The Shipshape Miracle by Clifford D. Simak

Six months of terror, of numerous mysterious deaths, of villages blotted out, had set the world on edge. He passed out of the building into a street that was swarming with terrified humanity. Only half an hour before it had rapped forth the flashes concerning the attack on Paris and Berlin. As he passed the wire machine it was tapping out, with a maddeningly methodical slowness, the story of the fall of London.

Henry Woods rose from his chair without a word and walked from the office. 'Woods,' said the editor of the Press to a reporter, 'run over and talk to Dr. 'Now let's have it,' he said, and the voice at the London end of the wire droned on, telling the story that in another half hour was read by a world which shuddered in cold fear even as it scanned the glaring headlines.

'O.K.,' came faintly through the tube, and the editor turned back to the phone. 'Stop the presses!' he yelled into the speaking tube.

He touched a button on his desk and in a moment an answering buzz told him he was in communication with the press-room. 'Just a second,' the editor shouted into the transmitter. The government declared the city under martial rule a quarter of an hour ago and efforts are being made to prepare for resistance against the enemy.' 'There are thousands of them and they have completely surrounded the city. 'The Horror is attacking London in force,' he said. His voice came clearly over the transatlantic telephone. He recognized the voice of Terry Masters, special correspondent. 'London calling,' came the voice of the operator. Other stories told of deaths here and there, all attributable to the 'Black Horror,' as it was called. Another front-page story told of a Terror in the a****n Valley which had sent the natives down the river in babbling fear. The headlines screamed that Six Corners, a little hamlet in Pennsylvania, had been wiped out by the Horror. The paper had gone to press, graphically describing the latest of the many horrible events which had been enacted upon the Earth in the last six months. Weird are the conditions of the interdimensional struggle faced by Dr.

The Shipshape Miracle by Clifford D. Simak