The First Men in the Moon Read online

  XXIV THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SELENITES

  The messages of Cavor from the sixth up to the sixteenth are for themost part so much broken, and they abound so in repetitions, that theyscarcely form a consecutive narrative. They will be given in full,of course, in the scientific report, but here it will be far moreconvenient to continue simply to abstract and quote as in the formerchapter. We have subjected every word to a keen critical scrutiny,and my own brief memories and impressions of lunar things have beenof inestimable help in interpreting what would otherwise have beenimpenetrably dark. And, naturally, as living beings our interestcentres far more upon the strange community of lunar insects in whichhe was living, it would seem, as an honoured guest than upon the merephysical condition of their world.

  I have already made it clear, I think, that the Selenites I sawresembled man in maintaining the erect attitude, and in having fourlimbs, and I have compared the general appearance of their heads andthe jointing of their limbs to that of insects. I have mentioned, too,the peculiar consequence of the smaller gravitation of the moon ontheir fragile slightness. Cavor confirms me upon all these points. Hecalls them “animals,” though of course they fall under no division ofthe classification of earthly creatures, and he points out “the insecttype of anatomy had, fortunately for men, never exceeded a relativelyvery small size on earth.” The largest terrestrial insects, living orextinct, do not, as a matter of fact, measure 6 in. in length; “buthere, against the lesser gravitation of the moon, a creature certainlyas much an insect as vertebrate seems to have been able to attain tohuman and ultrahuman dimensions.”

  He does not mention the ant, but throughout his allusions the ant iscontinually being brought before my mind, in its sleepless activity,in its intelligence and social organisation, in its structure, andmore particularly in the fact that it displays, in addition to the twoforms, the male and the female form, that almost all other animalspossess, a number of other sexless creatures, workers, soldiers,and the like, differing from one another in structure, character,power, and use, and yet all members of the same species. For theseSelenites, also, have a great variety of forms. Of course they arenot only colossally greater in size than ants, but also, in Cavor’sopinion at least, in intelligence, morality, and social wisdom arethey colossally greater than men. And instead of the four or fivedifferent forms of ant that are found, there are almost innumerablydifferent forms of Selenite. I have endeavoured to indicate the veryconsiderable difference observable in such Selenites of the outer crustas I happened to encounter; the differences in size and proportionswere certainly as wide as the differences between the most widelyseparated races of men. But such differences as I saw fade absolutelyto nothing in comparison with the huge distinctions of which Cavortells. It would seem the exterior Selenites I saw were, indeed, mostlyengaged in kindred occupations--mooncalf herds, butchers, fleshers,and the like. But within the moon, practically unsuspected by me,there are, it seems, a number of other sorts of Selenite, differingin size, differing in the relative size of part to part, differing inpower and appearance, and yet not different species of creatures, butonly different forms of one species, and retaining through all theirvariations a certain common likeness that marks their specific unity.The moon is, indeed, a sort of vast ant-hill, only, instead of therebeing only four or five sorts of ant, there are many hundred differentsorts of Selenite, and almost every gradation between one sort andanother.

  It would seem the discovery came upon Cavor very speedily. I inferrather than learn from his narrative that he was captured by themooncalf herds under the direction of those other Selenites who “havelarger brain cases (heads?) and very much shorter legs.” Finding hewould not walk even under the goad, they carried him into darkness,crossed a narrow, plank-like bridge that may have been the identicalbridge I had refused, and put him down in something that must haveseemed at first to be some sort of lift. This was the balloon--ithad certainly been absolutely invisible to us in the darkness--andwhat had seemed to me a mere plank-walking into the void was really,no doubt, the passage of the gangway. In this he descended towardsconstantly more luminous caverns of the moon. At first they descendedin silence--save for the twitterings of the Selenites--and then intoa stir of windy movement. In a little while the profound blackness hadmade his eyes so sensitive that he began to see more and more of thethings about him, and at last the vague took shape.

  “They carried him into darkness”]

  “Conceive an enormous cylindrical space,” says Cavor in his seventhmessage, “a quarter of a mile across, perhaps; very dimly lit at firstand then brighter, with big platforms twisting down its sides in aspiral that vanishes at last below in a blue profundity; and lit evenmore brightly--one could not tell how or why. Think of the well ofthe very largest spiral staircase or lift-shaft that you have everlooked down, and magnify that by a hundred. Imagine it at twilight seenthrough blue glass. Imagine yourself looking down that; only imaginealso that you feel extraordinarily light, and have got rid of any giddyfeeling you might have on earth, and you will have the first conditionsof my impression. Round this enormous shaft imagine a broad galleryrunning in a much steeper spiral than would be credible on earth, andforming a steep road protected from the gulf only by a little parapetthat vanishes at last in perspective a couple of miles below.

  “Looking up, I saw the very fellow of the downward vision; it had,of course, the effect of looking into a very steep cone. A wind wasblowing down the shaft, and far above I fancy I heard, growing fainterand fainter, the bellowing of the mooncalves that were being drivendown again from their evening pasturage on the exterior. And up anddown the spiral galleries were scattered numerous moon people, pallid,faintly self-luminous beings, regarding our appearance or busied onunknown errands.

  “Either I fancied it or a flake of snow came drifting down on the icybreeze. And then, falling like a snowflake, a little figure, a littleman-insect clinging to a parachute, drove down very swiftly towards thecentral places of the moon.

  “The big-headed Selenite sitting beside me, seeing me move my headwith the gesture of one who saw, pointed with his trunk-like ‘hand’and indicated a sort of jetty coming into sight very far below: alittle landing-stage, as it were, hanging into the void. As it swept uptowards us our pace diminished very rapidly, and in a few moments, asit seemed, we were abreast of it and at rest. A mooring-rope was flungand grasped, and I found myself pulled down to a level with a greatcrowd of Selenites, who jostled to see me.

  “It was an incredible crowd. Suddenly and violently there was forcedupon my attention the vast amount of difference there is amongst thesebeings of the moon.

