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02 - The Falling Star - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter two. The falling Star then came the night of
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  Speaker 1: the first falling Star. It was seen early in the morning,
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  Speaker 1: rushing over Winchester eastward a line of flame high in
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  Speaker 1: the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it and taken it
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  Speaker 1: for an ordinary falling star. Albin described it as leaving
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  Speaker 1: a greenish streak behind it that glowed for some seconds. Denning,
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  Speaker 1: our greatest authority on meteorites, stated that the height of
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  Speaker 1: its first appearance was about ninety or one hundred miles.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed to him that it fell to Earth about
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  Speaker 1: one hundred miles east of him. I was at home
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  Speaker 1: at that hour and writing in my study, And although
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  Speaker 1: my French windows faced towards Ottershaw and the blind was
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  Speaker 1: up for I loved in those days to look up
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  Speaker 1: at the night sky. I saw nothing of it. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: this strangest of all things that ever came to Earth
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  Speaker 1: from outer space must have fallen while I was sitting there,
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  Speaker 1: visible to me. Had I only looked up as it passed.
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  Speaker 1: Some of those who saw its flight say it traveled
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  Speaker 1: with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that.
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  Speaker 1: Many people in Berkshire, Surrey and Middlesex must have seen
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  Speaker 1: the fall of it, and at most have thought that
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  Speaker 1: another meteorite had descended. No one seemed to have troubled
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  Speaker 1: to look for the fallen mass that night, But very
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  Speaker 1: early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the
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  Speaker 1: shooting star, and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay
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  Speaker 1: somewhere on the common between hawsel Otter Shore and Woking,
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  Speaker 1: rose early with the idea of finding it. Find it
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  Speaker 1: he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the
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  Speaker 1: sand pits. An enormous hole had been made by the
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  Speaker 1: impact of the projectile, and the sand and gravel had
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  Speaker 1: been flung violently in every redirection over the heath, forming
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  Speaker 1: heaps visible a mile and a half away. The heather
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  Speaker 1: was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose
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  Speaker 1: against the dawn. The thing itself lay almost entirely buried
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  Speaker 1: in sand amidst the scattered splinters of a fir tree.
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  Speaker 1: It had shivered to fragments in its descent. The uncovered
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  Speaker 1: part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over
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  Speaker 1: and its outline softened by a thick, scaly, dun colored incrustation.
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  Speaker 1: It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached
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  Speaker 1: the mass, surprised at the size, and more so at
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  Speaker 1: the shape, since most meteorites around it more or less completely.
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  Speaker 1: It was, however, still so hot from its flight through
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  Speaker 1: the air as to forbid his near approach. A stirring
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  Speaker 1: noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the unequal cooling
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  Speaker 1: of its surface, for at that time it had not
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  Speaker 1: occurred to him that it might be hollow. He remained
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  Speaker 1: standing at the edge of the pit that the thing
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  Speaker 1: had made for itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished
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  Speaker 1: chiefly at its unusual shape and color, and dimly perceiving
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  Speaker 1: even then some evidence of design in its arrival. The
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  Speaker 1: early morning was wonderfully still, and the sun just clearing
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  Speaker 1: the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already warm. He did
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  Speaker 1: not remember hearing any birds that morning. There was certainly
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  Speaker 1: no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint
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  Speaker 1: movements from within the sindery cylinder. He was all alone
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  Speaker 1: on the common. Then suddenly he noticed with a start
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  Speaker 1: that some of the gray clinker, the ashy incrustation that
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  Speaker 1: covered the meteorite, was falling off the circular edge of
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  Speaker 1: the end. It was dropping off in flakes and raining
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  Speaker 1: down upon the sand. A large piece suddenly came off
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  Speaker 1: and fell with a sharp noise that brought his heart
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  Speaker 1: into his mouth. For a minute, he scarcely realized what
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  Speaker 1: this meant, and although the heat was excessive, he clambered
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  Speaker 1: down into the pit close to the bulk to see
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  Speaker 1: the thing more clearly. He fancied even then that the
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  Speaker 1: cooling of the body might account for this, But what
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  Speaker 1: disturbed that idea was the fact that the ash was
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  Speaker 1: falling only from the end of the cylinder. And then
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  Speaker 1: he perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of the
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  Speaker 1: cylinder was rotating on its body. It was such a
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  Speaker 1: gradual movement that he discovered it only through noticing that
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  Speaker 1: a black mark that had been near him five minutes
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  Speaker 1: ago was now at the other side of the circumference.
