The first warning of the stupendous cataclysm that befell the earth in
the third decade of the twentieth century was recorded simultaneously in
several parts of America during a night in early June. But, so little was
its awful significance suspected at the time, it passed almost without
comment.
[Illustration]
I am certain that I entertained no forebodings; neither did the man
who was destined to play the leading role in the mighty drama that
followed—Dr. Ferdinand Gresham, the eminent American astronomer. For we
were on a hunting and fishing trip in Labrador at the time, and were not
even aware of the strange occurrence.
Anyway, the nature of this first herald of disaster was not such as to
cause alarm.
At 12 minutes past 3 o’clock a. m., when there began a lull in the
night’s aerial telegraph business, several of the larger wireless
stations of the Western hemisphere simultaneously began picking up
strange signals out of the ether. They were faint and ghostly, as if
coming from a vast distance—equally far removed from New York and San
Francisco, Juneau and Panama.
Exactly two minutes apart the calls were repeated, with clock-like
regularity. But the code used—if it _were_ a code—was undecipherable.
Until near dawn the signals continued—indistinct, unintelligible,
insistent.
Every station capable of transmitting messages over such great distances
emphatically denied sending them. And no amateur apparatus was powerful
enough to be the cause. As far as anyone could learn, the signals
originated nowhere upon the earth. It was as if some phantom were
whispering through the ether in the language of another planet.
Two nights later the calls were heard again, starting at almost the same
instant when they had been distinguished on the first occasion. But this
time they were precisely three minutes apart. And without the variation
of a second they continued for more than an hour.
The next night they reappeared. And the next and the next. Now they began
earlier than before—in fact, no one knew when they had started, for they
were sounding when the night’s business died down sufficiently for them
to be heard. But each night, it was noticed, the interval between the
signals was exactly one minute longer than the night before.
Occasionally the weird whispers ceased for a night or two, but always
they resumed with the same insistence, although with a newly-timed
interval.
This continued until early in July, when the pause between the calls had
attained more than thirty minutes’ duration.
Then the length of the lulls began to decrease erratically. One night the
mysterious summons would be heard every nineteen and a quarter minutes;
the next night, every ten and a half minutes; at other times, twelve and
three-quarters minutes, or fourteen and a fifth, or fifteen and a third.
Still the signals could not be deciphered, and their message—if they
contained one—remained a mystery.
Newspapers and scientific journals at last began to speculate upon the
matter, advancing all manner of theories to account for the disturbances.
The only one of these conjectures attracting widespread attention,
however, was that presented by Professor Howard Whiteman, the famous
director of the United States naval observatory at Washington, D. C.
Professor Whiteman voiced the opinion that the planet Mars was trying
to establish communication with the earth—the mysterious calls being
wireless signals sent across space by the inhabitants of our neighboring
world.
Our globe, moving through space much faster than Mars, and in a smaller
orbit, overtakes its neighboring planet once in a little over two years.
For some months Mars had been approaching the earth. At the beginning of
June it had been approximately 40,000,000 miles away, and at that time,
Professor Whiteman pointed out, the strange wireless calls had commenced.
As the two worlds drew closer together the signals increased slightly in
power.
The scientist urged that while Mars remained close to us the government
should appropriate funds to enlarge one of the principal wireless
stations in an effort to answer the overtures of our neighbors in space.
But when, after two more days, the ethereal signals ceased abruptly
and week passed without their recurrence, Professor Whiteman’s theory
began to be derided, and the whole thing was dismissed as some temporary
phenomenon of the atmosphere.
It was something of a shock, therefore, when, on the eighth night after
the cessation of the disturbances, the calls were suddenly resumed—much
louder than before, as if the power creating their electrical impulses
had been increased. Now wireless stations all over the world plainly
heard the staccato, mystifying challenge coming out of the ether.
This time, too, the interval between the signals was of a new
length—eleven minutes and six seconds.
The next day the matter took on still further importance.
Scientists all along the Pacific Coast of the United States reported
that in the night their seismographs had recorded a series of light
earthquakes; and it was noted that these tremors had occurred precisely
eleven minutes and six seconds apart—simultaneously with the sounding of
the mysterious wireless calls!
