XIII

Mr. Cavor Makes Some Suggestions

For a time neither of us spoke. To focus together all the things we had brought upon ourselves, seemed beyond my mental powers.

“They’ve got us,” I said at last.

“It was that fungus.”

“Well⁠—if I hadn’t taken it we should have fainted and starved.”

“We might have found the sphere.”

I lost my temper at his persistence, and swore to myself. For a time we hated one another in silence. I drummed with my fingers on the floor between my knees, and gritted the links of my fetters together. Presently I was forced to talk again.

“What do you make of it, anyhow?” I asked humbly.

“They are reasonable creatures⁠—they can make things and do things⁠—Those lights we saw.⁠ ⁠…”

He stopped. It was clear he could make nothing of it.

When he spoke again it was to confess, “After all, they are more human than we had a right to expect. I suppose⁠—”

He stopped irritatingly.

“Yes?”

“I suppose, anyhow⁠—on any planet where there is an intelligent animal⁠—it will carry its brain case upward, and have hands, and walk erect.⁠ ⁠…”

Presently he broke away in another direction.

“We are some way in,” he said. “I mean⁠—perhaps a couple of thousand feet or more.”

“Why?”