“Cavor,” I said in a hoarse undertone.
He glanced at me with his face screwed up. “Don’t,” he said. I put down
the fragment, and we crawled on through this tempting fleshiness for a
space.
“Cavor,” I asked, “why _not?_”
“Poison,” I heard him say, but he did not look round.
We crawled some way before I decided.
“I’ll chance it,” said I.
He made a belated gesture to prevent me. I stuffed my mouth full. He
crouched watching my face, his own twisted into the oddest expression.
“It’s good,” I said.
“O Lord!” he cried.
He watched me munch, his face wrinkled between desire and disapproval,
then suddenly succumbed to appetite and began to tear off huge
mouthfuls. For a time we did nothing but eat.
The stuff was not unlike a terrestrial mushroom, only it was much laxer
in texture, and, as one swallowed it, it warmed the throat. At first we
experienced a mere mechanical satisfaction in eating; then our blood
began to run warmer, and we tingled at the lips and fingers, and then
new and slightly irrelevant ideas came bubbling up in our minds.
“It’s good,” said I. “Infernally good! What a home for our surplus
population! Our poor surplus population,” and I broke off another large
portion. It filled me with a curiously benevolent satisfaction that
there was such good food in the moon. The depression of my hunger gave
way to an irrational exhilaration. The dread and discomfort in which I
had been living vanished entirely. I perceived the moon no longer as a
planet from which I most earnestly desired the means of escape, but as
a possible refuge from human destitution. I think I forgot the
Selenites, the mooncalves, the lid, and the noises completely so soon
as I had eaten that fungus.
Cavor replied to my third repetition of my “surplus population” remark
with similar words of approval. I felt that my head swam, but I put
this down to the stimulating effect of food after a long fast.
“Ess’lent discov’ry yours, Cavor,” said I. “Se’nd on’y to the ‘tato.”
“Whajer mean?” asked Cavor. “‘Scovery of the moon—se’nd on’y to the
tato?”
I looked at him, shocked at his suddenly hoarse voice, and by the
badness of his articulation. It occurred to me in a flash that he was
intoxicated, possibly by the fungus. It also occurred to me that he
erred in imagining that he had discovered the moon; he had not
discovered it, he had only reached it. I tried to lay my hand on his
arm and explain this to him, but the issue was too subtle for his
brain. It was also unexpectedly difficult to express. After a momentary
attempt to understand me—I remember wondering if the fungus had made my
eyes as fishy as his—he set off upon some observations on his own
account.
“We are,” he announced with a solemn hiccup, “the creashurs o’ what we
eat and drink.”
He repeated this, and as I was now in one of my subtle moods, I
determined to dispute it. Possibly I wandered a little from the point.
But Cavor certainly did not attend at all properly. He stood up as well
as he could, putting a hand on my head to steady himself, which was
disrespectful, and stood staring about him, quite devoid now of any
fear of the moon beings.
I tried to point out that this was dangerous for some reason that was
not perfectly clear to me, but the word “dangerous” had somehow got
mixed with “indiscreet,” and came out rather more like “injurious” than
either; and after an attempt to disentangle them, I resumed my
argument, addressing myself principally to the unfamiliar but attentive
coralline growths on either side. I felt that it was necessary to clear
up this confusion between the moon and a potato at once—I wandered into
a long parenthesis on the importance of precision of definition in
argument. I did my best to ignore the fact that my bodily sensations
were no longer agreeable.
In some way that I have now forgotten, my mind was led back to projects
of colonisation. “We must annex this moon,” I said. “There must be no
shilly-shally. This is part of the White Man’s Burthen. Cavor—we
are—_hic_—Satap—mean Satraps! Nempire Cæsar never dreamt. B’in all the
newspapers. Cavorecia. Bedfordecia. Bedfordecia—hic—Limited.
Mean—unlimited! Practically.”
Certainly I was intoxicated.
I embarked upon an argument to show the infinite benefits our arrival
would confer on the moon. I involved myself in a rather difficult proof
that the arrival of Columbus was, on the whole, beneficial to America.
I found I had forgotten the line of argument I had intended to pursue,
and continued to repeat “sim’lar to C’lumbus,” to fill up time.
From that point my memory of the action of that abominable fungus
becomes confused. I remember vaguely that we declared our intention of
standing no nonsense from any confounded insects, that we decided it
ill became men to hide shamefully upon a mere satellite, that we
equipped ourselves with huge armfuls of the fungus—whether for missile
purposes or not I do not know—and, heedless of the stabs of the bayonet
scrub, we started forth into the sunshine.
Almost immediately we must have come upon the Selenites. There were six
of them, and they were marching in single file over a rocky place,
making the most remarkable piping and whining sounds. They all seemed
to become aware of us at once, all instantly became silent and
motionless, like animals, with their faces turned towards us.
For a moment I was sobered.
“Insects,” murmured Cavor, “insects! And they think I’m going to crawl
about on my stomach—on my vertebrated stomach!
“Stomach,” he repeated slowly, as though he chewed the indignity.
Then suddenly, with a sort of fury, he made three vast strides and
leapt towards them. He leapt badly; he made a series of somersaults in
the air, whirled right over them, and vanished with an enormous splash
amidst the cactus bladders. What the Selenites made of this amazing,
and to my mind undignified irruption from another planet, I have no
means of guessing. I seem to remember the sight of their backs as they
ran in all directions, but I am not sure. All these last incidents
before oblivion came are vague and faint in my mind. I know I made a
step to follow Cavor, and tripped and fell headlong among the rocks. I
was, I am certain, suddenly and vehemently ill. I seem to remember a
violent struggle and being gripped by metallic clasps....
My next clear recollection is that we were prisoners at we knew not
what depths beneath the moon’s surface; we were in darkness amidst
strange distracting noises; our bodies were covered with scratches and
bruises, and our heads racked with pain.
XII.
The Selenite’s Face
I found myself sitting crouched together in a tumultuous darkness. For
a long time I could not understand where I was, nor how I had come to
this perplexity. I thought of the cupboard into which I had been thrust
at times when I was a child, and then of a very dark and noisy bedroom
in which I had slept during an illness. But these sounds about me were
not the noises I had known, and there was a thin flavour in the air
like the wind of a stable. Then I supposed we must still be at work
upon the sphere, and that somehow I had got into the cellar of Cavor’s
house. I remembered we had finished the sphere, and fancied I must
still be in it and travelling through space.
“Cavor,” I said, “cannot we have some light?”
There came no answer.
“Cavor!” I insisted.