what those
fiery demons looked like. Funny
they didn’t make any effort to
attack. Surely they must see him
now.
“Take that, my beauties!—and
that!” he gasped, pressing the trigger
of his camera furiously.
Then, at a scant two thousand
feet, he levelled off, his wings blistering
with the heat, and zoomed
up again—when to his horror, his
engine faltered; died.
In that agonizing moment it came
to Jim that this perhaps was
why neither the Television News
nor the War Department pilots had
been able to get pictures of the
hell below.
Had something about that daring
heat killed their motors, too, as
it had his? Had they plunged like
fluttering, sizzling moths into that
inferno of orange flame?
(20)
“Well, I guess it’s curtains!” he
muttered.
A glance at his altimeter showed
a scant eighteen hundred now. Another
glance showed the western
boundary of the city, agonizing
miles ahead. Could he make it?
He’d try, anyway!
So, nursing his plane along in a
shallow glide, Jim slipped down
through that dazing heat.
“Got to keep her speed up!” he
told himself, half deliriously, as he
steadily lost altitude. “Can’t pancake
here, or I’ll be a flapjack!”
At an altitude of less than a
thousand he levelled off again,
eased on down, fully expecting to
feel his plane burst into flames.
But though his eyebrows crisped
and the gas must have boiled, the
sturdy little plane made it.
On a long last glide, he put her
wheels down on the sandy desert
floor, a bare half mile beyond that
searing hell.
The heat was still terrific but endurable
now. He dared breathe
deeper; he found his head clearing.
But what was the good of it? It was
only a respite. The monsters had
seen him, all right—no doubt about
that! Already they were swooping
out of their weird citadel like a
pack of furious hornets
(21).
On they came, incredibly fast,
moving in a wide half-circle that
obviously was planned to envelop
him.
Tense with horror, like a doomed
man at the stake, Jim watched the
flaming phalanx advance. And now
he saw what they really were; saw
that his first, fantastic guess had
been right.
They were
ants—or at least more
like ants than anything on earth—great
fiery termites ten feet long,
hideous mandibles snapping like
steel, hot from the forge, their
huge compound eyes burning like
greenish electric fire in their livid
orange sockets
(22).
And another thing Jim saw, something
that explained why the fearful
insects had not flown up to
attack him in the air. Their wings
were gone!
(23)
They had molted, were earthbound
now.
There was much food for
thought in this, but no time to
think. Already the creatures were
almost on him.
Jim turned his gaze from them
and bent over his dials in a last
frantic effort to get his motor
started. The instinct of self-preservation
was dominant now—and to
his joy, suddenly the powerful little
engine began to hum with life.
He drew one deep breath of infinite
relief, then gave her the gun
and whirled off down the desert
floor, the enraged horde after him.
For agonizing instants it was
a nip-and-tuck race. Then as he felt
his wheels lift, he pulled hard back
on his stick, and swept up and
away from the deadly claws that
clutched after him in vain.
Climbing swiftly, Jim banked
once, swept back, put the bead full
on that scattering half-circle of
fiery termites, and pressed the
trigger of his automatic camera.
“There, babies!” he laughed grimly.
“You’re in the Rogues’ Gallery
now!”
Then, swinging off to the northeast,
he continued to climb, giving
that weird ant-hill a wide berth.
Funny, about those things losing
their wings, he was thinking now.
Would they grow them again, or
were they on the ground for good?
And what was their game out there
in the desert, anyway?
Questions Jim couldn’t answer, of
course. Only time would tell. Meanwhile,
he had some pictures that
would make the Old Man sit up and
take notice, not to mention the
War Department.
“They’d better get the Army on
the job before those babies get
air-minded again!” he told himself,
as he winged on into the rising sun.
“Otherwise the show they’ve already
staged may be only a little
curtain-raiser.”
Jim’s arrival in the city room
of The New York Press that
afternoon was a triumphant one,
for he had radio-phoned the story
ahead and extras were out all over
the metropolitan area, with relays
flashing from the front pages of
papers everywhere.
No sooner had he turned over his
precious pictures to the photographic
department for development
than Overton rushed him to a
microphone, and made him repeat
his experience for the television
screen.
But the city editor’s enthusiasm
died when the negatives came out
of the developer.
“There are your pictures!” he
said, handing over a bunch of them.
Carter looked at them in dismay.
They were all blank—just so much
plain black celluloid.
“Over-exposed!” rasped Overton.
“A hell of a photographer you are!”
“I sure am!” Jim agreed, still
gazing ruefully at the ruined negatives.
“Funny, though. The camera
was checked before I started. I had
the range before I pulled the trigger,
every shot.” He paused, then
added, as though reluctant to excuse
himself: “It must have been
the heat.”
“Yeah. I suppose so! Well, that
was damn expensive heat for you,
my lad. It cost you ten thousand
bucks.”
“Yes, but—”
Jim had been going to say it had
nearly cost him his life but thought
better of it. Besides, an idea had
come.
“Give me those negatives!” he
said, “I’m going to find out what’s
wrong with ’em.”
And since they were of no use
to Overton, he gave them to Jim.
That night again, Jim Carter
presented himself at the Wentworth
home in Hartford, and again
it was Joan who admitted him.
“Oh, Jimmy!” she murmured, as
he took her in his arms. “We’re all
so proud of you!”
“I’m glad someone is,” he said.
“But what a fearful risk you ran!
If you hadn’t been able to get your
motor started—”
“Why think of unpleasant
things?” he said with a smile.
Then they went into the library,
where Professor Wentworth added
his congratulations.
“But I’m afraid I didn’t accomplish
much,” said Jim, explaining
about the pictures.
“Let me see them,” said the professor.
Jim handed them over.
For a moment or two Professor
Wentworth examined them intently,
holding them this way and that.
“They indeed appear to be extremely
over-exposed,” he admitted
at length. “Your Fire Ants are
doubtless radio-active to a high
degree. The results could not have
been much worse had you tried to
photograph the sun direct.”
(24)
“I thought as much,” said Carter,
gloomily.
