“Polar regions-snow.” Kordov commented.
Cully replied with a single, “Yeh!”
“And seas—”
To which Cully added the first long speech he had yet made.
“Got a lot of water. Should be picking up all land masses soon.”
“Unless it’s all water,” mused Kordov. “Then,” he grinned at Dard over his shoulder, “we shall be forced to leave it to the fish and try again.”
“One thing missing,” Culley adjusted the screen control for the second time. “No moon—”
No moon! Dard watched that enlarging sphere and for the first time since his awakening the dream-mood of passive acceptance of events cracked. To live under a sky where no silver globe ever hung. The moon gone! All the old songs men had sung, the old legends they had told and retold, the bit of history they cherished, that the moon was their first step into space, all gone. No moon-ever again!
“Then what will future poets find to rhyme with “June” in all their effusions?” rumbled Kordov. “And our nights to come-they will be dark ones. But one can not have everything-even another stepping stone to space. That was how our moon served us-a way station, a beckoning sign post which lured us on and out. If there is or ever was intelligent life down there-they lacked that.”
“No sign of space travel?” Cully wanted to know with a spark of interest.