The Unending Night

It all started with a runaway chain reaction in a gigantic thermonuclear power plant on Mars, where Earth's surplus population was trying to establish new elbow room. Then came the horrendous explosion and, without warning, the basic unity of the solar system was disrupted. Mars moved toward Earth to exert tremendous new gracitational pressures on it. Phoebus and Demos, Mars' two tiny moons, were caught and pulled apart by this new influence, breaking up into large segments and falling to Earth as giant meteors. Thousands of fires raged; tidal waves swept inland; earthquakes shook the planet! And still Mars moved closer and closer, until it was a ball of blood in the heavens, three times the size of the moon. Truly it looked as if the end of the world had come!