“But possibly the damage isn’t
irreparable. Suppose we try re-developing
a few of these negatives.”
He led the way to his study,
which since the destruction of the
observatory had been converted into
a temporary laboratory.
Ten minutes later, Professor
Wentworth had his re-developing
bath ready in a porcelain basin
and had plunged some of the negatives
into it.
“This process is what photographers
call intensification,” he explained.
“It consists chemically in
the oxidation of a part of the silver
of which the image is composed. I
have here in solution uranium nitrate,
plus potassium ferricyanide
acidified with acetic acid. The latter
salt, in the presence of the acid, is
an oxidizing agent, and, when applied
to the image, produces silver
oxide, which with the excess of
acetic acid forms silver acetate.”
“Which is all so much Greek to
me!” said Carter.
“At the same time, the ferricyanide
is reduced to ferrocyanide,”
the professor went on, with a smile
at Joan, “whereupon insoluble red
uranium ferrocyanide is produced,
and, while some of the silver, in
being oxidized by this process, is
rendered soluble and removed from
the negative into the solution, it is
replaced by the highly non-actinic
and insoluble uranium compound.”
(26)
The process was one quite familiar
to photographers experienced
in astronomical work, he explained.
In fifteen minutes they should know
what results they were getting.
But when fifteen minutes passed
and the negatives were still as
black as ever, Jim’s hope waned.
Not so Professor Wentworth’s,
however.
“There is a definite but slow reaction
taking place,” he said after
a careful examination. “Either the
over-exposure is even greater than
I had suspected, or the actinic rays
from your interesting subjects have
formed a stubborn chemical union
with the silver of the image. In the
latter event, which is the theory
I am going to work on, we must
speed up the reaction and tear
some of that excess silver off, if
we’re ever to see what is underneath.”
“But how are you going to speed
up the reaction?” asked Jim. “I
thought that uranium was pretty
strong stuff by itself.”
“It is, but not as strong as this
new substance we have in combination
with the silver here. So I
think I’ll try a little electrolysis—or,
in plain English, electro-plating.”
As he spoke, the professor clipped
a couple of platinum electrodes to
the basin, one at each end. To the
anode he attached one of the negatives,
to the cathode a small piece
of iron.
“Now then, we’ll soon see.”
He passed a low current into the
wires, through a rheostat, with
startling results. There was a sudden
foaming of the solution and
a weird vapor rose from it, luminous,
milky, faintly orange.
For a moment, all they could
do was stare.
Then Professor Wentworth
switched off the current and stepped
toward the tank. Waving away that
orange gas, he reached for the
cathode and held it up. It was no
longer iron, but silver, now.
“Plated, you see!” he exclaimed
in triumph.
“Yes, but those fumes!” cried
Jim. “Why, they were the same
color as the—the Fire Ants, as you
call them.”
“I know.” The professor was not
as calm as he pretended. “We have
released some of their actinic rays
captured by the negative, in prying
loose our excess silver
(26). Later I shall
repeat the process and capture some
of that vapor for analysis. At
present, let us have a look at the
negative already treated.”
He lifted the anode from the
solution now, removed the negative,
and held it up. A smile of
satisfaction broke over his face,
followed by a shudder.
“There you are, Jim! Have a
look!”
Jim looked, with Joan peering
over his shoulder, and his pulses
tingled. It was a clear shot of that
scattering half-circle of fiery termites,
taken after he got away and
swept back over them.
“Say, that’s wonderful!” he exclaimed.
“Wonderful—but horrible!” echoed
Joan.
“I’ll admit they’re not much on
looks,” laughed Carter. “But their
homely maps are worth a lot to
me—ten thousand dollars, in fact!”
He told her why, and what he
proposed to do with the money,
and Joan thought it a very good
idea.
While this was taking place, Professor
Wentworth was re-developing
the rest of the negatives.
At last all had been salvaged,
even those taken in the terrific
heat over that weird glass city out
there, and Jim was preparing to
bear them back to Overton in
triumph.
He had thanked the kindly professor
from the bottom of his heart,
had even told him something of
what he had been telling Joan.
There remained but to put one last
question, then go.
“Summing it all up, what do you
make of those nightmares?” he
asked. “Do you think they can be
destroyed?”
Professor Wentworth did not
reply at once.
“I can perhaps answer your question
better when I have analyzed
this specimen of gas,” he said at
length, holding up a test-tube in
which swirled a quantity of that
luminous, milky orange vapor. “But
if you wish to quote me for publication,
you may say that when I
have learned the nature of it, I shall
devote all my energies to combating
the menace it constitutes.”
And that was the message Jim
took back with him, but it was the
pictures that interested the practical
Overton most.
Before many days, however,
Overton, with the rest of the
world, was turning anxiously to
Professor Wentworth, watching his
every move, awaiting his every word.
For before many days terrible reports
started coming in, not only
from the Arizona desert but from
the assembly grounds of the Fire
Ants everywhere.
Those deadly termites were on
the move! They were spreading
from their central citadels in
ominous, expanding circles—circles
that engulfed villages, towns and
cities in a swift, relentless ring of
annihilation that was fairly stupefying.
In North America, the cities of
Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott,
with all that lay between, were
already gone, their frantic populaces
fleeing to the four points of the
compass before that fateful orange
tide. In South America, Rosario and
Cordoba were within the flaming
ring and Buenos Aires was threatened.
In Europe, Moscow and its
vast tributary plain had fallen before
the invaders. In Asia, a veritable
inland empire was theirs,
reaching from Urga to the Khingan
Mountains. In Africa, Southern
Algeria and French Sudan, with
their innumerable small villages
and oases, were overrun. In Australia,
Coolgardie had succumbed
and Perth was in a panic
(27).
But fearful though the destruction
was on the continents, it was
the islands of the world that suffered
most
(28). First the smallest, those
picturesque green gems of the South
Seas, crisped and perished. Then
came reports of the doom of the
Hawaiian group, the Philippines,
the East and West Indies, New
Zealand, Tasmania and a score of
others, their populations perishing
by the thousands, as shipping proved
unavailable to transport them to
safety.
