CHAPTER 6

Exploration Begins

We ceased to gaze. We turned to each other, the same thought in our minds. For these plants to grow, there must be some air, however thin, air that we also should be able to breathe.

"How do you know that stuff is air?" I asked Cavor. "It may be nitrogen—it may be carbonic acid even!"

"That is easy," he said, and set about proving it. He lit a large piece of paper and thrust it through the valve. It dropped on the snow. The pink flame of its burning vanished. Then I saw a little blue tongue upon its edge that crept and spread. Quietly the whole sheet burned and sent up a thread of smoke. There was no doubt left to me; the atmosphere of the moon was either pure oxygen or air, and capable therefore—unless it was exceedingly thin—of supporting our life.

I started to unscrew the glass lid of the manhole. The denser air within our sphere began to escape, singing like a kettle. Cavor stopped me. It was evident the pressure outside was very much less than it was within. My blood-vessels began to beat in my ears, and the sound of Cavor's movements decreased. I was breathless and dizzy. Cavor sat with a cylinder of oxygen at hand to restore our pressure. He prepared a drink and insisted on my sharing it with him, before he permitted me to resume unscrewing. I lifted the glass lid and laid it carefully on the bundle. I knelt beside the edge of the manhole, and peered over it. Beneath, within a yard of my face, lay the untrodden snow of the moon.

Cavor thrust his head through the hole in his blanket and wrapped it about him. He sat down on the edge of the manhole, hesitated for a moment, then dropped down and stood upon the soil of the moon. Then he drew himself together and leapt.

It seemed to me to be an extremely big leap. He seemed twenty or thirty feet off. He was standing high upon a rock and signalling to me. Perhaps he was shouting, but the sound did not reach me.

In a puzzled state of mind I too dropped through the manhole. I stood up. Just in front of me the snow had melted and made a sort of ditch. I took a step back and jumped.

I found myself flying through the air, saw the rock on which Cavor stood coming to meet me, and clutched it in a state of utter amazement. Cavor bent down and shouted in piping tones for me to be careful.

I had forgotten that on the moon, with only an eighth part of the earth's mass and a quarter of its diameter, my weight was only a sixth what it was on earth. But now that fact insisted on being remembered. I raised myself carefully to the top, and stood up beside him, under the blaze of the sun.

As far as the eye could see, the crater floor was covered with bristling plants starting into life, varied here and there by swollen masses of a cactus form, and bright red grasses that grew so fast they seemed to crawl over the rocks.

"It seems to be deserted," said Cavor, "absolutely desolate. No insects—no birds I Not a trace of animal life. If there was—what would they do in the night ... ? No; there's just these plants alone."

He became silent and thoughtful for a time. I shaded my eyes with my hands and stared with amazement at the visibly growing plants. "Look at that flower!" I said, turning to Cavor, and behold! he had vanished.

For an instant I stood rooted to the spot. Then I made a hasty step to look over the edge of the rock. But in my surprise at his disappearance I forgot once more that we were on the moon. I floated through the air and fell like a feather, knee-deep in the snow at the bottom of a ditch. I looked about me. "Cavor!" I cried; but no Cavor was visible. I climbed quickly to the top of the rocks. "Cavor!" I cried. My voice sounded like the voice of a lost lamb.

The sphere, too, was not in sight, and for a moment a horrible feeling of loneliness pinched my heart.

Then I saw him. He was laughing and making gestures to attract my attention. He was on a bare rock twenty or thirty feet away. I could not hear his voice, but "jump" said his gestures. I hesitated, the distance seemed enormous. I took a step back, gathered myself together, and leapt with all my might. I seemed to shoot right up in the air as though I should never come down.

It was horrible and delightful, and as wild as a nightmare, to go flying off in this fashion. I flew right over Cavor's head and fell on to a huge mass of fungus that burst all about me, covering me with its orange powder. I rolled over, and came to rest shaken with breathless laughter.

I became aware of Cavor's little round face peering over a bristling hedge. He made his way cautiously towards me.

"We've got to be careful," he said. "This moon has no discipline. She'll let us smash ourselves."

Apart from a few thorns that I pulled out of my hands, I had received no serious injuries from my fall, and we were presently looking round for some safe and easy landing-place for our next leap. This one I managed without difficulty, but Cavor fell short by a foot or so, and this time it was he who tasted the thorns.

We leapt back again, and to and fro several times, accustoming our muscles to the new standard. In a very little time we could judge the effort necessary for any distance with almost earthly assurance.

And all this time the lunar plants were growing around us, higher and denser every moment. But we were so intent upon our leaping, that for a time we gave no heed to their steady growth.

We were in wonderfully high spirits. This was partly due to our sense of freedom after the confinement of the sphere, but mainly to the thin sweet air, which I am certain contained a much larger proportion of oxygen than our earthly atmosphere. In spite of our strange surroundings, I felt as adventurous as a cockney would do when he is placed for the first time among mountains; and I do not think it occurred to either of us, face to face though we were with the unknown, to be very greatly afraid.

We made a few more leaps, with amazing success, and sat down at last to rest. Our lungs were painful. We sat holding our sides and recovering our breath. Cavor panted something about "amazing sensations". And then a thought came into my head.

"By the way," I said, "where exactly is the sphere?"

Cavor looked at me. "Eh?"

The full meaning of what we were saying struck me sharply.

"Cavor!" I cried, laying a hand on his arm, "where is the sphere?"