Book 2 · Chapter 10

I'm kind of bummed that I'm wrapping up this story, and I don’t think I’m adding much to the conversations around a lot of the big questions that are still up in the air. I’m definitely going to get some people talking, though. My thing is more about thinking things out, not like, hardcore science.

I’m not a pro when it comes to how bodies work - I’d read a couple of books on it, but it seems to me that Carver’s ideas about why the Martians died so fast are pretty convincing, almost like a done deal. And I’m working with that assumption throughout the story.

Anyway, after the war, when they looked at the bodies of the Martians, they didn’t find any bacteria that weren't already here on Earth. They didn’t bury their dead, and they were totally ruthless in how they fought - which also shows they didn’t know anything about how bodies rot.

But even though that makes sense, it’s not a proven fact. We still don’t know what was in the black smoke they used - it was so deadly. And the thing that shot out the heat rays? Still a mystery.

The disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington labs totally scared the scientists off from looking into it further. But when they analyzed the black powder, they found a totally new element - it had this bright group of three lines in green.

Maybe it combines with argon to make a compound that instantly kills something in your blood. But those are just guesses, and probably not that interesting to most people reading this story.

They never even checked out the brown sludge that floated down the Thames after Shepperton got destroyed, and now no one's offering any up. I’ve already talked about what the Martians’ bodies looked like, as much as the dogs let me, anyway.

But everyone’s seen the amazing, almost complete specimen floating in liquid at the Natural History Museum, and all the drawings that have been made of it. Beyond that, their bodies are just a science thing. A much bigger deal is whether the Martians will attack again.

I don't think we're paying enough attention to that. Right now, Mars is lined up with Earth, but every time it comes back around, I'm expecting another adventure. Either way, we need to be ready.

It should be possible to figure out where the shots came from, keep an eye on that part of the planet, and get ready for the next attack. Then we could blow up the cylinder with dynamite or artillery before the Martians even have a chance to get out, or just blast them as soon as the top opens.

I think they lost a huge advantage by not surprising us the first time. Maybe they see it that way too. Lessing has some really good reasons for thinking the Martians might have already landed on Venus.

About seven months ago, Venus and Mars were lined up with the sun - that means Mars was opposite from the point of view of someone on Venus.

After that, a weird, glowing, wavy mark showed up on the dark side of Venus, and almost at the same time, a faint, dark mark with a similar wavy shape was spotted in a photo of Mars. You really have to see the drawings to understand how much they look alike.

Okay, so whether or not another invasion is coming, we seriously need to rethink how we view the future. We’ve learned that this planet isn't some safe haven, and we cann't expect the good or bad stuff that could pop up out of nowhere.

Maybe this invasion from Mars actually has a bigger purpose for us; it's taken away that feeling of total security that can actually hold us back, and it’s brought huge advancements in science. It’s also helped us realize how important it is for everyone on Earth to work together.

Maybe across all that space, the Martians have been watching our pioneers and learned from them, and maybe they’ve found a better place to settle on Venus.

Either way, we’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on Mars for a long time, and those shooting stars will always give us a little scare when they fall. The way our perspectives have changed is hard to even describe.

Before that cylinder crashed, most people thought there was no life anywhere else in space besides on our tiny planet. Now, we see things differently. If the Martians can reach Venus, there’s no reason we cann't do it too.

And when the sun eventually cools down and makes Earth uninhabitable, maybe the spark of life that started here will spread and grab onto Venus. It's a wild thought, imagining life slowly expanding from this little starting point of ours, all the way out into the endless space between stars.

But that’s a distant dream. Or maybe, the destruction of the Martians wasn’t a final defeat - maybe it was just a delay. Maybe the future is actually meant for them, not for us. I have to admit, the stress and danger of everything that happened have left me feeling really doubtful and insecure.

I’m sitting here in my study, writing by lamplight, and suddenly I see that valley below, filled with twisting flames, and I feel like the house around me is empty and abandoned.

I step out onto the Byfleet Road, and cars pass - a butcher boy in a cart, a cab full of tourists, a guy on a bike, kids going to school - and suddenly they all seem hazy and unreal, and I’m rushing along with that artilleryman through the hot, tense silence.

At night, I see the black powder darkening the quiet streets, and the twisted bodies covered in it; they rise up around me, torn and battered. They gibber and grow fiercer, paler, uglier, becoming crazy distortions of people - and then I wake up, cold and miserable, in the darkness.

I go to London and see the busy crowds on Fleet Street and the Strand, and it hits me that they’ve basically become ghosts of the past, haunting the streets I’ve seen deserted and broken, going about their lives, phantoms in a city that’s basically dead, a mockery of life in a body that’s barely moving.

It's also really strange to stand on Primrose Hill, like I did just the other day, and see all those houses stretching out, dim and blue through the smoke and mist, disappearing into the hazy sky, to see people walking around the flower beds, to hear the kids playing, and to remember when it all seemed bright and clear, solid and quiet, under the dawn of that last, huge day...

And the strangest thing of all is holding my wife’s hand again, and thinking that I counted her, and she counted me, among the dead.