II.

von H. G. Wells

WHAT WE SAW FROM THE RUINED HOUSE

After we finished eating, we quietly made our way back to the scullery. I must have dozed off again because when I looked around, I found myself alone. The relentless thudding vibration continued, wearing me down. I called out for the curate several times, but there was no response. Finally, I felt my way to the kitchen door. It was still light outside, and I spotted him across the room, leaning against the triangular hole that opened up to the Martians. His shoulders were hunched, hiding his head from view.

The noises around me resembled those of an engine shed, and the place swayed with that persistent thud. Through the gap in the wall, I caught a glimpse of a tree touched with gold against the warm blue of a peaceful evening sky. I watched the curate for a minute, then cautiously crept closer, stepping carefully over the broken dishes scattered across the floor.

When I touched his leg, he jumped so violently that a chunk of plaster slid down outside and hit the ground with a loud crash. I grabbed his arm, worried he might scream, and we both crouched there in silence for what felt like an eternity. I turned to check how much of our makeshift shelter was still intact. The fallen plaster had created a vertical slit in the debris, and by carefully raising myself over a beam, I managed to peer through the gap into what had once been a quiet suburban street. The transformation was staggering.

The fifth cylinder must have landed right in the middle of the house we had first visited. The building had completely vanished, obliterated and scattered by the impact. The cylinder now lay deep beneath the original foundations, in a hole far larger than the pit I had seen in Woking. The earth around it had splashed outwards—“splashed” was the only word for it—creating heaps that concealed the remnants of the nearby houses. It was as if mud had been violently struck by a hammer. Our house had collapsed backward; the front part, even on the ground floor, was utterly destroyed. By some stroke of luck, the kitchen and scullery had survived, buried now under rubble and soil, surrounded by tons of earth except for the side facing the cylinder. We were now perched on the edge of the vast circular pit the Martians were digging. The heavy thudding sound was clearly coming from just behind us, and every now and then, a bright green vapor billowed up like a curtain across our view.

The cylinder was already open in the center of the pit, and on the far edge, among the wreckage and gravel, one of the towering fighting machines stood abandoned against the evening sky. At first, I hardly noticed the pit and the cylinder, though it makes sense to describe them first because of the astonishing, glittering mechanism that was busy excavating, and the strange creatures crawling slowly and painfully across the mounds of earth nearby.

What captured my attention first was the mechanism itself. It was one of those intricate devices later known as handling machines, which have since sparked a tremendous wave of innovation on Earth. At first glance, it resembled a metallic spider with five articulated legs, surrounded by a bewildering array of levers, bars, and reaching tentacles. Most of its arms were drawn back, but with three long tentacles, it was extracting rods, plates, and bars that lined the interior of the cylinder, seemingly reinforcing its walls. As it pulled them out, it placed them on a flat surface of earth behind it.

Its movements were so swift, complex, and precise that I initially failed to recognize it as a machine, despite its metallic sheen. The fighting machines were coordinated and animated to an extraordinary degree, but nothing compared to this. People who have never seen these structures and rely only on artists' interpretations or the imperfect accounts of witnesses like me can hardly grasp their living quality.

I particularly remember an illustration from one of the first pamphlets that attempted to provide a coherent account of the war. The artist had clearly made a quick sketch of one of the fighting machines, and that was where his understanding ended. He depicted them as rigid, tilted tripods, lacking any flexibility or nuance, presenting a misleadingly monotonous image. The pamphlet featuring those illustrations gained considerable popularity, and I mention it here simply to caution readers against the impression they may have left. They bore no resemblance to the Martians I witnessed in action—no more than a Dutch doll resembles a real human being. In my opinion, the pamphlet would have been far better off without them.

At first, the handling machine didn’t strike me as a machine at all. Instead, it resembled a crab-like creature with a shiny, armored exterior. The Martian controlling it, with its delicate tentacles guiding its movements, seemed like the brain of this strange being. But as I took a closer look, I noticed how its grey-brown, glossy skin mirrored the other sprawling forms around it, and the true nature of this skilled worker began to reveal itself. With that realization, my attention shifted to the other creatures—the real Martians. I had caught a fleeting glimpse of them before, but the initial wave of nausea had faded, and now I was hidden and still, free from the urgency to act.