By far the most tragic fate, however,
was that suffered by the
British Isles. What happened there
stunned the world, and brought realization
to humanity that unless
some miracle intervened, it was but
a mirror of the doom that awaited
all. For England, Ireland and Scotland
were habitable no more. London,
Dublin, Glasgow—all their
proud cities, all their peaceful hamlets,
centuries old, were flaming
ruins.
Out of a population, of some
sixty millions, it was estimated that
at least eight millions must have
perished. The rest, by prodigious
feats of transportation, managed to
reach the mainland, where they
spread as refugees throughout an
apprehensive, demoralized Europe.
As for the armies and navies
of the world, they were powerless
before this fiendish invader.
Hammered with high explosives,
drenched with chemicals, sprayed
with machine-gun ballets, the fiery
termites surged on unchecked, in
ever-widening circles of death.
Lead and steel passed through
them harmlessly. Gas wafted off
them like air. Despite the frantic
efforts of scientists and military
men, nothing could be devised to
stem that all-devouring orange tide.
It was quite obvious by now,
even to the most conservative
minds, that the end of human life
on earth was not far off. It could
only be a few more weeks before
the last stronghold fell. Daily,
hourly, those deadly Fire Ants
were everywhere expanding their
fields of operations. Presently all
humanity would be driven to the
seacoasts, there to perish by fire
or water, as they chose.
There were some optimists, of
course, who believed that the miracle
would happen—that Professor Wentworth or some other scientist
would devise some means of repelling
the invader before it was
too late.
Young Jim Carter of
The
York Press was not among them,
however, though he would have
gambled it would be Professor
Wentworth if anyone. For what
hope was there that any mere man
could figure out a weapon that
would be effective against such a
deadly, such a superhuman foe?
Very little, it seemed, and he
grew less and less sanguine, as he
continued his frenzied, sleepless
work of reporting the unending
catastrophes for his paper.
He often thought bitterly of that
ten thousand dollars. A lot of good
that would do him now!
As for Joan, she faced her fate
with fortitude—fortitude and a supreme
faith that her father would
succeed in analyzing that sinister
orange vapor and find the weapon
the world waited for.
But agonizing days passed and he
did not find it.
Then at last, on the night of
August 14th, when Los Angeles
and San Francisco were smoldering
infernos, along with Reno, Denver,
Omaha, El Paso and a score of
other great American cities; when
Buenos Aires and Santiago were
gone, Berlin and Peking and Cairo;
when Australia was all one fiery
hell—then it was that Professor
Wentworth summoned Jim Carter
to Hartford.
Hoping against hope, he hurried
over.
Once again, Joan ushered him
into the house. She was very pale
and did not speak.
At her side stood her father. It
was he who spoke.
“Good evening, Jim. You have
come promptly.”
His voice was strained, his face
grave. He had aged greatly in the
past few weeks.
“Well I’ll admit I clipped along.
You’ve—found something?”
Professor Wentworth smiled
wanly.
“Suppose you step into my study
and see what I have found.”
He led the way toward the little
makeshift laboratory that for many
days and nights had been the scene
of his efforts.
It was littered with strange devices
now, strangest of all perhaps
a huge glass tube like a cannon,
mounted on some sort of swivel
base.
Ignoring this for the moment, he
turned to a smaller tube set upright
on a table at the far end of the
room. In it, glowed a sinister
orange lump that made the whole
tube fluorescent.
“Behold one of your monsters in
captivity!” said the professor, again
with a wan smile. “In miniature,
of course. What I have done is to
condense some of that vapor into
a solid.”
The process, he explained, was
similar to that employed by Madame
Curie in obtaining metallic radium—electrolyzing
a radium chloride
solution with mercury as a cathode,
then driving off the mercury by
heat in a current of hydrogen—only
he had used the new element
instead of radium.
“Incidentally, I have learned that
this new element is far more radioactive
than radium and possesses
many curious properties. Among
them, it decomposes violently in
water—particularly salt water—producing
harmless hydrogen and
chloride compounds. So we have
nothing to fear from those seeds
that fell in our oceans, lakes and
rivers.”
(28)
“Well, that’s something, anyway,”
said Jim. “But have you found any
way to combat the ones that have
already hatched?”
“Before I answer that question,”
Professor Wentworth replied, “I
shall let you witness a little demonstration.”
He advanced to the cannon-like
device at the other end of the
room, swung it on its swivel till it
was pointing directly at that fluorescent
orange tube on the table.
“Watch closely!” he said, throwing
a switch.
There was a sudden, whining
hum in the air and the nib of the
big tube glowed a soft, velvety green.
Jim gazed at the scene with rapt
attention.
“Don’t look at that one!” whispered
Joan. “Look at the other!”
Jim did so, and saw that its
fluorescence was waning.
A moment more the professor
held the current on, while the tube
grew white. Then he threw off the
switch.
“Now let us have a look at our
captive,” he said, striding over.
They followed, and one glance
told Jim what had happened. That
sinister lump of orange metal had
vanished.
But where was it? That was
what he wanted to know.
“A natural question, but not one
easy to answer,” was Professor
Wentworth’s reply. “I shall tell you
what I have done; then you may
judge for yourself.”
The cannon-like device which had
accompanied the seeming miracle
was an adaptation of the cathode
tube, whose rays are identical with
the beta rays of the atom and
consist of a stream of negatively
charged particles moving at the
velocity of light—186,000 miles a
second. These rays, in theory, have
the power to combine with the positively
charged alpha rays of the
atom and drag them from their
electrons, causing them to discharge
their full quanta of energy at once,
in the form of complete disintegration—and
it was this theory the professor
had acted on
(30).
“But, good Lord—that’s splitting
the atom!” exclaimed Jim. “You
don’t mean to say you’ve done that?”
