Extraterrestrial

“ Occasionally the sight is so extraordinary that he insists it could not have been a mere meteor but must have been some weird spacecraft. Airmen of unquestioned competence have made this mistake, sometimes because they more than half believed in extraterrestrial visitors, but more often because they knew less than they supposed about meteors. ”

“ This goal was chosen because only through the development of extraterrestrial resources can future space activities be pursued independently of terrestrial resource limitations and management constraints. ”

“ There aren't many forms of extraterrestrial life that can accommodate themselves to Earth's conditions, but there are spots that go out of their way to provide suitable conditions for anything that comes along, and this was one of them. ”

“ Extraterrestrial occupant emerges, extends friendly greetings, confides his wish to help the human race solve its problems, takes Earthling for a cruise to another planet, brings Earthling200 back. After promising to maintain a sort of guardianship over the earth, the visitor says farewell and flies back to his home planet. ”

“ Now the attacking ships were leaping up toward us, flashing up lightning-like with ghostly beams of death whirling and stabbing about and toward us, and now, over the wild clamor of sudden battle in the hull beneath, I heard the great cry of Jhul Din, beside me.
"Space-ships in thousands, and they're attacking us! They've come from somewhere toward our galaxy—have come out of outer space itself to attack our universe!" ”

“ We knew, even as we gazed, what great preparations were going on in that dying universe for the conquest of our own galaxy, what mighty efforts the serpent-races there were making, to complete their vast fleet and the strange, huge weapon which the records we had captured had mentioned, so that they could flash through the void to pour down on our galaxy. The knowledge held us wrapped in thought as our great ship raced on, still holding to its tremendous utmost velocity, rocking and swaying a little as it plunged through the vast ether-currents which swirled about us here in outer space. ”

“ You know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched; no one on earth dreamed of that unerring missile.
That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet. ”

“ Nobody had ever seen an Alien—they invariably exploded to dust before they could be captured—but the horror of their senseless brutality was revealed in the hideous human corpses they left behind them.
Norden had been drafted while there was still optimism. Men could build a hundred ships to the Aliens' one, equally radar-proof, free from danger of magnetic or electronic detection, and nearly invisible in space. ”

“ Earthling sailors, white, negro, Chinese and Eurasian, most of them in the drab blue of space-ship crews, but each with a ray-gun strapped to his waist; short, thin-faced Venusians, shifty-eyed, cunning, with the planet's universal weapon, the skewer-blade, sheathed at their sides; tall, sweaty Martians, powerful brutes, wearing the air-rarifying mask that was necessary for them in Satellite III's Earthlike atmosphere. Business men and sight-seers, except the most bold, were apt to stay in their houses after their first visit to the Street of the Sailors. ”

“ To understand the events which led to The War, it is best that we briefly review the history of space travel by Earthians. In the year 2002, the six remaining nations of the Earth formed the Federation to abolish war and to enable the people of your planet to put forth a united effort to discover the secret of interplanetary travel. This endeavour, in itself, was considered by our leaders to be most creditable. But the entire pattern of your development, observed for many centuries, instilled seeds of doubt in our minds. ”

“ The Aliens work by mental control. We've had everyone brought into this building, have double-checked them, and have sealed the doors with a time lock. It turned out that one of the men was missing—we'd only imagined he was among us when we assembled.
"We scoured the planet before we landed and saw no signs of the Aliens. We've seen no Alien ships land since we arrived. We have no idea where they are, except that there's one sizable area not far from here that we can't seem to penetrate. The only evidence we have that the Aliens arrived after we did is that they told us so. ”

“ Mighty battles between huge space armadas were but skirmishes in the galactic war, as the invincible aliens savagely advanced and the Earth team hurled bolt after bolt of pure ravening energy—until it appeared that the universe itself might end in one final flare of furious torrential power.... ”

“ From all the suns about us, our space-chart showed, great masses of interstellar ships were also flashing inward into the galaxy, the first exodus of the galaxy's people from the outer suns and worlds, driven inward by the fear of these mighty invaders from the outer void who had already destroyed the galaxy's fleet, and were preparing now to grasp all our universe. ”

“ Let me remind you that two weeks ago I didn't even know Earth existed, and since accidentally happening across your sun system and learning of your trouble I have had my entire trading fleet of a hundred ships in orbit about this planet while all your multitudinous political subdivisions have filled the air with talk and wrangle.
"I am sorry for Earth, but my allegiance is to my fleet and I cannot remain longer than seven more days and risk being caught up in your destruction. Now, either you accept my offer to evacuate as many humans as my ships will carry, or you don't." ”

“ We will make these globes in countless thousands, each with its charge, and release them. Each globe will have a device that will repel any other, so that they do not detonate each other. We will sow the surface of our atmosphere with these deadly air-mines! Sooner or later the ship or ships cruising to and fro on our atmosphere's surface will strike one and will be destroyed by its detonating charge. In this way, and only in this way, can we fight back against the beings from space who are releasing this horror on us! ”

“ There's no air beyond. Alien ship!"
He jumped through the seal. His hands swept up the tube that was to be a weapon, and his eyes darted to the screen. The pip was bigger now, and at maximum brightness. The Alien ship must be only tens of thousands of miles above, braking down to attack with deadly precision.
Less than a hundred feet away, the two humans waited, at the mercy of any energy that might spill from his weapon! He would have to score with a perfect piece of marksmanship, with all the radiation directed in a straight line. ”

