But such incidents were as nothing intervals, those awful pauses when one drifted air towards that pouring tide of night My breathing made piping noise, and knives were whirling in my lungs My heart seemed to beat against the top brain "Shall I reach it ? O Heaven ! Shall I reach it ? "

My whole being became anguish

"Lie down ! " screamed my pain and despair; "lie down ! "

The near I struggled, the more awfully remote it seemed numb, I stumbled, I bruised and cut myself and bleed

in sight

I fell on all fours, and my lungs whooped

I crawled The frost gathered on my lips, icicles hung from my moustache, white freezing atmosphere

dozen yards My eyes had become dim "Lie down ! " screamed despair; "lie down ! "

I touched it, and halted "Too late ! " screamed despair; "lie down ! "

I fought stiffly with it manhole lip, stupefied, half-dead being The snow was all about me I pulled myself in There lurked within little warmer air

The snowflakes - the airflakes - danced in about me, as I tried with chilling hands to thrust the valve in and spun it tight and hard I sobbed " ," I chattered in my teeth And then, with fingers that quivered and felt brittle, I turned shutter studs

As I fumbled switches - for I had never controlled them before - I dimly steaming glass the blazing red streamers sinking sun, dancing and flickering snowstorm, black forms scrub thickening and bending and breaking beneath the accumulating snow Thicker whirled the snow and thicker, black against the light What if even now the switches overcame me ? Then something clicked under my hands, and in an instant that last vision moon world was hidden from my eyes silence and darkness the inter-planetary sphere

Chapter 20

Mr Bedford in Infinite Space

almost I killed Indeed, imagine man suddenly and violently killed would feel as One moment, passion of agonising existence and fear; the next darkness and stillness, neither light nor life nor sun, moon nor stars, the blank infinite Although the thing by my own act, although I had already tasted this very of effect in Cavor's company, astonished, dumbfounded, and overwhelmed I seemed borne upward into an enormous darkness My fingers floated off the studs, I hung I were annihilated, and at last very softly and gently against the bale golden chain, crowbars that had drifted middle sphere

know how long that drifting took sphere , even more than moon, one's earthly time sense was ineffectual touch bale I had awakened from dreamless sleep I immediately perceived that if awake and alive get light or open window, so as grip of something with my eyes And besides, cold I kicked off bale, therefore, clawed on thin cords glass, crawled along until I got manhole rim, and so got my bearings light and blind studs, took shove off, and flying once round the bale, and getting scare from something big and flimsy that was drifting loose, I got my hand cord quite close studs, and reached them I lit the little lamp first of all what I had collided with, and discovered that old copy of Lloyd's News had slipped its moorings, and was adrift void That brought me infinite to my own proper dimensions again It made me laugh and pant for time, and suggested the idea of little oxygen from cylinders I lit the heater until warm, and then food Then I set to work in very gingerly fashion Cavorite blinds, if guess by any means how the sphere was travelling

The first blind I opened I shut at once, and hung for time flattened and blinded sunlight that had hit me After thinking little I started windows at right angles to , and got the huge crescent moon little crescent earth behind it, the second time amazed how far moon I had reckoned that should little or "kick-off" earth's atmosphere had given us at our start, but tangential "fly off" moon's spin twenty-eight times earth's I had expected to discover myself hanging over our crater, and edge night, but all that was now only part outline white crescent that filled the sky And Cavor - ?

already infinite

I tried to imagine what happened to him But think of nothing but death I seemed him, bent and smashed foot of some interminably high cascade of blue And all about him the stupid insects stared .

Under the inspiring touch drifting newspaper I became practical again for while quite clear that what I had was back to earth, but as far as I drifting away Whatever had happened to Cavor, even if still alive, which seemed incredible blood-stained scrap, powerless to help him There , living or dead behind the mantle rayless night, and there remain until summon our fellow men assistance Should I ? Something sort I had in my mind; back to earth were possible, and then as maturer consideration might determine, either to show and explain the sphere to few discreet persons, and act , or else my secret, sell my gold,, obtain weapons, provisions, and an assistant, and return advantages to deal on equal terms flimsy people moon, to rescue Cavor, were still possible, and at any rate to procure sufficient supply of gold my subsequent proceedings on firmer basis But that was hoping far; I had first back

I set myself to decide just exactly how the return to earth contrived As I struggled problem I ceased to worry about what do when I got there At last my only care was back

I puzzled out at last that my best chance to drop back towards the moon as near as I dared to gather velocity, then to shut my windows, and fly behind it, and when past to open my earthward windows, and so get off at good pace homeward But whether ever reach the earth device, or whether I simply find myself spinning in some hyperbolic or parabolic curve or other, tell Later I had happy inspiration, and by opening certain windows moon, which had appeared sky in front earth, I turned my course aside so head off the earth, which it had become evident pass behind without some such expedient very great deal of complicated thinking over these, problems - for no mathematician - and end certain much more my good luck than my reasoning that enabled me to hit the earth Had I known then, as now, the mathematical chances there were against me, if troubled even to touch the studs any attempt And having puzzled out what I considered the thing , I opened all my moonward windows, and squatted down - the effort lifted me for time some feet or so air, and I hung there oddest way - and waited crescent bigger and bigger until near enough for safety Then shut the windows, fly past the moon velocity I had got - if smash upon it - and so go on towards the earth

is what