After that the aerial signals did not stop during any part of the
twenty-four hours. And the earth shocks continued, gradually increasing
in severity. They kept perfect time with the signals through the ether—a
shock for every whisper, a rest for every pause. In the course of a
couple of weeks the quakes attained such force that in many places they
could be distinctly felt by anyone standing still upon solid ground.
Science now became fully aware of the existence of some new and
sinister—or at least unfathomed—force in the world, and began to give the
matter profound study.
However, both Dr. Ferdinand Gresham and myself remained in complete
ignorance of these events; for, as I have said, we were in the interior
of Labrador. We both possessed a keen love of the wilderness, where, in
vigorous sports, we renewed our energy for the work to be done in the
cities—the doctor’s as director of the great astronomical observatory at
the National University; mine in the prosaic channels of business.
To the public, which knew him only through his books and lectures, Dr.
Gresham perhaps appeared the last person in the world anyone would
seek for a companion: a man silent, preoccupied, austere, unsociable.
But underneath this aloofness and taciturnity was a character of rare
strength, good nature and loveableness. And, once beyond the barriers
of civilization, his austerity vanished, and he became a prince of good
fellows, actually reveling in hardships and danger.
The complete change in him on such occasions brought to mind a strange
phase of his life about which not even I, his most intimate associate,
knew anything—a period in which he had undertaken a mysterious pilgrimage
alone into the dark interior of China.
I only knew that fifteen years before he had gone in quest of certain
amazing astronomical discoveries rumored to have been made by Buddhist
savants dwelling in monasteries far back in the Himalayas or the
Tian-Shan, or some of those inaccessible mountain fastnesses of Central
Asia. After more than four years he had dragged back, ill and suffering,
bearing hideous disfigurations upon his body, the look in his eyes of a
man who had seen hell, and maintaining inviolate silence regarding his
experiences.
On regaining his health after the Chinese adventure, he had immersed
himself in silence and work, and year by year since then I had seen
him steadily rise in prominence in his profession. Indeed, his name
had come to stand for vastly more in the scientific world than merely
the advancement of astronomical knowledge. He was a deep student along
many lines of scientific endeavor—electricity, chemistry, mathematics,
physics, geology, even biology. To the development of wireless telegraphy
and the wireless transmission of electrical energy he had devoted
particular effort.
The doctor and I had left New York a few days before the wireless
disturbances began. Returning by a small private vessel, which was not
equipped with wireless, we continued in ignorance of the world’s danger.
It was during our homeward sea voyage that the earthquakes began to grow
serious. Many buildings were damaged. In the western portions of the
United States and Canada a number of persons were killed by the collapse
of houses.
Gradually the affected area expanded. New York and Nagasaki, Buenos
Aires and Berlin, Vienna and Valparaiso began to take their places on
the casualty list. Even modern skyscrapers suffered broken windows and
falling plaster; sometimes they shook so violently that their occupants
fled to the streets in a panic. Water and gas mains began to break.
Before long, in New York, one of the railroad tunnels under the Hudson
River cracked and flooded, causing no loss of life, but spreading such
alarm that all the tubes under and out of Manhattan were abandoned. This
brought about a fearful congestion of traffic in the metropolis.
Finally, toward the beginning of August, the earthquakes became so
serious that the newspapers were filled every day with accounts of the
loss of scores—sometimes hundreds—of lives all over the world.
Then came a happening fraught with a monstrous new terror, which was
revealed to the public one morning just as day dawned in New York.
During the preceding night, a great Atlantic liner, steaming westward
approximately along the fiftieth parallel of latitude, had _run aground_
about 700 miles east of Cape Race, Newfoundland—at a point where all
nautical charts showed the ocean to be _nearly two miles deep_!
Within an hour there had come reports of a similar nature from other
ships two or three hundred miles distant from the first one. There was
no telling how vast in extent might be the upheaved portion of the sea
bottom.
Hardly had the wireless stations finished taking these startling stories
from midocean before there began to arrive equally strange reports from
other quarters of the globe.
Someone discovered that the sea level had risen almost six feet at New
York. The Sahara Desert had sunk to an unknown depth, and the sea was
rushing in, ripping vast channels through the heart of Morocco, Tripoli
and Egypt, obliterating cities and completely changing the whole face of
the earth.
