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The space visitors
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Doubt
It is not surprising that panic sent the people of Mannlertown fleeing in all directions before the coming of the day. The newspaper stated that federal and state authorities had taken every precaution to calm them, and already many who had fled were returning to the stricken town, it being apparent that no further disturbance was taking place.
But what had caused this one? Was it an earthquake or a volcanic action of some unheard-of nature? No answer could be definitely made, but the geologists and other scientists consulted regarding the thing were in general agreement. It could only have been caused, they stated, by some giant meteor that had grazed the earth's surface and gouged this great scar across it in passing. More could be learned from examination of the cut but it was certain that a meteor was the cause.
When I had finished reading I looked up at Dr. Howard, sobered by the horror of what I had just read.
"A terrible thing, surely," I said, and he nodded somberly.
"Just how terrible, is not yet realized," he commented.
"Why, you don't doubt that it was a meteor's work, do you?" I asked. "That great gouge--"
He shook his head. "Who can say? But if a meteor of giant size did it, where is the meteor? They do not as a rule, graze earth and then vanish, Ransome."
"Maybe not," I said doubtfully, "but in this case the scientists all seem pretty sure. And after all, what other explanation for the thing is there?"
To that he did not answer, though I could see that he was unconvinced. So I was not surprised when Dr. Howard left for Mannlertown that night by a fast Chicago rocket express. To me, as to others, he said only that he wished to make a brief examination of the scene of the disaster with certain ideas of his own in mind. I knew without his telling, though, that his doubts persisted.
The world at large did not share those doubts. There was wide-spread horror over the Mannlertown catastrophe, but it was the rather abstract horror aroused by some unprecedented accident of which the very strangeness somehow dulls the edge of reality. And none seemed to doubt the dictum of the scientists concerning the gigantic missile from space that had shot into the earth's atmosphere grazing its surface and then shooting out again. I know that, despite Dr. Howard's attitude, I myself did not doubt it.
Dr. Howard returned from Mannlertown two days later. The only information that he imparted was that his investigations had proved satisfactory. He said nothing more and, assuming that his inspection had disproved his doubts, I forbore mentioning the thing to him. It was not until the second cataclysm, a day later, that I learned along with the rest of the world, what his thoughts on the matter were.
This second cataclysm took place on the afternoon of July first, but, because of the remoteness of its scene, word of it did not reach most of the world until the next day. For the scene of the second event was those bleak Finnish plains that lie east of the Baltic, and particularly one barren valley far from the nearest telegraph.
News concerning what had happened was scanty enough. The central fact was that upon one of that valley's slopes, something had gouged from the grassy earth a tremendous trench like the one that had been cut through Mannlertown. It was of the same general size--several miles in length and a quarter-mile in depth and width; but in that remote place it had done almost no damage to life or property.
The only damage to property, in fact, had been the destruction of a herder's hut that had been in the path of the thing. The seven herders who had occupied it, luckily for them, had been tending their flocks on the slope of a neighboring valley. All had heard a gigantic roaring and grinding sound, and had run up to the dividing ridge as the sound ceased, to be confronted by the great gouge below. One of them, however, had been on the ridge at the time and told an excited and almost incomprehensible tale regarding it.
He said he had been gazing down over the slope in question when the disaster had happened. First came a great flash of light in the air above, the flash of some colossal glittering body swooping from above to earth's surface. He could not describe what he claimed to have seen of it in that lightning-like glimpse, and could describe it only as of something huge and glittering, and roughly scoop-like in shape.
In the very second that he saw it, it had struck the slope, and then with great speed had rushed forward, along it, half-burying itself in the earth, emitting a loud, grinding roar. In an instant it had streaked like light along the slope for several miles and then with an upward flash was gone, the noise gradually ceasing.
This tale, even doubted by the man's companions, certainly received small credit from the outside world. The paper that I read mentioned the story only as an illusion, born of excitement, and went on to point out that while the Mannlertown cataclysm had been repeated the explanation accepted for it had not been disproved. It simply meant that another giant meteor had grazed our globe, and it might well be that the earth was passing through a swarm of them.
I will own, however, that to me the meteor explanation seemed rather weakened by this so exact repetition of the first catastrophe, and I could not see how this recurring catastrophe could be explained so simply.
Howard's Theory
At the first news of the thing, I had sought Dr. Howard to learn his own views of it, but he was not to be found at the university. And by the time I had met him the next day I, along with most of the world, had read the late editions of the newspaper in which he first startled the nations with his astounding explanation of the two cataclysms.
