moon—its hollow center, with fissures extending to the surface; and you have something only too much like that Hell our scientists "know" is impossible—because they have found, in all the universe, no place where they think it can be!
They haven't thought much about the moon in this connection. Le Noir says there are many Hells, as we might describe them. Many Hells—perhaps then, even a few Heavens? It seems our scientists haven't gotten so far with their definite knowledge—but of course I never thought they had. It is so childish, their little fabric of what can and what cannot be; so pitifully childish, when you think how near the earth is to the moon; not very far from Saturn, even; and nothing but cold emptiness between Earth and other places that are worse.
Le Noir hints at these horrors till I think he hopes we may go insane. Jones is dead, died of the space-sickness. Lisa's bleeding wrist wounded by Gibbs, who loves her, was the thing that brought Le Noir's attention to us, that invited him among us; and Galen's death on the rock—Le Noir did that, before he began on Valerie, and then came Gibbs. That horrible first breakfast on his ship—there was blood in that which made us easier victims of his intended doom for us; for he wants to break our wills, to bring us willingly into his moon caverns of Hell. For our blood and our souls, Le Noir had hovered near—and I think over—the rock that was a hell on Earth, waiting the darker horrors of crime—murder, madness, cannibalism—to prepare the way for him to reach out very souls. . . .
Lisa interrupted me here. She has read what I have written on Ihe ship. She says she likes Le Noir; that he has been telling tales for fools, and that we are in good hands.
"Space-travel—you lunatic!" she said gayly. "Seasickness—and gullibility. You can see the water under the ship, overside out the port"
"You can see a sort of liquid air which has clung to our ship as she tore out through Earth's atmosphere, which grew heavy and visible in the cold of outer space. Le Noir says that a slight seepage of warmth from out the ship has kept it liquid, or it would be ice. And through it—through that 'water' beneath our keel, if we have a keel—you can see the fixed stars of outer space. Over the ship the air is thin, like a thin veil of vapor—see how the stars burn up there through that little film of air? The bottom of the ship swings toward wherever gravity is pulling us, or downward—whether down for the moment means the earth we left, the moon we approach, or some small lump of matter wandering through space; and so the heaviest and most liquid air swings down too—beneath us; giving the illusion of water—of strange water, through which we see empty space and stars. You see, Lisa?"
"Anyone on Earth would know that you're crazy, Michael," she said. "You take Le Noir seriously, don't you? I like him. When we get to Frisco, I'll have you taken to a hospital—you need rest"
A gong sounds through the ship, which seems to rock in space with the sonorous vibration. I have been writing only a little after each incident, each discovery. Now I feel that I will have to put these notes by; I shall fold them compactly and place them in my vest pocket. Fortunately my handwriting is very small. . . .
The End of the Journal
At Le Noir's summons we all went forward into that part of his space-ship which he has heretofore excluded us from. The whole curved, streamlined front of the vessel is made of heavy glass—and we are able to see ahead of us.
