Miles J. Breuer

“ John, hardened to gruesome sights in the course of his medical work, came away from it trembling, wondering how Celestine would react.
A huge gate swung wide in the wall, and a massed army of Roman soldiers marched out. Bare thighs and bronze greaves, and strips of armor over their shoulders, plumed helmets, small, heavy shields; one company with short swords, the next with long spears; one solid company after another poured out of the gates and marched forth against their attackers.
The Farmers and Indians and other dispossessed citizens opened fire on the massed troops with deadly effect. ”

“ The Roman soldiers quailed as they saw the big car hurtling toward them, but they had no time to retreat. The bumper struck the mass of men with a thud and a crash of metal. Dark spatters appeared on the windshield and things crunched sickeningly. The car swerved and swung, dizzily, and John's forehead bumped against the glass ahead of him, but his hands hung to the wheel. The fenders crumpled and the wheels bumped over soft things. Just as he thought the car would overturn, he found himself flying smoothly down a clear road ”

“ John eventually found himself in his bed at about three o'clock in the morning, and even then too exhausted to sleep. Questions kept running through his mind.
The creature's claim that it was a Martian, made things more mysterious instead of less so. It was not possible to transport these hundreds of thousands of men from Mars. And the buildings and chariots and horses. It would have taken an enormous tonnage of vessels, whose arrival certainly would have been noticed. And to think that Mars was inhabited by Roman soldiers was a most preposterous and childish notion. ”

“ The lieutenant looked like a man on the side-lines of a football game. He flew his plane low and gazed breathlessly at the combat below. For it was an exciting one.
The khaki-clad soldiers wanted prisoners alive. But the Roman soldiers understood nothing of the threat of the gun. Rifles and pistols were leveled, but served in no wise to stop them from making a fierce attack on the Americans with swords and spears. To save their own lives, the latter had to stop and shoot the Romans down.
All but a half a dozen armored men now lay flat on the ground. ”

“ The last man in the countryside must have been aroused.
The men climbed out of John's car and repeated their order that he drive to Omaha and tell what he saw.
A ragged skirmish line was closing in rapidly toward the big gray wall, that stretched for a mile from north to south. Along the top of it, after the manner of sentries, paced little dark figures. John and Celestine were amazed to see that they, too, were Roman soldiers. The sunlight glinted from their armor; the plumes on their helmets stood out against the sky ”

“ The group on the roof started in alarm, but the wizened little Haven regained his composure first.
"Who and what are you?" he exclaimed.
"You ask as though you had a right to demand," the metallic voice droned. "But it pleases me to inform you, earth men, that I am a being of the planet Mars. Tired of the monotony of life in our dull world, I decided to emigrate. I came peacefully."
"Peacefully!" exclaimed the lieutenant, but the metallic voice went on as though he had not spoken:
"I harmed no one until your people attacked my walled enclosure and destroyed my defenders. They have suffered. ”

“ The lieutenant said to John.
"Me?" gasped John.
"Don't you want to?" the lieutenant asked. "Men are scarce. I need help. You're the closest. And you've got a level head."
"Just give me a chance," John said eagerly.
The lieutenant spent fifteen minutes in a telephone booth. Then they dashed in a motorcycle to the city landing field where the plane lay. They made the short hop to the Army flying field. This all took time; but when they taxied towards the Army hangars, there stood men ready to load things into the plane. ”

“ John noted that the voice came from a metal diaphragm among the apparatus on the table, to which the cords led from the creature in the jar.
"I cannot understand it. When I planned to migrate to the Earth, I came here and remained many years, studying many men, their bodies, their language, their methods of fighting—fighting was something new to me, and I enjoyed it; we do not have fighting on Mars. ”

“ I devised a suit in which I could stand in your atmospheric pressure, heat, and moisture; methods of transporting the nuclei of my apparatus to the Earth and growing them into proper bulk when I arrived, so that I might carry only very little with me. I was especially interested in devising methods of growing human beings on suitable culture media. I developed men who were just a little larger and a little stronger than yours ”

“ They give me the impression of being feeble-minded."
"Good fighting machines," John remarked.
When he got back to his room, the radio was urging everybody to go to sleep and rest. There were guards detailed for necessary night work, and there was no danger. Freshness and strength would be needed tomorrow. But John was too excited following his strenuous day, and knew that sleep would be impossible. He kept on listening to the news from the radio, which was trying to solve the mystery of these Roman hordes. ”

“ It fell on the deck and knocked over several men. The lieutenant was putting height and distance between themselves and the galley as rapidly as possible, and rightly. In another moment there was a burst of flame and black smoke. Blotches of things flew out sidewards from it, and a dull roar came up to them. For a few minutes a mangled mass of wreckage continued the galley's course down the river. ”

“ They grow by simultaneous fission of all somatic cells."
"So they are not really human?" Haven seemed much relieved at the idea that the destruction might not have been that of human life.
"That depends on what you mean by human," the dried-up Martian said, by means of his machine. ”