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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 3 - The Building of the sphere · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three of the First Men 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 Man in the Moon by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter three, The Building of the Sphere. I remember the
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  Speaker 1: occasion very distinctly when Cavor told me of his idea
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  Speaker 1: of the sphere. He had had intimations of it before,
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  Speaker 1: but at the time it seemed to come to him
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  Speaker 1: in a rush. We were returning to the bungalow for tea,
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  Speaker 1: and on the way he fell humming. Suddenly he shouted,
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  Speaker 1: that's it. That finishes it, a sort of roller blind
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  Speaker 1: finishes what I asked, space anywhere the moon? What do
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  Speaker 1: you mean mean? Why it must be a spear, That's
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  Speaker 1: what I mean. I saw. I was out of it,
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  Speaker 1: and for a time I let him talk in his
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  Speaker 1: own fashion. I hadn't the ghost of an idea then
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  Speaker 1: of his drift, But after he had taken tea, he
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  Speaker 1: made it clear to me. It's like this, he said,
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  Speaker 1: last time I ran this stuff that cuts things off
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  Speaker 1: from gravitation into a flat tank with an overlap that
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  Speaker 1: held it down, and directly he had cooled, and the
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  Speaker 1: manufacturer was completed. All that uproar happened. Nothing above it
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  Speaker 1: weight anything. The air went squirting up, the house squirted up.
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  Speaker 1: And if the stuff itself hadn't squirted up too, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know what would have happened. But suppose the substance
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  Speaker 1: is loose and quite free to go up, it will
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  Speaker 1: go up at once, exactly with no more disturbance than
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  Speaker 1: firing a big gun. But what good will that do?
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  Speaker 1: I'm going up with it. I put down my tea
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  Speaker 1: cup and stared at him. Imagine a sphere, he explained,
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  Speaker 1: large enough to hold two people and their luggage. It
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  Speaker 1: will be made of steel, lined with thick glass. It
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  Speaker 1: will contain a proper store of solidified air, concentrated food, water,
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  Speaker 1: distilling apparatus, and so forth, and enameled as it were
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  Speaker 1: on the outer steel Cava. Righte yes, But how will
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  Speaker 1: you get inside? There was a similar problem about a dumpling. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I know, but how that's perfectly easy? An air tight
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  Speaker 1: manhole is all that is needed. That, of course, will
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  Speaker 1: have to be a little complicated. There will have to
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  Speaker 1: be a valve, so that things may be thrown out
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  Speaker 1: if necessary, without much loss of air, like Jules Verne's
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  Speaker 1: thing in a Trip to the Moon. But Cavore was
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  Speaker 1: not a reader of fiction. I begin to see, I said, slowly,
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  Speaker 1: and you could get in and screw yourself up while
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  Speaker 1: the caval right was warm, and as soon as it
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  Speaker 1: cooled it would become impervious to gravitation, and off you
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  Speaker 1: would fly at a tangent. You would go off in
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  Speaker 1: a straight line. I stopped abruptly. What is to prevent
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  Speaker 1: the thing traveling in a straight line into space forever?
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  Speaker 1: I asked. You're not safe to get anywhere, and if
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  Speaker 1: you do, how will you get back. I've just thought
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  Speaker 1: of that, said Cavore. That's what I meant when I
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  Speaker 1: said the thing is finished. The inner glass sphere can
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  Speaker 1: be air tight, and except for the manhole, continuous, and
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  Speaker 1: the steel sphere can be made in sections, each section
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  Speaker 1: capable of rolling up after the fashion of a roller blind.
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  Speaker 1: These can easily be worked by springs and released and
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  Speaker 1: checked by electricity conveyed by platinum wires fused through the glass.
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  Speaker 1: All that is merely a question of detail. So you
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  Speaker 1: see that, except for the thickness of the blind rollers,
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  Speaker 1: the cave right exterior of the sphere will consist of
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  Speaker 1: windows or blinds, whichever you like to call them. Well,
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  Speaker 1: when all these windows or blinds are shut, no light,
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  Speaker 1: no heat, no gravitation, no radiant energy of any sort
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  Speaker 1: will get at the inside of the sphere. It will
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  Speaker 1: fly on through space in a straight line. As you say,
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  Speaker 1: But open a window. Imagine one of the windows open.