  “Indeed, there seemed not two alike in all that jostling multitude.They differed in shape, they differed in size, they rang all thehorrible changes on the theme of Selenite form! Some bulged andoverhung, some ran about among the feet of their fellows. All ofthem had a grotesque and disquieting suggestion of an insect thathas somehow contrived to mock humanity; but all seemed to present anincredible exaggeration of some particular feature: one had a vastright fore-limb, an enormous antennal arm, as it were; one seemedall leg, poised, as it were, on stilts; another protruded the edgeof his face mask into a nose-like organ that made him startlinglyhuman until one saw his expressionless gaping mouth. The strangeand (except for the want of mandibles and palps) most insect-likehead of the mooncalf-minders underwent, indeed, the most incredibletransformations: here it was broad and low, here high and narrow;here its leathery brow was drawn out into horns and strange features;here it was whiskered and divided, and there with a grotesquely humanprofile. One distortion was particularly conspicuous. There wereseveral brain cases distended like bladders to a huge size, with theface mask reduced to quite small proportions. There were severalamazing forms, with heads reduced to microscopic proportions and blobbybodies; and fantastic, flimsy things that existed, it would seem, onlyas a basis for vast, trumpet-like protrusions of the lower part ofthe mask. And oddest of all, as it seemed to me for the moment,
twoor three of these weird inhabitants of a subterranean world, a worldsheltered by innumerable miles of rock from sun or rain, _carriedumbrellas_ in their tentaculate hands!--real terrestrial-lookingumbrellas! And then I thought of the parachutist I had watched descend.

  “These moon people behaved exactly as a human crowd might have donein similar circumstances: they jostled and thrust one another, theyshoved one another aside, they even clambered upon one another to get aglimpse of me. Every moment they increased in numbers, and pressed moreurgently upon the discs of my ushers”--Cavor does not explain whathe means by this--“every moment fresh shapes emerged from the shadowsand forced themselves upon my astounded attention. And presently I wassigned and helped into a sort of litter, and lifted up on the shouldersof strong-armed bearers, and so borne through the twilight over thisseething multitude towards the apartments that were provided for me inthe moon. All about me were eyes, faces, masks, a leathery noise likethe rustling of beetle wings, and a great bleating and cricket-liketwittering of Selenite voices....”

  * * * * *

  We gather he was taken to a “hexagonal apartment,” and there for aspace he was confined. Afterwards he was given a much more considerableliberty; indeed, almost as much freedom as one has in a civilised townon earth. And it would appear that the mysterious being who is theruler and master of the moon appointed two Selenites “with large heads”to guard and study him, and to establish whatever mental communicationswere possible with him. And, amazing and incredible as it may seem,these two creatures, these fantastic men-insects, these beings ofanother world, were presently communicating with Cavor by means ofterrestrial speech.

  Cavor speaks of them as Phi-oo and Tsi-puff. Phi-oo, he says, wasabout 5 ft. high; he had small, slender legs about 18 in. long, andslight feet of the common lunar pattern. On these balanced a littlebody, throbbing with the pulsations of his heart. He had long, soft,many-jointed arms ending in a tentacled grip, and his neck wasmany-jointed in the usual way, but exceptionally short and thick. Hishead, says Cavor--apparently alluding to some previous description thathas gone astray in space--“is of the common lunar type, but strangelymodified. The mouth has the usual expressionless gape, but it isunusually small and pointing downward, and the mask is reduced to thesize of a large flat nose-flap. On either side are the little eyes.

  “The rest of the head is distended into a huge globe, and the chitinousleathery cuticle of the mooncalf herds thins out to a mere membrane,through which the pulsating brain movements are distinctly visible. Heis a creature, indeed, with a tremendously hypertrophied brain, andwith the rest of his organism both relatively and absolutely dwarfed.”

  In another passage Cavor compares the back view of him to Atlassupporting the world. Tsi-puff, it seems, was a very similar insect,but his “face” was drawn out to a considerable length, and the brainhypertrophy being in different regions, his head was not round butpear-shaped, with the stalk downward. There were also litter-carriers,lop-sided beings with enormous shoulders, very spidery ushers, and asquat foot attendant in Cavor’s retinue.

  The manner in which Phi-oo and Tsi-puff attacked the problem of speechwas fairly obvious. They came into this “hexagonal cell” in which Cavorwas confined, and began imitating every sound he made, beginning with acough. He seems to have grasped their intention with great quickness,and to have begun repeating words to them and pointing to indicate theapplication. The procedure was probably always the same. Phi-oo wouldattend to Cavor for a space, then point also and say the word he hadheard.

  The first word he mastered was “man,” and the second “Mooney”--whichCavor on the spur of the moment seems to have used instead of“Selenite” for the moon race. As soon as Phi-oo was assured of themeaning of a word he repeated it to Tsi-puff, who remembered itinfallibly. They mastered over one hundred English nouns at their firstsession.

  Subsequently it seems they brought an artist with them to assist thework of explanation with sketches and diagrams--Cavor’s drawings beingrather crude. He was, says Cavor, “a being with an active arm and anarresting eye,” and he seemed to draw with incredible swiftness.

  The eleventh message is undoubtedly only a fragment of a longercommunication. After some broken sentences, the record of which isunintelligible, it goes on:--

  “But it will interest only linguists, and delay me too long, to givethe details of the series of intent parleys of which these werethe beginning, and, indeed, I very much doubt if I could give inanything like the proper order all the twistings and turnings thatwe made in our pursuit of mutual comprehension. Verbs were soonplain sailing--at least, such active verbs as I could express bydrawings; some adjectives were easy, but when it came to abstractnouns, to prepositions, and the sort of hackneyed figures of speechby means of which so much is expressed on earth, it was like divingin cork-jackets. Indeed, these difficulties were insurmountableuntil to the sixth lesson came a fourth assistant, a being with ahuge, football-shaped head, whose _forte_ was clearly the pursuitof intricate analogy. He entered in a preoccupied manner, stumblingagainst a stool, and the difficulties that arose had to be presented tohim with a certain amount of clamour and hitting and pricking beforethey reached his apprehension. But once he was involved his penetrationwas amazing. Whenever there came a need of thinking beyond Phi-oo’sby no means limited scope, this prolate-headed person was in request,but he invariably told the conclusion to Tsi-puff, in order that itmight be remembered; Tsi-puff was ever the arsenal for facts. And so weadvanced again.

  “It seemed long and yet brief--a matter of days before I was positivelytalking with these insects of the moon. Of course, at first it was anintercourse infinitely tedious and exasperating, but imperceptiblyit has grown to comprehension. And my patience has grown to meet itslimitations. Phi-oo it is who does all the talking. He does it with avast amount of meditative provisional ‘M’m--M’m,’ and he has caught upone or two phrases, ‘If I may say,’ ‘If you understand,’ and beads allhis speech with them.

  “Thus he would discourse. Imagine him explaining his artist.

  “‘M’m--M’m--he--if I may say--draw. Eat little--drink little--draw.Love draw. No other thing. Hate all who not draw like him. Angry.Hate all who draw like him better. Hate most people. Hate all who notthink all world for to draw. Angry. M’m. All things mean nothing tohim--only draw. He like you ... if you understand.... New thing todraw. Ugly--striking. Eh?

