He stood up with a look of active resolution. "Certainly we must find the

sphere."

As calmly as possible we surveyed the interminable reefs and thickets that

formed the floor of the crater, each of us weighing in silence the chances

of our finding the sphere before we were overtaken by heat and hunger.

It can't be fifty yards from here," said Cavor, with indecisive gestures.

The only thing is to beat round about until we come upon it."

That is all we can do," I said, without any alacrity to begin our hunt.

I wish this confounded spike bush did not grow so fast!"

That's just it," said Cavor. "But it was lying on a bank of snow."

I stared about me in the vain hope of recognising some knoll or shrub that

had been near the sphere. But everywhere was a confusing sameness,

everywhere the aspiring bushes, the distending fungi, the dwindling snow

banks, steadily and inevitably changed. The sun scorched and stung, the

faintness of an unaccountable hunger mingled with our infinite perplexity.

And even as we stood there, confused and lost amidst unprecedented things,

we became aware for the first time of a sound upon the moon other than the

air of the growing plants, the faint sighing of the wind, or those that we

ourselves had made.

The First Men In The Moon