Explore "The Seventh Order" by Jerry Sohl on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
[Sidenote: History is filled with invincible conquerors. This one from space was genuinely omnipotent, but that never keeps humanity from resisting! ]
The silver needle moved with fantastic speed, slowed when it neared the air shell around Earth, then glided noiselessly through the atmosphere. It gently settled to the ground near a wood and remained silent and still for a long time, a lifeless, cylindrical, streamlined silver object eight feet long and three feet in diameter.