The First Men in the Moon Read online

  XIV EXPERIMENTS IN INTERCOURSE

  When at last we had made an end of eating, the Selenites linked ourhands closely together again, and then untwisted the chains about ourfeet and rebound them, so as to give us a limited freedom of movement.Then they unfastened the chains about our waists. To do all this theyhad to handle us freely, and ever and again one of their queer headscame down close to my face, or a soft tentacle-hand touched my heador neck. I don’t remember that I was afraid then or repelled by theirproximity. I think that our incurable anthropomorphism made us imaginethere were human heads inside their masks. The skin, like everythingelse, looked bluish, but that was on account of the light; and it washard and shiny, quite in the beetle-wing fashion, not soft, or moist,or hairy, as a vertebrated animal’s would be. Along the crest of thehead was a low ridge of whitish spines running from back to front, anda much larger ridge curved on either side over the eyes. The Selenitewho untied me used his mouth to help his hands.

  “They seem to be releasing us,” said Cavor. “Remember we are on themoon! Make no sudden movements!”

  “Are you going to try that geometry?”

  “If I get a chance. But, of course, they may make an advance first.”

  We remained passive, and the Selenites, having finished theirarrangements, stood back from us, and seemed to be looking at us. I sayseemed to be, because as their eyes were at the side and not in front,one had the same difficulty in determining the direction in which theywere looking as one has in the case of a hen or a fish. They conversedwith one another in their reedy tones, that seemed to me impossible toimitate or define. The door behind us opened wider, and, glancing overmy shoulder, I saw a vague large space beyond, in which quite a littlecrowd of Selenites were standing. They seemed a curiously miscellaneousrabble.

  “Do they want us to imitate those sounds?” I asked Cavor.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “It seems to me that they are trying to make us understand something.”

  “I can’t make anything of their gestures. Do you notice this one, whois worrying with his head like a man with an uncomfortable collar?”

  “Let us shake our heads at him.”

  We did that, and finding it ineffectual, attempted an imitation of theSelenites’ movements. That seemed to interest them. At any rate theyall set up the same movement. But as that seemed to lead to nothing,we desisted at last and so did they, and fell into a piping argumentamong themselves. Then one of them, shorter and very much thicker thanthe others, and with a particularly wide mouth, squatted down suddenlybeside Cavor, and put his hands and feet in the same posture as Cavor’swere bound, and then by a dexterous movement stood up.

  “Cavor,” I shouted, “they want us to get up!”

  He stared open-mouthed. “That’s it!” he said.

  And with much heaving and grunting, because our hands were tiedtogether, we contrived to struggle to our feet. The Selenites made wayfor our elephantine heavings, and seemed to twitter more volubly. Assoon as we were on our feet the thick-set Selenite came and patted eachof our faces with his tentacles, and walked towards the open doorway.That also was plain enough, and we followed him. We saw that four ofthe Selenites standing in the doorway were much taller than the others,and clothed in the same manner as those we had seen in the crater,namely, with spiked round helmets and cylindrical body-cases, and thateach of the four carried a goad with spike and guard made of that samedull-looking metal as the bowls. These four closed about us, one oneither side of each of us, as we emerged from our chamber into thecavern from which the light had come.

  We did not get our impression of that cavern all at once. Ourattention was taken up by the movements and attitudes of the Selenitesimmediately about us, and by the necessity of controlling our motion,lest we should startle and alarm them and ourselves by some excessivestride. In front of us was the short, thick-set being who had solvedthe problem of asking us to get up, moving with gestures that seemed,almost all of them, intelligible to us, inviting us to follow him. Hisspout-like face turned from one of us to the other with a quicknessthat was clearly interrogative. For a time, I say, we were taken upwith these things.