He stated that he had studied closely the scene of the first cataclysm, and had derived therefrom a theory as to its cause which he believed was substantiated by the second occurrence.
"No one who has considered carefully the Mannlertown catastrophe," he stated, "can credit for a moment the idea that it was caused by a meteor. Had a great meteor actually grazed the earth that night, the sky for a thousand miles would have flamed with its passing, even had it been able to pass out of earth's grip after entering it, which is an incredible hypothesis.
"The cataclysm at Mannlertown was not caused by a meteor, but by some vast scoop-like object that was drawn across several miles of the earth's surface with immense speed and in that way gouged out the great trench in the earth. This second cataclysm in Finland was obviously caused in the same way, there being no appearance of a meteor in the sky. The huge scoop of which I speak was actually seen in the second case by the Finnish herder whose story has been little credited. But the very wildness of which is almost a guarantee of its truth, especially coming from such an unimaginative person.
"We must accept, then, the theory that on two different occasions within the last few days a giant scoop of some sort has been lowered from outer space, dragged across the earth's surface for several miles with incredible speed, and then jerked upward again, taking with it the matter it has cut from the earth! Just as we men sail over the surface of our waters and let down trawls to drag along their beds far below, so someone, something or things, exist on the surface of the atmospheric ocean at the bottom of which we live, and is letting down trawls to drag its bottom, the surface of the earth.
"This idea may seem fantastic to many. We human beings do not think of ourselves as living at the bottom of an ocean; but a little reflection will show that to be the case. The atmosphere is an ocean, fifty to sixty miles in depth, covering all the earth. Our knowledge of it indicates that, becoming more and more rarefied, it has a fairly definite surface or limit a few score miles above us, beyond which lies empty space.
"So there is a great air-ocean, and at its bottom we live. The pressure at its bottom is tremendous, even as the ocean's pressure is tremendous near its bottom. But like the creatures that live far down in the sea's depths, we are so habituated to that pressure, and our bodies braced internally against it, that we do not feel it. If we were to be taken into empty space our bodies would explode as would fish taken from the sea's depths. And in the same way, were creatures accustomed to empty space to enter our atmospheric ocean they would undoubtedly be crushed to death by its pressure.
"It is that which in my opinion, accounts for this trawling from above. It may be that for centuries, while we have pondered on the planets and stars, ships from those planets and stars have been coming and going far above us, filled with creatures who have evolved in space as we have evolved in air and fish have evolved in water. We would know no more, dream no more, of the existence of those space-ships than the creatures at the seas' bottoms know of the great liners going and coming far above them.
"But suppose some of these beings, possessing space-ships, become curious as to what lies at the bottom of this air-ocean of ours. They could not venture down into it. What would they do? Would they not let their ships cruise to and fro on the surface of the air-ocean, and let down great trawls to drag the bottom far below, just as we men trawl an ocean into whose depths we dare not descend.
"I believe that is what is now going on. Far above us, at the surface of our atmospheric ocean, there are cruising ships or a ship, which we cannot see, holding beings from some great planet of whose nature we dare not guess. They cannot descend into our atmosphere but they are letting down their great trawl from above to drag the bottom, which is earth's surface, to see what lies upon it!
"And make no mistake! These beings, who may be infinitely beyond us in intelligence and science, and who are undoubtedly completely different from us in every respect, care naught for the wreck and ruin they may be causing with their trawls. Any terror they might loose upon us would mean nothing to them. For to them, high above, we at the air-ocean's bottom are no more than the blind, strange creatures that we fish from our own watery seas' depths are to us."
It seems unnecessary to describe the turmoil that was aroused by this startling statement of Dr. Howard's. It is hard to expose the wilful blindness of a world that now looks back upon that blindness with something like terror.
Dr. Howard's theory became the target of every form and degree of criticism during the ensuing days. His idea was susceptible to ridicule, and the scientists whose meteor-theory he had questioned seized the opportunity. Did we live at the bottom of an ocean, an atmospheric sea? Were we merely crawling things upon earth's surface, to be fished for and examined curiously by unimaginable beings and vessels far above? The idea was too humorous. The public's indignation dissolved into laughter.
The Third
A very conceivable fact was brought forward to demolish the "ridiculous" theory. If space-ships were passing to and fro constantly outside our atmosphere, why had they never been glimpsed by astronomers? Dr. Howard replied promptly to this by giving a list of unknown objects sighted by astronomers in space in the last decades, by Sporer and Wartman and Grek and Ferguson and Loomis, and scores upon scores of others, objects seen against the sun or moon or planets, and which had never been identified.
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