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Eitel could not, for some time, explain to himself the meaning of the fantastic tales the young engineer had been telling him.

“You mean to say, that the air is burning over there?” he queried, bewildered, wiping his forehead.

“Not burning,” nervously replied Hinez, twitching and twisting, as if on springs, “not burning, but destroying itself. Its atoms, broken up and exploded into their infinitesimally small bulkiness by your father, are drifting with their fragments, with such rapidity, that they are gradually destroying the neighboring atoms, thereby freeing the dormant energy that is hidden within them; they, scattered into hundreds of fragments, in their turn destroy new layers of gas, thus, a terrific gangrene is gradually hemming in more and more volumes of ether…”

“Does this presage anything serious?” asked Eitel confusedly.

“This presages a world conflagration!”

"But isn’t it possible to stop that wandering sphere, somehow? Extinguish its growing flame, or — whatever you call it?”

“That’s just where the fear lies — it is impossible, absolutely impossible, at least, in the present state of science. This process is homogeneous with the phenomenon of radioactivity and upon them we can exert no influence whatever. They are absolutely beyond our control.”

The poor brain of the soldier was tangled hopelessly in the wild perspectives.

Hinez was right. On the same day, Friday evening, the first news was received from the east about the appearance of a large exhibition of ball lightning and, as described by an eyewitness, it moved in a direction towards the Polish border. The phenomenon resembled a fiery ball, five feet in diameter; it flew slowly with the wind, close to the ground. At night it emitted a dazzling bright radiance; in the daytime, it seemed like an incandescent flaming cloud. The nature of the strange appearance, doubtless, was electrical. Upon its approach, the work of the telephone and telegraph stations ceased completely; in places of weak insulation and upon the apparatus, sparks poured down in showerlike fashion; compass needles turned in all directions, as in time of severe magnetic storms.

In general, it was very difficult to pass any judgment upon the details, but from the information thus far received, it was deducible that a danger of an unknown nature was actually threatening. The path of the sphere’s movement was a streak of growing destruction. Fields and meadows stretched in wide burned- down ribbons; wherever it encountered forests, fires flashed up and long red flames rose high into the sky. Several villages were completely wiped out.

To keep silent and conceal the truth was impossible. The Sunday newspapers were filled with alarming dispatches, articles and questions addressed to the scientific societies and individual specialists working in the fields of electro-chemistry and radioactivity.

Despite the fact that it was a holiday, a special meeting of all the professors of the Institute was called, and the most prominent representatives of scientific thought, that were in Berlin at that time, were also invited. Amongst them was Hinez — tired, emaciated and apparently grown older by many years. Deriugin, who had been working on some questions, on the solution of which now depended the fate of mankind, perhaps, was there also. The thought was wild and absurd; it sounded like a fairy-tale; yet, despite it, the chairman, opening the meeting, introduced that first. Never before had the walls of this meeting hall, within which a majestic spirit of sober discussions and cold understanding, always reigned, heard similar orations. The fantasy and the fairy-tale combined with reality; mathematic formulae and apocalyptic predictions were all blended into a strange chaos. But the most terrible thing of all was, that the meeting at once declared its complete incompetence for solving the problems they were confronted with. Man was impotent. The spirit he provoked turned against him and threatened complete annihilation. The meeting suddenly became pervaded with inexplicable alarm, and with a painful feeling of hopelessness; there seemed to be no way out of it.

Then Deriugin asked for the floor, and briefly summed up the situation on hand:

“The process is enlarging and growing. To wait till the obstinate work of the brain or a fortunate chance or accident will disclose to us a method or a means to stop it — is unthinkable. We must do now, at least, whatever is possible; we must check the further movements of the sphere — arrest it…”

The hall reverberated with exclamations of wonderment, almost indignation, on the part of the assembled scientists. Some delegates openly declared that they had not come there to listen to the hollow prattle of dilettanti.

Deriugin, having waited till the noise subsided, asked that he be heard carefully till the end. And concentrated attention, a few minutes later, was the answer to his speech.

His project had the following salient points: to adjust upon a huge caterpillar-tractor, moving at a speed of 40 kilometers an hour, a powerful dynamo, fed by electric motors of several thousand horsepower. Its current should pass through the armature of the electromagnet, thereby supplying the latter with colossal force. Four — five such colossal magnetos, in Deriugin’s opinion, would suffice to cause the sphere to move against a moderately blowing wind to reach the magnet poles.

Of course, the execution of the project demanded a colossal effort and a large sum of money. Germany was not the only country where precautions were necessary. It was of paramount importance to organize a system of construction of electro-magnets in several points on the continent, because it was impossible to foretell whither the tide would toss the strange enemy in the near future. Besides, the work would have to be completed in the shortest possible time; else it might be too late. The operations seemed very difficult, indeed — almost beyond possibility of fulfilment — but upon them rested the fate of mankind. It was absolutely necessary to try.

All this was so evident, that it did not provoke any disputes or discussions. After a brief exchange of opinions, it was decided to appoint a commission to work out every detail of the project proposed by Deriugin.

In addition to that, the assembly decided to bring the case before the people and appeal to the government to immediately appropriate an adequate sum of money in order to carry out the work. Similar appeals were addressed to all the scientific societies and to the governments of the other countries, urging them to join in the common cause.

THREE weeks had passed. Old Europe was crumbling on every step. From one end to the other, by the will of the wind, hovered the flaming sphere, increasing steadily in size and sweeping away everything that was alive. Cities and villages were burning, forests were aflame, day and night enshrouded the sky with curling clouds and asphyxiating smoke. Meadows and fields in ever greater strips, were* becoming reduced into carbonized deserts, stretching in winding ribbons over the map of terror-stricken Europe.

Crossing the Polishborder, the flaming sphere on the same day reached Torna and, passing over the fortress, it destroyed two forts, several batteries and some large powder-depots. The city proper, remained on the safe side of the moving atomic whirl, but it suffered much from the explosions in the forts; the number of dead and wounded reached several hundreds.

The news of the Toma catastrophe reached Warsaw Saturday evening.

Sunday morning an enraged mob broke into the building of the German Consul General and ransacked it, due to a rumor that had passed amongst the people, that "the Germans were at the bottom of everything,” and that the approaching disaster was intentionally precipitated upon Poland by Germany. In the churches, the bells were ringing and the Miserere was solemnly being sung; people were imploring the Lord to rid them of the elemental disaster. An endless procession, with cross and banners, wound through the streets, and the blue smoke of the censers rose high into the bright sky. East of Warsaw a chain of batteries stood ready to meet, at midnight, the unwelcome enemy with the thunder of their metallic mouths. This was the mobilization of religion and science; heavenly and earthly army.