It was soon authoritatively announced that its diameter was not less than ninety or more than one hundred and sixty miles, and that, unless it was deflected from its course by the attraction of the moon or of some planet, it would strike the earth in the neighborhood of Galveston, Texas, with a velocity of nearly nineteen miles a second. What the precise result of this terrific concussion would be upon the earth and its movement, it was, of course, impossible for anybody to predict accurately or even imagine.
Would the earth be shattered, or would it resist the titanic blow of this monster from out of space? Would both bodies retain their integrity so that, one embedded in the other in a strange and horrible association, they would gyrate through eternity? What would the effect be upon the earth's orbit, its climatic conditions, and its life? What might happen at the worst, the mind of man refused to conjecture. But it was admitted that, beyond peradventure, the best that could be hoped for would be that the asteroid itself might suffer annihilation—in which event, its shattered carcass would lie smothering a thousand miles of the earth's surface, changing the latter's axis and sending it staggering along a new orbit under conditions which might render human life upon the globe impossible. And the blow itself! Could life continue after such a shock, which would be greater by ten thousand times than that of the most violent earthquake known in the history of man?
And in the midst of all this rumpus, Professor Benjamin Hooker suddenly stated that he purposed going out in the Flying Ring to meet the asteroid in its fall through space, attack it with the famous lavender ray that had disrupted the Atlas mountains, and either deflect it from its course so that it should not strike the earth at all or blow Medusa into smithereens! Yet his announcement that he intended to sally forth and slay the celestial monster—like a little scientific David—did not tend to assuage the universal terror in the slightest.
[PART II]
THE FLYING RING
I
Bentham T. Tassifer had had a very hard day indeed. He had discovered, to his disgust, that fear is a great leveler, and that the professional dignity of a deputy assistant solicitor at the Department of Justice counted for very little when the world was on the point of extinction. Like forty or fifty million other citizens of the United States, he had attempted to participate in the scramble to "get onto the lee side of the earth," but his efforts had been totally unavailing.
There wasn't a chance even for him—Bentham T. Tassifer—to get further from Washington than he could be taken in a taxi. To New York, perhaps! But New York had gone mad. Its harbor was blocked with liners, cruisers, tugs, and ferry-boats away out beyond Sandy Hook, so that there was no means of departure for those already loaded with their terrified human freight. Tassifer had expostulated, insisted, ordered, roared that it was imperative that he, if anybody, should at once secure passage for Europe. But berths on the liners sailing from Newfoundland were selling for twenty-five thousand dollars each. And he hadn't the money. He had thought of asking for a war-ship to take him away—like a recalled foreign ambassador—but he had been informed that they were all otherwise engaged. His feelings were deeply hurt. Also, he was—although he did not admit it—agonized with fear. He was only fifty-three. And he didn't want to die young.
He found his wife already at the supper-table and rather snippy; so he resolved to put on a brave front and laugh the matter off.