Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The First Men in the Moon Chapter 13 - Mr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions

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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 13 - Mr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen of the First Man in the Moon. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville,
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  Speaker 1: South Carolina. The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen. Mister Cavor makes some suggestions. For a time,
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  Speaker 1: neither of us spoke to focus together. All the things
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  Speaker 1: we had brought upon ourselves. Seen beyond my mental powers,
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  Speaker 1: they've got us, I said at last, it was that fungus. Well,
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  Speaker 1: if I hadn't eaten it, we should have fainted and starved.
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  Speaker 1: We might have found the sphere. I lost my temper
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  Speaker 1: at his persistence, and swore to myself. For a time
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  Speaker 1: we hated one another in silence. I drummed with my
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  Speaker 1: fingers on the floor between my knees, and gritted the
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  Speaker 1: links of my fetters together. Presently I was forced to
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  Speaker 1: talk again. What do you make of it? Anyhow, I
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  Speaker 1: asked humbly. They were reasonable creatures. They can make things
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  Speaker 1: and do things. Those lights we saw. He stopped. It
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  Speaker 1: was clear he could make nothing of it. When he
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  Speaker 1: spoke again, it was to confess. After all, they are
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  Speaker 1: more human than we had a right to expect. I suppose,
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  Speaker 1: he stopped irritatingly. Yes, I suppose anyhow, on any planet
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  Speaker 1: where there is an intelligent animal, it will carry its
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  Speaker 1: brain case upward, and have hands and walked erect. Presently,
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  Speaker 1: he broke away in an another direction. We are some
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  Speaker 1: way in, he said, I mean, perhaps a couple of
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  Speaker 1: thousand feet or more. Why it's cooler, and our voices
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  Speaker 1: are so much louder, that faded quality it is altogether gone.
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  Speaker 1: And the feeling in one's ears and throat. I had
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  Speaker 1: not noted that, but I did. Now We must be
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  Speaker 1: some depths a mile even we may be inside the moon.
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  Speaker 1: We never thought of a world inside the moon. No,
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  Speaker 1: how could we. We might have done. Only one gets
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  Speaker 1: into habits of mind, he thought for a time. Now,
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  Speaker 1: he said, it seems such an obvious thing. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: the Moon must be enormously cavernous, with an atmosphere within,
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  Speaker 1: and at the center of its caverns a sea. One
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  Speaker 1: knew that the Moon had a lower specific gravity than
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  Speaker 1: the Earth. One knew that it had little air or
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  Speaker 1: water outside. One knew too, that it was sister planet
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  Speaker 1: to the Earth, and that it was unaccountable that it
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  Speaker 1: should be different in composition. The inference that it was
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  Speaker 1: hollowed out was as clear as day, and yet one
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  Speaker 1: never saw it as a fact. Kepler, of course, his
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  Speaker 1: voice had the interest now of a man who has
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  Speaker 1: discerned a pretty sequence of reasoning. Yes, he said Kepler,
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  Speaker 1: with his Subvolvani, was right after all. I wish you
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  Speaker 1: had taken the trouble to find that out before we came,
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  Speaker 1: I said. He answered nothing, buzzing to himself softly as
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  Speaker 1: he pursued his thoughts. My temper was going. What do
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  Speaker 1: you think has become of the sphere anyhow? I asked, lost,
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  Speaker 1: he said, like a man who answers an uninteresting question
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  Speaker 1: among those plants unless they find it? And then how
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  Speaker 1: can I tell? Cavour, I said, with a sort of
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  Speaker 1: hysterical bitterness, things look bright for my company. He made
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  Speaker 1: no answer. Good Lord, I exclaimed, Just think of all
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  Speaker 1: the trouble we took to get into this pickle. What
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  Speaker 1: did we come for? What are we after? What was
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  Speaker 1: the moon to us? Are we to the moon? We
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  Speaker 1: wanted too much, we tried too much. We ought to
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  Speaker 1: have started the little things first, it was you proposed
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  Speaker 1: the moon those cavalrighte spring blinds. I am certain we
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  Speaker 1: could have worked them for terrestrial purposes. Certain, did you
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  Speaker 1: really understand what I proposed? A steel cylinder rubbish, said Cavour.
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  Speaker 1: We ceased to converse for a time. Kuvor kept up
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  Speaker 1: a broken monologue without much help from me. If they
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  Speaker 1: find it, he began, If they find it, what will
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  Speaker 1: they do with it? Well, that's a question, it may be,
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  Speaker 1: that's the question. They won't understand it. Anyhow. If they
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  Speaker 1: understood that sort of thing, they would have come long
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  Speaker 1: since to the Earth, would they? Why shouldn't they? But
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  Speaker 1: they would have sent something they couldn't keep their hands
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  Speaker 1: off such a possibility. No, but they will examine it. Clearly,
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  Speaker 1: they are intelligent and inquisitive. They will examine it. Get
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  Speaker 1: inside it, trifle with the studs off. That would mean
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  Speaker 1: the moon for us for all the rest of our lives.
