“Anyhow, it’s no use your quarrelling with me now . These creatures⁠—these Selenites, or whatever we choose to call them⁠—have got us tied hand and foot. Whatever temper you choose to go through with it in, you will have to go through with it.⁠ ⁠… We have experiences before us that will need all our coolness.”

He paused as if he required my assent. But I sat sulking. “Confound your science!” I said.

“The problem is communication. Gestures, I fear, will be different. Pointing, for example. No creatures but men and monkeys point.”

That was too obviously wrong for me. “Pretty nearly every animal,” I cried, “points with its eyes or nose.”

Cavor meditated over that. “Yes,” he said at last, “and we don’t. There’s such differences⁠—such differences!