Nothing less!"
He heard the rockets make the louder sound that was the symptom of
descent against gravity.
The world was lifeless. The ship had landed on bare stone, when Cochrane
looked out the control-room ports. There had been trouble finding a flat
space on which the three landing-fins would find a suitable foundation.
It had taken half an hour of maneuvering to locate such a place and to
settle solidly on it. Then the look of things was appalling.
The landing-spot was a naked mass of what seemed to be basalt polygons,
similar to the Giants' Causeway of Ireland back on Earth. There was no
softness anywhere. The stone which on other planets underlay soil, here
showed harshly. There was no soil. There was no microscopic life to
nibble at rocks and make soil in which less minute life could live. The
nudity of the stones led to glaring colors everywhere. The colors were
brilliant as nowhere else but on Earth's moon. There was no vegetation
at all.
That was somehow shocking. The ship's company stared and stared, but
there could be no comment. There was a vast, dark sea to the left of the
landing-place. Inland there were mountains and valleys.
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