And the last of them was chillingly familiar, her footy cheer squad gear adapted for the purpose, and despite the beanie pulled down to her eyebrows and the scarf up over her chin, was unmistakably who she was.
“Oh my God,” my mother gasped. “It’s Rosalie !”
“Rosalie !” Horrie cried. “Is it? Where ?”
But the fleeting image was gone, from the screen if not from my mother’s horrified mind. She rose to her feet and did the only thing she could have, under the circumstances—her mind, completely unable to process the data with which it had been presented, blew a fuse and shut down. She fell back on the couch with a gentle flop.
A thousand colonists arrive on a new planet. They are bold, and resolutely self-confident, and are sure they will be the equal of any dangers they may encounter but the beautiful new world seems most hospitable at first. We read the diary of one of them, who describes the landing and early exploration. Then, suddenly…
Every historic traveller’s tale pales beside the reality of the thing we faced. Never would I have believed that such a creature could exist had I not seen it for myself. The first we saw of it was an enormous face, thrusting around the side of the Globe, hanging in the air far above us. It was a sight to make the bravest shudder.
It was black, too, so that in the darkness it was impossible to be certain of its outline; but it widened across the top, and above the head itself one seemed to catch a glimpse of two great towering pointed ears. It looked down upon us out of two vast, glowing eyes set somewhat aslant.
It paused for a moment, the great eyes blinked, and then it came closer. The legs which then came into view were like massive pillars, yet they moved with a dexterity and control that was amazing for anything so vast…. The eyes which were fixed on us were cold, cruel, non-intelligent.
Until then we had been transfixed, but now panic took some of us. Those nearest to it fell back hurriedly, and at that one of the monstrous feet moved like lightning. A huge black paw rose with suddenly out-thrust claws smacked down. When it drew back, twenty of our men and women were not more than smears on the ground.
We were all paralysed, all of us except for Sunss … He was standing right between the paws. His first rod was in his hands, and he was looking up at the monstrous head above him. As I watched, he lifted the weapon and aimed. It seemed such folly against that huge thing, heroic folly. But Sunss was wiser than I. Suddenly the head jerked, a tremor shook its limbs, and without a sound the monster dropped where it stood.
And Sunss was under it. A very brave man…
Then Iss took charge.
Disaster upon disaster befalls them and their numbers dwindle, new leaders taking over rapidly, until suddenly the journal ends, and we are in a suburban house in England. Mrs Fountain is going about her morning chores when she discovers the corpse of the family cat in the back yard. And then she notices some rather strange ant-like creatures in the garden. Whereby she brings the latest alien invasion of Planet Earth to an end with a few sprays of insecticide.
The story was in some magazine somewhere—I don’t remember where and when I read it, and had no idea of the title nor name of the author, but I never forgot the tale. Then, many years later, I was reading The Seeds of Time—a collection of stories by John Wyndham, and there it was, under the title Meteor. One of the most important characteristics of a great writer is that they be unforgettable.