“I apparently have,” was the grave
admission. “But do not let it seem
such a miracle. Bear in mind, as I
have pointed out before, that nature
has accomplished this alchemy many
times. All radio-active elements are
evidences of it. The feat consists
merely in altering the valence of
the atom, changing its electric
charge, in other words. What I have
done in the present instance is
merely to speed up a process nature
already had under way, inasmuch
as we are dealing with a
radio-active substance.”
“But what has happened to the
by-product of the reaction?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.
I have not had time to study that
phase of it. Heat, mainly, was produced.
Possibly a few atoms of
helium. But the substance is gone.
That is our chief concern just now.”
(31)
It was only after abandoning
chemical means and turning to
physics that he had met with success,
he said. Cathode rays had
finally proved the key to the riddle.
“But do you think this thing
will work on a big scale?” asked
Jim regarding that fragile tube
doubtfully.
Professor Wentworth hesitated
before replying.
“I do not know,” he admitted,
“but I intend to find out—to-night.”
Jim looked at him in amazement.
“To-night?”
“Yes. Or rather, the experiment
will be at dawn. If successful, this
continent at least will be rid of the
menace.”
Jim’s amazement turned to incredulity
and a sudden fear gripped
him. Had the strain of the past few
weeks unbalanced the professor’s
mind?
“But surely you can’t hope to
wipe them out with one tube. Why,
it would take hundreds.”
“No, only one. You see, I am
going to place the tube in the
center of the circle and direct its
rays outward toward the circumference
in a swinging radius.”
Whereupon, for a moment, Jim’s
fear seemed confirmed.
“But, good God!” he exclaimed.
“It couldn’t possibly be that powerful,
could it?”
“I think it can be made to be,”
was Professor Wentworth’s grave
assurance. “The greatest power we
know in the universe is radiant
energy, which reaches us from the
sun and the stars, traveling at the
speed of light.”
“Like light rays, these heat rays
can be focused, directed; and the
beta rays of the cathode, traveling
at the same velocity, can be made
to ride these rays of radiant heat
much as electric power rides radio
waves. The giant, in short, can be
made, to carry the dwarf, with his
deadly little weapon. That, at least,
is the theory I am acting on.”
(32)
This somewhat allayed Jim’s fears—fears
that vanished when the professor
went on to explain somewhat
the working of his mechanism.
“But how are you going to get
the thing out there?” he asked,
picturing with a shudder the center
of the flaming hell.
“I imagine the War Department
will provide me with a volunteer
plane and pilot for the purpose,”
was the calm reply.
“And you will go?”
“Yes, I will go.”
Jim debated, but not for long.
“Well, you needn’t trouble the
War Department. Here’s your volunteer
pilot! The plane’s outside.
When do we start?”
“But, my dear young man!” objected
the professor. “I cannot permit
you to make this sacrifice. It
is suicide, sheer suicide.”
(33)
“Is my life any more precious
than yours, or that of some volunteer
Army pilot?” Jim asked him.
“But there is Joan. If I fail—she
must depend on you.”
“If you fail, Professor, Joan
won’t need me or anyone, for long.
No, I go. So let’s chuck the argument
and get ready.”
“Oh, Jimmy!” sobbed Joan. “Jimmy!”
But her eyes, as they met his
mistily, were lit with a proud
splendor.
Two hours later, Jim Carter’s
little auto-plane lifted into the
night, and, with that precious tube
mounted above the cabin, winged
swiftly westward.
As on his former foray into that
fiery realm, Jimmy timed his flight
to arrive over the eastern edge of
the Arizona desert just before dawn.
Somewhere in that great sandy
waste, they felt, there would be a
place to set the plane down and get
the ray going.
Professor Wentworth had broadcast
the particulars of his tube to
his scientific colleagues wherever
humanity still remained, and the
eyes of the world were on this
flight. If successful, swift planes
would bear similar tubes to the
centers of the devastated regions
elsewhere, and sweep outward with
their deadly rays. The earth would
be rid of this fiery invader. If it
were not successful….
Jim preferred not to think of
that, as he drove on into the night.
Crossing the Missouri River at
dark and deserted Kansas City, they
soon saw the eastern arc of that
deadly orange circle loom on the
horizon. To get over it safely,
Jim rose to twenty thousand feet,
but even there the heat, as they
sped across the frontier into enemy
territory, was terrific.
Anxiously he watched his revs
and prayed for his motor to hold
up. If it stopped now, they were
cooked!
The sturdy engine purred on with
scarcely a flutter, however, and soon
they were behind the lines, in a
region pitted with the smoldering
fires of towns and cities.
It made them shudder, it presented
such an appalling panorama
of ruin. But at the same time, it
strengthened their hope. For very
few flares of orange gleamed now
among the red. The main forces of
the invader were at the front. That
meant there should be a safe place
to land somewhere.
An hour later, some miles beyond
that weird glass citadel
that had been their objective, they
found a wide stretch of empty
desert, and there Jim brought the
little plane down to a faultless
landing, just as dawn was lightening
the east.
Stepping out, he drew a deep
breath of relief. For had he crashed,
or smashed that fragile tube, all
would have been in vain.
“Well, here we are!” he exclaimed,
grimly cheerful, as Professor
Wentworth stepped out after
him. “Now let’s—”
Then he broke off, horrified, as
he saw another figure follow the
professor from the cabin.
“Joan!” he gasped.
“Present!” she replied.
“But, my daughter!” the professor’s
voice broke in. “My dear
child!” A sob shook him. “Why,
why, this is—”
“Please don’t let’s talk about it!”
she begged, giving his arm a little
pat. “I’m here and it can’t be
helped now. I was only afraid you’d
find me before it was too late and
take me back.”
Then, edging over to Jim and
slipping her arm in his, she murmured:
“Oh, my dear! Don’t you see I
couldn’t stay behind? I had to be
with you at the end, Jimmy, if—”
(34)
“It won’t be!” he cried, pressing
her cold hand. “It can’t be!”
Then he turned to give his attention
to her father, who had already
mounted to the cockpit and was
working absorbedly over his mechanism
in the pale light of the coming
day.