  “‘He’--turning to Tsi-puff--‘love remember words. Remember wonderfulmore than any. Think no, draw no--remember. Say’--here he referredto his gifted assistant for a word--‘histories--all things. He hearonce--say ever.’

  “It is more wonderful to me than I dreamt that anything ever couldbe again, to hear, in this perpetual obscurity, these extraordinarycreatures--for even familiarity fails to weaken the inhuman effect oftheir appearance--continually piping a nearer approach to coherentearthly speech,--asking questions, giving answers. I feel that I amcasting back to the fable-hearing period of childhood again, when theant and the grasshopper talked together and the bee judged betweenthem....”

  * * * * *

  And while these linguistic exercises were going on Cavor seems to haveexperienced a considerable relaxation of his confinement. “The firstdread and distrust our unfortunate conflict aroused is being,” he said,“continually effaced by the deliberate rationality of all I do.” ...“I am now able to come and go as I please, or I am restricted only formy own good. So it is I have been able to get at this apparatus, and,assisted by a happy find among the material that is littered in thisenormous store-cave, I have contrived to despatch these messages. Sofar not the slightest attempt has been made to interfere with me inthis, though I have made it quite clear to Phi-oo that I am signallingto the earth.

  “‘You talk to other?’ he asked, watching me.

  “‘Others,’ said I.

  “‘Others,’ he said. ‘Oh yes. Men?’

  “And I went on transmitting.”


  * * * * *

  Cavor was continually making corrections in his previous accountsof the Selenites as fresh facts flowed in upon him to modify hisconclusions, and accordingly one gives the quotations that followwith a certain amount of reservation. They are quoted from theninth, thirteenth, and sixteenth messages, and, altogether vague andfragmentary as they are, they probably give as complete a picture ofthe social life of this strange community as mankind can now hope tohave for many generations.

  “In the moon,” says Cavor, “every citizen knows his place. He is bornto that place, and the elaborate discipline of training and educationand surgery he undergoes fits him at last so completely to it that hehas neither ideas nor organs for any purpose beyond it. ‘Why shouldhe?’ Phi-oo would ask. If, for example, a Selenite is destined to bea mathematician, his teachers and trainers set out at once to thatend. They check any incipient disposition to other pursuits, theyencourage his mathematical bias with a perfect psychological skill.His brain grows, or at least the mathematical faculties of his braingrow, and the rest of him only so much as is necessary to sustain thisessential part of him. At last, save for rest and food, his one delightlies in the exercise and display of his faculty, his one interestin its application, his sole society with other specialists in hisown line. His brain grows continually larger, at least so far as theportions engaging in mathematics are concerned; they bulge ever largerand seem to suck all life and vigour from the rest of his frame. Hislimbs shrivel, his heart and digestive organs diminish, his insectface is hidden under its bulging contours. His voice becomes a merestridulation for the stating of formulæ; he seems deaf to all butproperly enunciated problems. The faculty of laughter, save for thesudden discovery of some paradox, is lost to him; his deepest emotionis the evolution of a novel computation. And so he attains his end.

  “Or, again, a Selenite appointed to be a minder of mooncalves is fromhis earliest years induced to think and live mooncalf, to find hispleasure in mooncalf lore, his exercise in their tending and pursuit.He is trained to become wiry and active, his eye is indurated tothe tight wrappings, the angular contours that constitute a ‘smartmooncalfishness.’ He takes at last no interest in the deeper part ofthe moon; he regards all Selenites not equally versed in mooncalveswith indifference, derision, or hostility. His thoughts are of mooncalfpastures, and his dialect an accomplished mooncalf technique. So alsohe loves his work, and discharges in perfect happiness the duty thatjustifies his being. And so it is with all sorts and conditions ofSelenites--each is a perfect unit in a world machine....

  “These beings with big heads, on whom the intellectual labours fall,form a sort of aristocracy in this strange society, and at the headof them, quintessential of the moon, is that marvellous giganticganglion the Grand Lunar, into whose presence I am finally to come.The unlimited development of the minds of the intellectual classis rendered possible by the absence of any bony skull in the lunaranatomy, that strange box of bone that clamps about the developingbrain of man, imperiously insisting ‘thus far and no farther’ to allhis possibilities. They fall into three main classes differing greatlyin influence and respect. There are the administrators, of whomPhi-oo is one, Selenites of considerable initiative and versatility,responsible each for a certain cubic content of the moon’s bulk; theexperts like the football-headed thinker, who are trained to performcertain special operations; and the erudite, who are the repositoriesof all knowledge. To this latter class belongs Tsi-puff, the firstlunar professor of terrestrial languages. With regard to these latter,it is a curious little thing to note that the unlimited growth ofthe lunar brain has rendered unnecessary the invention of all thosemechanical aids to brain work which have distinguished the careerof man. There are no books, no records of any sort, no libraries orinscriptions. All knowledge is stored in distended brains much as thehoney-ants of Texas store honey in their distended abdomens. The lunarSomerset House and the lunar British Museum Library are collections ofliving brains....

  “The less specialised administrators, I note, do for the most part takea very lively interest in me whenever they encounter me. They willcome out of the way and stare at me and ask questions to which Phi-oowill reply. I see them going hither and thither with a retinue ofbearers, attendants, shouters, parachute-carriers, and so forth--queergroups to see. The experts for the most part ignore me completely,even as they ignore each other, or notice me only to begin a clamorousexhibition of their distinctive skill. The erudite for the most partare rapt in an impervious and apoplectic complacency, from which onlya denial of their erudition can rouse them. Usually they are led aboutby little watchers and attendants, and often there are small andactive-looking creatures, small females usually, that I am inclined tothink are a sort of wife to them; but some of the profounder scholarsare altogether too great for locomotion, and are carried from placeto place in a sort of sedan tub, wabbling jellies of knowledge thatenlist my respectful astonishment. I have just passed one in coming tothis place where I am permitted to amuse myself with these electricaltoys, a vast, shaven, shaky head, bald and thin-skinned, carried on hisgrotesque stretcher. In front and behind came his bearers, and curious,almost trumpet-faced, news disseminators shrieked his fame.

  “I have already mentioned the retinues that accompany most of theintellectuals: ushers, bearers, valets, extraneous tentacles andmuscles, as it were, to replace the abortive physical powers of thesehypertrophied minds. Porters almost invariably accompany them. Thereare also extremely swift messengers with spider-like legs, and ‘hands’for grasping parachutes, and attendants with vocal organs that couldwell-nigh wake the dead. Apart from their controlling intelligencethese subordinates are as inert and helpless as umbrellas in a stand.They exist only in relation to the orders they have to obey, the dutiesthey have to perform.

