“Look here, Cavor,” I said, “I’ve half the voting power anyhow in this
affair, and this is a case for a practical man. I’m a practical man,
and you are not. I’m not going to trust to Selenites and geometrical
diagrams again, if I can help it.... That’s all. Get back. Drop all
this secrecy--or most of it. And come again.”
He reflected. “When I came to the moon,” he said, “I ought to have come
alone.”
“The question before the meeting,” I said, “is how to get back to the
sphere.”
For a time we nursed our knees in silence. Then he seemed to decide for
my reasons.
“I think,” he said, “one can get data. It is clear that while the
sun is on this side of the moon the air will be blowing through this
planet sponge from the dark side hither. On this side, at any rate,
the air will be expanding and flowing out of the moon caverns into the
craters.... Very well, there’s a draught here.”
“So there is.”
“And that means that this is not a dead end; somewhere behind us this
cleft goes on and up. The draught is blowing up, and that is the way we
have to go. If we try and get up any sort of chimney or gully there is,
we shall not only get out of these passages where they are hunting for
us----”
“But suppose the gully is too narrow?”
“We’ll come down again.”
“Ssh!” I said suddenly; “what’s that?”
We listened. At first it was an indistinct murmur, and then one picked
out the clang of a gong. “They must think we are mooncalves,” said I,
“to be frightened at that.”
“They’re coming along that passage,” said Cavor.
“They must be.”
“They’ll not think of the cleft. They’ll go past.”
I listened again for a space. “This time,” I whispered, “they’re likely
to have some sort of weapon.”
Then suddenly I sprang to my feet. “Good heavens, Cavor!” I cried.
“But they _will_! They’ll see the fungi I have been pitching down.
They’ll----!”
I didn’t finish my sentence. I turned about and made a leap over
the fungus tops towards the upper end of the cavity. I saw that the
space turned upward and became a draughty cleft again, ascending to
impenetrable darkness. I was about to clamber up into this, and then
with a happy inspiration turned back.
“What are you doing?” asked Cavor.
“Go on!” said I, and went back and got two of the shining fungi, and
putting one into the breast pocket of my flannel jacket, so that it
stuck out to light our climbing, went back with the other for Cavor.
The noise of the Selenites was now so loud that it seemed they must be
already beneath the cleft. But it might be they would have difficulty
in clambering into it, or might hesitate to ascend it against our
possible resistance. At any rate, we had now the comforting knowledge
of the enormous muscular superiority our birth in another planet gave
us. In another minute I was clambering with gigantic vigour after
Cavor’s blue-lit heels.