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  Speaker 1: Then at wants any heavy body that chances to be
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  Speaker 1: in that direction will attract us. I sat taking it in.
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  Speaker 1: You see, he said, Oh, I see. Practically we shall
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  Speaker 1: be able to tack about in space, just as we wish,
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  Speaker 1: get attracted by this and that. Oh, yes, that's clear enough.
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  Speaker 1: Only well, I don't quite see what we shall do it,
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  Speaker 1: for it's really only jumping off the world and back again. Surely,
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  Speaker 1: For example, one might go to the moon, and when
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  Speaker 1: one got there, what would you find? We should see? Oh,
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  Speaker 1: consider the new knowledge? Is there air there? There may be?
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  Speaker 1: It's a fine idea, I said, but it strikes me
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  Speaker 1: as a large order all the same, the moon. I'd
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  Speaker 1: much rather try some smaller things first. They're out of
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  Speaker 1: the question because of the air difficulty. Why not apply
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  Speaker 1: that idea of spring blinds, cava right blinds and strong
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  Speaker 1: steel cases to lifting weights. It wouldn't work, he insisted.
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  Speaker 1: After all, to go into outer space is not so
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  Speaker 1: much worse, if at all, than a polar expedition. Men
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  Speaker 1: go on polar expeditions, not business men. And besides, they
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  Speaker 1: get paid for polar expeditions, and if anything goes wrong,
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  Speaker 1: there are relief parties. But this, it's just firing ourselves
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  Speaker 1: off the world for nothing. Call it prospecting. You'll have
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  Speaker 1: to call it that. One might make a book of it, perhaps,
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  Speaker 1: I said, I have no doubt there will be minerals,
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  Speaker 1: said cavour for example, oh, sulfur ores gold, perhaps possibly
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  Speaker 1: new elements. Cost of carriage, I said, you know, you're
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  Speaker 1: not a practical man. The Moon's a quarter of a
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  Speaker 1: million miles away. It seems to me it wouldn't cost
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  Speaker 1: much to cart any weight anywhere if you packed it
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  Speaker 1: in a cavareite case. I had not thought of that,
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  Speaker 1: delivered free on head of purchaser. Eh, it isn't as
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  Speaker 1: though we were confined to the moon. You mean there's
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  Speaker 1: Mars clear atmosphere, novel surroundings exhilarating sense of lightness. It
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  Speaker 1: might be pleasant to go. There is there air on Mars. Oh, yes,
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  Speaker 1: seems as though you might run it as a sanatorium.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, how far is Mars two one hundred
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  Speaker 1: million miles at present? Said Cavor airily, And you go
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  Speaker 1: close by the sun. My imagination was picking itself up again.
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  Speaker 1: After all, I said, there's something in these things, there's travel,
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  Speaker 1: and extraordinary possibility came rushing into my mindddenly. I saw,
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  Speaker 1: as in a vision, the whole Solar system threaded with
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  Speaker 1: cavalright liners and spheres. Deluxe rights of preemption came floating
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  Speaker 1: into my head. Planetary rights of preemption. I recalled the
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  Speaker 1: old Spanish monopoly in American gold. It wasn't as though
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  Speaker 1: it was just this planet, or that it was all
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  Speaker 1: of them. I stared at Cavor's rubicund face, and suddenly
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  Speaker 1: my imagination was leaping and dancing. I stood up, I
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  Speaker 1: walked up and down. My tongue was unloosened. I'm beginning
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  Speaker 1: to take it in, I said, I'm beginning to take
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  Speaker 1: it in. The Transition from doubt to enthusiasm seemed to
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  Speaker 1: take scarcely any time at all. But this is tremendous,
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  Speaker 1: I cried, this is imperial. I haven't been dreaming of
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  Speaker 1: this sort of thing. Once the chill of my opposition
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  Speaker 1: was removed, his own pent up excitement had play. He
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  Speaker 1: too got up and paced. He too gesticulated and shouted.
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  Speaker 1: We behave like men inspired. We were men inspired. We'll
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  Speaker 1: settle all that, he said, in answer to some incidental
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  Speaker 1: difficulty that had pulled me up. We'll soon settle that.