  “The bulk of these insects, however, who go to and fro upon the spiralways, who fill the ascending balloons and drop past me clinging toflimsy parachutes, are, I gather, of the operative class. ‘Machinehands,’ indeed, some of these are in actual nature--it is no figureof speech, the single tentacle of the mooncalf herd is profoundlymodified for clawing, lifting, guiding, the rest of them no more thannecessary subordinate appendages to these important parts. Some, who Isuppose deal with bell-striking mechanisms, have enormously developedauditory organs; some whose work lies in delicate chemical operationsproject a vast olfactory organ; others again have flat feet fortreadles with anchylosed joints; and others--who I have been told areglass-blowers--seem mere lung-bellows. But every one of these commonSelenites I have seen at work is exquisitely adapted to the social needit meets. Fine work is done by fined-down workers, amazingly dwarfedand neat. Some I could hold on the palm of my hand. There is even asort of turnspit Selenite, very common, whose duty and only delight itis to supply the motive power for various small appliances. And to ruleover these things and order any erring tendency there might be in someaberrant natures are the most muscular beings I have seen in the moon,a sort of lunar police, who must have been trained from their earliestyears to give a perfect respect and obedience to the swollen heads.

  “The making of these various sorts of operative must be a very curiousand interesting process. I am still very much in the dark about it, butquite recently I came upon a number of young Selenites confined in jarsfrom which only the fore-limbs protruded, who were being compressedto become machine-minders of a special sort. The extended ‘hand’ inthis highly developed system of technical education is stimulated byirritants and nourished by injection, while the rest of the body isstarved. Phi-oo, unless I misunderstood him, explained that in theearlier stages these queer little creatures are apt to display signsof suffering in their various cramped situations, but they easilybecome indurated to their lot; and he took me on to where a numberof flexible-limbed messengers were being drawn out and broken in. Itis quite unreasonable, I know, but such glimpses of the educationalmethods of these beings affect me disagreeably. I hope, however,that may pass off, and I may
be able to see more of this aspect oftheir wonderful social order. That wretched-looking hand-tentaclesticking out of its jar seemed to have a sort of limp appeal for lostpossibilities; it haunts me still, although, of course, it is reallyin the end a far more humane proceeding than our earthly method ofleaving children to grow into human beings, and then making machines ofthem.

  “Quite recently, too--I think it was on the eleventh or twelfth visit Imade to this apparatus--I had a curious light upon the lives of theseoperatives. I was being guided through a short cut hither, insteadof going down the spiral and by the quays of the Central Sea. Fromthe devious windings of a long, dark gallery we emerged into a vast,low cavern, pervaded by an earthy smell, and, as things go in thisdarkness, rather brightly lit. The light came from a tumultuous growthof livid fungoid shapes--some indeed singularly like our terrestrialmushrooms, but standing as high or higher than a man.

  “‘Mooneys eat these?” said I to Phi-oo.

  “‘Yes, food.’

  “‘Goodness me!’ I cried; ‘what’s that?’

  “My eye had just caught the figure of an exceptionally big and ungainlySelenite lying motionless among the stems, face downward. We stopped.

  “‘Dead?’ I asked. (For as yet I have seen no dead in the moon, and Ihave grown curious.)

  “‘_No!_’ exclaimed Phi-oo. ‘Him--worker--no work to do. Get littledrink then--make sleep--till we him want. What good him wake, eh? Nowant him walking about.’

  “‘There’s another!’ cried I.

  “And indeed all that huge extent of mushroom ground was, I found,peppered with these prostrate figures sleeping under an opiate untilthe moon had need of them. There were scores of them of all sorts,and we were able to turn over some of them, and examine them moreprecisely than I had been able to do previously. They breathed noisilyat my doing so, but did not wake. One I remember very distinctly: heleft a strong impression, I think, because some trick of the light andof his attitude was strongly suggestive of a drawn-up human figure.His fore-limbs were long, delicate tentacles--he was some kind ofrefined manipulator--and the pose of his slumber suggested a submissivesuffering. No doubt it was quite a mistake for me to interpret hisexpression in that way, but I did. And as Phi-oo rolled him over intothe darkness among the livid fleshiness again I felt a distinctlyunpleasant sensation, although as he rolled the insect in him wasconfessed.

  “It simply illustrates the unthinking way in which one acquireshabits of feeling. To drug the worker one does not want and toss himaside is surely far better than to expel him from his factory towander starving in the streets. In every complicated social communitythere is necessarily a certain intermittency of employment for allspecialised labour, and in this way the trouble of an ‘unemployed’problem is altogether anticipated. And yet, so unreasonable are evenscientifically trained minds, I still do not like the memory of thoseprostrate forms amidst those quiet, luminous arcades of fleshy growth,and I avoid that short cut in spite of the inconveniences of thelonger, more noisy, and more crowded alternative.

  * * * * *

  “My alternative route takes me round by a huge, shadowy cavern,very crowded and clamorous, and here it is I see peering out of thehexagonal openings of a sort of honeycomb wall, or parading a largeopen space behind, or selecting the toys and amulets made to pleasethem by the dainty-tentacled jewellers who work in kennels below, themothers of the moon-world--the queen bees, as it were, of the hive.They are noble-looking beings, fantastically and sometimes quitebeautifully adorned, with a proud carriage, and, save for theirmouths, almost microscopic heads.

  “Of the condition of the moon sexes, marrying and giving in marriage,and of birth and so forth among the Selenites, I have as yet been ableto learn very little. With the steady progress of Phi-oo in English,however, my ignorance will no doubt as steadily disappear. I am ofopinion that, as with the ants and bees, there is a large majorityof the members in this community of the neuter sex. Of course onearth in our cities there are now many who never live that life ofparentage which is the natural life of man. Here, as with the ants,this thing has become a normal condition of the race, and the wholeof such replacement as is necessary falls upon this special and by nomeans numerous class of matrons, the mothers of the moon-world, largeand stately beings beautifully fitted to bear the larval Selenite.Unless I misunderstand an explanation of Phi-oo’s, they are absolutelyincapable of cherishing the young they bring into the moon; periods offoolish indulgence alternate with moods of aggressive violence, and assoon as possible the little creatures, who are quite soft and flabbyand pale coloured, are transferred to the charge of celibate females,women ‘workers’ as it were, who in some cases possess brains of almostmasculine dimensions.”

  * * * * *

  Just at this point, unhappily, this message broke off. Fragmentaryand tantalising as the matter constituting this chapter is, it doesnevertheless give a vague, broad impression of an altogether strangeand wonderful world--a world with which our own may have to reckon weknow not how speedily. This intermittent trickle of messages, thiswhispering of a record needle in the stillness of the mountain slopes,is the first warning of such a change in human conditions as mankindhas scarcely imagined heretofore. In that satellite of ours there arenew elements, new appliances, new traditions, an overwhelming avalancheof new ideas, a strange race with whom we must inevitably struggle formastery--gold as common as iron or wood....

