en by the light and
destroyed. There was only this motionless, upstanding beam, contacted
here with the Earth, streaming like an opalescent sword into the
starry sky.

5

I must paint now upon a broader canvas to depict the utter chaos of
this most memorable night in the history of the Earth, Venus and Mars.

From that point in the bowels of Greater New York, near the southern
tip of Manhattan Island, the mysterious light-beam shot up. It
screamed with its weird electrical voice for an hour, so penetrating a
sound that it was heard with the unaided ears as far away as
Philadelphia. A titan voice it was, shrill as if with triumph. There
were millions of people awakened by it this night; awakened and struck
with a chill of fear at this nameless siren shrilling its note of
danger. The sound gradually subsided; it seemed to reach its peak
within a few minutes of the appearance of the light, and within an
hour it had ceased.

But the light beam remained. Those who inspected it closely have given
a clear description of its aspect; but to this day its real nature has
never been determined.

It was a circular beam of about a ten-foot diameter. In color it was
vaguely opalescent, rather more brilliant at night than in the day.
With the coming of the sun it did not fade, but remained clearly
visible, with a spectrum sheen when the sunlight hit it so that it had
somewhat the appearance of a titanic, straightened rainbow.

From that contact point with our Earth, the inexplicable beam stood
vertically upward. It ate a vertical hole like a chimney up through
all the city levels, through the roof and into the sky. It had a
tremendous heat, communicable by contact so that it melted the city
above it with a clean round hole. But the heat was non-radiant.

I was found lying within fifty feet of the base of the beam. There had
been an explosion, so that Molo's metal room was gone; but from where
I lay there was only a warmth to be felt from the light.

Halsey's men found me within half an hour. I was unconscious but not
injured. I think now that the sound and not the light overcame me. I
presently recovered consciousness; for another hour I was blind and
deaf, but that quickly wore off. They rushed me through the chaos of
the city to the Tappan Headquarters. Grantline was there, but not
Snap. I sent them back when once I was fully conscious. They searched
all the vicinity at the base of the light. Snap, alive or dead, wa