The creatures’ internal anatomy, as Doktor Jarmann’s lengthy investigations have since shown, was fairly simple, being dominated by a large brain. They also had rather a bulky lung into which the mouth opened, a large heart, and unusually thin blood vessels. The pulmonary distress caused by our denser atmosphere and gravitational force was all too evident in the constant convulsive movements of the creatures’ outer skin.
The Martians had no digestive tract as such. They were mostly heads—just heads. Stomach, intestines, and colon were nonexistent. They “ate” by drinking the living fluid of warm-blooded creatures directly into their veins, piped there by means of a small tube that they extended from their mouths. I suppose you could call them vampires of a sort. I later witnessed one of the feedings myself.
This type of diet might seem gross to us, but our own eating habits would probably appear just as disgusting to an intelligent rabbit, if such existed.
The advantages of this kind of physiology are clear. Our bodies have to turn solid food into useful nutrients. The Martians bypass such necessities by being biological parasites. They may regard us as little more than sources of potential nourishment.
Although there’s some evidence (see “A Diet of Worms?” by Lance K. Perth, The Journal of Exobiology) that they also fed on the blood of other mammals during their brief sojourn on earth, the aliens seemed to prefer man as their primary source of nourishment. This can partially be explained by the remains of the victims they brought with them as provisions from Mars. These creatures, to judge by the shriveled bodies recovered from the alien ships, were bipeds with flimsy skeletons and a feeble musculature, standing about six feet high, and having round, erect heads, with large eyes protruding from flinty sockets. A number were included in each ship, but all were killed before the aliens landed on Earth. Perhaps this was just as well, for merely attempting to stand upright on our planet would have broken every bone in their fragile bodies. There’s some question, however, whether the aliens actually found human blood “tasty,” or whether it even provided sufficient nutrients to sustain their lives for any great length of time—or even if this was their preferred choice.
Professor Jarmann has noted three other areas where the Martian physiology likely differed from our own. They apparently didn’t sleep, any more than our own hearts sleep. The aliens would have experienced little or no sense of fatigue as we know it. On Earth their movements required enormous expenditures of energy, far greater than they would have needed on their homeworld; and yet to the very end they kept pressing forward, never ceasing their efforts. During a twenty-four-hour period they performed twenty-four hours of work, just like a nest of ants or wasps.
The Martians had also dispensed with sex. A young alien was actually born on Earth; it was found attached to its parent, partially budded off, just as certain sea creatures on our world propagate asexually. In man, indeed, in all of the higher terrestrial animals, asexual reproduction has long since been abandoned; on Mars, however, evolution apparently veered in another direction.
This development had previously been postulated by several well-known sci-fi writers. The Coming of the Eggheads, by Bunny Barlevin, postulates that giant, pea-brained chickens will one day rise from their coops to conquer mankind, spreading their seeds of sappiness throughout modern civilization. Menlo P. Menville’s Big Brains of San Berdoo suggests that we have nothing to fear but our organs themselves; the revolting revulsion that we’ll feel when our real personas begin to emerge from their collective chrysalides is beyond mankind’s complete comprehension; several critics felt, however, that it was his novel that was beyond anyone’s comprehension. Robot Get Your Gun, published in hardcover by Underhill Books, notes that the perfection of mechanical devices must ultimately supersede organic limbs, and that organs such as hair, nose, teeth, ears, and chin will become nonessential parts of the human anatomy in the future. Only the brain, author Lambie Wilhelm suggests, will remain necessary, with just one other part of the body making a strong case for survival—the hand, the “teacher and agent of the brain.” While the rest of the body dwindles, she imagines, the hand will grow ever larger through constant, unceasing activity.
We can certainly laugh at such “imaginotions,” and yet the Martians obviously suppressed their animal side to increase their intelligence. A gradual development of brain and hands (the latter becoming tentacles) at the expense of the rest of their bodies altered their physiology permanently; their brains grew ever larger (in effect, they became talking heads, much like politicians), without any of the emotional baggage that burdens most human beings (lawyers being the lone exception).
Doktor Jarmann has also established, in his stirring essay, “De Exo-Physiologia Parvula Martianorum” (published in Zeitschrift der Pikkoloflöte-Musik) that the bacteria and viruses that have caused so much havoc on our planet probably don’t exist on Mars, or (more likely) were eradicated by Martian science millennia ago. The aliens apparently never experience disease, dying eventually of old age, although the outside limit of that age is unknown. Dr. Terrot Callander has suggested that the Martians never stop growing throughout their lifetimes, and that the invasion fleet may have consisted only of juveniles bred for that purpose. Graeny Michaels takes issue with that notion, however, believing that the aliens were fully aware of what they were doing, most of the time.
Finally, there’s the curious question of the red weed.
