Chapter I.

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Edison's Conquest of Mars

by

Garrett P. Serviss

1898

Chapter I.

It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous

invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without record, and

circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty,

both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants

in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless

enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a connected form.

The Martians had nearly all perished, not through our puny efforts, but

in consequence of disease, and the few survivors fled in one of their

projectile cars, inflicting their cruelest blow in the act of departure.

Their Mysterious Explosive.

They possessed a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance, with

whose aid they set their car in motion for Mars from a point in Bergen

County, N. J., just back of the Palisades.

The force of the explosion may be imagined when it is recollected that

they had to give the car a velocity of more than seven miles per second

in order to overcome the attraction of the earth and the resistance of

the atmosphere.

The shock destroyed all of New York that had not already fallen a prey,

and all the buildings yet standing in the surrounding towns and cities

fell in one far-circling ruin.

The Palisades tumbled in vast sheets, starting a tidal wave in the Hudson

that drowned the opposite shore.

Thousands of Victims.

The victims of this ferocious explosion were numbered by tens of

thousands, and the shock, transmitted through the rocky frame of the

globe, was recorded by seismographic pendulums in England and on the

Continent of Europe.

The terrible results achieved by the invaders had produced everywhere a

mingled feeling of consternation and hopelessness. The devastation was

widespread. The death-dealing engines which the Martians had brought with

them had proved irresistible and the inhabitants of the earth possessed

nothing capable of contending against them. There had been no protection

for the great cities; no protection even for the open country. Everything

had gone down before the savage onslaught of those merciless invaders from

space. Savage ruins covered the sites of many formerly flourishing towns

and villages, and the broken walls of great cities stared at the heavens

like the exhumed skeletons of Pompeii. The awful agencies had extirpated

pastures and meadows and dried up the very springs of fertility in the

earth where they had touched it. In some parts of the devastated lands

pestilence broke out; elsewhere there was famine. Despondency black as

night brooded over some of the fairest portions of the globe.

All Not Yet Destroyed.

Yet all had not been destroyed, because all had not been reached by

the withering hand of the destroyer. The Martians had not had time to

complete their work before they themselves fell a prey to the diseases

that carried them off at the very culmination of their triumph.

From those lands which had, fortunately, escaped invasion, relief was

sent to the sufferers. The outburst of pity and of charity exceeded

anything that the world had known. Differences of race and religion

were swallowed up in the universal sympathy which was felt for those

who had suffered so terribly from an evil that was as unexpected as it

was unimaginable in its enormity.

But the worst was not yet. More dreadful than the actual suffering and the

scenes of death and devastation which overspread the afflicted lands was

the profound mental and moral depression that followed. This was shared

even by those who had not seen the Martians and had not witnessed the

destructive effects of the frightful engines of war that they had imported

for the conquest of the earth. All mankind was sunk deep in this universal

despair, and it became tenfold blacker when the astronomers announced

from their observatories that strange lights were visible, moving and

flashing upon the red surface of the Planet of War. These mysterious

appearances could only be interpreted in the light of past experience to

mean that the Martians were preparing for another invasion of the earth,

and who could doubt that with the invincible powers of destruction at

their command they would this time make their work complete and final?

A Startling Announcement.

This startling announcement was the more pitiable in its effects because

it served to unnerve and discourage those few of stouter hearts and more

hopeful temperaments who had already begun the labor of restoration and

reconstruction amid the embers of their desolated homes. In New York

this feeling of hope and confidence, this determination to rise against

disaster and to wipe out the evidences of its dreadful presence as quickly

as possible, had especially manifested itself. Already a company had been

formed and a large amount of capital subscribed for the reconstruction

of the destroyed bridges over the East River. Already architects were

busily at work planning new twenty-story hotels and apartment houses;

new churches and new cathedrals on a grander scale than before.

The Martians Returning.

Amid this stir of renewed life came the fatal news that Mars was

undoubtedly preparing to deal us a death blow. The sudden revulsion of

feeling flitted like the shadow of an eclipse over the earth. The scenes

that followed were indescribable. Men lost their reason. The faint-hearted

ended the suspense with self-destruction, the stout-hearted remained

steadfast, but without hope and knowing not what to do.

