Palos of the Dog Star Pack
Page 6
manufacture and commerce, and had at the time when lunar seaspersisted maintained a merchant marine.
Through the hours of the lunar day he explored. Not, in fact, untilthe sun was dropping swiftly below the rim of the mountains beyond theold sea-bed, did he desist. Then lifting his eyes he beheld a luminouscrescent, many times larger than the moon appears to us, emitting asoft, green light. He stood and gazed upon it for some moments beforehe realized fully that he looked upon a sunrise on the earth--that themonster crescent was the earth indeed as seen from her satellite.
Then as realization came upon him he remembered his body--left on theporch of his home in the chair. Suddenly he felt a longing to return,to forsake the forsaken relics of a life which had passed and go backto the full, pulsing tide of life which still flowed on.
Here, then, he was faced by the second step of his experiment. He hadconsciously reached the moon. Could he return again to the earth? Ifso, he had proved his theory beyond any further doubt. Fastening hisfull power upon the endeavor, he willed himself back, and--
He opened his eyes--his physical eyes--and gazed into the early sunof a new day rising over the mountains and turning the world toemerald and gold.
The sound of a caught-in breath fell on his ears. He turned hisglance. Mrs. Goss stood beside him.
"Laws, sir, but you was sound asleep!" she exclaimed. "I come to callyou to breakfast an' you wasn't in your room, an' when I found you youwas sleepin' like th' dead. You must have got up awful early, Mr.Jason."
"I was here before you were moving," Croft said as he rose. He smiledas he spoke. Indeed, he wanted to laugh, to shout. He had done what nomortal had ever accomplished before. The wonders of the universe werehis to explore at will. Yet even so he did not dream of what thefuture held.