CHAPTER 10

Mr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions

For a time neither of us spoke.

"They've got us," I said at last.

"It was that fungus."

"Well—if we hadn't eaten it we should have fainted and starved."

"We might have found the sphere."

I lost my temper at his persistence, and swore to myself. For a time we hated one another in silence. Presently I was forced to talk again.

"What do you make of it, anyhow?" I asked humbly.

"They are reasonable creatures—they can make things and do things—those lights we saw ... "

He stopped. It was clear he could make nothing of it. "We are some way in, perhaps a couple of thousand feet or more."

"Why?"

"It's cooler. And our voices are so much louder. The air is denser. We must be some depth—a mile even—inside the moon."

"What do you think has happened to the sphere?" I asked.

"Lost," he said, like a man who answers an uninteresting question.

"Among those plants?"

"Unless they find it."

"And then?"

"How can I tell?"

"Cavor," I said bitterly, "things Took bright for my Company ... Good Lord! Just think of all the trouble we took to get into this dark prison! What did we come for? What are we after? We wanted too much, we tried too much. It was you who proposed the moon! Those Cavorite blinds! I am certain we could have worked them for earthly purposes."

We ceased to talk together.

For a time Cavor talked to himself without much help from me.

"If they find it," he began, "what will they do with it? Well, that's the question. They won't understand it anyhow. If they understood that sort of thing they would have come long since to earth. But they are intelligent and inquisitive. They will examine it—get inside it—trifle with the studs. Off! ... That would mean the moon for us for all the rest of our lives. Strange creatures, strange knowledge ... "

"As for strange knowledge—" said I, and language failed me.

"Look here, Bedford," said Cavor, "you came on this expedition of your own free will. Anyhow, it's no use quarrelling with me now. These creatures have got us tied hand and foot. Whatever temper you choose to go through with it in, you will have to go through with it ... We have experiences before us that will need all our coolness."

"Confound your science!" I said.

"The problem is communication. Gesture, I fear, will be different. Pointing, for example. No creatures but men and monkeys point. There is speech. The sounds they make, a sort of fluting and piping. I don't see how we are to imitate that. Is it their speech, that sort of thing? They may have different senses, different means of intercourse. Of course they are minds and we are minds; there must be something in common. We might be able to get to an understanding with them."

"Impossible," I said. "They are more different from us than the strangest animals on earth. What is the good of talking like this?"

Cavor thought. "I don't see that. Where there are minds they will have something similar—even though they have been evolved on different planets."

"They are no more than animals. They're much more like ants on their hind legs than human beings, and who ever got to any sort of understanding with ants?"

"But these machines and clothing? No, I don't agree with you, Bedford. I remember reading once an article by the late Professor Galton on the possibility of intercourse between the planets. His idea was to begin with broad truths, the great principles of geometry, for example. By demonstrating our knowledge of these we could prove that we were intelligent beings. Now, suppose I ... I might draw a geometrical figure with a wet finger or even trace it in the air ... "

He fell silent. My angry despair came back to me. I perceived with a sudden vividness the extraordinary folly of everything I had done. "Ass!" I said; "oh, ass, ass ... I seem to exist only to go about doing foolish things, Why did we ever leave the sphere? If only we had had the sense to tie a handkerchief to a stick to show where we had left it!"

"It is clear," went on Cavor, "they are intelligent. As they have not killed us at once, they must have ideas of mercy. And these chains! A high degree of intelligence ... "

"I wish to heaven," I cried, "I'd thought even twice! It was my confidence in you! Why didn't I stick to my play? That was what I was equal to. I could have finished that play. I had the outline nearly done. Then ... Imagine it! Leaping to the moon!"

I looked up. The darkness had given place to that bluish light again. The door was opening, and several noiseless Selenites were coming into the room. I became quite still staring at their horrible faces. The first and second carried bowls which contained pieces of something white. I eyed these bowls greedily. One of the Selenites lowered a bowl towards me. His arms ended not in hands, but in a sort of flap and thumb, like the end of an elephant's trunk.

The stuff in the bowl was loose, and it smelt faintly like mushrooms. I believe it must have been mooncalf flesh.

My hands were so tightly chained that I could hardly reach the bowl; but when they saw the effort I made, two of them unfastened one of the turns about my wrist. I immediately seized a mouthful of the food; it was not disagreeable; I took two other mouthfuls.

We ate and drank greedily. Never before nor since have I been so hungry. They stood about us, watching us, and ever and again making a slight twittering that for them, I suppose, took the place of speech.