The War of the Worlds: Level 6

By H.G Wells

This is a thrilling science fiction story about the invasion ofEarth by Martians. An unidentified object is found as fearsomeMartians appear and start to attack.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Compass Publishing
• Release date: Feb 24, 2009
• ISBN: 9781599663401

Book preview

The Coming of the Martians

The Eve of the War

No one would have believed that late in the nineteenth century, this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man. Yet, they were as human as us. As men went about their daily activities, they were carefully watched and studied.

Totally satisfied, men were quite sure that no other planets had life on them or could ever threaten humans. In those days, people thought that even if there were men on Mars, they would be less developed than human beings. Yet, across the gap of space,cold and unfriendly minds considered to be no more advanced than farm animals regarded this planet with jealous eyes and slowly and surely made their plans against us.

The planet Mars turns about the sun at an average distance of one-hundred-and-forty-million miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is scarcely half of that received by Earth. It has been suggested that it is older than our world and that life on Mars must have begun even before Earth had ceased to be anything more than hot liquid. The fact that it is seven times smaller than Earth must have hurried its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary to support life.

The cooling of Mars is extensive. Its physical state is still a mystery, but we know now that even in its hottest region the midday temperature is not as warm as Earth’s coldest winter. Its air is much thinner than ours, and its oceans now only cover a third of its surface. As its slow seasons change, huge ice blocks melt and repeatedly flood the warmer zones. The cold climate and floods present a daily problem for the people of Mars.

Their immediate needs have made them resourceful and determined. Looking across only thirty-five-million miles of space, they see our warm Earth with its damp green forests and dark blue oceans as a place of hope.

Man already admits that life is a constant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this is also the belief of the Martians. In contrast to the life on Earth, their world has become very cold, and to attack us is their only escape from the destruction that approaches them.

Before we judge them too severely, we must remember what damage man has caused, not only to our animals, but to the races of people we have regarded as being less important than ourselves. Can we really blame the Martians for doing the same thing?

The Martians seem to have calculated their approach with amazing accuracy. Had our instruments been suitable, we might have seen the coming trouble early in the nineteenth century. Scientists watched the red planet but failed to understand what they were seeing and recording. All that time, the Martians must have been getting ready.

During the attack of 1894, a great light was seen on the visible part of the Martian disk. I think that this glow may have been the formation of the huge gun from which their shots were fired at us, because unusual markings were seen near the site during the next two attacks.

The trouble burst on us six years ago now. As Mars approached the attack, great excitement was caused with the sighting of a huge volume of glowing gas on the planet. It had occurred before midnight of the twelfth, and the instrument in use showed a mass of flaming gas moving quickly toward Earth. This jet of fire had become invisible shortly after twelve.

Yet, only a little note appeared in the newspaper the next day. The world knew nothing about one of the most serious dangers that ever threatened the human race. Had I not met Ogilvy, the scientist, I would not have known anything myself. He was very excited and invited me to keep watch with him that night.

I still remember that watch very clearly: the black and silent room, the lamp throwing a pale glow on the floor in the corner, and the sound of the clock on the wall. Looking into the night sky, we saw the small, not quite round, planet swimming in a circle of deep blue. It seemed so tiny and still, like a faintly marked dot of silver stripes.

Mars was more than forty-million miles away, but few people realize the size of the huge, empty space in which our planets live. Flying quickly and invisibly toward me, across that remarkable distance, came The Object. It was that deadly missile that was to bring so much trouble and death to Earth.

That night, there was another rush of gas from the distant planet. Just before midnight, I saw a red flash at the edge of the outline. Ogilvy and I changed places, and he gasped at the column of gas that shot toward us.

The same night, another invisible missile started on its way to Earth from Mars. I did not suspect the meaning of the minute glow I had seen and what it would mean to me later. Down below in the darkness were hundreds of innocent people sleeping in peace.

Ogilvy laughed at the idea of Mars having people who were signaling us. He thought that heavy showers of meteorites might be falling on the planet or that a huge explosion was in progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that Earth and Mars had formed in the same way as each other.

The chances that there are men on Mars are a million to one, he said.

Hundreds of people saw the flame that night and for the following ten nights. No one could explain why the flame ceased after the tenth night. Thick clouds of smoke were visible as they spread through the planet’s clear atmosphere and covered the more familiar features.

At last, even the daily papers wrote about explosions on Mars. All through this, the missiles the Martians had fired at us rushed through space toward Earth. Now it seems amazing to me that people lived their daily lives without fear, despite the terrible danger hanging over us.

Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning as a flame, about ninety miles high in the atmosphere. Denning, our greatest authority on meteorites, thought it fell to the ground about one hundred miles to the east.

I was at home and saw nothing of this strangest of all objects that came to Earth from outer space. Some say it traveled with a hissing sound. Many people must have seen it fall and thought it was another meteorite, but no one seems to have looked for the fallen mass that night.

The next morning, Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting star, thought a meteorite had landed somewhere on the common near Horsell.

The Object itself lay almost entirely buried in sand and looked like a huge cylinder coated with gray scales. Ogilvy approached the mass, surprised at the size and shape, since most meteorites are almost round. It was still too hot to touch from its flight through space. From inside the cylinder, he heard a noise that he thought was due to the cooling of its surface, but he did not consider then that the object might be hollow.

He stood at the edge of the pit, staring at the cylinder’s unusual shape and color and wondering why it had arrived at this time. The only sounds were faint movements from inside the cylinder. Suddenly, he noticed that some of the gray ash that covered the meteorite was falling off the circular edge of the end. It was dropping off in sheets and falling down on the sand. A large piece dropped off and fell with a sharp noise that terrified him.

For a minute, he scarcely realized what this meant and climbed down into the pit to see the cylinder more clearly. Even then, he thought that the cooling of the body of the mass might account for the falling ash, but why was the ash only falling from the end of the cylinder?

Then he noticed that the circular top of the cylinder was turning slowly on its body. It was such a gradual movement that he discovered it only through observing that a black mark that had been near him was now at the other side of the circle. Then he saw the mark move forward an inch or two. At once, he realized that the cylinder was hollow, with an end that screwed out! Something inside the cylinder was turning the top!

The Cylinder Opens

Good heavens! said Ogilvy. There’s a man in it half burned to death! He’s trying to escape!

Immediately, he linked The Object with the flash on Mars.

The thought of the trapped creature was so disturbing that he forgot the heat and went to help turn the cylinder. Luckily, the dull glow stopped him before he could burn his hands on the hot metal. Hesitating, he climbed out of the pit and set off running quickly into Woking. He met a farmer and tried to make him understand, but Ogilvy’s story and appearance were so wild that the man simply drove on. He was equally unsuccessful with the owner of the hotel, who thought he was mad and tried to lock him behind the bar. That attempt calmed Ogilvy, and he was relieved when he saw Henderson, the London journalist.

"Henderson, you saw