What I saw was beyond anything I could have imagined. The Martians were enormous, round bodies—or rather, heads—about four feet across, each sporting a face. They had no nostrils; in fact, they seemed to lack a sense of smell altogether. Instead, they had large, dark eyes and a fleshy beak just below. At the back of these heads was a taut surface, which we later identified as an ear, though it seemed almost useless in our thick atmosphere. Surrounding the mouth were sixteen slender, whip-like tentacles, arranged in two clusters of eight. A distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, later referred to these clusters as their "hands." As I watched them for the first time, they appeared to be trying to lift themselves on these hands, but the weight of Earth’s gravity made that impossible. It’s likely they could move with ease on Mars.

As for their internal structure, dissection later revealed it was surprisingly simple. Most of their anatomy consisted of a large brain, sending thick nerves to the eyes, ear, and tactile tentacles. They had bulky lungs connected to the mouth, along with a heart and its vessels. The strain of our denser atmosphere and stronger gravity was evident in the twitching of their outer skin.

And that was the extent of the Martian organs. Odd as it may seem to us, they lacked the complex digestive systems that make up so much of our bodies. They were just heads—nothing more. They didn’t eat or digest food like we do. Instead, they drew fresh, living blood from other creatures and injected it directly into their veins. I witnessed this myself, though I can’t bring myself to describe it in detail; it was too much for me to bear. Suffice it to say, they used a small pipette to transfer blood from a still-living creature, often a human, straight into their own bodies.

The mere thought of this is undoubtedly repulsive to us, but we should consider how our own carnivorous habits might seem to an intelligent rabbit.

The physiological benefits of their method are clear when you think about the immense amount of time and energy we waste on eating and digestion. Our bodies are filled with glands, tubes, and organs dedicated to transforming various foods into blood. The digestive process and its effects on our nervous systems drain our strength and influence our moods. Our happiness or misery often hinges on the health of our livers or stomachs. But the Martians were free from these organic ups and downs.

Their preference for humans as a food source can be partly explained by the remains of the creatures they had brought with them from Mars. Judging by the shriveled remnants that have come into human possession, these beings were bipedal, with fragile, siliceous skeletons—similar to those of siliceous sponges—and weak muscles. They stood about six feet tall, with round, upright heads and large eyes set in flinty sockets. Two or three of these creatures appeared to have been transported in each cylinder, and all were dead by the time they reached Earth. It was probably for the best, as attempting to stand on our planet would have shattered their delicate bones.

While I’m on the subject, I should add a few more details about these unsettling creatures. Though they weren’t all apparent to us at the time, they will help anyone unfamiliar with them to form a clearer picture of what we were dealing with.

In three significant ways, the Martians’ biology was remarkably different from ours. For one, they didn’t sleep, just as a human heart never truly rests. Lacking a complex muscular system to recover, they didn’t experience the periodic shutdown that we know as sleep. They seemed to have little to no sense of fatigue. On Earth, moving would have required effort for them, yet they remained active until the very end. In a full day, they accomplished a full day’s worth of work, much like ants do on our planet.

Secondly, despite living in a world defined by sexual differences, the Martians were entirely asexual. This meant they were free from the intense emotions that often arise from such distinctions. During the war, a young Martian was born on Earth, and it was discovered to be partially attached to its parent, much like a lily bulb buds off or how young animals emerge from a freshwater polyp.

In humans and all higher terrestrial animals, this method of reproduction has vanished, but it was certainly the primitive way of life. Among lower animals, including the Tunicates, both methods of reproduction coexist, but eventually, the sexual method took over entirely. On Mars, however, it seems the opposite has occurred.

Interestingly, a speculative writer of semi-scientific fame predicted a future for humanity that resembled the actual Martian condition. His prediction, which I remember appearing in late 1893 in a now-defunct magazine called the *Pall Mall Budget*, was even caricatured in a pre-Martian publication called *Punch*. He humorously suggested that the advancement of mechanical devices would eventually replace limbs, and that chemical advancements would render digestion unnecessary. He argued that features like hair, noses, teeth, ears, and chins would no longer be essential, and that natural selection would gradually lead to their reduction over time. The brain, however, would remain crucial. The hand, “the teacher and agent of the brain,” was the only other body part he believed would have a strong case for survival. As the rest of the body diminished, the hands would grow larger.

There’s often truth in jest, and the Martians exemplify the suppression of the animalistic side of their beings in favor of intelligence. It’s entirely plausible that they evolved from creatures similar to us, gradually developing their brains and hands—eventually leading to the delicate tentacles they possess—while sacrificing the rest of their bodies. Without a body, the brain would become a mere self-serving intelligence, devoid of the emotional depth that characterizes humanity.

