Good Lord!" I exclaimed. "Just think of all the trouble we took to get

into this pickle! What did we come for? What are we after? What was the

moon to us or we to the moon? We wanted too much, we tried too much. We

ought to have started the little things first. It was you proposed the

moon! Those Cavorite spring blinds! I am certain we could have worked them

for terrestrial purposes. Certain! Did you really understand what I

proposed? A steel cylinder--"

Rubbish!" said Cavor.

We ceased to converse.

For a time Cavor kept up a broken monologue without much help from me.

"If they find it," he began, "if they find it ... what will they do with

it? Well, that's a question. It may be that's the question. They won't

understand it, anyhow. If they understood that sort of thing they would

have come long since to the earth. Would they? Why shouldn't they? But

they would have sent something--they couldn't keep their hands off such a

possibility. No! But they will examine it. Clearly they are intelligent

and inquisitive. They will examine it--get inside it--trifle with the

studs. Off! ... That would mean the moon for us for all the rest of our

lives. Strange creatures, strange knowledge...."

"As for strange knowledge--" said I, and language failed me.

131

The First Men In The Moon