  XXV THE GRAND LUNAR

  The penultimate message describes, with occasionally even elaboratedetail, the encounter between Cavor and the Grand Lunar, who is theruler or master of the moon. Cavor seems to have sent most of itwithout interference, but to have been interrupted in the concludingportion. The second came after an interval of a week.

  The first message begins: “At last I am able to resume this--” it thenbecomes illegible for a space, and after a time resumes in mid-sentence.

  The missing words of the following sentence are probably “the crowd.”There follows quite clearly: “grew ever denser as we drew near thepalace of the Grand Lunar--if I may call a series of excavations apalace. Everywhere faces stared at me--blank, chitinous gapes andmasks, eyes peering over tremendous olfactory developments, eyesbeneath monstrous forehead plates; an undergrowth of smaller creaturesdodged and yelped, and helmet faces poised on sinuous, long-jointednecks appeared craning over shoulders and beneath armpits. Keepinga welcome space about me marched a cordon of stolid, scuttle-headedguards, who had joined us on our leaving the boat in which we had comealong the channels of the Central Sea. The quick-eyed artist with thelittle brain joined us also, and a thick bunch of lean porter-insectsswayed and struggled under the multitude of conveniences that wereconsidered essential to my state. I was carried in a litter during thefinal stage of our journey. This litter was made of some very ductilemetal that looked dark to me, meshed and woven, and with bars of palermetal, and about me as I advanced there grouped itself a long andcomplicated procession.

  “In front, after the manner of heralds, marched four trumpet-facedcreatures making a devastating bray; and then came squat,resolute-moving ushers before and behind, and on either hand a galaxyof learned heads, a sort of animated encyclopædia, who were, Phi-ooexplained, to stand about the Grand Lunar for purposes of reference.(Not a thing in lunar science, not a point of view or method ofthinking, that these wonderful beings did not carry in their heads!)Followed guards and porters, and then Phi-oo’s shivering brain bornealso on a litter. Then came Tsi-puff in a slightly less importantlitter; then myself on a litter of greater elegance than any other, andsurrounded by my food and drink attendants. More trumpeters came next,splitting the ear with vehement outcries, and then several big brains,special correspondents one might well call them, or historiographers,charged with the task of observing and remembering every detail of thisepoch-making interview. A company of attendants, bearing and draggingbanners and masses of scented fungus and curious symbols, vanishedin the darkness behind.
The way was lined by ushers and officers incaparisons that gleamed like steel, and beyond their line, so far as myeyes could pierce the gloom, the heads of that enormous crowd extended.

  “I will own that I am still by no means indurated to the peculiareffect of the Selenite appearance, and to find myself, as it were,adrift on this broad sea of excited entomology was by no meansagreeable. Just for a space I had something very like what I shouldimagine people mean when they speak of the ‘horrors.’ It had cometo me before in these lunar caverns, when on occasion I have foundmyself weaponless and with an undefended back, amidst a crowd of theseSelenites, but never quite so vividly. It is, of course, as absolutelyirrational a feeling as one could well have, and I hope gradually tosubdue it. But just for a moment, as I swept forward into the welter ofthe vast crowd, it was only by gripping my litter tightly and summoningall my will-power that I succeeded in avoiding an outcry or some suchmanifestation. It lasted perhaps three minutes; then I had myself inhand again.

  “We ascended the spiral of a vertical way for some time and then passedthrough a series of huge halls, dome-roofed and elaborately decorated.The approach to the Grand Lunar was certainly contrived to give onea vivid impression of his greatness. Each cavern one entered seemedgreater and more boldly arched than its predecessor. This effect ofprogressive size was enhanced by a thin haze of faintly phosphorescentblue incense that thickened as one advanced, and robbed even the nearerfigures of clearness. I seemed to advance continually to somethinglarger, dimmer, and less material.

  “I must confess that all this multitude made me feel extremely shabbyand unworthy. I was unshaven and unkempt; I had brought no razor;I had a coarse beard over my mouth. On earth I have always beeninclined to despise any attention to my person beyond a proper carefor cleanliness; but under the exceptional circumstances in whichI found myself, representing, as I did, my planet and my kind, anddepending very largely upon the attractiveness of my appearance fora proper reception, I could have given much for something a littlemore artistic and dignified than the husks I wore. I had been soserene in the belief that the moon was uninhabited as to overlook suchprecautions altogether. As it was I was dressed in a flannel jacket,knickerbockers, and golfing stockings, stained with every sort of dirtthe moon offered; slippers (of which the left heel was wanting), anda blanket, through a hole in which I thrust my head. (These clothes,indeed, I still wear.) Sharp bristles are anything but an improvementto my cast of features, and there was an unmended tear at the knee ofmy knickerbockers that showed conspicuously as I squatted in my litter;my right stocking, too, persisted in getting about my ankle. I amfully alive to the injustice my appearance did humanity, and if by anyexpedient I could have improvised something a little out of the wayand imposing I would have done so. But I could hit upon nothing. I didwhat I could with my blanket--folding it somewhat after the fashion ofa toga, and for the rest I sat as upright as the swaying of my litterpermitted.

  “Imagine the largest hall you have ever been in, imperfectly lit withblue light and obscured by a grey-blue fog, surging with metallic orlivid-grey creatures of such a mad diversity as I have hinted. Imaginethis hall to end in an open archway beyond which is a still largerhall, and beyond this yet another and still larger one, and so on. Atthe end of the vista, dimly seen, a flight of steps, like the steps ofAra Cœli at Rome, ascend out of sight. Higher and higher these stepsappear to go as one draws nearer their base. But at last I came undera huge archway and beheld the summit of these steps, and upon it theGrand Lunar exalted on his throne.

  “He was seated in what was relatively a blaze of incandescent blue.This, and the darkness about him, gave him an effect of floating ina blue-black void. He seemed a small, self-luminous cloud at first,brooding on his sombre throne; his brain case must have measured manyyards in diameter. For some reason that I cannot fathom a number ofblue search-lights radiated from behind the throne on which he sat,and immediately encircling him was a halo. About him, and little andindistinct in this glow, a number of body-servants sustained andsupported him, and overshadowed and standing in a huge semicirclebeneath him were his intellectual subordinates, his remembrancers andcomputators and searchers and servants, and all the distinguishedinsects of the court of the moon. Still lower stood ushers andmessengers, and then all down the countless steps of the throne wereguards, and at the base, enormous, various, indistinct, vanishing atlast into an absolute black, a vast swaying multitude of the minordignitaries of the moon. Their feet made a perpetual scraping whisperon the rocky floor, their limbs moved with a rustling murmur.