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  Speaker 1: Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated, until he
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  Speaker 1: heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark
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  Speaker 1: jerk forward an inch or so. Then the thing came
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  Speaker 1: upon him in a flash. The cylinder was artificial hollow
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  Speaker 1: with an end that screwed out. Something within the cylinder
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  Speaker 1: was unscrewing the top. Good Heavens said Ogilvy, as a
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  Speaker 1: man in it, men in it half roasted to death.
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  Speaker 1: Trying to escape at once. With a quick mental leap,
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  Speaker 1: he linked the thing with the flash upon Mars. The
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  Speaker 1: thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to him
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  Speaker 1: that he forgot the heat and went forward to the
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  Speaker 1: cylinder to help turn, But luckily the dull radiation arrested
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  Speaker 1: him before he could burn his hands on the still
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  Speaker 1: glowing metal. At that he stood irresolute for a moment,
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  Speaker 1: then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off,
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  Speaker 1: running wildly into Woking. The time then must have been
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  Speaker 1: somewhere about six o'clock. He met a wagoner and tried
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  Speaker 1: to make him understand, but the tale he told and
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  Speaker 1: his appearance were so wild his hat had fallen off
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  Speaker 1: in the pit that the man simply drove on. He
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  Speaker 1: was equally unsuccessful with the pot man, who was just
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  Speaker 1: unlocking the doors of the public house by hawsel Bridge.
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  Speaker 1: The fellow thought he was a lunatic at large, and
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  Speaker 1: made an unsuccessful attempt to shut him into the tap room.
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  Speaker 1: That sobered him a little, and when he saw Henderson,
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  Speaker 1: the London journalist, in his garden, he called over the
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  Speaker 1: palings and made himself understood Henderson, He called, you saw
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  Speaker 1: that shooting star last night? Well, said Henderson. It's out
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  Speaker 1: on Horsel Common. Now, good, lord, said Henderson. Fallen meteorite.
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  Speaker 1: That's good. But it's something more than a meteorite. It's
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  Speaker 1: a cylinder, an artificial cylinder. Man, and there's something inside.
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  Speaker 1: Henderson stood up with his spade in his hand. What's that?
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  Speaker 1: He said, He was deaf in one ear. Ogilvy told
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  Speaker 1: him all that he had seen. Henderson was a minute
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  Speaker 1: or so taking it in. Then he dropped his spade,
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  Speaker 1: snatched up his jacket, and came out into the road.
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  Speaker 1: The two men hurried back at once to the common
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  Speaker 1: and found the cylinder still lying in the same position,
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  Speaker 1: but now the sounds inside had ceased, and a thin
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  Speaker 1: circle of bright metal showed between the top and the
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  Speaker 1: body of the cylinder. Air was either entering or escaping
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  Speaker 1: at the rim with a thin sizzling sound. They listened,
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  Speaker 1: wrapped on the scaly burnt metal with a stick, and
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  Speaker 1: meeting with no response, they both concluded the man or
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  Speaker 1: men inside must be insensible or dead. Of course, the
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  Speaker 1: two were quite unable to do anything. They shouted consolate
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  Speaker 1: and promises, and went off back to the town again
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  Speaker 1: to get help. One can imagine them covered with sand,
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  Speaker 1: excited and disordered, running up the little street in the
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  Speaker 1: bright sunlight, just as the shop folks were taking down
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  Speaker 1: their shutters and people were opening their bedroom windows. Henderson
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  Speaker 1: went into the railway station at once in order to
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  Speaker 1: telegraph the news to London. The newspaper articles had prepared
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  Speaker 1: men's minds for the reception of the idea. By eight
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  Speaker 1: o'clock a number of boys and unemployed men had already
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  Speaker 1: started for the common to see the dead men from Mars.
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  Speaker 1: That was the form the story took. I heard of
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  Speaker 1: it first from my newspaper boy about a quarter to nine,
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  Speaker 1: when I went out to get my daily chronicle. I
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  Speaker 1: was naturally startled and lost no time in going out
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  Speaker 1: and across the Ottershore Bridge to the sand pits. End
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  Speaker 1: of Section two.