Vegetation on Mars, like the soil from which it is nurtured, displays a vivid, blood-red tinge to its leaves, stems, and blossoms. None of the rovers that we’ve sent to the Red Planet have noticed these plants, so it’s likely that they’ve long since retreated from the harsh conditions of the surface, particularly at the equator, and now exist only in specially cultivated patches underground, or possibly in very small scattered tufts somewhere near the Martian poles, where water ice is known to exist. At any rate, the seeds that the aliens brought with them to Earth only gave rise to red-hued growths.
The plant known popularly as the red weed, however, was the only one to gain widespread footing in terrestrial soil. The red creeper, a different species altogether, appeared mostly in wooded areas, with very few people actually observing it. The red-faced groper only grew in very small patches in swampy areas, although it seemed to flourish in the Sacramento climate, and was particularly attracted to human females. The crimson tide was a kind of kelp that infested the California coast for awhile. The ruddy root grew mostly underground; hence, it was mostly never found, except in fine restaurants. The pink pincushion was a type of nettle with a sheen of prickly metal. The carmine copperhead has only recently been identified as peculiar to the Mojave Desert. Undoubtedly, more such plants will be discovered as time goes on, although none of them seems to have adapted very well to the conditions on our world.
For a time the red weed flourished astonishingly well wherever there was water or even the hint of dampness. It’d spread up the sides of our pit by the third or fourth day of our imprisonment, and its cactus-like branches soon formed a rosy fringe to the edges of our triangular window on the world. Afterwards, I found it scattered all throughout the country, especially around fresh-water springs and rivers and ditches—and at the edges of the ocean.
Why did the Martians seed the Earth? This is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the aliens, because they made no obvious effort to consume the weed. Perhaps the plants produced nutrients the Martians required, or maybe the crimson growth was intended as food for other alien animals that would have been brought to our world at some later date. Some writers, especially Dulcimer de Nardo, have suggested that the Martians found the reddish hue esthetically pleasing. No one really knows for sure.
Their eyes had a visual range not unlike our own, except that, according to Doctor Lando Pfischmonger, the colors dark blue and violet would have seemed black to them. Biologists have postulated that they communicated with each other through their hooting sounds and gross gesticulations (indeed, this was first asserted
in the above-mentioned People article, “I Survived the Martians,” by Marco Polo Malletoni). However, no human who survived the war saw as much of the Martians as I did. I observed them from close range over a long period of time. I’ve seen four, five, even six of the creatures sluggishly performing the most elaborately complicated operations together without making either a sound or obvious gesture to each other. Their peculiar hoot-hoot noise invariably preceded their feeding and accompanied certain other actions, but it had no specific tone; this was, I believe, not actually a signal, but just noise that accompanied certain set activities. Maybe in the distant past, the Martians communicated verbally, but I doubt that’s been true for a very long time.
I have a certain knowledge of basic psychology, and I’m absolutely convinced from my observations that the Martians communicated telepathically with each other (however, Dr. Roweena Warner believes that telepathic communication between Earth and the home world would have required more energy than the Martians could have possibly generated—there’s really no way of proving or disproving this notion). I never believed in telepathy before, but it’s the only explanation that seems to fit the facts.
The Martians wore no clothing. Their concept of ornament was necessarily different from ours. They seemed less sensitive to changes of temperature than we are. They were sluggish in our atmosphere, but that never stopped them from attaining their goals. Their extensive use of artificial limbs and implements made them individually more powerful than any single human being, enabling them to live and move on a planet where the force of gravity would have otherwise rendered them completely ineffectual.
That’s not to say, of course, the Martians were all-knowing or invincible. Their largest machines were the giant tripods, and this three-in-one pattern can been seen in many of their constructions. They made very little use of pivots. Their machines employed a complicated system of sliding parts moving over very small but beautifully curved friction bearings, the longer levers being activated by a sort of sham musculature of disks housed in elastic sheaths; these disks were activated by an electrical current. Thus, they were able to achieve a fluid, almost animal-like motion in their mechanical creations. They also used biological components to help control and manipulate their machines, but since few of these survived the war intact, we have very little idea of how they actually worked.
Such quasi-muscles helped power the crab-like handling-machine which I’d observed unpacking the spaceship. That’s why the machine seemed almost more alive than the Martian directing it. By comparison, the aliens themselves appeared ineffectual, lying there panting in the glaring sunlight, stirring their feeble tentacles right and left, sopping up warmth, and thrashing about limply after their long journey across space. One of them was bathing itself in a pool of water to one side of the pit, and presently I saw it change places with another. I wondered then if the creatures were originally aquatic in nature.
While I was observing these sluggish movements, the minister tugged my arm, trying to pull me back so she could take her turn. The slit only permitted one of us to peer outside at a time, so I had to relinquish my entertainment while she exercised that privilege for a few hours.
When I resumed my post, the busy little handling-machine had already assembled several pieces of the apparatus it had taken from the ship, molding them into a shape like its own. To the left the digger came into view, emitting jets of green vapor and working its way ’round and ’round the pit, excavating and banking the dirt in a methodical series of actions designed to enlarge the Martians’ living quarters. This is what’d caused the regular beating noise and the rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge aquiver all through the night. It piped and whistled to itself almost cheerfully as it worked and worked and worked, endlessly making its rounds. So far as I could tell, the thing operated completely on its own.
