“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.

“Look here, Bedford,” said Cavor, “you came on this expedition of your own free will.”

“You said to me, ‘Call it prospecting.’ ”

“There’s always risks in prospecting.”

“Especially when you do it unarmed and without thinking out every possibility.”

“I was so taken up with the sphere. The thing rushed on us, and carried us away.”

“Rushed on me , you mean.”

“Rushed on me just as much. How was I to know when I set to work on molecular physics that the business would bring me here⁠—of all places?”

“It’s this accursed science,” I cried. “It’s the very Devil. The medieval priests and persecutors were right and the Moderns are all wrong. You tamper with it⁠—and it offers you gifts. And directly you take them it knocks you to pieces in some unexpected way. Old passions and new weapons⁠—now it upsets your religion, now it upsets your social ideas, now it whirls you off to desolation and misery!”