A loudspeaker whistled tinnily and overhead, on wire runners, an electric globe crossed the dim chamber, pieces of yellow and white crepe paper fluttering feebly behind.
"Oh, Pete! A comet?"
"Sure enough, Glory," he said.
The rumbling little bullet skirted the walls and Pete could see the electric lights behind the holes. Stars, he thought sardonically. Close enough to touch. Lucky us.
"There's Mars, Pete," Glory said, squeezing his hand.
I'm getting disenchanted, he thought.
A red ball, all painted with canals and white polar caps far too big.
They should have had a technical advisor on this project, he thought. Paging Palomar.
The bullet began its second circuit of the papier-mâché universe, and the moon was high now, projected on the wall by some kind of lantern-slide lamp. There was a face on the moon.
It began then—just a tiny bead of fear way down inside his belly. But it grew. He felt suffocated, claustrophobic, oppressed by fakery and cheapness.