  “As I entered the penultimate hall the music rose and expanded into animperial magnificence of sound, and the shrieks of the newsbearers diedaway....

  THE GRAND LUNAR]

  “I entered the last and greatest hall....

  “My procession opened out like a fan. My ushers and guards went rightand left, and the three litters bearing myself and Phi-oo and Tsi-puffmarched across a shiny darkness of floor to the foot of the giantstairs. Then began a vast throbbing hum, that mingled with the music.The two Selenites dismounted, but I was bidden remain seated--I imagineas a special honour. The music ceased, but not that humming, and by asimultaneous movement of ten thousand respectful heads my attention wasdirected to the enhaloed supreme intelligence that hovered above me.

  “At first as I peered into the radiating glow this quintessentialbrain looked very much like an opaque, featureless bladder with dim,undulating ghosts of convolutions writhing visibly within. Then beneathits enormity and just above the edge of the throne one saw with a startminute elfin eyes peering out of the glow. No face, but eyes, as ifthey peered through holes. At first I could see no more than these twostaring little eyes, and then below I distinguished the little dwarfedbody and its insect-jointed limbs shrivelled and white. The eyes stareddown at me with a strange intensity, and the lower part of the swollenglobe was wrinkled. Ineffectual-looking little hand-tentacles steadiedthis shape on the throne....

  “It was great. It was pitiful. One forgot the hall and the crowd.

  “I ascended the staircase by jerks. It seemed to me that this darklyglowing brain case above us spread over me, and took more and more ofthe whole effect into itself as I drew nearer. The tiers of attendantsand helpers grouped about their master seemed to dwindle and fadeinto the night. I saw that shadowy attendants were busy spraying thatgreat brain with a cooling spray, and patting and sustaining it. Formy own part, I sat gripping my swaying litter and staring at the GrandLunar, unable to turn my gaze aside. And at last, as I reached a littlelanding that was separated only by ten steps or so from the supremeseat, the woven splendour of the music reached a climax and ceased,and I was left naked, as it were, in that vastness, beneath the stillscrutiny of the Grand Lunar’s eyes.

  “He was scrutinising the first man he had ever seen....

  “My eyes dropped at last from his greatness to the faint figures in theblue mist about him, and then down the steps to the massed Selenites,still and expectant in their thousands, packed on the floor below. Onceagain an unreasonable horror reached out towards me.... And passed.

  “After the pause came the salutation. I was assisted from my litter,and stood awkwardly while a number of curious and no doubt deeplysymbolical gestures were vicariously performed for me by two slenderofficials. The encyclopædic galaxy of the learned that had accompaniedme to the entrance of the last hall appeared two steps above me andleft and right of me, in readiness for the Grand Lunar’s need, andPhi-oo’s pale brain placed itself about half-way up to the throne insuch a position as to communicate easily between us without turning hisback on either the Grand Lunar or myself. Tsi-puff took up a positionbehind him. Dexterous ushers sidled sideways towards me, keeping a fullface to the Presence. I seated myself Turkish fashion, and Phi-oo andTsi-puff also knelt down above me. There came a pause. The eyes of thenearer court went from me to the Grand Lunar and came back to me, and ahissing and piping of expectation passed across the hidden multitudesbelow and ceased.

>   “That humming ceased.

  “For the first and last time in my experience the moon was silent.

  “I became aware of a faint wheezy noise. The Grand Lunar was addressingme. It was like the rubbing of a finger upon a pane of glass.

  “I watched him attentively for a time, and then glanced at the alertPhi-oo. I felt amidst these slender beings ridiculously thick andfleshy and solid; my head all jaw and black hair. My eyes went backto the Grand Lunar. He had ceased; his attendants were busy, and hisshining superficies was glistening and running with cooling spray.

  “Phi-oo meditated through an interval. He consulted Tsi-puff. Then hebegan piping his recognisable English--at first a little nervously, sothat he was not very clear.

  “‘M’m--the Grand Lunar--wishes to say--wishes to say--he gathers youare--m’m--men--that you are a man from the planet earth. He wishes tosay that he welcomes you--welcomes you--and wishes to learn--learn, ifI may use the word--the state of your world, and the reason why youcame to this.’

  “He paused. I was about to reply when he resumed. He proceeded toremarks of which the drift was not very clear, though I am inclined tothink they were intended to be complimentary. He told me that the earthwas to the moon what the sun is to the earth, and that the Selenitesdesired very greatly to learn about the earth and men. He then toldme, no doubt in compliment also, the relative magnitude and diameterof earth and moon, and the perpetual wonder and speculation with whichthe Selenites had regarded our planet. I meditated with downcast eyes,and decided to reply that men too had wondered what might lie in themoon, and had judged it dead, little recking of such magnificence as Ihad seen that day. The Grand Lunar, in token of recognition, caused hislong blue rays to rotate in a very confusing manner, and all about thegreat hall ran the pipings and whisperings and rustlings of the reportof what I had said. He then proceeded to put to Phi-oo a number ofinquiries which were easier to answer.

  “He understood, he explained, that we lived on the surface of theearth, that our air and sea were outside the globe; the latter part,indeed, he already knew from his astronomical specialists. He wasvery anxious to have more detailed information of what he called thisextraordinary state of affairs, for from the solidity of the earththere had always been a disposition to regard it as uninhabitable. Heendeavoured first to ascertain the extremes of temperature to whichwe earth beings were exposed, and he was deeply interested by mydescriptive treatment of clouds and rain. His imagination was assistedby the fact that the lunar atmosphere in the outer galleries of thenight side is not infrequently very foggy. He seemed inclined to marvelthat we did not find the sunlight too intense for our eyes, and wasinterested in my attempt to explain that the sky was tempered to abluish colour through the refraction of the air, though I doubt if heclearly understood that. I explained how the iris of the human eyes cancontract the pupil and save the delicate internal structure from theexcess of sunlight, and was allowed to approach within a few feet ofthe Presence in order that this structure might be seen. This led to acomparison of the lunar and terrestrial eyes. The former is not onlyexcessively sensitive to such light as men can see, but it can also_see_ heat, and every difference in temperature within the moon rendersobjects visible to it.

  “The iris was quite a new organ to the Grand Lunar. For a time heamused himself by flashing his rays into my face and watching mypupils contract. As a consequence, I was dazzled and blinded for somelittle time....

  “But in spite of that discomfort I found something reassuring byinsensible degrees in the rationality of this business of question andanswer. I could shut my eyes, think of my answer, and almost forgetthat the Grand Lunar has no face....

