The Earth In Peril

by Donald A Wollheim (ed)

  The cops’ reaction was typical of the way the public took it. Newspapers—which had reveled wildly in the shining domes story and less so in the black spheres story—were cautious. Some went overboard and gave the black pits a ride, in the old style, but they didn’t pick up any sales that way. People declared that the press was insulting their intelligence, and also they were bored with marvels.

  The few papers who played up the pits were soundly spanked in very dignified editorials printed by other sheets which played down the pits.

  At World Wireless, we sent out a memo to all stringers: “File no more enterpriser dispatches on black pit story. Mail queries should be sent to regional desk if a new angle breaks in your territory.” We got about ten mail queries, mostly from journalism students acting as string men, and we turned them all down. All the older hands got the pitch, and didn’t bother to file it to us when the town drunk or the village old maid loudly reported that she saw a pit open up on High Street across from the drug store. They knew it was probably untrue, and that furthermore nobody cared.

  I wrote Benson about all this, and humbly asked him what his prediction for next summer was. He replied, obviously having the time of his life, that there would be at least one more summer phenomenon like the last three, and possibly two more—but none after that.

  It’s so easy now to reconstruct, with our bitterly-earned knowledgel

  Any youngster could whisper now of Benson: “Why, the damned fooll Couldn’t anybody with the brains of a louse see that they wouldn’t keep it up for two years?” One did whisper that to me the other day, when I told this story to him. And I whispered back that, far from being a damned fool, Benson was the one person on the face of the Earth, as far as I know, whe>had bridged with logic the widely-separated phenomena with which this reminiscence deals.

  Another year passed. I gained three pounds, drank too much, rowed incessantly with my staff and got a tidy raise. A telegrapher took a swing at me midway through the office Christmas party, and I fired him. My wife and the kids didn’t arrive in April when I expected them. I phoned Florida, and she gave me some excuse or other about missing the plane. After a few more missed planes and a few more phone calls, she got around to telling me that she didn’t want to come back. That was okay with me. In my own intuitive way, I knew that the upcoming silly season was more important than who stayed married to whom.

  In July, a dispatch arrived by wire while a new man was working the night desk. It was from Hood River, Oregon. Our stringer there reported that more than one hundred “green capsules” about 50 yards long had appeared in and around an apple orchard. The new desk man was not so new that he did not recall the downhold policy on silly-season items. He killed it, but left it on the spike for my amused inspection in the morning. I suppose exactly the same thing happened in every wire service newsroom in the region. I rolled in at 10:30 and riffled through the stuff on the spike. When I saw the “green capsules” dispatch I tried to phone Portland, but couldn’t get a connection. Then the phone buzzed and a correspondent of ours in Seattle began to yell at me, but the line went dead.

  I shrugged and phone Benson, in Fort Hicks. He was at the police station, and asked me: “Is this it?”

  “It is,” I told him. I read him the telegram from Hood River and told him about the line trouble to Seattle.

  “So,” he said wonderingly, “I called the turn, didn’t I?"

  “Called what turn?”

  “On the invaders. I don’t know who they are—but' it’s the story of the boy who cried wolf. Only this time, the wolves realized—” Then the phone went dead.

  But he was right.

  The people of the world were the sheep.

  We newsmen—radio, TV, press and wire services—were the boy, who should have been ready to sound the alarm.

  But the cunning wolves had tricked us into sounding the alarm so many times that the villagers were weary, and would not come when there was real peril.

  The wolves who then were burning their way through the Ozarks, utterly without opposition, the wolves were the Martians under whose yoke and lash we now endure our miserable existences.

  THE PLANT REVOLT BY EDMOND HAMILTON

  IT IS WHEN I begin this record of the terrof that descended upon man and the world of man that I comprehend best the impossibility of ever completely recording that terror. It is when I begin this account of the doom that threatened all our race that I understand best how little our race, of' itself, was able to oppose that doom. There is, in the whole story, none of that dramatic sequence of threat and attack and reply that might be expected in such an epic of struggling species. Rather it seems, now, hardly more than a blind welter of giant forces in which is emphasized nothing but the unimportance and helplessness of those who were the final victors.