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  Speaker 1: Strange creatures, strange knowledge. As for strange knowledge, said I,
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  Speaker 1: and language failed me. Look here, Bedford said, Cavor. You
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  Speaker 1: came on this expedition of your own free will. You
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  Speaker 1: said to me, call it prospecting. There's always risk in prospecting,
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  Speaker 1: especially when you do it unarmed and without thinking out
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  Speaker 1: every possibility. I was so taken up with this fear.
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  Speaker 1: The thing rushed on us and carried us away. Rushed
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  Speaker 1: on me, you mean, rushed on me just as much.
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  Speaker 1: How was I to know when I set to work
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  Speaker 1: on molecular physics that the business would bring me here
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  Speaker 1: of all places. It's this accursed science, I cried, It's
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  Speaker 1: the very devil. The medieval priests and persecutors were right,
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  Speaker 1: and the moderns are all wrong. You tamper with it,
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  Speaker 1: and it offers you gifts, and directly you take them.
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  Speaker 1: It knocks you to pieces in some unexpected way, old
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  Speaker 1: passions and new weapons. Now it upsets your religion. Now
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  Speaker 1: it upsets your social ideas. Now it whirls you off
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  Speaker 1: to desolation and misery. Anyhow, it's no use your quarreling
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  Speaker 1: with me. Now. These creatures, these Selenites, or whatever we
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  Speaker 1: choose to call them, have got us tied hand and foot.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever temper you choose to go through with it, in
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  Speaker 1: you will have to go through with it. We have
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  Speaker 1: experiences before us that will need all our coolness. He paused,
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  Speaker 1: as if he required my assent, But I sat sulking
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  Speaker 1: confound your science, I said, the problem is communication gestures,
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  Speaker 1: I fear will be different, pointing, for example, no creatures
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  Speaker 1: but men and monkeys. Point that was too obviously wrong
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  Speaker 1: for me. Pretty nearly every animal, I cried, points whether
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  Speaker 1: its eyes or nose canvore meditated over that? Yes, he said,
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  Speaker 1: at last, and we don't there are such differences. Such differences,
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  Speaker 1: one might, but how can I tell there is speech?
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  Speaker 1: The sounds they make a sort of fluting and piping.
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  Speaker 1: I don't see how we are to imitate that? Is
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  Speaker 1: it their speech? That sort of thing. They may have
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  Speaker 1: different senses, different means of communication. Of course, they are
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  Speaker 1: minds and we are minds. There must be something in common.
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  Speaker 1: Who knows how far we may not get to an
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  Speaker 1: understanding the things are outside us, I said, They're more
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  Speaker 1: different from us than the strangest animals on earth. They
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  Speaker 1: are a different clay. What is the good of talking
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  Speaker 1: like this? Cavor thought, I don't see that where there
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  Speaker 1: are minds, they will have something similar, even though they
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  Speaker 1: have been involved on different planets. Of course, if it
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  Speaker 1: was a question of instincts, if we or they are
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  Speaker 1: no more than animals, well are they? They're much more
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  Speaker 1: like ants on their hind legs than human beings, and
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  Speaker 1: whoever got any sort of understanding with ants? But these
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  Speaker 1: machines in clothing. Now, I don't hold with you, Bedford.
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  Speaker 1: The difference is wide, it's insurmountable. The resemblance must bridge it.
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  Speaker 1: I remember reading once a paper by the late Professor
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  Speaker 1: Galton on the possibility of communication between the planets. Unhappily,
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  Speaker 1: at that time it did not seem probable that that
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  Speaker 1: would be of any material benefit to me, and I
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  Speaker 1: fear I did not give the attention I should have
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  Speaker 1: done in view of this state of affairs. Yet now
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  Speaker 1: let me see. His idea was to begin with those
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  Speaker 1: broad truths that must underlie all conceivable mental existences, and
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  Speaker 1: establish a basis on those the great principles of geometry.
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  Speaker 1: To begin with, he proposed to take some leading proposition
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  Speaker 1: of euclids and show by construction that its truth was
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  Speaker 1: known to us. To demonstrate, for example, that the angles
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  Speaker 1: at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal, and
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  Speaker 1: that if the equal sides be produced, the angles on
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  Speaker 1: the other side of the base are equal. Also, or
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  Speaker 1: that the square on the hypotenuse of a right angled
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  Speaker 1: triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on
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  Speaker 1: the two other sides. By demonstrating our knowledge of these things,
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  Speaker 1: we should demonstrate our possession of a reasonable intelligence. Now
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  Speaker 1: suppose I I might draw the geometrical figure with a
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  Speaker 1: wet finger, or even trace it in the air. We
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  Speaker 1: fell silent. I sat meditating his words for a time.
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  Speaker 1: His wild hope of communication, of interpretation with these weird
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  Speaker 1: beings held me. Then that angry despair that was a
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  Speaker 1: part of my exhaustion and physical misery resumed its sway.
