Holden was painfully dragging himself back into
the rocket-ship. Cochrane went with him. They returned, weightless, to
the admirably designed contour-chairs in which they had traveled to this
place, and in which they would travel farther. Cochrane settled down to
stare numbly at the wall above him. He had been humiliated enough by the
actions of one of the heads of an advertising agency. He found himself
resenting, even as he experienced, the humbling which had been imposed
upon him by the cosmos itself.
Presently the other passengers returned, and the moonship was maneuvered
out of the lock and to emptiness again, and again presently rockets
roared and there was further feeling of intolerable weight. But it was
not as bad as the take-off from Earth.
There followed some ninety-six hours of pure tedium. After the first
accelerating blasts, the rockets were silent. There was no weight.
There was nothing to hear except the droning murmur of unresting
electric fans, stirring the air ceaselessly so that excess moisture from
breathing could be extracted by the dehumidifiers. But for them--if the
air had been left stagnant--the journey would have been insupportable.
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