  It is only, therefore, because I, Edward Harley, saw • as much of the action of that terror as was seen by any man, that I have taken it upon me to write this record. Two years ago, when there came the first reports of that which was to crumble our world, I was chief morphologist of the botany department of the University of Philadelphia. At the time, of course, there was no thought of the real meaning and importance of those reports. Even I, who by reason of my chosen science could comprehend their strangeness better than most men, had surely no thought of any danger connected with them.

  Those first heralds of the approaching doom appeared for the most part as inconspicuous itertis, published in the Philadelphia and other newspapers early in May. They consisted of reports from a number of gardeners and farmers near the village of Hartville, in the central Pennsylvanian mountains, regarding the curious behavior of the early plantings there. Seeds planted a short time before, they reported, of numberless different varieties of plant, fruit and vegetable, had grown during that time with a very surprising rapidity, sending up shoots that would ordinarily not have resulted from a month’s growth. This, while extraordinary enough, was not the most astounding feature of the reports, however. That was the fact that these phenomenal shoots and seedlings were almost without roots whatever, and that although stems and shoots continued to develop prodigiously they showed no inclination whatever to develop roots.

  It was, certainly, a phenomenon surprising enough, coming from an area of several square miles around Hartville, and it was made the more surprising by the fact that within the next few days similar reports began to come in from growers over half the eastern United States, describing a phenomenal growth of seedlings and a condition of rootlessness exactly similar. By the end of the week the thing had been reported also from England and from California, from Sweden and from Australia, and it began to be realized, by the great press agencies, that the condition was worldwide, whatever its cause. And though but small interest was taken in the matter by the world’s city-dwellers, whose knowledge of and interest in all things rural was slight indeed, by those in farming and suburban regions and by botanists it was accorded great attention and discussion.

  For by then the thing had become in all truth amazing enough. Not only was the astounding and unnatural growth of rootless shoots continuing, it was reported, but instead of developing leaves as they should their hot-house growth was resulting only in strange, flexible tendrils, while the plants, of all kinds, seemed to have a great tendency to spread out, to grow horizontally instead of vertically. And, more astonishing still, plants and shrubs and even small trees already growing seemed affected by the same phenomenon, their roots slowly withering away, slowly disappearing, their growth many times accelerated, and their leaves giving way to strange tendrils that pushed forth from axis and stems. Surely no such spring had ever been seen by men, and the climax was capped, some ten days after the first reports, when it was made known that observations showed the more rootless of the plants to have developed a very slow movement or power of movement, an infinitely slow crawling across the ground by means of stems and tendrils.

  It is not wonderful that those later reports should have obta
ined but small credit save among eye-witnesses. Even my own reaction to them was that which I expressed to Dr. Herman Holm, my superior in the university’s botany department, in response to his mention of them.

  “Plants losing their roots and moving!” I scoffed, as we passed out of the building one moming, and he spoke of them. “That’s your modem press—twisting the truth all ways to make a sensation.”

  “But there does seem something in it, Harley,” said Holm quietly. “I was out in the field yesterday and the day before, hunting speciments of Sarracenia purea for some work of mine, and there’s hardly a species that hasn’t changed—hasn't lost part or even almost all of its roots, among the smaller plants, with leaves giving way to tough hollow tendrils.”

  I stared at him. “You don’t really mean to say it’s all true?” I asked him. “That the cabbages and celery are losing their roots and walking around arm in arm?”

  He laughed at my picture of it, but sobered again. “I'm afraid it’s pretty comprehensive,” he told me. Then, as we were passing just then down the stone steps, he reached down into the shrubbery bed that encircled the building to pluck forth a small seedling of Comtis stolonifera, or dogwood, there. "Look at this," he said, showing it to me. "You seethe roots are almost gone but the plant is healthy enough, and with tendrils pushing out instead of leaves.”