  But at last the great place that formed a background to our movementsasserted itself. It became apparent that the source of much, at least,of the tumult of sounds which had filled our ears ever since we hadrecovered from the stupefaction of the fungus was a vast mass ofmachinery in active movement, whose flying and whirling parts werevisible indistinctly over the heads and between the bodies of theSelenites who walked about us. And not only did the web of sounds thatfilled the air proceed from this mechanism, but also the peculiar bluelight that irradiated the whole place. We had taken it as a naturalthing that a subterranean cavern should be artificially lit, and evennow, though the fact was patent to my eyes, I did not really grasp itsimport until presently the darkness came. The meaning and structure ofthis huge apparatus we saw I cannot explain, because we neither of uslearnt what it was for or how it worked. One after another, big shaftsof metal flung out and up from its centre, their heads travellingin what seemed to me to be a parabolic path; each dropped a sort ofdangling arm as it rose towards the apex of its flight and plungeddown into a vertical cylinder, forcing this down before it. Aboutit moved the shapes of tenders, little figures that seemed vaguelydifferent from the beings about us. As each of the three dangling armsof the machine plunged down, there was a clank and then a roaring, andout of the top of the vertical cylinder came pouring this incandescentsubstance that lit the place, and ran over as milk runs over a boilingpot, and dripped luminously into a tank of light below. It was a coldblue light, a sort of phosphorescent glow but infinitely brighter, andfrom the tanks into which it fell it ran in conduits athwart the cavern.

  Thud, thud, thud, thud, came the sweeping arms of this unintelligibleapparatus, and the light substance hissed and poured. At first thething seemed only reasonably large and near to us, and then I saw howexceedingly little the Selenites upon it seemed, and I realised thefull immensity of cavern and machine. I looked from this tremendousaffair to the faces of the Selenites with a new respect. I stopped, andCavor stopped, and stared at this thunderous engine.

  “But this is stupendous!” I said. “What can it be for?”

  Cavor’s blue-lit face was full of an intelligent respect. “I can’tdream! Surely these beings--Men could not make a thing like that! Lookat those arms, are they on connecting rods?”

  The thick-set Selenite had gone some paces unheeded. He came back andstood between us and the great machine. I avoided seeing him, because Iguessed somehow that his idea was to beckon us onward. He walked awayin the direction he wished us to go, and turned and came back, andflicked our faces to attract our attention.

  Cavor and I looked at one another.

  “Cannot we show him we are interested in the machine?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Cavor. “We’ll try that.” He turned to our guide and smiled,and pointed to the machine, and pointed again, and then to his head,and then to the machine. By some defect of reasoning he seemed toimagine that broken English might help these gestures. “Me look ’im,”he said, “me think ’im very much. Yes.”

  His behaviour seemed to check the Selenites in their desire for ourprogress for a moment. They faced one another, their queer heads moved,the twittering voices came quick and liquid. Then one of them, a lean,tall creature, with a sort of mantle added to the puttee in which theothers were dressed, twisted his elephant trunk of a hand about Cavor’swaist, and pulled him gently to follow our guide, who again went onahead.

  Cavor resisted. “We may just as well begin explaining ourselves now.They may think we are new animals, a new sort of mooncalf perhaps! Itis most important that we should show an intelligent interest from theoutset.”

  He began to shake his head violently. “No, no,” he said, “me not comeon one minute. Me look at ’im.”

  “Isn’t there some geometrical point you might bring in _apropos_ ofthat a
ffair?” I suggested, as the Selenites conferred again.

  “Possibly a parabolic--” he began.

  He yelled loudly, and leaped six feet or more!

  One of the four armed moon-men had pricked him with a goad!

  I turned on the goad-bearer behind me with a swift threatening gesture,and he started back. This and Cavor’s sudden shout and leap clearlyastonished all the Selenites. They receded hastily, facing us. Forone of those moments that seem to last for ever, we stood in angryprotest, with a scattered semicircle of these inhuman beings about us.

  “He pricked me!” said Cavor, with a catching of the voice.

  “I saw him,” I answered.

  “Confound it!” I said to the Selenites; “we’re not going to stand that!What on earth do you take us for?”

  I glanced quickly right and left. Far away across the blue wildernessof cavern I saw a number of other Selenites running towards us; broadand slender they were, and one with a larger head than the others.The cavern spread wide and low, and receded in every direction intodarkness. Its roof, I remember, seemed to bulge down as if with theweight of the vast thickness of rocks that prisoned us. There was noway out of it--no way out of it. Above, below, in every direction, wasthe unknown, and these inhuman creatures, with goads and gestures,confronting us, and we two unsupported men!