Doubt
It is not surprising that panic sent the people of Mannlertown fleeing in all directions before the coming of the day. The newspaper stated that federal and state authorities had taken every precaution to calm them, and already many who had fled were returning to the stricken town, it being apparent that no further disturbance was taking place.
But what had caused this one? Was it an earthquake or a volcanic action of some unheard-of nature? No answer could be definitely made, but the geologists and other scientists consulted regarding the thing were in general agreement. It could only have been caused, they stated, by some giant meteor that had grazed the earth’s surface and gouged this great scar across it in passing. More could be learned from examination of the cut but it was certain that a meteor was the cause.
When I had finished reading I looked up at Dr. Howard, sobered by the horror of what I had just read.
“A terrible thing, surely,” I said, and he nodded somberly.
“Just how terrible, is not yet realized,” he commented.
“Why, you don’t doubt that it was a meteor’s work, do you?” I asked. “That great gouge—”
He shook his head. “Who can say? But if a meteor of giant size did it, where is the meteor? They do not as a rule, graze earth and then vanish, Ransome.”
“Maybe not,” I said doubtfully, “but in this case the scientists all seem pretty sure. And after all, what other explanation for the thing is there?”
To that he did not answer, though I could see that he was unconvinced. So I was not surprised when Dr. Howard left for Mannlertown that night by a fast Chicago rocket express. To me, as to others, he said only that he wished to make a brief examination of the scene of the disaster with certain ideas of his own in mind. I knew without his telling, though, that his doubts persisted.
The world at large did not share those doubts. There was wide-spread horror over the Mannlertown catastrophe, but it was the rather abstract horror aroused by some unprecedented accident of which the very strangeness somehow dulls the edge of reality. And none seemed to doubt the dictum of the scientists concerning the gigantic missile from space that had shot into the earth’s atmosphere grazing its surface and then shooting out again. I know that, despite Dr. Howard’s attitude, I myself did not doubt it.
Dr. Howard returned from Mannlertown two days later. The only information that he imparted was that his investigations had proved satisfactory. He said nothing more and, assuming that his inspection had disproved his doubts, I forbore mentioning the thing to him. It was not until the second cataclysm, a day later, that I learned along with the rest of the world, what his thoughts on the matter were.
This second cataclysm took place on the afternoon of July first, but, because of the remoteness of its scene, word of it did not reach most of the world until the next day. For the scene of the second event was those bleak Finnish plains that lie east of the Baltic, and particularly one barren valley far from the nearest telegraph.
News concerning what had happened was scanty enough. The central fact was that upon one of that valley’s slopes, something had gouged from the grassy earth a tremendous trench like the one that had been cut through Mannlertown. It was of the same general size—several miles in length and a quarter-mile in depth and width; but in that remote place it had done almost no damage to life or property.
The only damage to property, in fact, had been the destruction of a herder’s hut that had been in the path of the thing. The seven herders who had occupied it, luckily for them, had been tending their flocks on the slope of a neighboring valley. All had heard a gigantic roaring and grinding sound, and had run up to the dividing ridge as the sound ceased, to be confronted by the great gouge below. One of them, however, had been on the ridge at the time and told an excited and almost incomprehensible tale regarding it.
He said he had been gazing down over the slope in question when the disaster had happened. First came a great flash of light in the air above, the flash of some colossal glittering body swooping from above to earth’s surface. He could not describe what he claimed to have seen of it in that lightning-like glimpse, and could describe it only as of something huge and glittering, and roughly scoop-like in shape.
In the very second that he saw it, it had struck the slope, and then with great speed had rushed forward, along it, half-burying itself in the earth, emitting a loud, grinding roar. In an instant it had streaked like light along the slope for several miles and then with an upward flash was gone, the noise gradually ceasing.
This tale, even doubted by the man’s companions, certainly received small credit from the outside world. The paper that I read mentioned the story only as an illusion, born of excitement, and went on to point out that while the Mannlertown cataclysm had been repeated the explanation accepted for it had not been disproved. It simply meant that another giant meteor had grazed our globe, and it might well be that the earth was passing through a swarm of them.
I will own, however, that to me the meteor explanation seemed rather weakened by this so exact repetition of the first catastrophe, and I could not see how this recurring catastrophe could be explained so simply.