"Spawn of the Comet" (1931) by Harold Thompson Rich (with Notes and Commentary) on Fantastic Worlds
"Spawn of the Comet"
© 1931
by
Harold Thompson Rich
Tokyo, June 10 (AP).-A number of the meteors that pelted Japan last night, as the earth passed through the tail of the Mystery Comet have been found and are puzzling astronomers everywhere.
About the size of baseballs, orange in color, they appear to be of some unknown metal. So far, due to their extreme hardness, all attempts to analyze them have failed.
Their uniformity of size and marking gives rise to the popular belief that they are seeds, and, fantastic though this conception is, it finds support in certain scientific quarters here.
Jim Carter read the news dispatch thoughtfully and handed it back to his chief without comment.
“Well, what do you make of it?”
Miles Overton, city editor of The New York Press, shoved his green eye-shade far back on his bald head and glanced up irritably from his littered desk.
“I don’t know,” said Jim.
“You don’t know!” Overton snorted, biting his dead cigar impatiently. “And I suppose you don’t know they’re finding the damn things right here in New York, not to mention Chicago, London, Rio and a few other places,” he added.
“Yes, I know about New York. It’s a regular egg hunt.”
“Egg hunt is right! But why tell me all this now? I didn’t see any mention of ’em in your report of last night’s proceedings. Did you see any?”
“No, but I saw a lot of shooting stars!” said Jim, recalling that weird experience he and the rest of humanity had passed through so recently.
“Yeah, I’ll say!” Overton lit his wrecked cigar and dragged on it soothingly. “Now then, getting back to cases-what are these damn things, anyway? That’s what I’d like to know.”
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