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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 9 - Prospecting Begins. · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine 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 Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine, prospecting begins. We cease to gaze. We turned
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  Speaker 1: to each other the same thought, the same question in
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  Speaker 1: our eyes. For these plants to grow, there must be
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  Speaker 1: some air, however attenuated air, that we also should be
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  Speaker 1: able to breathe the manhole. I said, yes, said cavor.
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  Speaker 1: If it is air, we see in a little while,
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  Speaker 1: I said, these plants will be as high as we are.
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  Speaker 1: Suppose suppose, after all, is it certain? How do you
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  Speaker 1: know that stuff is air? It may be nitrogen, it
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  Speaker 1: may be carbonic acid. Even that's easy, he said, and
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  Speaker 1: set about proving it. He produced a big piece of
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  Speaker 1: crumpled paper from the bail, lit it, and thrust it
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  Speaker 1: hastily through the manhole valve. I bent forward and peered
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  Speaker 1: down through the thick glass for its appearance outside that
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  Speaker 1: little flame on whose evidence depended so much. I saw
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  Speaker 1: the paper drop out and lie lightly upon the snow.
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  Speaker 1: The pink flame of its burning vanished. For an instant
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  Speaker 1: it seemed to be extinguished, And then I saw a
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  Speaker 1: little blue tongue upon the edge of it that trembled
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  Speaker 1: and crept and spread quietly. The whole sheet, save where
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  Speaker 1: it lay in immediate contact with the snow, charred and shriveled,
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  Speaker 1: and sent up a quivering thread of smoke. There was
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  Speaker 1: no doubt left to me the atmosphere of the moon.
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  Speaker 1: It was either pure oxygen or air, and capable. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: unless its tenuity was excessive of supporting our alien life,
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  Speaker 1: we might emerge and live. I sat down with my
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  Speaker 1: legs on either side of the manhole and prepared to
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  Speaker 1: unscrew it. But of course stop me. There is first a
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  Speaker 1: little precaution, he said. He pointed out that although it
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  Speaker 1: was certainly an oxygenated atmosphere outside, it might still be
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  Speaker 1: so rarefied as to cause us grave injury. He reminded
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  Speaker 1: me of mountain sickness, and of the bleeding that often
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  Speaker 1: afflicts aeronauts who have ascended too swiftly, And he spent
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  Speaker 1: some time in the preparation of a sickly tasting drink,
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  Speaker 1: which he insisted on my sharing. It made me feel
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  Speaker 1: a little numb, but otherwise had no effect on me.
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  Speaker 1: Then he permitted me to begin unscrewing. Presently, the glass
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  Speaker 1: stopper of the manhole was so far undone that the
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  Speaker 1: denser air within our sphere began to escape along the
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  Speaker 1: thread of the screw, singing as a kettle sings before
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  Speaker 1: it boils. Thereupon he made me desist. It speedily became
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  Speaker 1: evident that the pressure outside was very much less than
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  Speaker 1: it was within. How much less it was, we had
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  Speaker 1: no means of telling. I sat grasping the stopper with
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  Speaker 1: both hands, ready to close it again, if, in spite
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  Speaker 1: of our intense hope, the lunar atmosphere should, after all
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  Speaker 1: prove too rarefied for us, and Cavor sat with a
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  Speaker 1: cylinder of compressed oxygen at hand to restore our pressure.
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  Speaker 1: We looked at one another in silence, and then at
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  Speaker 1: the fantastic vegetation that swayed and grew visibly and noiselessly.