Any moment, Jim knew, those
flaming termites might discover
them, and come swooping down.
With keen eyes he scanned the
horizon. No sign of them yet.
“How are you up there?” he
called.
“About ready,” was the reply.
“But I shall want more light than
this for my mirrors.”
Tensely, counting the seconds,
they waited for the sunrise….
And now, as they waited, suddenly
a sinister tinge of
orange suffused the rosy hues of
the east.
“The Fire Ants!” cried Joan,
shrinking. “They’ve seen us! They’re
coming!”
It was true, Jim saw with a heavy
heart.
Turning to Professor Wentworth,
he gasped out:
“Quick! We’ve got to do something!
You’ve no idea how fast they
move!”
“Very well.” The professor’s
voice was strangely calm. “You may
start your motor. I shall do what
I can. Though if we only had the
sun—”
Jim leaped for the cabin.
A touch of the starter and the
powerful engine came in. Braking
his wheels hard, to hold the plane
on the ground, he advanced the
throttle as much as he dared, and
sent a high-tension current surging
through the wires the professor had
connected with his tube above
(35).
Soon came that high, whining
hum they had heard in the laboratory—a
thousand times magnified
now—and the nib of the big tube
glowed a livid, eery green in the
lemon dawn.
“Joan!” called her father sharply.
“Get in the cabin with Jim!”
She did so, her eyes still fixed in
horrified fascination on the eastern
horizon; and in that tense instant,
she saw two things. First, a great
orange arc of fiery termites, bearing
down on them; and second, another
arc, far greater—the vast
saffron rim of the rising sun.
Those two things Joan saw—and
so did Jim—as their eardrums almost
burst with the stupendous
vibration that came from the gun
in the cockpit. Then they saw a
third, something that left them mute
with awe.
As Professor Wentworth swung
his cannon ray upon that advancing
horde, it melted, vanished, leaving
only the clear yellow of the morning
sunlight before their bewildered
eyes.
But the professor did not cease.
For five minutes—ten, fifteen—he
swung that mighty ray around,
stepping up its power, lengthening
its range, as it reached its invisible,
annihilating arm farther and farther
out….
Meanwhile Jim was radio-phoning
frantically. The air seemed strangely
full of static.
At last he got Overton of
The
New York Press.
“Carter speaking, out in Arizona,”
he said. “Getting any reports on the
ray?”
And back came the tremendous
news:
“Results! Man, the world’s crazy!
They’re gone—everywhere! Tell the
professor to lay off, before he
sends us scooting too.”
“Right!” said Jim, cutting his
motor. “More later!”
And to Professor Wentworth he
called:
“All right, that’s enough! That
ray was stronger than you knew!”
But there came no answer, and
mounting to the wing-tip, Joan
following, Jim saw a sight that
froze him with horror. They beheld
the professor, slumped against the
tube, his whole body glowing a pale,
fluorescent green
(36).
“Father!” screamed Joan, rushing
to his side. “Oh, Father!”
The man stirred, motioned her
away, gasped weakly:
“Do not touch me, child—until
the luminosity goes. I am highly
radio-active
(37). I had no time to—insulate
the tube. No time to find out
how. Had to—hurry—”
His voice waned off and they
knew he was dead. The two stood
there stunned by the realization of
his great sacrifice.
He and Joan had set forth on
this venture knowing they stood at
least a chance, thought Jim, but
Professor Wentworth had known
from the start that it was sure
death for him.
The sun stood out above the
eastern horizon like a huge gold
coin, bright with the promise of life
to spend, when Jim and Joan took
off at last for the return home; but
the radiance of the morning was
dimmed by the knowledge of the
tragic burden they bore.
For some moments, as they
winged on, both were silent.
“Look!” said Jim at length.
“Look ahead, Joan!”
She looked, brightened somewhat.
“Yes, I see.”
And after a moment, lifting her
hazel eyes to his, she said. “Oh,
Jimmy, I’m sure it means happiness
for us.”
“Yes, I’m sure!”
She stirred, moved closer.
“Jimmy, you—you’re all I have
now.”
He made no reply, save to press
her trembling hand. But it was
enough.
Silently, understandingly, they
winged onward into the morning
light.
END.
======
NOTES
======
(1) - In the Interwar Era, it was generally assumed that near-future television would be broadcast to central locations such as large public screens, rather than to privately-owned television sets. This was because TV was expensive experimental technology at this time, and most writers could not predict how rapidly the price would drop. They also tended to assume that it would broadcast mostly public-interest news programs to be delivered to public squares, rather than light entertainment intended for home viewing. One can see an example of these assumptions in action in the "2040" segment of
Things to Come (1936), in which the citizens of Everytown assemble in the main town square to listen to Theotocopulos' exhortations to destroy the Space Gun.
(2) - Sixteen years in the future from the time of publication (1931).
(3) - From the mid-19th century through the end of World War II, Germany was a world leader in the development of chemistry. This would end, of course, with the combination of Hitler driving the Jews out of German academic life and the immense damage to men and materiel caused by World War II. In 1931, there was no way for any writer to reasonably predict these insane acts of German self-destruction: Hitler himself would not come to power until 1933. Hence, the writer almost certainly assumes that Germany has not fought any European wars between 1931 and 1947, and is thus still a major scientific Power.
(4) - Diamond was the hardest substance known then and the hardest
naturally-occurring substance known now (
some artificially-produed nanomaterials are harder). However it is brittle, and hence not very
tough. In normal parlance, hardness and toughness are usually-conflated, but they are actually contradictory properties (which is why composites make the best armors). This mistake is made in much
modern science fiction, let alone that of the Interwar Era.
(5) - That's right, she's the
Scientist's Beautiful Daughter. Nobody claimed this story wasn't traditional.
(6) - "Astro-lithology" is an old term for what we now call "
meteorics," or the geology of meteors and meteorites.
(7) - Two quick assumptions here. The first, that over the next sixteen years people would keep building higher and higher buildings, and the second that not only would private airplanes become common but STOL ones capable of being flown off the roofs of skyscrapers.