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  Speaker 1: We'll start the drawings from moldings this very night. We'll
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  Speaker 1: start them now, I responded, and we hurried off to
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  Speaker 1: the laboratory to begin upon this work. Forthwith. I was
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  Speaker 1: like a child in wonderland all that night. The dawn
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  Speaker 1: found us both still at work. We kept our electric
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  Speaker 1: light going heedless of the day. I remember now exactly
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  Speaker 1: how those drawings looked. I shaded and tinted, while Cavor drew,
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  Speaker 1: smudged and Haste marked. They were in every line, but
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  Speaker 1: wonderfully correct. We got out the orders for the steel
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  Speaker 1: blinds and frames we needed from that night's work, and
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  Speaker 1: the glass sphere was designed within a week. We gave
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  Speaker 1: up our afternoon conversations and our old routine. Altogether we worked,
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  Speaker 1: and we slept and ate when we could work no
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  Speaker 1: longer for hunger and fatigue. Our enthusiasm infected even our
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  Speaker 1: three men, though they had no idea what the sphere
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  Speaker 1: was for. Through these days the man Gibbs gave up
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  Speaker 1: walking and went everywhere, even across the room, at a
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  Speaker 1: sort of fussy run, and it grew the sphere. December
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  Speaker 1: passed January. I spent a day with a broom sweeping
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  Speaker 1: a path through the snow from Bungalow to laboratory. February March.
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  Speaker 1: By the end of March the completion was in sight.
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  Speaker 1: In January had come a team of horses, a huge
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  Speaker 1: packing case. We had our thick glass sphere now ready
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  Speaker 1: and in position under the crane we had rigged to
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  Speaker 1: sling it into the steel shell. All the bar cars
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  Speaker 1: and blinds of the steel shell it was not really
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  Speaker 1: a spherical shell, but polyhedral with a roller blind to
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  Speaker 1: each facet, had arrived by February, and the lower half
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  Speaker 1: was bolted together. The cavarite was half made by March.
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  Speaker 1: The metallic paste had gone through two of the stages
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  Speaker 1: in its manufacture, and we had plastered quite half of
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  Speaker 1: it on to the steel bars and blinds. It was
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  Speaker 1: astonishing how closely we kept to the lines of Cavor's
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  Speaker 1: first inspiration in working out the scheme. When the bolting
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  Speaker 1: together of the sphere was finished, he proposed to remove
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  Speaker 1: the rough roof of the temporary laboratory in which the
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  Speaker 1: work was done and build a furnace about it. So
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  Speaker 1: the last stage of cavarite making, in which the paste
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  Speaker 1: is heated to a dull red glow in a stream
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  Speaker 1: of helium, would be accomplished when it was already on
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  Speaker 1: the sphere. And then we had to discuss and decide
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  Speaker 1: what provisions we were to take. Compressed food, concentrated essences,
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  Speaker 1: steel cylinders containing reserve oxygen, an arrangement for removing carbonic
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  Speaker 1: acid and waste from the air and restoring oxygen by
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  Speaker 1: means of sodium peroxide, water condensers, and so forth. I
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  Speaker 1: remember the little heap they made in the corner, tins
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  Speaker 1: and rolls in boxes convincingly matter of fact. It was
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  Speaker 1: a strenuous time, with little chance of thinking. But one day,
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  Speaker 1: when we were drawing near the end, an odd mood
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  Speaker 1: came over me. I had been bricking up the furnace
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  Speaker 1: all the morning, and I sat down by these possessions,
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  Speaker 1: dead beat. Everything seemed dull and incredible. But look here, Cavor,
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  Speaker 1: I said, After all, what's it all for? He smiled.
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  Speaker 1: The thing now is to go the moon, I reflected,
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  Speaker 1: But what do you expect? I thought the moon was
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  Speaker 1: a dead world? He shrugged his shoulders. We're going to see,
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  Speaker 1: are we, I said, and stared before me. You were tired,
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  Speaker 1: he remarked, you'd better take a walk this afternoon. No,
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  Speaker 1: I said, obstinately, I'm going to finish this brickwork. And
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  Speaker 1: I did, and insured myself a night of insomnia. I
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  Speaker 1: don't think I have ever had such a night. I
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  Speaker 1: had some bad times before my business collapse, but the
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  Speaker 1: very worst of those was sweet slumber compared to this
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  Speaker 1: infinity of aching wakefulness. I was suddenly in the most
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  Speaker 1: enormous funk at the thing we were going to do.