But there was a gleam of hope of which the general public as yet knew

nothing. It was due to a few dauntless men of science, conspicuous

among whom were Lord Kelvin, the great English savant; Herr Roentgen,

the discoverer of the famous X ray, and especially Thomas A. Edison, the

American genius of science. These men and a few others had examined with

the utmost care the engines of war, the flying machines, the generators

of mysterious destructive forces that the Martians had produced, with

the object of discovering, if possible, the sources of their power.

Suddenly from Mr. Edison's laboratory at Orange flashed the startling

intelligence that he had not only discovered the manner in which the

invaders had been able to produce the mighty energies which they employed

with such terrible effect, but that, going further, he had found a way

to overcome them.

The glad news was quickly circulated throughout the civilized

world. Luckily the Atlantic cables had not been destroyed by the Martians,

so that communication between the Eastern and Western continents was

uninterrupted. It was a proud day for America. Even while the Martians

had been upon the earth, carrying everything before them, demonstrating

to the confusion of the most optimistic that there was no possibility

of standing against them, a feeling--a confidence had manifested itself

in France, to a minor extent in England, and particularly in Russia,

that the Americans might discover means to meet and master the invaders.

Now, it seemed, this hope and expectation were to be realized. Too

late, it is true, in a certain sense, but not too late to meet the new

invasion which the astronomers had announced was impending. The effect

was as wonderful and indescribable as that of the despondency which but

a little while before had overspread the world. One could almost hear

the universal sigh of relief which went up from humanity. To relief

succeeded confidence--so quickly does the human spirit recover like an

elastic spring, when pressure is released.

"We Are Ready for Them!"

"Let them come," was the almost joyous cry. "We shall be ready for

them now. The Americans have solved the problem. Edison has placed

the means of victory within our power."

Looking back upon that time now, I recall, with a thrill, the pride that

stirred me at the thought that, after all, the inhabitants of the Earth

were a match for those terrible men from Mars, despite all the advantage

which they had gained from their millions of years of prior civilization

and science.

As good fortunes, like bad, never come singly, the news of Mr. Edison's

discovery was quickly followed by additional glad tidings from that

laboratory of marvels in the lap of the Orange mountains. During their

career of conquest the Martians had astonished the inhabitants of the

earth no less with their flying machines--which navigated our atmosphere

as easily as they had that of their native planet--than with their more

destructive inventions. These flying machines in themselves had given

them an enormous advantage in the contest. High above the desolation

that they had caused to reign on the surface of the earth, and, out of

the range of our guns, they had hung safe in the upper air. From the

clouds they had dropped death upon the earth.

Edison's Flying Machine.

Now, rumor declared that Mr. Edison had invented and perfected a flying

machine much more complete and manageable than those of the Martians

had been. Wonderful stories quickly found their way into the newspapers

concerning what Mr. Edison had already accomplished with the aid of his

model electrical balloon. His laboratory was carefully guarded against

the invasion of the curious, because he rightly felt that a premature

announcement, which should promise more than could be actually fulfilled,

would, at this critical juncture, plunge mankind back again into the

gulf of despair, out of which it had just begun to emerge.

Nevertheless, inklings of the truth leaked out. The flying machine had

been seen by many persons hovering by night high above the Orange hills

and disappearing in the faint starlight as if it had gone away into the

depths of space, out of which it would re-emerge before the morning light

had streaked the east, and be seen settling down again within the walls

that surrounded the laboratory of the great inventor. At length the

rumor, gradually deepening into a conviction, spread that Edison himself,

accompanied by a few scientific friends, had made an experimental trip

to the moon. At a time when the spirit of mankind was less profoundly

stirred, such a story would have been received with complete incredulity,

but now, rising on the wings of the new hope that was buoying up the

earth, this extraordinary rumor became a day star of truth to the nations.

A Trip to the Moon.

And it was true. I had myself been one of the occupants of the car of

the flying Ship of Space on that night when it silently left the earth,

and rising out of the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the moon. We

had landed upon the scarred and desolate face of the earth's satellite,

and but that there are greater and more interesting events, the telling of

which must not be delayed, I should undertake to describe the particulars

of this first visit of men to another world.

But, as I have already intimated, this was only an experimental trip. By

visiting this little nearby island in the ocean of space, Mr. Edison

simply wished to demonstrate the practicability of his invention, and

to convince, first of all, himself and his scientific friends that it

was possible for men--mortal men--to quit and to revisit the earth at

their will. That aim this experimental trip triumphantly attained.

