nd others of their
race. Just what hidden threat there was in that promise, no one on
Earth realized. It was taken at face value.

Just a year later, almost to the day, the by this time familiar
diskoid was seen hovering once more over Great New York. The
Mercutians were returning. The people of New York suspected nothing.
No troops were rushed to the scene to repel invasion; no guns were
trained on the space ship. It was just another friendly visit, and
hurried preparations were commenced for a rousing welcome on their
landing.

What New York did not know was that simultaneously with the appearance
of the Mercutian flier over their city, a hundred others were even
then hovering over the strategic capitals of the world. The first
Mercutian ambassadors had put to good advantage that hurried tour of
inspection.

No one was alarmed. Each capital city thought itself signally honored
by the reappearance of the lone Mercutian over it. The plan was
clever, the timing perfect.

At a signal flashed through the ether, things started happening.

The great diskoids, hovering high in the stratosphere, suddenly blazed
into blinding light. To the dazzled onlookers below, a new sun seemed
to have been born. A truncated cone of flame leaped downward. The
diskoid was the apex, the spreading base all of Great New York. The
sheeted brilliance enveloped the doomed city. It was a holocaust. New
York became a roaring furnace. Stone and steel heated to
incandescence.

The affrighted people had no chance for their lives. Like moths in a
flame they died on the streets, in the ovens of their homes, in the
steaming rivers into which they had thrown themselves to escape the
awful heat. There were few survivors, only those who happened to be
inside the giant skyscrapers, protected by many thicknesses of crystal
and steel.

* * * * *

As Great New York went, so went a hundred other cities. The Earth was
caught unawares, but the governments, the people, responded nobly.
Troops were mobilized hurriedly, preparations rushed for warfare.

But the Earthmen did not have a chance. The great sinister diskoids
moved methodically over the Earth, high in the stratosphere, where the
futile Earth planes could not reach them, and sent the terrible blaze
of destruction down unerringly upon armies, cities, towns.

It was over soon. One after another, the Earth governments
capitulated. America was the last--old Amos Peabod