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  Speaker 1: I do not remember before that night thinking at all
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  Speaker 1: of the risk we were running. Now they came like
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  Speaker 1: that array of specters that once beleaguered Prague, and camped
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  Speaker 1: around me. The strangeness of what we were about to do,
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  Speaker 1: the unearthliness of it overwhelmed me. I was like a
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  Speaker 1: man awakened out of pleasant dreams to the most horrible surroundings.
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  Speaker 1: I lay eyes wide open, and the sphear seemed to
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  Speaker 1: get more flimsy and feeble, and cavore more unreal and fantastic,
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  Speaker 1: and the whole enterprise madder and madder every moment. I
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  Speaker 1: got out of bed and wandered about. I sat at
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  Speaker 1: the window and stared at the immensity of space between
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  Speaker 1: the stars. Was the void, the unfathomable darkness. I tried
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  Speaker 1: to recall the fragmentary knowledge of astronomy I gained in
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  Speaker 1: my irregular reading, but it was all too vague to
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  Speaker 1: furnish any idea of the things we might expect. At last,
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  Speaker 1: I got back to bed and snatched some moments of sleep,
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  Speaker 1: moments of nightmare, rather, in which I fell and fell
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  Speaker 1: and fell forevermore into the abyss of the sky. I
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  Speaker 1: astonished breakfast. I told him shortly, I'm not coming with
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  Speaker 1: you in the sphere. I met all his protests with
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  Speaker 1: a sullen persistence. The thing's too mad, I said, And
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  Speaker 1: I won't come. The thing's too mad. I would not
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  Speaker 1: go with him to the laboratory. I fretted about my
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  Speaker 1: bungalow for a time, and then took hat and stick
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  Speaker 1: and set out alone. I knew not whither. It chanced
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  Speaker 1: to be a glorious morning, a warm wind and deep
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  Speaker 1: blue sky, the first green of spring abroad, and multitudes
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  Speaker 1: of birds singing. I lunched on beef and beer in
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  Speaker 1: a little public house near Elham, and startled the landlord
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  Speaker 1: by remarking, apropos of the weather. A man who leaves
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  Speaker 1: the world one days of this sort are about is
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  Speaker 1: a fool. That's what I says when I heard on it,
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  Speaker 1: said the landlord. And I found that for one poor
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  Speaker 1: soul at least this world had proved excessive, and there
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  Speaker 1: had been a throat cutting. I went on with a
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  Speaker 1: new twist to my thoughts. In the afternoon, I had
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  Speaker 1: a pleasant sleep and a sunny place, and went on
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  Speaker 1: my way. Refreshed. I came to a comfortable looking inn
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  Speaker 1: near Canterbury. It was bright with creepers, and the landlady
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  Speaker 1: was a clean old woman and took my eye. I
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  Speaker 1: found I had just enough money to pay for my
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  Speaker 1: lodging with her. I decided to stop the night there.
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  Speaker 1: She was a talkative body, and among many other particulars,
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  Speaker 1: learnt she had never been to London. Canterbury is as
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  Speaker 1: far as ever I've been, she said, I'm not one
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  Speaker 1: of your gatabout sort. How would you like a trip
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  Speaker 1: to the moon? I cried, I never did hold with
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  Speaker 1: them balloonis, she said, evidently under the impression that this
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  Speaker 1: was a common excursion enough. I wouldn't go up in one,
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  Speaker 1: not forever. So this struck me as being funny. After
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  Speaker 1: I had supped, I sat on a bench by the
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  Speaker 1: door of the inn and gossiped with two laborers about
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  Speaker 1: brickmaking and motor cars and the cricket of last year.
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  Speaker 1: And in the sky a faint new crescent, blue and
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  Speaker 1: vague as a distant alp sank westward over the sun.
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  Speaker 1: The next day I returned to Gavore. I am coming,
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  Speaker 1: I said, I've been a little out of order, that's all.
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  Speaker 1: That was the only time I felt any serious doubt
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  Speaker 1: about our enterprise nerves. Purely after that I worked a
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  Speaker 1: little more carefully and took a trudge for an hour
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  Speaker 1: every day, and at last, save for the heating in
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  Speaker 1: the furnace, our labors were at an end. End of
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  Speaker 1: chapter