“What can it be?” I asked; “what can it be?”

“The engineering!⁠ ⁠… They must live in these caverns during the night, and come out during the day.”

“Cavor!” I said. “Can they be⁠— that ⁠—it was something like⁠—men?”

“ That was not a man.”

“We dare risk nothing!”

“We dare do nothing until we find the sphere!”

“We can do nothing until we find the sphere.”