  I took it unbelievingly, but as my eyes ran over it I frowned with quick interest. The little plant was, indeed, a most extraordinary spectacle to the trained eye of a botanist! Its roots, which should have been thick and fibrous, had apparently shrunk and withered until there was left of them but a few thick stubs. The stems had grown greatly recently, it was apparent, but instead of shooting up vertically had spread out in all directions like those of some flat shrubs. Where the leaves should have been sprouting there was a series of little brown tendrils pushing forth; as he had said, tendrils that were hollow but extraordinarily tough and flexible, seeming like continuations of the stems, but obviously taking the place of leaves in drawing the plant’s food elements from the air.

  I gazed at it in fascinated interest, then reached down quickly to pull another, which proved exactly the same. I gazed down, then, saw in the bed beside us a small specimen of Rhamnus cathartica, a few inches in height, sprawled out flatly also. But when I reached down for it I gave an exclamation of surprise, for in it the roots had dwindled to one or two little projections beneath the base of the stem, and it was only necessary to lift the plant from the ground. Then, as I gazed at it lying flat on my hand in the sunlight, a thing happened which, in spite of the immeasurably greater and more terrible things that I have experienced since, chills me yet with revulsion. The stems of the little plant moved—moved, not by the wind, as for a’ moment we thought must be the case, but with life—moved blindly, gropingly, over my palm toward my cuff, its tendrils and stems crawling slowly toward itl

  With a sharp exclamation I dropped the thing, then looked at Holm with wide eyes. “Like a damn snake in my hand, the thing felt,” I said. And then, my wonder surmounting my revulsion: “But this is fantastic, Holm!”

  “For once the newspapers haven’t exaggerated,” he agreed. “And according to them the same phenomena are appearing in all but the biggest forms of plant life, over all earth.”

  “Fantastic,” I repeated. "And no one knows what the cause of the thing is?”

  "Not the real cause—no,” he said slowly, “But I’ve found that without doubt the immediate cause is—”

  Holm did not finish the sentence for me, a friend joining us at that moment, but I found it finished in the newspapers of the next morning, for in them I found the interviews which their reporters had obtained from Holm after our conversation. By then the world-wide extent of the phenomenon, and its importance, had begun to be realized. Practically every form of plant life up to the large trees, and especially the ferns and conifers, was developing swiftly along the lines already discovered, roots vanishing, stems spreading, tendrils replacing foliage, and showing in many cases an elementary power of movement. That latter phase of the thing added, indeed, a somewhat comic element to the situation just then, for gardeners and farmers reported that plants of various sorts which had been sown in straight rows had developed such powers of slow movement as in many cases to scatter them random over the fields. It was natural for the newspapers to turn to the botanists for explanations of the thing, and it was natural for those in the Philadelphia region to turn to Dr. Holm, as a botanist of unrivaled reputation.

  Thg interviews with Dr. Holm which appeared in that morning’s newspapers added to that reputation, since he gave the first clear explanation of the phenomenon which had yet appeared. “It is known to all,” Holm said, “that plants are living things, and that like all living things they require certain food elements. There are nine elements necessary for the life of plants—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium.

  The first three of those elements, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, the plant is able to obtain from the air, chiefly in the form of carbon dioxide and water vapor. The remaining six elements are not present in the air, and must be sought for in the earth, in the soil. Therefore the plant sends down roots into the soil to obtain those six remaining elements and bring them up into the plant, just as the first three are brought down into the plant from the air by the stems and leaves.