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  Speaker 1: Without and ever that shrill piping continued. My blood vessels
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  Speaker 1: began to throb in my ears, and the sound of
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  Speaker 1: Kvord's movements diminished. I noted how still everything had become
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  Speaker 1: because of the thinning of the air. As our air
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  Speaker 1: sizzled out from the screw, the moisture of it condensed
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  Speaker 1: in little puffs. Presently I experienced a peculiar shortness of
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  Speaker 1: breath that lasted, indeed during the whole of the time
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  Speaker 1: of our exposure to the Moon's exterior atmosphere, and a
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  Speaker 1: rather unpleasant sensation about the ears and finger nails and
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  Speaker 1: the back of the throat grew upon my attention and
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  Speaker 1: presently passed off again. But then came vertigo and nausea
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  Speaker 1: that abruptly changed the quality of my courage. I gave
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  Speaker 1: the lid of the manhole half a turn and made
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  Speaker 1: a hasty explanation to Cavor. But now he was the
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  Speaker 1: more sanguine. He answered me in a voice that seemed
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  Speaker 1: extraordinarily small and remote because of the thinness of the
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  Speaker 1: air that carried the sound. He recommended a nip of
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  Speaker 1: brandy and set me the example, and presently I felt better.
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  Speaker 1: I turned the manhole stopper back again. The throbbing in
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  Speaker 1: my ears grew louder, and then I remarked that the
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  Speaker 1: piping note of the outrush had ceased. For a time,
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  Speaker 1: I could not be sure that it had ceased. Well,
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  Speaker 1: said Cavour, in the ghost of a voice. Well said
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  Speaker 1: I shall we go on? I thought, is this all?
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  Speaker 1: If you can stand it? By way of answer, I
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  Speaker 1: went on unscrewing. I lifted the circular operculum from its
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  Speaker 1: place and laid it carefully on the bail. A flake
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  Speaker 1: or so of snow whirled and vanished as that thin
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  Speaker 1: and unfamiliar air took possession of our sphere. I knelt
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  Speaker 1: and then seated myself at the edge of the man hole,
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  Speaker 1: peering over it. Beneath, with any yard of my face
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  Speaker 1: lay the untrodden snow of the moon. There came a
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  Speaker 1: little pause. Our eyes met. It doesn't distress your lungs
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  Speaker 1: too much, said Cavour. No, I said, I can stand this.
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  Speaker 1: He stretched out his hand for his blanket, thrust his
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  Speaker 1: head through its central hole, and wrapped it about him.
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  Speaker 1: He sat down on the edge of the man hole.
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  Speaker 1: He let his feet drop until they were within six
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  Speaker 1: inches of the lunar ground. He hesitated for a moment,
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  Speaker 1: then thrust himself forward, dropped those intervening inches, and stood
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  Speaker 1: upon the untrodden soil of the moon. As he stepped forward,
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  Speaker 1: he was refracted grotesquely by the edge of the glass.
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  Speaker 1: He stood for a moment, looking this way and that.
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  Speaker 1: Then he drew himself together and leapt. The glass distorted everything,
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  Speaker 1: but it seemed to me even then to be an
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  Speaker 1: extremely big leap. He had, at one bound become remote.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed twenty or thirty feet off. He was standing
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  Speaker 1: high upon a rocky mass and gesticulating back to me.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps he was shouting, but the sound did not reach me.
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  Speaker 1: But how the deuce had he done this? I felt
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  Speaker 1: like a man who has just seen a new conjuring trick.
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  Speaker 1: In a puzzled state of mind, I too, dropped through
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  Speaker 1: the manhole. I stood up just in front of me.
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  Speaker 1: The snow drift had fallen away and made a sort
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  Speaker 1: of ditch. I made a step and jumped. I found
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  Speaker 1: myself flying through the air. Saw the rock on which
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  Speaker 1: he stood coming to meet me, clutched it and clung.
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  Speaker 1: In a state of infinite amazement, I gasped a painful laugh.
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  Speaker 1: I was tremendously confused. Cavor bent down and shouted in
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  Speaker 1: piping tones for me to be careful. I had forgotten
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  Speaker 1: that on the moon with only an eighth part of
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  Speaker 1: the Earth's mass and a quarter of its diameter. My
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  Speaker 1: weight was barely a sixth what it was on Earth.
