“You are nervous, Stanton,” said Vanderpool coolly. “Get a grip on yourself, man, and look at the thing reasonably. If that thing has intelligence,” he added, “we will find some way to slay it.”
“Slay it!” exclaimed Stanton. “How can you expect to slay a mad creation that can leap through space, from world to world, like a wasp goes darting from flower to flower? How can you kill a thing which not only defies absolute zero but also the immeasurable heat which its friction with the atmosphere generated when it plunged toward the earth? How can you kill a thing that seems to have brains and nerves and bones and flesh of some strange substance that is harder and tougher than any earthly compound we have discovered?”
He stopped speaking for a moment. They listened to the voice that was broadcasting from the Worldwide Tower.
“––our planes have approached to within a few thousand feet of it and are playing their searchlights over the surface of the leviathan. It is not a meteorite of any kind that scientists have heretofore examined––its surface is smooth and unpitted and shows no apparent effect of the tremendous heat to which it was subjected during its drop through the atmosphere. It seems to be immune to gravity––its weight must be tremendous, and it is fully three-quarters of a mile long and between seven and eight hundred feet in diameter at its widest part, but it lies motionless––motionless––at about forty thousand feet.”
“It doesn’t appear now as if it would prove very dangerous,” remarked Dirk.
“––and people are warned again to maintain their composure and to go to their homes and remain there for their own protection and the protection of others. Riots and serious disturbances are reported from cities in all parts of the world––mobs are swarming the streets of Manhattan and the other boroughs of New York, and the police are finding it difficult to restrain the frenzied populations in other centers....”
There was a pause, then, of some moments, and then the voice of the broadcaster, vibrant with excitement, was heard again.
“––a plane has made a landing on the surface of the monstrosity, which, it seems, has not only lost its heat but is becoming decidedly cold––”