  “When I had descended again to my proper place the Grand Lunar askedhow we sheltered ourselves from heat and storms, and I expoundedto him the arts of building and furnishing. Here we wandered intomisunderstandings and cross-purposes, due largely, I must admit, to thelooseness of my expressions. For a long time I had great difficulty inmaking him understand the nature of a house. To him and his attendantSelenites it seemed, no doubt, the most whimsical thing in the worldthat men should build houses when they might descend into excavations,and an additional complication was introduced by the attempt I made toexplain that men had originally begun their homes in caves, and thatthey were now taking their railways and many establishments beneath thesurface. Here I think a desire for intellectual completeness betrayedme. There was also a considerable tangle due to an equally unwiseattempt on my part to explain about mines. Dismissing this topic atlast in an incomplete state, the Grand Lunar inquired what we did withthe interior of our globe.

  “A tide of twittering and piping swept into the remotest cornersof that great assembly when it was at last made clear that we menknow absolutely nothing of the contents of the world upon which theimmemorial generations of our ancestors had been evolved. Three timeshad I to repeat that of all the 4000 miles of substance between theearth and its centre men knew only to the depth of a mile, and thatvery vaguely. I understood the Grand Lunar to ask why had I come to themoon seeing we had scarcely touched our own planet yet, but he did nottrouble me at that time to proceed to an explanation, being too anxiousto pursue the details of this mad inversion of all his ideas.

  “He reverted to the question of weather, and I tried to describe theperpetually changing sky, and snow, and frost, and hurricanes. ‘Butwhen the night comes,’ he asked, ‘is it not cold?’

  “I told him it was colder than by day.

  “‘And does not your atmosphere freeze?’

  “I told him not; that it was never cold enough for that, because ournights were so short.

  “‘Not even liquefy?’

  “I was about to say ‘No,’ but then it occurred to me that one part atleast of our atmosphere, the water vapour of it, does sometimes liquefyand form dew, and sometimes freeze and form frost--a process perfectlyanalogous to the freezing of all the external atmosphere of the moonduring its longer night. I made myself clear on this point, and fromthat the Grand Lunar went on to speak with me of sleep. For the needof sleep that comes so regularly every twenty-four hours to all thingsis part also of our earthly inheritance. On the moon they rest onlyat rare intervals, and after exceptional exertions. Then I tried todescribe to him the soft splendours of a summer night, and from that Ipassed to a description of those animals that prowl by night and sleepby day. I told him of lions and tigers, and here it seemed as thoughwe had come to a deadlock. For, save in their waters, there are nocreatures in the moon not absolutely domestic and subject to his will,and so it has been for immemorial years. They have monstrous watercreatures, but no evil beasts, and the idea of anything strong andlarge existing ‘outside’ in the night is very difficult for them....

  [The record is here too broken to transcribe for the space of perhapstwenty words or more.]

  “He talked with his attendants, as I suppose, upon the strangesuperficiality and unreasonableness of (man), who lives on the meresurface of a world, a creature of waves and winds, and all the chancesof space, who cannot even unite to overcome the beasts that prey uponhis kind, and yet who dares to invade another planet. During this asideI sat thinking, and then at his desire I told him of the differentsorts of men. He searched me with questions. ‘And for all sorts of workyou have the same sort of men. But who thinks? Who governs?’

  “I gave him an outline of the democratic method.

  “When I had done he ordered cooling sprays upon his brow, and thenrequested me to repeat my explanation, conceiving something hadmiscarried.

  “‘Do they not do different things, then?’ said Phi-oo.

  “Some I admitted were thinkers and some officials; some hunted, somewere mechanics, some artists, some toilers. ‘But _all_ rule,’ I said.

  “‘And have they not different shapes to fit them to their differentduties?’

  “‘None that you can see,’ I said, ‘except, perhaps, for clothes. Theirminds perhaps differ a little,’ I reflected.

  “‘T
heir minds must differ a great deal,’ said the Grand Lunar, ‘or theywould all want to do the same things.’

  “In order to bring myself into a closer harmony with his preconceptionsI said that his surmise was right. ‘It was all hidden in the brain,’ Isaid; ‘but the difference was there. Perhaps if one could see the mindsand souls of men they would be as varied and unequal as the Selenites.There were great men and small men, men who could reach out far andwide, and men who could go swiftly; noisy, trumpet-minded men, and menwho could remember without thinking.... [The record is indistinct forthree words.]

  “He interrupted me to recall me to my previous statement. ‘But you saidall men rule?’ he pressed.

  “‘To a certain extent,’ I said, and made, I fear, a denser fog with myexplanation.

  “He reached out to a salient fact. ‘Do you mean,’ he asked, ‘thatthere is no Grand Earthly?’

  “I thought of several people, but assured him finally there was none. Iexplained that such autocrats and emperors as we had tried upon earthhad usually ended in drink, or vice, or violence, and that the largeand influential section of the people of the earth to which I belonged,the Anglo-Saxons, did not mean to try that sort of thing again. Atwhich the Grand Lunar was even more amazed.

  “‘But how do you keep even such wisdom as you have?’ he asked; and Iexplained to him the way we helped our limited [a word omitted here,probably “brains”] with libraries of books. I explained to him howour science was growing by the united labours of innumerable littlemen, and on that he made no comment save that it was evident we hadmastered much in spite of our social savagery, or we could not havecome to the moon. Yet the contrast was very marked. With knowledge theSelenites grew and changed; mankind stored their knowledge about themand remained brutes--equipped. He said this ... [Here there is a shortpiece of the record indistinct.]

  “He then caused me to describe how we went about this earth of ours,and I described to him our railways and ships. For a time he could notunderstand that we had had the use of steam only one hundred years,but when he did he was clearly amazed. (I may mention as a singularthing that the Selenites use years to count by, just as we do on earth,though I can make nothing of their numeral system. That, however,does not matter, because Phi-oo understands ours.) From that I wenton to tell him that mankind had dwelt in cities only for nine or tenthousand years, and that we were still not united in one brotherhood,but under many different forms of government. This astonished the GrandLunar very much, when it was made clear to him. At first he thought wereferred merely to administrative areas.

  “‘Our States and Empires are still the rawest sketches of what orderwill some day be,’ I said, and so I came to tell him.... [At this pointa length of record that probably represents thirty or forty words istotally illegible.]

  “The Grand Lunar was greatly impressed by the folly of men in clingingto the inconvenience of diverse tongues. ‘They want to communicate,and yet not to communicate,’ he said, and then for a long time hequestioned me closely concerning war.

  “He was at first perplexed and incredulous. ‘You mean to say,’ heasked, seeking confirmation, ‘that you run about over the surfaceof your world--this world, whose riches you have scarcely begun toscrape--killing one another for beasts to eat?’