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  Speaker 1: But now that fact insisted on being remembered. We are
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  Speaker 1: out of Mother Earth's leading strings. Now, he said, with
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  Speaker 1: a guarded effort, I raised myself to the top, and,
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  Speaker 1: moving as cautiously as a rheumatic patient, stood up beside
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  Speaker 1: him under the blaze of the sun. The sphere lay
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  Speaker 1: behind us on its dwindling snow drift, thirty feet away
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  Speaker 1: as far as the eye could see over the enormous
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  Speaker 1: disorder of rocks that formed the crater floor. The same
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  Speaker 1: bristling scrub that surrounded us was starting into life, diversified
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  Speaker 1: here and there by bulging masses of a cactus form
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  Speaker 1: and scarlet and purple lichens that grew so fast they
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  Speaker 1: seemed to crawl over the rocks. The whole area of
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  Speaker 1: the crater seemed to me then to be one similar
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  Speaker 1: wilderness up to the very foot of the surrounding cliff.
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  Speaker 1: This cliff was apparently bare of vegetation save at its base,
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  Speaker 1: and with buttresses and terraces and platforms that did not
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  Speaker 1: very greatly attract our attention. At the time, it was
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  Speaker 1: many miles away from us. In every direction. We seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be almost at the center of the crater, and
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  Speaker 1: we saw it through a certain haziness that drove before
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  Speaker 1: the wind. For there was even a wind now in
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  Speaker 1: the thin air, a swift yet weak wind that chilled
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  Speaker 1: exceedingly but exerted little pressure. It was blowing round the crater,
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  Speaker 1: as it seemed to the hot illuminated side from the
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  Speaker 1: foggy darkness under the sunward wall. It was difficult to
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  Speaker 1: look into this eastward fog. We had to peer with
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  Speaker 1: half closed eyes beneath the shade of our hands because
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  Speaker 1: of the fierce intensity of the motionless sun. It seems
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  Speaker 1: to be deserted, said Cavour, absolutely desolate. I looked about
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  Speaker 1: me again. I retained even then a clinging hope of
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  Speaker 1: some quasi human evidence, some pinnacle of building, some house
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  Speaker 1: or engine. But everywhere one looked spread the tumbled rocks
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  Speaker 1: and peaks and crests, and the darting scrub, and those
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  Speaker 1: bulging cacti that swelled and swelled, a flat negation, as
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  Speaker 1: it seemed of such hope. It looks as though these
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  Speaker 1: plants had it to themselves, I said, I see no
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  Speaker 1: trace of any other creature. No insects, no birds. No,
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  Speaker 1: not a trace, not a scrap nor particle of animal life.
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  Speaker 1: If there was what they do in the night. No, no,
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  Speaker 1: there's just these plants alone. I shaded my eyes with
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  Speaker 1: my hand. It's like the landscape of a dream. These
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  Speaker 1: things are less like earthly lend plants than the things
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  Speaker 1: one imagines among the rocks at the bottom of the sea.
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  Speaker 1: Look at that yonder, one might imagine it is a
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  Speaker 1: lizard changed into a plant, and the glare. This is
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  Speaker 1: only the fresh morning, said Kevor. He sighed and looked
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  Speaker 1: about him. This is no world for men, he said,
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  Speaker 1: And yet in a way it appeals. Became silent for
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  Speaker 1: a time, then commenced his meditative humming. I started at
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  Speaker 1: a gentle touch, and found a thin sheet of livid
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  Speaker 1: lichen lapping over my shoe. I kicked at it, and
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  Speaker 1: it fell to powder, and each speck began to grow.
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  Speaker 1: I heard cavour, exclaimed sharply, and perceived that one of
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  Speaker 1: the fixed bayonets of the scrub had pricked him. He hesitated,
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  Speaker 1: his eyes, sought among the rocks about us. A sudden
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  Speaker 1: blaze of pink had crept up a ragged pillar of crag.
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  Speaker 1: It was most extraordinary pink, a livid magenta look, said I, turning,
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  Speaker 1: and behold, Cavour had vanished. For an instant. I stood transfixed.
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  Speaker 1: Then I made a hasty step to look over the
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  Speaker 1: verge of the rock. But in my surprise at his disappearance,
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  Speaker 1: I forgot once more that we were on the Moon.
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  Speaker 1: The thrust of my foot that I made in striding
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  Speaker 1: would have carried me a yard on Earth. On the Moon,
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  Speaker 1: it carried me six a good five yards over the edge.