It would carry me into technical details that would hardly interest the

reader to describe the mechanism of Mr. Edison's flying machine. Let

it suffice to say that it depended upon the principal of electrical

attraction and repulsion. By means of a most ingenious and complicated

construction he had mastered the problem of how to produce, in a limited

space, electricity of any desired potential and of any polarity, and

that without danger to the experimenter or to the material experimented

upon. It is gravitation, as everybody knows, that makes man a prisoner

on the earth. If he could overcome, or neutralize, gravitation he could

float away a free creature of interstellar space. Mr. Edison in his

invention had pitted electricity against gravitation. Nature, in fact,

had done the same thing long before. Every astronomer knew it, but none

had been able to imitate or to reproduce this miracle of nature. When a

comet approaches the sun, the orbit in which it travels indicates that it

is moving under the impulse of the sun's gravitation. It is in reality

falling in a great parabolic or elliptical curve through space. But,

while a comet approaches the sun it begins to display--stretching out

for millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of miles on the side

away from the sun--an immense luminous train called its tail. This train

extends back into that part of space from which the comet is moving. Thus

the sun at one and the same time is drawing the comet toward itself and

driving off from the comet in an opposite direction minute particles or

atoms which, instead of obeying the gravitational force, are plainly

compelled to disobey it. That this energy, which the sun exercises

against its own gravitation, is electrical in its nature, hardly anybody

will doubt. The head of the comet being comparatively heavy and massive,

falls on toward the sun, despite the electrical repulsion. But the atoms

which form the tail, being almost without weight, yield to the electrical

rather than to the gravitational influence, and so fly away from the sun.

Gravity Overcome.

Now, what Mr. Edison had done was, in effect, to create an electrified

particle which might be compared to one of the atoms composing the tail of

a comet, although in reality it was a kind of car, of metal, weighing some

hundreds of pounds and capable of bearing some thousands of pounds with

it in its flight. By producing, with the aid of the electrical generator

contained in this car, an enormous charge of electricity, Mr. Edison

was able to counterbalance, and a trifle more than counterbalance,

the attraction of the earth, and thus cause the car to fly off from the

earth as an electrified pith ball flies from the prime conductor.

As we sat in the brilliantly lighted chamber that formed the interior of

the car, and where stores of compressed air had been provided together

with chemical apparatus, by means of which fresh supplies of oxygen

and nitrogen might be obtained for our consumption during the flight

through space, Mr. Edison touched a polished button, thus causing the

generation of the required electrical charge on the exterior of the car,

and immediately we began to rise.

The moment and direction of our flight had been so timed and prearranged,

that the original impulse would carry us straight toward the moon.

A Triumphant Test.

When we fell within the sphere of attraction of that orb it only became

necessary to so manipulate the electrical charge upon our car as nearly,

but not quite, to counterbalance the effect of the moon's attraction

in order that we might gradually approach it and with an easy motion,

settle, without shock, upon its surface.

We did not remain to examine the wonders of the moon, although we could

not fail to observe many curious things therein. Having demonstrated

the fact that we could not only leave the earth, but could journey

through space and safely land upon the surface of another planet, Mr.

Edison's immediate purpose was fulfilled, and we hastened back to the

earth, employing in leaving the moon and landing again upon our own planet

the same means of control over the electrical attraction and repulsion

between the respective planets and our car which I have already described.

Telegraphing the News.

When actual experiment had thus demonstrated the practicability of

the invention, Mr. Edison no longer withheld the news of what he had

been doing from the world. The telegraph lines and the ocean cables

labored with the messages that in endless succession, and burdened with

an infinity of detail, were sent all over the earth. Everywhere the

utmost enthusiasm was aroused.

"Let the Martians come," was the cry. "If necessary, we can quit the

earth as the Athenians fled from Athens before the advancing host of

Xerxes, and like them, take refuge upon our ships--these new ships of

space, with which American inventiveness has furnished us."

And then, like a flash, some genius struck out an idea that fired

the world.

"Why should we wait? Why should we run the risk of having our cities

destroyed and our lands desolated a second time? Let us go to Mars. We

have the means. Let us beard the lion in his den. Let us ourselves

turn conquerors and take possession of that detestable planet, and if

necessary, destroy it in order to relieve the earth of this perpetual

threat which now hangs over us like the sword of Damocles."