Such were the beings that invaded the earth when the Second Men were
gathering their strength for a great venture in artificial evolution.
The motives of the invasion were both economic and religious. The
Martians sought water and vegetable matter; but they came also in a
crusading spirit, to ‘liberate’ the terrestrial diamonds.
Conditions on the earth were very unfavourable to the invaders.
Excessive gravitation troubled them less than might have been expected.
Only in their most concentrated form did they find it oppressive. More
harmful was the density of the terrestrial atmosphere, which constricted
the tenuous animate cloudlets very painfully, hindering their vital
processes, and deadening all their movements. In their native atmosphere
they swam hither and thither with ease and considerable speed; but the
treacly air of the earth hampered them as a bird’s wings are hampered
under water. Moreover, owing to their extreme buoyancy as individual
cloudlets, they were scarcely able to dive down so far as the
mountain-tops. Excessive oxygen was also a source of distress; it tended
to put them into a violent fever, which they had only been able to guard
against very imperfectly. Even more damaging was the excessive moisture
of the atmosphere, both through its solvent effect upon certain factors
in the subvital units, and because heavy rain interfered with the
physiological processes of the cloudlets and washed many of their
materials to the ground.
The invaders had also to cope with the tissue of ‘radio’ messages that
constantly enveloped the planet, and tended to interfere with their own
organic systems of radiation. They were prepared for this to some
extent; but ‘beam wireless’ at close range surprised, bewildered,
tortured, and finally routed them; so that they fled back to Mars,
leaving many of their number disintegrated in the terrestrial air.
But the pioneering army (or individual, for throughout the adventure it
maintained unity of consciousness) had much to report at home. As was
expected, there was rich vegetation, and water was even too abundant.
There were solid animals, of the type of the prehistoric Martian fauna,
but mostly two-legged and erect. Experiment had shown that these
creatures died when they were pulled to pieces, and that though the
sun’s rays affected them by setting up chemical action in their visual
organs, they had no really direct sensitivity to radiation. Obviously,
therefore, they must be unconscious. On the other hand, the terrestrial
atmosphere was permanently alive with radiation of a violent and
incoherent type. It was still uncertain whether these crude ethereal
agitations were natural phenomena, mere careless offshoots of the cosmic
mind, or whether they were emitted by a terrestrial organism. There was
reason to suppose this last to be the case, and that the solid organisms
were used by some hidden terrestrial intelligence as instruments; for
there were buildings, and many of the bipeds were found within the
buildings. Moreover, the sudden violent concentration of beam radiation
upon the Martian cloud suggested purposeful and hostile behaviour.
Punitive action had therefore been taken, and many buildings and bipeds
had been destroyed. The physical basis of such a terrestrial
intelligence was still to be discovered. It was certainly not in the
terrestrial clouds, for these had turned out to be insensitive to
radiation. Anyhow, it was obviously an intelligence of very low order,
for its radiation was scarcely at all systematic, and was indeed
excessively crude. One or two unfortunate diamonds had been found in a
building. There was no sign that they were properly venerated.
The Terrestrials, on their side, were left in complete bewilderment by
the extraordinary events of that day. Some had jokingly suggested that
since the strange substance had behaved in a manner obviously
vindictive, it must have been alive and conscious; but no one took the
suggestion seriously. Clearly, however, the thing had been dissipated by
beam radiation. That at least was an important piece of practical
knowledge. But theoretical knowledge about the real nature of the
clouds, and their place in the order of the universe, was for the
present wholly lacking. To a race of strong cognitive interest and
splendid scientific achievement, this ignorance was violently
disturbing. It seemed to shake the foundations of the great structure of
knowledge. Many frankly hoped, in spite of the loss of life in the first
invasion, that there would soon be another opportunity for studying
these amazing objects, which were not quite gaseous and not quite solid,
not (apparently) organic, yet capable of behaving in a manner suggestive
of life. An opportunity was soon afforded.
Some years after the first invasion, the Martians appeared again, and in
far greater force. This time, moreover, they were almost immune from
man’s offensive radiation. Operating simultaneously from all the alpine
regions of the earth, they began to dry up the great rivers at their
sources; and, venturing further afield, they spread over jungle and
agricultural land, and stripped off every leaf. Valley after valley was
devastated as though by endless swarms of locusts, so that in whole
countries there was not a green blade left. The booty was carried off to
Mars. Myriads of the subvital units, specialized for transport of water
and food materials, were loaded each with a few molecules of the
treasure, and dispatched to the home planet. The traffic continued
indefinitely. Meanwhile the main body of the Martians proceeded to
explore and loot. They were irresistible. For the absorption of water
and leafage, they spread over the countryside as an impalpable mist
which man had no means to dispel. For the destruction of civilization,
they became armies of gigantic cloud-jellies, far bigger than the brute
which had formed itself during the earlier invasion. Cities were knocked
down and flattened, human beings masticated into pulp. Man tried weapon
after weapon in vain.
