The First Men in the Moon

e the

own into the black interior of the sphere. We two were alone. It was eveni

enta from Cavor. The interior was warm, the thermometer stood at eighty, and as we should lose little or none of this by radiation, we were d

bout my feet, and soon we had everything in. He walked about the roofless shed for a time se

you got the

brought anyth

Lord

There are uncertainti

y be

ut

in this sphere with ab

h I'd

hole. "Look!" he said. "

here

ll be a

ave brought. Farther away in the corner I saw a torn Lloyd's News. I scra

his hand and read,

espe

ation has been so purely scien

r rea

ev

you know-in an irre

at I am told,

long of twilight vanished. We were in darkness. For a time neither of us spoke. Although our case would not be impervious to sound, everything was very

e no chairs

hat," said Cavor. "

y n

d, in the tone of a ma

would be cold and inhospitable enough for me-for weeks I had been living on subsidies from Cavor-but after all, would it be as cold as the infinite zero, as inhospitable as empty space? If it had

tling sound. For just one instant I had a sense of enormous tension, a transient conviction that

or!" I said into the darkness, "m

. He made

business have I here? I'm not coming, Cavo

n't," h

ll soon see

el now, Bedford," he said. "That little jerk was the start. Alrea

world before. Then I perceived an unaccountable change in my bodily sensations. It was a feeling of lightness, of unreality. Coupled with that was a queer sensation in the head, an apople

nd a little glow l

ded one another in silence. The transparent blackness of the

committed," I

aid, "we're

. "Let your muscles keep quite lax-as if you were in bed. W

to see that they were floating now nearly a foot from the spherical wall. Then I saw from his shadow that Cavor was no longe

that did not prevent my being afraid. We were cut off from all exterior gravitation, only the attraction of objects within our sphere had effect. Consequently everything that was not fixed to the glass was falling-slowly b

vor, "and float back to back,

he nearest thing in earthly experience to it that I know is lying on a very thick, soft feather bed. But the quality of utter detachment and independence! I had not reckoned on things like th