Within a few hours the high water in New York harbor receded about a
foot. Mount Chimborazo, the majestic peak of more than 20,000 feet
altitude in the Ecuadorean Andes, began to fall down and spread out over
the surrounding country. Then the mountains bordering the Panama Canal
started to collapse for many miles, completely blocking that famous
waterway.
In Europe the Danube River ceased to flow in its accustomed direction
and began, near its junction with the Save, to pour its waters back past
Budapest and Vienna, turning the plains of western Austria into a series
of spreading lakes.
The world awoke that summer morning to face a more desperate situation
than ever had confronted mankind during all the centuries of recorded
history.
And still no plausible explanation of the trouble—except the Martian
theory of Professor Howard Whiteman—was forthcoming.
Men were dazed, astounded. A feeling of dread and terror began to settle
upon the public.
At this juncture, realizing the need of some sort of action, the
President of the United States urged all the other civilized nations
to send representatives to an international scientific congress in
Washington, which should endeavor to determine the origin of the
terrestrial disturbances and, if possible, suggest relief.
As speedily as airplanes could bring them, an imposing assemblage of the
world’s leading scientists gathered in Washington.
Because of his international reputation and the fact that the congress
held its sessions at the United States naval observatory of which he was
chief, Professor Whiteman was chosen president of the body.
For a week the scientists debated—while the world waited in intense and
growing anxiety. But the learned men accomplished nothing. They could
not even agree. The battle seemed one of man against nature, and man was
helpless.
In a gloomy state of mind they began to consider adjournment. At 10
o’clock on the night of the nineteenth of August the question of
terminating the sessions was scheduled for a final vote.
That night, as the hands of the clock on the wall above the presiding
officer’s head drew near the fateful hour, the tension throughout the
assemblage became intensely dramatic. Everyone present knew in his heart
that further deliberation was useless, but the fate of the human race
seemed to hang upon their decision.
Even after the sound of the clock’s striking had died out upon the
stillness of the room, Professor Whiteman remained seated; he seemed
haggard and downcast. At last, however, he drew himself up and opened his
lips to speak.
At that moment a secretary tiptoed swiftly in and whispered briefly to
the presiding officer. Professor Whiteman gave a start and answered
something that sent the secretary hurrying out.
Betraying strange emotion, the scientist now addressed the assemblage.
His words came haltingly, as if he feared they would be greeted with
ridicule.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “a strange thing has happened. A few minutes
ago—the wireless signals that have always accompanied the earthquakes
ceased abruptly. In their place came—a mysterious summons out of
the ether—whence no one knows—demanding a conversation with the
presiding officer of this body. The sender of the message declares his
communication has to do with the problem we have been trying to solve.
Of course—this is probably some hoax—but our operator is greatly excited
over the circumstances surrounding the call, and urges that we come to
the wireless room at once!”
With one accord, everyone rose and moved forward.
Leading the way to another part of the observatory grounds, Professor
Whiteman ushered the company into the operating room of the wireless
plant—one of the most powerful in the world.
A little knot of observatory officials already was clustered about the
operator, their manner denoting that something unusual had been going on.
At a word from Professor Whiteman, the operator threw over his rheostat
and the hum of the rotary spark filled the room. Then his fingers played
on the key while he sent out a few signals.
“I’m letting them—_him_—know you’re ready, sir,” the operator explained
to the astronomer, in a tone filled with awe.
A few moments slipped by. Everyone waited breathlessly, all eyes glued
upon the apparatus, as if to read the momentous message that was expected
to come from—no one knew where.
Suddenly there was an involuntary movement of the muscles of the
operator’s face, as if he were straining to hear something very faint and
far away; then he began writing slowly upon a pad that lay on his desk.
At his elbow the scientists unceremoniously crowded each other in their
eagerness to read:
“To the Presiding Officer of the International Scientific
Congress, Washington,” he wrote. “I am the dictator of human
destiny. Through control of the earth’s internal forces I am
master of every existing thing. I can blot out all life—destroy
the globe itself. It is my intention to abolish all present
governments and make myself emperor of the earth. As proof of
my power to do this, I”—there was a pause of several seconds,
which seemed like hours in the awful stillness—“I shall, at
midnight tomorrow, Thursday (Washington time), cause the
earthquakes to cease until further notice.
“KWO.”
_CHAPTER II._