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  Speaker 1: For a moment, the thing had something of the effect
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  Speaker 1: of those nightmares when one falls and falls. For while
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  Speaker 1: one falls sixteen feet in the first second of a
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  Speaker 1: fall on Earth, on the moon, one falls two, and
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  Speaker 1: with only a sixth of one's weight. I fell, or
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  Speaker 1: rather I jumped down about ten yards. I suppose it
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  Speaker 1: seemed to take quite a long time, five or six seconds,
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  Speaker 1: I should think. I floated through the air and fell
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  Speaker 1: like a feather, knee deep in a snowdrift, in the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of a gully of blue gray, white veined rock.
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  Speaker 1: I looked about me. Cavore, I cried, but no Kavore
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  Speaker 1: was visible. Cavore, I cried louder, and the rocks echoed me.
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  Speaker 1: I turned fiercely to the rocks and clambered to the
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  Speaker 1: summit of them. Cavore, I cried. My voice sounded like
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  Speaker 1: the voice of a lost lamb. The sphere, too, was
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  Speaker 1: not in sight, and for a moment a horrible feeling
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  Speaker 1: of desolation pinched my heart. Then I saw him. He
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  Speaker 1: was laughing and gesticulating to attract my attention. He was
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  Speaker 1: on a bare patch of rock twenty or thirty yards away.
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  Speaker 1: I could not hear his voice, but jump said his gestures.
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  Speaker 1: I hesitated. The distance seemed enormous, yet I reflected that
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  Speaker 1: surely I must be able to clear a greater distance
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  Speaker 1: than Kevore. I made a step back, gathered myself together,
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  Speaker 1: and leaped with all my might. I seemed to shoot
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  Speaker 1: right up in the air, as though I should never
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  Speaker 1: come down. It was horrible and delightful, and as wild
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  Speaker 1: as a nightmare to go flying off in this fashion.
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  Speaker 1: I realized my leap had been altogether too violent. I
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  Speaker 1: flew clean over Kavore's head and beheld a spiky confusion
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  Speaker 1: in a gully. Spreading to meet my fall, I gave
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  Speaker 1: a yelp of a law. I put out my hands
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  Speaker 1: and straightened my legs. I hit a huge fungoid bulk
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  Speaker 1: that burst all about me, scattering a mass of orange
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  Speaker 1: spores in every direction and covering me with orange powder.
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  Speaker 1: I rolled over, spluttering, and came to resk, convulsed with
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  Speaker 1: breathless laughter. I became aware of Kavor's little round face,
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  Speaker 1: peering over a bristling hedge. He shouted some faded inquiry. Eh.
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  Speaker 1: I tried to shout, but could not do so for
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  Speaker 1: want of breath. He made his way towards me, coming
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  Speaker 1: gingerly among the bushes. We've got to be careful, he said.
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  Speaker 1: This moon has no discipline. She'll let us smash ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: He helped me to my feet. You exerted yourself too much,
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  Speaker 1: he said, dabbing at the yellow stuff with his hand
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  Speaker 1: to remove it from my garments. I stood passive and panting,
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  Speaker 1: allowing him to beat off the jelly from my knees
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  Speaker 1: and elbows and lecture me upon my misfortunes. We don't
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  Speaker 1: quite allow for the gravitation. Our muscles are scarcely educated.
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  Speaker 1: Yet we must practice a little. When you've got your breath,
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  Speaker 1: I pulled two or three little thorns out of my
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  Speaker 1: hand and sat for time on a boulder of rock.
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  Speaker 1: My muscles were quivering, and I had that feeling of
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  Speaker 1: personal disillusionment that comes at the first fall to the
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  Speaker 1: learner of cycling on earth. It suddenly occurred to Cavore
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  Speaker 1: that the cold air and the gully after the brightness
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  Speaker 1: of the sun, might give me a fever. So we
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  Speaker 1: clambered back into the sunlight. We found that, beyond a
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  Speaker 1: few abrasions, I had received no serious injuries from my tumble,
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  Speaker 1: And at Cavore's suggestion, we were presently looking round for
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  Speaker 1: some safe and easy landing place for my next leap.