The first was aborted by the Great Depression, World War II and the development of suburbia. At the start of 1931 the tallest building in both New York City and the world was the Chrysler Building (1046 feet high, 77 above-ground floors). The Empire State Building (1454 feet high, 102 above-ground floors) was already under construction, and would be finished on the spring of that same year. However, the poverty of the Depression followed by the need to fight World War II and then the Korean War stopped further development of very tall buildings. After WWII and Korea the universal availability of automobiles and growth of suburbia limited the demand for central-city floorspace, slowing the construction of the tallest skyscrapers. In any case, the Empire State Building was very near the limitations of the architecture and materials science of the mid-20th century.
The assumption that small private STOL planes, or aircars, would become widely available and operated from the roofs of downtown skyscrapers was understandable in 1931. Considering how far airplanes had progressed in the
last 16 years -- from 1915 -- to 1931, it seemed reasonable that they would progress equally-far in the
next 16 years -- to 1947.
And they did. Mostly in the directions of greater engine power, resulting in bigger and faster airplanes with longer ranges and higher ceilings. However, the avionics of the 1930's and 1940's never got to the point where it would have been safe for most people to operate them
right over urban cores. Nor do we see anything in the design of Jim's plane to explain why this should be possible.
The limitation of avionics technologies was the main reason why private airplanes never became as widely owned as private automobiles. We are just
now developing control systems sufficiently intelligent to allow safe operation by ordinary drivers. Underestimation of the safety hazards of mass aircraft operation was the main mistake science fiction made with regard to the spread of airplane ownership, and it is the reason why improved avionics will be key to the eventual development of aircars.
(8) - It was not until I got to this point that I realized the informal version of the hero's name.
That Jimmy Carter was around 6-7 years old in 1931, and in our time line was a junior US naval officer in 1947.
(9) - Oh,
simply "a matter of altering the valence?" Do tell.
Actually, what one has to alter is the
nuclear strucutre of the atom, which may or may not incidentally alter the valence of the atom as a side effect. Rich is here confusing nuclear with chemical processes, which is maybe forgivable because at this point in history the nuclear atomic model was still new to physics, and not all of its implications had yet been worked out.
(10) - Nature actually "accomplishes this alchemy" by means of bombardment of the nucleus with neutrons or gamma rays. While it
is true that sufficiently "great heat" would also do the trick (because it would produce light in the form of gamma rays and shake apart atomic nuclei), the heat required would be more on the order of the heart of a good-sized star, and to do it on a really large scale would require something more like a detonating supernova. But again, this wasn't well-understood in the early 1930's.
(11) - Nope. That only produces heat of at most a few thousand degrees Centigrade on any large scale: we'd need many
millions (and preferably
billions) of degrees Centrigrade to do what the Professor wants. If a meteor managed to do this one would notice it not so much as a meteor but as a rather large nuclear explosion in the upper atmosphere, producing damage to the ground below which would dwarf that of the
Tunguska Event of 1908.
Nice try, though.
(12) - I know what's
really going on here, but the obvious hypothesis for the Professor to form, based on the evidence so far would be some sort of non-biological chemical reaction.
(13) - Actually, the interior of a meteor can be quite cool. This is because the meteor quickly slows to a terminal velocity of a few hundred miles an hour in the Earth's atmosphere: there isn't time for the intense heat of atmospheric friction to be conducted from the leading edge, most of which melts or vaporizes and carries away that heat as it ablates.
H. P. Lovecraft handled the science much better in his similar story, "
The Colour Out of Space" (1927). But then, Lovecraft was an amateur astronomer.
(14) - We now know that comets are leftovers from the formation of solar systems. In 1931, however, the dominant theory of solar system formation was the tidal model of
James Jeans (stars pulled matter out of each other on close approaches which cooled to become planets) rather than the
nebular hypothesis.
One possibility that the Professor is missing is that life might have evolved on cometary surfaces in deep space. But in 1931 the notion of life independent of
planetary (or at least
lunar) surfaces would have been a very radical idea.
(15) - Given the assumed ability to survive temperatures that would reduce matter not merely to plasma but begin inducing actual nuclear changes in that plasma, having a metabolism whose waste heat is sufficient to melt or vaporize steel is not implausible for the Comet Spawn. The irony is that, in fact, comets are normally among the coldest naturally occurring objects in normal space in our Universe. But then perhaps the Comet Spawn are dormant at very low temperatures, and quickened to life by high ones? There are things almost as strange in
actual Nature, though not (as far as we know) anything
living in such a fashion.
(16) - I'm assuming that the eggs were relatively few and were gathered in major cities. If they were, instead, distributed in very large numbers over the whole Earth, we'd be looking at a Mass Extinction Event here. As it is, what Rich is describing would cause human death tolls in the tens of millions and the near-complete destruction of many major cities. Such (literal)
Inferred Holocausts were not uncommon in Interwar Era science fiction: strangely, the authors often missed just how widespread they would really have been. One thing that changed after World War II was that science fiction got a lot more explicit about such devastations, in part because the writers were well aware from the war itself what happens when one sets whole cities ablaze.
(17) - Rich has no excuse for his optimism here, as 1931 was just a quarter-century after the
Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 (over a thousand dead) and less than a decade after the
Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 (over a
hundred thousand dead), so he really should have known about
firestorms and what one can do to an urban area.
(18) - And yet the Comet Spawn oddly failed to spark massive grass fires in these regions. How convenient for the Earth!
(19) - Interview the Comet Spawn? Are both Jim and his boss
utterly insane? (Though admittedly, they'd make
hot copy. *Rimshot*).
(20) - Oh, you mean did the engines
overheat? Yes, possibly. Though my mind boggles at the thought of a
whole squadron of US Army Air Force photo-reconnaissance planes
all flying too close to the Comet Spawn and crashing due to engine failure, instead of trying to close the distance gingerly, one element or flight at a time.
