s
struck.

Those huge balls of fire, larger even than the aircars of the Moon,
landed in vast and awe-inspiring numbers on the roof of the
world--landed easily, with no apparent effort or shock. The light of
them made all the world a place of vast radiance, save only that portion
which was being destroyed by the cube-army, and this area had a cold,
chill radiance of its own.

By groups and organisations the fire-balls of Mars landed, and rested
quiescent on the surface of the globe.

Sarka, pausing only long enough in his laboratory to study this strange
attack and to discover how it would get under way, was at the same time
preparing to go forth to take his own strange part in the defensive
action of Earthlings. A vast confidence was in him....

"We will lose millions of people, father," he said softly. "But it will
end in our victory, in the most glorious war ever fought on this Earth!"

"That is true, my son!" replied the older man sadly.

* * * * *

For several minutes the vast fire-balls, which seemed to be monster
glowing octagons, rested where they had landed, and even then the Gens
of the people were closing on them, bringing their ray directors and
atom-disintegrators into action.

Then, when the Earthlings would have destroyed the first of the vast
fire-balls--and Sarka was noting that the flames which bathed the balls
seemed to have no effect whatever on Earthlings, save to outline them in
mantles of fire--the fire-balls wakened to new life.

They opened like the halves of peaches falling apart, and out upon the
roof of the world poured the first Martians Earth had ever seen!

They were more than twice the size, on the average, of Earth people, and
at first glance seemed to resemble them very much, save that their eyes,
of which each Martian was possessed of two, were set on the ends of long
tentacles which could stretch forth to a length of two feet or more from
the eye-sockets and thus be turned in any direction. Each eye was
independent of its neighbor, as one could look forward while the other
looked backward, or one could look right while the other looked left.

Each Martian possessed two arms on each side of a huge, powerful torso,
and legs that were like the bolls of trees, compared to the slender
limbs of Earthlings. All the Martians seemed to be dressed in the skins
of strange, vari-colored beasts. Each carried in his upper right hand a
slender canelike thi