The final significant difference between the Martians and us lay in what might seem like a minor detail. The micro-organisms that cause so much illness and suffering on Earth either never existed on Mars, or Martian science had eradicated them long ago. Diseases, fevers, and ailments like tuberculosis, cancer, and tumors simply didn’t factor into their existence. Speaking of the contrasts between Martian life and our own, I should mention the peculiar red weed.

On Mars, the plant life, instead of being predominantly green, was a striking blood-red. The seeds that the Martians brought with them—whether intentionally or by accident—always resulted in red growths. However, only the plant commonly known as the red weed managed to thrive alongside Earth’s flora. This red creeper was a temporary growth, and few had the chance to witness its bloom. Yet, for a time, the red weed flourished with astonishing vigor. By the third or fourth day of our confinement, it had climbed the sides of the pit, its cactus-like branches creating a carmine fringe around our triangular window. Later, I discovered it spread throughout the countryside, particularly wherever water flowed.

The Martians had what seemed to be a single auditory organ, a round drum located at the back of their head-body, and their eyes had a visual range similar to ours, except that, according to Philips, blue and violet appeared as black to them. It’s generally believed that they communicated through sounds and gestures with their tentacles; this is claimed in a well-written but hastily put together pamphlet, clearly authored by someone who hadn’t witnessed the Martians firsthand, which I’ve mentioned before. So far, that pamphlet has been the main source of information about them.

No living human has observed the Martians in action as closely as I have. I don’t take credit for this; it was simply a matter of circumstance. I watched them repeatedly, and I’ve seen four, five, and even six of them sluggishly working together on complex tasks without making a sound or any gestures. Their distinctive hooting always preceded feeding; it lacked any modulation and, I believe, wasn’t a signal at all, but merely the release of air in preparation for their suction feeding. I have a basic understanding of psychology, and I’m convinced—just as firmly as I believe in anything—that the Martians exchanged thoughts without any physical means of communication. I’ve held this belief despite my previous strong skepticism. Before the Martian invasion, I had written passionately against the idea of telepathy.

The Martians wore no clothing. Their ideas of decoration and modesty were clearly different from ours. They seemed much less sensitive to temperature changes than we are, and variations in pressure didn’t appear to affect their health at all. Yet, despite their lack of clothing, their true superiority over humans lay in the artificial enhancements to their bodies. We humans, with our bicycles, roller skates, gliders, guns, and other tools, are just beginning the evolutionary journey that the Martians have already completed. They have essentially become pure intellect, donning different bodies as needed, much like we change clothes or grab a bike when we’re in a hurry or an umbrella when it’s raining.

One of the most astonishing aspects of their technology is the absence of the wheel, which is a fundamental feature of nearly all human inventions. Among all the items they brought to Earth, there’s no sign of wheels. You would expect to see them used for movement. Interestingly, even on Earth, nature has never developed the wheel or has opted for other solutions instead. The Martians either didn’t know about the wheel—which seems unbelievable—or chose not to use it. In their machinery, there’s surprisingly little reliance on fixed pivots; circular motions are confined to a single plane. Most of their machinery joints feature a complex system of sliding parts that glide over small, beautifully curved friction bearings.

Moreover, it’s fascinating that the long levers in their machines are often powered by a sort of artificial musculature made of disks encased in an elastic sheath. These disks become polarized and drawn tightly together when an electric current passes through them. This design created a striking resemblance to animal movements, which was both captivating and unsettling for human observers. Such quasi-muscles were abundant in the crab-like handling machine that I watched unpacking the cylinder when I first peeked out from my hiding place. It seemed far more alive than the actual Martians lying beyond it in the fading sunlight, panting, stirring their ineffective tentacles, and moving feebly after their long journey through space.

While I was still observing their sluggish movements in the sunlight, taking note of every strange detail of their form, the curate suddenly yanked at my arm. I turned to see his scowling face and silent, expressive lips. He wanted to take my place at the slit, which allowed only one of us to look through. Reluctantly, I had to give up my view while he took his turn.

When I looked again, the busy machine had already assembled several pieces of equipment it had pulled from the cylinder, forming a shape that unmistakably resembled itself. To the left, a small digging mechanism came into view, releasing jets of green vapor as it methodically navigated the pit, excavating and building up the earth with precision. This was the source of the steady thumping noise and the rhythmic vibrations that had kept our crumbling refuge trembling. It whistled and piped as it worked. From what I could tell, there was no Martian directing it at all.