The Onslaught from Rigel

By FLETCHER PRATT

A jagged beam of flame, intenser than the hottest furnace leaped through the air, struck the green globe and reached the earth in a thousand tiny rivulets of light.

THE ONSLAUGHT FROM RIGEL

By the author of “The Reign of the Ray,” “The War of the Giants,” etc.

FLETCHER PRATT

Mr. Pratt is well known for his “Reign of the Ray,” and “The War of the Giants” where in both stories he showed his excellent knowledge of warfare, and what a future war might be like.

In this story he combines that knowledge with a vivid and fertile scientific imagination to construct an interplanetary story that marks a new triumph for Wonder Stories Quarterly.

We know that many scientists believe that life may originally have come to earth in the form of spores, from other solar systems and other universes. We therefore might really have had our home dim ages ago, on worlds distantly removed from our earth.

The ability to travel the interstellar spaces, however, might also be possessed by other creatures—creatures driven by fear, necessity and by the will to conquer. And if they come, in mighty waves, with scientific powers far beyond us, to dominate the earth, a terrible time will face the puny human race.

And in this story they do come, and provoke some of the strangest and most exciting adventures that have yet been recorded.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) before 1964, and copyright was not renewed.

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Works published in 1932 would have had to renew their copyright in either 1959 or 1960, i.e. at least 27 years after it was first published / registered but not later than in the 28th year. As it was not renewed, it entered the public domain on 1 January 1961.

The author died in 1956, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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