  “But suppose those six elements were present in the air. Then the plant could obtain them, could obtain all its food elements, from the air by its stems and leaves and tendrils, and would have no need of roots in the soil. And it is for that reason that the roots of almost all plant life are now withering and vanishing. Those six latter elements, in the form of gaseous compounds, have been added recently to earth’s atmosphere, in quantities detected by the university’s laboratories and other laboratories recently, quantities so small as to be hardly detectable by us, but large enough to furnish all plant life with those elements, to make their roots unnecessary, to atrophy and wither away those roots as is now being done. It may be that those gaseous compounds, those six elements, have been poured forth into our atmosphere by volcanic craters opening in the earth’s crust, or it may be that earth is passing through a cloud of such gases in space, but the fact is clear that it is the addition of those gases to earth’s atmosphere that is causing this great change in earth’s plant life.

  "Neither is it surprising that with roots vanishing the plant forms are acquiring a power of free movement. It will be recalled that my own former associate, Dr. Jackson Man-dall of the University of Philadelphia, whose disappearance 'two years ago was such a loss to the science of botany, was strongly of the opinion that plants, if spared the necessity of roots by obtaining all needed elements from the air, would swiftly develop powers of movement. It was Dr. Mandall’s theory that plant forms are in reality as living and conscious as animal forms, but are bound to immobility by their roots alone, and that if the necessity of roots were removed from them they would equal animals in powers of movement. The theory seems in some sense borne out by the changes of the last weeks in the plant life of earth.

  “But how long will these changes continue? That is less easy to say, since it depends directly upon how long these gaseous compounds continue to be poured into our atmosphere. If, as seems most probable, they are being poured forth by volcanic fissures, the outpouring of them will doubtless subside soon, and the changes in plant life cease. Plants that have lost their roots altogether during this period of change will likely be entirely and almost immediately killed by the ceasing of this outpouring. But if that outpouring of gases ends soon it will be found, I think, that earth’s plant life will for the most part soon return to its former state. Of course, a continued outpouring of such gases into the atmosphere over a period of time would result in an increase of plant powers of movement and other powers to an unpredictable extent, but it is unnecessary to say that no one anticipates such a condition.”

  This
was the substance of Dr. Holm’s statement on the matter, and coming as it did from the man who, since the disappearance of his brilliant associate, Dr. Mandall, was recognized as the nation’s leading botanist, it was considered final. The phrases which he had used concerning the temporary quality of the phenomenon had a soothing effect on those who had begun to show concern over the world’s food supply. And though the gaseous compounds of the six elements mentioned were undeniably present in earth’s atmosphere, it was taken for granted, as he had said, that they were only there temporarily. Thus- the effect of Dr. Holm’s statement was to diminish the sensation that had been caused by the thing, and although it was still featured by the press in the next few days, it was in a somewhat lower key.

  While the thing was of utmost interest to myself, as a botanist, I had small enough time to spend in studying it, being just then occupied in preparing examinations for my classes. Dr. Holm, I had reason to believe, was devoting close study to it, and though I did not see him in those next few days I heard that he was very much occupied. Except for a few botanists like him, though, the increasing changes of the plants in those next days got little enough attention. Enough there were to consider in dismay the odd and leafless condition of their tendril-clustered shrubs, to exclaim over the rootlessness of their garden plants, to worry concerning their oddly behaving crops, to shout with laughter at the sight of slow tendrils moving blindly, gropingly, painfully, of small plants crawling infinitely slowly over the soil. But surprise and worry and laughter were all that were aroused by these phenomena that were, unknown to all of us, the first heralds of the terror that was to come.

  It was just five days after Dr. Holm’s statement that the Hartville horror burst upon the peoples of earth.

  Looking back upon that horror now, I think that it was its utter unexpectedness that made it most terrible. Dr. Holm had, indeed, in his statement, admitted that the great changes in earth’s plant life might continue to an unpredictable extent, were the outpouring of gaseous compounds into earth’s atmosphere to continue. And that that outpouring, whatever its source, was continuing, was known to all from the daily chemical analyses made of the atmosphere. But despite the fact that we all thus knew the changes must be continuing, none of us, not even Dr. Holm or myself, ever dreamed of what thing was to come of those changes for Hartville and for the world.