Presently the Martians discovered the sources of terrestrial radiation
in the innumerable wireless transmitting stations. Here at last was the
physical basis of the terrestrial intelligence! But what a lowly
creature! What a caricature of life! Obviously in respect of complexity
and delicacy of organization these wretched immobile systems of glass,
metal, and vegetable compounds were not to be compared with the Martian
cloud. Their only feat seemed to be that they had managed to get control
of the unconscious bipeds who tended them.
In the course of their explorations the Martians also discovered a few
more diamonds. The second human species had outgrown the barbaric lust
for jewellery; but they recognized the beauty of gems and precious
metals, and used them as badges of office. Unfortunately, the Martians,
in sacking a town, came upon a woman who was wearing a large diamond
between her breasts; for she was mayor of the town, and in charge of the
evacuation. That the sacred stone should be used thus, apparently for
the mere identification of cattle, shocked the invaders even more than
the discovery of fragments of diamonds in certain cutting-instruments.
The war now began to be waged with all the heroism and brutality of a
crusade. Long after a rich booty of water and vegetable matter had been
secured, long after the Terrestrials had developed an effective means of
attack, and were slaughtering the Martian clouds with high-tension
electricity in the form of artificial lightning flashes, the misguided
fanatics stayed on to rescue the diamonds and carry them away to the
mountain-tops, where, years afterwards, climbers discovered them,
arranged along the rock-edges in glittering files, like sea-bird’s eggs.
Thither the dying remnant of the Martian host had transported them with
its last strength, scorning to save itself before the diamonds were
borne into the pure mountain air, to be lodged with dignity. When the
Second Men learned of this great hoard of diamonds, they began to be
seriously persuaded that they had been dealing, not with a freak of
physical nature, nor yet (as some said) with swarms of bacteria, but
with organisms of a higher order. For how could the jewels have been
singled out, freed from their metallic settings, and so carefully
regimented on the rocks, save by conscious purpose? The murderous clouds
must have had at least the pilfering mentality of jackdaws, since
evidently they had been fascinated by the treasure. But the very action
which revealed their consciousness suggested also that they were no more
intelligent than the merely instinctive animals. There was no
opportunity of correcting this error, since all the clouds had been
destroyed.
The struggle had lasted only a few months. Its material effects on Man
were serious but not insurmountable. Its immediate psychological effect
was invigorating. The Second Men had long been accustomed to a security
and prosperity that were almost utopian. Suddenly they were overwhelmed
by a calamity which was quite unintelligible in terms of their own
systematic knowledge. Their predecessors, in such a situation, would
have behaved with their own characteristic vacillation between the human
and the subhuman. They would have contracted a fever of romantic
loyalty, and have performed many random acts of secretly self-regarding
self-sacrifice. They would have sought profit out of the public
disaster, and howled at all who were more fortunate than themselves.
They would have cursed their gods, and looked for more useful ones. But
also, in an incoherent manner, they would sometimes have behaved
reasonably, and would even have risen now and again to the standards of
the Second Men. Wholly unused to large-scale human bloodshed, these more
developed beings suffered an agony of pity for their mangled fellows.
But they said nothing about their pity, and scarcely noticed their own
generous grief; for they were busy with the work of rescue. Suddenly
confronted with the need of extreme loyalty and courage, they exulted in
complying, and experienced that added keenness of spirit which comes
when danger is well faced. But it did not occur to them that they were
bearing themselves heroically; for they thought they were merely
behaving reasonably, showing commonsense. And if any one failed in a
tight place, they did not call him coward, but gave him a drug to clear
his head; or, if that failed, they put him under a doctor. No doubt,
among the First Men such a policy would not have been justified, for
these bewildered beings had not the clear and commanding vision which
kept all sane members of the second species constant in loyalty.
The immediate psychological effect of the disaster was that it afforded
this very noble race healthful exercise for its great reserves of
loyalty and heroism. Quite apart from this immediate invigoration,
however, the first agony, and those many others which were to follow,
influenced the Second Men for good and ill in a train of effects which
may be called spiritual. They had long known very well that the universe
was one in which there could be not only private but also great public
tragedies; and their philosophy did not seek to conceal this fact.