“ And now, as our ships slanted still down over and toward them, they became more and more numerous to my eyes, a vast, far-flung swarm of fully five thousand gleaming points, spaced a thousand miles from one another, and racing on through space in a great triangular or wedge-shaped formation, the triangle's apex toward the galaxy ahead. The light with which each gleamed made the whole vast swarm seem like a throng of tiny ghosts of stars, driving through the void, though I knew that metallic meteors sometimes shone so with light reflected from the stars. ”

“ But—Europa, you said? That's kind of dangerous, isn't it? Our attempting to land there, I mean."
"No more dangerous," I told him, "than attempting to brush the teeth of a sabre-toothed tiger. Any time a ship gets within umpteen miles of Jupiter, pal, it's hold your hat and breath and give the prayerbook a quick riffle. That hunk of red goo has gravitational power—spelled with a capital, 'Phew!' More spaceships than you have corpuscles have fallen within old Jupe's drag, crashed on the planet. And not a man has ever yet managed to escape, get back to tell us what it's like. ”

“ Gripped tightly still by the serpent-creatures, we were thrust down a narrow stair and into an empty little storeroom beneath the pilot room, in its metal walls but a single space-window giving a view forward. The door snapped shut as the last of us were thrust inside, and then our captors had left us, the lashings that had snared our ship were cast loose by the ships on either side, and as the humming of the generators waxed loud again our ship and those about it began to move once more through space.
"They're heading now toward the dying universe!" ”

“ For the moment, as the two fleets rushed thus side by side toward the galaxy's suns, so narrow was the gap between their flashing two lines that it seemed they must needs annihilate each other with their mighty weapons. Plainly visible in space beside us raced the line of the serpent-fleet, its beams stabbing thick toward our own ships, and in that wild moment ships behind and about our own were reeling unguided away by scores as the pale beams swept through them. Into one another and into untouched ships about them they crashed, whirling crazily in all directions ”

“ Not all spectacular UFOs are meteors, of course, any more than they are all planets or balloons or rockets. Sudden brilliant illuminations of the night sky can have any one of a dozen or more explanations. The atmosphere is crowded with potential Unknowns, more than at any time in man’s history. The air surrounding our planet plays host not only to meteors and fireballs, birds and insects, but also to military and commercial planes, private planes, jets, helicopters, weather balloons, experimental rockets, and an ever-growing number of artificial satellites. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A manned space craft might make a survey at night, or in daytime with clouds near by to shield it. By hovering over the planet's aircraft bases, the explorers would get most of the picture -- and also decide whether the bases were suitable for their own use later.
IF THE appearance of our "observer" units and space craft caused too violent reactions on the planet, the explorers would probably withdraw to their orbiting space vehicle and either wait for a lull or else start the long trip back to Earth. ”

“ To right and left, like light, drove the deadly weapon-rays of our massed space-fliers as we seized the opportunity and leaped upon the Neptunians. Ample was the revenge we had upon them in that moment, since the concentrated rays tore through and wrecked hundreds of their own cylinders as we sprang upon them! Fleeing from before us for the moment, flashing away toward giant Neptune's tremendous green disk ahead, they strove to reform while we leaped after them and harried them with every weapon-ray which our space-fliers could emit. ”

“ We have learned since that the space ship of the invaders dropped silently down into the valley the night before the moon turned green and established the camp as a sort of outpost and observatory. They left two of their number there as pioneers, then the rest of them departed in the space ship for their present post up near the moon.
"Ruth and I were revived only that the two invaders in the camp might question us regarding life on this planet. They have a science that is based upon principles as utterly strange and incomprehensible to us as ours probably is to them. ”

“ Do you think we could ever extradite him from such a planet? And even if by some incredible stroke of fortune one of our agents happened to land on the right planet, in which city would he begin his search. Or suppose our quarry lands only on uninhabited planets? We can't very well alert the whole galaxy in the search for just one man. ”

“ These ships are apparently capable of immense speeds and are armed with a form of death-beam unfamiliar to us, but extremely deadly in operation. On discovering these ships we were attacked by them and all of my squadron except my own ship destroyed. Our own ship is now being chased inward toward the galaxy, heading in the general direction of the Cancer cluster, and though the swarm is gradually overhauling us we may be able to escape. From the size, number and deadly armament of these alien ships it is apparent that they contemplate a general attack upon our universe. ”

“ Defeat at the hands of the defeated. The damned Martians who came back after he had driven them halfway across their damned arid planet. The Jupiter Satellite Confederation landing endlessly on the home planet, sending their vast armadas of spacecraft daily and nightly to turn his mighty cities into dust. ”

“ Faster than the mighty spaceship the awful Thing caught it in mighty talons that ripped through solid relux. Scratching, fluttering enormous, blood-red wings, the silvery claws tore away great masses of relux, sending them flying into space. ”

“ How would you feel being trapped on a rock less than half a mile across, without any weapons, with your radio shot to hell, without enough fuel in your ship to get you half way to any other asteroid, when you knew that around on the night side were maybe a dozen armed men, claim jumpers, ready to kill you on sight? ”

“ Norden could feel dread knot his mind as he watched the tiny blue speck against the black sky. It was a senseless, unnatural emotion, and he knew it. The searing blue point of flame could only mean that the approaching ship was powered by atomic rockets—and the Aliens drove their ships in some mysterious manner, without any kind of reaction motor. The object coming down toward the tiny asteroid could only be of terrestrial origin, powered by a human device. ”