Then again, equally dumb things have occasionally happened in the history of human aviation, as witness the fate of
Flight 19 in December 1945, who all apparently got lost and kept on flying until they ran out of fuel and crashed either out at sea or in the Everglades (depending on which bearing one assumes they were on at the time). Not one of the proudest moments for US Naval aviation!
(21) - And then there's
that. It's quite possible that the recon planes were
actively intercepted.
(22) - It would require some
awesomely parallel evolution for them to look much like our social insects, given that they obviously aren't even carbon-based water-soluble life forms -- but sure, why not? And it's a
terrifying visual image!
(23) - Of course, were these
Earthly ants, their molting of their wings would indicate that they had now
mated. Which would have positively
horrifying implications.
(24) - If the "Fire Ants" are
that radiocative, at
hundreds of feet distance, then Jim would probably have absorbed a fatal dose and by now be seriously ill. Again, the mechanics of this were not well known in the days before anyone had actually split the atom.
(25) - It surprised me to discover that
something at least roughly like this technique actually
works. Apparently the uranium ferrocyanide is insufficiently radioactive to itself interfere with the development process. Though this does not sound like a very
safe developing process, considering the toxic nature of the substances in question.
(26) - No. Just no. That's
not how photography works. Or the physics of light, really ("actnic rays" are simply ultraviolet light). Not unless Jim and the Professor accidentally charged and released a
laser capacitor, which I do
not think is what's happening here. Rich is conflating nuclear, chemical and optical processes here in a matter smacking more of alchemy and the Laws of Similarity and Contagion than any science
I ever learned
(27) - We're again talking about millions of dead here, especially given that the "Fire Ants" are advancing "rapidly" (meaning that a lot of people can't get away in time) and the difficulty of
feeding tens of millions of displaced persons. This problem was not very well understood before World War II and the Allied liberation of Europe, which led to millions of displaced persons -- many tens of thousands of whom died soon after liberation, owing to the problems of supply.
(28) - Why? The Comet Spawn which fell into the sea were unable to hatch, and many small islands should have received no eggs at all! Unless there were many, many billions of eggs falling on the Earth -- in which case, humanity should be almost extinct by now and the ecosystem going through a second P
ermian-Triassic scale mass extinction event.
(29) - Said
chemical decomposition, however, would do
nothing to neutralize the intense radioactivity of the new element. Which implies that the world's oceans would now be contaminated by radiation. On the other hand, given the sheer volume of the oceans, and the threat to the land posed by the
living Comet Spawn, this is the least of their problems.
(30) - "
Beta rays" are high-speed electrons or positrons. They do
not travel at the speed of light (since they possess mass), although they can travel at very fast sublight speeds. "
Alpha rays" are helium nuclei. You
cannot drag them out of atomic nuclei by the process the professor is using: I think Rich has confused them with
gamma rays. There is also the obvious problem that large-scale nuclear processes require far more energy than the Professor likely has with which to work.
This is probably a good thing, as if the "sinister lump of metal" massed (say) a gram, the Professor would have just done the equivalent of detonating a 20-kiloton atomic bomb right in his laboratory. This would, among other things, probably increase his insurance rates. The detonation of a 20-kiloton atomic bomb in our time line in the city of Hiroshima definitely caused a
major clean-up problem.
(31) - Oh, who can really keep track of the "byproducts?" The likely "byproduct" of what the Professor did, as I repeat, would have been the vaporization of the laboratory and everything else for a block or two surrounding it, the leveling of the neighborhood it had occupied, severe damage to a large part of the city, and light damage to the rest of the city. And a
really pretty mushroom cloud.
But such things never happen
accidentally to the
Heroic Scientist in pulp science-fiction!
(32) - The Professor is ignoring the existence of a vast spheroid of iron, nickel and silicon which would stop the beta rays save in a direct line of sight from his device. This vast spheroid is called "Earth." Real beta rays can be stopped by a few millimeters of aluminum or a few centimeters of rock, let alone by whole terrestrial planets.
He's also ignoring the square-cube law, which would cause his spherical particle accelerator to be wildy-ineffective beyond point-blank range. Just what insane amount of power is he pumping into that thing anyway?
If "beta rays" make the Comet Spawn disintegrate, and they are
that sensitive to the effect that a little power goes a long way, why isn't
sunlight achieving this effect? The Earth's magnetic field screens off
most of the solar wind, but not
all of it, and the sun certainly has plenty of power!
And if it
really made the Comet Spawn atomically-disintegrate, then he would have just set off millions, maybe billions of Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs distributed randomly over the Earth's surface. I'm guessing that this would do some pretty severe damage to our ecosphere.
(33) - Why is it "suicide?" So far, the Professor hasn't given us any reason to assume that using the beta ray is particularly
dangerous. This looks like a ritual invocation for the sake of establishing Jim's heroism and building toward a dramatic climax.
(34) - Jan gets points for spunkiness, loses points for fundamental lack of logic. It's weird that Jim didn't notice the extra load in what is a fairly small aircraft. I also notice that she's apparently motivated
only
by concern for her beloved, seeming fairly-indifferent to her
father's fate.
(35) - Wait -- our heroes are doing this
from the ground? Why, when one would imagine the area of coverage would be higher aloft, and a
flying aircraft could maneuver against the foe?
(36) - Oh. So
that's why it's "suicide." Too bad the Professor didn't have a few millimeters of aluminum with which to make a gunshield. You'd think the idea would have occurred to him, especially if he was planning on
operating the weapon. Again, this feels contrived.
(37) - Indeed, if he's
glowing he is
indeed "highly radio-active."
(38) - Why not? "Beta rays" aren't some utterly unknown emanation, and weren't in 1931 either: they were discovered in
1900, thirty years before the story was written. I don't know whether or not it was fully-understood that they were high-energy electrons, but it was most definitely understood how to shield against them, and such shielding was and is part of every X-ray machine ever built (otherwise, the machine would over-expose its own film)! This is complete technobabble, put in the story for no better reason than to kill the Professor.
Which is stupid of the Professor, since as the
inventor of the Comet Spawn killing beta ray blaster, he's one of the most important people alive. Or
was, until he committed
Death by
Own Design Stupidity.