Private tragedy they were able to face with a bland fortitude, and even
an ecstasy of acceptance, such as the earlier species had but rarely
attained. Public tragedy, even world-tragedy, they declared should be
faced in the same spirit. But to know world-tragedy in the abstract, is
very different from the direct acquaintance with it. And now the Second
Men, even while they held their attention earnestly fixed upon the
practical work of defence, were determined to absorb this tragedy into
the very depths of their being, to scrutinize it fearlessly, savour it,
digest it, so that its fierce potency should henceforth be added to
them. Therefore they did not curse their gods, nor supplicate them. They
said to themselves, ‘Thus, and thus, and thus, is the world. Seeing the
depth we shall see also the height; and we shall praise both.’
But their schooling was yet scarcely begun. The Martian invaders were
all dead, but their subvital units were dispersed over the planet as a
virulent ultra-microscopic dust. For, though as members of the living
cloud they could enter the human body without doing permanent harm, now
that they were freed from their functions within the higher organic
system, they became a predatory virus. Breathed into man’s lungs, they
soon adapted themselves to the new environment, and threw his tissues
into disorder. Each cell that they entered overthrew its own
constitution, like a state which the enemy has successfully infected
with lethal propaganda through a mere handful of agents. Thus, though
man was temporarily victor over the Martian super-individual, his own
vital units were poisoned and destroyed by the subvital remains of his
dead enemy. A race whose physique had been as Utopian as its body
politic, was reduced to timid invalidity. And it was left in possession
of a devastated planet. The loss of water proved negligible; but the
destruction of vegetation in all the war areas produced for a while a
world famine such as the Second Men had never known. And the material
fabric of civilization had been so broken that many decades would have
to be spent in rebuilding it.
But the physical damage proved far less serious than the physiological.
Earnest research discovered, indeed, a means of checking the infection;
and, after a few years of rigorous purging the atmosphere and man’s
flesh were clean once more. But the generations that had been stricken
never recovered; their tissues had been too seriously corroded. Little
by little, of course, there arose a fresh population of undamaged men
and women. But it was a small population; for the fertility of the
stricken had been much reduced. Thus the earth was now occupied by a
small number of healthy persons below middle-age and a very large number
of ageing invalids. For many years these cripples had contrived to carry
on the work of the world in spite of their frailty, but gradually they
began to fail both in endurance and competence. For they were rapidly
losing their grip on life, and sinking into a long-drawn-out senility,
from which the Second Men had never before suffered; and at the same
time the young, forced to take up work for which they were not equipped,
committed all manner of blunders and crudities of which their elders
would never have been guilty. But such was the general standard of
mentality in the second human species, that what might have been an
occasion for recrimination produced an unparalleled example of human
loyalty at its best. The stricken generations decided almost unanimously
that whenever an individual was declared by his generation to have
outlived his competence, he should commit suicide. The younger
generations, partly through affection, partly through dread of their own
incompetence, were at first earnestly opposed to this policy. ‘Our
elders’, one young man said, ‘may have declined in vigour, but they are
still beloved, and still wise. We dare not carry on without them.’ But
the elders maintained their point. Many members of the rising generation
were no longer juveniles. And, if the body politic was to survive the
economic crisis, it must now ruthlessly cut out all its damaged tissues.
Accordingly the decision was carried out. One by one, as occasion
demanded, the stricken ‘chose the peace of annihilation,’ leaving a
scanty, inexperienced, but vigorous, population to rebuild what had been
destroyed.
Four centuries passed, and then again the Martian clouds appeared in the
sky. Once more devastation and slaughter. Once more a complete failure
of the two mentalities to conceive one another. Once more the Martians
were destroyed. Once more the pulmonary plague, the slow purging, a
crippled population, and generous suicide.
Again, and again they appeared, at irregular intervals for fifty
thousand years. On each occasion the Martians came irresistibly
fortified against whatever weapon humanity had last used against them.
And so, by degrees, men began to recognize that the enemy was no merely
instinctive brute, but intelligent. They therefore made attempts to get
in touch with these alien minds, and make overtures for a peaceful
settlement. But since obviously the negotiations had to be performed by
human beings, and since the Martians always regarded human beings as the
mere cattle of the terrestrial intelligence, the envoys were always
either ignored or destroyed.
During each invasion the Martians contrived to dispatch a considerable
bulk of water to Mars. And every time, not satisfied with this material
gain, they stayed too long crusading, until man had found a weapon to
circumvent their new defences; and then they were routed. After each
invasion man’s recovery was slower and less complete, while Mars, in
spite of the loss of a large proportion of its population, was in the
long run invigorated with the extra water.