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  Speaker 1: We chose a rocky slab some ten yards off, separated
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  Speaker 1: from us by a little thicket of olive green's spikes.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine it, there, said Cavour, who was assuming the airs
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  Speaker 1: of a trainer, and he pointed to a spot about
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  Speaker 1: four feet from my toes. This leap I managed without difficulty,
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  Speaker 1: and I must confess I found a certain satisfaction in
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  Speaker 1: Cavore's falling short by a foot or so and tasting
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  Speaker 1: the spikes of the scrub. One has to be careful,
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  Speaker 1: you see, he said, pulling out his thorns and with
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  Speaker 1: that he ceased to be my mentor and became my
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  Speaker 1: fellow learner in the yard of lunar locomotion. We chose
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  Speaker 1: a still easier jump, and did it without difficulty, and
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  Speaker 1: then leaped back again and to and fro several times,
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  Speaker 1: accustoming our muscles to the new standard. I could never
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  Speaker 1: have believed, had I not experienced it, how rapid that
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  Speaker 1: adaptation would be in a very little time. Indeed, certainly
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  Speaker 1: after fewer than thirty leaps, we could judge the effort
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  Speaker 1: necessary for a distance with almost crestrial assurance. And all
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  Speaker 1: this time the lunar plants were growing around us, higher
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  Speaker 1: and denser and more entangled every moment, thicker and taller
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  Speaker 1: spiked plants, green cactus masses, fungy, fleshy and likeness things, strangest,
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  Speaker 1: radiate and sinuous shapes. But we were so intent upon
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  Speaker 1: our leaping that for a time we gave no heed
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  Speaker 1: to their unfaltering expansion. An extraordinary elation had taken possession
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  Speaker 1: of us. Partly, I think it was our sense of
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  Speaker 1: release from the confinement of the sphere. Mainly, however, the
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  Speaker 1: thin sweetness of the air, which I am certain contained
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  Speaker 1: a much larger proportion of oxygen than our terrestrial atmosphere.
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  Speaker 1: In spite of the strange quality of all about us,
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  Speaker 1: I felt as adventurous and experimental as a cockney would do,
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  Speaker 1: placed for the first time among mountains. And I do
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  Speaker 1: not think it occurred to either of us face to face,
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  Speaker 1: though we were with the unknown, to be very greatly afraid,
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  Speaker 1: we were bitten by a spirit of enterprise. We selected
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  Speaker 1: a likeness kopchi, perhaps fifteen yards away, and landed neatly
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  Speaker 1: on its summit, one after the other. Good. We cried
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  Speaker 1: to each other, good, and Cavor made three steps and
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  Speaker 1: went off an attempting slope of snow a good twenty
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  Speaker 1: yards and more beyond. I stood for a moment, struck
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  Speaker 1: by the grotesque effect of his soaring figure, his dirty
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  Speaker 1: cricket cap and spiky hair, his little round body, his arms,
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  Speaker 1: and his knickerbockered legs tucked up tightly against the weird
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  Speaker 1: spaciousness of the lunar scene. A gust of laughter seized me,
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  Speaker 1: and then I stepped off to follow plump. I dropped
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  Speaker 1: beside him. We made a few gargantuan strides, leaped three
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  Speaker 1: or four times more, and sat down at last in
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  Speaker 1: a likeness hollow. Our lungs were painful. We sat, holding
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  Speaker 1: our sides and recovering our breath, looking appreciation to one another.
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  Speaker 1: Kavor patted something about amazing sensations, and then came a
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  Speaker 1: thought into my head. For the moment, it did not
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  Speaker 1: seem a particularly appalling thought, simply a natural question arising
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  Speaker 1: out of the situation. By the way, I said, where
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  Speaker 1: exactly is the sphere? Cavour looked at me, Eh, the
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  Speaker 1: full meaning of what we were saying struck me sharply.
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  Speaker 1: Cavore I cried, laying a hand on his arm, where
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  Speaker 1: is the sphere? End of chapter