Because Dr. Howard has asked me to prepare a concise account of the coming of the space-visitors, I, Stanley Ransome, have tried to write a simple record of my own contacts with them. Such a record will necessarily have errors enough; but it seems to me that the facts can be most clearly presented in such a fashion.
It was late in June that I first learned of the affair, through Dr. Howard himself. Dr. Jason Howard was holder of the chair of Aeronautical Science in Gotham University, and his contributions to the progress of aerial navigation had made him renowned in both scientific and commercial circles. For two years I had been an instructor and assistant in his department of the university.
Toward the end of that particular June afternoon he came into the laboratory where I was testing the tensile strength of a new alloy, and handed me a folded newspaper.
"You haven't seen this, Ransome?" he questioned. "They're shouting them all over the city."
"I hope you haven't ruined a completely good test to call my attention to the latest murder," I jested, as I unfolded the paper. But when my eyes took in the import of its black headlines my smile vanished. They shrieked their message in the tallest available type:
HUNDREDS SLAIN IN IOWA VILLAGE BY
CATACLYSM! MANNLERTOWN SCENE
OF MYSTERIOUS HORROR!
The story below the headlines described what was then known of the catastrophe which had occurred just before dawn on that day. Mannlertown, an agricultural center of considerable size in eastern Iowa, had been awakened a short hour before daylight by a colossal grinding and roaring sound coming from the east.
Before the startled, half-awakened people had been able to leap from their beds, however, the thing was upon them. It was horror, earthquake, annihilation, all in one, driving across the town with immense speed. A terrific crashing of shattered buildings spread through the community, and for an instant the gigantic grinding roar seemed receding westward. Then it had stopped completely.
It was several minutes before anyone in the stunned city ventured out into the streets, half-curious and half-terrified. But those who finally did so were paralyzed by astonishment and terror. For a colossal path of destruction had been cut straight across the city's northern section.