The rockets raised a cloud of dust and pebbles from the carapace of our lens-beast.
The ship lurched abruptly sideways, and I had to latch my fingers around bulkhead plates. Then the lip of the larger lens-beast, which had towered over the
As we lifted out of the chaos of the Moon I saw how the greater beast had moved to cover ours completely—and then, with brutal suddenness, it dropped down its tube of pillars. The pillars of the lens on which we had rested were smashed to rubble, and fragments went wheeling across the landscape; both lenses were dashed to a thousand pieces against the ground. But this was not the end of it, for the fragmented lenses seemed to dissolve in a ferment of activity—I caught glimpses of tendrils of stone weaving through the debris and knitting it, it seemed, into a new whole; and I wondered if this were some astonishing form of lunar mating. And then the rising dust obscured my view.
As we rose and the lunar landscape opened out, I realized that this extraordinary merger was just one incident among thousands, for the entire plain was covered, I saw now, with similar maneuverings, couplings, and obscene devourings!
At last I dragged myself away from the lip of the port and allowed the hatch to close, shutting out my view of the receding Moon. I lay against the thrumming metal, sucking at thin air.
11
A SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION
I do not remember the stilling of the engines; I must have floated in my iron coffin for several minutes. Then willing hands drew me gently out of my box and pulled away my helmet. I came to my senses still in the suit and with the copper ring chafing at my neck, but with my head free, and with the comparatively fresh air of the Cabin sweet in my nostrils.
Holden’s round face hovered before me, wearing an expression of genuine concern, and I grabbed his arm. “Holden! And have we survived? Are we free of the Moon?”
“Yes, my friend—”
“Of course we are!” Traveller barked from behind Holden. “If we aren’t off the Moon what are we doing floating around the Cabin? Perhaps we have been stuffing opium into our pipes, eh? What a pity your jaunt hasn’t un-addled your brains, my boy—” Sir Josiah’s eyes were fixed on me, and—though he seemed to be endeavoring to conceal it—I flattered myself that there was some pleasure in his stern countenance at the evidence of my recovery.
But Holden turned to him and said, “By God, Traveller, can you not desist? For all our sakes the boy has just been through a veritable nightmare, and all you can do is—”
“Holden.” I laid a restraining hand on the journalist’s arm. “Do not trouble yourself; Sir Josiah means no harm. It is just his way.”
Holden caught my meaning and said no more; though his face registered a reluctance to let the matter drop—and in the subsequent days I was to observe how his manner to Traveller had become noticeably frostier, a change which was evidenced in a thousand trivial exchanges.
Holden, it seemed, would have no truck with those whom he suspected of unsound views, whatever their achievements.
I was fed a clear, warming broth. Then I was allowed, for the first time in several days, a bath; and thus I became the first human to bathe in lunar water! I entertained some qualms as I entered the concealed bath, for what if the water contained some unknown agent inimical to human life?—but, now that it had been run through the
At length I was safely lodged in my familiar seat. I was warm, bathed and dressed in my combinations and a towelling robe of Traveller’s, and I held a large globe of Traveller’s oldest brandy in one hand and a fine-scented cigar in the other. I began to feel rather proud of my exploits—now that they were safely in the past. Holden and Traveller sat with me, as did Bourne, who maintained his usual resentful silence. The stoical Pocket, unflappable, was working his way through several days’ backlog of begrimed dishes. “So, gentlemen,” I said, “in the end, quite a remarkable adventure.”
Holden raised his globe and peered into the glimmering depths of the brandy within. “Quite so. And not at all as we expected. We did not find anything resembling Earthly conditions, as we had anticipated—but nor did we find the Moon to be the inert and lifeless arena favored by some theorists.”
“Instead,” boomed Traveller, “we found something quite unexpected—as, paradoxically, we might have expected all along. The Phoebean life forms—for such I propose we call them; after Phoebe, Moon goddess of old Greece, sister to Apollo and daughter to Leto and Zeus—the Phoebeans are quite unlike anything encountered on Earth, both in their morphology and in their astounding vigor.”
I asked, “Sir Josiah, if the shattered side of the Moon were turned to Earth, would the Phoebeans’ frantic activities be visible to our astronomers?”
“Surely so; if only by changes of surface hue, and the raising of dust clouds—although we should remember that, without an atmosphere, dust has no medium of suspension, and once raised will settle rapidly to the ground. But even so I think we must conclude that the Phoebeans are at present confined to Traveller Crater on the far side of the Moon.
“And,” he went on, lifting his platinum nose, “this evidence of confinement supports an hypothesis I have been constructing as to the origin and nature of these lunar beasts.”
He inspected the ceiling with every evidence of interest. At last the tension had grown too great to bear— even the phlegmatic Pocket, polishing his dishes, looked around expectantly; and I demanded: “And your hypothesis is, sir?”
“Let us review the facts,” he said slowly, steepling his long fingers around his brandy globe. “We find these creatures at the heart of an immense crater—a crater which, we have speculated, is the result of an anti-ice explosion.
“Second. The Phoebeans muster enormous masses, and throw them about the Moon with immense vigor. From this we conclude that whatever unknown organic motors power the beasts—their equivalent of our hearts, digestive systems, muscles—must be able to call on large stores of highly concentrated energy—”
“So,” Holden broke in excitedly, “are you suggesting that the Phoebeans are creatures of anti-ice, which shares the characteristic of high energy density?”
“Not at all,” Traveller snapped irritably, “and I will thank you not to interrupt my series of postulates. For even a fool—” Holden winced “—could see that an anti-ice theory is rendered to nonsense by my final observation, which is that the creatures lay dormant before our arrival! If they were powered by anti-ice energy release, Mr. Holden, what in Heaven would stop them from rampaging around the Moon constantly?”
I leaned forward. “So was it our arrival that triggered such an explosion of growth, Sir Josiah?”
“Oh, good God, of course not,” Traveller said sharply, with scarcely less irritation despite my heroic status. “I hardly think our blundering arrival was an event of sufficient moment to warrant the awakening of a thousand living mountains! To the Phoebeans we are rather less than a toothless flea would be to a dog. No; the eruption of the Phoebeans closely followed our arrival from a coincidence: which was that I chose to land close to the terminator.”
“Ah.” Holden nodded. “You mean you set us down into a lunar sunset. And, you suggest, it is only at sunset that the Phoebeans emerge from dormancy?”
“I do more than suggest,” Traveller said stiffly. “I took the time to observe the surface as we departed it through my telescopes; in the day hemisphere there is no evidence of movement on the scale we observed. But the darkened side is a writhing bowl of motion, as Phoebeans swirl their complex dances around each other.”
“A fascinating observation,” I said drily, and wondered whether to remark on my relief that at such a time as our launch Traveller had not become so overcome with anxiety for my well-being that he had been unable to complete a few scientific observations. “But what is so special about the night, Sir Josiah?”