I observed the invaders first-hand during those long days of captivity, finding them utterly fascinating. Their motives, their intentions, their basic thoughts all still seem a marvel to me.
If only I’d found some way to communicate with the enemy.
If only I’d found some way to communicate with the minister.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ENDLESS DAYS
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, they remain.
—Arthur Hugh Clough
Alex Smith, 3 Bi-January, Mars Year i
Marin County, California, Planet Earth
The arrival of a second fighting-machine drove us back into the storeroom, for we feared that two Martian striders might spot us more easily. Within a few days, however, we realized that a creature operating in the bright sunshine couldn’t possibly penetrate our dark hole, and we became increasingly bold.
Still, any hint of movement outside drove us immediately back into the storage nook. As bad as things were, the attraction of our local entertainment center was for us irresistible. I remember how, in spite of our ongoing peril, we still competed every morning for the privilege of watching the aliens. We’d race across the kitchen at first light, trying not to make any noise, while silently pushing back and forth at each other, within just a few feet of instant death if we were exposed.
Of course, we were totally incompatible. Our danger and isolation only emphasized this fact. I hated Lesley’s helplessness and cowardice and rigid stupidity. Her endless protests drove me at times almost to the point of screaming. She was like a spoiled child: if something didn’t go her way, she’d weep silently for hours, lamenting her fate and crying out under her breath to her God to save her sorry soul.
She also ate too much, despite her slender frame. I told her that our only chance of survival was to remain hidden until the Martians left, however long that took, and that we needed to conserve our stores. She paid me no mind. She ate and drank whatever she wanted whenever she wished, without any consideration for me. She slept very little. She nagged me constantly. I think she must have been more than a bit crazy.
As time passed, I became increasingly irritated with her attitude, until I finally had to use threats to keep her in line. That stopped her whining for a few days. But she was one of those folks who was only concerned with herself and her own place in the universe, a place justified in her thinking by her personal relationship with God. You just can’t reason with someone like that.
We fought our mini-conflict in a dark, dim contest of whispers, snatched food, and grasping hands—while just outside our prison, the pitiless sunlight of that terrible winter illuminated the strange, ongoing drama of the Martians puttering about in their pit.
When I looked again through the hole, I saw that the aliens had been reinforced by three striders. These had brought with them some odd devices arrayed in an orderly fashion around the ship. The second handling-machine was now complete, and was servicing one of the new constructions. The latter had a body like a large gasoline can, above which oscillated a pear-shaped basin from which a stream of white powder was flowing into a container below.
This was the “ore-processor,” as I called it. With two of its “hands” the handling-machine was digging out lumps of clay and flinging them into the receptacle at the top of the new device, while another arm periodically opened a door and removed rusty, blackened pieces of residue from inside the machine. A third device transported the powder from the basin along a channel towards some mechanism hidden from me by a mound of blue dust. This unseen third machine generated a little thread of green smoke that rose vertically into the air.
The handling-machine, with almost a musical clinking, extended a tentacle like an articulated telescope, something that up till now had just been a blunt knob on its body, until the far end was hidden behind the mound of clay. Then it lifted a bar of white aluminum into sight, new and untarnished and brightly shining, and deposited it beside a growing stack of other ingots by the side of the pit. Between sunrise and sunset this dexterous little creature (for it seemed almost alive) ground out an
d baked more than a hundred such bars from the crude ore, and the mound of residue rose steadily until it slopped over the rim of the pit.
The contrast between the swift, complex movements of these machines and the inert, panting clumsiness of their masters never ceased to amaze me, and for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that the latter were the living, breathing, directing half of these symbiotic creatures.
The minister was on duty when the first humans were brought in. I was sitting just below her on the kitchen floor, listening for any tidbits, when she suddenly leapt backwards, almost losing her balance (which would have been a disaster). She slid down the rubbish heap next to me, gesticulating and moaning incomprehensibly. For a moment I almost panicked. She just kept jabbing her finger at the peephole. Curiosity finally got the better of me, and I gingerly stepped across her body and crawled forward to our makeshift observation post.
At first I couldn’t see any reason for Lesley’s frantic behavior. Twilight had fallen by then, and I could just make out a few stars twinkling faintly above—but the pit itself was partially illuminated by the flickering green fire that always gleamed while the aluminum bars were being forged. The mingling of emerald light with the shifting, rusty black shadows was strangely seductive. Over and through the pit flew hordes of bats, oblivious to the sight and sound of the Martians, picking out bugs attracted by the light. I once saw one of the furry critters snatched out of the air; but after trying to suck the life out of the ugly little beast, the Martian flung it away in evident disgust. Bat juice apparently didn’t taste very good to the aliens (actually, it didn’t sound good to me either!).
Invasion! Earth vs. The Aliens Page 16