  “I told him that was perfectly correct.

  “He asked for particulars to assist his imagination. ‘But do not shipsand your poor little cities get injured?’ he asked, and I found thewaste of property and conveniences seemed to impress him almost as muchas the killing. ‘Tell me more,’ said the Grand Lunar; ‘make me seepictures. I cannot conceive these things.’

  “And so, for a space, though something loth, I told him the story ofearthly War.

  “I told him of the first orders and ceremonies of war, of warnings andultimatums, and the marshalling and marching of troops. I gave him anidea of manœuvres and positions and battle joined. I told him of siegesand assaults, of starvation and hardship in trenches, and of sentinelsfreezing in the snow. I told him of routs and surprises, and desperatelast stands and faint hopes, and the pitiless pursuit of fugitives andthe dead upon the field. I told, too, of the past, of invasions andmassacres, of the Huns and Tartars, and the wars of Mahomet and theCaliphs, and of the Crusades. And as I went on, and Phi-oo translated,the Selenites cooed and murmured in a steadily intensified emotion.

  “I told them an ironclad could fire a shot of a ton twelve miles, andgo through 20 ft. of iron--and how we could steer torpedoes underwater. I went on to describe a Maxim gun in action, and what I couldimagine of the Battle of Colenso. The Grand Lunar was so incredulousthat he interrupted the translation of what I had said in order to havemy verification of my account. They particularly doubted my descriptionof the men cheering and rejoicing as they went into (? battle).

  “‘But surely they do not like it!’ translated Phi-oo.

  “I assured them men of my race considered battle the most gloriousexperience of life, at which the whole assembly was stricken withamazement.

  “‘But what good is this war?’ asked the Grand Lunar, sticking to histheme.

  “‘Oh! as for _good_!’ said I; ‘it thins the population!’

  “‘But why should there be a need----?’ ...

  “There came a pause, the cooling sprays impinged upon his brow, andthen he spoke again.”

  At this point a series of undulations that have been apparent as a perplexing complication as far back as Cavor’s description of the silence that fell before the first speaking of the Grand Lunar become confusingly predominant in the record. These undulations are evidently the result of radiations proceeding from a lunar source, and their persistent approximation to the alternating signals of Cavor is curiously suggestive of some operator deliberately seeking to mix them in with his message and render it illegible. At first they are small and regular, so that with a little care and the loss of very few words we have been able to disentangle Cavor’s message; then they become broad and larger, then suddenly they are irregular, with an irregularity that gives the effect at last of some one scribbling through a line of writing. For a long time nothing can be made of this madly zigzagging trace; then quite abruptly the interruption ceases, leaves a few words clear, and then resumes and continues for all the rest of the message, completely obliterating whatever Cavor was attempting to transmit. Why, if this is indeed a deliberate intervention, the Selenites should have preferred to let Cavor go on transmitting his message in happy ignorance of their obliteration of its record, when it was clearly quite in their power and much more easy and convenient for them to stop his proceedings at any time, is a problem to which I can contribute nothing. The thing seems to have happened so, and that is all I can say. This last rag of his description of the Grand Lunar begins in mid-sentence:--

  “interrogated me very closely upon my secret. I was able in a littlewhile to get to an understanding with them, and at last to elucidatewhat has been a puzzle to me ever since I realised the vastness oftheir science, namely, how it is they themselves have never discovered‘Cavorite.’ I find they know of it as a theoretical substance, but theyhave always regarded it as a practical impossibility, because for somereason there is no helium in the moon, and helium----”

  Across the last letters of helium slashes the resumption of that obliterating trace. Note that word “secret,” for on that, and that alone, I base my interpretation of the message that follows, the last message, as both Mr. Wendigee and myself now believe it to be, that he is ever likely to send us.

  XXVI THE LAST MESSAGE CAVOR SENT TO THE EARTH

  In this unsatisfactory manner the penultimate message of Cavor diesout. One seems to see him away there in the blue obscurity amidsthis apparatus intently signalling us to the last, all unaware of thecurtain of confusion that drops between us; all unaware, too, of thefinal dangers that even then must have been creeping upon him. Hisdisastrous want of vulgar common sense had utterly betrayed him. Hehad talked of war, he ha
d talked of all the strength and irrationalviolence of men, of their insatiable aggressions, their tirelessfutility of conflict. He had filled the whole moon world with thisimpression of our race, and then I think it is plain that he made themost fatal admission that upon himself alone hung the possibility--atleast for a long time--of any further men reaching the moon. The linethe cold, inhuman reason of the moon would take seems plain enoughto me, and a suspicion of it, and then perhaps some sudden sharprealisation of it, must have come to him. One imagines him going aboutthe moon with the remorse of this fatal indiscretion growing in hismind. During a certain time I am inclined to guess the Grand Lunar wasdeliberating the new situation, and for all that time Cavor may havegone as free as ever he had gone. But obstacles of some sort preventedhis getting to his electro-magnetic apparatus again after that messageI have just given. For some days we received nothing. Perhaps he washaving fresh audiences, and trying to evade his previous admissions.Who can hope to guess?

  And then suddenly, like a cry in the night, like a cry that is followedby a stillness, came the last message. It is the briefest fragment, thebroken beginnings of two sentences.

  The first was: “I was mad to let the Grand Lunar know----”

  There was an interval of perhaps a minute. One imagines someinterruption from without. A departure from the instrument--a dreadfulhesitation among the looming masses of apparatus in that dim, blue-litcavern--a sudden rush back to it, full of a resolve that came too late.Then, as if it were hastily transmitted, came: “Cavorite made asfollows: take----”

  There followed one word, a quite unmeaning word as it stands: “uless.”

  And that is all.

  It may be he made a hasty attempt to spell “useless” when his fate wasclose upon him. Whatever it was that was happening about that apparatuswe cannot tell. Whatever it was we shall never, I know, receive anothermessage from the moon. For my own part a vivid dream has come to myhelp, and I see, almost as plainly as though I had seen it in actualfact, a blue-lit shadowy dishevelled Cavor struggling in the grip ofthese insect Selenites, struggling ever more desperately and hopelesslyas they press upon him, shouting, expostulating, perhaps even at lastfighting, and being forced backward step by step out of all speech orsign of his fellows, for evermore into the Unknown--into the dark, intothat silence that has no end....

  GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED, LONDON.

  * * * * *

  Transcriber’s Notes:

  Footnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter and relabeledconsecutively through the document.

  Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they arementioned.

  Punctuation has been made consistent.

  Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear inthe original publication, except that obvious typographical errors havebeen corrected.