===========
COMMENTS: 'Spawn of the Comet' Compared With 'Spawn of the Stars'
===========
Introduction:
This is a pure alien invasion story, which invites comparison with the
other pure alien invasion story, written one year earlier, which I've previously run on this site, Charles Willard Diffin's "Spawn of the Stars" (1930) which I have previously
run and
reviewed on
Fantastic Worlds.
Comparison:
One obvious difference between the two tales is that "Spawn of the Stars" is a military story in which Mankind fights a war against sapient aliens who attack with a flight of spacecraft, while "Spawn of the Coment" is a monster story in which Mankind is threatened with extermination by apparently non-sapient alien creatures whose eggs are scattered by a passing comet. In "Spawn of the Stars," the aliens conduct a bombardment with weapons of mass destruction to annihilate the human military and production capabilities, presumably as advance raiders for some later effort, and the humans conduct air defense operations (not entirely without success) to attrition this raiding force. In "Spawn of the Comet," the aliens cause damage to Mankind and threaten to destroy Earth's ecosystem as a simple byproduct of a biology which seems based upon radioactive hot plasma: they swarm like social insects, building hives and issuing forth to swarm against humanity, and Earth's military forces can do nothing to even check their advance.
There are also obvious
similarities between the two tales. Both stories feature a protagonist who owns his own airplane and uses it to scout out the invaders. Both stories have a scientist who builds an energy weapon which exploits the weaknesses of the aliens. And in both stories the weapon is ultimately used to defeat the enemy, at the cost of the
Heroic Sacrifice of at least one major character, including the scientist who invented that weapon (in "Spawn of the Stars" the scientist and the hero's best friend both die, while in "Spawn of the Comet" the scientist dies but the hero and his beloved both survive).
One difference is that "Spawn of the Stars" is a much deeper, more mature and more realistic tale. Cyrus Thurston and his best friend "Slim" Riley are both delineated characters, and even Dr. Mac Gregor comes off as believable; while in "Spawn of the Comet" Jim Carter, Professor Stephen Wentworth and his daughter June Wentworth are very one-dimensional. I can believe in Thurston and Riley's strong friendship far more easily than I can Jim and June's love. Thurston and Riley are two eccentric individuals who have come to deeply like and respect each other; Jim and June are merely ciphers playing the roles of
The Hero and the
Love Interest.
What's more, Thurston and his friends are not fighting the threat alone: they are doing so in cooperation with the United States and its military; in contrast, any organized human resistance in "Spawn of the Comet" is kept very much in the background. This greatly enhances the verisimilitude of "Spawn of the Stars," and degrades that of "Spawn of the Comet."
The solution in "Spawn of the Stars" is much less easily achieved or applied than the similar solution in "Spawn of the Comet." Dr. Mac Gregor has to investigate a downed Spawn ship and figure out their biology and technology before he devises the actnic ray;
testing the weapon costs him his life; and
then the weapon has to be installed with difficulty on a fighter plane, with little weight margin for shielding the pilot, and employed against the foe in difficult aerial maneuvers which ultimately cost Riley his life. When the story's over, Man has defeated this invasion and gained a weapon generally-useful against that alien race -- but not necessarily defeated all future threats of invasion from that source.
By contrast, Professor Wentworth merely obtains (through highly-dubious chemistry) a sample of the alien metal and then with ridiculous ease develops a whole new technology of atomic disintegration with beta rays whose power source is never explained and builds his beta gun. He then instantly mounts it on an airplane, not taking the trouble to even
try to shield it (even though if it works like
real beta rays this shouldn't be too difficult) and quickly employs it to wipe out an alien hive, dying in the process because of his own insanely-reckless folly in failing to shield himself against back-scatter. The weapon is so
absurdly effective that there is now
no danger of the invaders winning.
Both stories employ dubious physics. However, Diffin picks his main speculative-science premise (the supercompressed hydrogen, which serves the aliens both as power source and main weapon both for air combat and bombardment purposes) and thoroughly-explores its implications (the Spawn skyships can remain aloft for days and devastate whole cities with single attacks, but this means their bombs can be remotely detonated by the actnic ray). Diffin is
consistent in this analysis.
In contrast, Rich doesn't play fair with his speculations. The aliens are hot plasmoid life based off a strange radioactive element. Wentworth invents a beta ray gun which can (purely by auctorial
fiat) disintegrate this element and do so
without causing massive atomic explosions (avoiding doing so
also purely by auctorial
fiat). In fact the beta beam is
so effective that a single airplane equipped with one such device can slaughter a whole hive of the Spawn.
This is a
Deus Ex Machina solution, and it's not even a consistently-applied one. The
obvious problem with turning the "Fire Ants" to energy is that it should result in lots of damage to everything around them, but this problem neither materializes nor does Wentworth even venture a guess as to
why it fails to happen.
It is the same with the heroic sacrifices. "Slim" Riley dies from the logical limitations of the actnic ray as an anti-skyship weapon, including the massiveness of the projector; Professor Wentworth dies because he couldn't be bothered to take the time to add any shielding (he says the situation is too critical and there is no time, but it is obvious that
he is the most valuable man alive at that moment for the purpose of fighting the "Fire Ants," so what he does is not so much heroic as rash). Wentworth's death is simply the application of
Diablos Ex Machina to create a
Bittersweet Ending..
Both are fun to read, but "Spawn of the Stars" seems very much
more to be an alien invasion the way it might have happened in the
early 1930's; "Spawn of the Comet" reads very much like a "me and my
friends against the monsters" adolescent fantasy.
Conclusion
"Spawn of the Comet" is an enjoyable read, which introduces a deadly peril to Mankind and has The Hero discover it, The Science Hero defeat it, and the Hero and Love Interest affirm their love in the wake of victory. However there is no depth to the story, no examination of the scientific speculations, and nothing to say from it about human nature, the nature of warfare, or (really) Man's place in the Universe.
Nothing but light pulp science-fiction. Which is not necessarily
bad. Just
limited.
END.