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  Speaker 1: I proceeded with a sudden novel vividness, the extraordinary folly
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  Speaker 1: of everything I had ever done, ass, I said, Oh, ass, unutterable, ass.
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  Speaker 1: I seemed to exist only to go about doing preposterous things.
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  Speaker 1: Why did we ever leave the thing hopping about looking
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  Speaker 1: for patents and concessions in the craters of the moon.
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  Speaker 1: If only we had had the sense to fasten a
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  Speaker 1: handkerchief to a stick to show where we had left
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  Speaker 1: the sphere. I subsided, fuming, It is clear, meditated, Cavor,
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  Speaker 1: they are intelligent. One can hypothecate certain things, as they
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  Speaker 1: have not killed us at once. They must have ideas
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  Speaker 1: of mercy. Mercy at any rate of restraint, possibly of intercourse,
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  Speaker 1: they may meet us, and this apartment, and the glimpses
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  Speaker 1: we had of its guardian, These fetters a high degree
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  Speaker 1: of intelligence. I wish to heaven, cried I. I thought,
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  Speaker 1: even twice, plunge after plunge, first one fluky start and
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  Speaker 1: then another. It was my confidence in you. Why didn't
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  Speaker 1: I stick to my play? That was what I was
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  Speaker 1: equal to, That was my world and the life I
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  Speaker 1: was made for. I could have finished that play. I'm
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  Speaker 1: certain it was a good play. I had the scenario
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  Speaker 1: as good as done. Then conceive it leaping to the moon,
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  Speaker 1: practically throw my life away. That old woman in the
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  Speaker 1: inn near Canterbury had better sense. I looked up and
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  Speaker 1: stopped in mid sentence. The darkness had given place to
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  Speaker 1: that bluish light. Again. The door was opening, and several
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  Speaker 1: noiseless Selenites were coming into the chamber. I became quite still,
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  Speaker 1: staring at their grotesque faces. Then suddenly my sense of
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  Speaker 1: disagreeable strangeness changed to interest. I perceived that the foremost
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  Speaker 1: and second carried bulls one elemental need at least our
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  Speaker 1: minds could understand in common. They were bowls of some
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  Speaker 1: metal that, like our fetters, looked dark in that bluish light,
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  Speaker 1: and each contained a number of whitish fragments. All the
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  Speaker 1: cloudy pain and misery that oppressed me rushed together and
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  Speaker 1: took the shape of hunger. I eyed those bulls wolfishly,
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  Speaker 1: and though it returned to me in dreams, at that time,
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  Speaker 1: it seemed a small mass that at the end of
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  Speaker 1: the arms that lowered one towards me were not hands,
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  Speaker 1: but a sort of flap and thumb, like the end
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  Speaker 1: of an elephant's trunk. The stuff in the bowl was
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  Speaker 1: loose in texture and whitish brown in color, rather like
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  Speaker 1: lumps of some cold soiouflet, and it smelt faintly like
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  Speaker 1: mushrooms from a partially divided carcass of a mooncalf that
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  Speaker 1: we presently saw. I am inclined to believe it must
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  Speaker 1: have been mooncalf flesh. My hands were so tightly chained
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  Speaker 1: that I could barely contrive to reach the bowl. But
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  Speaker 1: when they saw the effort, I made two of them
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  Speaker 1: dexterously released one of the turns about my wrist. Their
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  Speaker 1: tentacle hands were soft and cold to my skin. I
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  Speaker 1: immediately seized a mouthful of the food. It had the
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  Speaker 1: same laxness and texture that all organic structures seemed to
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  Speaker 1: have upon the moon. It tasted rather like a gopher
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  Speaker 1: or a damp merangue. But in no way is it disagreeable.
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  Speaker 1: I took two other mouthfuls. I wanted food, said I,
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  Speaker 1: tearing off a still larger piece. For a time, we
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  Speaker 1: ate with an utter absence of self consciousness. We ate
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  Speaker 1: and presently drank like tramps in a soup kitchen. Never
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  Speaker 1: before nor since have I been hungry to the ravenous pitch,
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  Speaker 1: and save that I have had this very experience, I
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  Speaker 1: could never have believed that a quarter of a million
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  Speaker 1: of miles out of our proper world, in utter perplexity
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  Speaker 1: of soul, surrounded, watched, touched by beings more grotesque and
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  Speaker 1: inhuman than the worst creations of a nightmare, it would
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  Speaker 1: be possible for me to eat and utter forgetfulness of
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  Speaker 1: all these things. They stood about us, watching us, and
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  Speaker 1: ever and again, making a slight, elusive twittering that stood
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  Speaker 1: the suppose in the stead of speech. I did not
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  Speaker 1: even shiver at their touch. And when the first first
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  Speaker 1: zeal of my feeding was over, I could note that
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  Speaker 1: Cavor too had been eating with the same shameless abandon
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  Speaker 1: end of chapter